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buckys-wintersoldier · 5 months

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Teasing | Bucky Barnes

// Pairing //

-> Dom!Boyfriend!Bucky Barnes x Sub!Girlfriend!Reader

// Summary //

-> When Bucky lets you dominate him in bed, he always makes sure that you’re not going to tease him too much otherwise he will get in charge — showing you that you can tease him the way you want.

// Wordcount //

-> 5.183 Words

// Warnings //

-> 18+, Minors DNI, Dom!Bucky, Sub!Reader, Bucky lets her dominate him, smut, teasing, using of the name babyboy, dick slapping, thigh riding (fem!receiving), use of vibrator and dildo, anal play, anal sex (don't fuck her pussy after her ass!), ass slapping, handcuffing, degrading, daddy kink, praises, orgasm denial, lots of cum, overstimulation, unprotected p in v, aftercare

// Request //

-> Hi! I saw your drabble game! was curious if you would write soft!dom!boyfriend!Bucky x girlfriend!Reader with sex toys? Reader gets punished by Bucky(she has being chained and overstimulated by vibrator/dildo while Bucky just watches and masturbates to it?👀 and after a while, Bucky finally touches Reader and gives her, her last orgams by him and then whole lot aftercare? thanks xx

// Authors Note //

-> Thank you for the request, it’s longer as a Drabble but I got that idea and it was fitting with the request, so hope you like it.

-> Proofread by the amazing @bucks-babe who also helped me to bring some details into it! Thank you.

// Events //

-> Build-A-Bucky-Bingo | BABB055 | May | Thigh fucking | @buckybarnesevents

-> MCU Kink Bingo | I4 | BDSM: Aftercare | @mcukinkbingo

-> Fandom-Free Bingo: Maritime May | Row One-One | Dildo | @fandom-free-bingo

// Masterlist | Bucky Barnes Masterlist //

Your boyfriend loves to show you who is in charge in the bed. He would never overstep your boundaries but he just loves to see you begging, whimpering and squirming underneath him. And you love it just as much as he does, especially when you switch the roles and you can dominate Bucky. Even though he lets you do it, he takes care that you doesn’t tease him too much or listen to his pleases, otherwise he can change the position immediately and fucks you like a wild animal.

“Doll, are you here?” Bucky asks, looking into your shared bedroom. He grins when he finds you with your book in your hand on the bed. You lower it, looking at your boyfriend who walks closer, his hands playing with the hem of his shirt before he takes it off and reveals his defined chest and abs. “Looking adorable in my shirt.”

Bucky’s voice is almost a groan when he reaches you, letting himself fall down on the edge of the bed. One of his hands is reaching out to caress your leg and you smile softly at Bucky. “Maybe I should take it off and show you what I wear underneath, just for you.”

A soft chuckle leaves his lips and he nods his head, guessing it’s a new pair of underwear. You giggle when Bucky leans closer to grasp his shirt, pulling it over your head to reveal — nothing. He groans, his eyes darken and his tongue slides over his lips. Bucky gets on the bed, placing himself between your legs and pulls you closer until you lie on the bed.

“Are you teasing me? Or do you want something, doll?” He asks, leaning closer to capture your lips with his. His tongue slips into your mouth and you moan softly into the kiss, while he pushes his forward and against yours.

“Can I be— Bucky let me be in charge in bed today, please.” You look at him with your best puppy eyes after you both pulled away from the kiss. Breath is still a bit heavy and your hands find their places in his neck. Your fingers scratch along his soft skin and he just can’t say no to your adorable look so he nods and gets off of you.

With a smirk you take your book and place it on the nightstand before you get off the bed to get some things you want to use. Bucky takes off his pants and boxers, laying on the bed and looking at you while you look through the toys you bought together with him. After taking a pair of handcuffs, a vibrator and a dildo you go back to the bed, smirking when Bucky groans.

“Don’t be so annoyed, baby boy,” you tease, smirking when he raises his eyebrows. You get on the bed, taking his hands to cuff them to the bed. Bucky looks the whole time at you, loving the way your breasts hang almost in his face when you lean over him like that. He wants to suck them, wants to worship them but he can’t reach your soft skin so he just stares at them.

Bucky’s cock is rock-hard, tip red and leaking on his stomach. He lets you handcuff him before you lean back and smirk at him. He slowly pulls at the handcuffs, laughing when you raise your eyebrows at him. “Be a good boy, Buck!”

He sighs playfully annoyed, letting his hand fall down above his head and making it more comfortable for him while you crawl between his legs and spread them slightly. Your hands run softly up and down his thick, muscular thighs. Goosebumps erupt on his skin and Bucky closes his eyes, enjoying your soft, warm fingers on his skin.

You move your fingers closer and closer to his throbbing cock, sliding one of your digits along the underside and the vein of it, tracing his partially covered head. Bucky thrusts his hips upward, meeting your touch before he groans and pulls once again at the handcuffs. Seeing your boyfriend all needy and begging for your touch without words is just as hot as Bucky being on top of you and praising you for taking his dick like the good girl you are for him.

“Do you think we wanna use the vibrator or the dildo first, sweetheart?” You ask with your sweetest voice and sit up to grasp both toys. Your pussy is rubbing over his thigh when you place one of your legs over his thick thigh. He smirks at you, lifting his leg lightly so he is pressing it against you, causing you to move your hips slowly over his muscular thigh.

“That’s what you like, huh? Straddling my thigh like a little desperate slut,” Bucky says, his eyes glistening when you moan in response. Just a moment later your hand meets his cock in a harsh slap, making Bucky squeal. “Fuck, Doll!”

You grin at him, letting yourself fall down on his thigh completely to continue straddling him. Bucky throws his head back when you wrap one of your hands around his huge cock, slowly stroking him, your thumb is gliding over the tip of his dick and he thrusts his hips up, meeting your hand. When you let go of his cock he groans frustrated, earning another harsh slap against his cock.

“Doll!” he says, warning but you only smirk and give his tip a slight squeeze. You take the vibrator, which is placed with the dildo between his legs and turn it on. You then bring it to his lower stomach, letting it slide in soft and slow movements over his skin. Bucky cock is twitching, leaving a wet patch on his stomach, while you bring the toy closer to his leaking cock. You slide the toy over the underside of his cock, causing Bucky to moan, his eyes shoot open and his fingers dig into the handcuffs. The vibration of the toy is almost too much for him and he feels his balls become heavier, ready to come over his stomach.

“Doll, please. Need to come so bad, balls so heavy it hurts,” Bucky says, thrusting against the toy once again. You move your hips still over his thick thigh, feeling his muscles tensing when he gets closer to his orgasm. Your clit is rubbing against his skin, bringing you with every thrust closer to your own release.

“Begging for your release, baby boy?” You tease, moving the vibrator down to his balls. Buckys back arches off the bed, his cock twitches and you see the way his nose scrunches slightly just like it always does when he fucks into you and is about to come.

You remove the toy, slapping his sensitive cock once again. You turn off the vibrator and place it back between his thighs. You then move your hips faster over his thigh, moaning and whimpering while your walls clench and your pussy is throbbing on his skin. You place your hands on Bucky's stomach, feeling the high defined abs underneath your fingers while you rub your sensitive bottom over his soft skin, bringing yourself closer to your release.

“B—Bucky, I'm so close,” you moan, breathing heavily when you come all over his thigh, your arousal dripping out of your pussy even more, smearing it all over his thigh. You let yourself fall down on top of him, giving yourself a moment to calm down from your high.

“Looking adorable when you come, babydoll,” Bucky says, his thigh muscle tensing underneath your pussy and you moan once again when you feel the friction between your legs.

When your breath is calmer you sit up, smirking at your boyfriend, who looks the whole time at you. His hands pulling on the handcuffs, wanting to touch you and himself. You get off his leg, sitting back between them and spread them further apart. Bucky smirks, when you lean down to kiss along his cock, loving the feeling of your soft, warm lips pressing tender kisses on his sensitive dick. Your tongue glides along his shaft back to his balls and Bucky groans over and over again. Your lips are wrapped around his heavy balls, his cock twitches every now and then and his eyes narrow slightly like he is concentrated.

“Don't stop, doll. Suck my balls, take them into your pretty little mouth,” Bucky mumbles, trying to get closer to push his balls deeper into your mouth. When his hips wiggle you give his pretty red cock another slap, his eyes widen and he pouts immediately.

He looks adorable with such a soft and sweet pout on his pink, plump lips. His eyes glistening with lust but he can't make himself come and you only tease him with your mouth. You let his balls fall out of your mouth, leaning over him until your faces are just inches away from one another.

“You look adorable with that sweet pout on your lips, baby boy,” you say, leaning closer to capture his lips with yours. His tongue slides across your lips, asking for permission and when you part your lips softly he immediately pushes his tongue into your mouth, sighing when he tastes your sweetness.

You pull away, softly pecking his lips again before you sit back and let your hands trace a path down his chest and stomach. Bucky shivers lightly under your touch, when your hands reach his cock he whimpers, pouting once again that you give his dick finally some more attention but you shake your head with a smirk. You grasp the dildo, stroking Bucky's cock with it, you place yourself on top of him, humping the dildo and his cock. Your boyfriend is groaning, throwing his head back and trying to trust up to get more friction on his cock.

With slow movements you bring the both of you closer to the edge. You deny his orgasm once again, when he is about to cum, you move back to sit between his legs, smirking at him. You lower the toy to his ass, causing him to gasp.

“Don't dare do fuck me there with the dildo, doll,” he says sternly. His eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. You giggle, circling the toy around his hole before you press it softly against it. You won't push it inside without lube but teasing your boyfriend is too fun to not do it. Bucky inhales deeply, then he mumbles something through gritted teeth. “Dare it and you won’t be able to walk for a week, because I'm gonna fuck your pussy and your ass until your scream my name and come over and over again.”

“Is that a promise, baby boy?” You ask, giggling softly. Bucky nods his head, staring at you while you continue to circle the toy around his pokering hole. You lean over to the small table next to your bed, opening the drawer and taking the bottle with lube out of it. Your boyfriend is narrowing his eyebrows even more, his tongue slips over his lips and he clenches his jaw. His muscles are poking out and you see the way his breath gets heavier when you put some lube on the toy.

Bucky never minds you using your finger, you have done that before but him being stretched out by a toy? No! But you looks so certainly that he really belives that you’re going to fuck him with that thick toy.

“Doll!” He warns you once again when you bring the toy closer to his hole. Your other hand is wrapped around his cock, stroking him slowly while you push the dildo against his muscle ring, Bucky moans when the cold lupe touches his warm hole, his muscles tensing while you push a bit, then you pull it away. You repeat that, smirk growing while Bucky tries to free his hands.

“Such a sweet ass, huh? Needs to be stuffed,” you tease, stroking his cock still in a slow pace. You let the toy slide over his balls before you bring it back to his ass and push it once again against his tight hole.

Even though Bucky knows you would never do something he doesn't want. But your certain expression and your teasing is way too much for his begging cock and his heavy balls. Bucky pulls harshly on the handcuffs, but you don't pay attention since he did that before already but this time he does it with more force. After a few harsh tugs Bucky breaks the handcuffs and sits up.

Your eyes widen and you drop the toy when he grasps your chin harshly, tilting your head up to look deep into your eyes. Bucky grins, towering over you before he turns the two of you around and pushes you down. He leans over, opening your drawer and pulling something else out of it now. You whimper quietly when you see the handcuffs he has in his hand.

“Bucky, please. I wanna touch you,” you say, trying your best puppy look but he is only laughing, shaking his head and grasping your wrists harshly, pinning them down above your head. He then cuffs them together and to the bed, causing you to wiggle in an attempt to free your hands. Bucky growls lightly, his eyes darken and his tongue is wetting his lips when he leans back, spreading your legs to reveal your dripping cunt.

“Yeah? You want to touch me?” He asks, you nod immediately. Bucky laughs, his hands sliding up and down your thighs, you're squirming underneath him. “You should have thought about it before you were teasing me like that.”

You whine, pouting when Bucky caresses your skin softly. His index finger slides through your folds but he removes it when you whine and thrust your hips against his hand. You earn a harsh slap, eyes watering when his hand meets your wet pussy over and over again. His hand is soaked and he isn’t even inside of you yet.

“Teasing me, doll. I told you I will fuck you and you wont be able to walk for at least a week anymore than. Beg for my cock, my pretty little slut,” Bucky grins, his hand finding its way back to your dripping pussy. “I want you to beg for my cock before you get it. Want you to see me jerking off when you’re overstimulated but can't stop thinking of my cock.”

Bucky grasps your hips, turning you around and lifting your ass. You gasp, your face is pressed into the pillow and you inhale his scent deeply, smirking. But you don’t have much time to enjoy his scent in the pillow because he brings his hand to your ass, leaving a red print of it on your ass cheek. You yelp, eyes widen, when he does it again. Your arousal is flowing down your inner thighs, making Bucky laugh lightly about your neediness. Bucky brings his metal hand to your wet folds, covering them in your slick before he pinches your sensitive bottom.

“Bucky! Fuck, please. I need your cock,” you whine, pushing your ass further back against him. You earn another slap on your already sore ass, while his metal fingers slide up and down your wet folds. He brings his fingers to your wet entrance, circling it before he pushes one of his thick digits into you. The feeling of his cold fingers compared to your hot pussy makes you sigh softly.

“Want my cock, you needy little slut? Teasing me so much, now it’s my turn to tease you, doll,” he says, he leans closer, kissing your lower back to your ass. Bucky thrusts his finger in and out of you, feeling your walls already clenching around his digit. Your boyfriend pushes another into your tight pussy, curling his fingers and hitting your sweet spot. You moan loudly, arching your back and with every stroke of his fingers inside of you, your mind becomes dizzier.

“Daddy, please,” you whine, meeting the thrusts of his fingers. Bucky chuckles, having you in your subspace, especially where he wanted you to be. The brown-haired man moves his fingers in a steady pace in and out of your clenching pussy. You feel the pleasure growing in your lower stomach, your breath becomes heavier. He pulls his fingers out of you, leaving you on the edge. “Please, wanna come. Need to come so bad, daddy.”

“Not yet, doll, not finished with your punishment just yet,” Bucky groans, he moves a few inches away, grasping the lube and opens it, squirting some of the liquid on his finger, then he holds the lube above your ass, letting it flow down. You squeal, trying to escape the cold feeling but Bucky grasps your waist and holds you in place.

He closes the bottle and throws it somewhere on the bed, bringing his fingers to your puckered

hole. You hiss when he circles his digits around your tight hole. Then he presses the tip of his index finger into your ass, slowly to let you adjust to the stretch. You feel the tears of pain and pleasure build up in your eyes, slowly rolling down your cheeks. Bucky caresses your lower back softly with his hand, lowering to kiss you softly while he works his finger into your ass.

Moans and whines escape your mouth when he stops his movements, waiting for you to adjust to his finger. “You're doing so well for me, doll. Taking my finger like the good girl you are,” Bucky praises.

He pulls his finger almost completely out of you before he pushes it back into you. Bucky adds another finger, pumping both of them into your tight ass. Your back arches and you feel your orgasm approaching once again but he doesn't let you come just yet. “Doll, hold it. You don't have permission to come just yet.”

Before you can complain he removes his fingers, chuckling when you groan in frustration. You wiggle your ass, causing Bucky to bring his hand to your sore ass cheek once again. “Daddy wants some fun before you're going to come, babydoll.”

Bucky grabs his cock, giving himself a few strokes, his thumb moving over his red, leaking tip. Your boyfriend moans, then he gets closer to you and slides his cock over your pussy, coating it with your arousal. Bucky moves his cock to your ass, pushing softly against your puckering hole, smirking when you voluntarily press your ass against his cock. He uses his fingers to push his tip down and into your tight hole.

He doesn't move, just his tip in your ass causes him to come and shoot his white seeds all into your ass. “Fuck, feeling so good around daddy's cock. Squeezing me so well, can't stop cumming in your tight little ass, doll.” Bucky strokes his cock with his hand, more cum is dripping out of his cock and flowing into your ass.

You whimper, feeling so full and empty at the same time. You need Bucky inside of you, need him to fuck your probably but he just strokes his cock and pumps your ass full with his warm cum. When his cum is dripping out of you he uses his fingers to push it back, but not in your ass — Bucky is turned on by the idea of pushing his cum into your pussy and that's what he is doing. He pushes his cum into your clenching cunt, smirking when his greedy little cunt swallows his cum.

