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johnsamericano · 3 years

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𝔖𝔲𝔤𝔞𝔯 ℜ𝔲𝔰𝔥 𝔧.𝔧.𝔥 •2•

Hi hi! I'm back with another chapter. This one might not be as good(?, it's a really fluffy chapter so bear with me.

warnings: sugar daddy jae, he's a big baby, tooth rotting, kinda long.

sugar rush m.list.

taglist: @thoreeo @trustmahluv @sunny-nyu @nanascupid @silent-potato

“Sir, there’s a girl asking to see you.”

“Hey, I’m not a girl!” He chuckled as his finger pressed the button to communicate with his secretary.

“Let her in.”

Only a few seconds later, your head was peeking through his door.

“I brought you coffee.” You extended your hand out, showing him the carton containing two iced drinks. “Are you busy?”

“Not at all, come in.” You sat on the elegant, individual sofa in front of him, his desk serving as a separation. “Are you here to spy on me? Don't you trust me with your father's case?” He pouted, typing something in his keyboard while your palms started sweating.

How could you not trust the man with the highest case winning index in the whole country?

Briefly, after your encounter with the other lawyer, you'd googled him as well as his company. Because of his incredibly high fees, he didn't have many clients, but those few who had enough money to cost him were almost assured to be on the winning side. So then, why hadn't an excellent lawyer like him popped up when you'd first looked for popular firms? Simple, he wasn't popular.

Just like a hidden gem, only a few had the pleasure to know Yoonoh, and you felt beyond grateful for paying that stupid membership weeks ago.

“No, no!” You were quick to defend yourself, frantically shaking your hands to support your previous statement. “Just wanted to be of help.”

Truth to be told, after receiving your first weekly allowance, an unsettling feeling had been squeezing your heart ever since. Call it guilt or whatever, but it didn't set right to be receiving si much help from him when you hadn't had the chance to do anything in return. The least you could do was trying to be polite.

“You shouldn't be spending your money on me. I'm the one supposed to spoil you, remember?” He grabbed the plastic container by the lid, sipping the bitter liquid with an amused smile. “But thank you.”

“I paid my rent yesterday.” You blurted out, trying to avoid the uncomfortable silence threatening to settle between the two of you. “And I still have money left to save for my father's hospital bills, maybe even buy a present for my aunt.”

He admired how noble you were, making sure those around you had enough before even thinking to do something for yourself.

“I have a party this Friday, would you like to attend with me?” Your presence wasn't required as it wasn't a big event, but by the look in your eyes, he knew you were itching to do something in return for his kindness.

“Yes, of course!” Your orbs sparkled with excitement, finally feeling yourself useful.

“If you don't mind waiting, we can go buy something for you to wear right after I finish with this.” For what seemed like the tenth time in less than ten minutes, small beads of sweat rolled down the back of your neck. Thank God he wasn't able to see them. “Oh, come on, don't give me that look!”

“You’ve already done so much for me. I can buy the clothes myself, don't worry.” With a deep sigh, Yoonoh rose from his chair, taking long strides to surround the desk separating you. “W-what are you doing?” Now kneeling on the floor beneath you, his face was dangerously close to yours, coffee breath crashing against your nose.

“Using mind control to convince you to let me take you out.” He stared at you for a couple more seconds before saying: “Is it working?”

“I think your mind control is broken.” You whisper, unable to hold back the small giggles bubbling at the back of your throat.

“How about now?” He batted his eyelashes, trying to act cute despite his bold features. You shook your head.

Just as you thought it was over, his hand went up to cup your jaw, his thumb drawing uneven figures on the ticklish skin.

“How about now?” He repeated. You stammered, unsure of what to say. “Sorry, that was inappropriate.” Aware of your awkwardness and the rising heat in your cheeks, he stood up, walking back to his chair. “But I do want to get you something, would you let me?”

With your mind busy and your guard low, you nodded, unaware of the silly smile on his face.

“I have a few novels on my shelf in case you want something to kill time.”

“Thank you.” You moved to the huge bookshelf facing his desk, grateful your face wasn't visible anymore.

The books were ordered by genre and size, starting from the biggest law-related textbooks to pocket-sized novels, ending with the smallest one he had. The little prince.

Your eyes widened in disbelief. Yoonoh didn't seem to be the type to read that kind of heartbreaking yet beautiful book. Nonetheless, as many said, you can't judge a book by its cover.

An hour or two later, you were halfway into the first book of flowers in the attic, immersed in the small world the author had created. Yoonoh had finished his work a few minutes before, but distracting you when you were reading so vividly, seemed like a crime. He enjoyed the way your eyebrows would knit together every time something shocking happened, clearly too immersed in the novel to notice his intense gaze.

“Y/n...” He whispered once he noticed you were starting a new chapter. You blinked twice, hands clutching the book tightly as you noticed he had finished his work. “You can take it home, don't worry.”

“Sure?” He flashed his pretty dimples as his eyes turned into half-moons.

“You can come back for the rest of the saga when you finish this one. Take as many books as you please, I’ve already read them all.”

“Thank you.” Another act of kindness you had no way of returning. His favors just seemed to be piling up before you could even return any. “Would you like to have dinner with me today? I'm a great cook, or so did my father said.” You blurted out quickly, twisting your hands nervously as you waited for an answer.

“I’d love to. But I might have to attend some work calls if you don't mind.”

“I don't, maybe I'll even have time to bake a cake while you're at it.” God, how bad he wanted to take a picture of that adorably nervous smile.

“Great, so it's settled. Dinner at your place after we go shopping.” He had already put his blazer on, offering his arm to guide you out. With shaky fingers and sweaty armpits, you grabbed it, walking by his side with his secretary’s gazed glued on you. So much for a girl, huh?

Once seated in his car, with the book resting on your lap, you allowed yourself to relax. Yoonoh wasn't a bad person, on the contrary, he was very kind, so there was no use in keeping your guard up when he was around.

“Ready to roll?” You cringed at his use of slang, making him drop his head back to laugh. “What? Isn't it a thing you cool young adults say?”

“Maybe twenty years ago, Yoonoh.” It was the very first time you used his name so informally, and, oh how good it felt to hear you saying it?

“Fine, I won't use it anymore.” He poked your arm like a little child, and for a moment, you wondered if he was actually more than a decade older.

Several bad jokes, two dresses, and a quick stop at the grocery store later, you arrived at your apartment. Yoonoh held everything while you entered the passcode, struggling not to drop a can of vegetables that was starting to bend the edge of the paper bag.

“Ready, hand me something.” You both entered with your hands packed with different things. You went to your room to leave the new dresses while Yoonoh set the paper bags down on the kitchen counter.

“So...” He clapped loudly. “What are we cooking?”

“I bought the ingredients for lasagna. Is that okay with you?” He nodded, lips pressed and dimples in display. “Alright, let's do this.”

It would've been of great help if Yoonoh had told you he didn't know how to cook. But of course, part of the fault was yours for not noticing when he tried to add ketchup to the recipe.

“I burnt it.” He looked at the semi-carbonized pasta with disgust, feeling ashamed of having ruined your dish. “Let’s just throw it away and order something.” He was about to touch the hot container until your grip on his wrist halted his movements.

“We just pulled it out of the oven.” You shook your head in disbelief at the man standing in front of you.

“Sorry.”

Despite Yoonoh’s endless complaining, you ate the lasagna. The flavor wasn't that bad when you scratched off the burnt parts, especially when accompanied by a cold glass of wine.

“It’s not that bad.” You repeated over and over again. A phone call interrupted him from self-pitying any further. “Go on, take it.” You continued eating while he spoke in the living room.

It wasn't until a couple of minutes later that you realized he was whisper yelling at whoever was on the other line. It was your first time seeing him angry, and you didn't like it one bit. The way his face turned completely stoic, his eyes cold as his hand rested on his hip. Sweet, caring, Yoonoh was gone.

“I told you I needed it for today.” He said through gritted teeth. “You better get it before I arrive back at the office, or you can find yourself another job.” Even after he hung up, Yoonoh stood in the middle of the shared area, clutching his phone so tightly, it seemed like it would break any minute.

You wanted to ask if everything was alright, if he needed any help, but most importantly, if the things he needed were related to your father's case, but all the words stuck to your throat like insects in a spider web.

“I need to go.” He simply said, not even bothering to fake a smile. “Thank you for dinner, I'll see you on Friday.” With his free hand, he grabbed the coat hanging from his chair and left, slamming the door on his way out.

Was that the real Yoonoh?

A shiver ran down your spine. What had you gotten into? From what you'd seen, it was only about time he would show his true self to you as well.

All the trust you'd built up during the day, had crumbled down in a matter of seconds. The worst part? You didn't even feel entitled to be scared, not after all he'd done for you.

‘Just keep your distance.’ You repeated like a mantra as you got ready for bed, leaving the book you'd borrowed right where he'd left it, afraid it would burn your fingertips even with the slightest touch.

(...)

The week wasn't nearly as long as you'd wanted it to be, and soon enough, you were struggling to zip the dress you'd bought days ago. Your makeup was done, and Yoonoh had texted you he was on his way, yet, you'd been fighting with the zipper for at least ten minutes. Your fingers were cramping, and the clock was ticking.

Just when you'd finally started to drag the small piece of metal, the doorbell startled you, causing you to let go of it.

“Fuck!” Have you ever felt so desperate that tears start pricking your eyes? Well, that was the exact case happening at the moment.

You opened the door with the salty water collecting at the corner of your eyes, surprising Yoonoh, who was wearing his best dimply smile.

“What’s wrong?” He had a bouquet poorly hidden behind his back, probably to apologize for the night he abruptly left and almost knocked down your door.

“I-I can't zip up my dress.” Your voice came out shaky, giving away the emotions burning your gut. Thankfully, Yoonoh didn't seem to notice, and if he did, he didn't mention it.

“I’ll help you.” He, not-so-discretely, put down the bouquet, gently turning you around to your discomfort. His cold hands touched your back as he dragged the zip up, noticing how tense you were but deciding not to comment on it. “Oh! You haven't moved the book from where I left it.”

“I haven't had time to read.” He hummed, crouching to reach for the bouquet and hand it to you. “Thank you.”

“It’s my way of apologizing for the fit I threw a couple of days ago.” A fit? That was one way to call it.

“It’s okay.” You lied as you pushed the corners of your lips to form a credible smile. “Let’s get going.”

The flowers were left on the kitchen counter before you left. The ride in the elevator was awfully quiet, and Yoonoh had no idea what had happened. You were so chatty the last time he saw you, so of course, he was taken aback by the sudden change.

“It’s not going to take long, so we can head out for some drinks later if you'd like...” You nodded, for you knew speaking would only expose your discomfort. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah! Just nervous about the party, that's all.”

You stood by Yoonoh’s side for the rest of the evening, smiling and nodding at his acquaintances’ comments. At one point in the evening, a man, not much older than you, approached you both with a wide smile.

“Dude, I hadn't seen you in ages. Stop sending your workers and come see me yourself.” They hugged. Why were they hugging?

“Y/n, this is my brother, Sungchan.” The man with puppy-like eyes embraced you tightly, almost as if welcoming you to his family. “Sungchan, this is y/n, my girlfriend.” He said it so naturally, it’d take a detective to figure out the truth about your relationship.

“I’ve heard a lot about you. I'm sorry for your father. But don't worry, we'll take those bastards down.”

“I’m not following...” You blinked repeatedly, eyes going back and forth between Yoonoh and his brother.

“Sungchan is a doctor. I asked him to look at your father's case for further evidence. My assistant was supposed to pick up the report the day we had dinner, but she forgot to drop by. Now we’re a day behind schedule.” The dark cloud surrounding him seemed to be slowly dissipating as you heard his explanation. “This is an important case, and I want to be as meticulous as possible.”

Thank you didn't seem the right thing to say at the moment, at least not with Sungchan standing there, so you simply grabbed his hand, squeezing it to let him know how grateful you were.

To your surprise, he didn't even flinch as he locked your hands together, causing a small giggle from Sungchan.

“Okay, love birds, I'll get going.” He waved you goodbye, making his way to another table where his friend waited for him.

“Can we talk?” You whispered in his ear, afraid one of the numerous attendants would hear you.

“Sure.” Without letting go of your hand, he drove you to a small, private garden just outside the ballroom. “Are you gonna tell me what's wrong now?” His thumb caressed your knuckles with gentle strokes.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What for?”

“I pushed you away at the minimum trouble when you were only helping me.” He hummed as if he already knew about it. “And it will probably happen again, so please, be patient with me. I'm going through-” Your face collided against his chest as his arms draped over your shoulders, squeezing you tightly.

“Call me reckless, but I've wanted to do this for a while.” Your hands hung at the sides of your torso, unsure what to do next. “You can push me away, I'll understand...”

Instead, your palm found its place in his back, rubbing up and down the designer jacket. Your hair started turning messy from the night breeze, some strands striking Yoonoh’s chin as his embrace only grew tighter.

“Let’s get out of here.” He mumbled, crawling the back of your head with his hand. “Sungchan can deal with my father's friends.”

“Are you sure?” His hum vibrated through his chest, making you giggle at the odd feeling.

Once seated in his car, his hand found yours like a magnet, the warmth emanating from it comfortably enveloping your skin.

The calmness of the atmosphere was interrupted by a call from his brother, who seemed to be anxiously explaining something through the phone.

“Just tell him I had a work emergency.” With that said, he hung up, placing his hand back again on top of yours. “Sorry, he said it was urgent.”

“It’s okay.” An unsettling feeling pinched your stomach, but you decided to dismiss it, immersed in the chilly weather of the dark streets.

You arrived at the river, where Yoonoh asked you to wait for him while he bought a couple of beers. It was a sight to see, both of you clad in fancy clothes, barefoot and chugging down can after can.

“I think I like being with you.” You declared, mind fuzzy from the alcohol intake.

“I think I like it too.” The tips of his ears were rosy, revealing he was as intoxicated as you, maybe even more.

“Would you like to visit my father with me tomorrow?” The words flew out of your mouth before you could even realize. Afraid you'd killed the mood, you tried to excuse yourself, only to be interrupted by his lips grazing your ear, placing a timid kiss on your lobe.

“I’d love to.” It was the sweetest peck, no ulterior motives behind it, just pure affection.

“Are we going too fast?” In your drunken state, what you had felt like a real relationship, not a simple agreement. And this sure felt like a first date.

“We’re moving at our own pace, I believe.” He dropped his head on your shoulder, pressing against it to relieve the dizziness clouding his mind. “Are you okay with that? Maybe you don't want to be with an old creep like me, and I'd totally get it. Just don't let me get my hopes up if that's the case.”

“You might be old, but definitely not a creep.” Your fingers combed through his abundant hair as your mind wandered into the future, grateful for the fact that he wouldn't become bald soon. “Or are you?”

“I don't think so.” Anyone who walked by would've seen a couple of goofs, too intoxicated to talk without slurring the words, but you were living in your own, comfy bubble. “I should get you home before it gets too late. Come on, I'll call a driver.” He tried getting on his feet to no avail, stumbling back a little before falling back on his ass.

“My apartment is nearby. You can stay for the night.” You grabbed both pairs of shoes as his arm surrounded your shoulder for assistance. “If you keep supporting your whole weight on me, we're both gonna fall.” People on the street shot you a couple of funny looks, which was understandable since it wasn't usual to see two drunk idiots walking barefoot in the middle of the night.

“How long till-” Hiccup. “-we get there?” His stare seemed to worsen with every step. “God, I think I might throw up.”

“Stop acting like a teenager, we're almost there.”

As soon as you arrived at the small apartment, you sat him down on the little step where you changed your shoes. You left both pairs on the rack, proceeding to put on slippers to enter the house.

“Don’t leave me here!” He whined, stomping his feet like a little kid.

“Just wait for a second!” His attitude was starting to get on your nerves to the point where you couldn't feel the effects of the beer anymore.

You grabbed a rag from the kitchen cabinet and dampened it under the sink. Yoonoh was half asleep when you walked back to him.

“My head hurts.” He mumbled as you sat in front of him, placing his left foot on your lap. “What are you doing?”

“I don't have any slippers that will fit you, and I don't want your dirty feet making my house dirty.” With utmost delicacy, you wiped away the dirt from his toes, noticing the small scratches caused by the gravel he walked on.

He touched your hair while you finished with his other foot, tangling the strands with fascination.

“Done, get up.”

He followed your indications as you guided him to your room, where you laid him down on his side in case he threw up.

“Are we visiting your father tomorrow?” He asked while snuggling under the covers.

“Sure.” You cleared his forehead from the strands falling in it, grazing the soft skin of his forehead. “Sweet dreams, gigantic baby.”

#nct au #nct imagines #nct ot21 #nct smut #nct x reader #nct #nct scenarios #nct 127 #nct angst #nct fluff #nct jaehyun #nct jung yoonoh

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mc-lukanette · 4 years

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Marinette tried not to be obvious with her annoyance, but it was difficult when she knew that Lila had come to the Liberty specifically to irritate her. It wasn't even her paranoia creeping up, as Lila had made it clear from their first day of face-to-face interaction that she wanted to make Marinette's life miserable. The worst part was that everyone else either believed her or tolerated her, meaning Marinette looked unreasonable no matter what she did to combat it.

She figured she should've known that Luka would be Lila’s next target. The Liberty had always felt like somewhat of a safe haven - funny, considering who owned it - so it had only been a matter of time until Lila had heard enough to decide to show up there.

"Oh, she seemed so curious to actually be on a houseboat! She's only ever been on yachts and stuff before! How could we say 'no'?

Marinette tried to keep her lips shut tight so the gritting of her teeth wasn't seeable to anyone. The best she could do was watch from afar and keep any unkind comments internal while vaguely fantasizing about being Ladybug and dumping Lila in the garbage where she belonged.

Luka, to his credit, didn't seem to take Lila's bait like everyone else. She'd sought him out and he technically listened to her (as she lied about all the music people she knew and all the connections she could give him), but he was mostly occupied with tuning his guitar, only giving her a vague noise every now and then to signal that he was listening.

It was one of Marinette's few joys of the day, which made it twice as infuriating when Lila ruined it.

"Anyway, Luka," Lila added, her voice saccharine and fake, "I really hope you and I can become great friends."

Luka's eyebrow twitched.

"And don't worry, I would never force you. I know there are some people like that, who want to make everything go their way—"

Marinette knew it was a jab at her even though she definitely wasn't that kind of person; from Lila's point of view though, of course she'd think that.

Lila continued, "but I'd never do that to you, okay? I promise!"

For the first time since she'd been talking to him, Luka turned to her, his expression somewhere between neutral and the annoyance he showed at listening to XY's "version" of Kitty Section's music. "Can you please—"

He didn't get to finish that sentence, as Lila suddenly leaned in to kiss him. Luka jerked away the moment it registered with him, but it was already too late; the contact had been made.

All the anger that had been stewing in Marinette's stomach bubbled to the surface. She stormed over, her body language confrontational as she asked, "What do you think you're doing?!"

The outburst had gotten the attention of the other girls. Though they hadn't seen it, what happened was obvious given the way Luka was covering his mouth.

Lila turned to face Marinette, sinking to that vulnerable state she used so much whenever she got caught. "I-I didn't mean to! I meant to kiss his cheek and he turned too quickly."

It was a lie, and Marinette knew it. Lila had intentionally said things to make Luka look at her so she could kiss him, all to irritate Marinette.

"You see..." Lila pressed her palm to her cheek. "I-I thought a cheek kiss would be okay. You don't seem like the type of person who would be close to someone like him, and everyone told me that you do it all the time."

Marinette was fuming at the implication, feeling personally insulted at the idea that she and Luka weren't close.

And they'd told her. Her friends had been gossiping about her to Lila, or at least telling her details, which Marinette herself had definitely not consented to.

She went to toss a glare her friends' way, but they were already rushing forward to assure Lila that everything was okay, with Marinette having to step away or risk getting knocked back with the way they formed around her.

"M-maybe I need to re-learn French customs. I spent so long away from the country and other places have—"

Marinette wasn't listening anymore. She knew how this went and didn't want to be around to see another repeat of it, nor her friends potentially shouting at her. She turned away with a frustrated exhale, speed-stomping away and going up the stairs to head outside.

Passing by the cabin, she went into the greenhouse-esque area with all of the larger plants, plopping down on the long flower-patterned seating with a heavy sigh. She'd fallen right into Lila's trap, again, and couldn't help being angry at the whole situation.

Going after her was one thing, but Luka? And to kiss him like that on top of trying to lure him in with her deceit? Marinette knew deep down that she had a right to be upset at Lila's actions, but the way she reacted to it just ended up making Lila look like the victim instead of Luka. Had she failed him?

She groaned into her clasped hands, imagining that Luka must've thought that she looked like a fool shouting like that. She liked to think that she would've done things differently had she been able to do it again, but she was still angry and honestly just wanted to go off on Lila again.

She didn't move, though briefly considered going home. After all, it'd be pointless going back downstairs, as she'd probably just end up being glared at and blamed for Lila being upset. Luka probably didn't want to see her either after that display anyway.

As if her concerns had summoned him, she suddenly heard his voice call out to her from nearby. "Marinette?"

She stiffened, then lowered her hands enough to peek at him. When none of the negative emotions she expected showed on his face, she lowered them the rest of the way.

"Are you okay?" he asked gently.

She straightened, jaw slack that's that what he was concerned about. "Am I okay? What about you?!" She gestured wildly to him. "That—that akuma-luring harpy just kissed you!"

She realized what she said and covered her mouth, knowing that it was a much more direct insult than she usually would've gone with. Luka, however, tried to suppress a laugh from it, snorting loudly into his hand.

"I—" He cut himself off, still chuckling too much to speak. After a few seconds, he took a breath to calm down, then gave her a calm smile and continued, "I washed my mouth out, just to make sure."

Marinette tried to keep her negative emotions at the forefront, but then she was trying to suppress her laughter as well. She almost felt bad about it, but the wide grin on Luka's face showed that he'd fully intended for her to have that reaction. He walked over, taking a seat down next to her and leaning forward to maintain eye contact.

He waited until she quieted herself down with a final squeak that he asked again, "Really, are you okay?"

The smile she had on from laughter faded, though her spirits were still much higher than before. "Not really. She—she's always doing that." She glanced at him. "Let me guess, they're catering to her?"

He nodded. "They're planning on having lunch without you since you—" He made a face, clearly displeased. "—'made her so upset.'" He stared out of the glass opposite of them. "I wasn't going to join them."

"You didn't have to do that," she said, though her voice was soft from being touched by the gesture.

He gave her a smile. "I know, but I'd rather have lunch with you than with everyone else and that—" He smirked. "—'harpy.'"

Marinette tried to bite back a smile of her own, but couldn't. Hearing the pure-hearted Luka say an insult so brazenly, even if he was just parroting her own, was too funny not to smile at.

"Thanks~" she said gratefully.

"I should be thanking you," he argued. He leaned back in his seat, but didn't stop looking at her. "For being so upset on my behalf."

She blushed, looking away with both shyness and embarrassment. "I-I was really loud though."

"You play your song for everyone to hear, Marinette. I love that about you."

She blushed deeper, mentally cursing his smoothness. "How are you so okay with this?"

"I'm not," he replied, "not really, but..." He shrugged. "That kiss didn't mean anything to me. It wasn't real."

She looked over at him, frowning. "T-that was your first though, wasn't it?"

His brows rose in surprise, his face telling her everything she needed to know even before he responded. "...Well, yeah."

Now that she'd had it officially confirmed, Marinette bristled. "It's not right!" She huffed and turned to him, throwing her arms out. "Your first kiss is supposed to be special and with someone you really love! It's not supposed to just be stolen from you like that!"

