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needtherapy · 4 years

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soaring, carried aloft on the wind...continued 15

A story for Xichen and Mingjue, in another time and another place.

The Beifeng, the mighty empire of the north, invaded more than a year ago, moving inexorably south and east.

In order to buy peace, the chief of the Lan clan has given the Beifeng warlord a gift, his second oldest son in marriage. However, when Xichen finds out he makes a plan.

He, too, can give a gift to the Beifeng warlord, and he will not regret it.

Part 1: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 Part 2: 14 / 15 / … HOME

It’s complete on AO3 here.

Notes: Check the tags if you’re concerned about the pairings ;)

For translations of the entirely fictitious Beifeng language, you’ll have to scroll to notes. I’m only going to translate something that’s not clear in the text. Sadly, there’s just not any other good way to do it on Tumblr!

Chapter 15 Earlier

Huaisang looked nervous, and it was not an expression that sat easily on his face. He paced in Xichen’s tent, ignoring his questions until Xichen finally set down his book and grabbed Huaisang’s arm.

“Anati, I am going to throw you out of my tent and into a snowbank if you do not tell me what bothers you.”

It was an idle threat, and they both knew it. Xichen was far too happy to do any such thing, and everyone knew it. He did try not to walk through every day with a foolish smile on his face, but he knew he failed most of the time, especially the days he woke to the sight of Mingjue’s face next to his. Especially on the days Mingjue stopped to see Xichen while he was working in the hospital to kiss his forehead. Especially on the days they put on their warmest clothes and rode out across the frozen plains together. Xichen was not so childish as to think they would never have any conflicts, but he was also not so naïve as to think the love he felt was common. It certainly wasn’t something he’d ever seen before.

Huaisang sank down onto a round pillow and sighed. “Anakau wants me to tell you something, but I’m a coward, and I don’t want to.”

Huaisang was in no way a coward, but he looked truly miserable, and Xichen’s heart stopped. All he could think was that Huaisang had heard some news about his family, or something terrible had happened to his brother, and his grip on Huaisang’s wrist tightened.

“Tell me,” he whispered hoarsely.

“We have had an offer from the Jin clan, an offer of good faith. They wish us to end our current advancement on their city and consider negotiations. I do not wish to accept anything…” Huaisang paused, his face darkening. “I’m sorry, I can’t explain more, but we are considering it, at least for the duration of winter. It would buy us time.”

Xichen let out a whooshing breath of relief, but Huaisang looked unhappy still.

“It is an offer like...like the Lan clan made.”

Xichen sat back and instinctively pulled on the stony, impassive mask he had not needed in months. “Mingjue wants to accept?”

Did he have a right to feel betrayed? Icy fingers crawled up Xichen’s back as he considered the terms of the treaty. For his pleasure. Given first consideration. In equal status. Pledge of life bond. No, they were breaking no terms, but he had thought…

It didn’t matter what he had thought. He reminded himself of the facts. He was a gift, not a choice. And he had no choices either. He could not go home to his father.

Xichen dug his thumbnail into his palm to focus his thoughts and still his expression into neutrality, but he must have looked betrayed, because Huaisang shook his head, words rushing out of him.

“It would not be like you. No one could be like you. There are reasons this is important, and they don’t have anything to do with you. Anakau is not happy with me, but it...I think we should accept a conditional agreement, a trial period of sorts, as though we are seeing if the situation suits. It would only be for three months, and it would not be real, Xichen. You are not being replaced.”

This last was said with such guilty vehemence, some of Xichen’s hurt faded, but not all of it. Perhaps not replaced, but he can’t imagine this won’t change things.

“I think we need to do this,” Huaisang added. “We won’t get another opportunity to...well, anyway, anakau told me I had to talk to you about it first. If it helps, I think he’s punishing me.”

It did not help. Xichen still felt wounded, creeping apprehension slithering around his gut. He should not have become so accustomed to his life over the past few months. He should not have forgotten what his role was here. He didn’t want this, but there was nothing he could say. No matter what he felt, no matter what he believed Mingjue felt, in truth, Xichen was only a visitor here.

“You do not need my permission, Huaisang,” Xichen reminded him, aiming for serenity but not quite managing to keep the disappointment entirely of his voice, and Huaisang sagged.

“I know, but I wanted you to know before...before he arrives. If I didn’t believe it was necessary…” He ran his fingers over his hair, disrupting some of it from his braid. Standing swiftly, he stalked to the door, but paused and turned back. “I think of us as friends and brothers, Xichen, and I hope you can forgive me.”

He disappeared, and Xichen hoped so too.

When Mingjue came for dinner, he hovered in the doorway, hands behind his back, uncertainty stamped on his face, until Xichen sighed and beckoned him in.

“This is not for me,” he said quietly, without moving. “You are...angry?

The worst part was, Xichen wasn’t. He believed Huaisang. He knew the brothers had secrets. And he loved Mingjue. He could trust them for a little while longer, he thought, ignoring the voice that said you have no other option.

“No. Just worried,” he said, mostly truthfully, and then Mingjue moved, crushing Xichen in his arms and tucking his face against Xichen’s neck.

“Komi auha, edas ahora,” he murmured, and Xichen let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, sinking himself deeper into Mingjue’s embrace like a slowly submerging stone.

Evidently, the Jin clan expected their offer to be accepted, because the Jin emissary—it makes it easier for Xichen to think of him in political terms—arrived by the end of the next week. Huaisang asked Xichen to attend the greeting, and Xichen only agreed for the chance to silently observe the Jin man. He noted with unkind satisfaction that Mingjue’s face was still filled with storm clouds when he looked at his brother.

It was disappointing, though, that Jin Guangyao, the man Huaisang said was the eldest son of the Jin clan chief, was more appealing than Xichen wished he was. He was a little taller than Huaisang and looked to be Xichen’s age or even younger, with fine, delicate features and large soft eyes that reminded Xichen of the deer who lurked around the horse yards, hoping to steal their grain.

Jin Guangyao bowed deeply to Mingjue, spine stiff, shoulders straight. “Chifeng-Zun, this one is willing to serve in any way necessary to ensure peace for three months as agreed. Or longer.”

Mingjue’s expression didn’t change and he didn’t respond to Huaisang’s translation immediately, but Xichen thought his eyes had an appraising look in them, hopefully only curious about Jin Guangyao’s rigorous formality and not interested in his perfect skin and full mouth. Jin Guangyao looked up at him from lowered eyelashes, a curve of a smile on his lips, and Mingjue arched an eyebrow.

“Ti erodino anot auha. Eina et nagita di pia ti?” Mingjue asked Huaisang, and Huaisang frowned at him.

Neither of them was looking at Jin Guangyao, so only Xichen saw his reaction to Mingjue’s blunt assessment—He looks weak. What use is he? Anger flashed across his eyes, disappearing as swiftly as one of Wangji’s moods, and Xichen realized that if nothing else, Jin Guangyao spoke enough Orera to be insulted. How interesting.

Huaisang led them to Jin Guangyao’s tent, near Xichen’s. It was smaller and there were spells set in twisting lines of metallic thread on the door flap. Xichen had been learning about the Ikarahu magic since his birthday, hoping to use Sikunadis to its full potential. Their magic was more ambient than innate, theoretically unlimited in scope, and skilled users could form fire-like towers of heat, shift piles of dirt, control bodies of water, or cause great gusts of wind. However, it was slower and more difficult to access than Xichen’s power, requiring complex drawings in air or on surfaces to hold the magic or precise positioning of the hands and fingers.

The magic could also be stored in small amounts in the metal Sikunadis was made of, and Ikarharu craftsmen used thin wires of it in weaving, in books, in healing tools, even in the bridles they used to break wild horses. Xichen wasn’t able to pull magic from the air, ground, or water the way the Ikarahu did yet—Huaisang thought he would eventually be able to learn the skill—but he could activate the woven spells. The ones on Jin Guangyao’s tent were, to Xichen’s eyes, very clearly a lock.

Jin Guangyao frowned at the guards. “Is this one a prisoner?”

Huaisang laughed merrily. “No, you aren’t a prisoner, Guangyao. The guards are for your safety, of course.”

The man’s chin tilted up slightly when Huaisang said his name, although Xichen wasn’t sure if it was offense at the informality or if he suspected the lie. Two interesting things, he thought.

Xichen had heard Kitingi crying overhead as they walked, but Huaisang always seemed to know when she wanted to land. He held up a hand before they entered Jin Guangyao’s new home, and with a rustle of wings, she was there, alighting so swiftly it was as though she had appeared from nowhere.

“Oh,” Guangyao said, and for a single breath, there was something different on his face, a look of naked wonder, a sudden tempest of intelligence that turned into curiosity. “She’s beautiful.”

Huaisang’s expression sharpened. “How do you know Kitingi is a female?” “Males have black eye masks,” Guangyao said absently, without taking his eyes from Kitingi, and Kitingi preened one outstretched wing, accepting his admiration as her due.

“You are very observant, Guangyao. Where did you learn about munaku?” Huaisang asked with a casual grin.

He set Kitingi on Xichen’s shoulder and Jin Guangyao’s fingers twitched, as though he wanted to lift his hand to intercept her, but as quickly as the impulse had compelled him, it passed, and he straightened, the calm sea returning to his face.

Instead of answering Huaisang, he bowed to Xichen with a dazzling smile that showed off perfect white teeth and dimples that made him look younger. “Although we have never spoken, this one is familiar with your reputation. Would this one be allowed to visit Zewu-Jun?”

“Zewu-Jun is not a prisoner either, Guangyao,” Huaisang said before Xichen could answer. “When he is not with Ipira’orhew Ikira, he is generous enough to spend time helping our healers, though, so don’t be offended if he’s hard to find.”

Jin Guangyao’s smile was tight, and he nodded understanding. Xichen thought he truly did understand Huaisang’s meaning. He felt sorry for this man, who seemed gentle and polite and ill-suited to be a political prisoner.

“Is Ipira’orhew Ikira the title Chifeng-Zun would prefer?” Jin Guangyao asked blandly, and Huaisang waved his hand dismissively.

“It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Whichever is easier for you to say.” Jin Guangyao took a moment to digest this, and then asked, “Does Huaisang have a title he would prefer?”

Xichen was startled. He had never thought to ask if Huasiang had a title. Huaisang seemed startled too, and Xichen thought he might not answer.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, but eventually replied, “I do not necessarily prefer it, but my title is Oringa'anhu Ikira.”

Hidden Cat Lord, Xichen translated in his head without smiling as he wanted to. It seemed fitting.

Jin Guangyao rolled the words around, faster with the unfamiliar tones than Xichen had been. “It is pleasing to say. If there is no objection, this one will use it.”

Huaisang turned with a careless shrug, taking Xichen’s elbow to lead him out of the tent, but the expression on his face was not one Xichen had ever seen before.

“I don’t like him,” Qingyang told him over dinner, sniffing her cup of white tea.

Xichen had found that the Ikarahu actually liked their bitter, dark tea. For months, he had despaired of ever drinking anything palatable again until the day Mingjue presented him with a jar of delicate white tea that smelled like summer and was immediately recognizable as one of the finest Zhao teas. Xichen hoarded it fiercely, but he was willing to share it with Qingyang, because she, at least, would appreciate it.

Although she still taught him Orera, Qingyang had recently begun spending her free time in the company of Titakau, the Ikarahu healer who was teaching Xichen her tribe’s way of using tiny needles to alleviate pain and adjust energy flow. The woman had watched Qingyang with huge dark eyes for months and had eventually worked up the courage to do more than look. Xichen was happy for Qingyang, whose feet seemed to be drifting on air, but he missed her and was not above bribing her with tea. Selfishly, he wanted her opinion on Jin Guangyao.

He took a sip and held it in his mouth before asking, “Do you know him?”

“I have met him. He’s considered charming and handsome.” She shrugged as if they were rumors she couldn’t personally verify, and Xichen suppressed a smile. “I’m not sure anyone knows him. More importantly, and more unfortunately, I know the Jin chief. At best, Guangyao is an agent of his father. At worst, he is a true son of his father.” She shuddered and took another sip.

“It would be better if he was a spy?” Xichen asked, and Qingyang noded without elaborating. “Do you think that is likely?”

She shrugged. “Who knows, but he is too clever and too self-possessed to be here for any reason but his own. I don’t trust him, and you shouldn’t either.”

Xichen nodded and thanked her for her advice. He trusted Qingyang, but Xichen couldn’t bring himself to condemn the man for his father’s sins, whatever they might be, as Xichen hoped no one would think he was like his father.

In only a few words, she had confirmed what Xichen thought about Jin Guangyao. He was clever and composed. He was handsome and polite. He was undoubtedly there for some concealed purpose. And now, Qingyang had made Xichen even more curious about what exactly it was.

Notes: Komi auha, edas ahora. = I am sorry, beloved husband.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #soaring au #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nielan #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #sangyao #luo qingyang #Kristina writes tiny stories #the untamed au #mdzs au

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buckybarnesbingo · 4 years

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BBB Week 37 Roundup!

HOLY PRODUCTIVITY, BATMAN! I can tell the end of the round is nigh, because the fills are FLOODING in!

Our LAST DISCORD PARTY OF ROUND TWO is starting in 5 hours. It’ll be a shorter one, 24 hours,

but plenty of time for lots of fun! The announcement for that, and some additional end-of-bingo info, can be found here.

Title: I’ll Be Home For Christmas Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B3 - Missing You Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: lonely Bucky, drabble Summary: Bucky misses you while on a Christmas mission Word Count: 100

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 14: Blindsided Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C2 - Blind Date Ship: Stucky, Bucky & Riley Rating: Teen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, friendship, blind date, attraction Summary: Bucky follows through on Nat and Sam’s plan. To his surprise, he enjoys him, but he still misses Steve. Or Steve. Is. Pissed. Word Count: 992

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Title: Journey of the Winter Soldier Collaborator: Starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: U1 - Love at First Sight Ship: Bucky & his son Rating: Teen Major Tags: Implied murder and ambiguous morals Summary: The Winter Soldier just wants to get his son to safety, but being human again comes at a cost. Fortunately, there are still kind strangers in the world who understand the need a father has to care for his son. Word Count: 1050

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Title: compliance Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y4 - Knives Ship: Bucky/Brock Rating: Teen Major Tags: brainwashed!non-con, blood, hydra trash party, art Summary: Rumlow likes knives, The Asset likes what it’s told to like.

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Title: Fathers and Sons Collaborator: starjargon Link: DeviantArt Square Filled: K3 - Delinquent Ship: Bucky & Son Rating: Gen Major Tags: Violence, moodboard Summary: The Winter Soldier runs away and re-learns to be Bucky with his son. He only hopes Eliot grows up to be nothing like him. Eventually he is re-captured and turned back into the Winter Soldier, and Eliot has become a mercenary before teaming up with a band of thieves.

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 15: Was It Worth It? Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - Misunderstandings Ship: Stucky, Bucky & Riley Rating: Teen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, misunderstandings, declarations of love, low self-esteem Summary: Steve finally lets it go, and Bucky finds the lightbulbs over his head. Or Everything changes. Word Count: 1062

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Title: I Guess We Never Stood a Chance Collaborator: Starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: C4 - Arranged Marriage Ship: Bucky/OFC Rating: Teen Major Tags: Major Character Death, dark thematic elements Summary: The Winter Soldier is assigned to take part in a New Agenda to breed more Enhanced Soldiers. Things don't go as planned. Word Count: 399

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 16: Downright Idiotic Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B1 - “It wasn’t worth it.” Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, idiots in love, declarations of love, communication Summary: Bucky on a mission. Steve doesn’t stand a chance. Or Bucky and Steve finally communicate. Word Count: 1220

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Title: The Groomsman Collaborator: feignedsobriquet Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C5 - Historical Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: fanart for 27dragons and tisfan’s The Groomsman

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Title: The Weather Outside is Frightful Collaborator: somesortofitalianroast Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Intimacy without Sex Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: au - coffee shop, au - soulmates, fluff, snow, fluff Summary: It’s snowing in New York, but the fire is delightful. Or, Steve and Bucky hang a Moravian Star and snuggle. Word Count: 1404

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Title: You Me and Steve Collaborator: jamesbuckystark Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U1 - Red String of Fate Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: au - soulmates Summary: Tony wants to have more private time with Bucky, but Steve just never leaves! Word Count: 924

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Title: A Christmas Kiss Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y1 - cop/detective/FBI au Ship: BuckyNat Rating: Gen Major Tags: none Summary: Bucky tries to summon the courage to talk to Natasha at an NYPD holiday party Word Count: 328

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Title: Targets Acquired - Mission Failed Collaborator: alwaysabrighterdarkness Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B3 - Stark Tower Ship: Bucky & Tony Rating: Teen Major Tags: WinterSoldier targeting Tony&Pepper, explosives set at the Tower Summary: The Asset has been given 24 hours. The target is the newly minted Iron Man and Stark Industries. They cannot be allowed to continue as they are and Insight is not yet ready. But Stark knows he’s there, has hidden Potts and Hogan. The Soldier flees. Stark follows ready for a fight that never comes.

