#When I said 'don't get close to me I'm evil and I will hurt you and no one has ever wanted me stay away'

[aftermathing]

.

[moni-logues]

What the cat dragged in

Pairing: Lee Know x reader (afab, she/her)

Genre: smut, angst, strangers-to-lovers (kinda); 5+1

Summary: You followed Minho home because you had nowhere else to go. Then you kept following... all the way into his heart, but not his bed.

aka five times you and Minho don't fuck and one time you do.

Content: reader is 16yo in the first section (nothing sexual or romantic happens but there are suggestions of it), couple of references to human/sex trafficking; the gang are useless crime idiots but this is only barely relevant; interrupted foreplay; attempted car sex; unprotected piv sex; fingering; a lot of kissing tbh

Word count: 13.5k

A/N: SO this whole thing actually started HERE in JUNE (jfc, I thought I'd been thinking about this since like, October or something but, no no, a full ten months!!!!). It has drifted from that somewhat but that was its beginning and, honestly, I'm kind of stoked about this fic. I really like how it came out and it's my FIRST MINHO. It's taken me SO long to get around to my bestest evil catdad.

Huge thanks to @violetsiren90 for beta-ing! and also for reading it half-finished when I really needed some encouragment. AND for the title

*~*~*

FIRST 

“Why don’t you fuck off?” 

The voice came from behind you. It was low and cold and threatening. It was directed at Shindong, the man in front of you, whom you were sure was this close to offering to take you home. You whipped around to see who had uttered it. 

Your immediate thought was that he was too short and too slight to be walking up with that level of aggression. Your second thought was interrupted by the spark that shot up your arm when he grabbed your hand. You’d have pulled it back, but his grip was solid and your arm didn’t budge.  

“What the fuck do you want, Minho?” your companion replied, all the charm sliding off his face, replaced with a loathing, arrogant sneer.  

“I want you to fuck off.” 

“She yours? Might want to keep a closer eye on her; she was just about to come home with me.” 

The stranger’s hand squeezed yours, so hard it started to hurt. He offered nothing in response.  

Both men continued to stare at each other. Shindong had inches on Minho – both height and breadth – and you couldn’t believe your eyes when you saw him hesitating. He flicked his eyes between you and Minho.  

“What if I want to fight you for her?” 

“What if I told you she’s not legal?” 

Shindong hesitated, moved just a fraction backwards, no longer leaning in, looming over the two of you. He rolled his eyes and gave a heartless chuckle. 

“Not worth the fucking bother,” he muttered as he walked away.  

Minho, still a stranger to you, still holding your hand, who hadn’t even looked your way, pulled you sharply by said hand, storming off and taking you with him. You followed him into one of the warehouse’s many dark corners. He kicked out the couple who were two clothing items shy of a citation for public indecency, and only then did he let you go. Only then did he turn his dark, flaming eyes on you. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you asked.  

Shindong had been your lifeline. What did this guy think he was playing at? 

Your vehemence took him off-guard, surprise flashing across his face, until his scowl returned, worse than before. You understood now why he made Shindong hesitate. His gaze was fierce, penetrating, his jaw set, his mouth a taut, grim line. You would never show your hand to anyone, but a cold droplet of fear slithered down your spine. You straightened it, rolled your shoulders back, lifted your head. You wouldn’t let him intimidate you. 

“Do you know him?” he asked, voice still low, still threatening. 

Not personally. Not until that evening. But people like him came with a reputation that preceded them. A reputation that you were relying upon being based in fact. A reputation that had spread all around your school and beyond, but that you had heard from a source close to the truth. It was close enough that you were able to find him here, in a part of town you’d never been to. It was close enough that you were able to pick Shindong out from this crowd. Close enough that when you approached him and he laughed at you – young, naïve, foolish, all of those things you were sure he thought – you were able to drop his cousin’s name and he suddenly took you seriously. That was what you had been hoping for. A connection was all you needed to keep you covered for a night, at least. Just one would be something. 

And then this guy showed up. 

“I was about to.” 

Minho’s top lip curled, just a fraction, his nose barely wrinkling with the movement, but you got his meaning. Disgust. He could be as disgusted as he liked; that wasn’t your problem. Your problem was that his disgust had led him to chase away your only lead.  

Or was he? Was Shindong your only option? 

You changed tack. Realised that maybe you had another now. Minho, whoever the fuck he was, had approached you as if he knew you and scared off the competition. That must have been it. Despite the way he glowered at you, absolutely no interest or desire lurking behind his dark eyes, you figured you had nothing left to lose.  

You relaxed a little, pouted your lips, played up to the damsel in distress he might have thought you were. 

“But if he’s so awful, I guess I can only thank you,” you said, making your voice soft, your eyes a little wider. You lifted your lips in a tiny, shy smile and then put a hand to them, your thumb and index finger tugging a little on your bottom lip, hoping it made you look small, nervous, sweet.  

He gave you no reaction. He continued to glare, his stance unchanged, unmoving. So you moved. You stepped towards him: shy, little bird steps, until you were so close that he moved backwards. 

“Thanks for looking out for me. Your name’s Minho, right?” 

His eyes tightened minutely. He didn’t reply.  

“I’d like to thank you properly,” you said, sliding your body into his, pressing just one finger against his chest. You fluttered your lashes up at him. 

His face changed immediately. Eyes wide, mouth dropping, and he was stumbling backwards, pressing himself against the wall. 

“What the fuck are you doing? What are you, fifteen?” 

Embarrassment licked your cheeks like flames and your scowl returned. 

“I’m sixteen!” 

“Wow, big age. My mistake. By all means, let’s fuck, Sixteen.” 

His sarcasm was biting but you hadn’t given yourself up yet. 

“Don’t you want to?” you asked, innocently. “You must have sent Shindong away for a reason. If not this, then what?” 

He let out a sigh so aggrieved it was almost a shout. He rolled his eyes.  

“Jesus Christ, where are your parents?” he asked, but it was muttered, almost under his breath and you didn’t know if you were supposed to answer. You did anyway. 

“Dead.” 

His lack of reaction grated. He didn’t flinch. There was no surprise, no guilt on his face. He had robbed you of Shindong and now he had robbed you of your fun: getting a reaction out of people as a poor, orphaned, little Annie was as close as you got these days. Then again, he wasn’t a well-meaning aunt or nosy teacher. He knew what this place was; he knew, or at least knew of, Shindong. Maybe your hand-grenade was, here, little more than a snap. 

“And this is your great life plan? Offering sexual favours to predators?”  

He gestured widely to the room behind you, and you could only assume he did not mean to include himself in that group.  

Actually, it was your plan. Kind of… Insofar as you had any sort of plan at all. You would not be telling him that. You kept your mouth shut tight and jaw clenched, refusing to look down, to be the one to break the eye contact.  

“You know he’s a fucking bad guy,” he said, more softly than he had said anything so far but the hard edge remained.  

“And what are you, my hero?” 

“Absolutely fucking not. I do not want to have anything to do with whatever mess you are making of your life, but I’m not about to let that cunt take off with a child.” 

“I am not a child!” you shouted, right in his face.  

He took it, impassive, unimpressed even.  

“That’s exactly what a child would say.” 

You wanted to hit him. You wanted to smash him in his beautifully sharp jaw, or break that perfect, delicate nose of his. You were just about not stupid enough to try. How did he even know you were young? You knew you didn’t look it; you were always getting told you looked older than you were. How did he know? Why did he care? 

“Go on then,” you said, darkly. “Leave. If I’m not your fucking problem, why don’t you fuck off?” 

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t move.  

“Worried I’ll get murdered?”  

You lifted your hands to your open mouth, eyes widened, a mockery of fear.  

His face and tone were flat when he responded.  

“There are things worse than death.” 

Then he pushed past you and out of the door.  

You took one shaky breath and walked after him before you could talk yourself out of it. You decided that, one way or another, this guy owed you and it was time to collect. 

You followed him, not too closely, but not exactly hiding it, for over a mile. You wondered, at one point, if he was trying to lose you, if he was actually heading to his destination or just trying to outlast you. You’d show him. You were a long-distance runner at school; you were extremely confident you could keep up. 

So confident, in fact, so determined were you not to lose him, that you were too slow to notice him slowing, to notice him stopping, to very nearly not stop yourself walking into him.  

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, not turning to look at you. 

“I’m walking here.” 

“Stop following me.” 

“I’m not following you.” 

He raised his eyes skyward. He stood for a moment and you stood, too, waiting for him to continue – walking or talking, you didn’t know which. He finally turned around and looked at you, everything about him a little softer than before. Not soft, but softer.  

“You can’t follow me,” he told you slowly, emphatically. “I am not looking after you. I am not your fath-“ 

“I don’t have a fucking father.” 

He scoffed. 

“Yeah, that much is very clear, Sixteen.” 

“I’m not sixteen!” 

He frowned. 

“That’s what you told me.” 

“That’s not my fucking name! Stop saying it like I’m a child. How old are you anyway?” 

“Old enough to know better.”  

“What does that mean?” 

“Go home, Sixteen.” 

“I don’t have a home.” 

“Well you can’t have mine.” 

He turned on his heel and continued walking, a little faster this time, increasing his pace to a jog as he crossed the road. You knew he hoped you wouldn’t be able to follow, that the flashing green man would disappear before you could make it, but you’d been underestimated before.  

After another mile or so, you saw him take his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear. You couldn’t quite hear what he was saying but you thought it sounded like Japanese. Was he Japanese?  

It hadn’t missed you, the knowledge that you had no knowledge of this man. You understood that you were, as far as you knew, in as much danger following him home as you had been going with Shindong. But you literally had no other options. It was follow this guy somewhere or wander around on the street all night; it was too cold to stay out. You hadn’t thought beyond that when you’d left your house earlier that day. Hadn’t thought much at all, except about getting out.  

Now you were out. Mission accomplished. And you had no idea what to do next.  

You almost missed him ducking into a narrow side street, but you caught the door he rushed through just before it shut. He disappeared from view through another door, off to the left of the dingy, dimly lit corridor you found yourself in. You stalked up to it – it wasn’t even fully closed – but something made you hesitate.  

Suddenly the fear that you had been suppressing all night raised its head. Was this a lion’s den? A serpents’ nest? Was Minho playing some kind of long game, saving you from Shindong so you would trust him, so you would follow him here, so he could…? 

“Are you going to fucking stand out there all night?” you heard a voice call from inside. It had to be Minho’s but you wouldn’t have bet on it.  

You fixed your face, your scowl reappearing, and kicked the door open with excessive force. 

It was just a bar. Just him, sitting on a stool with a beer in his hand, and one other guy, standing opposite, looking at you with his eyebrows raised in the way a parent does when they catch their child doing something naughty. 

“You break that door, I’m going to make you pay for it,” he said, in an accent that you knew wasn’t local.  

And, just like a defiant child, you slammed it shut without breaking eye contact. He turned to Minho. 

“Thanks, man. You had to bring home a fucking streetrat.” 

“I am not a streetrat,” you spat. 

“No?” Minho chimed in. “Then where’s your home?” 

“Fuck off.” 

“I really wish you would.” 

You sat down in a booth just off to your left and stared him down.  

“She can’t stay here,” the stranger said to Minho, as if you were no longer there.  

“I didn’t bring her; she just came.” 

He, the newest stranger, looked between you and Minho for several seconds. He was looking at Minho when he spoke again. 

“One night. That’s it. And she’s your responsibility.”  

He heaved a box full of empty glass bottles into his arms and wandered away, through a different door, mumbling something about ‘strays’.  

“Who was that?” you demanded as Minho continued to sip at his beer.  

You realised that you hadn’t actually been introduced to him either. And he hadn’t asked for your name. You wondered if he would now. 

“None of your fucking business,” he answered, finally moving from the stool to walk behind the bar.  

He opened the cash register and took bags from a cubby just below it. He produced a tiny pencil from his pocket and tore off a strip of the receipt roll. He took out the cash and started to count. You watched his lips move silently as he flicked quickly through the notes, pausing to drop a stack onto the bar and write a number down. He picked up the next stack and repeated.  

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, not looking up, not even, apparently, pausing in his counting. “Even if you got your urchin mitts on it, you wouldn’t make it to the door.” 

You believed him, but you weren’t planning some kind of move. You didn’t need his money. You were just watching.  

You watched until all the notes and all the coins were accounted for, until they had been put into bags and those bags into a box and Minho turned to follow his friend. You stood from your seat and went after him.   

There were two doors, you realised. Minho took the left. It led to an office. The other guy must’ve taken the right because the room was empty except for furniture and, in the corner, a safe. Minho dumped the box before it and turned to you. 

“Turn around.” 

“Worried I’ll crack the code?” you asked with your eyes rolling back in your head. 

“Just turn around.” 

You did as you were told without a fight because, at that point, there was nowhere else to go. You couldn’t admit defeat and walk out of there; you weren’t sure that Minho wouldn’t make you do just that. It was a knife-edge, being the obnoxious, vile brat that you were. You’d stormed past boundaries before but, well, look where it got you. You were tired and worried enough now to decide you would stop pushing your luck. It had been stretched far enough already. 

There was a second of silence before you heard the beeping of the buttons pressed and the shuffling of bags, the clink of coins, the thunk of a bigger, metallic something against the walls of the safe. He didn’t tell you when he was finished, didn’t say you could turn back around. He just walked past you, out of the office, turning the light off as he went. As soon as you were out of the door, he shut and locked it.  

You followed him back to the bar and he did the same thing: turned off the lights and held a door for you (not politely, not because he was being nice), following you through it and locking this one behind him, too. You walked to the end of the corridor and he gestured you down some wooden stairs that creaked as if they would break under your weight. He turned the corridor light off, too, and locked the door at the top of the steps.  

This was it. You were locked in. There were at least two locks between you and escape. When Minho shoved past you to the left and opened yet another door, your stomach sank a little further. Three locked doors. He didn’t hold this one for you but he didn’t slam it in your face either, so you rolled your shoulders back, put on your game face and walked through.  

You almost regretted it when you saw where it led. It was possibly the worst place you had ever seen. It wasn’t messy, but there was something dirty about the room anyway. Outdoor furniture inside; everything vaguely brown in a way that you didn’t think it had been fresh out of the box; everything tired and worn and sagging; the naked lightbulb dim and humming as it shone; the fridge, scratched and dented and shoved into a corner, also hummed, managing to sound as well as look tired. It was bleak. It was grey. It made you feel like things were crawling on you and you’d only just stepped foot in it.  

You half expected your feet to stick to the floor when you took a few steps forward. They didn’t but the carpet was so old and worn that you had no idea what colour it was originally; in places, you could see the floorboards clearly through the threads. 

Minho pointed to the sofa.  

“There,” was all he said.  

Then he disappeared out of the room. You gingerly sat on the edge, wondering if you should be more concerned about your health or your safety. Maybe you were sheltered here, but you pictured a thousand and one diseases squirming on the cushions. It wasn’t fair to, because you could see that it was cleaned. The room wasn’t filthy; there were no crumbs or water rings on the coffee table; there was no rubbish littering the floor; the sink was empty and a stack of plates and bowls stood beside it, washed if not yet dried. Minho was clearly diligent.  

Minho and whoever else lived here. There were too many doors leading off this room for him to be here alone.  

Your curiosity was stopped in its tracks when he reappeared with a pillow and a towel. He threw the pillow wordlessly at one end of the sofa and then he raised the towel a little. 

“I don’t have any blankets. Don’t get cold.” 

You scoffed a laugh and were grateful that he ignored it. You weren’t indignant; you weren’t being a brat this time. You were dismayed. You couldn’t believe it. A house with no spare blankets. You were going to sleep under a towel. You glanced around you for a final time, tears pricking in your eyes, fingers at your lips, picking nervously. You weren’t going to die here, you told yourself. Probably. You were probably not going to die here and that was all you needed.  

You stood up, turned off the light, tested the door handle (not sure if you wanted it to be locked or unlocked), then returned to the sofa. You took off your shoes, took your bag from your back and hugged it tightly to your chest. You lay in the dark, in a stranger’s horrible house, alone, tired, more vulnerable than you would ever admit. You cried silently, reluctantly grateful for the towel, until you fell asleep.   

SECOND 

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to everyone! Happy birthday to you!” 

You only got one birthday a year. The whole group of you. There wasn’t enough to stretch to everyone getting an individual birthday, an individual cake, a day off. So the middle day of the year, 2nd July, was chosen and you all had a birthday together.  

One cake, one candle each, six people blowing them out. Most unsanitary, but, by now, there wasn’t much you hadn’t shared so a little spit didn’t even register.  

You were too drunk by far, which was stupid really. It wasn’t even your first time drinking legally (because your real birthday wasn’t until later in the year), so there was no reason for you to behave as if you had never had a drink before. You should have learnt a little self-control.  

But it was your birthdays. So you kept having one more and one more and one more. As did everyone else.  

“Nineteen!” Minho called as he fell into the booth next to you.  

“I thought I was Sixteen?” 

He shrugged. 

“You do still act like it.” 

You shoved him, almost hard enough to push him off his seat completely. He shoved you back. 

“Shut up, Minnie.” 

He narrowed his eyes at you, plotting death for using the nickname he loathed above all others, and you sent a simpering smile back at him.  

“You’re a little squirt, anyone ever tell you that?” 

You rolled your eyes. 

“You, literally all the time, because you are for some reason desperate to sound like the oldest grandpa in the room.” 

He let out a growling sort of cry, dramatic because he’d also had too much to drink. Then he stood. 

“BYE, Sixteen!” 

If someone didn’t know the two of you, it would seem as if nothing had changed in the time since you met: both antagonistic, unlikable, as hard as you could make yourselves, forced together and barely tolerating it.  

Those who did know you, however, knew that things were very different now. Minho had, reluctantly, taken responsibility for you and, when you had grown up just enough to realise what that had meant, you felt all your hard resolve melt.  

They had very little, this ragtag bunch of kids (barely older than you) but they shared everything between them. Never quite enough to go around, money from legitimate enterprises never stretching far enough and having to be supported by money from less than legitimate means. You were a liability. In every sense. The only girl, a stranger, certainly not (at that time) a criminal. But Minho took responsibility and the others let you in.  

When you had learnt to see past your own nose, you saw the myriad ways in which they took care of each other. The silent, invisible way Minho cared for his friends. For you. You hadn’t forgotten the sting of electricity you’d felt when he held your hand way back when. Before you’d even seen him, before you knew his name, before any of this. You felt it all the time now. You were a live wire for him.  

No one in the group was stupid enough to refer to you as siblings or even joke that you acted like them. Your feelings for Minho were your most closely guarded secret but that didn’t mean everyone didn’t know. You were pretty sure even Minho himself knew. Not that he would ever act on it. He pretended not to notice, you thought. You had pushed close to the edge of being kicked out enough times to know that some things were still precarious. To know that he would never risk his weird family by acknowledging there was anything more than friendship between you. If it even was between you. He had given you very little reason to believe your feelings were reciprocated. So you did your best to ignore them.  

They became a fact of life. Like the fact that Minho was the only one Chan trusted to count the cash (not because the others weren’t trustworthy; they just weren’t accurate). Like the fact that Chan had the final say on everything. Like the fact that he would never abuse that authority and act for anything other than the wellbeing of the entire group. It just was.  

And it wasn’t like you were stupid enough to pine. You had some pride. Plenty, in fact.  

You stood from the booth and sauntered to the bar where your sometime-boyfriend, Johnny, was getting another drink.  

“Babe,” you whined, draping yourself over his back, hooking your chin over his shoulder.  

“Babe,” he whined back, copying, mocking.  

“Entertain me, I’m bored.” 

“It’s your party.”  

You pouted and forced him to join you on the makeshift dancefloor. You refused to notice that Minho left it as soon as you joined, his face dropping, looking only at Johnny and never once pleased about it.  

* 

Chan had cut off the booze supply hours ago and the sun was thinking about raising its head above the horizon, which meant that, far from being wasted and happy and giddy and passing out in your bed, your hangover was already crawling in and you were tired and irritable. Johnny had pissed you off sometime before the booze dried up and then pissed off entirely before you’d begun to sober up, so you’d spent the smallest hours of the morning making your bad mood everyone else’s problem.  

Everyone except Minho. Because whilst you were always determined, at these moments, to needle him, to want to get under his skin, to want to scrape it back and spit on it, he was never there. He managed to avoid your venom and, even when he didn’t, seemed immune. He would just slow-blink at you as if he were looking through you and turn away. It boiled your blood and he knew it.  

You stomped downstairs to the same shithole basement you’d walked into two years ago. Everyone else had either left or gone to bed already, you thought. You expected it to be empty. It wasn’t. 

“Fuck sake, Mouse,” you spat, using your usual nickname, his preferred one (… preferred being too strong a term; it was the one he allowed you to use without retaliation). “Why are you sitting on your own like a fucking loser?” 

“You know he treats you like a fucking loser?” 

He turned to lean over the back of the sofa, looking tired under his eyes but energetic within them.  

“Fuck off,” you returned. “As if you give a shit who I date.” 

“Date? That’s what you call it?” He scoffed, deliberately, exaggeratedly, as if you wouldn’t otherwise have recognised his scorn. “He treats you like dirt.” 

“You would know.”  

He was on his feet and in front of you before you could blink.  

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”  

You’d had about enough of it, you decided at that moment. Not enough sleep, too much alcohol, and just enough of this bullshit. You grabbed the front of his T-shirt and pulled him with force towards you. You took him by the back of the neck and kissed him, hard and like you meant it. Because you did. It only took him a second to push you back, hands firm on your shoulders, holding you away from him. His face had lost his usual mask – the blank, passive, flat-eyed one that he used to stare people out with unnatural stillness – but he was still keeping you out; it was guarded, flashes in his eyes being stamped out with every blink, his jaw held tight and his mouth shut.  

“That’s what I fucking mean, Minho,” you hissed.  

“How dare you?” he hissed back, voice so low in his throat you almost couldn’t hear it. “You have no fucking idea.”  

His blinks weren’t quick enough this time to hide all the anger burning in his eyes.  

“No idea of what? What?!” 

His lip curled and he let you go. He let his guard down around you more than he should have: shrugged you off and turned his back on you. You took both palms and pushed him. He tumbled forward, catching his foot on a side table, pulling it down with him as he hit the floor. Cat-like in his reflexes, he was on his feet before the table had stopped rocking. He charged straight at you and continued until you were pressed up against the door, until he was pressed up against you.  

“You want a kiss?” he asked and every part of you should have been screaming yes, because you did.  

You did want a kiss, but nothing about this was how you wanted it. It was a threat, not an offer. You’d been threatened with worse. You jutted your chin out a little, always standing up, never backing down. 

“You going to give me one?” 

His eyes flicked towards your lips, hovered there a second, like he was really thinking about it. They stayed there a little longer and doubt was picking up speed on its race to your consciousness. You thought he wouldn’t. You thought he would. You still couldn’t predict his behaviour. You thought you had him pinned and then he flipped you. You always thought you had him on the ropes, but you never really did.  

You were impatient, tiring of this, doubt and insecurity and embarrassment swelling up inside you and you opened your mouth to tell him to go away, to fuck off and die, to do something vile to himself. It was at that moment that his eyes met yours again, for a split second that sent a streak of ice through your blood, and then his mouth was on yours.  

You had never once looked a gift horse in the mouth, but even if you had wanted to, even if you had decided before he did it that you would push him off, return his rejection, you couldn’t possibly have done it now. His lips were soft, his hands still tight around your arms. He crowded you further against the door, your bodies pressing together as he swiped his tongue against your bottom lip, asking for entry. You gave it to him. Your hands snaked up his chest and into his hair; it was softer than you’d expected, silky. For a moment, you were disarmed by it. Soft. He never let his softness show if he could help it. Only rarely. Only when he felt safe enough to let his guard down did it ever come creeping out from its hiding place. But here it was, sprouting from the top of his head. Here it was, pressed against your lips, brushing your tongue. You felt weak at the knees. 

As far as kisses go, it was the best you’d had. Fire and ice fighting: goosebumps erupting on your skin as it flushed hot, making you shiver. His mouth was warm and wet and sweet and you were desperate for more, knowing that he was kissing you just right and that you weren’t doing the same. You were too eager, too greedy, too needy. This wouldn’t be enough. Couldn’t be enough. Just his lips on yours, his tongue rolling with yours, his hands still pinning your sides. You couldn’t stop here. You had to have him. All.  

You whined when he pulled back, when his grip on you loosened, and you opened your eyes expecting his to be soft and liquid, to be those sweet, round boba eyes he didn’t show enough of.  

They were hard and flat. He moved away from you in one, long step and back was that impassive blankness he loved so much. 

“Happy fucking birthday,” he said. 

He stalked off to his bedroom and shut the door.  

You stayed, glued to the front door, shaking. With anger, probably. With embarrassment, maybe. With something akin to heartbreak, but you would never admit it. The roaring in your ears, the screaming of invective at both yourself and Minho in your head so loud that you didn’t hear the sound of a key in the lock, weren’t aware that someone was trying to get in until they were shoving at the door, pushing you with it. 

“What the fuck?” came a quiet whine from the other side of it as he slowly pushed you away and got the door open. “Why were you trying to keep me out?” 

Jisung’s hamster cheeks were full of kimbap, the other half of the roll still in his hand, and his eyes were wide with that cute, pitiful look he carried off so perfectly. 

You ignored him. You stomped into your bedroom and slammed the door as hard as you could. 

THIRD 

Despite having your own bedroom (graciously offered up by Changbin and very ungraciously accepted by you), privacy in the small basement flat was an issue. Which is why you were huddled in the farthest corner of it, fists stuffed in your mouth, crying as quietly as you could in the dead of night.  

You lived with five men, but you had not yet found someone to date who would take the threat of them seriously. They did make threats, on occasion, when they had to. Because you had not yet found a man who could treat you as anything more than shit but you had, apparently, found the least bothered and most unfazed men in the city. The one before last had barely flinched when all five of them had battered down his door to come for you, when you had finally managed to get a message out that he was keeping you there.  

You never found out what happened to him. You didn’t ask and no one told you.  

This one hadn’t been that bad. That was the problem. You had thought he was nice. You had thought (as you had so many times before) that he might actually be the first to treat you right.  

You were wrong. So, you were crying in the corner of your room. You didn’t always cry. In fact, you didn’t often cry. Rarely, even. It meant that, when you did, the floodgates opened and you found it hard to stop. You found it almost impossible to breathe, desperately snatching air between sobs. Your head was already pounding, your face aching. It was total and complete the way it overtook you. So much so that you didn’t notice the presence of another person until they sat down beside you. 

You gasped, as much as you could amongst your shaking, shallow breaths, and were only slightly comforted that it was him. He said nothing. He pulled you towards him and held you like that until the storm had passed. 

You continued to sit in silence as your tears dried on your face, as your heartrate settled and your breathing became even. He didn’t make a move to let you go and you didn’t make one either. You were tired. You were sad. You were, though you wouldn’t admit it, a little bit heartbroken. This bit of comfort was exactly what you wanted.  

You didn’t want him to say anything. You didn’t want to hear it. That you’d done it again. That you’d never learn. That, somehow, you were gullible and easy to fool despite the fact that you had been hardening yourself against vulnerability of every kind since you were a child. That men just found a way to get beyond your defences—that bad men found a way. The good ones didn’t find you at all.  

“His loss,” was what he said. 

You lifted your head, tears still clinging to your lashes, drying on your cheeks. He had that look on his face that he saved for you: the soft, sweet one he gave you when you’d earnt it or when you needed it. The one that made your insides curdle, that even now made your heart skip a beat, that you wanted to fall into forever, that had sealed your fate so many years ago now. He blinked slowly at you, cat-like as always, and brushed your hair from your face.  

