#The sniper image kept haunting me and people kept sending it to me so I just succumbed to it and made scout a design too

[gingerale13]

VALENTINES DAY YAOI

[imaginetonyandbucky]

(Give Me A) Reason To Live

Chapter 2

by @dracusfyre

“Do you know where they are planning to take him?” James asked as he headed for the stairs up to his room. Tony started to follow him then realized that James was going to drop his towel to get dressed and after a moment of temptation, stayed at the bottom of the stairs instead.

“SHIELD facility in New York,” Tony called up, trying very hard to concentrate on anything except what his imagination was currently trying to show him regarding a naked James next to a bed.

“SHIELD SHIELD, or Hydra SHIELD?” James said from above, voice slightly muffled.

“SHIELD SHIELD, as far as I can tell,” Tony said. “Fury himself is taking the lead, for now. But there’s always the question of what will happen after he wakes up, and I’m sure Hydra will be trying to weasel themselves into those plans.”

“True.” James jogged back down the stairs, his shirt clinging to damp skin and hair pulled away from his face. “So what do you think? Intercept before or after he wakes up?”

“After, I think.” Tony led him downstairs to the lab, where James had his own computer setup. He sat down at it and powered it on while Tony fired up the fancy coffee machine in the back of the room. “I mean, we have no idea how to thaw out someone safely, and no equipment to do so if we did.”

“True.” James pulled up the Hydra files and read the message that had sent Tony racing up the stairs, then started searching for the exact location of the Valkyrie and the NY SHIELD office to start planning. After a few weeks of fits and starts due to poor communication, they had finally settled into a good division of labor: Tony dug through the files for appropriate targets and when he had them, James would come up with the actual plan of attack. “The exfil will be a lot easier if he’s awake.”

Tony nodded and silence reigned for a long time, broken only by the sound of keyboards and James occasionally making notes. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep at his desk until James shook him awake and herded him to bed. He’d been having a dream about Captain America, some fuzzy half-remembered thing where the man was scolding him for something, then he had turned into Tony’s father and sent Tony to his room. You didn’t have to be a shrink to pick up on that symbolism, Tony thought as he fell into bed.

“You should get undressed,” James said and Tony froze, suddenly wide awake as his heart hammered. Did he really…?

“What?” He managed, rolling over to look up at James.

Who raised an eyebrow and pointed to Tony’s feet. “You’re still wearing the shoes we went hiking in,” he pointed out, and Tony let his head fall back against the pillows as his face got hot.

“Right,” he mumbled, and toed them off to fall on the floor. James was still standing there, looking expectant, so with a put-upon sigh Tony sat up and started peeling off the rest of his clothes as well.

“This is going to change everything, isn’t it?” he said as James started to leave. “This thing with Cap?”

James hesitated at the door, the hand on the door frame gleaming in the dim light from the computers in the next room. “Get some sleep, Tony,” he said after a moment. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

There was that sick feeling again. Tony tossed his clothes in the corner and fell back into bed, and recited the digits of pi until he fell asleep.

                             ��                   ~~~~~

By the time Tony woke up and stumbled up the stairs, James was awake and thankfully already making breakfast. He shuffled up to the kitchen table and muttered a thanks as James slid a cup of coffee across the table. James knew better than to attempt conversation before Tony was ready, so they sat and ate in silence until Tony was finally awake enough to say, “Any news?”

“Nothing much. They needed special equipment to break through the ice without destabilizing the plane and sending it to the bottom of the ocean,” James said between bites of pancake.

“So we’ve got time?”

“Little bit.”

“Got a plan?”  At that, James tilted his head back and forth in an eh, sort of motion. “What do you need?”

“More intel.”

