#There seems to always be something wrong with

[marvelstoriesepic]

A Thousand Times Before

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: Bucky travels to an alternate universe for the sake of a mission. But he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a version of you that loves him, completely and openly. Back in his own world, he is left with a truth he can’t keep to himself anymore.

Word Count: 16.5k

Warnings: alternate universe; multiverse; so much yearning; identity confusion; emotional distress; guilt; self-worth struggles; unintentional non-consensual kiss (non-violent, due to mistaken identity); angst; heartbreak themes; slight mentions of Bucky’s past; self-preservation; self-doubt; Bucky is a man in love

Author’s Note: This ended up being longer than I intended. Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think! Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an alternate version where the roles are flipped. This time the reader travels to another universe where Bucky and your counterpart are already a couple. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in reading too! I hope you enjoy ♡

Divider by @cafekitsune ♡

Masterlist

The air smells of memory.

As though someone took the world he knew, put it through a sieve, and rebuilt it with hands that were almost - but not quite - shaking.

Bucky walks slow, even though his boots echo down a corridor that used to be silent. Used to be. In his world, the east wing of the Avenger’s compound is always cold, sterile, mostly unused. Here, the lights are warmer. Someone’s installed those vintage bulbs. They buzz faintly and flicker around.

There is a plant in the hallway. A real one. He steps past it. Looks down. A ceramic pot painted with little sunflowers. A tiny sticker peeling off the side.

This version of the compound is lived-in.

It’s unnerving.

He hates how it makes him breathe more deeply as though he is listening for something it shouldn’t. How everything is just off. The couch in the lounge is turned at a different angle. The vending machine is missing. There is a lavender-scented candle burning on the coffee table.

He doesn’t trust this. He doesn’t trust any of it.

Not the way the ceiling seems too low or how the hallways echo the wrong sound the longer he walks. The floor beneath his boots is almost the same. But almost is what gets people killed. And he’s not in the business of dying again. Not even here. Not even in a world that’s supposed to be some mirror image of his own.

It smells of lemon disinfectant and something faintly floral as though someone sprayed a bottle of room freshener and hoped no one would notice the rot underneath.

He runs his metal fingers along the wall as he walks, lets the vibranium whir quietly against the plaster. Feels the microscopic grooves in the paint.

In his universe, there is a crack near the main stairwell. Sam swears he didn’t do it. Clint insists he did. Here, it’s perfectly smooth. That bothers him more than it should.

He takes in this slightly different world as though maybe this is all some trick of the multiverse, some clever illusion designed to fool the worn-down man with the metal arm and the hundred-year-old ghosts. But the walls are still painted in the same color - off-white, barely warmed by the overheads. The hallway lights flicker golden. As though someone decided the compound shouldn’t feel like a facility. As though someone decided it should feel like home. His breath still fogs faintly in the colder patches of the corridor.

This could still be his universe somehow.

Even though it isn’t.

And even though he doesn’t want it to be.

He never wanted to be part of the mission.

He said no. Loudly. Repeatedly. With many adjectives and lots of glares. It didn’t matter. Fury said he was the only one who could go. That this universe had some piece of tech - some half-mythical Howard Stark prototype that their Stark never got the chance to build.

Something with the potential to rewrite temporal coordinates with precision. To fix anomalies. Maybe even to bring back the ones they lost.

He sat through the debrief like a man sitting on a bomb. Not moving. Not breathing more than he needed to.

And Bucky noticed, the way he always did, that you never ask quite so many questions during debriefing - unless the mission involves him. And this time, it’s only him. So that meant more questions from you. More concern you didn’t even try to mask.

And it made his heart clench.

You asked how they knew this tech even existed in that timeline.

You asked why Tony couldn’t just build it himself to which the man gave you a look.

You asked what would happen if Bucky saw someone he knew. If he saw himself.

You asked what exactly Bucky was going to walk into and what was expected of him.

You asked how much they even knew about this universe.

Steve had exhaled, hands braced against the briefing room table, blue eyes clouded. “We don’t know much,” he admitted. “This universe is close to ours in structure, but details are limited. No major historical deviations. No sign of HYDRA still in power. No active wars. Just small shifts. Choices made differently.”

Bucky had watched your face tighten as if the lack of data itself was a warning.

“SHIELD had a file on it, but nothing concrete,” Steve went on. “Stark’s readings say it’s stable - no time fractures, no reality collapses. Just another version of what we know.”

Bucky had listened, fingers flexing against his metal wrist. Close to theirs, but not the same. And he wonders, not for the first or last time, what choices this other world made for him.

The mission is simple. Locate the prototype. Extract it. Avoid unnecessary contact with variants. And get the hell back before anything breaks - him, the people, the timeline.

Bucky stopped listening entirely after receiving all the information he needed.

He only registered you shifting beside him, and it was the tiniest movement, but he noticed. You always get fidgety when something bothers you. He wanted to say something, reassure you, but he didn’t truly know if he even got this.

He knew you were worried. Knew you were angry. The kind that made your eyes too quiet and your hands too still. The kind that made Bucky feel like he was walking through a house where all the lights had been turned off, but every door was open.

When Dr. Steven Strange opened that portal, you stood in the corner of the room, watching him and giving him that guarded look that said you better come back whole. He couldn’t meet your eyes for too long.

And when the world rippled and bent, and the air shimmered as though it might break, and he stepped forward like a man walking into the sun with his eyes closed, he thought of you.

The stairs groan beneath his boots, familiar but not.

Same wood. Same color. But smoother. As though someone took the time to sand down the scars.

In his universe, the fifth step has a chip where Steve dropped a dumbbell. Everyone tripped on it at least once. Here, it is whole. Perfect. No history at all.

That’s what gets him. The lack of damage. As though this place hasn’t lived the same kind of life.

He reaches the second floor and hesitates.

The hallway is dim. Only the lights overhead are on, flickering just slightly. He hates the buzzing. It’s like something alive and trapped.

He turns left.

Your room is down this hall.

Or - your room in his universe is down this hall. He shouldn’t assume anything. Things are wrong here. Tilted just a few degrees off center. The kind of wrong you don’t see until it’s already unmade you.

But his feet are already moving.

It’s not like he’s planning to go in.

He just wants to look. Maybe see how different this version of you really is. Maybe see how different he is, through your eyes.

He reaches your door at the end of the corridor. It’s cracked open. That’s weird. You usually always have it shut.

Your voice isn’t behind it. You’re not laughing, humming, ranting about something. There is only quiet.

He steps closer.

The doorframe is covered in tiny indentations. Not scratches - these are deliberate. Someone’s been marking height on the trim. Two sets of lines. One lower than the other. Two sets of initials scrawled in black ink. Yours. And his.

He knows it’s yours. Because he knows your height. Like a number carved into his bones.

He’s memorized the space you take up in a room. Not just how tall you are, but the way your presence fills the air.

He knows where your head would rest if you stood beside him. Knows it would reach just beneath his chin. Knows the sound your footsteps make when you enter a room, and how the air shifts when you’re near.

He has painted you in his mind a thousand times before.

Eyes open, eyes closed.

In dreams, in silence.

In the echo of a laugh you left behind on a Tuesday.

He’s mapped you in the kitchen. Measured, in his mind, which cabinets you can stand beneath without hitting your head. Which shelves you can’t reach so he can be there, quietly, to help. So he can hand you that mug you always squint up at, the one you pretend you don’t need.

He knows how your arm swings when you walk.

Knows the rhythm of your stride. Knows your pace.

And sometimes, not often enough to be suspicious, he lets his hand brush yours.

Lets his fingers catch a hint of your warmth.

It’s not an accident.

It never is.

He carries you like a story he hasn’t told yet.

And he is aching, aching, aching to write you down.

Bucky stares at the markings like they might reach out and touch him.

He brushes his fingers against one. The ink smudges slightly under the metal pad of his thumb. Fresh.

He doesn’t understand.

Why would he-?

No. It has to be a coincidence. Just a prank. A weird joke. Someone else with your handwriting, maybe. Another version of him. One who doesn’t carry his past like a loaded gun. Or it’s just some odd inside joke he never got to know about in his own universe.

Bucky moves to step back, but his eyes catch on something else.

To the right of the door, hanging crookedly, is a small, square canvas. Acrylic. Textured.

It’s a painting. He knows it immediately. Your style.

He’s seen you paint a thousand times in silence, your jaw clenched, music too loud in your headphones. You always say you paint when you can’t say something out loud. When the words get stuck in your chest and rot.

This painting is familiar. A half-sky. A steel arm. Fingers open, reaching toward a red string that trails off the edge of the frame.

He knows what it means. He knows you.

But the painting doesn’t belong here. Not like this. It’s intimate. Meant for someone who understands the weight in your throat when you speak through colors.

Someone like him.

His stomach twists.

Maybe it is him.

He doesn’t like that thought. Doesn’t like how it makes his heart trip over itself.

He takes a step into the room because his brain told him to and his body didn’t want to argue. And he stops breathing.

Because you're not there.

But the room is.

The room is here.

And that’s almost worse.

It’s too familiar.

Not identical, not exact, but similar enough to tear him wide open.

The walls are a different color. Now necessarily lights. But just not how he remembers it. The books on the shelf are in new places, different spines, rearranged lives.

But the couch is the same shape, the same worn-out comfort.

The window still drinks in the light the same way - slanted, soft, forgiving.

And there’s a sweater messily folded on your dresser.

A book, face-down on the cushion like someone meant to come back to it.

Like you were just here.

Like maybe, if he stays long enough, you’ll walk back into the frame of this almost-life.

He doesn’t touch anything.

He’s afraid to.

Because this version of the world remembers you.

The shape of your existence lives here - in shadows and coffee rings, in the faint scent of something sweet and floral and you.

He walks the room like an intruder in someone else’s dream, eyes cataloguing the differences, chasing the sameness.

He notices that the cabinet doors hang slightly crooked in the same way.

And for just a moment he swears he hears your voice in the next room.

But it’s only silence, mocking him.

He wants to sit.

He wants to stay.

Wants to believe that if he closes his eyes, you’ll be beside him again.

He knows it isn’t true.

This isn’t his world.

This isn’t his home.

And this isn’t his you.

But the ache doesn’t care about reality.

The ache believes in the melodic sound of your laughter and the empty seat beside him.

There’s a coat draped over the back of a chair.

His coat.

Not one like it.

His.

The leather’s too worn in the same places. The collar stretched where he grips it with his right hand. There’s even the tear near the cuff that you stitched together with dark red thread, muttering that you weren’t a tailor but you’d seen enough war movies to fake it.

He steps inside without meaning to.

The room smells like you.

It’s your scent - soft, unassuming, threaded through with something sweet. Like worn pages and old tea and maybe vanilla.

It’s the same smell that clings to your hoodie when you get closer to each other on cold stakeouts to warm the other. The same one that lingers on your gloves when you pass him something, and he holds them a moment too long just to feel the warmth you left behind.

There’s a mug on the nightstand with faded text that reads I make bad decisions and coffee.

He bought that for you. In his world. As a joke.

You still used it until the handle cracked, and then you glued it back together and kept using it anyway.

He reaches out for it.

Stops.

His hand is shaking.

Bucky turns slowly. And sees the photo.

It’s not framed. Just pinned to a corkboard on the far wall, beneath torn paper scraps and to-do lists written in your handwriting.

It’s the two of you.

He recognizes the background - Coney Island. A bench by the boardwalk. Sunlight in your hair. His arm around your shoulder. His face not looking at the camera, but at you.

You’re laughing. And he looks-

He looks in love.

Like he has everything he ever wanted.

His breath hitches.

He steps back.

Back again.

Like distance might undo the gravity of what he just saw.

His ears are ringing.

None of this makes sense. Not fully.

He is stepping into a space he should not recognize but does.

The walls are a little brighter than in his world. Pale blue. Like the sky on cold days. There’s a candle on the windowsill—burned low and forgotten. Its wax has dripped onto a saucer, hardened into a small, messy sculpture. The bed is half-made. A throw blanket in a tangled heap at the foot of it. He recognizes that blanket. You two fought over it last movie night and then ended up sharing it.

There’s another book lying face-down, this time on the mattress. A knife on the nightstand. A half-written grocery list in your handwriting with his name scrawled at the bottom next to coffee and razor blades and more apples.

He stares at the list too long. At his own name like it sits in the wrong place. Like it’s foreign and familiar all at once.

His heart makes a quiet, traitorous sound in his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

This isn’t his room. It’s not his place. Not his world. He’s just a shadow slipping through someone else’s life.

The longer he stays, the more it feels like the walls are leaning in.

He has a job.

A mission.

A very, very clear objective and a limited window to complete it in. That’s the only reason he’s here. The only reason he agreed to this whole ridiculous plan.

He doesn’t belong to this life.

He doesn’t belong to you.

Not like this.

Especially not like this.

He steps back. Slow. Controlled. As if the room might lurch and pull him in again, keep him held tight inside the heat of it. The scent of lavender on your pillow. A half-drunk mug of something still faintly warm on the desk. A soft blanket, folded neatly over the back of the couch by the window. Woven wool, pale grey, fraying just at the corners. In his world, that blanket lives in the rec room. He draped it over your slumbering body a few times already after you fell asleep somewhere between the second and third act.

The room creaks as though it knows he’s not supposed to be here.

So he leaves.

Each footfall measured like a soldier retreating from a line of fire. Not because of danger.

Because of what it could mean.

He closes the door behind him. Doesn’t let it latch.

He is leaving your room because he has to.

Because he’s still Bucky Barnes, and he still has something to do with his hands that isn’t letting them hover uselessly over photographs he never shot, or standing in the middle of a space that smells like your skin and wondering how long it would take before he forgot this wasn’t real. Or wasn’t his.

The hallway is still and dim. It breathes around him, too familiar and too wrong all at once. Different lungs, but the same bone structure.

His boots scruff over the same tile. The grooves on the walls are the same, the small imperfections in the paint still visible where someone - Clint, maybe - banged a cart too hard against the corner and then tried to cover it up with exactly the wrong shade of touch-up.

There’s a duffle bag sitting outside the laundry chute with a name tag stitched in crooked red thread: WILSON. Of course. Even this Sam never takes his stuff all the way in.

And there is a vending machine. It stands in the wrong corner, but it too has a post-it note stuck to it - out of order, again, thanks Tony - with a penknife stabbed through it, just like Natasha used to do when the machine ate her protein bar credits.

These things shouldn’t exist here. But they do.

Everything feels so carefully replicated, as though this universe is a reflection cast on rippling water - almost right, except where it wavers.

The picture frames are all straight here. No one’s taped up drawings on the elevator doors. But the dent in the wall by the training room door is still there - Tony left it during a particularly aggressive dodgeball game. And the pillow on the corner of the couch is still upside down. Steve never fixes it.

Someone’s sweatshirt is slung over the railing. Sam’s. Same one he wore for three weeks straight after the Lagos op. It still smells like burned rubber and that weird detergent Sam insists is “eco-friendly but manly.”

The common room has a blanket folded over the arm of the couch.

It’s yours.

You always fold it the same way. Two halves, then thirds, then smoothed flat.

The corners of his mouth twitch. Not a smile. Just muscle memory of one.

He walks slower now. Like he’s afraid he’ll wake something up.

He turns down the south hall, toward the kitchen.

He tells himself it’s for the layout. That he’s retracing steps, building a map in his head, keeping sharp like they trained him to. But really it’s you. It’s always you. He knows you’re here, somewhere, and if he turns the wrong corner too fast he might see you in a way he isn’t ready for. Or worse - see you in a way he’ll never forget.

His hand curls into a fist. Flesh and metal both.

The light changes first.

The kitchen here is bigger. Airier. The windows seem to stretch wider than they should, the frame redone in something softer than steel. Someone left the lights low, warm glimmers buzzing faintly above, full of melancholy chords.

And then he freezes. Everything in him turns to stone.

He stops breathing.

Because there are you.

Standing with your back to him.

You are in fuzzy socks, standing at the counter, shoulders relaxed, a pot simmering on the stove, and a sway in your movements that hit him so hard his throat tightens. You shift your weight slightly, hip against the edge of the counter, your hand rising to tuck your hair behind your ear.

The way the light hits you from behind is exactly the same.

You are moving through a rhythm you don’t know he’s watching.

You’re cooking something - he doesn’t know what, can’t smell it through the barrier of this aching distance - but it all is so heartbreakingly familiar. The tilt of your head as you read the label. The absent little sway in your hips as you stir something in the pan.

It’s domestic.

Effortlessly soft.

The kind of moment he’s never had, but has imagined a thousand times before.

His body goes very still. Maybe if he moves, the moment might shatter.

But it cleaves him open.

Because you move the same.

You move the way you do in his world - as though every room bends slowly toward you. As though you don’t know how much of your soul you leave behind in your trail. As though the air makes space for you because it wants to. Because it has to.

He watches.

Rooted to the floor.

This is doing something brutal to him. Seeing you here like this, in this soft golden kitchen that smells like tomatoes and thyme and something slow-cooked with patience and love, tucked into his shirt as though it doesn’t tear his heart apart.

You’re not just wearing it to steal warmth or tease him, the way you’ve done before in his world - tugging on his hoodie after a long mission, smirking when he raises an eyebrow, pretending it was an accident. You always returned it too quickly. Always laughed too loudly when he was too nonchalant about it. Always looked away too fast.

But here. Here you wear it as though you truly mean to.

Here you stir sauce in his shirt and sway slightly to a song you don’t know you’re humming and taste the spoon as though this is just another Saturday. Here, the shirt is not a stolen thing.

The hem skims your thighs. The collar is stretched slightly. The cotton even moves in your rhythm. His name is ghosted into the shape of you, etched along your silhouette. It’s almost too much. It’s absolutely too much.

Your movements are familiar in the way only time can make a person. And God, you move the same way. The same way. Like the version of you he left behind an hour ago. Fluid. Quiet. Self-contained. You hum under your breath, just barely.

He feels it like a bruise forming under his ribs.

His hand curls at his side. Metal fingers flex.

You don’t see him.

He’s not ready for you to. He knows he shouldn’t let you see him.

Not here. Not like this. Not when you’re standing in a kitchen that looks like the one you always complained was too small, in a shirt that is his - or the other Bucky’s - cooking with your whole body curled in that same subtle tension like you’re thinking about something else entirely.

And for one breathless second, he forgets.

He forgets this isn’t his kitchen.

That this isn’t his world.

That the you standing there isn’t the one who left a hair tie on his wrist last Wednesday.

That you’re not the one who laughed at him for not knowing how to use your espresso machine but then proceeded to teach him with that sweet voice of yours he doesn’t mind drowning in.

But God, he wants to walk across the room. Wants to slide his arms around your waist. Rest his chin on your shoulder. Breathe in your scent and feel your heartbeat under his hands.

Because he’s seen you like this before.

In his own kitchen, in his own universe.

Not often. Just enough to be dangerous.

You, in fuzzy socks. You, humming softly. You, squinting into a pot like it might confess its secrets.
You, looking over your shoulder and catching him staring.

Smirking. Amused. But with a warmth in your eyes.

And now, he just watches.

This version of you doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t feel him standing there, made of want and memory and too much tenderness for a heart that was never meant to carry this much.

He grips the doorframe.

Tries to swallow the pain.

Because this is what he’s always wanted, but it isn’t his.

And it won’t be.

But he can’t stop looking.

He knows he should move. Now.

He’s not supposed to linger.

Not supposed to look.

Not supposed to feel.

He’s a shadow in this world, a breath not meant to be heard. A presence designed to pass unnoticed.

But you-

God.

You are gravity and he is weak against it.

You are the glitch in every rule, the exception in every universe.

And he can’t help it.

He looks.

He stays.

Because there is no version of reality where he walks past you untouched.

You are the only thing in this place that hasn’t changed.

The only thing that feels right.

And that’s the worst part.

Because you feel like home.

And you’re not his.

You might never be.

But he stands there, selfish and still, pretending the silence could make him invisible. Pretending this version of you isn’t real. That your shape, your voice, your hands wouldn’t undo him in ways the war never could.

You reach for the spice rack, standing on your toes just a little, the hem of the oversized shirt lifting slightly. His name is written in the way the fabric hangs off your frame. It’s branded into this whole place.

He watches you like a man watches fire from the other side of glass - warmed, lit, and ruined all at once. You move like morning through him - and he, all dusk and dust, knows he is never meant to touch such light.

You wear that shirt on your shoulders as though it is normal for you. As though you want it to be there.

Bucky watches it stretch across the curves of a body he’s only ever worshiped in dreams.

You still feel like you, he thinks and the thought is so sudden and so violent that he has to step back - just a fraction of an inch, just enough to pretend he didn’t feel it, just enough to pretend it doesn’t mean something.

He doesn’t understand how this version of you still reads like poetry he’s already memorized.

He backs away, so slowly, he wonders if time might forgive him for the moment. For his hesitation to leave.

For the way, he just stands there and watches you as though you are the last good thing in the world.

As though you are the world. His world.

You turn, slow, stirring spoon still in hand. You haven’t seen him yet. You’re focused, brow furrowed just slightly, lower lip caught between your teeth, and he knows he should get the hell away from here.

But he is frozen in place. His muscles aren’t working.

He sees the angle of your cheek, the line of your neck, the quick twitch of your nose as though you’ve caught a scent you know too well.

And then you look up.

You see him.

Bucky’s mind is running on empty cells.

Your whole face changes. Clouds lifting. Sun rising. Your smile is instant. As though seeing him is something your body wants to do.

Everything in you brightens. As though the sun cracked open inside your chest. Your whole body jolts. Just a fraction. In surprise, delight. As though seeing him is something that rearranges the air in your lungs and makes it easier to breathe.

He is not prepared for the way you breathe his name.

“Buck-” your voice is thick with shock and joy and something lighter than either. “You’re back.”

He doesn’t move. Can’t.

The word back rattles in his ears. Echoes. Feels like a lie made of gold. He is not back. He is not yours. Not in this life. Not in this room. Not in the way you somehow seem to think he is.

You don’t give him time to speak. You don’t give him space to even think.

Because you’re already closing the distance between you, fast and sure-footed, and he has just enough sense left in him to realize he should say something, before you launch yourself into his chest, arms flung wide, a soft gasp of excitement still spilling from your mouth.

You collide with him hard and certain and unapologetic, and your arms wind around his neck as though they’ve done this a thousand times. So easy with him. Knowing the shape of him.

He stiffens. Every muscle in his body locks up, heart ricocheting against his ribs. He chokes on his breath.

He’s too overwhelmed with this situation to hug you back. His arms stay frozen at his side. His fingers twitch, trying to reach for you but remembering they shouldn’t.

You’re warm. You’re so warm.

You smell like that candle on your windowsill. Like a version of comfort he hasn’t earned.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” you murmur, voice muffled as you bury yourself into the crook of his neck, full of a joy so honest it makes his entire ribcage squeeze the life out of him. “I thought you were still stuck over there. I was starting to get worried. Were you trying to surprise me? Because you definitely surprised me.”

Bucky can’t speak. He can’t do a single thing and that’s absolutely pathetic. He wants to say something clever or distant or safe, but his mouth is a graveyard and the words are bones. He’s not sure he even remembers how to use them anymore.

Your breath fans across his collarbone, your nose brushing his jaw, and it’s too much.

The feeling of you against him is unbearable. You fit. Of course, you do. His body knows you, even if his brain is screaming that this is wrong, that this is not the life he is living, that this version of you is not his to touch.

But you don’t know that. You don’t hesitate. Your hands slide up his back. One of them tangles in the hair at the nape of his neck. The other rests against the curve of his shoulder. His flesh shoulder.

He feels like glass. Like a single breath could rip him to shreds.

You pull back just enough to look at him.

There is something tender in your eyes. Something known. Something that sees him without flinching. You’re beaming. And he is blinded.

You’re looking at him as though he’s something you loved for years and known down to the marrow.

And then, so quickly, so confidently - you kiss him.

Bucky freezes.

All the air leaves his lungs.

His heart stutters in his chest.

Your lips meet his as though the air between you has gravity, as though you have done this before, soft and sure, knowing how he likes it. You kiss him as though you’ve kissed him a thousand times and a thousand more.

Bucky is a rigid wall, thunderstruck.

But he doesn’t stop you.

