#2 hours maybe more split up

[peapod20001]

I like to think that if my tumblr pals came to my house, they’d have a good time

[toastsnaffler]

this assay is so fucking fake......

[verystressedcollegestudent]

if there's one thing i hate more than slackers in group projects its goddamn hypocrites

[gutsby]

Trigger Tease

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Your honeymoon from hell takes you straight to a strip club south of Madripoor, where Bucky teaches you how to give a lap dance, shoot a gun, and kill a man all in one night—and maybe agree to have his baby, too.

Warnings: 18+. Unprotected piv. Oral (m! & f!receiving). Sex in a sauna. Sex in a strip club. Praise & degradation. Breeding kink. Daddy kink. Double homicide. Dickriding. Beefy, mob boss Bucky hates birth control and bad men—loves babies and killing HYDRA operatives for his wife.

Descriptions of violence throughout

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

Roleplay was fun—even vital for a marriage like yours.

Only instead of assuming the role of sexy masseuse, strong and strapping CEO, hands-on handyman, or some naughty professor with a knack for after-class punishment, Bucky got to play a bloodlusting assassin.

‘Winter Soldier’ didn’t have quite the same ring as most pornographic tropes, but that was no matter. What counted now was making the shot, and getting it right.

You sincerely hoped you wouldn’t fuck this up.

It was no secret that the Barnes’ bloodline was steeped in dealing, stealing, gunslinging, and laundering cash. Staggering privilege, too. From the sandy shores of Curaçao to Luxembourg and Guinea-Bissau, any living heir to the dynasty could have expected to find safe refuge and respect just about anywhere that they went. It was all but engrained in their DNA at this point.

All that is to say, Bucky had no trouble finding a foreign hideaway in a pinch. He liked the Swiss Alps the best.

After your short and sweet conversation with ‘Joey’ over the phone—HYDRA hijacking the intercom system—he and Sam and Steve had made the split-second decision to reroute the plane to Zürich, and now you were here.

72 hours into a four-day ticking time bomb and totally clueless as to how you might stave off impending death, and mitigate other casualties, the best that you could.

The stress fucking with Bucky made it worth it, though.

In between breakfast and the start of your husband’s early briefing that day, you’d found yourself situated in much the same way you’d been spending a lot of time lately: pinned against the wall of a wood-paneled sauna, Bucky’s broad shoulders supporting both of your legs as he buried his face deep between your thighs. You sighed.

“Hold still,” Bucky grunted, voice muffled as he tried to keep your slick, squirming body in place above him.

You yelped and seized a fistful of his hair when he wedged his tongue even further inside you, nudging your clit with his nose almost too teasingly and deliberate.

“I can’t…help it,” you bit back, ignoring the brief glare you earned from your husband as soon as you said it, “Your tongue’s just so— s— James!”

This time, Bucky let out a full-throated groan when you yanked on those poor wet locks of his—‘Gonna make me bald by next Christmas if you keep doin’ that, honey’—and he pried his head from your legs just long enough to knock you flat on the sauna bench close by.

The western red cedar seared hot on your skin, already flushed from the exhaustion wrought by Bucky’s tongue; you hardly had the strength to hold yourself up when he pushed you onto your back and crawled over your body.

“How ‘bout my fingers, doll? Can you take a couple’a those for me?” Bucky crooned above you as he stroked your hair, bathed in pure sunlight pouring in from the windows. His voice was a touch more sympathetic now.

After all, this was your third orgasm of the morning. It really wasn’t fair for him to use that biological weapon of mass destruction he liked to call his tongue when he knew how sensitive your clit would get from just one ‘O’. Even his hands might be too much in your current state.

Bucky was busy peppering your skin with kisses, working his way from the base of your neck to the crown of your head, when you whimpered and tried to fight a smile.

“Finger,” you corrected him, “Just one finger, Barnes.”

You would’ve thought you’d just thrown your wedding ring in his face and told him to eat shit. Just one?

“How’s one finger s’posed to stretch you out for my cock, huh? Practically had you screamin’ when I stuck it in last night,” Bucky wasn’t one to hide his amusement, grinning even bigger when you swatted him on the arm.

“Who said anything about your cock?” You tried to keep cool as Bucky’s fingers trailed right back down to the place you felt yourself throbbing, aching for his touch, “You have a meeting in ten minutes.”

“Meeting doesn’t start until I say so, my love,” Bucky reminded you just as his index ghosted over your folds.

In truth, he was willing to play this game any way, and for however long, you wanted it done, so long as he was the one bringing you pleasure all the while. Be that his cock, his finger, or all fucking five on one hand, Bucky just wanted to get you off. It was far better sustenance to him than the whole fucking meal he’d eaten that morning.

Bucky kept it down to one digit and lightly circled your bundle of nerves when he sensed you were ready.

You gripped his forearm and shot a quick look between your legs, still in disbelief as to how he could make you feel this good so soon after you’d cum twice before. You felt his lips drift over to yours and steal a few kisses.

“Always doin’ so good for me,” Bucky praised, moving his finger in circles. When you whined against his mouth, he pressed it even harder, “Such a good girl for daddy.”

“James,” you breathed, clenching your legs together.

“Everything OK?”

“Uh-huh.”

More than OK, in fact. That delectable coil of sweet, euphoric release was already swelling gently in your tummy. Bucky moved his finger even faster.

“Tell me how it feels,” he murmured low in your ear.

Bucky loved seeing you try to articulate your feelings—relatively fresh and new to your world, still—while he was giving you pleasure. Adored the way you winced and whined and arched your back into his touch as a whole blustering hailstorm of sensations crashed over you.

He sank his tongue in your mouth as he kissed you, as if trying to extract the words from between your lips. Your response, in consequence, came somewhat stifled.

“Mm— feels so, oh—” Your voice broke off in a moan when Bucky tightened his circles, “—so good, daddy.”

“Wanna show daddy how good and cum for me?”

Bucky knew by the way you were whimpering under his hand that the tendril in your stomach had almost tripled in size. It wouldn’t take much to tip you over the edge.

“My sweet girl,” he said, rubbing your cunt at the same time he was stroking the back of your head, gently, “Feels so nice down there, doesn’t it?”

You rolled your hips against the bench and nodded. Your breaths were short and ragged, panting helplessly into Bucky’s mouth when he adjusted his hand just a little: pressing the pad of his thumb to your clit, with his index moving down to your entrance. Pushing inside you.

“Another,” you choked, not thinking.

Bucky met your desperate gaze and nodded, knowing this was exactly what you needed to make it over the precipice.

Still, he wouldn’t be Bucky if he didn’t tease just a bit.

“I thought my wife wanted one finger,” he hummed, brow pinching inward.

“No, no.” You could’ve shrieked when he curled the digit, “Want more— Bucky, please, please, I need more.”

Again, your husband appeared to nod in understanding, but his fingers didn’t budge. He worked his thumb a little faster and watched you writhe on the seat beneath him.

“How many, honey? Don’t wanna hurt my baby.” His words were all kindness, it seemed, but his tone laced with shameless condescension—the kind that said, yes, I know you need this, and no, I won’t indulge you just yet. Bucky was the worst when he wanted to prove a point. You could’ve ripped at his clothes and torn them in two if you weren’t both stark naked and shrouded in steam.

You opted to pull at his hair instead.

Bucky winced, but the smirk never left.

“I said how many?” he pressed again.

“Three. Four.” Fuck if you knew.

Your husband raised both eyebrows and hummed, a single finger still plunging in and out of your cunt at a rapid-fire pace. He teased the tip of another at your entrance and smiled even more when you whined.

“Needy little thing, isn’t she?”

“Bucky—”

“Just wants to fuck daddy’s hand to get herself off, hm?”

Bucky didn’t bother to mask his sweet, degrading tone any longer as he talked down and teased you to no end. It drove him half-insane to see you squirm around, rut your hips, let him say the filthiest fucking words he could conjure up, and just bob your head to whatever he said. His impeccant wife and her insatiable needs—Bucky couldn’t even begin to express how turned on the sheer dichotomy got him. He stared in your eyes, all glossy and soft, and felt his cock stand even more rigid on his belly.

He didn’t give a shit if he’d taunted you enough or not; he just shoved his middle and ring fingers alongside the first and clenched his jaw to start fucking you hard with all three.

Your whole face contorted with pleasure, tinged with the faintest shade of discomfort at the tail end of it. You’d forgotten how big his fingers felt all together.

“Bucky,” you whined, mindlessly clawing at the wrist that was moving back and forth, fast, between your legs, “B-Baby, slow— slow down a little.”

But Bucky was deep in the zone. He knew you wanted it too—sensed that you liked to play it safe when it came to your pleasure and grew a little timid at times it got to feel too much—and he needed to talk you through it.

Rather than turn his head and keep to himself as he got you up to your peak, Bucky pressed his face down to yours and nodded again—this time with a tender sincerity.

“Feel a little stretch down there, huh?”

You didn’t have to say anything, just whimpering in time. Bucky kissed your forehead and let you fold into him as his fingers wreaked havoc down below. He kissed you again, and again, and in between kisses, mumbled,

“That’s daddy’s sweet, needy little slut.”

“My perfect fucking wife, so good at taking my fingers.”

“Gonna be nice and stretched out for my cock, hm?”

Every syllable spoken aloud was like a brand new catalyst for your impending release. You barely nodded your head, opened your mouth and whined pathetically, but that’s exactly how Bucky wanted you. Exactly how you needed to be, bucking your hips in time with the cadence of his fingers fucking inside you, and soon, those whimpers were turning to moans as that soft little helix inside you reached its breaking point.

Bucky brushed once or twice more against your sensitive spot, and suddenly you were coming undone all over him—crying his name, clawing his skin, squeezing your legs so tight around his wrist you feared you might snap it in two, and then getting kissed again, over and over. Bucky soaked in your every sound, and the few tears that would inevitably spring to your eyes, like sweet nectar.

You were still moaning, curling your tongue feebly against his own and leaning into him as far as you could, when your husband slipped three fingers up between your mouth and his and pushed them past your parted lips.

“Suck,” Bucky said, clenching his jaw as he watched you, “C’mere, honey, taste your cunt on my fingers.”

You took him in and sucked your arousal off his fingers just like he asked. Took him by surprise and dragged a mindless, lazy, half-crazed and careless tongue all over his hand, where your juices had no doubt collected too.

That slutty, fucked-out look you gave him—like your brain had all but fallen out of your head with the orgasm he’d given you—was everything Bucky could’ve wanted.

He climbed on top of you and took the base of his cock, rock-hard and weeping tears of precum from the tip, almost drunk from the feeling himself. His mouth hung open as he dragged himself over the seam of your cunt.

“I need to fuck you now.”

Bucky’s words couldn’t have hung in the fog-infested air for more than a millisecond or two before he had you back in his arms and carried to the far end of the sauna.

At the door—or, rather, on it—with your back flush against the wood, you felt Bucky pin you in place with his hips and press his erection to that soft, cramped space between your bodies. You tightened your legs around his middle and sucked in a breath when you felt him pulse.

Then the head of his cock was circling that slick, taut ring of muscles like all hope for his future happiness lay there: right between your legs in the softest and sweetest recesses of your body he could reach. His eyes could’ve been engulfed in flames and still not betrayed a fraction of the smouldering desire that lay behind them now—he drank you in with a single look and sighed.

“Can I— do it, now?” The term ‘fucking’ swiftly lost all lustre when he was an inch from your heat and ready to press in; he just needed to be in you, a part of you, now.

“Yeah,” you breathed. You pressed your forehead to his.

Bucky ran his tip once more down your slit and had just begun to ease his hips forward when a moan snagged in his throat. He braced you firmer against the door, letting your arms drape over his shoulders, and was just about to slide his length inside of you, then—

Thump, thump, thump.

Three knocks in quick succession.

You jumped, the sudden raps reverberating up the door.

Bucky held you to him, tight, and planted a hand beside your head as if to hold the whole frame still. Then, through gritted teeth,

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Need you downstairs. Now.”

It was Sam.

“Can it wait?”

“No.”

Bucky frowned. Scratched the wood surface reflexively.

“Can it…wait?” he tried again, tone laden with a silent but pointed, ‘Is it urgent enough to drag me away from my wife when I’m less than an inch away from being seven inside her?’ Evidently, Sam got the gist, or was just keen to get him out, because he returned, quick:

“Yeah. Legal’s here.”

‘Shit’ was Bucky’s wordless expression below you.

Then a ‘Shit, shit, shit, just shoot me now’ kind of look that raised an eyebrow on your own frazzled face.

Wasn’t the arrival of Bucky’s legal team a good thing? He’d been agonizing for days, badgering Sam and Steve to no end over when they’d hear back from his retinue, and here they were. You couldn’t ask just yet, as your husband was lowering you to the floor and stepping back from the door, chest racked with a shuddering breath, but you wanted to know. You reached for a towel.

“Fine. Fuck. I’ll be right out.” As it was, Bucky had chosen to forgo the dry-off altogether and just started chucking clothes on his body, eyes roaming all over.

You turned from the sound of Sam’s retreating steps and found him moving fast, graceless—shoulders hunched, head bowed, pants wrestled almost angrily up his legs. He found his balance, barely, bracing his weight against the sink, then nearly tore the porcelain fixture off the wall with how hard he kicked it trying to get his left shoe on.

He muscled into his dress shirt and flushed bright red.

In a second, you had either side of the crisp white button-up between your hands, frowning.

“Any reason why we’re so upset?” you asked after a beat.

Bucky puffed a short breath over your head as you secured the first button. Then the next. Then the next.

“What? Apart from the fact I’m not balls deep and about to give you your fourth orgasm?” he grumbled.

You shot him a look.

“I mean it’s— not ideal, getting a visit at a time like this,” Bucky continued once he’d sufficiently contained half a smirk and could don a more serious look, “If we were getting any good news they would’ve just called.”

Hell, great news could’ve made it in an email. The whole aggregate of his legal team taking the trip from Brooklyn to Zürich meant that shit had most likely hit the fan in a big way. Bucky wasn’t thrilled to learn the ‘how’ just yet.

Instead, he cupped your cheek in one hand and brushed his thumb along its curve once you’d made it to the last button of his shirt. He started to lean in, hoping to delay the briefing downstairs with a quick diversion to your lips, but he stopped about an inch away from your face.

You’d lowered your touch, slipping it under the band of his boxers. He was still as hard as you’d felt him last.

Bucky let out a grunt when your fingertips grazed the soft tufts of hair adorning that part of his abdomen. He sucked in a breath when they sank even further.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” you said, voice dulcet and slow as you wrapped your hand around the base of his shaft.

Again, a sound rumbled deep inside Bucky’s chest, and the thumb resting on your cheek stirred. In fact, it had no other choice—your head was starting to move.

Descending, slowly. Sinking to the floor in front of him. Positioning yourself right above the bulge in his pants.

Now Bucky’s palm was laying flat on your head, resting light as it ever had while you drew him even closer.

“Baby—”

“Yeah?” you hummed, just then tugging him out and bringing your mouth to the swollen, leaking head. Bucky gripped a good handful of your hair and rutted his hips without meaning to, and you smiled, “Can’t have my husband showing up hard as a rock to his meeting.”

You were right. There was no way Bucky was getting rid of this wood without the help of his hand or one of your holes. And, under any set of circumstances, he would’ve much preferred the latter to the former. He groaned when you took his tip to your lips and stroked him softly.

You made remarkably quick work of the man with just a minute or two, your mouth, your hand, and a tiny bit of spit—a record-breaking feat, Bucky had thought to himself with some embarrassment. But you weren’t concerned with his stamina in the slightest, focusing instead on the ways in which you might maximize his pleasure in the same way he’d done for you. Stretching your lips, loosening your jaw, and taking him down as far and as frequently as you could manage without gagging around him, you had him good. Deep. All but aching for release as he took a firm hold of the sink behind him.

“That’s a—fuck, that’s a good…fuckin’ girl.”

You bobbed your head once or twice more, flitting your gaze to his face, and felt the warmth unload in ropes—glazing your throat and every soft, square inch of your mouth as he did. Practically flooding your tongue with his cum. Bucky groaned and made a fist in your hair.

“Baby…shit,” came the sound of disbelief under his breath when you pulled off just enough to breathe.

You were careful how you took in air; flaring your nostrils the slightest bit, feeling a twitch at the corners of your lips as you tried not to smirk. Then, with an obscene sort of precision and purpose, you gave something else a try.

You stuck your tongue out at Bucky to show him the warm, oozing load he’d just left in your mouth.

Your husband’s response was immediate: evidently, he loved nothing more than a show of himself inside you, displayed like a prize between your two rows of teeth. You watched him grit his own to suppress a moan.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he seethed. Still reeling from his high.

Then he paused, in awe for a second, before dropping one finger to your mouth and swirling his touch along the sticky, opaque puddle resting over your tongue.

You closed your lips around him, snug, and held his gaze.

A weaker man might have come undone. Bucky just let out a breath and smiled.

“If you wanna play show-and-tell with my cum I can find someplace to put that, doll,” he said, low as ever, then,

“C’mere.”

You didn’t need the powers of telepathy to understand what he’d meant. Should’ve known better than to dip your toe in the cumplay game with a man who arguably harbored the world’s biggest breeding kink and really wanted to knock you up. The realization had you back on your feet in an instant. Having swallowed fast, pried your lips off his digit with a pop, and licked the corners of your mouth, you rose without the threat of a second thought.

Your pale yellow dress was the first thing you grabbed—the first thing Bucky tried to yank off of your body when you’d slipped it up your legs and staggered backward.

“Not happening, Barnes,” you giggled, pretending not to see him advance when you stepped back.

But Bucky had never been big on civility in times like these. He lunged forward and nearly tore the barely-zipped frock off your frame, eliciting a shriek and another arch look from you as you started toward the door.

You were amazed you made it through—your husband had had to stop to tuck his dick back in his pants before stumbling after you—but when you took off down the hall, you knew it was only a matter of time before you heard his footsteps thundering fast after your own.

The tips of your toes had just barely grazed the first step down the stairs when hands seized your hips. You yelped.

“BUCKY!”

Whether on account of your own practiced agility, or the fact that Bucky’s palms were still sticky and slick with his sweat, you managed to wrest yourself out of his grip just long enough to get a start down the stairs.

“COME HERE!” Bucky boomed loud, trying his hardest not to laugh as he chased after you.

You screamed without meaning to. Yanked your wrist out of his reach when you’d made it to the bottom of the stairs and felt your husband close the distance in quick. You tried to be firm, insistent, primed with the kind of fine and unfuckwithable attitude that signaled you meant business. You didn’t, though—the series of giggles bubbling up in your chest said as much.

You descended the last step with a hitch, almost losing your shit within a foot of the landing, when Bucky scooped you up in his arms and held on tight. His lips were at your ear in a second, breaths coming in quick.

“Hell, I’ll give you one right here, honey,” he sneered before flipping you back around to face him.

He pressed you flush to the wrought iron railing, then over it, pushing you back bit-by-bit until you had no choice but to jump and latch your legs around his hips.

“James Buchanan Barnes, if you don’t—”

“Give you a baby right now?”

“—get off of me!” You were laughing now, squirming when he nipped at the space just below your ear.

One more second and he might’ve convinced you. Your Bucky was persuasive like that, too smug and self-assured for his own good but one hell of an advocate when he wanted to be. At length, he opened his mouth to take an even bigger, teasing bite, when a voice cut in,

“Barnes.”

He stopped. You froze. Together, you reluctantly turned your heads in the direction of the sound and found a keystone conference table situated at the far end of the room—seating a dozen-odd faces with identical, muted expressions of surprise. Mild discomfort, for some.

Wild discomfort for your mother and father, you saw.

Bucky set you down and simultaneously yanked the hem of your dress back into place. Flashed a smile for the ages and snaked an arm around your waist as he started to lead you over.

“Nat! Hi,” he tried, far too casual, “Long time no see.”

You bit the inside of your cheek hard and hoped like hell your husband had remembered to zip up his pants.

The woman at the head of the table—the source of the voice you’d heard—raised a brow. One cherry-red curl from her sleek, cropped bob threatened to fall out of place as she tilted her face to regard you both. The smile Bucky proffered had done nothing to repair her glare.

Some wordless exchange passed between the two of them, and next, you felt a hand directing you to a seat across the way—Steve. Smug as ever. Smirking just then.

The empty chair beside your mother. The horror.

You were dimly aware of some introductions being made on your behalf and a round of awkward, disjointed congratulations around the table. Greetings from Nat, Sam, Steve—conceited little shit—a few you knew as Bucky’s groomsmen, a couple members of the security detail, and several more friendly, unfamiliar faces, including a smartly dressed blond named Sharon. Your husband had taken a seat by the latter at the end of the table.

“Momma.” You weren’t sure why you felt the need to whisper when the attention had turned back to Natasha and other matters, but you did, “Where have you been?”

Your mother and father were perched in their chairs like prisoners. There were no shackles to be seen but an air of discomfiture and compulsion bound to their every feature. You couldn’t be sure if it was humiliation on your behalf—they had just witnessed their son-in-law promise to put a baby in you for all present to hear—or something more.

For once in your life, you hoped it was just the prudish, sex-averse tendencies of the two rendering them silent.

You tried your mother again when she hadn’t responded.

“Momma.”

“Now is not the time.”

Her voice was clipped. Abrasive.

You knew better than to test that tone another time. You sank back in your seat and let your gaze roam the table, flitting between your father and Bucky a few more times than it probably should have. Surely, your dad, who had screwed Bucky over to hell and back, obliterated your wedding, and jeopardized your lives for a few more million in his pocket would have warranted some sidelong, hateful look from your husband. A glance or a stare, certainly something to show that he knew, and hadn’t forgotten.

No—Bucky was occupied with Sharon at the moment.

You watched your father twist his signet ring on his pinky, jerking the gold back and forth as if hoping for it to break, or save him. He didn’t look at Bucky, either.

“Natasha Romanoff is the Barnes’ retained legal talent for all things maritime crime and narcotics trade-related. Some estate planning, too,” a voice rumbled beside you.

You made a low ‘Hm’ to feign understanding of whatever the fuck Steve had just said, and nodded.

Then, when your eyes wandered left again,

“Sharon Carter, criminal liaison and kingpin informant. Been in bed with the Barnes’ as long as I can remember.”

He really couldn’t have used a worse string of words if he had tried. You cocked your head just slightly and stared at the pair. You considered holding your tongue.

“And she’s been in bed with Bucky how often before?” You’d decided against self-restraint for the time being.

Steve blinked a little harder.

“What do y—”

“I’m not asking if, but when, they fucked,” you interrupted.

Steve blinked again, as if to clear a string of cobwebs from his eyes, and couldn’t quite find the words to answer your question. Either the truth or some half-baked crock of bullshit—there was no in between.

“Once,” he answered, at length. Honest.

You figured as much.

In any other situation where you were faced with one of Bucky’s former fuckbuddies, you probably would’ve felt more than a twinge of jealousy. Might’ve even cast a dark look in the girl’s direction and willed her not to even breathe the same air as him. Then you remembered you weren’t fourteen years old and could behave with some modicum of maturity when it came to some old flame of your husband. They weren’t even sitting that close.

You winced when Bucky gave her shoulder a playful squeeze, though. That facial tic you couldn’t control.

“So to recap,” Natasha announced, having just plodded through a few dull formalities up front, “Barnes got the intercom call from Schröder at 1500 hours, Friday.”

Every head nodded.

“Schröder gave Barnes exactly ninety-six hours to recover the $90 million lost in the…mishap, in Brooklyn—” Natasha’s eyes flickered to your father no longer than a second, “—and today is Monday. We have twenty-four hours to come up with the funds, or face the…penalties of Schröder’s exploding offer. Whatever those may be.”

You knew what ‘those’ were. Ms. Romanoff was either too kind or too diplomatic to say it, you reckoned, but the threat Joey Schröder had made to Bucky had been patently clear: procure the cash or your wife’s family dies.

That was why you’d been so surprised to see your mother and father seated at the table that morning—Schröder had further stipulated that there was to be no contact between you and your parents in the time it took to come up with the money. You’d been completely cut off, in the Alps, since the day of the attack, left to wonder without reprieve whether HYDRA’s bloodless henchmen had taken hostages of your parents, let them abscond to Brooklyn, or simply killed them both and sent the rest of you all on a wild goose chase to get hold of the money.

Now if they’d only had sex once, why was she looking at him like that?—The intruding thought couldn’t be helped when you peered over again—Surely the most platonic and professional working relationships didn’t call for looks like that.

Shut the fuck up. Shut the entire fuck up, please.

The lives of those closest to you were on the line and all you could think now was how well you compared to this random woman in giving Bucky head? Brain fucking rot.

You scrunched your nose and turned back to Natasha.

“…and up until this morning, Schröder’s whereabouts were unknown,” she continued, careful as she spoke.

It seemed that part had caught Bucky’s attention, too, because he was tilting his head away from Sharon and shifting his gaze to the woman at the head of the table.

“And now?” he cut in.

“I’m getting there, James.”

Sharon smiled a little at that, tracing her nail on the notepad in front of her. She muttered something to Bucky, who disregarded her remark entirely.

“Do we know where Schröder is?” he barked.

Across the table, Sam shifted in his seat. He glanced to Natasha, then Sharon.

“I believe we have modestly reliable intel—” he began, only to have his speech mowed over by an impatient, increasingly irate Bucky.

“No. No— we don’t do ‘modestly reliable’ for this, Sam. We either know where the fuck the guy is or we don’t.”

That last fragment seemed to hang in the air a couple seconds longer than needed, and a tense silence fell over the table. It took a new voice—one you hadn’t heard much at all yourself—to reignite the conversation.

“I know it,” Sharon said, “I know he’s in Madripoor.”

Madripoor? The make-believe safe haven for terrorists? You couldn’t tell if she was kidding at first. Then Bucky flitted a look to the side, and his expression was grave. Natasha’s, too. Maybe there was a Madripoor after all.

“Or he will be there, most likely, tomorrow night,” Steve interjected. The hands that had been folded neatly in front of him were now tapping a light and mindless beat on the table, “He’s got the Foxy Den rented out for a…thing.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Where else but a titty bar would Joey host his ‘things’?” he muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear.

So Madripoor was real, and it had strip clubs. Wonderful.

It seemed Natasha was keen to regain control of the conversation, because she presently broke in,

“Keep in mind that time is of the essence—a private flight from here to the Indonesian archipelago is sixteen hours minimum. We most likely can’t afford to fly private, b—”

“Since when the fuck can’t I afford to fly private?” Bucky spat.

You hated how short and plainly nasty he was being to all those around him. If you hadn’t known any better, you might’ve thought these folks were at fault somehow, but they weren’t. Your father, the real culprit, was sitting right under Bucky’s nose, and he wouldn’t even look in his general direction. Your husband flared his nostrils with a new surge of indignation, and Sharon patted his hand.

“She’s not talking finances, bub,” the blond started, “She’s saying your jet is on a no-fly list, we don’t have time to charter a new plane, and there’s a hefty fucking bounty on your head if you ever set foot in Madripoor. We need to get you on a commercial flight, undercover.”

“Fuck that.” Bucky’s response was reflexive. He rose fast.

If your parents could have appeared any more stiff and uncomfortable you might have mistaken them for two charming, thoroughly terrified wax figures. Your father continued to fiddle with his ring as he watched Bucky.

Natasha tensed as well. As soon as Bucky was up on his feet, pacing around at the end of the table, she was urging him to relax, Buck, this isn’t anything we haven’t done before—sit down, please. Bucky didn’t sit, and he most certainly didn’t relax, but he did kick a stool across the room.

“I am not going back to that shithole.”

The stool tumbled onto its side, one leg splintered in half. You made a mental note to look into some anger management classes. Your parents, along with most of the table, flinched at the crashing sound, while your husband stood, supremely agitated, and did not even regard the broken chair. He turned away from Natasha.

“Yeah, well, that ‘shithole’ is our only hope of getting Schröder behind bars and you out of custody, Bucky,” Natasha called as he started to pace away.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Bucky tilted his head to the side. He contemplated snagging a bottle of Macallan 25 off the bar cart by the window but decided against it.

“Have you been listening to a word of what I’ve said all weekend?” Natasha returned, almost as biting, “Turned on MSNBC or CNN or any other news outlet in the last forty-eighty hours?”

She dropped her own notepad on the table and scanned the area in search of something else. Sam and Steve took that as their opportunity to jump in.

“Bucky,” Sam started, calmly, “There were over a dozen foreign attachés and two heads of State at your wedding, half of whom are now being hospitalized for injuries they sustained in the attack.”

“So?” Bucky snapped.

His eyes were already trailing back to the cart.

“So you think the U.N. Security Council was just gonna let that slide?”

“Two-thirds of its members have been up in arms, practically chomping at the bit to get someone pinned for the fucking thing—that leaves you or Schröder on the chopping block,” Steve chimed in.

“So one more federal probe. What’s the big deal?” Bucky hardly realized he’d taken a tumbler in his hands.

Just as he’d turned to pour himself a drink, guided more by bare muscle memory than anything else, Natasha raised a manila folder—the item she’d been looking for. He’d filled his glass half full when the folder was flung his way like a frisbee. He narrowly saved himself a papercut—or ten—by ducking his head, almost spilling his drink.

“The fuck, Nat?!” he bellowed.

“Extradition, Bucky. Search warrants for your Brooklyn residence, all your money service businesses up the Eastern Seaboard, and a whole hell of a lot of other financial records that we do not need dredged up in this mess.” Natasha pointed to the folder on the floor, which had just spilled a litany of documents at his feet.

“Let them.” Bucky wasn’t fazed by the warrants, walking over them as he drank, “I’m not going to Madripoor."

This time, it was Sharon's turn to roll her eyes as she swiveled in her chair to face Bucky. She was turned from you now, but you could almost smell the smug, knowing look she raked over your husband as she uncrossed her legs and leaned back.

"We don't have time for this," she said, coolly, "If you have any hopes of getting the Counter-Terrorism Committee off your ass and Schröder in custody, you'll listen to Nat."

Bucky paused, weighing her words in his mind before meeting her gaze again. He brought his glass to his lips and drained it.

Then, perhaps feeling a bit emboldened by the idea that she was the only one to have shut Bucky up—to have made him listen, as it were—Sharon piped up again. You didn't need to see her face to know for certain there was a smirk etched across it,

"Don't look so glum, honey. We have no choice here."

It startled every last soul at that table, yourself included and Sharon especially, when the cup in Bucky's hand sailed across the room and shattered on the edge of a cabinet close by. Before the glass had so much as splintered and scattered half of its jagged shards along the floor, your husband was stalking, then stopping, then looming over Sharon with an implacably dour look. And a jaw set tight as you'd ever seen it.

"My choice," he seethed, so low the words almost came out in a murmur, "is to protect my wife. Whatever you, or Natasha, or anyone else has in mind comes second to that. Do you understand?"

Sharon nodded that she did.

A hushed silence fell over the room once more, only now its duration was greater, and the cause of it—your red-faced, fuming husband—had turned his back to the group and was retrieving from the bar cart another glass. Another drink. Natasha followed his path with a vigilant eye.

"Bucky," she said.

Bucky didn't answer. Filled his new glass to the brim.