He touched a hand to his chest, clearly touched by her passionate anger. She turned red and forced herself to look away from him, finding it hard to stay angry when he stared at her that way.

"...And I know you were already pretty upset with her, I could see it," she explained, "so it wasn't like I felt like I had to get angry for you, but still. She doesn't care what anyone thinks and I'm mad at her for kissing you like that and I'm mad at me because she only did it to get on my nerves and I know I shouldn't be mad at me because she's just mad that I won't fall for her lies but I'm mad anyway because I still let her rile me up when that's exactly what she wanted." Burying her face in her hands, she whined and added, "I guess I wasn't jealous at least - not in that way anyway - since I'd never want to do anything to you without your permission like she did, but I know she meant for me to get to jealous because I just—"

She cut herself off, the words clogging up her throat and forcing her to swallow them. She raked her fingers through her hair, mentally debating with herself if she really wanted to tell Luka everything.

But of course she did. Not only did he deserve it, but she felt responsible for her feelings and it was her fault that things happened the way they did, even if it was indirect on her part.

"I..." She closed her eyes and sighed, her voice lowering itself to a whisper. Hunching over, she wrung her hands together and admitted quietly, "I wanted to be your first kiss..."

Silence took over the conversation from there, but she understood. She just dropped a bomb on him and couldn't expect him to reply right away, so she let the seconds drag on without any judgment on her part.

Eventually, she heard the sound of Luka sliding himself closer, so close that the side of his hand briefly touched her leg. He inhaled softly like he was about to speak, stopped, then tried again.

"You... you what?"

She steeled herself up, the words only slightly easier to say than before. "I wanted to be your first kiss. I-I'm selfish, and I know that. Everyone knows it, and that's why—"

His hand touched her leg again. She briefly jumped in surprise, then realized moments later that the touch was intentional this time, as he'd fully settled his hand on her leg. Fighting against her nerves, she turned to look at him and saw how relaxed his expression was.

"You can be selfish."

"W-what?"

"It makes me happy. It means that—" He paused, his cheeks tinting pink as he smiled wide. "—you really want me."

It almost sounded like a question the way he said it, his eyes distant only in a way that implied that he's still absorbing what she'd said.

Her chest filled with hope as she squeaked out, "I...I do. Of course I do." Looking down at the hand on her lap, she placed her own onto it and gave it a squeeze. "But..."

The hope twisted and fought with the shame attempting to take its place, memories of the past coming back to haunt her. She averted her gaze fully, staring off at nothing in particular. "I-I can't give you my first kiss." She squeezed his hand tighter, as if that made anything better. "There was this akuma, and I had to... I mean—"

She felt his hand shifting in hers and immediately worried that she'd squeezed it too hard. She loosened her grip, only to feel his hand turn itself around to hold her hand back, pressing their palms together. The motion made her look back and make eye contact with him.

"Then that wasn't real either, was it?" he asked gently. Giving a fond glance down at their joined hands, he added, "This might be more Rose's type of music than mine, but I think the only kisses that have to matter are the ones that you put meaning into playing."

She gaped. It was still registering with her that he was not only okay with her crushing on him, but still returned it. "S-so... it's not any different? You'd let me kiss you anyway?"

"I never thought about first kisses or second kisses, or any verses beyond that," he told her, placing his other hand on top of their joined ones. "I only care about your kisses."

Marinette's cheeks turned crimson, and she nearly burst into happy laughter. She settled for beaming at him, still amazing at how easily he could ease all of her worries and doubts.

"Then... I'll give you all of them."

She shifted, continuing to hold his hand while her other went to his face. He leaned into her touch, making her all the more eager to pull him in. He didn't protest when she did, his hand moving away from their joined ones to grab her shoulder.

They kissed. Marinette was momentarily surprised when Luka's lips seemed to have a hint of wetness to them, only to realize that he'd meant it when he said that he'd washed his mouth out. She giggled mid-kiss, positively delighted to have someone like him, and he responded to the sound with a soft noise of content. She stroked his cheek with her thumb, then slid her hand down to his neck to urge him closer. He did the same with her shoulder, pulling her in and deepening the contact.

It took a few seconds of internal debate for her to convince herself to break the kiss to talk to him, and she enjoyed the slight whine he made as she did so.

"Better than Lila?" she asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it regardless.

"Definitely," he replied without hesitation, leaning in to touch his forehead to hers.

She hummed. "Mm, good." She pulled him back in for a smaller, quicker kiss that was no less loving than the last. Full of confidence, she felt it safe to say, "I should always be playing my boyfriend's favorite song."

His reaction was immediate, his eyes sparkling and his smile wide. She blushed red, overwhelmed and half-regretting saying anything. He was just too much.

"What is it?" he asked when she averted her gaze.

"P-please stop smiling like that," she whined.

"I can't," he said. More to himself than her, he added cheerfully, "I'm your boyfriend."

"Luka!"

#lukaneventte: No Context November #Flower Arrangement Shipping #Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

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quillsanddaydreams · 3 years

Text

teddy bear

fred weasley x reader

—author’s note: I really have no explanation for this except that I saw an old fic of mine and the idea just struck. This is a re-imagined version of 'don't say goodbye' from my main i.e. @with-love-anu Fred had been spending lesser and lesser time with you every day and you couldn't take it anymore.

—warning(s): mentions of food and drinks, break up, angst but it's hurt and comfort, low-key descriptions of anxiety attack. gender neutral!reader (pronouns haven't been used throughout the story)

—wordcount: 2,190

The fire crackled orange and gold, painting the dark walls. You were sitting right beside the mantle looking at the wall ticking. It was 11:35pm. Fred should’ve been home hours ago.

Tilting your head, you ran your thumb through the sharp edge’s of the photo frame. Friendly— happy faces smiled back at you. It was you and Fred from your 6th year. He had an arm around you, kissing your cheek before winking at the camera. Oh you remembered that day. Vividly. The two of you had just started dating after months of pining. Fred had been an absolute sweetheart. One date led to the next and you didn’t realise you two had spent years together. From graduating from hogwarts, to working your way up on your jobs, moving in together… You were madly in love and nothing else seemed to have mattered.

Everything looked great. Looked. Your parents often told you about ichs. A common rash. Ignore it and it will go away. Scratch it, and it will make your life hell. They never told you however, how long it takes. And you had been shutting your eyes to this one far too long. Fred was never there. Never. Both of you had jobs. Demanding jobs. Yet it seemed Fred was the only one without a moment to spare.

Your morning began with you getting up and ready for your day. Freshening up, making breakfast for the two of you— storing Fred’s with a quick warming spell and a note because you knew you’ll be gone by the time he woke up. Never having the heart to rouse him you simply smiled and pressed a kiss to his forehead, apprating to the ministry. When you came back, he would still be at the shop, working late into the night. Exhaustion caught you, you were unable to keep yourself from falling asleep after 12.

Heaving a sigh, you pushed your head back staring at the ceiling above. The thing was that you missed him. Terribly. You couldn’t even remember the time he held you, let alone ask about your day— it had been months. There had been a hundred times, sitting alone having dinner or seeing his side of the bed empty. Loneliness caught with you reminisened all the times he would pull you over his lap, pressing kisses all over your face. Telling you about the newest invention at his shop. All confrontations with him about the same had ended the same way. With him promising he would try. He never did.

Glancing at the clock again, you felt your body grow hot with anger. It was nearly midnight. You had left him a note to come home early that day. Promotion at work had flashed like the perfect occasion to catch up. Happiness had been bubbling through you all day. Although as time passed, your excitement dulled. The food turned cold and ice in the firewhiskey bucket had melted. Your eyes pricked with tears as you felt your stomach churn. There was a pop as the door opened to reveal a disheveled Fred. He gave you a small smile before moving straight towards the bedroom.

“Fred,” you called out, clearing your throat and wiping away the tears. Did he really not notice? “Did you get my note?”

“Hmm?” he said, shuffling through his drawer. “Oh! Yes I did, sorry but work came up love, couldn’t make it.”

You clenched your jaw.

“Work?” you asked, agitated. “What work keeps you out until midnight Fred?”

His answering sigh infuriated you further.

“You need to change your work schedule, Fred,” you said, crossing your arms. “George comes back to Angelina before 8. I’m sure you can manage before 9. I don't see you Fred. I don't get to talk to you or spend a moment with you. It's like I'm living alone— I spent more time with you before we moved in!”

Fred squeezed his eyes shut, tired.

“I’ll try, I promise,” he said after a minute. “Let’s eat first, shall we?”

“No, Fred. You promise me that every time,” you hissed. “I want you to tell me you’ll be home tomorrow before 9. Like a normal person.”

“What do you want me to do, huh?” Fred snapped. “I thought you would be more supportive of me and my business.”

“Don’t you dare say that,” you threatened. “I’ve been there for you every step of the way. What I am asking you is for you to take out some time for me. I need you to be there for me too!”

“Well excuse me for wanting to earn enough money for our future. For wishing you didn’t have to work to live a happy life.”

“Fred,” you said, your voice a dangerous whisper. “You know exactly how much I love my job. I’ve always been happy working. What has gotten into you? You were always so supportive of me!”

Something crossed Fred’s eye and he took a step back, shaking himself. He took a deep breath.

“Listen,” Fred said calmly. “It’s late now, we can talk about it tomorrow.”

“When, Fred? When? In the morning, when you are asleep or at night which is the time right now?”

Fred remained silent. It felt like you were bursting. All the frustration, sadness and disappointment poured in.

“It hurts, Fred. It hurts and it feels like I’m alone in this. People ask me how we are doing and I don’t know what to tell them. I have no idea what’s going on with the person I live with. I don’t even know where our relationship is goin—”

“You know what?” Fred said, finally losing his cool, throwing his hands in the air. “If you feel so alone, maybe you wouldn’t find a difference if we even separate.”

You gasped.

“I’m going to give you a moment to take that back,” you hushed. Fred crossed his arms. “Think about it before telling me you meant it.”

“Listen, you know I put my work above anything else,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’ve always wanted to be rich enough so people like Malfoy wouldn’t dare to insult me or my family. That shop. It’s my life. It’s everything that lets me afford the things I never could.”

“So the shop’s more important to you than having me stay?” you said, your throat heavy. Digging your nails into the palm of your hand you searched Fred’s face. The face you had fallen in love with, the one that didn’t quite meet your eyes now which forebode tears. No you couldn’t cry now. Not when he disregarded your job you had been so passionate about, not when his status in life was more important to him. When Fred didn’t say anything, you let out a dry laugh. Shaking your head you moved towards your wardrobe, your head thumping. You took out a couple of your clothes, money and some documents, packing up a bag. Fred stared at you wide eyed as you went for the door.

“What are you doing?” he demanded as you opened the door moving out.

“Well, since you don’t care if we separate and your shop is the only thing you’re living for; it only seems fair that I leave,” you said, furiously rubbing away the tear that fell down your cheek. “Oh and Weasley? I hope you become the wealthiest wizard in the country.”

The last thing you saw was Fred’s shook form before a familiar house came into view. Knocking on your best friend’s door, you wondered whether you should have taken a hotel. It was very late after all. Before you could turn back and leave, Ruhaan opened up. He looked sleepy but his expression changed on seeing you.

“Hey, are you alright? What’s the—”

“Can I stay here tonight?” you blurted. “I’ll crash on the couch... ”

Ruhaan wrapped an arm around your shoulder, leading you in.

“Of course you can,” he said as your throat felt heavy. “You’re always welcome here, what happened?”

“I… we broke up,” you croaked. Admitting things aloud often made things real. Stating your breakup to Ruhaan made you really assess the situation. Blood rushed to your head as you realised you really just left back someone you had loved for six long years. Still did. Your legs wobbled making you lose your balance but Ruhaan held you steady.

“I can’t believe it… I… love him…” you gulped.

“Let me first get you some tea,” he said, rubbing your sides.

-♡♡♡-

Fred was a mess. He fell on the floor with a thump, realising what happened moments ago. You left. The person he had loved all his life had left him. And it was his fault. All those months he had been trying to get the latest product to work. George had given up on it long ago knowing well how dangerous it was to work on. Yet he stood back, working extra hours determined to get it done. It made him lose sight of what was important, you. His heart constricted as he felt like he couldn’t breath. Hot tears fell down his cheeks as he let out a frustrated shout. He had finally lost everything.

For the next few days, Fred worked as an auto pilot. Numbness had caught up to him. He couldn’t bring himself to eat or sleep. Your thoughts plagued him. It was like he was watching your face fall as you moved out over and over again. The apartment felt devoid of spirit— dark and cold. Fred missed you, your smile as he sleepily joined you in bed, pulling you closer; your notes with little doodles telling him to take care… George vaguely knew about what happened, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. Visits to your best friend’s place have always gone the same. Ruhaan told him you weren’t there.

Fred wanted— needed you. He loved you. Always did. And he would be damned if he failed to show you. Again. Washing his face, he apparated to Ruhaan’s door again. Biting the inside of his cheek, he waited as a familiar face came into view sighing on spotting him.

“Fred,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve told you…”

“Please,” he said, cutting him off. “Please, I know what I’ve done. Terrible won’t start to describe it. Just give me a chance to talk. I won’t push. I won’t. I am really ashamed of the things I did. At least let me make it right…”

Ruhaan searched his face, mentally debating with himself. Fred was pleading, begging. He would do anything to make this right.

“Alright, don’t screw this up,” Ruhaan said, ushering him in directing him towards your room. “The first door on the right.”

Fred nodded, moving briskly to where he indicated. Heart pounding, he knocked. Your voice came throaty, calling him in. When he saw you, his breath caught up. You looked terrible. Dark circles under red puffy eyes, nestled up in blankets. Noticing him, you sat up straighter.

“I told Ruhaan I didn’t want to see you,” you muttered. Fred moved to sit beside you. You looked away.

“I…” he began, not finding the correct words. “I brought this for you…”

He fished out a small box out of his pocket, handing it to you. It transformed into a teddy bear as the pack touched you, splaying itself over your hand like a rock. You narrowed your eyes at Fred.

“I’ve been working on this in secret for the last six months,” he rasped. “A teddy bear for blue days. The more I worked on it, the stiffer it became. I could not imagine what exactly I was doing wrong. I tried charming it, transforming it, twisting and twerking it around...”

“Fred,” you said, cutting him off. He blinked as streaks of heavy tears fell down his cheek.

“I was so fucking angry and determined to make it work that I couldn’t see anything else than that,” he sobbed. “I’ve said and done things that I couldn’t forgive myself for. I’ve made promises I never followed and I’ve let you go. I… I know that there is no reason for you to even hear me out right now. But I can’t lose you. I can’t… I can’t. I’ll do whatever it takes to have you back but I don’t want to say goodbye to the best thing in my life. Please. You don’t have to excuse me but give me one opportunity to make it up to you.”

You inhaled sharply.

“You’ll come home before 9?” you asked.

“At seven everyday.”

“You’ll spare time for me?”

“Dates every other weekend.”

“You’ll cook everything for the next 3 weeks?” you said as Fred let out a breathy chuckle.

“Only your favourites.”

You looked at his face, wet from crying. Eyes praying for your answer.

“You’ll kiss me right now?” you said as a dull surprise crossed his face. He cradled your face, kissing you softly. You closed your eyes, body relaxing for the first time in days.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice low. You held his hand, squeezing it.

“I know.”

—as for the taglist: I don’t make taglists, I have a blog @from-my-quill which is updated whenever I post fanfiction. You could have the notifications on for it and it will work just like me tagging you.

⟨⟨REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE APPRECIATED⟩⟩

#fred #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley angst #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley imagine #fred x reader #fred x you #fred x y/n #from anu's quill #hp #harry potter #george weasley

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

Text

ltdan2288 asked: As a fellow veteran of the Afghan Campaign, might I ask if you have any thoughts about the imminent end of Allied air support & combat-advisory operations over there? The fall of large swaths of the country to the Taliban is already underway, which can only be seen as an unspeakable tragedy for the people there. From a strategic perspective, there’s no reason to believe that we won’t have to return in some capacity of AQ or ISIS reestablish themselves under Taliban sponsorship. At the same time, it’s not clear to me that our presence did anything beyond kick the can down the road and delay this inevitable outcome. As someone with such a deep knowledge of military history, I’m curious if you have a different perspective.

I have been avoiding answering this post for a while now because Afghanistan dredges up so many conflicting emotions inside me. I wrestle with so many memories of my time there with my regiment to fight in a war that we all didn’t really understand what we were fighting for.

Deep breath.

Almost two decades of conflict in Afghanistan has cost British taxpayers £22.2billion, or $31.3 billion according to UK government figures. As British troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, the 20-year deployment bill could be even higher. As of May 2021, the total cost of Operation Herrick (codename for the deployment of British soldiers to Helmand province) is £22.2billion. There were 457 fatalities on, or subsequently due to, Op Herrick. Of which 403 were due to hostile action. During the operation between January 1, 2006 and November 30, 2014, there were 10,382 British service personnel casualties. Of these 5,705 were injuries and the remainder being illness or disease. The UK’s remaining 750 troops in Afghanistan, involved in training local forces, started exiting the war-devastated country in May. Most of them will return home by the end of July.

They, like every one of us who went to fight in Afghanistan, will ask the same questions, ‘Why did we go there?’ ‘What was the real purpose of the mission?’ ‘Was it worth it?’

Both my older brothers fought there with special distinction and I later fought there too. I have very mixed emotions when I think about my time in Afghanistan. For all its faults and tortured history, I love that country and love its many ethnic people. I even started to learn Pashtu as I already had a spoken command of Urdu because I had been raised partly in both Pakistan and India and it’s where many Afghan refugees living in the UN camps for over a generation had learned Urdu too.

It’s not just that my family has history in Afghanistan going back to the days of the East India Company but I had a sincere respect for its culture and history as one of the central hot spots for great civilisational achievements, but also as a stubborn and unruly country who proudly defied the Great Powers to bend the knee and turned it into a ‘graveyard of empires’. Most of all I think of the friendships I made there and how my perspective on life changed as a consequence of knowing such resilience and fortitude in the face of catastrophe and death.

I’m sure like everyone else I wasn’t too surprised by President Biden’s announcement that he was announcing the imminent withdrawal of all American troops in Afghanistan. He wanted to pivot to something else when asked about it. “I want to talk about happy things, man!” He said. Who could begrudge him given that America has been at war in Afghanistan for a better part of 20 years and has nothing to really show for it. Except of course the loss of its brave service men and women as well as the death of thousands of Afghan civilians. It spent more than $2 trillion to kill Osama bin Laden, the architect behind 9/11 attacks and failed to convincingly snuff out both murderous terror groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

When the Secretary General of Nato announced back in April 2021 all alliance troops were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, it was made to look like a nice, clean, enunciation of a joint decision. The end date was set for 11 September, 2021 - 20 years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington - and it was in line with the oft-repeated alliance maxim: we went in together; we will come out together. Except that, on closer examination, it was all rather messier.

This was partly because the withdrawal from Afghanistan had actually been Trump’s policy, so here was Joe Biden, the anti-Trump, co-opting a policy from his predecessor (a policy Trump had been so keen on that he tried to accelerate the withdrawal after he lost the election). Biden then tried to detach it from Trump by slowing down the withdrawal date a little and expressing it in terms more comprehensible to the Washington establishment and to US allies.

Where Trump had essentially done a deal with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date of 1 May, Biden left the Taliban out of it and invoked the totemic date of 9/11. This does not mean, of course, that the withdrawal will not be completed a good deal sooner - once you announce a withdrawal, you might as well get on with it.

In fact, Biden had to make a decision one way or another, given the rapid approach of Trump’s 1 May withdrawal date. And, whether it came from Washington or Nato, it was pretty low key for an announcement that a 20-year military involvement that had cost 4,000 allied lives was ending. Indeed, many people beyond Washington and Afghanistan might not quite have registered the news, given the considerable noises from Nato’s simultaneous dire warnings about Russia massing troops on the Ukrainian border, the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in the UK, and the Covid pandemic everywhere.

And distractions were needed not just because Biden was implementing a Trump policy. It was also because he was ordering an unconditional withdrawal – which he justified, correctly, by saying that setting preconditions would mean that the troops could be there forever. It was a risk Biden knew all too well, given that Barack Obama had been persuaded by General David Petraeus – against his election pledges and his better judgement – that what Obama really wanted was not a withdrawal, but a ‘surge’ with conditions attached before a withdrawal could take place.

Distractions were also useful for London, where the timing was hardly ideal. Imagine you were in government in London, you had watched the dismal failure of the UK’s Herrick operations in Helmand Province between 2006 and 2014, you knew that your armed forces had suffered 456 deaths in 20 years, with many more severely injured, but you had hung on in there.

Your government had also just released a blueprint for foreign and security policy, setting future priorities even further from home, in the Indo-Pacific, and your Prime Minister was about to make a high-profile visit to India as part of his post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ branding . In those circumstances, an announcement that the US had decided to leave Afghanistan, giving you no choice but to follow, was almost exactly what you did not need. Rather than showing the UK as a powerful, autonomous military actor and a valued ally, it showed the exact opposite.

It also reminded an unhappy British public about a costly conflict it had rather forgotten. And those who did more than bother to remember - like the families who lost loved ones on the battlefield - and who over the years have blamed successive governments for moving the goalposts and lacking an exit strategy (all true too).

All of which might explain why the UK’s Foreign and Defence Secretaries followed the US example by changing the subject to the iniquities of Russia and China, rather than issuing a joyous pronouncement to the effect of: hooray and thank goodness, our boys and girls are coming home.

The UK’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter gave a subdued, unenthusiastic response to Biden’s announcement. I cannot remember such open acknowledgement of UK-US military policy friction in recent decades - or such an abject admission by the UK of its defence dependence on the US. What Carter said was that the unconditional withdrawal was ‘not a decision we had hoped for, but we obviously respect it and it is clearly an acknowledgement of an evolving US strategic posture’. In other words, the UK had opposed Biden’s decision – or would have done, if asked (which is not clear). Also, that it was Washington’s ‘strategic posture’ that had ‘evolved’, not the UK’s. He suggested there was a real danger that progress made could be lost and that there could be a return to civil war, with the Taliban maybe returning to power - again, all true.

Given that the UK officially has only 750 troops in Afghanistan at present, and most of them are there in a training capacity, to dissent from the US position so openly would be considered decidedly rude in the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps to that end, General Carter played the dutiful soldier and had to - through gritted teeth - put a positive gloss on Afghanistan’s future, insisting that the objective in going into Afghanistan, ‘to prevent international terrorism emerging from the country’, had been achieved which was ‘great tribute to the work of British forces and their allies’.

He also said that Afghan forces were ‘much better trained than one might imagine’ and that the Taliban ‘is not the organisation it once was’, so that ‘a scenario could play out that is actually not quite as bad as perhaps some of the naysayers are predicting.’ Blah blah blah. He’s wrong, and I think he knows it but only in the sanctity of his gentlemen’s club might he truly admit it.

I know he’s wrong because the chatter amongst ex-veterans I know is that we’ve made a balls up of Afghanistan yet again - by ‘again’ I mean from the past 200 years of us Brits trying to bring order to chaos in Afghanistan and getting burned for our troubles.

Both my father and my older siblings tell me what their friends and ex-service peers (some very senior indeed) have been nattering over a drink at their gentlemen clubs where ex-veterans haunt the club bar. Many just shake their heads in sighed resignation before burying themselves in the Times crossword or drowning their sorrows with a beer or two at how lock in step we’ve become to the Americans at a time when the British army is re-branding itself as a more independent nimble hi-tech impact army (the creation of a new ranger regiment being but one example).