You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came. Your voice was trapped in your throat because he was still looking at you like that but his eyes kept flicking down, then back up, then down again at longer and longer intervals until he closed them completely and brought his lips to yours.  

You didn’t have to think twice. Didn’t have to think at all. Your body did the thinking for you. Your hands pushed into his hair and your legs pushed you up so you could slot them down either side of his hips. His hands found your waist and then the soft skin on the other side of your t-shirt. 

This was nothing like the first time. You remembered it all too well: the electricity, the anger, the volcano of feelings you’d tried to suppress rumbling and threatening to erupt, to blow the lid off the equilibrium you’d found. The hunger, the desperation, your own neediness spoiling it all.  

You weren’t desperate anymore, for his approval, for his love, for whatever he would give you. You wanted it all, would lay yourself on the floor and kiss his feet if he asked, with no hesitation, but you always knew he wouldn’t ask. You’d got used to that.  

Except now he was kissing you – he had kissed you – and his hands were squeezing at your waist and it was slow. Controlled. Deliberate. There was nothing accidental about the way his tongue rolled over yours, the way his teeth bit at your bottom lip, the way his hands pulled you lower on his lap, pulled you closer to him until there wasn’t so much as a breath of air between you.  

“Mouse,” you murmured, quietly into his mouth. 

He shook his head minutely, a tiny hum swallowed by you when he pressed your lips together again. No talking. Fine. You didn’t need to talk. If he kept kissing you, kept touching you, you wouldn’t need to utter another word again. But you couldn’t stop the little gasp when he sank his teeth into the sensitive skin of your neck, the moan rising in your throat when he ran his tongue over the same spot, hurting then soothing. Like always. 

It made your brain turn fuzzy, static wavering in your mind, as all your conscious thoughts turned to liquid, melting into Minho’s mouth, swallowed down by him, eaten whole.  

Then the front door slammed hard. 

“Guys!” Chan shouted, in a way that he never did.  

You heard him pounding on doors, opening them, starting with Changbin and Hyunjin’s on the right.  

You sprang apart like two north magnets, instinctively repelled by one another, just in time for Chan to burst through the door and scan the room for you, too wired, too stressed to register that it might have been weird for you to be sitting on the floor like you were, certainly not noticing your kiss-bitten lips or heavy breathing or the way Minho’s hair was ruffled like it had just had a fist in it.  

“We’ve got to go,” Chan announced. “Like, right fucking now.” 

FOURTH 

No one wanted to up the ante. No one wanted to start getting involved with the organised crime lot. Your crime was… disorganised. It was local. It was just you doing the things you needed to, skirting around the law to survive. It wasn’t really crime, not if you squinted hard enough. Then the police raided the bar (which was illegal in pretty much every way that mattered) and you had nowhere left to go.  

There was just enough of the trust your parents left you (which you got access to at 21) to secure a new apartment (one that was not underground) and a small buy-in with a group of much larger, older, more experienced criminals. There was very little else you could’ve done at that point. Or so you all told yourselves.  

The apartment was an upgrade in every way but size. It was newer and above-ground which meant it stayed warm and didn’t get damp. It had windows which let the sun in. It had enough room for two sofas so everyone could sit comfortably. It had a gas hob which really only Chan and Minho cared about, but they cared a lot. It had two bathrooms with reliably hot water and good pressure. It did not get power cuts. It did not always smell musty. It was not brown and beige and grey. But it did have fewer rooms to be parcelled out between you all.  

The last one had four rooms that served as bedrooms. This had three. Between six. There had been furious arguments and endless straw-pulling and no one was happy with the results. It took a few weeks but eventually things shook out as they always should have.  

You shared with Minho because he was the only one who was willing. You both had reputations for being scary (in totally opposite ways: you the raging bull to his still, fathomless water); you loved to take your bad moods out on one another; he was the only one you ever willingly let see you when you were sad and small and vulnerable. Besides which, no one else would dare try to take the space at your side from him. So you shared a bedroom: two twin beds on opposite sides of the room, because Minho refused to sleep in a bunk bed and you refused to sleep together in a double. There was little room for anything else.  

You complained about the sleeping arrangements almost daily. You loved the hot water and the sunlight and the not-mouldiness of the apartment, but some days, you couldn’t bear the way you couldn’t get away from Minho.  

You’d thought you had it bad. This was even worse. 

Four days. Four days, so far, staying (squatting) in a vile, empty, dilapidated villa apartment, staring out of a window, waiting for something to happen. Just you and Minho and one room. For four days and counting.  

It was Minho’s turn to watch and he sat at the monitor, diligent, hard-working, as always, whilst you were supposed to be catching up on sleep. Instead, you were lying on what passed for a bed, tossing an apple into the air and catching it, over and over and- 

“You going to stop that?” Minho asked, with his trademark tone: both light and threatening.  

“Nope!” 

“Want me to make you?” 

You flicked your eyes over to him: he was studying the monitor seriously, but you were sure he had been looking at you.  

You hadn’t spoken about that night. Partly because you hadn’t had the time. You’d jumped up from the floor of your bedroom, grabbed as much stuff as you could fit in the first bag you could find and the six of you had legged it, making it out just in time to watch the police cars roll up and trash the place.  

“There was so much fucking money in that safe,” Chan had said, plaintively, staring at the sky. That was when you’d offered up yours.  

You had had to find somewhere to live, and fast. You’d all had to find jobs, something to do, some way to make money that wasn’t connected to the bar. You had been passing like ships in the night, meeting only to argue about shower time and sleeping arrangements. Then Changbin had come home with a suggestion. You’d argued about that, too, but in the end, it was unanimous. Go in with the bigger boys or – well, there was no ‘or’. That was the point. 

So you and Minho were working recon. You’d pulled the short straw in more ways than one. It was the longest you had spent together. Ever. Confined for days in this space. 

On the first day, he refused to talk to you at all.  

On the second, you made everything into an argument because at least you could get a rise out of him.  

On the third, he had seemed to thaw. Something had softened and you talked, like friends, like you used to. You laughed and joked and it wasn’t so bad. 

Now it was the fourth day and that ice had returned. He had frozen over, doubled-down on silence. No sooner had you had warmed up than he was giving you frostbite, chilblains. Whiplash. Those ten words were the first he’d spoken to you all day.  

“No,” you answered. “I don’t want you to make me.”  

You paused, wondering if the words you were considering were a sign that you were going mad, that being cooped up in this space had sent you a little doolally. The unbearable nothingness of your days passing like sludge forcing all those hidden thoughts forward, with nothing to distract you from them. The words were certainly risky, but Minho had shown his hand. He had kissed you. Like he meant it. And you knew he would’ve continued to kiss you had Chan not interrupted. He’d have continued to do a whole lot more than just kiss you. 

And you were bored.  

“I want you to fuck me,” you said plainly, catching the apple in front of your face and turning to look at him.  

He was still studying the monitor. Nothing on his face gave anything away: surprise, disgust, lust, laughter. Nothing. You were used to that. 

“We’re on a job.”  

“Yeah, and it’s boring and nothing is happening and who fucking cares? I would rather have sex.” 

He sighed and rolled his head to look at you. 

“Really, Sixteen? Now is the time you want to bring this up?” 

“Stop calling me Sixteen.” 

“I always call you Sixteen.” 

“You always call me Sixteen when you want to put me in my place or make me feel like a child. I’m not a fucking child anymore.” 

“I know you aren’t.” 

“Then why won’t you fuck me?” 

He laughed and your blood began to simmer.  

“There’s more that I look for than just ‘is not a child’.” 

“Don’t try to act like you don’t want to.” 

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.” 

“Well then, shall we?” 

He smirked and the glint in his eye was new to you.  

“We’re on a job.” 

“Stop saying that!” you cried, stalking the three steps from your side of the room to his.  

You manoeuvred yourself into his lap, blocking the monitor from his view, and took his face in your hands. 

“We’re on a job and nothing is happening and nothing will continue to happen for ages yet, so why don’t we make it a little less fucking boring?” 

You knew he wanted to. Could see his pupils dilate. Watched his eyes flick to your lips and your chest and back up. This might have been all he wanted: sex and nothing more. You didn’t know. Weren’t interested in having that conversation. Were convinced that it didn’t matter either way. If he only wanted sex, you would give it. Give it until it was too late and he was in too deep to come back out. Hadn’t worked before but there was a first time for everything. 

But even that was beside the point. You were desperately bored and bored of being desperate for him and there was one stone that would kill both those birds.  

“Mouse,” you said quietly, keeping your voice low, as you placed a kiss on his jaw, as you spread your knees a little wider, sinking lower into his lap. “Come on.” 

His hands were on your thighs, neither encouraging nor discouraging, just holding tight. He didn’t respond as you continued to press kisses to his face, to his neck, grinding your hips over him slowly. You could feel his pulse beat fast, noticed the way his breathing was getting heavier, his fingers dipping deeper into your skin, until it hurt. Until he stopped pretending he was going to continue to work, stopped pretending that he could resist you.  

“Fuck,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. 

He gripped the hair at the back of your head and pulled you from his neck, tumbling you both to the floor. You didn’t want it to be fast, but you’d take it any way he’d give it. So when his hands pulled at your t-shirt, you let him take it off as you unclasped your bra. He didn’t give you time to fumble with the hem of his top, to discard it for him; he dipped his head straight down, swirling your nipple with his tongue, sucking it into his mouth; he rested his weight on one elbow and his other hand descended. You were grateful you had no buttons, no zips to contend with, just the loose, elasticated band of a pair of leggings that had seen better days. Minho’s fingers slipped beneath it and he circled his fingers around your clit, the fabric of your underwear dulling the sensation only slightly.  

This was moving even faster than you’d expected but you’d been waiting so long already. Blood rushed to the surface of your skin and your breath began to shudder. Underwear now pushed to the side, you gasped when Minho ran a finger through your folds, shivered when he moaned at what he found there. He brought his lips back to yours but you turned away to let his name drop from your open mouth. 

“Mouse...” 

“Shut up,” he said firmly as he sank two fingers into your slick cunt and stole your breath with another kiss.  

You couldn’t talk but you could moan. Could whine. Could whimper as his fingers moved inside you, as he ground his palm against your clit, as he made your thighs twitch and walls spasm. You tried not to lose your mind completely, to stay grounded, to stay present now that this was finally, really, actually happening. You reached your own hands down to Minho’s trousers; he hadn’t got the no-buttons, no-zips memo and your fingers fumbled with both. They shook with adrenalin as you popped the button through the hole and dragged the metal zip down. You pushed them away from you, off his hips, and had one hand in his boxers when the crackle of the walkie-talkie cut through Minho’s moan. 

You both froze.  

“Minho? What’s happening? Chan said they’re on the move?” 

You glanced at each other, for one more frozen second, and then the world lurched into overdrive. Minho clambered to the monitor with his trousers around his ankles and, as soon as he saw the screen, started swearing viciously, tugging at his clothes and throwing your t-shirt back at you.  

“What’s happening?” you asked, breathless for all the wrong reasons now.  

“They’re clearing out,” Minho reported into the walkie-talkie, ignoring you but answering your question anyway. “Two loads have left, a third on its way.” 

“Shit! How did you miss it? What the fuck were you doing?”  

“Nothing! We lost the feed for a minute but it came back quickly and then they were already moving.” 

He shot you a glance, something between panicked plea and angry admonishment. It wasn’t often he was caught on the hop, wasn’t ever. You, however, were used to being on the wrong side of things, so you re-dressed quickly and had already started packing your shit up. No matter how sideways this went, you could take two positives from it. One, you wouldn’t have to stay locked up here with Minho any longer. Two, he definitely, definitely wanted to fuck you. 

FIFTH 

You still hadn’t talked about it. You continued to share a bedroom, sleep there every night, wake there every morning but you had not once discussed the twice now that you had almost had sex. You were waiting for him to bring it up, even though you knew he never would. He wasn’t a coward, not ever, but if there was one word to describe him it was loyal and you knew he would protect your group with his life. And that also meant not pursuing whatever it was that was between you. Because it was a risk. It could jeopardise the stability of what you had established—what Chan had established long before you ever came into the picture.  

But you were digging your heels in this time. You’d already come on too strong. Your pride was being wounded with each day that passed, with each day that he continued to pass you up. You’d crack first. You knew you would. You always did. Minho was unbreakable. You weren’t. But you wanted to pretend, for at least a little while, that you could be. That you could be impenetrable, too.  

* 

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” Junho repeated as he slammed into the car, instructing Minho to drive before the door was even shut.  

Minho didn’t need telling twice.  

“Where to?” 

“Safe house,” he gasped, ragged breathing setting your teeth on edge. 

You didn’t ask what had happened. What had gone wrong. That didn’t matter as much as getting out. Getting Junho out. You were disposable, still. You knew that. Even Minho. You were runts; you also still had something to make up for given what happened on your last assignment. So you travelled in silence. Junho in the back, breathing heavily; you didn’t turn around to see if he was ok. You didn’t want to know. You assumed he wasn’t but as long as you could hear him breathing, you knew he was alive.  

Minho was facing forward, eyes scanning the roads ahead, reflexes allowing him to run red lights without accident – in this part of the city, no one would stop a flashy car like this for speeding, for driving recklessly. That was what they all did. His jaw was tense, eyes tight. He looked calm but you could see his little legs kicking under the water. You knew him well enough by now.  

You didn’t keep your eyes on the road. You kept them on him. Felt like someone needed to be watching out for him, too – not that there was anything you could have done to be helpful anyway. There were always two in the getaway car. That was the rule and you didn’t ask why because you didn’t want to know the answer.  

As a teen, you had thought you knew everything. You were old enough now to know not only that you knew nothing but also that you preferred it that way. Need to know basis. For everything. All the time.  

Minho slowed, driving more carefully as the car left the city, winding across hills, negotiating turns that you’d have driven straight over, plummeting you all to a miserable death. He turned the headlights off at the mile marker he’d been told about, one that you’d already forgotten, and crawled, slower still, up to the house, blanketed in darkness, hidden by an overgrown and untended garden.  

Junho grunted. 

“Thanks. Wait until I give the signal then get the fuck out of here. Do not go anywhere you’ve ever met with us. Ditch the car when you can; destroy the plates.” 

He didn’t wait for a response. You watched him stagger away and then waited until the light in the top right room flicked on and off and on and off again.  

Minho put the car in reverse and slowly backed out. At a further mile marker, he turned the lights on. He continued to climb, driving away from the city still, until the car reached the top of the hill. The lights from the city were so bright you almost didn’t need the headlights at all. It didn’t feel a safe place to stop. Too visible.  

Then Minho slowly and quietly backed the car into nook on the hillside. No doubt worn away from years of cars trying to pass each other on the narrow road, it barely contained the car, but it put it in some shadow and no one would hit you.  

He turned the engine off and let his hands fall to his lap. His head tipped back against the headrest and he sighed.  

“You ok?” 

You asked him all the time and he never gave a serious answer because he always was. And if he wasn’t, he certainly wasn’t going to talk about it. But you asked all the same.  

He nodded then turned to you. 

“You?” 

You laughed nervously, suddenly feeling the last twenty minutes as the adrenalin began to drain. 

“Kind of feel like I could hurl.” 

He laughed too and nodded again.  

“I feel like I want to sleep for a thousand years but also like I could run a marathon,” you continued.  

“I feel half-dead already but also fucking invincible.” 

He held his hand out and it trembled. You clasped it between yours and held it tight. He smiled; from where you were sitting, it looked like a smirk, but then he turned more fully towards you and it wasn’t. It was sweet. His eyes were gleaming. Your mouth dried.  

“Half-dead, huh?” And you knew you were going to say it. You always knew you would be the one with which it would raise its head. “How about a little dead? A little death, even?” 

“Sixteen…” 

His voice had that warning tone to it but the gleam in his eyes remained and you’d broken the seal now. Were going to push this as far as he’d let you.  

“Mouse…” 

You saw him waver. Absolutely, definitely, were certain that he was considering it. Until a car came over the crest of the hill and its headlights flashed in at you; at the same moment, Minho’s phone buzzed from the cup holder it had been thrown in. You jumped. He jumped. Whatever moment there had been was gone now.  

Minho took his hand from your grasp and checked his phone. Then he put the car in gear.  

“We’ve got to get out of here.” 

* 

You expected it to be quick. Expected it to be simple. It turned out to be neither. You had managed to destroy the plates and were very near clear of the car you’d now abandoned when you, once again, found trouble (‘why did it always have to be you?’ you had asked yourself fleetingly as Minho shoved you towards your own piece of shit car that had been waiting for your getaway; he had not waited for you to be fully seated or your door to be closed before he slammed a foot on the accelerator and squealed off). The two of you were screaming around corners, tearing out of the city in whichever direction provided the easiest escape. With the headlights off and the city lights streaming into the distance, you could barely see the road in front of you, had no idea how Minho was still driving straight. You trusted him with your life and it was just as well, because it was in his hands. His, yours, and potentially everyone else’s, too. 

The summer sun was minutes away from popping its head above the horizon when you were finally able to return home. 

You sat in silence for a few moments. You had moved beyond exhaustion into this kind of frayed, wired alertness. You felt your eyelids dropping even as your heart still hammered. Minho’s hand found yours.  

“Mouse,” you said, letting the rest of it fall away unspoken.  

“Yeah,” he replied but you didn’t know if that was his answer. “Just give me a minute.” 

You were too tired to argue so you let silence fall again. You were almost dropping off, head just beginning to nod, when he tugged on your hand.  

“Come here.”  

You turned. You leant. His other hand cupped the back of your head and pulled you closer. He kissed you. Electricity crackled and a surge of energy rushed through you. It was happening again. He was kissing you. You couldn’t let this time pass by.  

You scrambled in your chair, forgetting to undo your seatbelt, being pulled back by it and swearing coarsely when your lips broke from his. You clambered over the gearstick and the handbrake and fell with one foot heavily in the footwell as Minho slid his seat all the way back. You didn’t have time to care about the jarring in your knee or the bump on your head as it hit the roof. Could barely feel it. Didn’t matter.  

Well, it didn’t matter until it did. Until there wasn’t really room enough for you to straddle him. Until you were pressing yourself up against the roof so there would be room for him to get his hands to his belt. Until you lost your balance and fell backwards, landing with bump on the steering wheel, which blared out into the dark dawn street.  

“Fucking hell,” Minho muttered. “Get in the back.” 

More willingly than you ever had, you did as you were told. He moved his seat forward again, all the way, and you watched him climb through to you, hands reaching for him. It was no less awkward. Not enough room to lie down. Still not enough height to sit. Not space enough between the back and front to kneel. It was messy and uncoordinated, grabbing for anything, taking what you could get, knocking into the window and falling off the seat, kicking and elbowing each other in a tangle.  

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Minho roared, in an uncharacteristic display of frustration. “No use. Not happening.” 

He sat back and sighed, trousers undone but still around his hips. He pushed his hands through his hair and you tried to settle demurely next to him, smoothing your own hair, zipping up your jeans, swallowing hard as you fought to accept that he was right. It was not happening. Not here. Not now.  

You stared through the car window and were sure you could’ve punched straight through it. You wanted to. It was the window, Minho, or yourself. Couldn’t effectively punch yourself. Knew you wouldn’t dare hit your mouse. Your fingernails pressed sharply into your palm as you squeezed your fists tightly.  

A hand covered yours. Gentle. You looked at Minho and there he was: your secret, soft guy. You unfurled your fingers and he linked them with his own. 

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s just go home.” 

FIRST 

You tramped into the apartment, bringing your bad mood with you. Everyone was sick of it by now – you were sick of it, but you couldn’t shake it.  

Minho was avoiding you. That much was clear. He had been avoiding you since you tried and failed to fuck in the car. You didn’t know why because you didn’t care. You had reached the end of your tether with the universe. Three times now. But still no cigar. You wondered – asked yourself a hundred times a day – what it was going to take to make this happen.  

Frustrated didn’t even begin to cover it. You could go out and hook up with whoever you liked. You could get yourself off just fine. But it ran so much deeper than that. If you pulled at the thread, it tugged on your heartstrings, all tangled up in knots. It hurt. It pulled at something so deeply interwoven with your very being; all anyone had to do was follow it to its source and they could destroy you. All anyone had to do was cut it and they’d cut you, too.  

You didn’t like that. Hated it, in fact. Hated that all this tugging and wiggling had opened up a hole and you could feel your vulnerability exposed. You could feel weakness leaking out of you, seeping from your pores, visible to the naked eye, for anyone to see.  

It made you bitter. Made you angry. Made you lash out even when you shouldn’t have. Because you were always on the defensive. Even now. Especially now. 

You knew the others were talking about you. About Minho. About the two of you. Knew it from the awkward silences when you walked in a room and the furtive glances and the group chat that had grown curiously quiet, leaving you to assume that there was a separate one you weren’t a part of.  

You were beginning to lose your patience and you were not starting with a plentiful supply.  

You lay on your bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm your rage. You had woken with it, just like every other day this week, and it would not leave you. You breathed slowly and carefully and tried to think of difficult and boring things.  

You thought only of Minho.  

Then he opened the door. He hesitated – you could feel him standing there, assessing – and then shut it, leaving you alone. As the door clicked, you felt that tug. You felt the knots tighten, so impossibly tight now that the joins weren’t even visible. You jumped up and threw yourself through the door. 

“Stop fucking ignoring me!” 

You hadn’t meant to shout.  

Minho turned and looked at you. His stillness enraged you further. He didn’t say anything. 

“Are you going to fucking say anything?!” 

“What do you want me to say?” 

“ANYTHING! You haven’t spoken to me for weeks! You literally walk out of rooms if I’m in them! What the fuck is wrong with you?”  

“You think this is easy?”  

His voice was cold and sharp as steel. His head cocked lightly to the side and his eyes narrowed, peering at you, looking inside you.  

“You think I want it to be like this?-” 

“I don’t know what you fucking want!” 

His nostrils flared. This delighted you. He was annoyed and you loved it. 

“Not once,” you continued, still shouting because you couldn’t rein it in, “have you ever fucking told me. Not once have you ever actually said what you want! That you want me. Do you? Fucking do you? Because I don’t fucking know anymore! Every time we get close, you get further away from me! I’m not a fucking yo-yo, Minho. You can’t play with me-” 

“Play with you? You think I’m playing? What part of this is a game?”  

His voice was rising now, too, his perfectly blank mask slipping. 

“It’s never been a game, Sixteen! Not once in the entire time since we met has it been a game! How are you still not getting it? Junho almost fucking died and if he had, it would have been our fault! We all almost ended up in prison because of the fucking bar. The night we met you almost got yourself trafficked! It’s not a game! You act like life is so fucking simple! It’s not!” 

“IT IS! It can be that fucking simple! Stop overthinking! Stop taking everything so fucking seriously!-” 

“It is serious! That’s what you don’t get!” 

He was close now, had been inching closer and closer, and he was looking down at you, his eyes black as pitch, his jaw tight, his breath struggling through clenched teeth.  

“You don’t get it and you never have.”  

His voice was quiet, back to that steel that sent a chill down your spine.  

“Everywhere you go, I look out for you. Everywhere you are, I am responsible for you. It’s been nine fucking years, Sixteen, and you are everywhere I go.” 

Your vision tunnelled, stomach fell to your feet. You had to look away and hated yourself for it. You never flinched. You never backed down. You were never the first to retreat. Except for him. You couldn’t bear to look in his eyes, to see what loathing and disdain they held for you. Your embarrassment was on your cheeks already and pricking in your eyes.  

Then his nose nudged yours and he took more steps forward. He pushed you slowly against the wall and you cursed yourself for retreating to it. 

“You are in my life and in my bedroom and in my fucking head,” he whispered. “All the time. All the fucking time. And I haven’t been able to do shit about it because you are my job. You are mine to protect. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows I would burn this place to the ground for you. I would scorch the earth. I would drain the sea. For you. Don’t you get it? When it comes to you, I’m a fucking liability.”  

You risked it. A glance. Lifted your eyes for less than a second but you had to do it again. Had to stop there, be sure you were really seeing what you thought you were.  

Soft, round, liquid eyes. An openness in his face that he hadn’t let you into before. His mouth was still a grim line, turned down at the corners so slightly, had it been anyone but you, it would have gone unnoticed.  

“Mouse...”  

You tried to whisper but could barely manage that, his name creeping out on a hoarse gasp.  

He moved his face closer to yours, lips almost touching.  

“Don’t you get it?” he repeated.  

You got it. Because everything he said was true for you, too. You’d started out as a liability, for sure, but you had continued to be one because Minho was your north star. Not Chan. Not the group. Not whatever sense of purpose you might have derived from the life you had cobbled together. If he said jump, you wouldn’t ask a thing. You would jump. You’d been following him since day one and, then, it might have been desperation, a lack of options. Now... well, there was still desperation: a desperate need for him, a desperate desire to be wanted by him, kissed by him, touched by him. You had other options. Options you would never take, not as long as he existed. You would stop existing before you ever thought of leaving him.  

You nodded, feeling more like a foolish, vulnerable 16-year-old than you had when you were foolish and vulnerable and 16.  

He sighed, breath sweet with the pudding he could never resist, and you were closing your eyes, tilting your chin up, expecting him to give in.  

He turned away. You watched him, mouth agape in disbelief, as he pushed his hands through his hair.  

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” you screamed, bringing your hands down on his back in something that was half-shove, half-slap.  

He had whipped around before you could lower your arms and you found your wrists caught in his hands.  

“You don’t fucking stop, do you?” he hissed.  

“Why would I stop?! I don’t want to stop, Minho! And nor do you! You can’t say you don’t! Because I KNOW. I KNOW you want it. I know you want me. And I’m fucking throwing myself at you. Take me! TAKE ME!” 

His eyes were hard and dark. His fingers pushed so tightly into your wrists that you could feel your pulse against them. He was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring but lips shut tight, pressed together in a thin line.  

“Take. Me,” you repeated, level and firm, not sure if he would, but sure that, if he didn’t, things would never be the same again.  

You couldn’t do this a fourth time. Couldn’t put yourself in his hands, have him take you, and then... Not. And then stop. And then act as if you didn’t exist. That thread between you, tied up in your heartstrings, was taut, stretched, at its limit. And so were you. 

The pause was painful. Excruciatingly long. Adrenalin coursed through you, making you hot, making you shake, making your heart beat so hard against your ribs you thought they might break. Thought your heart might break. Hadn’t been willing to admit how fragile it was but it felt like venetian glass now. You could already feel the cracks forming, the web extending, the shards- 

He kissed you. Pulled you roughly towards him by your wrists and kissed you. Put his hands on your hips, then slid them under your top, and still kissed you. He was kissing you. It took a few seconds to slip back into your body, to feel it, the soft petal of his lips against yours, the sharp bite of his teeth, the wet warmth of his tongue. You forgot your shattering heart and grabbed his T-shirt, using it to pull him closer, to drag him into your shared bedroom. 

Not that he needed dragging. You stumbled over each other’s feet as you tried to kiss and walk and grope all at once. You tumbled backwards onto his bed and took the brief separation as an opportunity to lose your top, to unclasp your bra. Your hands were in the waistband of your joggers when Minho climbed over you, topless now too, breathless as he mirrored your actions, pushing his trousers and his boxers over his hips. He huffed a frustrated sigh as you giggled, as he stood back up to take them all the way off, to kick them off his ankles and take yours away, too.  