"Bucky," Natasha tried with a little more volume and vigor.

Your husband lifted the cup to his mouth and started to guzzle, against every shrill and helpless plea from his liver, you guessed. You wanted to object, to take leave of your seat as quick as you could and knock the thing out of his hand before he could finish, but Natasha had you beat—not with any physical act but a word to slow him down: "Barnes."

Then, a few more to get him to stop entirely:

"Look. Over there."

She pointed to a slip of paper somewhere at the top of the shuffle.

Bucky shifted his gaze to the floor. You saw him lick both corners of his mouth, bathed in whiskey residuum and a light, nascent spatter of stubble. He looked almost menacing in spite of the grin that kicked up.

"What's this?" he murmured.

"The terms of Schröder's newest offer. The one he made this morning."

Bucky's second glass was discarded in an instant.

He dropped to his knees, seized the paper in his hands and pored over the bare, 11-point Times New Roman typeface like it was the single most precious set of words in the world to him. There were several mountains of text, and you sensed he couldn't begin to under the legal jargon with just one cursory look.

"What? What's'it mean?" Bucky wouldn't tear his gaze away, even as he shouted to Natasha.

Your own eyes probably should've been fixed on Bucky, or in your lap, or out the window, reflecting in silence on what the fuck could be going on and why it felt as though things were suddenly coming to a perilous head. Instead, you pivoted to Natasha. Her face was tilted to you.

Then she spoke to Bucky, still crouched on the floor a few feet away from her, but she kept her focus on you. She spoke carefully.

"Schröder won't take the money, Bucky."

"What?"

Bucky's gaze combed over the page, desperate to make sense of what was printed in front of him—"The hell's this all mean, Nat, tell me what it means and what he wants, for fuck's sake."—and he flipped the document. Read some more. His eyes flitted from line to line in a full-blown terror.

Then the eyes stopped in one spot.

Bucky stood.

Fisting the letter in one hand and making a wild, inarticulate gesture with the other, he probably could've seared a hole in Natasha's head with the force of his stare. She refused to meet it.

"This is a joke, isn't it?"

All of a sudden, your father leaned over your mother to you,

"We can make it work. We can keep you—"

"Hey. Don't talk to her. Don't fuckin' look at her. Is this—"

"—safe. We'll keep you safe, darling, I swear."

"—some kind of sick fucking joke?!"

You stared at your dad in disbelief. Bewilderment. Then you chanced a look at Bucky, who had all but gone blue in the face as he approached your father from the opposite end of the table, letter still crushed in his hand.

Your father averted his gaze.

He knew.

You saw him flick the gold signet on his pinky once more, and for reasons you didn't yet understand yourself, you couldn't look away from it, or him.

Surely this scared-shitless son of a bitch could speak to you now. He'd have to. There was no way he wouldn't when the problem was staring him right in the face and his son-in-law was practically apoplectic with rage in front of him.

Something clicked in Bucky's brain.

He knew.

Your husband’s breath caught with the full weight of the realization, and he blinked. He didn’t hesitate; he simply sidestepped Sam and Steve—who had stood as soon as they saw the look of understanding cross over his face—and he seized your father. You heard a scream, most likely from your mother, and you saw Bucky swing, but the act barely registered as real until his fist first cracked against your dad’s skull. Again. And again. And again.

Somewhere in the raucous din and sounds of punches, kicks, and muffled groans, a discharge of blood, and the dim recognition that some of the stuff was dousing you, too, you managed to make out several words, disjointed:

“—FUCKING KILL YOU—SOLD HER—SOLD HER?!”

Roleplay was fun—even vital for a marriage like yours.

Only instead of assuming the role of sexy masseuse, strong and strapping CEO, hands-on handyman, or some naughty professor with a knack for after-class punishment, Bucky got to play a bloodlusting assassin.

‘Winter Soldier’ didn’t have quite the same ring as most pornographic tropes, it was true, but it was an alter-ego he’d been given from his earliest days as a made man. A caricature of himself that was to represent everything he did and was capable of doing in places like Madripoor.

You didn’t know that side. You didn’t like that side.

It was Bucky, and it wasn’t—pummeling your father’s face in the ground after learning that he had offered you up, again, in satisfaction of a debt. Sparing no feelings when he spoke to Natasha, Sam, Steve, Sharon, or anyone, making clear his wife’s safety was paramount.

Maybe you were meant to feel proud. Or flattered. Or safe. But oddly, the longer you’d stared at the bloodied, bruised fist he held above your father’s face and the half-deranged look of anger on his own, the more you began to wonder if the fury was for your protection, or simply a knee-jerk response to the thought of losing a possession. A mere object that he couldn’t bear to part ways with.

You had thought long and hard about where the Soldier stopped and Bucky began. No matter where you landed, you were far from comfortable with the conclusion.

Now, even as you stood two feet away from the man in an upper-level lounge of the Foxy Den, roughly half a day removed from the whirlwind turn of events that almost sent your father to hospital, you hardly knew what to say.

“Zip me up?”

The closest thing you’d had to conversation in hours. Bucky obliged.

You viewed your new dress in the mirror from the side and made a face. Pretended to examine the tight black number but were really just zeroing in on the sight of Bucky’s knuckles as he dragged the zip up your back. He hadn’t bothered to mend his hands, and you hadn’t thought to offer to bandage them up. You tried not to stare.

The hands paused at the top of your dress and froze.

Then crept back slowly, taking the zip along with it.

“Wanna—?”

“Bucky!”

One low groan, followed by a palm to his worn and wearied face. When you spun around, he didn’t move.

“Are you serious?” you bit.

“Will you talk to me now?” Bucky retorted.

To be fair, neither he nor his Winter Soldier persona knew how to solve the silent treatment from a pissed-off wife. This was brand new territory—being ignored for hours on end—and frankly, he had thought a playful request for sex might make you more amenable to conversation.

He had thought wrong.

You stared daggers at his handsome face and raised a finger as though to warn him, then stopped. Opened your mouth as if to speak, then appeared to decide against it. A steady, pulsing bass from the floors below was all that could be heard, and momentarily, you were reminded of why you were all here in the first place:

Locate Schröder. Corner Schröder. Capture Schröder. Bring the bad man to justice—or else just pump the motherfucker’s head full of lead and be done with it.

You weren’t too familiar with the particulars of the plan, but that had seemed to be the heart of it. Bucky never intended for you to stray from the safety of the lounge upstairs, where half of his team were casing the club through dozens of surveillance cameras, and he would likely take off with Sam and Steve the second you’d finished dressing. Now would be the time to talk.

And you planned to. Eventually.

For now, though, you’d let him sweat it out.

You had long envied women with effortless sex appeal and charisma. The kind that seemed to be made for the stage, capable of transfixing any audience, or individual, with little more than their aura alone. You’d never felt a fraction of that allure emanate from yourself before, personally, but looking at Bucky now brought you as close as you’d ever been. He was enthralled by your every move, he was intrigued at all times, you could see.

He was visibly aroused before you had even touched him. You knew it was cruel and unkind before you were even fully conscious of what you were doing, but you did it.

Someone had to teach this man how to control his anger—and his urges—somehow. Who better than you?

You drew closer to Bucky until your fronts almost touched.

“Baby,” you murmured. Simple, nearly plaintive.

Bucky blanched. Could it be? Had his bullshit gambit actually paid off and made you want to talk, or possibly do more? His hands immediately went for your hips, but you were quick to shove them off. You poked one finger to his chest and shook your head.

“We can talk,” you said, measured.

You pressed into his sternum and pretended not to see a short-lived look of defeat, followed by confusion, cross Bucky’s features. He let you walk him back a step or two.

“Okay. What about?”

Where the hell could you even begin?

“Sit first,” you urged him.

It was then that he realized you’d been walking him toward the plush sectional couch behind him—a cozy little touch to the VIP room only marginally diminished by the fact that it was coated in liquor, coke, and glitter. Bucky sat down anyway.

You didn’t follow, choosing instead to stand as you appeared to…scratch something on your back? Your husband looked on in muted curiosity as you reached behind yourself and tilted your torso just slightly.

Then he heard a zip. A hitch. Another, longer drag.

Bucky knew he was fucked before you ever slipped the dress off your body. You were to make quick work of it, eyes never leaving the man in front of you as you peeled the fabric down your legs and off of your frame entirely. When you were down to just your underwear, you hadn’t even needed to see his face to know exactly where his gaze was likely to land—this part was new to him. You kicked the dress aside and let him stare.

To be fair, it wasn’t every day he got to see a Ruger LC9 strapped to your thigh. Hidden in plain sight now that you were stripped bare before him in just your bra, panties, and garter-like holster across the top of your leg.

“Where’d you get that?” Bucky nearly choked, eyes wide.

“TJ Maxx,” you huffed, “Where the fuck do you think?”

“I never said you could— And Sam and Steve—”

Bucky paused, suddenly aware of how indignant and stupid he was starting to sound. He had given orders to the rest of his team not to let you carry a gun under any circumstances, but here you were. If he weren’t so violently aroused by the sight of you wearing the thing, he probably would’ve been fuming.

“A couple guys from your security detail were kind enough to make an exception,” you smiled, words verging on smug, “And who’s to say what I ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ do, hm?”

Bucky looked as though he were priming himself to stand when you lifted one stiletto to rest between his legs on the seat. A silent and quasi-sweet threat in one gesture.

“I didn’t say you can’t— well—” Bucky faltered at the last.

“You just said you never gave me permission!” You threw your hands up in exasperation, “That doesn’t sound very equitable to me, James.”

Bucky let out a frustrated sigh of his own.

“C’mon. You know what I mean, honey…I just…want to keep you safe. You know that.”

“Self-defense is a pretty integral part of safety.”

“No one’s ever taught you to shoot!”

“You never bothered to ask!”

This was getting a little too aggressive and Jerry Springer-eqsue for your liking. Not nearly sexy or seductive enough to be heading in the direction you wanted. Bucky always brought the bickering out of you, but you had to stay strong. Slow and steady and all that bullshit.

So, before he could respond to your last remark, you lowered yourself over him. Brought both legs to bracket his hips and hovered carefully in place above the bulge in his tactical pants. When he swallowed beneath you and raked his gaze over your body, you felt a twinge of relief.

You sank further down. Dragged your lower half over his own and earned a groan from deep within his throat. Again, his hands flew to your waist to get a good grip, but you pried them off before they could ever fully sink into the flesh.

“What?” Impatience palpable in Bucky’s tone.

“No,” you answered simply.

“No?”

“No, you don’t get to touch me. You don’t own me.”

Your husband shifted under your body, hands helpless at his sides and masseter muscle visibly clenching beneath the skin as he gritted his teeth. He shook his head.

“I never said that I did,” he managed, after a pause, “Baby, I love you.”

“And beating the shit out of my dad was your special way of showing that?”

“That wasn’t—”

“Or snapping at Natasha. And Sam. Steve. Sharon,” you added emphasis to the last name without really meaning to, and Bucky raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. I…lost my temper, I—”

“Couldn’t control your anger. Or wouldn’t. All because my dad made some stupid deal with a man and offered me up as collateral.”

“Because Joey wants you for himself!” Bucky snapped, voice suddenly raised to a near-deafening pitch. He shifted his hips and inadvertently grazed the heat between your legs, drawing a subtle pinch in his brow at the friction, “The deal your dad made was to give you over to Schröder in satisfaction of his own fucking debt—you think I was just gonna sit by and let that happen?!”

In spite of the animosity, you pressed your body to his even harder and watched him fold—if only slightly. He breathed a sharp inhale through his nose and flexed both his hands, as if wanting to make fists. However, he knew better than to move himself around at a time like this.

“What? Like the deal you made with him?”

Your words were clipped, almost cruel. You knew it would hit a nerve in Bucky, and sure enough, he met you right where you wanted him: enraged.

“That’s fucking different,” he seethed, “I would’ve paid your father’s debt without— without anything in it for me.”

“But you didn’t, and you got me.”

“And I love you. I don’t wanna lose you.”

The abrupt vulnerability in his voice was all but agony to hear. For a second, it seemed the anger had fled—or at least been eclipsed by some softer, sweeter shade—only for Bucky to blink again, shake his head, and wear that stupid, hardened look that said, ‘I am not losing this.’ Your hands reached for his belt and started in on the zip.

“You have a real fucked up way of showing love, James.”

To your surprise, Bucky let you continue, unhindered. Blue eyes meeting yours in a cold look.

“Makes two of us,” he mumbled, shrugging his boxers and trousers out of the way anyway.

That was probably true. No person in their right mind would think fucking their husband was the safest, most surefire way to let him know they were pissed at him, but both you and Bucky were working on communication skills, still. You’d get to healthy, non-sex-fueled fights at some point.

As it was, Bucky was fumbling around your thighs, trying to pry them open even wider for better access through your panties. That you allowed, but the second he tried manhandling you over his crotch, you pushed back.

“I wanna do this— without your help,” you said, firm.

Somewhat begrudgingly, Bucky agreed. He let you line yourself up with his length, brace your weight against his shoulders, and when you paused, he made a soft, ‘Hm?’ and glanced down where you looked. Before you could remove the pistol from its holster, he set his palm atop the cool metal.

“Leave it,” he murmured.

His eyes flashed with desire. It was almost more than you could bear, despite the plain fact that riding someone with a firearm strapped to your thigh probably violated every NRA gun safety rule known to man. Whatever.

You lowered yourself onto Bucky, slow, and sucked in a quick breath as he filled you. Your husband groaned.

“Fuck,” followed shortly thereafter, almost timid to crawl out of his mouth as you sank to a fully-seated position on top of him. He gripped the armrest beside him.

When your hips first stirred, you thought the man might burst a blood vessel trying not to move right along with you. You pressed a hand to his chest and reminded him, gently but with purpose: let me fucking do this, Bucky, and he relented. Fisting the couch cushion in something close to a death grip, he nodded his head and heaved a short breath and watched you all the while, grinding on him.

“My pretty…pretty girl,” he managed through his teeth.

He was doing better than you expected. You watched his face contort with pleasure when you lifted yourself up to the tip of his cock and slide back down. You squeezed his shoulders, and you let out a low whimper yourself, and dammit all, you felt that pesky fucking knot already forming in the pit of your stomach. You glanced down and frowned, wanting this to last so much longer.

Fortunately, when your eyes found Bucky’s again, you got the sense that he was in the same boat as you: brow furrowed tight in concentration and lips parted slightly, panting in time with each one of your movements.

“Baby,” he said, the single word treading close to a plea. He paused, dropped a glance to the spot where your bodies were coupled, and swallowed. He cursed aloud, then continued, quietly, “Baby…’m’sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” You bounced a bit faster.

“For— fuckin’ hell, honey— for being a…dick.” The last part of his sentence was pierced by a grunt and a moan, but you heard it just the same.

You clenched around him and tried to keep steady. Manage a small, shit-eating grin above him, even.

“Being a dick?” you repeated, pretending not to know what he meant. When his cock grazed over a particularly sensitive place inside you, you just swallowed the moan and kept going, fingers taking hold of some short tufts of hair at the back of Bucky’s head as you rode him.

“Possessive. Controlling. Kind of a—” Bucky paused to grunt when he bottomed out inside, hands aching to hold you, “—piece of shit.”

Finally, you were getting somewhere. Not nearly close enough to cure the rage or the dark, grating impulses churning inside of him, but good enough, for now.

You reached for his hands and set them over your hips.

The next most natural thing was to lean down and kiss him—let his tongue invade your mouth as soon as he’d caught your lips and show you, with a wordless and fast-moving show of affection, that he missed you. And meant what he’d said. With his hands moving quick to cup your cheeks, hold you to him while he kissed you and stroked deep inside your walls, he gripped you tighter than he had in a while. You could feel strips of tension and desperation bleed through his every fingertip.

“Wanna…fuckin’ kill anyone who even thinks…of— fuck,” Bucky’s words were almost slurred at this point, so close to the point of release it seemed every wild and wanton thought that crossed his mind was likely to dance off his tongue, unchecked. You loved to see him in it this deep.

You also had to remind the murderous alter ego that violence was not the answer…always. You let him pull you closer, bodies pressed flush against each other while you fucked, but you made sure to tilt his chin up to yours so he could see the expression on your face as you spoke.

“Hey,” you pinned him with one stern look, “No murder.”

Bucky frowned.

“Yes murder,” he retorted.

You sighed.

This shit was worse than teaching a dog not to bite.

Instead of pulling back or being strict this time, though, you decided you’d give positive reinforcement a try. You squeezed his short locks of hair, gently, and rolled your hips even tighter to his, eliciting a stuttered groan. You bounced up and down on his cock, pulled him into your chest, and brought your face within an inch of his.

“Promise to be good, and I’ll let you cum inside me,” you murmured into his lips. Not the wisest offer you’d made to date, but one that Bucky seemed to want more than the air in his lungs the second the words escaped you. He pulled you in for a kiss, immediately.

“Fuck, you mean it?” he breathed, in between each sloppy, frenzied movement of his mouth.

“Yeah,” you tried not to grin at how eager he seemed, “You’re gonna apologize to everyone, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

Bucky barely seemed to register anyone or anything but you and your pussy at the moment, yearning for the go-ahead to let himself free inside you. With a nod of your head, you’d let him start meeting your motions with gentle thrusts of his own, and both of you were teetering precariously close to the edge with that added pressure. In spite of both your hot and heady, near-anoetic states, you endeavored to hold out a little longer, legs aching.

“Gonna try and talk to Schröder first?” you panted.

Bucky rutted into you hard, lips twitching into a frown.

“Doesn’t…deserve it,” he grunted, barely able to get the words out as he grabbed your hips and thrusted harder, “A fucking bullet between the eyes is what he needs.”

You eyed him soberly, or as serious as you could manage with the force of his strokes nearly sending you into a spiral. You fought back a moan and gripped him tighter.

“Bucky.”

“Bunny.”

Damn, that name.

“Promise me you won’t kill him—or anyone—tonight.”

“Baby—”

“Promise.”

His thrusts were getting sloppier; with his hands hoisting you just above him and his cock practically drilling into you now, speech and coherent thought were some of the toughest things to accomplish, but he tried it, anyway. Bucky would swallow his pride and accede to his wife, no matter how fucking badly he wanted to cum—and kill that Russian mob boss with both his bare, bloody hands.

He could be better than the Winter Soldier. He would.

With a rough, labored breath, Bucky pulled you in for a kiss and felt you squeeze around his cock like a vice. Still thrusting, clutching you, kissing you hard, he saw both of your releases coming in fast and had to act even quicker.

“I— I promise,” he stammered.

That was all either of you needed, or could bear, quite frankly. In the next second or two, you felt a cord snap in your lower half and a deep, punchy flurry of pleasure follow shortly thereafter, fingers sinking deep in Bucky’s shoulders as he bounced you on his cock and held you close. With your walls still pulsing around him, you felt him chase his own high at a breakneck pace, shooting his load inside you a moment later. It was bad, it was brash, it was a really fucking dumb idea to be playing around with the odds of making babies at a time like this, but it also felt good. Exhilarating, even, feeling him empty his balls in that space between your wet, aching walls and filling you up with his seed.

Maybe just one little mini-Bucky wouldn’t—

STOP.

You barely had the energy to acknowledge, much less arbitrate that bone-crushing conflict between your brain and reproductive organs, so you shut the thoughts up with a quick, messy kiss to Bucky, whose chest was still heaving from the peak of his release, holding you to him.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Maybe even two—

FUCK YOU.

The internal war wouldn’t go away that easy, it seemed.

You kissed Bucky long and hard regardless, hoping the shit would sort itself out before you really had to think. Or worry. Or plan. It was dumb and a bit short-sighted, but feeling that hot, erratic pulse between your legs did a pretty good job of making it seem just fine for right now.

Bucky’s expression was lax. Soaking in the feel of your cum-painted insides still squeezing around him, gently. Had he been anywhere but the heart of Low Town on a covert mission in a strip club, hunting down the head of HYDRA with a whole troupe of trained assassins, he probably would’ve liked to stay that way a little longer. But, as it was, he could already hear folks filing in and out of the lounge, footfalls growing heavier as his team loaded up with guns, grenades, and whatever other weapons they could fit beneath their formal attire.

“Don’t look so sad,” you said as you lifted off of Bucky. Carefully pulling your panties back into place as your husband watched you do it, practically forlorn.

“Too late,” he returned in half a groan, yanking his own clothes where they needed to be and trailing a look up your legs, “Might feel better if we tried it again, though.”

“I bet.” You pulled your dress over your head.

Your husband had just tightened his belt and was rolling his shoulders to get a knot out of his neck, it seemed.

“What are your thoughts on ‘Bucky Jr.’?” he asked casually.

“Don’t start with this shit.”

“Jamie for a girl, maybe?”

“I’ll kill you.”

Your baby talk and death threat tête-à-tête continued for quite some time—just a couple minutes, but they felt like years to you—and before long, you were rubbing the gun under your dress and casting a glare in Bucky’s direction, and he got the sense that it was time to head back to the group. He looped an arm around your waist and led you out into the main space.

The living room was little more than a makeshift headquarters at that point. You’d been expecting to see more faces, but the only ones you found were Sam, Natasha, and a few silent, beefy individuals you assumed were part of security. Where Sharon and your parents had gotten off to was anyone’s guess. You took a seat on the couch.

“Anything yet?” Bucky questioned, approaching the panel of surveillance screens with a wary eye.

“We’ve had intermittent visuals on the second floor for forty minutes or so—” Sam motioned to one screen on the left, “—but Schröder hasn’t moved. Hasn’t done anything but bullshit and booze and buy rounds for his group. Won’t even talk to the dancers, which is weird.”

From what you’d been told, the goal was to get Schröder off the second floor, up to one particular private suite on fourth, then send in an agent dressed as a bottle girl to make entry as soon as the rest of the party had arrived, keeping in contact with HQ, and Sam, via PTT earpiece all the while. The details from that point were hazy, but you’d gotten the sense that someone—or, more likely, a sizable and duly-equipped group of someones—was lying in wait somewhere in the suites surrounding them. Steve had been tasked with leading the incursion, though where he could be found, or whom he was with, remained largely a mystery to you. Recon in a bustling, crowded area with music blaring on all four sides was a formidable undertaking, and you could tell both Sam and Natasha had been having trouble keeping tabs on every player. They seemed on edge, monitoring the screens.

“Won’t talk to the dancers?” Bucky’s brow pinched in.

“Won’t talk to anyone outside of his inner circle,” Natasha said, grim, “Which leads me to think he’s not staying here long. Probably called his associates in for a speedy-quick deal because he knows he’s being tailed.”

“Hasn’t engaged with any of our undercovers?” Bucky pressed.

Natasha and Sam shook their heads. Your husband groaned.

“Then how the hell are we getting him upstairs to the champagne room? If he hasn’t budged and doesn’t look like he’s planning to stay?”

The looks on the faces in front of him said there wasn’t one readily available answer—or any answer at all. Bucky turned back to the screens and seemed to survey the whole panel, gaze cooling with the first inkling that this operation may be classed a failure in the very near future.

He barked some half-coherent babble about strategy, security, and failsafes, then barked for Steve.

And, as if on cue, Steve appeared at the threshold of the room a moment later, breathless and slightly flushed.

“Rogers, you’re suppos—” Sam started, eyes widening at something you couldn’t quite discern from his arrival.

“I know, I know,” Steve cut in, fast, “Want the good news or bad news fir—”

“Just spit it out,” Natasha said, preemptively unnerved.

“Schröder’s headed to the suite right now—”

Bucky raised both eyebrows at Steve as he continued.

“—but they won’t let Wanda in.”

‘Fuck’ was the first audible word from your husband, then Sam, in short order. Wanda must have been the agent playing bottle girl upstairs. This didn’t sound good.

“Why the fuck won’t they let her in?” Bucky snapped.

“Someone might’ve tipped his security off. Or else they’re just being extra cautious about who’s let in.”

Steve fiddled with one cufflink on his suit and tried not to appear too despondent, but the implications of this single event were huge, you could read on every face in the room. Wanda had been meant to do something important before the rest of the brigade mobilized—take some key step that couldn’t be omitted from the plan.

“So we retreat.” Natasha was not one to mince her words, per usual, “Get your guys out of the suites now.”

Bucky’s fingers twitched at his sides.

“No,” he said, sharply, “We’re not doing that.”

“Bucky.”

“We’ll get someone in there. We’ll find another way.”

Your husband was already pacing the space in front of you, and you looked on with uncertain eyes. You chanced a look to Natasha, Sam, and Steve, all of whom shared similar, albeit slightly more wearied, expressions as they watched and murmured among themselves.

“None of our people are getting up there, Barnes. Schröder’s got a goddamn sixth sense about our agents or something,” Steve said, at length.

“They’re all in masks—for a fucking masquerade—and we can’t get one person in?! In-and-out, that’s all it needs to be,” Bucky growled.

“We can’t get in there, that’s the point,” Sam sighed, “Masks or no masks, they know our people too well and won’t let us through.”

“We can at least try, for Christ’s sake. That’s what we came this whole fuckin’ way to do, right?”

When no one said a word in response, Bucky scowled,

“Right?”

There was a lull in the conversation that seemed to last for minutes, when, in reality, couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen seconds. Tensions were high. You could tell from the look in Bucky’s eye he was trying not to lash out as he normally would, but in no time at all, you saw a fractional break in his resolve. You feared he might fly off the handle, or else compromise something that couldn’t be spared at a time like this. You swallowed.

“I’ll go.”

It was stupid.

Every face turned to regard you as if you were stupid, you assumed as soon as the words had left your mouth.

But then, much to your surprise, Steve was perking up, eyes suddenly brighter as his gaze tilted to you.

“She could,” he said, shortly.

“Should she?” Sam seemed to murmur at once.

“Sure, why not?”

“I can think of plenty reasons why not,” Natasha was quick to counter, but beneath that pensive expression, you could’ve sworn you saw the smallest degree of contemplation. Even hope, from the looks of it.

‘NO’ was Bucky’s wordless, immediate, and resounding answer as he kicked whatever furniture—a footstool, this time—was closest to him and sent it flying toward the door. It seemed that self-control of his had worn off fast.

“No,” he affirmed in a word a second later, jaw clenched, “She is going nowhere near that suite.”

He didn’t even spare you a glance while he spoke. He was too busy eyeing the others, Steve specifically, as his chest rose and fell in uneven breaths and a light, blooming tinge of pink rose the length of his neck. If it weren’t for that staunch and menacing look on his face, he would’ve almost looked cute, you mused to yourself.

But, pretty man be damned, you wouldn’t stand for being ignored. Fuck that noise.

“I will,” you returned, a little more resolute this time.

Now Bucky had no choice but to pivot to you. His expression softened some, but not by much.

“No,” he said, again.

“Yes.”

“Baby—”

“Don’t fucking ‘baby’ me, Barnes. You said someone who wasn’t an agent could make it up there, and I can do it. Or try, at least, like you just said.”

If your attention hadn’t been fixed on your husband, you probably would’ve caught sight of more than one thinly veiled smile from the group around you. Natasha, in particular, all but tickled to see someone stand up to Bucky and give him a taste of his own shit—and live to tell the tale. The sight of her boss’s eyes almost glossy in the first tender look she’d seen from him in years was almost too much to bear. Steve stood grinning beside her, and Sam narrowly stifled an exhale of amusement. Neither you nor Bucky flinched from your positions.

“We can’t risk you being around him. They’re already all on high-alert,” your husband said after a calming breath.

“As are all your trigger-happy comrades waiting just ten feet outside the door, right?” you replied, “What is it, like, five, ten of them in total?”

“Twenty,” Steve interjected. Bucky shot him a look.

“I don’t care. I don’t want you up there when that fucker was just trying to— to kidnap you last week. I’m not—”

“Right. Right. Trying to kidnap me, not kill me. If Schröder wanted me dead, he would’ve made pretty quick work of that before,” you cut in, tone a touch more deliberate, “Even if he sniffs me out, he’s not gonna screw this whole deal by hurting me now.”

But the mere suggestion of harm to you had seemed to raise every hair on its end for Bucky, and then he was shaking his head, evidently more stubborn than ever.

“No, fuck. Don’t start,” he snapped with his newfound indignation, then, quieter, “Please…don’t, honey.”

You wouldn’t bow that easily.

“Why not?”

Truly, Bucky couldn’t be certain if it was the lilt in your voice, the pinch at the sides of your lips, or simply the sincerity consuming your eyes as you spoke to him, but the man could not stomach the thought of you, his own wife, being a stone’s throw from mortal danger and beyond his protection—or control, he wasn’t sure which one of the two was more dominating. Some cruel and unforgiving knot inside him came to tighten, and twist, and, nauseating as it was set on escape, the white-hot surge rose like bile in his throat. Before he could stop it, the words were spilling out through his teeth like froth:

“Cause I fuckin’ said so, that’s why. That’s it. It’s settled. You’re not allowed anywhere near him, you hear me?”

What Bucky hadn’t expected was the swift ascent back to your feet. The cool and almost careless expression as you rose, as though his words hadn’t registered at all.

He certainly hadn’t expected you to check him with your shoulder as you passed, knocking him slightly off-balance as he turned, in shock, and watched you give him one manicured middle finger over your left shoulder.

“Rogers, I’d like you to escort me upstairs.”

Worst of all, Bucky hadn’t expected Steve to listen.

Fortunately for him, the night was still young and with it, more than ample opportunity to be proven wrong again. And again.

“And again,” Steve murmured low in your ear as you walked side-by-side down the corridor on fourth floor, “If you get even the slightest bad feeling, you leave.”

“Might as well dip right now,” you muttered, adjusting your mask. Your attempt at humor fell flat with the man.

“I’m serious. We’ll be right outside and listening in from headquarters, but HYDRA is not a faction to fuck around with, or underestimate—as I assume you know by now.”

You did. Or would, eventually.

After the mask, you were busy trying to yank the back of your cocktail waitress dress to cover the full swell of your ass, not just the upper two-thirds. Unsurprisingly, it was a tougher task than you had been prepared to handle. Your new heels were tight and impossibly high, your new dress a mere scrap of pink fabric riddled with sequins and glitter, and your mask—holy fuck, were you glad Mardi Gras was not a year-round affair. Bucky had insisted on the fluffiest, stuffiest, full-face covering to ensure that no one would be able to recognize you, but in exchange for your anonymity, you had had to give up breathing, it seemed.

And then there was that vial of poison between your tits.

Sam had assured you that it was a nonlethal dose before handing it over; Steve had urged you, discreetly, to pour Schröder two for good measure. Natasha had overheard the latter and threatened legal action if he ever tried killing a target without her permission. You hadn’t spent much longer getting ready in the bathroom after that. Then you’d brushed past your husband the second you’d stepped out and strapped that last, semi-lethal ‘accessory’ to your bra before taking the lift upstairs.

As it turned out, you weren’t able to escape him entirely.

While you walked with Steve, Bucky was in your ear.

Literally—the man was talking nonstop through your earpiece and clearly had no intention of shutting the fuck up anytime soon. You silently wondered if there was a way to adjust the volume on the gadget as you ambled along.

“Honey.” There was a slightly more mechanical buzz to Bucky’s voice over your private line. You ignored it.