He should. He knows he should. The second your hands touched his face, he should have stepped back. Should have told you the truth. Should have warned you that this isn’t him. Not the right one. That the man you think you’re kissing is a ghost wearing someone else’s memories.

But he doesn’t. He lets you. For a heartbreaking moment. Lets his mouth press to yours for the span of a beat and a half. Lets the warmth of you crack the ice he’s been carrying in his chest for too long.

Your lips are warm, soft, sweet, tasting of honey and cinnamon and nostalgia and the imaged version of a dream he’s buried too deep to name, one he’s never dared to reach for but still lingers in his bones. Bucky doesn’t know if he’s breathing or if that became something irrelevant.

He lets you press into him as though the whole world hasn’t changed, as though this you is not a stranger wearing your skin, your voice, your tenderness. And for a second, a small and selfish, shattering second, he melts.

His muscles go slack and his eyes fall closed and the universe falls into place. Your lips on his feel like relief, like the end of war, like something he didn’t earn. He lets himself sink into it, into you.

You kiss him as though you know him. As though you know the hollow places and where they go. As though your body is working off muscle memory forged from love he was never around long enough to deserve.

Your hands are on his face and you’re kissing him as though this means something and he wants to pull away, he does, but not for one split-second. He folds like wax in flames, pliant and helpless under your affection.

His heart stutters - skips, crashes, burns.

Your body is pressing forward as though it’s coming home.

His mouth moves with yours, slow and stunned and melted, like a man learning to breathe in a language he doesn’t speak.

This is what he has imagined. This is what has haunted the spaces behind his eyes when he lets his guard down. He has imagined this. Wondered what your breath would taste like when it caught between your mouths, how your fingers would feel fisted in his hair, how it might feel to be wanted by you - openly, without hesitation, without shame.

But then you whisper against his mouth, soft and breathless and full of joy.

“God, I missed you.”

And everything collapses.

The words strike like ice water down his spine. It’s like being shot. He grows tense again. His eyes snap open. His mind catches up to his heart. The sweetness goes sour in his mouth. The warmth becomes poison under his skin. Because it isn’t real. This isn’t real.

You’re not his.

Not his to kiss. Not his to miss him. Not his to touch him with that bright look in your eyes as though he is part of your story.

You think he’s your Bucky. The one who - as Bucky would imagine - kissed you on every hallway in this place, whenever he could. The one who knows which side of the bed you sleep on. The one who earned your trust, your touch, your history.

And so he breaks the sky.

He pulls away - rips himself out of paradise with shaking hands and a jaw clenched so tight it might snap. The breath that leaves him is ragged, torn.

Every muscle in his body is tight. This is not your kiss. Not yours to give or his to take. Not when you don’t know. Not when you think he’s someone else.

And even though it’s you - your warmth, your voice, your heartbeat fluttering against his chest - it’s not the version of you he’s imagined this with.

And it’s not right.

The guilt punches him all at once, shame and grief and confusion he’s never quite learned to survive. He recoils - not even fully on purpose - but instinct, instinct that tells him he has stolen something you didn’t offer him.

He’s just a stranger behind familiar eyes.

You freeze. Blink at him. Confused. Concerned.

Your smile falters. Disappears.

His chest heaves once, twice, too fast, not able to breathe properly with your taste still caught in his mouth. His hands curl into fists at his side, trying to remember what they are for.

And then he sees it - your worry folding into something smaller, something more ashamed.

And it murders him in slow motion, one heartbeat at a time.

Your hands drop away from his face and flutter against your lips for the smallest second as though maybe you’re the one who crossed a line.

And he watches, helpless, as the light behind your eyes dims.

You take a tiny step back, shoulders inching inwards as though you’re suddenly unsure of yourself.

And then your eyes widen, and the guilt spills out of you now, sharp and immediate.

“Buck, I-” you start, your voice soft and hesitant. “I’m sorry. That was… I shouldn’t have just- I didn’t mean to- God, you probably needed a second to just settle, and I-” you trail off and take another step back as though you think you hurt him.

Your face crumples, not dramatically, not completely. But enough to look a little wounded. Vulnerable in that way you only let him see when no one else is around. Even here. Even in this life that isn’t his.

It’s killing him.

That pain in your eyes. The sheen of doubt and confusion that he put there.

You wrap your arms around yourself, retreating inward, your expression far too close to shame.

His chest caves as though something vital just got torn out, and his body hasn’t caught up yet.

Because even if you are not his - you are you. And hurting you, even by accident, even like this, feels like peeling the skin of his ribs.

He feels it in the hollow beneath his ribs, a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

“No!” he forces out quickly, voice low and rough and all wrong. “Hey- no, no, you didn’t- You weren’t- I’m not-”

But he doesn’t know what to say.

He wants to tell you it’s okay, that you didn’t do anything wrong, that it’s him, it’s all him, it’s always him, it’s never you.

He wants to scream that his bones are made of want, that his blood sings only your name, that he is drowning in everything you don’t know you’ve given him.

But none of this is simple. None of it is clean.

And all he does is stand there.

Breath shaking.

Heart breaking.

Hands curled so tightly to keep from reaching.

Because you didn’t give this kiss to him, not knowing who he was. You gave it to the man you think he is. The man you trust.

And he accepted it anyway. Let it happen. For just a split second, but still, he let himself have it.

He feels sick.

And now you look like you’re folding in on yourself, and all he wants in the world is to pull you close and undo every second of pain.

“I just got excited,” you say timidly, even softer now, eyes dropping to the kitchen counter. “I missed you and I didn’t- I thought you’d- Never mind. I’m sorry.”

You’re already turning away, trying to tuck the moment back into yourself, trying to pretend it didn’t just break the air between you. As though you haven’t just handed him a piece of your heart and watched him flinch from it.

And Bucky feels like the worst kind of monster.

Because it’s not your fault. This version of you, who somehow but clearly loves him, who thought she was greeting the man who has kissed her a thousand times and more. Who thought this was welcome. Who probably counted down the days until he walked through that door.

He knows because he does the same thing although his you and him aren’t even a thing.

Because in his world, you’re his friend. Just that. A friend with soft eyes and sharper wit, someone who argues about popcorn toppings and sings loudly in the kitchen when you know he needs some cheering up. You’ve patched him up after missions. You’ve watched old movies with him in silence, both of you staring too long at the screen and not long enough at each other. You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder. You’ve tucked his hair behind his ear when it stuck to his cheek after a nightmare. You’ve told him - more than once - that you’re here for him.

But you’ve never kissed him.

You’ve never touched him as though you owned the moment.

You’ve never stood in his clothes and cooked dinner for the version of him who let himself be yours.

And god, he wants to hate this version of himself. This man who found the courage to step forward when he only hovered on the edge. Who earned the right to be held by his dream girl like a homecoming.

And now you are ashamed. Now you are hurt.

Because he couldn’t be the right Bucky.

He steps forward, frantic, needing, desperate to fix it, to say something, anything that would wipe that hurt look off your face.

“No- no, hey,” he rasps, voice frayed. His hands are hovering. He wants to touch you. He wants to hold your face in his palms and make this better. “It’s not your fault. It’s not you. I just… I mean, I didn’t think-” He knows he’s not making this better at all right now.

He sighs, mouth open but language failing him, and he scrubs a hand over his jaw as though he can erase the hesitation you saw there.

You search his face, your eyes too deep.

A trembling nod.

“Okay,” you say. “I just thought- I don’t know what I thought. I was just really happy to see you. But I should’ve given you a moment.”

And there it is.

The softness.

The part of you he has always tried to guard. The one he’d go back to Hydra to protect. The one that makes his chest ache and his hands shake at his sides.

He wants to tell you everything. The truth. The mission. That he’s not the man you think he is.

He almost does.

But his throat is choked up.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and that only breaks him in a new way.

Because you think you did something wrong.

“No,” he starts again, firmer this time, softer too. “You don’t need to apologize, sweetheart. I-” he hesitates, and you see it. “I missed you, too.”

He screwed up. Completely.

You bite your lip, unsure. Your eyes flick down to your shirt. His shirt. Not really his shirt. But Bucky’s shirt. You tug at the hem as though it suddenly doesn’t belong to you anymore.

And Bucky knows that this moment will haunt him long after he leaves this world. Long after he goes back to the version of you who wears his hoodies just to tease, who touches him only in passing, who is his friend despite him wishing for you to greet him the same way this you greets her Bucky. For the rest of his life.

You look at him as though he’s a wound.

As though he’s something tender and broken and half-open, and not in the way that frightens you but in the way that makes you reach for the first aid kit. As though you’ve seen the blood already, and you are not afraid to get your hands dirty to make him whole again.

Your voice turns softer now. Maybe trying not to shake the walls around him. Like you’ve already seen him flinch once and you’re afraid of making it happen again. He can hear the thread of caution in your throat, stretched thin with concern.

“Buck,” you say, slow, quiet. “Are you okay?” you ask and it’s not just a question. It’s a doorway. A key turned in a lock he hasn’t let anyone touch. You’re peering through the walls he built up as though you have done it before. Maybe you know all his hiding places. Maybe you’ve kissed every scar on his soul and memorized the way his silences mean different things.

But not this version of him.

Not here. Not now.

And it does something sharp to him.

Because he’s not okay. He is a thousand feet below the surface, lungs full of water and salt and regret. He is standing in a version of his life that is too soft for the callouses on his hands, and you are looking at him as if he means something to you, as if he still matters even after he’s flinched from your kiss, after he’s stood there in a borrowed skin, giving nothing in return.

He wants to say yes. Wants to lie because it would be kinder. Because maybe it would make your forehead smooth out and your mouth curl back up and your shoulders drop from where they’ve crept up near your ears. But the words catch in his throat. He can’t swallow them. He can’t spit them out.

You step closer, slowly now, more careful than before, and the guilt rises more than ever.

“Do you need anything?” you ask, as though you’ve asked him this a thousand times before. “Water? Food? A shower? A-” you falter, “- a second to breathe?”

Your eyes are so gentle he could cry. You’re hurting and you’re still soft with him, still reaching across this invisible crack in the earth, still offering care with both hands like it won’t burn you if he doesn’t take it.

He doesn’t deserve this.

He doesn’t deserve you.

Not when he’s not the man who earned the right to walk through that door and be met with your affection like sunlight. Not when you looked at him like a miracle and he gave you nothing back but a statue.

His hands remain in fists. His chest is too tight. Too small. His own skin is too loud.

“I’m fine,” he answers. Too fast. Too clipped. He regrets it instantly.

Your face drops a little, enough for him to feel it all over again. Another weight, another reminder that he is ruining something delicate, something not meant for him.

“Oh,” you murmur, nodding too quickly, stepping back as though your warmth was a mistake. “Okay.”

And there it is.

That thing he can’t stand.

That thing you do - both of you, all versions of you - when you feel shut out. That pull inward, that retreat behind your own ribs, as though maybe you’d overstepped, and now you need to fold yourself small enough not to take up space.

It crushes him.

Because he made you feel that way.

He made you feel as though you’re making it worse by caring.

He swallows hard, sorrow burning down his throat.

He doesn’t deserve your tenderness. He doesn’t deserve your care. He doesn’t deserve the way you’re moving again, back to the counter, shoulders tense. You’re trying to give him space and comfort in the same breath and it hurts to watch.

You stir something in the pan. Wipe your hands off a towel that looks as though it’s been used too many times. Domestic. Familiar. This life is familiar, too much so, and he is standing in the middle of it like a trespasser.

“I’m almost done here,” you note sweetly, glancing back at him with that look - gentle and worried and wounded. “If you do want something.”

You say it as though you’ve fed him before. As though he likes your cooking. As though this is something you fall into easily, the kitchen your common ground, your voice echoing off the same cabinets.

Bucky can feel his heart cave in.

You’re still looking at him like that. As though he’s someone you’d give your last spoonful of soup to. As though he isn’t just standing there like a coward with your kiss still on his mouth and your concern sitting in the hollow of his chest.

Even when he pulled away, even when he didn’t say a damn word, you didn’t get angry. You didn’t accuse him of anything. You just worried. And you’re still here. Still cooking. Still offering pieces of yourself like they’re nothing when they mean everything.

It makes him feel like a thief.

Because he’s not your Bucky. And he doesn’t know what yours did to earn you, but he can’t possibly live up to it.

His guilt is a creature now - gnawing and breathing heavy in his chest, pacing in circles behind his ribs. He feels it crawling through him, scraping at the back of his throat, making it hard to speak, hard to swallow. You are being careful with him, and all he can think about is how he should have stopped the kiss the second you leaned in.

You wouldn’t have kissed him if you knew who he really was.

And still, he wants to say yes.

Wants to sit at the kitchen table as though he belongs. Wants to take the plate you’d hand him and eat every last bite and listen to your stories and pretend just for a moment that this is his.

But it’s not.

It’s yours.

And it’s his job to leave it untouched.

“I’m good,” he lies, voice a gravel-dragged croak.

You pause, spoon in hand, frowning softly.

He hates that look.

That little line between your brows. The tilt of your head. Maybe you know he’s not telling the truth but don’t want to press. Maybe you’d rather hold the silence in your hands than make him bleed more words than he has.

“Okay,” you say again, quiet but still open, still gentle. “Just let me know if that changes.”

And you turn back to your pan, shoulders remaining to stay curled in. Like a window closing just enough to keep the cold out.

And Bucky just stands there.

Mouth dry. Hands shaking. Jaw tight. Chest full of something that feels like grief and guilt and anguish all tangled up in barbed wire.

And you’re cooking for a man who doesn’t exist in your world.

And the worst part - the part that scrapes down the back of his throat - is that he wishes he could deserve you.

He wishes this was real.

He wishes it were him.

He wishes it more than he’s wished for anything in his life since he lost it.

Since he became something else, since he forgot his own name, since his hands were turned against the world, against himself. Since all he’s done is survive.

He watches you like a man starving for sunlight. Terrified it might disappear if he blinks too long.

The way your shoulders move as you stir. The curl of your fingers around the wooden spoon. The tuck of hair behind your ear. The shift of your weight from one foot to the other.

He watches you move like he’s memorizing. As though this is the last time he’ll see you in motion. Like your movements are things he can bottle and carry with him, tucked deep into some pocket where the world can’t steal it. Where time can’t take it. Where even regret has no reach.

Your fingers fuss over something inconsequential now. Adjusting the position of a mug that didn’t need to be moved, opening a drawer, and then closing it again. You’re pretending not to look at him but he sees the way your eyes keep falling over, the way you keep folding and unfolding yourself. You’re waiting. Giving him the space he didn’t ask for and that he doesn’t actually want but knows he should take. Giving him something kinder than he’s ever learned to give himself.

And you are so familiar. You’re the same here. Even in this place that’s slightly sideways and tinted in colors, he doesn’t recognize. You move the same. You speak the same. You care the same way.

Even if your kindness isn’t meant for him.

Even if your kiss was meant for a version of him he doesn’t even understand.

Because this Bucky - the one you seem to love here - he must have done something right. He must have looked at you one day and not looked away. He must have let himself have you. He must have been brave enough to reach for you with both hands and hold on.

Bucky doesn’t know how to be that man.

He wants to be.

But he doesn’t know how.

Not in his own world. Not where he loves you from afar and pretends that’s protection. Where he swallows the way you laugh like it’s medicine and doesn’t let it show on his face. Where he listens to your questions in briefings - always you, always asking the most, as though you know people better than they know themselves - and he lets the sound of your voice guide him through the fog in his head like a rope he can follow back home.

But he never says anything. Never answers unless he has to. Never tells you how often he thinks about you, about your hands and your hair and your smell and the way your eyes find his in a crowd like a lighthouse built just for him.

Because what would he even say?

Hey, I can’t sleep unless I replay the way you laughed when Sam dropped popcorn all over the floor last month. I still have the napkin you folded into a crane at that terrible diner. I know the shape of your handwriting better than my own.

And what would you say to that?

Would you smile?

Would you run?

He doesn’t know. He’ll never know. Because he never asked. Because he never tried.

But this Bucky did.

And now this is the price.

Standing in the compound’s kitchen that smells of roasted garlic and too many things he’s never had. Watching you move around as though this is all so very familiar to you.

He wonders if you’d greet him like this every day if he were yours. If you were his.

If you’d light up like that every time like he was coming come and not just showing up, arms open, voice warm, like there was no place he could be safer than here with you.

If you’d wear his shirts as though they are yours because of what he means to you, not because they are soft or convenient or too clean not to steal.

He aches with the idea of it.

He wants this.

He wants you.

And not just in the sharp pain that lives under his ribs. Not just in the sleepless nights and the imagined conversations. Not just in the way he stares too long when you’re laughing or how he makes excuses to sit beside you on the couch.

He wants this.

You, warm and open and lit up from the inside. You, the way you could be if you saw him like this. If you let yourself. If he ever earned the right for you to let yourself.

But he hasn’t. He knows that.

He’s just your friend. The one you trust with your coffee order and your spare key and the heavy things you don’t want to talk about until 2 am. The one you steal clothes from, but always give them back because they don’t actually belong to you. The one you fall asleep beside during late movies without worrying about what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. Not to you.

Not like it means to him.

And still, he always watches. From doorways. From shadowed corners of rooms that dim the moment you leave them. Not to possess you - but because to look away would be a small death he cannot bear.

You laugh, and he holds the sound like contraband. You glance past him, and he lets it wound him sweetly. He’ll love you like that forever - at a distance, in silence, in awe. A man carved hollow by devotion, wearing his yearning like a prayer no god will answer.

And this version of you belongs to someone.

Even if it’s just a different version of him, it’s not him. Not this one. Not the one still lost in the burden of everything he’s done. The one who still wonders if the blood on his hands will ever wash off. The one who doesn’t know how to be soft.

He doesn’t know what the other Bucky did to deserve this version of you. Doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Doesn’t know what he offered you, what words he spoke when you were doubting yourself, afraid of being too much.

He’s not sure if he even knows this Bucky. It sounds weird as fuck. But maybe he doesn’t. Because it seems impossible to Bucky that this guy actually managed to get his girl. To get you.

Though he sure as hell would start a fight if the other him ever took this for granted. If he ever walked through this kitchen distracted or tired or in a bad mood and missed the way you smile when you think he’s not looking. If he ever left you waiting too long.

Bucky thinks he’d kill to have what that punk has.

And he hates himself for that.

But he can’t help but watch you, and it feels like the axis of something turning. Like time folding in on itself to offer him one brief, borrowed breath of what could have been.

It feels like being kissed by a future he lost, and forgiven by a present he never dared to ask for.

Because he knows that if you knew his thoughts, if you knew what he is feeling right now, you’d feel betrayed. You’d feel wronged. Because this wasn’t yours to give and it wasn’t his to want and now you’re both tangled in something made of shadows and parallel paths that should never have crossed.

But you’re here. And he’s here. And the moment still smells of cinnamon and citrus and something sweet, like safety, like you.

And he can’t stop wanting.

He wants it so badly he feels like a child in his chest. Like a boy in Brooklyn again, heart too big, hands too empty. Wanting something too beautiful for his fingers. Afraid to touch it in case he ruins it.

He wants this kitchen, this quiet, this life. He wants to be the Bucky who you wrap your arms around without thinking. Without hesitation. The one you miss. The one you think about. The one you care about so deeply. The one you kiss without asking because of course he wants you to.

He wants to be the one you light up for.

He wants it so bad it hurts.

But you are too soft for the ruin of his hands. Too bright for the rooms he lives in. You drink from fountains he was never invited to approach, speak in tones that his rusted soul cannot mimic.

And this is gutting him. To know the shape of your intimate kindness, the tilt of your adoring smile, the poetry of your presence - yet remain nothing more than a silent apostle to your orbit.

And maybe that’s why he finally moves. Why he tears himself away, footfalls too loud in the silence, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

He can’t stay here, not with you standing in the soft yellow light looking like everything he’s ever tried not to need.

He clears his throat, tries to make his voice sound normal, even though nothing about him feels human right now.

Your eyes lift to his. Wary. Still warm. Still worried. Still too much.

“I should, uh,” he mutters, nodding toward the hallway. “I’ve gotta take a shower.”

He bites his lip in frustration at himself.

Your lip twitches. Tugs down ever so slightly. It splits him open.

“Okay,” you say, quiet. There is disappointment in your tone, you weren’t able to overshadow. “You’ll tell me if you need anything?”

He nods too fast. Too tight. “Yeah.”

And then he leaves.

Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to do something worse than kiss you back.

He’s going to beg.

And he knows he has already taken too much.

And he needs to turn away.

Because he has something to do.

Because this world isn’t his. And he wasn’t sent here to collect the storyline he’s too afraid to build on his own.

He’s here for a mission.

He wasn’t sent here to linger in your doorway and let his bones dissolve into longing.

He walks away with you still behind him. He feels your gaze on his skin and with every step, it’s like he’s leaving something behind he’ll never quite be able to touch again.

He almost turns around.

Almost says your name.

Almost asks what this Bucky did - how he said it first, how he reached for you, what it took.

But he doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t get to ask.

So he keeps walking, heart in his throat, your taste still on his lips, and the echo of your smile carved into his spine like something sacred he was never meant to keep.

****

“Did you run into anyone while you were there?”

Steve’s question comes as casually as a bomb dropped from the sky.

Voices rise and fall in the conference room - wooden chairs squeaking under shifting weight, pens clicking, someone’s fingers drumming absently on the table.

The room is too bright. The lights overhead white and clinical, burning a little too harshly through his eyes and down into the back of his skull.

The air smells like ozone and burnt coffee. The kind that’s been sitting in the pot too long, scorched at the edges.

Bucky sits at the far end. Back against the chair but not relaxed, never relaxed, spine too straight, jaw too tight, metal fingers tapping once against the glass of his water before he clenches his hand and stills it.

And he knew this was coming.

Knew from the moment Strange opened that cursed slit in the fabric of the universe and Bucky stepped through like he was boarding a train to nowhere. Knew the second he saw your face - your face, but not yours - that this would catch up with him. That this would unravel under fluorescent lights and scrutiny.

Every muscle in his body coiled tighter. A reflex. A learned thing. His mouth is already dry.

The table is crowded with Avengers, coffee cups clinking, files half-open and untouched because no one is really looking at the paper.

The prototype sits in the center of the table, carefully sealed inside one of Tony’s vacuum-shielded cases. A long-forgotten Howard Stark fever dream, something meant to bend energy fields into weaponized gravity. Or something. It doesn’t matter.

They have it. He got it.

But that’s not what anyone is talking about right now.

Not when Sam is already side-eyeing him. Not when Doctor Strange is seated in his dark robes like the warning label on a grenade, fingertips tented, waiting. Not when you’re sitting two chairs down - his version of you - and you’re watching him with that same knitted expression you always wear when something doesn’t sit right.

“Bucky,” Strange says, voice low and still too loud. “I need to know. Did you encounter anyone significant while you were there? Interacting with alternate selves is risky. Prolonged exposure can ripple. If you spoke to someone who knows you-”

“I know the damn rules,” Bucky mutters, sharper than he meant to, and instantly hates the way your brows lift at the sound of it.

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Tries to breathe. His body is still holding something that didn’t belong to him. Your smile. Your voice. The feel of your lips, pressed to his like they had every right to be there. Like you knew him.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

He dreads talking about it.

“There was someone,” he says, and the room quiets.

You sit a little straighter. Sam leans forward. Even Clint lowers his cup.

He can feel you watching him.

You, his version of you, sitting across the table with your arms crossed and your head tilted just enough to catch the shadows under his eyes. The real you. The only important you. And it’s so difficult to just look at you because he swears there’s a phantom echo still lingering in his chest. Of another you. Of another kitchen full of light.

“Who?” Strange asks.

Bucky exhales slowly, eyes fixed on the table. The grain of it. The scratch just under his knuckle. He imagines digging his fingers into it, splinters biting through skin, anything to ground himself.

“You,” He meets your eyes when he finally says it, and it feels like swallowing gravel. “I saw her.”

You blink.

“You ran into Y/n?” Sam asks, something like a smirk in his voice.

Bucky nods once. It feels like rust grinding his neck.

He can’t look up anymore. Can’t look at you.

He doesn’t need to look to know your breath has caught. He can feel it in the air. The absence of it. Like the moment before thunder.

He pushes through.

“She was there. She saw me.” His jaw clenches, his fists curl under the table.

Bruce exhales, pushing up his glasses. “That’s not ideal.”

Tony makes a sharp noise in his throat.