“Daddy, please. Wanna touch me,” you beg, pulling at the handcuffs. You clench around Bucky, showing him how desperate you are, willing to take more of him when he lets you touch yourself. But Bucky has better ideas, grasping the vibrator that's next to the two of you and holds it against your clit, he then turns it on.

When the vibrator is pressed to your clit and on the highest level Bucky smirks. He strokes his cock with his other hand, feeling your clench around his cock, while he brings you to your edge, the band in your stomach almost immediately snapping but you try to hold back,not wanting to disappoint him. Bucky feels it, the way you clench around him, the way your hands gripping the pillow. Your moans are higher as usual and you wiggle your ass to get more of his cock but he only leaves the tip into your ass.

“You can come, doll. Just come and make daddy proud,” he says, smirking when you come after getting the permission to do so. Your mouth drops open, tears still falling down your cheeks when you dig your fingers into the sheets. Bucky comes once again, pumping your ass full with more of his come when you clench so perfectly around his dick. Your tight ass hugging his length so well that he feels like he could come over and over again in your ass.

Bucky made you come around four more times, while he was stroking his cock, still the tip buried in your ass, pushing his cum into your ass until it was leaking out of you. You're clit overstimulated and you don't think you can have another orgasm, but Bucky knows you can, so he presses the toy still against your clit, causing you to whine and almost scream when you come another time. Your breath is heavy, sweat is covering your body.

“Daddy, please. No more, can't take another one, please,” you beg, tears falling down your cheeks but the toy is still simulating your pussy and you feel your walls clench once again. The pleasure grows in your stomach and you feel exhausted but Bucky doesn't look like he is bored of it just yet. “D—Daddy, please. Please, can't come again.”

“Don't want daddy's cock, pretty girl?” He asks, turning off the vibrator and places it to the side, his dick still inside of you. Bucky caresses your back softly, leaning down to kiss your shoulders. You sigh softly, wanting to let yourself fall down to lay probably but Bucky holds you with his metal hand around your waist up. “Thought my good girl wants my cock.”

You whimper, you want his cock, in your pussy. You want your boyfriend to fuck you but you had already so many orgasms. “I want daddy's cock.”

Bucky grins, pulling his cock out of you and looking at his cum while it drips out of your ass. Slowly flowing down your pussy and mixing with your arousal. A soft whine escapes your lips when you feel suddenly so empty. “Good girl, doing so well for me. You're my good girl, aren't you? Turn around, sweet girl, so daddy can make love to you.”

You smile softly, turning around with his help. Bucky turns you by your hips and gets greeted by you fucked up expression but the adorable smile still across your lips. He leans over you, his hands on both sides of your shoulders and you can feel his still hard cock against your aching pussy. Bucky smirks at you, leaning down to capture your lips in a sweet and soft kiss with yours. His tongue slides over your lips and you part them just enough for him to push his into your mouth and explore it.

When the two of you pull away to inhale deeply he uncuffs your hands. You place them immediately around his neck, pulling him closer to kiss him once again. Bucky uses one of his hands to line his cock up with your wet entrance, slowly pushing in. His metal hand caressing your cheek softly, his forehead resting against yours and he smirks at you. Bucky pushes his cock balls deep into you, stretching your pussy. He gives you a moment to adjust to his size. Your hands holding onto his back, fingers digging into his muscular shoulders.

“Doing so well for me, pussy feeling so good around me, squeezing me so good, doll,” he says, quietly. Bucky presses his lips against yours once again, his hands both next to your shoulders, holding him slightly up. You feel his broad chest and fast heartbeat against your silky breasts.

Bucky starts moving slowly in and out of you, his thrusts are soft and at a smooth pace. You moan, arching your back and close your eyes, enjoying the softness of his thrusts into your tight cunt. “Look at me, doll. Wanna see your pretty eyes when you come all over my cock.”

You open your eyes, smirking at him. Bucky grins back at you, kissing your nose while he speeds up his thrusts. You clench around him, sucking him even deeper while he groans, eyes locked with yours. He brings the two of you closer to your edge, the familiar pleasure growing in your lower stomach and your breathing gets heavier with every thrust of his hips against yours. His balls slapping against your ass, wetness spreading all over your pussy, his cock and his balls.

“Come, doll. Come all over my cock,” he whispers, pressing his lips against yours before he pulls away, his hips slamming harsher against yours and the band in your stomach snaps, you squirt all over his cock. You moan his name, Bucky smirks, coming inside of your pussy and painting your clenching walls white. You're squeezing his cock, and he feels like he can't move inside of you, only an inch. Your walls hugging his cock and holding him in place — inside of your cunt.

“Feeling so good,” he mumbles, looking deep into your eyes while he still thrusts into you, fucking you in a lovely way through your orgasm. Bucky can't get enough of the way you look when you come all over his cock, especially not when youre so fucked out but still looking adorable.

“I love you, doll. You did so well for me, such a good girl,” Bucky says, against your lips. He brushes his soft ones against yours, you shiver lightly. Your boyfriend breaks the distance between your lips, smirking softly into the kiss. You sigh, hands still on his back and you pull him closer, causing Bucky to fall on top of you.

His weight on you grounds you, feeling his warmth, while his cock is still buried inside of you. Now soft and covered in both of your arousals but neither of your cares right now. The feeling of being so close to one another and relaxing after so many orgasms — it's just the best feeling after sex.

“Can we clean you, pretty girl? I’ll pull out and then we’ll go to the bathroom and clean you,” Bucky mumbles against your lips. You shake your head, whining when he tries to pull out of you. He chuckles softly, his fingers caressing your cheek softly. “Doll, we need to clean ourselves.”

With a low groan you let him pull out of you, pouting softly. Tears falling down your cheeks when his seeds flow out of you, feeling so empty without his cock inside of you. Bucky kisses the tears away, with his thumbs he is wiping the trails softly away before he gets off the bed before he lifts you up and walks with you through the room and into the bathroom.

“It's fine, pretty girl. Let's run you a bath and I'm gonna change the sheets.” Bucky places you on the toilet, running you a bath while you sit there and look at him, admiring the red stripes on his back — the ones you left when you scratched your nails over his perfect body.

“C—Can you- Bucky, can you change the sheets later?” You ask shyly. He turns around, getting on his knees in front of you and placing his hands on your thighs. Bucky lips are curled up in a soft smile, his eyes glowing in a beautiful blue, things he only reserves for you to see. He nods, kissing you softly before he gets back up and turns off the water.

Your boyfriend walks to a shelf, gripping two bottles for bubble baths and holds them up. When you point at the one with your favorite scent he nods, pouring it into the water. He then places it back, picking you up once again and places you into the bathtub, getting into it behind you.

Bucky wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you as close as possible while you rest your head against his broad chest, inhaling deeply. You relax in his strong arms while you place your hands on his thick thighs and draw small circles on them. “I love you too, Bucky.”

You feel his chest vibration, showing you that he chuckles lightly. His fingers caress the soft skin of your belly and he causes some thoughts in your mind — some thoughts you sometimes had already but you haven’t talked much about it with Bucky yet.

“Bucky?” He hums in response, waiting for you to continue. “Have you ever thought about having a baby?”

Bucky's fingers dig softly into your lower stomach when you ask that. He has often thought about it, but he wasn't sure what you think about it. He nods, remembering that you sit with your back toward him. Bucky clears his throat, leaning closer to kiss your neck before he bites into your earlobe and earns a soft moan from you. “I have, and I guess they would look adorable, with my eyes, your nose,” he chuckles. Bucky means every word but he can't stop himself from chuckling when you growl.

“I would love to have a baby with you, but there is no rush, doll,” he mumbles. The thought of you carrying his baby in your stomach, showing everyone that you belong to him is something he would never say no to.

Bucky has found his home in you and with you, everything like a child or a dog you two talked about would only make your family grow and complete. “I would love to have a child with you, maybe two or three.”

You laugh softly, causing Bucky to chuckle against your neck. “I love you, Bucky,” you mumble, leaning more against him, his hand still caressing your belly softly.

“I love you too, and I'm gonna pump you full with my sweet babies. Then you will be all round and I will talk to your belly every day, read them stories and sing for them then,” he tells you, getting a frustrated hum from you. “I will still have the most attention for my pretty girl. You know I can sing to you too, do you want me to sing?” You nod and Bucky does exactly that, he starts singing your song. The one the two of you decided to be your song now — when you two danced like nothing around you is important. And that's it, when you’re with one another nothing is as important as just the two of you for one another.

// Taglist //

@kandis-mom @sergeantbarnessdoll @identity2212 @km-ffluv @lunaalovesyouu @blackhawkfanatic @armystay89 @suz7days @etherealdisneyvillainness @pono-pura-vida @randomawesomeperson102 @rogersbarber @sebastianstanisahotmf @bucky-barnes-lover @felicitylemon @cjand10 @bookishtheaterlover7 @casa-boiardi @futurequeen2018-blog @flstrawberry @capsbestgirl77 @nervouseden @jiyascepter @princesscore-angel @mrs-katelyn-barnes

946 notes · View notes

innocet · 2 years

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Finished rereading Axiom’s End and. I do not know how I ever managed to be normal about this the last time I read it. I was brainrotted for a week max. How did I keep it contained like that

#losing my MIND #13 total works on ao3 for the entire fandom. sad #wikihow how to build a fandom from scratch #pspspspsps alienfuckers. cmere

0 notes

nyxindustries · 9 months

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Lock Down | Tony Stark

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader Insert, T.S x Fem! Reader x Older x Younger Characters, Tony Stark x Y/n! Reader

Word Count: 2,000+

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, SMUT, Dom! Tony Stark,Sub! reader, Rough Sexual Intercourse, Explicit Language, brief smacking, ‘Daddy’ Name calling, semi-Slow burn (not really), Kinky Sex, Hair pulling, Scratching, Explicit Sexual read, Unprotected sex (Wrap it before you tap it!)

| Masterlist |

Overriding the passcode to the lab since your lovely boyfriend Tony Stark officially locked himself in the lab because of stress with a new Iron Man suit.

The doors open to the lab as you step into the cold lab you see in the one single spotlight on above a hunched-over man on the table mumbling to himself as it looks like he’s trying to assemble part of a new Arc Reactor into the Iron Man suit with holograms all around him to help his work.

Setting down the tray of Tony’s favorite food on his desk that’s filled with little gadgets that you assume are new because you’ve never seen them before.

Quietly walking up to him as much as your heels allow as you stand behind him watching him build and solder a piece of metal together. It’s fascinating to you that Tony can get so lost in his work and look so beautiful while doing it, so laser-focused in his eyes with his eyebrows scrunched inward because he’s trying to make sense or putting together pieces of information in his mind, the wrinkles that appear on his forehead as his face goes relaxed.

Clearing your mind as you watch Tony's hand move to an object and your hand quickly covers the object as your free left hand snakes up his shoulder.

"Mhmm" Tony hums as he slowly looks at you and he places his hand on top of yours making you smile at him.

"Hi, how are you doing?" You ask gently and Tony gives you a look as his glasses tilt slightly.

"This Arc Reactor is not responding to the suit and I have no idea why…" Tony says quietly to you as you just nod knowing nothing about how all of this works. You're a SHIELD agent, you fight and try to save the world from aliens if possible.

"Anyways, it’s not your problem. What are you doing here?" Tony asks as he turns to you and you hand them the tray of food, which is two cheeseburgers and fries and onion rings.

"To Bring you your favorite food, thought you might need it. Put on a tray to be fancy" You joke with a weird mimic of an upper-class voice in the word ‘fancy’ making Tony smile but he doesn't laugh and he always laughs at your silliness or jokes. That's when you know he’s stressed as you watch him grab a cheeseburger and take a few quick bites as he shoves some of the fries in his mouth before turning around to the piece of the suit.

"…Tony…" you say but he goes back to soldering making you frown as you look around finding the plus as you quickly pull it out of the outlet making Tony instantly look up.

"What was that for?" Tony asks quickly as he reaches for the plug.

"Take a break! Eat something! Stop locking yourself in the lab!" You say him as you throw the plus across the room causing the soldering pen to fly across the table and fall off so Tony won’t touch it.

Tony giving you a wide-eyed look like he always does when he is stressed and when you decide to give him a break.

"Y/n-….Urghhhh" Tony groans out in frustration as he goes to get the tool but you quickly stop getting in between him and the table.

"No. Take a break." You say to him

"Make me! I need to finish this!" Tony says to you but you push him back.

"No, you’re not. Not today." You say and Tony stares at you.

"And who is going to stop me?" Tony asks and you smirk at him.

"I am, So take a break…" you say and Tony stares into your eyes as you stare back and your hands go to him.

"It will be good for you to clear your, Tone…" you say quietly as your hands slowly go underneath his shirt as he looks down at your hands.

"…y/n….I-I… I don’t have the time…I’m on a deadline." Tony says very quietly and you just chuckle.

"A deadline that’s next week…you have time and enough time to take out your frustrations too." You say as your hands skilled in what they do back off and come out of Tony's shirt as they pull your buttoned-up blouse out of pencil pencil-tight skirt, and start unbuttoning the buttons.

Tony watches you as you help you with buttons there and then until your breasts in a beautiful red lace bra are revealed.

"Take a break…it won’t be too bad." You say in the quietness that filled the air.

Tony's hands go to your waist as he lifts you to the lab table quickly. He takes one hand and clears the table with his arm by throwing everything off in one swoop with his arm, not caring about his work.

"You’re right, a break is what I need…Hey, Jarvis…Shut down the lab with soundproof…no one enters." Tony demands from his A. I just chime as the windows, doors, and glass all go dark and black with security screens from within the glass that Tony somehow installed and shut with security locks.

Staring at you as you feel his fingers crawl up your bare stomach now as his fingers hook underneath your bra and chase around to the hooks on the back that he undoes his one shot your bra falling as Tony yanks your shirt and bra off now, throwing them across the giant lab.

Tony's other hand, slides up your thigh underneath your skirt as he feels no underwear causing him to smirk, you planned this. The older man fingers gently caress your pussy causing you to shudder in pleasure for a moment as you hold your lips close so nothing can escape from them.

Seeing that smirk made your breath hitch in the quiet lab as Tony's eyes carefully trailed you up.

"Oh, no underwear…mhm that’s bad, baby girl…what if someone else saw what’s mine?" Tony questions and you just chuckle.

"Trust me, no one did…took them off right before I came in here…" you say with a smirk on your face as Tony grabs your chin tightly almost making your lips pucker as he forces you to look at him.

"You’re a brat…planning this so I can just fuck all my frustrations out on you," Tony says and you just stare at him.

"Yes." You choke out.

"How badly do you want?" He asks

"I want it hard, daddy." You choke out and Tony smirks at you as he lets go of your chin. It's bright red from his fingers.

"What else do you want?" He asks as he sees your hands slip into his pants you can see the growing tension in his pants.

"To please you daddy…" you say confidently as you push Tony back from you as you slip off the lab table completely undoing his pant button and zipper as his pants fall exposing his underwear and underneath with his hard and his growing cock.

Grabbing Tony's shoulder as you turn him around, pushing him against the table as he stares at you going down to your knees as your fingers hook the hem of his boxers and pull them down as a red throbbing big cock leaking precum springs out in front of your face making you smile. Hands grasping his cock firmly at the base as you start pumping him fast and hard making him groan out Tony's hands go to the side of the table to grip onto them as he looks down watching you as you lick your lips.

Sticking your tongue out as you lick one long strip onto his cock as Tony groans more at that sensation of your tongue as your wrap your whole mouth around him as you slowly started bobbing your head up and down on his cock causing Tony to groan out more audible moans.

Hearing his moans encouraged you even more by each one as you started sucking wildly causing Tony's hand to grab a fistful of your hair as your hands went down to hold onto his thighs tightly.

"OH FUCK! How did you get so good at this, baby? God" Tony moans out loudly as you feel him jerk himself inside your mouth making you look up at him. Bobbing your head wildly faster again as you feel Tony thrust his hips into your mouth causing his cock to hit the back of your throat you immediately felt tears well into the back of your eyes but you couldn’t care less about those tears as you for gag as Tony pushes your head into his cock making you gag even more as your mouth made his cock disappear making groan out.

Tony held your head there as your tongue swirled all around his cock and the tip like a lollipop before Tony removed your head and your mouth with a loud pop coming from the suction you had.

"I want you to take all this cum in you…You’re gonna take it, baby." Tony growls as he lifts you by your hair causing you to smile.

"U-…Y-Yesssss, Tonyyy." You slightly moan out as you suddenly feel yourself against the table staring out into the lab as Tony rips your pencil skirt off of you. Tony smacks your ass roughly a couple of times causing you to yelp as he flips you around making you look at him.