He didn’t give you time for admiration, for appraisal. He lay his body over you and his lips pressed against yours, quickly, firmly, before trailing them across your jaw and down your neck. He was every bit as vicious as you thought he would be, teeth nipping at your sensitive skin, sinking into your soft flesh. You wanted him to mark you, wanted the proof of it to last. You scraped your nails down his back and he hissed when you broke the skin. Hissed but didn’t complain. Hissed and moved his mouth lower, swirling his tongue around your nipple, sinking his teeth into that, too.  

When you tugged on his hair, he pulled off, looked at you, his face an open question. You shook your head. 

“It’s fine,” you panted. “I like it. I just want to pull your hair.” 

He laughed and clamped his teeth over your breast again, harder this time, so you keened and your back arched into him. You twisted his roots in your fist and he moaned, eyes flicking up to yours as he kissed across the valley of your chest.  

“Do that again.” 

“Fuck,” you gasped, tipping your head back, doing as he had asked and tugging hard.  

The ache you felt for him had ballooned inside you, taken up all your hollow spaces. There was your flushed skin and your fluttering heart, your rushing blood and your deep, persistent ache for Minho. Nothing more. Nothing less.  

“Mouse,” you whispered, voice tight with desire. “Touch me, please.”  

You never asked. You didn’t beg. If you liked a guy, you let them do what they wanted with you, and if you didn’t, you took what you wanted. It was always one-sided.  

But this wasn’t. It was Minho. It was the fathomless depth in his eyes as he lay his mouth all over you. It was the slip of his fingers through your soaked folds as he sucked sweet bruises against your neck. It was the sound of a moan caught in his throat when you wrapped your fingers around his hard, leaking length. It was mutual. It was reciprocated.  

It was burning you up, hotter and sweeter than you’d ever felt before. His fingers sinking into your core made you shudder with delight. The twitch in his cock as you brushed your thumb over his head made your mouth water. The sound of his mumbled sweet nothings pressed against your skin, whispered in your ear, licked straight into your mouth, made you dizzy.  

“So soft,” he said. “So wet... Fuck, you’re so fucking beautiful... I’ve wanted this for so long... Wanted you...”  

He used your name, your real one, the one he didn’t learn (didn’t ask for) for months after you met. You returned the favour, ‘Minho’ tripping from your lips, until he shook his head. 

“Mouse,” he murmured, mouth still pressed against yours. “‘Mouse’ is yours.”  

“Mouse,” you echoed and he nodded before kissing you so that you could say nothing at all. 

* 

You barely spoke, couldn’t catch your breath enough to form the words, couldn’t engage your faculties to find any to say. Minho spoke, though, more than you had ever heard him speak: praise and exclamation and remembrance and, yes, even admonition, but it was all so sweet, syrupy, dripping from his tongue like honey. You’d never heard him speak like this before, never had him melt in your hands or in your mouth, never felt him as easy and pliable as this.  

It wasn’t just his body. It wasn’t just the perfect smoothness of his warm, soft skin. It wasn’t just the stretch, the fullness, he made inside you, the insistent rhythm of his hips thrusting his cock tightly into your slick, waiting warmth. It wasn’t just his wet, sugary mouth, at your lips, at your jaw, at your clavicle. It wasn’t just all these things he was doing to you, all the things you were doing to him. 

It was his open eyes, round and shining and fluttering closed as your walls clenched around him. It was the tenderness in them, the depth he was letting you see, for more than just seconds at a time. It was the gentle tracing of your face with his fingers, even as he fucked into you, even as his teeth drew blood beneath your skin. It was Minho, the entirety of him. Yours. Finally yours. Finally giving in to you, giving himself to you.  

You got it. You had said you did and you had, but now, beneath him in his bed as he loved you, you actually understood the magnitude of it. His feelings for you. Yours for him. Held back behind a dam for so many years and now, the dam had broken. Now came the deluge that would flood the world, could drown everyone in it.  

To hell with them, you thought. To hell with anyone else. You found what you needed almost a decade ago. He found you. You found each other, somehow, by some miracle.  

When the pleasure swelled up in your core, toes curling, back breaking, you cried out with all the breath you had in your lungs, felt tears sting in your eyes, and the following inhale wobbled and shook. Minho paused, pressed his forehead against yours, kissed you lightly, didn’t have to ask the question out loud.  

You nodded and kissed him again, then again, each time hungrier than the last. You didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to feel anything but this, but him. He moved slower now, though, hips rolling smoothly, lips not leaving yours, even when he spoke, even when he murmured how fucking good you felt, how much better than he’d imagined, how hard he was trying not to come, how he didn’t want this to end.  

You couldn’t take it. Thought you really would cry, thought you would collapse entirely under his weight, under the weight of everything you’d been carrying around, all these feelings: all this love and fear and frustration. He pushed you to the edge again without even trying, your red thread thoroughly tangled, inseparable now, and pulling a greater ecstasy from you than you had ever known.  

He couldn’t hold out either, his final, sharp thrusts filling you with his sticky release. You held him there, as close as he could be. He kissed you, so light it was barely there, his fingers grazing your face as he pushed the hair from your brow. 

“Mouse,” you choked, tears threatening your waterline.  

He kissed you again, that little butterfly kiss; you’d never seen him be this gentle.  

“Sixteen,” he whispered and, for possibly the first time, it didn’t sound like disdain, didn’t come accompanied by a smirk or an eye-roll; it was hushed and secret and just for you.  

As it had always been.  

* 

You lay on his chest, bodies pressed together in the small, single bed, as they would have been even if the bed were bigger.  

“I want some water,” he said, lips against your forehead before he manoeuvred himself out from underneath you. “Want a drink?” 

You nodded and he smiled down at you as he fetched clean underwear and pulled a T-shirt over his head.  

You watched him go, watched him open the door, and then heard the sound of party poppers, whoops, and applause.  

The apartment was empty. Had been empty when you entered your bedroom. In the midst of everything, you had failed to notice the gang return home. They had not failed to notice you and Minho.  

“Fucking finally!”  

“You mean, they finally fucked?” 

Laughter resounded from the living room. Minho turned around, closed the door, and climbed back into bed without a word. 

[nereidprinc3ss]

okay i know this is kind of a specific request but can you do something with professor Spence and uni reader where they get into a spat and argue bc she did something stupid and he gets mad and she’s like “noooo pls don’t be mad i hate when you’re mad at me I’m sorry🥺” bc she literally cannot function knowing she let him down (me with everybody) but he’s like super stubborn and goes all closed up and quiet so that he doesn’t like blow up on her until she finally says like “pls talk to me” and he’s all pissed and like “hell na bitch u crazy!🗣️‼️” but then later he’s like “it’s ok i love u but neva do that shit again ho” then they make up and it’s good again 🎀 ok i explained that so poorly (and comedically if i may) but i hope u get it and pls make it SO DRAMATIC bc I live for drama! like she steals test answers or something or does something that could like get her kicked out of school OR him lose his job 🤔 sigh … idk I’m leaving now. Also i LOOPOOOCE ORRKGOOVI love your fics. Luv em

hey girl (gender neutral) this made me laugh bc genuinely sometimes i write spencer so ooc that is what he sounds like. and i'm not sorry! anyway this is potentially a vyvanse fueled nightmare but i wrote it and i'm posting it MY BLOG MY RULES BITCHESSSS!!!! but genuinely read the content warning LMAO this one got a lil kick to it

warnings/tags: ANGST, HURT/COMFORT, fem!reader, spencer and r get into a for real argument like they're mean to each other, spencer is a lil toxic but its resolved, emotionally neglects reader just for a teeensy second but then he's really nice and sweet again, discussion of his past addic+ion, gets fluffy because i'm not EVIL, gets suggestive at the end bc i am secretly evil.......

a/n: i don't know whats happening. this confuses me just as much as it confuses you. its 3 am in the morning. im gonna post nice happy things soon. Gootbye

“I cannot believe you right now. I don’t even—I don’t even know what to say.” 

“Spencer, you don’t have to say anything. It has nothing to do with you, and I’m not looking for your approval.” 

He looks up from where he’d been rubbing his temples, like you’re a headache, eyebrows raised and lips parted in indignant disbelief. 

“Oh! You’re not looking for my approval? Well thank god for that, because if you were one of my students I would recommend expulsion to the board.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? I just said I don’t care about your opinion on this, much less your hypothetical opinion from some alternate universe where you have any authority over my education whatsoever.” 

“You distributed an answer key to half of your class! Objectively this is the kind of thing that gets people expelled. I don’t understand how someone so smart could do something so fucking stupid.” 

The words bite more than you were prepared for—but what hurts even more is how much he seems to mean them. In arguments past you’d both said things you didn’t mean, and then would immediately melt into I’m so sorry’s and the fight would resolve itself. Spencer’s clenched jaw and inability to make eye contact with you do not lend themselves to tender apologies. They cannot be attributed to miscommunication. 

You take a step closer to where he’s bracing himself against the countertop, arms crossed defensively in front of your chest. 

“Spencer, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. People cheat in college all the time.” 

Still no reply. His head shakes so minutely you wonder if you’re imagining it. Panic wells in your chest. 

“Please talk to me. I really hate when you ice me out. I’m sorry, okay? Just... please say something.” 

Finally, his eyes slide to you. They lack the fiery anger of moments ago but there’s not much softness there either. His normally warm gaze now feels too abrasive, too cold and sharp on your bare skin. You're exposed, much too soft for that grating look, and it feels like he can see everything that’s wrong with you. 

“Believe me when I tell you this. I am doing us both a favor by not speaking to you right now.” 

And then he’s leaving the kitchen—nothing but a breeze against your cheek and the sound of a door slamming to prove he was ever there. 

The apartment is silent. You stand in the middle of the kitchen, unsure of what to do next. Spencer very, very rarely gets angry at you to the point of neglect, and you know he’s doing his best with what was modelled for him as a child and his tendency to feel things so deeply it’s nearly disabling; but that doesn’t make it hurt much less. It doesn’t make you feel less abandoned or alone.  

You’re sad, and you’re still pissed, and maybe you’re in just a bit of shock as you robotically move back to your nest of blankets on the couch and resume your schoolwork. What else is there to do? Unless Spencer is right—unless you really are about to get expelled after getting the answer key for an upcoming test from a friend, who then gave it to another friend, and so on. But is that really your fault?  

It’s a struggle to stay focused as your mind keeps drifting back to Spencer in the other room, those cruel words and that cold steely look in his eye that isn’t supposed to ever be aimed at you. It’s not a secret that side of him exists, but it doesn’t belong in this apartment. It’s not something he needs to use against you. He’s supposed to be on your side. But instead, he’d said you should be expelled and essentially called you stupid. And now you’re doing homework for a class at a school you may not even be a student of come Monday. 

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

The sound of the office door opening forty-five minutes later spikes your blood pressure and simultaneously makes your heart flutter, because no matter how mad at him you might be, Spencer is still Spencer.  

He comes to stand behind the couch quietly, but you don’t acknowledge him. Maybe your typing gets a bit more aggressive, but aside from that you flat out reject his presence. 

“Can we talk?” 

You let him sweat for a minute as you finish your paragraph. 

“I don’t know, Spencer. Can we? Or are you not done with your temper tantrum?” 

“That is... well deserved,” he sighs, rounding the couch and tapping the bottom of your foot, signaling that he wants you to move your legs. You despise how automatically you comply, pulling your knees to your chest to avoid touching him as he sits next to you. There’s a long moment of silence, in which you resume typing. Spencer scoffs, leaning in slightly to peer at your screen. “Are you doing homework right now? I’m a complete asshole to you and you just... do your homework?"

“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?” you almost-yell, slamming your laptop shut and blinking away potential tears. “The only person I wanted to talk to called me stupid and fucking left!” 

The tears realize their potential once you admit the blunt truth. 

Spencer carefully moves your laptop and pulls you into his arms—and you just let him. There’s not much fight left in you. There wasn’t a lot to begin with. 

“I am so sorry, angel. You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have yelled, I shouldn’t have said what I said, I shouldn’t have walked away. I overreacted.” 

“Yeah, you really did,” you cry, allowing him to run his hand over your hair. “Why did you do that? Why were you so fucking mean?” 

His voice shakes slightly as he responds, betraying his own anxieties, and a new, unwelcome sense of trepidation slithers through your veins. 

“I was wondering that, too. Even as I was saying it, I knew—I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to be saying. And then I was in the other room and I wanted to be out here, and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t. But I think I was just scared. Which—I know, doesn’t really make sense, but... I think about when Ethan dropped out of the academy, and ended up doing heroin in New Orleans for three years, and I think about when I almost left the BAU because I was so convinced I’d never get clean that I didn’t even want to anymore, and—and the idea of you losing your education and your direction like that terrified me, probably unreasonably, and I took it out on you. And I’m sorry.” 

“But I’m not like you or Ethan. You don’t have to worry about that. Even if I... even I do get in some sort of disciplinary trouble. That’s a road you don’t have to worry about me going down, ever.” 

He fixes some unseen wrinkle on your shirt.  

“Yeah, but, remember... I used to not be like me or Ethan either. Do you think twelve-year-old Spencer would have ever even considered that of the infinite realities and universes which exist, he was living in one where someday he’d be shooting up in the bathroom at work?” 

“Mm-mm,” you hum, shaking your head and burying your face in Spencer’s shoulder. The sound is more of a plea for him to be less descriptive than an answer to his rhetorical question. It’s still much easier for him to talk about that part of his life than it is for you to have to actually imagine it. You didn’t know him then, but you’ve seen pictures, and you know Spencer now, and it’s... it’s just too much. Too sad. 

“Okay,” he agrees soothingly, still playing with your hair. “I digress. My point is that literally anything is possible, and while it’s not necessarily likely, I more than anyone know that anxiety even over the most improbable of things is never completely unfounded.”  

You sniffle in response, too emotionally and physically exhausted to contribute much to the conversation by this point. Thankfully, Spencer can talk for two. An idiosyncrasy which you love and comes in handy every once in a while. He can play his own devil’s advocate; in this case, you. 

“But that doesn’t mean I get to take it out on you. Ever. I truly, truly, sincerely apologize for that. I never want to hurt you.” 

You let the apology sink into your skin like a salve, soothing every abrasion those earlier words had left in their violent wake. 

After a few minutes, you find the energy to ask a question that might best remain unanswered. 

“Are you still mad at me?” 

He’s quiet for a beat, seemingly contemplative as his fingers trace abstract patterns in a language all his own on your arm. 

“I’m not thrilled. But you were right earlier. It’s not my place to be mad at you for something like that.” 

“Mm... it’s a little bit your place. You’re an actual professor.” 

He chuckles. 

“At an entirely different university.” 

“Thank god,” you laugh. “You and me at the same school would be such an HR clusterfuck.”

While it’s almost a serious matter, the smile in his voice is evident. 

“Yeah... I, uh... try not to think about it.” 

“Okay, but seriously. In your professional opinion. Am I fucked? Like, do I need to prepare an appeal and character witnesses or whatever?” 

Spencer sighs. 

“It was incredibly reckless and irresponsible. You should be ready for disciplinary pushback from the schoolboard if you get caught. That being said... because over sixty of you got a hold of the answer key, I doubt anyone is getting expelled, and even if they did, it would likely only be the TA and the student he gave the key to. It’s my tentative, professional opinion that you’ll probably be fine.” 

You relax slightly, allowing a tension you didn’t realize was there to shed like an old skin. 

“I’m not gonna cheat again,” you promise on an exhale. It’s simply too much risk for too little reward.

Spencer’s response is quiet, and comes much faster than you’d expected. 

“Oh, I know you aren’t. Because if you do, you’re going to have to worry about disciplinary action from me. And I’m not nearly as nice as the dean of your school, darling girl.” 

But something about the way he says it—a thinly veiled threat/promise contrasted by a sweet kiss to your forehead—doesn’t exactly make academic honesty look all that exciting.

[facefullofsadness]

May i request a bbangsaz mommy kink and degredation fic? With hanni as the top minji's too nice. Maybe a sprinkling of bondage? 🗣

sorry this one took so long, it was sitting in my head for a while. hope you enjoy it anon!

content - popular meangirls!bbangsaz x student!reader (high school!au), smut (threesome, mommy kink, degradation, slight bondage, loss of virginity, cunnilingus, fingering, forced public sex, edging)

wc - 1857

a/n - had to delve deep into my writer headspace to try and think of how to write this bc nwjns girlies are my SWEET BABIES! but but I can find my own way to write it, I'm just so cool like that ;)

kim minji and pham hanni, resident popular girls of the school.

conjoined at the hip and strutting through the hallways like it's their own personal runway. these two were known to actually be really nice and generous, volunteering together around the school and yelling at bullies that would corner defenseless students.

that's what you had heard anyway. so, it came as a total shock and surprise that they were the ones cornering you, a defenseless student in an empty classroom. the three of you were assigned to be groupmates for a project, but they were too lazy to carry their end of the work load. and instead of sucking up to just finish it, they threatened you to do it!

"c'mon y/n-ie, just do it and nothing bad will happen, I promise!" hanni was always known to be a sweet talker, even as she has her hands pinning your shoulders against the wall, pressing hard enough it hurt.

her voice dripped with honey but her actions stung like the queen bee she was. minji watched quietly behind her, the taller girl's arms crossed and humming through a pleased smirk that rest on her lips.

"j-just let me go! I-I'll do the work, but just let me go..." you plead with the shorter girl who you felt so small against, your hands clutching at her blazer.

"mm, I don't know now, I'm having some fun with you. what about you minji? what do you think?" hanni's sweet voice masked with malice.

"she's too cute to let go of right now, I agree," the long dark haired girl says simply, walking up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, "we can teach her a thing or two, bet she's a virgin."

the soft evil giggles from the other girl fill the empty room, "looks it! but she seems like such a whore. I mean why is her skirt so short? just asking to be taught a lesson. and her tits are practically spilling out! it only makes sense for us to do something about this."

it wasn't your fault your assets were busty and voluptuous that the school issued uniforms didn't fit properly, but to hanni and minji, it only fueled them on to punish you for how you slutted yourself out for the whole school to see!

hanni tearing your blazer off and ripping your shirt open, the buttons flying everywhere around the classroom. you felt as her hands flew up to trail your bare sides and slip under your bra, cupping your sensitive breasts.

"no! stop!" you whine desperately under the mean girl's touch.

"play nice hanni," minji calls from behind the girl.

the former rolls her eyes and scoffs, "oh please, you were the one that said you wanted to teach her something."

the latter sighs, "yeah, but a pretty girl hasn't asked us to stop before, feels a little wrong."

you shut your eyes closed at the feeling of hanni's thumbs rolling against your nipples as the two continue to talk, "she'll start to enjoy it soon, don't worry, they always do."

"isn't that right? you're just a doll for us to play with, aren't you?" she whispers lowly into your ear.

"not when you talk to her like that geez," minji comments again, hearing her voice get closer to the opposite side hanni was on.

you feel the tall girl's lips trail the side of your neck, leaving gentle kisses against it. you resist the urge to moan out at the feeling.

"ugh, I'm too impatient," hanni states before flipping your body over and pressing your front against the wall.

you feel her hands trail up your thighs and grope your ass.

you hear a genuine gasp followed by a sinister chuckle, "are you actually just a slut y/n? why are you just wearing underwear? did you want us to fuck you?"

her fingers trail across your slit through your panties.

"and you're fucking soaked! you're into this shit, aren't you? who would've thought such a studious goody two shoes virgin like you would be dripping at being treated like a whore by two popular girls! how intriguing!"

you whimper at her words and teeth nipping at your ear, hands on your thighs, pressing her front against yours and pinning you painfully against the wall.

"hanni please..." you plead out for nothing in particular.

it felt so wrong that you wanted her to stop, but it felt so good that you couldn't tell her to.

"hm? what was that? please what y/n? use your words," her digit presses against your hole while her thumb rubs your clit agonizingly through the thin and damp material.

"I-I'm... I can't, I don't..." you ramble, not knowing to say due to your dilemma.

"hmph, listen," you feel the girl's hot breath hit your neck as her mouth trails up until she's whispering in your ear, "I'll give in to what you want, what I know you want. my pretty little doll just has to call me mommy and I'll grant all your little dirty sinful wishes."

the smile you feel on your skin sends chills down your spine. how did it escalate to this?

"I..."

"y/n-ie, do yourself a favor and listen to hanni, it won't end very well for you if you don't, unfortunately," minji interrupts your thoughts.

"see? you know me so well!" the mentioned girl says, hearing her smile in her voice.

"I'm just looking out for the poor girl," she states with a pout.

"oh boohoo minji, she's literally fine. if anything, she's enjoying it! look at how wet she is," you feel the material of your underwear be pushed to the side before hanni's fingers slide through your entire slit, gathering your slick.

you bite your lip and muffle a moan at the contact. the short girl shoves her fingers towards the tall girl's face, showing her the sticky pleasure that dripped from your cunt.

"go on then, taste it, I know you've been dying for this too," hanni waves her fingers in front of minji's face.

the latter grumbles but proceeds to grip the latter's wrist, "I hate you by the way," she mutters before licking her fingers, slowly dragging her tongue along each digit, savoring your taste.

you rest your forehead against the wall and close your eyes, trying really hard not to look at the erotic scene occurring next to you. you feel a hand in your hair and it pulls your head backwards until you're facing the ceiling, neck exposed. your eyes shoot open at the action of teeth sharply sinking into your shoulder before retreating just as swift as they sank.

"hanni!" you shriek.

"please just listen..." you hear minji's desperate plea next to you, her hot breath hitting your sensitive neck.

"don't tease anymore, please..." you finally whisper.

"well, you know what to do then," the girl who bit you licks at the red marks that remain.

"m-mommy, please just... just fuck me..." you feel a tear run down your cheek, feeling embarrassed and vulnerable.

an amused giggle leaves hanni's mouth, a sweet but devilish sound, "that's a good little slut."

you're manhandled towards a desk nearby, hanni roughly bending you over it and flipping your skirt up. you wince a bit at the pain from hitting the desk, but it's quickly replaced by the feeling of your wrists being grabbed and held behind your back. you feel material bind your hands together (hanni's tie) quite tightly.

"don't panic, I'll give you exactly what you want," the girl behind you reassures (though you're not comforted).

minji comes into view in front of you, her hand under your chin holding it up to look at her.

"hi pretty. I wanna have my fun with you too, I don't think hanni should get all of you to herself," the girl caressing your cheek smiles.

she stands, hand cupping your cheek still. her other hand goes to lift her skirt up, exposing her dampened underwear. at that moment, you feel your own panties get pushed aside and fingers slide up and down your entrance.

"I'm gonna fuck your pussy while minji fucks your face! sound good?" you have no time to respond as you feel two fingers slip into your cunt.

your mouth opens to moan but is muffled by the girl in front of you shoving her clit into your face, her sigh filling your ears.

"use your tongue princess, come on," minji breathes out.

you obey, digging your face into the dark haired girl's core, tongue flicking over her clit and darting into her hole. you whimper against her as hanni's digits quicken their pace in you, her fingers curling to hit that delicious spot inside.

"ha, look at this slut! she's fucking moving by herself!" the girl behind you says amused.

you hadn't realized but she was right, your hips moved back against hanni's hand desperately, chasing your ever growing pleasure building in your stomach.

"ignore it angel, just keep going like that, it feels so good," the girl in your mouth sighs, her hand moving from your cheek to lace through your messy hair, massaging your scalp.

the whiplash between the two girls' attitudes towards you was dizzying. hanni felt like fire while minji felt like ice, one was vicious with her words while one was caring and careful with them. they must've stayed together for so long due to the opposites attract ideology.

your eyes squeezed shut at the slap that stung on your ass, the thrusting of hanni's fingers speeding up every second. you moan against minji's soaked pussy as another digit enters your clenching cunt.

"g-good girl, so good, feels s-so fucking good," minji mumbles above you, the grip in your hair tightening and pushing your face further into her.

"take it whore, take all of it," hanni behind you chants, feeling her place kisses on your ass.

"I'm so close," the tall girl gasps.

"hurry up, I want my turn," the short girl presses her thumb to your clit roughly.

"be- fuckkk... be patient, you've b-been playing with y/n this w-whole time," minji struggles through her sentence.

"so you can eat her out next geez, I'm looking out for you, you know!" hanni smirks before you feel her tongue drag against your entrance all the way back.

the vibration from your scream into minji's pussy has her clutching your scalp and stilling her hips, her moans fill the room and you feel her cum rush into your mouth. you drink all of it and give her kitten licks to guide her through her orgasm. her thighs tremble against you as your own legs shake from hanni's onslaught and abuse of your cunt. but it all suddenly stops when she pulls out her hand and slaps it against your clit a few times before pulling away completely.

you whine out a loud "no" in desperation, minji's hand combing through your hair to try and calm you down.

"don't you worry your pretty little lust filled brain dolly, we're just starting!"

all for a goddamn group project.

[fanfic-writer-and-rambler]

Cassandra Cain unintentionally sneaking up on people and their reactions:

Cass: Hi Tim.

Tim Drake yelps, dropping his coffee cup.

Tim: God! Can you give a heads up?

Cass, confused: I said hi when I was close to you. I was asking if you wanted to go half on the pizza?

Tim: Sure, but next time give a warning.

Cass: Hm... Noted.

...

Cass: Hi Dick.

Dick Grayson jumps, jumping into Jason's arms again.

Jason: Why is this your automatic reaction?

Jason drops his brother.

Dick: Ow, she's really quiet and it catches me off guard!

Cass, confused and saddened: I'm sorry... I wasn't intending to do that.

Jason: It's fine.

Dick: Just give a warning next time!

Jason: Calm down, you're acting like you saw a mouse.

Dick: Whatever.

Cass, hiding her true feelings: Hm... Noted.

...

Cass attempts to make her footsteps more noticeably loud as she walks over to Damian.

Cass: Hi Damien.

Damian jolts lightly, dropping his sketch pencil.

Damian: Sorry, my reaction wasn't okay. I'm just trying to finish my art piece and got into the zone- What's wrong, you look sad?

Cass, sad: It's nothing, I'm the one sorry for startling you. Just wanted to tell you that Jason and Steph switched for who would be with who, so I'll be with Jason and you'll be with Steph tonight.

Damian: Great I had to get the blabber mouth, thank you for telling me. Um, but are you sure you're okay? I wasn't upset about you sneaking up on me I get really into my art and-

Cass, thrown off by the comment: I wasn't... Sneaking up on you.

Damian: Oh, you usually do it with everyone. My mistake.

Cass nods, hiding her true reaction and leaves silently. Damian shrugs and returns to his drawing.

...

Later that night, Cass in her Batgirl Orphan suit meets up with Jason as he's in his Red Hood suit.

Cass: Hi Jason.

Jason turns to face Cass and he smiles at her.

Jason: Hey, it's good to see you. You ready to patrol?

Cass: You're not... Upset I snuck up on you?

Jason: Nah, you're good at it and I like how you greet everyone. I can't be upset at you anyway, I tolerate you the most.

Jason pats Cass (in her orphan suit) on the shoulder.

Cass sniffles, wringing her hands together.

Jason: What's wrong?

Cass: I don't mean to scare people when I'm behind them or unnoticed... My dad always taught me to be silent so that when you kill your target they'll never notice you... But I don't want to do that. I'm not doing what I do on purpose or as a trick... I-

Jason: Cass, it's fine. Come here.

Jason hugs Cass. Cass hugs him back, happy he wasn't against hugging her like he is with everyone else.

Jason pulls away.