“Did you talk to her?” Strange inquiries, voice tighter now, more urgent. And Bucky has to refrain himself from wincing.

He sees you shifting in your seat in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah,” he sighs, quieter now. “We, uh- we talked.”

Silence.

Strange’s eyes are boring through him. “How close did you get?”

Sam leans forward. Bucky doesn’t look at him.

You’re staring at him now. Open. Quiet. You haven’t said a word. Your silence feels worse than anything else.

“I don’t think that matters-” Bucky starts, but Strange interrupts.

“It matters exactly. If she saw you, if you talked, if you touched, if anything that could destabilize your emotional tether occurred-”

Bucky laughs, but it’s hollow, breathless. Rotten. “What the hell is an emotional tether?”

“It’s you,” Strange answers simply. “And her. On a metaphysical level. The same person in different timelines can act as anchors. Or explosives.”

“Jesus,” Bucky mumbles, dragging a hand down his face.

His palms won’t stop sweating.

He hasn’t felt this kind of sick since HYDRA used to strap wires to his temples and ask him how many fingers they’d need to break before he forgot his own name.

The conference room is too still. Too sharp. His chair feels wrong under him, too stiff, too narrow. The soft, predictable sound of conversation from earlier has dropped into something tighter. Focused. Hunting.

He doesn’t want to lie. Not about you. Not when you touched him like that. Not when you said his name like that. Not when it almost felt like it could be true.

So he swallows hard and pushes words through his locked jaw.

“She hugged me.”

A pause.

He doesn’t look at anyone. Just the table. That one dent from Steve’s shield. The scratch Clint made with a fork because he talks with his hands. A small, folded paper crane tucked under your fingers. He doesn’t know where you’ve got that from but your fingers are bending the wings back and forth. He doesn’t think you even realize you’re doing it.

“She hugged you?” Sam repeats, brow raised. “Like… greeted you?”

Bucky nods slowly, heart thudding in his ears. “Something like that.” He can feel your gaze like heat pressed against the side of his face and it almost burns to meet it, so he doesn’t.

“What happened before that?” Steve wants to know, eyes narrowing.

“I-” Bucky starts, and then stops, scrubs a hand over his mouth. “I walked into the kitchen. She was cooking something. Then she saw me. She thought I- he- was back. From something. A mission. I don’t know the details.”

“And she hugged you,” Steve adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs.

He doesn’t mean to look at you, but he does. For a second.

And you’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. Something still. As though you are trying to understand.

“And you just let her?” Sam presses, not unkind, but relentless in the way only Sam can be. “You didn’t say anything?”

“What do you think I should have said?”

“Well, I don’t know, man-“

“Did I say anything? Or… she?”

It’s your voice.

And it makes his stomach flip.

His eyes snap to you. But you’re not looking at him directly. You look at the edge of his shoulder. The hinge of his jaw. The tension written across his face.

He shifts in his chair. “You- She asked why I hadn’t told her I was coming back. Thought I was surprising her.” His hands are pressed flat against his thighs as though he can keep himself from shaking if he stays grounded.

“And?” Steve asks, too gently.

“She kissed me,” Bucky manages finally, and the room stiffens around him like a held breath. His voice is almost flat now. Hollowed-out. Maybe he’s trying to bleed the memory dry so it stops spreading in his chest.

There is a momentary lapse of silence that feels like someone dropped something delicate and no one wants to be the first to point it out.

Clint exhales slowly, muttering something under it. Sam leans back in his chair, maybe trying to decide if this is funny or devastating. Steve just blinks.

And you go completely still. Not a twitch of movement. Not even your fingers on the paper crane.

“She kissed you?” Natasha says, brows high.

Bucky exhales. Nods.

“What kind of kiss?” Sam blurts, leaning forward again. “A welcome-home kiss? Or a- like a real kiss?”

Steve sighs exasperated.

“No, I mean- we gotta know. This matters.”

His hand is aching. Flesh thumb pressing hard against the knuckle. “It was- not friendly.”

And the room really freezes. Stunned.

Until Sam lets out this sharp, incredulous sort of whistle, and Clint groans, dragging a hand down his face.

You glance down at your lap, jaw clenched, breath held so still it barely moves your chest. And it twists something in Bucky’s stomach, the way you sit there trying to disappear. He’s not sure who it hurts more - you, hearing this, or him, saying it. There is shame curling behind his ears. Shame and something like grief. And it’s all turned inward.

Sam’s eyes narrow. “So she kissed you thinking you were the other Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He’s trying to keep still. Trying not to flinch. Trying not to look left. Trying not to look right. Trying not to look at you.

Because he feels the air around you shift like the press of a coming storm. It’s not anger. He knows that heat, and this isn’t it. It’s just quiet and tight and uncomfortable. A subtle withdrawal as though you’ve stepped behind some invisible wall only he can see.

And he hates it.

Bruce clears his throat carefully. “That implies a romantic connection. At least in her mind. Probably in his, too.”

Tony makes a face. “So we’re saying that Barnes and our girl are a thing in that universe.”

“Looks like it,” Natasha muses, eyes sliding toward you.

“Holy shit,” Clint remarks unhelpfully.

They say it so easily. As though this is nothing. As though this doesn’t wreck something fundamental in Bucky’s ribcage.

And suddenly everyone is quiet. Even the noise of the lights seem muted. It’s hot and awkward and strangely intimate.

Bucky stares down at his hands. They look like someone else’s. He can still feel your touch on them. Still feel the heat of your mouth against his. The softness. The way your lips pressed with such intention.

He says nothing.

He feels terrible.

Because a part of him still wants it.

Still aches with it.

Not the kiss. Not the accident.

The life.

That version of himself who gets to love you out loud. Who gets to be yours in daylight, in kitchens, in the moments that don’t demand heroism but just presence. That version of him that doesn’t have to swallow the way your voice makes something flutter in his chest like a broken-winged butterfly. The one who can kiss you because you already know him. Trust him. Want him. Miss him.

He wants that version to exist so badly.

And it makes him feel like a monster.

You’re sitting just far enough to be untouchable, just close enough that he can feel the space between you aching like a wound.

You are you. You are right there. And you don’t even know that in another universe, you loved him so much you ran into his arms without hesitation.

The light from the high windows drips in thin streaks across the long table, catching on Bucky’s knuckles, the tightness of his body.

There’s a long pause.

Then Tony exhales. “Well, that confirms it. Barnes is getting some in another universe.”

“Tony,” Natasha warns lowly.

Tony holds his hands up in mock innocence, but Strange interrupts them, turning to Bucky with a roll of his eyes. His cloak rustles.

“Did you tell her anything?” His voice is edged. “Did she suspect something?”

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He shifts in his seat. His back is too straight, and still, and his hands are bracing for something.

“No,” he relents. His voice is raw and rough like gravel pulled from the bottom of a riverbed. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

Strange’s eyes narrow. “Nothing?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Strange tilts his head slightly. His expression is unreadable. Calculating. “Her behavior. Did she seem disoriented? Odd? Suspicious? I assume you know Y/n well enough to tell if she’s acting off.”

The lump in his throat settles as though it lives there.

“She was hurt,” he admits, and the words punch out of him. “I froze up. She thought she’d done something wrong. But she didn’t suspect anything.”

Across from him, you shift. A small movement. But he feels it in his bones. He looks up. Meets your eyes.

You’re watching him as though you’re trying to learn something about yourself from inside of him.

He swallows hard.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he says again, and it’s not for Strange this time. It’s for you. “I didn’t compromise anything. I was careful.”

“You were compromised,” Strange says, not unkindly, but without sympathy. “Emotionally. Whether you said something or not.”

Bucky doesn’t argue.

Because yes. He was. He is. He doesn’t even know how to be anything else anymore. His chest still echoes with the memory of your laugh - not your laugh, but close enough to trick him. His arms still remember the shape of your body, the way you buried yourself into him. As though you’d been there a thousand times before and would be a thousand times again.

He wonders what that other you is doing now. If you are still standing in the kitchen, perhaps waiting for him. Still hurt. Still confused. Still so worried.

He wonders what that Bucky is doing now. If he’s back. If he’s home. If you’re in his arms, asking what took him so long. If he knows what he has. If he’s grateful. If he deserves you.

And he wonders too, if you - the you here, right across from him now, quiet and tense and real - will ever look at him that way.

Your eyes are on his and it seems as though you want to say something, as though maybe you’ve been wanting to say something for a while now.

He doesn’t hear the others anymore.

They’re voices in a room, sounds in space, language and logic pressing against the outside of a window he’s no longer looking through.

Because your eyes are on him and they are too open, too careful.

And, unfortunately for him, this is where the hope begins.

Small. Thin. Stupid.

Because there is a version out there who loved him already. Who ran to him as though he was safety and home and joy all wrapped in one reckless heart and it had been so easy for her. Natural, even. Like a reflex. Like a need.

And he has to think that if she could, then maybe you could too.

Maybe - if he just keeps showing up, if he keeps giving you pieces of himself even when it’s terrifying, even when he thinks he has nothing worth offering - maybe you’ll see something in him that you’ll want to keep.

Maybe he’s not beyond that.

Maybe he’s not on the edge of the world after all.

His heart stumbles inside him, a sharp jolt under his ribs, and he realizes too late that his breathing has gone shallow. His palm is sweating. His chest is aching in a way that is not just pain, but hunger, longing, desperate weightless wonder.

Strange is talking. Something about dimensional instability and neural resonance and all that science talk - but Bucky is no longer a soldier at a briefing.

He’s a man staring across a room at the person who has made his worst days survivable, and he’s remembering how it felt to see you in his shirt in a different kitchen, how you stood there with your back to him waiting for him to wrap his arms around you, how your lips tasted like things he should never know but can’t ever forget.

You shift again. Your knee knocks lightly against the leg of the table as you tuck your foot beneath you. And your hair falls forward, soft and a little tangled from the wind that always sneaks through the compound’s side doors. Your lips part, as though maybe you’re going to say something in front of everyone, and he braces for it, all of him going still like a wolf spotting something too delicate to touch.

But you don’t.

You break eye contact and tuck your hair behind your ear as though you caught yourself doing something you shouldn’t.

But Bucky doesn’t stop hoping.

Because he watched you do exactly that in a very different universe. Such a small gesture but it means so much to him.

Because yes, maybe he is not the Bucky she thought she kissed.

He’s not the Bucky who wakes up with you tangled in his sheets.

He’s not the Bucky who lets himself believe he could be loved without earning it first.

But maybe he could become that man.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, he too can get the girl.

Maybe if he works at this more than anything else that matters, you’ll love him too. Not just in some alternate world, but here.

In this one.

In your voice, when you say his name.

In your laugh, when he says something without meaning too.

In your eyes, when you don’t look away.

And he knows he would do anything to earn that.

He would do anything to be enough for you in the only universe that matters.

His fingers twitch. His shoulders square slowly, almost unconsciously, as though some decision has clicked into place without needing permission.

The room is still full. Voices layered over voices like shadows that haven’t realized the sun moved. Chairs creak beneath shifting bodies, Sam’s laughter breaking loose and grating on Bucky’s nerves.

The idiot is grinning, leaning back in his chair as though this whole situation is the best thing to happen this week. “Alternate-universe you is in a relationship, Barnes. What do we think about that, huh?”

“Sounds like he’s living the dream,” Clint mutters, giving Bucky a jab to the arm. “You finally got the girl, Barnes. Took a whole damn reality shift but you got there.”

Someone chuckles. Tony, maybe. Or even Steve. He can’t tell anymore. He can’t hear much over the buzz in his ears, over the sound of his own heart pounding behind his ribs.

“Hell, maybe all our multiverse selves are having better luck,” Sam remarks, amused.

Clint chuckles. “Ah, Barnes just grew a pair.”

“Well, that’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?” Natasha, calm as ever, lifts one elegant eyebrow.

“Alternate-universe Barnes has game,” Sam says delighted.

“Lucky bastard,” Clint mutters under his breath.

They mean well. They always mean well. This is how they show they care. With ribbing and teeth-bared grins, with shoulders nudged, and things they don’t say louder than the ones they do. It’s how they keep their own wounds in check. How they keep from bleeding all over the carpet.

But Bucky isn’t laughing. He isn’t smiling. His lip twitches but only with frustration at his teammates.

He notices your stillness. The lines around your mouth have gone soft and tight all at once. Your hands are folded too carefully in your lap and your gaze is pinned to the table.

With every mention - every offhand comment, every teasing jab - he can see it.

The way your shoulders stuck in closer to themselves. The way your breath grows quiet and shallow. The way you can’t seem to look at him anymore.

He swallows around it, the sharpness in his throat, but it doesn’t go down.

Everyone else seems to think this is a strange, mildly awkward, maybe slightly endearing detail in a weird mission story.

But Bucky feels sick.

Because he’s seen it on your face. The way the information about the kiss struck you like a misfired bullet. A shadow in your eyes, the small breath that caught in your throat, the way you shifted your legs like you needed to move, to run, to put distance between yourself and what you heard.

God.

He’s such a fool.

A lovesick idiot.

Because he let that brightness curl in his chest. The hope that even though you have every right to feel nothing at all, even though he’s spent so long training himself not to want this, not to wish for things he can’t have - he truly thought that if there was a version of you that looked at him that way, that reached for him without fear, then maybe this version, this you - maybe there was something possible here too.

But now he is watching it close again. Watching you feeling uncomfortable, retreating into yourself, folding inward like the paper crane you left behind. And he knows the fault lines are his. That even his silence can crack things apart.

When the meeting finally breaks - Strange dismissing everyone with a calm nod and a list of inter-dimensional protocols Bucky doesn’t hear - you stand before anyone else. Quiet. Not hurried. Just deliberate.

As though you’ve made a decision.

You don’t look at him. Not once. Just gather your notes and your coffee and the sweater you left draped over the back of the chair.

And you leave.

No goodbye. No glance back. Not even that half-smile you offer when the day has left you tired and the silence between you feels soft instead of loud.

Bucky is on his feet before he realizes it. He ignores Sam calling after him, something about needing to finish signing off the tech. Doesn’t respond to Steve’s “Buck?” Doesn’t glance at Strange, who’s looking at him as though he already knows where this is headed.

All Bucky sees is the hallway.

You, disappearing around the corner, just a whisper of your hair and the sound of your boots against the polished floor. And all he can think is no.

Not like this.

He walks fast, with his pulse in his mouth and panic blooming in his chest.

You’re so graceful even when you’re upset, even when your body is stiff with tension. You carry yourself with that strength that’s always pulled him in, and he hates that he knows it. Hates that he can read you this well, because it means he knows you’re hurting.

He walks fast enough to catch up, to not give himself time to think about it too much. His hands are cold again. The way they get when he’s unsure. When something matters more than he knows how to handle.

“Hey,” he calls out, and his voice comes out too soft. Almost hoarse. “Wait- can you- can we talk?”

You stop. Slow, reluctant. As if the last thing you want to do is this but some piece of you can’t help it.

You don’t turn around at first. You’re breathing hard. He can see your shoulders rise and fall too quickly, your jaw tight, your arms folded across your chest as though you are trying to keep yourself together.

You turn.

And it’s worse than he thought.

Because your eyes are shiny and your expression is made of glass and restraint and you’re biting the inside of your cheek in that way you do when you want to pretend something didn’t bother you.

He hates this. Hates that he did this to you, even accidentally.

But god, you still are beautiful in a way that feels like gravity. Like the ache in his chest could drag the stars down to meet you.

You watch him as though trying not to give too much away.

“Can we talk?” He repeats, breath catching somewhere between hope and despair.

You shrug, not cold, not angry. Just tired. “If you want.”

He steps closer. Not too close. Careful. Always careful with you.

“I know it probably sounded bad in there,” he says, voice rough. “I didn’t want it to come out like that. Like I was… caught up in something.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Bucky,” you say quickly, voice too neutral. “You didn’t know. I get it.”

But he wants to explain. Wants to lay it out, piece by bloody piece. Wants you to understand that for a minute there, he forgot how to breathe because of how you looked at him. That he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I didn’t tell you- I mean, tell her,” he blurts, breathless. “I didn’t tell her who I was. Or where I came from. I didn’t say anything.”

You blink at him. “Okay.”

“She thought I was him. I- I didn’t say anything because I- I wasn’t supposed to engage and I wasn’t planning to. I swear I wasn’t planning to.”

You say nothing. Just stare at him with that sweetly confused expression.

Bucky steps closer. He’s aching, head to toe, something brittle in his chest like cracked glass.

“You kissed me,” he continues, and you bite your lip, looking away, “but I didn’t- I froze. It felt wrong. And when you said you missed me, I panicked. It felt like I was stealing something. From you. From you both.”

He stops. Swallows.

And there it is again. That dangerous spark. That sharp, flickering thing that’s lived inside him ever since he saw that other version of you, ever since your arms wrapped around his neck and your mouth pressed to his and your voice filled his chest with something whole.

He wishes for a version of that hope here, too.

But not if it means breaking you to find it.

You’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. He can’t tell if it’s pain or disappointment or confusion or all of it. He just knows it’s tearing him apart.

“I know it wasn’t me she kissed,” he goes on, quiet, every word dragging out of him as if it doesn’t want to be spoken. “And I know it wasn’t you, either. But it made me think that maybe-” He breaks off, exhales. “I know it’s not fair to say it, but-”

“Then don’t.” Your voice is soft when it comes.

And he flinches as though you touched a nerve.

But your face isn’t cruel. It’s sad. Honest. Tired in the way people get when they’re holding too many emotions all at once.

“I’m not her,” you clarify, but there is something fractured in the way you say it, like the words are paper-thin and barely holding shape. “I’m not whatever version of me you saw, whoever she is to you, that’s not me.”

“I know,” he croaks out. Bucky steps closer, just once. Not touching. Not yet. He doesn’t dare.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your arms unfold slowly, but not in surrender. You gesture at yourself, the smallest movement, but there is steel in it. “She looks like me,” you go on. Your voice is tight. Bitter. It’s not like you. Not how he knows you - the warmth, the patience, the fire and calm and kindness all mixed together. “She sounds like me. But she’s not. She’s not me, Buck.”

And then you turn as if you’re about to go. As though you can’t stand another second of standing still in front of him.

“No- don’t,” he pleads, and before he can stop himself, he reaches. His hand finds your wrist, not tight, not rough, just enough to stop you. “Please.”

You pause again, with an exhale that is sharp and hurt and too loud in the hallway.

He is closer now. Close enough to see how tight you press your mouth together to keep it from trembling. The twitch of pain in your brow, the soft crease between your eyes he knows only shows up when you’re trying really hard not to cry.

Guilt and desperation roll through him, thorough, like a tide pulling everything warm away. It unspools him from the inside.

“What?” There is no weight behind your words. Your voice is worn. Defeated.

Bucks swallows. His voice feels like rust trying to be rain.

“She hugged me. Said she missed me. She kissed me like she’d done it a thousand times before.” His voice is shaking, even if he’s trying not to let it.

“And I didn’t stop her. Not for a second,” he goes on, quiet. “I should’ve. I should’ve pulled away sooner, but I-”

You pull your arm back, but he doesn’t let go.

“Why are you telling me this?” you question him, voice breaking in the middle. “What am I supposed to do with that, Bucky? Be happy for some other version of me?”

There is so much pain in your eyes, so much confusion and hurt and jealousy and heartbreak and it cuts him right through the heart. He feels it bleeding into his organs.

He closes his eyes, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“I didn’t stop her,” he says lowly, slowly, “because, for a second, it felt like you.”

The silence between you is thick enough to drown in.

Your lips part, but no sound comes out.

“For a second, it felt like something I’ll never have,” he confesses, barely audible now. “And I was selfish. I let it happen. Because it wasn’t just a kiss to me.”

You don’t speak. You don’t move. Your chin trembles.

You look at him as though you want to say something but can’t trust yourself to do it.

“I’ve been trying to bury it,” he admits, voice strained. “This thing in my chest. This want. It’s been there for a long time. And I kept thinking- if I just waited long enough, maybe it would go away. Maybe you’d never have to know. But I saw what it looked like when I had it. When I had you. Even if it wasn’t really you. And I- I didn’t want to come back here and pretend I didn’t feel it anymore.”

You don’t move. Just stand there. Staring at him as if you don’t know what to do with the version of the world he is handing you.

“I’m not asking for anything,” he adds quickly, voice thick and gravelly. “Not expecting anything. I just- I couldn’t let you walk away thinking it didn’t mean anything. Because it did. But not because of that other you.”

Bucky loosens his hold on your wrist the way someone lays a weapon down.

Slowly. Gently. Like an offering. Giving you a choice. A chance to run. A way out, if that’s what you need.

His fingers brush fabric as he lets go, every inch of skin unthreading from yours just another stitch in the fabric holding him together.

He steps back. Not far, but enough. Giving you the room to run if you want to. Because he would never cage you. Not you. Not the girl he’s tried so hard not to need and failed so spectacularly at not loving.

The cold creeps in like a punishment.

He swallows, breath shallow, heart trying to climb out of his chest. He doesn’t look away.

“It meant something,” he breathes, and the words are low but steady, dragged out of some buried part of him where he’s kept the truth folded up too long. “It meant something because I love you.”

The words hang there. Open. Unarmored. His voice doesn’t shake but he feels the quake underneath it. He is already bracing for the ruin of it, for the way your silence might cut him down. It’s too much. He’s too much. Too much and too late and he’s saying it anyway, because what else can he do now, what else is left to do but burn with it.

“I love you. You. Only you,” he repeats, and this time it’s quieter, as if speaking it softer might hurt less if you break him.

He is bracing for your silence. For the recoil. For the slow turning of your back and the slam of a door, he won’t ever be allowed to knock on again.

But you don’t run.

You just stare at him.

Wide glassy eyes, lips parted, your whole face carved out of disbelief. Your chest rises with shallow, trembling breaths, and for a second, it’s like the hallway has no oxygen at all. Just the two of you standing in a vacuum made of shattered timing and aching things laid bare.

You look like someone trying to decide if the ground beneath you is real. If you are dreaming.

And Bucky is not breathing.

Doesn’t know how he will ever take in a breath again.

Then you move.

Fast. Sharp. Certain.

You close the distance between you with a speed that knocks his soul out of him, and before he can even process the intention behind the storm in your eyes, your hands are in his collar and your mouth is on his.

It’s not gentle.

It’s not careful.

You crash into him as though gravity has finally won. As though your body has been held back for too long and now it’s surging forward with years of restraint snapped at the root.

It hits him like an impact. Like a whole damn earthquake disguised as your mouth on his.

He makes a noise - somewhere between shock and surrender - and for the barest second, he is frozen.

He’s still.

Because this is you.

You.

One breathless, startled second he forgets everything - his name, the room, the hallway, the mission, the multiverse - and then he’s moving.

He melts.

His arms are around you in a heartbeat, tight, desperate, finding your waist, your back, the edge of your jaw, greedy and trembling and too careful all at once. He pulls you in, tighter, tighter, one hand threading into your hair, the other locking around your waist.

And then he is kissing you back with everything he has, with everything he’s been holding back, with every version of himself that ever wanted to belong.

He is kissing you back as though he’ll never get the chance again.

His whole body folds into yours, heart slamming into his ribs, mouth pressing against yours, like a question he’s been dying to ask. He kisses you like an apology, like a promise, like he’s been holding his breath for a century and only just remembered how to exhale.

It’s not a careful kiss.

It’s years of aching packed into the space between your lips. It’s soft lips and a metal palm and your nails digging in his jacket and his thumb shaking against your jaw. It’s a kiss that tastes of every unsaid word, every sleepless night, every time he looked at you and wondered what it would feel like to have you.

The second your tongue touches his lower lip, a low and tortured sound rips from somewhere deep in his chest. He answers you with open-mouthed hunger, tilts his head just enough to draw you in deeper, slants his mouth over yours as though he’s living out every dream in which he’s imagined this before.

He feels the warmth of your lips and the way you lean into him, the way you give yourself over completely, and he pulls you even closer, as though he’s trying to kiss every version of you that exists in every universe just to get back to this one. You. Here. Now.

His tongue brushes yours and everything goes tight inside him - his stomach flips, his spine arches ever so slightly, his body not knowing whether to hold steady or fall apart entirely.

Your lips are sweet and urgent and you make a sound - quiet, somewhere between a sigh and a gasp - and it knocks the air in his lungs every which way.