Your hands go to Tony's shoulders as he slides right into he lifts into the table causing you to moan out as your free right-hand goes up to his hair and slides through it as you gently pull his hair in pleasure as your left hand and arm go underneath Tony arm and land on his back as your nails meet his back fairly quickly with his second push into you without warning.

Feeling tight hands on your hips as Tony pushes you into his cock as he starts thrusting, pushing your tightly sealed mouth to moan out and your nails dig into his back a bit more.

The thrusts started to pick up even more causing you to moan even more as you closed your eyes still gently tugging on Tony's hair and your nails dragging against his back because you didn’t know what to do with your hairs.

Clenching around Tony tightly causes him to groan as he starts losing himself he puts a hand on your breasts massaging them as he continues to thrust and thrust wildly into you making you a moaning mess, making you get so so so much closer.

“Oh god…I’m almost there..” you moan out, and as you let go of Tony's hair he pulls you up kissing you passionately as you kiss back.

“Fuck….me too…” Tony moans out as she continues to thrusts as they get sloppier, more drawn out as he starts slamming into you harder as his cock starts to twitch in you. Tony slams into you in more time as you start cumming all along his cock he begincumming inside of you quickly causing him to groan out.

Staring at Tony as you smile at him he very slowly pulls out of you making you whimper at the emptiness. Sitting up from the table as you sit on the edge and feel Tony's cum ooze out of you as he watches with a smirk and as he leans in kisses you again as holds you close to him.

“Was that a nice break?” You ask and Tony nods.

“Oh baby, it was perfect.” Tony says as you chuckle softly hopping down from the lab table.

“Wanna take more of a break in the shower?” You ask and Tony smirks softly

“Deadline isn’t until next week…I can make some room..” Tony says with a smirk as you grab clothes and quickly go to the private back way of the lab that leads straight to your bedroom with Tony he laughs while following you.

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faun-the-fawn77 · 2 months

Note

hi! Okay so again thank you for accepting my request about characters meeting their fandom counterparts I was wondering can you maybe make a part 2 where they find a version of their yn like a cat yn for Alastor and Lucifer and a tiny yn for Adam and maybe right about how each fandom counterparts would react when seeing they can have their own in like their canon counterparts? Just a idea

Thank you take care out there! 😁

"Paw-some!"

Alastor x GN!Sinner!Reader, Lucifer Morningstar x GN!Sinner!Reader, Adam x GN!Angel!Reader

Genre: CRACKFIC

Word Count: 1467(I got carried away💀)

Warnings: Swearing(don't we know this by now?), mention of having kids in Adam's part, that's it:)

Desc: Part 2 to the other Drabbles! This time the guys encounter their partners looking just like their counterparts! Chaos ensues:)

Note: I love crackfics so much! Gotta be my fav genre of fic:) Happy reading ya'll!

Edit: Reqs for Hellaverse are closed:) Be sure to check my pinned post for what I write for and who!

Alastor:

Alastor had honestly thought that his feline counterpart stole his lover. He knows that it could never replace him but that jealous feeling tugging at his mind is slowly convincing him that the feline was plotting something.

Alastor had left early that morning to run some errands and hopefully to return with a plan on how to get rid of that devil cat that looks a bit too much like the radio demon.

"Meow" Alastor paused in his tracks, humming coming to a halt. He turned his head towards the soft sound. His ear twitched when another meow echoed from the alley he was in front of.

He grinned and slowly paced down the dank alley with a plan to capture the creature. He was hoping that if this cat was a female then it could hopefully capture the attention of the other pest currently staying the bedroom he shared with his lover.

He spotted the (H/C) feline slinking out from the shadows and strutting right up to the Overlord. His eyes widened at the similarities it held with his love.

He bent down and scooped up the precious creature. He made sure to be careful with his claws when he went to scratch the beautiful creatures head.

"Why, hello my dear! How would you like to come home with me, hm?" The cat stared up at hime with huge (E/C) eyes and meowed.

Later, when Alastor returned with his new furry friend, he made sure to place her gently on the king size bed in his room. He could sense that no other presence was in there at the moment, which meant that Alastor was going to surprise his partner with a cat similar to them!

When Y/N had returned that evening with who they had deemed "Catlastor" in her arms, they halted when a fluffy feline fell into their line of sight. The other feline in her arms had glanced up when his owner froze and looked to see the sleeping beauty on the bed.

The red furball couldn't get out of Y/N's arms fast enough. It pounced onto the bed and pridefully strode up to the sleeping cat.

"What the-"

"Welcome back, my love!" Y/N jumped as the loud static voice of their lover sounded behind them. Alastor walked up to stand near them and watched as the two felines on the bed sniffed each other to get familiar with scents.

"Isn't she gorgeous?" Y/N smiled when they watched the red furball curl his body around the smaller (H/C) feline. Their tails twined together and with that, the two animals were asleep.

"Not so jealous anymore are you, Alastor?"

Lucifer:

A cat can indeed replace him. He could feel the irritation in him build when he saw the cat, that freakishly looked a little too much like him, cuddle up on his lover's chest.

Lucifer pouted as he witnessed the cat give him the side eye. He swore that it was smirking when it stretched a paw to place it on the cheek of Y/N.

"I'm going to the garden for a bit. I'll be back in a few." Y/N hummed to acknowledge that they'd heard the king and went back to petting the purring feline. Lucifer huffed and stomped towards the glass doors that lead to the garden.

The garden behind his mansion had always managed to calm him down. He sought out the bench that was handcrafted and gifted to him in his early days of reign.

"I can't believe I'm jealous of a fucking cat..." Lucifer groaned and placed his clawed hands over his face.

A bush near him had started to move, like something was hiding inside. Lucifer jumped a bit before staring intently at the flowering bush.

What came next had almost made the King of Hell pass out. A sleek (H/C) cat slinked from the bush and looked up at the pale angel. Lucifer stared into the sparkling (E/C) eyes of the small animal in front of him.

"Holy Hell..." Lucifer stiffened when the cat walked up to him and jumped up onto his lap. He froze before relaxing and started to pet the gorgeous creature that resembled his lover a bit too much.

Lucifer st up at that. His lover! He looked down at the cat in his lap, gently scooping it into his arms before walking as fast as he could to where his lover currently resided.

"My Love!" He gently opened the door to their bedroom. He saw Y/N still in bed with a book in hand and the feline version of him still in their lap.

"What is it, Luci?" Y/N didn't glance up until the cat on their lap shifted before getting up. They looked up and saw Lucifer putting down a cat that strikingly resembled them onto the bed.

"What the fuck?" Y/N placed their book down, sitting up more to observe the two felines sniffing each other. Lucifer beamed at his love and quickly got into the spot where his feline counterpart once rested.

"She's perfect! Look! They're like us but cats!" Y/N giggled and ran their fingers through the kings golden locks as they both watched the cats purr and nuzzle each other.

Definitely just like their counterparts.

Adam:

When Y/N first brought home the tiny version of him, he almost lost his mind. I mean, the little shit was stealing them away from him!

Since then, Adam has grown used to his tiny self and had honestly started thinking of it like his own child. He knew he had told Y/N that they were the caretaker of this thing but Adam couldn't help but become attached to the little guy.

Today happened to be Y/N's day to take care of the tiny Adam. They went out to the shops while Adam himself had left to the training are for the exorcists.

It was a far fly to the area so when he had arrived, he didn't expect to see his right hand woman holding onto a tiny version you Y/N.

Lute held her arms out as far as she could so she didn't get her hair pulled like the first time she picked up the tiny angel. When she heard the heavy steps of her superior, she turned to him and quickly shoved the babbling tiny angel into his arms and sprinted off to see over the other exorcists.

"What the fuck, Lute!?" Adam growled and continued to mutter swears under his breath but stopped when the sound of whimpering caught his ears.

"Oh- uh... Hi there, honey!" Adam smiled down at the tiny version of his lover. When the tiny angel stopped whimpering, he took that as a victory but that didn't last to long when the angel full on wailed.

Adam almost dropped them at the loud sound before regaining his grip. He started to freak out until he figured out that his mask was what's causing the problem. He glanced around to see the exorcists busy training before turning away and taking his mask off.

"See? Hey, no need to cry, sweetheart. It's me!" The tiny Y/N stopped their crying and looked to see the face they loved so much. A smile spread on their lips and they reached out for the man.

"Let's get you home, yeah?" With that, Adam spread his golden wings and took off to the penthouse he shared with his lover.

Walking through the door, he could instantly hear his Y/N talking to who he could only assume is the tiny version of him. He looked down at the tiny version of Y/N and saw their eyes staring at the door leading to the other two.

"And the- Oh! Adam, you're home early!" Y/N turned to face their lover and paused when they saw the tiny version of themselves being held gently in a maskless Adam's arms.

"Is that-?"

"It is! Hey, tiny me! Look who's here!" Tiny Adam turned to see what his counterpart was talking about. His eyes widened before he wriggled himself from Y/N's grip and sped towards the bigger version of himself.

"Here ya go!" Adam set down tiny Y/N and watched how the tiny him had ran up to them and pulled them into a hug.

Adam smiled as he watched the two tiny angels speak in a language that could only understand. He felt Y/N brush their hand against his arm before gripping it and leaning onto him.

"I know you said no kids but... I think I'm getting baby fever just watching them." Adam hummed in agreement. Maybe kids with Y/N wasn't such a bad idea...

This my last Hellaverse req! Thanks so much for requesting! Every time I see the notif on my inbox I cry a bit:') I hope you all have loved my Hazbin fics as much as I loved them! Ill def get back into the Hellaverse at one point cause I seem to always come back to whatever fandoms I love:D

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin alastor #alastor x reader #lucifer morningstar #lucifer magne #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer magne x reader #hazbin hotel adam #hazbin adam #adam x reader #hazbin adam x reader

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sundrop-writes · 9 months

Text

Emergency Contact

Jason Todd x Gender Neutral Reader

You choke on your words, but you swallow them faster.

Just want you to be my Emergency Contact.

Summary:

After Jason miraculously comes home from his brush with Deathstroke, you’re both feeling it in very different ways. You have an unexpected physical wound from the battle, and he has many (very expected) emotional wounds. You help each other heal. Even if it’s very stubborn on both your parts.

Jason Todd x GN!Powered!Reader. Enemies/FWB to Lovers. Angst and Hurt/Comfort. (Slight Smut). Set during Season 2, Episode 5.

Word Count: 10,400

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.

...

Warnings: general emotional angst, Jason has a self deprecating inner dialogue, (kind of) enemies to lovers - more like annoyances to fuck buddies to lovers, friends with benefits to lovers, the reader and Jason have a bantering/argumentative nature to their relationship, the reader is meant to be 100% gender neutral (the reader is never referred to in the third person, so there is no need to use they/them pronouns, but the reader is not called she/her or he/him), Jason calls the reader ‘babe’ (imo, a completely gender neutral term and he would call anybody that), mentions of alcohol (Jason drinking a beer), the reader character has ice powers (not entirely relevant to the plot but I couldn’t help myself lmao).

sexual themes throughout, mentions of sexting (no detailed descriptions), mentions of sexting in public, mentions of the reader character sending nudes to Jason (no detailed descriptions of the photos), one scene with detailed smut (but it is not the primary focus of the fic), the reader’s genitals are not described in any specific way, some dirty talk, Jason is more dominant and the reader is more submissive, penetrative sex, Jason is annoying even during sex, Jason has a pain kink (even when he’s a dom, he’s a painslut, I don’t make the rules), scratching/marking (Jason receiving), slight humiliation kink.

mentions of canon level violence, mentions of kidnapping (in alignment with canon), mentions of Jason being beaten by Deathstroke, mentions of Jason’s near-death experience (being dropped off the building), gun violence, the reader is injured - has a bullet wound/bullet fragment in their stomach, mentions of blood, descriptions of first-aid, mentions of puss from an infected wound (theoretically, not something that happens in the fic). That should be everything.

A/N: The title for the fic comes from a song by Pierce the Veil of the same name. It’s a newer song, and it’s one that I absolutely went to when looking for a title for this fic. The concept of becoming someone’s emergency contact is about upgrading the relationship from casual to much more serious, and just the whole song, and specific lyrics in it suit this fic so well. I highly recommend listening to it paired with this fic.

This was based on a request from my old blog, but obvi I don’t have that ask anymore - the request was about Jason getting shot and having his wound attended to by the reader, but I changed it to the reader getting shot cause I thought that was more interesting and less common. If the person who made that request sees this and finds my new blog, I hope you enjoy it! And in general, I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it.

This is another re-post from my old blog, and I do have a sequel for it in my drafts, which I am not actively working on. And before I post the sequel, I do plan on tweaking this and revamping it a little, but I figured I would repost this for now just to have the masterlist complete on this blog.

...

If asked, you would be hard pressed to explain your relationship with Jason Todd.

The best way you could describe it would probably be - friends with benefits?

But most of the time, the two of you weren’t even friends. You weren’t the type to hang out casually, or spend time alone together if it didn’t involve ripping each other’s clothes off.

If you ever exchanged secrets or those precious bits of your most raw selves, it was by mistake. It was through sarcasm, or coming off the tired lips of someone who had just been exhausted by a few orgasms. The two of you knew each other well, quite literally inside and out. But you always made a deep, concerted effort to hold each other at arm’s length. And maybe that’s part of what all the snark and harsh words were for.

It wasn’t all arguing. You were friendly. You could be civil, at the very least.

Right from the moment you had first met Jason, you had found him to be so damn annoying, a shitstain on the earth - yet, someone you couldn’t stay away from. The line between flirtatious banter and a truly grinding argument was always so thin with the two of you.

…

You hadn’t expected that your life would be truly changed when you walked into that safehouse in Chicago that day. You truly thought nothing of him when his eyes landed on you - in those moments, a completely anonymous stranger, raking his eyes over you like you were a piece of meat. It was a gaze that immediately made you feel naked, something that made you want to smack him. You told yourself it was because he was being a pervert, not because of the heat that curled in your gut at feeling so intensely desired by him.

He had been sitting on the couch sipping a beer like he owned the place, his thighs spread wide in a way you immediately decided was arrogant and annoying rather than hot - showing off his muscle tone as if it was trying to break through his jeans. Definitely annoying. Definitely the stance of a fuckboy trying to look bigger and badder than he was. He definitely was not attractive.

When Dick led you, Rachel, Gar, and Kory further into the condo that seemed far too conspicuous to be a safehouse, the stranger you would later come to know as Jason quickly spoke up.

“Who are your friends?” He asked.

As he rose from the couch, his eyes lingered on you. Though his words seemed more out of curiosity, you couldn’t help but feel that bite of something more salacious lingering in his voice.

It caused you to scoff and roll your eyes.

“Not important.” Dick declared, his voice snippy. He was clearly annoyed with this new guy, and you could tell that your perceptions of him were definitely not ill-informed.

“Who’s he?” Kory asked, going for the obvious question.

“Not important.” Dick parroted out the words again, sounding much shorter with his patience.

“Anybody want a brew?” Jason asked, motioning with the beer bottle in his hand.

“Brew?” You twisted your eyebrows with disgust, staring him down as you commented on his odd choice of slang.

He didn’t get to reply, as you were trampled over by Gar’s enthusiastic voice in your ear.

“I do!” He said, raising his hand with excitement.

“No, you don’t.” You quickly told him, reaching out to grab his hand and put it back down. “It’s disgusting.”

You had a grand suspicion that Gar had never drank beer before, and he had no idea what he was truly asking for. Rather, he was simply taking advantage of trying new things because Dick and Kory were incredibly slack parental figures and he was away from home for the first time.

“No, no one wants a brew.” Dick sighed, shaking his head. He threw Jason a small glare and you resisted the urge to laugh.

“That can’t be Adamson.” Kory said, motioning toward Jason.

This left you confused. But you didn’t question it.

“He’s not Adamson. Adamson’s in the bathroom. Unconscious.” Dick explained.

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” Rachel told Jason, offering him a sweet smile - being her usual sweet self.

“Jason.” He introduced himself, in that moment, finally giving you a name to that obnoxious face.

“I’m Gar!” Gar said with a grin, to which Jason nodded.

Jason caught you glaring at him, and looked you up and down again, as if trying to willfully tear off your clothes with his eyes. It made your skin itch with heat and you would forever deny that it was a feeling you liked.

“What can I call you, babe?” He asked, his voice entirely slimy, the kind of tone he would have used to recite cheesy lines to Tinder dates, you were entirely sure of.

Before you could come up with some clever reply, Dick sighed in frustration and started balking again.

