#Non-Destructive Entry

[jalockman]

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[kingbeeleth]

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[kleinywest]

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[danysdaughter]

(first off, i adored come home to me so much)

can u pls do one where bucky and the reader knew each other before the hydra thing, but they both ended up in hydra's clutches, and instead of completely dehumanizing the two, zola programmed them to be some form of ally/handler situation, so when they both break out of hydra's clutches it gets very angsty and they argue/hate each other because they don't know if their bond was them or hydra-made. and then the ending's up to you.

no srsly, ur writing is literal art. its like fantastic in ways i cant describe.

i can die happy if u'll take this idea.

did I go a bit overboard? yes. do i have any regrets? no. I really tried to make it as you described, babe, hope you enjoy 💕

The Soldier and The Vixen

pairing | 40s!bucky x fem!reader & winter!soldier x fem!reader & post!tfatws!bucky x reader

word count | 14k words

summary | Once comrades bound by war and affection, two soldiers-turned-weapons are reshaped into monsters by Hydra, their humanity fractured and memories blurred.

Now free but haunted, they struggle to untangle love from programming, grief from guilt, and healing from the wreckage of who they used to be

tags | ANGST! ANGST! and more ANGST! graphic violence, torture, emotional trauma, brainwashing, PTSD, abuse, trauma bonding, psychological manipulation, non-consensual experimentation, abuse, power imbalance, gore, unhealthy attachment, angst/no comfort, miscommunication, mutual destruction (a bit too much?)

a/n | wowww, I am not gonna lie, I actually cried while writing this, also this fic explores dark themes with little to no comfort (we die like men)

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

divider by @cafekitsune

Village Outskirts, France, 1945

The earth was damp beneath your stomach. Rain must’ve come through earlier — you could smell it in the mud, the churned-up grass, the faint rot of old stone and war.

Through your scope, you watched two Hydra guards lounging outside a crumbling checkpoint. They were smoking and laughing about something in German, distracted, backs too often to each other. Sloppy.

You pressed the button on your radio once, holding it close to your mouth. “Movement. Two guards at the eastern entry. Smoking. Lazy. Easy targets.”

There was a short pause.

Then Bucky’s voice crackled through, “Fox, you always know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

You almost smiled. Almost, “Only the ones who talk less than they shoot, Sarge.”

A muffled laugh came through the line. Morita muttered something you didn't quite catch, probably teasing Bucky again. He was an easy target.

“You got him good,” Dum Dum grinned from somewhere behind you.

Steve’s voice cut in — level, steady. “Enough chatter. Fox, take the lead. We move on your signal.”

But you were already moving.

You didn't need backup for this. The hill rolled down into a slope that gave you full cover, and you slipped down it like water over rock. Quiet. Efficient. Knife drawn. You counted your steps with your breath. When the first guard turned his back, you were already there.

One sharp jab under the ribs. Drag him behind a crate.

The second didn't even turn in time.

Ten seconds. Two bodies. No gunfire.

You tapped your radio again.

“Checkpoint clear.”

As you were climbing back up toward the rendezvous, Bucky was waiting at the top of the ridge, crouched behind a low wall. He glanced at you, smirking.

“Miss me?”

You scoffed, brushing dirt from your sleeves. “I was gone ninety seconds.”

“That’s longer than I like you being out of sight.”

You arched a brow. “Is that concern, Sergeant Barnes?”

“It’s tactical observation, doll.”

There it was — the nickname again. You didn't bite. Bucky flirted with anything that had a skirt, and you were the only girl on the team. You’d learned not to take him seriously.

Behind you, Gabe whispered over the comm, “God, just kiss already.”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

Bucky turned sharply and pretended to check his rifle. He didn't say another word. You frowned, completely missing the flush rising in his cheeks.

You shook your head, then returned to the task. The rest of the unit fellin. You walked point. Bucky took his usual position at your flank, and the rest of the squad fell into formation like a well-oiled machine.

The village ahead was half-destroyed from past shelling. Stone walls broken down to the foundation. Trees blackened by fire. The kind of place where shadows hid snipers and death sat behind every door.

You spotted it first — a tripwire buried in the dirt, nearly invisible. You paused, raised your fist to halt the line, then rerouted them five feet to the left.

Dum Dum muttered, “You’ve got eyes like a hawk.”

“I’ve got better things to do than walk into obvious traps,” you muttered back.

You didn't make it twenty feet past the tripwire before you heard the explosion — further down, where another route would’ve taken you.

“Hydra knows we’re here,” you said into the radio. “Get to cover. Rooftops—snipers at twelve o’clock.”

The first shot cut through the air a moment later.

You hit the ground, narrowly dodging the bullet. Dust sprayed over your face. A hand grabbed your vest — yanked you behind a broken column.

Bucky.

He positioned himself between you and the direction the shot came from, body tense.

“I had it under control,” you whispered.

He didn't even blink. “Didn’t say you didn’t.”

He was still too close. Too steady. His eyes flickered to you, just for a second, like he was making sure you were still in one piece. You didn't notice. You never noticed.

You moved past him before he could say anything else.

Firefight erupted in bursts. The unit scattered into cover, returning fire. You darted through the alleys, knife flashing when you came across two patrols rounding the corner. Your blade slipped beneath ribs and across throats. You didn't flinch. You’ve done worse.

Bucky caught your eye across the street — both of you ducked behind separate walls. You tilted your head. He nodded once. You moved again, clearing a side stairwell while he took the main door.

“Tech’s inside that chapel,” Steve said over the comm. “Fox, Bucky, with me.”

You kicked the door open first. Bucky was right behind you.

He tossed a flash grenade — you shielded your eyes, waiting for the burst, and swept left as soon as it cleared. Two Hydra agents — you took one in the leg, knocked his rifle away, finished it with your knife. The second one came at you with a baton, but Bucky had already taken him down with a clean shot to the chest.

When it was over, the silence was louder than the fight.

The tech was here — something glowing with an unnatural blue pulse. You didn't go near it.

You turned to Bucky instead, breathless. Dust in your hair. Blood on your sleeve.

“Think this’ll finally get me a promotion?”

He was looking at you differently. A flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Maybe it was the way the light hit your face. Maybe it was the fact you were both still alive.

“You deserve a medal, Fox.”

You grinned, wiping blood from your cheek.

“Only if it’s chocolate.”

────────────────────────

Somewhere in the French Countryside, 1945

The mission had been hell, but tonight, the world was quiet.

The campfire crackled in the middle of a half-collapsed barn, broken beams overhead like the ribs of a long-dead beast. Outside, wind stirred through wheat fields. Inside, there was warmth — not from the fire, but from the laughter.

You sat with your knees pulled up, perched on an overturned crate. Your boots were still muddy. Blood on your sleeve had dried to a dark rust. Dum Dum had found a bottle of something vaguely alcoholic, and it’d been passed around in uneven sips.

Morita was telling a story — probably the fifth exaggerated war tale of the night — gesturing wildly with his hands.

“…and then this guy,” he pointed at Bucky with a dramatic flair, “says, ‘I got this,’ climbs onto the back of the Hydra truck barefoot, like a damn lunatic—”

“I didn’t think they’d be hot-wiring it in motion!” Bucky cut in defensively.

“That’s not even the dumbest part,” Gabe added, smirking. “The dumbest part is that he forgot the explosives.”

Laughter broke out around the fire. Bucky groaned and dropped his head back with a loud, sarcastic, “Thanks, fellas.”

You tried to hold in a laugh — and failed. He shot you a look, mock offended.

“You too, Fox?”

You shrugged, biting down on your grin. “Well. I was the one who had to double back and grab the damn charges.”

“She ran through enemy fire like it was a morning jog,” Steve added with a small, proud shake of his head.

Bucky nudged your shoulder with his. “Guess I owe you another one.”

“You’re keeping score now?” you asked, dryly.

He smirked. “Only when I’m losing.”

The fire cracked again, glowing warm across the faces of your brothers-in-arms. Everyone relaxed in a way they rarely could — backs against crates and sandbags, boots kicked off, dog tags clinking faintly as they leaned into one another’s stories.

Gabe tilted his head toward you, half-grinning. “Alright, Fox. What about you?”

You blinked. “What about me?”

“If you weren’t doing all this,” he said, gesturing vaguely around the barn. “If you weren’t dodging bullets and saving our sorry asses, what would you be doing?”

Immediately, you shook your head. “Nope.”

Cackling broke out around you. Morita leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, come on.”

“Not happening,” you said, waving them off.

“You gotta tell us now,” said Dum Dum. “That reaction alone just guaranteed it’s embarrassing.”

Bucky grinned beside you. “C’mon, Fox. We tell you our secrets. Like how Morita’s terrified of goats—”

“I am not—”

“—and how Dum Dum can’t wink without sneezing—”

“It’s a medical issue—”

“—so it’s only fair we get yours.”

You sighed, shaking your head slowly. “Fine. But if any of you ever breathe a word of this outside this barn, I will personally replace your shaving cream with gun grease.”

They leaned in, like children around a ghost story.

You looked into the fire, picking at the fraying seam of your glove. Then.

“I used to want to be a singer.”

Silence.

Then, chaos.

“No shit?”

“What kind?”

“Like on stage?”

“Do you have a stage name? Wait—please tell me it was Foxy somethin’—”

You groaned again, instantly regretting every life choice that led to this moment.

“It was just something I wanted when I was a kid,” you muttered. “Doesn’t mean I was any good.”

“But like, jazz club singer?” Dum Dum asked. “Torch songs?”

You didn’t answer. The heat in your cheeks did.

And then Gabe — bless him — decided to chime in, puffing his chest out like he had the perfect line.

“I mean… I just can’t picture you doing something that… you know. Girly.”

You turned your head toward him, slow and sharp.

“What?”

The fire seemed to go still.

Gabe blinked. “No—I mean—just like, you’re so good at, you know. The not-girly stuff. Like, killing people—uh—”

You raised a brow, voice flat. “So I’m in the military and that means I’m not allowed to be girly?”

Gabe opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “No! That’s not—I didn’t mean—like, you can, obviously—”

The others had lost it by now. Bucky had his head buried in his arm, shaking with silent laughter. Morita was wheezing. Dum Dum was crying.

You nodded slowly, arms crossed. “Uh huh. That all you got?”

Gabe looked around like someone might save him. No one did.

“I just meant… you seem so… sharp! And you don’t… I mean you never… like, dresses—not that I wouldn’t like if you wore one—not that you need to—”

“Dig up, Gabe,” Bucky offered helpfully.

You shook your head and pointed your canteen at Gabe like a knife. “One more word and I swear I will make you run laps in full gear tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Gabe said, finally surrendering to his embarrassment. “Thank you for your service.”

Once the laughter died down, Dum Dum leaned forward with a mischievous grin.

“Alright, Fox. Now sing us something.”

You stared at him.

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just a few notes—”

“You’d have to drug me.”

“Well,” Bucky said, elbowing you gently, “I do still have some morphine left in my pack—”

You shoved his arm away with a scoff, but couldn’t help the flicker of a smile.

And as the boys erupted into more teasing, and Gabe tried to crawl under a tarp in embarrassment, you leaned back against the crate, warmed more by the people around you than the fire. You didn’t sing, not that night. But Bucky stayed next to you, quietly.

And he didn’t laugh when you said you used to want to sing.

He just looked at you like he really wanted to hear it.

────────────────────────

Moments After Intercepting Zola's Train— Alpine Forest Edge, 1945

The wind had sharp teeth.

It howled between the trees like it was mourning too. Snow swept across the ground in restless swirls, half-covering the train tracks already. Everything was white and still and wrong.

The wreckage lay behind you, steel twisted into the mountainside, black smoke curling up into the gray sky. Arnim Zola had been secured. Hydra’s tech recovered. It was supposed to be a win.

But Bucky had fallen.

The team stood in the brittle silence of it. Steve was turned half away, jaw clenched so hard you could see the muscle twitch in his cheek. Morita and Dum Dum said nothing, eyes fixed on the ground. Gabe was pacing, too angry to stop moving, like stillness would make it real.

You stood near the edge of the embankment, where it dropped into a forest of pine and snow. Your lungs burned with cold, but you kept staring down, searching the white for anything — a shape, a shadow, hope.

Finally, you squared your shoulders.

“Cap.”

Steve didn’t answer at first. You stepped closer, louder now.

“Steve.”

His eyes flicked to you, red-rimmed and hollow. “What?”

“I want permission to go after him.”

Silence.

Then a bitter breath of disbelief. “Fox…”

“You know I’m the best tracker we’ve got,” you said, tone steady, firm. “I know how to read the land. If anyone can follow his path through that fall, it’s me.”

“There’s no way he—” Steve cut himself off. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “No one survives a drop like that. And it’s too dangerous. You can’t go alone.”

“I have to go alone,” you insisted. “A squad would slow me down. I’ll move faster on my own, quieter. Look—”

You crouched down in the snow and started sketching with your glove. “That ridge curves around. It’s a drop, yes, but if he hit snow, or an outcrop, or even slid—”

“Even if by some miracle he lived,” Steve said quietly, “he wouldn’t last long. Not in that cold. Not with the injuries he’d have.”

You stood again, breath quickening with urgency. “If he’s alive, he’s got a chance—but not if I waste time arguing.”

“Fox—”

“If I don’t, he dies. Hypothermia will set in fast — minutes, if he’s bleeding. I might not have long, but I might still have enough time. You give me two days. Just two. If he’s alive, I’ll bring him in. If he’s not…” your voice faltered, just for a second, “then I’ll bring his body home.”

No one spoke. The wind did.

You kept your eyes locked on Steve. Pleading without begging. Heart breaking but hands steady.

“I’ve gone on solo missions before. You know I can handle it. The Colonel trained me for it.”

His jaw flexed again. You could see the battle behind his eyes. Orders versus loyalty. Logic versus love.

And then his shoulders dropped.

“Two days,” he said hoarsely.

Relief hit you like a wave. You gave a quick nod, already reaching for your gear.

But Steve stepped closer, and his voice lowered — gentler, just for you.

“Keep safe out there… alright?” he said softly. “Seriously. And if you need backup, you radio. Doesn’t matter what time. Doesn’t matter what. I’ll come running.”

You paused, swallowing hard. The cold stung your eyes, but you didn’t blink.

“Understood, Captain.”

Steve looked at you for a long moment. Then, softer still — your name. Not your call sign.

“Come back.”

You stood at attention, gave a crisp salute.

“I will.”

Then you turned, and vanished into the snow.

────────────────────────

The snow had swallowed your tracks hours ago.

You ran anyway — boots crushing down through the icy crust of the forest floor, slipping sometimes, catching yourself hard against trees. Your lungs burned with each breath, white puffs turning sharp in the frozen air. You followed the slope of the mountain where the train had disappeared from sight — zig-zagging across ridges, checking every ravine, every indentation in the powder.

It was somewhere along a narrow ledge above a frozen stream that you saw it — the faint suggestion of disturbed snow, barely visible unless you were looking for it. A jagged slide mark. Something heavy had fallen.

Your heart slammed in your chest as you scrambled down the embankment, knees hitting ice, hands out to brace yourself. You moved quick, scanning, scanning—

Then you saw red.

You froze.

Blood in the snow — bright, brilliant, and far too much of it.

It streaked in uneven drags from the edge of a rock face down into the brush, and then—

Your breath caught.

Bucky.

He lay sprawled half on his side, unmoving. Snow clung to his lashes, his uniform soaked through. His left arm — what was left of it — hung at an unnatural angle, nearly torn from the shoulder. His mouth was parted like he’d tried to call out and never finished the sound. Blood had soaked the snow beneath him dark and wide.

You were moving before your brain caught up.

“Sarge?” you gasped, skidding to your knees in the snow beside him. “Sarge— Bucky—Bucky, come on—”

Your gloved fingers hovered over him for a split second, terrified to touch, terrified he’d be cold—

But his chest moved.

Faint. Shallow.

You pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, heart pounding as you felt it—

thud.

...thud.

Faint, but there.

Your voice broke with urgency. “Hang on, James. I’ve got you. You’re okay, you’re not gone—”

You dropped your pack, already pulling out your emergency wrap, trying to stem the bleeding. His skin was ice. His lips had gone pale blue. You leaned over him, shielding him from the wind, fumbling for your radio, trying to think past the adrenaline crashing like waves—

Crunch.

Snow behind you shifted.

You didn’t hesitate — one leg snapped out behind you hard, boot slamming into the weight approaching fast from your blind spot. You felt it connect — a grunt, a body collapsing in the snow.

You twisted, low and fast, grabbing your knife from your belt, coming up just in time to block the arm of a Hydra soldier lunging in. Steel clanged against steel. You shoved back with everything you had, pushing the fight away from Bucky’s broken form.

You ducked a strike, twisted the knife out of his hand, and drove your elbow into his face—

But then another set of boots crunched through the trees.

A second soldier tackled you from the side.

You hit the ground hard — snow exploding under you, your knife skidding out of reach. You twisted, managed to throw him off just long enough to scramble back toward Bucky—

Only for a third shadow to emerge from the trees. Then a fourth.

You swung out with your arm, striking one across the temple, disarming another. You were fast—a blur of movement, rage, and desperation—but even you had limits.

A rifle butt slammed into your ribs. You doubled over. Hands grabbed at you. You kicked out, catching one in the knee—

But something cracked against the side of your head.