“So just find the cup he’s drinking from and pour the serum in?” you reiterated to Steve for the third time in the last ten minutes.

Your companion nodded, rattling off a few extra precautions while Bucky’s tone rang out a bit louder:

“Honey? You there?”

At last, you stuck your finger to the tiny flesh-colored device in your ear and snapped, “What?!”

“I love you.”

This fucker.

“I love you too. You’re still high on my shit list, though,” you answered, low and begrudgingly.

“Did I hear ‘hit list’? You’re gonna let me tap that later?”

If you didn’t have about fifteen different reasons to hate the man’s guts, you almost would’ve chuckled. At length, you muttered a quiet, ‘Kiss my ass, Barnes,’ and turned back to Steve, who was just then leading you closer to a room roped off and marked ‘EXECUTIVE SUITE.’ Your stomach did a flip as you paused around the corner.

“Right there. All you gotta do is knock and say a guy named Zemo sent you,” Steve spoke slowly, as if he were teaching arts and crafts to a five-year-old and not a woman about to embark on a high-risk sedation mission.

You nodded and took the silver tray from him carefully.

All the platter contained was an oversized bottle of Brut and a silver bucket, but damn if it didn’t feel like you were carrying the world and some change on that thing. You shifted your weight from foot to foot and turned in the direction of the door just a few yards away.

The time for painstakingly descriptive instructions and pep talks was long past you now. You nodded to Steve one last time and started to wobble over.

The entryway was flanked by two muscle-bound men. You approached with a smile.

“Hi. Zemo sent me.”

You didn’t know who the fuck Zemo was.

You hoped they wouldn’t ask, or notice how stilted and awkward you’d sounded just then. You swallowed a peach-sized lump in your throat and smiled again.

The one on the left grunted. The one on the right gave a nod. Without a word spoken between them, the former opened the door and made way for you to step over the threshold. You couldn’t help but notice both with their eyes trained straight on your tits as you passed by.

There was no way that had just worked. No pat-downs or harrowing threats? Not a single, searing interrogation into your identity or what you might be there to do?

Men were dumb, you decided, far too easily deceived by a decent pair of tits—HYDRA security personnel or not.

But you already knew that. You stepped inside.

The fetid stench of half a dozen blazing cigars and booze spilled on every surface were the first to greet you. A wave of smoke, then a bone-jostling bum bum bum to the beat of what sounded like a Don Toliver song came next. You almost couldn’t bear to make your feet move.

But then, shortly, you had to because a shrill, shimmer-doused beauty was waving you over toward the kitchen.

“Ba-by!” she shrieked, gesture growing frantic, “Bring it over!”

You walked with the tray out in front of you, careful with your steps across the sticky floor. When you made it over, where one other girl was stirring wildly at some concoction on the counter, you stopped, and had only to stand for a second longer, because the redhead that had beckoned you was taking the tray, setting it down, and grabbing something thin and pointy. You’d barely even registered it as an ice pick until the thing was thrust in your face.

“Crush it up,” she ordered, one curt nod toward a block of ice nearby. Evidently not giving a shit who you were or where you’d come from either. You guessed Wanda had just gotten unlucky, or they’d all stopped giving a fuck once Schröder’s men had really started drinking.

And drinking they had been, as your eyes surveyed the scene. Half-naked women with fully-clothed men, dressed head to toe in the finest of suits that were probably soaked through to the bone with sweat and Stolichnaya. You almost shivered at the sight of all the masked, wildly gyrating pricks, fumbling desperately through one verse of ‘After Party.’ You could vomit.

But where was your prick? That grimy little shit, Joey.

“Back of the room by the couch,” Bucky said, as if he’d read your mind.

Then a beat.

“Wait. Shit. That isn’t him. Schröder’s over by the door.”

How many tall, lanky blonds could there be in this place? You cast a sweeping look across the room and received your answer in less than two shakes of a lamb’s tail—there were a shit ton of Joey lookalikes all around.

“Careful. Mr. Schröder’s been on edge all night. Might bite your head off if you stare too long.”

The girl that was stirring had apparently caught you looking. She set the spoon aside and turned, but not before chancing a quick glance at the man Bucky had identified to you as your target. The man lifted his gaze.

You chipped away at the ice even faster.

Crush the shit, make a drink, pour the serum, and get it in him. Now. Don’t draw his attention just yet, though.

Something in your head told you to steal another look. You knew it was a bad idea, but you went on and did it anyway—and fortunately, felt a wave of relief at seeing that he’d retreated somewhere back with his friends. The ice pick in your hands made it through the last block.

“I’ll serve the shots, you bring the bottle to Mr. Pierce.”

Mr. Who?

“One of Schröder’s associates. Roll with it.”

It was Natasha’s voice now. Measured, but tense.

“He’s the older gentlemen straight ahead. He probably ordered the champagne for him and the others.”

That was Sam. You could only imagine how all of them looked huddled around the surveillance panel with the transmitter to your earpiece being passed about from person to person. The grip Bucky must’ve had on his gun, or his switchblade, or whatever weapon he could seize to make himself feel a little less helpless. But he was—as were you. And truthfully, there was nothing either one of you could do about that until Schröder was in custody. This was the first step toward reaching that goal.

So you walked with the bottle, now bathed in a tub of ice. You tried to keep steady, but the staggering drunks all around were making that tough, to say the least.

When one man struck you straight in the chest, elbows jutting out as he danced, you stumbled back a step. Nearly lost the tray for half a second, then recovered.

Until the dipshit hit you again.

This time you truly almost sent the bottle sailing for the floor, grip slipping on the tray and knees buckling underneath you as the force of the blow set you back. You bit a quick, ‘Fuck!’ in the air, seized the platter twice as hard and braced your weight against something firm behind you. A shelf, a TV stand, or something. Maybe a half-wall if you were lucky enough not to have careened against some expensive piece of furniture. You sighed.

“Everything alright?” a voice rumbled behind you.

Or a person. Yeah, a person would be pretty fucking bad to bump into at a time like this. Your whole body froze.

You turned.

“Ye-es sir. Yes, sir.” You quickly righted your tone the second you realized it was someone important.

Not Schröder, but someone who seemed to be big-name enough; you just weren’t sure who. The man smiled down at you from under his Venetian mask.

“Is this for me?” he nodded toward the tray, half-teasing.

You swallowed.

“Are you Mr. Pierce?” you asked.

The man’s grin stretched even wider.

“Nope, I’m Ward. but I can take you to Pierce.”

For the first time that night, your heart swelled with some promise. You thanked him quietly, gratefully, then made as if to follow him back through the crowd, when all of a sudden, you stopped. That heartfelt swelling in your chest halted right along with it. You almost dropped the tray.

“Schröder!” Ward bellowed.

No, no, now you were actually going to lose your shit. There was no way in hell you were keeping a grip on this silver little plate any longer without crying or screaming or shitting your pretty, pink, sequin minidress right there. You almost shrieked when a hand reached for the tray.

“Pierce got you doing all the heavy lifting, huh, honey? The bastard.” Even through his own ornate mask, you could tell Joey was grinning—glinting with conceit, as was his prerogative. He took the load off your hands.

“Take it easy now, he’s just—”

“Staring at your rack. Pull your top up, baby, please.”

The chatter in your ear had switched from Sam to Bucky at nearly lightning speed. You glanced down at your cleavage and tugged the fabric up quick, heart beating even faster underneath it.

In front of you, Joey Schröder was all teeth. A gruesome spectacle in spite of its seemingly benevolent intentions, one smile could have turned your stomach sideways. And it did—you wanted to throw up again—but you knew you had bigger fish to fry, and evil mobsters to poison. You didn’t flinch when Schröder nudged you in the shoulder and made his way ahead, coaxing you to follow.

You didn’t tense and didn’t protest. Didn’t blink when he led you straight through the party, around a few topless performers on poles, and into a backroom lounge.

In fact, your mind practically sang as he led you inside.

It was just every other nerve, muscle, and trembling tendon not under the immediate control of your brain that needed soothing. You could’ve sworn the men on the couches would see your legs shaking as soon as you trudged into the room and sniff you out on sight.

But if they had, they didn’t show it.

No one moved when you entered, save for a few lopsided grins and tilts of happy, masked faces. Sizing you up. Drinking you in. Far too easily mistakable for a band of apex predators that had just caught wind of their next meal, and not a room full of sleazy Russian mobsters. You bit back your grating disgust with a smile.

“Got a present for ya, Pierce,” Schröder announced.

A honey-blond head flecked with silver and white sat up from the sofa. Presumably the one who’d ordered the champagne.

“Oh yeah? What’d ya pay for her?” he returned, mouth curling up in a wicked smile.

Even above the booming music, you could make out peals of laughter as the men around you shared in some lewd, crude comments and several whispers exchanged between them. You would’ve liked to grab your bottle by the neck and break it over the nearest patron’s head, but then you remembered yourself, and your mission. You stilled beside Schröder and let them crack a few more tasteless jokes at your expense. Schröder chuckled and set the tray down in front of a thoroughly amused Pierce.

Then he grabbed you by the waist.

“Right. I forgot to ask—what is your price, sweetheart?” he said, swiftly pulling you up to his front.

Your hands flew to his chest reflexively. Your nose scrunched in a wince at the sound of an electric shout:

“GET HIM OFF OF HER!”

“Bucky, hey, hey, we can’t just—”

“NO! THAT’S NOT PART OF THE FUCKING PL—”

The line went silent. You scratched at the space behind your ear, trying hard not to betray any pain on your face, or the fear for what might be going on downstairs.

Clearly, you failed on both fronts, because Joey’s grip only tightened. He peered down at you, curious.

“You deaf or somethin’, sugar? What’s your price?”

You batted your eyes, momentarily struggling for words.

But then, somehow, you managed to choke out, stomach churning with bile:

“Whatever you want, sir.”

You felt your soul drain out through the soles of your shoes as you’d said it. Something fell from your face—most likely a light behind your eyes and any semblance of self-worth as you stood before the man who had tried to buy you, drug you, and kill half your family, and then pretend like you wanted to dance for him, or do more.

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t right by any means, but it was all just roleplay.

Roleplay.

You had to keep telling yourself that as you let Schröder’s hand glide up your spine and grip the back of your neck, tilting your head up to his. It was just like your husband and his cold-blooded Winter Soldier persona, you tried to convince the increasingly frightened voice in your mind. Just like him, just like your sweet and soft and sadistic—

“Bucky,” you whispered unconsciously.

You knew he couldn’t hear you now. It was almost insane to think anyone could save you now but yourself.

“What?” Joey exhaled sharply.

You froze in fear.

“Five hundred bucks,” you corrected your error quickly.

You weren’t sure Schröder was convinced.

“Five hundred bucks for one lap dance and some fun?” he scoffed. Then he squeezed your neck a little tighter and drew your face within an inch of his own. You could feel the hot puffs of breath, smell the rancid liquor on his tongue, but you stayed where he held you in place and tried not to grimace when he said, “That’s a damn steal.”

Your lips were shaking something awful under your mask. You couldn’t even begin to imagine what kissing this vile, soulless bastard would taste like, but you feared it might come sooner than you knew, because Joey was drawing you even more rough and tight into his chest.

Just when your mouth was less than a hair’s breadth away from his, though, you heard a woman’s scream.

Then another. And another. And another.

Before long, almost half the suite had erupted in shrieks, it seemed, and the sounds of their horror were shortly supplanted by a series of explosions. And gunfire.

Johann Schröder dropped your body like the worst habit known to man and went bounding away from the turmoil as fast as he could. This time, you did trip over your heels and took a nasty little nosedive to the ground. Fumbling, crawling, then sliding across the shag carpet on your belly with your eyes in wild search of somewhere to hide.

You spotted a coffee table and muscled your way over.

“SCHRÖDER!” a voice roared from somewhere behind.

Again, you knew better than to look, but the fear of not knowing who, or what, might be barreling your direction at any second outweighed more sensible considerations. You stole a look over your shoulder and nearly screamed.

A man with a pitch black balaclava stormed into the lounge and wasted no time setting sights on his intended target—raising a Heckler & Koch MP7A1 submachine gun to his face and firing the second the impulse struck.

You watched a once-handsome, lively, and drunk man turn to shredded, fleshy carnage in less than an instant and fall right beside your head with a thud. Your hand was your only defense to keep the shriek inside your chest, but even that blockade was crumbling fast as the blood-soaked assassin wrenched the body in the air.

The gunman tore the mask from his victim’s head and inspected the face—or what was left of it. He cursed.

You could tell from your close proximity to the blues of his eyes, and that sigh, you wouldn’t need to ask at all. You just sat there and stared, knees hugged to your chest as Bucky threw the body back down as hard as he could.

“FUCK!” he bellowed, voice flooded with rage.

Steve stumbled in with his gun at the ready. He eyed the man on the floor, then you, then a dozen other flailing, desperate partygoers trying to escape the suite all around you. You just drew in even tighter to the table.

“What happened?! Where’d he go?”

Rogers, like you, seemed unable to look away from the carcass, but for entirely different reasons. He appeared to be studying it just as your husband had been.

“It’s not Schröder!” Bucky yelled.

“Where the fuck’s he— shit.”

Suddenly, an unknown assailant opened fire on the two men from the opposite end of the room. Both dove for cover, but not before Bucky grabbed you and dragged you, full-force, behind the sofa. It didn’t seem there was time for sweet words or consolations, his eyes wide and half-crazed as they bore into yours just in front of you.

“Don’t move,” he barked, readjusting his grip on his gun in one hand and feeling around all over your sides with the other. On seeing and feeling no trauma, he nodded his head and moved his hand to your cheek, just briefly.

“Honey, I need you here—right here for me, alright? Don’t move a muscle,” he spoke low as Steve covered from above, rapid-fire shots ringing out on both sides.

Rushed and furious as he was, he couldn’t help but linger on that face a half-second longer than he intended. You were shaking your head and hugging your knees, meeting his eyes with what seemed to be reproach.

“You promised, Bucky,” you hissed through gritted teeth.

You were in shock, that was what it was, he kept telling himself. You didn’t know what you were saying, and he needed to turn away to help Steve, but then you were eyeing that body—that man he could’ve sworn was Schröder when he’d pumped him full of bullets—and you were turning back to him with unmistakable disgust.

He would’ve fallen to his knees and begged his wife for forgiveness if there weren’t more pressing matters at hand. Like your life and his, and Steve’s—and Sam’s, now, bursting onto the scene with a semi-automatic rifle of his own as he helped his friend gun down the last of the stragglers. Bucky knew he had to help them, too.

So he’d stumbled back on his feet, less conscious than acting on pure impulse, and he joined in on the gunfire.

He reckoned he liked it. However long it lasted. He just rolled his shoulders once and sent the rounds flying; he ducked and he moved and he stood and he crouched and he fired every shot as if it were as easy to him as breathing. He didn’t think. When the three of them had cleared the lounge, and Sam and Steve tore off toward the two or three remaining rooms at the rear of the suite, Bucky still wasn’t fully present in his body. All he knew was that his clip was near-empty and his side was in pain—and the room they had emptied was safe. For you.

For you—where the fuck had you gone?!

Bucky barreled past the spot behind the couch where you were supposed to have been, but weren’t, and made a beeline for the closest room over. And nothing. More empty, threadbare, and bloody rooms filled with bodies that didn’t belong to you, and shortly he was yelling for Sam or Steve or anyone in that massacred suite to help him find his wife. The breaths in his chest were heaving.

He turned once, twice, eyes roaming wildly and hand grabbing fast for more ammo. He couldn’t find any more. Beads of sweat began to collect on his brow, and just when he turned to call for backup once more, he paused.

In his periphery, he saw two forms.

He stopped fully and turned to the side.

If it was fear he had felt just then, he wasn’t aware of it. Instead, it seemed a white-hot and blinding ire had taken over, and rather than grow timid, or afraid, he went cold.

“Bucky…don’t,” you managed in a strangled, hoarse tone, throat visibly contained by a blade being held to it.

Behind you, a man stood masked and unflinchingly calm.

Bucky knew that wouldn’t do—no matter how hard or helplessly you pleaded with him then not to do it, please don’t do it, Bucky, please. All he heard in his head was the throb of his pulse, and all he saw before him was red.

He fired without a second thought.

The round just grazed the edge of the man’s cheek.

Bucky swore. Tried to fire his gun again. It was empty.

Still not thinking, much less hearing his wife’s desperate cries for him to spare the man’s life, he grabbed the smallest, sharpest object that was closest to him and charged your would-be attacker head on.

Both men fell to the floor, but only Bucky was mobile.

Only Bucky held the weapon now, as his opponent’s knife had been lost somewhere in the skirmish, and he was wielding it now faster than he ever had before, he thought—an ice pick, of all fucking things—driving it into the man’s face and neck and chest without the slightest regard for anything else.

Somewhere far outside his mind, he heard you scream. Felt you claw at his arm, grip at his shirt, make some wild, shrill, and vehement pleas that he couldn’t begin to understand in this state, and he continued. Hadn’t even considered slowing down until the man’s carotid was shredded in two and spewing blood all over his front.

Bucky couldn’t be sure how long it lasted like that; all he remembered was stumbling back, energy spent, fist still holding the pick and eyes duly glued to the body he’d just stabbed through and maimed until no life was left.

He saw you crawl over the body.

He wanted to warn you not to touch it. Lifted a hand and tried his best to form words, but nothing came out.

He watched you lift the mask.

From that point on, he was certain he had to have been seeing things that weren’t really there. Trauma-induced psychosis, he tried to assuage himself silently—that was the only explanation for the scene unfolding before him. Surely it couldn’t be you cupping that face, pinching that skin, shaking that cold and lifeless, blood-drenched frame beneath you as a sob racked through your own.

That signet ring on a pinky couldn’t have been real.

Bucky didn’t want to believe that gruesome discovery made manifest before him—in many ways, he couldn’t—but then it was painted clear as day as the cries endured, nothing changed, and a helpless, frantic wail rang out:

“DAD!”

—

Taglist: (If I missed anyone please lmk!!) @vicmc624, @she-could-never, @mcira, @kentokaze, @identity2212, @unaxv, @buchi91, @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007, @opibarnes @wilsons-striped-ties @desigirlxx, @pono-pura-vida, @geminiflanagansblog, @buggy14, @sky-full-0f-fl0wers, @buckysdoll1520, @armystay89, @minimarvelingmarvel, @kunakizen, @ghostiebby06, @blackhawkfanatic @dameron-grant-spector @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @gyokujyn @lunaroserites @first-edition @kaybaby2494, @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @daisychainsoflove, @mostlymarvelgirl @diannana @shawnberry @yujyujj @urmomsalex @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @sluttylittlewaistenthusiast @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @dixsond @aagn360 @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @thealyrs

[kimstills]

savor

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

summary: after being compromised to working a case the next day, aaron decides on savoring your current moment together for when he’s gone.

content warnings: heavy smut, 18+, minors do not interact! consensual recording, use of nicknames, slapping, choking, dirty talk, groping, aaron hotchner is a FREAK and has a big dick, allusions to m masturbation.

word count: 1.9k

a/n: very much inspired by this post, not sure if the original poster deleted it? but i couldn’t get it out of my head omfg i literally finished this in 2 HOURS AND IT’S NOT PROOFREAD

Aaron’s not sure where he gets the idea from.

Maybe it’s from the longing he already feels for you after being informed that the team was to take off for a case first thing tomorrow morning, even though he hasn’t even left yet.

Maybe it’s from the sexual tension that’s been filling your shared apartment ever since he stepped foot inside it, the original plan of having the weekend off and spending it with you immediately crumbling from his work.

But, even with his dick buried inside your sopping cunt, he’s just as surprised as you are when he gets the idea of grabbing his phone from where he had discarded it on his side of the nightstand table.

You whine when his movements falter for a split second, eyes widening as you stare up at him when his phone comes into your line of sight.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, already swiping right for his camera.

“You want to film this?” You ask from beneath him, his weight feeling a bit heavier as he stills.

Aaron nods, though your question makes him feel out of character. But at the sight of you sprawled underneath him on silk sheets, face a sweaty, yet beautiful mess makes him not care at all.

He leans down to press a feverish kiss to your cheek, looking you in the eyes when he pulls back, “If that’s okay with you,” the same kiss presses into your already swollen lips. “Just wanna savor the memory for when I’m gone.”

The thought of Aaron pulling up a sloppily filmed video of you two having sex while he’s away on a case immediately riles you up once more. Of him locking himself in his hotel room, fucking his cock into his hand while he watches himself fuck you from a previous time has you clenching around him.

You nod, “Okay,” you bite your lip and look up at him. “Film it.”

That’s all the confirmation Aaron needs for him to hit record and resume his actions, pummeling his still rock hard dick into your soaked pussy.

You let out a loud moan, throwing your head back. Your hand comes up to grip at the arm that wasn’t recording you for support and your eyes roll to the back of your head at the feel of the tip of his dick rubbing against your sweetest spot.

Aaron’s hands are shaky as he films you, lifting his phone higher to capture both your blissful expression and the way his cock disappears inside you with each thrust. His free hand slithers down to grip at the meat of your thigh before throwing it over his shoulder, consequently deepening his thrusts.

“O-Oh, fuck, Aaron!” Your back arches against the bed, nails digging into his forearm as each thrust sends you further over the edge, the coil in your belly threatening to finally snap.

“Look at the camera, pretty girl,”

Your boyfriend’s voice is deep and gravely, leaving you no choice but to submissively follow his orders and stare deep into the small circle of his phone’s camera.

You stare up at it, mouth slightly open to form a lazy, curved ‘o’ as each thrust Aaron delivers sends you further up the bed.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Aaron’s hand comes down to your throat, pulling you up and leaving your head slightly limp underneath his grip. “My slutty girl, taking my cock so well while she gets filmed,” a harsh slap is delivered to your face, making you gasp. “You like that, baby?”

You pout and try your best to nod with his whole hand wrapped around your throat, “I love it, Aaron.”

“I know you do, sweetheart, I can feel you clenching around my dick,” he teases, enunciating the word ‘dick’ with a particularly harsh thrust that gets you whining again. “You gonna cum, sweet girl?”

You nod harshly despite the limited air flow, eyes flickering from the camera to Aaron, “Y-Yes, yes. Can I cum, Aaron? Please?”

Your voice is whiny and desperate, filled with so much need that it takes everything in him to not cum right then and there. He lets out a grunt, hand tightening around your neck the slightest bit more, still careful as to not actually stop you from breathing, “Go ahead, baby. Cum around my cock.”

Immediately, the tightness in your lower belly snaps at Aaron’s permission, your body reduced to shaking and stuttering as your pussy clenches and unclenches around your boyfriend’s dick. Your orgasms washes over you violently, white spots filling your vision as he lets go of your neck to squeeze at your breast, fucking you through it with slower, more deeper thrusts.

“Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!”

His name leaves your lips like a babbled mantra, your release captured perfectly by his phone as his dick twitches inside you at the feeling of you gushing around him. When your body has calmed down and you’re practically left limp on the bed, he pulls out of you, bringing the phone down to your pussy so he can film the way your juices spill out of you.

He dips two fingers in, earning a squeal from above when he pushes them in just to pull them back out, showing the camera how soaked they come out.

Aaron groans at the sight of it and decides that it’s not enough. He stops the video and briefly sets his phone down besides you, bringing himself up to press a sweet kiss to your cheek once more, rubbing your tousled hair out of your face, “Can you give me one more, sweetheart?”

You hum from underneath him, looking at him with a fucked out expression.

“You can do that, right, baby?” Another kiss to your temple, “My good girl can handle one more for the camera, can’t she?”

You think that the concept of being recorded, of being so obsessed over by your lover that he wants to film you again gets you even hotter, the pushing of your thighs together desperately proving inevitably so.

Aaron immediately jumps into action when you nod ‘yes,’ giving you another kiss before helping you onto your hands and knees.

Once you’re settled, he leans over you to position his phone on the top of the bed frame, leant against the wall.

A whimper emits from your pursed lips when you feel the tip of Aaron’s dick rub against your still fully soaked folds, teasing at your entrance before shoving it back inside. Your back immediately arches in response, mouth flying open in a silent scream as your boyfriend bottoms out, hips hitting your ass.

He hasn’t even moved yet, hasn’t started hitting you from behind yet your arms already shake from feeling full.

“You good, sweetheart?” He asks, brushing your hair back endearingly.

You hum, nodding as you wiggle your ass against him. You lick your lips when you catch sight of how prominently his dick still stands, hitting against the muscles of his softly defined stomach.

He hovers above you momentarily and presses what seems like the millionth loving kiss to your cheek, sneaking his hand down to squeeze one of your breast affectionately, “Want you to keep looking at the camera while I fuck you, honey,” a kiss. Another kiss. And another kiss. “Okay?”

He begins to move his hips before you can reply, starting out slow and deep before eventually moving to the same pace he was using before.

You gasp and your hands shoot out to curl around the sleeve of the pillow in front of you. Your eyes glance towards his phone, where you’re more in focus of the phone’s frame than he is. Even with you on your hands and knees and him kneeling on the bed, you can only see the bottom half of his face.

Your eyes roll back to your head again, the only sounds audible being the ones of skin slapping against skin, Aaron’s grunts, and your silent huffs that match his pace.

A mixture of a cry and moan emits from your mouth when he lands a harsh slap onto your ass, gripping the flesh in his big hand. Your legs shake when another slap lands and you feel your arms give out from beneath you, falling limp onto your stomach.

“Oh, no,” Aaron mutters, leaning down and wrapping an arm around your neck as if he were putting you in a chokehold but without the same force like before. He pulls you flush against him, sweaty chest to sweaty back, “Want the camera to capture how I’m fucking you, sweetheart,”

His hand sneaks down to fondle at your breasts, caressing both lovely with a squeeze to each one, “You look so pretty getting fucked by my cock, honey,” he points at the camera. “Can’t wait to watch these and start a collection when I get back,” he presses a kiss to your hair. “You gonna let me do that?”

You can’t reply, too fucked out to do so. Instead, you watch yourself from where you’re held against him, watching your boobs bounce with each delicious thrust he delivers into your cunt and relishing in the hot breath that fans against your ear as he nips at the sensitive skin beneath it.

“A-Aaron,” you whine. “‘m g-gonna cum again,”

“Yeah?” He asks, hand sneaking down from your breasts to your folds, slipping his fingers to begin rubbing at your clit. “Go ahead, sweetheart.”

You scream, body stuttering at the cruel pace he begins to touch you with. Your other hand shoots to grip that same arm, thrashing against his hold as another orgasm ripples through your body, filling you with even more pleasure and even overstimulation.

Aaron watches you from his phone, head dipped down to get a good view at the way you rode your high out on his hand and pushed back into his dick simultaneously, mouth open in a wide ‘o’ and legs shaking.

The way you clench around him like before pushes him further towards his own release. When he stops rubbing at your clit, it’s to bring the same fingers up to your tits, coating your nipples with your juices and squeezing them once more as he pushes through the last couple of thrusts that it takes for him to finally come inside you.

You’re whining in front of him with each shallow shove, feeling his come coat your walls. You mewl when he gives the side of your head another kiss before releasing his grip on you and allowing you to fall flat against the mattress once more.

Aaron grabs his phone and aims it at your pussy once more, your ass still somewhat high in the air. He spreads your ass apart, groaning in delight when some of his seed spills out of your pussy, giving the flesh another harsh slap.

“You did so well for me, sweetheart,” he mumbles, angling himself so that he could bend over you again and place much more sweeter, loving kisses your face. “I love you, honey,”

You hum, eyes fluttering closed before emitting a tired “Love you, too,” in response.

The next night, when Aaron is alone in his hotel room, somewhere in Arizona solving said case with his team, he pulls out his phone and presses on the private folder he created shortly after you had both finished and presses play.

When he himself finishes, come all over his chest and his right hand slack next to him while his left holds up his phone, he sets a mental reminder to record you sucking him off when he gets home.

[sashaisready]

Starting Over: Chapter 2 - Broken

Mob!Bucky x Female Reader

Series Masterlist

When Bucky throws you out of the house for a betrayal and won't listen to your side of the story, you know the only way out is through - it's time to start over. Maybe this was never going to be your happy ending.

I'm sorry, part 2 got a little out of hand in length so I've decided to split it up into different chapters! There should only be one more part after this (maybe??!) Hope you enjoy! This is more of Bucky's POV and gives some more insight into what happened. Thanks for all your engagement with this series, as always comments and reblogs are appreciated! Unfortunately I no longer use taglists.

💔

Your phone sat on Bucky’s desk as he stared at it blankly. He wasn’t really sure what he expected, maybe that you’d call it, or it would magically reveal some sort of answers to the many questions he had. But it didn’t. It just laid there, about as useful as a rock. A ‘babe, how are you?! we need to hang out soon!’ notification from Natasha had lit up the screen an hour or so before, but otherwise it just continued to sit silently – an insulting prompt that mocked him with your absence, the clock on the screen taunting him with how late it had become.

He'd had a glance at the checking and credit card accounts he’d set up for you, but they hadn’t been touched. In fact, nothing had been touched. None of your clothes had moved, your toiletries remained in the bathroom. You hadn’t even appeared to have taken any shoes with you. Natasha’s casual check-in text suggested your friends were unaware of what had happened. You’d just…vanished. A ghost in the night.

He felt nauseous, his gut churning. He’d tried to find the CCTV footage of you leaving, but the image was grainy – he could hardly make you out. The cameras had been acting up lately, he needed Steve to get them fixed. He kept thinking about you wandering out into the night by yourself, no money, no plan, how he’d forced you out into the cold. The one person he swore to protect, to keep safe.

His guilt was eating him alive.

But then he thought of the recording. Your voice so clear, laughing with the fed – mocking Bucky, calling him names and sneering at his gullibility. He could hardly believe it all at first. Not you? Not his doll, who had opened him up to love in ways he could have never imagined. Surely it couldn’t have been you, who had uprooted his life for the better, who had hit him like a whirlwind, changing his very being forever in all the best ways?

But he’d checked in with Banner who ran the tech and had confirmed you had been there. Your phone had pinged the cell tower in that exact spot they’d tracked the meeting point to. They’d even found a CCTV clip of you getting in a strange car that day, despite telling Bucky you were having Wanda over for a girl’s night. The audio was delivered by his own men, verified by their informant. The evidence was overwhelming.

‘It was so easy’ you had giggled cruelly on the clip, the words burned into his memory, ‘I just fluttered my eyelashes a few times and he was asking me to move in after a few weeks. I barely lifted a finger yet he swallowed everything I gave him and asked for more. Now I know how his whole operation works…but I need more time on the Stark deal. Just give me a bit longer and I’ll have that one-armed pussy spill everything after a few more ‘I love yous’ and dirty fucks. I promise...’

Of course he’d seen red. How could he not? He’d always been hot-tempered (passionate, his mother used to say), and the recording had destroyed his entire world in a matter of seconds. Aside from the betrayal, the pain, he felt humiliated. He’d finally been vulnerable with someone, shared intimacy in ways he’d never experienced with another person – only to find out it was all a lie. A trick. A joke. It affirmed his biggest fear – that he had been correct to build those walls, to protect himself from anyone who would use his feelings against him. Love could be exploited as a weakness, and he’d turned up to the fight unarmed.