Still if President Biden wanted to tie a neat bow on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - saying, as he had, that the logic for the war ended once al-Qaida was gutted and Osama bin Laden killed - then it reveals a stunning lack of introspection about the United States’ role in the conflict that will continue in Afghanistan long after the last American and British troops leave.

Less than three months after President Joe Biden declared that the last American troops would be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, the withdrawal is nearly complete. The departure from Bagram air base, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul, in effect marked the end of America’s 20-year war. But that does not mean the end of the war in Afghanistan. If anything, it is only going to get worse.

It is true that the president had no good choice on Afghanistan, and that he inherited a bad deal from his predecessor. There are never good choices when it comes to Afghanistan: only bloody trade offs.

But in announcing an unconditional withdrawal, he made the situation worse by throwing out the minimal conditions U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had negotiated under the Trump administration. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has delivered to the Afghan government and Taliban a draft Afghanistan Peace Agreement - the central idea of which is replacing the elected Afghan government with a so-called transitional one that would include the Taliban and then negotiate among its members the future permanent system of government. Crucial blank spaces in the draft include the exact share of power for each of the warring sides and which side would control security institutions.

The refrain now from the Biden administration is that the United States is not abandoning Afghanistan, that it will aim to do right by Afghan women and girls, and that it will try to nudge the Taliban and Kabul toward a peace deal using a diplomatic tool kit.

But the narrative ignores much of the reality on the ground. It also ignores history.

In theory, the Taliban and the American-backed government had been negotiating a peace accord, whereby the insurgents lay down their arms and participate instead in a redesigned political system. In the best-case scenario, strong American support for the government, both financial and military (in the form of continuing air strikes on the Taliban), coupled with immense pressure on the insurgents’ friends, such as Pakistan, might succeed in producing some form of power-sharing agreement.

But even if that were to happen - and the chances are low - it would be a depressing spectacle. The Taliban would insist on moving backwards in the direction of the brutal theocracy they imposed during their previous stint in power, when they confined women to their homes, stopped girls from going to school and meted out harsh punishments for sins such as wearing the wrong clothes or listening to the wrong music.

More likely than any deal, however, is that the Taliban try to use their victories on the battlefield to topple the government by force. They have already overrun much of the countryside, with government units mostly restricted to cities and towns. Demoralised government troops are abandoning their posts. In the first week of July 2021, over 1,000 of them fled from the north-eastern province of Badakhshan to neighbouring Tajikistan. The Taliban have not yet managed to capture and hold any cities, and may lack the manpower to do so in lots of places at once. They may prefer to throttle the government slowly rather than attack it head on. But the momentum is clearly on their side.

America and its NATO allies have spent billions of dollars training and equipping Afghan security forces in the hope that they would one day be able to stand alone. Instead, they started buckling even before America left. Many districts are being taken not by force, but are simply handed over. Soldiers and policemen have surrendered in droves, leaving piles of American-purchased arms and ammunition and fleets of vehicles. Even as the last American troops were leaving Bagram over the weekend of July 3rd, more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers were busy fleeing across the border into neighbouring Tajikistan as they sought to escape a Taliban assault.

As the outlook for the army and for civilians looks increasingly desperate, so do the measures proposed by the government. Ashraf Ghani, the president, is trying to mobilise militias to shore up the flimsy army. He has turned for help to figures such as Atta Mohammad Noor, who rose to power as an anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander and is now a potentate and businessman in Balkh province. “No matter what, we will defend our cities and the dignity of our people,” said Mr Noor in his gilded reception hall in Mazar-i-Sharif, the key to holding the north (sounds like Game of Thrones). The thinking is that such a mobilisation would be a temporary measure to give the army breathing space and allow it to regroup and the new forces would co-ordinate with government troops to push back hard on the Taliban.

However this is Afghanistan. The prospect of unleashing warlords’ private armies fills many Afghans with dread, reminding them of the anarchy of the 1990s. Such militias, raised along ethnic lines, tended to turn on each other and the general population.

With America gone and Afghan forces melting away, the Taliban fancy their prospects. They show little sign of engaging in serious negotiations with Mr Ghani’s administration. Yet they control no major towns or cities. Sewing up the countryside puts pressure on the urban centres, but the Taliban may be in no hurry to force the issue. They generally lack heavy weapons. They may also lack the numbers to take a city against sustained resistance. On July 7th they failed to capture Qala-e-Naw, a small town. Besides, controlling a city would bring fresh headaches. They are not good at providing government services.

Perhaps the Taliban have learned their history lesson and might refrain from attacking Kabul this time around. Their best course may be to tighten the screws and wait for the government to buckle. American predictions of its fate are getting gloomier. Intelligence agencies think Mr Ghani’s government could collapse within six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. So clearly the momentum is on the side of the Taliban and they just need to chip away at Ghani’s forces one district after another until the inevitable and hateful surrender of the central Afghan government to their demands.

At the very least, the civil war is likely to intensify, as the Taliban press their advantage and the government fights for its life. Other countries - China, India, Iran, Russia and Pakistan - will seek to fill the vacuum left by America. Some will funnel money and weapons to friendly warlords. The result will be yet more bloodshed and destruction, in a country that has suffered constant warfare for more than 40 years. Those who worry about possible reprisals against the locals who worked as translators for the Americans are missing the big picture: America, Britain and other allies are abandoning an entire country of almost 40m people to a grisly fate.

Nothing exemplifies - at least in Afghan eyes - of all that has gone wrong with American involvement in Afghanistan than in the manner of their leaving.

The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base's new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans' departure more than two hours after they left in the middle of the night without raising any alarms.

They left behind 3.5 million items, including tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and military MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat ration packs to the uninitiated). Thousands of civilian vehicles were left, many without keys to start them, and hundreds of armoured vehicles. The Americans also left small weapons and ammunition, but the departing US troops took heavy weapons with them. Ammunition for weapons not left for the Afghan military was blown up.

Now that is some feat considering the logistics of this mass exodus without drawing any attention. You have obviously been to Bagram and so you will know just how big and sprawling it is. Bagram Airfield is the size of a small city, roadways weaving through barracks and past hangar-like buildings. There are two runways and more than 100 parking spots for fighter jets known as revetments. One of the two runways is 12,000 feet long and was built in 2006. There's a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital and giant hangar-size tents filled with furniture. And all those shops to remind Americans of home from familiar fast food restaurants and hairdressers and massage parlours to buying clothing and jewellery and buying a Harley Davidson motorbike (or so I’ve been told).

I’m guessing that the Afghans were certainly outside of the wire and probably had not been inside Bagram Airfield for months. So from the outset they would not have had any reason to think anything was going on until the generators probably ran out of fuel and it started to go a little too quiet. The inner gate was probably discretely left unlocked and when the US stopped answering the radio/phone and then they probably investigated.

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour's drive from the Afghan capital, Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan troops. Afghan military leaders insist the Afghan National Security and Defense Force could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield. The airfield includes a prison with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban members.

I’m pretty sure some bright spark in the US Pentagon public affairs dept convinced his military superiors that it was important to avoid the optics of Americans leaving in the same way they did in Vietnam in case it depresses the American public and the US military. Instead it demoralised its allies, the Afghan national army who are now the only line of defence against the Taliban. In one night, they lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area. The manner in which the Americans left Bagram air base amounts to a resounding vote of no confidence in Afghanistan’s future. It just looks bad.

The U.S. choice came with costs attached to each decision. With staying, the cost was potential U.S. troop casualties and a fear that things would not change on the ground. With leaving comes the cost of a deeper conflict in Afghanistan and a backsliding of progress made there over the past two decades. In many ways, the costs of staying seem shorter-term and borne by the United States, while the costs of leaving will be predominantly borne by Afghans over a longer time horizon. Yet, even if those costs seem remote now, history tells us that they will be blamed on the United States.

Biden perhaps reflective of history of Americans getting into quagmires abroad didn’t want to be seen exerting time and energy for a losing cause. His decision also reflects his administration’s foreign policy for the American middle-class paradigm, which focuses on domestic considerations over international ones (and is this so different from Trump’s “America First”? No, it is not). The irony, though, is that the American middle class largely doesn’t care about Afghanistan - their ambivalence gave way to support for this decision once it was announced, but it wouldn’t be hard to visualise the public approving of a scenario that kept a couple thousand troops there for a while longer.

What’s perhaps most disturbing is the narrative the president has presented along with the rationale for withdrawal: that America went to Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaida after 9/11, that mission creep led America to stay on too long and, therefore, it is time to get out. This takes an incomplete view of U.S. agency in the war in Afghanistan. The narrative implies that the civil conflict in Afghanistan today did not originate with America - that this more than 40-year war began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, preceded America’s interference in Afghanistan, and will follow our departure.

The fact of the matter is that, by beginning the campaign in Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrowing the Taliban, who were then engaged in their draconian rule, and installing a new government, we western allies began a new phase of the Afghan conflict — one that pitted the Kabul government and the United States/Britain/NATO against the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan people did not have a say in the matter. That we allied powers are leaving Afghan women, children, and youth better off in many ways after 20 years is due to us, and we should be proud of that. But that we are leaving them mired in a bloody conflict is also due to us, because we could not hold off the Taliban insurgency, and we must all reckon publicly with that.

I have to ask myself why did we fail?

I’m only speaking about us Brits now as I’m sure you have your own thoughts as an ex-Marine officer of what you thought of the American military effort. Yes, I’m copping out of really bashing the yanks because first, I have too much respect for those fantastic American service men and women I did have the privilege to fight alongside with; and second, we Brits have nothing to crow about as we fucked up in lots of ways too, and to make things worse, we should have known better given our imperial history with Afghanistan.

The seeds of our failure in Afghanistan lies in not learning from history. We didn’t have a mission that was properly defined nor did we have a strategy that was clear, coherent, and easily communicated to both its fighting men and women as well as to the British public.

Were we there to get our hands bloody and to root out and destroy extreme Islamist terrorists or were we there to indulge in state building out of some idealistic notions of liberal humanitarianism? This question was at heart of our failure within our government and also within the British army as well as our relations with America and our NATO allies and finally the Afghans themselves.

Although never colonised in the same manner as other central and south Asian countries, the modern Afghan state is very much a creation borne out of great power rivalry. A land occupied by a number of different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, it is a country whose borders were defined by, and whose sense of national identity was forged in response to western great power competition. Its geopolitical position - landlocked, mountainous, and surrounded by past great powers and present regional rivals - lends Afghanistan a dual role of geographic obscurity and great strategic significance, and has as such frequently been treated as little more than a buffer state between empires and a proxy of local powers. Its shared historical border with Russia and British India made it an object of imperial intrigue and, by consequence, has been subject to five European military interventions in the last 175 years.

The first three interventions of these occurred during the era of ‘the Great Game’ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which Britain and Russia (latterly the Soviet Union) competed for influence and control over Afghan politics in order to protect their respective imperial holdings in India and central Asia.

The fourth and fifth interventions, ranging from the late 1970s to the present day, similarly involved attempts by Soviets and then by an American-led international coalition to remove political leaders acting against their interests and to protect their favoured candidates.

The unifying feature of all these conflicts was the idea of Afghanistan as the site of potential threats to the interests and security of more powerful states.

Britain’s legacy in Afghanistan in particular set the tone for the country’s historical pattern of conflict and political contestation, fuelling both the intermittent emergence of Afghan national consciousness and a fractious political lineage that saw thirteen amirs in just eighty years. Interventions by the Empire during the Great Game set the conditions for the assassination of ostensibly national leaders by their compatriots (Shah Shuja Durrani in the First war) or their exile by the British (Shere Ali Khan and Ayub Khan in the Second).

Despite the British achieving their aim of protecting India in the second and third conflicts by maintaining Afghanistan as either a pro-British buffer state or as a neutral party, the Afghan narrative tends to emphasise successes such as the massacre of British forces retreating from Kabul to Jalalabad in 1842, the defeat of British and Indian forces at Maiwand in 1880, and the gaining of sovereignty in foreign affairs in 1919.

Soviet intervention in the late 1970s and 1980s further buttressed this identity of resistance, and the failure and ultimate overthrow of the Communist-backed Najibullah government, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union shortly after their drawdown from Afghanistan, led to a sense amongst the victorious mujahidin of the country as the ‘graveyard of empires’.

Afghanistan’s modern history should thus be seen as inextricably linked to the ebbs and flows of great power politics. Each intervention exacerbated extant internal power struggles between rival elite individuals and groups vying for nominal control over the country. Foreign intervention in Afghanistan was met on each occasion with fierce resistance from tribal militias coalesced around religion; as has been remarked upon by one historian of the country, the threat of external domination has been one of the few means of uniting its disparate population around the concept of an Afghan ‘nation’, and in most cases this shared sense of identity cohered around religion, not nationalism.

Indeed, the presence of intervening powers and the development of the Afghan state may be seen as mutually supporting: whilst most Afghan leaders throughout the last two centuries have asserted their sovereignty over the country, the reality has in most circumstances been one of competing tribal chiefs and/or ‘warlords’ rather than a single dominant leader.

Where leaders have managed to cohere the disparate tribal and ethnic groupings of the country under one banner - most notably under the regime of Dost Mohamed Khan (1826-1839, 1845-1863) – this was due in large part to their diplomatic abilities of compromise and co-optation with Afghanistan’s regional power- brokers. In other cases, such as that of the reign of Abdurrahman (1880- 1901), power was maintained by an unflinching ‘internal imperialism’ and the use of punitive force against rebellious factions.

The challenges of maintaining and projecting centralised power in Afghanistan allow us to see the relationship of its leaders with world or regional powers in the last two centuries as one of mutual exploitation. Throughout the Great Game and the Cold War, whilst the British/Americans and Russians/Soviets would use threats and bribes (and occasionally force) to compel Afghan rulers to comply with their geopolitical needs, Afghan rulers themselves often deftly manipulated those powers to maintain and extend their own power.

The pattern followed by Afghan leaders from the nineteenth century to the present day is remarkably similar in the respect that most have relied upon a rentierist economic model, seeking external aid in order to sustain the cost of security and administration. The plan of modern rulers was to warm Afghanistan with the heat generated by the great power conflicts without getting drawn into them directly. Abdurrahman, for example, used British subsidies to fund his military campaigns against rebellious factions; the Musahiban rulers of the mid-twentieth century used American capital to develop its nascent economic infrastructure and Soviet finance to bolster its armed forces; and, following the overthrow of the last royal leader of Afghanistan, Mohamed Daoud, in 1978, the quasi-communist leadership of Babrak Karmal, Hafizullah Amin, Nur Muhammad Taraki, and Mohammad Najibullah during the late 1970s and 1980s relied in the main on Soviet money and military assistance in its ultimately failed attempt to implement socialist policies and put down the American, Saudi and Pakistani-backed mujahidin.

These trends continued into the post-Cold War period in respect to both the Taliban movement (essentially directed and funded by Pakistan), the Northern Alliance (funded largely by former Soviet central Asian states) and the regime of Hamid Karzai (maintained in economic and military terms by the American-led, NATO-operated International Security Assistance Force and the wider international community). In the former cases, occurring in the main in the period of civil war between 1992 and 2001, rentierism was limited to the maintenance of proxy parties and the continuation of conflict.

By contrast, the ISAF mission bore similarities with the Soviet-backed socialist regimes of the 1980s, insofar as it focused huge amounts of capital and military resources on stabilisation and state-building efforts. Both intervening parties made the error of ignoring Afghanistan’s political history and focused their efforts on bolstering the authority of a centralised state, both promoted policies that were deemed ‘universal’ in their application and were, unsurprisingly given such hubris, vulnerable to accusations by Afghan opposition to being alien and imperialistic ideologies, and both expended enormous amounts of blood and treasure in order to sustain the regimes they supported.

The UK’s struggle to locate a coherent strategy for Afghanistan should, therefore, be seen firstly in the light of the historical problematic of Afghan state-building. This is important in narrative terms because difficulties of defining strategy imply similar challenges in explaining strategy. As with its efforts to ‘think’ strategically, Britain’s ability to explain the strategy(ies) for the war in Afghanistan have been frequently criticised by various commentators. The most strategically debilitating aspect of the Afghan campaign has always been the incoherence of the mission’s purpose; indeed the question ‘‘why are we in Afghanistan?’’ has never really been settled in public consciousness. The international community massively underestimated the difficulties of state-building and greatly overstretched themselves in the commitments made to Afghanistan, and that they did so because ‘strategies’ for Afghanistan rested on assumptions of the universal applicability of liberal state-building.

The international community from the start (meaning from the Bonn Conference of late 2001) fundamentally misunderstood the nature of an Afghan society deeply ravaged by decades of conflict, and failed to foresee the malign effects state-building ventures would have on the country. Specifically, the Bonn Conference, which set out the parameters of the post-invasion Afghan state, implemented a centralised state system onto a state whose experience of such was limited, and where the success of such a system in extending its authority beyond the major cities was predicated on coercion and the use of force.

Historically this has rarely been a credible option for Afghan rulers or their international backers, and was even less so under the self-imposed restrictions of liberal war-fighting and state-building. Rather, re-creating a centralised state required Afghan and international actors to enter into the same methods of co-optation and compromise as those of the past; in necessitating these kind of measures – as opposed to implementing a looser, federal system of governance – the centralisation of the Afghan state paved the way for a reconstitution of a ruling order based on tribal elements and ‘strongmen’. This produced something of a paradox for state-builders, as the creation of a strong, central state capable of implementing liberal policies across Afghanistan came at the cost of entering into alliances with ‘warlords’ known for their illiberal and coercive political approaches and illicit economic activities.

Another unintended but unavoidable consequence of centralised state-building identified by scholars is the re-constitution of the rentier state in Afghanistan. Post-Bonn, Afghanistan returned to its historical norm of maintaining the state via the extraction of external security and development rents, without which it would almost certainly implode due to the ruinous state of its economy and taxation system. Studies have shown that his new rentierism differed from previous patronage systems at the state level insofar as it was fuelled by an unprecedented influx of capital and resources into the country. This had the effect of introducing regulated systems of ‘neo-patrimonalism’, where departments were to be distributed as rewards to the various factions that took part in the Bonn conference, and there had to be enough rewards to go around.

In other words, the structure of the post-invasion Afghan state was, to a great extent, defined not by the demands of good governance, the needs of the country or the demands of post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction – the purposes for which the centralised model was chosen to promote – but rather by the first-order need to avoid the derailment of the centralised state by co-opting regional power brokers.

Because of the imperative of shoring up a nascent state by securing support from potential competitors, the gulf between the ends of liberal state-building and the illiberal means required to facilitate its functioning can therefore be seen to a certain extent as inevitable.

A major issue, however, was that the patrimonial linkages created by the state for its regional proxies was not comprehensive, as it did not extend to the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland and, as such, fuelled resentment and alienation as much as they placated and co- opted extra-state power brokers. Key players in the Northern Alliance - the primarily Tajik opposition to the Taliban - received prestigious posts within the state, whilst the predominantly Pashtun Taliban were themselves excluded from such arrangements. Because those rewarded by the state tended to be given ministerial or governorial roles in cities, the conflict dynamic tended to reflect an urban – rural divide similar to that of the Soviet occupation. Along this reading, the neo-Taliban insurgency was in many ways a product of the political miscalculations and deficiencies of post-invasion state- building activities.

Given this starting point, such a view concludes that the strategic problems encountered by the international community in Afghanistan were, to a large degree, problems created by (or at the very least exacerbated by) the state-builders themselves. They misread Afghan politics in a way that reflected their own philosophical assumptions about the state and society.

Strategy in Afghanistan suffered because the coalition effort, comprised of multiple national actors and the United Nations, rarely took on the form of a unified effort. Part of the reason for this was a divergence of opinion between actors as to the ultimate purpose – counter-terrorism or state-building – of the intervention.

In the first years of the Afghan campaign, the United States’ Bush Administration remained staunchly opposed to what it called ‘nation building’ and opted instead to pursue a policy of capture- or-kill missions against suspected terrorists. For the United Nations and most of the United States’ European NATO allies, however, state-building was considered a necessary element of any counter-terrorist strategy. This difference of opinion was manifest from the start by the creation of two parallel missions – the US-led, counter-terrorism-focused Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the stabilisation missions of the European Union, United Nations (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)) and NATO (International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)) – engaged in seemingly incompatible aims of military prosecution and peace building.

Opinion on the impact of this dual approach varies. Some scholars have noted, along lines similar to those critiquing the state-building efforts of the international community that the approach taken by the UN, EU and ISAF was too ambitious, naïve and unrealistic, and therefore bound to fall short of their liberal political and economic goals. Both Europe and these international agencies ignored the necessity of paring down the international community’s state-building efforts to core, security-centric capacity building within the Afghan National Security Forces. But of course one can make the counter argument, as many have of course, that on the contrary it was the insufficiencies of state-building approaches vis-à-vis OEF’s counter-terrorist approach that led to subsequent failures in UN and ISAF efforts; specifically, that a disproportionate focus on counter-terrorism missions meant that opportunities of peace- building were irreparably compromised.

Within NATO there was a division not just of opinions but also one of mission relating to different political perspectives about the purpose of the Afghan mission and its ultimate referent object – whether it was primarily about the interests of the coalition member states or concerned in the main with Afghanistan itself – and, from that, the methods to be employed in pursuit of one or another objective. This was not merely a debate bounded by strategic necessity, however; rather, such debates stemmed as much from institutional disagreements over who would or could do what in Afghanistan, which in turn arose from the differences in political constitutions and cultural attitudes towards counterinsurgency and counter- terrorism.

These ‘national caveats’ or ‘red cards’ of participation created significant problems for NATO in Afghanistan, both political, in terms of the relations between states and the abiding sense amongst some that others were ‘free-riding’ on the collective security system and, and strategic and operational, in the sense that command-and-control capabilities and cohesion between forces were limited by the engagement restrictions placed on certain armed forces. Indeed, the disproportionate burden placed on combat-oriented states like the United States, the United Kingdom, and several new member states in Eastern Europe led to political statements denouncing Europe’s perceived transgressors of collective security participation; former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates argued, for example, that NATO had effectively become a ‘two-tier alliance’ ‘between members who specialise in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions - between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership... but don’t want to share the risks and the costs’.

A lack of strategic unity was the natural consequence of a structural compromise that produced two distinct strategic authorities that were, in many ways, competing with one another. Along similar lines to the political arrangements between the Afghan state and its regional proxies, the NATO alliance structure can be seen (and evidently is seen by officials such as Gates) as patrimonial: states participated on the basis of fulfilling their own interests and along operational lines that were complementary to those interests, for the purposes of securing an alliance structure that accommodated all participants ahead of the imperative of creating a coherent strategy for stabilising Afghanistan. As with the neo-patrimonialism of the Karzai regime NATO’s efforts would be dictated by the limitations imposed upon it by circumstance.

Thus, in the cases of Afghanistan’s and the international community’s internal political dynamics, strategy was confined by the structure of the Afghan state and society, the structure of the international community and NATO, and the interplay between those structures. The implication here is that the agency required for the possibility of a workable strategy may have been illusory from the start.

Leaving Afghanistan was never going to be pretty, but the latest turn is uglier than expected.

No one quite expected the speed of collapse within the Afghan National Army to hold of attacks of the Taliban. I don’t think it’s do with the lack of training or their professional skills is lacking (though there may be some truth in it). A big driver in the collapse is the money for wages, food and medical care for troops is syphoned to Dubai, so the Afghans who want to fight, and there are quite a few who hate the Taliban, get less replenishment than the 6th army in the last weeks of Stalingrad. They have arms, ammo and boots for this season only and that is it. Both money and morale are in short supply for these soldiers.