Jason: I know you're not an evil ninja or whatever your dipshit birth father wanted you to be. You're... Cassandra. You're sweet and awesome. My brothers are the type to fall out of a chair when someone's phone rings too loudly so pay no attention to what they say and again your "sneaking" up on people is fine. I do the same thing too. We're the type of people who can make an entrance and escape easily when we don't want to be around people.

Cass laughs.

Cass: That's true. Um, thank you, Jason. I appreciate you being so nice to me about this. I needed that because while I can be a tough bad ass crime fighter... I don't want my family to fear me.

Jason, sympathetically: I get that, but we all love you and I could never imagine you hurting any of us.

Cass smirks.

Cass: I thought you tolerated me the most?

Jason: Eh, I love you too. Now you ready for a night of beating the shit out of bad guys?

Cass, taking a power pose: I am!

Jason and Cass run together, ready to fight. Meanwhile Barbara Gordon was evasdropping with a smile. She pushes up her glasses.

Barbara: My heart can't take the feels with them. Sucks that their communication devices 'glitched' out and I could only hear it... I love their dynamic.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Nena III

Barcelona Femení x Child!Reader

Summary: Your sister and her friends take you to the zoo

You wandered ahead of the group a little, kept close by the leash attached to your backpack that was held firmly in Ingrid's hand.

Patri walked with you, holding your hand tightly as she chattered on and on about the cool animals that you would see at the zoo today. She was wearing her light-up shoes just like you as Pina held your other hand, swinging them back and forth happily.

"Slow down a little," Ingrid called when she noticed that the leash on your backpack was straining as Patri and Pina picked up the pace.

"Hurry up, Ingrid," Pina laughed," We've got places to be."

She wore her light-up shoes too, stamping one foot for emphasis as you strained against your leash.

"It's the zoo," Ingrid replied," The animals are hardly going anywhere."

As she was speaking, Patri leaned down to help you out of your backpack and hoisted you up onto her hip.

"Patri," Ingrid said warningly," That's keeping her safe."

"We can keep her safe," Patri replied," Besides, it's not like she can wander off if I'm holding her."

Ingrid pointed her finger at Patri and Pina in turn. "One of you needs to be holding her at all times. No letting go. Not letting her wander off and no talking to strangers."

"Got it," Pina said dismissively before turning to you," Where do you want to go first, nena?"

You thought for a moment before pointing towards the reptile house. "Snakes!"

The three of your hurried off and Ingrid glanced to the side. "Ona, go with them."

"Huh? Why me?"

"I don't trust those two alone with her."

"And you trust me?!"

"Lesser of the two evils."

"Oh, gee, thanks, Ingrid."

By the time, Ona caught up with the three of you, Patri and Pina had already broken the rule of holding you because they were leaning casually against the glass of an enclosure as you stood in front of it - very pointedly not holding either of their hands.

"You're going to get in trouble," Ona said, panting as she joined you all," Ingrid said to hold her hand."

"We're not moving," Patri replied as you chattered to Pina in awe at the snake.

"I don't exactly think that's what Ingrid meant."

"She's happy. We're keeping an eye on here." Patri shrugged. "We're very responsible."

"Then where is she?"

"Right-Oh, crap!"

Just like Ingrid had mentioned, you had wandered off though only as far as Aitana, who did the responsible thing and took hold of your hand.

She stuck her tongue out at the three of them as she guided you over to look at the lizards.

"They change colour, nena," Aitana explained to you patiently as you stared with wide eyes.

"Like my shoes!" You exclaimed," That's so cool." You stared for a moment longer before looking at Aitana again. "Did you get light-up shoes yet?"

"I did, nena," Aitana nodded," But I didn't wear them today. They're still very new and we're going to be walking a lot so I didn't want my feet to hurt."

"That's smart," You said, holding Aitana's hand tightly as she let you stare at the alligator," My Ingrid says to make sure your shoes are broken in before you walk a lot in them. She says that her Mapi doesn't sometimes and complain about her feet hurting. Mapi's silly sometimes."

"Si, nena," Aitana laughed," Very silly."

You walked with Aitana a bit more before she left you with Lucy and Keira as she went to grab some snacks. Instantly, you were hoisted onto Lucy's shoulders and held tightly so you could have a look at the bear.

"It's a brown bear," Lucy explained," It's a carnivore. That means it eats meat."

"Cool," You said as the bear scratched its back using a tree," I like the bear."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. I've never seen a bear before."

"Well, I'm honoured to be with you when you see your first."

You giggled. Lucy was funny sometimes. She laughed too, carting you off to have a look at some other animals.

"Careful," Keira warned, catching you as you slid back off Lucy's shoulders into her arms," You could've hurt yourself."

"You caught me!" You replied brightly, weaving your fingers with hers and pulling her over to where the tigers were.

"I won't always be around to catch you," Keira tried to explain to you but you had lost interest in her excuses and pointed over at the tigers.

"Tigers go grrr," You said just in case Keira didn't already know," They like water too. My Ingrid says so 'cause she read it in a book."

Keira grinned at you, leaning down to your height. "Do you want to get your face painted like a tiger? Would that be cool?"

You nodded. "Almost as cool as my special shoes!"

You sat patiently while your face was painted but made sure to dart your eyes back and forth.

Patri and Pina both looked suitably chastised as your Ingrid threw them dirty looks, still holding your leashed backpack in her hands. Her Mapi stood right next to her, rubbing her arm gently and smothering a smile while Lucy was shoving food into Aitana's face and laughing at the disgruntled look she got in return. Ona was nearby, leaning up against the wall as she took disguised bites of the cheeseburger she was desperately hiding from Alexia - who had clearly already seen it and was debating whether or not to mention it.

In the end, Tia Alexia was the one who collected you once your face painting was done.

"Rawr!" You said to her," I'm a tiger! Rawr!"

"Very nice, nena," She complimented, holding your hand and guiding you over to look at the elephants.

"I like tigers," You continued, growing bored of the big animals quickly and tugging Alexia over to the more exciting ones like lions and leopards. "They're very cool! And they're stripy! Like my face!"

"You make a very good tiger," Alexia replied, pointing out a lion cub pouncing on its littermate's tail.

"Rawr!" You said again, holding your hands up like claws to emphasise your point.

"Wow!" A voice from behind said," That's such a scary tiger. Ale, we should let one of the zookeepers know that a little tiger got out!"

"Silly Mapi! I'm still me!"

She did a dramatic double-take, looking at you in shock. "Really? But you look exactly like a fearsome tiger!"

"It's me! It's me!" You insisted," Tia Alexia, tell her!"

Tia Alexia laughed," It's definitely y/n, Mapi."

Mapi gasped again before hoisting you up into her arms, staring at you to check. "So it is! What a fearsome tiger, you are, elskling!"

You grinned at her, happy to spend the remainder of the day with her and Tia Alexia, wandering around to look at all the animals.

You came back into contact with your Ingrid and the leashed backpack at the gift shop. She appeared out of thin air and, suddenly, your arms were through the straps and the leash was tight in her hand.

"Ingrid," You whined.

"Elskling," She mocked," I'm just keeping you safe."

You huffed, blowing all your air out and glaring.

Your Ingrid just pinched at your cheek, uncaring of the face paint now marring her fingers.

"Come on, elskling, no pouting, please. Don't you want a souvenir?"

Your pout dropped from your face and you allowed the leashed backpack to remain on your shoulders as you looked around the gift shop.

Today had been exhausting but in a good way with your Ingrid and her friends looking after you. All you wanted to do now was get a new toy and maybe have a nap in the car before dinner.

You yawned as you wandered around. Your Ingrid trailed behind you, reminding you that you could only get one thing.

You knew that of course (your Ingrid had told you that at the beginning of the day) but you wanted to make sure that it was absolutely perfect.

You ended up in front of the stuffed animals, looking over all of them with a critical eye.

"Have you decided which one you want yet, elskling?" Ingrid crouched next to you when she noticed that you seemed to be frozen in front of the shelf.

"That one!"

You pointed to the very top of the shelf, where a tiger was sitting.

Your Ingrid laughed, ruffling your hair. "Why am I not surprised?" She stretched to grab it, shepherding you to the cash register to purchase it.

With your new furry friend in your arms, you lagged slightly in your pace, dragging your feet as you left the zoo. You were yawning too so Ingrid easily hoisted you up onto her hip.

You blinked your eyes a few times, resting your head against her shoulder.

"Looks like the nena is a little sleepy," Ona laughed quietly as she watched your eyes slip shut.

"She'll have a nap in the car," Ingrid replied," But she'll miraculously have all her energy back again by dinner."

"Kids do that?"

"Yeah. She'll wake up and start doing laps around the apartment."

"How do you tire her out?"

Ingrid jerked her head over to where Mapi was taking a lot of care to not step on any of the cracks - even if it made her walk a bit like a duck.

"Ah, that would make sense."

[fanfiction4sooya]

Puppy Needs (Hybrid Yunjin x F! R)

I've been busy but i'm still here. Hope ya'll like it!!! 💖💖💖💖

cw: reader is a bit mean, queen bee r!, g!p yunjin, unprotected sex, biting, light cocwarming, creampie, yunjin is a fluff ball and a bit naive, etc.

She was getting on your nerves again with all that tail wagging and doe eyes staring up at you. Not that it would hurt to be stared at by her, if she ever took the step to actually do something or simply ask you out; but she was fucking distracting with her tall, strong figure and being stared that much was actually getting on your nerves. So since you are the pettiest person on the planet you acted mean towards her at any chance you get just because.

Of course she would get hurt just to stare at you with those puppy eyes moments later. Annoying.

All hell broke lose when, once again, you caught her staring at you in the lockers after swim practice. Was that thing really trying to hide herself behind the locker's door? What a loser. Cute, but a complete loser.

You decided you were going to make her talk.

"Huh Yunjin" You called her in a very stern voice, wrapping your body on a towel. Her ears went flat on her head and you rolled your eyes, taking a deep breath. "Come here, pup" You tried to sound more gentle, alluring. Her caramel ears perched up and she peeked from behind the door. "If you don't come here I'll go to you" You said, already marching to her direction.

"No no, don't come here please" She said and you stopped in your tracks. "I have a... problem" She said, still hiding.

"What is it, puppy?" You said, slowly walking towards her and she whined. That sound, that fucking sound made your insides warm. You gulped when she looked at you, her brown eyes beautifully teary in a way you were yet to see.

"I don't want you to see me as a freak" She sniffled, her cheeks a bit blushed.

"I already do, silly" you smiled, getting closer. You could feel wetness drip from your bare pussy. She made another whining sound and you understood you had to apologize. "I am sorry, I swear" You softened your eyes and your voice, finally reaching her.

She smelled good, freshly showered just like you.

"C-can you not judge me?" She said and you nodded. She finally stepped from behind the door, still staring into your eyes but pulling the front of her shirt down to cover herself. Looking down you finally realized what was going on, a bit surprised. "please, help me... I don't know how to stop this, please"

She was hard, painfully so. And oh, pretty girl was perfect. Your mind rapidly understood what she wanted. What she needed.

"Say it again" She lowered her head, staring at the ground.

"Please, help me" She repeated, the outline of her stiff cock very visible through the swim team uniform.

You smiled, an evil glint in your eyes as you stepped really close, staring up at her. Her tail wagged fast and her fluffy ears twitched.

"What do you need, puppy?" She licked her lips and you observed her gulp, the smell of your arousal pretty present in the air, specially for her hybrid nose.

"I need you..." Her brown eyes were pretty and pleading and fuck, you wanted her inside you.

Stepping closer you let her smell you, her tail wagging like crazy now as she bucked her hips towards you when she felt your skin touch hers. Cupping her jaw you pulled her down for a searing kiss, engulfing her completely into your warmth. She whimpered loudly against them when you palmed her cock through her shorts, smiling and licking her lower lip to make her shiver.

"Come here, big girl" you pulled her to the nearest bench, sitting her down. You pulled her hair slightly by the nape and she moaned, making you clench on nothing while you pulled her cock from her shorts. Looking into her eyes you spat on it, jerking her off slowly; that up and down motion was enough to get her on edge, you felt it in how her nails dug in your bare arms. "Don't you dare cumming now" you said, getting rid of your towel and standing completely bare in front of her.

"I don't know how to hold it, please" She moaned again, this time louder. You straddled her, slowly sinking on her pinkish cock.

"Fuck" You said, fitting the whole thing inside you. "I don't care, loser" You said, pulling her hair again and roughly kissing her lips. "you better hold it or else..." You didn't finish your sentence because she throbbed inside you and you literally forgot anything else.

Kissing her again you started grinding on her lap, that delicious friction on your clit combined with her whole length and her sinful moans were enough to get you embarrassingly close.

"It's so warm..." She whined against your neck when you started bouncing on her lap, you took both of her hands and place them on your hips, squeezing lightly for her to pick up the pace.

She blindly humped up, her cock felt heavy and so warm inside you it was like you finally put two puzzle pieces together . Not huge, not small; just perfect. You clenched when you felt her moans getting progressively louder, her angel like voice repeating your name over and over like a mantra, a prayer on the lips of a lost soul.

"feels so good" she whined, her big hands finally pulling your hips up and down to make you hit your climax even harder, fast like a bullet.

"I'm gonna cum, fuck" You tossed your head back, exposing your neck for her to lick and bite; her canines lightly scratching your skin.

Your climax hit hard and she was about to cum when you heard your friends calling for you, entering the lockers.

"WHAT?" You managed to say, covering her mouth with your hand as her glossy eyes stared up at you; you were cocwarming her so good you could feel it throbbing inside you.

"Oh, sorry queen bee" Chaewon said, still at the heavy door. "Where are you? We were all looking for you to-"

"I am about to finish but don't come here" You said. "I am just finishing something... embarrassing" You clenched on her cock and she closed her eyes, squeezing your hips not to moan or cum.

"oh, okay your majesty" She rolled her eyes. "Don't take too long" She said already leaving.

"Oh I definitely won't..." You smirked. You heard the door slam, lowering your hand from her mouth to her neck and squeezing it lightly. "Do you wanna cum, puppy?" She rapidly nodded, staring into your eyes. "You did such a good job baby, you deserve to cum" You said, starting to pick up pace to bounce on her cock again.

"Oh my god..." You heard her say, closing her eyes and impaling you on her cock repeatedly. "Cumming!" She screamed, her cum painting your insides. Thick and warm as you imagined, so much cum it started leaking from you without you even taking it from inside your cunt.

"Good girl..." You gave her fluffy ears a pat and she whined, her golden retriever tail wagging again. You got off her lap, her soft cock flopping all coated with her cum and yours. "Oh baby... come here" You pulled her to the nearest stall to shower her in a warm water.

You and her showered together, you washed her as she quietly stared at you. Her tall frame hovering over your smaller one. When you finished you helped her drying her ears and tail, then her blonde locks.

"I thought you hated me" her voice was small and unsure while you helped her put on a clean shirt.

"I don't hate you..." You started dressing yourself. "I hate that you are this gorgeous and kept staring at me without doing or saying anything. It fucking pissed me off" She smiled.

"you think i'm gorgeous?" her eyes shone.

"everyone does, you dork" you rolled your eyes. "And also a good girl who deserved a prize..." You bit your lip and she nodded, getting all excited again. "How about a baby blue collar and leash?" You said.

"yes yes, please" she pulled your shirt, jumping up and down.

"alright puppy, alright... let's see throughout the week if you really are a good girl"

You pulled her down for a kiss, feeling her cock stiffening again against your clothed tummy.

[thesilmarillionblog]

𓏲 𓂃 L o s i n g Y o u

Part:𝟷𝟸

Click here to read the first part.

Summary: Everything was good as a member of Payback and Soldier Boy's secret girlfriend until the team and your relationship with him began to fall apart due to a new member and her developing relationship with Ben right in front of your eyes.

Pairing: Soldier Boy / Reader

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 4624

A/N: English is not my first language.

* This story is inspired by the song "Losing You" by Dream Evil.

It was quite the struggle to train with Ben for a week, especially when he took it extremely seriously and pushed you to the very limit. It was not that he hurt you; it was that in the lab you either lost your will to fight or you just got really weak.

There were moments when you stated to Ben that things might get serious about your power, but he chose to ignore you and aggravated the training, which left you worn out. But you were relieved that he could, in his own irritating way, encourage you that your strength was still there.

Ben answered, “No,” right away when you wanted to stop the exercise.

Right now, the entire home was a mess, and the hole you had made in the wall remained.

“I'm tired here, Ben,” you complained as you fell to the ground, gasping for air. You had been there exercising together since the morning, and it was nearly the sun going down. Except when you needed to eat or pee, he rarely gave you a moment's peace of mind. “I mean it. I'm done.” 

You opened your hands wide on the ground, and he looked at your body while saying, “You're a supe; you can't just feel exhausted that easily.”

You blushed as you noticed him staring at your soaked entire body and replied, “Give me some break.” There's a good chance that you were both thinking the same thing. “How on earth can you find that much energy? Even for a supe, it's too much.”

Ben stared at you and then took off the shirt he had taken off hours earlier, wiping the sweat from his muscular chest. You grimaced, knowing you probably smelled like trash. 

“It's because I am the strongest; I am not just any average Supe.” With the most arrogant way possible, he threw his t-shirt back to the ground and said, “Simply better and more powerful than anyone. But don't worry; we'll return you to the way things were, sweetie. You have my word.”

He gave you a sneaky smirk when he saw you staring at his broad, sweat-damp chest. Ben was waiting for you, literally, from above, all the time you tried to get some rest. His eyes narrowed, and you suspected his head was full of filthy stuff. 

You just muttered, “I hope so,” and avoided giving him a glance as you closed your eyes.

He sighed and went down on the floor next to you, crossing his big arms over his head. 

“Don't think about it that much. You're going to do even better than you are now. Maybe we should just do those trainings more frequently. What do you say?”

“It’s fine. I don’t have another choice anyway,” you replied, cutting it short while keeping your eyes closed. Even if you felt his intense stare on your face, you didn’t react. “What did the doctor tell you, by the way? The one who supervised Compound V's improvement for decades?”

You remembered that there was a lot of discussion following the news that Ben had killed him at his home. You kind of hoped you could have dealt with that cruel piece of shit on your own, though. He was just a monster with a white robe. He had always made an aggressive attempt to cause damage to you and showed no sympathy or compassion for anyone. You got scared and insecure when you opened your eyes, recalling the physical harm he had inflicted. 

“Fucking piece of shit!” Ben angrily exclaimed, his fists clenched over his head. “I should have killed him properly.” 

“What did he say, so you blew up?” 

“Isn't it obvious? That pussy told me how little supes are in the big picture of science, the future of the supremes, humanity, and some other bullshit. It's certain that Vough paid that cocksucker generously during all those years. He lived in luxury, torturing us, and he didn’t even regret it.”

“Did he tell you what kind of research he did on my body?” You asked as you moved your body to face him. 

Ben fell silent for a minute, enraged by what he remembered the doctor had said about you. Nevertheless, his eyes softened as he saw your expression and saw that you were excited to hear what he was about to say and that you were feeling at ease and comfortable next to him. That was all he needed. Ben recognized that if he made a determined attempt to be by your side and touch you in the way he desired, you would push him even further away and that you weren't

ready for physical contact at this time. He therefore forced himself to keep his distance from you and let you do whatever you wanted.

He just turned to face you and stated, “I didn't give him enough time to talk,” straightening his posture and sitting straight up on the floor. “He's just an animal, and he sees supes as rats for research in order to make profit. That's all.”

“When we agreed to live this life as supers, Ben, we already knew that.” You said bitterly, “People in charge always wanted to play with us like we were toys. They used us as they pleased and needed us for their own good. I wanted to leave the company for a number of reasons, one of which was that I was unaware of how serious that whole picture was. What I need to learn is what they succeeded in doing during the decades we were unconscious and at their mercy.”

Ben sighed and got up to get some weed from the nearest table, just after helping you off the floor.

“I was told by that son of a bitch that he examined you to make the future supers flawless. Though I'm not really sure what he meant, it seems to me that Queen Maeve—the woman from Seven—is their new you.”

“Do you think they might have found a way to weaken me? Don't say 'no' right away,” you said in a hurry when he opened his lips to object. “It just doesn't feel right about what's going on and everything.”

Your concerns, which were constantly lurking beneath the surface, took over when you realized that Ben had remained silent. Something was off with you, you two sensed that. Although after your first training day you felt a little stronger, your weakness remained under your skin.

You pulled open a window to let some fresh air in and muttered, “If you hadn't just killed the doctor, we could have learned about it.”

Ben offered you one of the glasses and sighed as if he regretted what he had done, filling the other one with wine. “I didn't intentionally kill him. It simply happened beyond my control. But I would still murder him anyway.”

You raised an eyebrow and sat down, realizing that your tiredness was taking over. “You need to find a way to control it since your nerves are always on edge,” you said. “And also, I need to find someone who can understand all of this.”

Ben sat beside you, stretching his muscles and leaning back into the coach while he listened to you attentively. As you spoke, you noticed that your gaze lingered a little too long on his sweating body, almost making you flush. 

He studied your expression to see how you would react to his suggestion. He said, “I guess the best option is to kidnap or torture a doctor who is in charge or fuckever who's doing supe studies for Vought right now. We can use Mindstorm to look at your memories and thoughts to see whether they have hurt you in any way.”

His suggestion caused your eyes to widen with excitement, and you exclaimed, “That's actually a smart idea. But how are we supposed to find him?”

“Remember the new technology, sweetheart. Anything is possible with these phones, Bluetooth, and GPS technology. Remember how I found you very easily?”

You gave a nod to him, knowing that what he stated was right and that you would be able to reach Mindstorm with ease thanks to modern technology.

After you had your shower, you saw Ben watching the TV with a dead serious face, and you sat beside him.

As you used the towel in your hand to dry your damp hair, you inquired, “Is there any news about us? Almost a week has passed.”

“Not much,” he replied as he continued to listen to Homelander talk about the two of you.

‘They pose no threat to the United States,’ Homelander confidently stated, grinning, as he extended his arms and turned to face the screen. 'As Seven, we've been trying to find them for a week, but it looks like they are hiding pretty well,' he continued. I, Homelander, the Seven's leader, swear to you that they shall answer for their actions. It has been proven that Soldier Boy rescued Y/N, and it's very likely that the two of them murdered the hapless doctors as well as every lab employee in cold blood and without hesitation.'

You and Ben exchanged a look as Homelander continued his speech. ‘Their families and children are in agony even though our government gives them the best care they can. These two criminals are responsible for the deaths of the orphans whose parents they killed. It breaks our hearts to see them weeping and grieving the loss of their families. There are even toddlers among them. Soldier Boy and Y/N will be held liable and made to pay for the harm they caused to the United States and its citizens. They have little time to conceal; they cannot get away.’

As the audience gave him a loud applause and he flew opening his arms out like.

Ben angrily said, “Fuck that. Son of a bitch,” and threw the remote control onto the table in front of him. “They were just another piece of shits who enjoyed torturing supes, nothing else.”

“But I didn't kill anyone,” you mumbled. “We are past the point of self-justification. Homelander is basically controlling the crowds. They would never pay to listen to us, Ben.”

Ben stared at the TV and said, “I'll teach them how to listen,” in a menacing manner. “You see? It's no longer about Butcher and his useless group. It has to do with our future.”

You could have argued with him about the future, but all you wanted was to avoid getting into another fight with Ben. 

“I think such a guy wouldn't be innocent at all. We might be able to defeat the company if we can figure out how to properly express ourselves, explain to them how Vought tricked us, and show the real Homelander to the rest of the world. There isn't another way.”

 “I know, I know,” he muttered.

As you could tell Ben was becoming enraged and feeling overwhelmed, you touched his bare chest, which had a little glow to it. “Hey, are you okay?”

He responded with, “I am,” placing his hand on yours and giving you a gentle squeeze. 

“Can you please stop getting angry for a second? I can sense the heat building in your chest.” You muttered, “You're stressing me out here,” but you didn't remove your hand from his upper body. You could feel him cooling down beneath your touch once again. It was fine as long as it worked; you simply didn't know why. 

“Well,” he said, arching an eyebrow, licking his lips, allowing you to touch him, and gently tracing his fingers over yours. His powerful, slow beats were calming in a way. “It's not too bad. Is it?” 

You withdrew your hand from his sweating chest while rolling your eyes at him and making sure he was okay. 

Ben had just showered when Butcher and Hughie showed up at the house. 

Butcher remarked in a sly manner, “Glad, I delayed for an hour coming here to pick up you two,” as you and Ben got into the back of the car. “We could have interrupted something funny, judging by the all-wet hairs and all.”

“We were just finished training there!” you exclaimed, your face heated. 

“It must be very good training, indeed. The entire fucking house was damaged like hell. You two spent a whole week all showering and training while we were dealing with the shit Soldier Boy caused.”

“Sorry for that, but it's not what you think, really.”

“I thought Soldier Boy and Crimson were having a relationship. Yet life goes on, don't they? There are always new, fine chickens and dolls all around.” Butcher smirked at Ben.

You were ready to add something about Ben and you having nothing to do, but Ben became enraged right away when Butcher brought up the Crimson Countess. 

“Don't you fucking know how to stay silent and shut your useless mouth?” Butcher was obviously enjoying himself when he suddenly made Ben mad. 

“What made you so furious now? Have I said anything untrue?” 

Hughie leaned back in his seat and said, “Butcher, stop that,” sounding distressed as Ben continued to swear at them both and told Hughie to make Buther to suck him soon, so his mouth would be filled enough not to talk stupid.

“Why even do you become irate out of nowhere? After all, you murdered the poor woman.”

You looked up at Ben, asking with disbelief, “What? Why did you even kill Countess?”

The fact that Ben never brought it up startled you even more than Butcher's statement, as though it were nothing important. You were stunned and shocked beyond belief. At that point, you were at a loss for what to think. You were not sympathetic to her, though. After all, Vought used her as a cunning evil to harm both you and Ben. She was the one who paid you a visit in order to deceive you that day. 

He tried to convince you immediately, giving you a gentle look as if he wanted you to understand what he had done. “She deserved whatever I've done,” he defended himself. 

You acknowledged, “I know she did. But why?”

He looked at Butcher and then turned to face you, almost whispering, “Let's discuss this at a later time. All right?”

You found Annie nowhere to be found when you got to Butcher's home, where only Kimiko and Frenchie were inside. Kimiko watched Frenchie play with his phone, seeming bored.

“Why did it take so long for you to come here?” Frenchie inquired in an irritated manner to Butcher. “You give me too much to deal with, though you know I have things to do. Kimiko is also exhausted.”

Butcher sarcastically remarked, “Hello to you too, baby,” as he removed his coat. “I have not even once heard a complaint from her; she is an incredible Supe. She can't possibly be exhausted, right, doll?”

Ben moved you over to the edge of the coach and sat by you, resting his legs on the table, just as you were about to strike up a conversation with Kimiko. You were fine with him being close, though, so you said nothing at all. In fact, if you were honest with yourself enough, you would admit that his behavior around you somewhat comforted you. 

“Kimiko and I have spent days looking for Black Noir and Queen Maeve, but we haven't made any progress so far. It's strange that they were absent from everything for so long. You see, something isn't quite right. According to Starlight, they have vanished.”

“The fuck you mean they are missing?” Butcher asked in disbelief.

“Why would Noir would go missing? It's not his thing to disappear,” you said. You thought you were thinking to yourself, but you had said it loud.

“He must have ran away when he saw us back together,” Ben said in am amused tone. “He fucking knows I'm going to kill him too. He’s a fucking dead man.”