His mouth moves faster when your fingers curl into him tighter and tug him closer, dragging him under. His metal fingers are splayed over the small of your back, and his flesh fingers are tangling at the nape of your neck, holding you still as his tongue licks into your mouth, gentle but full of everything he’s feeling.

He moans softly into you, doesn’t even realize it’s happening until he feels the sound buzz against your lips. His pulse is pounding in his ears. His knees feel untrustworthy. There is heat spreading through his chest, through his limbs, and he wants to live in this moment forever, suspended in the place where you chose him.

When you finally pull back, your lips are swollen, flushed. He presses his forehead to yours just enough to breathe, but not enough to let you go. Never that.

His hands are on your face. His thumbs brush under your eyes. His breath shudders out against your lips.

When he opens his eyes, slowly, he is met with yours. Glistening and wide and so full of feeling it almost floors him.

He stares at you as though he’s seeing the sun rise for the first time.

“I love you too,” you breathe against him.

Bucky shivers.

It lands like a heartbeat he forgot to hope for.

Pleasure surges through his veins, straight to his heart. His eyes fall shut, lost in it.

And something in him tells him he will hear this at least a thousand times, maybe even more, if he’s lucky.

“I loved her not for the way she danced with my angels, but for the way the sound of her name could silence my demons.”

- Christopher Poindexter

[reignpage]

❀ In which husband!Nanami's ass is not safe around you

Kento knows to eye his surroundings when he ascends the stairs – it’s almost second nature now to look behind him. He does it at work too. Once. Twice. He scans the environment as if somehow he’ll find himself in a compromising position. So used to his habits, his colleagues find themselves picking it up too, looking for him, for something they wouldn’t recognise even if it was right in their face. What happens when he’s not on guard?

You happen.

“Sweetheart…I need to sort the fresh laundry out. Please no funny business.” Smiling, you’re the picture perfect image of an angel but your husband knows better. With his hands full, he can’t do anything about the hand reaching out towards him nor can he fight against the harsh smack that you land upon his behind. Jolting and with the tips of his ears burning, he shakes his head and sighs. “I see your strength has improved. Well done.”

Even when he’s cooking he’s not safe around you. You’ll creep up behind him and dive your face between his cheeks, ignoring his gasp. Motorboating the mounds, you giggle, squeezing and groping like it’s a stress toy. “Hmm, your ass is bigger than mine, Kenny. I’m so jealous.”

Making no attempts to remove you, he continues doing as he does and wonders where in this marriage he went wrong, that you’d be more interested in talking to his bottom than to him. He could tell you no, could tell you not to disturb him when he’s making dinner, and that he’s not the fondest of your attention to it, but instead he says, “Your ass is plenty big, my love.”

No hug with you is innocent. At first, your arms are wrapped around his torso, enjoying the hard wall of muscles of his back as you bury your face between his pecs. Soon, however, he’ll notice those arms descending ever so slowly, as if he wouldn’t know, as if he can’t feel the scratch of your nails and the tingling they elicit on his skin. Your hands will eventually find themselves resting on top of his buttocks for warmth. It happens sometimes when you’re out. People point and laugh. Kento holds you tighter. 

It gets worse in bed. At night, when he’s climbing into bed shirtless and wearing only pyjama bottoms, you wait to strike. He knows the routine at this point. If he doesn’t pin you to his front and constrict you into the spooning position immediately, you’ll pounce and dig your teeth into the flesh. The red marks he sees in the mirror the next day are a reminder of your hidden prowess, of the kind of beast he married, of your ability to bring him to his knees and have your way,

And that in and of itself is most likely the reason why he focuses so much on building his glutes in the gym, why he fights through the aches of doing squats and lunges whilst carrying heavy weights, why he buys more and more of the pants you claim hug his lower half in a delectable way, and why he doesn’t bother dodging your attacks though he can see them from a mile away. 

After all, to Nanami Kento, a man isn’t someone who avoids their wife’s odd interest in a specific body part of his; it’s someone who ever so slightly juts it out to grab your attention and smiles in relief when he realises your interest hasn’t waned at all despite all the years you’ve been together. Having learnt the hard way, he’s become a firm believer that it is his husbandly duty to simply brace for impact and become an award-winning actor with his winces, grunts, and mutters of ‘ouch’ and ‘gentle hands, dear, please’ that you seem to take pleasure in hearing. 

He supposes, if he really had to reflect on the matter, a marriage is a balance: for every squeeze, grope, and bite you land on him, he does to you. Ten-fold, actually, not that you seem to realise or care…maybe that was your devious plan all along. It’s getting harder and harder to tell who has the upper hand in this relationship. 

Though, he suspects it’s you. 

It’s always been you. 

[dark-night-hero]

Imagine being Zayne's non-mc significant other. part2

Imagine growing up, Zayne has never been the loudest in a room. He was more of a constant quiet yet present and warm person other could lean on into. He doesn't speak often but when he does, people listen. Especially you, his lover. The one who loved him before he even knew how to love himself.

Imagine the way he watched you across the room as the two of you where now separated by a small sea of people. His eyes out of habit looked and found you. He knew that look on your face, the kind of face that others would mistake as absentmindedness but he knew that look. But he recognized the way your brows softened when you are lost in your own thoughts. He knew you were thinking. About him, maybe. About what you two have.

Imagine the way he smile softly to himself, even as he turned back to the conversation. As a joke passed around the group, he let out a small laugh, not forced, but not full either. And then something caught his attention. A familiar laugh rang out from somewhere in the room. It was bright and child like, MC. She had always laughed like that, ever since they were kids. Zayne didn't need to turn his head to know where it came from. He already knew.

Imagine she had been under his care for a while now. Her recovery had been long but she was making progress. She was strong, even if she didn't believe it. And he? He was protective of her. Not in a romantic way, but in the way that an older brother might be for a younger sibling. But that didn't stop people from speculating. The familiarity between them, the shared glances of old memories they painted as a picture, people misunderstood too easily.

Imagine, he hated that you, his lover had to see that. Especially when he caught your eyes again. Your friend was sitting next to you speaking softly. He couldn't hear what your guys were saying, but the tension in your posture told him more than words ever could. Then you look at him. No, past him before looking away. That hurt more than he expected.

Imagine Zayne love you with everything he had. From the quiet moments to the loud. From the days were you two barely spoke to the nights were he held you like a lifeline. He love you. He never said it as much as he should have, but it was always there in his actions. The way he picked up your favorite drink on his way home. The way he listened to your ramble about your day even when his own had left him drained. The way his hand always found yours under the table, steady and sure.

Imagine he knew something had shifted. Not his love. Never his love. But your trust.

Imagine he knew what it looked like. The way his eyes drifted when MC laughed. The way he softened around her. But what no one else saw, what you did not seem to realize was that it wasn't love. It was duty. About family. MC was a girl he grew up with, a patient he'd watched fight her demons tooth and nail. She was a reminder, not a desire.

Imagine, he saw it in your eyes, the creeping doubt. The belief that you were nothing but a second place to someone who wasn't even playing the same game. That realization shattered him. He remembered the conversation you two had once, late at night, your head on his chest. "Do you think you could ever love someone more than you love me?" You asked, not accusing or something, just plain curiosity.

Imagine the way he had pulled you closer, kissing the crown of your head and saying "No, there's no one else for me. Only you.” He meant it. He still meant it. But something had crept in between the two of your lately. An invisible wall neither of you had placed but both felt. It was born from the silence. From the misunderstandings. From him not being careful enough with the way others saw his kindness, and you being too quiet about how much it hurt.

Imagine watching you smile faintly at a conversation you aren't really in, Zayne felt a pang of guilt. Not because he had done anything wrong but because he hadn't done enough to make you feel safe. Loved. Chosen.

Imagine the way he wanted to cross the room. Sit beside you. Take your hand in his and whisper 'It's only ever been you.' But the timing never seemed right and maybe, you wouldn’t believe it anymore. So he stayed seated. Eyes lingering just a little too long. Not on MC. But on you. The one who had seen him. Chosen him. And loved him with a kind of quiet bravery that both terrified and humbled him.

Imagine the way he swore to himself that he'd stop being silent. Stop letting the shadows of old relationships or misunderstood bond blurs the truth. He was yours. And he'll prove it, every day from here on out.

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°

:happy ending? Not quite. Sorry it took so long, I was playing valorant and was editing everytime I died.

[maskedbyghost]

where you left me

cw: angst, memory loss, heartbreak

There’s too much white. That’s the first thing you notice when your eyes peel open, your lashes sticky. The ceiling is too clean and too bright, and the air feels heavy and sterile. Everything feels distant, sounds muffled like the room is underwater, and the steady beeping near your head drills into your skull. Your throat burns, raw and dry, probably because it hasn’t tasted water in days.

When you blink slowly, testing the weight of your eyelids, there’s a shape at the edge of the bed. First, you see his boots, black and scuffed, planted like they’ve been there for a long time. You drag your gaze upward, you don't see a mask, just a man with sharp lines, sunken eyes, and tension drawn tight through his shoulders.

“Simon,” you whisper before you know why. The name comes easily. Like it was waiting for you.

His jaw tightens, and thhat small shift says too much. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and too familiar. “You’re awake.”

You nod, barely. The effort makes the room spin. “Where am I?”

“Medical. You were injured on a mission.”

Something twists inside you. A cold ache that doesn’t feel like it came from the wound.

“What mission?”

He doesn’t answer.

You lick your cracked lips. “How bad is it?”

“You hit your head,” he says. “Memory might be patchy. Or gone. Depends.”

You study his face. His voice is all wrong, and worst of all, he won’t meet your eyes. “Do I know you?”

“We’re teammates,” he replies quickly. “That’s it.”

But your chest aches in a way that doesn’t feel new. His voice doesn’t sound like a stranger’s. And your heart doesn’t listen to what your brain is being told. It presses harder against your ribs, like it’s trying to get to him.

He turns before you can ask more and walks out without a glance back.

Recovery is slow and boring, mostly. The days blur together in a way that makes it hard to keep track, and everything in the medical wing feels the same with those bright lights, stiff sheets, and walls that don’t let in any noise or air.

You sleep too much, but you’re always tired. Your body hurts in places you don’t fully understand, and even though the doctors say you’re healing, you don’t feel like you’re getting better. It’s not just your head—it’s something else. Something sitting in your chest that won’t go away.

People visit, but not all at once. Soap shows up the most, always with some stupid story or joke that feels like it’s meant to distract you. He talks fast, laughs too loud, and leans back in the chair like he’s been there a hundred times before. You think he’s trying to keep things light, but there’s something about the way he looks at you when you’re not speaking that makes it obvious he’s worried.

Gaz is more subtle. He doesn’t try to talk your ear off, he just sits nearby and asks if you need anything. You get the sense he knows what not to say. Price calls in once from wherever he is. His smile looks strained on the screen, like he’s trying too hard to stay positive. You appreciate it anyway.

You ask about Simon more than once. You try to keep it casual, but everyone seems to notice. But the answers don’t change. “He’s busy,” Soap says. Or, “He’s not one for hospital visits.” Sometimes they just shrug and move on. It starts to feel like you’re not supposed to ask. Like bringing him up is some kind of mistake.

You don’t remember why it matters so much, but it does. It bothers you, the way they all talk around it. The way no one really looks you in the eye when you mention his name.

“Was I close to him?” you ask Soap during one of his visits.

He shifts in the chair beside your bed, one leg bouncing slightly. “Everyone’s close in the field. Life and death does that.”

But that’s not the question. You can tell he knows it too, by the way he doesn’t meet your eyes.

You start dreaming again after a few weeks, and it’s never the same twice. Most of the time, it’s just flashes—quick, messy bits that don’t always make sense.

Sometimes it’s simple stuff: the feeling of a hand on your back, steady and reassuring, or someone laughing close to your ear. The weight of someone next to you in bed, the way your body relaxed without even thinking about it. The sound of a voice, very deep, quiet, and familiar, but the words never come through clearly. You wake up with the feeling that someone was talking to you, but you can’t remember what they said.

Other nights are worse. Loud and violent. You hear shouting—your own, maybe. Or his. There’s gunfire, smoke, and people running. The pressure of fear sits heavy in your chest even after you’re awake.

Sometimes you feel pain, too, like your body is remembering something your brain can’t. You’ll sit up in bed gasping, sweating, with no real memory of what happened, just this overwhelming feeling that something went wrong.

And no matter what kind of dream it is, it always ends the same way. With that name stuck in your throat. You never say it out loud in the dream, but you wake up with it on your tongue, like you were trying to call out to him even in your sleep.

Simon.

Coming back to base is harder than you thought it would be. It’s like you’re stepping into a life that’s not really yours anymore. There are so many things around you that feel familiar but at the same time completely strange.

You see your name on your ID badge, the photo looking back at you from the plastic, but it feels like it belongs to someone else. Your locker is right where it’s supposed to be, and your fingers know the code by muscle memory, opening it without you even thinking. But even with all those little things working like they should, nothing inside feels like it fits.

You keep waiting for something to click, for a part of you to catch up and say, “Yes, this is home.” But it doesn’t. It feels like you’re trapped in someone else’s skin, like your body belongs to another person.

Simon is everywhere and nowhere. You catch glimpses of him from time to time, just a shadow moving down the hall or slipping through a doorway before you can reach out.

Whenever you actually see him, he’s always in a rush, like he’s trying to get away from something, or from you. He doesn’t stop or talk. His face is cold when you do manage to look at him, and he moves too fast for you to say anything before he disappears again. It’s like he’s avoiding you on purpose, and that hurts more than you expected.

After days of catching only quick glimpses, you finally see him clearly. He’s coming out of the briefing room, no mask on this time, and the sharp line of his jaw is so familiar now that you don’t even have to think twice. It’s him—Simon.

Your voice slips out before you can stop it. “Simon.”

He freezes for a moment. Just a brief pause, like he’s trying to decide what to do next. Then he turns his head just a little, not fully facing you. “Can’t talk. I’m late.”

And just like that, he’s gone. Moving away fast, disappearing down the hallway like he always does—just out of reach, like everything else you thought you knew about him and about this place.

You start writing things down, those small details that come back to you, or things you notice around you. Like how Soap has this way of calling you by a nickname that somehow makes your stomach flip every time you hear it, even though you don’t really understand why. Or how Gaz keeps offering you his coffee every morning, even though you never drink it.

It’s like a quiet gesture, one of the few constants you can hold on to. And sometimes, when it’s late and the hall is almost empty, you catch a shadow lingering just outside your door. It stays there just long enough for you to think it’s real.

Then there’s a photo you find tucked away in your file, something no one ever talked about. It’s you and Simon, both covered in mud, standing close together. Closer than what teammates usually are. His hand is resting on your waist like it belongs there. You’re smiling in that photo, and not the forced kind, but a real smile, easy and natural. You look at it for so long that your eyes start to blur.

Eventually, you tape that photo inside your locker. Every morning, before you go out, you find yourself staring at it a little longer than the day before, like you’re trying to remember what it felt like to be that close to him, and maybe hoping that one day it’ll mean something again.

You finally catch him alone in weapons storage. He’s there restocking gear, moving with the precision that makes it clear his mind is somewhere else, probably somewhere he doesn’t want to be. His hands are steady, but every motion feels tight, like he’s trying hard not to think too much.

You clear your throat and say his name. “Simon.”

He doesn’t turn to look at you. His back stays to you, his shoulders rigid.

You take a step closer. “Can we talk?”

He shakes his head without facing you. “Not now.”

You let out a quiet, frustrated breath. “You always say that.”

He freezes for a moment, his hands pausing in mid-air as if trying to decide whether to keep working or to answer you. Finally, he puts the box down on the table slowly. His whole body stiffens, and you can tell whatever he’s holding back is about to come out.

He still doesn’t look at you, but his voice drops low, rough around the edges. “Because it’s always true.”

You don’t believe him, so you take another step closer. “You’re lying.”

That’s when something in him shifts—just a quick flicker in his eyes, a tightening of his jaw. Maybe it’s anger or regret, or maybe it’s all tangled together. He swallows hard, then finally meets your gaze for a brief second. It’s raw and unguarded, even if he tries to hide it.

His voice softens, but there’s an edge you can’t ignore before he repeats himself. “Not now.”

You swallow past the lump in your throat, the tightness in your chest growing.

He looks away again, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s trying to keep himself together. The silence stretches between you, but neither of you says anything more. You can feel the weight of everything left unsaid hanging in the air.

You stand there, waiting for something—an explanation, a sign, anything—but it never comes. Finally, you turn and walk away, the sound of your footsteps echoing in the quiet room.

At first, the memories don’t come all at once. It’s slow, almost like they’re buried under a heavy weight you can’t quite lift. They come in tiny flashes, little pieces that catch your attention for just a second before disappearing again. You don’t even notice it happening at first.

Maybe it’s the smell—something about the way his jacket smells when he’s nearby. It’s faint but familiar, like a mix of smoke and leather, something that sticks in your mind without you meaning to remember it.

Or maybe it’s the sound he makes when he’s thinking, almost like a soft humming sound that you’d swear no one else would notice. You remember the way your hand fits perfectly in his, like it was meant to be there, how heavy it felt when he finally took it.

And then, more comes. Not all at once, but slowly, piece by piece.

You see yourself in a hotel room, nothing fancy, just bare walls and a bed pushed against the corner. You remember how quiet it was, how the air seemed still except for the sound of his breath, warm against your neck, close enough to make your skin prickle.

You remember talking quietly, voices low enough so no one else could hear, words that mattered more than you realized at the time. You can almost feel his lips brushing gently over a scar on your shoulder, the touch light but somehow full of meaning.

You remember the day you told him you’d follow him anywhere—even into hell. It wasn’t just words; you meant it. And when it came down to it, you did.

Then the mission comes back. The chaos. The explosion. You hear him yelling your name, sharp and urgent, just before the grenade lands too close to you. Your body moves before your brain can catch up—throwing yourself to the ground, the impact hitting hard, pain burning through you.

After that, there’s nothing. Just the silence, the dark, the emptiness.

Then this—right here, right now.

The next day, you stand by the garage, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. You don’t know how long you’ve been there. The sky changes slowly above you, colors fading from blue to soft pinks, then darkening to evening shades. The air cools against your skin. The hum of the generators is the only sound, filling the quiet around you. You try to steady your breathing, but your heart feels like it’s pounding in your throat.

Time stretches. You watch the empty street, waiting. You don’t know exactly what you’re waiting for, only that you have to be here. Somewhere deep down, you believe he’ll come. Maybe he already knows you’ll be waiting. Maybe he always knows more than you think.

Finally, he appears. He rounds the corner, walking slower than usual, like he’s unsure. Maybe he’s been thinking about this moment for a while. Maybe he’s been dreading it. His eyes don’t meet yours at first; they’re focused on the ground just ahead.

You gather yourself and say the words you’ve kept inside, the ones you’ve said a hundred times in your head but never out loud. “I remember.”

He stops, but he doesn’t say anything, just stands there.

“I remember everything,” you say again, louder this time, trying to push past the silence.

His shoulders rise slightly, like he’s holding his breath, then drop as if the weight of it all is too much. He still won’t meet your eyes. “Then you know why I didn’t tell you,” he finally says, his voice low.

“No,” you reply, stepping closer, your chest open but your throat tight like you’re about to cry. “Tell me. Explain it.”

He looks away again. “I didn’t want you to remember.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

His words hit harder than you expected. The quiet after feels too loud, almost unbearable. You laugh, but it sounds wrong, too forced. “That’s not true.”

This time, his eyes flick up, locking with yours for the briefest moment. There’s no softness there, no warmth. Just cold steel, hard and unbreakable. “You think I’d lie just to protect your feelings?”

“Yes,” you breathe, your voice shaking. “That’s exactly what I thought you’d do.”

He looks away again. “It was a mistake.”

Your stomach twists into knots. “Say that again.”

Without hesitation, he says it clearly. “Being with you was a mistake.”

It feels like your whole body freezes. Your breath catches, and your hands shake with a mix of anger and hurt. “I risked everything for you.”

His voice is sharp, cutting. “And I never asked you to. You think that means I owe you something?”

“I thought it meant something more. I thought it meant you cared.”

He laughs, low and bitter. “I thought I did, too. But it’s different now. I can’t keep pretending.”

The cold spreads inside you, and you swallow hard. “You don’t mean that.”

He stays quiet.

“Simon,” you say softly, almost pleading.

“I don’t want to do this,” he says, voice softer but still distant.

“Then don’t,” you whisper, your voice breaking. “But please, don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying,” he says firmly. “I’m doing the only thing I can. I’m letting you go.”

You look at him, willing him to crack, to reach out, to show some part of the man you once knew.

But he doesn’t.

So you turn and walk away.

He simply watches you disappear into the dark.

-------------------------------------------

@nightunite hope you enjoyed babes

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212 @farylfordaryl @rafaelacallinybbay @akkahelenaa @lovelovelovelovelove987654321 @wraith-bravo6 @tessakate @xocandyy @nightfwn @robinfeldt98 @xiisblogs @mad-die45 @readingthingy @actualpoppy @amongthe141 @whore4romance @thatghostlykid @syofrelief @avgdestitute @sheepdogchick3 @echo9821 @imalapdog

[jinxbabys]

cw: amab jinx with a dick. fem reader. obsessive pervy jinx. solo masturbation. dub con. degradation.

synopsis: jinx jerks off in your body wash.

thank you to the anon who requested this!

jinx knows that this is wrong, but she can’t help it, nor can she find it in herself to care. she wakes beneath your sheets, limbs tangled, and her cock already stiff and sullen. pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek, she stumbles off to the bathroom, with the half-lucid shuffle of someone still sleeping in the marrow of their bones.

the pink cotton panties she wore to bed—your panties, really—do nothing to contain her cock. they ride up, press in, cradle the bulge of her arousal.

then they come off before the door even clicks shut.

her cock leaps forth like a jack-in-the-box—striking her belly with a heavy, indecent slap, then succumbing to its own weight; hanging low against the pale slope of her thigh.

the shower moans to life, sputtering cold needles of water against her shins. despite this, she steps under the stream anyway. from the wire caddy she plucks your bottle of body wash, lifting it to her nose and inhaling your intoxicating, signature scent—almost reverently.

and suddenly, when an idea clicks in her brain, she pauses. the fantasy arrives sharp and abruptly, like a gust of wind slipping in through a cracked window;

it’s you, naked under the same water, lathering your skin, humming softly. she pictures the way you’d squeeze a dollop of body wash onto your loofa, but it’s not just soap anymore, is it? it’s been corrupted. tainted. her cum—crude and uninvited—hiding in the slick, jelly-like substance while you intend to clean yourself. except, unbeknownst to you, you’re making yourself all the more dirty.

“fuck,” jinx breathes, hips jerking. “fuck, fuck.”

the way the image unspools in her mind makes her knees weaken. a small, wounded whimper slips from her lips when her sensitive cockhead twitches. it’s born out of pain—she’s so hard, so achingly swollen—and pleasure alike.

jinx imagines how you’d scrub the soapy suds all over your tits, slow and mundane, and then absentmindedly slipping down the slope of your stomach—effectively spreading her seed further. eventually, you’d drag the loofah down south, rubbing the soap—her cum—against the outside of your pussy.

now she’s certain that she has to do this. not out of impulse, but out of a deeper sort of ache; the need to be as near to you as the laws of flesh and longing will allow. and really, if not now, then when? her cock is hard and ready, balls heavy with her salty, creamy essence. the thought of delaying the inevitable seems ridiculous.

with warmer water beating down on her body, jinx unscrews the lid to your body wash, then grasps her cock in one hand, holding the object she’s going to defile in the other.

she wonders if you’d even notice that she contaminated your favorite soap. no, you’d most likely just press the loofah to your body, rubbing it in absentmindedly—rubbing her into your skin. you’ve always been sweetly naive, eager to believe the best in people, willfully blind to even the more destructive elements of jinx’s nature.

but still, jinx imagines how you’d squawk at her if you were to find out, “why would you do something like this? you’re disgusting!” and the thought makes her cock jump, as if in answer.

in her mind, you recoil. you’re naked and wet and furious. “you seriously came in my soap?” your voice sharpens to a blade. “are you brain-damaged?”