“Okay, who we all are doesn’t matter right now.” He pressed, his neck so entirely tense that veins began to pop from the skin. “Can we just chill out, relax, sit on the couch and watch TV or something?”

It seemed that he wouldn’t get his wish.

Gar quickly charged around the table, finding something else to get strung up about.

“Yo, when did you get another one?” He asked, putting his hands on both of the expensive cases on the long dining table - a copy identical to the one you knew to be containing Dick’s Robin outfit.

It made you curious, and the answer that followed certainly surprised you.

“That one’s mine.” Jason said, his chest literally puffing out with pride as he stated the fact.

“No way.” You scoffed.

“Yes way.” He quickly argued back, the whole exchange sounding entirely juvenile.

“This one’s yours? Wait, you’re Robin too?” Gar quickly put the pieces together.

“I thought you were Robin?” Rachel commented, tilting her head toward Dick with curiosity.

“I am.” Dick said firmly.

“He was.” Jason corrected, a cocky smirk forming across his lips.

“Batman really lowered the height requirement, huh.” You said.

The words flew from your mouth before you could stop them, seeing as it was likely the only thing you could nitpick about Jason’s appearance. Between his stunning sharp jaw, his piercing blue eyes, his oddly appealing wild hair, his muscle tone being somehow visible beneath his baggy clothing - all of it made you equally frustrated and annoyed with him, and your baser urges couldn’t resist the low-hanging fruit.

You felt victory and a slight pang of guilt when Jason deflated because of your comment, shrinking back into himself at your words.

He didn’t have anything to say in return, he simply sipped his beer.

“Wait, how many Robins are there?” Gar said, beginning to excitedly ramble at the thought. “Are there a lot? Cause I would love to-”

“Okay, quiet.” Kory cut him off, clearly becoming annoyed with all of this dancing around the point as much as Dick was. “Sit.”

Her words were firm, and you couldn’t help but to listen. You found yourself collapsing to sit on the couch while Rachel and Gar took seats at the dining table. Jason continued to linger in the middle of the room, staring at Kory and Dick as their frustration filled the air.

“Bathroom.” Kory told Dick, and then they left to deal with whoever - or whatever - Adamson was.

Jason sighed and took a seat beside you. When his eyes fell on you, you set your jaw and glared at him. You didn’t give away a single ounce of the heat you were feeling as his eyes locked with yours.

“Even if I am the shorter Robin, I can assure you that everything else about me is… very long.” He lowered his voice and whispered those last words, crowding into your personal space as he did so.

It sent shivers down your spine, his silken voice making the words sound too tempting. Even if you twisted your face and said ‘gross!’ causing him to dissolve into laughter, you didn’t make an effort to move away from him or put any space between your two bodies on the very large couch. You told yourself it was because you were tired from a very long day of travel, not because you were enjoying the smell of his strangely expensive cologne from this close by.

His grin was still entirely smug, and you couldn’t stand it.

When he raised the beer bottle up to his mouth again, you reached over and put a hand on his forearm, forcefully dragging his arm down as you made a snide comment.

“That shit is disgusting, why the hell do you drink it?” You asked.

You found your face drifting toward his again and if asked, you would say it was a form of intimidation - not that you were being drawn in by an unconscious attraction to him.

“Because I can.” He replied, just as snide as he slipped your grip and sipped on the drink.

You mocked his words in an entirely childish voice, and then you raised a single finger up to it and skimmed along the neck of the bottle. It took only a single moment of concentration with your skilled powers to freeze the beer inside solid. He thought he felt an extra chill coming off his hand, but convinced himself that he imagined it. But when he kept it tilted and nothing came out to meet his lips, he shook it and then stuck an inquiring eye inside the bottle.

When he saw that it was completely frozen, he looked over and saw you grinning, and little did you know - that was the moment he became completely taken with you. You were one of the most annoying people he had ever met, and he found himself so intensely attracted to you.

Even if it was getting under your skin by arguing with you or fucking your brains out, he knew in that moment - he had to get inside you and drive you insane the same way that he knew you would for him.

…

When Dick left to go check on his old circus friend Clay, Jason winked at you and said ‘don’t miss me too much’. You made a show of putting a finger near your mouth and audibly gagging.

Later that night, when Jason didn’t return, you hated the curl of disappointment that panged in your stomach. You wanted to hit yourself for staring at the door, waiting for the second Robin to come in behind Dick.

You hated yourself even more for replying to Jason’s texts.

Apparently he had taken your phone out of your jacket pocket when you went to the bathroom (not to see Adamson - a different bathroom, to pee). And he had put himself in your contacts as ‘Hot Guy’. He had also sent himself a text from your phone that read ‘omg Jason you’re so hot, will you fuck me?’. And then replied to it from his own phone with a picture of his cock.

Unfortunately, the only thing you could mock about the picture was poor lighting.

When you told him as much, he quickly remedied that with several more pictures - ones with better lighting. He sent a video with very distinct audio. You would deny that you rushed to put your headphones in to listen to it while you sat on the train with Kory and Gar. You would deny that it drove a hard, hot pain between your thighs.

You dug through a folder and sent some pictures of your own. You told yourself it was to prove to him that you were too good for him - to show off something he could never actually have. To tease him.

You would deny that you loved the compliments he gave you, that you ate up the affection like a plant lovingly soaking up the sun.

When you were sexting him, you had no clue that you were ever going to see him again. It was almost mindless, something for a dopamine hit to distract yourself from all the chaos going on around you. You weren’t doing it because you actually liked Jason. You didn’t have any real attractions toward him, or any real plans to carry out all of the bold things you said in those messages.

You had no clue that you’d end up living together.

When you did find out that Dick would be taking Jason into the newly reopened Titans Tower along with you, Gar, and Rachel, you didn’t make a big deal of it in your mind. When Jason made flirtatious remarks toward you in person, you brushed him off. You put up a wall.

You told yourself that he was nothing more than a cocky, shallow guy who would use you for sex and then throw you away - something you could never actually build a proper relationship with. And if you were supposed to live together, be some kind of team like Dick expected you to be, then you couldn’t be messy. You couldn’t get emotional.

You had no clue that on one of those first nights living together, your self assured discipline not to give into your lust for him would break like a wafer cookie, and you would be in his bed faster than a sea turtle running into ocean.

…

“Fuck, babe, you feel so good on my cock.” Jason grunted, his face buried in your neck as he thrusted deep inside of you. The loud squelch of artificial wetness coming from between your thighs as he worked his hips, working you open with a needy, demanding pace. “Bet you love this cock, huh? Tell me how fuckin’ much you love it.”

“Shut up.”

The words came from your throat as a weak whimper, much less powerful than you had intended.

You didn’t want to give him any more power than he already held over you - he had you weak and willing on his cock, something you would have never admitted could be true until it was happening in these moments.

Though you would never admit it aloud, you loved the way he handled you. Having you pinned against the bed with his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, having you breathless and moaning as he fucked into you with fast, obviously skilled strokes. Your nails cut into the flesh of his back, and he let out a low rumble from his gut as the sharp sting sent a wave of pleasure through him.

You hated the twinge of lustful embarrassment that curled in your gut when he chuckled at your words.

“Oh, you want me to shut up?” He asked, slightly breathless from the act himself, moving one hand beside your head to raise himself up slightly to look in your eyes.

He was sweaty, disheveled, his hair a mess, his muscles taught with the effort as he continued to pound into you. You hated that you had imagined him much like this before, and that this outlived all of your fantasies.

“Yes.” You fired back. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

He bit his lip - something you didn’t know was him trying to hold back his orgasm, so utterly turned on by your bratty defiance, the twinge of a whimper in your voice as you said those words.

“You weren’t tellin’ me to shut up when I was texting you.”

He said, all hot breath fanning across your chin, his hips spearing forward in sharp, hard hits that made your skin smack loudly together. It made you work hard to suppress moans deep in your chest in a way that was painful, like venom inside your lungs. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of your sounds, of knowing just how good he was fucking you - even if he could see it written all over your pleasure twisted face.

“You only begged for more when I was tellin’ you how I was gonna lay you on my bed. Take you apart… make you scream my name.”

He reached his other hand from your hip to the point where you were joined. He began touching that tender place, making sharp, vicious strokes that were almost vengeful. Tears easily gathered in your eyes and he let out another chuckle when you choked on a deep, pleasurable wail.

“Tell me, how many times did you touch yourself reading what I wrote?”

He asked, leaning down to whisper the words right in your ear.

“How many times did you cum thinking about me?”

“I didn’t.” You choked out, digging your nails deeper into the skin of his back, causing him to grunt as the pain mixed with the pleasure flowing through him.

“Sure, babe.” He smirked down at you, turning that look into something absolutely pavlovian that would forever make you feel his cock deep inside of you when you saw it, rather than feeling annoyed.

Maybe from that point on, it was a bit of both.

In an effort to shut him up, you reached up and claimed his lips. It was supposed to be a kiss, but it was mostly teeth. When you bit down on his bottom lip, snarling, he tasted blood and the way he moaned at the pain was absolutely unmistakable. It was something you remembered and used against him many times after that.

…

You wouldn’t allow yourself any room for self hatred when it came to that break in your self control. When it became an ongoing thing, you spun it as positive in your mind.

It was just sexual release. You and Jason both needed it. It paired well with intense training and the heavy studying that Dick made you do. It lowered your stress levels a lot, and it helped you get through the day.

The more time you spent around Jason, the more you got to know him, and the more you came to realize that he was nowhere near shallow. You easily saw that he was caring, deep, complex, troubled. The more time passed, you found yourself falling for him and the more you deeply denied it. Because it was just sex.

Things were good between the two of you, and you knew that if you added anything else to the mix - any complicated, mushy feelings - you would fuck it up.

You were especially reminded of this - how important it was not to fuck things up - just a day or so before every other force aside from you railed Titans Tower and began royally fucking things up.

…

It was a morning just like any other at Titans Tower. It was delightfully quiet - even though Dick demanded that everyone get up at ungodly early hours to begin training, you had somehow managed to wake up before everyone else and you were enjoying the peace it brought you.

When you got up to see that Jason was already in the kitchen, standing at the counter as he munched on a bowl of cereal, you wanted to scorn the idea that your peace would be interrupted. But instead, you found yourself willfully suppressing a smile.

You yawned and walked over to the counter, grabbing a bowl from one of the cupboards, thinking that cereal was just the right idea on his part. A deep frown cut through your face when you poured out the rest of the cereal box he had left on the counter, and a very measly amount fell into your bowl.

“What kind of asshole only leaves three fucking cornflakes in the bottom of the box?” You scoffed, causing him to chuckle.

“Learn to count, babe.” He told you, speaking with his mouth half-full. “That’s more than three.”

You rolled your eyes. You were likely exaggerating - but still, it seemed rude to you to leave such a small portion, barely a handful, in the bottom of the box.

“Or did I make you cum so hard last night that I knocked the common sense out of your head?” He added on, throwing you that signature smirk that made heat bloom between your thighs.

You let out a sarcastic snort, giving him a purposefully disgusted grimace as you lifted the bowl up and dumped the remaining cereal into his portion instead.

“You might as well take these.” You told him. “And don’t flatter yourself, you’re not that good.”

You moved behind them, distracting yourself from the conversation by making a cup of coffee.

“Oh really?” He perked up, rising to his full height, pure mischief in his voice. “It didn’t sound like it last night.”

Much to your horror, he then began imitating your moans.

“‘Oh, Jason! Oh, fuck me! More!’”

It was a cartoonish, pornographic imitation, something he likely wouldn’t have done if the others were anywhere within earshot. Oddly enough, even though your relationship was casual, you still kept it guarded and private, as though it were some precious secret that needed to be kept from the others.

“‘Jason, please, your dick is the best! Oh, make me cum!’”

But that was the farthest thing from your mind as embarrassment curled in your stomach, the reaction he likely wanted to draw out of you. You hated that you didn’t truly know if it was accurate or not, because sometimes - yes, he did fuck your brains out and make you completely mindless on his cock.

But you would never admit that he was right.

“Shut up.” You sighed, causing him to dissolve into laughter, feeling as though he had won.

But you wouldn’t simply leave it at that.

Instead, as you pushed the button on the machine and your coffee began to drip, you turned around and gently placed your fingers on the side of his cereal bowl. You froze all the milk inside of it solid, making it into one large frozen chunk with the spoon stuck inside when he wasn’t looking - distracted, staring at your face, looking for any trace of the reaction that he had drawn out of you.

You just glared, and he smirked once more.

When he picked up the spoon again and went to take another bite, the entire bowl came with it. He sighed in defeat when he realized what you had done.

“You know, it’s so damn annoying when you do that.” He sighed.

“I know.” You grinned at him.

He couldn’t help the butterflies that fluttered in his stomach at this. He resisted the urge to grab you by the sides of your head and steal the grin of your mouth with his own. He told you that it was out of annoyance, and not affection. He told himself those lines were most definitely not blurred when it came to you.

…

Confessing your feelings to Jason would not have been your choice.

Given the choice, you would have let your feelings quietly live and die inside of you. You would have just kept Jason as a friend. You would have even dropped the amazing sex if it meant staying on good terms with him.

But the stakes rose pretty quickly, and things were taken out of your hands. The choice was stolen from you and Jason entirely against your will.

When you found out he was missing, supposedly kidnapped by Doctor Light on the heels of some misguided plan - something inside of you shattered. Up until that moment, if you thought it was just a stupid crush, or an infatuation inside of you that would easily fade with time - you quickly found out that you were wrong.

You went through the stages of grief like a rocket.

Denial. Staring at the door, waiting for him to walk inside at any moment. Just like you had back at the safehouse.

Anger. Being so pissed at Dick at the other older Titans that you could barely breathe. How had they let this happen to him? How could they make him feel so inadequate that he felt the need to go out on his own, half-cocked, clearly doing something in the name of looking for their approval?

Bargaining. You would have traded places with him. You would have been the one, alone and scared and stranded if it meant that he got to be at home safe. You would have gone with him to carry out the stupid plan if he had only asked. Why hadn’t he asked you?

Depression. You wept in your room, hands clasped over your face, letting out chest-shaking sobs as you thought of the possibility of him never returning home again. You realized the possibility of him dying was very real and it made your lungs burn.

And then finally - Acceptance. You finally accepted that your feelings for him were something bigger, and if it meant that you were the only person in the Tower who truly cared about him (probably aside from Gar) - the only person who didn’t just see him as a pawn to be used against Deathstroke - then you had to do something about it.

So you laid out your love for Jason. You put it all on the line for him. You accidentally confessed to him, showed your feelings in a gesture so quiet it screamed.

You knew that for someone who stepped up to become Robin, someone who scorned cops for pummeling down on the innocent when they were supposed to be protectors - stepping up to try and save his life meant a love bigger than anything else you could have done.

And he was terrified of it. There was a big justice in your love for him. And to him, there was an even bigger justice in giving you an out to escape it - to escape loving him.

…

Hectic.

That was easily how you would describe the last few days at Titans Tower.

Between the unexpected arrival of Rose - Dick taking on another stray because, like Rachel said, he couldn’t resist a bird with a broken wing. Finding out that she was related to one of the deadliest men on earth that the Titans apparently had previous history with. And then Jason going off on his own without telling you, some botched hostage trade, and the group picking up yet another stray - a strange boy who had saved Jason’s life. It was all a blur of hectic chaos that had you snapping your neck to keep up.

Sleep was scarce and you couldn’t remember the last time you’d had a proper meal.

But you weren’t truly worried about any of that.

Dust had been kicked up around your life, and you couldn’t wait for it to settle before you made your next important decision.

Even though the wounds were still tender, you knew that things were safe for now, and your number one concern was Jason.

The minute he had gotten in the door, even though he was slightly hobbled and clearly sore from whatever Deathstroke had done to him, he rushed out of your sight. He was clearly eager to get away from everyone like a wounded animal sulking away to lick his wounds in peace. And when you had chased him, ignoring a nagging pain in your own side from the fight, he had slammed his bedroom door in your face, entirely uncaring of the fact that you called out his name, concerned for him.

The rest of the group was distracted with Conner - not knowing what he had been shot with or how to fix it. You hated it, but in the eyes of the group, yet again, Jason and any of his problems fell to the back burner.

After you had taken a short shower and changed your clothes, you found yourself here. Standing in front of Jason’s closed bedroom door, hoping not to face another cold rejection.

You wondered if he would be sleeping, wondered if you should interrupt his peace. But you knew that sleep was unlikely after everything that had happened.

So you took the leap.