You told Ben, “There must be a reason,” ignoring the way he talked about taking Earving's life. Right now, you don't need to see Ben being enraged over Noir and losing his temper again. 

“How the fuck doesn't Starlight know where Queen Maeve is?” Butcher questioned Hughie. 

Hughie took his head in his hands and responded, “She thinks Homelander did something to her. Maybe he killed Maeve.”

“How about Ninja Cunt, though? He is known as Homelander's right wing. Suppose he murdered Maeve. What about Noir?”

Frenchie remarked, “That's what I'm trying to understand,” and Kimiko communicated with him using sign language swiftly. 

“All right, we'll watch out for this and see if he shows up again.” Butcher ended it quickly and continued. “Tomorrow, Soldier Boy and I are heading to New York.”

You eyed Butcher with suspicion, asking, “Why and why not me?” 

“You two stayed at a lovely house for a week, for God’s sake. Aren't all of the showers enough? Is it not possible for you to separate for even a single day? Would you really miss this cunt that much?”

As Butcher continued to make assumptions about you and Ben, your face heated. Kimiko and Frenchie turned to face you in harmony, taken aback. 

“You're just making the wrong assumptions.” You distanced yourself from Ben and explained, “It's not like that,” acting as though you had been proven guilty. Ben didn't appear to be supportive when you stared at him, yet it seemed as though he was okay with Butcher's comments. “What I want to know is what you're going to be doing here and why I have to stay here.”

“Yes, doll. To catch up with your old friend TNT Twins, we are going to join Herogasm. It's almost like we have to clear your names first. Maybe they know anything about the specifics of those events from decades ago, and they could say something that we could use against Vought. Though things might get messy soon, don't you worry, I'm going to keep an eye on your soldier so that he won't be pouding into any supe cunt there,” he said with a wicked smile.

Ben said, “Maybe we can also find a thing about Mindstorm there,” giving you a meaningful glance and a small touch on the arm before you could respond. You nodded to him. 

“However, why must I stay here?”

“Kimiko needs to get some work done, and we need more muscle to help Frenchie and Hughie here. Let's don't take too much attention.”

“Okay,” you said, acknowledging the situation and giving up on further arguments. Herogasm was something you've always detested and loathed. Ben, the founder of it, was making it even worse. Yet the one thing about Ben's inconsistent anger—the energy in his chest—that scared you was his unpredictable temper. You weren't sure if he could find a way to control it soon enough. 

You questioned Hughie, “By the way, where is Annie?” As a member of Vought and Seven, you were aware of how difficult it must be to handle the entire company's evil by yourself. 

“I don't think she'll find Maeve anytime soon, but she's doing some research in order to locate her. She seemed to have disappeared in a heartbeat.”

You figured she was kind of involved in this too, based on the way they talked about her. 

Ben abruptly stood up and stated, “I guess all the rooms are full. So, which room are Y/N and I staying in tonight?”

“Not full,” Hughie smiled in response. “I suppose there are now two available rooms since I will be seeing Annie tonight.” 

Kimiko nodded quickly as she gave a smile to you.

Ben's expression darkened as Hughie continued to tell him and Annie that they would not be staying in this house any longer, while Ben quietly cursed. He glanced at you for a moment, but you ignored him and asked Kimiko to show you the room where you would be sleeping. 

After an hour of inspecting the room and all of the furniture within, you heard a light knock on the door and knew it was Ben.

After a minute, you said, “Come in,” startled that Ben was holding back, opening the door this time without your permission. 

He whispered, “As you wish, baby,” and carefully shut the door behind him. 

In the dim light, his hair fell over his forehead, and his white t-shirt made your heart melt just a bit. Under his large arms, his t-shirt was too tight. Perhaps you weren't used to seeing him in his regular clothes, which is why you were still excited when you were around him. 

“What now?” you muttered as you sat on the bed and observed him approach you. 

He joked, “Don't get excited; I'm just here to make some conversation,” and sat down next to you right away. 

You said, almost in a whisper, “Which is about?” while he briefly studied your body.

His darkened eyes lingered on your revealing nightgown, but you remained silent, intensifying the tension in the moment. 

Ben's desire to force your body to the covers, get on top of you, take off your sweatpants, and get you ready for some post-breakup fucking was unbearable. He was well aware that you never touched yourself when you were by yourself in the house, and that really disturbed him because he knew that he was the reason for it. Ben could tell by the way you looked at him and by the beating in your heart that your body still yearned for him, but he also understood that he had to rebuild your trust in every way. He had to take care of his meat by hand up until that point. 

After sighing and searching for the right words, Ben uttered, “About the thing I told you that we can discuss later.” He made an effort not to speak about Crimson bitch right away. She was the reason your nerves were already fragile. He had no reason to blame you for it. 

As he attempted to read how you were feeling, you questioned in a cold voice, “Why did you kill her? Was it unintentional?” 

You were curious as to whether he truly intended to murder her or if this was just another unintentional incident similar to the others. You needed to comprehend it, even though you didn't know why it mattered. 

After a while, he said, “I blew up,” and when you realized he hadn't done it on purpose to exact vengeance for you, your posture straightened. 

Ben said, “I was just trying to get information about you and your location before killing her,” as soon as he saw the look on your face. “I was cautious to do anything until she had spoken about you. But I was unable to control myself when she touched my nerves.”

“Did you kill her just because she was unfaithful?” You questioned him suspiciously, attempting to make sense of his motivations. Ben might tell you the truth or a lie, but you would still listen to him even if you weren't sure he would be completely honest with you. “In the end, it's her who deceived you. Whether Vought commanded her or not is important. She was the one who brought you there so they could capture you and then transport you to Russia.”

After pausing to comprehend what you were asking, Ben responded, “I would kill her anyway because of what she had done to both of us,” as if he had no idea how to answer properly. “Especially to you.” 

You said, your eyes softening with sorrow, “I wonder what you would do to me if I were the one to trick you, Ben,” knowing that, after all these years, loyalty was what mattered most to him. “Even if I had every right to do so.” 

“I would never hurt you,” he abruptly rejected, emphasizing each word in a hard voice. “I knew I would deserve it anyway.”

“I'm not so sure of that, Ben,” you said. “You're even more dangerous considering I'm getting weaker and you're ready to blow up anytime.” 

His smile expanding, he added, “Hey, don't say such things,” took one of your hands, placed it on his warm chest, and whispered, “You have every power over me.”

Under his focused gaze, your face flushed, and after a moment, you reluctantly withdrew your hand. 

“So, you're going to Herogasm tomorrow?” you said, attempting to change the topic. “Given how difficult it was to persuade you not to join decades earlier, you must have missed it quite a lot.” 

“Are you feeling jeaolus?” he asked with a mischievous smile, and you grimaced. 

“Why should I be? I'm just saying you might have missed the chance to join the party that you organized after all this time.”

“I'm not going there to fuck, baby; I'm not interested anymore,” he murmured, retaining an arrogant chuckle. “I'm going to call you when I get there.”

“I'm not sure.” You said to quit talking about Herogasm anymore. “I might be busy to pick up when you call.” Herogasm was the world's dumbest thing, especially since Ben founded it. 

“Why may be you even busy, anyway?” This time Ben uttered serious words: “I'll call you nonstop, so keep your phone with you every moment.”

You responded with the same heedlessness, “I might.” 

Ben smiled playfully and narrowed his eyes. “Since you too need to take care of yourself, it will actually be good for us to be apart for just a small amount of time.”

You naively asked, “About what?” as though he would make a crucial point. 

“You might as well relax on this bed while I'm away because I’m pretty aware of you're not touching yourself, knowing I'd hear you in a second, huh?”

You became the deepest shade of scarlet in your cheeks and murmured, “I can't believe you.”

“I'm not making fun,” he declared with seriousness. “It is also a bodily necessity. You don't have to reject playing with yourself a bit. Being the reason is something that irritates me a lot.”

“I don't feel ashamed of taking care of myself because of you or anything else,” you immediately argued, ignoring the heat on your cheeks. “I have no problem touching myself while you're here. It's not all that important.” 

Ben arched an eyebrow at your quick, brave, “If you say so,” followed by a sigh. 

“I'm serious here, Ben,” you continued, growing agitated by his haughty demeanor and enormous ego. “I'll prove it.”

He studied your figure and growled in a low voice, “I won't promise that I won't focus on you or listen to the way you sound.”

“Then don't.”

Next Chapter

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A/N: Comments and reblogs are appreciated very much.  They keep me going. ♡˚.

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[the-modern-typewriter]

Hi there!ever since I saw you when I first installed tumblr it just keeps getting better. I was wondering if you can write something about a hero being the sucess of a lab and the villain being a failure(Bonus if the lab is actually evil) Don't feel pressured to do this though😗

"Do you know why I'm considered the success, instead of the failure like you?" the hero asked.

The villain sneered at them. They yanked and thrashed and struggled against the shimmering containment that wrapped around them, warping like a net from the hero's outstretched fingers, forcing them down against the cold concrete.

"Because you're a good, obedient little hero?"

The hero couldn't keep the damn trap up forever!

"Yes."

The simple response, the tone, startled the villain enough that they went temporarily still. Maybe that was the ploy. They stared at the hero through the hazy sheen of their powers, mockery draining from their face, panting for breath.

The hero had many things that the villain didn't: a body that wasn't screwed up, powers that weren't prone to out-of-control devastation, a generally sweet and more palatable disposition when it came to public relations.

And, of course, they did what they were told. The villain had never properly thought about that.

"It was their most important addition, after you...you know," the hero said, studying them. "The ability to control their experiments. To make sure that nothing like you would happen again."

A bad taste slowly flooded the villain's mouth. They shook their head.

The hero stepped forward, crouching down in front of the villain, on the other side of the containment wall. Up close, the villain got a good look at the vein snaking up the hero's wrist. The blood was just slightly the wrong colour; it made them look gorgeously healthy, radiant, compared to the sickly pallor the villain couldn't quite shake.

"If I stop taking the serum for my powers, I die," the hero said, keeping their voice light. "Quite horribly. But while the serum is in my system, I'm not in control. Not really. Everything I do is monitored. If I stray too far out..." The hero grimaced.

"Why are you telling me this?" the villain whispered.

"Because I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about them. I signed up to do something good, to make the world better, and I..." The hero squeezed their eyes shut. "Well. I'm going to try and drag you back to them, aren't I? I'm going to hand you over to the people who hurt you, and then I'm going to make a speech telling everyone what a terrible, awful monster you are as if they don't deserve everything you give them. I'll smile while I'm doing it too."

The villain swallowed. They strained to press a hand up against the wall, but it only forced them back down against the ground harder. The villain's breath knocked out of them.

The hero winced. "Sorry."

"Isn't it better to be dead?"

"You didn't think so when you ran."

No. Maybe that had been an unfair question to ask. Still, the fury and the helplessness of it seared through the villain because ShieldCorp - they were going to get away with it. All of the others were dead! Even if they managed to expose what was really happening, ShieldCorp had the hero.

"I wanted to do something good too," the villain said, hollow. "It's not your fault they took advantage of that."

The hero shrugged. Their hand stayed perfectly steady.

"Are they listening to us now?"

"Probably."

"They'll be angry with you."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Me telling you this doesn't change anything, does it?"

"I thought you were like them. I hated you. It changes that."

The hero smiled, or something like it. It was too fragile, too wobbly, too shattered a thing compared to the beautiful thing they tossed out to the masses at every public appearance.

"I want to destroy them," the hero said. "But, when I let this force field drop so I can take you in properly, I'm going to need your help to do that. How are your powers feeling today?"

"Like I'm going to burn down the world."

The hero nodded, just once, and rose again. Silhouetted against the skyline, they looked unstoppable.

"Excellent," the hero said. "On the count of three, start with me."

The villain was ready when the containment dropped.

ShieldCorp was not.

[venusbby]

characters/pairings: itoshi sae x reader

warnings: fluffy, one sexual joke, idk this is just a very very short scenario.

note: im very ticklish so i just wrote this bc i got tickle attacked by my best friends last night. just thought that sae is such a bitch when he doesn't get what he wants 🤷‍♀️😋 wrote this for fun btw just bored

summary: your boyfriend finds out you're ticklish. what better way is there to get revenge for not receiving his good morning kiss other than that?

"sae, no!" you yelled, taking quick steps away from him, running into the bedroom with your empty glass of water still in your hand. you didn't even bother to keep it— you just couldn't stay in the kitchen when your boyfriend was trying to tickle you.

sae calmly walked after you in the long hallway with his hands still reaching out, causing you to run faster when you turned back to look at him. "this is so bad. why are you doing this to me?"

"i barely touched you, sweetheart." he said, stopping you from closing the bedroom door on him, and entering inside as you took a few steps back cautiously, a small giggle escaping from you. he smiled in amusement.

"please, you'll get hurt." you said clearly, pointing a finger at him which he grabbed and pulled you closer. you whined, "sae, you're doing this for no reason! i didn't even bother you this time."

"but i wanna bother you." he mumbled, hands finding themselves on your sides as you wriggled against him in an effort to get away. "i didn't know you were so ticklish until yesterday."

you screamed, laughing as you struggled to stay still when he barely did anything.

"you're so cute."

"shut up! i'm going to ruin you, itoshi sae." you grumbled, hastily trying to get his hands off, giggles still making their way out. "you're so annoying, why did i have to move in with you?"

"you love me."

"right now, i don't!" you squealed when he didn't stop his evil ticklings. "fuck you!"

"that we can arrange—"

"oh my god?! you're so irritating. go play FIFA or something! s-stop bothering me—"

"this is for not giving me a good morning kiss today." he mumbled, his hands never seeming to get tired as he finally grinned, satisfied with the way you suffered, tears brimming your eyes as you laughed.

you certainly made sure not to miss his good morning kisses after that.

[thecuriousbeauty]

Traitor-The Present (Harry Styles au- Mafia!Harry)

Chapter Six

A/N:- Hold on tight cause this is going to be a roller coaster kind of chapter. If you haven't read the other parts, I suggest you read them cause this chapter holds important details. You can find the other parts here.

Series Synopsis:- y/n is a hard working painter, trying to make the ends meet. She lives with and takes care of her sick Uncle, the only one she has for a family. She has dreams to make it big, and when the desperation for money strikes, she has to make a choice. Walk away after listening to an incredible deal that would fix all her problems, or take up the deal. A top secret, risky deal, which involves meeting Harry Styles.A man once rumored to be a dangerous secret weapon of a leading mafia.

Warnings: Violence, use of guns, physical assault, mentions of nightmare, killings. Some smut and a lot of angst.

Word Count: 8k

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y/n jumps as she hears the sound of the glass window breaking. Someone's blood was splattered on her hands, and on the walls. Then she flinches as she hears the gunshot.

y/n wakes up with a gasp, and sees Harry's green eyes staring back at her.

"W-What?", she whispers, hand on her heart.

"You okay?", he asks, hand reaching to stroke her hair and move it away from her sweaty face. "Same dream again?"

"Yeah..", she sighs, taking a deep breath. "I-I'm sorry for waking you up.."

"No, I wasn’t sleeping.", Harry runs his hand down y/n's bare back as she curls up to him, placing her head on his chest. It was around midday and y/n had fallen asleep after their mind blowing sex and a nice relaxing shower. She thought Harry had too. 

She looks up at him, noticing how his eyebrows were furrowed, and his soft lips laying in a straight line. “Were you thinking about Reagen?”

Harry nods, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “You should figure out what those nightmares are about, love. You’re getting them more often.”

Yes, she had to, but that wasn’t the most pressing matter right now.  "If Reagen’s alive, why is she not searching for you? What was she doing all these years?"

Harry shakes his head, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes. "I don't know. Maybe she's planning something, like she was that night. She was hiding something from me. I can't remember what.."

The thought of Reagen being alive opened up many more questions in y/n's head. If everything Romania, Hans and Oliver told her was true, Reagen was capable of anything. She was the best in their gang, and the only one who came close to her capabilities was Harry. Did something happen in the gang? Did she find someone doing something they weren't supposed to be doing?

She knew Reagen was friendly, happy and treated everyone nicely. Hans said they were her family. Then why wouldn't she come back to that family if she was alive? Unless, she wanted everyone to think she was dead while she was secretly plotting something.

What if Reagen wasn't the kind of woman they thought she was? What if she had another face? One that they didn't know existed.

"We had a fight...", Harry’s voice wavers as he tries to remember. "T-That's all I can remember now..I'm getting glimpses back, can't piece it all together yet."

"A physical..fight?", y/n asks.

"I think so..yeah.", Harry closes his eyes, letting out a slow breath. "My head hurts.."

"Okay, it's okay..relax.", y/n doesn't hesitate to pull him into a hug. She couldn’t imagine what he must be going through as he remembered those glimpses. "Shh..it's okay, you're okay.", she whispers, scooting up on the bed so he could bury his head in her chest. 

y/n had also thought about it, and she came up with a lot of evil Reagan possibilities as well. But one thing that drowned out all those suspicious was the fact that they were in love, and they were going to get married. Harry was going to propose to her. They were soulmates.

"I want to go back.", Harry whispers to her. "I don't feel good about this, we have to go back y/n."

She wanted to agree and go back to San Francisco, but they had about a day and a half left.

"W-We've come so close. We'll go back soon babe. I promised Sania I'd drop the car off..."

"Fine. Let's get going then.", he sits up. "Did you get his number?"

"N-Number?"

"Your friend's, who told you about my story?"

"I um, no, he hasn't gotten back to me on social media yet.", she lies, looking away from him. Harry suddenly grabs her face, fingers around her jaw as he lifts her face up so her eyes look into his deep green ones.

"I believe it's the truth you're telling me, sunshine.", he says softly, his tone wasn’t rough at all. That's what made it more scary. The usual tone of endearment didn't sound so good now. Harry was remembering things and she was scared. Will the person whom everyone fears, come out? Will the Harry she loves disappear to become the one he used to be?

"I-It is.", she whispers, goosebumps starting to creep up her arms from the coldness of his fingers. Why was he so freezing cold? His eyes studied hers, and she was tempted to yank her face away from his hold, but she stayed still. He wouldn't hurt her, he said so himself.

But he admitted that he had a physical fight with Reagen. What if Harry was the one who was hiding something and Reagen found out.

She resists a flinch as Harry lets go of her jaw and his hand moves to her head. But it was to check on her bruise. “Mm, that’s healing up well..”

She tries for a smile as he kisses the skin right above the wound.

She needed to know more information now before it was too late. They hit the road after getting some tacos for lunch, and drove for a straight two hours before stopping for a tea break.

"Let me make a few calls, be right back.", she tells Harry as she gets up from the seat next to him, and he nods, continuing to drink his tea silently.

She walks away, making sure he wouldn't hear her, before calling Romania.

"Hello, Romania isn't here, what's up?", it was Hans who answered.

"Hans..this is important."

"Duh, do you think I can't take important news? You will freak out if you know what my everyday job is-"

"-Fine, stop boasting.", she cuts him off in annoyance. "What has Harry done? Has he k-killed anyone? I need to know."

"Why do you need to know that, y/n?", Hans sounds more serious.

"Because..he's getting things back and I need to know who I'm traveling with!"

"And having sex with.", Hans adds, with a little chuckle. "Wait. You said he's remembering things, what did he say?"

"Hans, answer my question first-"

"-I make the rules y/n, tell me what you know and I'll tell you what you want to know."

She groans, she really hates him. She tells him everything.

"Wow..that is great progress. I'll tell everyone. Great talking to y/n-"

"-I will stop this right now and tell him everything if you don't tell me what the fuck I'm dealing with.", y/n snaps, and lowers her voice when she realizes it was loud. "Hans, please."

"Okay.", Hans sighs. "Yes, he has killed. Everyone in this gang has killed somebody, y/n. Harry shot his alcoholic dad before joining. He has planted microchips for spying on our enemies, hacked into their accounts, blew up their cars, hotels, houses, along with them and their family. He has led bombing missions along with Reagen, everything they both led was a success, until that gold smuggling mission. Anyone who crosses Harry is pretty much dead."

Harry killed people. The kind Doctor she knew used to kill people. Probably with that same gun he had in his bag. She couldn’t even start to imagine Harry doing all that now. No, he wouldn’t. That was in the past. She frowns as she realizes something, "Y-You didn't sound surprised when I told you that Reagen's alive."

"Um.."

"W-Were you all lying to me?", y/n gasps. She blindly trusted their dumb story.

"You wouldn't agree to do this if you knew the truth about Harry and Reagen. She is alive, but we don't have any information about her. Our people search for her every day. I do miss her, I didn't lie about that, y/n."

"What else are you hiding from me?", y/n asks. "Hans, I'm putting my life in danger here, for you guys."

"I know, y/n, and we're so grateful that you're doing this. Listen, it's just one more day. Tomorrow, we'll meet you at the location. Romania will call later to tell you all the details. Please, hold on for some more time."

She hangs up, and sighs. There was too much going on, she was going to go crazy if she continued talking to these people. She had to talk to someone normal. The only normal person in her life. 

"Hi! I just finished baking some cookies.", Uncle Luke answers, making her smile. "Cookies? I wish I could have some of those right now."

"Aw, what happened? You sound tensed.", Uncle Luke says.

"I-I don't know what to do, Uncle Luke. Things are a bit confusing and scary..I'll have the money and I'll be back to you on the first flight tomorrow once everything is over, but..I don't know what'll happen in the next few hours."

She didn't know if Uncle Luke remembered where she was or why she was doing this, but she just had to tell him that.

"Trust your gut.", he replies. "Your instincts are always right, y/n. Do what you need to do. I'll be waiting for you."

She closes her eyes, taking in a fresh breath of air. It smelled like rain. The smell of the soil and the air when they’re preparing for the shower from above. She looks up at the sky as the gray clouds gather and little droplets of rain fall in crazy chaotic drops. The gusting wind carrying them in wild vertices one moment in diagonal sheets the next.

"Thanks Uncle Luke. I'll call you later! It's raining!", she covers her phone's speaker from the rain.

"Yeah, don't get sick in the rain! I love you!"

"I love you too, bye!"

y/n feels someone come up behind her, and turns around but it was only Harry. He held an umbrella, and his arm quickly ushered her to his side, so she was under the umbrella. She looks at him as he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her close. He had human blood on his hands in the past. y/n wondered why she didn't feel disgusted, or why her feelings for him didn't change after what she had learned about him. Maybe it was because she always suspected it.

"Come on darling, rain's getting heavier.", Harry brings her out of her daydream with a gentle kiss to her cheek, and they start walking to the car. Harry gets her in, before going to the other side.

"You okay?", the beautiful green eyes looked at hers.

She smiles and nods. "Thank you."

"Of course.", Harry smiles back and leans forward to cup her cheek with one hand, the other hand going to her hip. "I-I have a feeling things are going to change between us.", y/n can't help but voice her concern.

"Why do you feel so?", he asks, pressing his forehead against hers.

"I don't know, Harry.", she whispers, her arms wrapping around his neck and her hands interlocking at the back of his neck.

"I know I've done things, y/n..but it doesn't change my love for you. I fell in love with you since the day I met you.", he whispers. "You're so full of sunshine, maybe that's why I was attracted to you. You're the light to my darkness. I will burn down the world for you, baby. I can't explain how much I love you. You know I'm bad at expressing my feelings. I..I'll always have your back, and I wish things weren't like this. I'm so sorry."

"I-It's not your fault..", y/n whispers, stroking the hair at the back of his head. "I knew everything and I still fell in love with you."

"I never want to lose you.", Harry closes his eyes, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I can't live without you. I love you so much, sunshine."

It was like he was holding back something he really wanted to say.

"I love you too, Harry." She hugs him tight. "When you remember it all, will you go back to your old life or will you come back home with me?"

"I'll go where you go.", he mumbles. "Wasn't my speech clear enough?"

She laughs, throwing her head back as his lips attack all over her face, leaving gentle little loving kisses on her skin. She couldn't change his past, but she could change his present and the future. She didn’t know what was going to happen in the next 24 hours, but at least she has something to hold on to. She has Harry.

_________________________________________________

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. But what does the end of the world really mean? If all human beings die, does it mean the world does too? y/n wanted to ask what Uncle Luke thought about the end of the world. He usually had the right answers and the right thoughts. 

y/n woke up that day with a feeling of dread hanging in the air. She felt like it was doomsday.

She knew that she would be on a plane back home by the end of the day, and even though Harry had said that he would go where she goes, she had a few doubts. Romania and her gang clearly want him back in their gang and they will go to any extent for that. What if they grab him and shove him in a kidnapper van and tell her to get away? No, she chides herself. Harry's strong and they're all scared of him, that can't happen.

The only bright side was that she would get her money, and she would be done with all this. She still felt bad for not telling Harry the complete truth. She would today, she would tell him everything.

Harry didn't look nervous, unlike y/n. Why would he? He didn't know what was going to happen. But he did seem to be deep in his thoughts that morning.

If nothing ended well, she would still cherish whatever memories they made.

Harry kisses her sweetly for a few minutes, running his hands all over her body, like he had it memorized. Every curve and every dip. y/n kisses his lips passionately. She couldn't stop, she needed it. His lips were softer than anything she's ever known, soft like a first snowball, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. He was so effortlessly sweet.

y/n and Harry loved having rough sex, and completely ruining each other, but that morning? That morning, Harry made love to her until she could call out his name in her dreams and reach for him in her sleep. Until she could think of no one and nothing beyond the touch of his hand, the caress of his lips. Their bodies intertwined and souls entwined as they drowned in each other. 

It was like he knew this wasn’t going to happen for a while.

Later, they took a walk around the streets of Lupton, Arizona, where they had made their stop last night. They walked hand in hand, looking at the different shops on the streets, people going to work in their morning rush and children boarding school buses. They got some delicious chilaquiles for breakfast. A dish consisting of corn tortillas that are fried, cooked in salsa and sprinkled with cheese. They were served with eggs and beans.

Three hours and thirty minutes would be the travel time today. y/n thought this road trip idea would be horrible at first, but now, she didn't want it to end. Traveling to different places with Harry was so much fun.

"Are you remembering things?", y/n asks Harry as she sees him look outside the window, observing every little stall and the streets.

"Yes.", Harry replies, and she nods. "Where..where exactly are we going y/n?"

"Um, there's a great coffee shop on the way, just twenty minutes before New Mexico. I thought to make a stop there."

That was the location Romania had told her to get him to.

"Coffee shop..", he mumbles. "These roads seem familiar. I think we took it quite often."

"Yeah?", she asks, even though she had that information already.

She stays quiet, letting Harry put all the pieces together that were slowly coming back to him. 

When they were near the location, y/n thinks Romania sent her the wrong address or something, because all she could see was an empty huge ground.

"Let me see, maybe I got the directions wrong-"

"No, you're right. There's the coffee shop." She looks up as Harry points to a distance. She squints and sure enough sees a small shed. It was a short walk away.

"Oh, great. Let's go get some coffee if it’s still open.", she mumbles nervously, and gets out before Harry studies her face. They start walking towards the abandoned shop, and she lets Harry walk forward, lingering behind him so she could call Romania.

She didn't answer the call, and she rolled her eyes. If her idea was to throw them in the middle of nowhere, it was working. Harry was standing a few feet away from the shop, staring at it.

"Harry?", she asks, coming up behind him. "What happened?"

"I remember everything.", he whispered, and turned to her. "This was where we had the accident and the fight."

y/n nods, eyes moving to the shop, and something strikes. The windows. They were broken, and stained. Wait..was that blood? She steps closer to look at it. Sure enough there was shattered glass falling inside the shop, and blood stained the walls. She takes a step inside, feeling shivers climb up her spine. She gasps when she realizes.