In his mind, he’d not thrown you out – not sweet, beautiful you. Not you who held him close in your sleep and nuzzled into his chest, not you who traced his scars with her fingers and encouraged him to take off his prosthetic when you were intimate if he wished to. Not you, who stayed up late on his birthday just to present him with a homemade cake when he came home after an exhausting meeting – insisting he blew out the candles. Did she ever even exist? He’d always joked you were too good to be true. Now he’d accidentally manifested that into reality.

No. He’d thrown out her. The woman who had been gathering intel on him since the moment the two of you had met. The woman who exchanged kisses for information. The woman who had laughed about all of this as she gleefully ratted on him, delighting in her prowess over the foolish, lovesick mob boss she’d so easily toppled. The woman who’d callously worn the mask of someone who loved him. She was thrown out of his house, out of his embrace.

Unfortunately, the two versions of you were one and the same.

But at least he knew better, now. He’d go back to casual sex and pretty girls hanging off his arm. Easy. Fun. Uncomplicated. The walls would go back up and they wouldn’t come down again. Deep down he’d always known that men like him weren’t meant to be loved, that they weren’t worthy of genuine affection. Not all voids could be filled. People like you, or at least who he thought you were, were not for him. They deserved better. You’d always deserved better. He’d had a brief taste of happiness, but that was all he deserved. The universe would continue to punish him for his many bad deeds.

The only thing left to do was finally go to bed, but a solemn knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts. He could tell it was Steve. 

“Steve?” he called, checking his watch. It was late, he’d assumed his second in command had already gone home.

Steve entered looking sullen. He was tensely holding his phone, and someone appeared to be on FaceTime with him. He cautiously extended it to his long-time friend.

“I’m sorry, Buck”, he said gravely.

“Steve..what?” Bucky asked as he gingerly took the phone from him. Sam looked back at him from the small screen, his solemn expression mirroring Steve’s.

“Bucky…I’m sorry,” Sam said quietly in that same tone, filling Bucky with a sinking dread.

Something was very wrong here.

“What is it?” He fired angrily at Sam, “just spit it out…”

Sam flipped the camera around to face what looked like a heap of old rags on the ground. He appeared to be in a parking garage, surrounded by nothing but concrete and darkness. It was hard to make anything out.

“What am I looking at here?” Bucky squinted at the camera as he tried to focus the image. Steve silently observed over his shoulder.

“Tell him what you just told us,” came the sound of Sam’s furious voice off-camera.

Bucky watched with confusion at the screen as Sam's boot suddenly kicked out at the heap, and the heap moved.

And then he clicked.

The ‘heap’ was a man.

The man groaned and cried out as Bucky realised the ‘rags’ were ripped, bloody clothes. He rolled over in obvious pain as Sam manoeuvred the camera to get a better look. As the man turned over, Bucky recognised his face. 

It was one of his own. 

“Rumlow?” Bucky asked with confusion. 

Behind him, Steve moved closer and leaned forward to watch the screen. “Just watch, Buck” he said sombrely.  

Rumlow looked up at the phone, blearily staring into the lens as he squinted at the phone light. His face was bruised and bloodied. Someone had given him a good going over. 

“It was me. Alright? I did it,” Rumlow groaned.

“Did what?” Bucky sneered, still not entirely clear on where this was going – but already feeling his anger mounting.

Rumlow sighed heavily and Sam gave him another swift kick to the ribs to encourage him to continue. 

He moaned out in pain and closed his eyes. “Aaargh. Alright…I did it! I did it okay! I made the recording!” he spat.

Bucky’s eyes darkened as comprehension of the situation unfolding began to take hold. His fist tightened around the phone screen. “Which recording…Rumlow?” He asked, his voice sinisterly calm. 

Rumlow paused and spat a wad of blood onto the floor. Bucky recognised the look of fear building in the man’s eyes, he’d seen it many times before. Rumlow was stalling to delay the inevitable.

“Tell me!!” Bucky roared at the phone, holding it so tightly in his fist that the screen might crack.

He watched Rumlow wince as he turned away from the screen, dropping his head in defeat.

“Of your girl…talking to the police…it wasn’t her-uh-it wasn’t even real. I used AI. From…from recordings of her voice from old security footage…I’m sorry…I just-”

But Bucky was eerily composed. Rumlow took his silence as the cue to continue.

“I hacked into the security system and planted the clip of her getting in the car. And I stole her phone for a few hours when she was at the house with a friend, planting it at the meeting point then driving back with it. She didn’t even notice it was gone…I’m sorry I…”

Bucky cleared his throat. He tapped a single contemplative finger over his lips as his eyes glazed over.

“Sam?” he asked, his voice void of emotion. 

Sam flipped the camera back to face himself. He looked grimly into the lens. “I’m sorry Buck…we had no idea…I caught him on the phone with the feds about the shipment – he thought I’d already left and-”

“Keep him warm,” Bucky interrupted, his voice cold like ice, “I have more urgent matters to attend to first, but I will deal with him”.

Sam merely nodded. Just as he cut the call, Bucky heard Rumlow wail and beg in the background. He’d be doing a lot more of that soon.

In a sudden fog of anger, Bucky pelted his phone hard against the wall. He roared with rage, lobbing his scotch glass at the window – shattering both. He flipped his desk, the chair, the bookcase – leaving a tsunami of destruction in his wake. Steve merely watched on, patiently. He knew Bucky needed to vent whichever way he could.

Eventually Bucky slowed, panting with exertion as he took a second to try and slick back his hair, now unkempt and messy from his outburst. He pulled back his shoulders as he attempted to regain his composure.

“We’ll find her, Buck”, Steve told him unwaveringly. “She can’t have gone far on foot. Then you can explain everything and apologise”.

Bucky shook his head as he ran his hands through his hair. Toeing the pile of debris that now cluttered his office floor he sighed heavily. “She told me she didn’t do it, Steve. And I didn’t believe her…”

“The recording was very convincing,” Steve clamped a sympathetic hand onto Bucky’s shoulder, “it sounded just like her – and had all of us fooled. Not to mention the phone location evidence…the CCTV of her leaving…before I came up here, Sam told me that this AI is brand new tech, far more advanced and convincing than what the masses have access to…”

Bucky bleakly shook his head, “Doesn’t matter. She’s my girlfriend and I’m supposed to trust her. Believe her. When I heard her voice on that recording I just…”, he trailed off sadly, “…it tapped into my worst fears…”

Steve nodded sagely. “Let’s just find her first, and you can talk to her. And then we can deal with Rumlow”.

Bucky grimaced, “I knew he was a risk to take on…with our shared history in HYDRA’s organisation…but I never thought…”

“Let’s just find her for now,” Steve repeated, always calm in a crisis. He pulled out his phone, making calls to various members of their group, sending out texts and kicking off various communication chains. In mere minutes, they’d have entire squads of their men scouring the area with a fine-tooth comb.

Bucky stood amongst the wreckage – the room’s physical ruins a glaring reminder that this wasn’t the only mess he’d made tonight. He pulled his own phone from his jacket pocket, opening his photo album as the pings and buzzes from Steve’s device filled the room. He flicked through the pictures of you: your face cheesily grinning at the camera, your lips sweetly planted on his cheek, a candid shot of you cooking in the kitchen – caught off-guard, your mouth a small ‘o’ of surprise. You’d asked him to delete it as you thought you looked dumb, but he insisted he keep as he like the way your eyes sparkled in it. It was one of his favourites. Looking at the pictures helped him calm down, his breath evening as he remembered what was important here. He ran a finger over the image of your face, “I’m sorry, doll” he whispered, “I promise I’ll do anything I can to fix this…”

A couple of miles away, you slept deeply in the tear-stained hotel sheets – completely unaware of the organised efforts to track you down. You didn’t dream, you didn’t stir, you just slept - grateful to give yourself over to oblivion.

💔

There had only been a few places you could have gone on foot.

Bucky’s men had worked quickly despite the late hour. The local police force, already firmly in Bucky’s pocket, loaned him a few law enforcement bodies to assist with the search, no questions asked – as was standard. Sheriff Bodecker always played ball. They collected the CCTV from local businesses, doorbell cam footage from local residents (who weren’t particularly happy to be woken to do so, but didn’t have much choice), swept the area on foot and in vehicles. It was faintly possible you had hitchhiked and thumbed a ride into the city, but Bucky knew this wasn’t likely, so they put that option on the backburner – although it hadn’t been entirely ruled out.

The gas station staff hadn’t seen you, but their CCTV did catch a blurred figure passing in the road opposite the camera. A faint outline of your route started to emerge as the puzzle pieces came together. Eventually, Bucky was sent the security footage of you checking into the Holiday Inn. His heart pulled as he watched you looking lost at the reception desk – your eyes round like saucers as you produced crumpled dollar bills, head turning left to right as you surveyed your drab surroundings. He could only imagine how lost you must’ve felt, how hurt and betrayed. Exiled by the man you loved, you trusted, and having to hunker down in a shitty roadside hotel. Part of him was impressed by your ability to pick yourself up and keep going even in the toughest circumstances – it was one of the many reasons he loved you. But mainly, he was ashamed. Ashamed that he’d pushed you to this, that he’d failed you in so many ways.

Bucky inhaled deeply as he closed the hotel clip on his phone, nodding to his driver and stepping into the dark SUV.

I’m on my way, doll.

[ozzgin]

A nice character with a yandere split persona. The Yandere persona was born out of the abandonment of the character by a loved one, maybe mom. Did he kill her just so she could stay? Maybe. Only the Yandere persona knows, the character is oblivious, he just knows his mom left him. But he oddly feels ok about it as though the situation has been reconciled... which is weird to him.

Now he meets and falls in love with yn. She must not leave. It's f around and find out

Btw I love you ❤️❤️❤️ The Yokai series is my fave

Oooh, I’ve been thinking of a context for your idea and I somehow got stuck on a serial killer who is unaware of it most of the time. Since you mentioned abandonment and obsession, my mind wandered to some of the typical habits, such as collecting trophies. I’ve also been wanting to try my hand at writing a serial killer, so hopefully it turns out to your liking. (Sending back the love, always a pleasure to see your comments ❤)

Although let me include a little disclaimer, because I am aware many things in the sphere of true crime are problematic: this in no way glorifies or romanticizes serial killers. Just a reminder that this is a work of fiction and all behaviors displayed are for the sake of an interesting story, not to be admired in real life.

Yandere! Serial Killer x Reader

You're temporarily staying with a kind, quiet man renting out a room in the house he inherited. It's just the two of you, and a locked bedroom he claims to be vacant. Yet as night falls, you hear the whispered arguing of a voice you don't recognize. Is anyone else there?

[Part 2] | [More original works]

Content/TW: female reader, mentions of murder, obsessive behavior, horror

You must break the pattern today, or the loop with repeat tomorrow

He stares at the locked drawer of the bureau. The clock ticking in the background fades into an irritating buzz, drumming against his ears at irregular intervals like a swarm of insects. Once again, he cannot remember where the key is. Yet he does not feel compelled to search for it. It cannot be anything of significance, he tells himself. Forgotten knick-knacks, perhaps. Despite the apparent lack of curiosity, he is drawn here every morning. He wakes up, carefully folds the sheets, and goes to sit in the office. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Until, at last, the noon hour strikes, and the hallways are flooded with ghastly chimes.

Lately, however, other sounds have taken over the usual silence that envelops the house. The main door rattles faintly before opening with a creak.

“They were out of our bread rolls. I got a baguette instead.”

It’s you.

He stands up, as if startled from deep slumber, and hurries downstairs to greet you. He takes the grocery bags from your hands, flashing a smile of gratitude. Somehow, the idea of another person living here is still foreign to him. He’s gotten so used to the solitude, the quietness of the house. Time stands still when there’s no one else to remind you of it.

You glance up at the tall man, noticing his slight frown.

“Another brain fog?” You ask, worried.

“Don’t mind me. It’s a morning routine at this point”, he jokes. “More importantly, what would you like for breakfast?”

He always cooks for both of you. Initially, you were rather hesitant to go for his offer. You’d been looking for temporary accommodation and stumbled upon his advertisement. A cozy, vintage house the man had inherited from his lamentably departed mother, with one too many spare rooms. He had no need for all the space, he said in his description. You paid him a visit and were taken aback by his appearance. A massive, muscular frame that did not fit the rest of his mannerisms and features. He was soft-spoken, polite, and terribly shy. His eyes reflected the kind of gloom to be expected from anyone in his situation.

A sweet, gentle soul looking for company. On top of that, if you are to be technical, he’s a housemate difficult to compete against. Well-kept, mannered, organized, and thoughtful. He keeps to himself. You’d learned, soon after moving in, that he suffers from the occasional brain fog and memory loss. He goes for walks at odd hours to clear his mind. Enjoys reading in his office, although you’ve caught him just staring into space many times. Terribly inconvenient for the poor lad, you imagine.

The house itself is also not a bad deal by any means. Old fashioned, littered with trinkets and paintings. “My mother liked to collect many things”, he’d told you. It certainly has personality, to put it mildly. Some belongings are more bizarre than others: portraits of faceless people, with features smudged or distorted, doll heads in pompous, feathered collars hanging in clusters across the musty walls. Peculiar, but manageable.

Only at night does it become unsettling.

“Going for a walk?”

You’re curled in one of the armchairs, flipping through a magazine you found. It’s been hours since your little breakfast together and now the sun is beginning to set. The man is buttoning up his coat, standing in the doorframe and gazing at you with a smile.

“Yeah. I’m starting to detach a little. Maybe some fresh air will help.”

It’s nice, he thinks, having you here. He didn’t expect much when he ventured to rent out a room. He just wanted to hear the murmur of life again. Ever since his mother has passed…when did it happen, again? Better yet, how did it happen? Christ, he can’t remember. The last memory he has of her is not something to cherish. She was angrily shoving him out of the way, visibly annoyed by his cries and pleading. “Please don’t leave me”, he kept croaking in a pathetic tone, dragging his knees like a beggar. Then it’s all black. Black, like the cover they kept over her body at the morgue, to hide the mutilated remains. Black, like the tie he struggled to knot before her funeral. At that time, the sheets of her bed were still scattered, as if she never left. He could almost see her there, reflected onto the mirror’s surface – rather dirty as a matter of fact, he should wipe it soon – sitting melancholically on the edge of the mattress.

To think he’d be hearing footsteps again. A soothing voice. Even if it’s temporary, your presence in the house has been a blessing. Even if you must leave eventually. His lips purse involuntarily.

You hear the door close, followed by the key twisting inside the lock. You’re alone now.

With haste, you get up and sprint upstairs. You pull out a hairpin from your pocket and discreetly insert it in the cylinder. Today you find out if the spare bedroom truly is as vacant as your housemate claims.

When you first viewed the house, he mentioned that only this room will remain locked. It was his mother’s and he’d rather not look at it, he said. Let it gather dust, for all he cares.

Only at night, you’ve been hearing someone else’s voice. It didn’t happen immediately. Weeks after you’d moved in, you woke up thirsty and tiptoed on your way to the kitchen for a glass of water. On your return, you were surprised to see dim light coming from underneath the door of the forbidden bedroom. Visitors of your housemate? You hurried back into your bed, not wanting to intrude. But the following night you jolted up from the same mumbled voice. Strange that he’d invite someone over this late - twice in a row! - without saying a word to you. Even more, they were arguing like this. Curiosity got the better of you, so you snuck out and placed your cupped ear against the wall.

“No, no, no, no. I’m telling you, it’s different. She’s different from the others.” A deep, ragged voice retorted angrily.

Suddenly, there was a loud thud, a fist smashing against something, then glass shattering over exasperated, shouted curses. You ran back to your room, baffled. Who on Earth was there? You could feel your heart throbbing inside your chest.

Morning couldn’t come quick enough. You marched over to your housemate, demanding to know who this stranger was. He stared at you, wide eyed and incredulous. “There’s no one else here, dear. Just you and me.” Nonsense. You knew what you heard. You’d been wide awake! He gently placed the back of his hand against your forehead. “Could it be that you’re sick? Weather has been dreadful lately.” You scanned his face with hitched breath. Was he mocking you? Yet his features betrayed no such intent. The man seemed genuinely worried; face twisted in a caring frown.

Then what? A ghost? An intruder that fancied having a chat in a dead woman’s bedroom?

You fiddle with the pin until you hear the click. Finally. Surely whoever has been frequenting the place must’ve left some clues behind. You carefully open the door and peek inside. A broken mirror and some furniture covered in webs. There’s a lingering rusty smell that tickles your nostrils, and soon enough you find the source. Next to the old bed lays a cloth splattered red. On top of it, a leather folder from which scalpels and other surgical tools fell out haphazardly. Blood? Your mouth curls in disgust. You crouch to the floor to inspect the odd items and notice a jar glistening from underneath the bed. You pull it towards you and give it a rattle. Nothing heavy. You lift the jar into the light for a better look and gasp.

Fingernails.

“Oh, I forgot to put those away.”

It’s the same deep voice you’ve been hearing at night. Your stomach drops and you turn, slowly, towards the entrance. Horror is swiftly replaced by confusion once you realize it’s none other than your housemate.

“Y-you’re back from your walk?” You blurt out.

“Walk?” He inquires. “Ah, that’s what he told you.” He steps towards you and lowers himself to your level with a grin.

“Have you come to say hello?” He points towards the tall, shattered mirror. “This is (Y/N), mother. See, I told you she’s stunning. You didn’t believe me.”

He ruffles your hair with a boldness completely unfamiliar.

Nausea overwhelms you and your ears ring in panic. Whatever is happening right now is beyond your understanding.

“I’d like to go to my room now.”

“I recognize that speech all too well. You want to run away.”

Within seconds, he grabs one of the scalpels and points it towards your throat, poking your skin with its cold tip.

“Now, don’t embarrass me in front of her like that. Do you know how hard it is to convince this bitch of anything? I told her you’re not like them, (Y/N). Don’t prove me wrong.”

“Them?” You whisper, lungs devoid of air.

“Come, let’s put this with the others first.” He pockets the scalpel and lifts you up by the hand, tenderly kissing your fingers in the process. “Then we can talk.”

You follow him into the office, and he unlocks one of the desk drawers. Against your better judgment, you stretch over his shoulder and glance inside. ID cards of various women, jewelry, lipsticks. Teeth. Fingernails.

You want to cry.

He nonchalantly dumps the contents of the jar into the drawer and slams it back shut, then throws himself in the chair and pats his thigh, eyeing you. With a sob, you clumsily climb onto his lap.

“Back to our matters. What were you planning on doing?”

“I just wanted to lay in bed.”

He takes out the scalpel and draws a line across your cheek. It stings.

“Don’t lie, (Y/N). You have nothing to gain from being naughty with me.” He coos, placing a kiss over the fresh wound.

“I wanted to run away.” You confess, petrified.

“Good. Do you now understand what happens if you try to run away?”

You briefly look at the drawer and nod.

“I knew you would. You’re so smart.” He strokes your hair fondly. “Not an easy decision to make, mind you. I love you more than anything in this world. Who’d enjoy killing their one and only?”

The man ponders his next words with a hum.

“Don’t count on getting away while he’s awake, either.” He taps his temple and chuckles. “He has no idea and won’t stop you, but I can easily find you again.”

The eggs sizzle in the pan as you stare at your plate, background sounds melting into shapeless static. After a couple more minutes, the man turns off the stove and places the food on the table with a cheerful whistle.

“Eat up!” He encourages you.

You hold onto your fork with faintly trembling hands.

“This might be the last breakfast I cook for you, after all. You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” His last sentence trails off and he smiles, dejected.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could…stay here instead.”

He gazes at you in disbelief.

“Truly? I-…That’d be fantastic.” He laughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his head, a deep red blush spreading over his cheeks. “Do excuse my rudeness. To be honest with you, I’ve grown quite fond of our arrangement. I really do like having you here.”

You return the smile without responding.

“Most exciting news. I’ll get the documents from the office after we eat, so we can draft a new lease.”

“That’d be lovely”, you answer curtly.

“Say, have you by any chance stumbled upon a small key around the house? I wanted to finally unlock the drawer upstairs, but I can’t remember where I could’ve left it.”

The knot in your stomach tightens.

“Not at all.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m sure it’s nothing important, anyways. Old memorabilia, most likely.”

[prentissluvr]

something about being close — sam winchester

pairing : s.2!sam winchester x gn!reader, featuring platonic dean ➖⟢ genre : angst, fluff, ➖⟢ cw : sam and reader are lovingly mean to each other, bad insults (weird, stupid, lame), bad jokes, swearing, canon typical violence and ghosts, arguing, so much kissing, could be ooc but idc, edited but most likely still contains a few mistakes, single usage of y/n ➖⟢ wc : 9.5K summary : sam is acting weird, and when it puts people in danger, you can't let it slide (despite the fact that you're totally in love with him).

“hey, check this out,” sam calls to you and dean, not bothering to look up from his computer screen. “think we found our violent spirit.” you part from your own research without a single qualm, resting a hand on the back of sam’s chair as he leans back for you and dean to get a better look. “marissa hancock. she was a student at the college, died a violent death there, just like we thought. it’s thought that the janitor impaled her with his mop while he was working in her dorm hall, but he was never put away for lack of evidence.”

“explains the janitor kabob,” dean quips, already headed to shrug on his jacket. 

“easy solve,” you admit. it only took a solid half hour of searching through records to find the right murder. “but why’s she killing now? she’s had, what?” you lean further over sam’s shoulder to inspect the record, “fifty some years to be killing janitors, why start now?”

“dunno,” sam shrugs, and you can feel his shoulder brush against you, reminding you how close he is. doing your best to stay casual and maybe not stare longingly at his pretty face from this close up, you straighten your back and go to grab your own jacket as sam types away on his keyboard. “looks like her original murderer died two weeks ago.”

“right when the killings started,” dean finishes. “alright, let’s go. you got where she’s buried, sam?”

“yep,” he stands, shutting his laptop. “saint mercy cemetery, not too far.”

“hm,” you laugh out, “second saint mercy cemetery this month. people need to get more creative,” you note as you exit the motel room and head down the short hallway to get to the impala.

“and what would you name a cemetery?” dean asks, ready to catch you off guard or tease you for anything he can get his hands on.

“i should have thought of a clever answer before saying that,” you admit, “but i do wish it were socially acceptable to call them dead people neighborhoods.”

“that’s lame,” sam grins, throwing his arm around your shoulders for just about two seconds before he has to let go to get through the small doorway and outside.

“c’mon,” you complain, “i know it’s kind of lame, and definitely insensitive, but imagine someone just asked you where you’re headed after work and you get to tell them you’re going to the dead people neighborhood. cemetery’s no fun, at least dead people neighborhood is accurate.” you close the back door of the car behind you as you settle in to punctuate your point.

“you’re weird,” sam teases in a matter-of-fact tone, not even looking back from the passenger's seat to see the sneer on your face.

“no, you’re weird,” you fire back.

“alright, kids,” dean interrupts, “enough bickering like we’re four, we’ve got a job to do,” he snickers as he backs the car up.

“okay, dean,” you and sam chime, voices full of mocking and almost totally in sync. dean rolls his eyes hard, because it’s just one of those days where the two of you can’t stop feeding into the antics of the other, regressing the combined mental age of the three of you by at least twenty years. 

having known the brothers since you were kids through bobby, and starting to hunt with them about a year and a half ago, you’ve certainly grown close with the both of them. but a little closer in age, you and sam are nothing but two peas in a pod. and much to dean’s chagrin, that means it only takes a split second for the two of you to switch things up and turn against him when he tries to break up your banter. it’s pretty much all loving argumentation, of course, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying as all hell for whoever has to witness it.

“and for the record, i like dead people neighborhood,” dean offers, ignoring your moment of synchronicity with sam.

“yes!” you celebrate, reaching around the seat in front of you to lightly hit sam’s shoulder. “you’re the lame one, you’re no fun.” 

he scoffs, mumbling something to himself about how, “of course dean likes dead people neighborhood. it’s stupid.”

you resist the urge to tell him that he’s stupid, and instead follow dean’s direction to focus on the case.

“hold on, dean. you should drop me off on campus first, one of us should make sure another janitor doesn’t fall on his mop handle before we can burn the bones,” you suggest.

“no.”

your brow furrows at how fast sam shuts you down, his serious tone a harsh contrast to his practically whiny mumble moments before. you glance at dean to see that he’s got his own eyebrows raised in confusion.

“what’d’you mean, ‘no’?” you question.

“i mean,” he clears his throat as if he’s just realized his strong denial was awkward, “that that could be dangerous alone, so i’ll go and you can stick with dean.”

you send a bewildered look to dean, one he doesn’t catch trying to pay attention to the street name up ahead. “i’m sorry, are you suggesting i can’t handle a measly ghost?” mostly you’re confused by sam’s words, but you can’t help letting a bit of offense slip into your voice.

“n-no, no that’s not what i’m saying,” he fumbles, trying to fix what he said, “i meant– i meant it would be safer for anyone not to go alone. so– so i’ll go with you and dean can stick with burning the body.”

it’s a clumsy, bad save that’s entirely unconvincing.

“you’re seriously gonna stick me with grave digging duty?” dean grunts, “y/n’s right, it’s just one ghost, we don’t need two of us to deal with it. digging up a grave is arguably harder.”

“exactly,” you reason, “which is why i should go scope out the dorm hall, and you should go with dean to the dead people neighborhood.”

“she’s buried in a family mausoleum,” counters sam, “her grave doesn’t need to be dug up, which means it’s a one person job, and since there could be an actual violent ghost in the dorm, two people should go. and don’t try to make dead people neighborhood a thing, at the very least it’s too long, not to mention it’s not funny.”

despite the fact that he’s teasing you, you’re glad to hear something normal come out of his mouth. his hesitancy to let you take on the ghost is odd, especially considering the ghost might not show up at all. it’s not like he’s never been protective of you, it’s in both his and certainly dean’s nature. but he knows full well that you are completely capable of handling one violent ghost, and he’s been weird like this for the past two weeks.

you laugh when you admit, “it wasn’t quite as good in context as i thought it would be, but it wasn’t that bad, i’m just tryna to stick with my bit,” you defend, “and fine, two people at the dorms, one on dead person arson.”

“are you serious?” sam laughs, halfheartedly tossing his head back to give you a judgemental look through the corner of his eye.

“dead serious, pun absolutely intended,” you let out a full laugh at the strangled sigh he lets out. oh how you love to rile him up with bad jokes. “you’re too easy, sam. for that, i’m sticking you on grave duty. dean and i will handle the dorm.”

“you should be on grave duty, for all the bad jokes today,” he argues.

dean practically growls in annoyance, “how about i go on grave duty, so i can get away from your annoying asses.” it’s not a suggestion, and the both of you huff out a sigh, but don’t argue.

dean drops you off a little ways from the dorm hall for you to grab a shotgun and salt rounds with less of a chance of being seen. you leave the other shotgun for dean just in case, bothered that yours is still broken from the last hunt. there hadn’t been enough time to fix it yet. so, you grab an iron rod, hoping to use that before any guns on a college campus. it’d be a sticky situation to get out of, being caught with shotguns in a dorm, and at the very least incredibly inconvenient to scare the hell out of a bunch of college aged kids at eleven pm. sam sticks the shotgun under his jacket, generally hiding it from the view of anyone not looking too closely.

walking a few minutes, you find the right dorm hall and sam hands the gun off to you to pull out his lock pick. but, glancing behind you, you shove the gun back into his hands and yank him into you.

“the hell?” he resists for a split second before you quickly interrupt him.

“shut up! hide the gun and act like you’re piss drunk. someone’s coming,” you hiss. in a swift movement, he tucks the gun back under his jacket as you shimmy the iron rod into your sleeve, then he swings his free arm around you, practically dropping half of his weight on you. “dude,” you complain, before falling into character. “sammy, come on!” you whine loudly. “i can’t reach my id with you like this,” you pretend to feel around for something in your back pocket while keeping him standing, and he immediately picks up on what you’re trying to do. he stumbles forward so that you have to use both hands to keep him upright, and you curse at your false struggle. “help me out here, sammy, will you?” you try to make your voice sound overly desperate, maybe a little innocent too, “why don’t you lean against the wall so we can get inside,” you beg, trusting sam to play his part well.

“nooo,” he slurs, dragging the word out in a whiny pitch, “don’t wanna.” he turns into you and haphazardly wraps his lanky arm all the way around your form, tugging you to him and nearly knocking the both of you over. you feel heat rush to your cheeks at this and desperately remind yourself that he’s only pressing his face into your neck so that he can get a look at the person approaching and keep the shotgun well hidden from view.

you see the girl out of the corner of your eye, young and clearly a student headed for the dorm.

“oh, thank god!” you exclaim, “hey, i’m so sorry to bother you, but do you think you could open the door for us?” you ask as sweetly as you can, pulling your eyebrows together to gain sympathy, before adding on a humorous tone, “my boyfriend is stupid drunk and i can’t get us inside.” you can feel sam stiffen for a split second at your words, and you yourself wonder if you should have just gone the “friend” route for the sake of your own sanity. you’re going to want to keep calling sam your boyfriend, over and over again.

“oh my god, of course,” she laughs goodnaturedly, and you thank the lord she’s laid back, rather than some uptight rule follower ready to report you to administration. she swipes her id and holds the door open for you, and as you struggle into the building, you think that sam is making this harder for you than it has to be. but there’s absolutely no denying you love the way it feels to just have him all over you, even for the sake of illegally entering a building with a gun.

“thank you so much,” your voice is one big sigh of relief, slightly muffled by the fabric of sam’s jacket.

“yeah, don’t worry about it,” she smiles, “you two are super cute, by the way,” she compliments before turning towards the stairs and waving a kind goodbye.

you do your best to not stumble over your words as you thank her, heat once again rising to your face, and you’re sure that sam can feel the warmth of your neck. body stiff, you turn and head down the hallway in the opposite direction, sam still clinging to you until it’s clear.

“alright, get off, you big dork,” you snort, gently pushing him away and doing your best to regain your composure to proceed as if you don’t have a massive crush on him. “did ya have to make it so hard for me?”

he shrugs with a sly grin, “had to make it convincing, didn’t i? besides, it was your idea, you don’t get to complain.”

you stick your tongue out at him and he raises his eyebrows as if to say, “really?”

“she was really nice,” you note, voice almost wistful in a way that sam easily picks up on. about a year into hunting with the brothers and dean was off buying food, you and sam had collapsed onto a motel bed together as you had many times before by then, both exhausted after a long case. that night, as you spoke in tired, hushed tones, with no need for anyone but the other to hear your words, you had somehow ended up with your head resting on his biceps and one of his legs swung over yours. 

that’s the night you told him you were jealous that he got to go to college, even if it wasn’t for long. you’d told him how you liked the idea of that life, even if you had to return to hunting after it was over. you wanted friends your age, to learn, go to stupid parties and have a college partner. you knew the experience wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but you wanted it anyway. he’d said, sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than hunting in his opinion. he wanted you to have that. once this was all over, and you both got justice for your families, he’d help you apply, make sure you got in somewhere, maybe even go with you. a hush fell over the room and he knew you weren’t convinced.