A sharp, searing light burst across your vision— And then nothing.

Darkness took you.

────────────────────────

Hydra Facility — Undisclosed Location

Consciousness came back like drowning in slow motion.

First, the cold. It bit deep into your skin, sharp and metallic. Then, the ache — deep in your limbs, like your bones were filled with lead. And then the restraints.

Metal bands across your wrists and ankles. Another across your chest. Your head lolled to the side, sluggish from whatever they’d pumped into you — sedatives, maybe. Or worse. You blinked against the blinding fluorescence above, and the white ceiling bled into sterile silver walls.

Then you heard it.

A scream.

Your pulse lurched.

It wasn’t just pain. It was agony. The kind of sound that tore through a person’s throat, primal and ragged. The kind of scream that told you someone was being unmade.

Your neck turned slowly — every muscle protesting — and you saw him.

Bucky.

His body was arched against the restraints on a second slab just feet away from yours, eyes wide, back bowed, mouth open in a raw, broken scream.

There were wires threaded into his temples. Metal rods at his temples, at the base of his skull. Tubes and cables running into his chest. You couldn’t see what they were pumping into him — only that whatever it was, it was wrong.

“Bucky!” your voice cracked out of your throat, hoarse and half-broken. “James—!”

No response. He didn’t hear you. Or he couldn’t. His eyes didn’t see anything.

“Stop it!” you screamed at them instead. Your voice echoed against cold steel walls. “STOP—he’s not a test subject, you bastards, HE’S A PERSON—”

You thrashed, muscles seizing against the restraints, lungs burning, tears springing from your eyes without your permission.

Across the room, a man in a white coat calmly noted something on a clipboard.

A technician adjusted a dial.

Bucky screamed again — hoarse now. And then it broke off into choking. You watched his body convulse against the slab, chest heaving. His face twisted in confusion, pain, terror—like he didn’t know who he was anymore.

You didn’t care what they were doing to you. You didn’t care if your arms were bound or if the sedatives were still in your bloodstream.

You fought.

You fought like hell.

“Let him go!” you shouted, voice nearly gone now. “Let him go, you motherfuckers!”

Someone finally turned toward you — a man with cold eyes behind round spectacles. Calm. Curious.

Zola.

He stepped closer, glancing at your vitals on a nearby monitor. “Interesting,” he murmured in a thick accent, adjusting his gloves. “She is already… aware. So soon.”

“I will kill you,” you spat. “I swear to God—”

“Oh,” Zola said gently, “I think you will be quite useful to each other.”

And then the world tilted again.

Another needle. Another rush of cold in your veins. And the lights above you fractured into fragments.

The last thing you heard before the blackness swallowed you whole… was Bucky sobbing like a child.

────────────────────────

Time had stopped meaning anything.

It could’ve been days. Weeks. Months. You didn’t know.

All you knew was the burn.

Your veins felt like they were filled with acid — crawling fire under your skin, surging in waves that left your limbs trembling, your fingers twitching, your pulse racing like it was trying to outrun death itself. You’d stopped asking what they were putting in you. Every time they came near, you tensed out of instinct. But the sedation would hit before you could do anything.

They never said what it was.

You didn’t know it was the serum.

You only knew that afterward, your body would spasm uncontrollably. Your mind would short-circuit. You’d hear voices that weren’t there. Remember things that hadn’t happened. Feel your strength surge… and then vanish.

But worse than the pain… was him.

Bucky hadn’t spoken in days.

Maybe longer.

He lay still on the other slab, eyes open but unseeing, lips dry and cracked. His breathing was shallow. His face had gone hollow, sunken in the cheeks and under the eyes — like something was draining him from the inside out. They didn’t sedate him anymore. They didn’t need to. Whatever they'd done had left him... vacant.

His new arm — if you could even call it that — sat like a slab of cold iron where his left one had been. Crude stitches and blackened bruises ringed the place it had been fused to bone and muscle. You could see the puckered scars, raw and inflamed, where metal met skin. It looked like it hurt just to exist.

You doubted he could even lift it.

And yet… they’d called it a success.

Whatever that meant.

Now, finally — mercifully — the room had gone still. No needles. No voices over the intercom. No restraints being tightened. Just… stillness.

A few minutes. Maybe hours. You couldn’t tell anymore.

Your throat was dry. Your body, sore and exhausted. But you shifted — weakly — on the slab beside him, head tilting just enough to face him. The cold of the metal table seeped into your bones, but you ignored it.

“Bucky…” you whispered, voice rasping out like broken glass. “Sarge… can you hear me?”

He didn’t move. His eyes stared at the ceiling, unfocused.

You didn’t care.

You turned more toward him, trembling slightly as your fingers strained to reach across the few inches of space. You couldn’t touch him — the restraints didn’t let you — but you reached anyway, as if the effort alone could bridge the gap.

“I’m gonna get us out of here,” you murmured, voice cracking. “I swear. You’re not gonna die in here. I won’t let them take you like this.”

Silence.

You kept talking. You had to.

“You remember the fire escape outside our barracks? That stupid thing that barely held two people? You used to sneak up there and fall asleep. Said it was the only place quiet enough to think.”

Your throat tightened.

“You promised me, one day, you’d go back to Brooklyn. Fix that bike of yours. Open a little garage. Said I could come help out if I wanted to. You remember that?”

No response.

You felt your heart break, slow and jagged, like a fault line cracking open.

“Please, Bucky… just—just look at me. Just one sign. I need to know you’re still in there. I need you.”

Your voice dropped to a whisper. “You saved me. You always did. So let me do it now. Let me get us out. Just hang on. Please.”

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t have the water left in your body to spare. Just dry eyes, raw throat, and a heart held together by frayed sinew and willpower.

Your arm shook from the strain of keeping it extended.

And still, you kept reaching.

Even when he didn’t move.

Even when the silence stretched so long it pressed on your ribs like weight.

Even when your vision started to dim again from the drugs.

“I’m here, Sarge,” you breathed, barely audible now. “You’re not alone.”

The only sound was the soft hiss of the air vents above. The low electric hum from the lights. And the faint, hollow echo of two hearts still beating.

One stronger than the other.

But still alive.

────────────────────────

Hydra Conditioning Chambers – Months Later

You’d lost track of how many times they brought you in.

They stopped asking questions. Stopped pretending it was about compliance. This wasn’t interrogation anymore. It was reshaping.

It started with pain. Always pain. Electric currents through your skull, your spine, the base of your neck. Your nerves became war zones. Your teeth cracked from clenching. You screamed until your throat was raw, until the air itself tasted like metal and blood.

They were trying to make you forget. Rewire your instincts. Strip you of anything you and replace it with something Hydra. Something obedient.

Something empty.

It worked on Bucky.

At first, he resisted. He screamed. Fought. Raged.

But you saw the moment it broke him. You heard it — the silence that followed a round of electroshock so violent it left him convulsing, slack-jawed, frothing at the mouth. His eyes had gone glassy. His lips trembled, whispering things in Russian that made no sense to him — things they had fed into his brain on repeat. Words he didn’t understand but couldn’t stop.

“Зимний Солдат.”

Winter Soldier.

You heard the way they said it. Like it was sacred. Like it was done.

And you—

You were next.

But you wouldn’t break.

Not like him.

You bit down so hard during one session your molar cracked. They doubled the voltage. You passed out and woke up vomiting, body convulsing on the floor, your restraints slick with blood from split wrists. You couldn’t tell if the screaming in your head was yours or theirs.

Still, they failed.

Still, they couldn’t crack you.

You were fire in frostbite. And it drove them mad.

“Too resilient,” one of the German doctors muttered in frustration as he scribbled notes on a clipboard, his glasses slipping down his nose.

“Willful,” Zola corrected. “It’s in her nature. A Colonel's daughter. Born to take orders, yet somehow defies.”

“And yet she will yield,” said the Russian operative beside them, arms folded, watching you with reptilian calm. “We will make her. The лисица will hunt for us in time.”

Vixen, they called you.

The name they gave your file: sleek, lethal, deceptive. Born to track. Built to seduce and eliminate. A predator with a soft face.

You were their ghost soldier. Their shadow. Their whisper in the dark.

But only if they broke you first.

That session, they left you strapped to the chair, soaked in your own sweat and blood, nerves twitching like wires cut loose. Alone. Left to steep in the pain. Like Bucky had been.

You lifted your head an inch. Just enough to glance across the room.

He was there.

Sitting still.

Not restrained. Just… motionless. Eyes forward. Breathing shallow.

He didn’t even look at you anymore.

They had him.

And you were next.

Your throat burned. Your eyes felt too dry to cry. You weren’t sure your vocal cords worked. But still, out of nowhere — out of a deep, primitive place inside you that remembered being human — you sang.

Softly. Shakily. Croaky and cracked.

“I’ll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places…”

“…that this heart of mine embraces… all day through.”

It wasn’t a melody anymore. Just broken notes wrapped around splinters of memory.

Home. Whiskey laughs. Bucky smiling sideways when you called him “Sarge.” Steve saluting you for the first time. Dum Dum tipping his hat. Warm fires. Rations shared.

“In that small café… the park across the way…”

Your voice gave out halfway through.

But you kept whispering the words. Just for you. Just to remember.

Because even if they hollowed you out — rewired you, broke you — they couldn’t take that. Not all the way. Not yet.

You were still Fox. Somewhere under the blood and static and numbness.

You had to be.

Because if you weren’t… who would save him?

Years Later

They became Hydra’s ghosts. Whispers in the dark. Proof that monsters weren’t born — they were made.

When the war ended, and the world began to stitch itself back together, Hydra burrowed deeper. Quieter. Smarter. And in the vaults of ice and concrete beneath their hidden facilities, they began sculpting legends.

One of steel.

One of silk.

He was not subtle.

Where silence was needed, he brought screams.

Where compromise existed, he crushed it.

The Winter Soldier was Hydra’s enforcer, the blade they drove into the heart of history. He appeared across decades like a fracture — impossible to trace, impossible to stop. A phantom draped in shadow, eyes like glacier glass, grip like a bear trap.

He assassinated presidents. Ministers. Scientists. He sabotaged governments with the pull of a trigger. One shot — a bullet through a man’s skull, or through the spine of a nation’s future.

His missions were clean. Untraceable.

No witnesses. No evidence.

Only death.

Hydra rewired him with electroshock and Russian syllables. They hollowed out James Buchanan Barnes and replaced him with a weapon that did not question orders, did not feel guilt, did not hesitate. A ghost of a man with a new metal arm and no memory of mercy.

Cryogenic stasis kept him sharp, young, lethal. He lived in decades like they were days. A century’s worth of kill orders etched into his hands.

He never left survivors.

Unless Hydra told him to.

If the Soldier was Hydra’s hammer, the Vixen was their scalpel.

She bled behind enemy lines in silence, slipping through borders and barricades like a breath. She did not wear fear on her face. She did not leave blood in her wake — only secrets gutted open and missions left in ruin.

They called her лисица, the vixen, because she was cunning. Patient. Uncatchable. A whisper with teeth.

But it wasn’t always about killing.

She was Hydra’s infiltrator, a master of mimicry and seduction, of dismantling men without lifting a weapon. Where the Soldier brought force, she brought erosion — crumbling fortresses from within.

And to Hydra, she was a triumph of psychological warfare — what the Red Room would later attempt to replicate in their Widows. But she came first. She was the original phantom siren.

They used her face. Her softness. Her voice — when she remembered to use it — like a lullaby over a knife's edge. Where the Soldier was brute force, the Vixen was infiltration. Persuasion. Seduction when required, annihilation when ordered.

Her body was honed to perfection. Her mind, conditioned for silence and obedience — and yet, it never bent as cleanly as they wanted.

Not completely.

At first, it was small things.

Moments of hesitation. A flicker of something behind her eyes. The way her hands trembled after some kills — not with fear, but memory. Recognition.

She began humming to herself between assignments. Little songs from another life. She’d sit still in her stasis chamber before freezing, humming fragments of a tune they never taught her.

“We'll meet again, don't know how, don't know when…”

There were reports she disobeyed a kill order once. Let a target live because he had no evil in his eyes. They punished her for it. Re-conditioned her. Electroshock, isolation, more injections — but the slip had happened, and Hydra never trusted her fully again.

They realized she wasn’t like him.

The Soldier could be overwritten.

The Vixen resisted.

Not in screams or defiance. But in subtle, terrifying cracks.

Hydra scientists began to fear her — not for her violence, but her unpredictability. Her lingering humanity. That sliver of soul they couldn’t seem to carve out.

So they adjusted her protocol.

Where the Winter Soldier was deployed like a machine, again and again, the Vixen was locked away.

Preserved in cryo between missions. Thawed only when absolutely necessary. Only when no one else could do the job.

Only when they were desperate enough to risk the memories bleeding through.

They didn’t trust the leash they’d put on her. They only trusted the chain they wrapped around her throat.

And the serum? The serum wasn’t meant for kindness. It didn’t amplify goodness or nobility.

It magnified potential.

And under Hydra’s hands, that meant war.

The Winter Soldier's muscles knit themselves tighter. Bone density quadrupled. His reflexes reached inhuman speeds. Pain dulled. Healing accelerated. A shot to the chest became a stumble. A shattered femur became a limp for a few hours.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

The serum made sure of that.

And when paired with the metal arm — the marvel of Soviet-German engineering — the Winter Soldier became a force no one could match. Stronger than ten men. Faster than bullets. Unbreakable.

A walking extinction event.

He wasn’t meant to survive.

He was meant to erase.

The Vixen, however… she changed differently.

Hydra never expected the serum to work the same way. She was smaller. Lighter. Delicate in the ways he was brutal. But she was no less a weapon — just… sharper. More precise.

The serum didn’t bulk her up. It refined her.

Her muscles compacted into long, lean coils of strength. She moved like liquid shadow. Fast enough to vanish between blinks. Quiet enough that her footsteps could barely be heard on glass.

But it was her senses that changed the most.

Hydra didn’t know what to make of it at first — the way she would flinch at footsteps down the hall before they ever echoed. She could hear things miles away — the tick of rifle safety on a distant rooftop, the soft breath of a man in a hidden hallway. She could hear heartbeats. Lies. The subtle shift in someone's pulse when they spoke told her more than any interrogation.

They tested her. Over and over.

She could feel sweat in the air.

Taste adrenaline on a man’s breath.

Smelled metal, blood, gunpowder — emotions. Fear had a scent. Anger tasted like copper.

Her eyes could track the fall of a snowflake mid-battle. Her balance was inhuman. Her touch, so precise she could disarm a man without waking him.

Hydra called it a miracle. Zola called it evolution.

She was a new breed of operative — not just fast and strong, but impossibly aware. And that terrified them.

Because if she chose to disobey, to turn on them…

Even the Winter Soldier could not stop her.

They never told her she could overpower him.

They couldn’t risk it.

So instead, they bound her.

Psychologically. Physically. Systematically.

They paired her to the Soldier — not as an equal. As a subordinate. A tool under his control.

Her handler.

Her shadow.

Her leash.

When she failed a mission, when she hesitated, when she lingered too long near a song or a memory — he was the one they sent.

No guards. No scientists.

Just the Winter Soldier.

He’d enter the chamber where she sat — barefoot, arms folded over her knees, breath slow. She never ran. She never fought. Not unless she wanted it to be worse.

And he would carry out the punishment.

His face never changed.

His hands never trembled.

His eyes never closed.

Sometimes it was his fists.

Sometimes it was the silence between them — worse than any bruise.

They trained her to submit to him on instinct. A single word in Russian, a glance, a subtle shift of his body — she would obey.

But it wasn’t fear.

It was conditioning.

They had threaded her loyalty into his silhouette. Turned the man who once bled beside her into a god she knelt for.

The only one who could touch her.

The only one she responded to.

────────────────────────

Hydra’s underground compound groaned with the mechanical cold of concrete and fluorescent hum. Sterile, sharp. The air reeked of antiseptic and gun oil — a scent soaked into every slab of metal, every breath pulled through narrow lungs.

They’d returned just an hour ago from an operation in Prague.

The Soldier had gone first, dragged down the corridor by two guards, silent and compliant. They always processed him first — quick, efficient. He was easy. Slumped shoulders. Dull gaze. Programmed silence. The memory wipe rarely took more than ten minutes anymore.

But she had lingered.

Stripped of her weapons. Her boots left sticky with blood. Hands twitching at her sides like she didn’t trust they were done. Her pupils hadn’t shrunk. Her breathing hadn’t calmed. She stared at the floor like it was moving beneath her.

And when they reached for her—

When gloved hands touched her arm—

She snapped.

No scream. No warning.

The first man’s throat tore open before the others knew her fingers had moved. His blood sprayed up her face — red mist over pale skin — and she didn’t stop to see him fall. She pivoted. Fast. Precise.

A whirlwind of fists and sharp bone and snarled breath. The second scientist’s head slammed into the wall with a crack, spine folded in an unnatural twist as he slumped.

Then the alarms began.

Boots thudded down the hall. Gunfire stuttered from two directions — panicked, wild — and only some of it came from her. The rest came from soldiers firing before they aimed, hands shaking, watching Hydra’s most elegant weapon unspool into a beast.

It was like she could hear the triggers before they clicked.

Bang. Duck. Slide. Elbow to temple. Gun lifted. Two shots — center mass. Next.

She didn’t pause.