If I was a trained soldier in the Afghan National Army I would desert. I would say to them abandon the fixed defences these ‘ferenghis’ (foreigners) have gifted you and move to the hills and seek refuge with your tribal clan, who will be glad of the arms and experience you bring. Or get over the border if you are lucky to be in the North, if in the West you hire yourself to the Narcos in the badlands on the Iran border. Most other places it is either a last stand or defection, your Government and their relatives have already got their planes fuelled up in Kabul ready to move to their villa complexes in the UAE.

I’m being a trifle cynical but for good reason. Everyone who has been to Afghanistan sees the veil lifted on the corruption of aid and how the elites protect themselves ahead of defending the masses who bear the brunt of the bloodshed.

The corruption has been endemic from the get go, but the international community ignored it all for 'progress'. Any Afghan politico you hear on the media complaining about the West abandoning Afghanistan has at least $30 million parked in Dubai that should have gone to the soldiers, teachers, doctors, builders etc.

As spectacular as the collapse of the Afghan National Army has been it’s been even more scarier seeing how swift the Taliban has been in taking over vital provincial areas through propaganda, civilian intimidation, and rapid attacks. One by one, the Taliban has been taking over areas in a number of provinces in northern Afghanistan in recent weeks. The Taliban says it has taken control of 90 districts across the country since the middle of May. Some were seized without a single shot fired.

The UN's special envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyon put the figure lower, at 50 out of the nation's 370 districts, but feared the worst was yet to come. Most districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once all foreign forces are fully withdrawn. On a map, it's easy to see the point Lyon is making. A stark example is Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north and a significant power centre in its own right. It was the rock upon which the Northern Alliance fought against the Taliban.

It is significant the Taliban are kicking off this offensive in the north, not their heartland in the south and east. The north was the toughest part of the country for them to crack last time. Their expectation is if they have victory there, success will flow much easier in their traditional homelands further south.

The strategy of taming the north extends to emasculating and profiting from trade routes to neighbours. On Monday night they captured the important border town of Shir Khan Bandar, Afghanistan's main crossing into Tajikistan. Earlier in the day, top Tajik government officials had met to discuss concerns about the growing instability next door. There is no indication that the Taliban intend to take their fight north of the border, but in the past Tajikistan has been a vital conduit for supplies flowing to the militants' northern enemies.

The last time the Taliban controlled the city was 20 years ago, when they left hundreds of captives in steel trucking containers to suffocate and die in the scorching desert heat. Now, the militants are back at the city gates once again, as part of a lightning offensive against Afghan government forces that has set alarm bells ringing from Kabul to Washington. So it should worry us all where will all this lead to.

America's drawdown seems to be the game changer. The Taliban have been beaten back several times in recent years, notably from Kunduz in 2015. The Taliban captured it briefly before US airstrikes were called in. Civilian casualties were high but the militants were driven out. The militant group has never been able to withstand the heavy US and NATO air assaults backing Afghan ground forces, but now the US and NATO are leaving, so is much of the threat of sophisticated and sustained air power. And the Taliban are well aware of this.

It seems to me behind the choice of withdrawal by the Biden government lies a bigger assumption that drives that choice. That is the Taliban militants' perceived desire for international recognition. This has been the mantra underpinning the American exit. The logic of the American argument has been simple: The Taliban wouldn't renege on their agreements with the US because they crave international acceptance. The events of this past week and more appear to blow a hole in that assumption.

Another assumption that’s currently being blown out of the water is the US establishing some presence outside of Afghanistan so that if it needs to intervene again to combat terrorism or flush out militants then it can do so from the safety of a neighbouring country. But so far no country has come forward to reciprocate. And why would they? Like the Afghans, no one likes foreign troops with boots on the ground in their country. Only the central Asian republics and possibly Pakistan would come close to allowing that but there would be a political cost those governments would pay with their people. Moreover by welcoming the Americans in, they also allow the militants to target that country too.

Another assumption is the nature of the Taliban support and links to terrorist groups. The U.S. may not face any serious post-withdrawal Afghan support of extremist threats to the United States, even if the Taliban does take over. It is all too true that the Taliban continues to talk to the remnants of Al Qaeda, as do elements of the Pakistani military. It is unclear, however, that these remnants of Al Qaeda focus on attacks on the U.S., and the Taliban does seem to oppose ISIS. It is also unclear that the Taliban will host other extremist movements that focus on attacking the U.S. or states outside the region.

It is unclear that any key element of the Taliban has an interest in such attacks on the United States. Even Al Qaeda now focuses largely on objectives inside Islamic countries, and it is unclear that some other major extremist force will emerge in Afghanistan that do not focus on regional threats and on taking over vulnerable, largely Islamic states.

At the same time, one needs to be careful about the assumption that the U.S. can defeat any such threats by launching precision air and missile strikes against extremist targets. It is unclear that the forces in Afghanistan involved in any small covert attacks on the U.S. will be easy to target and cripple if they do emerge. The Taliban is unlikely to tolerate major training camps and facilities for extremist forces, and any such strikes will present major problems for the U.S. if the extremist threat consists of scattered small facilities and small expert cadres that shelter among the Afghan population.

It is also far from clear that more intense U.S. air attacks on Taliban forces from outside Afghanistan will have any decisive effects. The loss of limited numbers of Taliban fighters as well as some key Taliban leaders and facilities will not offset the pace of their victories in the countryside or enable the central government to survive. A continuing U.S. ability to target and kill some key Taliban leaders and fighters also does not mean that the risk of such strikes will deter future Taliban willingness to let small, extremist strike groups conduct well-focused, well-planned strikes on U.S. or allied territory, especially if such groups in Afghanistan sponsor attacks on the U.S. or it strategic partner by strike units or cadres based in other countries.

At the same time, it does seem more likely that the Taliban, and/or any independent extremist groups, will focus largely on Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and the other “-Stans.”

Going forward I think we need to re-evaluate many of our assumptions about the war in Afghanistan.

The objectives of the Authorised Use of Military Force approved by the US Congress in 2001 have long been accomplished. Once Osama bin Laden was killed in Operation Neptune Spear in 2011, the last element of the AUMF was met. The American and British mission in Afghanistan was complete. But America and Britain did not leave because we wanted to do a spot of state building to curb the spread of militant islamist terror. That was a mistake as it turned out.

Post-Neptune Spear, The American, the British, and their allies’ conventional mission should have been ended, adopting instead a laser focus on intelligence collection and offensive special operations to prevent al-Qaeda (or any terrorist organisation) from re-establishing safe havens and training areas.

What was needed for an acceptable ‘victory’ and a ‘saving face’ withdrawal was to embrace the use of Afghan Militia Forces the same way the Allies did for our initial entry way back in 2001.

In 2001, Western powers won the initial military engagement in 42 days using special operations forces with local and regional allies - we need to return to this format - and through a combination of special operations and specific information operations efforts, regaining the high ground and influence over ‘centres of gravity’. The issue is not the number of troops, but the mission of the forces there. Once the mission is defined, the number of forces needed would be clear.

It has never been about the number of troops - it’s been about the lack of an achievable mission assigned to our forces in Afghanistan.

The US engaged in ‘nation-building’ for the wrong reasons - and has seen bad results. We installed Hamid Karzai, served as his praetorian guard to protect the new central government and abandon our AMF allies and attempted to build a large, bulky, expensive and ineffective Afghan National Army - a force that is now evaporating before our eyes. It was folly.

Americans will never make the Afghan people more like them - nor will they be able to instil what my American colleagues used to fondly refer to as ‘a Jeffersonian democracy’ in Afghanistan. That day may come but only when the Afghan people wish it to be so. Lest it be forgotten Americans sought independence in 1776; the Afghan people seek self-reliance and independence from foreign influence. This is their defining historical DNA: escape from any outside control.

The Afghan people are not ungoverned, they are self-governed - with no tradition of central democracy and no desire for our version of democracy or ‘prosperity’. By pushing ‘prosperity’ we had become targets for both the Afghan government and the Taliban. This has ended, but we must draw a distinction between the end of nation-building and the continuation of our own interests in Afghanistan and the region.

It is time to adopt a practical policy based on what will work and is in our allied interests, rather than by funding the aspirations of progressive politicians who have no real understanding of Afghanistan.

First, we must establish a clear post-‘state-building’ strategy - with achievable objectives. We must return to the policy and operational format we know will work - cooperation with Afghan tribal leaders and militia. This type of force was used to achieve the initial victory in 2001. Empowered warlords and regional leaders were the force multiplier that worked as the Afghan Militia Forces - and can again, in partnership with our Special Operations Forces work now. Intelligence collection and limited military operations should be our focus.

There is no way around it. One has to play the Great Game. Think tribal rather than central. Afghan nationhood is a liberal Western wet dream.

The central government is weak and corrupt just like all the other rulers of the past. The Afghan National Army is not as strong as it is on paper. It can hardly prop itself up rather than any government. Most of the Afghan National Army troops have stronger tribal loyalties than to the concept of a nation. Since the tribal chiefs play both sides to hedge their bets, it's no wonder 'their' people do what they're told. The Taliban know this because that has always been the Afghan way, so the tribes go with them. Provided the Taliban honour their promises to the tribal chiefs, the Taliban can do what they want.

On one hand, the tribes won't now be too bothered by central government and have a large pool of Western-trained troops to prop them up. On the other hand, they now have to do business formally with the Taliban again. Largely in order to get their hands on Western-supplied aid that will surely follow after the Americans leave.

Second, we must accept the reality of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan - and work with the Pakistanis to counter al-Qaeda and the other militants now attacking Pakistani targets within Pakistan. Pakistan has made great advances in securing the tribal areas on the other side of the border and they have always been the de facto control of much of the Taliban force capacity, such as the Haqqani network. Working with Pakistan is the best option within the current circumstance.

‘Endless wars’ are not an American value. The use of the US military must only be used in response to genuine threats, when American interests are at stake or lives in danger. Withdrawal of conventional military forces and discontinuing nation building is in the US interest: leaving Afghanistan is not.

Third, make Afghanistan China’s problem. Afghanistan could easily become a hotbed for growing Islamic extremism, which would to some extent affect stability in Xinjiang.

It is not without reason that Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of empires”. The ancient Greeks, the Mongols, the Mughals, the British, the Soviet Union and most recently the US have all launched vainglorious invasions that saw their ambitions and the blood of their soldiers drain into the sand. But after each imperial retreat, a new tournament of shadows begins. With the US pulling out of Afghanistan, China is casting an anxious gaze towards its western frontier and pursuing talks with an ascendant Taliban. The burning questions are not only whether the Taliban can fill the power vacuum created by the US withdrawal but also whether China - despite its longstanding policy of “non-interference” - may become the next superpower to try to write a chapter in Afghanistan’s history.

Beijing has held talks with the Taliban and although details of the discussions have been kept secret, government officials, diplomats and analysts from Afghanistan, India, China and the US said that crucial aspects of a broad strategy were taking shape. An Indian government official said China’s approach was to try to rebuild Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure in co-operation with the Taliban by channelling funds through Pakistan, one of Beijing’s firmest allies in the region. China is Pakistan’s wallet.

It has been reported that Beijing has been insisting that the Taliban limit its ties with groups that it said were made up of Uyghur terrorists in return for such support. The groups, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, are an essential part of China’s security calculus in the region. The ETIM groups were estimated by the UN Security Council last year to number up to 3,500 fighters, some of whom were based in a part of Afghanistan that borders China. Both the UN and the US designated the ETIM as terrorists in 2002 but Washington dropped its classification last year. China has accused the ETIM of carrying out multiple acts of terrorism in Xinjiang, its north-western frontier region, where Beijing has kept an estimated 1m Uyghur and other minority peoples in internment camps.

In a clear indication of Beijing’s determination to counter the ETIM, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, exhorted counterparts from the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan this year to co-operate to smash the group. “We should resolutely crack down on the ‘three evil forces’ [of extremism, terrorism and separatism] including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” Wang said in May according to Chinese news media which I follow.

The importance of this task derived in part from the need to protect large-scale activities and projects to create a safe Silk Road. Silk Road is one of the terms that Chinese officials use to refer to the Belt and Road Initiative, the signature foreign policy strategy of President Xi Jinping to build infrastructure and win influence overseas.

An important part of China’s motivation in seeking stability in Afghanistan is protecting existing BRI projects in Pakistan and the central Asian states while potentially opening Afghanistan to future investments. China would have to more actively support efforts to ensure political stability in Afghanistan. So make them work for it. Western powers need to leverage China’s problems in Xinjiang to be more active in Afghanistan.

International media outlets and intelligence agencies worldwide have been circulating reports pointing toward the creation of a Chinese military base in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province for a while now. Although China has not embarked on militarisation programs on foreign soil historically, and has profusely denied the rumours about building an Afghan “mountain brigade,” China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti provides an example of China’s newly adopted strategy of leveraging economic influence to further its strategic objectives. There’s even some chatter amongst Chinese officials that Beijing may entertain the idea of being part of a future UN international force should one be needed in Afghanistan (a bad idea but hey, let China find out first hand for itself).

The Afghan government was able to maintain a measure of stability largely because of the superiority of US air support. The drones, gunships, helicopters and heavy air artillery were unmatched by the Taliban. But when the US leaves, that advantage will evaporate. China’s imperative to create overland trade routes to Europe and the Middle East may draw it inevitably into Afghanistan’s domestic strife.

Of course China’s forward policy in the Wakhan Corridor needs to be assessed with a critical eye. Although on one level it seems to be motivated primarily by the threat of radicalisation, China’s interest in the region is also contingent on the strategic role that Afghanistan is capable of playing in the larger scheme of things. Despite China’s vehement denial, there seems to be sufficient evidence available indicating a definite military build up in the region, which provides China with an opportunity to showcase its ability to transform into a balancing force in the regional dynamics. I think that is a trade off that both America and Europe can afford to concede under the current circumstances.

In conclusion In the face of failure, there is an impulse to move on and not ask “what led to this?” But to avoid a reckoning with our follies is to risk their repetition, or worse.

it is probably too late to salvage either the civil or military situation in Afghanistan. It almost certainly is too late to salvage it with limited in-country U.S. forces, outside U.S. airpower and intelligence assets, and with no real peace agreement or functional peace process. Limited military measures are not the answer, and neither is simply reinforcing the past processes of failure. Tragic as it may be, withdrawal may not solve anything and may well make conditions worse for millions of Afghans, but reinforcing failure is not a meaningful strategy.

I do feel strongly that both the American and British governments must establish a clear path of redemption so that those who served and the families who sacrificed loved ones know that their loss was not wasted. At the same time our civilian governments must limit missions to intelligence collection and counter-terrorism missions that will prevent the metastasis of al-Qaeda or Isis in the region should the Afghan government fall. How we balance these two is going to be very interesting to follow in the next chapter in Afghanistan’s tortured history.

I apologise for the length of this post. This has been a hard post to write because of the subject matter and the many conflicted emotions and memories I have of my time in Afghanistan. I wish I had all the answers but I suppose the beginning of wisdom would be to know how to ask the right questions. Because we didn’t ask the right questions when we went in, we ended up making a real mess of it.

There is an understandable desire to bring all our allied troops home safe and that not another life is lost there. Yet I doubt this policy of withdrawing all troops will bring peace to anyone, not to us and most of all, the Afghanis themselves. As always in war it is the native population that will bear the real cost of war, in this case women, girls, and others brutalised under Taliban rule. What lies for them if the Taliban regain power to govern the country in their image is something I care not to imagine but retain a deep foreboding of their continued suffering. Ordinary Afghanis just want a respite from war and have a chance to live in peace, but without having us foreigners or the Taliban around. It is hard to imagine that happening at all. Our desire to save our soldiers’ lives set against ordinary Afghanis being left at the mercy of the Taliban is one of those humbling and brutalising trade offs that any war can only offer.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as “careless people” who “smashed up things and creatures” and then “retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” to “let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

That description applies to America as a whole but also to we Brits and other Europeans, especially when we tire of a misguided war. Americans and we Brits are a careless people. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our materialism. No scratch that, returning soldiers retreated into themselves struggling with PTSD whilst the rest of our citizenry carried on with their own material struggles and their insipid culture wars. The point is we always leave others to clean up the mess in a very bloody fashion that never troubles our conscience.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan. Again.

Thanks for your question

163 notes · View notes

nothingbutimagines · 3 years

Text

Everything You Want (Peter Parker)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warning: Cursing, lots of fluff and cliches

Summary: When Y/n breaks up with her ex, she declares to her friends that she will never, by any means, fall in love again. To her surprise, Peter seems to take this as a challenge, trying to win her heart in a mere afternoon.

Author: Dizzy

A/N: I was on a bit of an unexpected hiatus, but I am here to stay. School and quarantine was kicking my ass and my family is moving halfway across the country so things have been very hectic around here. But, with Falcon and the Winter Solider and me rewatching all the Marvel movies to cope with this wack ass time, I am feeling inspired.

Masterlist Request Any Of These Peter Parker/Tom Holland Masterlist

__________________

“That’s it!” You slammed your lunch tray down on the cafeteria table as you huffed and sat down beside MJ. “I’m done with men. I hate love. I’m over it.”

MJ looked over at you and sighed, rolling her eyes. She didn’t believe you, especially since the boy you’d broken up with was the boy you dated not even a week after swearing off men the last time.

“What are you talking about?” Ned asked before receiving a swift kick from MJ.

“Don’t ask about it.” The girl replied through gritted teeth as she fully turned on the bench to face you. “Y/n, you know I love you, but I can’t help but think you’re being a little rash.”

“Rash?” You scoffed. “You wanna talk about rash? MJ, you broke up with Ethan Brooks in eighth grade because he accidentally stepped on your foot at the winter formal.”

“I know you’re just being harsh because you’re heartbroken, but let’s be real, Y/n, you don’t hate love.”

“Yes, yes I do. I’m never, ever, ever going to fall in love. I’m not even going to think about it. I now will live in a world of tragedy and heartbreak because love does not exist.”

You stabbed your fork into your mac and cheese aggressively. Maybe MJ was right, you thought, you might have been being a little harsh and you were very heartbroken.

You had the unfortunate curse of being a romantic, loving the idea of love and anything having to do with a good rom-com. You couldn’t help but fall in love with everyone you’d ever had a romantic moment with. You just loved the experience that came with being in love.

However, now sitting heartbroken and eating your feelings in mac and cheese, you really really didn’t like the idea of falling in love and would have rather fallen off the face of the earth than like another boy.

MJ sighed heavily, reading your body language and knowing you wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and watch a sad movie.

“Y/n, I know you’re sad, but look on the bright side, you have more time to hang out with us. We’re going to the movies after school today.”

You looked between your three friends, smiling shyly. “Thanks, guys, but I really just feel like being alone.”

“Oh, come on, Y/n.” Peter sighed, giving you a nudge with his foot. “I know you secretly want to pig out on popcorn and see that new horror movie.”

“I don’t think so, Peter. I really don’t feel good.”

Peter pouted, giving you puppy dog eyes. “Please, Bug, come on. You blew me off last week to go out with Brad and we’re best friends. You owe me one.”

“I thought we were best friends.” Ned spoke up, earning another swift kick from Peter. “Ow! What is with you guys and abusing me?”

You smiled, rolling your eyes at your friends. Especially at Peter, who seemed serious enough to use the only face you couldn’t resist and a nickname that always seemed to keep your attention on him.

“I’ll think about it.” You caved, taking another bite of your food.

“Don’t think. Just say yes.”

“Are you seriously going to be pushy right now, Parker?” You raised a brow at him. “I am heartbroken. Sick with sadness.”

“I’m just saying, the best way to get over someone-”

“Is to get under someone.” Ned stated proudly, cutting Peter off.

“Ew, no!” Peter gave Ned a light shove. “I was going to say that the best way to get over someone is to be around people who care about you.”

“Or burning his personal belongings before he asks for them back.” MJ added, stealing a fork full of your mac and cheese. “We could always burn Brad’s stuff and roast marshmallows over it.”

“I like MJ’s idea way better than going to the movies.” You agreed, pointing to the girl beside you while you locked eyes with Peter.

“We’re not going to burn his stuff!” Peter exclaimed as MJ frowned. “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to burn someone else’s property and we already made plans to go to the movie.”

“Well, damn.” You frowned. “Now look who’s being harsh.”

MJ began to chuckle beside you as Peter began to frown.

“Harsh would be me forcing you to go to the movie.”

“Oh yeah, and badgering me to go isn’t forcing me right, Peter?” You raised a brow at him as you finished the last of your meal.

“At least I’m asking and not physically forcing you to go.”

“That is true.” You shrugged. “I guess I’ll come, but if I am having a terrible time, you have to take me home.”

“Always.” Peter smiled, nodding as he reached forward and grabbed your hand. “It’ll be fun, Bug. I swear.”

You shrugged, squeezing the boy’s hand as the bell rang loudly. You pulled away quickly, catching a glance at your now ex-boyfriend and the girl attached to his arm as he walked past your table. You cleared your throat, corralling your things together as you rose from your spot on the bench.

“I’ll-I’ll, uh, see you guys later. I’ve got to get to Chem. I can’t be late again or I’ll get a detention.” You stammered, feeling the tears prick at your eyes as you pulled your books in your arms.

“Let me walk with you.” Peter offered, noticing the sudden change in your mood as he rose from his seat and rounded the table to where you stood. “I have to get to Bio next door anyway.”

You nodded silently, surprised when you felt Peter’s hand press lightly against the small of your back as he guided you through the crowd in silence.

“You know, Bug, it’s okay to say things aren’t okay.” He finally said as you made it into the outer corridor of the cafeteria.

You bit your lip at his words, holding back the tears as you glanced over at him so he could finally see your eyes and cheeks red with pent up feelings.

“I’m fine.” You choked out, swallowing the lump that formed in your throat.

Peter pulled you aside, out of the way of the walking students. His eyes, you could see as he rested his hands on your shoulders and forced you to look at him, were full of concern.

“I know you’re not. You want to talk about it?”

You couldn’t help it, the warmth and care in his brown eyes caused your tears to begin to fall as your hand shot up to wipe them quickly.

“You must think I’m pathetic.” You laughed uncomfortably as you spoke, “I’m crying over some stupid boy and you have to watch.”

Peter shook his head, his expression clearly showing the confusion in his mind as he looked at you.

He never found you pathetic nor would he ever. On the contrary, he found you to be the most amazing person he’d had ever known, and not just because you were best friends. Watching you cry, he realized something he’d never wanted to take a good hard look at.

You were the girl he’d always wanted to be with and you’d always kept him on the sidelines. You were everything he’d ever wanted and yet you always kept him as the best friend, the shoulder to cry on, the boy who often kept you afloat.

For a girl so in love with romance and cliches, you’d never realized how much of a walking cliche the two of you were.

Not that Peter was upset. He would never be upset by that, especially when you still allowed for him to be so close by your side.

“Oh, Y/n.” He pulled you into a hug after giving you a moment to clean yourself up. “I would never think you were pathetic. You’re the best person I know.”

You sniffed, bringing your arms around him to embrace him back before pulling away and looking up at him.

“You really think so?”

“I know so.” He gave you a shy smile as he glanced down at you.

Your eyes traveled from gazing into his and looking to the spot on his shirt that you had now stained with tears and mascara.

“Even if I stained your nice white shirt with my make up?”

Peter pulled away, looking down at the shoulder of his shirt as he tugged at it to see the stain better. He sighed, chuckling lightly as he looked at you with a smile as warm as the look in his eyes.