Tony just grunted and finished off his coffee. If James still had questions they would be ready and waiting for Tony downstairs, and since they had time, Tony needed at least one more cup of coffee before dealing with that. He pushed away from the table and put his plate in the dishwasher, then refilled his coffee and sat back down while James kept eating. This was another good system that they’d figured out over the past year; James ate twice as much as Tony, at least, to power that supersoldier metabolism, which worked out because by the time James was done eating, Tony was finished with his second cup of coffee and they were both ready to start the day.  “Hey, where’s he going to sleep?” Tony blurted out without thinking, then cringed. “Nevermind, that’s a stupid question.”

James just shrugged as he used his last bite to sop up some maple syrup. “Dunno. One of us will have to double bunk with someone, or take the couch, or get another mattress. Does it matter?”

“No, of course not.”

But James was eyeing him thoughtfully. “Is that what you meant? Last night?”

“Huh?”

“You said this was going to change everything.”

“Oh.” Tony looked down at his coffee cup to avoid James’ eyes. “I, uh, I meant we’re not going to be able to fly under the radar anymore, you know? After stealing Captain America out from under SHIELD and Hydra’s noses.”

“True.” As James picked up his plate and put it in the dishwasher as well, he said, “You should call him Steve. We’re rescuing Steve Rogers, not Captain America.”

Right. Of course. Like Tony could forget that James and Cap- Steve had a past. “Yeah, sure, sorry,” Tony muttered, taking a sip of coffee against the sour taste in his mouth. “I’ll head downstairs and get started on that intel.”

Once downstairs, he could see why James had left these questions to him. Questions like finding the building plans for the SHIELD facility and learning which personnel were going to be assigned to Steve were going to take some hacking to find out. Fortunately, when it came to SHIELD, Hydra was already infested in their systems, and Tony had a backdoor to Hydra, so by lunch time he was jogging back up the stairs to tell James what he’d found and almost tripped over a Barret MK22.

“Careful,” James said, sitting at the center of what looked like an explosion in a firearms factory. “I thought you’d be down there for longer.”

“Packing for the trip?” Tony asked, stepping carefully around the sniper rifle and picking his way through the rest of James’ collection towards the kitchen.

“Planning. Trying to figure out what we might need to pick up before we go.”

“I got that info for you, if that helps your planning.” Tony took one of the many frozen meals out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave. “Looks like they are keeping this information pretty close to the chest, which is good for us. Not going to be a lot of attention on him when it comes time to do our thing.” James only made an absent noise, clearly still lost in thought as he stared at a stack of C4, so for a while there was only the humming of the microwave until Tony got impatient and opened the door early. “I’ll be downstairs,” he told James as he grabbed a fork and gingerly picked up his molten hot lasagna.

“I’m coming,” James said, getting to his feet with a smooth, easy motion that made Tony feel every one of his years. Tony settled down in his computer chair as James stood behind him, leaving Tony with a prickling awareness of how close he was. Tony took a deep breath to steady himself and pulled up the report he’d slapped together. First was the building plan, and after it got James’ nod of approval Tony sent it to the jumbo printer because he knew that James liked to work off of hard copies. Next was a series of internal shield memos proposing a variety of plans for what to do when Steve woke up, and James snorted derisively as he read them. “Not a single one of these people know anything about Steve, do they?”

“I mean, only what they learned from history books, I guess. What would you do?”

“You mean what am I going to do? I’m going to say, ‘Wake the fuck up, Steve, we gotta get out of here now follow me.’”

Tony laughed and saw James’ mouth curl up at the corners. “Simple and effective. I like it.” Since SHIELD was still trying to decide its plan of action, Tony dismissed the emails and started pulling up the personnel list.  Like he’d said, it wasn’t long; SHIELD was playing this one close to the vest for now.

“Wait.” Tony immediately stopped scrolling as James leaned over his shoulder, smelling like shower soap and gun oil. “I know her,” James said, frowning. He pointed at the redhead. “Who is she?”

“Well, her SHIELD ID says Natalie Rushman,” Tony said. “Is she Hydra?”