Not until there was no one left moving in the corridor but her.

Fifteen seconds of silence.

The floor gleamed with blood.

She stood in the middle of it all, chest heaving, smeared head to toe in scarlet. Her jaw twitched. Her eyes — still dilated — flicked up, wide, unblinking. Animal stillness. No longer in a mission. No longer in control.

Something had broken. Fully. Utterly.

In the surveillance room, a handler shouted.

“Отправьте солдата. Положите Виксен. Сделайте это сейчас—”

(Send in the Soldier to put the Vixen down. Do it NOW—)

Metal boots struck the floor.

He came with no hesitation.

The Soldier entered the corridor through the main blast doors, smoke curling from the edges of spent gun barrels. His face was blank. Cold. His metal arm hissed as it flexed, fingers twitching from a reset.

He stopped when he saw her.

Standing there like a revenant. Covered in blood, chin lifted, hair matted and damp. A raw tremble in her shoulders. Eyes glowing with something ancient, something nameless.

She didn't kneel. She didn't bow.

She just watched him.

The room seemed to shrink. Lights buzzed above them like flies. The blood beneath their boots had not yet dried.

His weight shifted. Right foot forward. Arm lowering slightly — coiled, ready.

Their eyes locked.

Like wolves before the first bite. No orders. No speech. No false names. Just… waiting. A battle written in stare alone.

Then he moved.

And so did she.

He lunged — fast, brutal. A fist like steel screaming toward her temple.

She ducked, slid beneath it, spun her heel into his ribs. He grunted, staggered — not from pain, but from surprise. She was faster. Not more powerful — not quite — but she was sharper. Tighter.

They wove through each other like old ghosts dancing.

His hand gripped her wrist mid-blow, twisted. She hissed, kicked at his shin. He blocked, slammed her into the wall. Her breath shot out. His arm pressed at her throat — but she rolled, broke free, slammed her forehead into his chin.

Crack.

He blinked, dazed for half a second.

She struck again.

Hard. Violent. Chest to chest, elbow to his jaw, knee toward his side — he blocked, shoved her back. They breathed in unison, rapid and harsh. His hair clung to his forehead. Her lip bled from the inside out.

Still, no words.

Just eye contact — burning. Challenging. Grieving.

The stalemate lasted three heartbeats.

Then the blast doors behind him hissed open again — dozens of Hydra agents storming the corridor with tranquilizers, guns, electric rods. The spell broke.

He made the decision.

He lunged — again — but this time not to strike.

Her back hit the floor hard, her limbs twisted beneath her, wrists already bruising. He was on top of her, pinning her down with the weight of a machine, his metal hand locked around her throat, thumb pressed against the pulse of her artery.

Her chest heaved, sharp and slow, like breath was foreign now. Like she didn’t care if she took it.

He should’ve done it already.

Should’ve squeezed harder. Should’ve watched her eyes roll back and her body fall limp like the countless others he’d ended. His expression was carved from granite — unreadable. His face spattered with blood that wasn’t his. But inside, something shook.

His fingers trembled.

It was the first warning.

She didn’t resist anymore. No kicks. No sharp elbows or desperate knees. No flash of canines, no snap of a snarl.

Just eyes.

Looking straight into his.

Open. Unblinking. Empty.

As if she wanted this.

As if the idea of dying — under his hands — was better than returning to the dark. To the chair. To the ice. To the silence.

That was the second warning.

A part of him flinched. Something far beneath the code, beneath the frostbite of his brain, beneath the echo of the Winter Soldier. Something warm. Ancient. Like a bone-deep memory of summer.

He tightened his grip.

He really did.

Muscles flexed. Metal joints locked. His jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached.

Her skin was warm under his hand. Her pulse soft — waiting.

And she just kept staring.

Her pupils enormous. Dark. Not afraid. Not submissive. Just… ready.

A flicker of her lashes. A twitch in her lip.

And that was when he realized — she didn’t want to fight him anymore.

She didn’t believe he could choose not to kill her.

And she might’ve been right.

Because how many times had his handlers commanded him to hurt her? Punish her? And he had.

With precision. With obedience. With terrifying force.

They’d made him the hand that carved pain into her again and again. Bones broken. Breath taken. Blood spilled — by him.

And yet… she always came back.

Returned to her feet. Returned to him.

The punishments never took her away permanently.

She was still his. Not in name, not in language. But in the way gravity belongs to the planet. She was the only thing he’d ever hurt that didn’t vanish.

And now — he was supposed to end her.

To kill her.

And the Soldier — the one they’d broken, rebuilt, erased a thousand times — felt something crack.

His chest stuttered.

His other hand gripped her forearm like he was trying to tether her to the ground, to him, to something real. His breath began to shake — fast, shallow. His vision swam. He could see nothing but her eyes now. No blood. No ceiling. No walls.

Only her.

Her eyes were the only thing in the world he never forgot.

His fingers began to slip.

His breath rasped in his throat, caught between fury and anguish, and something deeper — something scarier.

His whole body trembled now. His forearm bulged with the strain of holding back. And then — like something finally snapped — he let out a guttural, choked yell, half agony, half animal.

He let go.

His hand released her throat.

He struck the concrete beside her head — hard — the ground splintering with the force, a web of cracks blooming under his fist. The shockwave trembled through her ribs. Dust curled into the air. His breathing was ragged, hoarse, chest rising and falling like a man who’d just outrun death and failed.

He didn’t look away from her.

He leaned down — slow, deliberate — and pressed his forehead to hers.

Not soft. Not tender. But grounded. Desperate.

Like he was anchoring himself to the only thing that still existed in his mind.

His forehead was burning.

Hers was cold.

They stayed like that — a tableau of blood and breath and failure. She didn’t move. He didn’t flinch.

Their foreheads touching.

Their eyes still locked.

Breathing each other in like that was the only way they remembered what it felt like to be human.

And for the first time in all the years Hydra made them into things — weapons, monsters, ghosts — the Soldier’s silence didn’t mean compliance.

It meant defiance.

He would not kill her.

Not her.

Never her.

Even if he didn’t know her name.

Even if he didn’t know his own.

He knew this.

Her eyes.

Her breath.

And her blood beneath his hands.

The blood hadn’t even dried when the reinforced doors slammed shut.

Alarms were finally silenced — but the aftermath echoed louder. Metallic clangs as bodies were dragged. Snapped bones. Severed limbs. The dead Hydra scientists were scattered across the floor like discarded parts. The walls dripped with their arrogance.

She lay on her back, still breathing.

Eyes wide, unblinking, staring at the splintered floor where his fist had broken through. One hand loosely curled at her ribs. The other slick with blood — hers, theirs, it didn’t matter.

He hadn’t killed her.

And that, to the watching Hydra handlers, was the most terrifying detail of all.

They didn’t ask questions.

They just knew she had broken. Completely.

She had killed without permission. Reacted without instruction. Moved through a room of trained guards and armed scientists like they were made of glass.

No trigger words had stopped her.

No handler had calmed her.

Not even him.

Only exhaustion had slowed her.

Only his mercy had spared her.

And that — that was unforgivable.

When they came to sedate her, he was already there. Standing over her like a specter, silent and immovable. The guards hesitated. The doctors murmured. Not a single one would meet his eyes.

His hands remained at his sides, but his presence was a warning.

Don’t hurt her. Don’t kill her.

They could see it in the way his jaw locked, in the way his body coiled like a tripwire. His programming demanded obedience — but something deeper, older, more human, was watching them with predatory stillness.

They kept her sedated through every moment. Through the wipe that never took properly. Through the muttered arguments in clipped Russian and panicked German about what to do with her. Through the decision that the risk was no longer worth the reward.

She wasn’t the Winter Soldier.

She couldn’t be tamed by words and pain.

She was something else. Something worse.

And he watched it all.

Not understanding why his chest hurt.

Not understanding why he remembered her face when everything else turned to static.

When they lowered her into the cryogenic pod, he followed. Shadowed them down the sterile hall without orders. The guards gave him distance — he didn’t look at them, didn’t need to. His eyes were fixed only on her.

She didn’t stir.

The inside of the chamber was lined with reinforced polymer. Her restraints were reinforced. But her expression was blank. Breathing slow. Completely still.

He stood just beyond the edge of the fog as the lid began to lower.

No commands came. He didn’t need any.

He simply stared.

As if some part of him knew that she was the only thing that ever made him hesitate.

The only thing that ever looked back at him — even when he hurt her — and saw him.

And now they were taking her away from him again.

Not killing her. But erasing her again.

He didn’t move until the hiss of the cryo chamber sealed shut. Didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Just stood there as the glass frosted over, her face vanishing into the white.

That was the last time Hydra made use of the Vixen.

1989.

Until they could find a better way to control her —

A better cage.

A better chain.

They put her back to sleep.

And that’s where she stayed — frozen, ghostlike, remembered only by the monster who’d once been ordered to destroy her.

2024

Rain lashed the cracked windows of the safehouse, a forgotten building on the edge of eastern Europe that smelled like rust and damp wood. The small desk lamp on the table buzzed faintly, casting long shadows over the spread of maps, photos, and red string that looked like a conspiracy board torn straight from a nightmare.

In the center of it all stood Bucky Barnes, his metal fingers clenched tight around the edge of the table, knuckles pale against steel.

Sam Wilson stood a few feet behind him, arms crossed, surveying the chaos.

“You really think it’s her?” he asked, voice low and measured.

Bucky didn’t answer right away. His eyes were fixed on a blurred photo — a grainy, static-frozen capture from a destroyed security feed. A woman with a mask over her mouth and nose making her face obscured, walking away from a warehouse swallowed in fire. But her posture, the deliberate stillness of her movements — he knew it.

“I know it is,” he said finally, like a fact carved from stone.

Sam let out a quiet sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Buck, we’ve been chasing shadows for six weeks. People say this is a ghost story. Urban legend. Vengeance incarnate. You sure it’s not just... projection?”

“She’s alive,” Bucky said, without even looking up.

The words fell like weight onto the room, pulling the silence taut. Sam studied his friend’s profile — the faint lines of fatigue around his eyes, the way his mouth twitched with restraint, with desperation.

“You say that like you’ve seen her,” Sam said gently. “But that pod in Belarus was dead. Power was out for years. She came out confused, probably didn’t even know what year it was. You think she’s operating on logic?”

“No,” Bucky murmured. “She’s not.”

He thumbed through a series of photos on the table — each one more brutal than the last. A scientist dissected in Munich. A financier found hanging upside down in Prague. Every man in the stack had once had ties to Hydra. However minor, however indirect. And each death had been executed with surgical precision. Silent. Clean. Gone.

Sam stepped forward, pointing at a red pin on the map. “Bucharest hit. Three Hydra affiliates. No alarms, no signs of forced entry. Security feed glitched for thirty seconds.”

“She’s learning,” Bucky whispered. There was no pride in it — only awe. And dread.

“She’s not just surviving,” Sam said, his voice edged with something colder. “She’s hunting.”

Bucky didn’t flinch. He nodded slowly, eyes flicking across the network of red thread. The ghosts of his past. And hers.

Sam hesitated before asking, “What if she’s not just targeting Hydra? What if she’s coming for you too?”

That stopped Bucky cold.

“She has every reason to,” he said after a long moment, the words thick with regret. “I hurt her.”

Sam was quiet. He didn’t need to ask what he meant. The history between them — the conditioning, the missions, the punishments — Bucky had carried them out without mercy. Not because he wanted to, but because they’d made him.

Sam hesitated before asking, “Then why keep looking for her?” His voice was soft, careful.

But something in Bucky snapped at that — not loud or explosive, just sharp. A quiet fracture under pressure.

“Because I have to,” Bucky said, voice low but rough, his hands bracing hard against the table. “Because she’s been frozen for thirty goddamn years, Sam.”

Sam blinked, standing a little straighter.

“I’ve been out for five. Five years free, and that’s not even counting the Blip. Or all the time Hydra dragged me out and used me,” Bucky went on, the words starting to slip faster, heavier. “And during all of that, I was hurting her. Again and again.”

His jaw clenched as he stared down at the mess of papers, eyes tracing her blurry silhouette as if it were some ancient ghost trying to speak back.

“She was always stronger than me,” he said, quieter now, almost like it hurt to admit it. “Mentally. She fought them. She never broke easy.”

He looked at Sam then, eyes rimmed in something not quite anger but something old and burning — a weight that lived in his bones.

“I owe her this,” he said. “I owe her the truth. And if she wants to kill me for it, I’ll let her. But I’m not going to stop until I find her. Even if she wants me to let her go, I will.”

But the truth was carved into his face. He couldn’t. He never would again.

────────────────────────

You sat on the edge of the couch like you didn’t know how to exist in a space this quiet.

Your eyes traced the seams between the floorboards, your hands folded neatly in your lap, unmoving. You hadn’t spoken more than a sentence since Bucky brought you there.

Not when he offered you a glass of water, not when he showed you where the bathroom was, not even when he—hesitantly—told you that you could have his room, while he slept on the couch.

You just nodded.

One, clean nod. Always polite. Always precise.

But not the way you used to be. Not the way he remembered.

In the 40s, you had fire in your voice. You had sharp comebacks, a cheeky grin that curled higher when you got under his skin. You could outrun, outshoot, outthink most of the Howlies, and still managed to hum a tune while cleaning your rifle.

Now, you barely ate. You hadn’t said more than a clipped “fine” or “okay.” You hadn’t looked him in the eye since you stepped inside.

Bucky still didn’t even know how he’d convinced you to come with him as he watched you from the kitchen, leaning his forearms on the counter, gripping the edge like it was the only thing keeping him tethered. His metal hand creaked quietly against the granite.

“You want me to put something on?” he asked, his voice low, worn. “TV, music… white noise?”

You turned your head slightly, the barest flicker. Your lips parted, like you might speak, then closed again. You shook your head, slowly.

He sighed. Not in frustration. Just... helplessness.

“You used to yell at me for humming off-key,” he said gently, like maybe a memory would draw you closer to the surface. “Said I could scare off birds from miles away.”

No answer.

Just your stillness. Just your silence.

And that ache behind his ribs grew sharper.

He stared at you, at your hunched shoulders and distant eyes, and for the first time, truly wondered if this was how Steve had felt.

Always reaching. Always hoping. Trying to pull someone he cared about out of the fog. Trying to bring Bucky back from the brink, even when Bucky had forgotten who he was. Steve had never stopped. Not when everyone else had written him off as a weapon. Not even when he’d fought against him on a damn helicarrier.

Now here Bucky was—on the other side. And he finally understood just how exhausting, how heartbreaking it had been. Watching someone you knew still existed beneath the wreckage, and not knowing if you’d ever reach them again.

He wanted to say something else, but then your voice cracked the quiet—raw, broken, hesitant.

“I remember… my father’s voice. Not his face. Just… how he said my name.”

Bucky went still.

You didn’t look at him when you said it. Your head tilted slightly toward the window, where the last of the day’s light bled across your cheekbone like gold dust.

“I used to hum while I tracked,” you said. “To stay human.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t dare move. He just listened.

“I think I forgot how to feel warm,” you murmured. “Even when I’m not in the ice anymore.”

Your fingers twitched once, like your body remembered the motion of a weapon, or maybe a tremor from a distant past. The moment was fragile, stretched thin.

Bucky’s throat tightened. God, he wanted to tell you everything—that you weren’t alone, that he would wait as long as it took.

But he knew better. You weren’t ready for comfort. Not from him. Maybe not from anyone.

────────────────────────

It was a quiet afternoon. The sun filtered through the half-drawn curtains in pale streaks, painting long bars of gold and dust across the wood floor of Bucky’s apartment. The television was on, low volume, something benign playing that neither of you were truly watching. A news segment passed with a fleeting image.

Your eyes tracked the screen, not really watching. But then a flash of red, white, and blue passed across it. A helmet. A shield.

Your voice was flat when you spoke, cutting through the silence between you and Bucky like a knife. “I remember seeing him on TV. Cap.”

Bucky didn’t respond right away. You could feel his hesitation more than you could see it. His body shifted from where he sat across from you—still, guarded. You finally turned your head toward him.

“Where is he?”

He ran a hand through his hair, the metal fingers brushing just behind his ear.

“He’s gone,” Bucky said eventually, voice quiet.

You blinked once. Slowly. Processing.

“Gone?”

Bucky sighed through his nose. “Steve went back… after everything. After we won.” He paused. “He went back in time. Lived out his life. Came back… older. Real old. He passed away earlier this year.”

You stared at him. Not blinking now.

“So he left you behind.”

The silence after your words was sharp. Bucky’s brow creased. “No,” he said quickly, too quickly. “He didn’t—he was just—”

“You mean he could’ve taken us both home,” you said, not cruel, just even. Hollow. “Could’ve brought us back. But instead we’re stuck here. In a world that doesn’t know us. Doesn't want us.”

Bucky shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“He gave up.”

“He didn’t give up!” Bucky’s voice rose, sharp with something he hadn’t meant to let out. “He gave everything, you don’t—he did what he thought was right.”

You looked at him, head tilting slightly. That same detached focus, the way your eyes pinned him—not with malice, but with cold fact. You weren’t being emotional. You weren’t attacking. That was what made it worse.

“He was selfish.”

Bucky stood now. Tense. His jaw clenched, his fingers twitching by his sides.

“Don’t say that,” he muttered. “You don’t get to say that.”