“I have other shirts. I didn’t really like this one, anyway.”

“Peter, that’s your favorite one.”

Peter shrugged, letting go of the fabric between his fingers as he looked at you, wiping away the last remaining tear that clung to your cheekbone. “I’ll just have to find a new favorite then.”

You swallowed a bit, your hand reaching up and resting on his wrist as you smiled shyly, sudden feeling nervous.

“I should probably get to class.” You said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

Peter’s hand fell from your face quickly as he became aware of the new energy between you two.

“Yeah, yeah.” He cleared his throat harshly. “I should get going too.”

You nodded, allowing for silence to fall between you two as you quickly rushed to class, giving him a small wave before walking into the classroom.

The rest of the day felt uneventful and monotone with spurts of sadness and confusion here and there. You could feel the heartache of your breakup settle in every once in a while, especially in moments in which you let your mind wander while watching your ex-boyfriend now flirt with the girl beside him.

When your mind wasn’t wandering with thoughts of pain and heartbreak, it was full of thoughts of Peter and the moment you shared in the hallway.

It wasn’t that you’d never had a moment like that with Peter before, you’d had plenty of moments in which he comforted you while you were upset and visa versa. You were best friends, of course you’d have your fair share of comforting moments, such as the time when you spent a week at Peter’s house after his uncle passed away.

However, while you sat in class with your pen between your lips as you watched and counted down the minutes to the bell ringing, you couldn’t shake the feeling that that moment in the hallway meant something more to you.

As the bell finally rang, you practically ran out of the classroom and into the hall, only to run into the person you were looking for.

You feel backwards and onto the floor, slightly shocked by your bottom hitting the ground as Peter’s hand shot out towards you as he bent over.

“Shit, Y/n, you okay?” He asked as you grabbed his hand and allowed for him to help you up.

You dusted yourself off before picking up your bag. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What were you running for?”

“I was, uh, looking for you. We’re supposed to go to a movie, right?”

Peter nodded, starting to walk towards the front entrance of the school, his hands shoved into his pockets as you walked closely beside him.

“Are you feeling better?” He asked after the silence between you felt too heavy for him to bear.

“I don’t know.” You shrugged. “I don’t know how I could really feel better while having to see my newly ex flirt with another girl not even 24 hours after our breakup.”

“I’m sorry, Bug.”

“It’s not your fault.” You shrugged, kicking a rock that sat on the sidewalk in front of you. “He can do what he wants. He’s a single man now.”

“I wouldn’t call him much of a man.” Peter admitted, taking a look in your direction.

You kicked the rock again as you approached it, watching it bounce and tumble down the sidewalk and into the grass.

“Are MJ and Ned going to meet us at the theater or what’s the plan?” You asked, trying to derail the conversation from the topic you had no interest in rehashing.

Peter pulled a hand from his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck before putting it back in his pocket. He should’ve known you’d ask about the other two people who were supposed to be in attendance to your evening out.

“MJ had to go to detention since she’s behind on her sketchbook work for art class. You know how she is, likes to draw people in detention for whatever reason. And Ned went home sick after lunch. He made the mistake of eating the meatloaf.” He lied, surprised he thought of something believable off the top of his head.

In reality, he paid MJ twenty dollars to refrain from going to the movie and to lie about her whereabouts, something she never had trouble at doing, and he promised Ned that he’d spend the rest of the weekend helping him build another Star Wars lego model even though Peter wanted to grow out of the habit of playing with legos.

You frowned a bit, having hoped you could’ve had some much needed girl time with MJ and wanting the funny commentary and banter of Ned during a movie that would normally terrify you.

“Oh. Well, that sucks, but it’s okay. At least we’re still going together.” You raised your frown into a slight smile.

Silence fell between you once again, leaving the only audible sound to be the wind and your heels hitting the ground in unison as you walked towards the movie theater.

“Don’t worry about paying tonight. It’s my treat.” Peter stated as the theater came into view on the horizon.

“Oh, Peter, you don’t have to.”

“No, I want to. Just let me treat you to a night out. I feel bad that you’ve been having a rough day, so it’s the least I could do.”

You reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks before you engulfed him into a hug with your arms tight around his neck and your perfume filling his nostrils.

“Peter Parker, you are truly my best friend and the love of my life.” You announced proudly, not realizing that the words warmed Peter in a way he’d never experienced before.

“I love you too, Y/n, but I cannot breathe with you choking me out like this.” He said softly, pretending to wheeze as you pulled away, giving him a shove.

“You are so dramatic.” You chuckled, starting to walk down the sidewalk once again.

“I’m dramatic?” Peter scoffed as he jogged to keep up with you. “Aren’t you the theater nerd?”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not also a drama queen.”

“I’ll have you know, I am very good at keeping my cool.”

“Tell that to Flash Thompson and your little rivalry.”

“Flash is an asshole.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” you argued, “all I’m saying is that you get a bit dramatic with him. I like to think he’s secretly in love with you.”

“Ew, gross.” Peter shook his head. “Flash is the last person I’d want a dramatic romance with.”

“I think Flash is the last person anyone wants to have a romance with.” You laughed.

Peter was glad that it seemed your spirits were lifting as you finally made it to the theater. He could feel his own spirits lifted by your bettering mood which left him not needing to worry as much.

He didn’t know whether it was the elation in mood he was feeling between the two of you or the instinctive urge to keep you close and protected that had him reaching for your hand as he opened the door to the theater to let you in first, but as you walked through the corridor, he grabbed it without thought or hesitation.

You didn’t know what possessed him to grab your hand either, but you found yourself refraining from questioning it, wanting to feel the warmth and caring touch of someone else. Though your spirits were lifted a bit, you still felt lonely deep down.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked, glancing down at you as he grabbed the tickets from the girl at the ticket counter and began to guide you towards the snack bar.

You nodded, unsure of what to say as Peter continued to watch you closely. You held your breath, suddenly nervous with his eyes on you before you were saved by his eyes travelling to view the menu far above your head.

“I’m thinking we get a large popcorn and two sodas.” He thought out loud as you frowned. “Unless, that’s not what you want?”

You blinked, shaking your head quickly as you spoke. “No, no, sorry. I got lost in thought. That sounds fine. I’m not that hungry, though.”

“How are you not hungry? You ate two bites of mac and cheese at lunch and then pushed it around on your tray.”

You shrugged, pulling your hand from his and crossing your arms over your chest. You were somewhat building up an appetite, but every time you did, you suddenly felt sick by your own intrusive thoughts about your heartache and break up with a boy you knew you shouldn’t have been crying over.

“I guess I’m not really in the mood to eat too much.” You finally said.

“Well, I’m still getting the large and if you ask for any, I won’t give you some. You already said no.” Peter teased.

“Oh, you would never say no to me.”

“You wanna bet?” Peter raised a brow as you reached the front of the short line.

“I’ll bet you a bag of overpriced M&M’s.”

“I thought you weren’t hungry.”

“I am always hungry for M&M’s.”

Peter smiled with a light eye roll. “Alright, but you can’t eat any until we determine who won.”

“Deal.”

You smiled as he turned away from you, ordering your snacks and you began taking each one from him before he carried the popcorn and his drink and you carried your own drink and the bag of M&M’s you were so excited to win. You watched your feet fall to the ground to his in unison as you two stayed silent, trying to navigate the hallway for the theater your movie was in.

“Hey, Peter?” You caught the boy’s attention as he walked through the open door of your theater, a fistful of popcorn in his hand as he looked at you.

“Yeah?” He began walking backwards as he faced you and tossed the popcorn into his mouth.

“Can I have some popcorn?”

“Yeah, sure.” He nodded as he spoke through his mouthful of popcorn and held the bucket out to you.

You began laughing, taking a few pieces of popcorn and popping them into your mouth.

“Why are you laughing?” Peter asked as you were giggling beside him now following him up the stairs of the theater before looking down at his bucket. “Oh. I guess you can have those M&M’s after all.”

“We just made this bet! How’d you forget already?” You chuckled, walking past him and into an aisle, picking the perfect seat in the middle of the theater.

“I-I don’t know! I got so involved in the popcorn I forgot.”

“I guess that’s one way of saying you want to marry a food item.” You teased as he rolled his eyes and took a seat beside you.

“You know, I’m not going to get mad cause you’re going through it, but when you’re over it, I will get you back for this.”

“How? You’re already a victim of premature Alzheimer’s. You won’t remember this by the time I get a new boyfriend.”

You reached over, grabbing a handful of popcorn and beginning to eat the pieces one by one as you watched Peter closely.

“You know, sometimes I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“How would you know?”

“Cause you don’t even have a mean bone in your body. Flash bullies you mercilessly and you don’t even say anything back.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” You shook your head. “It makes you a good guy. And we need good guys in this world.”

“You think I’m a good guy?” Peter raised his brow as you nodded wildly at him.

“Of course I do.” You leaned over, placing a hand on his. “You’re not just a good guy, but a guy too good for this world, you know? You deserve the world, but the world doesn’t deserve you.”

Peter leaned in close to you. “Sorry, I don’t think I heard that.”

You could feel your breath hitch as he leaned in, his face a few mere inches from yours. It wasn’t that you were scared, but nervous at your excitement at the thought of him kissing you.

Peter could feel your anxious energy as he leaned in close, the urge to kiss you in the way he’d always wanted to growing strong as he moved his head so your lips were lined up to his ear. It wasn’t that he wanted to kiss you, but he didn’t want to take advantage of your loneliness in that moment.

You leaned in close to his ear, your nostrils now full of his shampoo as you spoke softly. “I said that I thought you were such a great guy that you deserve the world, but the world doesn’t deserve you.”

“You mean that?” He answered back, his voice as soft as your own.

He did dare lean back or move his head from the position it was in for fear that he’d kiss you so soon. The words you were saying were ones he always wanted you to say, but never thought would come out. He wanted to be everything you ever wanted, but your words now felt somewhat short yet so close to that sentiment.

“Of course I do.” You replied, your own urge to kiss him rising steadfast in the back of your mind.

You couldn’t tell if it was your loneliness or the sudden dimming of the theater lights that had you realizing that all you wanted was to cross the line of friendship with Peter, a line you never realized was made to be crossed when it came to your friendship.

Every touch, every sweet nothing, every thing about him you loved began to swirl around in your mind as you pulled away from him and gazed into his eyes before planting your lips on his, pushing him back into the armrest of his seat.

Peter was shocked by the gesture as he leaned into the kiss, his hands resting on your cheeks before you pulled away from him breathlessly.

“Y/n, I-”

“Peter.” You cut him off before giggling. “Go ahead.”

“Bug, I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you and your feelings about your breakup even though I really like you and-”

You cut the boy off with another kiss, not wanting to hear what he had to say. You knew he was going to give you some speech about how you might not know what your feeling and so on, but you didn’t care. You knew that you kissed him and you liked it and that it felt more right than any date with Brad.

You pulled away, putting a hand over his mouth before he could speak as you began to instead. “Peter, I know how I feel. I like you too, okay? Now, can we just take advantage of the fact we’re some of the few people in here and just hang out?”

Peter nodded, pulling your hand off of him. “I think I’d like that.”

299 notes · View notes

smutsonian · 4 years

Text

the mobster’s little girl

pairing: mob!steve rogers x reader

summary: what happens when the big bad mobster gets blackmailed by your father to marry you? (kind of fluffy kind of not. kinda dark kinda not.)

warnings: smut, violence, death, obsessive behavior kind of, poorly written smut (for real i skipped some), innocent reader (kind of?), lil bit of angst, drowning, accidents in the kitchen, reader getting burned, not proofread, a lot of mistakes for sure (It’s a long fic and im too lazy to find the mistakes), loss of virginity skskks, oral deed (f & m), fingering skksks, kind of a handie, please let me know if i skipped some, please read at your own risk, rumlow is a warning periodt, this has crack vibes i swear idk what i was typing at some point, ddlg? (is this ddlg? jesus fuck idek anymore), dub-con but like not really?, the POV gets fucked up towards the end so goodluck with understanding this piece of sheeet

word count: 11k (what da actual fuck? this is loooong)

a/n: df am i being awkward while writing them warnings for? Holy shit that’s a long list of warnings

big thanks to @buckys-forgotten-plum for helping me edit <3 luv u mwah

this is a combined request of a mob!steve x innocent!reader + steve teaching reader to suck his ding-a-ding-dong

this has a sucky ending. i hate the fucking ending.

also, i don’t got no clue on how to do spacing on tumblr so im terribly sorry for that.

masterlist

Maybe it’s because they were terrified. Maybe it’s because they know what’s out there and what evil lurks in every corner of the city. Whatever the reason is, her parents hid her from the outside world. Never was she able to step another foot out of the gates of her home. No matter how huge the mansion her parents keep her in, it still feels small and lonely. Instead of the friends that she should’ve made in kindergarten, she became friends with her parents’ employees. Instead of the high school friends that she was supposed to have, she has the few cleaners in the house. She didn’t feel like they work for her because they’ve become her friends that keep her sane for being in one place for her whole life. Being able to go somewhere that’s not the garden, the gazebo, or even the lake that became her favorite place has always been in her mind but never her heart never really demanded to go out. She gets curious at times but it’s not enough to make her go against her parents’ number one rule.

“Never let yourself be known and never talk to anyone outside this house. If possible, keep yourself away from the entrance gates.”

Being the obedient daughter you are, you followed that rule without question. You became the daughter that your parents wanted you to be. You learned everything from your tutor. The basics of economics but mostly proper etiquette. You didn’t know why you had to learn those but you did what your parents wanted you to do without question. You always do…

That’s why when your parents told you that you were to marry, you agreed with a little bit of hesitance. “It’s for the best, princess.” Is the only thing that your father said while your mom looked at you with a small smile. You thought that it was going to be like the ones in the movies. You imagined a magical wedding but you didn’t even have one. You were told to sign some papers and just like that, you’re married to some man you don’t even know. A man that you didn’t see until a few days after the signing of papers.

Steve never felt so disrespected in his entire life. He’s so used to being the powerful man of the city, the country even, that never did he expect some feeble man to come barreling into his business. The Y/L/Ns… He knew of them but he knew little about them. The family is so secretive but are known to be powerful. Nobody knows how they do it but now he has been graced to learn how.

Blackmail… Along with bribery. How fucking pathetic.

He didn’t know how the man managed to acquire his plans for a rival gang but somehow, the fucker did. The rival gang that he was trying to take down for so long and managed to make a plan of action until this fucker messed everything up. The bastard wanted to marry his daughter off to him for a powerful alliance. Saying something about how both of their names would benefit from the marriage. The bastard also promised a fat amount of money that he’ll receive once he marries his daughter. The bastard knew that money has always been a problem for him by the smug look on his face.

“It’s simple. You provide us security, we give you money. We seal the deal once you sign the papers to be my daughter’s husband.” The old fucker says with such pride in his voice. Steve gritted his teeth before making a move to toss the man out but the fucker clicks his tongue at him. “Ahh, we also wouldn’t want Rumlow to know about your plans on attacking his turf a fortnight from now, do we?” The old fuck stares at him as he waits for his answer.

Having no other choice, Steve says yes with flared nostrils. He glares at the way the man smiles giddily while walking towards the door. Before the old man could leave, he turned back towards Steve with a serious look before pointing a finger at him. “One more thing… My daughter will be your wife but you are not to touch her. You live at the mansion with her but you ain’t allowed to touch her. Do get out of her way as much as you can. You get all the money you want by following my orders. That easy. Nice dealing with you.” The man was out the door in an instant as Steve glared at the closed door before picking up a wine glass from his desk and throwing it against the door.

“It’s a bit weird, mother.” Is your reply when your mother came to visit you in your room and asked you about how you’re feeling given your situation. She continues to brush your hair with her fingers as she hums in response.

“It’s not like the ones in movies, that’s for sure.” You joke, earning a chuckle from your mother.

“My situation… It’s not really normal, correct?” You pull away from your mother’s hands and turn to look at her. She lets out a sigh before turning you back around and resuming to play with your hair. “No…” She says. “We might have been a bit strict with you but we only did it for your safety. The world out there… It’s not safe.” She continues. Once again, you pull away from your mother to fully give your attention to her. “But you and father are always out there. You put yourselves in danger on the daily so why can’t I?” You look at your mother who was looking at you with an unamused expression. You let out a sigh before sighing. “I know... I know. It sounds a bit silly to ask myself to be put in danger… But what about marrying me off to some stranger! You told me that father is bringing him here after he signed the papers. He’s to live here with all of us. Mother, we don’t even know him. Why would you let a stranger into our home?” You reason out, making exaggerated hand gestures to back yourself up. When your mother makes no effort to respond to you, you retort with a scoff and an eye roll.

“You’re so hell-bent on keeping me inside this place, claiming that it’s to protect me that you failed to realize that you’re putting all of us in danger by letting an unknown man live with us. Seems kind of idiotic to me.”

*SLAP*

You look at your mother with wide eyes as you hold your left cheek as it is stinging in pain. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. That was disrespectful of me. I’m sorry.” You scrambled to get away from your mother, ignoring her calls as you left your room to run down the long hallway and down the flight of circular stairs. You went out of the mansion and started running down a pathway towards the lake. You were so upset and focused on getting to your destination that you didn’t see a strange man coming out of a black SUV just as you walked out of the mansion.

You ran down the wooden dock, frowning at what you had said to your mother. You couldn’t believe how you acted just now. First, you disrespect your mother. Now, you hide yourself away like a child that got reproved for the first time. You clicked your tongue in annoyance, an action that you got from your father, as you paced around the wooden dock. “Of course, they were just trying to protect you, you stupid idiot.” You hit your forehead with your palms over and over before tilting your head backward to stare at the sky, not caring at how your eyes hurt at the blinding sun.

You closed your eyes after a few seconds, sighing out as you figured that you should probably go back. Your so-called husband was supposed to arrive today. You start to walk back when your foot slipped and suddenly, water enveloped your body.

You fell into the lake.

You would think that being locked up in a big mansion would give you a lot of time to learn how to swim but with your luck, no one ever thought you how so now you couldn’t do anything but drown.

Your arms flopped around you as you kicked your legs all over the place just to get some air down your lungs but you only found yourself sinking further down. You couldn’t even scream for help because you know that if you did, you would only be swallowing a whole lot of water.

Before you could lose your breath entirely, something grasped your flailing hand. You would’ve screamed if you weren’t pulled out of the water. Turned out, it was a hand. Not some kind of creature from the fantasy movies you’ve watched.

You were sitting on the wooden dock, gasping for air when the sound of an annoyed huff caught your attention. You tilt your head up to see a man looking down at you with an annoyed expression. Your brain started clicking and then it hit you. He must be your husband.

“You’re here early.” You whisper, looking down. You weren’t sure how to act around him. Around your husband. You would base it on the movies you’ve watched but so far, those movies were nothing like your life. You were sure that if you tried to act like one of the characters there, you would look like a complete buffoon.

“So glad to know that I’m married to a dumbass.” He cuts your thoughts off with a sneer.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall and drown like that.” You remember the lessons you had. About not engaging in someone else’s hostility. You looked down in embarrassment. You’ve never been called something vile like that so you must’ve made him really upset. He scoffs before shaking his head and leaving you on the wooden floor as he walks away.

After that encounter with your so-called husband, you never really saw him again, even though the two of you were living in the same house. It was a few weeks after the drowning incident and you made sure to not tell anyone about it and you only hoped that Steve (you had to learn his name from your mother) didn’t tell anyone about it either. You and your mother are in good terms again and she’s currently in your room again, telling you how she and your father are to spend a few months in Prague to deal with a few business hiccups. You didn’t bother to ask if you could come with but you did bother to complain about them leaving. “You’re leaving me alone with a stranger under the same roof as me?” You exaggeratedly widened your eyes at your mother. “Oh, stop it. I’ve gotten to know Steve myself. I’m sure you’ll be safe with him. He seems like a nice guy. Although, I think your father gets a little bit on his nerves.” Your mother giggles to herself and you look at her with an amused grin. “You’re closer to my husband than I am with him.” You joked which earned a sympathetic look from your mother.

“Talk to him. He’s your husband after all.” She caresses your face. You hold her wrist as you push your cheeks towards her hold. “I’m pretty sure he hates me, mother. I have a feeling that he’s scrupulously avoiding me.”

“How about you bake him something, hmm? You’re wonderful at baking!” Your mother grins at your excited reaction to the mention of baking.

“I do love to bake…” You hummed in thought before giving your mother a faux pointed look. “Alright, I will bake but only because I love to bake. So if he doesn’t want to socialize with me, then so be it. I wouldn’t care.” You huff proudly as your mother looked at you with a grin and a hint of playfulness in her eyes.

“What is it?” You ask her.

“Why do I get the feeling that you want to impress Steve?” She chuckles at your stunned expression.

“You have completely lost your mind, mother. Haven’t you got a plane to catch? Go on. Say hello to Prague for me!” You push her out of your room, her laughing at your antics before placing a kiss on your forehead and leaving you to yourself.

“Ooof!” You hissed as your finger touched the hot tray when you were pulling it out of the oven. You were making the third batch of cookies and somehow, you managed to burn your finger now. You quickly pulled the mittens off before putting the hot finger into your lips, as if sucking the pain away is possible.

You heard footsteps coming over and when you turned your head, you saw Steve looking at you with something you couldn’t comprehend. “H-hey.” You pulled your finger out of your mouth before hiding it behind your back like a kid. You tiptoed over the counter to reach the plate of cookies before walking over to him. “I made cookies. Would you… like to try some?” You moved the plate closer to his face but he only scowled at you before taking your right wrist and surveying your hand. He found the finger you were sucking on earlier and muttered something under his breath. You thought you heard him say ‘dumbass’ again like the last time.

“Put cream on it.” He grumbled before leaving the kitchen. You glared at his back until he turned back around, making you wipe the glare out of your face before smiling bitterly at him. He walked towards you with a dark look until he was inches away from you. The position you two are currently in made you realize how tall he is. How he’s towering over you and how his biceps are poking out of his shirt. His crystal blue eyes are staring deep into your soul and you were almost hypnotized by it. You gulped in nervousness. You remember all the things you told your mother about this certain stranger that could possibly be a danger to you until he smirked and took the plate of cookies from the table before walking out once more, leaving you gaping at the door in confusion as your heart was beating faster than normal. From fear or something else, you do not know.

----

Steve was deep in thought as he chewed on the cookies she made. It was really delicious and he hated that he liked it. He did his best to avoid the girl. He’s trying his best to avoid the girl. He did his best to hate the girl so things would be easier for him. He’s trying his best to hate the girl. He didn’t have time to babysit her. Her father is not someone he wanted to have ties with but he is. Steve didn’t want anything that has to do with that man and that includes her.

But why is it so hard for him to keep her out of his mind?

The first time he saw her, she had that cute little frown on her face but he found his heart skipping a beat at the sadness in her eyes. He knew he would regret following her but then he didn’t. He saw her as she fell down the dock and he didn’t know why he felt like his world stopped when he saw her gasping for air but it did. It took him his best efforts not to just dive into the lake to save her. Instead, he took her flailing hands and easily pulled her out of the waters. He wanted to keep her warm when he saw her shivering on the wooden floor but he suddenly remembered the deal. His worry was quickly converted into anger and annoyance so he managed to leave her alone, something heavy in his chest as he walked away from her.

He hated the way she made him feel so he avoided her like a plague. Their home was big and avoiding her was really easy. It was stopping himself from going near her is the hard part. Her mother is the total opposite of her father. Her mother is a nice woman and living with the Y/L/Ns didn’t feel like a job other than her horrid father. Steve got to learn more about her through her mother. She talked about her so dearly. Steve felt his heart fall at the mention of her not leaving the mansion. It sounded like she was an animal caged in better surroundings. Steve realized why she acted so differently when he’s watching her. She seemed so… innocent.