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Title: Art: Recharging Getaway Collaborator: LiquidLightz Link: AO3 Square Filled: C3 - Free Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: art Summary: My NASBB artwork for the fic “Coming up Easy”. A modern au where Bucky is a writer and Steve a DIYer with a penchant for art... “Bucky Barnes suffers from writer’s block. When he stumbles upon gorgeous DIYer Steve Rogers on YouTube and Steve turns out to be a fan of Bucky’s books, a friendship blossoms. Bucky even spends the summer with Steve in New England, where he can finally pine- er, write in peace.“ Steve paints Bucky relaxing with Alpine in his cottage, without his knowledge, and surprises him with the painting just before he has to leave. This is my rendition of Steve’s painting 🙃 🎨

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 17: Got Your Nose Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y3 - Nose Kisses Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, morning after sex, idiots in love, relationship Summary: Bucky and Steve wake up together. Nose kisses are their favorite. Or Two boys in love. Word Count: 1236

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Title: Fri on the Wall Collaborator: LBibliophile Link: AO3 Square Filled: C5 - Dialogue-only Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Mutual pining, Supportive Friday, 5+1 Things, Drabble sequence, Dialogue-only Summary: Friday watches her idiot, pining boys. Or, five times Friday tried to support their relationship, and one time she decided to take more drastic measures. Word Count: 600

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Title: idiotic brothers Collaborator: jurassicworjd Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y5 - “Get Off My Lawn!” Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: swearing Summary: Bucky is trying to have an intimate moment with Clint when they’re suddenly interrupted. Bucky is not impressed with what they find. Word Count: 2332

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Title: BBB December 2020 Round Robin Collaborators: Poliz, Faustess, Turtles, Winnie, Menatiera, Ginger, Phoenix Link: AO3 Squares Filled: Poliz - B5: bodysharing Faustess - U2: Bed sharing Turtles - B5: Reluctant Teamwork Winnie - B2: comics Menatiera - Y5: Wrong number Ginger - U1: Mission Gone Wrong Phoenix - B5: galaxy Ship: Bucky & Sam Rating: Gen Major Tags: body-sharing, terrible magic, team bonding Summary: When they find themselves stranded on an alien planet, Strange’s solution is to use Bucky and Sam’s connection to Steve to send an SOS back to Earth. What could possibly go wrong? Word Count: 2831

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Title: Mr. Miyagi Would Say... Collaborator: starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: C2 - Cartoons Ship: Bucky & Eliot Spencer Rating: Gen Major Tags: Psych and Leverage crossover, fluff, kid fic Summary: The boys are playing spies, superheroes, and guns. They're doing it wrong- Bucky would know. Word Count: 808

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Title: The Future I See With You Is My Reward Collaborator: Politzania Link: AO3 Square Filled: B4 - Bucky/Tony Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: A/B/O ‘verse, vague reference to mpreg Summary: After a close call during a battle, Tony and Bucky cuddle on their couch and talk about the possibility of retiring and starting a family. Word Count: 636

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Title: Strip Shooting Collaborator: hddnone Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 - Role Reversal Ship: WinterIronHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: oral sex, humor, crack Summary: Bucky and Clint are up to their usual crazy tricks on the shooting range, switching weapons and competing against each other. Tony wouldn’t be paying it any attention except JARVIS is upset about their lack of proper footwear. But the conditions of the sharpshooters’ bets means they start losing all the rest of their clothes as well - until it comes down to Tony to raise the stakes and declare a winner. Word Count: 3207

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 18: Quickly Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C5 - Kink: Rushed Sex Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, morning sex, quickies, friendship Summary: Natasha has an annoying way of showing up without much warning. That means Steve and Bucky only have time for a quickie. Or Bucky has a boyfriend! Word Count: 1008

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Title: Go On and Find What You’ve Been Missing Collaborator: Starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: K5 - Accidental Feelings Ship: Bucky & Eliot Spencer Rating: Gen Major Tags: Psych and Leverage crossover, kid fic, Red Room, dysfunctional family Summary: Bucky will always protect his son. No matter who he needs to protect him from. Word Count: 1062

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Title: Reengaged - Part One: Bucky Collaborator: ABrighterDarkness Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Never the Fall that Kills You Ship: past Stucky, WinterIron, pre-Stuckony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Reference to Torture, Angst Summary: Bucky Barnes knew a thing or two about pain. It was something that he was intimately familiar with. He knew hundreds of different ways to inflict it. Just as he undoubtedly knew what all manner of pain felt like. But he had forgotten, or possibly never known, this particular brand of pain. Word Count:987

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Title: Reengaged - Part Two: Tony Collaborator: ABrighterDarkness Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Role Reversal Ship: past Stucky, WinterIron, pre-Stuckony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Reference to Torture, Angst Summary: He wondered how Steve would take it, if Tony were to tell him that he didn’t mind. That he wouldn’t be jealous or hurt or angry. That, if anything, Tony would welcome it. Would Steve believe him? Or would he proceed to offer more of the same promises? Promises that Tony was nearly positive he didn’t want to see kept. Word Count: 1635

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Title: Sticking Around... Chapter One: Bucky Collaborator: pherryt Link: AO3 Square Filled: U1 - Kidfic Ship: Pre-Winterhawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: kidfic, high school AU, foster care Summary: It’s been a few weeks now, and Bucky’s not sure how much closer Clint is to settling in then when he first arrived at Phil’s. Word Count: 7704

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Title: Sticking Around... Chapter Three: Bucky Collaborator: pherryt Link: AO3 Square Filled: U5 - Boardgames Ship: Pre-Winterhawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: kidfic, high school AU, foster care Summary: It’s been a few weeks now, and Bucky’s not sure how much closer Clint is to settling in then when he first arrived at Phil’s. Word Count: 7704

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Title: we remember them all with equal affection Collaborator: seibelsays Link: AO3 Square Filled: B2 - It Wasn’t Worth It Ship: Bucky/Darcy Rating: Gen Major Tags: Referenced character death Summary: Becca Barnes always tended the family graves. With the weather so cold this year, the responsibility falls to Bucky. He has complicated feelings about it. Word Count: 2038

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Title: The Basements Collaborator: riotfalling Link: AO3 Square Filled: U1 - Board Games Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: witch!Tony, vampire!Bucky, an adorable cottage Summary: Tony is willing to do just about anything to get out of his father’s house, and babysitting a magical cottage seems almost too easy. Even if he’s not sure exactly what’s in the basement. Word Count: 1229

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Title: Father to Father Collaborator: Starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: K4 - Entry Ship: Bucky & Eliot Spencer Rating: Gen Major Tags: Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Nathan Ford, Families of Choice, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Promises, Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Nathan Ford has feels, Nathan Ford hearts His Team Summary: Nate Ford has a stranger in his apartment. Only, there's something eerily familiar about him. Word Count: 406

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Title: The Strength That Now You Show Collaborator: Starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y5 - Expendable Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Fix-It of Sorts, Conversations, Best Friends, Friends are Friends Forever, Bittersweet Ending, Hopeful Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Steve Needs Bucky to Tell Him It'll Be Okay, Before he Can Tell Bucky It'll Be Okay, end of the line Summary: Bucky and Steve have a conversation before Steve takes the stones back. Word Count: 663

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Title: Take A Deep Breath (Baby, let me in) Collaborator: MagicaDraconia16 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y1 - Winter Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: Angst, humor, fluff, canon divergence, time travel, dimension travel, WWII (and related non-graphic violence), Extremis Tony Stark, first meetings, falling in love, kissing, period typical attitudes, pre-WS Bucky Barnes Summary: Take two villains playing ping-pong with the Cosmic Cube that apparently has some kind of hiccups, add in a dash of mis-directed repulsor fire, shake well, and what do you get? A Tony Stark stuck in both a time and a dimension not his own, that's what. He has to admit, though - he much prefers this version of Bucky Barnes, compared to Captain America's pipsqueak sidekick. Word Count: 7529

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 19: It’s a Beautiful Life Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U4 - Precision Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, cooking, friendship, happiness Summary: Sam and Nat are happy for them. Or Bucky has a perfect day. Word Count: 913

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Title: The Midnight Fox - Chapter One Collaborator: Minka Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 – Bodyguard Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: royalty, bodyguard AU, PTSD Summary: Time for you all to meet the man of the hour. Or well, both men of the hour, because, in a crazy twist of fate and un-Minka-ness, our two fav guys meet in chapter fucking one! This is a first! Word Count: 10,782

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Title: Proof of Guilt Collaborator: Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y2 – Innocent Until Proven Guilty Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: Public foreplay Summary: Tony aims to figure out if Bucky should be punished for drinking his coffee Word Count: 413

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Title: Good Old-Fashioned Dancing Collaborator: Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: C2 – Dancing Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: dancing Summary: Tony and Bucky are downgraded to paperwork after a bad fight. How else should they spend the day but dancing? Word Count: 648

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Title: Sing me a song about you Collaborator: riotwritesthings Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C5 - kink: non-penetrative Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: musician Bucky, grad student Tony, a meet-cute and a back alley handjob Summary: Bucky doesn’t usually notice much about the crowd while he’s on stage, instead just losing himself in the music. Tonight is different though. Word Count: 915

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Title: Good Changes Collaborator: Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y5 – Height Difference Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: no powers AU, Howling Commandos Summary: Steve loves his found family, but Bucky has a boyfriend who's changing the status quo. Can Steve work through that? Word Count: 764

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Title: Winter Solstice Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y4 - kink: alpha/beta/omega Ship: Bucky/reader Rating: Teen Major Tags: implied smut, A/B/O dynamics Summary: Bucky gets his rut over the Winter Solstice Word Count: 281

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 20: Rock On Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K4 - Pet Rock Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, friends to lovers, happily ever after, happy ending Summary: Bucky Barnes doesn’t ask for much, but maybe he should. Or Bucky Barnes finds his happy ending. Word Count: 496

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Title: Soulmates? - Chapter 2 Collaborator: writing-what-writing Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U5 - Dream Sharing Ship: Bucky/Darcy Rating: Gen Major Tags: Light angst, mentions of Howard Stark being a bad dad Summary: Bucky and Darcy get to know each other and unknowingly share a dream. Bucky figures something out Word Count: 1675

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Title: The Valley of Lights Collaborator: writing-what-writing Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - mutual appreciation society Ship: Bucky/reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: none Summary: You and Bucky go see Christmas lights Word Count: 322

#buckybarnesbingo2020 #bbb2020 #bbb weekly roundup #bbb week 37 roundup

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ordinaryschmuck · 4 years

Text

What I thought about every episode of The Owl House Season 1 (Part 1/2)

Salutations random people on the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Hey, do you miss Gravity Falls?

...

Yeah, I know, dumb question. Which is why I have good news! Not only is there a new series that is just as good as Gravity Falls, but in some ways, it's even better. That new series would be none other than Disney Channel's latest hit: The Owl House.

The Owl House, slowly but surely, became my new obsession since Eda reacted to decapitation with an unconcerned, "I hate when that happens." I wrote fan-fiction, made fan-art, and even began to separately review new episodes. Unfortunately, I got in a little late in the reviewing game and only managed to analyze the last four episodes of season one. And like an idiot, I promised that I'll review the rest when they came out on Disney+. Seeing that all of the first season has finally come on a legal streaming service (which means WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!), it's time I finally saw through to that promise. However, I'm not going to over-analyze each episode because that would be insane. So instead, we're going to lightning round these suckers. Because it's my Tumblr, and I get to decide what I review and how the hell I review it...hooah.

Which means this is your last chance to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen The Owl House yet. Seriously, it's a great show, and you can catch up right now on Disney+. A week-long trial is more than enough time to watch the series, so DO IT! With that out of the way, let's get started with:

“A Lying Witch and a Warden”: This episode gets a lot of flack for having poor pacing and being too preachy with its message. And to that, I say...you're not wrong. Yeah, I wish I could be that person who can defend this episode against criticism like that, but these are understandable problems that just left this icky feeling in my tum-tum when watching. But that's only when looking at it as a regular old episode when in reality, people need to see it as a first episode. The first episode in any show needs to get viewers interested enough to continue watching by answering these five essential questions: What's the plot of the show? What's the tone? Who are the main characters? What's the world they live in? And what are the rules of the same world? "A Lying Witch and a Warden" does a great job of answering all of these questions. And if you stuck around until the season finale, then that means it did a great job of keeping you interested in sticking around as well. So seeing how it got its job done, albeit, with mixed results, I give this episode a B-.

“Witches Before Wizards”: Don't mind me. Just reveling in the fact that Luz escaped to a fantasy world to avoid Reality Check Camp, only to get a reality check anyway. Because that's what this episode is in a nutshell. Through the "quest" that Luz goes on, she learns two important lessons: One, don't trust strangers who offer you something nice and shiny (bonus points for Eda warning Luz to avoid men with sandals and then have Ategast wear sandals). And two, there is no such thing as having a predetermined destiny. I love the idea that Luz coming to the Isles was just a twist of fate, and everything that happens afterward is pure dumb luck. And that moment when Eda gave a speech about making your own path instead of waiting to become something special? That was the moment when I went from thinking this was going to be a fun show to thinking it's going to be a great show. So consider this episode a solid A in my book.

“I Was a Teenage Abomination”: How is it possible for an episode to get better and worse with time? Because here's the thing: This episode does a great job of showing how perfect Amity's development is. After one single season, it already feels jarring, seeing the way she acts in certain scenes. However, in that same respect, it's the same reason why this episode got worse. I didn't mind that Willow practically got away with cheating and vandalizing the school with her magic because she and Luz were basically trying to show up a two-dimensional bully. But knowing what we know in the future, it does seem unfair that Amity gets punished for their bad behavior and Willow got little consequences for it. Sure, Luz got banned and had to work at gaining Amity's trust, but what about Willow? Although, despite this complaint, I don't really hate this episode. It builds a believable connection between Luz and her friends, and the B-plot King and Eda show off their budding friendship. So while this episode is a C-, it's a somewhat enjoyable C-.

“The Intruder”: Is it weird for anyone else that King gets most of the blame in this episode? Yes, he took the potion, but Luz was the one who kept pushing him. This is why it never sat right with me seeing how everyone, including himself, blames King for this episode's incident. That being said, "The Intruder" is fantastic. Eda, as the Owl Beast, is legitimately threatening, and the way the episode treats Eda's curse like a chronic illness is actually kind of sweet. It teaches kids how this is something that just happens to people, and they're not any weaker because of it, as long as they take the right steps. Which is cool, and it's why this is another solid A episode for me. Sure King getting the blame bothers me, but it pales in comparison to everything else “The Intruder” does right.

“Covention”: If you want my personal opinion (obviously, seeing how you're reading this), "Covention" is the perfect episode to show a friend to get them into watching the The Owl House. Everything there is to love about the show is seen in just these twenty-two minutes. Eda being a chaotic good, Luz being a sweet and understanding character, some incredible/natural world-building, an actually decent B-plot, an epic fight scene, great comedy, and, my personal favorite, the building of Luz and Amity's relationship. In fact, this episode has the most quintessential moment between these two, that Dana Terrace herself took charge of making the animatic for it. A scene that is so perfect that you can do an analysis of these few minutes alone...which is what I did. Click here to read it! "Covention" gets an A+ in my book and might possibly be the best episode of the season. Maybe even the series!

“Hooty’s Moving Hassle”: There's not really a lot I can say about this episode. I don't hate it, but I'm not exactly in love with it. The interactions between Luz and her friends are adorable, and there are a few good jokes that kept me laughing. But the story is kind of bland, and I just find Eda's sudden obsession with Hexes Hold'em kind of odd. Especially since a card game is what nearly defeated the "undefeatable" Owl Lady. If it wasn't for the nice reveal of Willow's and Amity's friendship (which comes into play in a far better episode), I'd say that you could skip this one on future rewatches. Because this is a C grade episode that just doesn't grab me as well as others.

“Lost in Language”: Ah, yes. The episode that made dozens of fans jump aboard the Lumity ship...unless you're like me, and you've been shipping these two since the show's theme song (And I don't know why, either. It's just the second I saw Amity my first thought was, "Oh, honey. You're gonna fall in love with the main character, aren't you?" AND I WAS F**KING RIGHT!). But jokes about shipping aside, "Lost in Language" is a fantastic episode. It has a great lesson about how people are more complex than their first impressions (Or to not judge a book by its cover, if you wanna stay on theme). Edric and Emira seem like a chaotic duo who cause mischief all for good fun. But Luz, as well as the audience, learns that Ed and Em are kinda the worst (they get better in future episodes, but still). Then there's Amity, who hasn't had the best first impressions in the last few episodes. We got glimpses of a good person here and there, but for the most part, that's all they were. Glimpses. Then there's this episode, which gives us more than a small look, but some actual insight into who Amity really is. Better yet, who she wants to be. It's something that I appreciate about The Owl House in that it wastes no time in developing Amity's character. So much so that I can forgive this episode for shoehorning a "Two idiots and a baby" plotline that does nothing but add maybe two minutes of padding. So yeah, it's an A+ for sure.

“Once Upon a Swap”: "Ugh! It's the body swap episode! How cliche and-" SHUT UP! Shut your mouth, and listen: Something being cliche does not always make it bad. Only when the cliche fails to tell an entertaining story does it have the right to work as a complaint. "Once Upon a Swap" may have a cliche premise, but it's still an enjoyable story (or stories) with great laughs and even some ok lessons. I can understand if you hate the episode because its premise is something you've seen a dozen times to the point where your sick of it. My most hated story idea is the "Character A saves Character B, and Character B becomes a life slave." If you have seen this story once, you've seen it a thousand times, and it's the same case with a "body swap" episode. But guess what: The Owl House is a kids' show. Kids'. Show. You can complain all you want about predictability, but kids are the type of viewers who will be new to this experience, despite if it's one that is done to death. Which is why this is solid B of an episode if you ask me.

“Something Ventured, Someone Framed”: Can people please stop shipping Gus with Mattholomule? Because that slimy, greasy, weaselly little son of A BASTARD BITCH WEASEL DOES NOT DESERVE LOVE IN WAY POSSIBLE!

...

But enough about how Mattholomule is the worst character ever, because "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" is a B+ in my opinion. Sure it shows the worst side of Gus and lets Satan's little herpe win in the end, but there is still quality to be had. We get insight into who Gus is as a character, on top of Eda swallowing her pride and cleaning the school so Luz can get into Hexide. Also, Eda's permanent record was the first time this show brought me to tears due to laughing so hard. So while I have to take points off for the inclusion of Mattholomule (I don't make the rules. I just live by them), this is still an episode I wouldn't mind revisiting.

“Escape of the Palisman”: I subscribe to this theory that Luz will one day have Eda's staff as her own. And episodes like this that strengthen the bond between Luz and Owlbert help confirm that theory. Luz's dedication to trying to make things right could just be part of her kind nature, but I like to believe that this is Dana and the crew trying to set up this possible outcome. As for what I think about the episode itself...it's ok. Again, Luz's dedication is nice to see, and King's adventure with Owl Beast Eda is somehow insanely adorable, but there's not really much to say other than that. So it's another B episode for me.

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And that’s the end of part one! Part two has probably already been posted by the time you finish this, so you can go ahead and find that if you’re interested.

#the owl house #the owl house review #what i thought about

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chalantness · 4 years

Text

fic: Here, On the Edge of Hell (1/6)

Rating: M Word Count: ~9400 (part one) Characters: Steve/Natasha Summary: [ mafia au ] She knows her father hadn’t been lying when he said that Uncle Howard wanted her to keep an eye on Steve, but if this was simply about protection, he wouldn’t have put her on the line at all. Especially not with all of the heat Steve Rogers is getting from the other Families, which means that her uncle has another reason for Natasha to be involved.

He just won’t tell her what it is.

Read On: [ ao3 ]

A/N: This is less of a mafia story and more of a flirty, fluffy story in a "light" mafia setting, and it's loosely inspired by an edit by @kingslxyers - except it's modern day instead of the 1940's and likely won't be half as exciting as her little blurb, but I wanted to take a crack at it, anyway, because I've been on a mafia kick thanks to some of my most recent reads. There are more characters to be added as we go, but most of the major ones have already been introduced!

This will most likely be in 6 parts, though it might possibly drop to 5 or bump up to 7. I more or less have it planned out but I've already been changing things along the way with this first part so I thought I'd throw that possibility out there! I have a tentative goal of getting this done by the end of May or mid-June, but of course, there could be things to distract or delay me! I'll try to keep you darlings posted on my progress over on tumblr.