“No…” James said slowly, eyebrows drawing together as he tried to remember. Many of his memories had come back surprisingly quickly once they’d escaped Hydra, making for some really touch-and-go moments in the early months as James had often woken up screaming from nightmares and had wandered around the cabin hollow-eyed and haunted. Going into the woods had been his escape in those days, and he’d only told Tony what he was up to after Tony had gotten cabin fever and decided to go for a hike and figure out what all the hype was about with fresh air and nature. “I think I shot her once.”

“Think she’d know your face?”

“Maybe.” Tony could tell that James was still frustrated by the almost-there memory so he left the image up on the screen for him to stare at.

“That’ll be a complication, since she’s part of his reintegration team,” Tony mused. “Strangely enough, I guess that means between the two of us, I’ll be the one least likely to be recognized. Not something I ever thought I’d say.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“Um…” Tony squinted at James and realized that obviously James wouldn’t know much about Tony’s past, other than what he’d told him or what James would have seen in the Hydra files. Especially if it hadn’t occurred to James to look him up on the internet, which he guessed was possible. “I was, uh, kind of a celebrity.”

“What for? Were you a movie star or something?”

Tony made a face. He didn’t want to admit that he was mostly famous for a series of sex scandals to someone who had personally known Captain America. “Nothing good,” he said finally. “Stupid stuff.” No chance James wasn’t going to Google him now, but at least he wouldn’t have to explain to James’ face why there were so many pictures on the internet of him naked. Thankfully, James just shrugged, apparently willing to leave it at that, so Tony quickly went through the rest of the items on James’ list. There was also no further updates on the efforts to get Steve out of the ice, so they were officially in Tony’s least favorite part of any operation: the hurry up and wait part.

With nothing else to do in the lab, Tony set JARVIS to keep an eye on any further communication and followed James back up the stairs. Since the couch was the only part of the living room that wasn’t covered in some kind of weapon, Tony perched on it and turned on the TV while James organized his collection. Making sad noises at James got him his forgotten lasagna from downstairs with the low, low cost of grumbling and an eye roll, leaving Tony to have a pleasant couple of hours hanging out in companionable silence with James. At some point, James had changed position to lean against the couch while sitting on the floor, which had meant that his back was pressing against Tony’s leg, warm and solid and something Tony only thought about every 15 seconds or so for a solid hour.  

“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” James said after a while, sitting up and sadly moving away from Tony as he started to put away the weapons, sorting them into piles and returning some to their hiding places. “About this operation breaking our cover.”

“Yeah?”

“Your suit. Could you make it flashy?”

“Flashy?” Tony echoed in confusion. He had a couple of suit builds now, based on the various types of missions they went on, but all of them were matte black and had a rubberized exterior to reduce the noise and radar profile. “I mean, sure, that wouldn’t be hard. But why?”

“Our best bet might be for you to create a distraction, and I think you zooming down 5th Avenue would be a good distraction.”

Tony stared at him, stomach turning as his whole body went hot and cold with fear. “No,” he said shakily, turning away from James and sliding further into the couch, staring resolutely at the TV screen. “No fucking way.” Tony pulled the blanket tighter around himself, curling into a ball. Everything depended on him not being seen, on Hydra not knowing he was alive. Everything. How could James not know that? Was Tony supposed to jump at the chance to sacrifice himself for Steve? Because one look at the suit and Hydra would know, Stane would know, and then– then-

A sudden warm hand on his shoulder made him jump and lash out. When his hands only met hard muscle fight turned to flight and he scrambled away. But as he tried to get to his feet he tripped over a blanket and hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of him. His heart was pounding in his ears but eventually he heard James talking to him, saying “Tony, fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize, just wait,” and that was like a bucket of water to the face. He realized he was sweating and his breathing was fast and shallow, and as he looked up at James he felt the hot crawl of humiliation.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly as he climbed to his feet. “I’m going to take a shower.” He could feel the pressure of James’ eyes and his silence against his back as he went to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He shook for a while, leaning against the bathroom door, before he finally managed to turn on the shower.