You stood up too, slow, unhurried. “He left you. After everything you went through. After everything we went through.”

“Stop it.”

“He took peace for himself and left us with the ruins.”

“That’s not what happened—he thought I’d be okay—he trusted that I could—”

“That’s not trust. That’s abandonment.”

“Stop it!” Bucky snapped, voice rough, cracking, fists clenched so tight his knuckles—flesh and metal—strained. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how broken he was. What he lost. He earned that life.”

You didn’t flinch. Just stared at him, eyes dim but focused. “And what about what we lost?”

Bucky started pacing, running a hand through his hair like he could scatter the frustration from his scalp. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” you said, tone still maddeningly flat. “What’s not fair is waking up seventy years after your last memory and realizing the only people you trusted are either dead, ghosts, or decided to stay in the past.”

You turned, already walking toward the hallway, not angry — just done with the conversation.

“Don’t walk away,” Bucky said sharply, stepping after you.

His hand reached out — not fast, not forceful — just to touch your arm. Something gentle.

You flinched before he even made contact. The shift in your body was instantaneous — reflexive. A dodge like a breath, like muscle memory. Your spine stiffened as your arm slipped from his grasp, your eyes suddenly sharp.

“Don’t touch me,” you snapped, voice cold and loud and carved out of something ancient.

Bucky froze. His hand still hovered in the air. He stared at you.

You weren’t looking at him anymore. You weren’t really even here. Your eyes had gone somewhere else, farther back. You were breathing too fast, too shallow. Your body stiff, locked down.

And that was when Bucky understood. Really understood.

It wasn’t about him.

It was about him.

The one with the metal arm who used to drag you through concrete floors when you disobeyed. Who'd wrap his hand around your throat when your eyes held too much rebellion. Who struck you, again and again, because someone ordered him to.

Even when Bucky had been free for years, the ghosts still lived in his hands.

And you… you still saw them.

His hand dropped. Guilt flooding every inch of his face.

“I didn’t mean to—” he tried, voice lower now, thick in his throat.

You didn’t answer. You just walked past him, through the narrow hallway, closing yourself into his room, he had given you, without a word.

Bucky didn’t move for a long time. He just stood there. One hand pressed flat over the other. Like he could keep himself from reaching again. Like he could pretend it hadn’t happened.

But the truth was branded now—burning beneath the surface of his skin.

He hadn’t earned your trust.

And maybe he never would.

────────────────────────

You didn’t want to go.

That was the first thing you made clear, arms crossed, jaw set, suspicious eyes watching Bucky like he might lead you off a cliff instead of down the D.C. Metro escalator. You hadn’t asked where he was taking you. He didn’t tell you, either. Just said, “It’s important.” You didn’t like the way that word made your chest tighten.

The museum was too bright.

Too open. Too filled with noise and breath and movement. Everything felt too fast and too slow at once. Your boots echoed on the polished floors, steps cautious and silent like instinct, like old habits that had never really died.

Bucky stayed near but didn’t try to touch you — not since that day. He led you quietly, nodding at the security guards like this was something he did often.

You hated how many people were looking. Even when they weren’t.

When you entered the exhibit, the air shifted. Cooler. Calmer. Reverent.

A bronze plaque on the wall read: Captain America and the Howling Commandos. Beneath it — sepia photographs. Names. Artifacts behind glass. There were curved helmets, worn boots, faded letters.

Bucky paused beside you.

“This was the first place I came after I got out,” he said, voice quiet, like it didn’t want to disturb the ghosts on the walls. “Didn’t know where else to go. Didn’t even know who I was, really. Just… remembered pieces. Faces.”

Your eyes traced the familiar ones. Dumb Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth. Jim Morita. Happy grins and tilted hats and the smell of gunpowder you could almost still taste.

Then you saw it.

Your own memorial.

It was set apart, just slightly — not grandiose, but longer than the others. The image they’d chosen was one you didn’t remember being taken. You were young — about twenty two— perched on a wooden crate in fatigues rolled at the sleeves, head turned mid-laugh, hair slicked back but wind-loosened, fingers curled around a rifle too heavy for your frame. Your expression was too soft for war. Your eyes too alive.

You blinked at it.

Above the frame was your name, carved in brass. First Lieutenant, Tactical Reconnaissance. Grey Fox.

And beneath it, the words Presumed KIA, 1945. Missing in Action. Last seen on mission in the Austrian Alps.

You felt your throat tighten and couldn’t explain why.

“Why is mine longer than the others?” you asked, quietly, too still.

Bucky glanced over at you, then at the plaque. “Because you were a big deal.”

You gave him a look, skeptical.

He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “Only woman in the Howling Commandos. One of the first women to serve actively alongside combat troops. You were kind of… a symbol. They said your service helped inspire the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in ‘48.”

You scoffed, faintly. “So they threw me on a wall.”

Bucky smiled, just barely. “They honored you. You meant something to people. Still do.”

You stepped closer to the glass. The uniform behind it was familiar. Yours. The same patches, same leather. There was even your knife — the one Howard Stark had gifted you before that last mission. The one you lost in the snow.

You didn’t remember losing it.

Didn’t remember dying.

Your voice was flat. “They thought I was dead.”

Bucky was quiet for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “They did.”

You turned to him. “Did you? After Hydra.”

Bucky didn’t look away. “For a while.”

Something in you curled tighter, like a spring wound too far. “When did you remember?”

He shifted, brow furrowing. “Not right away. It was all… fragments. Flashes. And even when I saw your face, I didn’t know if it was real. Steve had to tell me. He said you’d come after me — that the day I fell off that train, you went looking.”

Your breath hitched.

“I don’t—” you started. “I don’t remember that.”

“That’s okay,” he said softly. “I don't either.”

You looked back at the photo — that too-young version of yourself, all spark and reckless pride, before Hydra carved you hollow. You felt something stir in your chest — not grief, not quite. More like the shape of grief, wrapped around something else. Something you didn’t have words for.

It should’ve been easy to keep walking.

To follow the curved path of the exhibit, to drift past the tributes like a ghost among glass and old light. But your steps faltered when your eyes caught it — the photo.

It wasn’t a combat shot. Not a press photo or wartime propaganda. It was a quiet moment. Just the two of you. The Colonel stood in uniform, hat tucked under one arm, and you beside him, barely twenty. The background looked like the docks, water glittering, your dress hem catching the wind like a flag. He had one hand on your shoulder, firm but gentle. You were laughing — head tipped toward him, eyes squinting in sunlight, mouth open in mid-word.

Your stomach turned.

You hadn’t seen his face in decades. Not like this.

People always assumed a man like that — a military father, a colonel — would be stern. Emotionless. Cold. But he wasn’t. He was exacting, yes. Fierce when it came to protocol and discipline. But when it was just you and him? He was warmth and humor and the smell of clean shaving soap. The only one who called you by your full name and somehow made it sound like affection.

He was your favorite person in the world.

You reached out before you realized what you were doing — fingertips hovering above the glass, as though you could touch the edge of the photograph and fall through it.

Beside the picture was a framed newspaper clipping. A headline in bold type:

“Decorated Colonel Honors Missing Daughter in Public Address”

— November 3rd, 1945

Your throat clenched.

You hesitated. Then stepped back.

“I can’t,” you said quietly. “I don’t want to read it.”

Bucky glanced at you, then down at the plaque. “Want me to?”

You nodded once.

But He stepped closer, eyes scanning the plaque. His voice was low, a little rough.

“To say that I lost a soldier would be true. But to say I lost just a soldier would be a terrible injustice.”

“My daughter — the one you knew as ‘Grey Fox’ — was many things. A tactician, a tracker, a fighter more ruthless than most men I’ve commanded. She earned her place in the Howling Commandos not because of her name, or mine, but because she earned it. Day after day. Battle after battle. She was sharper than steel, braver than men twice her age, and she never ran from anything — not even fear itself.“

“She was stubborn from the start — wouldn’t follow the rules if she thought they were wrong, wouldn’t back down from any fight worth having. And yet she was kind. She was soft in the way only the strongest people are. She made people better just by standing beside them.”

“They’ll tell you she was tactical, skilled, a leader. All of that is true. But I want people to remember who she was when the orders were done. She liked swing music. Had too many pairs of shoes. And twice as many dresses. Spoke her mind without apology and carried a silver locket with her mother’s photo, that she thought no one ever noticed.”

You felt it then — the sting behind your eyes. The tears building, slow and traitorous. You turned your head away, lifting your hand as if the simple motion could shield you from what the words were doing to you. But they kept coming.

“And though the world may mark her as lost — let me be clear. My daughter is not forgotten. She lives in every fire lit in the dark, every brave voice in the silence, every young girl who believes she can stand in a place no one thought she should.”

“She gave everything to her country. And I don’t know how to say goodbye to her. I don’t know how to let go of my little girl—”

Then his voice cut off.

You waited. One breath. Two.

And when the silence stretched too long, you asked quietly, “Why’d you stop?”

Bucky didn’t look at you. He kept his eyes on the plaque, jaw locked. “That’s where it ends,” he said softly. “The article says he couldn’t finish the speech. He—” Bucky hesitated. “He walked off the podium, too choked up.”

You turned toward him slowly, scoffing.

“No,” you murmured, voice thick. “The Colonel never cried.”

It came out too genuine to be anything but memory. Something certain. Like gravity.

You shook your head, pressing your hand to your eyes as the tears spilled freely now, silent and hot, streaking down your cheeks without restraint. There was no sobbing. No sound at all. Just that kind of grief that closed in around the chest, so dense it felt like the world had narrowed to a pinhole.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, voice breaking on the edges. “For reading it. For bringing me here.”

Bucky stood beside you, hands flexing at his sides. He didn’t reach out. Couldn’t.

Not because he didn’t want to — but because he knew you wouldn’t let him.

And maybe, in that moment, standing in front of a monument to a life you couldn’t remember and a love you’d buried somewhere deep — that was enough.

────────────────────────

You sat at the window again, the late morning sun slicing through the thin curtains like a scalpel. You didn’t feel it. Couldn’t, really. You were aware of the light, the way it bled over your hands resting on your knees—but it didn’t feel warm. Just… distant. Like everything else.

Bucky was in the kitchen, fumbling with something—probably another attempt to make coffee the way you liked. You didn’t tell him he never got it right. He tried too hard. He always had.

The silence between you two was the loudest part of this place. Even when he tried talking, even when he looked at you like you were a wound he couldn’t cauterize. It made your skin itch.

He thought he owed you. You knew it. That was what this was. This apartment, this half-life, these careful touches and softer tones—this was guilt. This was his penance.

You didn't know who you were anymore, not really. The world had moved on. Your war was over but still echoing in your blood. Bucky was the only familiar thing left, and even he felt warped—like a shadow of something you couldn’t remember clearly. You used to laugh with him. Tease him. Steal his rations and call him pretty boy. Now… you couldn't even meet his eyes for longer than a breath.

You weren’t stupid. You knew trauma bonding. You knew conditioning. You knew how Hydra twisted wires until they sparked like emotion, cracked whips until loyalty sounded like love. What the Vixen and the Winter Soldier had wasn’t a bond. It was survival.

This thing between you and Bucky—whatever it was, whatever it had once been—it was born in the dark, bred in pain, sharpened by orders and obedience. Hydra’s hands were all over it. You felt it every time he looked at you too long. Every time he brushed your arm and you flinched.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. And he was too deep in his guilt to see it.

He was helping you because he had to. Because he’d hurt you. Because he'd bruised you in those white walls and watched handlers drag you by your hair. And this… this domesticity—it was the last bullet in his gun, a way to sleep at night.

So you stayed quiet. You stayed small. You tried not to think about the way he used to make you laugh just by cocking an eyebrow. You tried not to remember how you’d watch his reflection in puddles during missions, not because you were tracking him, but because you felt safer when you knew where he was.

That was all conditioning. It had to be.

It had to be.

────────────────────────

She sat at the window again. She always sat at the window.

Bucky stood in the kitchen, palms braced against the counter. The coffee machine groaned, spitting out something bitter. He didn’t look at it. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

Her profile was the same. Sharp. Still. But her shoulders—he remembered them being straighter. Her spine taller. Now they curled inward, like she was trying to fold herself into nothing. And it gutted him.

She hadn’t smiled in weeks. Not the way she used to. Not with that smart-ass grin that used to crinkle her nose and make the whole damn camp warmer. Back in the barracks, before the frost, she used to razz him about his hair. Called him “Sargeant Shampoo” once. He’d laughed so hard he dropped his tray.

That was real. It was. He knew it in his bones.

But she didn’t believe it. She thought he was helping her out of guilt. That their bond was a Hydra artifact. And Bucky could barely look at her without wanting to scream.

Because if that wasn’t real—if her laugh wasn’t real, if her hand in his wasn’t real, if the way she used to stay up for him when he came back from solo missions wasn’t real—then nothing was. Then he wasn’t real. Then everything he'd clung to in that white noise void of the Winter Soldier—every memory, every flicker of light—was a lie.

And goddammit, she wasn’t a lie.

She was the reason he didn’t put a bullet in his own head when the voices got too loud. She was the reason he hesitated in ‘89. The only one who ever fought him like an equal, and the only one who made him feel like he was more than just a loaded weapon.

She thought this was guilt.

Bucky had been guilty a long time. That was nothing new. He could live with guilt. What he couldn’t live with was this—this chasm between them, this damn wall she kept her heart behind. Like he was just another ghost from the operating table.

He closed the distance between them slowly, cautiously. She didn’t look up. Just stared at the sky, as if she was waiting for the war to start again.

“I know what you think this is,” he said finally, voice low. “You think I brought you here because I feel sorry. Because I’m trying to make up for what I did.”

She didn’t say anything.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” he continued. “I remember you. Not just in Hydra. Before. You—”

His voice cracked.

“You used to make fun of how I tied my boots. You once saved our whole squad by yourself. You—You were kind. Brave. And we were real.”

That made her flinch. He saw it in the way her fingers curled.

“I never hurt you because I wanted to,” he said. “I hurt you because I wasn’t me.”

She looked at him then. Her eyes were glassy, but not soft.

“And what if I’m not me?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t have an answer.

He watched her rise, walk toward the bathroom, close the door without a word. He could hear the faucet turn on, even though she never washed her face until after dark. He stared at that closed door for a long time.

And somewhere in his chest, something cracked.

────────────────────────

“This isn’t working,” you said, voice low, raw.

You stood in the middle of the living room, your arms wrapped around yourself as if you were trying to hold your own ribs in place. The quiet stretched, thick and suffocating, like it had weight. Bucky stood across from you, like always—close, but never quite close enough to make it feel real again.

He blinked, as if trying to make sense of the words. As if you’d just spoken in a language he forgot how to understand.

“What do you mean?” he asked, but he already knew.

You didn’t look up at him when you said, “I don’t think we should be around each other anymore.”

The silence after that was devastating. You didn’t mean for it to sound like a kill shot, but it landed that way anyway. He staggered where he stood, barely, but you saw it. Like your words had stabbed him clean through and now he had to pretend it didn’t hurt.

His breath hitched. His jaw clenched. “We can still try,” he said, desperate, his voice cracking like splintered ice. “We’ve come this far. Don’t walk away now. Please.”

Your heart fractured. You wanted so badly to feel what he felt, to be what he needed, to believe this could still be something salvageable. But every moment you were around him, it was like being underwater—your body drowning in silence, your mind screaming against the weight of ghosts.

“I don’t know how to be around you without... without being afraid,” you whispered. “Of myself. Of what this is. Of what it means.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Bucky said quickly, eyes wide with something that looked like grief. “You never were.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” you corrected softly. “I’m afraid with you. I don’t know how to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep waiting for the white walls to come back. For someone to scream an order. For the part of me that was me to vanish again.”

His mouth opened, but no words came.

You looked defeated. Not angry. Not cruel. Just tired—of yourself, of this world, of the weight you both carried. The kind of tired that lives in the bones.

Bucky took one small step forward. Then another.

“Just stay,” he begged, broken. “I’ll be better. I’ll—”

You shook your head. “It’s not you.”

He stopped.

“It’s what’s left of me.”

And then—because you didn’t want to leave him without at least one last thing—you opened your arms.

You let him touch you.

His hands trembled as they slipped around you, pulling you in like you were something sacred, something breakable. Your arms went around his neck, slow, unsure. His chin rested against your temple. Your heart raced and calmed at the same time, a contradiction of longing and fear.

You stayed like that longer than you should have. And when you finally moved to pull away, his hands reflexively tightened around your back. You stilled at the pressure—not rough, not painful, just… desperate.

A sad, shuddering sigh left your lips as you rested your forehead against his collarbone. You let him hold you a little longer.

Then, when you pulled away enough to meet his eyes, you looked at him like you were looking through time. As if you saw the boy from the barracks, not the broken man standing before you.

“I’m sorry,” you said, “that I couldn’t save you.”

Bucky’s eyes welled with tears, his throat working around something he couldn’t speak.

“I promised I would,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “Back when they took us. I swore I’d get us both out. And I didn’t.”

His hands loosened. Just slightly.

“I’m also sorry,” you said, voice trembling now, “that I don’t know how to be okay.”

You leaned in, pressing a single kiss to his cheek—a soft, lingering goodbye that clung to him like a fingerprint burned in time.