Again, I cannot stress enough how much this probably won't be the intense mafia au you've read elsewhere, but I decided I wanted to write it, anyway - and if flirting and family fluff and a dose of smut are your thing then you might enjoy this, too!

It’s been quite some time since Natasha has done wet work, but there are some things that need to be done right, the first time, and Natasha rarely ever makes a mistake.

Her uncle didn’t quite ask her to take care of it, but she knows that man like the back of her hand. Johann Schmidt is too prominent a name in New York to not draw attention if he turns up dead in the ditch of a construction site, and though most hits are meant to send a message—the bloodier, the better—there are certain problems that are best dealt with quietly, and Natasha is good at quiet. A toxicology report is practically nothing, not when the finest prosecutors in Manhattan have failed to get a single conviction off of evidence far more damning than a few chemicals found in a blood sample. But anyone with any common sense in the underworld will know exactly who’s behind the hit.

(There’s a reason they call her The Black Widow.)

Half an hour after watching Schmidt polish off every last drop of his laced tumbler of scotch, Natasha’s greeted by her father sitting behind the large oak desk she’s been meaning to replace. Technically, this office is still his, but considering she’s the one that spends the most time in here now, looking after the family’s restaurant – among other things – she wants to make the space feel a little less like a cigar lounge. This office looks exactly as she remembers it from when she was little and used to sit right there in that chair, reading atop her father’s knee while he took phone calls. Back then, she may not have understood the things he’d talk about – that he’d been threatening people and ordering hits while she could hear – but she knew that bad things were being done. That her father was dangerous. But to her, it didn’t quite matter. He’s still her father.

In fact, it made her appreciate him more, learning that he never shied away from the truth of what their family was – is – even with his own baby girl.

“Had a good night, darling?” he asks, smirking at her through the dark.

Natasha quirks her lips. “The best.” She slips out of her heels and kicks them away from the doorway, then rounds the desk, perching herself on the corner as she reaches over to switch on the lamp. “Is there any particular reason why you’re here lurking?”

If it was her Uncle Howard or even her cousin, Tony, she’d get a quip in response, something dry and witty. Aunt Maria would tease her about not needing a reason to visit her favorite niece. But Natasha’s parents, even when speaking vaguely and even when they are kidding around with her, are always terribly direct.

“The family will be meeting here in a few minutes,” her father announces as he leans back in the worn leather chair, fingers threaded together atop his stomach.

She arches an eyebrow. “To discuss what?”

Natasha already has a fairly clear idea of what would require a family meeting, though her father mimicking her with an arch of his own eyebrow gives her the confirmation she’d been looking for.

Joseph Rogers had been the head of the Four Families for as long as Natasha can remember, and they all knew of the firstborn son that he’d kept hidden away in honor of the one request that Sarah Rogers made when they went their separate ways. Something in itself that had already been unheard, since no one ever left the Families. Even if you were allowed to walk away, there was always the assumption that the Families would know your every move, just in case you became a liability. But Sarah Rogers seemed to have been the exception, and Joseph Rogers had done the impossible by keeping all traces of his first-born son tucked away from the Families. No one had even known of his name until he showed up alongside his half-siblings three days after Joseph Rogers had gone missing, and no one tried to challenge his place. Their resemblance is stunning.

Natasha doesn’t expect her father to elaborate, so it catches her off guard when he continues with: “Your uncle is concerned about Steve.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she retorts. Steve Rogers had attended a private boarding school all his life, until he enrolled in the army right after graduation, and he’d worked in private security for a few years since returning to New York.

He’s practically God’s righteous man, and him simply being here on the inside of the Families – let alone being the one that heads them – is something that has put everyone on edge. The easiest answer would be to get rid of him, except doing so would sever the alliance between the Four Families that has built them into the empire that they are. Her Uncle Howard is Joseph Rogers's best friend, which means that there’s no way any of the Families could lay a hand on Steve Rogers even if they wanted to. Not without it being directly against Howard Stark’s orders—and they all know that, even with Joseph Rogers’s son taking his place, Howard Stark is the real one in control of the Families.

“Howard wants you to act as his advisor,” her father adds, and she feels her lips part, her eyebrows raising. If she’d been anywhere else, in front of any other person, she wouldn’t have let her surprise slip into her expression so easily.

Considering that Clint Barton has remained the consigliere to the Rogers family, even with Steve as the head, she doubts that her uncle means for her to take his place.

“You mean, he wants me to keep an eye on him.” She narrows her eyes, holding her father’s stare through the dark. “If Uncle Howard doesn’t trust him—”

“He wouldn’t be free to meet up with his two detective friends for a steak dinner right now if Howard didn’t trust him,” he interrupts, pausing after to tilt his head in consideration. “Though, trust may be a strong word. But if your uncle had even an inkling of Steve Rogers being a rat, he’d have done something, even if he is Joseph’s boy.”

“Then what does he need from me?” Natasha asks, though the words are barely past her lips when the thought occurs to her. “He wants me to protect him.”

Her father smiles wryly. “Steve has a lot of eyes on him.”

“We all do.”

He nods at this. “Yes, but he doesn’t know the Families, doesn’t know this life, and he keeps the law as his company. And before you say that that’s his problem to deal with,” he adds, and Natasha rubs her lips together, suppressing a smirking. Her father reads her well, no matter how good of a poker face she has. “He’s in the Family now. He’s Joseph’s blood, and even if you don’t care for him, you’ll care for the attention he draws onto Wanda and Pietro. People aren’t happy they helped keep their brother a secret.”

Natasha knows this, of course. Never mind the fact that Wanda and Pietro grew up as mafia heirs, just like the rest of them, nor the fact that they wouldn’t be questioned at all – at least, not so blatantly – if Joseph Rogers hadn’t gone missing.

Throwing their names around is just another way people are trying to get to Steve Rogers, to get rid of Steve Rogers—and Natasha is willing to bet that keeping as much heat off of Wanda and Pietro as possible is why the man must be doing exactly as he’s advised, regardless of his own morals.

Maybe he won’t be so bad at this after all.

... ...

“Who else knew about this delivery?”

Clint Barton narrows his eyes ever so slightly in a gesture that Steve has determined as the man’s one, singular tell. Even then, it’s not much, and if Steve hadn’t had to spend hours upon hours at a time in the man’s company, giving him his full attention, Steve doubts it’s something that just anyone can pick up.

Of course, Steve doesn’t live his life among just anyone these days.

“It’s hard to say, but it wasn’t exactly kept on the down low,” Clint answers, and Steve blows out a breath, leaning back in his chair as he drains the last of his rum from his glass.

Steve doesn’t need the guy to add that there wasn’t a need to keep things quiet between the Families before now. Before Joseph Rogers went missing, and before Steve was suddenly thrust into his father’s place, after being kept from anything that had to do with the underworld for most of his life. It hadn’t even been until high school that Steve learned his father was even alive, let alone who the man actually was. Steve had never bought his mother’s explanation that scholarships were the reason she could afford to send him to one of the best private schools in the country, and, when he finally met his father after coming home from deployment, it made sense why his mother never hurt for money. It had been easy for Steve to deny their resemblance and to overlook their last names when Joseph Rogers was just an infamous face that made it into the papers.

Standing in the same room as him had been a different story.

“This may not be anything,” Clint says after a moment, and Steve catches his stare, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. Not once since he began advising Steve has Clint tried to downplay a situation, and Steve doesn’t believe the man would start now. He should feel stupid by putting so much trust in Clint, because that’s exactly the kind of thing that you’d think would get you killed in this life. Trust. At the same time, Steve is beginning to understand that that’s exactly what the underworld thrives off of: the trust that no one, not even your greatest rivals, would dare rat you out to the cops. Because among all of their gray, twisted morals, the code of silence is one of the most sacred of all.

“You think it’s just the cops breathing down everyone’s necks?”

Clint nods, lips twisting at the corner in a wry smile. “Not everything is about you, Rogers.”

Despite himself, Steve breathes out a laugh, shaking his head. It’s no secret that Steve’s got all eyes on him right now. He’d known, vaguely, that his father was a prominent figure in the underworld—but it wasn’t until the man disappeared and Steve had taken his place that he realized his father practically ran the underworld.

People don’t like that he stepped in instead of Pietro or Wanda, and Steve is inclined to agree. His half-siblings who’d been born into this life and raised among the Families would’ve been the logical choices, but they both asked him to head the Families, and so he did. Because no matter what Steve felt towards their father, he’d felt connected to Pietro and Wanda from the moment they met. They’d felt like family, and Steve decided that if this is what they wanted from him then he had no real choice but to comply.

After all, he’d gone his entire life without being touched by this world, while this was all they’d known. It’s about time he paid his dues, and it seems that the universe is inclined to agree. Steve could agree that tonight’s botched delivery might not have had anything to do with sending him a message, except it’s among several unusual and pretty damn bold incidents in the last few months since Steve came into the picture that’ve been directed at Rogers establishments, or at associates that almost exclusively work with their family. Steve may not have been born into this life, but he’s always been pretty damn good at recognizing a threat, especially one that’s directed at him.

“Alright, you two,” a voice interrupts, and Steve looks up as Wanda leans against the doorframe of the library, hugging it as she arches an eyebrow at them. “Time to eat.”

Clint’s expression softens at the edges, genuine light twinkling in his eyes. Other than his wife and kids, Wanda seems to be the only one that can draw that smile from him. The guy’s got a soft spot a mile wide for her.

Steve knows the feeling. His little sister has him wrapped around her finger like another one of her ornate rings.

“I thought I smelt vinaigrette,” Clint says as he stands, gulping down the rest of his rum before setting the glass back down on the table. Steve stands, too, and Clint simply nods at him before he heading out the door, dropping a kiss atop Wanda’s hair as he passes her.

Wanda leans off of the doorframe and glides into the room, and, almost on instinct now, Steve glances down to see which of her mother’s shawls Wanda has chosen. It was one of the few things Wanda and Pietro kept of their mother after she passed, and Wanda never fails to incorporate one of the colorful shawls into her outfit for the day—to keep a piece of her mother with her, she’d told him. Steve’s seen pictures of the woman around his father’s house – along with a few pictures of his mother, Sarah, too – and it’s easy to see how much Wanda and Pietro take after her. If he squints, though, he can see a little bit of their father in them, and it’s like seeing a little bit of him them, too.

“I already packed enough for Clint to take home to Laura and the kids, so you boys can clean out the rest.”

Steve chuckles. “We’ll try our best, but you usually make enough to feed a small army.” Wanda shrugs her shoulders cutely and Steve pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry we took so long. I was supposed to take care of dinner tonight.”

“I think you get a pass, all things considered,” Wanda reassures, glancing over at the emptied bottle of rum still sitting on the table. “Should we be worried?”

Steve’s lips twitch at the corner. “No more so than usual.”

Wanda just stares up at him for a moment, holding his gaze, and he can practically see the thoughts flitting behind those big, bright eyes of her. It reminds him of his mother a little bit, the way the woman would just look at him and know something was up. But whatever Wanda sees in his eyes, she must also sense that, at least to some extent he must be telling the truth, because her expression softens back into that smile of hers as she nods once, then takes his empty tumbler from her and sets it aside on the table.

“You had guests earlier,” Wanda adds as he offers her his arm, and Steve peers down at her as they leave the library.

The feigned nonchalance in her tone gives her away. “Bucky and Sam?” Steve guesses.

Wanda hums with a nod, tightening her hold on his arm ever so slightly. He thinks maybe she’ll give him the same speech that Clint does whenever the man catches either of their names light up on his phone—that having any relations with anyone in law, let alone being best friends with two of New York’s best detectives, isn’t doing him any favors. No one likes a rat, and even though Steve doesn’t even know how he feels about his role in any of this, he isn’t about to bust anyone out to the cops. Not when it puts Wanda and Pietro directly in the line of fire. As it is, the cops busting a handful of deliveries in the last few months is already causing talk, and it’s no secret that people blame Steve.

His sister glances up at him, blinking slowly. Steve lets out a sharp sigh. “If you want to say something, you can say it.”

“I’m just worried, is all.”

He’s not surprised. “I can handle it,” he promises.

But she shakes her head, rubs her lips together before amending, “I’m worried for them,” and, okay, this does surprise Steve a little. “If anyone gets enough of an excuse to suspect you of being a rat, they may not be able to take it out on you directly, but they certainly won’t hesitate to go after them instead.”

Steve nods once, feeling his jaw tighten. Yeah, he’s talked with Bucky and Sam about that very thing before, when he’d – vaguely – filled them in on what his father’s disappearance meant. Not only would continuing to be friends with Steve now that he’s fully involved in the Families put their lives in danger, but it’ll put their careers in danger, too. Sam says that people on the force might see it as an advantage to have some supposed in with the underworld to work for information; Steve hopes that’s enough to keep them from ruining their careers, but not enough to rile the Families up, either. It’s a dangerous line to walk, and honestly? He isn’t even sure if it’s possible.

But neither of them wants to cut Steve off, no matter how much he tries to convince them to do so—and a small, selfish part of him is a little relieved.

(He likes having a piece of his old life still with him, no matter how dangerous it may be.)

“Thank you for being worried,” Steve says, his voice barely above a whisper, and his sister smiles softly, eyes fluttering shut as he brushes a kiss to the middle of her forehead. “They can handle it, too.”

Wanda nods, loosening her hold on his arm as they reach the kitchen, and when she opens her eyes again, any trace of wariness has dissolved completely.

“Let’s eat.”

... ...

“An advisor?” Carol glances over at Maria, whose fingers have actually paused over the keys of her laptop to hold Carol’s stare before her gaze sifts over to Natasha, one eyebrow arching. “Considering I just spoke with Clint this morning, I’m fairly certain that Steve Rogers already has a consigliere.”

“I know,” Natasha says on an exhale, propping her heels onto her coffee table and crossing them at the ankles. Maria wrinkles her nose at this, but since they’re in Natasha’s apartment rather than her own, the woman just turns back to her screen and continues typing, though she’s still listening as Natasha continues with, “Trust me, I’ve tried to squeeze the real answer out, but my uncle is being particularly evasive about whatever he may be planning.” That’s possibly what bothers Natasha most about all of this. She knows her father hadn’t been lying when he said that Uncle Howard wanted her to keep an eye on Steve, but if this was simply about protection, he wouldn’t have put her on the line at all. Especially not with all of the heat Steve Rogers is getting from the other Families, which means that her uncle has another reason for Natasha to be involved.

He just won’t tell her what it is.

“Is it possible that this could just be about protecting him?” Carol asks, even though there’s still wariness in her tone, like she can’t quite believe in this possibility. Not entirely, at least. “Our father seems to be genuinely concerned that Steve might not be safe even from the Families, whether or not he’s blood.” Carol pauses as Natasha presses her lips together, smothering a laugh. Maria smirks. “Well,” Carol amends, lightly swirling her glass of wine around, “as concerned as Nicholas Fury can ever get.”

“Which is hardly at all, if it doesn’t have anything to do with the two of you,” Natasha points out.

Carol grins. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but Dad actually seemed… bothered after his meeting with Odin last night.” She glances over at Maria as her sister looks up from her screen again, a wry smile tugging at her lips.

“Hela has done quite a lot of complaining about that botched delivery the other night,” she adds, and Natasha breathes out a laugh, shaking her head. She’d heard about that, too, and her uncle hadn’t been surprised to hear Hela running her mouth about it even though the delivery had nothing to do with her family. It’s far from the first time this has happened, which would make it a pretty damn big stretch to assume that Steve Rogers had anything to do with this at all. But Hela has always loved stirring a little chaos in the underworld and Odin has never really put his foot down when it comes to his daughter, so Natasha isn’t surprised that the woman is making a big production out of this.

“Hela isn’t stupid,” Natasha reminds. “She may be dramatic, but not even she would be so blatant in challenging Steve Rogers.”

“No, but she’s never been good at being subtle, either,” Carol says. “She’s always thought that their family should be the one running the show. With Joseph Rogers missing and Steve Rogers stepping in instead of Wanda or Pietro, maybe she finally sees an opportunity.”

“She’d still have to go behind her father’s back to do anything,” Maria counters. “Joseph Rogers may be gone, but Odin wouldn’t stand a chance against Dad and Howard.”

Natasha rubs her lips together, considering this. For the most part, Hela has always been more talk than anything else. She doesn’t like to get her hands dirty – and she really doesn’t need to in order to get what she wants – but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like to get involved from time to time, which almost always results in a mess that someone else has to clean up before they have even more cops poking around. Still, if anyone is going to be reckless enough to start something between the Families, it would be Hela.

“But,” Maria adds, another smirk tugging at her lips as she looks over at Natasha, “whether Steve Rogers actually needs protecting isn’t the point.”

Natasha can’t help but laugh. “Is there another point I’m missing?”

“Maybe your uncle just wants you to be friends.”

Carol presses the rim of her glass to her lips, shoulders shaking with her urge to laugh, and Natasha feels herself smiling even as she narrows her eyes. “Maria.” The woman just blinks at her, smirk perfectly in place. “I think I have more than enough friends. Some of which I don’t even want.”

“Oh, I think you’ll want this one,” Maria retorts. Natasha suppresses a smile as she shakes her head, happening to glance out the window, but she feels herself pause as she catches sight of the street below.

There’s really no reason why a simple and rather bland black compact car parked along the opposite block should stand out to her. This is one of the most expensive apartment complexes in the city because of its advanced security system (rather ironically designed by her Uncle Howard’s most profitable legitimate businesses) and so any tenant that can afford the rent here can also afford an extra few thousand dollars for more than one spot in the garage to keep all of their luxury imported cars safe. Anyone that parks along the street wouldn’t be someone that lives in her building, but that’s hardly a reason for her to be suspicious when she notices the same car more than once.

Still, there’s something about this damn black car that she can’t quite shake.

... ...

“You know, I’m getting pretty damn tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t worry about,” Steve almost growls out, half-shoving his phone back into his jacket pocket. Behind the bar, Pietro glances over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised, surprise and amusement glinting in his stare. “Sorry,” Steve exhales, rubbing at his jaw.

“No, no. By all means, be pissed,” Pietro insists with a bit of a laugh, turning back to Steve and setting down a bottle of vermouth and another one of gin on the bar counter between them. “You know, for the longest time I was convinced Dad was invincible because he sure as hell acted like it. Nothing ever got under his skin.” His lips hitch into a grin “I know it’s what makes him good at being in charge—and you’ve definitely got that going for you, too. But I’ll admit I relate a little more to you when you sweat it out.”

Steve chuckles with a shake of his head. “I’m definitely not invincible. Not even close.”