Then he caught her baking cookies. It took him his best not to run towards her when he heard her hiss in pain. He watched as she tried to hide her injury from him. He didn’t know if he found it cute or annoying because she shouldn’t hide injuries from him. From anyone. If she was injured, she should get it to check as soon as possible. Then she offered him cookies. Steve swore that his heart leaped in adoration but he took the offered plate in front of him as a chance to check on her hand. He observed her fingers, internally flinching as he saw the burnt area on her index finger. “Such a clumsy little girl…” He muttered under his breath. Steve caught himself though. Why was he so worried about her? He quickly composed himself and dropped her hand. Before turning to leave. He heard her huff and he couldn’t help but to chuckle at that. He turned around to see her frowning at him only to have her eyes widened in surprise. She gave him a stubborn smile as he walked over to her, teasing her and testing her to see where her cuteness could go. Where her STUBBORNNESS could go. Did he really just say cute?

When he thought she had had enough, he smirked and took the plate of cookies before leaving.

The plate of cookies that he’s currently munching on.

The more Steve thinks about it, the more he’s realizing that he couldn’t keep her out of his mind. It was impossible.

The more he sees her, the more he wants to be with her. The more he sees her, the more he wants to protect her because it seems like she has a way of putting herself in danger.

So innocent.

So pure.

He wanted her and he didn’t know if he could control himself anymore.

A week has passed and things with your husband seemed to have gotten better, if one is optimistically speaking.

He no longer avoided you so that’s better than before. He doesn’t acknowledge you much though. He only speaks to you to correct your every move. Called you out when you were walking barefoot around the mansion, mocked you when you walked around the docks, and even demanded you to leave the kitchens alone because according to him, you don’t know how to properly use it.

He only ever opened his mouth to speak his mind of his distaste towards you and you were starting to miss the times when he completely avoided you.

But you ignored the insults and kept your head high up. You aren’t going to sulk. Especially not when someone’s clearly made it his goal to make you feel just that.

That’s why you’re currently making pasta. Ignoring his demand and continuing on having adventures in the kitchen. You just finished making the sauce so now you just have to cook the pasta. You took a pot that was way bigger than your head and proceeded to fill it with water from the sink.

You struggled to carry it over to the stove, letting out a relieved sigh once you managed to set it down. The problem though, the bottom of the pot somehow got stuck on the burner plate. You clicked your tongue in annoyance before grunting and attempting to pull on the heavy pot. It remained stuck so you exerted more effort, succeeding but managing to tilt the pot towards yourself. You let out a yelp as the cold water inside the pot spills all over you.

“Y/N!”

You felt his hands before you heard his voice.

——

Steve heard clanking noises from the kitchen and he just had to roll his eyes at the thought of her prancing around the kitchen. Didn’t he tell her to leave the kitchen alone? He’s just trying to stray her from the harm she could put herself in. Not that he would ever admit that out loud.

He walked into the kitchen, just in time to see water spill over her from the boiling pot. His blood went cold as he felt his heart stopping. “Y/N!” He rushed over her knelt body, covered in water. He cautiously touched her face, being careful not to hurt her possibly burnt skin. Why can’t she just listen to him? He told her not to work in the kitchen for a reason.

As he touched her seemingly cold cheeks, he watched as she looked up at him with an innocent confused look. “Steve?” Her voice was so meek yet it made his ear start to ring as his heart started to beat back to life. She must’ve seen his frantic expression because her eyes widened in realization before she’s shaking her head and pointing at the fallen pot. “I haven’t boiled the water yet! See? I’m fine. I didn’t burn myself.” She had the audacity to smile cheekily at him and he didn’t know if he should be leaping in joy with her or reprimanding her for being so careless.

Steve clicked his tongue at her, something that he must’ve picked up from her, before leaving the kitchen with a huff. Something that he’s been doing a lot whenever he’s with her.

——

After he left, you took a seat on one of the chairs, recalling what just happened a few moments ago. He thought you were stupid enough to pour boiling water all over yourself. Does he really think you’re that stupid? He looked so worried though. You smiled at the thought of him possibly caring about you.

You let out a short squeak when you felt something falling at the top of your head. A towel. Steve wrapped it around you until your head was the only part exposed. “Whatcha grinning on about, little girl?” His voice was stern but there was a teasing tone in it. You looked up at him as he watched you. You shook your head before furrowing your eyebrows when he bought the pot towards the sink, filling it with water.

“What are you doing?” Your voice is small as you asked him.

“Can’t trust you with this. You might boil yourself the next time you even try.” He clicked his tongue before effortlessly bringing the pot to the stove and lighting it up. After that he walked back towards you and sat at the chair beside you, turning himself to stare back at you.

“I thought I made it clear when I told you not to work in the kitchens?” He mockingly tilted his head before raising one eyebrow at you. You stared back at him, not knowing what to say so you just tilted your head down like a chided kid.

“Uh uh uh…” You felt his long fingers under your chin as he tilted your head back to face him. “What’s the matter? Did you manage to burn your tongue as well? Hmm?” You didn’t know why but the way he was talking to you is making you feel something unfamiliar in your stomach.

When you didn’t answer, he put the hand that was on your chin to the side of your mouth, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. Your eyes fluttered when he managed to poke his thumb into your mouth and pressed it down your tongue gently.

“Seems pretty alright for me…” He mumbles. You watched as his eyes widened in surprise when you sucked on his thumb absentmindedly. You realized what you were doing and stopped immediately. “No. No, don’t stop. Do it again.” He watched you with bright eyes as you hesitantly sucked on his thumb once more, feeling your body warming up at the current situation.

He slowly pulls his thumb out before rubbing it around your lips and leaning his face closer to yours. You could feel your heart panicking in fright or in excitement, you weren’t sure. You saw him close his eyes before he let out a sigh. He pulls away from you then ruffles the towel on your head. “Why don’t you go ahead and put dry clothes on? I think the pasta’s ready.” He grins before walking back toward the stove to start preparing the meal.

You stumbled to your feet, mindlessly walking towards your room with a clouded mind.

What was that all about?

All Steve could ever think about was her. Her beautiful lips. Her eyes that glisten with innocence. Her nose twitches whenever she’s focused on something. The way she fits in his hold. The way she reacts under his touch.

He couldn’t forget about the way she sucked on his thumb unknowingly and the way her eyes became hooded from his touch. It’s obvious that she had no idea what was happening and what she was feeling and that only fueled his hunger more.

The thought of her being hurt made him furious. It made him protective. He wants to protect her at all costs because not even the ends of her hair should get hurt. No. Not on his watch.

Steve couldn’t take her out of her mind even if he wanted to. That’s the problem. He doesn’t want her out of his mind anymore. He doesn’t want to avoid her anymore.

Steve accepted it.

He knows that he wants her and he knows that she’ll be able to have him wrapped around her precious little finger if she wants to.

He realized how she has a tight hold over him without even knowing it and he’s accepted that fact.

He’s ready to do everything for the girl and she doesn’t even know it. He’s ready to give her everything he has and everything he is.

He’s ready to give himself completely to her. Of course, it is if she’ll have him.

After that encounter with Steve, you finally followed his instruction and stopped trying to make various meals in the kitchen.

You were craving cake so you asked one of the cooks to bake you a cake. That’s why there’s a whole cute pink cake in front of you at the kitchen counter.

You’re currently staring at it, thinking it’s too precious to destroy and eat but after a minute of your mouth watering, you give up and run your index finger on the sides until it is covered in icing.

You licked your finger before sucking on it and humming at the sweet taste of the icing while your eyes are closed. When there is none left on your finger, you take your index and middle finger before sliding it on the sides of the cake to gather twice as much as the previous one.

Your eyes are closed and lips parted slightly apart, ready to suck on your fingers one more time when a hand grips your wrist. Your eyes fly open to see Steve holding your hand while he’s looking down at your face with a boyish grin. Your eyes widened for the second time when his tongue darted out of his mouth and started licking the icing off your fingers.

He was staring at you as he continued to lick the icing and you were starting to pull away when his lips parted wider to start sucking on your fingers. You’re frozen in shock as your eyes twitched at the sight of him sucking on your fingers.

You feel your heart drop when he starts groaning against your fingers. The unfamiliar feeling in your stomach made itself known again and you bit your bottom lip anxiously at the strange feelings you always get whenever Steve’s with you.

Your eyes follow Steve’s lips as he pulls your fingers out of his mouth with a silent pop. He looks at you with a smile before furrowing his brows. “Did you bake this?”

“N-no! I had someone to bake it for me.” You’re quick to let him know that you didn’t make the cake. He smiled again and you just realize how giddy you feel when you’re able to make him smile like that.

“Really? So you finally listened to me?” He chuckles when he sees you nod shyly at him. “Aren’t you a good little girl.” He cooes before looking at the cake with a smirk. “This cake is really delicious…” He leans back to stand straight and you nodded at him in agreement. “I wonder…”

You let out a loud squeal when he suddenly puts his hands under your arms before pulling you up and sitting you down on the counter. You look at him with a stunned expression. “Wha—“

“But I bet you taste better than this cake.” You couldn’t respond because he immediately connects his lips with yours, making your eyes pop out in shock as he continues to attack your mouth. You let out a small whimper when you feel his tongue pushing past your lips and roaming around the inside of your mouth, tickling the roof of your mouth.

You start chuckling against his lips and he stops, looking at you in confusion. “You’re tickling me…” You point at the top of your mouth and Steve’s frown turned into a grin. His hand found their ways on the top of your knees and then he’s pushing them apart. “I know a place where I can tickle you... I’m sure you’ll like it.” He pulls you closer to him so you slide against the counter. He carefully pushes your shoulders until your back is laying on the cold kitchen counter. You feel him hiking your skirt up and pulling your underwear down before he sets your feet back on the counter, knees bent, and far apart.

You could feel him breathing against your skin and you could feel your body running hot while the hairs on your body stand in attention. You feel something wet run against your skin and you yelp as you sit on your elbows, looking at Steve alarmingly. His face was just in front of your core and tongue is just retreating your skin.

“Wh-what are you doing, Steve?” You bite your lip as you watch him stand up until he’s face to face with you. “I’m trying to make you feel good, baby. Do you trust me?” He presses his lips against yours and pulls away, waiting for your answer.

“I don’t know…” You admit, stomach dropping at the sadness that flashes over his face.

“Then let me show you that you can trust me. Can you let me do that?” He looks at you and smiles when you nod at him. He presses his lips on you once more, pushing you against the kiss until your back is back on the counter. He pulls away, pecking you one last time before going back to press kisses in between your legs.

He licks up your skin, hands pressing down on your hips when you begin squirming around. You feel his mouth sucking on the bud before flicking his tongue over it. He doesn’t stop until you’re whining under him, unsure if you want him to stop or to do something else.

“What do you want, little girl?” He breathes against your core, making your legs shiver at the sensation.

“I don’t know…” You whine, eyes staring at him as he stands over your body. He raises his right hand, fingers fluttering in display as he gives you a questioning look. “You want me to use this on you?” You could only nod in desperation because the feeling of emptiness when he pulled away from you is becoming too much.

“Good girl.” You hear him whisper before going back in between your legs. You feel his fingers playing with your bud instead of his tongue and it feels overwhelming when he uses his tongue to press it against your entrance.

“Mmmhm” You close your eyes in delight as he continues to play with you. The familiar feeling in your abdomen makes itself known once again and this time, it’s stronger. You need more.

“P-please…” You mutter under your breath, pulling on Steve’s hair to catch his attention. He looks at you with a proud smile before asking. “What is it? You need more? Want me to put my finger inside you, is that it?”

——

Steve smiles when she nods her head eagerly. So innocent, can’t even tell him what she wants. What she needs.

He rubs on her clit a few more times to wet his fingers before lining a finger against her slit. He looks back at her as he starts pushing the finger in, slowing down when her hand grips her arm.

Steve groans at the tightness of her walls against his finger and starts to slowly pump it as he watches her face contort into a pleasured frown. When he feels her loosening up, he adds another finger that earns a low moan from her. Steve stiffens for a second when he feels his pants getting tighter in the crotch area. His cock is begging him for attention but he pays no mind, focusing on the angel in front of him.

He spreads his fingers apart inside of her as he leans down to start flicking his tongue against her clit, smirking against it when her thighs shiver against his head. He feels her breaths starting to become uneven and he knows that she’s just about to cum so he doubles his effort, sucking her clit harshly and curling his fingers inside of her.

Her back arches off the counter and Steve hooks an arm under her to pull her up and press her against his chest. She shakes against his hold as he helps her get through her high. She slumps against his hold, head falling down the side of his neck.

Steve tilts his head to look at her face, eyes hooded and forehead sweating. She looks so adorable like this. “That cake gave us such a rush, huh?” He chuckles before hooking her legs around his torso and hugging her body close to his. He feels her dozing off as he carries her to her bedroom.

He lays you down on the bed and tucks you under your blanket before studying your face. So peaceful. So relaxed. A smile forms on your face and Steve finds himself smiling as well.

“Goodnight, my sweet little girl.” He presses a kiss on your forehead before walking out of your room.

It’s currently four in the afternoon and Steve is currently sitting on a couch in the massive living room, thinking about the night he has planned for him and his little girl.

After that time in the kitchen, things have been great with them. It’s been a few months and he became someone he didn’t know he could be and it was all for her. He wants nothing but the best for his girl. He gives her the ‘special treatment’ or ‘reward’ whenever she asks for it. She’ll do something nice for him to receive his special kisses but Steve knew that he’ll give her anything without her working for it. He just likes the attention he gets from her when she gets a little needy.

Steve feels his crotch stirring under his pants at the thought of eating his little girl out. He always eats her out and makes her putty with his fingers but his cock remains abandoned.

He didn’t think she was ready. He didn’t want to scare his girl. He’ll wait as long as he needs until his little girl’s ready for him. For the time being, he’ll make sure to keep his little girl happy and satisfied.

Steve’s thoughts were cut off when his little girl walked in front of him with a weird look on her face, a phone held against her right ear. He sits up in attention, his body becoming alert at the way her face scrunches up in fear as she looks at him.

“What’s wrong, little girl?” His voice is a whisper but his tone is hard.

She looks at him with a frown before handing him the phone. He looks at it and listens to her as she speaks.

“Father called… Which is weird because he never calls when they’re on a trip. Let alone a business trip. He told me that the trip would be a few months and I didn’t think they would be in some kind of situation after being gone for almost seven months… They’re usually gone longer than that. But then that guy—” She points at the phone in Steve’s hand before continuing her explanation.

“—That guy took the phone away from my father when he’s explaining something to me about telling something to you, Steve. His name is Rumlow and he’s got a very foul mouth—” He watches as her nose scrunches up, probably at the memory of the man’s words on the phone but Steve didn’t care about that. He’s worried about Rumlow talking to you. Through your father’s phone at that!

Steve presses the phone against his ear before asking who’s on the other line.

“Ahh, Rogers… Where’s the little brat? I thought she’s enjoying the things I’m promising her. Told her about how my cock will make her cunt cry—” Steve feels his blood boiling at the way Rumlow is talking about his little girl.

“What are you on about, Rumlow? What are you doing with that phone?” Steve cuts Rumlow off, voice so harsh that he sees her flinching at his tone. He smiles at her before ushering her back to her room.

“You see… Your girl is supposed to be mine. I saw her first but imagine the surprise I got when I ask her dear daddy for her hand and he tells me that she’s married to a Steve fucking Rogers.” Steve hears Rumlow’s bitter laugh before hearing her little girl’s father groan in pain, no doubt that he took a blow from Rumlow.

“I just want a simple deal here, Rogers. I’ll text the address and I expect to have the girl and a bag filled with… I don’t know, ten million dollars? If you’re too broke then just bring the girl. I’m sure she’ll make the lack of ten million with her pretty little cunt.” Rumlows cackle was heard along with the cries of your parents. He must’ve held them as hostages.

“Do that and her parents stay safe. Be here at 9 pm sharp or it’s bye-bye for her lovely parents. Tik-Tok, Rogers. Tik-Tok…” Steve almost crushes the phone into pieces in his hand when Rumlow hangs up on him. Rumlow holds your parents as hostages and dares to speak about you like that. He’ll fucking kill him.

The phone buzzes and he sees the address Rumlow sent him. They were no longer in Prague. They’re back here...

Steve makes a move to call his best man, Bucky, when he hears sounds coming from her room. He quickly runs over, throwing her door open to see her shoving a bunch dollar bills into a huge bag while a phone is pressed against her neck and her shoulder.

Steve’s heart falls at the sight of tears falling down her face. She must’ve heard everything with the connecting phone lines. He sighs before walking over to his girl and steadying her by holding her shoulders in a firm grip. “Everything will be alright. I’ll call someone to fix the problem. They’ll clear the building, catch the bad guy, and then your parents will be home in no time!” Steve gives her a smile but it doesn’t work. Her face is still wet with tears as she shakes her head in disagreement.

“No! The b-bad guy will harm my parents if he sees your men without me! I don’t w-want anything bad happening to my family, Steve. I-I don’t want that!” He pulls her against his chest as he sobs and shakes against his hold. Steve runs a comforting hand on her back before sighing in defeat.

“Fine. We’ll save your parents but I have to call my friends for backup. And you have to stay as far away from the fighting. I’ll have my best guy, James, be with you the whole time. You can trust him, he’s my best friend. You need to stick with him because he’ll keep you safe, got it?” He gives her a firm yet gentle look, jaw clenching when she nodded eagerly at him before continuing to fill the bag with cash.

He makes his calls and in no time, they’re driving towards the address Rumlow sent him.

Steve parks the car a few miles away from the building where her parents are being held as hostages. He looks at his little girl who’s currently wearing sweatpants and his hoodie which looks pretty big on her. He smiles at the sight before letting out a shaky breath.

“You gotta stay here, okay? I promise that I’ll get your parents out safely. You don’t have to worry about them because I’ll protect them for you, okay? You trust me, little girl?” He watches her as she reluctantly nods her head. He sighs at that before handing her a pistol gun. “You know how to use one?” He asks, surprised to see his little girl nod. She must’ve seen his surprised look because she looks down before explaining, “I had basic shooting lessons.” He smiles at his little girl before nodding.

He gets out of the car before walking around and opening the door for his girl and helping her out. He sees James walking over to them and he nods at his friend in acknowledgment before looking back at his girl. “This is Bucky. He’ll keep you safe. Stick with him, alright?” He watches her girl as she observes his friend with her adorable curious eyes.

“The others are already surrounding the building. Backup is also ready. Just say something and they’ll attack. Good luck out there.” He smiles at Bucky’s words before kissing his girl’s forehead.

“Please stay safe, Steve.” His girl mutters and he feels his heart skip a beat at that moment. “I will. Anything for you, little girl.” He turns to leave, hearing his girl one last time before disappearing.

“That’s a nice-looking vest, Mr. Bucky.”

Everything was going well for Steve. Rumlow’s men are really weak and easy to take down and when Rumlow realized that, he ran. He ran away like the coward he is. He ran out of the building and that was that. At least, that’s what Steve thought.

He was able to see her parents and he quickly untied them, her mother thanking him endlessly while her father only grumbled his thanks once.

He was guiding the couple out of the building, surprised to see his little girl standing a few miles away from them with Bucky. He sees her eyes brighten in relief that made all his worries disappear.

He was walking with her parents when he heard the cocking of a gun beside his head.

“Not so fast.” A raspy voice speaks beside him.

Rumlow…

Before Steve could even move, a bang was heard. Followed by another bang that has his ears ringing in pain. He closes his eyes to ease the aching in his head or his body. Was he shot?

His eyes fly open when he remembers that his girl is also out in the open and his eyes quickly darts over towards her.

To his surprise, his girl is holding the gun he gave her earlier in his direction.

Steve quickly scans the couple near him for injuries when he hears someone groaning below him. He finds Rumlow laying on his back, legs bleeding while his arms are spread out.

He looks back at his girl, a sense of pride filling his system. His girl just did that.

He watches as his girl runs towards him with her arms wide open, ready to envelop him in a hug.

Steve grins before he hears Rumlow muttering and everything seems to be moving in slow motion.

“If I can’t have her… Then nobody can!” Rumlow spits before a loud bang go out.

Steve’s eyes grow wide when he sees the bullet piercing through his hoodie and into his girl’s chest.

His heart stops when he sees her falling down into Bucky’s arms and onto the cold ground.

Her mother’s cries filled Steve’s ringing ears as well as her father’s curses as he tried to console his wife.

Steve quickly kicks the gun from Rumlow’s hand before kicking the bastard’s face repeatedly until he’s unconscious. He releases all his anger on the bastard who shot his little girl by bending down and throwing punches down the unconscious man. He keeps punching until he sees Bucky carrying his girl towards them.

He pulls back from a bleeding Rumlow before running towards Bucky and taking his girl from his best friend. He brushes some stray hair away from her forehead before observing her face.

“Call the fucking ambulance!” He barks at nobody but Bucky follows his order, quickly fumbling with his phone and calling their mob doctor.

Steve was about to rip his hoodie off his girl when her eyes suddenly flew open, gasping for air.

Steve’s heart stops for a second, he doesn’t know if it’s from shock or relief but he’s grateful to see his little girl alive and breathing. He feels her wrap her arms around his neck, burying her face on the side of his neck as she catches her breath. He wraps his arm around her shaking body, gripping her tight and pulling her body against his like he’s afraid that she’ll slip away from his grasp.

“Mother. Father. I’m so glad you’re okay!” He hears his girl talking to her parents who are currently behind him. He should let her go to reunite with her parents but he doesn’t. He keeps her against his body.

“Are you okay, dear?” Her mother asks and he feels his girl nodding against his neck. His girl finally pulls away from him before tugging on the hoodie she’s wearing and pulling it up to reveal a bulletproof vest.

Bucky’s laughter fills the air and everyone turns to look at him. “You little genius!” He exclaims before pointing at his little girl. “She kept bothering me about my vest and didn’t stop until I gave her one! Ah... You got yourself a keeper and a smartass, Steve!” He continues to laugh, her parents soon follow Bucky until everyone is laughing as well.

Everyone’s laughter is cut off by Rumlow waking up before gasping for air just like you were a few moments ago.

He pulls his girl against his chest, blocking her view from Bucky who gets his gun out before pointing it towards Rumlow’s head.

Steve covers his girl’s ears before another bang goes out. The last one for the night.

“I’m really fine, Steve. Dr. Banner said I was fine! No scars and all, see?” You pull your hoodie up to assure him. You watch him stare at your skin, probably looking for scars before he forces your hoodie down with a frown as he bites his lip.

“You can’t just pull your shirt up like that. People might see.” His hushed and commanding voice makes you gulp and nod apologetically.

You look around as he walks the both of you towards the lake. “But there’s nobody around, Steve.” You whisper, looking down at the dirt as you walk with him.

You feel his warm fingers under your chin before your head is tilted up so you’re looking directly up at him. “You really are a smartass, huh?” He smirks, feeling your body warm up against his hold before throwing his arm around your shoulders to continue walking.

Steve holds you close as the both of you walk down the dock under the darkness of the night. He stops just at the end of the dock before turning to face you.

You admire his face, looking so enchanting under the light of the moonlight. “You remember the first time we met?” He asks, grinning at your embarrassed reaction which is you chewing your bottom lip. He caresses your face before running his thumb across your lips, stopping your teeth’s attacks on your lips.