This was the exact same place in her repeated dreams. 

She grabs Harry’s arm, heart hammering in her chest. "H-Harry, this is the place in m-my dreams..", she tells him, frantic.

"Yes, it is. I know.", Harry had no surprise. "Everything looks the same from five years ago."

"Why did I see this in my dream?", she asks him, confused. Harry's eyes ran over her face. "You tell me, y/n."

He said her name like he was mocking her.

"Harry.", she squeezes his arm. "W-What’s going on?”

He said he remembered everything. Did he remember something that suddenly made him change his tone towards her? Was he the old Harry again? She tried to figure it out through his eyes and demeanor, but he remained calm, and expression neutral.

"It's not me who has to remember.", Harry speaks and his eyes were staring at hers like he could read her soul. "Please stop playing this game."

"W-What game? Harry.", y/n gets scared now. "I-I'm not your enemy, I only tried to help you remember, and now you do. I-I know what you are capable of doing, but you wouldn’t do that now. I-I know who you are."

He cracks a smile, which soon turns into a grin and then he bursts into laughter. "You realize how silly you sound?"

y/n didn't understand what he was doing. "Harry, some people made me befriend you to get you to remember the things that happened five years ago. I-I did this for them, they agreed to give me money that I needed for Uncle Luke's treatment and a better home, and-" She takes in a breath, feeling her heart race at abnormal speed. "-I shouldn't have done it, I-I didn't mean to do this to you Harry. But whatever we had is true-"

"Shut up!"Harry spits out, his voice echoing through the empty ground and her lips pressed together as she takes one step away from him. She deserved it. He has the right to be angry at her.

"Whatever we had, huh?", he mocks. "I was blind. I was blindly in love with you and you betrayed me."

"I didn't betray you-"

She watches as a bunch of cars enter the ground. All the same. Black SUVs. There were five cars, and a white sedan behind it all. She figured it was Romania.

"See, those were the people who made me do this. I only followed what they told me to do, this trip, everything.", she tries to explain to Harry. People step out of the car. Men in black suits, each having a rifle. She recognised some of the men, they were involved in the fight that day. From one of the cars stepped out Romania and Oliver.

"R-Romania tell him, tell him you told me to do everything.", she tells her. Romania walks to stand in front of the men, folding her arms and looking at them. She didn't speak.

"Why did you do it?", Harry talks, making her look back at him. His eyes were blazing. "Why did you go behind my back? I was with you through everything. We were partners. I know you didn't do it for money, I know you didn't do it to become the number one. All of the memories we had..what was everything for? You were just a traitor in the end, Reagen."

Reagen? Why did he call her Reagen?

"I played this fucking game for you! It was killing me inside, acting like I don't remember anything, acting like I just met you for the first time in my life!", Harry shouts, tears clouding his eyes. "I-I believed there was a reason. There had to be something. You wouldn't have done that to me for nothing. T-Tell me why, Reagen, please. Why did you want me dead?"

She realizes everything with a chill. R-Reagen? Did they think she was Reagen? They were out of their minds. Harry played the game? He knew everything that happened five years ago. He was acting to get her..to get her to remember?

All the small hints he had dropped came to her mind. Since the very first day she saw him. He had known who she was the moment he saw her in that bar.

He lifted his head up suddenly and looked straight at her, like he knew she had been watching him. Their eyes connected for a second, before he looked away.

He knew how she painted, because he had seen it before.

The colors.", he answers, looking away from her again. "They have a hidden meaning, most of the time. The artist might not even have an idea when they start, but it turns out beautiful when they're done. Like they gave life to it."

The familiar feeling of his hand, of his arms, the feeling of safety and warmth.

He chose her drink in the bar because he already knew what she liked.

"I do like it.", she decides, taking another sip. "How did you know?"

"Just like that.", he shrugs.

All the times he asked her about her dream, trying to get her to figure out what they were about. He already knew what they were about.

"I-I..I don't believe in it."

"In love?", y/n asks, and he nods, bringing his hand back and looking at her with those beautiful eyes. "Do you believe in love y/n?"

y/n nods. "Of course. Love is like this overwhelming sentiment that keeps you up all night and makes you feel like a little child waiting for Christmas day. The feeling of having a soulmate and a place you can really call home, that sounds promising."

Harry's eyes ran over soft features, as he spoke, "You sound like you have been in love."

y/n laughs, biting into a cookie. "Nah, me? I talk too much, and I'm weird. Who would want to love me?"

"There might be someone.", Harry whispered softly.

All the times he got things right about her. She thought he was just very observant. But no, he had known everything about her. She had been his once before.

She remembers all his words. "You drive me fucking crazy. Why are you doing this to me? You’re mine, you've always been mine. 

“You're mine and you'll always be mine."

"I've always loved you and I'll always love you."

"I'm so sorry."

She didn't even know who she was. She sees the hurt in Harry's eyes. She hated to see him like that, but she didn't know how to fix it.

"I'm not R-Reagen.", y/n cries, shaking her head. "Harry I'm sorry, I-I'm not Reagen. I'm y/n."

Harry closes his eyes, looking away. "You are Reagen. Y-You have no idea what I've been through in these five years. I..I'm done, I can't anymore."

She didn't understand anything. "H-Harry, I-I don't know anything..I don't know..", she cries. She wanted to cry into his chest, wanted him to pull her into his safe arms and console her. Tell her it was all just a bad dream.

A man walks up to Harry with a tray. It had a few rings, a chain and a few cigarattes. Harry takes the rings and puts them on his fingers. H and S.

Harry Styles.

He put on the chain, it had a silver cross pendant, much like the cross tattoo he had on his hand. He took the cigarette last, keeping it between his lips. The other man puts the lighter to it, and Harry takes a blow.

"Your time is up, Reagen. Four weeks is over.", Romania says, taking a step towards her.

"You bloody bitch, you did this to me-" She raised her hand to slap her, and someone grabs her wrists, pinning it to her back, and she yelps in pain as the person behind her kicks her behind the knee, making her drop to her knees.

"Don't make it worse for you.", she hears in ear and recognizes the voice. "S-Sania?”

Was she in on it too? The person she thought was her best friend? What were these people going to do to her?

Harry turns back to her, and pulls out the small velvet box.

"You already saw what's in this, right?", he asks her, and she sniffles. "It was for you.", he says, and crouches down to her. He opens the box, showing her the beautiful ring he had bought for Reagen, five years ago. "You ruined everything for what? Why did you try to kill me? You have one final chance to remember and spit out the truth. I have been so patient, but a man runs out of patience."

She sobs, shaking her head. She tried to remember, she only got glimpses of her dream. She didn't know anything else.

"Harry, please believe me, I-I don't know anything.", she whispers, and he throws away the ring and the box.

"Don't do this to me, Reagen.", he said in his deep voice, coming closer to her and she gasped, trying to pull her head back but Sania grabbed her hair. "Don't move.”, she snarls in her ear. 

She was shaking. She was terrified. y/n didn't even trust her own thoughts at this point. She was going to die. If she was Reagen, they were going to kill her. That was what Romania told her, if Harry didn't remember, we would have to kill him. They were fooling her by mentioning Harry, it was herself they were talking about.

She feels her heart shatter as she identifies the man who gets out of the wide sedan. He wore an expensive black suit, his beard was trimmed, hair was kept. He stood tall and straight, not at all looking sick and frail. 

"U-Uncle Luke..", y/n looks at the person she thought was her Uncle Luke. He gives her a sad smile. "I tried to warn you, darling."

“You know, while I was making tea yesterday, I put in salt instead of sugar?"

"Oh god. That must have tasted horrible."

"My point is, y/n, don't trust everything you see or hear. You can't even differentiate salt from sugar if you don't look carefully."

He knew everything. Sania knew everything. Everyone she ever knew in her life was involved in this game, or whatever this was.

She was the clown.

"Y-You're all fucking evil.", she says in spite, and groans when she feels Sania’s grip on her hair tighten. 

"Sania, step away.", Harry snaps at her, crouching down, and she immediately releases her, making her fall into Harry's arms. "She's mine to ruin."

"Harry, please..", y/n whispers to him. Why did she think that Harry could save her from this?

"You think I wanted it to end this way?", Harry asks her, holding her face and brushing her hair back with his gentle fingers. "I tried everything for it not to."

She sobs in his arms, and he reaches a hand to his back pocket, pulling out something. A gun. y/n shook with fear as he moved his other hand to the back of her head, holding her there as he pressed the gun to her forehead. The cold metal of the gun grazed her skin.

"You should know what it feels like to be betrayed by people you love.", Harry whispers. "Everyone told me to let it go, to kill you and bury you and forget that you ever existed. But I refused to believe it. I didn't want to believe that you were just a traitor. But I guess I was wrong, I've failed."

She closes her eyes as the gun presses into her head. "H-Harry.."

"Friends also betray you.", he grumbles.

"Have you been betrayed by a friend or a close one?", y/n asks.

"I don't remember.", he snaps, motioning for the bartender to fill up his drink.

This is how she's going to die. One shot to the head. She would be shot to death by the person whom she thought she loved. Her whole life was a lie. y/n didn't know how to feel. She didn't know her own identity. She felt lost in this world. She was already dead inside, he might as well just pull the trigger and end her misery. There was nothing she cared about anymore. She wasn't even sure if her name was y/n.

Was she really Reagen?

y/n waited for the sound of the gun when it cracked open her skull. Would death hurt?

No, she didn't think anything could hurt her more than everything she's just been through. Her heart was already bleeding and her brain was fried.

Harry couldn't pull the trigger. As he saw her shaking in front of him, tears running down her cheeks, escaping her closed eyelids and despite everything she's done to him in the past, despite her trying to kill him, Harry couldn't even hurt her. Then how could he kill her?

He pushed her away with a grunt, and y/n falls on the ground, bruising her elbows on the sand.

 "Harry.", Romania says in a warning tone. 

"Get her inside.", Harry gets up and turns away from her.

Romania and Sania look at each other at Harry's mood change.

"Want me to kill her for you boss?", one of the men asks.

"No.", Harry's voice was deep and clear, like anyone who dared to question him would be dead in one second.

"Harry, we agreed on this. You cannot fall for her stupid act, did you forget what she's capable of?", Romania grabs his arm as he starts to walk away.

"I know very well, Pelt. Do you have a problem following directions? Get her inside the car, Oliver. Take her with you.", he looks at the man standing with Luke. y/n thought Oliver was the only one giving her a sympathetic look. But she couldn't believe that either. He probably didn't care about her.

Oliver nods, going to y/n.

Romania gives the others a look behind Harry's back as he walks to the white sedan parked for him.

"Can we have our way with her back in the quarters? She might confess something-”

y/n shrinks into herself as she hears the shot. Harry had shot the man who said that, straight in his heart. He falls with a thud, blood oozing out of his chest. No one dared to speak again, or go close to the fallen man.

"New recruitment?", Harry looks at Romanina who nods. "You're getting sloppy. Another one like that and the bullet will be through your head."

"I'm sorry.", she mumbles, embarrassed and looking down at her feet.

"Get up.", Oliver grabs y/n's arm and pulls her up. She watches as Luke opens the door for Harry and he gets in. Everyone else starts getting into their cars too. 

"Hands behind your back.", Oliver tells y/n, and she doesn't protest. She had seen enough. He kept her wrists together behind her back, and handcuffed them. "Walk.", he nods to one of the only two cars left.

"Keep a hand on her Olie, she'll make a run for it.", she hears Sania. y/n was going to open her mouth to tell her something in a very colorful language, but Oliver beats her to it. 

"Enough Sania, clean that up.", Oliver grumbles to her, pointing to the dead body.

"Of course, I get all the dirty work.", Sania sighs, and waves to the two men remaining. "You heard the man."

Oliver opens the door for her, and ushers her inside his suv. "Don't try anything.", he warns, warm brown eyes looking into hers. One side of y/n's face was covered in sand, her bruise had opened up and was bleeding lightly again. Her head was pounding and her knees were aching.

"Do you think I can?", she scoffs, uncomfortable with the handcuffs. "Can you take it off?"

"No.", he simply says, classic Oliver.

She sighs as he slams the door and goes to the driver's seat. y/n looks outside at the unfamiliar streets. She had to be living in a dream, or an illusion. This couldn't be true.

Every time she thought about Harry, her chest burned. The hurt in his eyes was real, the sadness in his eyes as he begged her to remember was real. She knew that wasn't part of the act. Why would she ever try to kill him? She closes her eyes, trying to go back to the bits she remembered from the dream.

The blood, the broken windows, the gun shot. It hurt too much to think about the last four weeks. No, scratch that, her whole life. Now she wondered how long she was living in that play? Was it her whole life really? Or was it five years? Was it lesser than that?

Oliver looks at her from the rear view mirror. "Stop crying, it's not going to help and it's annoying."

y/n stares at him. "Nothing's going to help, so let me at least cry before you're going to kill me."

"You won't be killed if you remember what happened and tell Harry what he needs to know.", Oliver mumbles, eyes back on the road.

"I'm curious to know too, I'll let you know when it strikes.", she mutters, sniffling. Oliver sighs. "Sorry. For the acting."

"Fuck you."

He cracked a smile to her surprise. Oliver had the ability to smile?

"Enjoying my misery? You're all a bunch of sadists.", she tells him.

"I smiled because that sounded like the Reagen I know.", Oliver explains.

She remembers the emotion in his voice on their first morning. When he told her to bring his best friend back. 

"You were my best friend? Not Harry's?", she asks, and he nods.

"Then why are you doing this to me, Oliver?"

Oliver doesn't answer immediately, he takes a deep breath. "What did I do? I never lied to you, neither did Hans. I said I want my best friend back, and that was about you. Too bad you didn't understand. And now, I'm just following Harry's orders. I have to."

"Why?"

"I owe him, he saved someone I love.", Oliver grumbles. "He's a bastard. We had a deal, and I can't do anything but listen to him. I liked you, you were the only one who understood me and you tried to help me."

"You know things.", y/n says, studying his face. "Do you know why I tried to kill Harry?"

"I'm not sure, but you did talk to me the night before that.", Oliver says. "You were angry. You never told me what was wrong, but you sounded strange. I remember. You were scared."

His eyes meet mine. "And Reagan never got scared."

"E-Everything you told me about Reagen and Harry..it's true?"

"Yes.", Oliver nods. "You were there for him when he was lost, you taught him a lot of things, Reagen. He's a dick, but I don't think he'll ever put your life on line. He didn't want to be the best, he didn't want to lead the gang. He was forced to, after your accident. He liked being the secret weapon. He looked up to you. So I have no idea why you wanted to kill him. You could have been blackmailed. I don't know, you have to remember that."

"I-I remember glimpses of the fight, but nothing more, Oliver.", she whispers. "I really can't."

"It'll come back, it has to.", Oliver takes a sharp left to wherever they were going. "You have time. Harry's not gonna kill you..yet."

"That's very reassuring.", she says sarcastically. "Where are you taking me now?"

"I'm following the car in front of me, but I think we're going to Marco's. One of the gang's um..let's say inside source. Harry has some information."

"Is he going to kill me there?"

"No.", Oliver smiles. "He's too emotional right now to make a decision, he'll take some time."

"S-Sania and Unc-", she cuts herself off. "Luke. They're your people?"

"Yes. He isn't really your uncle."

“And Hans? Is he also mean like Romania and Sania?”

“No. You were like a sister to Hans. He’s holding the fort down at the headquarters right now.”

Oliver pulls up with the other cars and jumps out to open your door. "Sorry about the handcuffs, they're all too scared of you. Reagen can still kill all of us and get the hell out of here if she decides to, handcuffs or not.", Oliver tells her as he looks at her.

"Are you telling me to try and make a run for it?"

"Not now."

Not now?

"Bring her out Oliver.", she hears Romania's poison-filled voice.

"Get out.", Oliver yanks on her arm roughly, and she whimpers as he pulls her out of the car. Romania was giving her a disgusting look. She was jealous, y/n confirms. She probably loved Harry but he clearly hated her.

Some of the men immediately filed on the sides, guns drawn out and eyes on her back, like they were waiting for her to make a move.

"All those for me?", she whispers to Oliver.

"Reagen would need more.", he whispers back, and clears his throat when Sania joins her other side. "How was the ride?", she asks.

"You fucking bitch, don’t talk to me.", she says through gritted teeth and Sania chuckles. "You thought I was the easy one, huh? I played my part the best, Olie here couldn't even look at you."

"You don't know shit, Sania.", he said back. Sania just grins, and they enter a big house. It was like a palace. y/n sees a massive pool right in the front. She would have loved to take a dip, under normal circumstances. She saw Harry marching up first, into the house. The other men again stand in two lines beside them.

"Why are you dragging me inside?", she asks Oliver.

"Quiet.", he said in return and she rolled her eyes. Sania stood outside. Romania went in behind Harry, Oliver by her side as they walked in too.

Harry was already sitting on the big white couch, talking to another man. He was shirtless, his big belly resting on top of white pants. He had a woman by his side. She was just in a lacy black bra and thongs. She sat next to him, hand rubbing up and down his arm.

Gross, y/n thought.

"Nice to see you again, Romania, Oliver. Oh my god, is that who I think it is?", the man looks at her with a gasp, his Mexican accent thick.

"Harry, you didn't tell me! Reagen Jones, it's been a while.", the man says to her with a big smile. She couldn't bother to smile back.

"She lost her memory.", Romania explains to him with an apologetic smile.

"Oh! I thought you can finally pick up your business now that Reagen's back. You know she's the real backbone Harry.", he tells Harry who swirls the drink around in his glass. "You're all roughed up Reagen dear, why is she in cuffs?"

"She's a threat to everyone until she remembers things.", Harry answers.

"I've rumors that you tried to kill Harry. You're the woman, Reagen.", Marco tells you with a grin.

"Wouldn't that be convenient for you.", Harry leans forward. "Why did you call us here?"

"I had a lead for you, on Tony.", Marco says.

"Where is he?", Harry asks, taking a puff from his cigarette. His shirt sleeves had been rolled back so his tattooed arms were visible.

"He's in Italy, here’s the exact location.", Marco passes him a piece of paper. Harry takes a look at it, smirks and hands it to Romania. "What do you think Romania?”

"Give me one minute to cross check, Boss." Romania pulls her phone out.

"Cross check what? It is the right address!", Marco said, and y/n could make out a little panic in his voice.

"Yes, it’s the same one.", Romania tells Harry and Harry laughs, making Marco frown. "You already knew?"

"You think you're so clever, don't you?", Harry asks. "I found out that you switched to Tony's side when he offered you a better deal. To spy on us. You think you can outsmart me?"

Marco gave him a sly smile, but there was a bit of fear behind it. "I don't know what you're talking about, Styles."

"Sure you don't. I know what's waiting for me if I believe you and go to find Tony. They've sprung a big trap there for me. My men have already checked it all out. Nice try of killing me, but you knew better than to try, Marco.", Harry snarls.

Marco chuckles, patting the girl's thigh and she gets up, going inside. "You're already dead inside, Harry. I hoped that you would end in the accident, I wasn't happy to hear that you survived. But then I got to know that you weren't the same. You died the day that Reagen betrayed you."

Harry moved, sleek as a panther as he grabbed the knife the girl was using to slice up the apples, and he moved behind Marco, arm wrapping around his head in a headlock, as the other hand held the knife to his throat. "You do talk a lot, Marco. That's what always got you into trouble. Do you know what we do to traitors?"

Harry looks straight at y/n, and she watches in horror as Harry stabs the knife in his throat. He didn't so much as flinch. Harry's eyes burned into hers, and she imagined herself being in Marco's place.

Marco's men immediately pointed guns at Harry.

"Drop your weapons or you'll all have the same fate as poor Marco here.", Romania orders. She, Sania and Oliver pulled out their guns too.

Harry breaks eye contact with y/n finally, pushing Marco down from the couch so he falls on the floor, red coating the white tiles. He was dead. Harry storms out, looking like a lion who just had his prey.

y/n flinches as shots are fired, and Oliver ducks her head down, quickly pulling her outside. He drags her back to the car. Harry was washing his blood stained hands.

"Stay here.", Oliver tells her, leaning her against the car. He went to talk to Harry, giving him a towel to wipe his hands. Harry nods and says something to him before getting in his car.

He was a monster. 

y/n saw him kill two people in less than two hours. This was the same man who cuddled her when she had a nightmare, kissed her ever so sweetly, made love with her, treated her injury and held an umbrella for her so she wouldn't get wet in the rain.

He looked so fierce, and so angry, he could do anything. Only a matter of time before he slices her own throat. She wasn't very scared though. Maybe death will treat her better. 

She remains quiet as Oliver drives her somewhere else. The sky was painted in hues as the sun set. She leaned her head on the window and shut her tired eyes.

"Reagen! Stop it!", she hears Harry as she pushes him to the wall. Harry had a cut on his cheek, blood flowing down from his skin. "Why are you doing this? We have gold in our car, Reagen, we have to go. Why are you fighting me?"

"Shut up!" She punches him square in the jaw. Harry groans, bringing a hand to his nose. "Fuck. What happened? Did someone tell you something about me?"

Harry still didn't make a move as she kneed his abdomen, making him bend over with pain. "I-I trusted you Harry.", she whispers, tears falling out of her eyes. Another kick to his stomach makes him fall on his knees. "You're j-just a liar."

"I never lied to you about anything baby please-" His head falls to the side as she punches his jaw.

"I-I have to kill you, Harry.", she whispers, taking her gun out and pointing it at him.

"You h-have to?", Harry looks up at her, blood oozing out of his nose and his lips, but his eyes held hope. "That means someone is forcing you, isn't it? Reagen, we'll take them down. Who are you doing this for? I'm y-your partner, why would you kill me?"

She lets out a sob, pressing the gun to his throat as she kneels down to his height. "S-Stop talking."

"Put away the gun Reagen.", Harry whispers, taking her hands with his shaking ones. "I-It's okay, I've got you."

"I-I trusted you.", she repeats, and before she could pull the trigger, Harry flips her so she lies on the ground, and he disarms her gun, twisting her hands behind her back. "I didn't do anything, Reagen, please. Stop whatever you're doing."

"Let me go!", she screams, and Harry pushes her head down further, applying pressure to her lower back. "Not until you tell me what this is about. Who’s threatening you darling?”

"W-We're gonna die if we don't get out of here.", she strains out.

"What do you mean?"

"T-There's going to be an explosion, to kill you.", she cries, not being able to do it. She couldn’t just lead him to his death.

"Fuck.", Harry curses, and gets up, pulling her up. "Let's get out of here."

"N-No, I can't. You have to d-die or t-they'll.." She pushes Harry to the small stall, she was supposed to get him inside it.

"They'll what? Reagen, please. We'll figure it out. You don't want to do this.", Harry resists, and she gets dragged with him to the stall. There were people going after the gold in their car, she could hear them arguing and shots being fired.

"I love you, I'll kill whoever’s making you do this, sunshine, let's get out of here.", Harry croaks as she pushes his collar towards the entrance of the small stall.

"I-It's too late Harry, I'm sorry-"

Everything blew up. The bomb went off and everything went black.

__________________________________________

Taglist: @harrydeary, @harryswifee, @harrysbxtchh, @gracelovesethan

Let me know if you want me to add your names to my tag list! There will be a last chapter to Traitor-The Present and that's going to keep you at the edge of your seats as you read it. Please ask away if you have any questions about this fic, or anything else, I'd love to talk to you guys. Thanks for reading!

[maiko-san]

The Chain + TP! Reader (3/?)

< Part 2

Plot : You are Twilight's childhood best friend, who like Twilight can turn into an animal, that is a crow. You just happen to follow Twilight into the portal in your crow form and meet the Chain.

( Fem Reader )

Note : (Y/n) and Twilight are a couple in this fic. Also, apologise that I couldn't include all Links in the conversation but they're there listening.

-----------

"(Y/n)?!" you stand there awkwardly, Link or Twilight stated in shock. "Did you follow me all the way here?!" he asks, you give him a nod as you avert your gaze 'Sorry....' you said. "Oh Hylia...." Twilight sighs as he rubs his temple. The other Links witness the scene unfold as they watch their brother talk to a crow.

"Is it yours, Rancher?" questioned Legend. Twilight takes a deep breath, "Yeah, she's mine" he said as he walks over to you and holds out his hand for you to perch on. You step up his hand as he caresses your head and giving a little scratch on your cheek.

You let out a small coo as you lean into his touch. "You and...." Sky trail as Twilight turns to him, "(Y/n), that's her name" he said. "(Y/n), that's a pretty name. Aw, looking at this reminds me of Crimson and I" Sky said as he smiles at the thought of his own bird companion.

"She has been with me for the longest time" Twilight said, his lips curls up into a smile. "She's my friend" he said, 'and my lover...' he thought lovingly.

"So, it seems we got a new addition in the team huh" chirps Wind, Four and Hyrule smiles. "Well, a friend of Twilight is a friend of ours" Hyrule said. "I wonder how Wolfie will react to this" grin Wild. "I heard that Wolves and Crows have symbiotic relationships! I think they will get along well!" Four chimed.

'Too well...' you and Twilight thought at the same time. "Can't wait for Wolfie to come back" Wind said. A wind blows to your face which causes you to squawk in surprise. You turn your head around to see Epona close to you, 'Epona, you scared me!' you said. Epona snorts and neighs, licking you gently to apologise.

Guess she's happy to see you here. You climb on to Epona's head as you crows, 'It's okay, just don't do that again' you said. "You're happy too huh, girl" Twilight said as he rubs Epona's neck.

.

.

Later that night, Twilight got the first shift. You're still perched on his shoulder as Twilight sits at the edge of the camp so he can talk to you.

"So is this why you didn't want me to come along. They're good people, why didn't you introduce them sooner?" you questioned him, Twilight sigh. "It's not like that..." he said. "It's just, our mission is....much more dangerous and I... don't want you to get hurt...." he said. Twilight was disappointed when you followed him to the portal, but he can't really blame you for it since he wasn't truthful. It would be different if he was honest with you and you would have stayed back in Ordon. He can't really do anything now and has to keep you close to him.

Once the portal to his world opens up, he will send you back home where you are safe from danger, away from evil. Away from Shadow....

"I have a question, Link" you speak up gaining his attention, "What is it, pumpkin?". "Did they really call you Wolfie when you were a wolf?" you asked with a smug look on your face. Twilight raises an eyebrow before letting out a chuckle, "Haha, ah yes they did. They didn't even come up with a better name for me. Dumb isn't?" he said.

"I like Wolfie. It sounds cute" you chirped. Twilight smiles as he pecks at your beak, "Hmm, you're cuter than me, love" he said which causes you to blush. You couldn't help but cover your face with your wing, god why he so romantic?

"Anyways, (N/n). Did you told dad before leaving?" Link questioned, which makes you gasp. "Oh, no! I forgot!" you said, you forgot to tell your parents about leaving to join Link. You didn't even leave a note! They're going to be worried. "Calm down, love. I'm sure your dad understands. I'm sure he knows where you are right now" Twilight said. "Besides, he trusts me to take care of you. He's my teacher after all" he continues.

Twilight notices that his shift is almost over and Four will take over the next shift. He stands up and stretches his limbs, "Time to go to bed" he said. He walks over to the campfire and Four is already awake, ready to take the next shift. "See anything?" Four questioned the rancher, Twilight shakes his head "There's nothing unusual as for now" he said, Four nods as he stands up "Well, I'm gonna stretch my limbs for a bit" he said. "Good night, Twi, (Y/n)" he waves as he takes a few steps away from the camp. He lets you down on the log as he takes off some of his equipment and leaves him only in his tunic.