“I don’t know,” Pietro says, pouring both the vermouth and gin into a pitcher and then stirring. “You’re holding it together pretty damn well.”

“For someone who doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing? Yeah, I guess,” Steve quips, and he’s barely even joking. He doesn’t know how he’s getting by. Clint Barton helps a lot and so do Wanda and Pietro, but that doesn’t mean Steve feels as if he’s really getting a grasp on any of this. All he really does is handle one thing at a time.

“No, you’re doing pretty damn well, period. I would know, big brother,” Pietro insists, pouring the cocktail into the two glasses before nudging one over to Steve. “If you didn’t step in, I’d be in your shoes right now and I know for damn sure I wouldn’t be handling it the way you have and the way Dad always has. I’m too impulsive, too emotional. But you,” he says, tapping his glass against Steve’s, “are exactly the kind of person built to be in charge. You’re good at this, and you don’t have to believe me. I’m sure you don’t.” Pietro smirks at his brother, and Steve lets out another chuckle. “All the shit that’s happening right now isn’t because you’re here. It’s because Dad isn’t. Trust me.”

Maybe for the first time all day, Steve feels most of the tension start to ebb from his body. He gives his brother a smile. “If you say so,” he tells Pietro, and as they take a gulp of their drinks, Steve takes a moment to glance around the restaurant. The placed is closed between lunch and dinner the way it has since their grandparents opened it, or so Wanda has told him – and despite the fact that it’d started off as another small, legitimate business to front operations for the Families, it’s become a popular spot to eat at in the city. The hundreds of tourists that come each day have no idea what kinds of things that have happened inside these walls, and, until a few months ago, neither did Steve.

He tries to imagine (and not for the first time) what it would’ve been like if his mom had chosen to stay with his dad all these years. If she would’ve been involved in the businesses the way Wanda and Pietro are. If Steve would’ve come close to being the same man he is now, even if he’d been raised in the lifestyle. Steve used to be convinced that he wouldn’t have been, but then he thinks of Pietro and Wanda and hesitates. He expected his opinion to change about them, even a little, after he’d learned the truth—but it didn’t. Everything he came to love about them when they started seeing each other are still easy for him to see now, even after knowing what they’ve been involved in.

Which puts him in one hell of a hard spot. He’s not sure if he has what it takes to be involved with the Families, but now that he’s around Wanda and Pietro all the time, and even being around Clint and his family, Steve is pretty damn sure he doesn’t have what it takes to turn against the Families, either.

It’s not something he had ever genuinely contemplated after his father told him the truth, but considering he’d already known a lot about the Families and their repertoire of operations and crimes thanks to Sam and Bucky, it should’ve been easy to want to put a stop to it all. He could’ve had the perfect opportunity on the inside as the head.

But he can’t do it. He can’t, and he’s not quite sure what that says about him as a person, but he’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to find out.

The chime of the door front door pulls Steve from his thoughts, and he glances down at his watch (they’re still a half hour away from opening their doors for dinner) before looking over his shoulder as Wanda glides into the room.

And she’s not alone.

He’s met Natasha Romanoff before, and though it had been quick—he’d met Howard Stark for lunch, and his niece was wrapping up in his office and walking out the door when Steve had arrived—it’d been enough for Steve to remember. After his meeting that day, he had every reason to be preoccupied with anything other than the image of the woman with endless green eyes and lips as vibrant as the curls of hair that’d been swept over her shoulder. The smile she’d given him had been small and polite, but something in the way her gaze had flitted over him had lingered in his thoughts even hours later – and, as he sets his drink down and stands from his barstool, he feels that same weight in her stare as those bright eyes traces over him again. This time, her gaze is slower, so much so that it feels almost like a palpable touch as it slides over him.

“Ma’am,” Steve greets, holding his hand out as Wanda and Natasha near, and those long eyelashes of hers flutter ever so slightly as she meets his stare.

“Hi,” she replies, sliding her hand into his in a shake. “Well, hi again, I suppose.”

Beside them, Wanda furrows her eyebrows ever so slightly, glancing between them with this little smile. “Oh? You two have met already?”

“Briefly.” Natasha’s eyes flits to Wanda’s as she pulls her hand back, but then she’s peering back up at Steve, her lips tugging at the corners into a smile. “But I figured a proper introduction was in order considering we’ll be spending quite a bit of time together.”

“Right,” Steve says. “Howard did mention you would be offering your assistance, though I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about how much was offered rather than ordered.”

Wanda blinks at him, both eyebrows raised, and Steve is only concerned about coming off the wrong way for a fleeting second before Natasha tips her head back and laughs. Steve feels his smile widen at the sound of it, and then she tilts her head at him, her lips tugging at the corner in a smirk. “And here I thought all the rumors of you being a stuffy old man might hold some truth,” she says, her eyes glinting. Beside her, Wanda grins into her hand. “But don’t worry. I’m certain Uncle Howard was mostly joking.”

This time, Steve is the one that laughs – and for the first time in days, he feels some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “Oh, I’m sure he meant every word he said.”

“It seems like you’re already starting to learn the ropes around here. Maybe you won’t be needing me as much as my uncle thinks. Of course,” she says, stepping around him, and Steve turns to watch as she picks his drink off of the bar and glances over her shoulder at him, “I will still be taking that dinner invitation you were about to offer.”

Wanda giggles as she shakes her head at Natasha, gliding over to the bar to take the stool next to hers, and, over their heads, Pietro flashes his teeth in a grin.

Steve walks up to the bar, setting his forearm on the counter. Natasha holds his stare, bringing the rim of his cocktail glass up to her lips to take a sip, and Steve feels his own lips tugging into a smirk. “Are you going to be trouble, Romanoff?”

She quirks an eyebrow. “If you’re expecting anything but trouble by now, Rogers, you might be in the wrong business.”

... ...

When her uncle asked her to check in on Steve Rogers every now and then to see how he’s handling things, she’s fairly certain he didn’t intend for her to end up alone with him in the office of one of the Rogers’ restaurants and making their way through a bottle of wine—but really, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Natasha’s always been a little infamous for improvising.

“Not that I think you’re lying, Rogers, but I’m having a hard time picturing you as a scrawny little kid when you’ve got all of this going on,” Natasha admits, waving her hand at where Steve is standing at the small bar in the corner of the office, pouring a little more wine into their glasses. He glances over his shoulder at her, his eyes tracing over her body as she lounges back in the leather wingback chair, her ankles crossed and her heels propped up on one corner of the desk. She’s not drunk just yet, but it certainly feels a little bit like she is as Steve turns to her with that crooked, almost boyish smile of his and hands her another glass of wine, clinking their drinks together and holding her stare as he takes a sip. He doesn’t shy away from her stare, but it doesn’t feel combative the way she’s used to when someone looks her in the eyes and it’s refreshing.

He takes another sip of wine, longer this time, as he sits himself on the edge of the desk. “I’m told looks can be deceiving.”

Natasha breathes out a laugh. “I may have heard that once or twice before.” His lips twitch, but she can see it in his eyes that something is distracting him, even just a little. She studies his stare for a moment, and again, he doesn’t break their gaze. “Does that have anything to do with why you seem a little distracted right now?”

Steve’s lips quirk at the corners. “You’re definitely as good at reading people as they say.”

“And you’re good at dodging questions,” she counters lightly, tilting her head. “It’s okay if you don’t trust me quite yet. I’d say that makes you better at this than you think.”

Steve chuckles, shaking his head. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he asks, though Natasha can tell he’s mostly talking out loud than anything else, so she takes a sip of wine and watches him stare up at the ceiling for a moment. “Clint tells me I shouldn’t trust just anyone, either, and yet I’m supposed to trust him. I do trust him. And the Families? Everything they do is built on trust.” He pauses, shaking his head again before meeting Natasha’s stare once more. “I guess it’s hard for me to figure out what the truth is.”

She smiles softly. “Truth is a matter of circumstance. That’s something you should figure out how to accept if you plan on making it out of here in one piece.”

He swallows lightly, and for a fleeting second, she thinks his gaze flits down to her lips. “That’s a tough way to live,” he notes, his voice quiet.

She hums. He’s certainly not wrong. “It’s a good way not to die, though,” she says, and Steve breathes out another chuckle.

“Well, that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?” he asks, watching her as she takes another sip of her wine. Natasha feels her skin tingling ever so slightly as her pulse thrums, and she’s not entirely sure it’s simply because of all the alcohol she’s been drinking. “So, what about us?” he asks. “What’s our truth right now?”

Natasha licks her lips, relishing in the way Steve’s eyes follow the motion. “What do you want it to be?”

He breathes out another chuckle as he shakes his head, glancing away, but only for a moment. Then those bright blue eyes are on her again, glinting with something she can’t quite place, and she’s not sure if she’s impressed or irritated that she’s having a hard time reading him right now. “Howard said you were going to advise me, but I’ve already got Clint for that.” Steve’s gaze flicks over her, his lips hitching at the corner. “Why don’t we start with friends?” he asks, and Natasha can’t quite help the laugh that slips out.

Maybe your uncle just wants you to be friends.

Natasha hopes like hell that Maria doesn’t ever find out about this little conversation, or she’ll never shut up about it.

“Oh, you’re definitely in the wrong business, Rogers,” she says, and he just lifts his glass up, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly until she relents and clinks her wine against his. “Okay,” she concedes. “We can start with friends, especially since my uncle expects me to spend quite a lot of time with you for the foreseeable future. Though, between you and me, friend,” she adds, earning a smirk from Steve and a small, amused shake of his head, “I still haven’t pieced together why my uncle is so insistent to begin with.”

Steve nods as he considers this. “I’ve been turning that over in my head, too. I have to say, I can’t imagine a reason Howard would have for wanting to put his only niece into the crossfire by sticking you with me. But then again, I don’t know the man that well, either.”

“Maybe not, but you shouldn’t underestimate your own instincts,” she advises, and then sighs, shaking her head. “But you’re right. I can’t piece together a solid reason, either, other than the fact that your father and my uncle were incredibly close. It’s very possible he just wants to offer Joseph’s son help that he can truly trust, but…”

She trails off, glancing up to meet his stare. He nods again, seeming to pick up on her hesitation. While that answer is certainly possible, it doesn’t seem likely. Not entirely.

“Would there be any reason I should be worried?” Steve asks almost haltingly, like he’s not entirely sure what he’s even asking to begin with, or maybe he’s just not sure how to phrase it. “I know my father is either respected or feared by everyone, and Clint insists that I shouldn’t be too worried about all the shit happening coming back to bite me in the ass, but—I don’t know,” he admits with an exhale. “I can’t really shake the feeling that maybe he’s right. Maybe all of this might actually have to do with Dad instead.”

Natasha takes another sip of her wine as she lets this sink in. It’s a pretty damn good thing to consider, especially since Joseph Rogers is still missing.

She thinks about her conversation with Carol and Maria, about Carol’s words about the possibility that Uncle Howard might genuinely have a reason to be concerned about Steve’s safety, and she catches Steve’s gaze. “Clint’s told you about Hela?” she asks, though she already knows the answer. Steve nods. Hela hasn’t exactly been quiet in how much she dislikes that Steve Rogers has taken over the Families. “If you ask me about anyone that could genuinely have it out for you among the Families, she’d be the only one. She wasn’t exactly your father’s biggest fan, either. If something happened to make it that way, it was kept on the down low from everyone, but I’ve always thought that maybe Hela had a reason for being so pissed at your father. That maybe she must’ve stepped out of line. Well,” she amends with a quirk of her lips, “more so than usual.”

Steve gives her a small grin, nodding. “I thought maybe that could be true, too. Maybe that’s worth investigating a little further.”

“Just do so quietly, and thoroughly,” Natasha stresses, even though she has a feeling Steve would’ve done so to begin with. “If you find something worth confronting her about, you’ll have to be damn sure that what you know is right. Don’t give Odin and Frigga a leg to stand on to defend her or a reason challenge you.”

“And make sure the rest of the Families have every reason to back me up over them?”

His grin widens as those eyes stare back at her, darkening ever so slightly, and she feels her pulse pick up a little faster. “If you’re always going to be this quick of a study then this is going to be fun,” she tells him, and when he laughs, she swears she can almost feel its touch across her skin.

She can’t remember the last time she felt this kind of thrill.

... ...

“I still don’t think I’m doing this right.”

Wanda looks up from her cutting board and lets out a laugh as she sets her knife down and reaches over. “Start in here first,” she tells him, scooping the crumbling pizza dough back into the mixing bowl. “When you get it to stop crumbling, you can knead it on the counter again. And don’t forget to use a little flour if it’s sticking to your skin,” she adds, taking his hands and flipping them over to sprinkle flour into his palms. Steve breathes out a chuckle and nods, and Wanda takes a moment to watch as he goes back to kneading the dough. “You’ll get the hang of this,” she tells him, and he knows by the soft smile on her face that she’s talking about more than just making a pizza.

“Yeah?” he asks. Wanda nods, giving him a smile before she goes back to chopping the herbs. “Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Wanda repeats, her voice firmer this time. “You have no idea how much you take after our father. It’s like you were made for it, just like him.”

“Or so I’ve been told,” Steve says with an exhale, squeezing the dough a little harder as he rolls it together in the bowl. When he hears Wanda’s knife pause, however, he glances over and finds himself pausing as well as Wanda looks at him, her forehead creased with concern as she rubs her lips together. He knows what she’s about to say – it’s something both she and Pietro have already said before – so he reaches over and smudges two flour-covered fingers across her cheek, smiling when she lets out a soft squeal and wrinkles her nose, batting his hand away. “If you offer to take my place again, I’ll start to think you’re trying to get rid of me, which is pretty damn upsetting.”

She giggles softly, plucking a pinch of flour from the bowl and tossing it at him. He laughs. “I’d never want that,” she says, and the very edges of her smile fade ever so slightly as she seems to consider her next words. “I know this isn’t your first choice, but I love that I get to see more of you now. I love that you’re here.”

He smiles, and this time, she doesn’t seem to mind his floury hands at all when he pulls her close, draping an arm around her as she wraps hers around his waist in a hug.

“I do, too,” he says against her hair, and she tips her head back to smile up at him, lips parting to say something in return, but they both pause when they hear the front door being unlocked, two voices floating in from the front of the brownstone.

Sam and Bucky.

Wanda’s gaze flits to the entryway, hesitant, but then he gives her a gentle squeeze and she peers up at him with a small smile.

Sam and Bucky’s voices grow louder as they step into the kitchen, but then they both pause when they see Wanda, their bodies stiffening ever so slightly, and Steve hates that he can feel Wanda cling onto him just a little bit tighter as if to brace herself. “Hey,” Steve greets, pulling Sam’s attention off of Wanda, and his friend gives him this wry sort of smile as he echoes his greeting. It takes Bucky a moment longer for his eyes to leave Wanda, but Steve is relieved that there isn’t apprehension in his stare. It seems as though Bucky is just taking a moment to take her in, and since his sister doesn’t seem wary just yet, Steve lets it slide. “Looking for a free meal?” he asks with a smirk.

Sam grins as he tosses his keys onto the island counter. “Always,” he says, his gaze shifting back to Wanda. “Is that garlic you’ve got roasting in the oven?”

Wanda’s smile brightens just a little bit more as she unwinds herself from around Steve. “Of course. Is there any other way to make pizza sauce?” she asks, one eyebrow arched as she picks up her knife again. “Are you two any good in the kitchen?”

Bucky steps further into the kitchen, coming to stand opposite of where Wanda has spread out on the kitchen island. “Not really,” he admits, but Wanda still pushes over the second, smaller cutting board where she’s placed the blocks of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and Bucky’s lips twitch into a grin as he picks up the grate. “You know, Steve,” he says, still holding Wanda’s gaze, “I wasn’t really sure I saw the resemblance between you and your half-siblings before, but now it’s pretty damn clear that you’re related.”

Wanda breathes out a laugh as she shakes her head, and Steve smiles, feeling some of his hesitation dissipate.

“You,” Wanda says to Sam, and Steve rubs his lips together to stifle a laugh when Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “If you two are joining us for dinner, we’ll need more than just one pizza.” She grabs another mixing bowl from one of the cabinets underneath and hands it to him, her eyes twinkling. “Do you know how to make the dough?”

A grin tugs at the corner of Sam’s lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

Wanda exhales a laugh as she turns back to the cutting board, but Steve knows his sister, so he knows that she’s not quite done just yet. “Might I suggest that next time you boys plan to visit, you should check to make sure my brother isn’t already preoccupied,” she advises, glancing up and quirking an eyebrow as she catches Bucky’s gaze. “He might have company far less understanding than me, especially since you’ve come to report that all of your leads have come up empty-handed in your search for our father.”

Steve feels Sam and Bucky turn their attention on him, but he looks at his sister instead, offering a wry smile as he reaches for her.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Wanda says softly as she lets him pull her into a hug. “You did well at hiding it. I’m just much better at finding things out.”

Despite everything, Steve manages a chuckle. “Dad always did call you his little witch, somehow seeing right into everyone’s heads,” he muses, reaching up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. Wanda squeezes him a little harder. “I didn’t want to say anything because I knew it was a long shot,” he tells her, even though he can see it in her eyes that she must have figured this out for herself. Still, she nods, exhaling a shaky breath. “But, since I was the only one that had police ties, I thought it was worth a try.”

“It was,” Wanda reassures.

“It still is,” Bucky adds, and both Steve and Wanda turn to look at him. Bucky nods, his jaw setting in a stubborn way that Steve has seen dozens and dozens of times before. “We’ll still keep looking on our end,” he promises, his gaze shifting from Steve to Wanda as her offers a wry smile. “Your dad’s just damn good at covering his tracks.”

“It’s kept him alive all this time.” Wanda gives a small shrug. “I just hope that’s still true now, wherever he may be.”

“It is,” Steve insists, brushing a kiss to her temple. She looks up at him. “Nothing in the world can keep him away from his princess for too long.”

She lets out a soft laugh, giving Steve another squeeze before releasing him with a shaky exhale. “Come on,” she says, glancing around at the three of them. “At this rate, we won’t be done with dinner until midnight.”

... ...

“One day when I’m sent to retrieve you from your office this late at night, I’ll be pleasantly surprised that you won’t be here,” a voice greets her with a slight drawl, and Natasha feels a smirk tug at her lips, looking up from her laptop as Tony strolls through the door. He tilts his head, peering at her from over the top of his aviators before pulling them off completely, folding them up and tucking them into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I know Dad asked you to take over because this place was a shit show before you whipped everyone into shape—which, kudos to that, by the way. The club’s doing great. But you know you don’t have to keep managing this dump anymore.”