“probably,” jinx says aloud. her voice shakes as she wraps her fingers around herself—languidly to start with—while tracing the blue vein down the length of her cock. “probably, yeah. but i love you so much, i just—i couldn’t help it.”

her thighs tense, tremble, then relax—only to coil again. her cock pulses in a relentless cadence, starting at her purpling cockhead, all the way down to her heavy, full balls.

“say it,” jinx hisses to no one, to you, to the silence. “say it. call me a sick little freak.”

and from her imagination, you oblige.

“you’re disgusting.”

“you’re fucking sick.”

“you need help, jinx.”

she nods slowly at first; with the half-lucidity of someone whose mind is full of cotton and static—then quicker, more insistent, while sinking her teeth into her lower lip. her strokes become erratic, urgent and greedy, and she’s pumping her hips with the desperation of a dumb stray.

“i do,” she pants. “fuck, i do. i need you. i need—”

jinx doesn’t finish her sentence. she’s utterly lost in the delirium of sensation. she can only cum—hard, hot, throatily—into your bottle of body wash, while some of her seed drips down the side.

not too long after, when she’s screwing the lid back onto your soap, she ponders the idea of waking you up to join her for a second shower.

taglist: @2ftall @jinxedbambi @mxchi-mxxn @g4ys0n @babiedolllz @just4jinx @mars4hellokitty @lolitalovess @rhian88 @ficbookmarx

(please excuse the large font—my post kept getting flagged otherwise. also, if you received a million notifications from all the times i reuploaded this, i’m so sorry).

[sister-hawk]

this is exactly why Taash’s whole…situation in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is so unsettling. the use of super modern terminology (like “non-binary,” and “demi-gender”) is painfully out of place in this medieval fantasy world. there’s a lot wrong with the writing and the overall tone of that game, and it is painfully obvious it was written by much less experienced and less skilled writers than the previous entries in the series.

Dragon Age has always had queer characters, and they have always found a way to explain their queerness without resorting to words that stand out like a sore thumb. No one ever had to say that Leliana and Zevran were “bisexual,” it was understood when they talked about their past love lives. Dorian and Sera found a way to say that they were gay without having to use the word. Iron Bull describes the Qun’s nearest thing to being “transgender” as “a person born as one gender but living as another,” to explain Krem’s identity to the Inquisitor.

but the writers of Veilguard seemed to be so preoccupied with making it the queerest game you’ve ever seen (and openly patting themselves on the back for it too), they they didn’t even bother to try to make it fit!

Taash can still be a non-binary character! but you know what would have been a better way to introduce that information to the audience? “I’m not a woman, don’t call me that.” another character could have then asked a followup, like “so what are you then, a man?” and they could have either shown visible confusion (assuming the writers were particularly attached to the “questioning teenager trying to figure out their identity” angle), or they simply could have said “i’m nothing, don’t worry about it,” or something else to that effect. instead they have Maevaris hand Taash a book that reads like someone’s tumblr bio c. 2014.

it’s a little bit maddening to see such sloppy writing and world-building in such a high profile series.

It's very #problematic of me I'm sure but if they must do either I really desperately prefer authors coming up with fancy always-italicized elf words for being gay or trans than having preindustrial warrior aristocrats and barely-socialized monsters have a vocabulary that casually includes 'demisexual' and 'enby'.

This is only slightly a principled stance (queernorm fantasy worlds are very obviously not trying to have any sort of realistic political economy of gender, which I only slightly judge them for), mostly just painful aesthetic mismatch.

[l4ndoflove]

ocean eyes , pt. 2

feat. lando norris

lyrics preview if you jump into lando's "ocean eyes", you know the risk is drowning... but for him, you're willing to take it

maddie shout-out to my baby @piston-cup for being the most supportive "anon" ever and my main motivation to write this, I LOVE U <3

2440 words

⏮️ previous track

Ten days.

That’s exactly how long your silence lasted.

Not that you went radio silent, of course, just… quiet. Quieter than you’d ever been with Lando, anyway.

You started calling him less and less often after that night at his apartment—not out of pettiness, but simply because the mere sound of his voice made your chest ache in a way that should’ve never belonged to him in the first place.

Because it was wrong.

Because now, every time his name lit up on the screen of your phone, a little part of you stubbornly hoped he was calling for the same reason you were waiting for him to.

He never was. And distancing yourself suddenly seemed like the only thing that could help you, if not overcome that suffocating feeling of yearning, at least lock it up in the farthest corner of your mind and pretend it wasn’t giving you the illusion you’d lost something you’d never even had.

Lando, for his part, didn’t seem to notice. He kept texting you, kept sending you stupid reels and talking to you as always—maybe even more insistently than before—making the whole “ghosting” plan way harder than it should’ve been.

Until, one day, it happened.

A message. That’s all it took for your resolution to crumble.

lando: oi muppet

lando: you coming to monaco this weekend right?

You weren’t sure how many times you’d reread those words in your head, allowing that stupidly affectionate nickname to carve a deeper hole in your already hollow chest—right where your heart was supposed to be.

Clearly long enough for his voice to ring in your ears as if he was there talking to you in person.

You could’ve said no. That you were busy. That you couldn’t afford the flight and you didn’t want him to pay for it as always.

You should’ve said no–

you: sure

you: but i’m not crashing at yours this time

lando: why not :(

you: because

Because.

***

You spent the whole weekend with his parents, part because you hadn’t seen them in ages, part to use them as a wall to shield yourself from Lando.

And, against your better judgment, it worked. Adam and Cisca basically stole you whenever they got the chance to tell you about their life—which was perfectly fine—and ask you about yours—which wasn’t, but you tried to answer them anyway.

That’s how you ended up tucked in a corner of the McLaren garage, away from all the cameras, the mechanics, the noise, headset covering just one of your ears as the woman beside you talked the other off.

But your mind was somewhere else entirely.

Your eyes were fixed on the screen hanging right above your head, searching for a flash of papaya every time the frame moved to a different sector.

Ironic, you thought, how everyone kept calling Lando’s car a “rocket ship”, yet your heart could race just as fast.

Sure, you were used to Sundays like this, the adrenaline of the competition, the excitement of knowing your best friend would be starting from pole position… but Monaco?

It had been his dream since childhood, probably. Hell, he’d talked about it so much it had become your dream, too. And you were finally watching it happen in real life.

“Did they pit him yet?” Cisca’s muttering brutally brought you back from the labyrinth of memories you’d lost yourself in, your eyes snapping away from the screen and landing on her focused face instead.

“No, he still has to go in.”

“Right,” she nodded, more to herself than to you as her attention shifted back to the broadcast. “When do you think…”

Her voice trailed off. Scrunching your eyebrows together, you followed her gaze to where it had stopped, confusion lacing both your expressions now.

“Oh.”

Yeah, oh.

You found yourself staring at none other than Magui, orange headphones sitting naturally on her hair like a crown, effortlessly charming even though she wasn’t trying to be.

You already knew she was there, of course. You’d seen her walking around the paddock the days before, and it also wasn’t the first time they’d shown her on live television—nothing new, really.

What Sky Sports had forgotten to mention earlier that weekend, however, was now staring right back at you, written in capital letters so bright that you felt them burning behind your eyelids the moment you looked away:

Margarida Corceiro

Model & Lando Norris’ Partner

Two pairs of eyes bore through you before you even had the time to give those words a meaning, and you had to muster every ounce of willpower you had left to keep a straight face without showing any compromising emotion.

“So… they made it official, huh?” Adam’s voice was hesitant, awkward, almost like he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or hold back.

“But–I thought…” His wife kept glancing between you and the screen with the same lost expression of a fish out of water, disbelief simmering beneath her initial confusion.

As for you… well, you didn’t have time to add anything else—not that you would've even if you had the chance to—because the whole team suddenly erupted into cheers so loud that they startled you.

Crofty’s voice echoed off the walls, blasting from the speakers: “Lando Norris wins the Monaco Grand Prix!”

He'd done it.

He’d won, and you hadn’t even looked at the screen the moment he’d crossed the finish line, too busy obsessing over something that shouldn’t have surprised you the way it did.

The least you could do for him now was run up to his car like everyone else around you and congratulate him with a hug, a smile, maybe a few tears, too. The usual routine.

And run you did—turning your back to parc fermé and heading toward the exit like the coward you were.

Because you couldn’t stand the idea of watching someone else being the reason his smirk widened as soon as he spotted her in the crowd, jumping into his arms before you, getting lifted off the ground like she was the real trophy…

As selfish as it sounded, that had always been your place—and you weren’t one to share.

So–

“Where are you going?”

You froze.

Lando had always had the annoying ability to express your thoughts for you.

“Out,” you replied without even turning around, “it’s hot here.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he scoffed like he couldn’t believe his ears, jogging up to you until you were face to—well, chest. “I won Monaco, and you’re just… what, leaving?”

You exhaled a shaky breath. “Listen, I–”

“No, wait, I know!” he brightened up, suddenly excited. “It’s for a surprise, right? If I have to stay here, I can–”

“Lando, it’s not… what surprise?”

His grin, that big, toothy grin that lit up every room he walked into, faltered, and your heart withered like a sunflower in the dark.

“Maybe the team planned something without telling me, I don’t know,” you rushed the words out, desperate to fix your mistake, “so why don’t you go back to them–”

“You don’t want to be with me?”

“No–I mean, yes! But I’m sure there are plenty of people who want to congratulate you right now–”

“And you? Do you want to congratulate me?”

Your breath caught at his sharp tone.

He’d never talked to you that way before.

And you tried to answer him, you really did, but all you managed to do was open and close your mouth a couple of times, unable to make a single sound because of the growing tightness in your throat.

Lando frowned.

“So now you won’t even speak to me? After one week of silence? Are you–” he cut himself off, running a hand through his hair out of frustration. “Are you mad at me? Is that it? Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No!”

“Then why are you acting like I did?”

“I’m not acting like anything–”

“Yes, you are! You don’t call me anymore, you don’t reply to my texts, you barely look at me when we’re together—this weekend I didn’t even know where you were half of the time!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were tracking my whereabouts 24/7.”

You flinched before he did when you registered what you’d said, the voice inside your head screaming “What the hell are you doing!?”.

Choosing yourself, that’s what you were doing. Because choosing Lando had become way too complicated, and if you had to hurt him to stop hurting yourself… then be it.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Can we not do this here, please?”

“Why? What are you so scared of? People watching?”

Now that he mentioned it, you remembered you still were in the middle of the garage where all his team, friends, family—and girlfriend, your mind didn’t fail to add—were, and the heavy silence that had fallen over the room was proof enough that they’d heard everything.

“I’m not in the mood right now, okay? Just let it go,” you shrugged, turning to leave.

His hand closed around your wrist a second later.

“No, I’m not letting it go. I’m not letting you go.” Were you imagining things, or did his voice actually soften? “You’ve been avoiding me for days, and I want to know why. As your best friend, I think I deserve the truth.”

There it was. The final straw.

You’d never felt so little nor sounded so miserable when you finally found the courage to speak up.

“That’s the problem,” you whispered, not trusting yourself to talk out loud. “What if I don’t want you to be my best friend anymore?”

At that moment, everything stopped.

The air was so still you could hear a pin drop.

Instead, you heard someone gasping, then trying to cover it up with a cough. Someone shifted in the background. From the corner of your eye, you even saw Adam holding back Cisca and whispering something that sounded awfully close to “Let them sort it out themselves.”

As if you could sort anything out when Lando was standing right in front of you, yet you didn’t even dare to look him in the face.

Then, voice low and hoarse like it physically hurt him to speak, he broke the silence.

“You don’t mean that.”

You did. That was the problem. And you hated how painful it was to finally admit it—to him as much as to yourself—but most of all, you couldn’t handle being the reason he sounded so broken on what should’ve been the best day of his life.

“Sorry, I… I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

“God, can you stop minimizing this like it’s nothing? And will you–” he tugged at your arm, making you stumble dangerously closer to his chest. “Will you at least look at me? I’m trying to talk to you.”

He leaned in as if to prove his point, ragged breath fanning over your hair as he searched your eyes—which were inevitably drawn to his like magnets to metal.

The second you locked gazes, you knew it was over.

He was glowing. Champagne still dripped from his soaked through fireproofs and the messy curls that were sticking to his forehead, drops sliding down his tan skin like liquid rays of sunshine.

No wonder why they called him McLaren’s golden boy.

And yet, even as he stood there bathing in the Monaco sun, the brighter light still was the one shining in his eyes.

Captivating. Hypnotizing, even. Just as lethal as the one deep-sea predators use to lure their prey right before they strike.

You had to escape before you ended up the same way.

“There’s nothing to say. Now go celebrate, they’re all waiting for you.”

“Nothing? You not wanting me as your best friend anymore is nothing?”

“I didn’t mean–”

“Then what did you mean? Because I’m having a really hard time understanding you–”

“I want you to be more than that, okay? That’s what I meant.”

The words flew out of your mouth so suddenly that you surprised even yourself, but there was no turning back now. The damage had already been done, so you might as well go all the way with it, right?

“I know it’s stupid, and I know it’s never gonna happen, but I can’t pretend I’m fine with playing the part of the supportive best friend when all I really want is to be with you. And maybe if we hadn’t played that stupid game at your apartment last week, I wouldn’t have realized I was–I am in love with you, and we could go back to being friends, and I wouldn’t cry every night over you being with Magui–”

“Wait–Magui? What does she have to do with any of this?”

Despite the situation, you couldn’t help the bitter, disbelieving chuckle you forced out as an answer.

“She has everything to do with this, Lando. She’s the one who kissed you ten days ago and gets to do it whenever she wants, she’s the one Sky Sports called your “partner” on international TV–”

“Sky Sports did what?”

The question made you roll your eyes. “Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

He was serious. You’d learned to understand when he was messing with you, and that wasn’t the case—no, it was something much worse, the spark of a feeling you’d buried deep inside you long before.

Hope.

“So you’re telling me you had no idea they’d be hard launching your girlfriend today?”

“No,” he paused, gaze softening together with the grip around your wrist. “I’m telling you she’s not my girlfriend.”

Bullshit.

Reading the skepticism in your expression, he anticipated your objection just as you opened your mouth to make it.

“We broke up last week.” His thumb started tracing gentle patterns on the back of your hand. “Ten days ago, to be exact.” He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “The night I realized I was in love with my best friend.”

You blinked up at him, his last words barely audible over the pounding of your heart—and you were met with the same mirrors of water you’d been so scared of drowning into.

The only difference was that, this time, the reflection you saw was yours—not Magui’s.

And when Lando’s lips finally found yours, you let yourself fall and dive into them.

Because now you knew he would be there to catch you.

© 2025 l4ndoflove. all rights reserved.

[rafeslvbug]

infamous cheating scandal rumors that all nfl players deal with, maybe it’s when you’re pregnant with your daughter and you’re exhausted or not feeling the best, while the media is throwing around the idea of rafe cheating on you with his personal assistant or something

i mentioned before how you and rafe deal with cheating scandals, and it’s a lot of nfl!rafe showing you off to the world and you straight up defending your husband.

this comes from years of experience.

when you’re pregnant with your daughter, your son is about two, rafe is away and it’s a struggle.

the reporters are harassing you, they won’t stop asking you whether it’s real or planting the image of you, walking with your son, pregnant belly alone to prove their point.

rafe’s having none of it. he’s away for the season, somehow reporters seemed to have forgotten that fact when they post their tabloids. he’s going online, tweeting or even saying it at after game interviews.

“that bullshit on the media? don’t believe any of that shit, my lady is at home taking care of our kid and expecting another, i’d never even think of ruining the perfect life she’s blessed me with. and you guys are fuckin’ sick for tryin’ to doubt it.”

would call you the moment the “scandal” comes out, reassuring you over the phone

“sweetheart, it’s not true, you know it’s not true, every day you’re all i think about and our family? means everything to me.”

if one day it gets bad? on a private jet, getting to the house immediately. he’ll scoop you into his arms, letting you cry it out if you need to, taking your son off your hands for as long as he can, making sure you sleep like a baby, hands under your bump to relieve the pressure, letting you lay on him.

you will be spotted in public, rafe holding your son, arm wrapped around your shoulders and holding you close to him. it’s not even for the cameras, it’s just rafe making it up to you, even when he did nothing wrong. if you’re hurting, it’s his fault, his problem, and he’s gonna fix it.

and everyone’s like, “rafe trying to reconcile” and he’ll always shut them down with some shameless retweet of “fuckin’ comforting my wife over the pain you put her through the last few weeks.”

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

deltarune spoilers I wanna talk about chapter 4 below is a pretty mundane theory about the knight's identity and their role in the narrative

Just writing some unimportant stuff in this line because Tumblr sucks and sometimes doesn't care about the break anyway let's go

I'm pretty sure at this point (and thus am probably wrong) that the Knight is Dess Holiday, but also that Dess was the original girl hero in the trio that's supposed to save the world.

First thing that catches my eye is the difference between what Ralsei tells us the prophecy is like, and actually seeing the prophecy for real in the church.

In Ralsei's version, this is how the monster looks like.

This is important because this is pretty clearly Susie. It's a dinosaur-like monster that wields an axe.

This is a depiction that comes up later; in Chapter 2 we see it in Queen's Castle, as a statue Susie can steal for her bedroom. Consider that Queen does not know about these things and is just adjusting and recreating things that people look up online, and that she knows about the protagonists. By and large she's probably just copying Ralsei's notes.

However, when we go to the Dark Sanctuary, we learn a couple of interesting things--

Ralsei is not telling the whole prophecy, and is in fact paraphrasing it for pacing and length.

Save for Ralsei, those are not the original symbols of the heroes.

This is how the hero looks:

Notice that instead of showing Kris, it's showing the player, the SOUL. It's a very specific difference; Kris is the cage and is included in the text, but the implication of showing the actual SOUL instead of them makes the prophecy ring a lot different.

The second hero, however, looks like this:

It's fun that they don't even call her a monster, just a girl, which could always mean some wild shit we don't know yet, but let's focus on the symbol-- if memory serves, this is the ACT symbol. For example, you can get this symbol on Kris's battle HUD if you call for Genson in the Dark Sanctuary:

It also looks a lot like Susie's Rude Buster, but not like the Rude Buster symbol, which is a magical flame.

Either way, then we go a bit further and get to the main point I'm trying to make:

That's not Susie.

Susie doesn't wield a sword. She has never wielded a sword. She has an axe.

The axe is so Susie's weapon that it materializes no matter what she's holding. It came pre-packed with her Dark World form, it's not something she chose-- she even has dialogue about how she doesn't know why she's carrying an axe, but, hey, axes are cool.

I believe this is supposed to be Dess, Noelle's older sister, for a few reasons

She's obviously a very important character who is absent, missing in such a way that has caused hurt on every character. We're shown that she's the first one to "leave" during Tenna's flashback to how it used to be in the Dreemurr/Holiday get-togethers, and her absence is deeply felt by everyone involved whenever her name comes up.

She's described as strong, incredibly cool, and overall the kind of person who would be a hero.

In conversations, Noelle mentions that Dess would hit Kris with a wiffle bat when they would lie to her until they stopped. Obviously two different weapon types, but a bat and a sword are a lot more like each other than a sword and an axe-- at least in how you hold it!

The rest of the Hero Girl prophecy mentions she would find love-- while Susie is obviously in love with Noelle, Dess is also pretty clearly flirting or secretly dating Asriel.

That's part one of the theory, part two is that instead of becoming one of the heroes, something happened to her (which seems to have involved a sacrifice?) that made it so that instead of becoming one of the three heroes, she became the Roaring Knight instead. Evidence for the Knight being Dess (as opposed to, say, Carol) is:

The Knight has antlers, the most obvious signifier that they're a Holiday. But also, did you notice what the sword looks like when the Knight summons it?

IT LOOKS LIKE A BAT. BAM BIG REVEAL MASSIVE PAYOFF. YOU THOUGHT I WAS STRETCHING BACK THERE. YOU THOUGHT I DIDN'T HAVE A PLAN. YOU'RE ALL STUCK IN HERE WITH ME.

Anyway the Knight also:

Attacks with stars -- like Christmas stars, above Christmas trees.

The Knight is horrifying-- and Dess was really into horror movies. She's in fact the reason why Noelle is into creepy things, even if they do genuinely frighten her.

The Knight is not physical-- it can obviously turn into a ball to fly around, but more important than that, it turns into pure static when you actually attack it. Garbage noise.

It almost looks like the Knight is some kind of distortion, like a hologram.

And then, one final thing related to both of these characters that I think is what's actually missing to understand what's going on between the Dreemurrs and the Holidays:

During Chapter 3, you can play the "real version" of a game Tenna has modified to be easier and more direct. In it, you control Kris, who goes through the game world doing a No Mercy run on enemies, then on their own friends, finally ending with a dungeon run where you slaughter a lot of monsters and flowers. This eventually rewards you with the Shadow Mantle you need to defeat the Knight. (if you're not a god and can perfectly dodge everything, that is)

In one of these, you encounter a different kind of enemy that has no equivalent in any other room. There's this thing that copies your movements, in a dark chamber.

If you go into the game's files, you can actually not only find out what this is, you can also lighten up this room.

It's a black deer.

This is probably the most direct reference to the Knight being a deer in the game (even if it's just in the files), but the final piece, the thing that actually makes me lose my mind, is the fact that there is actually a variable that turns the actual model into the "monster" you fight in this room. This variable is only used here. When you walk into the room, the variable turns to true, and the deer becomes the room's enemy.

The variable's name?

Toriel turns her into a monster.

So, here's my attempt at making sense of it all:

Dess was supposed to be one of the three heroes, wielding her bat as a sword.

Asgore and Toriel have something to do with whatever happened with Dess. Whatever they did tore apart their relationship with the Holidays, and their own marriage.

Whatever happened to Dess has been weaponized and whatever's left of her has become the Roaring Knight.

Susie's reaction to the final bit of prophecy likely has to do with someone dying by the hands of the Hero Girl, which she correctly points out would never happen in their specific group.

And she's right. It wouldn't. Because she's not the hero girl.

This also means Susie's going at this hero thing completely unaided by prophecy, 100% stoked on hopes and dreams, because she's the best. You can check out a video exploring more of the deer situation here.

now i know what you're thinking

if the hero is dess, why doesn't the church mural have antlers?

and the answer

might surprise you

OH SHIT A DOG

anyway that was it go away

[ineedacoolerurl]

I’ve got the same problem with makeup guides. Contouring guides always seem to be something like: if you have a narrow face do this to make it look rounder, if you’ve got a round face do this to make it look narrower. The mentality seems to be: whatever you look like, you’re wrong.

I wouldn't be as much bothered by the "how to dress right for your body type! :)" guides if they didn't presume to know what people want to look like. Ok you've got a guide on how to minimise one's most distinct features, one for every body type. But what if someone who's naturally long and gangly wants to emphasise how much they look like several David Bowies stacked on top of each other, or someone who's short and round wants to make sure that everyone is aware that she's as wide as she is tall with tits to match?

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Enemies to Lovers or the "Give Us Nothing" Trope

This is a particular bane of romantasy, but it's been going on way longer than that in a lot of fiction. You know him, I know him, it's the "super hot bad guy to whom a redemption arc is a joke" trope. The irresistible evil dude. Pretty much one of the main options for a romantic lead these days. This trope is awful, rarely done well, and has been driving me crazy for ages. Let's talk about why!

Subgenres of this trope are The Liar ("I withheld critical information from you for 2/3rds of the plot yet you still want to fuck me") or the One-Dimensional Rogue ("I have the moral convictions of a flea but you'll still get with me over the good guy you've known your whole life"). All of these characters seem interesting on the surface, but there's a handful of factors that cripple them:

Being unwilling to give us a real motive. Why is the hot evil guy evil? What made him go down this road? What do they truly believe and why? If your character has less motivation than a Disney villain, you've got nothing to go on. Gaston has more depth than most of these bozos, and the point of Gaston is that he shallower than a dried puddle!

Being unwilling to actually write romance. These dudes is supposed to like the lead, yet they never really do. The key problem here is that once your mysterious hot lead starts to actually want to be with someone, he stops being so mysterious. Actual character development might expose some flaws or make the dude awkward, and we can't have that.

Not conflicted, not interesting. The bad guy doesn't have any emotional turmoil about what he's doing and why. Or maybe he feels a little bad about lying to the heroine, but goshdarnit, the sex is just so good. There may be trauma driving him, but it's mostly present in the form of a sexy scar or a sad background that'll never be plot relevant, so why bother?