“How you’re taught to shoot a gun but not how to swim will always be a mystery.” He chuckles, smiling down at you and you watch him as he does just that. He’s just so pretty to look at.

“You really scared me tonight, little girl…” His sad tone made your eyebrows shoot up in worry. “I-I didn’t mean to, Steve! I’m so sorry.” You frown at yourself but he brushes his fingers on the wrinkles you made between your eyebrows which makes you relax just a bit.

“I was supposed to be the one protecting you. Not the other way around.” He lets out a sigh before looking at the water. “But thank you. Thank you for doing that. And for trusting me. I know you were a little hesitant with trusting me but you still did. So thank you for that. It means a lot.” Steve looks back at you and smiles. You feel your heart fluttering at his smile but it also breaks at his words. You wanted to tell him that he’s wrong but you are cut off by a bunch of lights.

You gasp at the lights that start to flicker all around you. You do a slow full 360, looking at the trees that are covered with fairy lights, the side of the docks are covered with lights as well, and the darkness is soon replaced by a whole bunch of lights. Your heart starts to jump when you hear slow music playing in the background and it feels like every time you do a full 360 turn, something new presents itself.

Everything seems so magical, so pretty and so… Something straight out of the fairytale movies that you watch.

You turn to face Steve again only to find him gone. You frown before looking down to see him down on one knee, a red velvet box in his hand which he holds towards you.

You feel yourself grinning with so much joy running through your system and you can’t help but to let out a squeal when the velvet box opens to reveal a very pretty diamond ring.

“Little girl… Will you make me the happiest man alive by marrying me?” He asks, uncharacteristically shy which makes you giggle. You start giggling more which makes Steve lick his lips as his eyes flash his nervousness.

“Steve, you’re so dumb.” You mumble through giggles.

“Huh?” Steve slowly stands up, looking at you with sad eyes.

“We’re already married! We both signed the papers!” You point out the obvious, stopping your giggle fit before kissing him on the lips.

“Don’t be sad, Steve… I accept your proposal… Even though we’re already married.” You giggle once more before letting him put the ring on you.

He guides you until the both of you are sitting on the edge of the dock, feet dangling down the water.

“I just wanted you to have a normal yet magical experience even just for a moment,” Steve whispers after a few minutes of silence.

“That’s kind of useless.” You automatically say.

“What? Why?” Steve feels his heart fall at your words. Is he doing this whole thing wrong?

“I already feel like that whenever I’m with you.” You state, looking at him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Steve feels his heart beat an extra mile but he also feels relieved that he’s indeed doing it right.

You grin at the sight of Steve blushing in front of you. You never thought that the man who was so hard on you the first time you met was going to be a blushing mess in front of you right now.

“Hey, Steve?” Your voice cuts the thin air and he looks at you with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“You know how I saved your life earlier…” Steve smiles at your bashful expression that he finds so adorable.

“Mhmm…” He nonchalantly hums.

“Well… I was thinking…” You bite your lip in nervousness and embarrassment at the question you’re about to ask him.

“What is it, little girl?” His voice is matched with a chuckle as he gives you a grin.

“Can I have a reward for that?” You blurt out.

Steve feels his cock stir in his pants at her words. He bites his lip before standing up and helping her up as well.

“I’ll give you everything you want, little girl. It doesn’t have to be a reward. You ask for it, you get it, is that clear?” He gives you a questioning look before smiling when you nod eagerly at him.

“Now, what is it that you want as a reward?”

————-

He trails kisses from your forehead to your nose, nose to your cheeks, cheeks to your neck. He purposely skips your lips with a grin and starts feasting on your neck. He licks and sucks on a spot he knows too well, earning an adorable squeak from you when he teasingly bites on the skin. “S-Steve!” You gasp, hands going straight to his head, fingers sliding through his soft hair. He continues nipping on your neck until your head tilts back and a quiet moan escapes your lips.

He pulls away to look at you and then smirks.

“You want me to give you those special kisses for your rewards?” He cocks a brow before smiling when you nod your head eagerly at him. “Y-yes please.”

Steve wastes no time to pleasure you. His little girl.

He dives for your glistening core and groans in pleasure at your taste. He uses his tongue to stimulate you through your clit, enjoying the way your body shakes under his hold.

Steve listens to your moans and whimpers like a song and uses it as motivation to keep you a writhing mess under him. “Please, S-Stevie…” He hears you cry under him, reaching your hands towards his hands and pulling it closer to his face as he tongues your clit.

Steve chuckles at your needy behavior but complies, not missing the nickname leaving your lips. Anything for his little girl.

Steve easily enters a finger into your wet core, groaning at your warmness and wetness before adding another finger. He sees your face contorting into a mix of pleasure and pain. Steve leans down to kiss your clit and flicks his tongue faster to distract you from the pain.

“A-aah” He watches your eyes rolling back when he begins to spread his fingers inside you. Another finger enters and you’re crumbling against his fingers, walls closing around his fingers as you cum undone under him. He pulls away from you before reaching for your face and kissing you hungrily. He smiles against the kiss when he feels you return the kiss with the same hunger.

He feels you pulling away and he lets you, frowning a little when he sees you looking at him timidly. His hand carefully reaches for your face, knuckles gliding down for cheeks smoothly. “What is it, little girl?”

He watches you bite your lip before looking at him with half-lidded eyes. “I w-want to give you special kisses too…” Steve freezes as he feels his cock getting harder than before. He feels your hands reaching for his member, giving him a look before gulping. “C-can you teach me? I want to make you feel good too…”

Steve doesn’t know which is beating harder; his cock or his heart, maybe both… Probably both. You do that to him. Only you. His little girl.

Steve finds himself gulping as well. “You don’t have to, litt—”

“I want to!” You’re quick to cut him off. Almost eager, he notices. He lets out a nervous laugh before nodding. “Okay, okay… I’ll teach you.” He doesn’t miss the way your eyes light up from his approval. He smiles at you before guiding your hands that’s currently holding his hard member.

“Just do this gently…” He guides your hands up and down his shaft, head going crazy at the sight of your hands not being able to cover his huge cock. He bites his lip, willing himself to hold on and not cum on your hands so early.

“C-can I kiss it now?” He looks down at you, sitting on the mattress as your innocent eyes look up at him while he stands on the ground. “Go ahead, little girl. Try it.” He encourages you, smiling when you press a quick kiss on his tip. His jaw clenches when you press another kiss, longer this time.

Steve’s eyes flutter when he feels your tongue dancing around his tip. You begin to lick along the shaft and then under, making Steve groan wantonly.

Steve lets out a frustrated huff when you quickly pull away from him. “I-I’m sorry. I was just doing what you did to me. I-I didn’t mean to hurt you!” Your eyes are teary and Steve realized that his moans made you think that you hurt him.

He sighs before leaning down to your face, giving you an assuring smile before kissing your nose. “You didn’t do anything wrong, little girl. You’re doing everything right. In fact, you’re doing so great that my friend down there couldn’t help but to go wild under your touch.” He points at his member before grinning at your widened eyes.

“I’m going to guide you. There’s no reason to be afraid. If you want to stop, just tap me and we will stop. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, okay?” He waits for your response and lets out a breath of relief when you nod.

He stands back up, putting your hands on his behind and guiding your face just in front of his cock. “Open wide, little girl.” He sings and grins when you do as told. He holds the back of your head but never pushes you, leaving you to go at your own pace.

You push yourself forward, taking him halfway before pulling back and pushing yourself back to him. His moans of pleasure push you to do more so you do. You swirl your tongue on his tip as you bob your head, smiling at the loud moan that leaves his lips.

“You little tease…” He breathes out, his grip on your head getting tighter but not enough to hurt you. He feels the vibration of your laughter on his cock and he lets out another cry of pleasure.

Feeling confident with yourself, you push yourself forward until his tip hits the back of your throat, making you gag.

He helps you as you pull away from him, looking down at you with his flushed face. He studies your face, eyes shadowed with lust, making his heart do somersaults. He wipes the tears on your face before saying, “Breathe through your nose, okay?” He watches you nod and chuckles when you go back for his cock, taking him deep at a slow pace and staying there for a second before pulling slightly away. “That’s my good girl…” He moans as you continue to take him, teasing his tip with your tongue when he suddenly pulls you away from him.

“Did I—” He cuts you off with a kiss, groaning against your lips and pushing you until you’re lying on your back with him on top of you. “You did great. I just want my cum somewhere else…” He catches your lips when you bite on them, his tongue pushing its way into your mouth.

He pulls away, guiding your body until he’s kneeling between your thighs, one hand on his cock while the other is on your thigh. “Is this okay?” He asks when he places the tip of his cock on your slit.

You gingerly nod, whimpering when he slides his cock on your sensitive clit. “P-please…” You have no idea what you’re begging for but he seems to know what he’s doing.

“Do you trust me, little girl?” Steve asks, looking at your face with hopeful eyes.

“Yes, Stevie. I trust you.” Steve’s heart warms up at how fast you answered his question. He nods before sliding a few more teasing thrusts into your folds and clit before slowly sliding his tip into your slit. He stops to look at your face that’s contorted into a frown. He leans down your face to kiss your frown away and kisses your lips as well, hoping to distract you from the pain.

Steve pushes his cock deeper when he feels you relax under him. He pushes slowly and stops when he’s fully in, groaning when your walls hug his member tightly. “Fuck!” He hisses before looking at you. “You okay?” He asks, smiling when you nod at him, eyes closed. He kisses your lips before pulling halfway and thrusting into you once more, earning a little whimper from you.

“How are you feeling, baby?” You try to ignore the nickname, opening your eyes and looking straight at his eyes. “G-good. Please move, Stevie.” You press your palms against his chest. He pulls halfway out before shoving himself inside you again, repeating this action until you’re moaning loudly under him and clutching his biceps for support.

Steve feels your walls fluttering around him, alarming him that you’re close. He knows he’s close as well so he helps you reach your peak by rubbing your clit with his fingers, groaning at how your walls tighten around him.

Steve listens to your cries of pleasure as your walls clamp down on his cock as you cum, making him cum as well and milking him. Your body shakes under him and both of you breathe heavily as you try to catch your breath. He falls to your side, his arms enveloping around you to pull you against his chest into a warm and strong embrace.

“It’s official. We just consummated our marriage... I’m all yours just as much as you’re all mine.” He stares at your face, watching your eyes as you fight yourself from falling asleep.

“I fucking love you, little girl.” He lazily says, brushing your face with his fingers. You stare at him sleepily, listening to the beat of his heart.

“The fuck is he doing?” Your father grumbles as he watches Steve prance around the kitchen.

“He’s making our daughter breakfast. I think our daughter broke him.” Your mother snickers at the way your father looks at Steve in disbelief.

“You tellin’ me that he touched Y/N?!” Your father fumes, getting ready to walk up to the man in the kitchen before your mother stops him.

“Oh, hunny. Would you stop that? They’re married. And Y/N is an adult. They both are. They can do anything they want. And I can see that Steve really loves our daughter. The way he acted after Y/N got shot. Not to mention the part where he literally saved our asses. Your ass.” Your mother berates your father who just huffs in response before leaving. Your mother chuckles before following her husband, ready to give him a piece of her mind.

“You made cookies without me?” Steve’s heart flutters as you pout at him. “I want to make cookies too…” You mumble under your breath. You just woke up from your sleep when Steve entered the room with a plate full of cookies.

“I didn’t want you getting into any accidents, little girl.” Steve chuckles when you take one cookie before grumpily munching on it. He watches as your eyes light up before covering it up with a frown. “Will you stop calling me little girl?”

“Never.” He simply says. You huff and Steve couldn’t help but to chuckle at your cuteness.

“Your cookies aren't even that good. I make better cookies.” You mumble before taking another cookie from the plate and munching on it. Steve raises an eyebrow at you before shaking his head. “I know you do, little girl. I know you do.” He smiles at you before making a move to sit beside you.

“No! Wait! Stay there.” You point a finger at him before fumbling around the sheets as if looking for something.

“You okay?” Steve asks, eyes shooting open when you jump out of the bed to stand in front of him, only the sheets covering your body. You realize this and quickly pull on the hoodie from last night before looking back at Steve with a grin.

“Hi,” You start, earning a confused look from Steve. “Hello?” He chuckles when you look at him with so much excitement that you’re literally bouncing on your toes.

“I want to give you something.”

“What is it?” Steve watches your fist as you hold it against his face before opening it, revealing a gold ring that looks to be vintage or a hundred years old.

“Where’d that come from, little girl?” Steve whispers.

“Can I put it on you? Will you marry me too?” You ignore his question, too excited to listen to anything. Steve laughs before nodding, watching you with adoration as you giddily put the ring on him.

“There! So pretty! You’re so pretty, Stevie!” You continue to admire the ring on his finger when he takes your chin with said hand, making you look up at him.

“Thank you, little girl.” He leans down to press a kiss on your lips before pulling away with a smile.

“My father gave it to me.” You blurt out, making Steve’s eye widen just a bit.

“Your father?” He asks, not sure about what’s happening.

“Yes. He came here earlier. Told me that you deserve the ring and that you should never make him regret anything?” Steve listens to you, you obviously don’t know what your father did but it’s enough for Steve to understand.

“Oh… And Stevie?” He looks at you, smiling and asking you if you need something.

“I love you too.” You grin at him.

Steve stares at you for a moment before feeling tears sliding down his cheeks.

He makes a quick move towards you, pulling you in a tight embrace and pampering your face with kisses.

“I love you, little girl. Thank you for saying it back.” He mumbles against your hair before pressing a kiss on your lips once more.

“Stop calling me little girl!” You grumble against him.

He only chuckles at you before shaking his head. “No. You’ll always be my little girl.”

----

a/n: omfg if you finished all that, congratulations you just wasted a whole lot of ur time but thanks for wasting it on me 3;-)

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers au #mob!steve rogers #steve rogers x you #steve rogers oneshot #au #mobster au #Steve Rogers

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elias-code · 3 years

Text

That's My Job - Glatt x gn!reader

~ Ask Link ~

Characters: Glatt x gn!reader, Fundy, mentioning Quackity

Summary: You haven't been back to Manburg since Schlatt died. Now that Techno's destroyed every trace of it, you've returned with Fundy to drink and mourn. Fundy leaves you to your devices and Glatt ends up waking you up, taking care of you, and confessing...

Warnings: lots of cursing, heavy drinking, death, mourning

------ sorry it's so angsty lmao I just love torturing myself :) ------

Ever since Schlatt suffered his massive heart attack at the end of his presidential term, you’ve been wandering the SMP. You’d gotten close to him during his campaign trail, eventually helping him do paperwork, or rather, you did it all for him. You hadn’t been back to Manburg since his death, but now that it was gone, completely gone, you decided it was time to return.

It was a crater. Nothing was left. The office building was gone, the festival grounds were gone, and even the presidential podium was gone. Now, glass covered the crater, giving you the full view of what you had been most afraid of. It made you sick to look at it, bringing up memories from the election.

The worst part of it was that he was gone. Everything in Manburg that reminded you of him was gone, even his friends were gone. The group split shortly after he died, giving up on the decimated country. He was the only thing keeping them together. For better or for worse.

“Hey, Fundy,” You said, stuffing your hands in your pockets. He'd offered to come with you, knowing just how hard it was to be back there.

"Hey, it's nice to see you again," He carried a bottle in his hand and offered it to you. He'd already popped it open and taken a sip of it. "It's a bit strong, but you might need it."

"Thanks," You took it readily, not bothering to read the label before you took a swig. The liquid hit your tongue and burned as it went down. You coughed, spitting the remaining drink on the ground, "What the hell is this stuff?!"

Fundy was practically on the ground laughing. Your tongue and throat still burned from the alcohol and you rotated the bottle to read the label.

Fundy™ Vodka, (98% alcohol)

"Are you trying to kill me Fundy? This shit is ninety-eight percent alcohol?! How did you manage that?" he continued laughing at you as your face burned from embarrassment.

"It's a trade secret," he chuckled, "The people in Las Nevadas really love it," he shrugged.

"How are they all not dead?"

"Don't ask me," He said, "I'm just their dealer. Quackity buys in bulk."

For a moment, it was as if Schlatt never died. You laughed with Fundy for a bit, drank, and reminisced. It was like old times, the hay day, but every time you looked around, you were painfully reminded of the past.

"Hey, I wanted to show you something." Fundy stood, offering you a hand. You were both buzzed already. Each sip of the vodka went down like two shots and you'd gotten a decent way down the bottle by now.

"I'm happy to stay anywhere other than here," You took his hand and gestured around at the crater, "This place sucks." You swallowed a lump in your throat and followed Fundy off the path.

You looked down as you walked. You didn't want to be reminded of him any more than you had to. The people here were moving on from it all already. To be fair, it had been a while, but you'd been closer to him than anyone else, even closer than Quackity.

"Here," He stopped and pointed at the clump stones in front of him. He sat down on the bench as he had done many times before, letting you inspect your surroundings.

"What is this?"

"It's a shrine thing I made," He said sadly, "A long time ago. I haven't been here in a long time, so I refreshed the flowers a bit for you."

The cobblestones were unmarked, put in a rough pile surrounded by oxeye daisies and dandelions. To any passer-by, it was just a pile of rocks. To you and Fundy, it was Schlatt's grave.

Of course, he wasn't buried there. He'd been buried in a nice grave surrounded by gold and diamonds, but it had been griefed so many times that it wasn't worth visiting anymore. Instead of being reminded of him, you were reminded of how many people hated him. Here, it was much quieter.

"Thoughts?" Fundy asked, passing you the bottle as you sat with him.

"It's not bad," You took a swig, used to the taste by now, "I can't help but think that it's painfully accurate that we're getting drunk at his grave."

Fundy laughed briefly, eventually letting the blanket of silence fall over you. The lump in your throat rose once more and you swallowed it with another sip. This must be what he felt like at the end. Drinking to forget, shoving his problems down as far as he could with each drink until, one day, his heart couldn't take it anymore.

"You ok?" Fundy asked, concerned.

"Huh? Yeah," You stared blankly at the stone pile, "Just thinking."

"You're crying," He said.

You touched your cheek and found it wet with tears. You hadn't cried since the day he died, the day you left.

"Do you..." He sighed, "Want some time alone?"

You hesitated. "Yeah," you croaked, "as long as I get to keep the alcohol,"

"Just don't drink it all," He touched your head and walked off.

"Hey. Hey. Get up," You felt a finger poke your temple and you jerked awake to Schlatt's voice.

"Finally," He sighed, "What do you think you're doing on my property?"

Through your hazy vision, you saw him.

"Schlatt?" You reached your hand out towards him, but you felt nothing.

"Yeah, yeah," He moved out of your reach, "Hands off, kid."

You rubbed your eyes and squinted, there's no fuckin' way...

"What the hell?" You spat, "Is this a fever dream or some shit?"

In front of you was Schlatt, or a paler blue version of him. He was holding the bottle of vodka, reading the label.

"Oh so Fundy's got a damn business now, does he?"

"Whoa whoa whoa," You ignored him, "Schlatt?! You're alive??"

"Calm down," He rolled his eyes at you, "haven't you ever seen a ghost before?"

He tossed the bottle back to you but you fumbled it and it shattered on the ground.

"Shit!" The bottle broke into sharp, jagged pieces. No vodka came out of the bottle, it was empty.

"You're still a terrible catch, good to know," He sat beside you, walking through the glass. You realised with a start, He's translucent...

You woke up fully, putting your hands on your face and shaking your head. Your brain rattled around in your skull, giving you a painful migraine. The bottle was empty... how much did I drink? Your memory from the past few hours was more or less blank, only the occasional flash of sunset or Fundy was left.

"You're drunk as fuck, you know that?" He said, sitting judgingly.

"What?" I must be if he's here, "Are you even real?"

"Yeah," He sounded offended, "Look at me! What do you mean am I real?"

You laughed, now convinced you were out of your mind. "How was I supposed to know?"

He furrowed his eyebrows at you, evaluating your mental state. "That stuff will kill you." He said, genuinely concerned.

"Oh, and you'd know all about that, Schlatt," You spat, "As if I hadn't warned you a thousand times,"

He leaned back, "Says the person who left the country the moment I died,"

This sent you over the edge and you started sobbing. You put your hands to your face, practically screaming into them. You refused to deal with these emotions for so long, and in some cruel twist of fate, you'd become the thing you hated the most. You'd done the thing you warned Schlatt about countless times. It finally came back to bite you in the ass.

"Sorry, I-" He started, putting his hand on your back. He didn't know what to say, he wasn't the best at comfort, "I've missed you,"

Your sobbing calmed down slightly, downgrading to crying. The tears stung your eyes and your throat burned, partly from the drink, partly from the stress you were releasing.

"C'mon, let's get you cleaned up," He said, standing to lead you down the path. You followed, stumbling slightly as the drink caught up to your balance. Just before you fell, he caught you and slung your arm around his shoulder, practically carrying you.

"Man, I was hoping you'd be in better shape the first time I saw you."

"What do you mean?" You mumbled, leaning on him heavily.

"I mean I haven't seen you in so long," He bit his lip, "I was starting to think you'd never come back. Then I saw you with Fundy, drunk as a skunk, sleeping on my bench. Not what I'd say was a good first impression. In such a long time, I mean."

"Yeah, but you're... dead."

"So? What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you died. You had a fucking heart attack, alright? We mourned for you, I mourned for you. I ran away because I couldn't bear to look at them. Those people who said they were your friends. They took different sides. They gave up on you. In a way, I guess I did too, just because I had to."

He grits his teeth but kept walking. "I was just as disappointed in them as you, kid."

You'd reached the end of the path. He looked around quickly and opened the door. You recognized it as Fundy's house. It was vacant, Fundy was nowhere in sight. Schlatt laid you down on his bed, leaving to get a washcloth and a glass of water.

"Sit up," He said, pushing the glass into your hand.

You grabbed it readily and took a swig, dehydrated from the tears you'd shed. As you drank, he put the damp washcloth to your forehead and neck, trying his best to sober you up a bit.

"You're on fire." He said, frowning at you. "Your face is all red. How much of that stuff did you drink?"

"The whole bottle," You muttered.

"And you're still alive?" He laughed.

"I'd ask Quackity the same thing,"

"What does this have to do with Quackity?"

"Fundy's selling it to Las Nevadas, I guess." You shrugged and he haphazardly dropped the washcloth in Fundy's cauldron.

"What?"

"Las Nevadas," You laid back down, "Quackity has a city now. Leaned into the whole gambling thing."

"Jesus, I missed a lot, haven't I?" He laid next to you, the sheets didn't move.

"I guess so." You turned to look at him. His suit was torn like he hadn't changed it since the day he died. His beard was barely shaped, his hair a mess, and his horns were as sharp as ever. He was exactly the same as he looked that day. Dishevelled and broken down.

"I mean it, I missed you." He said, "It's not like I had any paperwork to watch you do, but I wish I had."

"You watched me do that?"

"Yeah, I had to make sure you weren't stealing it or something," He excused.

You chuckled, "You never kept track of that shit, there was no way you would have known."

"Alright fine, you want me to admit it?"

"Admit what?"

"You make this... face when you work. When you're really focusing on something... It's hard to look away."

Your heart skipped. The ghost of Schlatt confessed to having a crush on you? No one would believe this, especially since you barely believed it yourself. You burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

"What?!" He snapped.

You kept laughing as your head throbbed, the headache coming out in full force now, "You had a crush on me?"

He scowled, "No." He sat up and tapped his foot on the ground, "I have a crush on you."

Huh? "Even though I've been gone for months?"

"Yeah," He said, "It's not like you forget someone like that."

He sounded sad, distant almost. Like you were the ghost.