Natasha hums, leaning back in her chair as Tony comes to stand on the other side of the desk. “What if I like this dump?” she asks, one eyebrow arched.

Her cousin scoffs. “Yeah, because it’s always been your dream to manage a gentlemen’s club.”

Natasha rubs her lips together, trying in vain not to smile. Because Tony isn’t wrong, exactly. Natasha may not do a lot of dirty work; none of them do, in fact, because the higher up in the Families you are, the less you actually have to put your ass on the line for. Especially if you truly are family. Her Uncle Howard likes to give the cops as little chance as possible to find hard evidence tying any of them to any actual crimes. Still, Natasha likes to keep busy, and she thinks her uncle knew that when he asked her to come in and clean up the club. The capo he had in charge before did enough to float under the radar, but considering how prestigious this establishment is and how many their members come from old money, the club was capable of bringing in a hell of a bigger profit than it’d seen in the last few years, and her uncle didn’t want miss out.

It’s been enough to keep Natasha occupied for a few months, but now that the staff is in order and the management has been almost entire replaced, there’s really no reason for her to still come in as often or stay as late as she does.

She knows her uncle will let her take over another business if she asks, or she can step back completely if that’s what she wants instead.

It’s her call. It always has been, but for once, Natasha doesn’t already have her next step in mind.

“Seriously, I can’t imagine having to come here every day knowing you could run into Anton or Ivan at any moment,” Tony says, and though Natasha knows his shudder is more for theatrics, she also knows the contempt in his voice is genuine.

Natasha shares the sentiment. Anton Vanko had been hired onto Stark Industries when it was barely a start-up and has been friends with her Uncle Howard ever since. The man is a brilliant scientist, that much is certain, but there’s always been something about him that’s felt off. That was something that might not have been all that concerning given the world the Starks were part of, only Anton Vanko didn’t come from that world, which Aunt Maria likes to remind everyone whenever the subject comes up. She’s never liked him, and honestly? Natasha isn’t entirely sure if her Uncle Howard likes him, either, but the man was crucial in launching Stark Industries and hasn’t given her Uncle Howard a reason to cut their ties, so everyone has let it be for now. Though, that may not be the case for much longer if his son continues being so damn reckless.

Ivan is sloppy and has a big ego and an even bigger temper. He doesn’t care much for keeping a low profile, even from the cops, and though his father is the reason he hasn’t been kicked out yet, Natasha knows her uncle’s patience is running thin.

“They’re just about as entitled and obnoxious than most of the other men that come here,” she points out. She’s not defending either of them (fuck, not even a little) but Tony has always been rather overprotective of her and she has to remind him every now and then that she can handle herself. “Although, they’ve done quite a bit of talking lately.”

“About how much they dislike your latest boy toy? Yeah, so I’ve heard,” Tony says. Natasha narrows her eyes. “Sorry, do you prefer partner?”

“Friend.”

Tony hums. “No, I’m pretty sure you don’t have any of those.”

Natasha feels herself smiling as she rolls her eyes. “Was there a point to this intrusion of yours?”

He laughs, but a light knock cuts him off before he can answer, and Natasha turns to find her mother standing in the doorway. “We sent him in here to retrieve you for dinner,” she explains, one eyebrow arched, and Natasha breathes out a laugh. It wouldn’t be the first or even fiftieth time Natasha’s been a little late to dinner. She’s always gotten caught up in things, even when she was little, and she can’t even begin to count how many times her mother or father has come to get her just like this so they can drag her to the dinner table. Even now, unless they know she has work to take care of, the family will wait on her if she’s late to their weekly dinner (and she usually is).

“Did you and Dad finally get tired of finding me for yourself?” Natasha jokes as her mother walks over to the desk.

Her lips curve into a small smirk. “I was giving your uncle a chance to sneak his granddaughter a few snacks before dinner,” she says, turning a pointed gaze onto Tony, and Natasha lets out a chuckle as Tony groans, darting out of the office as he calls out for Morgan. “You need to sleep more,” her mother chides, touching Natasha’s cheek.

Natasha tilts her head. “Are you saying I look tired?”

“I’m saying you are tired, because I can tell these things.” Her mother reaches over to close Natasha’s laptop and then gestures for Natasha to get up, and Natasha scoffs out a laugh, shooting her mother a look as she stands. Her mother rolls her eyes. “I know you save your work often, so don’t pretend that I ruined anything. Besides, you should have been done working hours ago, and you haven’t returned any of my texts since this afternoon,” she adds, and there’s something in her voice that makes Natasha pause.

Natasha isn’t particularly quick to reply, but considering how suddenly things can come up, no one else in the family is all that compulsive about it, either.

Her parents have pointed it out to her times before, but it’d always been in a dry attempt at a joke, or sometimes to chide her. It’d never once sounded like this. Like it’d been something for them to worry about.

“I’ve been here all day,” Natasha points out. If her mother wanted to, she could track Natasha’s location since Aunt Maria insisted on it from the whole family, just in case. Her mother nods, but there’s something in her eyes that Natasha can’t quite place that makes her hesitate. “Did I miss something important?” she asks, reaching for her phone.

“Not particularly,” her mother promises, snatching Natasha’s phone from the desk before Natasha can, and Natasha shoots her mother a look.

She doesn’t have a chance to respond, though, because a moment later, Tony reappears in the doorway with exasperation tugging at his expression as he points a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we get this show on the road? Because if Morgan gets a sugar high from all the chocolate Dad’s slipping her, you’ll be putting her to bed, Aunt Melina.”

Natasha smirks as her mother breathes out a chuckle, nudging Natasha forward, and Natasha catches her glancing back into the office before shutting the door behind them.

#romanogers #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #chanty writes #kingslxyers #mafia 'verse

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letsgetreadytotumble · 2 years

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#Tumblr fail son #Tumblr fail son round 1 #tumblr failson #tumblr failson round 1

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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KURIN’S FOLLY : World of Sea : Part 10 of 15

KURIN’S FOLLY

Part 10

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

23,699 words

writing begun 2006

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story? Read from the beginning. Part 1 is here

///////////////////////

Juris snarled, “I wasn’t even talking to you, Lunatic!” Surveying the cabin he added, “What a collection! All the ship’s most useless rejects!”

Without even looking up from fitting a drawer to the bench frame, Kurin replied with only mild curiosity apparent in her voice, “I see, came to join us, then? I gather that you need some sort of work.”

Juris recoiled as if Kurin had slapped him. “I wouldn’t work with you if you had the last shop on Sea!”

Tongue in the corner of her mouth as she scraped a rough bit on one of the drawer’s slides, Kurin asked, “So, are you the one who needs the guard now? Did you decide whether you are on dry land or safely afloat?”

Juris stormed into the room yelling, “I am sane!” He started to make a grab at Kurin who dropped her scraper and drawer as she reached for her knife. The hissing screech of High Cloud as he launched himself across the small space caused Juris to cower back.

Kurin was whirled toward him, knife out. In a voice tight with rage and sorrow, she told him, “Go. Never enter my shop again! Talk to the divers about work! You’re going to need to know how to swim!” The big Sea Hawk on her shoulder, wings partly spread, made her seem even more menacing. Only the tears at the corners of her eyes spoiled the effect.

Everyone in the cabin was giving him such poisonous looks that Juris retreated as swiftly as if he had just found a deadly poisonous Ord in his net. Roper and Luin had said nothing during the exchange but now were swarming Kurin, overjoyed. “That’s telling him!” Roper cheered. “Talk to the divers! I love it! Wait until I tell Mom!”

Kurin was struggling to get disentangled so that she could pick up her drawer and scraper when a gentle voice interrupted, “Tell me what, darling?” Roper's mother, Mistress Daeron, the Mistress of the Longin’s rope walk stood in the doorway.

“Master Juris got his shop yanked out from under him. He came here to blame Kurin, when she’s tried everything on Sea to save his a . . .” He paused, realizing what he had been about to say to his mother. “Life. When he said that he was sane, Kurin told him to talk to the divers ‘cause he was going to have to know how to swim,” he finished lamely.

Mistress Daeron nodded tolerantly at her son and winked. “I know what you were going to say, Roper. You’re right, too. The Craft Council has convened and they sent me to get Kurin. Can the rest of you carry on without her for a while?”

Luin answered proudly, “We sure can, Craft Mistress. Kurin’s already showed us what we need to do to get the shop prepared.”

Kurin smiled at Luin’s confidence and said, “Then my work here is in good hands. I’m ready.”

They walked through the familiar, well lighted corridors of the Longin to the Mess. The Masters were convened and Captain Mord was chairing the meeting. Master Juris’ framed Master Boatbuilder’s certificate lay on the table before him.

The Captain looked about the room and began, “We have several things that need doing. As you all know, Juris has gone so far aground that we can’t refloat him. We were forced to require the surrender of his Certificate. Due to the fact that he is competent in his Craft, the law requires us to formally accept his own decision as to the state of his sanity.

“He has declared himself sane. That decision has blocked any protection that we can offer him. We can’t do as we did for Lissa. At the Fall Gathering, he will be executed.” Sad faces and understanding nods went about the tables at the formal statement of the news.

“From here, it is necessary to decide whether to allow him to stay aboard this ship or put him off on the first ship that we meet.

“In addition to these heavy duties, we must pick a new Head for the Craft Council and decide who will take over the boat shop in the interim.” Looking unhappy, he sat.

A long silence followed, while everyone just looked at the certificate and thought on its implications. In the over seventy Gatherings that the Longin had existed, this had never happened before. At last, Mistress Daeron spoke, gently, as always.

“I think that we should acknowledge Kurin’s many efforts to prevent this disaster. If anybody can think of one thing that she has failed to try, I should like to hear of it. This must be weighing on her. I know that she still cares for Juris. I have seen her tears. She needs our support just now.”

A rumble of assent went around the tables. Master Cerde, the Weaver, voiced it simply, “We should enter a vote of thanks to Kurin in our records. It should be in both this Council’s minutes and in the Log of the Longin. The vote should acknowledge her many efforts to save us all. In that, though the price has been a heavy one, both for her and us, she has succeeded. We have all lost Master Juris, as both friend and valued associate.

“To Kurin, our Thanks!”

Master Clard, the Drummer leaped to his feet and exclaimed, “Seconded! Call a vote!” Hands went up all about the tables.

Deeply moved, Kurin said, “I thank you all. Mistress Daeron is right. I do still care for Master Juris. I propose to let him stay aboard this ship that he was born on and has labored so long to benefit. If he is determined that he must die, let him take our name to Dark Iren so that all will know that we still care for him even if he has renounced us.”

There was a long pause as the implications of Kurin’s proposal sank in. In capital cases it was customary for a ship to distance itself from the criminal by stripping him of his Ship Name. Master Reddic, of the ship’s tannery, nodded acceptance and put in, “The notion is a good one. It lacks one thing. Put into it, that while we all agree with it, it was Kurin, the one most wronged, who proposed the idea. She has a generous heart.” He sat to soft, thoughtful applause all about the tables.

It was decided that Master Cerde, the Weaver, should chair the Craft Council. The idea of a contest for the new boat shop head was proposed. Having the journeymen build boats that were needed anyway, was a good idea, quickly adopted.

Master Reddic took Kurin aside after the meeting. “I can’t make Juris behave toward you Kurin, but I do have something new for you to play with.”

Having long ago learned the value of Master Reddic’s ‘things to play with,’ Kurin excitedly asked, “What? You have something besides the heavy parchments and thin shaved Skins that I ordered?”

He smiled at her enthusiasm and handed her an irregular two inch round piece of clear, tough material. “One of my apprentices made a mistake. He pried the scale off a Side Jumper’s eye. You must remember how much goo there is in those. I recall a certain white-haired scamp making just such a mess in my shop long ago,” he said cheerfully ruffling Kurin’s hair.

“Anyway, some of the goo spilled into the big hide press. We didn’t notice it and put twenty Strong Skins in the press to finish the flat cure. When we took them out of the press, this was stuck to the bottom hide. I noticed that it was clear and flexible and thought of you. Here. Play with it. I know that it’ll find a use in your hands.”

Kurin had bounced the light of the big horizontally striped watch timing candle off the material and was observing the effect of having the flame superimposed on the table. She was studying the effect closely. Master Reddic knew that he had hit Kurin’s curiosity bump and was pleased.

Thoughtfully, Kurin wandered back to the new shop. She was delighted to see how much progress had been made. The others had been busy indeed. She tested drawers and examined the tool racks, declaring, “This is excellent! As soon as the last of the glue sets we can begin. Lissa, would you and Roper go to the tannery and get our supplies from Master Reddic? He has them ready for us.

“Luin, I have a quick chore for you, too. We need triple rendered tallow from the galley. I want all that they can spare. Get a few pounds of gray weed while you are at it.”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS ~ NEXT==>

#KURIN'S FOLLY #Part 10 of 15 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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catflorist · 4 years

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The Garden (ao3 / ffn) catflorist Summary: SasuSaku. Sasuke left Konoha for a cottage in the woods. One day, Sakura arrives injured at his doorstep. They recall their past and think about what comes next. Slow burn, post-canon, about how Sasuke and Sakura grew close again. Rated T through Chapter 5, then M. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

The Garden Chapter 7

They shared his bed. The night was quiet. Sasuke was not asleep when Sakura shook his shoulder.

“Sasuke,” she urged. “I know what to do.” Her eyes shone in the dark.

“Hm?”

“To make the village safe for you. And your clan.”

“Don’t, Sakura,” he warned. Sasuke could not allow himself to be filled with her hope. It was already hard enough to hold her knowing she could not stay.

“Please listen to me,” she insisted.

She told him her idea.

They talked until dawn.

Sakura and Sasuke left for Konoha.

Sakura had some conversations.

She gathered a group.

They went to the elders.

Sakura announced, “I’m here to discuss reparations for the Uchiha clan.”

Unhappy murmurings filled the council room. “With all due respect, Sakura-san, what business is this of yours?” asked Ito-sama, the head of the council.

“The future wellbeing of the Uchiha line is a matter that interests many leaf shinobi,” she replied. She gestured to the crowd behind her.

Knowing Sakura’s reputation, and with the added pressure of a crowd, the council relented.

“I’m giving the floor to Uchiha Sasuke to list his demands,” Sakura stated.

Sakura turned to find Sasuke. He moved to join her on the floor through a tense silence. The elders had not expected him.

Sasuke met Sakura’s gaze for a moment, steeling himself. Then he began.

“A law will pass immediately in Konoha that outlaws organized violence against its own citizens.

“No clan shall be forced to live in isolation from the rest of the village. Representatives from each clan will form their own council to discuss and quell conflicts and disagreement before they arise.

“No shinobi of any clan shall be forced to act in service to the village against their clan.

“Konoha will formally apologize for its role in the massacre of the Uchiha clan. The village will also formally apologize to Uchiha Itachi.

“The history of the Uchiha clan will be taught at the academy to all shinobi to ensure the tragedy will never be forgotten or repeated.

“Future descendants of the Uchiha clan—and members of all clans—will have the right to choose when, if ever, to invoke their bloodline traits in service of the village.”

The room held its breath.

Ito-sama said, “We will need time to consider the possibility of this request.”

Sakura bowed in deference. Except a soft ring in his ears, Sasuke could feel nothing at all.

Their friends and teammates had gathered. Naruto and Hinata. Choji, Ino, and Shikamaru. Sakura’s whole team of medical shinobi. Tsunade and Kakashi. Their murmurs of displeasure filled the room. Words loaded on their tongues. They prepared to fire their voices in solidarity.

Sakura wasn’t done.

“Thank you for your time, council. We understand completely. Ito-sama, how is your wife?” she suddenly wondered. “I hope the ache in her knee has cleared?”

The councilman blinked at her inquisitive face, then answered, “She is well after the treatment you gave her.”

Sakura beamed at him. “I’m very happy to hear that. Nakamura-sama, is your son still teething?”

One by one, she called out to each member of the council with a voice like sugar. She reminded them of all the times she had personally benefitted the lives of them and their families. Once they were shifting uncomfortably, Sakura smiled. “It is my great honor to serve not only you and your families, but all citizens of Konoha—and to train the next generation of medical shinobi.” She lowered her head. “My whole team cares deeply about this issue, of course. Healing and justice are intertwined efforts. We will wait eagerly to hear your decision.”

Sakura was the picture of innocence. The councilmembers became very aware of all the medical ninja in the crowd.

It was no hidden secret that in a few short years, Sakura had advanced the medical systems and infrastructure of the village decades into the future. The rate of mortality on missions had lowered significantly thanks to her work.

It was also no secret that Sakura had hand-picked and trained a majority of the shinobi that now staffed the Konoha hospital and were deployed on missions. Her team was indebted and loyal to her.

Konoha would fall apart without Sakura and her subordinates.

She had leveraged all of her power.

The council stewed.

* * * *

They were Genin.

Sakura and Sasuke sparred while Naruto and Kakashi observed from afar.

No matter what she did, Sasuke always managed to duck behind her and win the fight. After many rounds with the same outcome, he scolded, “Maybe if you just kept an eye on your opponent, you wouldn’t lose all the time.”

Sakura clenched her fists at her side. “You’re being really mean today,” she snapped.

“You’re so annoying.”

“You’re not that great either, Sasuke!”

They fumed.

He lunged again at her. Pooling chakra in the soles of her feet, she bounded up the side of a nearby tree. Jumping off as hard as she could, she sprung into the air and landed on her feet behind him. She touched the tip of a kunai between his shoulder blades.

The clone substitution disappeared with a puff.

Panting, she spun around to find him. She braced herself for how he might berate her next.

“I told you to keep an eye on your enemy,” he said. She started to scowl. He caught her off guard with a smile. His eyes glinted with pride.

Sasuke held a kunai to her throat. With any wrong move his blade would cut her. He bared his teeth in a cruel smile. For the first time, she was afraid of him. This moment never left her nightmares.

In an uncertain alliance, they fought together on the battlefield. Sakura released her full strength. She healed battalions without breaking a sweat. She ripped open the earth like ripping paper.

To Naruto and Sasuke’s astonished faces, she growled, “Do you think Tsunade is the only Legendary Sanin who failed to teach her student?”

Sasuke had given up on his revenge.

“I’m sorry,” he told her for the first time.

Sakura was not ready to forgive him. She did not care if his apology was sincere. She was so angry.

“You fucking better be sorry,” she snarled.

She could not stop crying.

The war was over. Sasuke did not stay in the village. She did not expect him to, even though she asked him to stay. His absence had not been an anomaly for a long time.

Sakura had her studies and responsibilities, friends and family to worry about. She had ideas on how to make Konoha better and safer for all shinobi.

News of Sasuke’s whereabouts and activities sometimes found their way to Sakura, scrambled through dozens of sources. Only on difficult nights did she wonder if he would return.