When you stepped back, his arms dropped, slowly, as if his body refused to let you go even though his mind knew you were already gone.

And Bucky—he didn’t cry. He just stood there.

Frozen.

Watching you walk toward the door like he’d watched so many things slip through his fingers. Like he had all the strength in the world but none of it could stop the fact that this time, he was losing you not to Hydra, not to death—but to your own will. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

You left him standing in the center of that apartment. Alone. Still reaching.

Still waiting.

Still loving you like it might make a difference.

Welp, if you've actually reached the end and want to read something that will make you feel better, I recommend, Come Home To Me

also:

[doberbutts]

See the thing is that I do really like fantasy and as a result I am so very aware that fantasy as a genre has been white dudes' playground for a very long time. And as a result even entries that I find incredibly engaging in other ways tend to fall desperately flat in terms of racial diversity, and so I am usually happy to snap up whatever I can get.

But.. it is also quite noticeable, these days, when there are no black people present. I have been (slowly) working my way back through Children of Morta which I very much have been enjoying. And, there sure are people of color in the various NPCs that need rescuing. But the family in itself? Is entirely white.

Now I can forgive it a little when it comes to being a family thing if only because as a mixed race individual I am so very much aware that people will not think about the possibility of a mixed race family unless they are forced to or unless they themselves are mixed race. So the mom, dad, and three children plus the grandma and uncle? Yeah sure fine whatever.

But then we're joined by the uncle's estranged son who is a hulking giant. And then we're joined by a "tribal woman" shortly after. And, you know, I understand hesitating to have either of those be people of color due to then falling into some pretty fraught stereotypes... but then my next thought is that you could have avoided fraught stereotypes being your only POC depictions by simply having the family... be people of color.

This is furthered by the devs stating that the Bergsons have a "non-specific ethnicity". That is all well and good. But why does opting out of stating ethnicity always look so... pale? If you mixed every single person in every single country in the entire world all together, the majority of what you would find are various shades of brown, not white. It is really very few countries that your average person is so specifically a peachy color, and those countries have very specific ethnicities as the dominant group.

This is especially true when other characters are not pale skinned- but they are (largely voiceless, as the unseen Narrator voices all of their lines) NPCs that exist only to either sell you things, be saved from oncoming doom and destruction in the form of various brutal monsters, or enemies in their own way especially in the incredibly sandy and Agrabah-ish levels which is its own problem.

Which means there was an active choice to make the playable good guys only family characters white, when the rest of the world is so varied in color, and when there are enemies who are decidedly less so. And saying that they have "no specific ethnicity" does not fly when ethnicity is clearly depicted elsewhere within the story.

I have to be clear that I do really like this game, and that it is a visually stunning masterpiece with a wonderful story, and I'm enjoying the journey.

But it is something that I notice whenever it comes up, game after game after game. At some point, it gets exhausting. This family could be black, and there would genuinely be no difference in any of these characters. So why make the choice for their non-specific ethnicity to still be a white one? Why continue to make white the default?

[dalishious]

Everything Known about Shadow Dragon Rook

A collection of canon information about Rook, when choosing the Shadow Dragon faction/background.

(I will add more if more comes up.)

Rook was adopted by a military commander, who found them as a baby on a battlefield near Ventus, after a skirmish. If Rook is non-human, they were kept home a lot growing up.

Varric asked the Shadow Dragons for help freeing an old friend - a dignitary who was captured by Venatori - in the city of Nessus. Rook believed the safe plan created by the Shadow Dragons would not work, and decided to go off the book and stage a rescue attempt themself, with the help of Varric. Rook successfully led an armed rebellion of freed slaves and rescued the dignitary too. However, the magisters cracked down hard in retaliation, and the Shadow Dragons decided it was best for Rook to stay underground for a while.

About six months prior to the game, The Viper reached out to Rook via letter, suggesting that an alliance with Varric would be beneficial to the Shadow Dragons.

Rook has worked with Tarquin and the Viper before. Additionally, Neve knew of Rook's work in Nessus, though prior to the game they never formally met.

Rook watched Maevaris Tilani argue against slavery in the Magisterium prior to Mae's removal.

Rook is wanted by the authorities for numerous offences, including theft, murder, and destruction of property.

Rook's father is likely Legatus Charon Mercar. [X]

-----

SOURCES:

Character creation faction description

Dialogue with Rook unpacking their belongings

Dialogue with Varric about why he recruited Rook

Dialogue with Solas about why he should work with Rook

Dialogue with Maevaris about her past as a Magister

Dialogue with the First Warden about Rook's reputation

Codex entry: A Letter Dated Six Months Ago

Codex entry: The Soporati

[kleinywest]

Enhance Safety with Professional Penetrant Inspection Services

Protect your equipment and components with MyNDT’s professional Penetrant Inspection. Our non-destructive testing method efficiently identifies surface defects, such as cracks and leaks, in non-porous materials. Trust our certified technicians to provide clear, accurate results that help you stay ahead of potential failures.

[ashrayus]

PLSSSS MORE FANFIC RECOMMENDATIONS OF JASON TODDDD!

DUDEE!!!! really happy u asked but also omg this got long agaiN who would have thought (!) i added summaries this time tho :)

here is part one of my fic recs XD

andd heres the new ones!! pls give them some love if u read them :D

Dick and Jason:

how lonely to be something that nothing wants to kill by sunlitlemonade

There were blood drops dripping down his fingers to the ground. The puddle was big enough for it to have spread around more than half the tub. His breaths shuddered, they were shallow and waning. But he was breathing and Dick’s world centered around that.

starting strong with Angst go read all of sun’s fics i always die and get revived <333 pls mind the tags on this one

cast on/cast off by hellsreluctantheir

“This is surprisingly non-destructive for Jason,” Dick comments, lightly. In the parking lot, Jason pulls a grenade out of one of his pockets, yanks the pin, and tosses it through the roller door and out of sight, before tearing out of the parking lot in chase of the truck. “Well, for a minute there,” Dick amends. He takes a step back towards the alley the batmobile is parked in, giving Bruce a quick glance. “We following? “No,” Bruce says, as the grenade goes off. “He’s cleared the warehouse. We can get into the office.” Dick sighs again. But Jason knows he can call in if he needs help.

time loop!!! read most of this writer's fics and fell in love with them all,, go read fr

bloodstained by hellsreluctantheir

“I know where the clinic is, asshole,” Jason said. The wad of gauze he was using to keep pressure kept slipping against his shoulder. The knife had caught the space between two panels, split to allow movement. Lucky shot. “Ok, let me make sure you get there without passing out from blood loss,” Dick said, a deliberate evenness to his tone, like he was doing his best to accomodate someone who was being completely unreasonable. Shithead. “I’m not going to pass out,” Jason said, ignoring the fact that he was actually feeling pretty unsteady on his feet. He caught himself with his good shoulder on the entry to the bathroom, took a deep breath. “What would Daddy Bats think if he knew you were here, trying to help me?” “I assume something like, ‘Wow, Dick, you’re such a good brother, trying so hard to make sure Jason is ok even when he’s being a complete idiot about it,’” Dick sniped.

heres another one from them. jasons scars and dick. andd another one next

brothers in arms by hellsreluctantheir

It wasn’t like none of them went undercover. Jason practically lived there. And he’d punch anyone who tried to make it a sob story for him, to cluck over the times he’d been alone in a pit of vipers, act like it was some tragedy. But given half a minute to think about it, Dick somewhere completely cut off from everyone but Bruce, no allies on hand, surrounded by enemies. Angry as he was at the lie, there was something about that he just fucking hated. or Thinking your brother is dead and then finding out he's been alive the whole time really has a way of making you rethink the relationship.

Shelter by Ptelea

Two safe houses, two nights dealing with the aftermath of fear toxin, multiple conversations, several meals. Written for Sholio's September 2020 Comfort Fest for a prompt from Musesfool. Warning-wise, there's nothing graphic here but there are definitely references to past canon trauma for both the characters.

the way they are written here <33

Rotten Fruits by couldyoublameme

“I’m fine,” Dick assured gently, sitting up slightly. “Just a bad night, is all.” It’s a familiar phrase he has used so often. Whenever the addiction crawls back into his mind, a parasite he can never truly get rid of. The family knows what it means. Knows what the ‘bad’ is. Knows what to do. “Oh,” Jason says. “Why?”

absolutely murdered me. pls do mind the tags

You Can Do Better Than That by AlexaAffect

All Jason could hear was his own ragged breathing. He desperately gasped for air, each breath more exhausting than the last and his lungs and throat burned with the effort. In. And, he needed a second longer with every breath he took, out. His arms had been suspended for the last… 15? minutes? Jason had quit keeping track of the time, he’d been too preoccupied trying to hold himself upright, trying to ease his position, switch it up, anything to prolong the guaranteed death. “Red Hood?” That was Dick’s voice. Huh. So they had found him fast enough. Or alternatively; Dick finds a kidnapped Jason shortly before he asphyxiates.

this fic is just oddly comforting to me idk. very precious

Equivalent Exchange by Lysical

Apparently favors don't expire on death. --"What do you want, Dick?" "For you to be happy, Jay." Dick leaned over and pinched his cheek. Jason reached up and swiped at him, scowling. "And world peace."

ADORABLE and fun

Just for Now by Lysical

Jason was back in Gotham and the timing couldn't be worse for him to need assistance on a case. He didn't want to see any of the Bats and he was sure the feeling was mutual. Nightwing was the worst option for Oracle to pick to help him out.

To Reconcile by CasualDanger

“Babs slapped me at your funeral.” Jason goes to laugh, but it’s just a cough and his mouth barely even twitches up. “She hated me in that moment. I mean, really, really hated me, like I did Talia after I found out Damian had died. And I wondered,” his voice cracks, eyes glassy now, “did you hate anyone when I was gone? Because I was gone?”

he ain't heavy, he's my brother by someplacewarm

Dick's been putting off meeting with Jason for a while now, but when a distress call comes through, he has no choice but to answer. Or the one where Dick and Jason talk, fight, get high and cuddle. In that order.

making gold out of it by vmkhoney

Dick talks himself back down on the bathroom floor, clinical and detached. (For someone whose primary skill is manipulating his body, it’s not very often that he feels connected to it.) - Or, five years after Blockbuster, Dick begins teetering on the ledge of processing what Catalina did to him.

a wonderful dick grayson fic, and jason is there being a good brother. mind the tags

What Hurts You by blueyeti

Dick comes to Jason's aid when he's injured in a fight, or at least he thinks he has.

jason has no scars!! and thats also sad

at me, too, someone is looking by bacondoughnut

Dick Grayson knows he's got problems when the Red Hood's busted leg somehow becomes his concern. aka; How Dick Grayson finds out Jason Todd is alive. A story about healing.

a rather long one for my standards XD (very short attention span) but this made me sit down and read. very fun jason

Bruce and Jason:

Saltwater and Desperation by bacondoughnut

Jason's not sure how he even manages to get himself out of the harbor. He's just glad Bruce is there when he does. Not that he'll ever, ever admit as much out loud.

same writer, love this jason (and bruce) so much

Insomnolence by navree

It's not like he slept much as a kid anyway; this is just a return to the status quo. He's not overly tired, and even if he's been sleeping less than his already limited amount throughout April, that's still not any of her business. Bad memories are already bad enough even before they spend the next few years in the aftermath becoming nightmares.

navree being The bruce and jason writer for me all of their fics are so o(- (

Ash Into The Wind by navree

This is his dad in there, the first man he ever called Dad, at any rate, and even after everything, booze and jail and Bruce and death and then death again, there's never going to be a part of Jason that isn't gutted that he's dead. One night, a wraith in a red helmet slips onto the grounds of Blackgate Penitentiary to steal one specific thing.

another one from them

Trapped by lurkinglurkerwholurks

BatFam Week 2018, Day Two. Prompt: Trapped Yes, the prompt is "trapped" and it's a Jason fic. I'm so, so sorry. (Not really, though.) Please see tags for potential triggers.

binge read this writers fics recently they write them so nice

Overcoming Our Antecedents by Batbirdies

Bruce swallows, closing his eyes for a brief moment before he takes another, steadying breath and presses both hands to his face. He just needs a moment. Needs to remember where he is, what year it is, that Jason is not actually fifteen, he only looks like he is. This is temporary. This is just a temporary problem that needs to be contained until they can change Jason back. This is not a repeat of events already passed. This is not a second chance.

Jason and Batfam:

Names and Neapolitan by Muddell

“Goddamnnit Robin,” Hood is there, pulling him into his arms. Robin sees that helmet, he sees the green eyes, the dark hair, he sees open, gray, Gotham sky, and hears tires squealing, and then he sees stone. He sees the cave. Bruce is there. Alfred is there. Dick is there. And Hood is there. Robin rolls in and out of consciousness. He reaches out, snatches the smell of copper and the touch of leather, and he holds Hood’s hand and he does not let go. He’s allowed to say it now. “Jason,” he says. “Don’t leave.” Or, following Dick telling Tim about his older brother, to Tim actually knowing him.

read a couple fics from this writer all so good!!!

Six Ways to Sunday by Muddell

Jason catches Duke hiding a headache and says, is anyone going to deal with that?

same writer!! really love their jason

Settle Down and Sleep by OberonBronze

A series of vignettes about seeking comfort. Damian tries his hand at being a comfort animal; Tim shows up at Jason’s place for an impromptu sleepover; Jason bonds with his older brother after a damaging fear toxin trip; Dick and Bruce have a long-overdue conversation.

really liked jason and dick in this :)

Tuck Me In by OberonBronze

Bruce Wayne and his long-standing habit of tucking his kids into bed.

think how great it is to fall asleep (and how terrible it is to wake up) by mikkal

Jason was fifteen, barely five foot, and underweight for his age when he died. When he came back to his body, suddenly he was too tall, too scarred, too much, too different. And he just... never got used to it. (Or: 5 times a Bat noticed/discovered his body dysphoria post resurrection)

Stranger Danger by alchemistsarego, whumpinaheartbeat (alchemistsarego)

There was never one particular moment that Damian registered that he was losing consciousness. Everything simply flashed from one thing to the next, even though some part of him understood that time had been passing in between. He had been sitting upright, rolling his eyes at something someone had said, then he was on the ground being pinned by some unknowable weight. All at once the weight was gone again, replaced instead by something not only lighter, but much warmer too. A blanket? No, a jacket.

jason and others:

Past Experience by Rookblonkorules

He thinks he might be dying. Again.

clark and jason :)

Bats in the Belfry by endlessnepenthe

Hal idly wonders how long he has before he's found. Probably not very. The Bat's freaky like that. (Or, Hal goes to Gotham and discovers that Batman's brand of freaky isn't exactly one of a kind.)

jason and hal jordan??! and slade? and magic.

[merakiui]

angel/angler.

yandere!azul ashengrotto x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, nsfw, stalking, non-con, non-consensual photography, chikan/groping (train molestation), obsession, kidnapping/captivity, drugging, violence, blood, death (or is it??), azul's insecurities and low self-esteem, azul’s not-so-subtle breeding kink, implied disordered eating, reader's height isn't described, but it's written that azul is taller note - to obsess is to hunger like an angler from the deep sea. living his entire life in pitch-black solitude, entranced by an angel's halo; his only purpose is to find the body that will become his lifeline and, one day, his cemetery.

entry 1: 18 April, 20XX.

For anonymity’s sake, I’ve chosen to write using a vague pronoun. Additionally, this diary will be a record of my thoughts so that I can keep my mind and senses intact. In my youth, I was prone to terrible fits of self-destructive rage, and as a result they suggested I write my feelings down to prevent any outbursts. I’m not very physical towards others. Rather, it was the harm I posed to myself that fostered concern.

But this space isn’t for my own views on myself. It’s about someone else. 

I have a confession: I’ve fallen in love with you from the train, and I’ve been in love with you for the four months I’ve come to know you.

You wear perfectly pressed suits, heels of a modest height, tights, and pencil skirts that cut just at your knees. I want to touch you, but if I do you might stop wearing skirts altogether and then I’ll never see your legs again. I suppose trousers aren’t so unattractive. They’re appealing in their own right. Everything looks good on you, though. (Nothing would look even better.)

You work in an office building. I’m not sure which floor, but I’ll know soon enough. I wanted to follow you inside, but there’s a security guard in the lobby. He always greets you, and you always smile and chat with him. You’re a kind person, so I let this pass without incident. But I can’t lie to these pages and say it’s not troublesome when I watch his gaze linger longer than it needs to. 

I’d kill him, but then they’d employ a new guard and you’d make friends with him because you’re so kind. I don’t admire kind people. Rather, I find kindness to be a double-edged blade (Is that the correct phrasing? It’s different in my hometown. We say kindness is like pufferfish—harmless until it’s provoked and then it becomes poisonous). It’s not that I look down on kind people. I just think you shouldn’t be so quick to befriend the world in its entirety.

After plenty of observation, I’ve learned that you often leave your building to get lunch by yourself. This is what you’ve eaten in the week:

Monday - A salad at a popular café. Iced tea because it was a sunny day. A tiny cheesecake for dessert. It was blueberry.

Tuesday - A wrap of some kind. Chicken? Or was it vegetarian? Sweet potato fries. Water.

Wednesday - You didn’t leave your building. Were you at work today? 

Thursday - Another salad. Water. Same café. No tiny cheesecake.