“yeah, she was,” he says, his own voice a touch more gentle than moments ago. “we were lucky.” he doesn’t want to tell you that most college kids would be at least cool enough to let you inside, maybe not as friendly as her, but that it’s true you’d like it here. he doesn’t want to remind you of what you can’t have. 

a silence falls over the two of you, punctuated only by the shuffling of your feet or the rustle of clothes. it’s comfortable and easy because you’ve done it a million times before. you don’t have to say anything to agree that you’ll head to the basement where the original murder occured. the both of you stay quiet and light on your feet, sam always peering around corners before rounding them.

in the basement he stops you with a simple finger to his lips. he leans in close to whisper as quietly as he can, “janitor’s here.”

you resist the urge to call said janitor an idiot, because who the hell is going to be cleaning an area in which three of your coworkers have mysteriously died in the past two weeks, but you just nod instead, taking in the way that sam’s eyes look under the dim light.

“wanna wait around til dean calls or warn him?” you ask, equally as quiet. he turns his head to look back around the corner before continuing.

“well, we should warn him, but we can’t use the drunk ruse on an employee. he probably has a radio scanner on him, might even be connected to campus security,” he points out.

“fbi?”

“we look too much like college kids right now,” he reasons.

“right,” you agree, “well then, stupid college kids trying to see a murder scene? we’ll link arms and you can hide the gun behind your back. just so we’re near him til dean burns the bones. hopefully nothing’ll even happen.” it’s as if you jinxed it all in that moment, as the lights immediately begin to flicker, the buzz of electricity filling your ears and a sudden chill filling the air. “nevermind,” you curse, flicking the iron rod back into your hand and barging around the corner, only a hair behind sam.

“way to jinx it,” he grunts.

you just scoff and beg him, “just try not to use the gun.” this time neither of you attempt to hide your presence as your shoes pound against the tile floor.

“no promises,” sam says, the gun up and loaded in front of him.

“what the hell?” the janitor barely has the time to exclaim before he’s thrown against the wall.

“i got it,” you warn sam, eager to avoid gunshots and sprinting full speed towards the apparition, iron rod in front of you. you throw all your weight into reaching the ghost of the young girl before she can flicker out of reach. the iron in your hand makes contact, and she evaporates for the time being. unfortunately for you, your momentum keeps you going, through the space the ghost just occupied and straight into the section of the floor slick with soapy water. with no time to gain any semblance of your balance, you slip and come crashing to the ground. your back hits the floor and the wind gets knocked out of your lungs in the same moment that the iron skitters out of your hand.

you struggle a bit to sit up due to the wetness underneath you, gasping slightly and letting curses fall from your mouth the moment you can speak again.

in a split second reaction, sam shouts your name, his voice inappropriately taught and worried for such a silly accident. he’s by your side in an instant, strong hands pulling you up and his anxious voice asking if you’re alright. you wave him off easily, unconcerned for yourself.

“help him,” you urge, “i’m fine.” but he doesn’t back off nearly as easily as you’d think.

“are you sure, did you hit your head? you couldn’t breathe for a second there,” his hands stay glued to you as he rattles off his concerns, ones that you find utterly unnecessary and unhelpful considering the fact that you’re fine, and the ghost could reappear any second. his strong grip keeps you from bending down to scoop up the iron rod, but you have to wrench yourself away from him when you hear a strangled cry come from the janitor. he whirls around with you to see the ghost with her hands around the janitor’s neck, crushing him against the wall as his feet dangle just above the floor. the iron rod is back in your hand in an instant, but sam’s shotgun lays abandoned on the floor a few feet away.

he dives for the weapon, but with a flick of the ghost’s hand, he’s knocked against the wall with a noise so loud it hurts to hear. before she can pay you attention, you fling the iron towards her, vaporizing her once more. the iron clatters to the ground as the janitor collapses to his knees. you rush towards him, pulling him away from the wall before tugging a container of salt from your jacket’s inside pockets. apologetically, you haul the poor man to his feet, throwing a quick look over your shoulder at sam. he’s groaning painfully, but already moving to get back up. 

knowing he’s easily survived worse, you turn your attention back to the janitor, who’s sputtering out confused and incoherent questions about what in the goddamn hell is happening.

“just stay there,” you urge him, too pressed for time to add adequate sympathy to your tone. “stay in the circle and she can’t get you.” with practiced ease, you shake the salt onto the ground with barely enough to make a small, solid ring around the man.

you scoop up the gun from the ground, then turn to help sam onto his feet. “we’re gonna have to tough this out til dean gets done,” is all you say when you place the weapon into his hands, despite the urge to ask what the hell is wrong with him and why he’s so off his game. you turn to grab your own weapon, but it seems the ghost is reappearing faster and faster. this time, you’re the one who gets tossed into the wall, but you stay pressed against the cold surface as a mop flies to meet you, the long handle pushing against your throat and cutting off your air supply. you take in a strangled gasp, hands clawing at the old wooden handle and giving yourself a few splinters that you couldn’t care less about in the moment. of course, it doesn’t budge.

the second you’re flattened against the wall, sam shouts your name again, this time with his gun in the air, swinging around to get a shot at the ghost. but before he can react, it flies out of his hand and she reappears right in front of him, pushing him against the wall across from you.

he struggles against her wildly, his hand itching to get free of her hold to reach the hidden iron knife in his pocket. but before he can get there, her grip weakens and she lets out a strangled scream as she bursts into flames. the flames climb up her old fashioned pencil skirt and swallow up the bloody wound in her abdomen. her grip on you and sam falters as she burns away, then dissolves completely as the last of her ashes fade out into the musty basement air.

you drop to your knees, coughing and gasping for breath as the sound of the mop clattering to the floor echoes through the hallway. sam’s saying your name, half through a cough and his voice still so worried as he stumbles towards you. then he’s on his knees too and his hands are sturdy on your shoulders.

“‘m fine,” you rasp out, hand reaching for his bicep to ground you to something solid and steady. he stays right there, completely ignoring the poor man who’s still practically frozen in fear in the tiny circle of salt and the ringing of his phone. one of his hands slips around you to rub soothing strokes up and down your back and it brings you even closer to him, your forehead dipping to rest on his shoulder. you feel silly for how much he’s fussing over you, but you can’t quite scold or question him until you’ve caught your breath. clearly something is bothering him (and you want him so bad), so you let him hold you close.

“are you hurt anywhere?” he finally asks once he feels your breathing even out under his touch. 

you pull away from him gently, shaking your head before verbally confirming, “no, i’m alright sam. nothing more than your typical bumps and bruises.” your voice is a touch raspy from the pressure on your throat, but it’s nothing that won’t go away with some water and rest, maybe some tea if really necessary.

his hands stay on you as he stands. “are you sure?” he asks, and you can’t figure out why on earth, heaven, or hell he’s so overly concerned about you. frankly, it’s starting to worry you. and definitely annoy you. all the sudden he’s acting like you’re fragile, like you can’t take care of yourself. things which he should know for a fact aren’t true.

he lets you slip away from his hold as you swoop down to pick up your lost weapons and face the poor janitor.

“sorry about that all. you can step out of the salt now.” he looks at you as if he can’t be sure, and your tone softens a bit. he’s young, probably just a college kid himself. “she’s really gone this time, i promise. you won’t ever have to worry about her again. though, i wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to look for a different job.”

he nods and thanks you, and you tell him to repay the favor by not mentioning you and sam. then, at a pace you certainly can’t blame him for, he scurries away.

“c’mon,” you nod to sam, “we should get out of here. you should also call dean back. he’s probably worried you didn’t answer.” with that, you turn back in the direction of the stairs without looking back at sam, rolling your eyes when your own cell ring. you pick up with a, “we’re fine, dean,” before he can even ask why the hell it took you so long to answer him. he lets out a sigh, half relieved, half annoyed. 

“what took ya so long?” he asks anyway.

“had a few bumps in the road since little miss janitor-killer showed up, but we’re fine. neither of us are hurt. would’ya pick us up in the same spot you left us?”

“yeah, ‘course. already on my way, see you crazy kids in five.” with that, he hangs up and you don’t have to glance over your shoulder to feel sam following behind. it’s all just the familiarity of his footsteps, the sound they make, and the pace at which he walks. it’s the particular rustle of his favorite jacket, soft and scratchy sounding all at once. it’s the feeling of his tall figure, his broad chest so close behind you that he’d run right into you if you stopped even for a moment. you debate whether to ask him what the hell is up now or at the motel. for now, the priority is getting out unnoticed, so you clench your jaw a bit and continue in silence because you’re beginning to feel a little angry with him. you think he can feel it, so he stays quiet too, all the way out the dorm and down the street to wait for dean.

it’s not uncommon to be quieter after a hunt is finished because you’re all usually tired and more often than not achey from some toss around or another. but sam can tell there’s something else bothering you tonight. from the way you tilt your shoulder away from him, the distance so nearly imperceptible that only he would notice, he’s willing to bet that he’s that something. and though he doesn’t want to admit it, he thinks he knows why. he just won’t be the first one to say something about it because he’s stubborn, a little prideful, and most of all, too afraid to explain why he’s acting this way.

even so, he just can’t help himself. he hovers near, so near that once you’re settled by the side of the road, you can feel him without actually touching him. you’re tempted to nudge him away, just because of how overprotective he’s acting. you’re also tempted to lean back into his chest because somehow you know his hands wouldn’t waste a second in gathering you up and keeping you closer than ever before. it starts to rain a little bit, soft and almost unnoticable if it weren’t for the new chill in the air. for a moment, you can feel one hand hover over your waist, just for a second before there’s a light swish of fabric when it falls back to his side. you wonder if he’s worried about you getting too cold.

you hear dean before you see him, the rumble of the impala coming into earshot moments before its headlights appear around the corner. the car slows as it nears you, pulling to the side of the road with the front windows down and some classic rock guitar riff filtering into your ears. the music’s quieter than you know it was just moments ago from when dean was alone. he greets you two with a simple, “hey,” once he’s fully stopped and you place your hand out, palm up and wordlessly asking for sam to hand you the rifle to put in the trunk.

“i got it,” he says, not waiting for you to argue when he takes the iron from the loose grip of your fist and makes his way to the trunk. you slide into the back seat behind the passengers side and return dean’s greeting.

he twists in his seat to watch you as you close your eyes and massage your shoulder with a wince. it’s beginning to become more sore, just like all the rest of your body.

“you okay?” he asks, voice full of his normal gruffness that tells you cares enough to ask but knows not to be too worried.

you open your eyes back up to give him a nod. “‘m fine. just the usual ghost beat down. y’know, bumps and bruises.”

“mm, sure do,” he agrees, “so what? dearly departed marissa thought you were janitors?” he asks skeptically. you hear the slam of the trunk, and moments later sam’s settling into his seat in front of you.

“no,” you scoff, “some idiot kid was actually cleaning down there. told ‘im to get a new job,” you snort humorlessly.

“well, i’ll say,” dean raises his eyebrows in agreement before twisting back to face the wheel. he sneaks a look between you and sam before switching the car out of park and getting back on the road. for a few minutes, all you hear is the muted music, the constant roll of the engine, the light patter of rain on the metal roof, and the road under the tires. then dean switches off the music. “anything happen back there that i should know about?” he ventures.

“no,” sam answers casually, “nothing, just the usual.” you don’t even answer. you just can’t figure out if you should involve dean, tell him how sam was unthinking and almost entirely uncaring about the innocent civilian involved, all because he was so worried about you.

“alright,” dean concedes, glancing at you through the rearview mirror and sounding entirely unconvinced. he doesn’t turn the music back on, just lets the silence reign, so you close your tired eyes and lean your head against the cold glass of the window. you’ve fallen asleep in the back of the impala countless times before, but your drowsiness doesn’t take over this time in favor of letting your mind wander over what to say to sam. you can’t just let it be, and tonight is certainly the worst it’s gotten. plus, it’s an easy habit for you to wait for sleep when you’re already so close to the motel. 

when dean pulls into the parking lot, he doesn’t turn off the engine. “gonna grab some grub. i’ll be back in a bit with the usual.”

“grab me something for dessert, will ya? ‘m craving something sweet,” you request, leaning towards the driver’s seat. 

“sure thing,” he nods, and you slide out of the car and close the door after a thank you and tired smile. “anything for you, sammy?” you hear him ask.

“i’m good, just the regular,” sam responds as he exits the car. you unlock the motel door, and he’s inside the room just a moment later, closing and locking the entrance behind him. you stand facing away from him at the shitty table, your jacket already strewn across the back of a chair. you can hear him behind you, going through his routine movements. he’s taking off his jacket, setting it down on the edge of the bed. then he’s pulling comfier clothes out from his pack.

“you wanna shower first?” he offers, breaking the silence of the room. you can feel his gaze on your back.

“sure,” you swallow, “thanks,” you say without any sort of edge to your voice.

“‘f course,” he says, and he means that. his eyes follow you as you pull out your own change of clothes, just a tshirt and sweats, and make your way to the dingy bathroom. you’re tired, so you’re quick with it, but the water’s already lukewarm by the time you’re done. you dry off and dress quick, eager to lay in bed.

and yet, when sam takes your place in the bathroom and the sounds of the shower start up again, you sit at the table instead, picking out a few splinters in your hands before folding your arms and resting your head against them. you stay that way, even when you hear the water turn off, the bathroom door open, his heavy footfalls that are only heavy because he’s so tall and not for lack of gentleness, then the scraping of the chair across from you. he doesn’t even say a thing, just looks at the top of your head and the tip of your nose. the shape of your hands, the point of your elbows, and the curve of your back.

with a deep breath and some pain in your neck, you lift your head. you look back at him and slump your chin into your palm.

“i’m upset with you,” you state.

he frowns. even his frown is pretty. “i know,” he sighs.

“so? why are you acting like this?” your voice is tired, but you still manage to infuse accusation into your tone, “sam, why are you suddenly acting like i can’t take care of myself out there? you’ve been weird for nearly two weeks now, and i don’t like it. i don’t like this.”

sam doesn’t know how to respond. he’s used to being yelled at, shouted at, angry at. he’s used to yelling and shouting and getting angry back. and though he’s certainly fought with you before, he’s still not used to the level tone and the way you say each word so slow, like you’re not actually arguing. just upset and rightfully a little angry, like you just want to understand. 

sure, he can hear the plain anger in your voice. you’re not trying to hide it. but you’re not yelling. how’s he supposed to use the heat of the moment to shout back, “i don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “i’m just trying to help,” when there is no heat in the moment? instead, he’s embarrassed and the only answer he can come up with, the only one that he can mean if he answers in that same, level tone you’re using is, one he’s having too much trouble saying aloud. any other answer would just be too wrong like that. or maybe if you were shouting, he’d tell you the truth, because he could yell it out, loud and rash without thinking about it. if he says it now, it’s not because he just let it slip. if he says it now, there’s no way to take it back, to get around everything threatening to bubble over the surface like forgotten water on a heated stove.

“i don’t think that you can’t take care of yourself. i know you can,” is all he says, because it’s true and it skirts around the real questions. his voice is rough, halfway between pleading and holding back from the anger he doesn’t yet know how to control. you heave a sigh.

“so why, sam? why?” you let the heavy question stew for a moment, then go on when he doesn’t even meet your gaze, “or, i don’t know, if you’re not gonna tell me, just promise me you’ll stop?”

he clenches his jaw because he knows he can’t. he just wishes you would shout. then, he’d tell you. he can imagine the words coming out of his mouth, but only if they’re loud, only if you’ve pressured him to do it. he realizes that’s probably fucked up. but the other way is too vulnerable, too vast of a leap to take to when he’s just not sure.

“sam,” you press, “you don’t have to worry about me, i swear. i don’t understand what’s got you like this, but it’s getting in the way of you being able to do your job right. that kid could have died because all you could do was worry about me,” that’s when you begin you raise your voice, just a little. because that’s what’s making you most upset about this. you hate it ‘cause you feel like he’s doubting your abilities as a hunter, but you hate it even more because it’s making him disregard the safety of others and of himself, for you. “sam, i only slipped. sure i got the wind knocked out of me, but you dropped your gun for that? frankly, that was stupid. and the poor kid was being choked, and if i hadn’t been lucky enough to throw the iron before she could react, he could have died. i need you to understand that. i need you to understand that i can do this job, that i’m strong enough, and that if you don’t trust me with that? people could die. and i’m not about to let that happen. so either you tell me what’s up and we figure it out, or you stop and i pay you the huge favor of just dropping the whole thing, okay?”

suddenly he looks all sad. “i do trust you,” he says, voice all sincerity and nothing more.

you close your eyes for a moment, half in frustration and half because you could really use some shut eye right about now. “that’s not– well, it is. it is part of the point. but i need an answer from you, i need you to tell me you won’t let whatever this is put somebody else in danger.”

he clenches his jaw. he’s still stuck. you still haven’t shouted.

“just spit it out. i can practically see something rolling around on the tip of your tongue. just say it, sam.”

there’s an edge to your voice, so maybe he can.

“i can’t lose you.”

there it is. it’s said with an edge, too, like he wanted to shout it but couldn’t. it’s said rough and a little bit angry and full of this undying faithfulness and yes, love. 

but you still don't quite understand it, so it makes you sigh. it makes your eyes soften a bit and it makes you a little angrier than before. it makes you want him to mean that with all his chest and it makes you want to shake him hard until he comes to his senses.

“that’s always been a danger, ever since we met. you know that,” your voice is something so oddly gentle in its frustration, “sammy, you’re my best friend, and i can’t lose you either. hell, i don’t think the words “best friend” even begin to cover the depth of how much i care about you. but we’ll both be safer if we trust each other, if we trust in both of our abilities to keep ourselves and the other safe. tell me that you understand that.”

it takes him a minute to speak again, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he searches for what to say. “two weeks ago,” is all he manages at first. you try to think back to it, and it immediately dawns on you. “i couldn’t prote–”

“sammy, no,” you interrupt, “that wasn’t your fault, okay? i know this doesn’t help to say, but we can’t always protect each other perfectly, to the extent we really want. i’d do anything for you, sammy, you know that.” after that there’s supposed to be a “but” where you explain to him that you can’t let that get in the way of your thinking straight and keeping everyone safe. instead, those last words just hang, suspended and weighty in the air.

“but you could’ve been killed,” the way he says your name is almost desperate. “it was dean that saved you. i was there and i couldn’t even help. what if next time, dean isn’t there? what if–,” his voice breaks, and he effectively cuts himself off from finishing the sentence. you know what he was trying to say.

any answer you give to that, you know isn’t enough. “but i wasn’t killed, sam. i’m here. i’m right here and i’m alive and i’m well and i don’t want to spend all my time worrying about you worrying about me. not like this.” you let that sit for a moment or two, and though his eyebrows are still all sad and pinched together, you think you’re starting to get through to him.

“but i can’t lose you,” he repeats stubbornly.

“sam,” you’re practically begging at this point, frustration creeping back into your voice, “the best way for you to keep me safe from ghosts and monsters and everything else is to take care of the problem, efficiently and effectively, like we always do. if there’s no monster, it can’t hurt me. but if you drop your weapon just because i slipped on soapy floors and lost my breath for a second? then it’s not just you and whatever innocent bystander around who’s more vulnerable now, it’s me too. so if that’s what it’s gonna take for me to convince you to stop fussing over me, then, please, think about it like that.”

sam is smart. he loves logic and reason, and you’ve handed him just that. but even more than that, he loves you. in the end, that trumps all.

“but i love you.”

he says it like a plea. like he didn’t mean to say it at all but it was the only thing running through his mind, and therefore, the only thing running off his tongue.

“sammy,” you breathe out, and then it’s like there’s no more air for you to breathe back in. that sweet nickname of his coming out of your mouth, resting on your tongue before tumbling into the air, is half like a drug to him, half like a bitter wind to sober him up quick.

“i– i only meant that i–,” he meant just that and now it’s said and now he’s never going to take it back, even if you hate him for it. “i meant that,” he says it firm and true this time, “i love you, so i can’t lose you.”

the way he looks at you, right into your eyes like they’re the prettiest things he’s ever seen, like you’re the best thing he’s ever had, oh, it has you hooked like bait has a fish who bit down too hard. it has you praying he never looks at anybody else like that again. it has you rising out of your seat and it’s pulling you across the small, wobbly table. he’s wedged into the grooves of your heart, so deep it could kill you to pull him out, so you follow the tug and he leans in too so the line isn’t so taught, so that it’s easy and comfortable and beautiful to reach his lips. 

his hands are like a net that catches you up in big, lovely swaths. they travel from your own hands, that lean against the table to keep your lips pressed to his, up to your elbows and then he knows he can never get enough. so he pushes up out of his own seat, drags his hands further up your arms until they can wrap around your biceps and push you up. not for a moment does he let his lips leave yours as he stands and pulls the both of you away from the table until he can bring you close, right into his wide, warm chest. then his hands can roam, gentle over your sensitive back, up to your neck then the back of your head to push your face into his. the other hand gets to go from your waist to your hips, or dip to the small of your back and press you flush to him.

you can only get away from him for a second, just enough time to whisper, “i love you, too,” before he swallows you back up. you melt right into him, and he loves it so much, but he feels how tired you are and he remembers he is too. so he only kisses you for a minute longer before letting your head rest on his shoulder. without any reservation, he presses a long kiss to your temple and you sigh a sweet sigh into his worn out tshirt.

unwilling to let go, he waddles with you, all bundled up into his arms, to the edge of the bed. without warning, he collapses into it, taking you right down with him and pulling out a little shriek from your mouth that he finds to be nothing short of endearing. he laughs, a belly laugh that you can feel the vibrations of as it moves up into his chest and out of those pretty lips of his. with some struggle to readjust yourself, you press a sweet peck to those lips. another easy i love you.

then you collapse back into his hold and the low quality plush of the motel bed. “now promise me you’ll pull yourself together next time we get a case?” this time your ask is so much more lighthearted, sweeter because it’s mumbled into the skin of his arm. you mean it just as much, but you can’t help the fact that you feel like you’re floating, “now i really, really can’t have you getting us in trouble. i’ll need to be able to kiss you at any given moment, so you have to promise me that you’ll trust me to take care of myself. because it works, and you know it. it’s the safest way. for both of us.”

the sigh he heaves can be felt through practically your whole body. it’s heavier than you wish it’d be, but he relaxes against you just a bit more. “i know,” he relents, “i’ll do my best, okay?”

“thank you,” you breathe out, too relieved to care that he couldn’t quite promise. you know this all means he’ll just be more protective of you, but you can say the same for yourself. now that you’ve kissed him and he’s told you he loves you and you’ve said it back, right against his lips, you’ll worry about him extra. but the both of you know the best ways to keep each other alive, and that has to be enough for you. you allow yourself to snuggle closer into him before joking, “d’you think dean’s ever gonna come back?”

you feel sam’s quiet laugh more than you hear it. “yeah, he really did us a favor with that one, didn’t he?” you can hear the smile in his voice before he remembers himself, “do not tell him i said that.” having you in his arms like this has got him a little giddy, saying things aloud that he normally wouldn’t.

letting out a laugh of your own, you promise, “i won’t. but i’m starting to get hungry. maybe we should call him and tell him the coast is clear, we didn’t tear the room to shreds or anything like that.”

sam chuckles again, and you decide very quickly that you like the way it feels for him to laugh with you so close. neither of you move, not to get a phone to call dean or to stop yourselves from growing drowsy. not for anything.

you’re half asleep when you hear the familiar sound of the impala’s engine near the room. it turns off, then comes the sound of its front door being open and shut. just because you’re hungry and it spells the arrival of food, you force your eyes open and let out a groan when you wiggle your arms out of sam’s hold to stretch. the way his hands shift to your waist as you do so has you a bit flustered and you wonder if you’re supposed to pretend in front of dean that you haven’t spent the last half hour kissing and cuddling. but sam doesn't seem to care, because he just sits up when the door’s lock clicks, one hand by your head to hold him up, the other still settled decidedly on your waist. so you decide not to care either, and turn your head around to accidentally grin at dean when he peeks his head through the door. you had meant to look casual, but the second someone else becomes a witness to the fact that you’re laying together like this, you’re beaming.

dean visibly relaxes when he takes in the sight, pushing the door all the way open to walk in, then lock the door back up behind him.

“hey, there,” is all he says, shooting the both of you a look that says, really, you’re just gonna keep sitting there like that in front of me? it’s not that bad, but he’s allowed to tease because he just turned a twenty minute food trip into an hour purely for yours and sam’s sake. you clear your throat awkwardly, and only when you sit up does sam’s hand fall away from you.

you pad over to the table as dean places the paper bag of fast food on the surface. he drags over an extra mismatched chair and sam follows close behind you, pulling the remaining chair to sit beside you. as you begin to pull food out from the bag, now clearly gone cold to the touch, dean sits down, complaining that they didn’t have pie, so he bought you two cookies for dessert instead.

“well, thank you for the food anyways,” you smile, hoping he picks up on the fact that you’re thanking him for the other thing too, “damn shame there was no pie, though,” you say, more for his sake than yours. you wonder why he didn’t just pick some up from somewhere else since he was gone so long.

“mhmm, and don’t sweat about the pie. just got a slice somewhere else,” he shrugs, “ate it in the car, there was only one slice left and i didn’t want you to feel like you were missing out,” he explains with that familiar teasing edge which makes you think he indeed caught onto the double meaning of your thanks. you let out a small huff of laughter before tearing into the food, only now realizing just how hungry you are. you’d felt it creep up on you on the car ride back, smiled at the mention of food from dean, even stupidly thought about it during a quiet moment in the argument with sam. but the second your lips found his, that was the only hunger you’d felt. to keep kissing him, to keep him close, keep him loving you. only when you settled all the way into his arms, sure that you’d be able to satiate that hunger again, could your body remember you hadn’t eaten since early this afternoon.

the three of you eating like this, late at night and without much conversation, is common and comfortable. dean is on what you assume to be his second burger, because there’s no way he’d have just sat in the car, probably parked in a random lot and wondering how long he should be gone, and just waited to eat an extra-bacon burger until he came back. sam’s nearly the same as always, too, but tonight he sits so close that his forearm brushes against yours. you bump elbows or knees every so often, and the side of his socked foot is pressed against yours the entire time.

you sigh, content with the nearness of him that’s so much more complete and full than it was just hours ago. now, there’s no need to hover. now, you can just swoop in and land, take what you want, give what the other needs.

dean makes no teasing comments, but you can feel the way he’s been examining, reading the two of you. you’re not sure if you’re supposed to say something aloud, but you know that he knows the two of you so well that he understands almost exactly what must’ve happened while he was gone. maybe he’s not teasing because this is the outcome he wanted to come back to. he probably knows better than the both of you how you were crushing, pining even, over the other.

he takes his turn in the shower when he finishes his food, and you and sam begin to clean up a few minutes later. once all the trash is crumbled up and tossed away, you go around and turn off all the lights but a single bedside lamp. as you turn away from clicking off the lamp in the corner of the room, sam’s right there in front of you. you don’t have the time to be startled by him sneaking up on you, he’s so quick to cup your face with his hands and slot his lips against yours. he lingers a long moment before pulling apart just enough to rest his forehead on yours.

“gonna kiss you forever,” he whispers, and you realize you’ve turned this giant man into a complete and utter sap. 

“you better.” your grin is wide and real and he can almost feel your lips moving, he’s so close. just as you’re ready to wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him hard, the steady white noise of the shower shuts off. you sigh and laugh a little, leaning in to steal one more chaste kiss before brushing past him. but he turns with you, hands still warm on your cheeks and not letting go until he’s kissed you once more.

when dean’s gone from the bathroom, sam follows you in to brush his teeth with you. you’ve done so plenty of times, but tonight, sam gets to loop his free arm around your waist and pull you into him, rather than stand shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. he gets to make you giggle through toothpaste when he does so, and you get to switch your toothbrush to your other hand and wrap your own arm around his waist, too. he gets to make you laugh dangerously harder when he tightens his hold on you to prevent you from bending and spitting into the sink when you’re done. you try to hold back the laughter with your mouth full of toothpaste, then he’s the one laughing around his toothbrush because there’s white, foamy spit rolling down your chin from the corner of your mouth and threatening to drip to your dark-colored tshirt. of course, he lets you spit and rinse your mouth, relishing in the continued sound of your laughter.

“you asshole! almost ruined my shirt til the next time we make a laundry stop!” you take revenge as he rinses out his own mouth, splashing the running water onto his face as he swishes water around in his mouth. 

he spits the water out in surprise and sputters an indignant, “hey!” before he bursts into laughter again.

you’re both giddy, high off of kissing each other, and silly from the exhaustion of a hunt, so he tugs you into him by your hips and keeps laughing into the crook of your neck. you wrap your arms around his neck and thread your fingers up through his soft, newly washed hair. you kiss the closest thing you can reach and he melts right into your arms.

it’s only when you yawn that he pulls away from you. “we should get to bed, huh?”

you nod and twist towards the door, peeking through it to see dean sleeping in his bed, his still form highlighted by the warm light of the cheap lamp. taking sam’s hand with a shy smile, you lead him to the other bed, turning off the last light and climbing under the covers with him not far behind. he loops his arm under your head, then the other over your waist to splay his hand flat across the small of your back. the way he does it is exactly the way you wished he would, as if he’s thought about holding you like this every night you share a bed, just as you had. with a final glance towards dean, he kisses your forehead, then your cheek, then your lips.

you try to stifle the giggle that the soft, ticklish contact of his lips wants to pull from your chest, praying that dean is really as asleep as he looks. the both of you stiffen a bit when you hear dean’s blankets rustling, but you let out another breathy, quiet laugh when it goes silent again.

sam’s about to kiss you all over again when dean’s voice rings out into the hush of the night, startling you both.

“no shenanigans while i’m asleep, lovebirds,” he grunts.

that brings more laughter out of your lips and a rush of heat to your face that you’re sure sam feels, too. he just groans in annoyance at his brother, because of course dean had to get in at least one borderline dirty comment. neither of you really answer as dean shifts around in his bed again, likely turning his back to you and mumbling something mostly unintelligible. 

the only word you can catch is “finally.”

[singstaircase]

Come What May - LH, Social Media AU

Summary: Their relationship has always been an interesting one. Fifteen years together, break up before one of their lives' most significant events, gold medal, a ring– and the rest is, as they say, history.

okay so bear with me on this. In this universe, Motorsports is an Olympic sport and we can figure out how it would work later but for now– 1) road race is your normal race, 2) there's going to be an event called Time Trial, similar to cycling and 3) Team Pursuit is a team event.

This is my first time doing something like this, I hope you enjoy!

Shock Split?! British MotorSporting Power Couple Call It Quits After 15 Years Ahead of Olympics Showdown

In an unexpected twist that has left fans and insiders confused, Britain's beloved sporting duo, Lewis Hamilton and [Name], have reportedly ended their 15-year relationship just months before they are set to compete together in the upcoming Olympics.

The couple, known for their remarkable chemistry both on and off the field, have been a fixture in the British sports scene.

Sources close to the pair reveal that the split has been brewing for some time...(read more)

Press Conference [Update] Silverstone, 16 June

Due to unforseen circumstances, Lewis Hamilton and [Name] will do separate interviews at 19:20.

(Name)_GB

Liked by teamgb, georgerussell63 and 966,419 others

(Name_GB) First time in the Olympics!!! Hoping to make everyone proud.