The awkwardness lasted until dinner, with James clearly wanting to say something but unsure how to bring it up, and Tony too embarrassed to meet his eye or give him an opening. Thankfully, JARVIS gave them an update halfway through dinner, and the tension eased as conversation turned towards their plan. Since James had cooked, Tony reluctantly got up to do the dishes, only to have James gently crowd him away from the sink. “You need to get ready for the mission,” James pointed out, which was a flimsy excuse because it didn’t take that long to get the suit ready to go now that Tony had figured out how to make it deploy from something the size of a suitcase, but Tony didn’t argue. He hated doing dishes.

It was also better than staying upstairs and risking that James would say something, so he went downstairs to prep the suit. Once down there, though, he slowed as he approached the Mark VII, remembering James’ suggestion earlier. Though the thought still make his limbs feel weak and his heart race, he forced himself to sit down and consider the idea instead of running from it. He knew what James had been trying to suggest; he could get the attention of the police and any SHIELD agents in the area and draw them away from James while he rescued Steve. He could even put a few holes in the building to cover their escape then disappear as soon as they were clear. It was smart, it was simple, and it was fucking terrifying.

Though there was no escaping the fact that Tony had put in a lot of effort making sure Hydra would think he was dead, and this was going to undo all of that work. “Fuck,” Tony groaned, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. It wasn’t like James wasn’t risking everything, too, but apparently he was willing to let Tony take the cowards way out even if it made their plan harder. “JARVIS,” he said finally, voice muffled behind his hands. “Warm up the machines, we’re modifying one of the suits. We’re changing up the armor.” What was an eye-catching color? Probably red, a bright red. All the better to wave himself in front of the metaphorical bull. But all red would look like shit. “Red and gold,” Tony said finally. “Make me a mockup of the armor in red and gold.”

[rxbxlcaptain]

Bête Noire (Acts of Intimacy #7)

I keep swearing I'm going to wrap up the Nonsexual Acts of Intimacy Prompts, but I'm just having so much fun with them. Much thanks to Jenniferjuni-per for sending in this prompt: forehead or cheek kisses! Thank you very much for being patient as it took me forever to finish this :)

Just for a reference, I picture Jyn's section very soon after Scarif, but Cassian's several years later, once the Rebellion is settled into Echo Base on Hoth.

Quick Warning: Both Jyn and Cassian wake up in various states of panic attacks (Though I've never written one before, so I'm not sure how well I conveyed it here) and Cassian gets focused for a minute on some of his past assassinations, so if any of that bothers you, I would encourage you not to read!

Other stories in the series: Previous Work // Next Work

Words: 1908 

AO3 / FF.net / Below the Cut!

Jyn didn’t remember a time in her life not plagued by nightmares. Once, far away, safe in an apartment on Coruscant, a young Jyn Erso slept through the night without terror. If she did awaken from distressing dreams, as children did sometimes, her parents’ bed was never far; her mother and father would pull her into their embrace, flooding her mind with love and comfort and ease to sleep through the night.

That was before Jyn Erso met real monsters on the shores of Lah’mu.

Monsters in white shooting her mother would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

The list of terrible visions grew with Jyn: hiding in her hatch with no one to find her; the gleaming white armor of Stormtroopers searching the villages in which the Partisans hid; the first blood she’d spilled, not a ‘trooper or a man bearing Imperial marks, but a civilian caught in the middle of a firefight; Maia’s head flung backwards with the force of a blaster bolt; alone in the world, once again, at the age of sixteen; the screams of the crew of Rogue One, the crew that she led, along the beaches of Scarif; the million possible ways that she, and Cassian Andor and Bodhi Rook and the other members of the Rebellion, ran towards death on a daily basis.

Her father’s voice hadn’t calmed her back to sleep after a nightmare since she was a child, but Cassian Andor’s did now. Sleeping nose to nose and chest to chest in a small, standard issue bed of the Rebellion didn’t leave much room for privacy. At first, Jyn feared the familiarity of the arrangement; she knew how often she awoke shaking with fear from these dreams and didn’t want to subject Cassian to her insomnia.