Friday - You went to lunch with that guard. I only remember my irritation and so I’m afraid I can’t make note of your meal for today. He looks at you like an obsessed puppy waiting for its owner to give it attention. I want to pluck his eyes from his sockets so he’ll never look at you in that way again.

You lead a healthy lifestyle, but I can’t help wondering if you’re eating well. Did someone say something about your figure? I’ll eviscerate them for you and then they can see how much it hurts when unnecessary scrutiny is thrown around.

It’s quite late. I want to sleep, but thinking about you has my body wide-awake. I wonder if your mouth tastes like the moonlight shining in through my window. I wonder if your body is soft like mine… Of course it is. A silly, irrational thought. You’re much warmer than me. This is just a theory. I’ve yet to feel and confirm for myself. I will in the foreseeable future.

Before we part ways, I want you to know that I’m not very good at cooking. I’ve picked up a few books and hope to learn. I’m going to practice so that I can feed you better meals one day. Salads are the worst. Fried chicken is the true meal of heaven. I’m certain you would share this sentiment.

If I were to be condemned to a last meal like those serial killers on death row, I’d ask for fried chicken. Knowing you, you’re too good to kill anyone. In this hypothetical, supposing you’re a heinous criminal, your last meal would be something healthy. Do you even like those salads, or are you forcing yourself because you must? I understand calorie-counting well enough, but if there’s one thing to enjoy in life it should be food.

I suppose that makes me a hypocrite. I ought to take my own advice.

Oh. I’m starting to grip my pen with more force and the lines have become shaky. I usually break my writing utensils if my focus strays. I’ll stop here for today. Ink is a pain to clean.

AA.

The morning rush is your greatest enemy.

Jack Howl, the lobby’s security, has suggested giving you a ride on numerous occasions. “It’s part of the reason I got my license,” he explained once, “so that I can protect those who work in this building from the rush. Not like you have to accept my offer. It’s just…convenient for both of us. Again, I don’t care what you do.”

(He does. You see through his gruff surface.)

According to him, the morning and night rushes bring out the worst kinds of characters.

But isn’t that everywhere? you think as you peer out the window, watching the city come into clarity.

Like every morning, the train car is more crowded than a sardine tin. You’re used to being pressed up against other commuters, pinned to the window or between people. You’re flattered to know someone’s concerned, but nothing has happened yet. And why would it? It’s bright outside. No one would dare do something during the day. At least, not in a crowded area where anyone could see and hear.

I wonder what I should have for dinner. I still need to go shopping. My fridge is way too empty, you think, sighing. And I need to follow up with that one author. They’ve yet to get back to me about my edits. Perhaps we should meet in the office instead of through video call… And I also need to finalize that other style sheet after the last round of editing. And then another conference… There was something else. Was I scheduled to have lunch with an author? Or was that next week? I should check before—

The train shudders as it slides into the station. Someone brushes against you from behind. Their hand is pressed against the window just near your head. They steady themselves, their body so close to yours you can hear their staggered breathing.

“Ah. S-Sorry…”

It’s next week, right? I really should check once I get to my stop. This is going to eat me alive all day.

“Mhm,” you hum, waving dismissively.

The stranger standing behind you peels his hand away from the window. A sweaty palm print is left in its wake.

“We will be approaching the next stop shortly.”

Just one more and you’ll be getting off.

A pair of bright eyes blinks back at you in the reflection, watching the city just as you are.

entry 5: 22 April, 20XX.

I’m not a social person by any means. If I can avoid crowds, I usually do. An introvert’s paradise is best spent in the comfort of their own room, after all. But if you prefer outdoor dates I can become extroverted for your sake. There are lots of things I’m willing to do for your sake.

Which is why I’ve forced myself to tolerate the train. I loathe it. It’s cramped and uncomfortable. Most days I’m not even near you, and so all I can do is stare longingly from afar. I content myself with imaginary scenarios like in the books you edit. I’ve mentioned it sparsely in this diary, but you’re a brilliant editor. Most of the novels you work on aren’t exactly my taste, but there’s something to appreciate about them. Reading through them knowing your very eyes pored over these pages dozens of times before publication… I admire your work. Immense time and effort goes into all professions, especially ones that involve meticulous touches. 

With this discussion of careers, you might wonder what I do for a living. I manage my own restaurant chain off-site. It must be shocking news for you to realize: your secret admirer is actually quite successful.

If I’m not able to provide an adequate life—no, more than that. If I cannot drown you in all of life’s luxuries, I should sooner throw myself on the beach and let this soft, wriggling body of mine dry out than settle for the barest of minimums. You deserve only the finest.

In fact, I have a room in my home dedicated to you. A private office in which you can write and edit in peace. It’s furnished with everything you’d ever need. I hope to gift it to you one day.

Remote work is very relaxing. (You’ll know this once you try it here.) When you’re boss, you work your own schedule. That’s why I’m able to fit our secret meetings into my weekly itinerary.

Today’s meeting was quite fortuitous. I felt like I’d won the lottery. Mostly because I was finally given the opportunity to be close to you. So close, in fact, that you didn’t even notice when I slid my phone under your skirt to take a few photos. Your undergarments are unexpectedly plain. Truthfully, I’m somewhat disappointed. I was hoping to learn your lingerie preferences. At the very least, I know your tights are sheer enough to show me the color of your panties.

I consider myself a connoisseur of many things, and I’ve done enough interior decorating in my time to become well-accustomed to color palettes. A fool would say your panties are red, but they’re actually maroon.

That same fool wouldn’t take another breath after glimpsing such a private side of you.

If you must know, my dear, I am excessively avaricious when it comes to the things I like. I have always been this way. I am a collector. A hoarder of secrets. I refuse to let others touch or take the things that belong to me, especially when they are wholly undeserving…

I’ve broken another pen. Thankfully, the mess wasn’t so extreme. Not-so-thankfully, I’ve lost my train of thought.

Ah. Right. Trains.

Today I rode the train, and I was standing right behind you. You were looking out the window, lost in your thoughts, and so you didn’t notice me. You must have seen my reflection, but I wear a mask and a hooded sweatshirt when I go outside. Perhaps it’s a touch embarrassing to admit, but I am very self-conscious of the way I look. Firstly, my eyes are too tired. I’ve read that many people are not fond of eyes with dark circles under them. Secondly, my face is average—unworthy of your love by my lofty standards. My hair never cooperates. My smiles never fit properly. My skin is too pale. My eyes are too blue and my pupils are abnormal. My weight is just a few kilograms above the average. I will work hard to bring it back down for your sake and for my own so that it won’t show. I prefer a slim waist, so I must stomach all manner of healthy foods for the weekend. What a pity… Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could eat whatever you wanted without having to worry about caloric intake and numbers on a scale?

That aside, there are times in which my glasses sit crooked on my face and it’s a horrifying thought to imagine I walk around looking like that! As if I’ve rolled right out of bed with no regard for my appearance whatsoever!

Perhaps the both of us share one similarity. We are vain creatures who care too much about how we present ourselves to others.

Thus, I conceal myself so that you won’t judge me harshly should you look upon me. Not like you’d do that. You were so immersed in your head that you hardly paid any attention to your surroundings. You should be more careful. What if something were to happen and I wasn’t there to protect you?

The train stuttered to a halt at the first stop, and some fool bumped into me. I should thank them because I got to brush against you. You gasped softly. I watched your breath fog the window. I placed my hand just above your head and apologized softly, and you weren’t bothered in the slightest. Oh, how I envy your carefree nature.

As a result of that stranger’s mishap, I’ve learned something new. You wear perfume. Even with my mask, I could smell it. Strong and flowery, overwhelmingly sweet. Maybe you prefer these scents? I’m more partial to mature scents, but I admit there’s a certain charm to the scents you wear. I wish I knew the exact brand. There are dozens of perfumes with the same notes as the ones I picked up, but none can compare to the one you use. I want to be able to hold the bottle knowing it’s your favorite.

I’ve prattled enough. With the length of my entries, you’d assume I was this chatty beyond the page. I’m not. I only say as much as I think is necessary.

Once again, I’m having trouble falling asleep. I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m looking through the photos I snapped and the outline of your lips against your panties is lovely. I’m sure you’re just as soft and sweet inside as you are on the outside. If only I could experience it right now. My hand can’t replicate the softness or the wetness or the way you’ll probably clamp down when we finally make love.

I can only fantasize for now. What a pain. 

AA.

“It’s going to rain today,” Jack tells you the minute you step through the lift doors into the lobby. He stands straight like a soldier, his shoulders squared and features set into something serious.

“Looks like it, huh?” You glance at the darkening sky outside, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Hopefully it rains after I get home. I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“I’ll drive you.” He falls into step beside you. “It’s dark out and the station is—”

“It’s only five minutes away. I’ll be fine. I take this way all the time.”

Jack’s lip twitches into a grim frown. The beginnings of a sharp, pearly-white canine flashes at you as his mouth curls. “Fine,” he concedes with a huff. Awkwardly, he scratches the back of his neck and looks elsewhere. “Do what you want. I’m not forcing you or anything.”

You smile at him. “You’re very considerate, Jack. I appreciate the concern.”

He’s like a puppy. It’s really sweet.

“W-Wha—who said anything about concern?” His face is growing warmer by the second, thawing his external ice.

“I’ll be okay. It’s not even that dark out either.”

“Still…” He sighs and cards his hand through his hair. “You haven’t noticed anything weird lately, have you?”

“Anything weird?” You furrow your brows, suddenly confused.

“On your way home. Nothing out of the ordinary? It’s the same every day?”

“Mostly, yeah. Why? Did something happen?”

“No. Just wondering…” Jack looks past you then, searching for something you can’t seem to see. “You sure you don’t want a ride? I can walk you to the station. Protect you if anything or anyone—”

You force yourself to laugh. “Come on. You’re trying to scare me on purpose. This is because I told you I’m editing a horror novel, isn’t it?”

Jack doesn’t share in your humor. Instead, his frown tightens on his face.

“While I’m grateful you want to help, I really don’t want to put that on you. It’s not your job to chauffeur me around. I’d feel bad if I made you do that. So thank you, but I’ll have to decline.”

You turn swiftly on your heel before he can protest, striding out the door into the gloomy night.

When is it going to be summer? It’s way too chilly.

You burrow into your jacket as you beeline for the station. A brisk breeze blows through busy city streets. Even though there are still people out and about, it feels strangely desolate.

Jack’s heart was in the right place, but did he really have to phrase it like that? 

You wrap your arms around yourself and hurry along. Your steps are in time with your pounding heart. A cold sweat beads along your forehead. 

Relax. It’s nothing to get worked up over. I’m fine.

Crunch.

You whirl around, clutching your bag between your arms. There’s no one in sight. The city seems eerily quiet tonight.

Stop scaring yourself. Nothing’s there.

No, it’s not something that could make that sound—a noise akin to a footstep. That belongs to someone.

Is someone following you?

You aren’t going to wait around and find out. Now you’re jogging the rest of the way, your heels clicking against the pavement. Your breath comes in shaky heaves, and by the time you finally step into the station’s blinding fluorescents, adrenaline still vibrating through your veins, you notice the time.

My train—it’s already here! Thank you. Oh, thank you so much!

You rush through the station in a flurry, and the relief is tangible once you’re safe and sound inside the train car. You squirm through the throng of late-night commuters towards the window.

“Sorry. Excuse me. Pardon me,” you murmur as you navigate the crowded space.

You make it to the window just as the doors slide shut. Moments later, the train squeaks into motion.

I worked up such a sweat. I can’t believe I got so frazzled over something as small as a snapped twig…or whatever that was. It wasn’t a footstep. And if it was, it was probably my own.

You shake your head at your reflection.

Look at me, losing my mind all because I let someone’s words get to my head. 

The stranger standing behind you sighs alongside you. You’re about to turn around, but it’s their hands on your waist that stop you. Your blood freezes. Your spine goes rigid.

“Excuse me? Um… C-Can I help you?”

You gasp, horrified, as the hands creep higher until they’re wrapped around your chest. The stranger squeezes almost curiously. Their breath catches on an eager hitch. You peer helplessly at the window. Two blue eyes blink back.

“Wait… Hold on—”

“It’s okay.” A man’s voice. Sweet and silky-smooth. A reassuring whisper. Only you can hear it with this invasively close proximity. It might as well be a drop in the ocean that is the rickety din of the train on the rails. You reach to grab his arms, hoping to pry him off. “I’m not going to hurt you. As long as you’re quiet…”

“No, you can’t. Please, sir. S-Stop… Don’t touch there.” Your fingers curl around his wrists. You squirm against him, your brain blanking.

This can’t be happening… There’s just no way…

Something stiff prods at your ass from behind. You yelp softly when he rubs himself against you. You try to catch sight of his features when you crane your neck, but all you get is a faceful of a dark hoodie. He’s tall enough to block you from the other passengers, his body caging yours against the window. One hand slides away from your chest to slip under your skirt. He gropes at your inner thigh; his fingers draw dangerously close to private territory.

“Sir—”

He inhales a dreamy breath. “Perfect,” he babbles, his words muffled by his mask. “So perfect. Warm… And soft. Just as I thought.”

There’s nowhere for you to run. Nowhere to hide. You’re trapped here with this fiend until you get off at your stop.

“We will be approaching the stop shortly,” the woman on the intercom says, but it doesn’t give you the relief you’re after.

Three more stops and then you’ll be at yours. Three more. Three. Your stop might as well be years away.

Two fingers trace the outline of your pussy through your panties. You’re grateful you’re wearing tights.

His breathing is heavy. He’s mumbling filth in your ear. You hardly register it over the static in your brain.

Gross. So gross. Stop it. Please stop. I don’t want this.

A whine bubbles low in your throat when he presses down against your clit. He caresses you through the fabric of your panties. You slump against the window with your palms on the glass. Your heart is in your throat. You feel sick and dizzy. It’s too hot in here. Everything is spinning. Your heart is picking up its pace. Your hands are starting to shake. 

And there’s nowhere to go. No amount of begging will stop him. He’s all over you, pressed impossibly close—so close you think he’s trying to fuse his body to yours, becoming one mutual unit.

You want to scream, but you can’t find your voice. You can’t do anything. You can’t even think.

“Don’t be scared,” he murmurs, twining his fingers around your trembling ones. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Mmh, no… No—stop. P-Please, sir, please stop.” You shudder against him, and a choked, broken sob rattles through your ribs. 

He chuckles and squeezes your hand. His other circles your tender, sensitive clit, and the contact elicits a whimper from you. “Even though you’re making the cutest sounds? Aah, I wanna be inside you so badly… I’m sure it’s even softer there.”

You bite down on your bottom lip so hard that your teeth pierce the skin. A thin ribbon of blood dribbles down your chin. You refuse to give him that satisfaction. Even though your attempt to snuff your voice is successful, your body doesn’t seem to agree. It shakes in fear and arousal. When he presses against your panties next, he feels the growing damp spot. 

That’s just a natural reaction, right? I’m not actually aroused by this. There’s no way!

Just when you think he might pursue further, he pulls back. His hips are still flush to your ass. You can feel his cock straining against the fabric. It’s gross and demoralizing. You’re nothing but a doll for him to get off to. Less than a person.

The train glides to a halt and the doors open. People exit and enter in a busy fashion. You stare out the window at your blurred surroundings.

When the train eases back into motion, you realize tears are welling in your eyes. They don’t fall. Not yet.

It isn’t until you get off at your stop, sprint the rest of the way home, hurry up into your apartment, and lock the door that the horror of it all finally catches up to you. You collapse to your knees and wail like you’ve just lost something precious—something you’ll never be able to get back.

You’ve never felt more dirty before.

entry 36: 4 May, 20XX.

I did it. I finally did it.

My hand is shaking; I’m so happy. No, I’m more than happy. I’m absolutely overjoyed!

You don’t know this about me yet, but I’m terribly envious. I suppose that’s why I could muster the confidence to touch you and hold you… Your body is so soft against mine. Every inch of you is beautiful. I wish I could have felt beneath your shirt, lifted your bra to see your bare breasts in the window’s reflection. This is quite the shameless admission. Even I, despite admiring you for so long, am loath to admit it.

You mesmerize me. I’m already flustered just thinking about the way your hand fit in mine when I held it… And you were aroused! I was so close to such a precious area, and you were wet for me and only me. I feel so overwhelmed. It’s a dream come true. You’re such an angel. My angel.

My dear, darling angel, I’m sorry for startling you. That was the only way, you see, and certain circumstances led me to that point. You must understand.

To be unfiltered about it, it was annoying seeing that security guard pester you. I had the strongest urge to kill him, but that’s not something you can do on a whim. Murder is like running a business, in a way. One misstep, a bad investment or a sliver of evidence left behind, and it might spell the end.

That’s besides the point. It’s hardly worth the time. 

Regrettably, while on the train into the city, I noticed you were wearing trousers today. I was right. Last night was a once-in-a-lifetime event. A pity. Your legs in those sheer tights is a vision to behold. Luckily, I have enough pictures to satisfy the craving to see you in them. When you live with me, I’ll buy plenty of tights for you to wear around the house. That way you won’t have to worry if I rip them.

That aside, you’ve started looking over your shoulder more. You talked to that security guard longer than you normally do. It’s irritating. Quite frankly, it pisses me off.