You raised a fist, once again pushing down that stinging pain coming from the right side of your stomach. You reasoned that it was probably nothing more than a bruise forming there. And you knocked on the door.

A few moments later, the door was jerked open, and Jason glared at you.

His eyes were dull and tired, and there was a large bruise forming on the side of his mouth. Probably one of many others that you couldn’t see, from the way he had been walking earlier. He likely hadn’t been sleeping, but you had disturbed him.

“What the hell do you want?” He grumbled out, his voice dull, lacking any true fight.

“I wanted to check on you.” You told him, entirely honest. “I know it might seem stupid, but I wanna see how you’re doing.”

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes.

He wanted to agree that - yes, it was stupid. It should have been obvious how he was doing after being kidnapped, beaten, and dropped off a building. But he was an idiot who had gotten himself thrown headfirst into that mess, thinking he could handle it. And he didn’t need to go crying to you about how badly he had fucked up. He had made a poor choice and he deserved all of the consequences. It was a simple fact of life.

“I’m doing just fine, thanks.” Jason said, entirely snide and sarcastic. “Look, I don’t need your help, okay? So fuck off.”

It was a set of harsh, cutting words. But he thought getting distance from you would be best. This whole thing had woken him up from the sweet little fantasy the two of you had been participating in. He was a natural born fuck-up. And sure, he could have you for a while, play around a bit - but he could never truly make you happy. Eventually, he would fuck you up too. He was a harsh poison and it would be better if he got out of your life before you felt the full effects.

He moved to shove the door closed and upon instinct, you reached up and fought him on it. Unconsciously, you winced as a sharp pain came from the injury in your stomach, reaching for it with your free hand as you held the door open with the other. It should have been no big deal. With your meta abilities, you usually healed quicker. You weren’t even used to feeling it when you got hurt. You were probably just feeling it worse because you were tired.

You tried to ignore the pain. But in a moment, Jason’s eyes went wide with worry as his gaze darted from your face, knit with pain, to where your hand was nursing the injury. Any sense of smarmy discontent dropped from his features, immediately being replaced with a softness and worry for you.

“You’re hurt.” He said quietly.

He let the door fall open again, reaching for your hand to inspect the injury himself.

“I’m fine.” You played the card this time, exchanging his lie for your own.

It was an odd play. He had lied about not being so torn up inside, emotionally devastated as he was, and now you were lying about not being physically injured from the fight. The two of you made an odd, but perfectly matched pair.

Jason barreled right past your words, and you were easily pliant to his touch as he removed your hand from the injury. You certainly were not expecting for him to find anything incriminating under your hand. But he glared at you when he found bright red spread across your palm, a glossy wetness leaking through your shirt.

“You’re bleeding.” He grunted at you.

Clearly, he was disappointed in the fact that you had neglected to bring this injury to the group’s attention. Pissed off at the fact that you weren’t in the medbay with Conner receiving some treatment right now.

Maybe you could blame it on the chaos. Maybe you could blame it on the fact that with everyone so emotionally distraught, you didn’t want to be just another problem for everyone to fuss over.

“Whoops.” You breathed out sarcastically. “I didn’t even notice.”

That last part was honest. In all the adrenaline, all your worrying over whether or not Jason was going to live as you watched him dangle so high off the ground - you truly hadn’t paid any mind to the injury.

“You didn’t-?” Jason huffed out in anger, but didn’t bother finishing the sentence.

Perhaps he partially understood himself, knowing how the adrenaline from a fight could stamp out pain. Or perhaps he knew how truly stubborn you were and he didn’t want to waste his energy arguing with you.

“You need this treated.” He added on.

No matter how fucked in the head he was, he never wanted to see you hurt. That was something he would definitely waste his energy on - wearing down your stubbornness until you let him or someone else in the house take care of the injury properly.

“Conner is worse off than I am.” You shrugged. “He needs the attention more.”

“Then let me help you.” He said, an impatient nagging rising up in his throat. “Bruce gave me some first aid training. One thing that means I’m not totally useless.”

The words made your chest ache for him, a pain that easily competed with the bleeding wound.

“Jason-”

You wanted to argue with him. You wanted to tell him he had infinite worth to you.

But of course, he cut you off.

“Just go sit on the bed.” He told you, quiet, but a firm command that you couldn’t ignore.

He gently pushed past you, on a quest for some supplies to patch you up with. You then found yourself drifting into his room almost mindlessly, your hand clutching the wound again upon instinct. It was a place that you felt oddly at home. The nights you had spent in that bed since coming to Titans Tower, your head delightfully empty as he had fucked you hard and fast - they were by far your favourites.

You would say it was because of the sex, and not just because you got to be wrapped up in Jason’s arms. Maybe everything had changed. Maybe your answers were different now. Maybe you were raw and tender and Jason wasn’t prepared to chase you in that devotion.

But that was just the thing. With you and Jason, there was never any sense of devotion. You and Jason were always hard and fast. Teasing each other, verging on the edge of vengeful. It was a flame that burned intensely hot - but it was never anything soft. It was never anything that prompted you to knock on his door so late, wanting to check on his well being. It was nothing that prompted you to make chase to put your life on the line for him.

Even just knowing that he had the intent to attend to your injury, called himself useful because of it - the thought cradled you like a warm blanket. It had you balancing on the edge of a dam holding back a barrage of feelings that you had been quelling down since the moment you had first put your lips on his.

“I told you to sit.” Jason’s voice came from behind you.

He had raided the infirmary and now had a handful of supplies - luckily without anyone seeing him or questioning why. When you turned to him, he was closing the bedroom door behind him, sealing you both in with this newfound soft intensity, the tired lull of two people unwilling to hold back that softness anymore. It was entirely dangerous, and entirely life-saving at the same time; and neither of you realized it.

“Since when do you get to boss me around?” You told him, your voice low and lacking any true spirit or sarcasm.

It was in the same vein as the banter the two of you usually threw around - bickering about who was a bigger asshole, who was more stubborn, who was better in bed.

You expected some kind of sexual comment in return. You could almost hear it now - he was the boss of you because he made you melt on his cock, made you mindless and dumb with it.

But, no dice.

The longer you stared at him, catching bits of the fresh pain swimming through those gorgeous blue eyes, you wished so badly for the mischief and sarcasm and light to come back and bite you the way that it used to.

It only made your stomach churn harder at the whole situation. Things had officially changed between you and Jason. You had yet to find out if it was for the better, or for the painstakingly worse.

Jason sighed through his nose.

“You can be such an asshole sometimes.” He told you. Coming from him, and given the nature of your relationship, you knew it was almost a compliment. “Will you just sit down and let me help you?”

Even though you were utterly terrified of the swelling of emotions you felt, bound to come to a head - you did.

You sat on the edge of the bed and he placed the supplies beside you.

When he mumbled out a quiet ‘lay back’, and you did, his cool fingertips at the hem of your shirt pulling it upward felt strangely more intimate than any other time you had been in this same position. It wasn’t heady, you weren’t granted the distraction of his mouth on yours and his tongue shoved between your lips while a harsh throbbing nagged between your legs.

This was quiet, and calm, and gentle.

When you caught his eye above you as he wiped away the blood with some clean gauze, you saw nothing but pity and worry and sparkling affection for you. You almost dared to call it something as epic and dangerous as love, buried deep in his eyes. He worked with the most delicate touch, almost as if he was afraid to break you, before he glanced down and inspected the wound.

His brow furrowed with even more intense worry, guilt nipping at his insides when he got a good look at it.

“I think I see a bullet in here.” He told you, and then he moved around the bed and grabbed his phone, turning on the flashlight to have a better light to inspect it. You felt intensely naked, intensely caught when he began shining the light on your stomach with a harshly inquisitive look across his face. “Definitely something shiny. You got shot and you didn’t fucking tell anyone?”

It was only then that you realized when you had gotten the wound - the exact moment clicking into place in your mind.

“It was only a ricochet.” You argued quietly. “It’s not that bad.”

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes, and began sorting out his supplies, preparing to pull out whatever was lodged inside of you.

…

Dick explicitly told you to stay put.

They only wanted the more experienced Titans, the Varsity squad on the case when dealing with Deathstroke. He blamed young naive incompetence as the reason Jason had gotten captured in the first place. You blamed him and Bruce pushing Jason out, making him feel like he needed so desperately to prove himself. But it was something Dick wasn’t ready to hear - an argument you weren’t going to have with the very stubborn team leader.

Instead, you went for the silent route. You trailed the rest of them out of Tower, and when Dick strayed away from the rest of the group, his head on a swivel as he glanced back and forth, seemingly wanting to assure that none of the others were following him - you followed your gut instincts and went after him.

You hid in the shadows and the moment that Deathstroke hit the button and those panels scrolled up, revealing Jason stranded on that scaffolding - you couldn’t help yourself.

“Jason!”

You screamed out his name, you leapt forward.

Dick didn’t have time to scold you, not before the gunfire started.

Kory came out of nowhere - seemingly, she had the same idea as you. Putting her life on the line for an emotionally repressed man that she hadn’t admitted her feelings for. But she was there because she was in love with the other Robin. (Or rather, a man who claimed over and over again that he wasn’t Robin.)

Things quickly became a blur - flashes of flame as Kory fought, battling with the muzzle flashes from Deathstroke’s guns, limbs flying as they fought each other. You didn’t see it, but Deathstroke raised and aimed at you as you rushed toward the window, blindly going after Jason. In response, Dick charged forward, redirecting the gun as he pulled the trigger. You heard the sharp ‘ping’ sound of metal on metal - what you couldn’t see was the bullet hitting one of the metal beams in the ceiling. But you certainly felt it when it sliced into your side.

At the time, it was nothing compared to the fear you felt for Jason.

His eyes were wide with terror, and you could only focus on getting him to safety. You had no idea that a large part of his panic came from seeing you in the building. He had hoped that Dick would keep you away from all of this. But there you were, standing a few feet away from a man with a gun who was shooting around wildly. Jason would have delighted in being dropped off the building to his death if he had to see you get fatally shot when he could do nothing but squirm on the other side of the glass.

You put two hands on the glass, banging on it - of course, it was no use. It was inches thick, meant to keep people from going through it at this height. Working entirely on instinct, you put your palms flat across it and began forming ice crystals over it, hoping to make it rigid and breakable if it was frozen.

Once there was enough ice, you quickly looked around and spotted a metal pipe there for the in-progress construction of the building, so you grabbed it and rushed to smash the glass with it. You felt victorious as it shattered, and Jason flinched away from the shards, putting you one step closer to freeing him.

Though the moment the glass was cleared, leaving the wind whipping around you, his first words of greeting to you were not celebratory.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He barked at you, clearly angry with you.

You felt a dull ache in your chest at this. You thought he might be relieved, happy, pleased. At the time, you couldn’t interpret his harsh reaction as worry for you possibly getting hurt.

Nonetheless, you ignored his harshness. You would save him, whether he wanted to be saved or not. You draped your body through the window, reaching out to him. You made an effort to keep most of your weight planted on the floor of the building, in case the scaffolding wasn’t stable enough to hold two people at once.

“What do you think?” You replied, pure sarcasm dripping through your voice as you reached behind Jason and began fiddling with the rope around his wrists.

The position put the two of you in intensely close proximity. Jason caught a whiff of your unique scent, the shower gel you used that mingled with your body’s natural oils; and he felt so painfully at home. For the first time that night, he held back tears. He couldn’t help but to lean his forehead on your shoulder, taking comfort in having you so near after being on edge and terrified for so many hours. You resisted the urge to run a hand through his hair, to cradle him and give him further comfort. You forced yourself to focus on the task at hand - getting him to safety.

Behind you, at the very back of the room, Dick and Deathstroke wrestled with the remote for the explosives attached to the scaffolding.

Just as you managed to get Jason’s wrists freed, Deathstroke hit the switch, and the bombs went off.

…

You winced loudly as Jason dabbed at the wound with disinfectant.

“I would say sorry… but, you’ll thank me later when this isn’t swollen and leaking puss.” He told you, throwing you a small smirk.

It was smug. It was the usual kind of humor that he gave you.

It was comforting to know that every trace of the Jason you knew hadn’t been stolen by Deathstroke.

You held your breath as he pressed down with the medicine-covered gauze again, drawing much less of a reaction out of you this time.

“Great mental image, Jay.” You replied, your voice dull. It lacked any of the true bite you wanted to deliver in response to him. “I’m sure it’s such a turn-on thinking about my puss.”

It was meant to be a joke. But even unconsciously, it was an acknowledgement of that dangerous line - the line between truly caring and just using someone for sex. The line between having someone in your life as a body to get off with, and being so… homely with them.

You and Jason were towing that line dangerously. It was a thread that you were balancing on, and it would either break, or you would cross to the other side and be forever bonded to him.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe I don’t have to be turned on by you all the time.”

There was more stuck in his throat. Another dangerous acknowledgement of that line.

‘Maybe I just have to care.’

Both of you lulled into silence because neither of you dared to say it.

After a few moments, Jason put down the gauze and hesitated to reach for the tweezers. He knew that pulling the bullet out would be painful, but inevitable. It was a lot like the state of your relationship with him. Break it off, and find happiness elsewhere, or acknowledge this big thing swelling to fruition between the two of you. Have Jason fuck it up eventually. Painful, but inevitable.

“You shouldn’t have to be hurt like this.” Jason said quietly. “You shouldn’t have gotten hurt for my sake.”

There it was again - words with a dangerous double meaning.

You looked up at him, pure pain knit across his face, and for a moment he looked from the tweezers to you and he could hardly stand holding your gaze.

‘It’s worth it.’ You wanted to say. ‘For you, I’d bear any pain.’

The words lived and died behind your eyes, and your tongue decided on something else entirely.

“It’s nothing.” You told him.

You downplayed the pain, pretending that the injury was only a minor inconvenience for you. And in the grand scheme of life, it was. With time, it would heal. Losing Jason would be something you’d never heal from.

Jason shook his head at this statement.

He forced himself to reach for the tweezers then. He handed you his phone, a silent agreement that you would hold the light as steady as you could. He knew you well, too well, and he knew that you needed something else to focus on to push away the pain. He put his free hand on the plush of your stomach, pulling back slightly to hold the wound open while you held the light on it.

When the sharp metal of the tweezers breached your wound, you wanted to swear. You wanted to call him an asshole as the pain shot through you. You wanted to scold him for leaving the Tower and being kidnapped in the first place. But you knew that even if it was playful or sarcastic, fueled by the bite of your pain, it was not what he needed to hear right now. So instead, you held your breath, and gripped his phone hard, keeping the light steady as you bared the sharp shocks of pain.

After a moment of digging around that felt like an eternity, he pulled out the fragment and held it up to show you as you collapsed back against the bed, panting with tears stinging the edges of your eyes.

“It’s not nothing.” He declared sharply.

You couldn’t conjure a response. You knew he was right. And you didn’t want to be forced to admit it.

Instead, you turned off the light from his phone and relaxed into the bed, closing your eyes as he walked around to the trashcan and threw out the bullet fragment. It fell into the bottom of the plastic wastebasket with a very small ‘ping’ - making you wonder how something so small could cause so much trouble.

Jason quickly returned to you, dabbing more disinfectant into the wound in a way that made you groan and flex away from the touch. Once again, he did not apologize.

There were a few moments of muddy silence with nothing but your slightly labored breathing, trying to contain your sounds of pain so as to not make him feel any further guilt about the whole incident.

Your mind churned, and you couldn’t help the next words that came from your mouth.

“I meant what I said.” You told him.

At the sound of this, his hands immediately stilled. You felt his eyes on you, and you forced yourself to open your own and look up at him once again. He stared you down with intense examination. He looked for any ounce of falsity, any sign that you were lying, even posturing to make him feel better after everything that had happened.

He didn’t find any.

You thought he might acknowledge you, that he might say something back to return your mighty words. Instead, he simply reached for more gauze, and began putting a final bandage on your wound.

…

The explosion caused a sharp rattle through your ears. It shocked you and made you dizzy and put the whole world off-kilter. The only thing you could perceive past the mind-numbing hum in your brain was the feeling of Jason’s rough glove gripping tightly onto your wrist, so you gripped back as hard as you could.

When you blinked open your eyes, you were half-hanging out of the open window, the edge of the floor cutting into your waist as you held onto Jason by nothing but his wrist. His whole body weight created a harsh burn, straining on the muscles in your shoulder as you watched him dangle hundreds of feet above the street.

Panic flooded you.

You scrambled to reach out with your other hand, and the moment you moved, your shirt slipped against the sleek, polished material of the floor and you began sliding out the window. You gasped and Jason stilled his panicked flailing immediately.