The redemption is a joke. Being willing to do one good thing and then immediately dying isn't redemption. Demanding (or having the romantic lead demand) acceptance immediately after a heel-turn isn't either. Redemption is hard, there's often little room for it in Enemies-to-Lovers, and the story suffers because of it.

I'm not going to say this trope never works, because it absolutely can. This really can be an interesting dynamic if you put your heart into it. In fact, characters that these characters you can look at that do this right include:

Han Solo (aka the Scruffy Rogue, Star Wars)

Listen, Han Solo is always depicted as the ultimate rogue, but he's actually a loser. He was a shitty smuggler who was terrible at his job. His attempts to hit on Leia were laughable. He probably smelled like Wookie most of the time. Han does not start off as a cool, suave character. He thinks he is, and pretty much everyone sees through him.

But Han earns his way by turning back to help the people he barely knows. He uses his own connections to help the rebels, and when that backfires on him, his friends are invested enough to come save his ass because he already risked himself to save theirs. Han starts off a loser and becomes cool by throwing it in with the good guys, even when he'd rather run.

Han works because he lets go of the walls he's built up and allows himself to care and believe in his friends.

Zuko (aka the Actual Redeemed Bad Guy, Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Zuko's bad boy exterior is almost immediately shattered in ATLA. He throws temper tantrums at his uncle. He blows up constantly. Zuko only becomes cool when the narrative changes and we get to know why he is the way he is, but he's still a bad guy. We see him struggle with his anger, and we see him continue to make bad choices. We see his slow journey to something more.

And, most importantly, he almost immediately loses all his cool aura when he joins Team Avatar. He becomes awkward and stilted, because he has to truly humble himself and admit he was wrong. He's no longer the main character of the story, and he has to accept that. He never really regains that cool exterior, but he becomes a more confident, capable person because he's willing to do the right thing.

Zuko works because he's willing to face his trauma, admit his flaws, and work to correct the mistakes he's made.

Catra (aka the REAL Enemies to Lovers, 2018's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

All ya'll motherfuckers are sleeping on Catra. A villain who remains a villain for most of the series, Catra is fueled by both ambition and anger. She continues to make bad choices, even when she realizes she's wrong. She continues to hold Adora's defection to the good side against her, even when Catra knows she's not doing the right thing. She's manipulative and cruel, but absolutely genuine.

Catra's going to be the most controversial person I add to this list, but I think she's the most critical in the Enemies to Lovers done right. Her deep, personal connection to her love interest is the driving force in her decisions to remain on the bad side. Her conflicted emotions drive her to the brink, and only when she breaks does she realize she's in the wrong.

Catra works because we always know what her motivations are and why she makes the choices she makes, even when they're the wrong ones.

People not on this list are Draco (who never redeemed himself and that was the fucking point) or Kylo Ren (done in by bad writing). You can fix them in fanfiction and hell, that's what it's there for. But you can't really build off of them for your original work, because the building blocks are wrong. You've got to knuckle down and make your bad guy character have real flaws, face real consequences, and be able to humble themselves, or it's just not going to work.

[othernightslikethis]

AFTER HOURS

Kim Taeyeon x Male Reader.

A little anguish, age gap, bf x gf, smut

7,1k words

Kim Taeyeon wasn’t just your mother’s best friend. She was part of the fabric of your life, a constant presence that seemed to have existed forever. The aunt who wasn’t related by blood but who scolded you when you talked back. The woman who made three-tiered cakes for birthdays, who remembered the names of your third cousins and always knew what gift you wanted before even you did.

She was the loudest laugh at Sunday barbecues, the lap you ran to when you fell off your bike, the shoulder your mother leaned on when she was sad. She was there when you broke your arm jumping off the school roof, holding your hand in the hospital while your mother was busy filling out emergency forms. She was there at your high school graduation, shouting your name louder than anyone, eyes shining with pride. She was there on that holiday in Jeju, when she showed up in a wine-red bikini that made your father immediately look away, flustered. You were fourteen at the time, and you saved the photo on your phone with a heat in your cheeks you couldn’t name.

She was perfect. Untouchable. She glowed in a way you didn’t know if it was because she was too much of an adult or simply unlike any woman you’d ever seen.

And that was exactly why... she was completely off-limits.

It happened on a stifling summer afternoon, the kind where the heat seeped through the cracks in the windows and the house itself seemed to sigh, slow and lazy. Your mother had gone to visit your sick grandmother in Busan, leaving you home alone for a few days. Taeyeon showed up unannounced, a bottle of soju in hand and a vulnerability in her expression you’d never seen before.

"Another weekend alone..." she said, kicking off her shoes in the corner of the living room. The divorce was still fresh, and even though she smiled, you could see the broken pieces behind her eyes.

You offered to keep her company. Turned on the fan, put on some soft music, poured the drinks. One drink became two, two became three. She laughed more than usual, tossed her hair to the side, and let her arm brush against yours every time she said something funny.

"You understand me in a way no one else does," she murmured, her finger tracing the rim of her glass.

You don’t remember who leaned in first. Only the silence between one breath and the next, the suspended moment before the touch. The taste of her lipstick was berries and alcohol. The scent of her perfume—expensive, subtle, unforgettable—lingered on your skin. Her fingers were cold, but her hands were warm, nervous, determined. The shock in her eyes when she realised what you were doing was real. But she didn’t stop.

"This is wrong..." she whispered between kisses, even as her fingers undid your shirt buttons with a urgency that betrayed any hesitation.

"I know..." was the last coherent thing you managed to say.

That night, everything collapsed and revealed itself at the same time.

After the first time came the guilt. Thick, suffocating, like a blanket too heavy for summer. You avoided mirrors, ignored her messages, tried to convince yourself it was a mistake that wouldn’t happen again.

But then she texted.

"Are you okay?"

And the truth was: you weren’t.

The meetings started again, like an inevitable relapse. First quick coffees, flimsy excuses. A movie here, a lift there. Hands "accidentally" touching. Laughter that lasted longer than it should. Until the meetings lost any pretence of innocence.

You were sleeping together. In roadside motels, in the backseat of her car, once in her architecture office with the lights off and the blinds drawn. She moaned against your shoulder, biting your skin to keep from crying out too loud. And you? You lived for those moments. For that body, that woman, that dangerous, addictive secret.

But it wasn’t just sex. It was the way she knew you. Knew you hated kimchi. Knew you got anxious before interviews. Knew you listened to classical music when you were sad.

It was the care. The tenderness in small gestures. The dinner she cooked for you on days you didn’t want to get out of bed. Her fingers in your hair when you said the world was too hard. The comfortable silence between you.

And then it happened:

You fell in love.

It was a stupid mistake. A careless slip. You left your phone on the kitchen table while you showered. It was unlocked. A message came through.

"I can’t hide it anymore. I love you."

Your mother read it.

The silence that followed was absolute. A chasm. She looked at you as if you were a stranger. As if she’d just discovered her son was someone else entirely.

"How could you?" was all she managed to say, eyes red, hands shaking as she gripped the phone so tightly it looked ready to snap.

She slammed the door on her way out, and the sound echoed like a gunshot.

Taeyeon tried to explain. Called, messaged, showed up at the door. Your mother ignored her as if she were dead. Their mutual friends turned away. Your mother’s brother stormed in, furious, threatening to involve lawyers.

She was painted as the villain. And you as the victim. The manipulated one.

"She took advantage of you," your father said, refusing to meet your eyes.

And for a while, you believed it.

Two years passed.

Nothing was easy. You lost friends. She lost her reputation. Your mother drowned in bitter silence, and your father just avoided you. But time, stubborn, kept moving forward.

The messages between Taeyeon and your mother started getting replies. First with terse punctuation. Then short sentences. An "ok." A "got it." Later, a cold but human "thanks."

Your father still wouldn’t look at her, but he stopped making venomous jokes when you mentioned her. A small victory.

And the two of you? You moved in together. A new flat, in another neighbourhood, far from prying eyes and old memories. A fresh start. Taeyeon began smiling again, lighter, as if she’d learned to carry the pain without letting it weigh her down. You learned to cook for her. She started buying too many books and stacking them on the shelves.

On Sunday mornings, she still danced barefoot in the kitchen, a mug of coffee in hand, hair messy, spinning to the music as sunlight streamed through the window.

She danced as if the whole world had finally allowed her to be happy.

And, watching her, you knew: none of it was a mistake.

---

The atmosphere in the house had shifted—subtly at first, but now it was impossible to ignore. The walls felt colder, the rooms quieter, as if even the air carried a faint discomfort. The home that had once been Taeyeon’s refuge had become a glass prison, where everything was visible, yet nothing was truly spoken.

Her parents *tolerated* her—that was the word. They tolerated her presence, her measured words, her forced smiles. But when they looked at you, there was something different in their gaze. A glimmer of admiration—not for who you were, but for what you represented. Youth. Beauty. Vigour. And the comparison was inevitable.

Every comment, every masked joke, every prolonged silence between sentences carried an implicit message: "You're not enough."

"You're so handsome. So young... What on earth did she do to win you over?"

"She must have some secret, right? Blackmail? Or is it the money?"

"Not that she's ugly... but let's be honest."

Taeyeon heard it all. Every word cut through her chest like ground glass. She smiled, made jokes in return, pretended not to care. But her eyes… her eyes told a different story. And you saw it. Because you recognised that spark. Or rather, you remembered when it was there. Now, all that remained was the reflection of someone trying to resist drowning in emotional wreckage.

Her friends didn’t help. At meet-ups or coffee dates, their compliments dripped with poison:

"He’s a Greek god, Taeyeon. Seriously, how did you manage it? Does he like women who are... older?

"Oh, you’ve always been good at winning hearts, haven’t you? Even with that age gap. I could never."

And she smiled. Pressed her lips together. Changed the subject. But you saw how she withdrew a little more with each remark. As if she were shrinking.

Your own friends, at first, were cruel. Called her a "milf", made crude jokes, laughed at absurd insinuations about her "dominating you in bed" or "manipulating you with experience." You argued, fought, cut some of them off. Eventually, they fell silent. But the damage was already done. And Taeyeon felt it.

---

Her shift was subtle. It began with small gestures.

She still said "good morning", but without looking at you.

Still kissed your forehead, but her lips trembled.

Still smiled, but not with her eyes.

The warmth of her body, once always pressed against yours at night, began to retreat. Little by little, she started sleeping turned away, inching closer to the edge of the bed. You reached out to hold her, but she curled in on herself, as if your touch burned.

Mornings became silent routine. She woke before you and slipped away without a sound. Came home late, smelling of stale coffee and exhaustion. Her makeup faded, her gaze hollow. And when she entered the bedroom, she changed in the dark, lay down without a word, turned the other way—and slept.

You tried to talk. Tried to coax out smiles. But she pulled back. She was there… but she was gone.

And a doubt gnawed at you: Was there someone else?

But you knew Taeyeon. Knew the pain she carried from her ex-husband’s betrayal. Knew how even the smallest lie shattered her.

She wasn’t cheating.

She was crumbling.

---

The night was warm, but the bedroom felt frozen. You came home from work, showered, and lay down. She was already there, motionless. Facing away. The silence was absolute. You tried to touch her, but she only pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders.

You stayed awake for hours, tossing, trying to understand how things had come to this.

Then you felt the mattress dip slightly. Taeyeon rose with quiet steps, as if begging the universe not to make a sound. The bedroom door creaked faintly, and she vanished into the hallway.

You waited. Something in your chest screamed that you shouldn’t ignore this.

You got up. Went downstairs. And found her.

She was curled on the living room sofa, folded into herself as if trying to disappear. Her face buried in her hands, her shoulders trembling.

Her sobs were muffled, desperate, as if crying in silence was her last attempt not to break completely.

You froze for a moment. The sight of her like that was something you’d never forget.

"Love...?"

She flinched, hastily wiping her face with her pyjama sleeves. Her expression was pure panic, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

"W—what are you doing awake?" her voice hoarse, weak, broken.

It was the first time in weeks she’d looked you straight in the eye. But something inside her was shattered.

You moved closer, sat beside her. She recoiled instinctively, like a wounded animal. But you took her hand—and felt it.

The tremor. The fear. The vulnerability.

"Taeyeon... talk to me, please."

She hesitated. Her lips parted, but no words came. Until the weight became too much. The fortress she’d built with such effort collapsed.

"I... I can’t do this anymore..." she whispered between sobs.

And then she broke. Collapsed into your arms as if that embrace were the last anchor between her and the abyss.

She wept with her whole body. Her hands clutched at you, fingers digging into your chest as if trying to fuse with you. Tears soaked your shirt, but you didn’t care. You just held her, pressing her close, rocking her like a wounded child.

"You should end this. I'm trying to push you away, damn it, but why do you keep coming back?"

Her voice trembled, thick as if every word were caught in a throat crushed under the weight of guilt. It was a rough whisper, fragile, yet loaded with a fierce desperation. It sounded as though she were begging to be left behind—yet at the same time, begging for you to stay.

Her fists were clenched so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, as if her entire body were fighting to hold itself back, resisting the natural urge to throw herself into your arms. She kept them rigid at her sides, as though trying to keep her soul from escaping her flesh.

The tears no longer came in sobs, but in silence. They had grown accustomed to flowing—two gleaming rivers down her pale skin, trailing her face like open wounds. The shirt she wore was stained in uneven patches of sorrow, as if grief had left footprints on her chest.

"It’s not fair… I ruined your life…"

Those words were whispered against you, like a confession she hated to voice aloud. She pressed her forehead to your chest, as if the weight of everything was too much to bear standing. You felt the damp heat of her tears seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and the muffled sound of her ragged breathing hitting your body like a plea for forgiveness.

Her shoulders shook—not just from pain, but from shame. From fear. And from a love so immense it hurt.

You reacted instinctively. Your hands rose slowly, trying to wrap around her shoulders, to pull her close. To shield her from the world and, if possible, from herself. But she flinched at the slightest touch, as if your affection were a burning ember rather than a refuge.

"Don’t. Don’t lie to me…"

Her voice was weak, like a breath of wind on the verge of vanishing. "I’m old, and—God… how did I not see it before? My friends were right. You’re only with me out of pity, aren’t you? You’re afraid to leave this old woman!"

That word—old—slipped from her lips like a blade, sharp and cruel. And the worst part was, she seemed to have driven that knife into herself. Her lips quivered. She bit them, hard, as if punishing herself. As if she deserved to suffer for daring to love you, for believing, even for a second, that it was possible.

"Taeyeon. You’re perfect."

Your voice cut through the air, firm, charged with a fierce intensity. You held her carefully, your fingers trembling with emotion, and gently pulled her away from your chest, forcing her to look at you. Not with brutality—but with love. With urgency.

Her face was swollen from crying. Her eyes, red like two weary suns, yet still beautiful. There was a desperate glimmer in them, as if searching for something in you—perhaps a reason to stay, perhaps confirmation that they were wrong.

And you gave it to her.

Because there, right in front of you, Kim Taeyeon was still stunning.

Stunning even with her smudged mascara casting shadows under her eyes. Stunning even with her nose red from crying. Stunning in the depths of pain, in the chaos of insecurity, in the abyss of fear. Stunning because she was her.

"Do you really think I care about age?" Your voice dropped an octave, like thunder rolling in to shield the land. "Do you honestly believe I’d be here if I didn’t want you more than anything?"

She tried to look away, as if afraid to find the truth in your eyes, but you wouldn’t let her. With a gentle touch, your thumb brushed her cheek, wiping away a stubborn tear that refused to stop falling. You leaned in even closer, closing the space between you like someone refusing any distance.

"I don’t want anyone but you, Taeyeon. Not someone younger. Not someone older. Not anyone. Just you."

Those words seemed to dismantle the defences she had built with such effort.

"One day, you’ll meet a girl your age and leave me. I know it."

Her voice came out like a lost child trying to shield herself from inevitable pain. But there was also a sliver of hope, barely perceptible—as if, deep down, she wanted you to prove her wrong.

You laughed. Low. Warm. A laugh that carried affection, but also disbelief.

"And you’ll meet someone your age and leave me."

Her eyes widened.

"What?! Of course I wouldn’t!"

You smiled. That smile she always claimed to hate because it "made you too smug," but secretly adored.

"See? That argument doesn’t make sense. Baby. I’m with you now. And you’re the one I want. Don’t let anyone—not even yourself—try to change that."

She looked at you. Really looked. Her eyes brimming with tears, but this time, with something new behind them: hope. Vulnerability. Love. A raw love, stripped of glamour, born in the mud of pain and watered with real promises.

And then she whispered:

"Then promise me. Give me a… big, big kiss."

Her voice faltered at the end, almost a nervous laugh between tears. It was so genuine, so absurdly adorable that you couldn’t resist.

Adorable. That’s what you thought.

And then you leaned in and pressed your lips to hers—not like someone kissing an insecure woman, but like someone sealing a sacred vow. A kiss without hurry, full of truth, saying everything words never could.

When your lips parted, you already knew exactly what you wanted.

Your kisses trailed down, slow and deliberate, from her mouth to her jaw, then to her neck, where you left a discreet mark—just enough to make her shudder. She writhed beneath your touch, her hands gripping the sheets tightly, as if clinging to something solid to keep from losing herself completely. Until now, you had never taken control like this—she had always preferred to be on top, dictating the pace, and only now did you understand why: she was afraid of seeming vulnerable.

It was adorable.

Your fingers unbuttoned her pyjama shirt, one by one, exposing her soft skin to the cold air of the bedroom. She arched her back involuntarily, a shiver running through her as the fabric slid off her shoulders. You didn’t let her adjust to the temperature—your lips were already wrapped around one of her breasts, your tongue tracing slow circles before sucking firmly.

She screamed.

"I-if you keep this up, I swear you’ll be sleeping on the sofa for—"

You didn’t let her finish. Your fingers found the other nipple, twisting it lightly, and her protest dissolved into a loud, trembling moan. Her eyes fluttered shut, her breath quickened, and you smirked against her skin.

This was your woman.

And you would make sure she remembered she deserved to be treated like a queen.

"What’s the matter, mummy? Not enjoying yourself?"

She turned her face away, her cheeks burning with shame. At first, she had hated that name, but you’d noticed long ago how her muscles tensed less each time you called her that. How her moans grew louder. How her hips pressed against your hand whenever the word slipped from your lips.

Your kisses trailed lower, leaving a damp trail down her flawless abdomen. You could spend hours there—nipping, licking, worshipping every inch of that smooth skin. But you had other plans.

When your hands gripped the waistband of her pyjama bottoms, she hesitated, her fingers tangling in your hair in a mix of protest and plea.

"I-I can’t let you—"

You didn’t give her a choice. With one firm motion, you tore the fabric apart, relishing the satisfying sound of the elastic giving way.

"HEY, THAT WAS MY FAVOURITE!"

You ignored her. It was a lie. She had a wardrobe full of identical pyjamas. Besides, this was about something far more important.

In all your years together, she had never let you go down on her. There was a deep-rooted guilt in her, an old-fashioned belief that a decent wife shouldn’t allow something so indecent. You suspected that was why she’d rarely climaxed with her ex-husband.

But you weren’t him.

Your finger slid along her entrance, finding her absolutely soaked, and she arched her back with a ragged moan. You didn’t make her wait—your tongue found her clit in one firm stroke, and her scream echoed through the room.

"NO—YOU CAN’T— AAAAHWN~!"

She tried to close her legs, but you held her hips firmly, keeping her spread open. Within seconds, she was already trembling, her fluids dripping down your chin as she writhed, unable to form words.

She couldn’t hold back.

Her body was already at its limit, her thighs shaking uncontrollably as your tongue worked in a relentless rhythm. You knew exactly how she liked it—steady pressure, then quick, flickering strokes, just enough to drive her to the edge of desperation.

"S-stop… I’m gonna… NO, WAIT—"

But it was too late.

A hot gush spilled from her, coating your chin, your lips, dripping down the fingers still holding her open. She screamed, a raw, broken sound, her entire body convulsing in violent spasms. You didn’t stop—byou sucked, drank every drop, and she sobbed, her fingers buried in your hair, tugging wildly.

"I CAN’T… I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE… PLEASE—"

But you kept going, pushing her straight into another peak, even more intense than the first. This time, she couldn’t even form words—just high-pitched whimpers, her legs shaking, the wet sound of your tongue against her filling the room.

When you finally pulled away, she was gasping, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her eyes glazed over. You sat up, licking your lips slowly, and she covered her face with her hands, embarrassed.

"You… you’re insufferable."

You smirked, pulling her into a deep kiss, letting her taste herself on your lips.

"So you squirt? Fuck, can you stop getting sexier, Kim Taeyeon? At this rate, I’ll have to knock you up."

She visibly shuddered at the idea, and then you grinned. Ah. So that was what she wanted? To carry your child?

Your fingers found her entrance again, this time two fingers plunging deep inside her heat while your mouth recaptured her swollen clit. She screamed, her body caught between the mattress and your dominance—completely at your mercy now.

"See how wet you get for me?" You murmured against her skin, feeling her walls clench around your fingers. "All this mess just for me… my greedy little wife."

She tried to muffle her moans with her hands, but you pinned her wrists above her head, holding them with one hand while the other continued its relentless work. Precise curls, deep thrust, the obscene sound of her slickness filling the air. You felt the moment her muscles started trembling again—she was so close…

"Come." You ordered, nipping at her thigh. "Squirt again. Now."

Your command shattered something in her. With a muffled scream, another gush burst from her, even more intense than before, spilling over your hand, dripping onto the sheets beneath. Her body jerked as if electrocuted, her eyes rolling back as waves of pleasure completely overwhelmed her.

You didn’t give her time to recover. In one fluid motion, you lifted her hips and buried your tongue deep inside her, drinking every drop as she thrashed.

"STOP! I… I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE…!" She sobbed, her legs trembling violently.

You lifted your face, your chin glistening with her. "Liar." You smirked, lining your throbbing length with her dripping entrance. "You can take so much more."

And with one sharp thrust, you sheathed yourself to the hilt, her eyes widening as one last weak spurt escaped between your joined bodies.

"That’s… that’s too…!" She couldn’t form sentences, her nails digging into your back.

You started moving, each thrust calculated to grind against that perfect spot inside her. "Say it. Say what you are."

She shook her head, resisting, but her body betrayed her—growing wetter, tighter around you.

You slowed your pace, nearly pulling out completely before slamming back in. "Say it."

"Y-YOUR… YOUR WHORE…!" She screamed, and you felt her walls begin to clench again.

That was all you needed to hear.

Gripping her hips, you fucked her mercilessly now, the sound of skin against skin, her cries, your own growls—all blending together as you drove her to the edge once more.

Until you stopped. You flipped her onto her stomach, your hands firm on her hips as you pulled her up, leaving her on all fours on the sofa. She tried to protest, but you were already sliding into her from behind, a rough groan escaping your throat as you filled her completely.

"N-no… like this it’s… too—"

Deep. That’s what she meant to say, but the words were lost as you started moving, each thrust aimed at that spot that made her see stars. Her hands clawed at the sheets, her knuckles white from the strain, as you controlled the pace—slow and cruel at first, then faster, until the wet slap of skin dominated the room.

She tried to brace herself on her arms, but you pulled her back, her spine pressed against your chest, one hand wrapped around her throat while the other slid down to rub her clit in quick circles.

"You’re not running now, princess."

She screamed, her entire body shaking, and you felt her walls pulsing around you, clenching as if trying to milk every inch. You didn’t stop—you couldn’t stop—pumping into her as she remained oversensitive, each movement wrenching another moan from her.

When you finally dropped her back onto the sofa, she was completely boneless, her breath ragged, her eyes unfocused. But you weren’t done.

You lifted her, wrapping your arms around her as you pressed her against the wall, her legs locking around your waist.

"Hold on."

She obeyed, her arms looping around your neck, and you sank into her again, **even deeper this time**, the angle perfect for wringing another scream from her.

"O-oh God… like this I… I’m gonna—"

And she did.

Another gush, even more intense than the first, spilling down your thighs as you kept moving, relentless. She buried her face in your shoulder, her teeth sinking into your skin to muffle her cries, but you wanted to hear her.

"No one else will ever make you feel like this."

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears—happy ones this time.

"You only cry like this for me, understand, you slut?"