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pattyVAX no mention of Lewis. It's so over.

sunsetseb65 Not even a single pic either, they usually have pictures together in every situation.

f1gossip

Liked by gridgossip and 11,892 others

f1gossip First 'public appearance' of (Name) and Lewis Hamilton outside of their work since the alleged break up at the first round match of Rafael Nadal.

Notably, both came separately and sat away from each other 👀.

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A exclusive clip from Paris 2024 Podcast 02.08.2024– Hosted by Cristina Lindemann

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CL: So, we have to talk about the elephant in the room if you will.

N: The break up? (Laughs)

CL: Only if want to though!

N: No, don't worry about. (Clears throat) Yes, it's true, we ended our relationship at the beginning of June.

We thought about a lot of things– our future, career and thought this was the best decision for now.

We ended on a good note so please don't go harass Lewis. But, um that's what happened. Maybe it'll change in the future, who knows. (Laughs)

gridgossip

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gridgossip [Name] ditches ex-boyfriend and teammate to watch fellow brits Louise Brown and Oliver Bearman. Looking very happy while doing so.

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HollandTRasH Did you expect them to look angry or sad while watching her compatriots?

Kimipublicist Oh it's so over. It's never been more over.

bellaISdead are they even gonna do the final together or?

British Duo to Withdrawal Because of Relationship Drama?

....Our sources informed that they former couple, along with their team and TeamGB representatives held a 'crisis meeting' last night to discuss about the Team Pursuit Final and possible withdrawal from the event. (read more)

WATCH: (Name) confirms participation in the final amid withdrawal fear

British driver (Name) confirms plan to participate in Team Pursuit Final of the very first edition of Motorsports in Summer Olympic games.

They refused to comment on the alleged crisis meeting and the hand-shaking incident.

Olympic TV 2 hours ago

Team Pursuit Final | MotorSport (Open-wheel Track) | Olympic Games Paris 2024

(Name)’s hand doesn't leave Lewis’. It remains locked together, even at the podium as they wait for their medals.

They swing their hands together in excitement as the Dutch team receives their medals. Lewis can't help but smile at this, a glimmer of what they used to have still visible in his eyes.

“Ready?” Lewis asks as the announcer starts to announce them in French. (Name) turns to him and nods.

“–Great Britain!” (Name) and Lewis jump onto the podium together as the sounds of the excitement of the crowd fills the track.

Their locked hands remain a constant, even as they're waving at the excited crowd.

For the photo, Lewis, ever the showman, lifts (Name) into his arms. She lets out a surprised laugh, wrapping her arms around his neck for support.

Cameras flash, capturing the moment and for a fleeting instant, it feels like nothing changed.

The national anthem begins to play. As the familiar words fill the air, (Name) feels a lump form in her throat. The culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice, hit her all at once. Tears well up in her eyes, threatening to spill over.

Lewis notices immediately. He gently takes her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. He leans in close. "Hey, it's okay,” he says, his voice soft and warm, “We did it. We made it."

(Name) nods, biting her lip to keep from crying.

The anthem continues, and she found herself leaning into Lewis' comforting presence. Despite everything, they are still here for each other, just as they always been. And that's enough for now.

As the final notes of the anthem fade away, the camera moves from the flags to where (Name) and Lewis are standing; holding hands and basking in the glow of their victory.

🏎️ nighttimeday Follow

(Name) and Hamilton Win Olympic🥇

About their relationship

(Name): “That’s our personal lives you don’t need to know that”

Hamilton: “So this is top secret. Top secret.”

(Name): “We like it when you are confused!”

Hamilton: “Exactly. That’s how we feel powerful.”

🎥: IOC

#yeah they are definitely back together #paris olympics 2024 #motorsports

(5,198 notes)

(Name_GB)

Liked by lewishamilton, georgerussell63 and 2,971,123 others

(Name_GB) Thank you for this and more, partner 💕

View all 10,788 comments

lewishamilton ❤️

usergayce yep, they are back together

pattyVAX WE ARE SO BACK

f1gossip • 2 hours ago

lewishamilton & (Name_GB) • 15 minutes ago

This was inspired by Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac and whatever the hell happened between them.

[too-deviant]

jackie and wilson.

previous | next series masterlist

summary: you haven’t been given a quest, but you have made it your personal mission to make luke castellan smile.

pairing: luke castellan x unclaimed!reader

word count: 4.1k

content: broody!luke, teenage dirtbag!luke but also not really, sprinkles of mean!luke, r is unbothered and does not gaf about his lil emo boy act, this is four thousand words of r being a pain in luke’s ass, probs will make a part 2 bc i love them your honour 

notes:  speaking my truth: i am a british gal. any banter in this about the new england states is entirely stuff i got from reddit so plz don’t scrutinise my american states knowledge

the layout of this fic is very much inspired by @murdrdocs if that wasn’t obvious but also icarus if u want me to change it i will jus say the word :00

PART I — she blows outta nowhere, roman candle of the wild 

All things considered, you took the news of your heritage pretty well. 

Sure, there was a lot of yelling — mostly through the wall after you locked yourself in your room and started packing a bag — but at least you didn’t sit on it in denial for several hours. 

Honestly, you should’ve seen it coming. 

The first time you realised you could see things nobody else could, you tried to admit yourself into a ward. Your mom went a little panicky, and she never did perform well under pressure, so she caved and said you were special. Too special for the other kids at your school, too special for anyone to know about it. 

After that, she got more tense. Eyes darting around whenever you guys went out in public, hand lingering for a second longer on your back before she sent you to school — as if she felt like she’d never see you again. She would stay up at night and read you old Greek tales before you went to sleep, and acted way too serious about it. More serious than when she would read you Dr Seuss. 

Honestly, it was a miracle you went unknowing for so long. Maybe you were insignificant, or maybe the Stymphalian Pigeon that tried to kill you after school was just slow — because you were seventeen when you got attacked by your first monster. 

You took it out pretty easily — and by that, I mean you outran it through the bustling streets of your hometown until it flew messily into a bus and you dodged your way to your apartment in a flurry. Your mom’s resolve cracked like a thin layer of ice and you were packed and ready to go to this camp she spoke of before the clock had hit four-thirty. 

Most of the yelling that you guys did was along the lines of — “I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me!” — and — “I didn’t want you to leave!” — “I get that, but seriously mom, I almost got eaten by a bird today. A little context going in would’ve been nice!”

You threw yourself into a taxi — much to the disdain of your mother, who insisted on at least getting you to the hill. You then reminded her that she would have to pay the fare all the way back to their apartment and it honestly wouldn’t be worth it and that you’d call her when you got the chance. She let you go with a huff, folding her arms across her chest and creasing the silky material of her pink blouse. 

The next hour was about as awkward as taxi rides go, even more so when you got out in the middle of nowhere. You weren’t even sure you were at the bottom of the right hill but sent the poor guy on his way anyway and prayed to whoever your divine parent was that you weren’t about to get gunned down by an angry farmer for mistaking his land for a summer camp. 

Thankfully, the empty fields shimmered into something worth travelling for when you took a tentative step across its threshold. The sun seemed to get brighter and the breeze became softer. It was nice from where you stood, and it probably would’ve gotten nicer the closer you got. 

Had you not tripped over a rock and tumbled down the hill ungracefully, landing in a heap at the bottom, a few feet away from a dirt path that split off in two directions. You sat up with a huff, blowing your hair out of your eyes and squinting at your surroundings now that they were much closer. You didn’t bother to heave yourself up, catching your breath and letting your gaze flitter over the scenery. 

It was cute. 

Then the distinct sound of horse hooves clipping against the ground evaded your ears, and you looked up to greet the centaur who now stood above you. You thanked the gods for your moms intricately detailed bedtime stories as you pulled yourself up onto your feet and allowed yourself to be introduced to Chiron and Mr. D, who then led you to the four story house that overlooked the valley. 

Your induction was swift and sweet — since you pretty much knew and had accepted everything already. There were a couple of glances and muttered comments about how you had gone so long without being targeted, but Chiron had said he wanted you to get the tour before dinner so you could settle straight to bed after the campfire, and caught some young kid by the t-shirt as he ran past, asking him politely if he could send Luke over. 

The awkward two minutes it took for your tour guide to reach you stretched on for a painful amount of time, but you would relive it a hundred times over if it meant you didn’t have to experience the agony you called your first meeting with Luke Castellan. 

He was tall, with a dark mop of curls that hung over his furrowed brows. His skin was tanned from all the time he spent in the sun, and his shoulders were broad enough to intimidate, but not broad enough that you were intimidated. He was your age, seemingly, and the cuffs of his green cargo pants brushed against his ankles only an inch higher than they would sit on an average person.

His most memorable feature, however, had to be the deep scar that stretched from the top of his left brow all the way to his cheekbone — it was jagged and sharp, cutting across his eye roughly, as if he had been clawed. He probably had. It was raised and shone pink under the sun, so you could tell it was fairly new, but it had healed over enough to indicate that Luke was probably tired of hearing people ask about it. So you didn’t. You barely gave it a glance before you raised your brows at him with a cheeky grin and gave him your name. 

He nodded minutely, one of the only movements he made after he’d parked himself in front of you other than the sliding of his eyes from one person to another as they spoke to him. After Chiron and Mr D had given him the rundown, he gave a slight nod of his head in one direction before walking away and expecting you to follow. 

You caught up to him, sidling up on his left with a huff and a smile, “I’m getting the feeling that you're sorta sick of this giving this tour all the time.” 

He didn’t respond. He just looked at you, and then stopped walking, watching as you froze two steps ahead of him before shuffling back to his side sheepishly. Then he lifted an unbothered hand to the right, “Those are the strawberry fields.” He then gestured ahead, “That’s the beach.” And then to the left, “Those are the training fields.”

Then he started walking again, and you hesitated for only a second before following, “Wow. Don’t give me too much information all at once.” 

Your sarcastic comment was ignored, and Luke nodded towards the bank of cabins you were nearing, “These are the cabins. Twelve. One for each Olympian. You’ll stay in the Hermes cabin until you’re claimed.”

“Right.” You nodded, “God of Travellers. Makes sense.” 

He let out a breath, not pausing in his stride as he passed through the curve of houses, not sparing a glance to any of them. You took notice of how the other kids looked at him in apprehension, with a hint of fear when he got too close. He cut down an alley between two cabins — one with a dangerous amount of barbed wire across the top and another that glowed gold under the sunlight — before the pair emerged through the trees at a pavilion. 

“This is where we eat.” He said. “Dinner is soon.” 

“Cool.” You nodded, “What are the options? Because if food here is lacking, then I will be packing.” 

You let out a useless chuckle at your own joke, but it landed flat. “Yeah, that wasn’t funny.” You muttered lowly. With a click of your tongue, you glanced over the horizon and pointed at something from afar. A tall structure that stuck out the tops of the trees, “What’s that?”

“The climbing wall.” Luke answered plainly. 

“And that?” 

“The Amphitheatre.”

You looked up at him, pulling a face he didn’t bother to glance at. Then you noticed a bunch of campers filing through the trees and into the pavilion the two of you stood at the edge of. They entered in groups and made their way to their designated tables, chattering and gossiping as they did. 

You looked at Luke, “Well, that was…great. Truly, a riveting experience. I will say, though — your delivery needs some work. The dark and gloomy act works most of the time, but not when you’re giving a guided tour.”

That got him to look at you, and you held back your triumphant smirk. He frowned, “What?”

You shrugged, “I’m just saying, nobody is going to listen to you talk about this place if you describe it like this.” You lowered your tone into a subpar impression of his voice, and you swore you saw his brows twitch. Clearing your throat, you waved a hand, “No need to worry about that now, though. Just point me in the direction of the Hermes table and I’ll be out of your strangely well-conditioned hair.”

Another eyebrow twitch. You were getting the hang of this. Maybe one day you could get him to move other parts of his face! 

You half expected the boy to ignore you and walk off — and he did. But it was in the direction of the Hermes table, so you counted it as him showing you the way. Most of the campers were seated by the time you’d arrived, and you were thus forced to sit yourself on the end of the bench, uncomfortably beside him. He was unbothered. 

During dinner you were swiftly introduced to some of your peers — Chris Rodriguez gave you a lopsided grin and informed you politely that you would need to sacrifice some of your food before you got stuck into it. Travis and Connor Stoll sidled up on either side of you as you grumbled at the hearth, and yapped your ear off about the fundamentals of camp. 

(So all the sneaky stuff Chiron doesn’t know about. Like how you can skip out on archery training if Lee is the one running it because he never has it in him to snitch. Or that the pegasi stables were the go-to hook up spot for summer campers, but the back of the Amphitheater was the go-to hook up spot for the year-rounders. When you asked what the difference was, they winked, and when you asked what happened if a year-rounder hooked up with a summer camper, they chuckled and walked off.)

Chiron gave you an introduction that made you feel like a new kid being asked to tell the class one fun fact about yourself, and around six kids at your table asked if it hurt when you fell down the hill. 

Overall, a good first night. As far as first nights at a summer camp for half-gods goes. By the time all the campers had gone back to their respective cabins, you were ready to turn in and clock out for the day. 

But you wanted to try one more time. Last attempt, and then you’d let it go. 

When Luke — who you had discovered earlier was the counsellor of the Hermes cabin, and apparently a role model for the kids — came over and silently handed you a folded orange shirt with a leather cord sitting on top of it, you smirked. 

“Hey, now we can match. How cute.” 

He blinked at you, “Everyone is wearing the same thing.”

“The same shirts, you mean.” You tilted your head, “But we’re both wearing green cargos. And white socks. White sneakers.” Your grin widened as you watched his eyes flit down your form, taking in the outfit you had on. You were right — the only difference between you two was the white tank top you had on, soon to be replaced by the shirt he had just handed to you. You thought for a moment that it would work, that he would make a face, or say more than two sentences to you in response. 

But he didn’t. He just huffed and walked away, and you watched with an appalled expression. You narrowed your eyes. 

Okay, so maybe you weren’t ready to let it go yet. 

The next morning, you were rudely awakened by a small child who was sprawled across your torso, having shifted from his own sleeping bag that was beside yours. He couldn’t have been any older than six, his orange camp shirt sitting like a dress on him, and if he wasn’t snoring into your chest, you would’ve thought he was adorable. 

But you really needed to pee. 

After you slowly but surely lifted him back onto his own pillow, you stood up with a stretch and stepped precariously over the other kids, balancing carefully on the tips of your toes so you didn’t step on any of them. The sun was barely rising, and you were the only one awake, so you held your breath and reached out for the handle of the bathroom door. 

“That’s not your bathroom.”

You flinched, losing your balance and toppling back. A hand between your shoulder blades prevented you from crushing any of the kids on the floor, and you steadied yourself before meeting the eyes of the person who spoke. 

Luke was staring intently at you, his eyes blinking hard as if he’d only just woken up. He was in nothing but a pair of blue sweat-shorts and you fought the urge to rake your eyes over his bare torso, watching as he lowered his hand back to his side, “That’s the counsellor's bathroom.”

“Right.” Came a low mutter, under your breath. Then louder, you asked, “Well, where is the campers bathroom?”

“Outside.” He answered, “Around the back of the cabins.”

“Out—“ You started, and then realised everyone else was asleep and swiftly lowered your volume, but kept your expression exaggerated. Wide eyes, furrowed brows. “Outside?”

“Yes.”

“But…it’s cold out there.”

“We have a controlled climate.” He said, folding his arms across his chest. His biceps tensed, “It’s never cold.”

You let out a sigh, throwing your thumb over your shoulder and pointing at the door, “Can’t I just use this one? You aren’t using it, and everyone else is asleep, they’d never know!” 

He stared at you blankly and stayed silent for a long time. You wouldn’t be surprised if he just never said anything until you walked away, which you were well prepared to do, letting out a deep breath and folding your own arms over to preserve heat as you clambered towards the front door, muttering complaints under your breath the whole time. You made it three feet (or two sleeping bags) away from him when he finally piped up. 

“Be quick.” 

Turning around, Luke was already making his way back to his own bed, and you ogled shamelessly at his back muscles as you shuffled to his bathroom and made your way inside. You did your business quickly as requested and washed your hands under the low pressure of the sink before cracking the door open once more. The cabin was the same, everyone else still sleeping calmly. Luke was standing by his bunk, now clad in black shorts and his camp shirt. He paid you no mind when you padded back to your sleeping bag, grabbing your bag and stifling through the clothes you had packed. 

You walked up to breakfast with the unclaimed girl you had met the previous night — Lana — and listened and she told you intently about the lore of Luke Castellan. 

“He never used to be the way he is. He was happier before, always grinning. More than ready to help anyone here. He was…well, everyone either wanted to be with him or be him.”

“And then what happened?”

“He went on a quest. It went wrong. He came back with that ugly scar and he hasn’t been the same since.”

You made a comment that the scar wasn’t ugly, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d add on that it made him look pretty hot. But you did know better, and you knew that Luke was three people ahead of you in the line and could probably hear what you were saying. So you kept that tidbit to yourself and ate your cereal in silence. 

When breakfast was over, you stood from the bench and turned, only to stop short when you realised Luke was standing behind you. Looking up at him, you raised a brow, “Yes?”

“I’m showing you around today.”

“You showed me around yesterday.”

His lips tightened, “We’re actually doing stuff today. Seeing what you’re good at.”

“Oh.” You ran your tongue over your teeth and nodded, “Well, where do we start?”

“Archery.” 

Turns out, you were pretty awful at archery. Even after you’d stopped firing arrows into the treeline, you still never hit the middle of the target. Lee had to correct your posture four times, and you broke six arrows. Eventually, you decided that Apollo was not your father, and shuffled over to where Luke stood beneath the shade of a tree — where he had been standing the whole hour. 

“Y’know, just because you’ve got this broody bad boy thing going on, doesn’t mean you have to linger in the shadows all the time.” You commented, picking at your fingernails and readjusting the long sleeve you wore under your camp shirt, “You just look weird.” 

Luke pointed at your cheekbone, “You’re bleeding.” 

You huffed, “I know.” You kept holding your bow too close to the side of your face and the feathers of the arrows kept scratching you whenever you let them fly. Lee mentioned how most people make that mistake the first time round, but you’d done it so much that he’d cut your lesson short and told you to get a bandaid from one of his siblings. You didn’t. 

He stared at your cut for a moment, like he was thinking hard about something. But he didn’t, and pushed himself off the tree he was leaning against and brushed past you, “Let’s go to the forges.”

You were better at blacksmithing than you were at archery, but the sword Charles Beckendorf was helping you weld still came out wonky and discoloured. He was a nice kid, funny, and your lowered spirits from your previous task had been quickly uplifted despite you not having much skill in his department. He let you keep the sword anyway, and you swung it jokingly at Luke as he led you to the Amphitheater. 

You made swooshing noises as you did so, chuckling when he didn’t so much as flinch, “Don’t act so tough, Castellan, I could take you out even with a dodgy sword.”

“You couldn’t.” He muttered, “I’m the best sword fighter here.”

You let out an over dramatic gasp, running ahead and swivelling around so you could meet his eyes, “Holy shit, was that…did you just…tell me something about yourself?” You grinned and his frown deepened, “Aw, Luke. We’re getting somewhere! This is amazing, I’m so proud. Soon enough we’ll be best frien — “

Before you could finish your incessant teasing, Luke grabbed your forearm and yanked you in front of him just as a kid on an out-of-control Pegasus toppled past you. You watched him disappear in mild shock, before looking back at the boy in front of you, “Hey, thanks. Almost got trampled. How embarrassing.”

He narrowed his gaze, “Do you not take anything seriously?”

You shrugged, “Not really. I’d ask you the same question, but…” You made a face. It was obvious that he was very serious, even if he never used to be. 

“Let’s go.” Was his boring response, moving swiftly past you and into the Amphitheatre so quickly you would’ve assumed he was trying to get away from you. (Which he definitely was).

You weren’t really all that bothered, not when you were having so much fun pissing him off. 

It took all of ten minutes for Luke to put your sword fighting lesson to an end. Not only had you insisted on fighting with the wonky sword rather than a working training one, you also kept pushing him with your hands whenever he got too close. 

“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”

“Hey, it’s working, isn’t it?” 

You were pretty shit at it anyway, so you didn’t fight him when he said you were cutting your lesson short. You simply tucked your weapon onto the sheath he’d handed you and followed him down the hill to the dining pavilion. 

“So, where are you from?”

He didn’t answer you for a couple of minutes, something you’d been well prepared for. But you couldn’t help but ask — he intrigued you. A little too much, maybe. 

You continued, “Because you seem like a Mass guy.”

Luke stopped in his tracks, turning to you, “Mass…achusetts?”

“Yeah.” You nodded, fighting off your amused smile when he pulled a face. Finally, an expression!

Truth was, Lana had told you he was from Connecticut. You just wanted to see how he’d react, if he would react at all — apparently he isn’t immune to everything. 

“I’m from CT.” He made it very clear, and you tried your hardest not to laugh. “Okay? I'm not some Boston Masshole, got it?”

You raised your hands in surrender, “Got it.” 

He stared at you for a second longer, as if to ensure you really did have it. Squinting at your amused smile before nodding and continuing his walk. You thought it would go back to silence, but apparently you’d lit a fuse. 

“I mean, what makes you think I'm from MA?” He asked, his tone of voice so appalled you’d think he’d been accused of some sort of crime. “Do I smell like shit?”

A chuckle, “What?”

But he just whirled on you once more, lifting his arm and gesturing to his pit, “Do I? Do I stink of shit?” 

You didn’t feel like sniffing him, so you just shook your head, still laughing, “No.” 

“Then what — ?” He stopped, narrowed his eyes, “Where are you from?”

You tried to hide your smile, but it was getting really difficult. The last two days he’d been nothing but broody and miserable, one word quips being his only form of communication other than dark frowns. But one mention of Mass and he’s suddenly down to chit chat? You couldn’t help but laugh — unfortunately, it only spurred him on. 

“You think this is funny?” He scoffed, nodding, “Yeah, bet you’re from Maine too.”

Your laughter continued, little giggles spilling out of you whenever you thought about the situation too hard. You shrugged, “I don’t think I wanna tell you after this.”

Luke nodded like he was expecting you to say that, “Something a Mainer would say, I’m sure.”

You grinned wide, very proud of yourself for getting a visceral reaction out of the boy — even if you had to piss him off to do it. Just as you went to reply with a witty comeback that would have him ranting and raving for the rest of the night, the dinner conch sounded, interrupting what you’re sure would’ve been a very entertaining conversation. 

You walked on past him, not stopping, but slowing down so you could cough into your fist, “Flatlander.”

You didn’t look back but you did hear him scoff in shock, and you were sure he stood there frozen for at least twenty seconds because he entered the pavilion way later than you did. He made a point to fix you with an annoyed stare as he sat down a few people away from you — and Chris raised a brow. 

“What’d you do to him?”

You shrugged, digging into your mashed potatoes before anyone could tell you to wait until you’d made your offering, “Told him he looked like a Bay Stater.”

He chuckled, wincing under his breath and shaking his head, “You’re evil. I like it.”

You smirked and said nothing — but whenever your eyes flickered over to Luke, his were just flickering away from you.

[dirtyvulture]

Envy and Venom - Part 3

Heiress!Natasha Romanoff x CEO!Beefy!Fem!Reader

18+ only, read at your own risk

Summary: You are the notorious playboy who just inherited one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Your first move? Sleeping with the heiress of your rival company.

Word count: 4990

AN: Y'all are getting fed with this one. Have fun. :)

Click here for Part 2!

Thanks to @mostlymarvelsstuff for helping with some Russian translations lol.

DAY 34

“Do you have everything ready? Your presentation, your notes?” your dad asks.

“Yes, yes,” you tell him for what feels like the thousandth time. 

“This is where the comeback starts,” your dad says, and sometimes you wish he would just claim back his title. You were sick and tired of his coaching, even if you needed it a little bit. But if Envy Industries had gotten into this mess because of you, then you were the only person who could get them out of it. “I know I can’t be there in person–”

“I know, I know,” you dismiss. You were well aware of his vacation plans to the Maldives with his new girlfriend. Besides Envy, it was the only thing he wanted to talk about nowadays. But you still didn’t even know her name, and were certain he’d find a new one before the end of his trip.

“Tony will be there with you, right? He’ll keep you on track,” your dad continues, inching into sensitive territory now. Even though he denied it every time you confronted him, you knew he was always worried about you stepping into the CEO role because you were a woman. Hearing the doubts from the public and the competition hardly bothered you, but from your own father, it was like a punch to the face. Especially when you were not exactly proving him wrong given how things had played out since your first day.

“Who cares if Tony is there or not?” you snap, losing your patience. “He’s not the one giving the presentation. He’ll just be standing behind the curtain, stealing all the free merch, and–”

“Okay, that’s enough,” your dad cuts you off. “I want you to call me again tomorrow. We’ll run over your presentation again–”

“I’ll think about it.” You slam the handset on the receiver, a satisfying motion that could not be accomplished with modern telephonic devices. You try not to give the upcoming presentation any more thought–it was already stressing you out enough. Maybe an hour in the gym would take your mind off things. 

Your decision made, you step away from your desk to your private walk-in closet, rifling through the selection of workout clothes hanging there. All of them were custom-cut to your exact body dimensions to ensure the best fit and look. Although you were no professional athlete, you treated yourself as if you were one (and you certainly looked the part). 

But right now, you couldn’t care less what you looked like or what you were wearing as you grabbed the first set of clothes you could reach, slipping them on and grabbing your Louis Vuitton gym bag, monogrammed with your initials. You lightly jog out of your office, moving fast enough that people will think you’re in a rush and not stop you. The gym is on the tenth floor of the building, and because it’s just after lunch, most people are back at their desks. But you set your own schedule, so you’re happy to find that it isn’t too crowded and you quickly get warmed up before you start lifting.

In between sets, you check your phone, a bad habit that doesn’t exist when you’re with your training coach, but he’s not around to scold you, so you can do as you please. In the tracking app, Natasha’s red dot blinks in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, hardly three miles away from your current location in Envy Industries. 

She was hanging out at Black Widow Corporation headquarters, just where you expected her to be. She had an unsurprisingly predictable schedule, splitting her time just between work and home, which you discovered was in an apartment just a few blocks down the street from yours. You wonder if she lived on her own or with her father, who was likely paying for her housing either way. 

Natasha was not quite the self-made woman that you were. Her work was significantly more behind the scenes, which was one reason why you had never heard of her before. Alexei Shostakov was the only name you associated with Black Widow Corp. But you had done your own digging on her and her family the past few days. There was frustratingly little about Natasha and you were ready to hire a private investigator due to your lack of results. 

All you had learned was that she had graduated magna cum laude from Virginia Tech with a degree in economics, where she also held a brief internship at the university’s infamous Gamma Lab before it was shut down after the sudden death of its lead researcher. You assumed she had gone immediately to work for Black Widow Corp after her graduation; there was no other work history for her anywhere. No social media, no public interviews. This woman fascinated you more and more. 

After a final set of deadlifts, you re-rack all the weights because you’re not that much of a heathen and check your phone again. Natasha is no longer at Black Widow Corp, her red dot moving steadily through 86th Street that cut through Central Park. Your heart rate jumps, and not because of your workout. You sit down on a bench to steady yourself, watching as the red dot continues through Central Park. When she turns right on Park Avenue, you know exactly where she’s heading.

Hopefully you could intercept her first.

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

“Where are you going?” 

Natasha curses under her breath as she turns around to see Yelena standing in the lobby, her arms crossed over her chest like a scorned mother catching her child sneaking out of the house.

“What?” Natasha rounds on her sister, annoyed that she’s been watching her like a hawk.

“The board of directors meeting starts in seven minutes,” Yelena says, and Natasha curses under her breath because she forgot all about that.

“Dad can handle it without me,” Natasha replies, eager to get the heat off of her as soon as she can.

“They’ll be talking about CES,” Yelena reminds her, referencing the important annual show where the biggest tech companies came together in Vegas to reveal their newest inventions and products.

“You’re not going to CES,” Natasha points out, surprised her sister even knows its proper name. Since the company was going to fall on her shoulders once their father stepped down, Natasha had spent almost the entirety of her adult life learning, training, and breathing business and technology. Yelena had been able to pursue her own hopes and dreams, starting in the private security field until she had enough experience (and enough of Dad’s money) to start her own company. She was happy and thriving, something Natasha was endlessly jealous of.

Yelena had never experienced the pressure of managing billions of dollars in and out the door. She didn’t know what it was like to fight off every insecure man who couldn’t bear to do a business deal with a woman. She hadn’t spent hundreds of hours trying to learn coding languages and complicated mathematics and equations on her own. Yelena didn’t understand what Natasha had spared her from, and Natasha was afraid she would never be grateful for it.

“Yes, but you’re going to CES,” Yelena says.

“You’re not my babysitter,” Natasha snaps, turning away and marching towards the door. 

“You’re going to see her again, aren’t you?”

“What?” Natasha stops. “Who the hell are you talking about?”

“That CEO you’re in love with.”

“Excuse me?” But Natasha’s face is flaming red as she struts over to confront her sister. “I am not in love with anyone. You know that.”

“You seem to be spending an awful lot of time with that CEO.”

“No, I’m not.”

Yelena smirks. “I own a private security company, sestra. You don’t think I know my own sister’s whereabouts and who she’s with?”

Natasha’s heart sinks, but she tries not to let it show. “Why can’t you ever just mind your own fucking business?” she growls, immediately regretting the harshness of her words when she sees her sister’s face fall. But she’s too proud to take it back.

“I don’t think it’s safe if you keep seeing her,” Yelena says. “And you don’t know what it could do for the company–”

“Why do you care about the company so much all of a sudden?” Natasha counters. “Dad’s not giving it to you when he steps down.”

“I don’t want it,” Yelena replies, although she looks hurt. “But to be quite honest, I don’t like what it’s turning you into.”

“Which is what?”

“This!” Yelena waves her arms at Natasha frantically. “It’s always ‘Black Widow this, Black Widow that.’ You don’t have any hobbies anymore. You never eat dinner with the rest of the family. You don’t go out unless it’s to see that CEO–”

Natasha interrupts her with a huff. “You wouldn’t understand, Yelena,” she says, trying a different approach and maintaining complete calm. “You can just stay holed up in your one-windowed office to spy on people and let the real adults go out in the real world and handle real shit.” With that, she spins on her heel and storms out of the building. 

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

“Why are you into shooting all of a sudden? Have you ever even held a gun before?” Tony asks, staring at you with a dropped jaw.

You shrug. “I need some new hobbies,” you lie.

“You’re not going to shoot someone with it, are you?” he half-jokes, his chuckle quickly dying up when you don’t laugh with him.

“No, of course not,” you mumble unconvincingly.

“Okay, well, when do you need the gun by?” he asks.

“How fast does Bucky work?”

Tony shrugs. “If I call him now, he can have one to me by the end of the day.”

“Okay.” The sooner the better, because it gave you less time to back out of your plan. “That works.”

“So, are we going big-game hunting in Africa this summer?” Tony asks, giving you a sharp nudge before starting his car.

“Maybe, maybe…” But you have a different target in mind.