Years passed. They were adults.

He came back to the village one spring evening. Naruto showed up after a long hospital shift to tell her the news.

Sakura did not seek him out. First her commitments at the hospital prevented her, and then her apprehension prevented her.

The moment they finally saw each other was unplanned, under a blossoming tree on the outskirts of the village.

Sakura couldn’t decide how to proceed. Anger was familiar and safe. It would feel good, and he spoke the language. Kindness was unpredictable. Did she have kindness left for him?

He stood with his arms crossed, eyebrows drawn together, his mouth weighed down in a frown. They appraised each other. If she didn’t know any better, she’d call him indifferent, cold.

His eyes gave him away. They were too bright. He was waiting for her decision.

She hated him. They were tied together. She was not ready to be close again. She’d always loved him.

She made a choice.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said.

Sasuke uncrossed his arms.

He said, “Sakura.”

* * * *

The council had to decide. They could pass laws and meet demands that should have already been fulfilled. Or they could refuse and fall out of Sakura’s good will. They might lose the best medical shinobi in the village and arguably the known world. They risked upsetting the many shinobi who followed her, the very people who ensured the safety, health, and well-being of the entire village.

It came down to this: Konoha could not afford to fall out of Sakura’s good will.

The agreement was drawn on the spot and all conditions were met.

In one afternoon, Sasuke and Sakura secured the legal safety and autonomy of the future Uchiha line.

When the crowd erupted in boisterous celebration, Sakura felt dizzy.

The work was not done. Sakura thought of how else she might transform the village. She would disband the village council, for one. She would tear down the structures of power that had enabled even the thought of an organized massacre. She thought about what she wanted for her future. Her children’s future. She reimagined the world. She would start tomorrow.

The room faded away. All she could see was Sasuke, all she could feel was his light touch on her arm.

For now, Sasuke was home.

When it was officially done, Sasuke reached out for Sakura to steady himself. He was no longer in the room. He could only see the faces that made up his clan. His mother and father. Itachi. He saw a life spent with Sakura. He saw small hands helping in the garden.

Fin.

All I wanted is for Sakura and Sasuke to find themselves in a world where they could be honestly and fully together. So they made that world themselves.

References: 1. In Chapter 3, as I already mentioned, the moment where Sasuke tells Sakura what he’s heard of her abilities was inspired heavily by a scene in Folklore by the author BlushingLotus. 2. Other elements of this fic (like Sasuke’s turmoil over the future wellbeing of his children) were inspired by where the daylight begins by ohwhatsherface (sun-summoning on tumblr) 3. The smut fic that first got me interested in SasuSaku was Hot Water by WellHowAboutThat.

I am so grateful to these talented authors for their inspiration in my writing and wanted to give credit where it is due. If you enjoyed this fic, definitely read the work by these authors as well! They have been writing SasuSaku for longer than I have. Their work is all on FFN/linked. This fic was the first piece of creative writing I've done in years. It wrote itself. Thank you so much everyone for following along. Please let me know if you’d like to see more SasuSaku from me. I hope you are all safe and well, and I’m sending you all my love.

#sasusaku #sasusaku fanfiction #sasusaku fanfic #catflorist #my fic #my ss #the garden #ss fic #that's a wrap :')

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theangrypokemaniac · 4 years

Note

its fine if you dont like alola but can you not make incest jokes?

I'm not joking. I'm serious.

Alola, or, as I prefer, La Boca del Infierno, ain't all sunshine and smiles as it pretends. Beneath that plastic exterior lies true darkness.

What am I meant to think when I see this?

There's swimming pools bigger than the gene pools down their way!

Although described as 'twins', it's really triplets, but Lana suffers a prematurely ageing growth abnormality.

Children I expect to bear a similarity to their parents, but the moms 'n' dads ain't meant to look like each other!

Everyone here has blue barnets and Inside-Out Eye, where the pupil's the white and the white's the pupil.

Sight defects are notorious in the 'close-knit' communities.

Each insists on hair decoration, but it's almost part of their heads, which you can call bad animation or deformity resulting from too much intermarriage.

Momma's 'thing' just resembles lumps.

It's them space ticks at it again.

Even the hedgehog is round in this house, which may imply he's an illegitimate offspring of one of 'em.

What about inbreeding suggests practitioners won't stoop to even greater infamy?

Stufful's dad never arrived did he?

Funny that, and a bachelor like Oakie-Dokie residing nearby knew nothing about it.

All that bathing in Cuprenol does terrible things to a man.

Ever wondered what'd go down in the marriage of Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Well here you are, yer deviant.

A pair of pudding-faced, gormless Cabbage Patch Dolls, each with snouts, black button eyes and glandular issues, and they don't share DNA even when they do?

Oh yes, Lusamine met a total stranger also possessing her lime pies and effusive mane of unruly, ice-blonde slats.

Total coincidence there.

He came to Alola, he says. On a prison ship.

It's just one head in triplicate!

Oversized an' all: sure sign of genetic tomfoolery.

Dot Nose, Bridge Nose, Fish Eye: bloody serious case we have on our hands.

Now you understand why she failed to remarry: no other brothers cuts yer options ter nil.

Incest is of course, relative.

Whatever dæmon they worship, some are more pious about it than their fellow perverts.

The more dedicated the believer, the greater insistence on keeping things running in the family.

They'll show off their interwoven connections to the neighbours in a smug game of one-upmanship.

The more lapsed follower will tolerate copulation with distant kin.

These sinners are naturally despised and forced into menial labour, whereas the fanatics just so happen to be rolling in wealth.

Consider:

• Lana's family get by on a fisherman's salary, apparently.

Yeah, yeah, as if the state doesn't have to subsidise their medical bills.

• Sophocles don't go hungry, he has a lab, a giant hamster wheel, a portable hologram in a Pikachu, and he's so rich he not only had the roof fixed, but can move down the road in the meantime.

Oi! The rest of us get by putting a bucket under the leak!

• Lillie has every material possession possible, but no spine or company.

Oh the irony that top sickos should be so resistant to the lure of family obligation.

Hey, yer didn't say that earlier!

• Lusamine is fawned upon for her pwehshush research to the extent she can abandon her children, turning her daughter into a nervous wreck and her son a moody, absent drifter, and it's up to them to understand her work comes first.

• Mohn (by name and nature) fannied about with worm holes until he got sucked off by another dimension.

What did yer think would happen?

Yet on his return, is he knocked on his arse as he deserves?

No, because of incest privileges. The in-group take care of their own, and worse.

Mallow's mater and pater both share hair, thick brows and close-together peepers of murky green.

The contrast in noses suggests something lesser than siblings, but then again other differing aspects are forgivable.

She is of a lighter pallor, being dead, and wanting an open coffin, had a shave beforehand, which is a frightening nod to morality.

Woman, are you ashamed of our love?

Well Abe went along with it, thus is also culpable of this grotesque bristle denial.

Being unclean, he's gotta cook the dinner.

And this lot milk the cows.

On the surface, Kiawe's old 'uns aren't identical. You might think some heretical decency has finally sneaked in under the oppressive Alola regime, but it ain't that simple.

These people pray to a volcano as if an earthbound deity, so are nutters.

One aspect you must remember:

Ol' Granpappy the Island Kakuna, i.e. a dried-up chrysalis.

'Cause Pappy got Momma's tufts...

And Dadda's humourless mouth, oblong head, straight-line nose, rectangular eyes and pin pupils.

Well that's not how it's s'posed to go!

I'm thinking Granpappy, as one of them there Kakunas, is in a position of power high enough that he's able to wilfully flaut the laws he imposes on others, like how popes had kids in the Good Old Days and no one took a blind bit o' notice.

He's a rebel I tells yer.

He don't play by the rules.

No sister-wife for him.

Not when he's got a sexy cousin a-waitin'.

A little bit of new blood's crept in, disgracefully so, that's why the whole lot's punished by living near an active volcano.

Surrender 'em to the flames!

Kiawe makes such a big deal about Pappy, and sod the other three grandparents.

Except he only had two!

What is the explanation?

1. Bone-idle writing team.

Character design is foundational stuff. If yer can't even be arsed to do that properly, nothing you do is worthwhile.

I mean, come on, repeating the same model that blatantly?

Halfwits so limited in imagination shouldn't be working in any creative industries.

I blame modern diets.

A whole generation's grown up timid and risk averse because they were taught to fear E. numbers as kids.

I make it a rule to suspect any sod unaware of the joy of a blue tongue.

They've never lived, man!

Where did you think it'll end when dangerous, pretend edibles like houmous, avocados and quinoa replace the wholesome, nourishing fare of biscuits, cake and crisps?

Stop toying with the fundamental principles of the universe!

The mess of the modern era screams systematic abuse of too much kale and not enough sugar.

2. Incest

Alola is extremely insular.

It's implied to be a tourist destination, but no amount of degenerate outside influence appears to have diluted the weird customs it still upholds.

They didn't even think of starting a League until Ash turned up with all his wild exoticism, and why's that?

A. Inbreeding has destroyed their capability for innovation.

B. Many thousands of years ago, Alola got well annoyed its dirty habits weren't exactly catching on as it strove to spread the Satanic message.

Thoroughly confounded in its plans for world conquest, Alola shut itself off in a purification ritual, which is why later developments popular elsewhere, such as replacing beasts of burden with machines, never caught on.

3. Alola isn't Hawaii, it's a combination of Australia, a penal colony, and Crete, where lived the lepers.

Specifically it's a dumping ground for all the regions' sex offenders to keep their own societies clean.

Of course, the guilty took their nearest and dearest along too, since they were on the receiving end, and loved it.

This explains the large amount of foreign Pokémon, since the owners are also from abroad.

Now I think 'anging's too good for 'em, but these wet-willy countries insist on storing up trouble for themselves, for if cinema has taught us anything, it is that mutants will always escape.

Nature finds a way, however abominable.

Since so many on Tumblr simply love Alola, they aren't about to admit the slightest weakness in the creators' abilities.

Therefore, incest is the acceptable answer to all and sundry.

#pokémon #lana #lana's parents #sophocles #sophocles's parents #lillie #lusamine #mohn #mallow #mallow's mom #abe #kiawe #sima #rango #kiawe's grandfather #alola #inbox

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dweemeister · 4 years

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Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

The protests following the death of George Floyd have ignited debates about police militarization and tactics in the United States. They have also reenergized, in some cases mainstreamed, a discussion about what is celebrated in popular culture. Some have argued that certain films should not be available for consumption because they have espoused white supremacist values or have merely depicted white supremacy – an argument that this blog rejects in favor of contextualization and curation. By many of those same critics’ hypothetical standards towards how black people can or should be depicted, blaxploitation films might be considered too problematic to show. Blaxploitation, a subgenre of exploitation film, rose and fell in the early- and mid-1970s. It featured majority-black (if not all-black) casts, but the characters they depicted often reinforced violent and sexualized stereotypes under the guise of empowerment.

Among the directors central to blaxploitation were Gordon Parks (1969’s The Learning Tree, 1971’s Shaft; the former is the first film directed by an African-American for a major Hollywood movie studio) and his son, Gordon Parks Jr. Released by Paramount, the younger Parks’ fourth and final film, Aaron Loves Angela, is a confounding film that cannot be cleanly categorized within the blaxploitation subgenre. At times, Aaron Loves Angela looks as if it will be played as a straight teenage coming-of-age or interracial romance film peripherally adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but a poorly written criminal subplot direct from low-rent blaxploitation fails to connect with the central drama. As disappointing as the execution is, the film’s interracial romance and – at least when the film focuses on the title characters – its framing through the star-crossed lovers is unlike anything of its kind in mid-1970s American cinema.

It is the early 1970s in Harlem. De facto segregation between blacks and Puerto Ricans does nothing to quell a simmering racial animosity. Two 15-year-olds – Aaron James (Kevin Hooks) and Angela Sanchez (Irene Cara in her film debut) – have a wordless, chance meeting during a high school basketball game. They gaze in each other’s eyes, with that tingly feeling in their stomachs. Of course, that tingly feeling is overwhelming and inconducive to winning a basketball game. Yes, Aaron’s team loses the game and a (predictable) bench-clearing brawl occurs. Aaron and Angela, despite their knowledge that most of their friends and family would disapprove, begin to see each other. Both are the only child in a single-parent household. He lives with his resentful father, Ike (Moses Gunn), once a promising American football player whose career ended due to injury, and too often stating his desire to see his son play professional basketball. She lives with her mother, and has never lived in one place long enough to make lasting friends.

Just as Aaron and Angela start their relationship, screenwriter Gerald Sanford (a journeyman television writer credited with episodes of Barnaby Jones and CHiPs) drops in a subplot that sidetracks the film so much that it not only undermines the budding story of the protagonists, but it seems as if it came from an entirely different film. In Aaron’s apartment building, drug dealer and pimp Beau (Robert Hooks; Kevin’s father) reels in Aaron on a narcotics deal with the Italian-American mafia. Aaron agrees to help for no good reason. Sanford’s inclusion of Beau and his girlfriend Cleo (Ernestine Jackson; whose character commits statutory rape) is an attempt to justify the film’s careening turns into a blaxploitation crime drama – a shootout, a climactic vehicular pursuit with innocent minors endangered. Considering how the film begins, its title, its ostensible spotlighting of two actors in a rarely-produced subgenre of romance, the subplot is a detriment to the young actors’ performances – there are genuine moments of tenderness, but not nearly enough – and the way their characters are written.

Romeo and Juliet displayed interest in developing the young Montague and Capulet; West Side Story affords the music and space for the audience to know Maria and Tony. Aaron and Angela favors the former, with the latter’s personality, family and friends, and ambitions reduced to her attraction to Aaron and nothing else. That Sanford and Parks are so disinterested in imbuing Angela with any character depth is an encapsulation of how carelessly they handle the story. As the criminal subplot begins to overstep its welcome, the amount of time directed towards Angela (without Aaron doting on her) and the Puerto Rican community evaporates. The film’s incuriosity towards its female and Puerto Rican characters probably should have been expected given the nature of exploitation films, but it is nevertheless dispiriting to see this sort of storytelling recklessness for a perspective seldom seen in American filmmaking.

The drug deal subplot also reduces the screentime for the best performance in Aaron Loves Angela. Moses Gunn, as Ike, is excellent here. He vacillates between fits of alcoholic rage and uttering thoughts regretted the moment after their delivery to sober melancholy and overbearing parenting. Stereotypes of black fatherhood in American mainstream media will often have the father be absent from their child’s life, sometimes simply unsupportive, and occasionally involved in criminal enterprise. Certainly, Ike exudes hostility and bitterness – which, on its face, appears to uphold those historic negative stereotypes frequently seen in movies (not just blaxploitation films). Noting his brief, injury-ended professional football career, that depthless well of antipathy is justified – in recent years, the National Football League (NFL) has been criticized for neglecting the financial and physical wellbeing of its retired players. Parks and Sanford should receive some credit, even if this is accidental, for providing dimension to a black father’s negative behavior. The film does not condone Ike’s behavior towards Aaron, but it retains some sympathy for the embattled father – something that might not have been perceptible with anything but a solid turn by Gunn. As Ike, Gunn plays a lifetime haunted by ghosts of glory.

Aaron Loves Angela also boasts songs by Puerto Rican singer/songwriter José Feliciano (who has a cameo in the film; some of the songs were co-written by his then-wife, Janna Merlyn Feliciano). The best and most notable feature of the code-switching soundtrack is “Angela”, played over the film’s opening credits. “Angela” is an impassioned song, strummed along to Feliciano’s signature guitar along with rolling string harmonies that make the piece distinctively Feliciano’s. The English-language version of “Angela” has not received much attention due to Aaron and Angela’s lack of success at the box office and contemporary obscurity, but the Spanish-language “Angela” (with a Spanish “g” pronounced as an “h”) was a generational hit among Spanish speakers. Irene Cara, a skilled vocalist (as any fan of 1980’s Fame will tell you), does not sing in this film.

Following Aaron Loves Angela, Gordon Parks Jr. formed a new production company, Africa International Pictures, and set to work on his newest project, an adventure film entitled Revenge. At least one-third of Revenge was completed when, on April 3, 1979, Parks and three others perished in an airplane crash that occurred shortly after takeoff. Revenge was never completed. The younger George Parks was survived by his father. For the young actors, they continued to work in the entertainment industry albeit thriving in different mediums. Kevin Hooks left acting to become a television producer and director while Irene Cara would become better known for her musical career (“Fame”, “Flashdance… What a Feeling”) than for her acting.

Movies centered on an interracial romance, let alone youthful interracial romance, are almost never distributed by major movie studios. Often consigned to smaller, independent studios and limited theatrical releases, these films deserve to have an audience. For Aaron Loves Angela, this was a film made by an established Hollywood studio, but apparently floundered with audiences – explanations for its lack of financial success are almost nil in freely-available literature because of the film’s obscurity.

Here is an attempt at inference. By 1973, the blaxploitation subgenre had been protested by civil rights groups and disgruntled actors and directors under the banner of the Black Artists Alliance because of their portrayals of black characters. Studio executives took notice of these protests, and the blaxploitation film would be in terminal decline for the remainder of the decade – these protests occurred even though these films provided black actors and actresses with a volume of starring roles that had never been seen in American cinema. With its 1975 release, Aaron Loves Angela arrived during the subgenre’s hasty decline. It is not an accomplished film, but Aaron Loves Angela’s central conceit – a film centered on African-American and Puerto Rican teenagers in a relationship – has unfortunately been buried due to the timing of its release. The virtuous qualities and cultural damage of films like Aaron Loves Angela and blaxploitation in general remain an open debate – one that deserves the recognition of nuance and previously unheard voices to help guide.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Aaron Loves Angela #Gordon Parks Jr.#Kevin Hooks #Irene Cara #Moses Gunn #Robert Hooks #Ernestine Jackson #Gerald Sanford #Jose Feliciano #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years

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And I’m back from my midseason finale, continuing my journey to decipher how and why a show about two sexy brothers who hunt ghosts aired on television for over a decade. It’s Supernatural!

Back in 2009, when I rushed head long from “Salvation”/”Devil’s Trap straight into “In My Time of Dying” (Kripke, you’re being a real bitch with these titles), I was not the TV connoisseur who writes tumblr posts about ancient shows that you read before you. The cliffhanger at the end of “Devil’s Trap” is good enough that it didn’t matter that I’d just crossed the threshold from the first season into the second season. What mattered was that Dean was dying in the back seat and holy shiz, they crushed the Impala?? So I popped out one DVD disc and happily plugged in the next without stopping to think what a new season might mean.