I don’t want to be childish. I understand you’re stressed and nervous. Anyone would be. That’s normal. But I’m not going to hurt you. I even told you those exact words! I’m certain you would have calmed down if you could see my face. Unfortunately, I’m not very blessed in that department. I assure you my personality is far prettier…despite the ugly truths I’ve penned here.

But then those don’t matter when it comes to love. Even in love, couples are supposed to recognize and accept each other’s flaws. So it’s fine if I’m an ugly person. It’s fine if I’m a devil or something grotesque from the deepest trench in the sea. At least, in spite of such darkness, your halo will continue to light the way and I will always be lured in by your luminosity.

I can’t do much of anything right now and that has led me to feel increasingly itchy. I want to feel you again. Smell you. Touch you. I’d like to taste you next time. Part your legs or tear your skirt off and indulge in the space you keep hidden from me. I want to sink into your depths and know the shape of you just as you twist yourself to take the shape of me. 

It’s just not enough. I desire more of you. 

AA.

entry 40: 8 May, 20XX.

It’s been a few days. You haven’t taken the train since. Now you’re driven to and from work by that pest. I was overcome with such frustration yesterday that I slammed my hands down upon my desk and fractured my wrist. For the time being, until my wrist heals, I must wear this unsightly stabilizer-brace-thing and write carefully with my non-dominant hand. I like to consider myself ambidextrous, if only because it’s a talent I’m sure will impress you, as you seem to surround yourself with successful, talented people, but I must admit my lettering is rather…subpar.

It’s not as neat as I hoped it would be. Something to practice while my wrist heals, I suppose.

There’s only so much strain I can take, my angel. Are you really so afraid of me that you’ve chosen to rely on someone else to protect you? If it was funny, I’d laugh. But it’s not. It’s annoying. Must I chain you up by the throat so that you won’t run away? Must I cuff our wrists together so that neither of us can part ways? What must I do to ensure you’ll never leave me?

Every day I spend in solitude, you grow closer to everyone but me. It’s infuriating.

However, there are always silvers of hope to be found and exploited in misfortune. As a businessman, I know this well enough.

I can plan around this. I’ve taken a few photos of your house at every angle. It’s important to think ahead when making a calculated risk.

When you go to kidnap the love of your life, you must dress appropriately, no? Now should I wear a formal suit or something casual?

I have some time and plenty to look forward to.

AA.

Like always, early as usual, Jack is waiting for you below your apartment. You see his car from the window and light up at once.

It’s been two months since the incident on the train. Jack insisted you go to the police when you confided in him a week after the fact. But what could they do? A story isn’t evidence. Evidence is evidence. So to combat that, you’ve avoided public transport altogether. Jack drives you to and from work and anywhere else you need to go. You never knew him very well before this mess, and you regret not starting a friendship sooner. He’s everything you need right now: a friend, a listener, and someone you can trust and rely on.

Like always, he unlocks the door so you can put your things in the back. “It’s my turn to treat for lunch today, so let’s go somewhere you like.”

You shut the door and open the passenger side, sliding in seamlessly.

“There’s no need for that.”

Your heart skips. Your breath stumbles in your lungs. Your body tenses.

You finally look at the driver.

He’s wearing what appears to be an expensive collared shirt with a tie, but the top half is covered by the soft hoodie he’s thrown on over it. He has a mask like before, but there’s no denying his eyes. Bright and blue, deep and deceptive like the ocean, they blink back at you.

The door locks with a click.

You throw yourself at it in a useless effort to escape. The masked stranger seizes your wrist. You scream.

“There’s no need to be afraid. I-It’s only me! I won’t hurt you.” He tugs his mask down to his chin so that you can see the wobbly smile on his face. “Please don’t be scared…”

“Let go of me, you pervert!” You rip your arm free and reach for the door once more. “What the hell are you doing here?! W-Where’s Jack? Why are you—”

You choke around the rest of your words when he wraps his arms around you and yanks you over the seat towards him. You kick out like a deranged animal, breathing heavy and frantic, your eyes darting to and fro. The stranger manages to manhandle you into a chokehold despite the struggle. With his arm wrapped around your neck, he grabs a plastic water bottle with his free hand. Clumsily, he unscrews the cap and presses the lip of the bottle to your mouth.

“I’m sorry for being so rough, but I need you to drink this. Can you do that for me? Drink all of it.” As he says this, he tips the bottle and the strange liquid fills your mouth. You fight against his hold, doing everything you can to resist. He tightens his grip on you, dragging your body closer to his. “Swallow it, or I’ll slit your throat.”

Against your will, very shakily, you gulp down the solution. It tastes bitter and vile like medicine. A little salty.

“I didn’t want to frighten you, my angel, but this is the only way you’ll listen.” He swipes the tear threatening to spill from your eye. “You don’t have to cry. I’ll take you home and keep you safe. Just drink the rest of this and take a nap until we get there. That’s it. You’re almost done. I know it’s disgusting, but you have to drink it all, my love.”

“Why…” you sputter, coughing. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” He blinks at you as if the answer is obvious. “Because I love you.”

You can’t understand the logic there. You don’t want to.

Slumping against the seat, boneless and disturbed, you tremble when he leans over to buckle you in. And you continue to do so until you’re pulled into sleep. 

Two blue eyes follow you in your dreams, sticking to your body like old gum under a school desk. In sleep, you feel his hands on you—clinging and cloying like tentacles and the stench of brine, all-enveloping.

entry 179: 24 September, 20XX.

Summer is winding to a close. The last few vestiges of warmth are slipping away. Today’s weather was crisp. Autumn is approaching. 

It’s been a difficult few months. I’ve catalogued my process in the time you’ve spent with me, locked away in our bedroom. I must keep you chained to the bed for the time being. It’s long enough to lead into the bathroom. Until I can trust you, this is the arrangement at present.

They’re still searching for you, albeit not as frantically and frequently. I hope they assume you’ve met some grisly end so that I can finally shelve that anxiety and move on with my life. While I’m relieved it wasn’t as messy as I thought it’d be, I’m just a touch disheartened. I would have loved to watch the light fade from that guard’s eyes.

But that just wasn’t feasible or smart. Besides, what else am I to use my current fortune for, if not the props needed for that day? You call it kidnapping, and while that term is technically true I prefer something sweeter. A reunion of sorts. 

There’s nothing of note to discuss. You haven’t accepted your new home or me yet, so I will continue to wait. I can be patient. I must be if this relationship is going to work (and it will). 

I don’t particularly believe in soulmates. Rather, I find the concept to be foolish. Fate does not dictate an entire life. It is the decisions you make along the way that shape your paths. Just like in my favorite board game. I’d like to play it with you. Although I must admit I already know how our life goes. I have a few routes in mind.

You look at me with such scalding contempt when I imply we ought to start a family, and even though I’ve been victim to that look so many times it doesn’t burn any less. You just can’t see how good this is for you yet.

What else are we to do with our time if not use it to fill quiet halls with the pitter-patter of tiny feet? I have a few names in mind, but for now we’ll take it one day at a time. I’m a patient man despite my temper.

AA.

entry 257: 11 December, 20XX.

Exciting news! Though it may seem small, we’ve reached an understanding. Or so I suspect. You’re not so averse to me anymore. In fact, we take baths together, eat meals together, watch TV together, play board games together… There are so many things we do together as a couple and so, despite the encroaching winter frost, my days have become warmer! Just last night you allowed me to sleep beside you on our bed, and I held you close and you kissed me and I felt like the luckiest man alive.

Finally! Genuine progress!

I won’t delude myself and say that you may finally love me in the way I love you, but a start is a start. I admit I couldn’t help myself. I returned your kiss tenfold, all over your face, down the column of your throat to your collarbone. I was gentle and careful. I didn’t rush.

I like to play experienced in all fields, but even I can’t act perfectly. How should I describe our first time without all of the shameless vulgarity? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Sex is sex no matter how you try to embellish it. Filthy and imperfect, sweaty and sticky, more effort and exercise than I realized.

You pulled me in close, pursued my mouth with the same want in mine, and it was more cathartic than anything I’ve ever known. Oh, to be kissed by the love of your life! I wasn’t aware such joy existed.

You palmed me through my pajamas and told me you wanted a family—that the idea of raising a little one was perfectly charming. I admit it’s an alluring thought I’ve had long before you lived with me. I’ve always thought you would look very enchanting while pregnant. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands to myself. Even though it isn’t official yet, it doesn’t hurt to call myself your husband. In my mind and heart, we’re married. It may not seem so to you yet, but it will be.

Back to the matter at hand. Hearing that you wanted a child with me made me happy. I can’t remember if I cried. I must have because you pulled me in close and you, lying beneath me, wiped at my face and told me you wanted me to give you a child. And who am I if not the most doting, most benevolent husband? I’d do anything for you.

This must be what a predator feels when they tear into prey: a rapture so absolute and all-consuming that it covers their brain like a cotton shroud and renders every other action a hazy instinct.

It was a blur even though I was sure I moved slowly. Clothes weren’t exactly shucked. They were in the way and we had a singular goal, far too focused to remove them completely. Thus, they were pulled up, down, to the side, in whichever way provided easiest access. I closed my hands around your breasts and they feel so much softer without the obstruction of clothes.

Perhaps, rather than humans, we’re just anglerfish. Hungry for each other, using the other, a voracious relationship full of mutual benefits. If I could, I’d love to live inside you. I want nothing more than to press myself close enough to feel your heart beat alongside mine. To feel rushing blood. To turn myself inside-out just to satisfy you. Give you every little thing I can offer—brain and body—and we’d cleave through sunless waters as one, together forever.

The word ‘love’ is not large enough to truly encapsulate all that I feel for you.

My forehead pressed to yours. You kissed me once. I felt sloppy. I was sloppy. Inexperienced. We both are. Your hand wrapped around me. I told you it was okay, to do it at your own pace, to tell me if it hurts. But you kissed my every anxiety away, and in just a few strokes we were connected. Perhaps I died then and I’m still dead now.

Maybe I’m writing this from the moon or the deep, dark sea. Maybe all of this is just a long dream and I’m not even human. Maybe I’m the anglerfish stuck to your side, latched on with my sharp teeth, our lives forever intertwined. You taste of fruit and blood and every beautifully painful thing in this world.

For the first time in the many months we’ve lived together, you called me by my name. You gasped it as you curled your legs around my waist and clung to my chest, your arms draped over my neck, nails in my back. You chanted it like a song. I must have done the same with yours.

However, no amount of carnal euphoria can change the fact that I still have my reservations about unchaining you.

A deliberation for another day. It’s time to cook dinner. I’ve improved lots in the time we’ve known each other. You help around the kitchen as well. Harmless things like stirring batter or mixing a salad. I can’t trust you with actual food prep for reasons I’m sure are obvious and understandable. I try to create balanced meal plans. Now that I’m no longer eating alone and surviving off of misery, I want to show you that I’m both a great chef and a conscientious eater.

AA.

You watch the seasons shift outside the bedroom window and there’s nothing you can do.

You live life chained like a prisoner and there’s nothing you can do.

You eat off paper plates with the same utensils made for toddlers and there’s nothing you can do.

You let the same man whose touch was once so covetous pet you all over with his hands and mouth and there’s nothing you can do.

You’re stuck here forever and there’s nothing you can do.

There are highs higher than the clouds and then there are lows lower than the sea. You oscillate between these temperaments, a body thrown around on rocky waves. How you’ve yet to sink and drown for good, you’re not sure.

Today’s low has brought Azul to his knees. You stand over him, gripping the knife in a shaky hold. Chopped vegetables scatter in a rainbow on the floor. He had been chopping them so methodically, so wrapped up in pleasant conversation with you, that he hadn’t been expecting the retaliation. The blade is freshly sharpened. The perfect weapon. The perfect opportunity. Freedom just after this final hurdle.

Freedom that comes with its burdens—with a child and the law and the media and… And then what? A life of loneliness. A life spent working through mountains of trauma. A life in which you can never look at the train again.

Two blue eyes blink up at you. For the first time, Azul looks scared and weak—a small, pitiful thing. For the first time, you have him trapped beneath your thumb.

You want to bring the knife down and put an end to these cyclical days. You want to crush his spirits in the same way he crushed yours. You want him to know pain so brutal it rots him from the inside.

But you can’t. You want to and in an ideal scenario devoid of fear you would. But you can’t.

You dig your heel palms into your eyes and sob. “I can’t! I’m sorry. I… I can’t do it!”

Azul deflates with a deep sigh. “Oh… Oh, my angel, it’s all right. I forgive you. You’re just a little confused. A little emotional—I get it. We all have emotional moments. I’m not upset.”

“But I—I almost… I was going to—”

“You didn’t. You didn’t, my love, and that’s what matters.” 

He beckons you to his height; you lower to your knees. The knife is still clutched in your hands. He looks between it and you, as if weighing which is more dangerous. Volatile emotions or a blade. Maybe both.

Azul wraps his arms around you and rubs your back consolingly. “It’s okay. I’m not angry.”

You sniffle, but the tears won’t stop flowing. “Still… I almost did such a horrible thing to you. I could’ve hurt you—k-killed you!”

“My dear, it’s okay.” He kisses the top of your head, tucking you beneath his chin. “I forgive you.”

Your fingers tighten around the handle. “You do?”

“I do. I always will.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Angel—”

You turn the sharpened point inwards and slam it into his side, just below his rib. It pierces through soft flesh. You pull away just in time to see hurt and betrayal flash across his face, hot like the tears you’re now drying.

Shakily, his movements unsteady, he reaches for the handle. His fingers dance across it, assessing the reality of the situation. You stabbed him. You did it.

He hisses through his teeth when he tears it out. Blood spatters the kitchen floor in a brilliant, vermillion arc. Azul, knife in hand, staggers to his feet and lunges.

You stumble away in a blind panic. 

“How dare you…” He clutches his side with one hand while the other slashes through the air. You narrowly dodge before the knife can slice your arm. Blood seeps through Azul’s shirt, staining his palm red. His expression is twisted in a dark concoction of agony and anger. “I’ve shown you nothing but love and care… I’ve been nothing but patient. I’ve done everything! You were beginning to warm up to me—to this life—our life! I was wrong to trust you. Get back here—”

“You’re crazy! You assaulted me, kidnapped me, threatened me! Do you really think I’d love you after all of that?!” You yelp when his slick, blood-stained fingers wrap around your wrist to drag you down. “Stop! Let go of me!”

You elbow him in the ribs, which causes a shockwave of pain to travel through him, and it gives you enough time to wriggle free. Ripping your arm from his hold, you try to get away when he, aiming to subdue you, grabs hold of your ankle next. You feel the blade sink into your calf before you see it. A terrible cry frays your throat, torn from the depths of your chest like a flower pried from the soil.

“If I’m going to die…” He flops to his knees, wheezing. “If I’m going to die, you’ll die with me.”

“Like hell I will!” you hiss through your teeth, thrashing wildly.

Stupidly, you pull the knife from where it’s wedged in. Blood spurts from the wound, trickling down your leg in a thick, steady stream. You wince and limp towards the door. Closer… You’re almost there.

Azul reaches out with a bloodied hand, his expression utterly shattered. “Wait… Don’t go any further. Please… I need you. We need each other. My angel, my love, please don’t go!”

You tear your eyes away. He’s a monster. You’ll never sympathize with him.

Just before you can get to the front door, Azul picks himself up and wraps his arms around your waist. He pulls you down and your head hits the floor with a harsh smack. You see stars. The ceiling spins above you. You try to get up, crawl away, escape—whatever it takes to lose him—but he clings to your side, holding tight. His blood is warm and wet against your shirt. The pain in your calf is sparking up your leg, joining the ache at the back of your head in duet.

Pressed so closely, the flow of blood slows. Your shirt soaks up what the rest of his already drenched shirt can’t hold.

You watch the ceiling. The light looks like a halo; it shines brightly. Azul blinks up at you, hopelessly, sickly enthralled. The tip of the knife prods at your stomach. If it pierces, you don’t feel it. You’re sore all over. Bruises are already beginning to bloom.

At the bottom of the sea, clothed in frigid darkness, there is no sense of direction.

That’s the sweetest relief while you wade into unconsciousness with a parasitic angler.

[emiixuu]

# 🎀 the cat puppet and bunny doll

💌 pairing :: harbinger!scaramouche x doll!reader

🍬 genre & tropes :: drama, unhealthy & developing relationship and characters, devoted to you, destructive romance, first love, birds of a feather, not so different, a shared suffering, god x devotee, unreliable narrator, power dynamics & imbalance

🎆 status :: ongoing

🐰 author’s note :: some of these can be read as standalones and may be posted in non-chronological order

the life of Kunikuzushi and his doll gifted to him by Dottore

📝 entries

puppet’s beloved

blossoming devotion

gratitude to dedicated

N/A

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

[lazylattedgleam]

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LOST AMONG THE PAGES

(A Zayne x NONMC!Reader fic)

(Word count: 928)

(Credits: All images from the net. Except for the color editing and brush strokes and writing are made by me.)

(Credits: Pinterest)

*TW: Angst, maybe not well written, NON!MC Reader, Reader has Anemia, heavy blood loss during periods, fights, shouting, feeling of betrayal and heartbreak, shaking, crying, unrequited love.

*Index: Reader speeches are white, bold and italicised.

Zayne speeches are blue, bold and italicised.

MC speeches are pink, bold and italicised.

Others are white and just italicised.

Thoughts are written inside single inverted commas and italicised, sometimes struck through.