But her heart was weak and longing for the intimacy of human contact – of, specifically, his human contact – and so she stayed, wrapped in his arms every night they could.

A week passed and the fortress of his presence fought away the nightmares, but even the magic spells of true love couldn’t last forever. As Jyn feared, she awoke one night, a scream bitten off behind her teeth, her chest tremoring in an attempt to regain control of her breathing. She bolted upright, knocking Cassian’s arm away from her chest and startling the captain awake.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned from between clinched teeth, “I’m sorry.”

Pain recognized pain, however, and Cassian immediately understood. Her trembling body was in his arms in an instant, Cassian’s hands rubbing up and down her arms, bringing warmth back to her freezing body.

“Tell me about it,” Cassian whispered, kissing the salt water tracks on her cheeks. “Talk to me.”

I can’t, she wanted to tell him, but her throat clogged, stealing the words like the nightmares stole her sleep. She settled for shaking her head, pushing it against his chest. If she pulled him close enough, if she melted into him, the fear of the dream would recede; it just had to.

The dark of the room suffocated her, pressing in on all sides, like the collapse of her cave. Jyn tried to remember the details of the dream, what had brought her lungs to the brink of hyperventilating, but all she could recall were screams of the injured, the carbon scoring of blaster fire, a hot sun beating down against her. It could be one of many, many battlefields in Jyn’s life. Without the distinction of people’s faces, either friend or foe, Jyn had no way to distinguish between the guerilla skirmishes of her youth and the organized fights in Rebellion fatigues.

Lips against her forehead helped to center her, reminding her where she was. Not on the battlefield, not in danger of losing those she cared about, but in Cassian’s bunk. The darkness was meant to relax, not oppress, to settle her for sleep, not to aggravate her mind out of it.

Jyn whimpered as Cassian pulled away. “I’m still here,” he assured, sleep and concern thickening his accent. “Right here.”

A light flickered on after a second, causing both Jyn and Cassian to flinch away from the sudden brightness. Jyn knew, logically, that electricity on base was rationed; by turning on his lamp hours past lights out, Cassian risked the ire of quartermaster and the head of the base.

Apparently Cassian was willing to risk it. For her.

Jyn had, in a moment of weakness after the destruction of the Death Star, told him about the cave collapsing around her, stealing all light and fire from her life. By the look Cassian gave her, she knew he remembered, knew he understood the fear pitch blackness put into her heart, into her mind. Settling back into sleep would be near to impossible without a light to guide her.

Without a word, Cassian pulled her back into his arms, his lips pressing against her forehead once again. One thumb stroked along her temple in an even, steady beat as he held her close. With the other hand, he grabbed her right palm, gently placing it on his chest. The calm thumpthump of his heart echoed under her hand, and his chest rose and fell in a soothing cadence.

“When I breathe, you breathe,” he instructed her, and she did her best to follow. Her tears and fears kept hitching her breath, breaking the rhythm she tried to desperately to follow.

Jyn isn’t sure how long it takes – minutes, hours – but eventually her breaths evened out, able to match the deep expansion and collapse of Cassian’s chest. When her mind as well as her breathing felt settled, Jyn leaned away, as Cassian had done before, to turn off the light. The room plunged again into darkness, but Jyn reached for Cassian’s hand and felt safe, secure.

Cassian laid back against the pillows and Jyn stared down at him for a second. Though she could see little more than the pale outline of his face, Jyn swore she knew what comforting expression he wore.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the darkness.

Leaning up on his elbow, Cassian pulled her down for another kiss to her forehead, one to each of her cheeks.

“For you, Jyn, anytime.”

On his worst days, when the sins of his past caught up with him, flooding over him so that he could barely breathe, Cassian believed he deserved these haunting dreams, that they were penance for all the blood he’d shed.