Of course, I knew second seasons were precious. You watch Firefly ONCE and you know the fear of a Show Cancelled Too Soon. Supernatural, apparently, was on the edge of cancellation after season 1, but it’s renewal coincided with the birth of the brand new CW, a network built from the ashes of The WB and UPN respectively, that was in need of nightly programming to fill up the air. So Supernatural was saved (aha) from the Cancellation Bear and remained in it’s (primo) Thursday night time slot, 9pm warning label in-tact.

What do we say to the Cancellation Bear? Not Today!

That’s not to diminish the importance of it’s renewal for season 2! Depending on what network or cable channel (or year), only something like 20 - 30% of freshman shows get renewed for a season 2. To be fair, if every show that aired in the fall got renewed in the spring, there’d be no time slots left for new freshman shows the following fall, so something’s gotta give. SPN getting a season 2, even if the odds were a little more in their favor than they might want you to think, is still pretty miraculous, especially for 2006. Remember, this is pre-streaming services acquiring original content. In 2006, Netflix was a rental service that focused on mailing you DVDs. Via the U.S. Postal Service. And they wouldn’t officially start acquiring distribution licenses for broadcast shows (let alone their own content) until 2007 - two years after SPN started airing. In the early 2000′s, there were fewer opportunities for television shows to make it in front of an audience because there were fewer options for watching television. I’ll say it a hundred times - Supernatural is a DINOSAUR.

So what do you do when you’re gripped tight and raised from cancellation after your first season? Well if your Supernatural, you start off with one helluva bang.

Maybe more of a wallop.

As should be obvious by now, I watch a lot of supernatural and Supernatural-Adjacent television. I love a Season One, but very often those shows start to go downhill in Season 2. Why? For the simple fact that your characters are too good now. They’re too powerful. They’ll never be as vulnerable as they were in season 1, and if there’s no vulnerability, there’s less concern about their survivability. I’m not as invested in these characters because I’m not worried about them anymore. There’s not tension of will they/won’t they - you know they will, in the end, overcome. Of course, the solution to this conundrum is to level your villains up alongside your heroes. The trouble with that strategy is you end up with ludicrously, laughably super strong villains that lose their grounding in reality. This is a problem I foresee for SPN post season 5, but I haven’t gotten there yet, so I’ll leave that alone for right now.

So for me, what Supernatural does at the start of season 2 is genius. Think about the end of season 1 - our boys lose. They straight up failed. They had one goal - kill the demon that killed their women mom/wife and girlfriend - and they did not even remotely do that. They’re beaten, they’re bloody and now, just when we think they can’t lose any more, they lose some more.

I’m gonna be real honest here, this was a real turn on for me Sammy.

First it’s Baby. For two boys who hop from cheap motel to cheap motel, I think it’s safe to say that the Impala is basically their home. They lose the fight and then they lose their home. That’s rough.

Also, Bobby, I love you, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S SCRAP?!?!

Next, they almost lose Dean. Dean is the only thing that’s keeping this family together and he is donezo. He’s so gone, a Reaper is concocting an elaborate hallucination to get him to come to terms with his imminent demise. Which honestly, is a very nice thing for this Reaper to do, but also bb, don’t you do it!

You gotta hand it to this Reaper, she really knew allll the right buttons to push.

Next, we lose the Colt. They have one (1) weapon to use against the Yellow-Eyed-Demon and John gives it away. Is he also finally acknowledging that his children require his love and care? Yes. Is this the shittiest decision he’s ever made, even if it is to save the life of his firstborn? ALSO YES.

Pretty damn stupid, JOHN.

And finally, in the last 5 minutes of the episode, we lose John Winchester himself. And this bitch ain’t coming back. He’s gone. He’s gone for good. Sam and Dean spent months searching for their father, building up this legend of a man, and we as an audience spent months right along with them, only to watch him die in the first episode of season 2! Sam and Dean don’t start out season 2 back at square one, they’re back at square -10. Sure they know who the bad guy is now, but they don’t know how to find him, don’t know how to kill him, and the only person who did know can’t help them anymore! And to top it all off, they don’t even have a ride back from the hospital!

JK, we all know Bobby came and picked them up and took him back to his place, he’s the Real Hero of this show.

Also, I’m getting ahead of myself here but I’m on a roll - John’s last words to Dean are basically a threat that oh yeah, you have one more thing that this war on hell will steal from you. If you can’t save your brother, you’ll have to kill him. Sure John. Sure. Dean’s definitely gonna do that, John, you bitch.

And they don’t just write this loss off. Over the next three episodes we see how deep this failure goes. Sure, our guys are still out there, doing their thing, killing evil sonsabitches, but damn they are torn up and they are not handling it well.

Listen, I don’t know what your viewing experience is like, but the recaps on my dvd play this scene every episode for the next, like, five episodes.

“Everybody Loves a Clown” is a very clear attempt to get back to normal. So clear that they even say it in the episode somewhere, but they have a lot of climbing to do before they get anywhere near normal. They’re driving around in a minivan, they’re taking cases from strangers, they’re living as carnies - their whole world is upside down.

We get another low blow in “Bloodlust.” Dean learns that a) no one can replace his father and b) that Monster doesn’t necessarily mean Evil. So at the end of the episode, when he asks Sam, “What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing,” you feel it like a gut punch. Dean doesn’t even get to keep his own faith that he’s doing the right thing anymore.

Hey buddy. While you’re down on the ground, we thought we’d kick ya a little bit, OK?

And then we round that out with “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things,” a nice zombie episode that is definitely not about the zombies. Sam and Dean are still grieving the death of their father in a very real way and I actually think Sam’s idea to visit their mom’s grave is really nice. He obviously took several psych courses and is handling grief in a much healthier, mature way than Dean. That being said, when he starts to go all Psych Major on Dean, even I want to slap him in the face. And then that whole attitude really bites him in the ass when Dean finally does open up and he realizes he’s not qualified to therapize this shit.

Oh no, it OK, don’t be cry!

See, we as the audience know that John Winchester traded his own soul to save Dean’s life, but Dean was in a coma with a Reaper, so there’s no way to know what Dean knows. But that bitch is astute and he figures it out. The Colt gone, their dad gone, and that horrible wrong sensation when he woke up in the hospital all point to the fact that John’s final gift to his son was the crushing weight of guilt. Dean knows that John should be here with Sam, would be here with Sam, if it wasn’t for Dean. And since a demon was involved, Dean probably suspects where John is right now. And that is something that he is just gonna have to carry for the rest of forever. I mean, I love Dean and I’m glad he’s still here, but that’s a real dick move John.

John Winchester. Ruining Lives from Before and Beyond the Grave.

Notice the change in this season - with the exception of the Yellow Eyed Demon, these first few episodes are not about the monster. These are Feelings Episodes, ooey gooey Feelings Episodes, that just use the monster-of-the-week to get characters to deal with their inner traumas. This is SPN saying they’re not gonna stay on the surface of this show, they’re gonna dig deep and focus on Character Substance over the Horror FX Style. And in season 2, that still feels fun! As an audience member plowing through these episodes, I was thrilled that this was the direction the show was taking. I was also thrilled that all these episode end with Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance, just some A+ cinematography there gentlemen, great job.

In order, Ep 201, 202, 203, 204. I was not kidding.

I’m also noticing, having written all this down, that these are some very Dean-centric episodes. Like, it’s very heavy on the Dean. Which I’m not mad about, but I just think it’s real funny considering that Sam was definitely our lead protagonist/entry point into season 1.

Now though? This is honestly my biggest fear as I continue my quest to make it through the entire series. I know how it ends. I have a tumblr account and sometimes I like spoilers to prep me for what’s coming, so I know how this all shakes out. And I think the reason that I sort of gave up on the series was because at some point, these Feelings episodes get too heavy. If all your characters are always bogged down by grief and guilt and loss, at some point that’s not enjoyable to watch anymore. You’ve gotta give them a win at some point. A real win that doesn’t come with caveats like Dean sold his soul to the devil, or, Sam’s locked in a cage with the devil, or really anything involving the devil at all.

So while I’m enjoying season 2 still, I am worried that my enjoyment level is gonna sink as the series goes on. But that’s still a ways down the road, so in the meantime, have more of Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance.

#Supernatural Season 2 #Supernatural Rewatch #SPN #sam and dean #Sam Winchester #but mostly #dean winchester #In My Time of Dying #Everybody Loves a Clown #Bloodlust #Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things #Seriously Kripke #What the hell are these titles?#Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance appreciation post #To be fair #they knew what I wanted #television #CW

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buckybarnesbingo · 4 years

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BBB Week 23 Roundup!

We have exactly 450 fills so far in this round of the BBB, which is just AMAZING! Make sure to leave some love for our wonderful participants!

Title: Guarding You - Chapter 8: Guardian Angel Collaborator: Fighting_for_Creativity, Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - Letting go (for Ducky) Ship: WinterIronHusband Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Shooting, Violence, AU Bodyguard, AU College/University, College Student Tony Stark, College Student Rhodey, Bodyguard Bucky Barnes, Fluff, Angst, Happy Ending, Dorks in love, Falling In Love, Fade to black sex, slices of life, Mention of alcohol, creep tries to creep on Tony, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Pining, Minor Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau/Nick Fury, mentioned dog, betrayal, Violence, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Injury Recovery, Clint Barton Trolls People Summary: Though he was fired, Bucky saves Tony's life. Word Count: 12,353

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Title: Laying in wait Collaborator: kalee60 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - First Time Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate Universe, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Implied Sexual Content, Puns & Word Play, Light Pining Summary: When Bucky’s sister gets engaged and has a destination party, he’d never imagined that they’d overbook the hotel and he’d be stuck sharing a bed with his best friend. Which of course wouldn’t have been an issue, not at all, except that pesky part where Bucky had been in love with Steve his whole life. But maybe, just maybe this rooming oversight might just be the push he needed to see what was right in front of him the whole time. Word Count: 1599

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Title: You better make sure you put me in my place Collaborator: call-me-kayyyyy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U3 - Till Death Do Us Part Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: art, no serum bucky, no serum steve, wedding Summary: No-Serum AU where long-haired mechanic!Bucky and skinny artist!Steve tie the knot. ❤️

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Title: Here come the champs Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C1 - Paintball Ship: BuckySam Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: Paintball isn’t just recreation for these two, it’s a lifestyle.

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Title: Perfect Soldiers Collaborator: phoenixgryphon Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U3 - BAMF Bucky Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art, Jurassic Park AU Summary: A Jurassic World crossover; Russians had interest in purchasing the Indoraptor, what if those Russians were the Russian branch of Hydra? Hydra took immediate interest in the specimen, it was strong, fast had no metal arm and deadly, making for a fine counterpart to work alongside their existing Asset. Of course there was the whole issue of making it comply, but to Hydra that’s nothing a little programming can’t fix.aka you don’t get any more bamf than TWS working with a dinosaur.

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Title: Guarding You - Chapter 9: Guarding You Collaborator: Fighting_for_Creativity, Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 - Forgiveness, Ducky Y3 - Take the Shot, J_Gun_I Ship: WinterIronWar Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Shooting, Violence, AU Bodyguard, AU College/University, College Student Tony Stark, College Student Rhodey, Bodyguard Bucky Barnes, Fluff, Angst, Happy Ending, Dorks in love, Falling In Love, Fade to black sex, slices of life, Mention of alcohol, creep tries to creep on Tony, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Pining, Minor Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau/Nick Fury, mentioned dog, betrayal, Violence, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Injury Recovery, Clint Barton Trolls People Summary: The boys do what they have failed to to so far, talking it out. Word Count: 13,650

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Title: gentle and soft Collaborator: plutosrose Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Kink: Gentle Sex Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gentle Sex, slightly pwp, Established Relationship Summary: Bucky tries to understand why he wants Steve to be so gentle with him. Word Count: 1288

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Title: Missed Dance- Second Chance Collaborator: fightingforcreativity Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Surprise Dancing Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: Soft, Fluff, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Soft Tony Stark Summary: A mission delayed Bucky's plan to go out with his boyfriend. Thankfully said boyfriend was nothing if not resourceful. Word Count: 980

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Title: I Thought You Were Smaller Collaborator: ariasfandom Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C3 - Free Square Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Smut, WWII era Stucky, dirty talk, size kink Summary: It’s the first night Steve and Bucky are together since Bucky was shipped out months ago, and Bucky wants to make up for lost time, and show him how much he loves his partner and his new body. Word Count: 1975

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Title: Kill List Collaborator: shadow-ravin Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - Kill List Ship: Bucky & Steve, Bucky & Natasha Rating: Mature Major Tags: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, 5+1 Things, Friendship, Killing, Character Death, But only bad guys die, Torture, Revenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Summary: 5 times Bucky killed someone and one time he didn’t have to. Word Count: 805

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Title: Snowed In Collaborator: steves-on-a-plane Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U2 - Sharing Body Heat Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: not listed Summary: The last person that Reader wanted to be paired up with on a mission is the quiet and elusive Bucky Barnes. When the pair get snowed in together during a mission they have no choice but to warm up to each other. figuratively and literally. Word Count: 1373

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Title: bruises make for better conversation Collaborator: nightwideopen Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - AU: Supernatural Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Not Rated Major Tags: Blood/Gore, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comics/Movie Crossover, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Clint Barton, Pain Kink, Lovers to Lovers Summary: “Jesus Christ, Barnes, what the hell is that?” Bucky let Clint feed off of him last night, and it got kind of… intense. To say the least. But he can’t exactly tell Tony that because he doesn’t know where Clint’s at with their whole… sexual blood sucking thing. Also, no one knows that Clint is a vampire. Word Count: 4331

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Title: Speed Dating Collaborator: arrowsandmixtapes Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y5 - Speed Dating Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Not Rated Major Tags: A few poorly placed easter eggs. Summary: Your desperation pays off when you meet a handsome man at a speed dating event. Word Count: 820

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Title: Vacation Gone Wrong Collaborator: jurassicworjd Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Going On Vacation Together Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: swearing Summary: Marvel meets Jurassic World. Bucky knew from the beginning it was going to go wrong when Clint told them that he bought tickets to the famous Jurassic World theme park. Yet somehow, he allows his boyfriend to drag him out there anyways. Word Count: 3183

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Title: You Alone Collaborator: 27dragons Link: AO3 Squares Filled: Chapter 1: C2 - IMG: Tony working on Bucky’s arm Chapter 2: U4 - Take the Shot Chapter 3: U5 - Abandonment Issues Chapter 4: Y2 - Kink: BDSM Chapter 5: Y3 - Last TImes/Farewells Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - No Powers, single parent tony stark, Omega Tony Stark, Alpha Bucky Barnes, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, Protective Harley Keener, Meddling Kids, First Dates, First Kiss, Past Tony Stark/Tiberius Stone, Panic Attacks, Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Anal Sex, Light BDSM, Multiple Orgasms, Knotting, Weddings Summary: Life as a single parent isn’t easy, but Tony is proud of what he’s accomplished over the last fifteen years. He has his own electronics repair shop and has managed to keep his son Harley away from his toxic ex. So what if every alpha he sees puts him on edge? Most of his customers are omegas, anyway, and he’s content never to date again if it means never again having to go through the shit that Harley’s sire put him through. Bucky is more than intrigued by the smart and beautiful omega who’s repairing his arm, but Tony smells like fear, and Bucky doesn’t want to make things worse. He has to put a lot of effort into making sure not to trip Tony’s triggers -- made doubly hard by the fact that Tony doesn’t want to talk about them -- but he thinks it could be well worth the effort in the end. Word Count: 14,938

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Title: The Red Star Collaborator: startrekkingaroundasgard Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U5 - AU:Pirate Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Explicit Major Tags: m/f explicit smut, choking, public sex, exhibitionism, prostitution, name calling Summary: Pirate captain Barnes of The Red Star makes port and goes directly to the reader, his favourite prostitute, for some release. Word Count: 1305

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Title: (my hair) Through your fingertips Collaborator: darter_blue Link: AO3 Square Filled: C5 - “Kiss me.” Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: emotional hurt/comfort, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - post Captain America: The Winter Soldier, hair washing, first kiss Summary: The asset left Steve by the river. Damaged. Broken.The asset himself is both of those things. But Steve should be neither.The asset needs to find Steve to makes sure he’s okay. Needs to right his wrong (just one of so many). And he needs to find Steve because he WANTS to, though he may not fully understand what wanting even means.Something inside him feels peace at the memory of Steve’s face (the only memory the asset can hold onto) and he maybe just wants to FEEL things again. Or for the first time…He just can’t remember… Word Count: 3651

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Title: Between a Rock and a Hard Place Collaborator: queen-of-the-avengers Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U4 - Rebecca Barnes Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Not Rated Major Tags: minor angst, crack fic, fluff and implied smut at the end Summary: ou and your two best friends are fighting, and you’re caught in the middle of it. The only person who will listen to you is your boyfriend, Bucky. Word Count: 1.1k

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Title: Aria in B♭ - Chapter 8 Collaborator: 27dragons Link: AO3 Square Filled: B4 - Alcohol Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, opera singer Bucky Barnes, nobleman Tony Stark, Prostitution, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Dubious Consent, Pining, Dueling, Gambling Summary: Lord Stark has his faults -- a bit too fond of a drink, a little too reckless at cards, and entirely too happy to flout his good fortune in his rivals’ faces. But a man as wealthy and powerful as Tony Stark is bound to have a few peccadillos. What he is not, is the sort of man who would force himself upon another unwilling, unlike Lord Killian, who seems to have taken a particular shine to an opera singer in the troupe Killian is hosting. Tony rescues Mr. Barnes from Killian’s untender mercies, moves the troupe into his own home, and takes Mr. Barnes as his bed companion for the season. The arrangement provides protection for Bucky and the troupe from Killian’s spite, and tweaks Killian at the same time -- a win all around, as far as Tony is concerned. He wasn’t counting on Bucky being so utterly charming and wonderful, or for the possibility that he might actually, after so many years a bachelor, fall in love. Word Count: 28,643

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Title: Siren - Chapter 3: Roundtable Rival Collaborator: Writing_mermaid Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - language Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Mature Major Tags: Language, mention of injuries, Steve is an asshole Summary: Y/N is a mutant, a Siren, the last of her kind, with deadly dangerous powers and a hidden past. If most of the Avengers likes and get along with her, Steve doesn’t, and it’s getting worse when Y/N and Bucky become close. After all what can bring two broken souls together if it’s not a dark past. Word Count: 5564

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Title: Obnoxiously Perfect Collaborator: plutosrose Link: AO3 Square Filled: B2 - Alpine Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Alternate Universe - College/University, Developing Relationship, Coffee Date, Brief Mentions of Grief, Self-Esteem, Finding Your Crush and His Ex on Social Media, Brief Mention of Past Sharon Carter/Natasha Romanov Summary: After hooking up with Steve at a faculty reception, Bucky consults Alpine for advice. Word Count: 2899