Texts and chats have ‘Indented’ font.

Calls have double inverted commas, white and italicised. They are differentiated from other speeches. (Except for main characters like MC and Zayne, they will follow their color code as mentioned earlier and italicised.)

Actions are written inside asterisks, white and bold.

Diary entries have ‘Chat’ font.

If you’re uncomfortable with the following genre or any of the trigger warnings, then please don’t read ahead.

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“Loving you was the most exquisite form of self destruction”

Memoir: Three-point-five.

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❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

You keep count of the nights that have passed by since that fateful night of your love’s demise…you don’t write in your diary anymore, you can’t, because whenever you open the pages the memories flash back, as if they were recorded with the help of a camcorder, plus you’ve lost the control over the narrative of your own life, left it dangling for Fate to snatch it up and weave it however she wants. Unlike you I don’t pause to use ellipsis after every statement, but I do once in a while, I’m nice so consider yourself lucky, it fell upon my hands, even Fate herself was too busy for you. Isn’t that pathetic?

Anyways I’m not here to judge nor advice in any way, I will just do my work assigned to me and continue…

Neither do you speak much to Raya or Yvonne much, except for the usual ‘Hi’ ‘Hellos’, that’s it, they know what had happened, they tried to comfort you but you’d just wave it off and leave, you don’t need pity…not anymore; and of course while attending to customers. As for Zayne and MC? You cut off ties with them. You’re silly, did he even give you the confirmation of closure that you decided to stop talking with him completely? I’ll never understand heartbreaks, why do you punish yourself for a cause that relies entirely upon the ways of the Universe? Did he try to talk to you? Maybe, you wouldn’t know cuz you never gave him a chance.

Often times you do forget to take your meds and supplies, you’ve become a ghost in your own life, drained entirely from your once cheery past, always drowsy, sleepy, exhausted, tired and fatigued. People are worried about you, but they don’t initiate since you never cooperate anymore. Periods are a bitch like always, although they’d become and felt tolerable when you were with him…look at your pathetic life, it’s even bringing tears to my eyes as I write…Nowadays all you feel like is as if you’re watching a movie, every action performed by you involuntary, your physical form is present yet your soul and presence of mind have long disappeared. All you are now is a spectator of your own narrative, you cannot rewrite it anymore, you don’t even want to.

Foolish you feeling like it’s the end when you have barely come halfway through life.

Everyday you’d buy a bouquet of Jasmines and cry into them at home for hours, you don’t ever throw them away even if they start to get bad. You have a picture of him locked up in your diary, often you think about it as you excuse yourself to the bathroom at work just to sob over and over again. Being a florist you know symbolisms of many flowers, it’s a part of your job too, so you always stay near the daffodils section during lunch, after all daffodils describe unrequited love, they are so yellow and delicate…yet you can see they’re broken from inside…You can’t help but weep at every other. The world has turned entirely monochromatic for you, you’ve lost the color from your life. Hey I’m only the narrator of your life, I can’t give them back, I can only write and write.

A few weeks back you saw them at the park bench sitting and talking…well MC mostly spoke, he was just listening to her intently. You stare from a distance, biting your tongue hard, as you see the look in his eyes for her, it was nothing you’d ever seen, it was as if he had his entire universe sitting beside him, smiling and talking to him, the reflection of that falling upon his eyes…did he ever miss you? He looked so bright, elated, happy, and holistic as if moulded in perfection with his true love…you’ve never witnessed this side of Zayne…how easy it was for her to completely infiltrating the garden you thought you’d once planted inside of his heart, on his soul for yourself, catering and watering it every day, taking care of it ever so gently and delicately, as if it was fragile glass, and build her own…oh who are you kidding? You never had a garden in there, all your flora had already on the day that you sowed the seeds…and her? She never had to build it, it was there from the start, it was natural, yours was artificial…

You still stare at them…they looked cosmic, as if the universe was meant for them. They were like hues and shades painted upon the canvas of life, blending and amalgamating perfectly with one another…too perfect that they had no fault, not even a tender scratch. You were a fool to have ever thought that you could’ve come in between this celestial pair. Oh how foolish you were to make him your temple, your mural, your sky.

In this world of Love and Deepspace…She was a Yellow Rose shining ever so brightly, her radiance charming anyone and everyone within her vicinity and beyond. She was the epitome of a kind, nice, beautiful and talented soul…He was a Jasmine, his love for her knew no bounds, it was pure…Their love was Lavender filled with devotion…You? You were his Yellow Tulip, hopelessly in love with someone who you could never attain even in a million lifetimes, for they were meant to be, in every lifetime that has ever been or is to come forth.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

(Credits: Pinterest)

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A/N: And that was that…Zayne x NON!MC Reader who has Anemia, thank you so much again and much love to @angelichiaro who had made this wonderful request! I had really so much fun writing it so thank you very much!!! <333

As for always, thank you everyone for checking out my posts…this is the first long chapter story I am doing, so Ik I’ve made mistakes, buuuut I hope you guys like it! Thank you everyone :D!

[anarcho-animism]

Anarcho-Animist Manifesto

I have been nurturing and sitting on this for a long time – it was first penned in 2021 and revised every so often since then. I’ve not posted it sooner out of the desire to make sure it stood the test of time for myself. I wrote it at 23, and now I am 26 and a very different (and more well-read) person…but the core of this manifesto remains strong and something that I am proud of. So I’m releasing it into the big wide world. Any updates or edits to wording past this point will (hopefully) be just spelling and grammer. In Love & Rage, Wolverine. Originally posted on Wordpress. “Anarchy is a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy.” Wikipedia entry on anarchy “Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words—as animated and alive” Wikipedia entry on anarchism

Anarcho-animism is the intersection of spirituality and eco-anarchism. It seeks to protect the environment for the environment’s sake. It recognises the world as a living, breathing, system. It abhors the abuse and destruction profit incentives cause.

Animism is the belief that all things – all beings, plants, rocks, animals, rivers, weather systems, the whole world – is animated and alive with a living soul. From me, to you, to a barking dog, to a field mouse, to a bird, to a lizard, to an ant, to the ground beneath us and the plants that give us oxygen: it all has its own unique soul.

Even if the animist concept of all beings and entities having souls does not ring true, all beings and entities have inherent worth and should be treated with care, kindness and respect. Just because we do not understand the language of plants and other beings, does not mean that language somehow doesn’t exist.

It rejects the idea of humans as the centre and paramount of existence. It embraces all experiences of the world across the diverse family of beings as important.

Reject capitalism

Anarcho-animism rejects an unnatural hierarchy of governing bodies within animist practice.

Anarcho-animism rejects capitalism and the state as they are the architects of ecocide (defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts” – theecologist.org).

All power gained by capitalists, states and their puppets is power that they have gained unjustly. They have exploited and continue to exploit the world and its inhabitants.

Anarcho-animism and capitalist consumerism cannot coexist. Capitalist consumerism demands no end to consumption of resources, products and more that is draining the world only to make the select few richer. It is endangering the lives of living beings everywhere, forcing them to work and live under cruel conditions.

It rejects petrochemical companies who have a stranglehold on the energy sector. It embraces sustainable and accessible living for all people and animals, the world over. It embraces the collected differences and seeks to make an accessible world where all can live in freedom and togetherness.

It rejects all borders, states, nations and invisible lines that divide beings on earth and sections land away. Anarcho-animism demands total freedom of movement for ALL, free of the states and nations that fueled capitalism.

Embrace spirituality and animism

Spiritual practice should not be commercialised. Every being should be free to adopt the traditions of their kin and the traditions of those that share with them. It should not be dependent on mass market goods.

Anarcho-animism recognises humans as intrinsic to nature. It explicitly rejects the separation of human and non-human animals as distinct categories & the ideological elevation of humans over all other living beings.

Even though it can be hard to break hierarchical styles of thinking, it is something that can always be worked towards and is an admirable goal for all beings.

Anarcho-animism recognises that everything in the world has a spirit/soul/essential essence tied to it, that cannot be revoked or infringed upon by anything or anyone without deep disrespect.

As an extension, the world is an interdependent web of living things, the environment and the earth’s spirit.

It is anti-racist, anti-fascist and embraces marginalised beings

Nature is inherently a place of diversity.

Anarcho-animism is anti racist and anti-fascist. There is no room for volkish neo-nazis in anarcho-animism. There is no room for eco-fascism, and those ideologies must not be allowed to flourish for they bring unspeakable harm to the most marginalised beings.

Anarcho-animism welcomes and celebrates queer & trans people.

It demands for the world’s colonised land to be returned to indigenous people with no conditions attached.

It demands land back to the public of countries and nations who face increasingly little access to the wild. Take the land from landowners that seek to exploit it for profit, make it free, let all beings roam again. Destroy the state.

Anarcho-animism respects the right to roam of all communities and beings. It stands in solidarity with Gypsy, Roma & Traveller communities against anti-trespass laws.

Care for the environment

Anarcho-animism embraces politics such as rewilding & indigenous land stewardship. It seeks to restore balance to depleted habitats, to allow all to flourish again. It supports the reintroduction of predator species such as the wolves in Yellowstone and the lynx in europe.

Anarcho-animism seeks to stop monocultures of crops eating up the land and draining the water away. Food forests and alternate gardening techniques will help all thrive. It embraces foraging, food for free, folk knowledge of edible plants and mushrooms, and sustainable hunting to feed communities.

Care for fellow beings

It abhors the treatment of beings under industrial meat production. All beings on the earth deserve a good death in whatever form it may come in. The meat industry does not give this mercy after a life of humiliation. All beings have an inherent spirit that deserves dignity and respect.

It seeks to remove the conditions that force other beings into traumatising slaughterhouse work – migrant status, economic status and “unemployability”. No being was made to work, especially under traumatising and unethical conditions.

Anarcho-animism rejoices in the inherent creativity of all the beings of the earth, and in the community found in creative pursuits. In dreams that all beings share.

It celebrates all beings’ milestones in life, it celebrates the seasons and the world changing in time with them.

It looks to nature for the purest form of joy – that found in play. In freedom to play, and learn, and grow, unfettered by capitalism, crushing expectations and the threat of working or death.

Care for the community

It places emphasis on community care and ritualised practices to mark cycles, celebrations, and seasons.

It places emphasis on the joy that exists as part of living, in building community with others by sharing good food, stories, art, love and most of all, it emphasises the joy found in connection with the rest of the living world.

It is a moral obligation to our fellow beings to build a world accessible to those with neurodivergence, sensitivities, disabilities of all types, to the elderly and the young, and for all of it to be done well and to the best of our abilities.

It recognises the interdependence of humans and the environment. Care for self, others and nature are all radical acts of love. It seeks to repair harm by centering those most hurt, and those most in need of healing. It looks to transformative and restorative justice, and imagines a world without punitive justice. There are no cops in nature.

[the-jesterhaj]

Hello, all you pathetic little creatures! My name is the jesterhaj, and I am here to end you all entertain!

When you require entertainment, just call me up!

I am an immortal being, so do not even try to pick a fight with me. You will lose, that's a grantee.

I am quite destructive kind, do not be afraid to chat with me, I am a very murderous welcoming person!

Mod is a minor, any weird comments will be ignored. Use they/it for mod (you may call me Dimentio or just mod), and they/it/he for jesterhaj

#jest lore - all posts containing Jesterhaj's lore (implied lore included)

Jesterhaj is non-binary, but is fine being referred to as whatever. It also doesn't have any family, and/or friends, and/or partners at the moment.

Jesterhaj's reference sheet

#jest stories - all writing related to Jesterhaj

#jesting around - Jesterhaj's in-universe creations (it's quite a creative shark! It writes, draws and even sews sometimes. Their diary entries will not be added to this tag.)

#jest diary - Jesterhaj's in-universe diary

More tags might be added to this list later on!

[kleinywest]

Revolutionizing Inspection Processes with Nondestructive Testing

Nondestructive Testing (NDT) has transformed how industries approach inspection and maintenance. At MyNDT, we specialize in delivering precise and reliable NDT services that minimize downtime and maximize efficiency. Delve into our range of NDT techniques, from advanced digital radiography to sophisticated ultrasonic testing.

[xlovleysunnyx]

BRUH THIS IS ACTUALLY HILARIOUS 😭

NO CAUSE GET THIS GET THIS

THE NIGHT KATE DIED

JOANNE STOLE HER LIBRARY KEYS

FEW DAYS LATER

BROKE INTO KATES HOUSE

TOOK HER NIECE

AND DROVE OFF

BROKE INTO A LIBRARY, SETTING A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE INFRONT OF RILEY (Who is most likely a minor)

GAVE HER A WALKIE TALKIE AND BASICALLY SAID

“Look, just investigate while I sit outside and smoke a cigarette- I I MEAN LOOK FOR COPS!”

LEFT RILEY IN A LIBRARY WITH HAUNTED TAPES NO ADULT SUPERVISION

AND DROVE OFF!

SHE PROBABLY SPENT THE HOURS SMOKING A CIGARETTE

NO CAUSE IF YOUR DOING SOMETHING NON ILLEGAL WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO WATCH POLICE SCANNERS!?!

LIKKEEE 😭😭😭!!!??!?

AND SHE LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE A CRIMINAL WHIEL DOING IT!?!

I KNOW ITS TO HIDE FROM HAMELN BUT..

THE MASK!??

THE COAT!??

SHE LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE CARTOON VILLAIN!!?!

AND THE FACT SHE NEVER TOOK OFF HER MASK WHILE DRIVING!?

SHE PROBABLY HIT LIKE 49 CARS!??

AND RILEY SLEPT THROUGH THAT!?!

I HONESTLY CANT 😭

NO CAUSE HERE ARE ALL THIS WOMANS CRIMES:

The Official Crime List of Joanne

Aka “The United States vs. Joanne”

🔑 

1. Breaking and Entering (Kate’s House)

She somehow got into Kate’s house without permission.

Theory: She either broke a window or stole the keys.

Entered a deceased woman’s home illegally.

Charge: Breaking and entering, trespassing, unlawful entry.

Sentence: 3 years and a restraining order from all attics.

🧒 

2. Kidnapping a Minor (Riley)

Took Riley without consent, without telling a guardian (and uh… Kate is DEAD).

Lured her into a car under false pretenses.

Did not inform authorities or relatives.

Riley is a Minor (Heavily Implied)

Charge: Kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child.

Sentence: Life in prison if convicted in Texas 💀

🚗 

🔓 

4. Breaking into the Public Library

Broke into a locked public building at night.

With a child.

Probably used stolen keys (Kate’s library access).

No alarm system? We don’t ask questions.

Charge: Burglary, illegal entry, destruction of property.

Sentence: 5 years, and community service shelving books for eternity.

📼 

5. Exposing a Minor to Demonic Possession

Left Riley with haunted, cursed VHS tapes.

Gave her zero context, no warnings, just “Hey sweetie have fun with this demonic cartoon :)”

No adult supervision. Just gave her a walkie talkie and dipped.

Charge: Reckless endangerment of a minor, exposure to harmful material, spiritual negligence.

Sentence: Exorcism followed by jail time.

🔥 

6. Arson (Alleged)

Kate’s house mysteriously burned down.

Joanne was coincidentally not present.

Likely framed it as an “accident.”

Sus behavior: had motive, opportunity, and zero alibi.

Charge: First-degree arson (if proven), destruction of property, covering up evidence.

Sentence: 25 years, plus Kate haunting her forever.

📻 

7. Gaslighting a Literal Child

Told Riley: “It was just an accident”

🧍‍♀️ Meanwhile, she lit the house with the flames of betrayal (Theory)

Constantly lies to Riley about what’s happening, uses her for her own investigation.

Doesn’t explain anything about Amanda, the tapes, or the stakes.

Charge: Emotional manipulation, psychological abuse, felony gaslightage.

Sentence: Therapy. Forever. And public shaming.

🚬 

8. Negligent Supervision

Leaves Riley alone in the haunted library

Goes outside to smoke while Riley is being traumatized

Probably eavesdropping for plot purposes, but from Riley’s perspective?

“Where tf is the adult??” 😭

Charge: Abandonment of a minor, criminal irresponsibility.

Sentence: Parenting rights revoked. Forever.

🎭 

9. Wearing a Mask in Highly Unsafe Situations

Wore her creepy mask while driving, investigating, and probably showering.

Unnecessarily ominous.

Scared Riley more than the haunted tapes.

Charge: Dramatic behavior in the first degree.

Sentence: Court-mandated face reveal.

🧾 Final Tally:

Breaking & Entering

Kidnapping

Reckless Driving / Child Endangerment

Burglary

Exposure to Cursed Media

Arson (Alleged)

Gaslighting

Negligent Supervision

Excessive Mask Use

BRO 💀

[1americanconservative]

@RepMattGaetz

The federal government should not be financing the destruction of its own country!

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profits serve as the foot soldiers for the Biden-Harris administration's mass-migration policies by helping illegal aliens cross the border and stay here for years after illegally.

This week, I led a coalition to introduce the Blocking Assistance and Resources to Restrict Illegal Entry and Residency Act, or the BARRIER Act, to cut off federal funding from the NGOs, non-profits, and other entities that help migrants illegally enter or reside in the U.S. READ MORE: https://foxnews.com/politics/gaetz-introduce-bill-cutting-off-federal-aid-groups-helping-illegal-immigrants-enter-u-s