He doesn't really want to risk taking it all since everyone is out in the wilderness and enemies could attack at any moment, so it's better to leave some on. Twilight lies down on his bed roll as you snuggle yourself on his chest, his hand gently set on your back.

"Goodnight...." he whispers as you reply back, "Hm....goodnight...." you mumbled before dozing off.

.

Click!

Click!

.

You hear a clicking sound, which wakes you up. You open your eyes groggily and let's put a yawn, your feathers puff up doing so as you cuddle deeper in the warmth of Twilight's tunic. It was so warm that it made you doze off again....

Click!

Click!

There it is again.

You snap your eyes open to see Wild holding a slate in his hands, he's smiling and giggling to himself. 'What's up with him?' you thought

Click!

The slate lets out a clicking sound, what is that thing?

"Good morning, (Y/n)" Wild said with a smile, the sun is rising and the first one to wake up was Wild, Legend and Time. You stretch your wings and look down on Twilight, he is still sleeping. He usually wakes up before the sun is up. You were slightly surprised that he hasn't woken up yet, "Rancher went back to sleep since he doesn't want to wake you up" Wild said.

You notice that Wild is cooking breakfast, what is he making? You hop onto the log to see what he's cooking. Seems like scrambled eggs and toast?

"Curious are we? I'm making scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, want a taste?" he said holding out a small portion for you to taste. "It tastes a little bland since I'm running out of herbs" he said.

You smile, 'Heh, herbs you say? Well, I got you covered!' you thought. You spread your wings and fly away, carrying your bag with you. It makes Wild sadden a little bit when you fly away. This causes Legend snorts, "Oh wow, seems the crow hates it" he said as Wild sends a glare at the veteran.

Finding herbs wasn't that hard for you, you managed to pick a beak full of fresh herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme, chives— you name it. You also found a couple of rupees along the way and stuff them in your bag.

When you return to the camp, everyone is already awake and ready to have their breakfast. You land on the log and crows at Wild, the man turns around to see you're back with something in your beak.

"Are those herbs? Did you pick them for me?" he pointed out. You nod, puffing out your chest in pride, Wild smiles "Thank you, (Y/n)" he said, taking the herbs from you. He looks through them and Hyrule leans in, "Oh hey, there's medicinal herbs here too" he said, picking up a herb.

"Did you teach her, Twilight?" Questioned Hyrule to Twilight, the blonde blinks "Ah, not really. She learned it by herself—" he said. "By herself? That's amazing!" Hyrule smiles, he was impressed that a crow learned about herbs all by itself when you were actually taught by your dad, Rusl. "Yeah, it's amazing that a crow learns about herbs. Is it possible for me to teach it to Crimson?" Sky hummed.

Receiving praises makes you feel pleased and happy, slightly bashful. Maybe you should do this more often?

"I wonder what else she can do?" Legend smirks, putting a hand on his hips. "Does she bring back shiny stuff? Like gold?" he questioned. 'Gold?! Where?!' you squawked, looking left and right. This causes Twilight to look away and scratch his cheek, "I think it's better not to mention gold around her" he chuckles nervously.

[ End of Part ]

[alessiathepirate]

Resident Evil 4

CLUELESS: Leon S. Kennedy x fem!reader

Summary: Five times they were sure they weren't dating and one time they weren't. OR: Luis, Ashley, Ada and Krauser having enough of how oblivious and clueless they are about their feelings.

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistake I made while I wrote this short story.

Warnings: swearing, violence, my Spanish (if I used something in the wrong context please feel free to tell me so I can improve), Luis being the number one fanboy and Ashley being best girl

•••

Prince Charming and his señorita

"Tell me señorita, are you and Prince Charming a thing?"

She looked up at Luis with furrowed eyebrows, her face full of confusion. She examined his gestures and the way the muscles around his mouth moved, forming a small, knowing smirk.

"Why? You want to take me out on a date or something?" she asked, quickly falling for the assumption that all Luis wants is to know if she's single so he can continue his flirting, hoping the one liners will magically work.

But then again, she thought, he'd still do it without remorse.

So what does he really want with that question?

"I'd love to cariño, but not with a señorita who's already taken."

"I'm not. Do whatever you want with that information."

She turned away from him, continuing her search through the small villa in hopes of some extra ammunition. She opened a drawer, but found nothing other than some old photos.

"I don't believe you, cariño." Luis said, suddenly breaking the silence.

She slammed the drawer shut in frustration and looked at him, trying to keep her cool and not get annoyed at his antics. She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

She should've gotten used to his teasing by now, but it was impossible to do so. He always found something to talk about, question her about and annoy her about. And now that she was afraid her partner and the president's daughter got hurt in some way after they got seperated, Luis's teasing just crossed a line.

"Look, 'cariño', I don't know why you have to annoy me with literally everything all the time, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped." she pleaded slowly, hoping he'll just stop.

"Oh, there's nothing to feel ashamed of, mi vida. Love is a beautiful and natural thing." he continued on, as he leaned against the wall, looking at her with pure naught. "Besides, I'm sure our Yanqui feels the same way... Deep in love, you know, I'm sure it sounds familiar."

She turned away, this time to hide the slight blush that appeared on her face. Thinking about Leon like that made her stomach feel like it's doing acrobatics.

"No one looks at another person like that without being in love. And our Leon looks at you like tu eres todo su mundo."

She turned to look at him quickly, wanting to ask what he meant when he said that - and when Luis noticed her pink cheeks he just smirked.

"Aw, look at that blush! You for sure look you're not in love cariño."

"Shut up!"

"Really? You want me to? How will you let him know your feelings without my advice, ey?"

"Like I'd take your advice."

"I'm not saying you have to," Luis started to explain himself. "I'm just saying I'm your best option."

She just rolled her eyes shamelessly, but Luis didn't seem to care.

"Now- with a boy like our Leon, the best thing you can do in your situation is to make him j-"

She'll never know what he really wanted to say, because in the next second loud noises were coming from outside and both of them ran to the nearest window to figure out what was going on. The moment she realized Leon and Ashley were running towards their hideout as hoards of Spanish undead were chasing them and shouting at them, she ran towards the door, opening it without thinking twice.

"This way!" she shouted.

Ashley was the first to arrive and she gave her a short hug as she waited for Leon to get inside. When they were finally able to close the door behind themselves, she felt two strong arms quickly wrapping themselves around her shoulders and waist, and the next thing she knew she was hugging Leon like there was no tomorrow.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course I am."

"You sure?"

And even if in the next moment Luis was stuck between the wall and a very upset Leon Kennedy, he still sent a smirk her way, as if he'd say: "Sure, princesa, you two are just business partners with heart shaped eyes."

•••

The way they act around each other

"Can I ask you something?" Ashley asked as she was sitting on top of a barrel, dangling her feet as she watched Leon at the shooting range.

"Of course."

"This may sound a little weird, but- are you and Leon dating?"

She turned to look at Ashley as if she just grew another head - what in their situation was quite likely to happen.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you in a relationship with him?" Ashley asked again, examining the ways her expression changed as she waited for an answer.

"I understood what you meant the first time, it's just- what makes you think that?"

"The way you act around each other." Ashley started to explain as she looked back at Leon, who shot a cutout of a pirate in the head. "He always makes sure you're okay and you always check if he has any new bruises."

She leaned against the barrel Ashley was sitting on as she looked at the man they were talking about as well. She watched as his muscles tensed up a bit everytime he pulled the trigger, she watched as he bit his lip in concentration when the target was further away and she watched as his eyes followed the bullet's movement. She bit her lip as her heartbeat got quicker at both the sight and thought - the thought that every single person in Spain seems to think they are dating.

"I care about him."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"He seems like a great guy."

"He is a great guy." she said, knowing she's saying the truth. Whoever Leon'll date in the future - that girl will for sure be a lucky girl.

She couldn't help but giggle as Leon turned towards them with a satisfied little smile, being proud of himself that he just beat his own highscore.

"Do you think you can beat me?"

"Oh, it's on!" she smirked, accepting the challenge.

She ran up to the shooting range, leaving a confused, but happy Ashley behind. She could literally feel her gaze on them and she could heard her thoughts saying: "They are really cute!" - she shook her head, getting those thoughts out of her head. She needs to focus if she wants to win.

"Handgun?"

"Handgun."

Leon smiled as he put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeez, causing her to almost choke on her own saliva.

"Let's see what you can do."

As she rose her gun she could hear Ashley saying "Leon, can I ask you about something?". She missed the first shot when Ashley asked "Are you two dating?", because her heart skipped a beat and beacuse she had to force herself not to look at Leon's expression.

•••

She should keep her boyfriend on a leash

"You should keep your boyfriend on a leash." she immediatelly stopped what she was doing when she heard the very familiar voice of Ada Wong, the woman who was there the night her life became horrific. "He likes to get himself in trouble."

"He's not my boyfriend." she said her voice becoming higher from the annoyance. "And I'm sure he can make his own decisions."

"He clearly can't if you're still not together." she heard the noises of high heels meeting with the wooden floor from behind her and she was sure Ada was walking towards her.

"Where are they?"

" 'They?' " Ada asked and she hated how her voice was full of pride, meaning she knows more than she does. "They got separeted half an hour ago, so now Leon is looking for the both of you."

She turned around, looking at Ada's features hoping they'll give her an explanation to what's going on. But she couldn't read anything off of her face, it was stone cold with a bit of teasing naught.

"So what, you gave Leon a surprise visit as well?"

"No need to get jealous, he didn't give me the welcome I expected."

"What can you expect in a situation like ours?"

She didn't get an answer to her question.

"Leave the girl and get out of here as soon as you can. So maybe you two can finally go on a date." she almost shouted out in frustration, but stopped herself from doing so just in time. "But please, be brave enough to make the first move, because he won't."

For the first time since forever she became speechless and didn't even think about shooting Ada in the leg when she climbed out of the window.

•••

La misión

She almost punched Luis in the face when he touched her shoulder, scaring her and causing her well trained reflexes to react. She stopped just in time, missing his cheekbone by a thread.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Just Luis, mi amor."

"Do you want to die or something?" she asked, not knowing if she meant it as a threat or as a free life lesson.

"Not really, cariño." he answered as she let go of him and took a few steps backwards. "Now tell me, how is la misión going?"

"What mission? Ashley is fine with Leon-"

"I meant our mission, princesa, how are things going with Leon?"

"Oh my God, why do you hate me so much?" she whispered the poetic question as she hid her face in her palms.

"Any success with the confession yet?"

"Can we just stop talking about my love life?"

"Not really, cariño, since we only share this mission together. After that you're on your own."

She chose not to answer and decided to take a look at her surroundings. The other door was locked, she checked it just before Luis arrived, so she had to find another way around the castle if she wanted to reunite with Ashley and Leon. God, she really hoped they are okay, there are some strong enemies around here.

Five seconds. She left Luis unsupervised for five seconds while she walked up to a window deep in thoughts, and Luis has already gotten bored. And in his boredom he decided to give Leon a call.

"Luis, where are you?" she could hear Leon's slightly annoyed voice through the trasmitter.

"Sorry I, uh, I screwed up." he started in a quite serious tone, but then glanced at her and smiled. "Come to our rescue Prince Charming!"

"I'll show you charming!" she almost laughed at his anger. "Wait, what do you mean 'our'?"

Luis turned the transmitter towards her, so Leon could get a clear view of her standing in front of the window. She just furrowed her eyebrows, having enough of both Luis and the situation.

Leon looked both frustrated and confused as he looked at her. She sent a smile his way.

"I met up with your señorita, Sancho. We might as well continue our adventure together, sí?" he turned the machine away from her. "Meet us in the Ballroom and don't be late! Or I'll be the one asking her for a dance! Nos vemos!"

As she looked at the man acting like a child, the only thought she had was: "I should've punched him straight in the jaw."

•••

The rookie kept his girl scout around

"I see you kept your girlfriend around, rookie."

That was the last fucking straw. The last fucking person she wanted to hear that sentence from. If Leon doesn't grab her hand, she would've shot Krauser in the face - and it's not like she's stupid. She knows it wouldn't kill him, but she'd enjoy the feeling of looking at the damaged muscles on his face.

Luis should be the one teasing them. He should be the one walking with them, telling them every five seconds how cute they are and how beautiful amor is. Not that asshole...

She wanted to shout at him, scream at him in anger and sadness, but Leon's grip on her stopped her in that as well. She looked at his face, questioning why he's holding her back when Krauser killed Luis in cold blood for absolutely nothing...

"Don't let him get in your head..." was all he said, as he kept a firm hold on her and they started to walk among the ruins.

"Oh, you're worried about the girl, is that it?" Krauser asked as he played with the knife in his hands. "No, I don't think that's it. I think you're worried about another girl, am I right? You're worried about your girlfriend even though she went through the same training as you. But that's just like you. You always had poor judgment."

She saw how Leon's jaw tightened and it was her turn to keep a firm hold on him, not letting him fall apart.

"But if you think I'm gonna let you out of here alive... you're even more naive than I thought." she was pushed to Leon's other side, further away from Krauser. "You can't save her. You can't save anyone."

She could feel the tension in his body grow and in a last hopeful chance to calm him down she said: "Come on, Leon. 'Don't let him get in your head.' "

"Or do you think you can save the girl scout?" for a short second their gaze met and she wished she could spit at him from this distance. "We both know she wasn't the best in hand-to-hand combat."

"Give it up, Krauser!" Leon acted on his anger so suddenly, that her heartbeat quickened from the sudden fear. "Being a lackey for these maniacs won't bring your men back. And what the Hell for? Revenge on the goverment? You think they would want that?"

She could feel the cold running through her back, the feeling of close danger sharpened her senses. She kept her gaze on Krauser, not daring to blink, afraid that she'll miss the first attack.

"Revenge? You think I'm doing all this for revenge?"

"Isn't that what this is all about?"

She stopped listening to what Krauser was saying and rather focused on his body language. She saw how with every word he says out loud his shoulders become more tense. Some kind of slight anger was about to overtake him.

So what? Let it. She's always liked to fight him when he was pissed off, because then he made more mistakes.

"You know," she started. "you were always an asshole. At least you were a honored one in the past... now, you're simply just an asshole."

She felt Leon's body tense up at her words and she realized he's afraid Krauser will hurt her.

"Enough reminiscing!" this time he couldn't hide his frustration. "Move out and draw fire, soldier!"

She reacted quickly, pulling Leon behind a broken column long before Krauser started to fire. As she sat there, she pulled out her handgun and then put her knife in her shoe. Knowing their ex-major, she'll need that more, but it's better to use that as a surprise.

"Next time, try not to piss him off."

She turned to Leon with a half smile. "What? You think only you can do that, rookie?"

"Stop it!"

"Come on!" she teased with a small smirk. "I know you love it when that name is coming from me."

Leon couldn't hide how his mouth wanted to form a smile. "I let you call me that. Now let's go and kick his ass!"

"Oh, I feel honored!" she said as she got to her knees and shot her first bullet from behind the column.

•••

Fear makes your heart feel full

She felt like her heart stopped beating for a few moments when Leon fell to the ground and it didn't take more than half a second for her to join him on the floor. She landed on her knees as she pressed one of her hands to her chest tightly, still feeling the pain the machine caused as it removed the plaga. The fear that flooded her mind made her numb, her breathing became heavy as she looked up at Ashley and asked her to help her get him up in the medical chair, so they can get the plaga out of him as well.

And now as she sat next to him, holding his hand as she waited for him to wake up she felt like nothing else matters. She won't take a single fucking step without him.

"He'll be fine. I'm sure of it." Ashley said who has found a chair close to them.

"I know." she muttered and she had to swallow, because her mouth felt dry. "I know he will, I'm just- worried about him."

She examined his features, looked him up and down to make sure he's okay - and when she realized he seems calm and relaxed, she felt like she can breath again. Only moments ago he was in pain. She could see it on his face, the way the muscles around his eyes and nose moved... But not anymore. Now he seems to feel better. His cheeks aren't red and the black veins disappeared as well.

"Ashley?"

"Yes?"

"When- when you thought we were dating... You spoke about this, didn't you? How we take care of each other..." she felt her heartbeat quicken as she muttered the last few words.

"Yes, this is what I was talking about."

She looked at Leon again, feeling the pure need to hug him and keep him close so she could feel the heat radiating off of him and feel the way his body is moving with every small breath.

"I don't think I'd be able to feel like this about anyone else... Not even in a relationship."

She could see the soft smile on Ashley's face and for a moment she saw the both of them in a café back in the USA, talking and laughing about nothing at all.

"He's not just a friend, is he?"

"I don't know. Luis said he looks at me like 'tu eres todo su mundo'. Like 'you're his whole world'."

"I can see what he meant by that." for a moment the atmosphere became sad - Luis was still a new loss and a fresh wound, and with that a still present regret. She should've been more playful instead of being an asshole. "That's how you look at Leon everytime we're at the shooting range."

"He looks good at the shooting range." she said without thinking, feeling her cheeks become red soon after.

"You know, it's hard to find a normal guy these days. I'm happy you found each other."

"So you don't have a nice guy in a suit waiting for you at home?" she asked teasingly.

"No. Not really."

"Well I'm sure we can say that after this messed up adventure you won't need one. You'll look after yourself just fine and you'll have time to find that nice guy." she smiled at Ashley who felt more like a friend by now than the president's daughter.

In the next second Leon's hand moved in her hold and she almost fell off the chair. She stood up instead of staying there and she tightened her hold on him.

"Jesus Christ, Leon!" she spoke up, her voice full of both worry and happiness as she looked down at him. "You pull an act like that again and you'll burry me the next time you wake up."

He opened his eyes, the blue irises full of confusion as he looked up at her while he tried to get used to the light.

"The plaga..."

"We removed it." she said, not letting him finish his sentence. "There's no need to worry about that anymore."

She noticed that Ashley walked further away from them, giving them some privacy even if there wasn't another room to go to. Then her gaze was back on Leon again as she slowly let go of his hand.

"You removed it?"

"Yeah, we did." she smiled at him, feeling like her heart is full - full of so many emotions she doesn't know what to feel. "God, I was so worried about you."

"It's fine, I'm fine. Thanks to you."

They smiled at the other with one of those small, shy smiles what paints everyones cheeks pink.

"Can you stand up?"

"Sure, don't worry about that."

But he couldn't stand up. His legs gave up halfway and if she's not there he would've landed on the ground again.

"Careful. You have to take care of yourself." she scolded him as she helped him up, but didn't take a step away from him even when he was standing with a straight back. She craved the closeness more than anything.

"I'm not the priority here."

"Of course you are! To me you fucking are!" the frustration and worry spoke from her without regret and now that she said that out loud, her breathing became heavy.

"Good to know we feel the same about each other."

They didn't speak for a moment and she couldn't do so even if she tried to, because Leon's right hand gently touched her right cheek; his thumb brushing along the angry red cut she got from Krauser's knife.

"Does it still hurt?"

"It never did."

"Such a liar." Leon laughed as he let go of her face.

"But you love me like that."

"Damn right I do."

For a few seconds she forgot how to breath and her chest started to ache, ache from all the bottled up emotions and the realization that he said that out loud. He said that out loud. Her eyes started to sting - God, she's such a weak girl, just like Krauser said in the past; crying over the things she shouldn't cry over...

"You do? You-" she took a deep breath before she continued. "You love me?"

The silence set in again, neither of them daring to speak up. She noticed how Leon shied away from her gaze and how her own heartbeat became dangerously fast.

"Of course he does!" Ashley's voice came so suddenly that she flinched, getting closer to her partner, because she forgot Ashley was still in the room with them. "And if he doesn't take you out on a date when we get back home..."

No one said anything else about that. Leon just pressed a kiss to her forehead, almost giving her a heart attack whille he did so.

"Let's get out of here, yeah? So we can go out on a date..."

She didn't miss Ashley's quiet 'Finally' after they parted. She couldn't miss it even if she tried to.

As they got ready to leave, she noticed that her heart feels full. Full of love, love to give and accept. After all, love is a beautiful and natural thing and she for sure won't be afraid to look at Leon like he's her mundo entero. Not anymore.

[doberbutts]

Thank you for making the schindler post, it perfectly illustrates why I hate the way people will act like people who hurt others (like active nazis and racists) aren't capable of regular emotion and thought. Second chances are often seen as bad when it comes to violence and crime, but if you never give someone the chance to change, form different opinions, or see the damage they or their associates have caused, they'll just keep taking the path of least resistance, keep following orders. I just want people to take a serious look at a nazi who changed his mind. There is nothing inherently evil about anyone, there are only moral and immoral choices.

It helps, I think, to understand that he did not join the nazi party because he hated Jews. Even what research I did on the real man said that for the most part his reasons for siding with Hitler were purely economical. And, as I've said before, Hitler did not start with "I hate Jews let's kill them all" but with "look how bad the economy sucks! And who is doing well while the economy sucks? The Jews. That means they're the ones behind making the economy suck!" to get people on his side.

I think Schindler did have some internalized antisemitism. How could he not? He thought of the plan to use almost exclusively Jewish slave labor as good business sense. Cheaper than Poles, more desperate for the work and thus less likely to complain about conditions or quit, can't fuss about wanting wages or better hours, what's not to like? Supposedly his workers were treated well. I don't know if that makes it particularly better. I wonder how his workers felt, staring at the emblem proudly pinned to his jacket, knowing it stood for the extermination of their entire people.

I wonder if any of them ever considered it might be a trick. An elaborate long game to get them to trust and slip up. To get them to reveal the hiding places and secret messages and the others striving to find or make a way out.

I think the movie played with that concept a little bit, when the character of Stern (who apparently was 3 different real guys rolled into 1) is portrayed as always being a little standoffish and cold to Schindler until close to the very end. He was afraid of him. Schindler held not only his life but the lives of all of the people working there (plus more, irl) in his hands. He rubbed shoulders with high ranked officials and knew personally more than one known sadistic bastard that actively got off on murdering Jews. All it would take is a single word and it would be more than just those in the factory who died.

But then the ghetto was cleansed. In history, Schindler had advance warning and made his workers lock themselves in the factory overnight to spare them. In the movie, Schindler did not have warning, and saw the chaos from atop a vantage point as he'd meant to pass by.

Either way, both in life and in film, that was the line. He was, at minimum, willfully blind and passive to the evidence of what was happening up to that point. Once he couldn't deny it, he put his foot down and said, no more. I'm not doing this. I can't save everybody but you aren't getting your hands on anyone in my charge. Put me in jail if you have to. This is wrong.

He had everything to gain by continuing to look away. In the movie, Stern says something to the tune of "you'll have to hire Hungarians and Poles. They cost a little more but you'll still be rich" when they're both faced with Hitler's final solution. No more cheap Jewish labor when they're all dead, after all. It is at that point that they come up with the list- to get as many Jews as possible out of Germany before they're all sent to their deaths. He could have just said "yeah, sorry. I tried". Stern even more or less gave him permission to do so, like he was expecting it.

But he didn't. He said no fuck that, it's bullshit. It's not happening. I'm not letting it happen. They can arrest me or kill me if they want but if I'm alive for it I'm not just going to stand back and watch.

But I think it is difficult for people to grapple with that level of complexity. Not everyone he saved thinks he was overall a good person. His motives were not always pure. In fact many times his motives were just about lining his own pockets. But when he saw atrocities happen, he put his foot down and refused to participate. Even at his own cost- he had the equivalent amount of money back then as would be needed to retire early nowadays from his factory labor. He spent it on bribes and rations to keep them safe. He went to jail several times for refusing to back down. He risked his own neck by networking with other factory owners to get them to do the same. He could have been executed for this at any point. Nazis loved public spectacle executions for traitors and for collusion with Jews.

He wasn't a perfect ally. But I think I'd rather an imperfect ally do whatever they can to help, than no allies at all.

[tldrthor]

Come find me - peter parker x avenger!female!reader

Part two to promises, oceans deep // we both did the best we could do underneath the same moon, and in different galaxies // based on the song 'Peter' by Taylor Swift

Summary: you thought you would get over him, but you never did. It takes getting hurt, and Cap looking out for you, for you to finally get your head straight.

Author's notes: I ignore a lot of post-endgame stuff. Steve never left, Wanda isn't evil, Peter was never forgotten. I've left reader and Peter's ages semi-ambiguous, so you can decide for yourself what age you think is appropriate!

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You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me.

Peter opened his eyes slowly, the light streaming in from the window attacking them. He must have fallen asleep without closing the curtains last night. As he came to, he realised what day it was. And a chill ran through his body.

"Peter!" May called. "Peter, get up! We're going to be late!" She rushed into the room, her nose curling up in disgust at presumably, the smell of depressed teenage boy. "God, we have to open a window in here. It's toxic."

He huffed, and rolled away from her. "May, I don't want to go." He had spoken about this with her already. He knew that Ned and MJ were going, but he didn't want to. He couldn't go, when she wasn't going to be there.

"Is it because of (y/n)?" May's voice was soft, gentle. Like she was talking to a scared, little animal. He hated the pity laced in her words. "I'm sorry she's not going to be there sweetheart, you know she's got a lot going on with rebuilding the Avengers."

You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me.

He swallowed, sadness crossing his face, but May didn't see it. "She's avoiding me, anyways."

Words from the mouths of babes, promises, oceans deep. But never to keep. Oh, never to keep.

May didn't say anything to Peter, but she thought it was for the best. She knew how devastating it was, for both of you, to come back to see one of you had kept moving, while the other stayed in place. She saw, in the few weeks following the battle at the compound, how you looked like you was going to be sick every time you were around Peter.

She saw how you barely talked, barely smiled, barely did anything.

She hadn't been around for the five long years between the snaps, but from what she talked about with Captain Rogers, you had taken the losses particularly badly.

Snapping back to the present, she looked at Peter and wondered if you would ever find your way back to one another. She made a mental note to ask Steve how you were doing when she saw him later.

"Let's go, come on." She held his shoulder and gave it a shake. "Your parent's would've killed me if I ever let you skip your graduation."

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The day was a blur. MJ and Ned gave him a hug on arrival, knowing that he didn't want to be here. All he could feel was the loss sitting heavy on his chest. Tony wasn't here. Natasha wasn't here. His parents weren't here. Uncle Ben. You.

There were photos and smiles and drinks. He forced himself to get through it, for May, if nothing else.

Steve gave him a big hug as soon as he saw him, knowing that he was a poor replacement for who Peter really wanted to see. "Hey! Congratulations, Pete!" He gave him a signature pat on the shoulder as Peter muttered a 'thanks, cap' back at him. Steve continued; "(y/n) sends her regards, she's sorry she couldn't come."

Peter bitterly thought that Steve was just telling him what he wanted to hear. He knew that if you wanted to be here, you would have made it happen. He wanted to be mad... but he knew this day would be too painful for you, too.

I won't confess that I waited, but I let the lamp burn. As the men masqueraded, I hoped you'd return.

At dinner, he was distracted. MJ and Ned were talking about the latest political news -- MJ talked about some senators voting record, while Ned relayed funny memes he had found on instagram about her. This obviously descended into chaos.

Peter was more interested in the conversation going on at the other end of the table, between May and Steve.

"So tell me, how is (y/n)?" May asked, looking at your guardian.

He looked almost... resigned. He breathed out, worry lines creasing his forehead. Peter could nearly feel the worry radiating off of him. "She's doing... okay. She's throwing herself into work at the moment, somewhere in Europe. It's all tightly under wraps, but she's an amazing agent these days."