"Hey," You shuffled over to him, putting a hand on his leg, "It's super cheesy, but," You sighed, god I sound like a child, "I like you, too."

His face flushed, as much as a dead person's face could flush. "Little old dead Schlatt?"

"Yeah, why not?" You sighed, "It's been so long since I've seen you, but... I mean, why do you think I left?"

"I don't know. I thought about that a lot while you were gone."

"I left because I cared about you. It was too hard to see you in everything around me. I left to get my mind off of you because every waking moment of every goddamn day was spent thinking about you," He looked at you, poorly holding his poker face, "I only came back because everything was gone. There was nothing to come back to. Or so I thought."

"Yeah, Technoblade did that." He jeered, "Twice."

"This isn't about him," You put your head on his shoulder, "If I'd have known you were still here... I would have stayed."

"To be fair, I was stuck in... hell... for a while until I finally figured out how to get back up here," He said, "By the time I'd come back... You were long gone. Months had passed."

"It was selfish for me to leave. I'm sorry."

"No, it was shitty of me to be mad you didn't stay. You told me so many times to put down the damn bottle and yet, you stayed by my side until the end. I let you down."

"I guess we both have things to be sorry for, then." You said.

You sat in silence for a while, coming to terms with what you'd both just said. It wasn't in either of your characters to say anything like this. There were some serious feelings passing back and forth between the two of you, and nothing to prepare you for them.

"Fuck I'm gonna puke," You said.

He pulled back, "Don't do it on me, sicko, Jesus!"

You laughed, "I'm fuckin joking, relax,"

"Just..." He leaned back and grabbed a blanket to swaddle you in it, "No more drinking, no more feelings for tonight. You need to sleep, and I've got all the time in the world to watch over you."

"It sounds creepy when you put it that way," you pouted.

"I'm not gonna-" He rolled his eyes and tucked you in, "Just let me know if you need anything. We don't really need sleep with the 'eternal slumber' bullshit, ya know?"

---

I don't know how to end this lmao, I hope you enjoyyyyyyed :3

#eli drunk glatt #dsmp glatt #glatt #fundy #dsmp x reader #dsmp #dreamsmp #schlatt #jschatt #mcyt #mcyt x reader #elias original #schlatt x reader #glatt x reader

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corpsentry · 4 years

Text

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

#my stuff

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multi-fandom-freak0221 · 4 years

Text

You Killed Me, but I Survived and Now I'm Coming Alive

Hey guys. It's been a minute. My job have been kicking my ass. I quit one of them a few months back cause 16-18 hour days were kicking my ass. But my dad died of Covid 1/20/21, on my older sisters birthday and month before my 20th birthday. I am half a country away from him and I won't be going to see the rest of them, but I do have 3 paid days bereavement and while I'm trying to distract myself I decided to try and finish this part. Your feedback motivates me so much. This part was the part I've been waiting for. The whole reason I created this fic. Like for real I had like maybe one sentence summaries planned for the other two parts in my head but this part played out like a full movie in my head down to the last details. This one will probably be the longest. It also has like 3 songs in it because it's the concert/gala scene hopefully I'll be able to cut it down some because i won't need descriptions between every lyrics but who knows. C'est la Vie. Anyways this will be the official last part, but I do already have one for sure bonus planned and a possible bonus that I might do if enough people want it.

This part's title is from "Miss Moving On" by Fifth Harmony. And this part includes the songs "Sorry (I'm not Sorry)" by Demi Lovato, "Home" by Philip Phillips, and "Symphony" by Clean Bandit ft . (Which for me is like a fucking poly anthem. I'm mean a symphony is a perfect metaphor for a healthy poly relationship! I mean it is a lovely way of asking to join into a poly group! Anywho I'm ranting and projecting. Ignore me.)

This is Part 3 of my fic based on @maiisdaddy 's Love of Three.

Tagging list:

@thestressmademedoit @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @lizziejay @indecisive-mess-named-me @captainmac6 @luveverything12 @kris-pines04 @brokenwordsarehard2 @roselynfey @mewwitch @stainedglassm

Part 1 Part 2

Marinette was ecstatic. She was extremely proud of all that she had accomplished in the 6 or 7 seven months since she left Damian. She became a singing sensation and recorded a whole album that would be releasing soon. She spent time healing and hanging out with her friends and pseudo family. Hell she even created outfits for herself and all her friends for the album release/identity reveal gala her Uncle Tony decided to throw for. Not that other guest knew that what this gala was for. Uncle Tony had picked the next closest international holiday and claimed it was a charity gala in honor of said holiday. While he may mot have been being entirely truthful there is never a bad reason to give to charity so she wasn't going to dwell on it.

She could truly say she totally over Damian. She even had Adrien take the ring back to her old apartment for her. She was not worried about him anymore. She had more important matters to attend to. Like the 3 boys who stole her heart while helping her piece it back together. Which she would say was great timing because she was sure Bruce Wayne would be at this gala. She guesses it was some kind of billionaire/millionaire code to never miss a charity event hosted by a fellow billionaires/millionaires.

Either way it was for the best because as soon as Uncle Tony had suggested a gala to reveal at, she had Uncle Jagged help her with two songs that she kept secret from everyone. One to show her appreciate for all her family and friend's support for her and one to confess to the 3 boys who loved her when she felt unlovable. She was going to preform these song for her friends in front of a lot of influential people but she wasn't even nervous. Not even when Alix told her that the gala was to be live streamed. No she was just excited and happy to let her friends know how she was feeling.

The gala was in full swing. All the guests who were coming were already there by the time Marinette and everyone else she came with arrived. She was talking with Chloe, Kagami, and Alix when she decided to grab herself a drink. She was walking to the refreshments table when accidentally bumped in someone's back slightly. "Oh! I'm sorry, sir."

The man then turned around to reveal to be Bruce Wayne himself. "Marinette! I'm surprised to see you. Damian said you were feeling too sick to attend."

Marinette wanted to scowl, but she managed keep her face neutral. She knew there were reporters swarming here and she did not want to make a spectacle. "I'm sure he did. Now if you'll excuse me, Mr. Wayne I was on my way to get a drink." She didn't even get a chance to leave Bruce in confusion from her statement. No sooner than she took a step to leave did Dick walk up to her.

Dick smiled at her as he greeted her kindly. "Sunshine! It's been a while. I thought Damian said you were under the weather?" As he moved in to hug her she sidestepped out of his reach.

Once upon a time she loved Dick's hugs, but now it would just feel fake. "I'm sure your brother has said many thing about my lack of attendance to many social gatherings. Unfortunately those claims were false as Damian has not been privy to my whereabouts in months. Now if you please excuse me."

She went to walk away again, but she guesses Dick's interference was enough time for Bruce get over his shock because he blocked her path again. "What are you talking about Marinette?" Marinette resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Mr. Wayne it has been nice talking with you but this really is a conversation for another time." Marinette sighs. She was trying to be civil. She was sure there were reporters everywhere waiting for the big scoop. She wanted that to be her reveal not her past relationship with an asshole. "Besides this is probably something you'd need to talk to Damian about."

"Talk to me, about what?" There is no God, she was convinced. The sigh that left her mouth was long and full of suffering as she turned around with a clearly fake smile. Facing her now was Damian himself with Tim and Jason behind him. Damian was clearly extremely shocked to she her, but he played it off quickly. "Angel I thought you weren't feeling well. Why didn't you tell me you changed your mind? You could have came with us."

Marinette ducked out of Damian's reach, barely restraining from stomping on his foot with her heels, as he tried to kiss her. "Do not call me Angel. And don't you dare even try to kiss me, Wayne."

Before Marinette could lose her temper anymore Luka came and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Everything okay, Melody?" Marinette took some calming breaths as she attempted to regain her composure.

While she was trying to calm down, it seemed the Wayne family was getting worked up. "And who is this, Marinette?" Bruce asked accusingly.

Marinette looked at the family in front of her in disbelief. "You all met Luka. He's my best friend. Signed under Jagged. In a committed relationship with two of my other best friends, Kagami and Adrien." She shook her head as the all held sheepish expression for assuming the worst. "Not that who I'm with is any of your business anyways."

Before any of them could question to her statement, Felix comes to her other side and whispers into her ear. "Do you want me to call security?" She didn't even get a chance to respond before she heard Dick gasp, scandalized.

"Marinette!! Are you cheating on Damian?" Dick exclaimed. At this point Marinette knew they were drawing a crowd she was trying to keep everyone's dignity intact, even though her reputation wasn't the one at stake.

"Mr. Wayne I once again implore you that we have this conversation in a more private setting." Marinette spoke calmly, but through gritted teeth. She was on her nerve.

Bruce crossed his arm and spoke loudly drawing more attention to them. "No. I demand you explain to me at once why you are here with another man when you are supposed to be marrying my son. Was this all some kind of ruse to go after the Wayne Fortune?" Her jaw dropped. She knew it did but she couldn't stop herself from the shock. The sheer audacity of this family before her. She quickly shut her mouth as her eyes narrowed into a deadly glare. Her Ladybug glare. The Wayne family would never admit it but an involuntary shiver went down their spines at the sight of it.

She knew her friends had gathered behind her at this point and see could see the reporters pushing past each other to get the scoop. Vicki Vale was the closest one. In the corner of her eye she saw the camera that was set up for the livestream as well.

Marinette face finally settled on a look mixed with anger and mischief. "Oh? So want to cause a scene, Mr. Wayne? Well how about I put on a show?" She continued to stare Bruce in the eye as she spoke to one of her, "Chloe, can you tell Jagged that I'll be opening with Sorry. The rest of the show will go as planned." Chloe smiled wickedly before going to do asked.

The Wayne family began to smirk when they heard her say sorry, but whatever they began to feel was quickly shut down as she spoke to them again. "Let's get this straight, Mr. Wayne. I am not cheating on Damian and I never once desired to a part of your family's fortune. It was foolish of me to even once want to be a part of your family but I quickly learned better. I would not want to even look at the money that is connected to your family's name if the requirement was to be even cordial with Damian, let alone married to him."

She then towards the crowd the surrounding them. "If everyone would please take their seats facing the stage the show is about to to begin." Without a second thought Marinette headed towards the stage while the rest of her friends took their seats. Some one who was in the staff working tonight led the Wayne family to seats right in front of the stage. Soon everyone was seated and Marinette was standing center stage with a microphone.

Marinette smiled brightly at the crowd. "Thank you all for coming. I'm sure you all know me as Marinette Dupain-Cheng, pseudo niece of Tony Stark and Jagged Stone, and for some of you ex-fiance of Damian, but for others you still current fiance of Damian Wayne. Well I hate to inform that some of you are wrong. Anyways I'm sure your wondering why I'm up here. Well Uncle Tony promised a surprise musical guest so I'd like to reintroduce myself to all of as Neon Titanium! I'm going to be preforming a few songs for you tonight from my new album about to release but before that I decided I should clear the air. Let me start by saying it has been about 7 months since I broke off my engagement to Damian Wanye. While most of you know I chose to kept the reason of said break up private, someone here tonight decided that they were entitled to the reason to being told to them, very publicly. And who am I to deny such a request?" There was a false sincerity to her final sentence that seemed almost menacing.

In the front you can see the paling faces of many of the Wayne men as Tim is on his phone. He finally pulls up Marinette interview that was released prior to Damian announcement. "Damian, what the hell did you do?" Tim voice was barely above a whisper but they all heard it.

Marinette continued on quite content to the situation before her. "Well here's the truth. Damian did the unforgivable. He repeatedly cheated on me while emotionally abusing me and gaslighting me.

"He kept me from seeing everyone I cared about and his own family, claiming it was for my own safety and called me selfish for wanting to leave the apartment he kept me locked in. And while at first he seemed to actually be concerned my wellbeing, over time he stopped caring.

"He became distant, turning back into the Ice Prince you all knew him to be. He would lie about why I wouldn't leave the apartment constantly while still leaving me alone in the apartment constantly. Then he started getting late night calls from "work" to the point I would barely see him. I overheard one of these calls once. I heard him telling who ever was on the other side of the phone that I had no clue and to be waiting for him naked. But I stayed hopeful. I thought I could fix things. But he got worse.

"He was slept with the one person who made it their life goal to take everything from me. Even before I moved to Gotham, this girl hated me and she took all of the people who I thought were my friends and turned them against me. My true friends stayed and knew the truth but it still hurt. And Damien knew this. I told him all about this girl abd how she hurt me. Yet he still slept with her.

"The girl knew I was Damien's fiance. Somehow she got my number and sent me a picture of her in bed with Damian, both of them naked. I'm not going to lie I broke down when I saw that. Before her I could play ignorant and act like I didn't know what he was doing. But this? This was impossible for me to ignore. He cared so little about me that he slept with the one person who do whatever it takes to hurt me. I left that same night with only the things that were mine. Everything I bought came with and everything he bought me stayed. Including the cell phone he bought me when I moved in with him. The only thing that wasn't mine that came with was the engagement ring because I couldn't bring myself to truly accept the truth that it was over yet. I later on had it returned because I remember Mr. Wayne saying it belonged to his mother, though I'm guessing Damian didn't notice."

Marinette saw Bruce whip his head towards Damian who shrunk in on himself.

"Oops. Guess it wasn't noticed indeed. Anyways. For the last 7 months I have been living in Stark Towers with my Uncle Tony, healing with some of my closest friends helping me. And after some convincing working on an album with Luka and my Uncle Jagged. I will preforming a few of those songs for the gala tonight and they will also be live streamed for those who paid for virtual tickets. My album will be released in the next following week." Marinette took a deep breath as she prepared for her first song.

"Originally I planned to open with a different song tonight but after this impromptu info dump, I thought only fair to follow it with the song I wrote dedicated to Damian. I like to call this one Sorry" As Marinette finished the music started playing over the speakers. Soon she was singing passionately.

Now I'm out here looking like revenge

Feelin' like a ten, the best I ever been

And yeah, I know how bad it must hurt to see me like this,

But it gets worse (wait a minute)

She pointed to Damian while rolling her eyes.

Now you're out here looking like regret

Ain't too proud to beg, second chance you'll never get

And yeah, I know how bad it must hurt to see me like this

But it gets worse (wait a minute)

She took the mic off it's stand as she walked along the front of the stage.

Now payback is a bad bitch

And baby, I'm the baddest

You fuckin' with a savage

Can't have this, can't have this (ah)

And it'd be nice of me to take it easy on ya, but nah

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Being so bad got me feelin' so good

Showing you up like I knew that I would

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Feeling inspired 'cause the tables have turned

Yeah, I'm on fire and I know that it burns

Baby, fineness is the way to kill

Marinette gestured to herself from head to toe.

Tell me how it feel, bet it's such a bitter pill

And yeah, I know you thought you had bigger, better things

Bet right now this stings (wait a minute)

'Cause the grass is greener under me

Bright as Technicolor, I can tell that you can see

And yeah, I know how bad it must hurt to see me like this

But it gets worse (wait a minute)

By this point Chloe, Kagami, and Adrien had got up and started dancing along to the song.

Now payback is a bad bitch

And baby, I'm the baddest

You fuckin' with a savage

Can't have this, can't have this (ah)

And it'd be nice of me to take it easy on ya, but nah

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Being so bad got me feelin' so good

Showing you up like I knew that I would

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Feeling inspired 'cause the tables have turned

Yeah, I'm on fire and I know that it burns

Marinette waved to her 3 friends to join on stage for the next part.

Talk that talk, baby

Better walk, better walk that walk, baby

If you talk, if you talk that talk, baby

Everyone was clapping to the beat while Marinette pranced across the stage, except for the Wayne family.

Better walk, better walk that walk, baby

Oh yeah Talk that talk, baby

Better walk, better walk that walk, baby

If you talk, if you talk that talk, baby

Better walk, better walk that walk, baby (oh yeah)

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Being so bad got me feelin' so good

Showing you up like I knew that I would

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

Feeling inspired 'cause the tables have turned

Yeah, I'm on fire and I know that it burns

As the song came to a close, there was a roar of applause as her friends went back to her table.

Marinette did a little half bow. "Thank you. Thank you."

She wait till it was quiet again as she returned the mic to the stand. "Now as you can all see I'm doing much better now and I'm happy without him, but if it wasn't for the support system I have I never would have made it to where I am. My parents are in France so in my time of need I turned to my family who was close. My uncles Jagged and Tony, and my aunts Penny and Pepper. They're wonderful and they have always been there for me when I need them. And also my friends, both old and new have stood by me through all of this and helped me come out stronger. So this next song was a surprise gift for them."

Jagged had grabbed an acoustic guitar and was playing her in sitting in the background of her as a projection shined on the wall behind her, showing pictures of her with her friends and her uncles and aunts.

Hold on, to me as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm going to make this place your home

She took the mic off the stand again as she walk off the stage to her friends and family in the crowd giving the hugs as vocalized along with music.

On the screen was several pictures she found. She put together the slideshow herself. There was a picture of herself crying in the midst of group hug while the people around her comforted. Another was her and all her friends playing in the pool. There was one where they had an impromptu free-for-all dodgeball game and she had won. She was laughing as the guys lifted her into and the girls were all cheering around her.

She made her way back to the stage after the final hug.

Settle down, it'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm going to make this place your home

She smiled as projector turned off and the crowd applauded again. "Thank you all. But truly thank you to my friends and family for helping and supporting me."

She waited till it was quiet once more before speaking again. "All those who love me have done so much for me, but right now I wanna talk about 3 very special people."

She smiled softly as she looked over to where Peter, Felix, and Jon were sitting. "These 3 boys did so much for me even though they were the ones who knew me the shortest. They've been kind and patient and understanding with me. They all started to love me when I felt my most unlovable. And soon they found a love in each other as well. The best part is even after loving each other they offered to include me in their love as well, whenever I was ready. They gave me their friendship unconditionally no matter what my answer came to be and never rushed me for an answer ever. So Jon, Felix, and Peter this song is for you."

She saw the Wayne family's eyes widen, but she paid them no mind as she started singing.

I've been hearing symphonies

Before all I heard was silence

A rhapsody for you and me

And every melody is timeless

Life was stringing me along

Then you came and you cut me loose

Was solo singing on my own

Now I can't find the key without you

And now your song is on repeat

And I'm dancin' on to your heartbeat

And when you're gone, I feel incomplete

So if you want the truth

I just wanna be part of your symphony

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

Symphony

Like a love song on the radio

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

I'm sorry if it's all too much

Every day you're here, I'm healing

And I was runnin' out of luck

I never thought I'd find this feeling

At this point Marinette had walked down the stage grabbed Jon's hand and led him back to the stage dancing.

'Cause I've been hearing symphonies

Before all I heard was silence

A rhapsody for you and me

(A rhapsody for you and me)

And every melody is timeless

She repeated the process with Felix as Jon danced nervously danced on stage.

And now your song is on repeat

And I'm dancin' on to your heartbeat

And when you're gone, I feel incomplete

So if you want the truth

She left Felix and Jon dancing together as she brought Peter back to the stage with her. She continued to dance with him as she sang.

I just wanna be part of your symphony

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

Symphony

Like a love song on the radio

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

Ah ah, ah

She smiled as Peter dipped her before bring her back up and handing her off to Felix.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

Ah ah, ah

Felix twirled her, letting her dress flare, as she spun right in to join awaiting arms where he lifted her into the air.

And now your song is on repeat

And I'm dancin' on to your heartbeat

He slowly set her down and she turned until her back is against his chest. His hand are on hips as they sway gently.

And when you're gone, I feel incomplete

So if you want the truth

Peter and Felix were mimicking her position with Jon in front of her and she put an arm around Peter's neck while the other still held the microphone.

(Oh, oh, oh)

I just wanna be part of your symphony

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

Symphony

Like a love song on the radio

Symphony

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

Symphony

Like a love song on the radio

Will you hold me tight and not let go?

This time as she finished singing the crowd was silent as she looked at the 3 boys who held her heart. "Jon. Felix. Peter. You guys are some of the best people to ever walk into my life. I want nothing more than to be with you 3. So if you are still willing, will you do me the honor of calling me your girlfriend?"

She looked hopeful as the silence filled her ears. It felt like hours, even though it was definitely seconds, before she heard them all say yes.

Cheers erupted as Peter kissed her and Jon and Felix kissed each other over the former two's heads. She then turned kissed Jon as Peter kissed Felix, before kissing Felix as Jon kissed Peter. She grinning wildly when the all finally pulled away from each other.

She raised the mic to her lips as she closed out. "Thank you all for being here for my reveal/debut! I got one more song that I'll be preforming at the end of the gala, so y'all have fun and mingle. Once again, this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng aka Neon Titanium, I'm glad you enjoyed the show!"

She winked at Bruce on her last word as she walked off the stage with the loves of her life to where her family and friends were waiting for her.

Her and her boys (and Kwami does she love that -Her boys) were in the midst of getting congratulations when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. Bruce Wayne stood as tall as ever though he refused to meet any of her group's eyes.

"Ms. Dupain-Cheng, I apologize for my early behavior tonight, I was missing the whole story." He voice was steady but some shame shone through. His boys were behind him all of them also looking sheepish except Damian who was glaring at her new loves Jon in particular.

Marinette rolled her eyes. "You know as well as I do that the media are sharks, and events like these are a feeding frenzy for them. I tried my hardest to keep all of our reputations intact tonight, a lot harder than I should have since I had nothing to hide since I was the victim here. Yet, you in no regards of the truth, attempted to smear me with no hesitation. Personally the rest of you did nothing to me so I had no ill will towards you, but you forced my hand. The results of today are direct consequences of your own actions."

Before anyone else could speak up Damian did. "Kent," He nearly growled. "Why didn't you inform me as soon as you knew she was gone. As my best friend you should have informed me immediately!"

Jon answered lowly in a dark tone no had ever heard him use before. "My father tried to warn you father, Wayne, but when questioned you just dug your own grave deeper. Besides as my father explained to me it is not our job to make sure you two are aware of the going ons of your own household. Also you lost the right to be my best friend when you decided to be so cruel to the person you were supposed to love and then lie when confronted about it."

Marinette scoffed. "I figured when you finally noticed I was gone you'd assume I was off throwing a temper tantrum in hiding somewhere and that I'd come back. The fact that you weren't even worried about me in all that time I was missing is really telling."

Bruce glared Damian down from respond as his brothers held him back. "I just have one more question before we rightfully leave you alone. You said you had the ring return? Where could it possibly be?"

Marinette shrugged. "I had Adrien return it a couple months ago. Damian was fucking some girl in his apartment when Adrien walked in and he didn't even notice him set it on the dresser. I believe heard on the grapevine someone named Lila is claim she's Damian's true love and he had to keep up our engagement for appearances. She also claimed he proposed to her with a Wayne family heirloom until he get away from me. I guess maybe next time Damian should pay better attention to his house guests." She giggled sarcastically afterwards.

Bruce frowned as he nodded. "I see. I'll leave you all alone now. Have a wonderful evening, and congratulations." As he led his family away Marinette could hear whispered yelling but could make out a few phrases like "PR Nightmare", "priceless heirloom", "huge mistake", and even "major fuck up".

As soon as they were out of hearing range Marinette started laughing, causing everyone around her to laugh too. She finally calmed down eventually but her large smile never went away. This is the happiest and the most free she's felt in the long time.

#maribat salt #marijon #maribat #marivenger #felinette #spideybug #OT4 #me????projecting onto characters????? It's more likely than you think #honestly at this point #yall should clearly see i got issuses #also the wayne family gets burned!!!!!#mari might forgive most of them #but Bruce and Damian are dead to her #bamf marinette #she takes no shit #am i projecting my poly ass?#you mcfucking bet #she got no time for assholes #neon titanium

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