"U-uhuh! Oh yes, fuck, I’m gonna break, baby I’m gonna..."

You laid her on her back at the edge of the sofa, her legs bent against her chest, exposing her completely as you stood, gripping her ankles. She tried to cover herself, but you pinned her wrists above her head, quickly binding them with her own pyjama top.

"Y-You’re not going to—"

But you were already inside.

The penetration was brutally deep at this angle—every stroke grinding directly against her G-spot, the tip of you hitting a place that made her eyes roll back. She tried to speak, but only a choked "Nhgn—!" escaped, her fingers twisting in the makeshift restraints.

You gripped her hips and lifted her into the air, using her thighs as leverage to slam her back onto you with each thrust—blike a medieval catapult breaking through castle walls.

"S-STOP! I’M GONNA— CUMM—"

She didn’t finish.

Her body arched violently, a transparent gush spraying uncontrollably as you kept pounding, using her slickness to slide even faster. The sight was obscene—her stomach trembling with each impact, her breasts bouncing wildly, her expression completely lost in pleasure.

Then you changed positions, untying her hands, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, your hands gripping her thighs as you pressed her against the wall. She had no support. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, her arms clung desperately to your neck, and you felt her racing heartbeat against your chest.

"Y-You’re going to drop me…"—her voice was a breathless whisper, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and pure arousal.

You answered by thrusting deeper.

She shrieked as you buried yourself in one stroke, the angle brutally perfect. Every movement now controlled not just her pleasure, but her very breath—when you lifted her higher, she writhed; when you let her slip down slightly, her legs tightened around you, begging for more.

"I-I can’t… think…"

That was the point.

You used her as you pleased—lifting and lowering her body in your rhythm, feeling her grow tighter, more desperate. When your fingers found her clit, she lost control—another hot gush spilled between you, and she buried her face in your shoulder, crying from sheer ecstasy.

You didn’t stop. Not until she trembled endlessly, her legs too weak to hold on, her entire body ruled by your movement.

When you finally couldn’t hold back any longer, you buried yourself deep and emptied weeks of pent-up seed into her womb, and Taeyeon could do little more than whimper and twitch helplessly through another mini-orgasm—this one not quite as loud.

When you laid her back on the sofa, exhausted, you realised she had simply passed out from all that overstimulation.

---

Six months ago, your life had been turned upside down—in the best way possible. Taeyeon, your Taeyeon, was finally back in your arms. After so much time apart, you had both decided to face your insecurities together, diving headfirst into therapy. And to your surprise, she was taking it seriously—more seriously than you ever thought possible. She read books about relationships, jotted down reflections in a journal, and sometimes even initiated deep conversations in the middle of the night when anxiety struck.

But nothing—absolutely nothing—could have prepared you for the whirlwind that was her pregnancy.

When those two little lines appeared on the test, your heart nearly burst with happiness. A little girl. Your little girl. You had even already chosen a name—Ha-eun—and agreed to get married when she turned three, giving yourselves time to adjust your lives, careers, and, most importantly, for Taeyeon to feel secure again.

But the pregnancy brought with it a Taeyeon who could switch between angel and devil in a matter of seconds.

She would laugh at a silly meme on her phone, and the next second, she’d be crying because you "breathed too loudly" and it "deeply bothered her." Once, she flew into a rage because you "chewed a biscuit too aggressively," and ten minutes later, she was clinging to you, apologising while licking the salty tears off your face.

If she used to love your scent, now, all it took was you approaching her after work for her to wrinkle her nose and say in disgust, "You reek of man." And worse—if she was having a bad day, just seeing you made her nauseous. Once, you walked into the bedroom, and she literally sprinted to the bathroom, laughing and vomiting at the same time. "Sorry, it’s the baby that hates you!" she yelled between gags.

Ah, but nothing topped the jealousy. Nothing.

If you so much as glanced at the barista for half a second, Taeyeon would go icy. If you replied to a message in the work group chat—which, by chance, included a female colleague—she would scowl, her eyes narrowing like a cat about to pounce.

And the peak? When the neighbour from the flat upstairs—a 60-year-old woman —said good morning to you in the lift, and Taeyeon hit the emergency button just so you could get out faster. "She fancies you, I saw the way she smiled," she growled, while you tried to process the fact that your pregnant fiancée was jealous of a grandmother.

It was an ordinary Saturday—or at least, it should have been. You and Taeyeon had gone out for a romantic dinner—something increasingly rare, as the pregnancy left her exhausted and irritable most nights. But today was different. She woke up in a good mood, even suggested getting dressed up to go out, and you, of course, didn’t question the miracle.

The restaurant was cosy, dimly lit, with wine glasses (grape juice for her) and a menu she had chosen after three days of indecision. You were laughing, talking about baby names again—she insisted Ha-eun sounded too formal and now wanted something "cute but not tacky"—when it happened.

The waitress came to clear the plates. A young woman, smiling, nothing out of the ordinary. You, being polite, thanked her with a "Cheers, that was lovely" and a brief nod. That was it.

But as the waitress turned to leave, Taeyeon froze. Her eyes widened, her breath caught, and her hands—clutching the napkin—tightened until her knuckles turned white.

You realised too late.

"Taeyeon? You alright?" you asked, still oblivious to the danger.

She didn’t answer. Just stared at you with an expression that mixed betrayal, fury, and pure existential dread.

"You… you looked." Her voice came out in a trembling whisper, as if she were holding back a tsunami of emotions.

"Looked at what?" you frowned, genuinely confused.

"AT HER ARSE. YOU LOOKED. I SAW IT.'

You swallowed hard. No. You hadn’t looked. Swore you hadn’t. But Taeyeon was already boiling.

"Taeyeon, love, I just thanked her—"

"NO. You did that little glance. That ‘oh, what a cute little thing’ look. I KNOW THAT LOOK."

"But she doesn’t even have… an ‘ar—’"

"STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. HER. ARSE."

She threw the napkin on the table, grabbed her bag, and stood up with the trembling dignity of a betrayed queen.

"I’m leaving."

"Taeyeon, wait—"

"NO. STAY HERE. CHAT MORE WITH HER. SINCE YOU’RE SO CLOSE."

You tried to hold her arm, but she shook you off as if your touch burned.

"I don’t even know the waitress’s name!" you argued, desperate.

"OH, SO YOU WANT TO KNOW, DO YOU? GONNA ASK FOR HER INSTA NEXT?"

The surrounding tables began to whisper. An elderly couple looked on with pity. The waiter pretended he wasn’t listening, but he clearly was.

With great difficulty, you convinced her to go home. Though she didn’t look at you the entire way.

"Kim Taeyeon, What the Bloody Hell Was That?"

You muttered, irritated enough to roll up the sleeves of your dress shirt, ready for a proper row. Until you noticed her frozen, eyes locked onto your flexed bicep, biting her lips so hard they nearly bled.

And then you understood.

"Ah… So that’s how it is?" Your voice dropped to a rough whisper, deliberately slow, as a wicked grin spread across your lips. "Naughty little girls…" You undid your belt with a dramatic click, watching her shudder. "...deserve punishment. Especially the ones who make a scene in public…" A step forward, and she stumbled back against the wall. "Isn’t that right, mummy?"

Taeyeon’s eyes widened, a moan escaping her throat—loud, desperate, as if she couldn’t believe what that word did to her.

"You—!" She tried to protest, but you were already there, one arm braced against the wall beside her head, the other tilting her chin up.

"You started this." Your hot breath against her ear. "Humiliated me in front of everyone. Treated me like rubbish. And now you’re looking at me like this?" Your hand slid down her waist, firm, possessive. "So easy…"

Taeyeon tried to turn away, but you tightened your grip on her chin, forcing her to face you.

"Say it."

She trembled, lips parted, eyes already glazed over.

"…I hate you."

You laughed, darkly, and captured her mouth in a filthy, dominant kiss, your hand tangling in her hair to pull harder. She moaned again, fingers clutching your shirt like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

And Christ—if that woman wasn’t the most perfect thing when she surrendered like this…

You broke the kiss abruptly, leaving her gasping, and whispered:

"I’ll go easy on you only because of our little girl in there, understand?"

You massaged her six-month bump and smirked, finally sliding your trousers off.

"Open your mouth, you filthy whore."

"You call me a whore?"

Her voice trembled, eyes brimming with unshed tears—stubborn, just like her. A chill ran down your spine, but you didn’t back down.

"I do." Your hand moved from her belly to her chin, squeezing firmly. "My slag. Only mine."

Taeyeon’s breath hitched, lips parting. You saw the conflict in her eyes—anger, desire, submission, pride—all tangled in the pregnancy hormones that made her so sensitive.

"You... you can’t—"

"I can." You cut her off, dragging your thumb across her lips. "And you love it. Love it when I put you in your place. When I remind you that no matter how much you scream and throw a fit, in the end... you’re mine."

She shuddered, a moan trapped in her throat.

"Open."

For a second, she hesitated—stubborn to the last—but then, slowly, her mouth opened.

You grinned.

"Good girl."

"Choke on it properly, you disgusting bitch."

You shoved your cock down her tight throat, feeling the muscles spasm in panic around your throbbing head. Taeyeon gagged violently, nails digging into your thighs as spit and tears streaked her mascara-smudged face.

"That’s it, take every inch like the knocked-up slut you are," you growled, yanking her hair as you bottomed out. "Gonna cry? Gonna make a scene now, you filthy whore?"

She tried to pull back, but you held her firm, fucking her throat ruthlessly. Every gag was music, every tear a confession—she was yours, a wet, sobbing toy made to take your anger and lust.

"Feel that? Feel how your throat was made for this? For choking on my cock like the desperate slag you are?"

Taeyeon whimpered, body shaking with need as you used her mercilessly. When you finally pulled out, she coughed and spat, lipstick ruined, eyes glazed with submission.

"P-please..." she rasped, voice wrecked from gagging on you.

You laughed darkly and gripped her chin.

"'Please' what, whore? Say it."

She swallowed hard, tears and desire swimming in her eyes.

"...Please fuck me until I forget my name."

So far, you’d done nothing but foreplay—just that. She was afraid of hurting the baby, but if the urge struck, you’d made a reasonable agreement—while she carried your daughter, no vaginal penetration. Only anal, and carefully. After all, Taeyeon had always been the prim, almost naively innocent woman—the one who’d watched you grow up, who blushed at innuendos, who covered her eyes during sex scenes in films.

Or so you thought.

Because the moment you slid your fingers between her arse cheeks, feeling how absurdly wet she was just from the idea, you realised something was very wrong—or very right.

"B-Bloody hell, Taeyeon…" you growled, feeling her tight ring give way easily under your fingers. "Have you… done this before?"

She bit her lip, eyes darting away, but her body arched into your touch. "N-No… just… thought about it… a lot…"

"Thought about what?" Your voice came out rougher than intended, fingers pressing deeper, feeling her clench around them.

Then she let out a filthy, desperate moan and confessed:

"You… taking me from behind… like I’m just a hole for you to come in."

Fuck.

You nearly lost it right then.

"Taeyeon…" Your voice was hoarse, veins standing out on your wrists as you pushed your fingers to the last knuckle. "You mean to tell me this innocent little face… was always hiding an anal slut?"

She whimpered, fingers digging into your thighs, face burning with shame—but her body begging for more.

"O-Only… only with you…"

And Christ, if that wasn’t the dirtiest thing she’d ever admitted.

Now you understood why she always flinched when you brushed there during sex. Why she blushed when you complimented her arse.

She wasn’t embarrassed.

She was fantasising.

And now, with the perfect excuse of pregnancy, she could finally give in without guilt.

"So that’s it?" You pulled your fingers out, watching her clench instinctively, trying to keep them inside. "My proper little wife… is actually an anal slut who dreams of being used like this?"

But first, you’d make her clean up her mess.

With a rough motion, you dragged your spit-slick cock over her face, marking her flushed cheeks, swollen lips, even her trembling eyelids. "Lick. Everything. Every last drop."

Taeyeon obeyed like a good girl, her hot tongue frantically lapping from base to tip, swallowing every trace of herself mixed with your precum. She looked addicted, eyes rolling back as she savoured her own taste on your skin.

"Now turn over, you slag." You landed a sharp smack on her round arse, watching the red imprint of your hand bloom on her soft skin. "Want to see that pregnant belly shake while you moan like a bitch in heat."

She got on her hands and knees, her rounded belly hanging sensually between her thighs, her cunt dripping wet. You spat on her pink clit before plunging two fingers inside, making Taeyeon scream.

"See this? Sopping wet over a cock that hasn’t even fucked you yet." You laughed as she moaned louder, fingers pumping in and out. "Gonna come just from this? You filthy, desperate little thing?"

Taeyeon shook her head, but her body betrayed her—her inner walls fluttered, her clit throbbing visibly. You yanked your fingers out.

"No. You only come when I say."

Then you finally lined yourself up at her tight entrance, feeling her tremble in anticipation.

"Now repeat: I’m only yours."

"I-I’m only yours—"

"A knocked-up, obedient slut."

"A k-knocked-up— AH! AAAH!"

You buried yourself to the hilt in one thrust, splitting her open, her virgin arse taking every inch like it was made for you.

"Feel that, Taeyeon? Feel how this tight little arse was made for me?" You snarled in her ear as you pounded into her, each thrust making her pregnant belly sway obscenely. Her hands clawed at the sheets, knuckles white, as strangled moans spilled from her ruined throat.

"Look ahead," you ordered, pulling her hair back. "Look at that belly shake every time I fuck you."

Taeyeon screamed, shame and pleasure overflowing in her teary eyes. "S-stop… please… don’t say those thi— AH! AAAAH!"

You laughed darkly and landed another smack on her reddened arse, feeling her clench violently around you. "Liar. You love it. Love being used like this, knocked-up and marked up, taking cock like there’s no tomorrow."

Your hips slapped against her arse with wet smacks, the brutal sounds of fucking echoing through the room. You could feel her tightening, growing hotter—ready to break.

"Wanna come, you Bitch? Do you?"

Taeyeon nodded frantically, swollen lips trembling. "Y-yes… p-please… let me… let me come!"

"Fine. Come."

Then you pulled her back against your chest, one hand gripping her throat while the other circled her swollen clit. "But not without remembering who you belong to."

Three fingers in her cunt.

A smack on her rosy arse.

Your teeth sinking into her shoulder.

And Taeyeon shattered, her whole body convulsing in a violent orgasm, her arse squeezing your cock like a hot, wet fist. You held her tight, fucking her through it, until your own release boiled over.

"Take it. Take it all, you whore!"

With a final animalistic growl, you buried yourself to the hilt, spilling inside her, each hot pulse marking your claim.

Taeyeon went limp in your arms, panting, her body covered in your marks—from your teeth, your hands, your cock.

You smirked, satisfied, and laid her on her side, your hand resting on her rounded belly.

"We’ll do this again tomorrow."

[blank-potato]

I Love The Girl With Magic Ways

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Witch!Reader

Summary:

He’s there, standing at the foot of your bed, shadows clinging to him like silk. Those eyes, golden and curious, lock onto yours. Not threatening. Not kind. Just... watching. “You dream of me,” he says, not asking. You swallow, and the air thickens. “That's not an invitation to break into my room at night.” He tilts his head, taking a step closer. “You called me. You always do—when your thoughts stray, when your control slips. You think about me more than you care to admit.” You don’t respond. Can’t. Because he’s not wrong. Or When training with Bob goes awry, you come face-to-face with The Void, and he's interested in you; he wants to know what makes you tick.

WC: 2.5k

A/N: Title from Magic Ways by Tatsuro Yamashita (such a good song). I'll probably write a part 2 to this, methinks. Here's the link to the request here. Enjoy!

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Training with Bob wasn’t going well. It was frustrating, more for him than you, but still difficult. When you had tried to help him focus, to channel his power, you’d taken a gentle approach, even though gentleness didn’t come naturally to you all the time.

He’d broken the mirrors and the containment shields in the training facility and accidentally thrown you into a wall with his mind.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to.”

“I know…” You groan, brushing dust off your sleeve as you push yourself up.

You make your way back over to him. He’s sitting on the floor, hands in his lap, and anxiety is coming off him in waves.

“It’s okay,” You say softly, sitting beside him. “You’ll get it.”

You don’t know if the look on your face is reassuring or just tired, but judging by the way he won’t meet your eyes, it probably isn’t convincing. He doesn’t seem any more confident.

You sit next to him, trying to think of how to teach him control in a way he’ll actually absorb. You sigh, watching him.

“When I harness my magic, it’s like… holding energy, shifting it from one place to another—like water between cupped hands. Maybe if I show you how I do it, you can follow. How’s that sound?” You sigh, not meaning to sound tired, but you swear you still have a crick in the neck from hitting the wall.

“I’ll give it a shot.”

You nod, the light glowing in your hands, flickering softly like a heartbeat. Bob finds it beautiful, the way you shape it and mould it with such ease. He doesn’t fully understand it himself, not yet, but there’s awe in his eyes.

“Your turn,” You say gently, passing the moment to him.

He tries. Nothing happens at first, just stillness, but then there’s a faint buzzing in the air, a low hum that tickles the edges of your senses. He can feel it. So can you. His eyes glow as he concentrates.

He’s getting there, but—

“Just a little more…”

Your hand hovers next to his, almost touching, and suddenly, there’s a jolt—like a circuit overloading. Lights flicker, then short out, sparks raining from a fixture above. Half the room is thrown into darkness, the other half stuttering with flickering light.

Bob exhales sharply, his face contorting in frustration. “I messed up again,” he mutters, rubbing a hand down his face. It had been at least the tenth mistake in the last thirty minutes, and it was starting to wear him down.

“Control can be hard to learn, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible…” You say, trying to keep your voice steady, calm, and reassuring.

“I’m hopeless…” Bob murmurs, the words heavy with self-doubt. His chuckle is bitter, empty, and the silence that follows feels louder than any explosion. His eyebrows knit together, and he looks away, shoulders slumping under the weight of his frustration.

You step closer, the glow still dancing faintly in your palms.

“You’re not hopeless. You’re learning. And that’s never a straight line.”

You feel a chill slide down your spine as something shifts, and darkness begins to creep in, curling at the edges of the room like smoke spilling through cracks.

“Bob?” You call again, more urgent now.

The room is fading into a thick, velvet black, seeping into every crevice, swallowing light and colour like a slow tide.

“Bob? Talk to me,” You say, your voice cutting through the dark, a single thread trying to reach him before the void does. It’s too late, though. 

He keeps his head down. It’s clear the words aren’t even getting to him anymore. The darkness overtakes him, swallowing him whole. What emerges is a shadowy figure only being illuminated by the faint flickering light of the broken overheads.

You step toward him, slow and cautious, before you meet his gaze.

His golden eyes glint back at you through the dark, sharp and gleaming with something unreadable. A sinister smile works its way onto his face, deliberate, unsettling in its calmness.

“I’m curious about you,” The Void murmurs, voice low and unnervingly calm. “I want to know what you can do.”

“And I want to talk to Bob,” You retort, eyes narrowing.

“You are talking to Bob,” it replies, with a slight twist of amusement, mocking, almost cruel. “...a part of him, at least.”

You smirk, sharp and laced with sarcasm. “Charming.”

He steps closer and invades your space like a cold draft slithering under a door. The air tightens, heavy and bitter. You can feel his presence: not just beside you, but around you, coiling like smoke, probing.

Still, you hold your ground, looking straight into his eyes. You don’t flinch. “How interesting,” he muses, tilting his head. His darkness moves again, tendrils slipping toward you, tasting the air around your magic, your thoughts, your fear.

But they meet resistance. Your magic flares, and the darkness recoils, hissing as it brushes against your glow.

You remain standing, untouched.

“I’m not afraid of you,” You say, voice like steel wrapped in silk. “And Bob isn’t yours to keep.”

He studies you before letting out a low, curious laugh. “No,” he says finally. “Maybe not.”

“Could I keep you instead?” The Void asks, voice low, almost amused, but there’s something sincere beneath it. He reaches out to touch your face, fingers grazing the space between you.

But you grab his hand before he can. You laugh softly, a little disbelieving.

"I think I suit you quite nicely," he murmurs, undeterred.

"I can see what they can't," he continues, his eyes narrowing, glinting with something ancient and knowing. "The anger, power right at your fingertips and yet you try to play the hero. Why?"

“I’m not playing at anything,” You say firmly, voice steady, eyes locked on his.

He leans in, the shadows around him thickening, curling like tendrils reaching out. They’re dark, hungry, trying to pull you closer, to draw you into their world.

But you fight back. Not with every ounce of will you have, pushing against the invisible pull, anchoring yourself.

“I beg to differ,” he murmurs, his breath grazing your skin like a whisper, cold and intoxicating. “Such wasted potential. All for the notion of being good when you could be so much more.”

You reach out, your hand hovering near his temple. Your fingers glow, light pulsing softly, alive. He watches, unblinking, as your magic stirs in the air like smoke catching fire. It’s ethereal, coiling, licking at him, and it has him curious. 

You're trying to see into his mind, but—

“I think the real question is…” he interrupts knowingly, tilting his head, “…are we inside your mind or mine?”

The words twist around you like a spell, and suddenly, the weight shifts. The darkness starts to peel away from your limbs, sloughing off like ash in the wind. You blink, feeling the ground under you change, reality sliding sideways.

The Void just smiles.

“I’ll see you soon.”

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You’re still thinking about it… about him.

Every time you’re training with Bob, he’s there, at the edge of your thoughts. You’re not in fear. You’re not scared of the Void, not really. It’s more like a wariness, a flicker of unease that one wrong move, one flare of power, might open the door again. Might bring him back.

It was wrong. And confusing. But a small part of you wanted to see him again. 

Your mind drifts when you’re not paying attention—whether it’s during missions, training, or even in bed. He’s in your dreams when you fall asleep, and sometimes, you wake up imagining the ghost of his voice in your ear.

The Void hadn’t tried to hurt you. No, he watched you—studied you. And in some twisted way, he seemed to want you. Not to harm, not to destroy… but to possess, to understand. You just wanted to know why. What did he see in you? What was it about you that drew something like him in?

One night, you’re in bed, the day heavy on your bones, the world finally going quiet around you. You’re slipping closer and closer to sleep…

But you sense it, that shift in the air, a pulse of dark presence curling at the edges of your senses. You feel him before you even open your eyes.

“This is bordering on obsession,” You sigh, eyes still closed.

You hear him laugh, low and amused. The sound crawls down your spine, equal parts unsettling and intimate.

“Not bordering. It is obsession,” he replies, and you can hear the smile in his voice, like he’s proud of it.

Reluctantly, you open your eyes.

He’s there, standing at the foot of your bed, shadows clinging to him like silk. Those eyes, golden and curious, lock onto yours. Not threatening. Not kind. Just... watching.

“You dream of me,” he says, not asking.

You swallow, and the air thickens. “That's not an invitation to break into my room at night.”

He tilts his head, taking a step closer. “You called me. You always do—when your thoughts stray, when your control slips. You think about me more than you care to admit.”

You don’t respond. Can’t.

Because he’s not wrong.

“You’re speechless,” he teases, voice like velvet laced with static. He sits on the edge of your bed, casual, as if he belongs there.

You shift away instinctively, creating space, as if a few more inches could keep him from seeing straight through you.

“Biding my time. There’s a difference,” You reply, keeping your voice even, though your pulse betrays you.

The Void watches you closely, amused by your defiance. Or maybe by the fact that even now, you're still trying to guard yourself. Still playing the game.

His eyes flicker, a faint glow blooming within them like embers. “You may say you don’t want me here, but you keep opening doors.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” You bite back, sharper than intended. He smiles, but there’s something beneath it, something hungry. “That’s the best part.”

His hand twitches slightly, not reaching for you, but close. Waiting. 

“You’re more than you think. More than they let you be, more than you let yourself be.”

The air thickens again, and you’re feeling him again, his presence threads through the room like smoke.

“What do you want from me?” You ask, tired of circles.

Suddenly, he sounds less teasing, more honest. 

“To see you become more than this,” He leans closer as if observing you, “You’re no hero. You’re something else entirely.”

He almost sounds in awe of you.

You want to lie. You want to turn away, pretend you don’t feel it, the weight of his words, the strange reverence in his voice.

But in some weird, completely twisted way…you felt seen.

“Show me what you can do,” he says softly, like a challenge… or a plea.