“Don’t move!” He shouted.

“Give me your other hand so I can pull you up!” You shouted back.

Beyond the unpleasant hum of your eardrums rattling, you still heard chaos behind you. Gunshots, the grunts of fighting, Kory and Dick’s voices yelling. They were busy with Deathstroke, they couldn’t help you or Jason.

Jason looked up at you with glassy eyes.

He knew that with all his gear weighing him down, even with the training you had been doing, you wouldn’t be able to pull him up. Not by yourself. And if you weren’t careful, his body weight would just pull you out of the window and cause you to go tumbling down to your death along with him.

When you saw that frown etch across his lips, that filthy look of dawning - you glared at him.

“Give me your other hand!” You screamed, your voice raking across your throat like hot coals. A hot boiling rage at the fact that he seemed almost determined to die.

There was one thing he was determined about. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to take you down with him.

His gloved wrist started to slip from your nervous, sweaty palm, and you tried hard to hold on tight. You formed large shards of ice, hoping you could create some kind of bond there by freezing your hand to his. But it would only be temporary with gravity trying to tear the two of you apart.

“You have to drop me, Y/N.” He said, nothing but pure mourning on his lips. “I’m dead weight.”

You both knew it was a horrendous double meaning.

He thought he was a dead weight to your life.

“No!” You immediately defied this thought, that feral rage ripping at your throat once again. “I’m gonna pull you up. I’m gonna pull you up!”

You reached your other hand down and tightly wrapped both of your hands around his wrist, yanking upward. The harsh movement caused you to slide even further out the window. You were now dangling dangerously over San Francisco with only the thickness of your thighs giving you any real stability on the intensely high up floor. It made you dizzy, and the only thing you had to focus on were the wet wells of Jason’s eyes staring up at you.

“It’s no use!” Jason said tearfully.

You ignored him.

You cast your chin over your shoulder, and began shouting.

“Help me!” You screamed, trying desperately to get the attention of Dick or Kory. “Help me! Fuck!”

“You have to let go.”

Jason’s words immediately shifted your focus back to him.

But of course, you refused.

“I’m not letting go of you!” You declared sharply. “Not that easily.”

As he stared up at your tearful eyes, he knew that you meant it as more.

Unfortunately, it was the one thing he was terrified of.

He thought that you saw him as some shiny perfect thing, something good and worth having in your life. He thought that you were incapable of seeing the poison, the true fuck-up that he was. If you didn’t let go of him, sooner or later, just like everyone else in his life, you were going to get burned.

So Jason did what he had to do.

He began prying your fingers off his wrist, trying his best to keep you stable while he forced himself from your grip.

“No!” You shrieked. “No, no, no-”

You didn’t have much room to fight him about it without falling out of the window yourself.

You made a move to readjust, to get a tighter grip on him - and it was the one deadly move that caused him to slip out of your touch completely.

You were forced to watch on in chest clenching horror, blinking through heavy tears as he began hurtling toward the ground.

…

If not for Conner - a literal miracle - swooping in and saving Jason at the last second, then you would have spent the rest of your life regretting those moments, wondering what you could have done differently to save him.

When Jason finished taping down the bandages, making sure the wound was clean and secure, he laid his palm flat on top of it. It was a kind of ‘kissing it better’ that instantly spread warmth curling through your gut. It was a touch so incredibly tender - especially compared to the heated, aggressive groping you were used to from him - that it caused a whimper from the back of your throat.

You knew it was unlikely, but you hoped that he hadn’t heard it.

“All done.” He said quietly.

You instantly felt regret when he took his hand away and began tidying up the medical supplies. But you forced yourself to sit upright, now feeling only muscle soreness and a much duller pain coming from the area. You felt intensely thankful for his care as you pulled your shirt back down, righting your clothes back into place.

“You’re free to go now.” Jason told you, his voice still low, as though a single decibel would shatter the delicate peace between the two of you.

You felt your heart sink.

In an instant, you understood what it was - he was concerned about your physical wellbeing, but he didn’t actually want to have you around. Just like his reaction to you showing up at the hostage exchange - he didn’t want your presence there.

You heaved a sigh and got off the bed as Jason busied himself with gathering up the used gauze to throw it away. As you put your hand on the doorknob, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to leave.

It was something else.

It had to be something else.

Jason hadn’t let himself drop off a building in some desperate ploy just to get away from you. He had been trying to save you.

He was so utterly willing to give his life for yours.

And now he was trying to back down from that.

You turned and faced him, leaving the door closed. When he turned from ditching things in the wastebasket, he froze. He was entirely surprised that you were still there.

The two of you locked eyes, both staying still - like a predator and prey locked in a stalemate, wondering who would run first.

In this situation, you weren’t sure who was the prey.

You were both so vulnerable.

Jason thought it would be selfish to get caught up in all of this, to finally admit those dangerous feelings he had for you. When he cared for things, he usually ended up breaking them. Of course, it was never on purpose - he was an idiot. Everything he touched, he fucked up. He had made that more than evident with his last braindead plan, the outing to prove that he was worthy of being Robin. Something that had gotten you shot, probably could have gotten you killed.

If you stuck with him any longer, you probably would end up being killed. And he would never forgive himself for that.

He would be better off ripping himself from your hold, as much as it hurt. Giving you a dose of that heartbreak now so that you could get over him and go after better things.

As you stared at Jason, you could see all the pain boiling underneath his surface. You wondered what he was thinking, what the hell he was churning over in that intense brain of his - but you didn’t dare to ask.

You knew that he needed to be held right now - in every sense of the word. You knew that he needed to be cared for the way he had cared for your wound, pushing past the pain in order to heal. You wondered if he would lay down and bear it or if he would continue to fight you.

You were the one to bravely step forward. Though Jason was tempted to ask you to leave, that thing inside of him yearning to marinate in his isolation because he deserved it, he pushed it down. He let his hands naturally come to sit on the plush comfort of your waist as you put a gentle touch on both his shoulders, leaning into his body ever so slightly.

You laid your forehead on his cheek, right next to that ugly bruise that had been left on him, and he let out a contented sigh as he felt your warmth envelope him. For the first time since his feet had touched the ground, he felt calm. He felt safe.

You smoothed a hand across his shoulder, and raised your head, using your touch to gently tip his face toward yours. He quickly realized that your intention was to kiss him. And something ached in his heart - something painful and longing. He knew that it would not be needy and haste with the intention of pile-driving toward sex like your other kisses had been. He knew that it would be the metamorphosis of your relationship that he was not prepared to go through.

He nuzzled along your forehead, gently stopping you.

“Please don’t do this.” He murmured quietly into your skin.

He knew that it would break him.

He knew that this was the moment - like Gatsby reaching up toward the stars - this would be the moment that he was tied to you forever, damned by his love for you. Only, much different than Gatsby, he wasn’t destined for some grant fate if he didn’t have you. He was on a one way path to a messy death, and he was determined not to take you down with him.

Tears pricked the edges of his eyes at the thought.

You pulled back, just enough to properly look him in the eyes, and your own tears formed when you saw that pathetic puppy dog looking back at you.

“Why not?” You demanded, much sharper than you intended. You knew he was fragile and you didn’t want to upset him any further than he already was.

“You know why.” He replied, his voice barely scraping above a whisper as the emotion clutched at his throat.

Jason wanted to hold onto you forever, but he was also a realistic person. He expected that any minute now, you would rip away from his arms and charge out the door, entirely angry with him, and this would finally be over. You would finally be safe from him - safe from any nasty fate his life could conjure up for you.

You hated what he was asking of you - asking you not to care for him anymore. As if you could somehow switch it off. Impossible.

“I meant what I said.” You repeated yourself, still entirely firm in this conviction. “I’m not gonna let you go that easily.”

You leaned in, planting your lips on his in a light kiss. A pained sigh ripped through you when he didn’t make any moves to kiss you back.

“Jason, please.” You whimpered out desperately. “If you get to bandage my bullet wound, then I get to do this.”

Jason wanted to spell it all out for you, plain and dirty. He wanted to get angry, he wanted to scream. He wanted to rush along the inevitable. He wanted to tell you what a poison he was to the world, that he deserved to die and you deserved better things. But he had the utmost feeling that you wouldn’t listen.

“Please, stop pushing me away.” You whispered against his lips.

Instead, he listened to your plea. He let himself indulge in this selfish softness for once.

He reached up and grabbed your jaw, pulling you into a firmer kiss, declaring every ounce of passion and terror that he was feeling in those moments. You answered it all right back - digging your fingers into the shoulders of his shirt, letting out a hot huff against his cheek as you leaned into his body.

He would never be perfect - but he was yours.

...

PLEASE NOTE: I do have a sequel in mind for this, but I don't know when I am going to have it finished and posted. Please do not ask me to write more of this or ask me when the sequel will be coming. If you are going to comment, please comment about the body of work here that I have already written.

#sundrop writes #dc titans #titans fanfiction #titans x reader #dc titans fanfiction #jason todd #jason todd x gn!reader #jason todd x gender neutral reader #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #jason todd smut

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babybells123 · 4 months

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I recently posted about Sansa Stark on TikTok particularly concerning themes of beauty, love and romanticism (Jonsa if you SQUINT)!! It’s gotten over 2000 likes so far, and the comments have all been positive, but I just received a comment saying “Aegon VI will save her” and had to resist the urge to scratch my eyes out …

Look, I for one want nothing more than for Sansa to be with a man who loves her undoubtedly (and chooses her over her claim, countering all the previous men who have been betrothed to/married to/attempted to abuse Sansa). But I find it incredibly ironic that this is likely an individual who is aware of the Ashford Tourney (hell, maybe they’re even aware of the really subtle Targaryen imagery in Sansa’a chapters - but only if they’re in conjunction with Aegon VI, certainly not the secret cousin who just so happens to also be a Targaryen)… but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are an alt shift x fan who has watched his brief Ashford Tourney video which barely scratches the surface of the theory (and I too, enjoy Alt’s videos so don’t get me wrong here) but here’s what bothers me - why is the fandom so incredibly intent on ‘proving’ that it is Aegon?

He could be the loveliest, kindest man alive and I still wouldn’t budge on my stance of this marriage doing absolutely nothing to progress Sansa’s narrative arc organically.

How does it challenge her belief of conventionality? Particularly concerning southern ideals of beauty? What is the whole point of Sansa retracting from her current journey, travelling South yet again to marry a man whom she’s never met before? We’ve already been made privy to how wary Sansa is of Harry the Heir, for he could be a “comely monster,” she knows that beauty is deceptive - so already she’d be experiencing those similar feelings of despair … What purpose would it serve to send Sansa back to King’s Landing? A place where she was abused and married against her will? The place where her father was murdered in front of her eyes? The place where she was hostage with no true friends and no family to trust or rely on? Walking on eggshells every day of her life? These are all negative associations. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see that Sansa’a arc is pointing North.

This is the same girl who spends hours building a scale model of her home, Winterfell - in the snow. This is the same girl who refers to herself as the blood of Winterfell, the daughter of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn - who derives strength from that in the face of her abuser. This is the same girl who at the age of 11, manages to dissociate when faced with the head of her father on a spike, looking North and North until she can see Winterfell in her mind’s eye, whose direwolf - part of her soul, is buried in the North ; who to quote Ned “belongs in the North.” This is the same girl who has been passed around like a vessel of politics since her very first betrothal. Who has been viewed as nothing more than a claim to a vast Kingdom, who is not allowed to exercise that claim in her own right. Who has been denied her inheritance on the basis of her marriage to Tyrion - not just by Stannis , but also by the brother she has loved and idolised (and isn’t that just heartbreaking for Sansa?) - need I remind you of the one single person in this entire series who has not overhauled Sansa’s claim ? Despite it being the one thing he’s ever truly wanted? His hearts most intrinsic desire??

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa." (Jon I ADWD)

“Jon said, "Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa." (Jon IV ADWD).

I mean, those two phrases in conjunction with;

“It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.” (Sansa VI ASOS) - which as we know, is followed by a Jon chapter just a page later.

Jon has already unknowingly refuted half of Sansa’s despairing words, as well as silently fulfilling those knightly ideals she believes no longer exist.

So yeah, it annoys me beyond belief when people “theorise” that Sansa will marry Aegon VI/Young Griff. Because it removes her agency yet again, it pushes her further away from her identity and her home that she has slowly but surely been reclaiming - she goes five steps backwards, and regardless of whether you like her character or not, from a writing perspective and how character arcs are meant to unfold - it really doesn’t make sense for her to go back to the place where she has been tormented for most of the series - but then, who am I kidding - these are the same people who don’t believe sansa is an important character and that her arc will either remain stagnant or she’ll just be pushed out of the way whilst other characters are allowed narratively conclusive endings.

But even with all this, even with Valarr Targaryen being a non-Targaryen looking prince with brown hair described as a black prince with a white guardian (gee, I wonder whose image THAT invokes), even with GRRM sitting down and writing a family tree where a Jonnel ‘One Eye’ Stark marries a half niece called Sansa Stark to solve a succession crisis. Quite literally spelling it out on paper for people this fandom just cannot come to any logical conclusions that would make sense narratively, thematically, politically and on a character level. It truly blows my mind.

*sigh.* I’m very tired.

Anyway, to quote GRRM; resolve to be Sansa Stark and take the North. ✌️

#sansa stark #meta #my patience wearing thin #someone sedate me #Jonsa #Jon x Sansa #the black prince with the white guardian

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whenmemorydies · 1 month

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Carmen, Natalie, and the Berzattos

CW: this post talks about domestic violence, addiction, mental health, racialised trauma, toxic masculinity and intergenerational trauma (this show deals with so much friends!).

Go gently with yourself if you choose to continue to read. Also its a long one (longer than my usual!) so fair warning if you're diving in: maybe put the kettle on.

Following on from The Claw, The Scrunchie and The Prayer Card metas (Part 1 and Part 2), I've been thinking more about The Berzattos (represented via Natalie's hair claw in Carmy's apartment) and their presence (seen and unseen) in season 3 of The Bear.

@espumado's fantastic meta on The Night of the Hunter and its use in The Bear, particularly as it relates to Natalie and the struggle she goes through in season 3 has informed a lot of this post. My reblog of that post also contains a lot of thinking that I had started to scratch at but haven't been able to expand upon until now. Also check out @currymanganese's brilliant analysis of The Night of the Hunter in the context of romantic relationships in The Bear.

Another source of information I've used in the research for this meta is this fantastic interview in the LA Times with the cast involved in 2x06 Fishes (thanks @brokenwinebox for sharing it!). Also thank you to @thoughtfulchaos773, @brokenwinebox and @devisrina for the chat about the above interview and discussions about Donna Berzatto's relationship with her son, Carmy.

Finally @vacationship's most excellent breakdown of the roles taken up by characters in The Bear according to Adult Children of Alcoholics ('ACA') roles defined by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruise and communicator types as developed by Virginia Satir has also informed this post.

The Berzattos

Okay so, given what we know about Carmy and about the Berzattos, it would seem obvious that, yes, his birth family is going to impact Carmy. I think its probably so obvious, that a lot of the fandom, myself included, have taken Carmy's relationship with his family for granted this season. To be fair, we were also getting Claire and the Faks shoved down our throats so some things flew under the radar including, in my view, the Berzattos.

What got me thinking about the Berzattos as a source of anguish for Carmy was a rewatch of 3x03 Doors - specifically Carmy's panic attack during that episode.

The first panic attack of season 3

At this late point in the episode, we've been watching Carmy and the crew's slowly escalating struggle with the demands of fine dining, when we arrive at Carmy running expo and calling for hands. His voice is hoarse and it sounds like he's been screaming for some time. His vision starts to blur and as he continues to call out for hands, we see glimpses of what appear to be intrusive thoughts, interrupting Carmy's work and triggering a panic attack. The sequence of shots that appear during this panic attack is below:

I note that Carm appears to be trying to come out of the panic attack by remembering his time at The French Laundry and Noma - much like memories of immaculately plated food helped him regulate during his panic attack in 1x08 Braciole and memories of Sydney helped him to regulate during his panic attack in 2x09 Omelette.

The final thought Carm has during this panic attack - indeed the thought he has when it appears that his panic attack is reaching its peak - is of his sister Natalie, in a church praying:

Note: I'm working on the assumption that the above memory of Natalie takes place at Marcus' mother's funeral. This is based on the clothes Natalie is wearing and how her hair is styled.