The gun is surprisingly heavy, oily, and unfamiliar in your palm. Bucky had gone over the four “rules” of gun handling, which shocked you that he even knew:

Treat every gun like it was loaded

Don’t point it at something you aren’t willing to shoot.

Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.

Be mindful of your target and what’s around it.

He had given you a full box of ammo for “good luck” too, before jumping back into his car and driving away faster than you could read his license plate.

Currently, you sit in the darkness of your apartment, weighing the gun in your hand. Your heart is beating so hard against your ribcage you swear you can hear it. 

You check your phone. Natasha’s just parked her car in the parking garage. It should only take her a few minutes to ride the elevator up. You hadn’t even bothered to change out of your workout clothes, worried that she would arrive at your apartment before you did, but you had just barely made it on time.

Her red dot blinks in place on your screen. She’s in the elevator.

Your eyes flit to the front door, the gun feeling even heavier in your hand. 

The seconds drag on. 

You hold your breath for as long as you can between inhalations, heart pounding, ears straining for any sound of movement outside your apartment door.

Beep, beep.

A key card–yours–registers at the door lock. The handle pushes down from the outside and you snap to attention. 

Don’t miss, you tell yourself.

The door parts open, almost hesitantly, like your uninvited intruder is suddenly unsure of themselves. In the darkness, you see a figure slip through the door and close it behind her. Her body shape gives her away immediately. The thick thighs in black jeans, the curve of her hips leading up to her narrow waist, the fullness of her bosom stretching out the tight shirt she’s wearing.

When Natasha steps into the light, she freezes when she sees you sitting at the kitchen table, gun cocked in her direction.

“It’s about time you showed up,” you greet. “Building security didn’t question you when you used my key card to get in?”

“Clearly not,” Natasha says, her stance tense and wary.

“Come sit down. We should talk,” you invite, gesturing with the gun and breaking Bucky’s rule number one. Natasha stiffly walks towards you, her face an impassive shadow. You’ve never seen her genuinely scared before and it delights you that for once, you have the upper hand on her. You kick out a chair and she sits next to you. 

“Didn’t expect this, did you?” you ask. “Probably thought you could just waltz right in here and steal more of my shit?”

“Y/N–”

“Shut the fuck up.” You’re tired of listening to her excuses. You rest the gun on the table. “Is Black Widow going to CES?”

“Yes,” she says. “Like we do every year–”

“Well, there’s going to be some changes this year,” you interrupt. “Get your phone out. Call your dad. Black Widow Corp is going to be a no-show this year.”

Natasha balks. “That…That won’t be possible.”

You pick the gun back up and point it at her, breaking rule number two. “Then make it possible.”

“You won’t shoot me.”

“You don’t think this is real?” You point the gun at the table. Rule number three. You pull the trigger. Rule number four. The gun bucks in your hand, the blast reverberating around your apartment with enough power to rattle your teeth. Natasha flinches even though you hadn’t aimed anywhere near her. “No one can hear us,” you say with a chuckle. “I had the apartment soundproofed years ago to stop the neighbors from complaining.” 

She stares at the gun.

“Take your phone out now. And call your dad.” You hope you don’t have to ask again.

With shaking hands, she finally obeys, placing her phone on the table. “Put it on speakerphone,” you demand. Natasha presses a few buttons and you hear the dial-up tone.

“Privet, doch',” Alexei booms.

“English,” you hiss.

“Hi, Dad,” Natasha says, side-eyeing you uncertainly. “We, uh…We need to talk about CES.”

“Good, I just got out of the meeting with the board–”

“Black Widow can’t show up this year.”

Alexei’s surprise is palpable. “What, Natasha? What are you talking about?”

“We need to call off our appearance,” she says, her voice shaking. “Just for this year. We’ll go again next year like we normally do–”

“What’s wrong with this year?” Alexei asks.

Natasha looks at you, her eyes begging. You shake the gun to remind her you’re serious. “I…uh…I don’t think our tech is ready for the show,” she says. “You know how disastrous it can be if we unveil something that isn’t completely ready.”

“But we’ve been working on Project Transformer for months, Natasha. It’s plenty ready–”

“No. Dad, please.” She grits her teeth. “I was looking through the code last night with the engineers. There’s a bug in the programming. It’s going to take at least a few weeks to smooth out. We can’t debut right now, Dad.”

Alexei curses in Russian. “Shit. The board really liked our presentation.”

“I know.”

“I wish you would have told me earlier.”

“I know,” Natasha repeats. “But we only just discovered it this week.” 

There is more silence, punctuated by Russian grumblings from Alexei. “Okay, okay. I’ll make a few calls. Too bad we’ll be losing out on our reservation fee too.”

“It’s a small price to pay.” Natasha’s eyes dart to you again. “Sorry for all the trouble, Dad.”

“Where are you?” Alexei asks. “We missed you at the meeting.”

“I’m out.”

“Will you come to dinner tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Good, good. Proshchay, dorogaya.”

“Bye, Dad.” Alexei hangs up first.

You slowly clap your hands. “Good girl. Was that so hard?” Your chest swells with pride at your achievement. Maybe now she would have more respect for you. You know she only saw you as a piece of meat. But you were much, much more than that.

“Fuck you,” Natasha spits.

“Oh, are we still doing that?” You put the gun down on the table, this time facing it away from her. You part your legs slightly, inviting her between them. Natasha glares at you with emerald daggered eyes. “Don’t be shy, baby,” you say, your voice deepening. “I got what I wanted today. It’s only fair you don’t leave here empty-handed too.”

Natasha shoots up and marches over to you. For a second, you think she’s going to hit you, but instead she straddles your lap and kisses you so hard you’re sure she’s bruised your lips. The ferocity is both frightening and arousing as she tears off your workout shirt and shorts. She palms at your left breast roughly, sinking her nails into your abs and dragging them down to your belly button. You groan into her mouth when she bites your bottom lip. She’s never been this aggressive with you before, but you know she’s taking out her frustration on you.

And you absolutely love it.

“Now that I’m done fucking with your company, you want me to fuck you until you can’t walk?” you whisper, shoving your bare thigh between her legs. The friction from her jeans burns your skin, but you hardly register the pain. 

“You’ll have to carry me out,” Natasha says, trailing her fingers down the vein on your bicep.

“Deal.” You kiss her again, slipping your muscular arms under her thighs and standing up with her. You carry her to your bed, leaving her to undress while you grab your strap from its drawer and slip it over your legs. When you turn back, she’s shimmying off her lacy black panties and the feral urge to keep your promise overrides all your senses. 

You pick her back up and she hooks her legs around your waist, her arms circling your neck. She presses her naked chest against yours, both of you moaning in unison when your nipples brush together. You walk with her until Natasha’s back bumps into the wall, shifting her weight off your arms to the wall. You maneuver your right hand to grab onto your strap, lining it up with Natasha’s center. 

“Are you ready for me?” you ask, rubbing the tip of your cock over her soaking entrance. Natasha’s whines at your teasing, her fingers tangling in your hair and jerking at your roots painfully. 

“Fucking ruin me,” she begs.

You slam your hips forward, burying your entire cock in her in one move. Natasha screams, tearing her nails down your back. Your big hands grip onto her waist to hold her in place as you thrust into her tight heat, your abs flexing and tensing. Natasha’s body rolls with yours, her head falling back against the wall, exposing the perfect column of her neck to you. You lean forward to decorate it with your marks, so every time she undresses for the next week, she’ll be reminded of you.

The only item of “clothing” she still wears is a thin silver necklace with a rectangular charm hanging from the chain. It bounces in the hollow of her throat every time you thrust into her.

“Y/N, oh, Y/N,” Natasha chants, music to your ears as you keep your relentless pace. Your thighs, already spent from your gym session, are absolutely on fire now, so you need her to finish quickly before you drop her. You shift the angle of your hips, bumping the top of your cock against her clit with every stroke. Natasha squirms and moans, trying to find a rhythm with you, but she’s so close she can’t match you at all. 

“Tell me when you’re gonna cum, baby,” you pant. 

“Soon,” she moans. “Go harder. Don’t stop.”

You’re afraid you’re going to break her with how hard you’re thrusting into her. But finally, her body tenses in your hands and you know she’s finished all over your cock. You’re grateful to slow your thrusts as she comes down from her high, your entire body sweaty and buzzing with adrenaline. You slip your arms under her quivering thighs and stumble back to the bed, collapsing onto it with your legs hanging off the edge, Natasha panting on top of you. 

You’re not sure who’s more exhausted, you or her. You lay there unmoving, trying to catch your breath, which Natasha does before you. She sits up, slowly pulling your cock out of her and crawling up your body to kiss you messily. Her tongue slips into your mouth, but you’re too tired to return her fervor very much. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Am I too much for you?” she teases, cupping your chest and pinching your nipples. 

“No, just give me a minute,” you grumble. It was rare to meet someone with stamina like hers. And as much as you prided yourself on yours, you feel like you may have met your match with Natasha Romanoff. Your arms and chest are covered in her scratch marks, and your back still stings a little. Natasha traces the scratches gently.

“Mine,” she murmurs.

“Hmm?” you grunt, not sure if you heard her correctly.

She props herself up on your chest to look at you. “I can give you a minute,” she purrs, her voice becoming husky and seductive. Natasha slides down your body, resting her knees on the floor and tugging the harness of your strap down your legs. You can hardly lift your hips high enough off the bed to help her, embarrassed by how tired you are. Natasha grabs your calves to lift your feet up one at a time to remove the harness and throw it to the side. She rubs her hand  across your defined abdomen, stoking the fire in your belly again.

“Don’t move, baby,” she says. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Huh?” You lift your head high enough to see Natasha’s head between your legs, her mouth lowering onto you. It’s like a lightning bolt of pleasure that shoots through your core and you moan loudly in appreciation. Natasha makes eye contact with you as she slips her tongue into you, smiling as you pant and squirm. 

“Oh, God. Fuck me,” you gasp, dropping your head back on the bed. Your hands claw at the sheets as her tongue explores your walls. Natasha pushes apart your muscular thighs to make more room for her, pushing so deep into you her nose bumps against you. Your chest heaves as you struggle to breathe evenly, arching your lower back off the bed in a silent plea for more. 

Natasha eats you out like she’d been starving for a week, her tongue alternating between swirling around your throbbing clit and pushing through your clenching walls.

You finally find the strength to lift your right leg, twisting it sideways at the knee and hooking it around the back of Natasha’s head, pressing your calf against her scalp and dragging her closer. You reach down with your hand to tangle it in Natasha’s flaming red hair, pushing her down so she isn’t tempted to pull away right when you reach the edge of release. 

“Nat,” you whine. “Please, baby. You’re gonna make me cum.”

Natasha hums against you, the vibrations finally causing you to lose control. Your entire body goes limp as Natasha cleans up all the slick between your legs, then climbs back up to rest on you like you’re her personal pillow.

“Gimme a kiss,” you mumble and Natasha presses her lips to yours obediently. She tucks her head in the crook of your collarbone and you stroke her hair absently. “If I fall asleep, are you gonna leave again before I wake up?” you ask, your voice sounding small. 

“Only if you want me to,” Natasha murmurs. 

“I know I’m supposed to hate you, but I don’t know if I can,” you admit.

“Then don’t,” Natasha says. “Because I was thinking about it too, and…I think we should go public.”

“Public? Like us being…” You can’t even finish your own sentence.

“Mhmm.” Natasha nods against your chest.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” you scoff.

“No, I’m fucking you.”

“And you’re done. Right?” Your eyebrows scrunch together at the dual meaning of your words. Natasha doesn’t say anything. “At the very least, you owe me fifteen-billion-dollars before we can go public about anything,” you say, referencing the amount your company lost in the last month when Black Widow Corp pulled the rug out from under your feet.  

“Done.” Natasha searches around your bed for her phone. “What’s your bank account number?” 

“What are you doing? Seriously.” You’re a little lost now. 

“Well, our dads spent all their time fighting each other,” she says.

“Not fucking?” you joke.

“I can’t confirm that,” she says with a smirk. “But I was thinking about it. And I know Envy hasn’t been doing so well lately–”

“Because you sabotaged our contracts and stole our ideas,” you remind her.

Again, Natasha does not confirm nor deny this fact. “But what if instead of competing, we…helped each other out?”

“Like a collaboration?” you ask. Your father had specifically warned you against any kind of “collaboration” work with another company. You weren’t running a YouTube channel. You had a multibillion-dollar business. It was your responsibility to look out for the well-being of your company and your company only, damn philanthropic endeavors, personal favors, and relationships.

“We can work something out,” Natasha insists.

“Did you go through all of this just to ask me that?” you ask.

“No.” Now, Natasha looks away from you. “I mean, at first, yes. I thought you would just be a hot one-night stand. And yes, you were–” You raise an eyebrow. “–But you’re also a lot more than that.” Validation burns through your veins to hear this. “You’re smart, you know the tech, and you know how to run a business. And you’re the hottest CEO in the country and the best person who’s ever taken me to bed,” Natasha says. You think you’re going to combust at the praise. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop thinking about us. And what we could accomplish together.”

It takes a few seconds to let her words process. “I don’t know how this could work,” you say, the logical side of you taking over for once. “We’re not regular people, Nat. The future of this country is literally in our hands. The public watches our every move and criticizes every decision we make. People like us need whole PR teams to manage their relationships.”

“Fuck the PR teams,” Natasha says. “If we like each other, then why can’t we be together?”

It had been years since you had publicly been in a relationship with someone. After all, it was so much simpler to cycle through partners and not have to worry about commitment or any long-term decisions. But deep down, you were cripplingly lonely and terrified you wouldn’t be able to find someone who would settle with you. 

Because truth be told, your lifestyle was not for many. Most people couldn’t handle the pressure you were subjected to every day. The never-ending torrents of judgment. The borderline-criminal way you were stalked by reporters and paparazzi. The unreal expectations you were held to by people you’d never even met.

But out of all the people you had ever been with, Natasha Romanoff was the one with the best chance of understanding all that. She knew what she was getting herself into, because your life would be her reality the day her father passed on the company. Of course it wouldn’t hurt her to get some practice beforehand.

“I want you to be mine,” Natasha says suddenly. She reaches up to her neck, her fingers brushing the hickeys you left there, before unclipping the silver necklace. She puts it around yours, flipping the charm around so you can see that it reads “Natasha.”

“Baby…” You didn’t even care what your dad’s reaction to hearing the news would be. How would the public react? The consumers? The shareholders? At your level, it was unavoidable crossing the line between professional and personal interests. People would either cheer you on or vow to never use another Envy product again.

But Envy had been tanking ever since you took the helm. Maybe this was what you needed to bounce back…courtesy of the same woman who ruined you in the first place. The math seemed to add up–Natasha would cancel out herself, wouldn’t she?

Natasha interlaces her fingers with yours, distracting your thinking. “We could be the most powerful couple in the tech industry. In the world,” she says. “Isn’t that what you always wanted?”

“Yes,” you sigh, although that’s not really the truth. There was one thing you wanted more than power, money, and fame.

“Then don’t be afraid, sweetheart.” She squeezes your fingers. “With me, you’ll have everything you want and more.”

A rush of emotions suddenly overwhelms you–fear, annoyance, love, envy, and venom. You would kick yourself in the head if you missed out on the chance to be with Natasha, but you also weren’t entirely convinced this was the right move. 

“Y/N.” The way she says your voice is desperate and pleading, like she too can’t be without you.

“Okay.” You make up your mind in an instant. “Okay, baby. Let’s do it.”

Natasha beams, snuggling closer to you. The two of you say nothing further, and her steady breathing quickly lulls you to sleep. Natasha holds onto you even as she feels your body relax under her. She turns her head to look at the gun you left on the table, wondering what it would feel like in her hand, to hold against your head.

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

AN: These two are for real going to be the death of me. 😩

Please like, reblog, and comment! Follow for more content. 🥰

[miumura]

DANGEROUS ──── TAESAN ⋆.

"JUST MAKING MEMORIES" is something Taesan sent to you over text before he bolted out of the door. He knew he might get into trouble for sneaking out, but none of that mattered—he needed to see you. Trouble could wait; reuniting with you couldn’t.

PAIRING best friend!taesan x gn!reader GENRE fluff ∿ accidental confession ∿ WARNINGS inspired from “Dangerous” by BOYNEXTDOOR ,, one curse word ,, that is all i believe !! WORD COUNT 1.7K+ ( 1745 )

NEW MESSAGE taesan’s part has been stuck in my head so i had to write him to this ^^ i def have this song and mv on loop - it’s such a fun one !! so you can bet i ran to write this ASAP 🫡 shows that i am soso excited for their comeback :] !!

♫ ──── I never cross the line, trust me 𓂃 ⭑

Taesan had to be extra quiet tonight—he couldn’t afford to get caught by his parents, especially at this hour. But, he prided himself on being skilled at sneaking out, having done it countless times before. This wasn’t his first rodeo, and tonight, he was determined it wouldn’t be the night he finally slipped up.

Moving swiftly but cautiously across the creaky wooden floor, he kept his gaze fixed between his parents' room and the exit. His heart raced when he found himself in front of their door, which he slightly cracked open to confirm they were asleep. Sure enough, the car keys rested right where he expected—on the nightstand beside his father.

Taesan hesitated for a split second before slipping in, his steps light as air. He reached for the keys, careful not to disturb the silent house or the sleeping figure. With a smooth motion, he grasped the keys without causing a single jingle. Without wasting a second, he darted back towards the entrance, his light footsteps barely audible, a small grin tugging at his lips.

So far, everything was going according to plan.

Maybe telling Taesan you were finally back from your two-week trip at 2 A.M. wasn’t the brightest idea. If you had known he’d spam you with texts filled with excitement and then decide to show up at your place right in the middle of your unpacking, you might’ve held off on sharing the news. But truth be told, you were just as eager to talk to him. After spending weeks messaging back and forth, you couldn’t resist letting him know you were home—especially with him counting down the days until your return like a personal calendar.

Even when you tried to convince him to wait just a few more hours to meet, Taesan was already set on seeing you right then and there. There was no talking him out of it.

He just couldn’t wait to see you again.

“Hey, I’m here!!!!” Your phone buzzed with a notification as you were halfway through putting away your clothes, causing you to chuckle.

You debated ignoring Taesan for a bit longer to tease him, but when his texts quickly escalated to threats of ringing your doorbell—fully aware that your parents were likely fast asleep—you had no choice but to give in.

Dropping the shirt in your hand, you rushed down the stairs, determined to stop him. When you opened the door, you were greeted by Taesan’s slight smirk, which soon blossomed into a wide grin. Before you could even say anything, he swept you into a tight hug, holding you close as you instantly melted into his embrace.

You hadn’t realized just how much you missed his hugs until now.

Finally breaking from his embrace, you took a moment to study the familiar features you had only seen through FaceTime. It hit you that this moment was real—you were finally back, standing in front of Taesan again. Your eyes soon trailed down to his outfit, and you couldn’t help but let out a series of small chuckles.

“Did you roll out of bed when I texted you?” you teased, pointing at his pants, which were covered in random, colorful designs.

He followed your gaze and stared at his pants—decorated with bizarre patterns you couldn’t even describe. Taesan let out a laugh, though his slightly flushed cheeks and the way he scratched the back of his neck betrayed his embarrassment.

“Hey, to be fair, you texted me at two in the morning.”

“You could’ve worn jeans or something,” you quipped.

“At least I put on a hoodie—besides, you're in pajamas too!” he pointed out, causing you to giggle as he finally noticed.

“Not as weird as yours,” you shrugged. “Anyway, it was nice seeing you—you should go back now.”

You gave him a slight push toward the direction of his house, but Taesan didn't budge, instead staying put with an odd grin that sent a chill down your spine.

“Not yet,” he said, pulling out car keys from his pocket and jingling them in front of you. Your eyes widened in disbelief as you glanced over his shoulder, spotting something you should’ve noticed earlier—his parents' car, parked right there. You whipped your head back to Taesan, who let out a laugh at your reaction.

“So, you’re telling me, not only did you sneak out, but you took their car too?!” you exclaimed.

“Technically, it’s supposed to be my car too, so… why can’t I?” he shrugged, still grinning like he hadn't just committed a minor crime (dramatic much?).

“You’re going to get into trouble, Taesan,” you warned, though you couldn’t help but smile at his boldness. This was classic Taesan—reckless, spontaneous, and a little too daring for his own good.

“Not if we don’t get caught,” he smirked.

“What do you mean we—” Before you could finish your sentence, Taesan grabbed your arm and pulled you toward the car. Without much choice, you found yourself sliding into the passenger seat, watching him confidently start up the engine. You shot him a side-eye as the car turned on loudly.

“You’re not going to drag me into your mess if you get into trouble… are you?” you asked, crossing your arms.

“That won’t happen, don’t worry,” he said with a grin, glancing over at you. His casual reassurance didn’t ease your nerves, but something about his energy made you believe him. Even though this seemed reckless and dangerous, there was something thrilling about it, something that made you forget to be cautious.

“Even if it does happen… this better be worth it,” you muttered, glancing at him as he pulled away from your house.

“Making demands now?” Taesan snickered, his hand reaching for the volume knob as he slowly turned up the music you both liked. You hummed along with the familiar melody as he drove, and soon you began to recognize where you were headed.

When you finally arrived at the familiar, secluded spot, a smile crept onto your face. It was the hangout place—the place. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, just an old rooftop in an abandoned part of town, but it held so many memories for you both. Hours spent talking under the stars, laughing about nothing, escaping reality together—it was your safe haven.

“I missed this place,” you quietly exclaimed, staring out of the window as nostalgia washed over you.

“I’m glad you do,” Taesan replied, pulling the car into a spot nearby and shutting off the engine. He turned to you with a soft smile. “It was boring without you here.”

“I would’ve expected so,” you teased with a grin, pushing the car door open and stepping outside. Taesan shook his head at your comment, a small smile tugging at his lips.

You both started walking along the rocky path, the crunching sound beneath your feet breaking the quiet, but in a way that felt calming. As you neared the old, cracked steps leading to the rooftop, Taesan reached for your hand, his familiar words slipping out as if by instinct, “Watch your steps.”

He always said it every time, a small gesture of care that never failed to warm you inside. You gave his hand a small squeeze in response, feeling a comfort that only Taesan could bring—a comfort that had remained constant even after weeks of distance.

It didn’t take long for you two to reach the rooftop, and you couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief when you saw that the mat you’d left last time was still there. With a soft sigh, you sat down, sinking into the familiar comfort of the spot. Taesan followed suit, settling down beside you.

You both gazed up at the night sky. Though it wasn’t lit up with as many stars as usual, the cool, crisp breeze seemed to make up for it.

You two chatted for what seemed like for decades, with the amount of endless topics you two managed to bring up. As much as you wished for this moment to last forever, your mind somehow went back to the thought of what time it could be.

“It’s probably so late right now,” you mumbled, still not bothering to check your phone for the time. “You really shouldn’t have stayed up.”

“Why not?”

“I told you I’d be back late,” you replied, turning to glance at him. “You shouldn’t have waited.”

“I still wanted to see you,” Taesan said without hesitation.

“Why?” you asked, your voice quieter now, more curious than anything.

“Because I like you.”

His words hung in the air for a few seconds, both of you processing what he had just said. Taesan’s eyes widened slightly as if the confession had slipped out by accident, and the shock that hit both of you was almost palpable. Neither of you spoke at first, the cool breeze suddenly feeling much more intense as you stared at him in surprise.

Neither of you could find the words to say next. Taesan turned his head slightly, eyes flicking to the ground as if it could offer him an escape from the awkwardness that had suddenly settled between you. His hands fidgeted with the edge of his hoodie, a nervous habit you’d seen before, though it had never felt so intense.

You stared at him, trying to make sense of what just happened. The cool breeze brushed against your skin, and yet, your body felt warmer. You wanted to say something—anything—but the words were lodged in your throat, stuck between surprise and the realization that this wasn’t just a passing comment.

His confession was still hanging in the air, echoing in the silence between you two.

Taesan shifted uncomfortably, his gaze still fixed on the ground. He finally took a deep breath, but even then, his words faltered. “Uh, I didn’t—” he started, then stopped, his face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and uncertainty.

You swallowed, trying to calm the sudden rush of emotions that had washed over you.

"You know... Taesan, I feel—" you began, but your words were suddenly interrupted by a loud buzzing from Taesan's pocket. He immediately reached for his phone, and both of you glanced down at the screen. The name "Dad" lit up brightly, sending a jolt of panic through the air.

Both your eyes widened in unison as reality hit. Taesan's face that was once filled with anticipation became paled, and you could feel the tension shift.

There was a brief, terrifying silence before he muttered,

"Oh fuck."

💬 : prepare for more bnd works ( hopefully ) i love them sm

𝓑OY𝓝EXT𝓓OOR 𝓟ERM 𝓣AGLIST IS 𝓞PEN!

PLEASE SEND AN ASK OR COMMENT TO JOIN ♡

[mikanotes]

Hiii

Chishiya x reader that takes place in the first episode (season 2) when the king of spades starts shooting everyone and Chishiya protects reader in his own Chishiya ways 🙏🏻 And they both don’t get in the car with arisu & the others so they go off to find somewhere they can stay. Maybe established relationship & from chishiyas pov

TyTyTy ❤️

— GUNS AND SPADES

chishiya x gn!reader | ? words

genre: established relationship, slight angst

warnings: s2 spoilers, shooting, guns, blood, death, mentions of fainting, kinda spoilers for chishiya’s past, aib stuff… badly written might edit later idk

synopsis: Surviving in the Borderlands was something you’d been forced to get used to. Getting shot at for absolutely no reason when no game was ongoing was something else entirely.

author’s note: thank you for requesting! hope you like it!! to be honest i struggle with writing about chishiya this way a bit so this isn’t nearly as good as i wanted it to be. also i have no idea where i was going with this. nevertheless i hope it’s nice to read!

The sound of shots was clear. People scrambled around Shibuya Crossing, running for their lives without a care for one another’s. When faced with Death, people showed their true selves— Or whatever.

It would seem that, as per usual, your true self in this situation was to start running away before cursing at Chishiya and pulling him so he’d follow. Sure, he would start running eventually either way, but he certainly took his time.

“Chishiya, seriously.” you scoffed.

Thus the run began.

Arisu, Usagi, Kuina, you, and Chishiya were all lined up hiding behind an underground subway’s stairs entrance, crouching behind the wall and checking through the glass for the unknown shooter.

“Is this a game? Where are the rules?” Usagi exclaimed through panicked breaths. Arisu shook his head immediately.

“There’s nothing. This is just mass murder.”

“Seriously.” you mumbled, checking through the glass, “More people are coming this way. We should get moving.”

You all started running away in a group before realizing there was no point. Arisu yelled at everyone to split up and you all did. Running through a crowd of scared people, all confused and fearing for their lives— It was never a good feeling.

“Ah!”

Especially when some were too rushed in their run and tripped over, resulting in you falling along with them.

“I’m sorry!” the man yelled, scrambling to get up.

You laughed dryly, jumping up to your feet with ease. “You should be.” you breathed out, before ducking and running to the nearest corner. You turned and ran and avoided people and ran and it felt like hours of your breathing getting progressively worse and more heavy before you finally ran into a familiar face.

“[name]!” Kuina exclaimed, stopping in her tracks before you two could run into each other, “Come with me!”

She grabbed your wrist and ran to a car nearby, quickly pulling you to sit down behind it along with her. You exhaled a heavy sigh, your chest heaving up and down and your head spinning.

“You look tired.” a familiar voice spoke casually. You lifted your head up only to see Chishiya look at you with an easy smile, waving his hand from his seat on Kuina’s other side. You deadpanned.

“Yeah. And you don’t.” you scoffed, “Are you two okay?”

“I’m surprised I don’t have a single wound, honestly.” Kuina sighed, head hitting the car’s door in exhaustion, “Seriously, what the fuck is going on?“

You glanced at Chishiya and he gave you a slight nod, affirming that he was okay. You nodded back before looking over your shoulder. “There’s people on the other side of the road. Usagi and Arisu, I think.”

Kuina furrowed her eyebrows before moving her head to the side, signaling you to move over and switch places with her. You did, as discreetly as possible, and let her check whatever it is she wanted to. Chishiya waved two fingers in front of your face and brought your attention to him.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” you sighed, “Just tired. I knew things weren’t over but I expected a little break after the hell that went down at the Beach, at least.”

“The hell continues, I guess.” he said casually, smiling.

You could only sigh.

“You have to stay focused if you don’t wanna die!” Kuina suddenly yelled. You looked over to her and jumped at the sound of shooting right at the road the car you were hiding behind was parked on. Chishiya grabbed your shoulder to pull you back when he did, only relaxing when the shots stopped. Kuina scoffed, “Where the fuck are they shooting from?”

Just as she sat back down properly, an airship of sorts appeared over everyone, creating a looming shadow that did nothing to reassure the players. Chishiya hummed. “The King of Spades.”

“Great.” you commented. There were probably hundreds of pieces of fabric tied together to form a giant King of Spades card floating in the sky, attached to the bottom of the airship. You wondered just how much more of this hell you would have to go through before you could return to the comfort of the hell you knew. The normal world.

Chishiya leaned forward and handed Kuina something. It looked like a can and… Oh. You’d seen him make this back at the Beach one day. He’d made three. They were small bombs but they could definitely help out if you ever needed it. His words. He handed you one as well and you inspected it. “Here you go. A good luck charm.”

“What’s this? A bomb?” Kuina asked.

“Use it when you’re in a pinch.” he said casually.

“You have questionable hobbies, Chishiya.” you hummed, spinning the object in your hand before putting it in your jacket, “Thank you.”

“I second that. Thanks.” Kuina chuckled.

The sound of shots rung in the air as well as several running footsteps along with it. You checked Kuina’s side and saw Arisu and Usagi hide behind the car directly next to yours— Just a few meters away. Kuina tilted her head, “Are you hurt?”

“Did you seriously stop to try and save someone?” you followed after glancing at the dying boy they’d seemingly carried all the way there, and Arisu looked at you with wide eyes, before looking away and grimacing. Nothing new, you thought.

Shots fired again but the sound didn’t drown out the clear, loud honking of a car. You thought you’d imagined it, honestly, because logically speaking there was no reason for anyone to not only show themselves so obviously with a moving car but also announce themselves by honking.

Yet when the entire group looked over to the road there was, indeed, a car waiting. Ann and Tatta. Your eyes widened. “What?”

“Hurry up! Get in!” Tatta yelled.

Usagi and Arisu were the first to run into the car, closely followed by Kuina. Chishiya, irritating as he could get, refused to take his hands out of his pockets to run. You were a bit behind, careful, and caught up to him quickly. “What part of hurry up are you missing?!” you exclaimed.

Chishiya stopped and stared at the ground. You were about to question why he wasn’t going into the car despite standing right in front of it but followed his gaze.

A grenade.

“This is bad. Run!” he instantly yelled, pulling you back and moving to start running away, “Get going! Drive!” he told Tatta, knowing there was no point in risking getting into the car anymore.

“[name]!” Usagi yelled.

Kuina seemed just as worried, “Chishiya!”

The sound of their voices were quickly drowned out when your head hit the hard concrete of the sidewalk as you and Chishiya jumped as far away as possible from the bomb. The explosion went off before your senses could start coming back and just as the car started driving away. You covered the sides of your head with your arms and felt Chishiya’s arm wrap around them.