Against your better judgment, your hands move. Fingers lift with purpose, glowing as your magic rises like a tide. Not to attack. Just to beckon. To draw him in that fraction closer.

And he comes.

He leans in, unflinching, until his lips hover just a breath away from yours. The air between you hums with tension, your power brushing over him.

He doesn’t flinch. He invites it.

He looks at you, eyes gleaming. They weren’t cold, but burning. Goading.

“Do it,” he whispers. “Manipulate me. I want to see you try.”

Your magic coils, crackling faintly between you both, held barely in check. It licks at his skin like fire starved of air. You could push. You could twist something in him, see what bends and what breaks.

That thought strikes sharp and fast, and then you remember.

Bob. Somewhere beyond this darkness, behind the weight of The Void’s presence, he’s there. You couldn’t do this. You couldn’t risk hurting him.

You lower your hands slowly, magic fading from your fingertips. The crackle in the air dies with it, and you feel the release.

The Void sighs dramatically. “What? You don’t want to hurt me? I’m disappointed.”

You vanish from in front of him, slipping through space in a blink, reappearing beside him, your lips by his ear, breath warm and taunting.

“I live to disappoint,” You murmur with biting sarcasm.

He chuckles, low and amused, the sound vibrating in your chest more than your ears.

“So you’re playing with me then?” he asks, a smile curling through his voice, teasing and predatory.

You teleport again, this time behind him, close enough to feel his back press against your body like the edge of a knife.

“Something like that,” You say, voice calm, almost bored.

This little verbal spar you had with him was… addictive. A dangerous dance on a wire stretched taut between temptation and control.

But then he shifts, turning around to face you. 

His expression darkens—not angry or violent—but filled with intent. He turns, slowly, deliberately, and starts walking you back with that same quiet pressure in the air that makes your skin prickle.

You don’t step away. You should, but you don’t.

Then, his hand reaches out, and in a second, you’re pinned against the wall. The cold wall meets your spine, and again, before you can blink, he lifts you effortlessly with his mind, sliding you up until your feet leave the ground. His body never touches yours, but his presence crashes over you like a wave.

“I don’t want to play games,” he says, voice low and electric. You meet his eyes, your own burning with something halfway between challenge and adrenaline.

“But this one is so much fun,” you quip back, your tone reckless, like flicking sparks into a powder keg.

His jaw clenches, just slightly. Not in rage. In restraint.

“I came to see you,” he says, eyes scanning your face like a puzzle he hasn’t yet solved. “But all you do is run and hide behind your clever little words.”

“Maybe you need to chase me,” You reply, breath shallow but steady. The Void pauses, his voice surprisingly soft when he answers, “And how long would you make me chase you?”

You meet his gaze, your heart skipping.

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you disappear from his hold, reappearing right in front of him, so close you can see the sweep of his eyelashes. You lean in just a little more, the space between you charged.

“Until I think you’ve had enough.”

His eyes widen a little, but he stifles it. 

“Until I’ve had enough…” he repeats to himself, quietly, like he’s tasting the words. He searches your eyes, there’s something in you, something he needs. Finally, a slow, dark smirk spreads across his lips.

“We’ll see.”

The energy between you crackles, thick and electric. You both want this; he wants to pull you into the darkness, to make you lose yourself. Sure, you wanted to play with him, but you could kiss him and still keep him at bay.

But just as your eyes flutter shut and you feel the weight of his presence drawing near, then suddenly there’s only air.

You open your eyes, breath catching. You turn and he’s standing by your door, smiling at you again.

“I’ll see you soon.”

With that, he fades away, leaving you standing alone, still in your mind.

Masterlist

[chronic-conjuring]

I had a BIOLOGY teacher in high school that doesn’t believe in evolution. Which in and of itself is kind of insane and stupid? Like how can you be a whole ass biology teacher and actively teach your students that believing in evolution is optional and it’s totally reasonable to just not believe in it because “ItS jUsT a ThEoRy” which is literally what he did.

Anyways, that was his idea of evolution. Even tried to tell us as a fact, that we “descended from monkeys” (which is objectively false) while showing an evolutionary map that literally showed Not That. Me, being the contrarian little shit was in addition to being his Least Favorite Student Of The Year™️ (AND biology being a special interest to boot), decided that all that nonsense was Too Far and decided to call him out on it.

I’m not sure he appreciated the gesture too much, but I am sure he was used to me correcting him enough that he didn’t even try to fact check me on it that time. Either he knew I was right and was pushing his own agenda or he’d realized my track record of always being right when he looked it up was probably going to hold with how quickly I jumped on the chance to dunk on his ass once again.

Anyways I corrected him in front of the whole class, making sure to state that not only was he wrong but also included something along the lines of “We didn’t evolve FROM monkeys, we evolved WITH them and are still, in fact, monkeys”. Now THIS fact seemed to be something he maybe genuinely didn’t know? Which again, how you could be a biology teacher, assumably with a degree in biological sciences, and not know of this or even just not understand how evolution actually works is beyond me. But also that man was just a horrible teacher and homophobic to boot, the man also openly told me my bullies weren’t being racist enough to warrant any intervention in said bullying. So ya know, he wasn’t particularly smart or too fond of actual critical thinking.

Anyways there’s not much of a message here other than you should try to be critical of what they teach you in school and to speak out when you know you���re being taught/told falsehoods. It’s the least you can do honestly.

what annoys me about explaining evolution to people who don’t think it’s real is that everyone’s idea of how it works seems to be from this

Whereas the reality is far more like

[cineatros]

too curious, too oblivious

pairing: cheerleader!megan x spidey!reader 🕷

about: Megan never meant to fall for the quiet girl in the windblown hair and ripped hoodie—the one who seemed to vanish faster than a blink. But when a rain-soaked near-accident brings them face to face, Megan finds herself pulled into a world of late-night disappearances, suspicious bruises, and a masked vigilante who bleeds familiarity.

genre: fluff. fluff. fluff

cw: kissing. bruises. injuries. oblivious megan. careless reader.

wc: 3081 words

a/n: gonna post fluff first before the angst cause im still writing it lol

🕷: sunflower - swae lee, post malone

Megan didn’t even know why she signed up for Environmental Science.

Maybe it was the pretty lab coats. Maybe she was just bored. Or maybe, probably, it was you.

You weren’t exactly popular—or unpopular either. You were more of a background blur. But not to Megan. To Megan, you were the girl in every hallway, the one she saw darting through the parking lot with your camera bag slung around one shoulder and skateboard tucked under your arm. You were the girl who showed up to class with smudged knuckles and hair that looked like it had just been caught in a wind tunnel. The girl who never really talked to anyone, not even in the group projects, who left the second the bell rang, like there was somewhere—someone—waiting for you.

And God, that only made Megan more curious.

She saw you more than she should’ve. Always in her periphery: at lunch, in the bleachers after school, across the quad. While she practiced with the cheer team, you were usually skating lazily in the parking lot, earbuds in, like the world didn’t know how to keep up with you. It was like you were chasing something she couldn’t see.

She wanted to talk to you. Desperately.

But every time she tried, you’d vanish before her hand could even reach out. Like she was a ghost. Or worse, like you were scared of her.

Then came the rain.

It was one of those mornings where everything went wrong. Megan was already late, hair slightly damp, books half-wrapped in her jacket, and her parking spot nowhere in sight. She circled around twice before settling on some sketchy side street a block away. With a groan, she gathered her stuff, slammed the door shut, and double-checked the locks.

She was halfway across the pedestrian lane when it happened.

The sound of tires screeching. A blur of metal coming way too fast. Her heart paused. She froze.

She didn’t even scream.

But then—nothing.

No impact. No pain. Just air. Cold, harsh air, whipping against her skin as if she were yanked out of reality.

And then the rain again. And you.

You stood there, soaked to the bone, skateboard in one hand, your other hand on her arm as if you were still anchoring her to the earth. Your eyes were wide, wild with adrenaline.

“You okay?”

It was the first time she’d heard your voice. It was rough. Breathless. Real.

Megan blinked like she’d just snapped out of a daze. “I—I’m fine,” she said, barely above a whisper.

You nodded, like you didn’t quite believe it, and gestured toward the nearby bus shed. You both made a run for it, rain soaking through every inch of fabric. You sat beside each other, both panting slightly, water dripping from your eyelashes.

Megan couldn’t help the way her heart pounded.

You saved her.

And then you talked. Tentatively at first—awkward apologies, half-smiles. She joked about you always vanishing like you had something to save. You scratched your nape and muttered something about family emergencies. You smiled. Really smiled. And that alone was enough to make her want to memorize it.

Then your phone buzzed.

You pulled it out, glanced down, and Megan saw something flicker behind your eyes. A sudden seriousness.

“There’s, uh—something came up,” you said, already half-standing. “I gotta go.”

Disappointment stung in her chest, sharp and unkind.

“Oh. Okay.” She tried not to sound like it mattered, but it did. She barely knew you and it mattered.

And you ran. Into the rain. Like something was calling you.

Megan stayed behind, staring after you like she was watching a dream slip through her fingers.

The rest of the day, she kept replaying it. Your voice. Your timing. The way you held her like it wasn’t your first time saving someone. She waited for you in every shared class after that. Most days, she didn’t see you at all. But on the rare ones she did, it was enough.

The final class of the day was Chemistry, the bane of her existence. But you were there.

Sketching.

Megan smiled so wide it felt silly. She slid into the seat beside you and greeted you like it was the most casual thing in the world—even though she was nervous. And to her surprise, you talked. Really talked. About the class, about your photos, about her routines. She told you she had practice the next day and made you promise to come watch.

You did.

The next afternoon, Megan caught glimpses of you from the field. You were skating again, circling the lot, earbuds in. And every time she got lifted into the air, your blurry outline was there—like a lighthouse.

Until the fall.

Megan’s foot slipped, balance disappearing. She felt herself tilt, falling back-first toward the pavement. Her eyes squeezed shut.

And then—nothing.

Again.

You were there. Arms around her. Solid. Like it was nothing.

Megan blinked up at you, wide-eyed and stunned. “How?” she asked breathlessly, arms still around your shoulders. “How did you get here so fast?”

You set her down, not quite meeting her eyes. “Saw you about to fall. Ran for my life,” you said casually, like it made perfect sense.

It didn’t.

But she let it go. For now.

Still, something in her chest started ticking.

After that day, Megan started watching you closer. Not in a creepy way. Just…observant.

You always had some new injury. A limp. A scrape. Bandages around your fingers. Some days you were completely absent from school, others you looked like you hadn’t slept. And then there were your reflexes—way too fast for someone who claimed to be “bad at dodgeball.”

The dots didn’t connect immediately.

It was a week later when it happened. Another late practice, another storm rolling in over the skyline. Megan’s legs ached from the repeated lifts, her voice hoarse from shouting. Most of the girls had gone home already, but Megan stayed behind, too stubborn to leave until the routine felt right.

Megan didn’t plan on seeing Spider-Woman that night. It was supposed to be a normal walk back to her car, just a little later than usual after practice ran over. She hadn’t even taken out her earbuds yet, music still faint in one ear as the echo of sirens danced with the distant rumble of city traffic. But then came the pop of gunfire. Sharp and real and way too close. Something in her chest twisted with instinct, her feet moving before her brain caught up. Maybe she was reckless, maybe she was just curious, but her legs carried her toward the flashing lights before logic could pull her back.

She wasn’t expecting to actually see her—the Spider-Woman. Real and terrifying and graceful in the most unearthly way. The masked figure moved like she was born in the air, flipping and weaving through bullets like a thread in a storm. Megan stood frozen in place at the edge of the alley, heart hammering against her ribs, eyes wide as if watching a movie she couldn’t look away from. She thought maybe it was just some stranger in a suit, a daredevil in a costume pretending to play hero. But then Spider-Woman turned—and their eyes met for the briefest moment across the chaos.

That was when everything slowed. Megan’s breath caught in her throat. There was something in the way her shoulders stiffened mid-swing, the way her whole frame locked for half a second—like she hadn’t expected to see her either. In that split-second distraction, the last bullet clipped Spider-Woman’s arm. She hissed, stumbling mid-landing before she shook it off, pushing the pain down with a grunt and throwing herself back into the fight.

But as she swung past Megan—close enough to feel the wind from her movement—Megan caught something she didn’t expect: a scent. Familiar, subtle, and so incredibly specific it made her stomach flip. Your perfume. The same one Megan always noticed when you sat next to her in chem, or when your hoodie brushed her shoulder in the hallway. She blinked hard, trying to convince herself it was just a coincidence. Plenty of people wore that scent. Dozens, maybe. But her gut didn’t believe it.

She checked her phone. Way later than she thought. Her mom had already texted twice, asking when she’d be home. Megan finally turned away, feet dragging as she tried to untangle the knot in her thoughts. She cut through a quieter street near the school, the buzz of her thoughts drowning out the distant sirens now fading behind her.

That was when she saw it.

A backpack, half-hidden beside a dumpster in a side alley. Megan slowed, brows knitting. Something about it looked so familiar. Same rip near the front pocket, same faded charcoal color. She stepped closer, heart beginning to race again. Hanging off one of the zippers was a plastic strawberry milk keychain—goofy and pink, the exact one she had given you as a joke after realizing you had the same bag. No way. No way.

She crouched, fingers hovering over the zipper like it was about to bite her. Maybe someone had stolen it. Maybe someone dumped your things and ran. Maybe there was an explanation for all of this. She was just about to open it when she felt a presence behind her—sharp, heavy, electric in the air. Her body tensed, breath caught in her chest. She turned.

There she was. Spider-Woman.

Cuts ran along her legs, fresh and angry. Her arms were scraped, the left one soaked in dark blood from where the bullet had grazed it. Her chest was heaving beneath the suit, one hand clutched to her side while the other reached forward—and Megan swore she could smell it again. That perfume. Faint under the sweat and rain and grime, but still there. Exactly the same. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Her lips parted to speak, to ask something, but the masked figure didn’t give her time. She stepped past Megan without a word, grabbed the backpack with a trembling hand, and took off into the air like a whisper before a storm.

Megan stood in the alley, alone with the echo of her thoughts and the undeniable buzz of her heart telling her what she already knew. 

And suddenly, it didn’t feel like curiosity anymore.

It felt like a truth unraveling.

The next day, Megan found you on campus, limping down the hallway with your arm clutched tightly to your side. You tried to move like nothing was wrong, tried to walk like each step didn’t make you wince—but she saw through it immediately. Without hesitation, Megan crossed the quad and stopped in front of you, concern blooming on her face like clockwork. 

“What happened?” she asked, voice low and sharp with worry. 

But you, ever the expert at deflection, shrugged and offered her the kind of excuse she was getting tired of hearing—something about a skating trick gone wrong, a stupid fall, you being careless again. You even threw in a sheepish laugh like it would make the pain in your eyes disappear. Megan didn’t believe you—not really—but when her gaze flicked to the way you were pressing into your ribs like you were barely holding yourself together, she swallowed her suspicion and nodded. She let it go. Or at least, she pretended to.

She didn’t leave your side after that. Not for the rest of the day. She sat beside you on the bleachers during free period, telling stories, asking you questions, making observations with just enough weight behind them to see if you’d flinch. 

You tried, really—you nodded at the right parts, even smiled when she needed you to—but the buzz of your phone kept breaking through, dragging your focus elsewhere. 

Another emergency. Another excuse. 

When you finally stood up and shouldered your backpack, Megan reached out instinctively, fingers gripping your hoodie like an anchor. 

“Where are you going now?” she asked, voice firmer this time, eyes flicking to the clock on her phone. 

“It’s almost third period.” You hesitated, glancing at the message on your screen before meeting her eyes. 

“Another emergency, Megs,” you said, casually enough that it almost sounded normal. She didn’t want to let go—but you were already slipping through her fingers like you always did. With a breath caught between hurt and frustration, Megan let the fabric fall from her grip and watched you jog toward the parking lot.

But Megan wasn’t going to let it end like that. Not this time.

She followed you. Quietly. Determined. She stayed far enough back not to get caught, but close enough to see you duck into the city and slip into a shadowed alleyway. She was about to call your name when someone else stepped out—Spider-Woman. Megan froze behind a parked van, her heart hammering in her chest. She didn’t move as the suited figure swung into the sky, disappearing across rooftops with impossible speed. When she finally emerged from hiding and darted to the alleyway, you were gone. Of course you were. But the bag was there again. 

Your bag. Same rip. Same keychain. And this time, she didn’t hesitate.

She grabbed it. Opened it. Dug through the contents with shaking hands. And then she saw them—your clothes. The same ones you’d been wearing earlier that day. The truth hit like a punch to the stomach.

Oh.

Oh.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her knees buckled a little under her. 

You? Spider-Woman? She let out a shaky chuckle, a disbelieving sound that held too many emotions at once. 

It couldn’t be. 

Except it was. It was. 

She let the bag fall back where she’d found it, her head spinning as she stumbled out of the alley like she’d just stepped out of someone else’s dream. She didn’t go back to school. She couldn’t. Instead, she walked all the way home, her thoughts circling in frantic loops as she played every moment with you back in her head. Every bruise. Every rushed goodbye. Every moment she looked for you and found a headline instead.

Have you ever planned to tell her?

Of course not. You never really let her in, not fully. She was just… someone. Maybe a friend. Maybe not even that. Just someone you talked to on quieter days. Someone who sat next to you during free periods and made you laugh without knowing why you always looked so tired. Megan turned off her phone notifications and curled up in bed, facing the wall. She didn’t want to deal with anyone. Not yet. Not when her chest felt this heavy.

She didn’t sleep that night.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw you in that suit. Dodging bullets. Bleeding. Disappearing. 

And not once, not once, telling her who you really were.

The next day, she hunted you down like a bloodhound.

You showed up to school late—again—with wet hair and a slightly hunched posture like you were sore in ten different places. Megan saw the bruising on your collarbone when you bent to tie your shoe.

"Where were you last night?" she asked you, casual voice. Too casual. She leaned against your locker, arms crossed.

You blinked at her, lips twitching nervously. “Uh, home. Studying.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You sure? You didn’t like, I dunno…fight crime or something?”

You coughed. “What?”

“Nothing,” Megan said, feigning innocence, her voice just a touch too casual to be convincing. “Just weird how you’re always mysteriously gone during those Spider-Woman sightings.”

Your jaw twitched, a silent betrayal of the composure you were trying to hold. Megan’s eyes narrowed, catching it immediately. “Do you wanna tell me something?” she asked, her tone gentle but pointed, like she already knew the answer and just wanted to hear it from your lips.

But you didn’t tell her—not then.

Later, after the bell had rung and the campus had begun to empty out, she found you alone on a bench beneath the old oak tree in the quad, tucking your things back into your bag like you hadn’t been avoiding everything all day. She walked up quietly, without show, and dropped something into your lap. Your sketchbook. The one you thought you’d lost. The one with drawings too personal to explain.

You froze. “Oh, hey—I was looking for—”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Megan asked, her voice low and even, not angry—just broken at the edges, just small in a way that made your stomach twist. “Or were you just gonna keep lying to me?”

You stared at her, mouth half-open, like you were suddenly seeing someone you hadn’t prepared for—like all your careful plans were unraveling in real time. “I didn’t want to,” you whispered, the words thin and cracked. “I didn’t want to lie to you. But I didn’t know how to explain it. Didn’t want you to get hurt.”

She sat beside you, quiet and steady, the way she always was when you needed grounding. Your hands trembled in your lap, your body folding in on itself like the truth was too heavy to carry upright.

“You saved me,” she said, her voice softer now. “Twice. And you’re scared of me finding out?”

You nodded, eyes distant. “Because…if you knew the truth, and something happened to you because of me…”

“You think I’d be safer if I didn’t know?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t you?” you murmured, your voice barely audible.

And then Megan reached for your hand. You flinched out of habit, but she didn’t let go. Her grip was warm, solid, grounding. She held on tighter, like letting go wasn’t even an option. “Even if you’re the villain here, I’ll still like you,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Your head jerked toward her. “What?”

“You heard me,” she said, already leaning in.

And then she kissed you—not with fire or urgency, but with something gentler, something that said I see you and I still choose you. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t dramatic. It was soft. Real. Everything you hadn’t let yourself hope for.

You melted into it like you’d been holding your breath for months and finally exhaled.

When you pulled away, she was grinning at you, her forehead against yours. “You’re a fucking idiot,” she said.

You laughed, the kind of laugh that came from someplace deeper than joy—relief, maybe. Forgiveness. “Yeah,” you breathed, your eyes shining with something brighter than fear. “But I’m your idiot.”

[bernardsbendystraws]

a brutally honest post from me to you.

to preface, I know this is a corner of social media where we fangirl and write fanfiction. i'm aware that these issues are not as severe as irl problems, but just because it's not that serious doesn't mean that a stress/frustration/sadness just goes away.

so yeah, i do know that these aren't the biggest issues that people are gonna face in life, but it's some i wanna talk about. if you don't wanna hear it, scroll. this is a judgement free space and i'll block anyone who disturbs that.

[ posts not doing well hurts. ]

when you're brand new, it kinda sucks. getting traction is hard. people like familiar names with familiar writing styles and layouts. they know what they're getting into.

its not because you're writing sucks, it's because you're different. maybe you have some weak points, but everyone has those at some point. so no, it's not you or your skills, it's because you're new and people like gravitate towards familiar things.

when you're not new, it can really suck. now you know you can get the readers, but sometimes that's almost worse. you'll feel like there's more pressure, that you'll never be able to top xyz. and it really hurts, especially if you make something that you're so proud of and it doesn't get as much traction as you hoped it would.

its not because it's bad. there's so many factors. sometimes it's because one of the triplets posted, maybe just an active period on tumblr where the algorithm is really in your favor, or maybe it was because the readers were sharing your work behind the scenes because they loved it so much.

it varies and it sucks. there's pressure to 'do better' but then you feel kinda stuck. you can't always do better, but you can always do your best.

either way, it's not truly your fault. there's so many factors that contribute to how well a post performs. your efforts are still something you should be proud of regardless.

[ friends ]

this is something i've really struggled with. it's really difficult. social ques are not my strong suit, I take things as they are presented to me. every friendship is different and not all of them are created equal.

some people want to be friends for interaction as a transaction. some people want to be your friend to make it seem like they have a place on sturniolo tumblr publicly. some people want to be friends to be your friend. there's a difference.

doesn't matter who you are, how many followers, or how many fics you have. not all intentions are genuine, even if they aren't necessarily bad.

[ drama ]

i've been in drama and i've also watched it. i've tried hard to avoid it but sometimes it is necessary to call out. when i was a smaller blog there were a lot of big blogs people loved that were straight up mean.

i can say confidently that i've never been mean to someone right off the bat for no other reason than thinking i was better than them. that has and will never happen because i know exactly what it feels like.

talk to a person in private first. i don't care what it is. ask them questions and have them give you direct answers. if it is something deeply concerning like a predator, that is an instance where it is important to speak up since it directly effects people on here.

it broke my heart when the juno / bri situation happened and i had dozens of minors dming me saying something happened but they were too scared to speak up.

i really hope that never happens again, but if it does, people need to feel safe enough to go to an adult on here. i'm happy i was that person for a lot of people because i needed a person like that when i was a kid.

put mdni on all you want, but please don't isolate minors when they are wanting to feel included. that's puts them at an even more vulnerable position and people know that. draw boundaries but keep all of this in mind.

i can and always will admit when i'm wrong even if i'm still hurt by the other person. apologizing isn't something that says 'oh this person is wrong, that person is right,' it's something that is required for basic human decency and respect. if i hurt someone, i want them to at least have the closure of having an apology.

i can't take back the actions or words, but i can validate their feelings and that's really important since we're all human and have feelings.

agree to disagree if you need to at the end of the day, but leave people alone. exposing people for things that aren't necessary is never gonna make you feel better.

interacting and creating genuine friendships will you give a lot more peace and joy then hate and conflict ever will.

point is, treat others how you want to be treated. we're all humans with feelings and coming here for an escape to fangirl and write. do things to make the community better. do things to make yourself happy and proud in the long term.

i appretiate anyone who has stayed to read this, truly. i don't know how much of a difference it will make but i don't care. i said what i said and i meant it. if this helps one person, that already makes it worth it in my eyes.

i love being apart of this community and i hope we can build it to something we're all proud of and wanting to be apart of at the end of the day.

with love and big tits, rose 🫶🏻