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Title: It's Only a Paper Moon - Chapter 1 Collaborator: SierraNovembr Link: AO3 Square Filled: B3 - Bucky/Tony Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Depiction of a mental asylum, established relationship, Edwin Jarvis Summary: Fighting aliens alongside Captain America? A loving, supportive fiancé who overlooks the many flaws of Tony Stark? Tony often thought his life was too amazing to be real. He might just be right about that. Word Count: 831

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Title: We Shall Be Monsters - Chapter 2: Dead All Day Collaborator: tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y1 - Hallucinations Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: mentioned torture, Frankenstein inspired, reincarnation, rise from the dead, gross, dead bodies Summary: This is your 6:30am Rise from the Dead call... Word Count: 1370

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Title: Worth It Collaborator: darter-blue Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Pet rock Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: Modern Bucky Barnes, Fluff, Romance, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting Summary: Bucky is not having a great time here, speed dating was not the ‘opportunity to meet someone great’ he had been promised. This was just a faster, more efficient way for Bucky to get dumped. Until someone new sits down gracefully into the seat opposite him. Bucky’s looking up from where tight blue jeans around thick thighs have slid into the seat, up to a broad chest in a t-shirt that has to be two sizes too small, up to shoulders so wide they could carry a bus, and up, up, up to the most beautiful face Bucky has ever seen in real life. And he’s smiling. A real, enthusiastic smile.At Bucky. Word Count: 2051

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Title: Moments with You (Part 2 of 5) Collaborator: shield-agent78 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U1 - Confessions Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Mature Major Tags: angst, anxiety, stress Summary: Both you and Scott Summers yearn for a beautiful remembrance that cannot be reached. Scott, in the form of Jean Gray, and you in wanting Scott to move on with his life and realize that love can be found again. Word Count: 1285

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Title: 5 Times Bucky and Winter Courted Tony, and 1 Time Tony Realized He Was Courting Back Collaborator: newtypeshadow Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Steve Rogers Ship: Tony/Bucky/Winter Rating: Mature Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Domestic Avengers, Avengers Tower, 5+1 Things, Flerkin Shifter Tony Stark, Wolf Shifter Bucky Barnes, Symbiote Winter, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Courtship, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Tony Stark, Kidnapping, Rescue Missions, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead animals, fresh meat, Cannibalism, technically, flerkins and symbiotes don't understand why eating delicious human meat is bad, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, murder fluff, Crack Treated Seriously, Getting Together, First Kiss, Aliens, Alien Cultural Differences, Polyamory, Flerkin Tony Stark, Cat Tony Stark Summary: There's a dead bird next to Tony's coffee maker. Gross. Except when Tony shifts into a flerkin. Then it's a delicious gift. Doesn't explain why Bucky and his symbiote, Winter, left it in Tony's kitchen though. Word Count: 10,630

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Title: They Never Went Further, They Never Went Back Collaborator: eachpeachpearplum Link: AO3 Squares Filled: Y2 - rescue mission (chapter one) C3 - free space (chapter two) C1 - recovering Bucky (chapter four) U4 - shoot first, ask later (chapter five) Y1 - hurt/comfort (chapter seven) Ship: Stuckony Rating: Teen Major Tags: identity porn, vigilante Iron Man, polyamory negotiations, asexual Bucky Summary: Steve and Bucky’s truck breaks down while they’re out searching for the vigilante Iron Man. Fortunately, mechanic Tony is willing to offer them a place to stay for a few nights. Word Count: 26,893

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Title: Hallucinations Collaborator: ShakespeareanQueer Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - Hallucinations Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: Induced hallucinations, angst Summary: When Steve doesn’t make it back on the time travel platform, Bucky asks Wanda for a weird favor. Word Count: 3223

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Title: Better the Devil you know Collaborator: Kalee60 Link: AO3 Square Filled: C4 - Wings Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Bottom Bucky Barnes, POV Bucky Barnes, Idiots in Love, Light Dom/sub, they should really just talk..., Demon Bucky Barnes, Angel Steve Rogers, Denial of Feelings, Misunderstandings Summary: Attending work conferences was never Bucky's idea of a 'good time' - especially when the rival company was Heaven and he happened to be a demon from Hell. Even more unbearable, he'd been tasked to present a seminar (against his will) - Bucky was more about doling out punishments, less about educating his peers.So of course, while Bucky is already down, Steve Rogers turns up, an angel Bucky had been trying desperately to forget for the last millenia… for an array of reasons. Bucky now finds himself in close quarters with his feathery nemesis, and after living multiple lifetimes, was maybe finally learning that there really was a fine line between hate and lust, and an even finer one tethering it all to love? Word Count: 19,912

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Title: Know Your Enemy, Know Yourself Collaborator: rebelmeg Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - Mexican standoff Ship: Bucky & Winter Rating: Mature Major Tags: blood and violence, Winter is a separate personality, graphic depiction of violence Summary: The fight between Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier might happen in his head, but that doesn't make it any less real. Word Count: 771

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Title: Unshackled - Chapter 2 Collaborator: LiraelClayr007 Link: AO3 Square Filled: C1 - through a scope Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Amnesia, (of the short term), Sharing a Bed, Fluff, Angst, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Deaf Clint Barton, Hurt Clint Barton, Hydra (Marvel), Slow Burn. Will add more tags and characters as they come up, Escape Summary: Nausea roils in Clint’s stomach, and he’s suddenly glad there’s no food in his stomach. Mind control. HYDRA’s perfected brainwashing and mind control. He needs to get out of here, he needs to tell… But of course it doesn’t matter. Because he’s shackled to the wall across from the fucking Winter Soldier, deep within who knows where surrounded by who knows how many HYDRA goons, and he hasn’t eaten for...how many days now? Even if he could get to his bow, he’s not sure he’d have the strength to draw it.In other words, he’s well and truly fucked. Word Count: 5970

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Title: Aria in B♭ - Chapter 9 Collaborator: tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: I3 - Disability Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, opera singer Bucky Barnes, nobleman Tony Stark, Prostitution, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Dubious Consent, Pining, Dueling, Gambling Summary: Lord Stark has his faults -- a bit too fond of a drink, a little too reckless at cards, and entirely too happy to flout his good fortune in his rivals’ faces. But a man as wealthy and powerful as Tony Stark is bound to have a few peccadillos. What he is not, is the sort of man who would force himself upon another unwilling, unlike Lord Killian, who seems to have taken a particular shine to an opera singer in the troupe Killian is hosting. Tony rescues Mr. Barnes from Killian’s untender mercies, moves the troupe into his own home, and takes Mr. Barnes as his bed companion for the season. The arrangement provides protection for Bucky and the troupe from Killian’s spite, and tweaks Killian at the same time -- a win all around, as far as Tony is concerned. He wasn’t counting on Bucky being so utterly charming and wonderful, or for the possibility that he might actually, after so many years a bachelor, fall in love. Word Count:31,979

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Title: [Art] Bingo Clusterfuck - Chapter 11: come on with it, come on Collaborator: call-me-kayyyyy Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - Kink: Vibes in Public Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: art, semi-public sex, bottom bucky, top steve, fun-ishment Summary: Steve was done. He was absolutely sick and tired of Bucky riling him up on purpose in front of their tower-mates. Bucky loved making him blush with dirty comments during Avenger's meetings. Flustering him by "accidentally" brushing against his crotch in the community kitchen. Steve had had enough and it was time to teach Bucky a lesson. He sees his moment while their making out like teenagers in front of the big open windows in their apartment. "You like everyone watching Buck? You like it when I get all flushed and hard in front of our friends?" Bucky whined and kissed Steve harder. "Well lets see how you like it, huh sweetie? I'm gonna take you apart, right here where anyone can watch," he growled into Bucky's ear. "Rub your sweet spot till you beg for my cock. Let all of New York see how much you love being on all fours for me." Bucky was gonna learn his lesson alright, maybe twice.

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Title: Dog Days of Summer Collaborator: hddnone Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K5 - “Oh, hell no” Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: temperature play with ice Summary: Summer was the worst season to have a metal arm.Fortunately Bucky had a boyfriend who would fix that for him. Word Count: 997

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Title: something like home Collaborator: nightwideopen Link: AO3 Square Filled: C4 - Canon Divergence Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Not Rated Major Tags: Graphic description of injury, mentions of brainwashing Summary: After the fall of the Triskelion, Clint retreats to his last refuge, the farm house in Iowa that he grew up in. On the way there, he finds an injured dog on the road leading to the Barton farm. Spoiler alert: it's not a dog.It's Bucky Barnes. Word Count: 13,048

#buckybarnesbingo2020 #bbb2020 #weekly roundup #bbb week 23 #bbb weekly roundup

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runnfromtheak · 4 years

Text

fanfic author’s tagging game (yay!)

Thank ya darling for tagging me!!!! @boyblunder-thedarkheir!!!!!

AO3 Name(s): LostandLonelyBirds aka RUNNFROMTHEAK

Fandom(s): Primarily Batfamily (so, Dick Grayson) and Young Justice (along with DCU obviously, but I also dabble into Miralculous Ladybug, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, and MCU (none of which I will ever seriously write for? Idk man).

Number of fics: 22 I will admit to (how do you have so many, my dear @boyblunder-thedarkheir? What is your secret?)

1. Fic you spent the most time on: Are we talking writing or thinking about writing, cause those are two very different answers. I spent the most time writing this bitch of a fic I’m working on right now, and the most time thinking about the two latest installments of my main series, Death is But An Illusion (aka How Could He and How Could It Be). I agonize over every goddamn detail with Dick’s anger, Jason’s Jason-ness, and every person’s every move and word. I am a mess, and I’m going to be murdered if I don’t update them soon. I am not sorry about that XD

2. Fic you spent the least time on: You Came Behind Me Secretly and Shattered Every Piece of Me (There's Blood On My Hands) aka my pick-your-own-canon clusterfuck of Dark!Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson being traumatized and tortured with no comfort (Some of them are so fucked up I question my own mind). I take less than an hour to write 80% of them, cause they’re short, and they very rarely take any time to plan. Fun and easy!

3. Longest Fic: At present, he had a chest full of heart and a body full of scars (pain became the only way that he could ever learn) is my longest, but the fic I’ve been hinting at on my other tumblr, @lostandlonelybirds is easily double the length (why do I do this to myself? Why am I like this?) the long boi (named one, not the one I won’t shut up about) is easily my best fic at the moment, and I’m so excited to write a sequel whenever I get the chance.

4. Shortest Fic: With Bated Breath and Pain You See (We're Nothing More Than Memories) technically, I have one shorter than that, but it’s a collab that wasn’t my original idea so I’m not counting it :)

5. Most Hits: You Came Behind Me Secretly and Shattered Every Piece of Me (There's Blood On My Hands) why do you people like this trash-fire so much? I don’t understand

6. Most Kudos: How Could He which does not surprise me.

7. Most Comment Threads: Technically, How Could He followed by the trash-fire AU title thing I’m too lazy to type again, but I’m gonna love on this one: Just Close Your Eyes (No One Can Hurt You Now) because it’s my baby, and it deserves it okay?

8. Fave Fic You Wrote: Ooo we are doing a top five.

5. How Could It Be (Jason is precious and sad and Dick is oblivious, and I love one-sided pining wayyyy too much)

4. How Could He (I put my life force into this stupid fic, so ofc it’s here)

3. I'm Scared to Live But I'm Scared to Die (I'm Numb Inside) (the suicidal boy, major trigger warning)

2. I See Things That Nobody Else Sees (And It's Slowly Killing Me) (the only fic I’ve ever written from Cass’s perspective, and definitely one of the creepiest and most fucked up. Bruce does not look good here)

1. he had a chest full of heart and a body full of scars (pain became the only way that he could ever learn) (so ummm Bruce doesn’t look good here either? RHATO #25 if DC wasn’t cowardly and let Dick react how he actually would, aka fuck Batman is the new motto)

9. Rewrites?: Fuck. All my older ones? Everything? Who knows.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

Let’s do two. I’m nice.

First comes from How Could It Be:

“You loved him,” Donna says, ignoring his barb. “You loved him, and no one’s seen you or heard from you and I’m concerned, damnit.”

She punches his shoulder roughly, and he’s reminded of her strength, no matter how small she seems in her dead best friend’s sweater.

“I’m fine. Peachy-keen. Couldn’t be fuckin’ better. Honestly, you should be more concerned with Replacement, don’t think he’s slept in—”

“Jason.” Her voice is firm, even as her eyes swim with tears and she holds her arms tight to herself, breathing in the well-loved item’s scent. Jason wonders when Dick wore it last, if Donna had taken it from his abandoned Gotham Penthouse or his Chicago Apartment. He wonders if he’d left it draped over the couch, like the natural disaster he was, or if it had been folded neatly in a drawer.

For someone who prides himself on not being sentimental, Jason suddenly wishes he had something of Dick’s too.

“I’m here because I care, and because if Dick was here, he’d be doing the same thing I am.”

“But he ain’t here,” Jason snaps, “Is he?”

Donna’s head falls, and he feels like a giant jerk. He just… reacts poorly to that name, hasn’t heard it spoken since the transmission and subsequent funeral, since the guy he’d had the hots for since wearing the scaly panties had his mask ripped away and his life taken in front of Bruce’s eyes (who, to absolutely no one’s surprise, failed to save his son).

In the aftermath, no one said Dick Grayson’s name, always Nightwing, or some inane nickname the superhero community had for him. Last time he said it was to Damian, a failed attempt at comfort. But even Jason’s form of mutual grieving had been better than any of Bruce’s shit ideas. Bastard immortalized the ripped costume from his own son’s corpse (not that it had been the first time) and hadn’t even had the decency to give it a plaque (No ‘Good Soldier’ or ‘Good Son’, just a bare glass case with a bloody suit). Which… was weird. Jason was far from B’s best friend, but even he noticed something seemed strange, off, just not quite right. Like the funeral he didn’t speak at, like the breakdown none of them had witnessed beyond a one-off rage fit

“B, what the fuck happened down here?”

The Batcave was a disaster, dents glaringly obvious in several vehicles and a large spiderweb crack across the Batcomputer. Bruce closes the screen down, but Jason manages to catch a spiraling eye.

“Nothing, just…”

Bruce looks at the spare Nightwing costume none of them had taken down yet, still clean and ready for use (too bad its owner died and would never wear it again).

“Dick?” Jason questions, and the way Bruce’s eyes snap to his face is almost suspicious, almost enough to arouse concern.

“Yes. I—”

Jason sits next to Bruce on the desk, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I miss him too, Old Man. Don’t mean you need to be an ass about it.”

A memorial next to Jason’s own, but Dickhead’s is empty and broken from Damian’s fists and grief, and Jason’s is just gone. No one told him why, it was just gone.

Kind of like Dick.

He wonders if Bruce would have told him if the video hadn’t been broadcast, if he would’ve told anyone. B did love his fuckin’ secrets.

“No,” she whispers, and he can hear the tears in her voice, can feel her grief as keenly as his own. It’s palpable, tangible, “He’s dead, and I’m alive, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

And then, to Jason’s mounting horror, she starts crying openly.

…..

Second comes from my one I’m working on rn with Stray!Dick called I See Sunset In Your Eyes (I Hate This Part Right Here)

“Come on,” Wally says with a pout, dragging an overly amused Jason and Dick with him through the karaoke bar doors. “Donna and Roy are waiting for us, and Dick had to take forever to primp.”

Dick shrugs with a grin.

“Beauty takes time, time I can tell you did not take.”

Jason snorts, and Wally glares at him.

“At least I don’t take five hours to finish getting ready.”

“At least I can last longer than five minutes.”

“Ouch!” Roy butts in, throwing an arm around Jason and Dick’s shoulders. “Claws are out tonight!”

“Speaking from experience?” Jason asks, eyebrow raised.

Dick smirks without comment, sauntering past the group towards the table Donna’s lounging at.

“Hey gorgeous twin of mine,” He greets with a kiss to her eyes. She smirks, rolling her eyes at him.

“You’re just stroking your own ego with the twin tacked on, Wonder Boy.”

Dick bumps his shoulder against hers.

“Can’t I stroke both our egos?”

“You can stroke mine,” Wally mutters, turning red when Stray winks at his phrasing. Jason and Roy both facepalm, groaning. “Not what I meant guys!”

“Why Kid Idiot,” Dick replies, hand on his heart, “I had no idea you could be so forward~!”

Wally glares, waving over the waitress.

“Round of shots, on this dick,” he jerks his thumb at Stray, offering up his fake ID. She doesn’t bother checking it, probably because this is Gotham, and they were all in uniform. “Whisky, please.”

“Trying to get me drunk?” Jason jokes. It is, after all, his first big outing with the Titans for non-mission reasons. Stray had practically dragged him out of the Manor with a wink at Alfred and a middle finger for Bruce, saying that Jason needed to have fun outside of books.

Jason knows better than arguing with Dick Grayson-Kyle when he wants something, Stray trained him well.

“Of course, Batboy,” Roy replies, “It’s not a Titans outing if Stray is fully dressed and everyone’s sober.”

Dick shrugs.

“You’ll have to get some real liquor in me if you want me to do anything like last time.”

“Last time?” Jason asks, looking to Donna for an answer. Dick snorts. You get near naked one time…

“Boy Blunder ended up in just his boxers in a dancing cage drunk of his ass. Everyone thought he was one of the strippers, and he made, what, three-hundred dollars in bills?”

“Five-hundred,” Dick replies proudly, offering the waitress a twenty as she came back with their drinks. “Keep the change, darlin’!” He adds with a wink.

She flushes, making Jason frown.

Stray, of course, notices this and elbows Jason.

“Don’t get jealous, Blue Jay, it’s not becoming.”

Jason does not blush. He doesn’t, and that’s the hill he will die on.

“I’m not. On an unrelated note, pass me a shot.”

Jason is the master of changing the subject, Stray thinks sarcastically, passing him a shot and downing one of his own.

“Five bucks says alley cat blacks out,” Roy says smugly as Dick makes a face, the way he always did with heavier liquors. He glares at the redhead, who shrugs unapologetically.

Donna eyes them both speculatively, taking a sip of her own drink.

“Twenty says he gives a lap dance before he blacks out.”

Roy snorts.

“I’ll take it,” and to Dick, “Don’t do it, for me.”

Dick bats his eyes innocently.

“Lil’ old me? I would never do something so…” He trails a finger down Roy’s chest, making him swallow roughly. “Scandalous.”

Donna grins victoriously as Roy groans, trying and failing to hide his excitement.

“I hate you. I hate you both.”

Tagging whoever sees this, I suppose?

#dcu #dick grayson #my writing #stray!dick

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