Everything was spinning. For a moment, you weren’t sure you were alive. Then Chishiya’s voice brushed that thought away.

“We have to move.” he tried to speak over all the noise. You nodded faintly and got up on your feet to the best of your ability, before running away with him— Bullets following you closely.

To Chishiya, this would’ve been fine if you hadn’t been there.

If he had been alone during that shooting, even including the part where he fails to get in the car because of a grenade— it would all have been fine because Chishiya Shuntaro is used to dealing with whatever hellish cards the Borderlands hand him. But that’s where the problem lies;

You’re there.

Chishiya met you before the cruelty of the reality of the world stripped him of his empathy— Forced him into the stoicism of a person suppressing their own emotions. He met you before his job ruined a part of him, and his feelings seemingly didn’t waver one bit at that. The importance of your wellbeing had been something he cared about before but even with attempts at erasing his emotions he couldn’t erase the quickening pace of his heartbeat if he heard you weren’t doing well.

Chishiya made the mistake of letting himself fall for someone back in college (though he claims fall is too ridiculous) and now has to deal with the pains of feeling like he needs to protect said person. You were good at dealing with things yourself, too— Sure, but that didn’t mean anything to the instinctive worry that held him by the throat.

So he watches you, unconscious due to the amount of things that happened in a few seconds, lying on the ground of some empty apartment complex— With something anyone could easily mistake as disdain. It used to be easy dealing with complicated things when he was alone. He was also sure playing games would be so much more simple if you weren’t by his side. All he would have to care for would be his own survival and that would just be it. Now he had to fear Heart games and count you into every calculations he made to get himself out of a deadly game of chess.

It was almost infuriating how much you unconsciously forced him into changing his ways, even after all these years. He figured that was just how things went when you loved someone.

When you shift in your sleep and start sighing, eyes slowly blinking to force yourself awake, Chishiya doesn’t feel the smile form on his lips. “You’re lucky we found this place before you decided to pass out.”

“My God.” you grumbled, sitting up with some effort. “Have you just been sitting there? I’m surprised. Were you watching over me, or something?”

Even in situations like this, you just didn’t miss an opportunity to try and tease him. It’s not like it ever worked, but the attempts were amusing.“You weren’t out for that long.” he spoke as calmly as usual, “Sleep fine?”

“I dreamt of fireworks at Shibuya.” you said, and your voice dropped to a silent low. The shift from casual to slight anxiousness was barely noticeable, but very obvious to Chishiya. You cracked your neck and stretched. “Guess my head decided to make people yelling and loud sounds seem more happy than how it really was.”

“At least your mind’s version of the events that just transpired is less disturbing and nightmarish. Glad to know you slept well.” he said, pushing himself up to stand. “We should check the game nearby. I don’t like the idea of us standing there waiting.”

“Less chances of getting shot by that Kind of Spades, I guess.” you sighed, following him to stand up, “Just as many to get killed, though.”

Chishiya held his hand up and you looked at it, then at him, and a small smile pulled at your lips. You high-fived him and then you both wrapped your fingers around the other’s hand.

“Not if I’m there.” he claims, smirking a little. You scoff lightly and Chishiya knows you feel slightly better. It’s enough for now. The feelings of anxiety are pushed back far away enough for you to focus during games. Enough for you to play properly and keep yourself alive. Chishiya nodded a bit, “Let’s get going.”

“Alright.” you tightened your hold on his hand and you both walked towards the game near where you were staying at— Steeling yourselves for whatever the Borderlands had prepared for you.

[hyperfixiation-station]

🥺 hi. I get so anxious asking for requests. So I’m sorry if it’s weird. But could I please please Pleaseee get a ghost x fem reader. Hurt to comfort. They were on a mission and she’s there for medic help. Not even to fight. But she got taken by the bad guys. And she gets tortured for information that she doesn’t have. And they play mind games with her. Making her think that they will never come rescue her. They really fully break her body and break her mind by the end of it. But before she thinks she’s about to finally die, Ghost and the others come and save her. And it’s about how the only person she feels safe with after all that is ghost and just him helping her heal and get back to the woman she was before all this. I want it to hurt my soul. 😭 but then there’s hope at the end of it bc they have each other.

My Heart Will Go On

Don't be, I love when people ask me things, and I looooved this request so much!!! I too like to torturehave fun with my OC's :)

TW: Blood, torture, manipulation

Pairing: GhostxReader

Part 2

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all, actually. It was just another mission, another day on the job. You went out with the boys as usual, their assigned medic as theyghost refused to work with anybody else. You weren’t sure why. Maybe it was your soft demeanor, your gentle touch, the way you never judged himthem for anything hethey did. But whatever it was, they liked you, and so with them you went.

You hung back at the evac point, also as usual. Sitting in the truck, first aid kit on your lap, a comm in your ear as you listened to your boys and made sure they were all okay. It was a tense fight, gunshots and pained grunting filling your headset. You were on edge, rocking back and forth as you listened for your que to come in. In fact, you were so focused on the comms that you didn’t even notice the danger you were in until it was too late.

Your first cue something was wrong was when the comms went silent. The sounds of battle filled your ears for hours before getting cut off abruptly. Your hand shot to the comm link, fiddling with it as you frantically tried to reconnect, worried something was wrong.

“Ghost, do you copy?”

“Ghost?”

“Price?”

“Gaz?”

“Can you hear me??” Your voice got more and more panicked as you got no response. You yanked the headset off and shrugged your vest on, kit in hand as you slid out of the truck.

Your second clue something was wrong was when you looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly at your face. You didn't even have time to ask ‘what’ before everything went dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hello, princesa.” You blink hard as the blindfold is removed from your eyes. The light is blinding, the splitting headache you got from being pistol whipped only intensifying under the harsh lights.

“Who are you?” You manage after a moment, eyes slowly focusing on the man in front of you. He is large, easily over six foot, and built like an absolute unit. His face is covered by a black balaclava, though his scarred, tattooed forearms are on display.

“Don’t play stupid with me.” His voice is deep and smooth, and if you weren’t in the situation you are in you would have asked him to keep talking.

“‘M not! I don't-"

“Don’t lie to me Princesa. I don’t like liars.” A shiver runs down your spine as his tone darkens.

“But I’m-”

“Ah ah lovie, I am one asking questions here.”

“I wasn’t ask-”

“SHUT UP!” You flinch back at the drastic change in tone, the sound sending bolts of pain through your skull.

“Oh sorry Princesa, did that hurt?” Seriously, you are going to get whiplash from his bi-polar personality, “Forgot you have concussion. Let's get you Advil for that and then we see if you talk, yeah?"

You watch with blurry vision as he leaves the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The sound sends waves of agony through your pounding head, and by the time you can focus again he's back.

All it takes is one well placed blow to the head, an attempt to get you to pay attention, and you're out like a light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I don’t know anything I swear! Please! I don't know anything!” The sobs tear raggedly out of your throat, already raw from screaming. Your voice is scratchy and broken, but still you can't stop begging.

“I don’t know anything” You sob. Those words, I don’t know, had become your motto over the past few daysweeks(?)

“Oh Princesa. I know.” He croons, running a finger down your bruised face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time was meaningless. Has it been 2 days since you were captured? Two weeks? Months? You don’t know. Your meals come at staggered times, and your captors never come at a routine time. The lights turn on and off at staggered times, nothing in a set pattern, a system created to mess with your mind.

Not that you know that. This wasn’t the kind of life you lived. You were a medic for heaven's sake. Your hands had been built to mend, to fix, to heal. Not to clutch at broken bones, to scratch against cement, to be chained and broken. You arewere a gentle creature, not designed for this world of torture and terror.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"They no come for you." You moan as the words pound through your skull, nearly unintelligible.

"Wh'...y'say?" You mumble, voice scratchy and broken.

"You're friends, Princesa. They are no coming for you." He sighs and moves next you, prodding your side with his steel-toed boot, "You are replaceable, your skills are easily replicated, they no spend time and resources to find a simple medic."

"They…'ll c'me." You wheeze, refusing to belive that Price, that Gaz, that Soap, that Ghost, would just...leave you.

He laughs in response, digging his toe into your side until your gasping in pain.

"We shall see, Princesa. We shall see."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You weren’t built for this. Weren’t built to recognize the manipulation, the mind games. Weren’t built to survive the two-face man who was reshaping your brain. The man who was your greatest source of pain, but also your only friend. The man that flayed your flesh open, but soothed and bandaged you when it was all over. This man, who was slowly becoming the only thing you could trust in your unstable world. He may bring you unbearable pain, but he brought you comfort too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That looks bad, Princesa." The man lightly touches the bones sticking out of your forearm. You whine in pain, clutching it to your chest. He chuckles, wiping your blood off on the cell floor.

"Let's get that fixed up, yeah?" His voice is soft, and gentle, and the nicest thing you've heard in a loooong time. His touch is the same, gentle caresses of bruised and broken skin, revolting and appealing at the same time.

Oh, it's utter agony as he sets and stitches your arm with no pain killers. You scream, back arching, lungs heaving, body seizing.

But after? Oh it's heaven. He holds you, cradling you against his warm body, making sure you don't go into shock, telling you you're a good girl, and that you've made him proud. You hate yourself for it, but you can't help but preen at the praise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He brings you a calendar. One month. It’s been one month since you got taken.

“It’s been over a month.” He says, a deep voice tinged with pity, “and no sign of your…friends. I’d give up being rescued if I were you, because they clearly have.” You can barely hear him as you stare at the paper in his hands, 31 days marked off with big, bright X’s. 31 days that you have been trapped here. 31 days that your squad…hadn’t come for you. Is he right? Are they really not coming? Did Ghost really give up on you? Are you-

“Ay Princesa, I even did what you asked. I sent your squad pictures and videos that even the greenest tech member could pull some coordinates from, but nothing. It’s like I said. Your ‘friends’ don’t care for you. They are not coming for you. I am your only friend in this place. Tell me, who bandages your wounds, who feeds you, who makes sure your living space is comfortable?”

“Y-you do.” You whisper uncertainty, “But…you also hurt me, don’t you?”

“Oh Princesa, I wouldn’t hurt ya if y’ would just listen. It not torture if you're disobedient. It's just…punishment.” His voice is sickeningly sweet, “And you just back-talked me. Do you remember what happens when you try to give me sass?”

"I get…punished." You mumble, cheeks flushing with shame.

"Obviously, you fucking idiot. I mean how."

"I…you…I have to do affirmations."

"Look at that, y'r gettin' it!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Say it again." He snarls. You sit in front of a mirror, face bruised, bleeding, and swollen.

"I 'm r'pl'c'able, my friends…'re n-no'...c'min'...I 'm no' l'v'ble…I 'm r'pl'c'…able." You whisper for the hundredth time.

"Again."

"I 'm r'pl'c'able, my friends 're no'...c'min'...I 'm no' l'vable, I 'm r'pl'c'…able."

"Again!"

"I 'm r'pl'c'able, my friends 're no'...c'min'...I 'm no' l'vable, I 'm r'pl'c'…able."

He makes you keep going, repeating those 4 sentences until you literally can't make sound anymore, a fact he tests by seeing how much it takes to get you to scream. You pass out before he gets anywhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ghost?"

"Simon?"

"Please."

"Why are you not coming for me?"

just FYI if the timing seems disjointed and the speech is wierd, that is intentiweird,

anyways I hope you liked it!!!!

[mama2bears]

Starting Over Again - Chapter 2

Pairings: Tyler Owens/F. Reader

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, a few cuss words, fear

Back to Chapter 1

Chapter Two

“What's the plan for today?” Lily asked as she joined Tyler and Boone at the table, waiting to order their breakfast.

“I am going down to Wichita Falls to pick up the new recruit,” Tyler said. “Dexter and Dani are coming in today. Dexter said it looks like we might be getting a big outbreak tomorrow about three hours north of here, outside of Oklahoma City.”

“Are we packing up and moving north then?” Boone asked.

Tyler nodded, “Why don't you and Lily get us packed up and meet Dexter and Dani at the hotel outside of El Reno. I'll head down to the bus station and meet you there tonight with the new recruit.”

Lily and Boone agreed to the plan and the group finished their breakfast and prepared for their day.

* * * * *

You stared out of the bus window as it neared Wichita Falls. A million thoughts were running though your head. Did Lee file charges against you? Was he looking for you? Could he find you here?

“Next stop, Wichita Falls, Texas.” The driver announced as the bus turned into the station.

You picked up the small grocery sized bag next to you that had two shirts and two pants in it, a gift from the librarian's daughter as she dropped you off at the Knoxville bus station. It was only yesterday, but it seemed like forever.

As the bus stopped and the doors opened you stood slowly, your body still sore from the many beatings, the last was only three days ago. You put your hand to your face and feel your swollen check and split lip. You know you look a mess and for a brief moment, you wonder what your new boss was going to say. You only hoped he didn't ask too many questions.

You step off the bus to a bright sunny day. A few people got on, but you were the only one getting off on this stop. You scan the parking lot, wondering if this Tyler Owens would remember to come pick you up. Maybe he figured you were going to be too much of a burden and went with someone else instead.

Then you spotted it.

A red Dodge Ram that was obviously customized to withstand a tornado. Next to it stood a man in a white cowboy hat, flannel shirt, jeans and boots. He looked more cowboy then storm chaser.

You take a deep breath and force a smile on your face as you head towards him.

“Hey, you must be Y/N.” He smiled brightly and extended his hand. His smile faded when he noticed the bruises.

“Hi, Tyler?” You shook his hand.

“That would be me. I am glad we are done with the Mr. Owens stuff.” He offered her a smile but concern was etched on his face, “What happened?” he asked softly.

You looked at him fearful for a moment before responding, “The reason I left Tennessee.”

He eyed you and the small bag of clothes in your hand, “Is that all you brought with you?” he asked.

You nodded, “Not much, but I am here and ready to work.”

Tyler opened the door of the truck and held it for you. You smiled softly and carefully got in, unable to hide the grimace of pain as you pulled yourself into the truck.

Tyler closed the door and got in the drivers side. He sat there for a moment, looking at you with a clenched jaw. “He know where you are now?”

You shook your head, “No, and I don't want him to. Is that a problem?”

“Nope,” Tyler shook his head and starting the truck, “If he shows up here it won't be a warm welcome for him.”

You smile gratefully and settle down for the ride.

“It's about two hours drive to the hotel.” he told you, “Looks like a big outbreak is possible tomorrow near Oklahoma City, the team is meeting up there and settling into a hotel for the night. You hungry?” he asked.

“Kinda.” You shrug. Truth was, you were starved, but you didn't want to be any more of a burden then you already were.

He smiled at you and nodded, turning on the radio. He had a million questions, but for now, he figured you weren't ready to answer them.

* * * * *

Lee was furious. He stomped in front of the police station. “Why the hell can't you arrest her for theft!” He yelled! “She took my wallet, my truck and $500 from my bank account!”

“Sir, she is your wife. She has a right to half of everything. Even if her name isn't on it. She has the right to use your truck, which we found safe in a parking lot along with your wallet and everything in it. She has a right to at least some of the money in the account. Legally, we can't do anything about it.”

“Well, can't I at least report her missing? She is missing after all!” Lee stated.

“We will look into it, but if she left on her own free will, there is nothing we can do.” the officer stated. “I'll take down some information and we will let you know if we find out anything different.”

“I'll find her myself!” Lee sputtered before storming away. He would find her, and she would pay, along with whoever was helping her.

* * * * *

Tyler pulled into a small roadside diner, “This place has some really great food.” He smiled at you.

“Good,” you give him a small smile back as you both exit the truck. Like a true gentleman, he holds the door for you entering the diner.

As you take a seat in a corner booth you pick up a menu from the table. “They have amazing meatloaf! Burgers are really good too,” he stated, “The team stops here often when we are chasing out this way.”

“Good afternoon. What can I get you two to drink?” The waitress asks, eyeing your bruises and Tyler suspiciously. She was familiar with Tyler and the Tornado Wranglers and was certain they had nothing to do with how you looked, but she was curious as to what the story was.

“Sweet Tea.” Tyler said.

“Same.” You give her a smile.

“Coming right up.” The waitress stated.

“So, I was thinking, “ Tyler stated, “Let's stop at the store and get you a few things, first of all, a phone.”

“I can't afford a phone right now. I think I have enough for the hotel room though, if not, maybe I can just crash in the truck?”

“Don't worry about the room. The team handles our hotel rooms when we are chasing. We get double bed rooms and bunk up.” he told her, “but you have to have a phone, it's just, not safe without one. It's your connection to the team and ours to you. It's your warning system when a tornado is near.”

You nod, “I understand, I just don't know if a phone is affordable right now., but I do need to pick up a few items.”

Tyler looks down at your flip flops and grins, “Yes, like a decent pair of shoes.”

You offer him a small smile as your eyes meet his. You didn't trust him, but you wanted to. His voice was kind and gentle, his smile lit up the room, and those sea green eyes of his were full of kindness. He had a way of making you feel comfortable.

“What is the pay like?” you asked, something you probably should have done before accepting the job, but all that mattered at the moment was that you got out of Tennessee.

“Pay?” Tyler asked, “Um..what pay?” he cracked a grin at your horrified face. “I am just kidding...” he paused as the waitress approached the table with your drinks.

“Ready to order?” she asked.

Tyler gave you a look, “Ready?”

“Meatloaf with mash potatoes and green beans.” You looked at Tyler, half expecting him to be angry. It had been several years since you were able to order for yourself.

He smiled, “I'll have the meatloaf too, but with baked potato and pintos.”

The waitress wrote down the order and headed back to the kitchen.

“Now, where were we?” he questioned, “oh yes, the pay.” he flashed you a smile. “Like I said, rooms are part of the pay. Food, we sometimes pay for our self and sometimes we just pick up meals for the team. When we are chasing Dani normally handles all the food. She is head of our merchandise.”

“Merchandise?” you question.

“Yeah, we get paid when we submit footage to a weather station. National Weather Service also pays us for the time we are out chasing. Dani and Dexter, he's one of our scientists on the team, they sell merchandise out of the RV and we use those funds to help feed the storm chasers and people effected by the tornadoes.”

“Oh, that's really nice that you guys help each other out and the victims.”

Tyler smiled, “That's what we do. We're a family here.”

“So is the pay we get from chasing split or a set amount?” you question.

“We split it. With the funds we get from the YouTube channel along with the National Weather Service and any footage we sell, you are probably looking at around $2500 a month each.”

“Wait..YouTube channel?” you question, fear gripping you.

“Yeah, The Tornado Wranglers! Have you seen us?”

“Um, no.” you shake your head, “Listen, I don't want my name and face out there...”

Tyler looked at you full of concern. “I understand,” he said softly, “It won't be a problem. Boone is our tech guy and is in charge of the YouTube channel. I'll make sure he knows not to get you in any of the content we load, okay?”

“Thank you.” you give him your best smile.

“Now, that we got the pay and hotel business out of the way,” Tyler said, “Let's talk about getting you a phone and some clothes and things.”

“I'll get what I can...” you started, but Tyler reached for your hand. You jumped out of instinct and quickly pulled away.

“Sorry,” he pulled his hands back, “Let me help you, Y/N.” he said softly. “We are a family now. We are here for you, the whole team, okay?”

You nod, “Thank you. I really appreciate that. I am sorry, it's just...well I am not used to this. For the last five years I have had to walk on egg shells and ask permission for everything. It's going to take some getting used to, being free again.”

Tyler gazed at you with his green eyes. 'God, she is beautiful he thought. Even with the bruises, he saw your beauty. The way your hair fell around your face, the kindness and sense of adventure hidden in your eyes, the soft smile that dared to spread across your lips.'

His eyes locked on yours and you saw worry and concern flash across his face, “Y/N, let me help you, okay?” he said gently. “You need the phone for the job. We got to have a way to communicate if we get separated. We got to be able to get weather warnings.”

“Okay.” you nod nervously, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the eye to eye contact.“Can I...I mean..I...um, I am going to the bathroom, okay?” You ask nervously. You knew it was okay, but it was just a habit you had gotten into. With Lee, you couldn't move without permission.

Tyler gave you a soft smile, “You're safe here, you know.” he said softly.

You gave him a small smile and headed off towards the restrooms.

He watched you walk away, vowing to beat the shit out of whoever hurt you if he got the chance. Taking out his phone he called Lily.

“Yo, what's up, Ty?” she answered.

“Listen, I picked up Y/N. She...um....well, she has had it rough. Someone was beating her. I don't know who, I don't want to press.”

“Poor girl,” Lily said softly, “No wonder she was in such a hurry for this job.”

“Did you guys get the hotel rooms yet?” he asked.

“Yeah, Dani and I just finished putting our stuff in. Dexter and Boone are bunking together...I guess that leaves you and the new girl.”

“No,” Tyler shook his head, “I don't think she'd feel comfortable with that, and I can't say that I blame her. Can you get a fourth room?”

“Sure, Boss. I'll go add a room on for us.”

“Thanks,” Tyler said, “We'll be there in a few hours. I am stopping by Walmart and picking up a phone for her and letting her get some things she needs.”

“See you soon,” Lily ended the call.

* * * * *

You stood in the bathroom just staring at yourself in the mirror. No wonder people looked at you. Some of the older bruises were faded, but your lip was swollen as was your cheek. You had a dark bruise across your neck and some down your arms. Your hair looked a mess. And that was just what people could see.

You washed your face off with cool water and ran your hand though your hair. So much had happened in the past twenty four hours. It all seemed like a whirlwind and you didn't know what was going to happen next. What you did know, was that there was something about Tyler. He was the first man in a long time that you almost felt comfortable around. His voice was kind and gentle when he spoke to you. His eyes were full of kindness and concern. You almost felt safe with him. Almost.

It was true, you felt more at peace here, being far away from Lee, however, fear still held a grip on you. Would he be able to find you? Would Tyler and the team accept you? Where were you going to stay when the job was over and everyone went back home?

“One thing at a time,” you told yourself before heading back to the table.

You arrived just as Tyler was putting the phone down.

“You okay?” he asked as you sat down.

“I will be.” You offered him a smile.

Just then the waitress arrived with your food. You thank her and begin to eat.

“The team has rooms for us,” Tyler said between bites, “Like I said, we normally bunk together, but as it pans out, it would have left you and me sharing a room.”

You look at him a bit uneasy.

“Don't worry,” he added, “I asked Lily to get us an extra room. Our team has a total of six members, including you.” he stated.

You nod, thankful to not have to be sharing a room with him, or anyone else for that matter. Not right now. Not yet.

“There's Lily, she's our drone operator. Then Boone, he's the tech guy I told you about. Dani is the one I told you about that sells our merch and Dexter is the scientist. This is probably going to be Dexter's last year with us, he is looking to move to a nice sunny beach somewhere.” Tyler smiled, “That's another reason I was looking for someone else. Kate and Javi were two other members and they are starting a family, so you won't see much of them. Javi might pop in from time to time, but it's just the six of us right now.”

You nod, knowing there would be no way you were going to remember all of this, but you would do your best to remember everyone's names and positions. You only hoped that they liked you and you like them. You hoped this was the brand new start you were hoping for.

* * * * *

An hour later Tyler was standing in front of the store working on setting up a phone he had brought for you. You were quickly making your way though the aisles picking up only what was needed for the first few days...toothbrush and paste, brush, deodorant, bubble bath, socks, shoes, underwear and bra, a pair of pajamas, and a few more changes of clothes.

“Hey, Ty, we have a slight problem,” a text came across Tyler's phone from Lily.

He dialed her number, “What's up Lily?” he asked.

“I tried to get another room, but they are booked. I even asked some of the other chasers if they were willing to bunk up and free up a room. None are, their rooms are already packed as it is and no one wants to bunk with another team.”

Tyler sighed, “Well, I can't say that I blame them. Okay, it's no problem. I'll just sleep in the truck for a few nights.”

“You sure, I mean, maybe Dani and I could double up in a bed and give the second bed to Y/N?” Lily asked.

“No, there's no need for that. Tomorrow looks to be an action packed day and we all need our best nights rest. I've slept in the truck just fine before. Let everyone have their own bed.”

“Your choice,” Lily gave in, “I am sorry, Boss. I tried. I wasn't thinking about the new member being a woman. I should have asked about the fourth room before.”

Tyler smiled seeing you approaching the check out. He was glad to be getting ready to hit the road again. He was never one for shopping, in fact, he hated it. He would rather face an EF5 tornado then to go shopping.

“It's okay Lily. No worries. We're getting ready to leave the store now and will be there soon.”

“Hey, is that all you need right now?” Tyler asked from behind you, making you jump.

“Yeah, this will do at least for a few days. Really, all I want is to get cleaned up and be in a soft bed.”

“Well, let's get going then.” Tyler stuck his card in the machine before you could pull any cash out of your pocket.

“What are you doing?” you asked as he finished paying for the stuff you picked out.

He smiled softly at her, “Making sure my newest team member is taken care of.” he handed you the phone. “It's all set up, I've added my number in there and the number of everyone on the team. I've set it up to issue weather alerts for our current location and I've sent your number to the team member's phones.

“Thanks Tyler,” you smile at him as he picks up your bags and carries them towards the truck.

Why does this feel so different with him? You were actually beginning to feel comfortable around him, at ease even. It was as if you had known him your whole life and didn't just met him a few hours ago.

Tyler Owens kinda felt like home to you. A home that you hadn't known in a very very long time.

********

Chapter 3

*********

Tag List

@itsdesiree86 @sarah-bear706318 @darksparklesficrecs

[snowthedemonfox]

So we got some screenshots for Ep 3, and I'm going to talk about some things I've noticed + some theories

I went off for over an hour in the bunnydoll burrow's VC talking about everything I noticed, but I'm realising writing it all down would be a smarter move, cause I know I'd forget it. If I've missed anything you think is important, let me know! I'll edit this post with new notes.

Let's start with the first screenshot, because that just makes the most sense:

The elephant in the room is the realistic human hand. I don't doubt this is the scene that has some level of blood and gore in it. We can't see what the hand is connected to, but whatever it is, it seems to be taller than Pomni and Kinger. They're both looking up, and the camera angle is facing down towards them both.

We can see 2 heads hanging from the wall behind Kinger, and what we can assume to be a 3rd behind the desk behind the hand.

One of these heads, as many have pointed out, seems to resemble Pomni. The face is entirely white, what I can assume is an eye seems to be the same size as Pomni's, and you can see that familiar looking hair on the side.

Even the other two things we see look like other members of the cast!

The head to the right of Kinger looks like Ragatha. It's got the hair, and even the face looks to be made of actual fabric, like a real doll. It seems whatever these things are, they're meant to look like more 'horror' versions of the characters.

(Side note, but if I had to guess, if Glitch releases a 3rd sticker sheet for episode 3, I wouldn't surprised if we got a new set of icon variations for the main cast. But instead of candy, we get these horror versions instead. I think that'd be cool, and I really hope that's what happens.)

You could even go as far to say the 'human' hand we're seeing is from the horror version of Kinger. Like I said before, the camera is looking down at them. Why would it be looking down? Because whatever's looking at them, is attached to the wall.

Moving onto other details in the room, we can see there's a chair behind Pomni with some kind of light on it. At first, I thought this might have been the tape recorder from the February trailer, but you can see the tape recorder is on a desk, not a chair.

And while there is a desk in the room, whatever is on there doesn't look like a tape recorder. It looks more like a photo, or some kind of radio.

The giant 'M' on the rug. We know the ghost lady's name is Martha Mildenhall, so this probably implies she owns the mansion the gang are exploring. Why would she need their help, though? Maybe whatever force is moving the hand in the screenshot, is some kind of 'evil' ghost, and that's why Pomni and the others are there to help. There's evil ghosts inhabitating the mansion, and Martha needs help to get rid of them. It's simple, it's your basic video game quest, it seems like a normal adventure plot that Caine would come up with.

There seems to be something behind the chair, but I can't make out if it's a door, some curtains, or some kind of closet. The lighting isn't doing me any favours. Either way, I doubt it's important to the episode, probably just background decoration.

As for my other thoughts that aren't as related to the screenshot itself, I do believe that everyone is going to be split up. Obviously Kinger and Pomni are working together, but I'm still not sure if Jax would be hanging with Ragatha & Gangle, or if he'd be off doing his own thing. As for Zooble, I'll get to them later.

And this might just be me looking into things too much, but it almost looks like one of Kinger's eyes is focused entirely on whatever is behind the camera, while the other isn't focused at all. Like he's half paying attention to the 'danger' he and Pomni are in.

But that's really all I have to say about the first screenshot. Let's move onto the main event:

Again, let's get the obvious out of the way: new Zooble design! They've got some new parts, like the arms, unicorn horn, and the blocky yellow and pink thing, but also some old parts, like the bluish-green ring, and their classic black and white antenna. So far, I like this design! I'm happy to see that they've decided to mix things up a bit. Not my favourite design, but still decent. They've got good taste.

Before I talk about Zooble and Caine, I first want to talk about the location they're in. At first, I thought this might've been Zooble's room, but looking closer, it's obviously not. Then I thought it was that little desk area at the end of the dorm hallway.

But nope, the hallway has different plants, picture frames, wallpaper, and no chairs to be seen. The plants we can see look similar to those seen in Caine's resturant realm from Ep 1, so I think I can safely guess that this is a new location, made specifically for him and Zooble to chat.

Speaking of that, I think that's going to be the driving point of Zooble's character development this episode. Something is going to convince them to join the future adventures, and it seems this will be that something. We know thanks to the AMA, that Zooble not going on adventures is important to their character, so having their episode focus on this topic makes sense.

What I can assume happened to lead up to this interaction is this:

Caine announced the adventure, and just like in both Ep 1&2, Zooble immediately expresses that they are not interested, and walks off. Caine can't really do anything about it yet, so he focuses on everyone else. Explains the rest of the adventure to them, and sends them on their way.

He then catches up to Zooble before they reach wherever they planned on going, and teleports them both to this new room. It looks almost like some kind of waiting room, or a room where they're both supposed to talk things out. It's got the comfy chairs, wall art, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little table between them.

Zooble, obviously, is not impressed. They don't care about Caine's adventures, and want nothing to do with whatever he has planned for them in the meantime. Caine, on the other hand, just wants to figure out why Zooble doesn't want to go on his adventures. He spends so much time figuring them out! Just for the humans! Why won't Zooble participate!?

This very likely evolves into an argument between the two. I like how Caine is clearly angry in this screenshot. It's nice to see him show some more variety when it comes to emotion!! Zooble doesn't care for whatever Caine is saying, and Caine just wants to understand why they don't care.

Something happens, maybe they do talk it out, maybe something else, but by the end of the episode, Zooble decides that maybe going on a few adventures isn't that bad. I think it's way too early to guess what happens in that huge timeskip, but for now, this is the best I've got.

I feel Zooble's arc in this episode might touch on a few topics, like how while they might think staying by themselves all day and doing their own thing is better for them, isolating themselves isn't doing anyone any favours, and that, for lack of a better term, going 'outside' every once in a while can't hurt.

... and that's pretty much all I can think of to say regarding these two screenshots! I'm sure we'll get to learn more as the episode release gets closer, but I'm excited to see how things turn out!! :3