Its at this moment in his panic attack that you can see the crest in Carmy's emotions. The orchestral score during this sequence also builds to its climax at this point. Carmy's face screws into a tight grimace and he practically spits out the word, Fuck. Its only then that the music cuts away and we hear Sydney's voice bringing Carmy back to the present:

The fact that thinking about Natalie (praying while she carries the next generation of the Berzatto family) is what causes Carmy's panic attack to peak is what got me thinking more seriously about the impact of his birth family on Carm. ( This is something that others including @mitocamdria and @moodyeucalyptus have also picked up on here and here - the Bear hive mind at work!)

Below is my attempt to map these impacts out, from the perspective of intergenerational trauma, which can be described as,

"the apparent transmission of trauma between generations of a family. People who experience adverse childhood experiences growing up, or who have survived historical disasters or traumas, may pass the effects of those traumas on to their children or grandchildren, through their genes, their behaviour, or both, leaving the next generational susceptible to anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and other emotional and mental health concerns."

I'd argue that intergenerational trauma can continue well beyond a person's grandchildren, particularly in cases where the systemic factors may have caused a trauma (for example: racial segregation, colonialism), continue to impact on multiple generations of a family.

So lets start by looking at Carmy's mother, Donna Berzatto...

Donna's trauma

I preface the below analysis with the caveat that we are not told what mental health diagnoses (if any) Donna Berzatto has (though she is clearly struggling with her mental health when we first meet her in 2x06 Fishes). The inferences I make below are based on what we have been told in the show about trauma that Donna has experienced.

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips where Donna and Natalie are talking in between bouts of Natalie's contractions. At one point in the episode, Natalie says:

I don't remember your mom.

To which, Donna sadly responds:

You don't want to.

Donna then becomes silently tearful remembering her mother.

Its clear from this very brief exchange that Donna has experienced some level of abuse at the hands of her own mother: Michael, Natalie and Carmy's maternal grandmother. That abuse has no doubt impacted on Donna's ability to parent her own children and likely influenced how she parented them as well.

As a mother myself, I've found that one of the hardest things about parenting has been avoiding the repetition of harmful behaviours that I've picked up through my own childhood. For all of us, the first - and often most memorable - models we have for how to parent have been the experiences we've had with our own primary caregivers (whether they were our birth parents or other adults in our lives). If those models were abusive or violent, we have to work that much harder to make sure we don't fall back on those examples when raising our own children. (And let me tell you, in the heat of the moment when your child is cracking a tanty in the grocery store, it takes A LOT to not revert to learned behaviours and instead take a step back and act from a rational place of calm lol).

For many folks who've had abusive childhoods, raising your own children can also be a very triggering journey. This article goes into a bit of why this is the case. If you've not been able to do any work on yourself or receive help to work through your own childhood abuse, you risk "blowing your trauma through" your children (I've borrowed the phrase "blowing trauma through" from African-American therapist and trauma specialist, Dr Resmaa Menakem, whose fantastic book My Grandmother's Hands has also influenced this post and a lot of my thinking about racial and intergenerational trauma). Given Donna's own history of abuse with her mother, its not a big leap to assume that she has "blown her trauma through" Michael, Natalie and Carmy with each of her children experiencing this in different ways.

There's also Donna's clear mom rage, no doubt built up over years as a single parent, and epitomised in the line from 2x06 (that broke my heart when I heard it because it resonated so much),

I make things beautiful for them, and no one makes things beautiful for me.

Based on the show's lore, up until 3x08 it wasn't evident that Donna had ever taken any steps to try and work through her own mental health issues and trauma. Once we get to 3x08 though, when Natalie says that she didn't tell Donna about her pregnancy because,

I just didn't want all the stuff you bring with you.

Donna replies by saying:

Yeah. I've been trying to put that stuff away.

Natalie then asks her mother how that process is going and Donna responds,

Its not easy.

Natalie then tells her mother that she's glad Donna is trying and Donna says she's glad that she's trying too.

Its not much, but the above exchange points to a slight shift in Donna's approach to her own trauma and to her parenting. This shift appears to have put Donna and Natalie's relationship on firmer footing than it has been in the past. Whether it will be enough for Carmy's relationship with his mother is another question and one I'm sure we'll see play out in season 4.

The Berzattos and Italian American racialised trauma

Other than the above exchange in 3x08 Ice Chips, we have no information about Donna's parents. I assume that Donna was born in America given her description of the Feast of the Seven Fishes (also known as La Vigilia) as described to Richie in 2x06 Fishes. During her description, Donna speaks about the Italian immigrants who brought "their seven best things" with them as if she's speaking about ancestors, not her own generation.

She does not use the first person here:

[I]ts based on people who left Italy to find new dreams and homes with new people. And they brought their seven best things from their sea to their new homes. And not so their families end up being a bunch of fuckin' jagoffs. (lmao)

Then Class A Jagoff, Uncle Lee storms into the kitchen and tells Donna that her retelling of the Seven Fishes legend is "not even close" and refers to all the sevens that occur in the Bible. Which is likely a closer explanation for the feast (see this overview on La Vigilia published on the Italian Sons and Daughters of America website). Notably, it was southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants that popularised the Feast of the Seven Fishes in America.

Given the above, it doesn't seem to me that Donna is a first generation Italian immigrant. Depending on the Berzatto family history, its possible that Donna is the daughter of Italian immigrants or the granddaughter of them. Her Italian ancestry could stretch even further back in time. At this point in The Bear, we don't know.

What we should note is that Italian immigrants and in particular, southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants to America, endured a history of racism in that country before their acceptance into the category of "white" in America.

Image source: How Italians Became 'White', The New York Times

This NY Times article provides an overview of the racialisation of Italians in America over time. The article notes that,

"[d]arker skinned southern Italians endured the penalties of blackness on both sides of the Atlantic. In Italy, Northerners had long held that Southerners - particularly Sicilians - were an 'uncivilized' and racially inferior people, [considered] too obviously African to be part of Europe."

This racism of northern Italians towards those from the south of the country was no doubt tied to Italy’s own racist and violent colonial history, including its involvement in Europe's rabid "Scramble for Africa". In the course of its time as a colonial power, Italy came to brutally invade and occupy Eritrea, Somalia, Libya and Ethopia.

Note: I don't think its a coincidence that, Ebraheim, Somalian "grill master", medic and veteran of the American military intervention in Somalia, found himself working at an Italian American beef sandwich shop. Much in the same way that its no surprise that many folks in my Tamil family ended up in the heart of the British Empire - the UK - after fleeing civil unrest and genocide in one of its former colonies (Sri Lanka). As Tamil writer A.S. Sivanandan is famously quoted as saying about post-colonial migration: "we are here, because you were there."

Once they first arrived in America in the 19th century, racism against Southern Italians continued:

"They were sometimes shut out of schools, movie houses and labor unions, or consigned to church pews set aside for black people. They were described in the press as 'swarthy', 'kinky haired' members of a criminal race and derided in the streets with epithets [that were more commonly] applied to enslaved Africans and their descendants[.]"

Though while Italian Americans experienced the severe racial prejudice described above, particularly during their early history in America, some were still able to benefit from their European ancestry in ways that people with non-European backgrounds were unable to. This included: being able to apply for US citizenship, being able to marry, own property, and choose where to live - things that BIPOC people often faced great barriers (if not outright bans) to accessing.

Notably, in Chicago where the Berzattos are based, the history of Italian racialisation differed to other major cities in America. In Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 6) Italian historian Stefano Luconi notes that,

[I]n Chicago, Italian Americans competed primarily with Polish immigrants, who generally turned out to be less hostile to them than Irish Americans in New York City or Boston, and overall their accommodation within the adoptive society was easier than elsewhere.

Given the above, the Berzattos' connection with Polish "family members" Uncle Jimmy Kalinowski, Uncle Lee Lane, and Cousin Richie Jerimovich appears rooted in a long history of Polish-Italian relations in Chicago.

Note: Ancestry.com tells me Kalinowski is a Polish and Jewish last name. Uncle Lee identifies as "Polski" in 2x06 Fishes and in the draft script for 2x06 is listed as Uncle Jimmy's brother. While Richie's ethnicity isn't explicitly stated in The Bear, in 3x04 Violet, he refers to his daughter Eva as żabka which is Polish for "small frog" and is also used as a term of endearment for girls or women.

Eventually Italian Americans were assimilated into the racial category of "white" both legally and in the popular imagination of the country. This happened in a few ways including via Italian Americans claiming whiteness for themselves, particularly in active opposition to Black, African American communities. This is despite their historic racialisation in comparison to Black, African-descent people (which, in a better world, could have been the basis for shared and sustained solidarity between the two communities). Luconi observes that,

"in Brazos County, Texas, Italian Americans learned to claim whiteness for self-protection, which involved showing off hostility toward African Americans in the mid-1890s [...] By the same token, after realizing the social benefits of being characterized by a white identity, Italian Americans in Baltimore embraced the racist premises of the local political leadership in the early twentieth century and joined two campaigns that unsuccessfully aimed at disenfranchising African Americans in 1905 and 1909 by amending the state constitution." from: Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 15)

The above NY Times article states that in 1892, the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants who were accused of killing a police chief in New Orleans resulted in Italy breaking diplomatic relations with America. As a result of this and to prevent unrest in the Italian American community, US President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed 12 October as "Columbus Day" and encouraged Americans to celebrate the contribution of the Italian Christopher Columbus to the creation of America.

Apparently, this sleight of hand (a legerdemain because it: (a) magically erased generations upon generations of First Nations who have existed in the Americas long before Columbus' arrival (and who continue to do so), and (b) because it vanished the explorer's penchant for rape and enslavement of the First Nations' people that he did encounter) was enough to reinstate diplomatic relations between America and Italy as well as carve out a place for Italian Americans in the white, American imaginary.

Indeed, despite recent calls to stop the celebration of Columbus Day led by First Nations people across America, it is Italian American organisations (including the Italian Sons and Daughters of America) and prominent Italian Americans that are some of those voices leading campaigns to keep Columbus Day as it is, reductively and disingenuously dismissing its critics as attacking Italian-American heritage.

Note: the above views are obviously not shared by all Italian Americans. See below protest staged by Italian Americans in the Berzattos' hometown of Chicago, in opposition to the city's Columbus Day Parade (Source: Fox 32 Chicago):

One of my heroes, Toni Morrison, once said of American national identity,

"In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."

White supremacy operates amongst racialised communities through divide and rule, with these communities pitted against one another, trying to achieve as close a proximity to whiteness as possible. In the US context, that proximity brings those communities closer to what is perceived as "American". The above examples show how some Italian American communities in America shifted the racial categorisation of their community to "white" over time by fighting for that proximity. I would argue that that shift came at a great cost, as all racism does: a cost to the BIPOC communities that were fucked over in the process and a cost to the souls of those now "white" Italian Americans who participated in divide and rule to get closer to a white supremacist position of power. Dr Resmaa Menakem would refer to those costs as traumas for both BIPOC communities and (now) white, Italian American communities.

In My Grandmother's Hands, Dr Menakem discusses the impact of racialised trauma on white people. Specifically, that white supremacy - or as Dr Menakem refers to it, "white body supremacy" - is itself a trauma response. I won't get into the details of this framework (and make this post longer than it already is lol) except to say its fascinating and I'd encourage you to read My Grandmother's Hands to find out more. Its relevance here is to illustrate that on top of our individual, personal traumas, we each carry with us racialised trauma. I make the point of articulating this because while The Bear alludes to race (sometimes masterfully as in this scene where Donna tries to play divide and rule in her own way), it often does so obliquely in ways that are not always obvious to viewers (for example, see director Ramy Youssef's discussion in Variety about the bike crash scene in 2x04 Honeydew). But make no mistake, race permeates this show.

For example, I think about Uncle Lee’s jab at Mikey in 2x06 about the latter living with his mom, and compare this to Marcus living with his mother throughout seasons 1-2 or Sydney living with her father in seasons 1-3. I think about how in many communities of colour, multi-generational living isn’t seen as shameful because the focus is not just on financial dependence but on relationships and care. Certainly, an adult child might not be financially independent but if they are caring for their parent, this is something to be valued.

I think about how the move to individualism (championed by Uncle Lee) away from family and community (features that Italian culture is historically very well known for) is a shift that, for many Italian Americans, may be viewed as a cost incurred as a result of an allegiance to white supremacy.

I think also about the words of Tema Okun, who wrote about how white supremacy shows up in organisational and professional settings in her 1999 article "White Supremacy Culture" and how in that work, Okun noted particular identifying characteristics of organisational, white supremacist culture, including (but not limited to):

individualism;

perfectionism;

either/or & binary thinking; and

a sense of urgency.

Sound familiar? I thought they might. These are traits that Carmy has exhibited in almost every episode of season 3 (and periodically in seasons 1-2). Notably, these are traits that are also valorised in the world of fine dining, as we see it through Carmy's eyes throughout season 3 (in flashbacks and in how he chooses to run The Bear). And we all know how well this shit is going for our man (lol).

I'll get into this more in an upcoming meta (again, this is me manifesting in a bid to force myself to finish writing the thing lol), but I just wanted to point out how both in terms of his racialisation and his professional career, Carmy is immersed in white supremacy - whether he wants to be or not - benefiting from its privileges while also being witness and therefore, subject, to its horrors. No one escapes this shit, not even those who've been welcomed into the fold at the top of the hierarchy.

All of this - the racialised history and trauma associated with the Italian American community as well as the clear whiteness that marks the fine dining industry - makes Carmy's character that much more fascinating to me. Here is a character with seemingly no personal prejudices towards BIPOC folks. He loves the BIPOC folks in his life quite dearly (in particular, Marcus who he treats as a brother, and of course Sydney, in whom he's found a soulmate). I think this is likely due in large part to the role Carmy's siblings (Mikey and Natalie) played in raising him. These two characters also appear to care deeply for the BIPOC people in their lives without much of the prejudice that many who have been racialised and socialised in their community might harbour. And in their roles as surrogate parents for Carmy, they appear to have modelled that healthy and normal (because we must remember, what is abnormal is racism) respect for their fellow humans. They're not perfect in this (recall 2x06 and Mikey's bombastic objectification of Claire) but we do see repeated glimpses of their goodness throughout the show (recall 3x06 and Mikey's kindness to Tina, or the pantry scene in 2x06 and the gentleness he displays towards Carmy there). This is in contrast to their mother, Donna, who clearly has done no work to prevent blowing her own racialised trauma and prejudice through the bodies of her kids.

Also while the racialisation of The Bear's BIPOC characters is readily apparent (because the white supremacist culture of the West is more attuned to looking at non-white people and automatically seeing race), its white characters are also racialised and have racialised histories. The above was my attempt at stepping out a bit of the racialisation of The Berzattos, of Carmy, and of the racialised trauma that they also carry with them.

Phew.

Okay, now back to the Berzattos...

Carmy's birth

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips and Donna telling Natalie the stories of each of her children's births. By far, the birth that appears to cause Donna the most rage, the most pain, is Carmy's. It also happens to be the only birth out of her three children that her (by all accounts) deadbeat husband is present for. Donna describes fighting with her husband during the entirety of her labour with Carmy and that the hospital was fucked because it seemed like everyone went into labour at the same time. She then tells Natalie that Carmy took a long time to arrive:

Note: Its not lost on me that Carmy's obsession with speed, rushing and sense of urgency was almost definitely drilled into him from birth, given the rage with which Donna describes his "slowness" in being born.

Donna then goes onto express how frightened she was and the further difficulties involved in Carmy’s delivery:

It was so hard and so scary because he kept getting stuck, and they just kept having to move me, and I remember they were moving me in all these positions. And then at one point, I think they had me fucking upside down or something.

And then, so brutally it becomes darkly funny (I've pushed a kid out too: it can be so painful, if you don't laugh, you'll sob hysterically lol), Donna describes Carmy's birth as just all around fucked:

The whole thing was fucked:

No seriously, very fucked:

So Carmy entered the world and the experience of his delivery was fucked nine ways to Sunday for his mother. A very difficult beginning to this life for a baby, to say the least. I would go so far as to say, given the way Donna is recounting Carmy's birth, that she experienced birth trauma, and possibly developed birth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Contrast this with how Donna describes Michael's and Natalie's births:

Despite Michael also having difficulty being born (Donna recalls that it seemed like "he wanted to stay" in the safety of her womb), Donna says that she felt really good, great and strong during her labour with him and that his birth was even described by a doctor as an "amazing" one.

Donna describes Natalie's birth as "beautiful" with Natalie arriving after Donna had had a restful sleep and a vivid, prophetic dream. Donna then goes onto tell Natalie that she was delivered in the presence of a "sweet" girlfriend (Cicero's first wife, Gail) who sat with Donna during labour and who played "Baby, I Love you" for Donna as Natalie arrived.