May smiled, weakly. She knew that an avenger 'throwing themselves into work' was a worrying symptom of an emotional storm. She could see it in her own kid.

"Well, tell her we were asking for her when you talk to her next."

"I will. Thanks, May."

Peter had to know more. It was like a burning, aching in his chest. He watched as Steve silently ate his pasta, something - you - on his mind. He knew Steve hadn't said everything to May. Peter longed for the days where he would've known what you were up to.

"Pete, will you tell him to not infantilise politicians!" MJ finally snapped him out of it. Ned laughed at her outburst.

Peter snapped his head back to them. "Yeah, yeah. Ned, it's like... not good for democracy. Or whatever." He felt bad actually, because it was a good point. He just didn't have the energy to back her up right now.

"Ugh! They are employed for us." She groaned.

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Peter's back was aching. He stretched it out, trying to power through the ache that came with changing position. Shit, he looked at the clock. It was 3am, and he had been sitting working on this assignment for way, way longer than he anticipated.

Just as he stood up to get ready for bed, his phone flashed, illuminating the room.

"What. the. hell." He said to no one. It was a text from you. God, he hadn't even seen you in more than a year now. Whenever you returned from the top-secret missions you were sent on, you were always mysteriously busy whenever Pete was free, or around. He knew you stayed at Cap's new townhouse in Brooklyn with him, but every time Peter went around, you had always just left. And every single time, Steve gave him a pitying smile while informing him that you had really urgent business to return to, but you were really sorry to miss him.

Are you up?

The text message read. Peter felt like he went through all the stages of grief reading it. He opened it immediately, cursing and praying to Jesus that he didn't have read receipts on. He hurriedly swiped off the message app when the typing bubble came up again.

Not a booty call, I promise.

He almost laughed at that. Almost.

Yeah, are you okay? He replied.

As soon as he had sent it, there was a tap tap tap at the window. He froze for a moment, his heart beat reaching an almost crescendo.

And then, he was moving.

He ripped back the curtain, threw open the window. And there you were. Hunched in the darkness of the fire escape, in a way that immediately, Peter knew something was wrong.

"(y/n)? What are you doing - are you hurt?" He watched as you moved at a near snail's pace from the way you were uncomfortably slumped on the fire escape to enter his room.

The light barely lit up the soft, painful smile as you looked up at him. "Hi, Pete." There was almost a slur in your words. Peter's eyebrows knitted together in both confusion and concern. His arms found your waist as he supported you in moving in through the window and to his bed.

Once you were settled, he strode across the room and flicked the small lamp on. He did not like what he saw.

Although your suit was black, he could tell that it was nearly soaked through with blood. Your nose was trickling blood steadily, and there was a large patch of crimson next to your ear, on your hairline. The skin he could see was littered with bruises even where it wasn't streaked with blood.

"Shit, (y/n)." He dove under his bed, to where he kept the first aid stuff from when he went out patrolling. He ran his hands through it, quickly finding suture material and bandages.

Thank god he had restocked recently, or you could've been in serious trouble. To be honest, you were in trouble either way.

He tried to triage your wounds. From what he could tell, the gash on your side that you were holding seemed to be where a lot of the blood on your torso was coming from. "You're, uhh... going to have to take off your suit, so I can see the damage."

He flushed as he said it. And he swore that he could see your face getting warmer, too. But he was so preoccupied on, you know, not letting you die, that he didn't properly register it.

"Sure, yeah." You reached your arm around to the zip, but as you moved your wounds screamed in pain. You hissed through your teeth and swore, quietly. You were all too aware that May was probably sleeping in the room next door, and you had to be quiet.

Peter reached out, "Let me help," He spoke under his breath. He unzipped you and you slowly shuffled off your suit, wearing some gym shorts and a sports bra underneath.

With the suit off, Peter could see exactly the kind of state you were in. Not only from the fight you had obviously been in, but you also looked unhealthy, almost weak. He remembered a you that always looked so strong, sturdy. This wasn't the person he was seeing in front of him now.

There were scars that were recent but clearly had begun to heal, there was bruises over every part of your body. The biggest gash on your side oozed thick, maroon blood. Looking at your face, he could see that your cheekbones were nearly hollow, your eyes sunken, and the bags under them unmistakeable.

Nothing like the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed teenager he used to love.

"What happened?" He looked into your eyes as he began to tend to the wounds. Which was difficult, considering you were more wound than human at this point. He cleaned up around you gash, and then muttered 'this is going to hurt' as he began to exhibit the skills you had learned from Steve's mandatory 'basic field medicine' course a few years back.

"Ow, fuck." You mumbled, your voice strained. "I got into a fight."

"Well, yeah. I had actually figured that one out." He didn't look at you for concentrating on stitching. "A little more explanation would be good."

You breathed out slowly through the pain. "Okay, I got into a big fight."

He rolled his eyes. He clearly wasn't going to get very much information from you.

"Was it a mission?" He asked.

"No, it was - jesus." You cursed once again. It was really hard to talk while someone was continuously piercing a needle into your abdomen. "Extracurricular, you could say."

He looked up. "(y/n), this doesn't look like just a quick neighbourhood patrol." He knew you were keeping information from him because you thought he wouldn't approve.

"Why did you come here?"

You broke his eye contact. "I was nearby, and Brooklyn is a hell of a trek when you can't swing through the city." He nodded, it was a logical answer. He would always welcome you here, no matter what happened between you guys personally. He was glad you seemed to know that. "And... Cap can't know about this."

Peter's concern seemed to grow with everything you said, and you could clearly see it on his face.

"Please, Peter... He's worried already, I know it. And he's semi-retired, he deserves to rest without worrying about me." You pleaded.

He was slow to accept what you were saying. "But he's practically your dad, (y/n), he raised you. You don't think he would want to know that you're injured? Badly injured, might I add. I don't think this is even something our medical training can cover..."

You raised an eyebrow. "So, you tell Aunt May every time you get hurt?"

"Well, I've not been hurt as badly as you have."

"And if you were, you would tell her?"

He broke eye contact, and looked away. You didn't have to acknowledge out loud that he knew you were right.

With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you learned. 'Cause loves never lost when perspective is earned.

The silence that hung in the air was an awkward one. It suddenly caught up to you both, what was happening. Sitting in your shorts and sports bra, on the boy you used to date's bed. The same boy you had successfully managed to avoid for the best part of a year -- with the exception of Steve's christmas party last year. Just thinking about the awkward, heart-achy small talk made a shiver roll down your spine.

"Do you want to stay here?"

The question felt loaded. Want? Need? The lines were blurred.

"If... that's okay? I can't go back to Steve's like this."

He nodded. "You know you're always welcome here. You take the bottom bunk, obviously.” He smiled.

These bunk beds used to annoy the hell out of the both of you. You just wanted to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms, but May and Cap had insisted that if you were going to stay round, it had to be bunk beds. And the door had to stay open.

The nostalgia made your eyes sting. It didn’t take a lot to do that these days, to be fair.

Peter jumped into the top bunk, and switched the light off. “Goodnight, (y/n).” He whispered, softly, to the darkness.

“Night, Pete.” You muttered in return.

———————————————————————

That night was the best sleep you’ve had since… hell, you couldn’t even remember when. It was probably the blood loss, or…

No, it was definitely the blood loss. For sure.

A sweet scent caught your attention as you adjusted your eyes to the sunlight filtering through the moth-eaten curtains. And the noise… music, clanging of pots, mumbling.

You checked your phone. “Well, shit.”

7.24am. 38 missed calls from “Cap 🦅🫡”.

There were texts as well.

2am: Everything okay? When should I expect you back?

2.24am: Sweetheart?

3.46am: (y/n), I’m getting worried, what’s going on?

4am: Okay, stop playing now. Call me.

6am: You’re in big trouble if this isn’t an emergency, kid.

Shit, shit, shit.

You jolted up, immediately letting out a yelp of pain as you remembered exactly why you were here in the first place. Fuck.

You pressed your hand to your stomach, with a little blood coming away with your hand. Shoddy workmanship, you laughed. You would have to sort it later.

Pulling on your suit from yesterday - thankfully, the blood stains blended in with the dark material - you realised getting home inconspicuously wasn’t going to be super easy. You listened to whatever was going on in the kitchen, the music that you recognised from when you and Peter were together. It all felt so familiar. Too familiar.

And you said you’d come and get me but you were 25, and the shelf life of those fantasies had expired. Lost to the lost boys chapter of your life, Forgive me Peter, please know that I tried to hold on, to the days where you were mine.

You weren’t proud of it, but you opened the window, and climbed out.

You didn’t see Peter’s face fall when he returned to the room, with a stack of pancakes in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. You didn’t see him stare at the smiley face made of whipped cream, mutter “I’m an idiot” and throw the stack away.

You didn’t see the tears fall.

———————————————————————

The aches and pains that pulsed through your body only grew worse the closer you got to Cap’s house. Climbing the stairs felt like a mammoth task, but as you got to the top and put your key in, the door opened -

He was mad mad. You stood in a sort of pseudo-staring contest for what felt like a long time, unsure whether or not it would be appropriate to look away. His eyebrows were furrowed further than you had ever seen, bags under his eyes larger than they had been for a long time.

“Get inside.” He borderline hissed at you. You didn’t respond, just walked. Slowly, subconsciously covering your bleeding side with your arm.

As you walked into the living room, familiar voices greeted you.

“What time do you call this?” Bucky stood by the fireplace, his arms crossed.

Sam sat on the couch in front of him, nursing a cup of coffee. Coffee so strong, you could smell it from the other side of the room. “You look like shit.”

You looked down. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”

Steve put a firm hand on your shoulder. Still wordless. He pushed you towards the couch, and then down onto it.

He sat next to Sam on the one opposite, Bucky moving to sit on the other side of him. It felt like a judging panel. You supposed that’s exactly what it was.

“Explain.” Steve started. His gaze not becoming any kinder as he looked at you.

“I was with a friend-” You started.

“Which one?” Steve asked, pointedly.

You swallowed. “Um,”

“You’re lying, (y/n).” He folded his arms and leaned back. “I phoned all of your friends, you weren’t with any of them. You said to Sam after training yesterday that you were heading straight home, and here you waltz in nearly 12 hours later. Tell the truth.”

“Fine.” You sighed. You knew he was telling the truth, there was no point trying to call his bluff. “I was at Peter’s.”

You watched every one of them raise an eyebrow at the same time, nearly comedically timed. Steve sat forward in his seat.

“Parker’s? Why?” He tilted his head at you. You were glad that the anger seemed to have somewhat subsided, but you weren’t in the clear yet.

You swallowed. “I, uh…”

Sam started laughing. “Oh my god, (y/n)… you dog!” He looked at Bucky and Steve, who painfully slowly caught on to what he was referring to.

“No! No, no. No. Not that, it wasn’t like that.” You felt the heat in your cheeks and prayed that it wasn’t showing to them too, although something in Sam’s gleeful expression, Steve’s embarrassed blush and Bucky’s quiet enjoyment of the situation suggested otherwise.

“(y/n), I’m at a loss right now.” Steve shook his head. “I don’t understand. Lately, you’ve been disappearing, being secretive - I mean, last I heard you didn’t want to be around Pete at all. And now you stayed at his with no explanation whatsoever, when we were all out looking for you last night?”

Your heart sank, thinking of them worried and out on the streets looking for you. You never could lie to them for long - you should just come clean.

You gave a big sigh. “I got hurt while trying to stop a robbery in Queens, and I didn’t know where else to go.”

With that, they all sat up straight. Grim expressions replaced the more relaxed ones that you had fought so hard to keep.

“Hurt? Where?” Steve immediately stood up from his spot and marched over to your couch, scanning you over with his eyes.

You pulled your hand away from the side, where it had stayed for the duration of this interrogation. It was covered in blood.

All three men immediately jumped into action upon seeing the blood. "Woah!" Sam shouted, running for the extensive medical kit Steve kept in the kitchen.

Steve knitted his eyebrows together while putting his arm around you, looking into your eyes, presumably looking for any sort of concussion or mental delay. "You've been sitting here bleeding this whole time?" He sighed, and then sort of mumbled under his breath, "What is going on with you?"

Bucky grabbed a can of coke from the fridge and brought it over to you. "Drink it, you need sugar." You could tell from his tone that he was annoyed.

"Thanks, Buck." You whispered in return.

You watched your adoptive father's worried expression as he looked at the wounds you had sustained, and the haphazard stitches that Peter had put in last night (and the blood coming through them where they hadn't been done properly).

He fixed you, properly, and bandaged the stitches just to be sure. Sam and Bucky hand him things, making jokes occasionally that you smile at, but it does nothing to improve the cloudy look in Steve's eyes.

"Guys, can you give us a second." He ushers Bucky and Sam out of the room. Sam gets up and leads Bucky away, who still looked furious. You knew he probably wasn't this pissed off at you, and rather the people who had hurt you, but you couldn't be entirely sure. Once you're alone, Cap comes and sits next to you on the couch. "Do you have wounds anywhere else?"

You shake your head. "Just bruises and minor cuts, nothing big."

"Okay," He pursed his lips. "Let's talk then."

You avoided meeting his eyes.

"Tell me what's going on, in there." He tapped the side of your head, just like he used to do when you were a teenager at the Compound upstate. Before everyone came back.

You sighed. "I feel like an asshole." He put a friendly hand on your shoulder. "I'm really sorry for worrying you, and Sam and Bucky. I'm trying not to do that, at all. That's why I didn't come back last night."

He sighs. "Sweetheart, you should never be worrying about me. It's my job to worry about you." He puts a loving arm round your shoulder.

He took a second, considering what he was going to say before continuing, "You've not been the same since the Blip, and I know it's hard. But you have to start living again." It was nothing he hadn't said before.

"But I don't really... have anything other than work. Keeping people safe."

"Hey, hey. That's not true. You have us. You know we're your family."

"Yeah, no... I know. But I just... my friends were all blipped, and Peter..." You felt a tear spring to your eye. It had been a while since you had cried about it. "I've not felt normal since they left, and then when they came back... and I was so much older."

He rubbed your back as he watched a single tear fall.

"(y/n), Peter is older now, too. And I know he never got over you, either... why don't you talk to him?"

"I think I might have burned the bridge, Cap. I snuck out the window this morning while I think he was making breakfast."

He gave you a disapproving look that made you feel like a child being scolded. "That's not very nice, kid. I think you should chat to him."

"Yeah, I guess so." You moved to get up from the couch, but sat right back down when a shooting pain radiated up nearly your entire body. "Shit."

"Hey, hey! Sit down!" Steve pushed you back down. "On second thoughts, why don't you invite him and May round for dinner? You're not going anywhere, kid."

"Yeah, that sounds better." You laughed, meekly. "Although I have to shower..."

"I'll call Wanda to help you out with that." His quick, embarrassed tone made you laugh.

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"Hey, there she is!" Sam shouted as you walked back into the kitchen where they were diligently making dinner. Wanda walked past you to the fridge, pulling out a soda. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Better, thanks Sam." He nodded in approval at your response.

"You look better, you know that. You looked like death warmed up earlier, and that's not even an exaggeration." You rolled your eyes at him, "You've even managed to dress nice for the occasion! It's been a while since I've seen you in anything but sweats." You pushed his shoulder, stopping the incessant chatter.

Bucky threw an arm around your shoulder. "You're a chip off the old block, y'know. Just like Stevie." You watched as it was Steve's turn to roll his eyes at his friend's antics.

The doorbell rang through the house, ending the moment. Your heart thudded in your chest, a wave of nausea overtaking your stomach. "That'll be May and Peter, I'll grab the door." Steve gave you a knowing look, like he could read your mind. "Are you going to be okay?"

You nodded, slowly, taking deep breaths. Wanda slung her arms over your shoulder, whispering "you're going to be just fine." She pressed a kiss to your cheek.

"Hi, Steve," May Parker's soothing voice carried through to the kitchen. All four of you remaining in the kitchen wandered through the hall to meet your guests.

When May's eyes fell to you, you could swear there was a tear in them. But it was gone almost as quick as you could tell. "Oh my darling girl," She wrapped you in a hug, squeezing tight. It kind of hurt, but you were desperate to not let it show. You needed this. "It's been far too long, we've missed you so much."

"I know May, I'm sorry I haven't dropped by." You apologised as she dropped the hug. She put a loving hand on your face, and smiled sweetly.

"Don't be silly, sweetie. You have nothing to apologise for." Unfortunately, she didn't know the half of what you had to apologise for.

As it came to your turn to greet Peter, your heart pounded. The others ruffled his hair, lightly bullied him over how dressed up he was. It was only a shirt and sweater, you didn't really see the problem. But Bucky and Sam were always on the lookout for ways to playfully get under spiderboy's skin.

"I think you look nice." You blurted out, almost involuntarily. Bucky and Sam smirked at your outburst, and you suddenly realised that maybe they weren't goading Peter, they were goading you.

"Uh, thanks... you look better," As it came out of his mouth, he realised that he was alluding to something you had asked him not to tell them. "Oh, um, I mean like good, you look good."

You laughed a little. "It's okay, Pete. I told them, we're good."

Steve interrupted, a firm hand on Peter's shoulder. "So, Pete. I hear you've been aiding my daughter to keep secrets from me." Peter gulped at his words. "Relax, kid. I'm just messing. Although we definitely have to improve your stitching skills because that was sloppy."

May stood, confused. "Peter, do you want to catch me up to speed here?"

"Sorry, May." Steve said. "I'll explain what these rascals have been up to." He linked arms with her and wandered towards the dining room with everyone else following. Leaving you and Peter standing in the hallway.

You finally flung your arms around Peter. "You told them?" He asked, at least a modicum of relief behind his words.

You nod. "I kind of had to, they had been out last night looking for me. I felt bad." You swallowed, and realised this was a good time to apologise. "Thank you for helping me out last night, I don't know what I would have done without you."

His arm raised to the back of his neck, as he looked away from you. "Hey, no problem. Anytime."

"I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye."

"It's... alright, (y/n). You had to get home, I understand."

"No, Peter. It was shitty of me to do that to you. I'm sorry."

He smiled, his hand moving towards yours. When he got there, he wrapped yours in his, and gave a loving squeeze. It was the most romantic contact you had had since... well, since him. You were surprised that it felt so normal.

"Let's get dinner." He whispered. You nodded in agreement.

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

You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me.

Dinner was as dinner usually is. It was delicious, clearly Steve had been cooking a lot since he took a step back from the Avengers. Sam and Bucky argued while Wanda, Steve and May talked a lot about current events. You and Peter chatted mostly about what your friends were up to, and what your plans were.

"I'm thinking of going full-time with the avengers." Peter revealed. Your eyes widened, knowing that when you were younger, that's all you had both wanted. To be fighting alongside each other, permanently.

"Peter, that's amazing!" You breathed out. "But what about college, didn't you want to go to MIT?"

"Nah," He smiled. "Changed my mind. Don't think I could do avenging and college at the same time. Plus, Tony left a bunch of science stuff behind for me to finish off, so I would have my own lab at the new facility anyway."

You couldn't help the wide grin that adorned your features. "When would you move?"

"I could move anytime. Are you um, planning to go to the new facility?" He asked.

"Yeah, I was hoping to split my time between here and there." You looked over at Steve, talking with May. He didn't need you here. You knew he would love for you to stay, but he would be just fine without you. Plus, he was only semi retired. He'd probably be at the new facility more than you. "I know Bucky and Sam are going over there full-time, that's why they're crashing here for now."

"Oh, great." He sarcastically rolled his eyes and laughed.

Your conversation was interrupted by Bucky shouting over to you, "Hey, kid! Tell everyone about the time you tripped yourself up and accidentally caught the bad guy."

"Bucky, stop telling everyone about that!"

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"Hey, do you want to go swinging?" Peter whispered, as everyone started clearing plates.

You eyed Cap nervously, knowing that you couldn't leave without telling him, again. Not after your heart to heart earlier. There was no way he would let you swing with Peter, not with as many stitches as you had.

"Maybe just a walk?" You mentioned to Peter. He glanced down at your side, where he had seen the wound last night, and agreed.

You both got up, clearing your dishes as you went. "You ask him." You whispered to Peter while the older avengers and May were still in conversation.

"What? No, you ask him." He harshly whispered back. You rolled your eyes.

"Hey, Cap?" You got the attention of everyone still at the dining table.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Would it be okay if Peter and I went on a walk?"

"Of course, honey. But no swinging," he sternly looked at Peter. "and wear a jacket, it's cold out there."

"Aye aye, cap'n." You saluted him playfully, walking out of the room and waving to everyone. You would see them when you got back, anyways.

What you didn't hear was Steve asking Sam for Redwing to follow you, at a distance. Just in case.

You threw on a jacket and a scarf, opening the door once Peter had done the same. It was cold. It was that kind of biting, painful cold that really settled into your bones.

The walk was mostly silent at first, the street sounds filling the gap. You gasped quietly as Peter snaked his hand into yours as you wandered. The warmth was very nice, but the implication made your heart do double time.

"Where do you want to go?" He broke the silence.

Truthfully, you had no idea. You had absolutely no direction in your brain as your thoughts were smothered by the fact that you were together, holding hands.

"I don't mind, really." You responded.

"I know a place... but it requires climbing, is that okay?" He asked, once again his eyes wandering to where your wound was healing, under your clothes.

"Yeah, that's fine. Where is it?"

He walked with you for a little while longer. Once you reached a taller building, he motioned for you to hop onto his back, as you used to do.

"Be careful," You whispered in his ear. Your hot breath so close to him made his hair stand on end, goosebumps sticking up all over his skin.

He swallowed. "I've got you, don't worry."

And so, he climbed. It was quick, he was stronger now than you remembered. You felt his back muscles tense and relax under you as he flexed out his arms to pull you both up.

He set you down carefully once you got to the top, showing you the view. You wondered how he had found these places, how he always had the most extraordinary little pockets of New York that he reserved, just for you.

"It's gorgeous." You sighed, contentedly.

You could feel his eyes on you. You could tell exactly what he was thinking, without even seeing his face. His hand wrapped itself in yours, as you pulled your jacket and scarf closer around you.

"Are you cold?"

Before you could even respond, his jacket was wrapped around your shoulders. You smiled at his chivalry, drawing the jacket around you and appreciating the extra protection against the elements.

"(y/n), can we talk?" You felt his eyes on you again. You nodded at him, unable to find words as your blood pumped ferociously around your body. "I want to try again..."

Your eyes widened at his confession.

"I mean it," He continued. "I've never... I've never stopped loving you. I've spent years trying to move on, but I haven't. There's no one like you in the world. No one."

His hand lefts yours, and found your cheek. His eyes wandered over every freckle, every scar, every bruise he could see. "You are so beautiful."

You were at a loss for what to say. You had craved these words since the moment you left Clint's farm that day. You could barely hear anything anymore, as the moment melted away to just you, and him.

And so, you did what you had wanted to do for so long.

You kissed him.

As your lips connected, it took a second for him to even register what was happening. But once he did, the passion, the emotion you felt in that moment was like nothing you had ever experienced. His hands tangled in your hair, desperately drawing you towards him.

This wasn't like to loving kisses you used to pepper over each other's lips. This was need, it was animalistic. It was war and anger and heat. It was love.

When you both finally pulled away, your breath was ragged. You placed your forehead on his, your hot breath tickling each other's faces.

"I've never stopped thinking of you, Peter." You admitted. "Not for a second. I've always regretted walking away from you, hurting you like that." You screwed your eyes shut, the pain of the memories a little too much to bear.

He raised your face until your eyes met his. "It wasn't your fault. I left you behind in the snap, and you spent five years mourning me. I never blamed you for what came after, (y/n). Never."

His words soothed the pain in your chest. You had always wondered.

"I want to start fresh with you. I want to go on dates and get to know you, as you are now. I want to be normal kids..." He stroked your cheek with his thumb.

"I want that too, Pete."

He pressed another kiss to your lips, this one short and sweet. "Good," He looked into your eyes, a mischievous glint in them. "Then we should probably get you home, we've got an early start tomorrow."

You raised your eyebrow in questioning.

"I'm taking you for breakfast, sunshine."

[literallythegrabber]

Could you rank the TBP boys about how who is the fastest to slowest to confess? Thanks for reading and writing : )

thanks for requesting! I'm aware that this post came in months ago, but I was swamped with school and sports, so sorry. enjoy!

Bruce

I think Bruce would be the quickest to confess due to his confidence.

His personality plus his general popularity with girls would definitely fuel his ego, so he wouldn't think too hard on confessing.

I think he generally just gets along with all people, no matter their personality, so if u were to be more stoic or quiet, it wouldn't stir him up when it comes to reading u.

He's good with social cues, so if u wanted a big, flashy confession with a lot of attention, he'd cook up something big. If ur more like me and would prefer something more private and intimate, then he'd take u to a secluded area and pronounce he feelings for u without being too cheesy.

Billy

I think Billy would confess next because I dont think he cares about rejection.

Like he would want you to say yes, and would obviously be disappointed if you said no, but he would get over it fairly quickly.

He'd probably write something sweet in a newspaper or something and deliver it to ur house, praying that ur parent/parents don't notice it.

Sorry if his seems lacking in a way. He just doesn't get enough screen time for me to get a good judge of his character, other than him being hilariously sassy.

Vance

I think Vance would kinda be in the middle.

I was gonna put him in second to last place, but then I thought about a bit more.

I feel like he'd confess to u so his life could return to normal.

Like, him realizing his feelings for u literally destroyed his world, and he thinks the only way his dangerously nice thoughts about u will cease if he either confesses or tries to scares u and his feelings away.

I think he'd try the latter first, and literally become a big evil monster towards u.

He'd snap at u for basically nothing, yell at u, be 10 times as mean, and genuinely go out of his way to be a total ass towards u.

If his crude behavior distances u from him after being verbally abused way tok much, he'd be happy at first, thinking that without u in his life, his thoughts would return to normal and he could finally focus on pinball.

But after a few weeks, he actually finds himself missing ur presence. So instead of apologizing like a normal person, he decides to confess his feelings right out of the blue! very clever vance😐

So if spots u alone at school, he'll just pull u over and confess in the most confusing, unromantic way possible.

He won't expect a romantic relationship right and away (and u shouldn't either), but this could be the beginning to a healthy friendship and perhaps something more in the future.

Robin

Robin would be second to last, probably because he doesn't want u getting involved with his never-ending beef with the majority of the kids at school (the bullies).

He thinks that if he starts a relationship, his opps will go after u to hurt him (he's probably right).

So, although he steers away from a romantic relationship, he tries to become close friends with u to intimidate other potential suitors.

He'd use bf like behavior with u while also trying to be ur friend, and it was honestly very confusing.

I just think the mixed signals he'd be sending would be too annoying and confusing, to the point where you'd just have to confront him.

So he'll stumble over his words, and just give off awkward teen vibes before he actually gets to his point.

If u reciprocate, then you'd have to agree to not being too flashy with ur new relationship and take things slow.

You'd also need to know how to throw a punch or sm cause those ugly school vultures are unpredictable.

Finney

suprise suprise Finney's last!

Given his shy personality, low self-esteem, and his experience with bullies, it's obvious it would take him a while to confess.

He'd watch u from afar for a while, so you'd def have to start up a conversation.

Yalls' relationship would very much be a slow burn, filled with awkward moments, hidden meanings behind simple words, subtle affectionate gestures, and a lot of teasing from Gwen.

He'd accidentally blurt it out one day, taking u completely by suprise.

He'll instantly try to dismiss it, rapidly trying to change the subject.

But if u press him, then you'll get a proper confession, and the rest is up to u!

thank u for reading!!