On his good days – Cassian wasn’t sure he had anything that qualified as his “best days” anymore – he would reassure himself what he had done needed to be done for the Rebellion. That someone needed to do it, and he would rather the job fell to him rather than damning another poor soul to this same job.

Or, at least, he did tell himself that. Before Scarif. Before Jyn Erso had wound her way into his life, his heart, his bed. Now, good days or bad, she slept beside him, a warm body to ground him and a hand to hold if needed. His good days meant pulling her closer, breathing in the warm scent that came from her hair, her skin.

But tonight was one of the bad days.

Tonight he gripped at his hair in an attempt to stay silent, dug in nails into his arms to pull the images of targets – Imperial governors and sympathizers as well as innocents, men like Tivik and Galen Erso – falling from the shot of his lethal sniper rifle out of his head.

Physical pain, Cassian always reasoned, healed much more easily than mental pain. Raised in a war, Cassian could dress a wound before he could shave, so small nicks along arms meant little to him.

His ragged breathing, however, sounded too much like that of a man being chased, a man who feared danger and ran. In the light of the day, in the description of his job, Cassian Andor was a man who chased, not a man who was chased.

How the tides turned when the sun set and he closed his eyes to sleep. All the men and women he killed on the job, all the lives he ended, returned at night, raised from the dead by his brain. They wandered into his locked barracks, one by one, leaning against his desk or standing over his bed, sometimes staying silent, sometimes reminding him of their stolen lives: husbands and wives and children and people who mourned them.

Which was more than Cassian had for a great many years.

Now, though, now the one woman he needed to protect – from the war, from the memories trapped inside his head – slept beside him, inches away from his pulsing heart and uneven breathing, halfway between him and the ghosts of his past. He tried, oh how he tried, to keep her away from his darkest moments, to let her sleep through his torture.

But she knew; she always knew.

Rolling towards him, still half asleep, she mumbled, “Cassian? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he attempted to school the uneven timbre of his voice into something more neutral. “Go back to sleep, Jyn.”

Of course she didn’t; of course he knew she wouldn’t, but he had to try.

She leaned up on one elbow, the opposite hand resting on his chest. Her lips caressed his cheek with tenderness as her hand rubbed along his breastbone.

“It’s alright,” Jyn murmured against his skin, “I’m right here.”

But tonight’s tormentor, an Imperial governor with the neat bullet hole through his temple, innocently small on the left but a gaping chasm on the right – Cassian couldn’t regret his death Force knows how many years ago now, knowing that the galaxy was safer with him dead, but he could regret the stain of blood on his hands – still paced the room, too close to Jyn, too close to the woman he loved…

“Cassian.” Jyn’s face filled his vision, replacing the image of the dead governor. “Don’t think about the dreams. Focus on your surroundings.”

He nodded, familiar with Jyn’s post-nightmare routine. She’s used it for years with him; he could mouth her questions along with her as she asked them, run himself through the process if he wanted, but he always allowed her to take the lead. Something about the soothing tone of her voice helped to ground him.

“Where are you?”

“Our quarters on Echo Base. Hoth.”

For each question he answered, Jyn rewarded him with a kiss, this one to his temple.

“What do you hear?”

He strained his ears to listen past the walls of their room, back into the Rebel base. “I hear the generators heating the base. Patrols in the next corridor.”

This time, a kiss to his cheek.

“What do you feel?”

Cassian stared up and Jyn, her face only a few inches above his, and reached out to cup her cheek. “You. I feel your warmth in my bed, your head under my hand, the feeling you left in my chest.”

It isn’t I love you, but it’s about as close as Cassian’s ever come to saying those words. With the way Jyn’s eyes soften, the way her lips tenderly caress his forehead with this kiss, he knows she understands.

“Are you okay to sleep?” Jyn asks quietly.

This time, Cassian closes the distance between them with a kiss of thanks to her forehead.

“With you by my side? Always.”