The differences in how Donna recalls Mikey, Nat and Carmy's births and Donna's propensity in the past for holding her children's "mistakes" over their heads (recall 2x06 Fishes and the story of how Natalie got the nickname "Sugar"), make me think that she was likely to have rubbed Carmy's difficult birth in his face when he was younger. I think that Donna was also likely to have either intentionally or unintentionally (or perhaps both, depending on the circumstance) made Carmy feel less than his older siblings, maybe not as wanted. We have some evidence pointing to this happening in Carmy's past, peppered throughout the show.

Growing up in the Berzatto house:

As a child Carmy had a stutter, which causes speech to inherently slow (as it takes longer to form words and sentences). He was also scared to speak. Now a stutter in and of itself would not make the person speaking scared. Its other people's reactions to a stutter that would do that. Given Donna's vitriol at how slow Carmy's birth was, and her obsession with time (anyone fancy a kitchen timer? this lady's got 700 of them), its not a stretch to imagine that any delay in Carmy articulating himself as a child would have been met with ridicule or rage from his mother.

We know that all the Berzatto children grew up scared of their mother, a survivor of abuse herself, and an addict who drank to excess with clear mental health issues that it didn’t appear she was seeking treatment for. Recall Natalie's disclosure to Donna in 3x08 Ice Chips:

Carmy also grew up embedded in a particularly toxic type of white, heterosexual masculinity embodied by his brother Mikey and "cousin" Richie (who undoubtedly had it blown through their bodies by family, friends and the white supremacist, homophobic culture we are swimming in, in the West). I've previously discussed this in my meta on the use of 90s alternative rock in The Bear and more recently, in this reblog of @mitocamdria's meta Sublimation and Intellectual Orgasms.

Carmy gets called "a weird little dude" for knowing how to mix a drink in 2x06. He gets called a "gayrod" for owning the Noma cookbook in 1x01. He gets called a "soft shitty bitch" for calling Pete instead of Natalie in 1x05. He gets called a "mopey little fuck" in 2x06 for questioning Mikey and Richie right before they accost him with a veritable wall of gross dudebro, horndog descriptions of Claire (a girl they know and are friends with - again, fucking gross). Carmy hears his mother describe Steve as "gay" for being "arty" in 2x06 (recall that Carmy is also "arty" in that he can draw and likes fashion). If you weren't performing alpha-male dominance like Mikey, Richie, Uncle Lee or even Uncle Jimmy, the Berzatto household was a rough place to be. Truth is though, that all of those white, alpha-males have their own demons, and in the case of Mikey, those demons drove him to take his own life. The truth is that, like white supremacy, no one escapes toxic masculinity unscathed either.

We know Carmy suffered from low self-confidence as a child which might have led him to feeling aimless. He tells us in 1x08 Braciole that he got shitty grades because he couldn't pay attention in school, he didn't get into college, didn't have any girlfriends or many friends for that matter. Carmy also tells us in that same monologue that he wasn't "built" in the same way as his brother, who could walk into a room and take its temperature right away, who was loud, hilarious and magnetic.

I think about how for someone like Carmy, Mikey would have cast a long shadow. I think about how hard it would have been to have lived under that shadow while trying to figure yourself out.

It wasn't until working in fine dining that Carmy found his purpose. He says in 1x08,

For the first time in my life, I started to find this station for myself.

This must have been intoxicating and affirming for Carmy. Yet I think about how, after all that, he could return home having achieved accolades and fanfare in his career, try his best in the chaos of a Berzatto family Christmas to diffuse the powder keg that is Donna, and still be called "Michael" by his mother, his very existence in that moment, feeling like a puff of smoke.

We also know that Carmy's eldest siblings ended up being like surrogate parents for him. Mikey almost certainly was a father figure given the absence of his biological father in Carmy's life. Its not a stretch to imagine Natalie as taking on the role of a surrogate mother, given Donna's abuse and how Natalie looks out for almost everyone throughout seasons 1-3 of The Bear. In this video, Jeremy Allen White also talks about the tattoo Carmy has of two angels with a sun in between them as representing his brother and his sister, further confirming the roles of his "guardian angel" siblings.

I think about Natalie, parentified big sister that she is, sneaking a wad of cash into Carmy’s pocket as he leaves her and Chicago for New York in 3x01. I think about her calling him “honey” in that same episode as she affirms that she knows how good he is at being a chef - “honey” being a term of endearment commonly used in family settings but between parents and their children, not as commonly heard between siblings.

I also think about Mikey being born the eldest, the first and only (for a time) to have to deal with his mother's trauma and expectations. I think about how he took on the work of looking after his mother and his siblings when his father left the Berzatto home. I think about how Mikey is described by the actor who plays him, as a "dreamer who's not allowed to dream. He has to take care of everybody."

Loose ends

Another set of incidents haunting spread throughout season 3 also raised concerns for me, in that they remain unresolved and point to a resolution or confrontation for Carmy and the Berzattos in season 4. I named them in my reblog of @espumado's post on The Night of the Hunter. For ease of reference, I'll bullet point them here:

Carmy finds a box labelled "DD" (his mother, Donna's nickname) at The Bear at the end of 3x05 and looks through it. He appears frozen as he finds a baby photo of his mother holding a baby I assume is him. The episode ends at this moment and neither the box or Carmy's reaction are revisited for the remainder of season 3

Cicero tells Carmy during 3x09 that Donna wants Carmy to call her back about "the baby" (one assumes this is a reference to Natalie's baby) and that Carmy has been "fucking avoiding it" (one assumes again that the "it" here is the baby...but maybe its also just the act of calling Donna back)

But then Carmy says something strange:

Yeah. Hoping it would just go away.

Surely, Carmy's not talking about a baby. Babies can't just go away. And I don't think Carmy is so malicious that he'd wish his sister's child to disappear. I also don't think Carmy would refer to his mother as "it" (he's never done so up to this point on the show, as monstrous as she can be).

And in case you were wondering, Cicero's response to Carmy also doesn't sound like it applies to a baby or Donna (lol):

[Y]ou run right the fuck into it.

Intergenerational trauma and legacy

So what is the "it" that Carmy wants to go away? What is the "it" that Uncle Jimmy tells him to face by running "right the fuck into it"? My suspicion is that this is Carmy's baggage. The baggage that comes with being born a Berzatto and being born to Donna. All the stuff that we've been talking about here. Its also the baggage that both Nat and his mother have been trying to "put away":

Above from 3x02 Next: Natalie in conversation with Carmy. "Its not great 8am stuff."

Above from 3x08 Ice Chips: Donna in conversation with Natalie.

Carmy is trying to do this too: put away his baggage, while having been the "Lost Child" (referring to ACA roles and the recording about them that Natalie was listening to at the end of 3x07 Legacy) and the youngest child in his family for so long but now having to be the "Hero". @vacationship's post on ACA roles as they relate to The Bear gives a great breakdown on what the "lost child" and "hero" roles mean.

In the LA Times interview mentioned above, Jeremy Allen White says,

I don't think Carm's ever been outside of himself enough to really take in another person in their entirety, sadly. I think that's Carmen's real struggle.

As the youngest child of the Berzattos, Carmy has never had to step outside of himself to the extent that Mikey, Natalie or even Donna have had to. He has never had to care for anyone other than himself, until he inherits The Beef. And that responsibility is a HUGE one.

But Carmy jumps into that role, initially fuelled by the desire to retroactively fix his relationship with Mikey and fix "the family". Recall again his monologue in 1x08 Braciole:

[I]ts very clear to me trying to fix the restaurant, was me trying to fix whatever was happening with my brother. And I don't know, maybe fix the whole family because that restaurant, it has and it does mean a lot to people. It means a lot to me.

For the longest time, I interpreted "the family" that Carmy refers to here as his chosen family: the crew at The Beef. I think that while that was true, it wasn't the whole picture. I think Carmy was actually being more expansive in his definition of family to include his entire family: chosen and birth.

So while Carmy is obviously trying to make The Bear a success for Sydney ("Syd, we're going to get a star") and for Marcus ("Take us there Bear", "Yes, Chef"), as well as for the rest of the chosen family he first found at The Beef, Carmy is also trying to fix the restaurant for the Berzattos. Specifically, Carmy is trying to do what his father and brother couldn't do in keeping The Beef/The Bear going. He is trying to embody the Hero ACA role, vacated by Mikey with the latter's passing, even though his sister told him from the start, in 1x01:

No one's asking you to.

What I think I took for granted this season was just how much Carmy's desire to repair the legacy of the father figures in his life (as represented by the restaurant) was brought to an urgent and frenetic head for him in the late stages of Natalie's pregnancy. Upon rewatch of 3x09 Apologies, I picked up on some interesting script choices and imagery that I think have been chosen purposefully to relay to us that this is the case and that the impending birth of his niece is indeed, weighing on Carmy.

Now, at the start of 3x09, Carmy may or may not know Natalie has just had her baby. I assume he does. After Marcus watches that clip about magic, followed by unnecessary Fak, Claire and dumpster content (lol) and then Sydney practising how she's going to break Shapiro's offer to Carmy, we cut to the kitchen of The Bear and we hear Carmy calling out orders while running expo. He's yelling again. His voice is hoarse like it was in 3x03 during his panic attack. We see Carmy's intrusive thoughts at a rapid clip intercut with close ups of his, Sydney's and Richie's faces. We also hear Carmy repeatedly yelling at the staff to push:

Please give me the fucking agnolotti. Push.

Lets fucking push, please. Lets fucking go.

Push, please.

Push, chefs! Please! The cook is fucked. Refire, please.

Push.

From a quick google, "push" is used in restaurant settings but not in the way Carmy's doing here. I've seen it used to mean "sell" an item (as in getting a server to "push" a particular dish to diners so they order it) as well as to describe a busy period during service (as in the restaurant is in the middle of a "push").

In 3x09, Carmy is yelling “push” like a midwife at his sister's side while she pushes out her child, the next generation of Berzattos, into the world. But instead of his niece, Carmy is trying to deliver one more in a litany of dinner services at The Bear.

Note: you can clearly see here that the jagged lines that have appeared since season 1 when Carmy is having intrusive thoughts are actually made up of what look to be hundreds of claw marks. I've noted in a previous reblog of one of @thoughtfulchaos773's posts (that I can't find atm sorry) that this evokes Carmy (the Bear) trying to claw his way out of a mental spiral and back to equilibrium. @currymanganese also noted that the lines themselves look like a neural network, driving the point about Carmy's mental state home.

And then directly after the above "push" scene, we see copious amounts of water ejected over the The Bear's kitchen island, washing away flesh coloured food and sauce that looks like blood splatter:

Having rewatched 3x09 through the lens of intergenerational trauma, with the spectre of Natalie's labour, Carmy's apparent resistance to seeing Natalie or her baby, and having just heard his hoarse voice screaming push, push, push...to me this water started looking a whole lot like birth waters breaking, and amniotic fluid flooding The Bear:

Note: Rest assured, amniotic fluid doesn't contain all those suds.

@espumado pointed out in their The Night of the Hunter meta that the song playing during the above "push" and "broken waters" scenes of 3x09 is a song by Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch from a war documentary. The song is "The Forever Rain" from the documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. I'm sure its no coincidence that a song from a documentary about the Vietnam War - a war whose veterans were the first to be assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - is being used in a scene acting as an allegory for childbirth, given what we know about how traumatic Carmy's birth was for his mother, and inevitably, for him as an infant.

So why is Carmy so preoccupied with Natalie's pregnancy and the birth of his niece?

I think this all ties back to what Carmy told us in 1x08: that he wants to fix the restaurant (and in the context of season 3, this means making The Bear a success) and that in doing so, fix his family.

Note: which is also why I think we are shown that magic clip that Marcus is watching at the beginning of 3x09 with this bit of dialogue from it: "What makes magic different is that its inherently honest. You tell someone you're gonna deceive them before you deceive them. In some way, that makes it more difficult." We were told in 1x08 what the restaurant means to Carmy and his reasons for fixing it, but Storer and co have spent all of season 3 distracting us with Claire and Fak-shaped sleights of hand getting us looking elsewhere to understand Carmy's behaviour. By 3x10, Carmy's motives haven't changed. He's doing this for his family. All of his family.

Specifically in the context of Nat's pregnancy, Carmy wants to ensure that The Bear is a success for the next generation of Berzatto children, for his niece. And if Carmy is being haunted by a need to fix his family's legacy, particularly given the impending arrival of Natalie's baby - the youngest Berzatto after him - then his desperate, rageful plea to Syd after she brings him back from his panic attack in 3x03 Doors, is even more distressing:

They're going too fucking slow!

What Carmy means is:

I'm going too slow and this restaurant is going to fail because of it. And this baby is going to inherit my failure, just like I inherited Mikey's and just like he inherited our father's.

Remember: Natalie is a part owner of The Bear and so any financial failure of the restaurant will be felt by her and her family just as it would be felt by Carm.

What Carmy needs to realise is that while a brick and mortar institution may fail, what remains are the relationships, the people that he has met because of it (shout out to Chef Terry and her speech in 3x10 Forever, also shout out to Mikey and his chat with Tina in 3x06 Napkins). And if there are people - if there are relationships - there's always the chance to build another future together, again.

Conclusion (yep, I'm almost done)

I think about how whether he likes it or not, Carmy was able to pursue his passion in cooking because of his family’s racial (and class) privilege, particularly as a member of a community that was invited to join in the spoils of white supremacy. This privilege was most clearly embodied by the fact that the Berzattos had the means to own The Beef and the culinary opportunities for Carmy that flowed from that work and experience (contrast this with Sydney, Marcus and Tina's experiences in entering this field, which I've discussed here and which @freedelusionshere discusses here).

I think about how Carmy subverted and used that privilege to bring along the original crew of The Beef with him to The Bear, lifting up his largely BIPOC employees. And then I think about how he ran roughshod over them in order to try and meet the insane expectations he'd set for himself (in large part, as a result of his family's history).

I think about the safety net that Carmy had with Natalie and Mikey who were there to take care of The Beef, their family and their unwell mother, giving Carmy the room to find himself professionally. I think about Mikey leaving behind a restaurant for Carmy but also leaving behind an entire family for him too.

I think about Carmy not realising that while The Beef was a burden in some ways, it was a blessing in so many others.

I think about the clear intergenerational trauma that Carmy is contending with while trying to balance so many perceived, competing demands.

I also think about Donna's dream, the night she went into labour with Natalie:

In this nothing dream, I mean nothing dream. And it wasn't Chicago, and it wasn't New York. It was some sort of hybrid city, you know? And there was a fish tank. Big fish tank in the middle of the city. It was this giant fish tank, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

And I remember the colours were, they were so sharp and vivid and neon, you know, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

I was just staring at it for the longest time. And all of a sudden, I noticed that the glass started to come apart like it was gonna split. But I wasn't worried, you know? It wasn't bad, because I knew that more people were gonna get to see these beautiful fish.

And then I woke up, and I was sweating, and my water had broke.

When Donna had her children, she had no idea that she would lose her eldest child to suicide. She likely had no idea how far she was going to push her daughter away from her due to her abuse, and she most certainly did not know that her youngest would cease contact with her for years while becoming a renowned chef. None of us parents know for certain how things are going to turn out for our children, or for our relationships with them.

We can only hope, and do our best: do our best to break harmful cycles while trying to nurture children who will leave the world a better place than it was when when they arrived. And if our kids manage to do this not because of us but in spite of us, in spite of our slip ups and mistakes, in spite of our baggage, then honestly, we should be even prouder of them. Because it meant they were able to integrate our trauma, our histories, and their trauma, and their histories, all of it, and make something beautiful, something better.

And I think I can see why Donna wasn't worried when the fish tank started to crack. I get why she was so happy that more people were going to get to see her beautiful children and the world they were going to create, in spite of everything and because of everything.

As usual, tagging folks who might be interested (absolutely no pressure to read this fucking long ass thing though), but keen to hear from anyone who wants to discuss:

@currymanganese @thoughtfulchaos773 @moodyeucalyptus @vacationship @mitocamdria @brokenwinebox @espumado @tvfantic87 @turbulenthandholding @anxietycroissant @angelica4equity @devisrina @kdbleu @freedelusionshere @ambeauty @afrofairysblog @fresaton @hwere @ciaomarie @ambeauty

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #sydcarmy #the bear meta #the bear season 3 #carmen berzatto #sydney adamu #natalie berzatto #mikey berzatto #richie jerimovich #tina marrero #marcus brooks #ebraheim the bear #uncle jimmy

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