#and the show very much does imply they *share a blanket* at the very least so they aren't desexualised or anything

[rotzaprachim]

kissing andor the show on the mouth for not only giving us space lesbians but making them messy and dysfunctional 

[gildedmuse]

Fandom rookie here. Could you please walk me through your Zoro/Law and Zoro/Ace HCs? Love your humor btw!

Ahhh! A little fandom greenhorn! So cute!

You have asked the wrong person the wrong question, newbie.

ZoLaw:

Zoro is from the East, and while he isn't use to Winter Island Cold, he naturally runs hot. Law is from the North and while he HATES being stuck on Summer Islands on hot days, he naturally runs cool. They balance each other beautifully when they share a bed.

Up in the North Blue, it's considered weak to admit that you're cold. Weaknesses gets people killed in the North Blue, so having someone imply you need an extra blanket is a direct insult to a person's ability to keep themselves and their loved ones alive. So obviously Law would never need the extra heat.... But he MAY find himself scooting closer to Zoro-ya on the chillier nights.

The handle of a katana isn't the only thing Zoro can talk around.

...

(Cock. He can talk around a mouth full of cock. And Law LOVES it. Its the only time he can stand one of the Strawhats yapping on).

Look, Law is scientifically minded and likes to believe he is very rational (that's open to debate). He's seen Zoro-ya in the sea and knows he doesn't have a devil's fruit. But sometimes it feels like he does. SPECIFICALLY, one that somehow manages to undo every single one of Law's plans. Because the problem certainly isn't in Law! His plans are complex and perfect. But anytime he comes up for one about how to, say, ask Zoro-ya out it always somehow manages to go terribly wrong. It MUST be a devil's fruit ability.

The first time Zoro actually properly asks Torao out, he first bows to and addresses Kikoku. Since it's imperative he has the curse blades permission to touch his master (especially with all the touching Zoro has planned).

Law doesn't get jealous. That's petty and below him

Law has personally threatened at least three shichibukai and one very (also highly annoying) horny yonko. Not because he was jealous, they just need to step off and stop looking at HIS Zoro-ya that way.

If you ask the boys when they started dating, you get VASTLY different answers. Law would argue that while he'd of course taken notices of the other Supernova back on Saboady, the boy then disappeared for two years and besides Law had a lot of plans that he needed to focus on and execute perfectly. They didn't really see each other again until after Punk Hazard and of course Law was very distracted until after Doflamingo..... Then the horrors they saw on Zou, though, admitedly he may have found himself distracted by Zoro-ya once or twice even at the time.... You know, he would say it was Wano. It was Wano when he realized what an idiot the other boy was, and how he absolutely needed Law on the ground watching after him or he would do something amazingly stupid like... Like listening to Law's plan for instance! When Zoro-ya endangering his life was CLEARLY not what Law intended! Yes, that is when Law decided this boy simply couldn't be considered safe unless Law is there to watch after him..... Also, it's sometimes nice when Zoro-ya looks after him as well.... SOMETIMES.

Zoro would say "Did you see Torao cut that island in half?" And that is all he has to say on the subject of when they started dating.

Law has noticed that Zoro-ya doesn't seem to pay much attention to what he wears, just picks up what is nearest and easiest and throws it on. On an unrelated note, Law has been "accidentally" making sure to strip down right by their bed, and leaving his shirts right there. His shirts with his jolly roger.

Nico Robin had to use not just her ability but her most Teacherly voice in order to separate Luffy and Law when Zoro shows up with the Heart Jolly Roger on his shirt. Law's smirking about it (while Zoro remained utterly confused through the entire fight) didn't help.

Zoro is super weak to people playing with his ear. This goes double when it's Torao and his stupid, sexy hands. He already wants to squirm whenever he watches Torao do that stupid switch-switch thing, but once Torao starts to sit closer and, even while reading his fingers seem to find their way to Zoro's earrings..... Twirl twirl twirl, TUG. Its enough to break Zoro's brain.

Historically, Northern denizens tended to have shorter and much more dangerous lifes compared to the relatively safe and stable East Blue, leading to them having a much different view of things like romance and marriage. That's part of why tattoos are so popular among North Blue denizens. However short your inevitably short life is, a tattoo is permanent. You can't change your mind or take it back. It's a way of wearing your loyalty.

Right behind his ear, the same side as his piercings, Zoro has a small black heart tattoo. He got it on their way up to Wano.

Usopp still doesn't understand how Zoro got lost on a submarine. He didn't see him for a whole four days! What's so funny, Robin.....

I actually have a number of HCs for these two that basically boil down to "Each Island should have its own culture, and by extension, each Blue should have its own culture the way each state has its own culture but the USA also has its own general culture." This can range from things like what I mentioned above, about North Blue having historically shorter lives due to the harsher environment or being more technologically advanced. But I also had smaller things like Law kissing Zoro-ya on the nose, since up North that was how you showed affection to family or younger friends and acquaintances. I also went the entire opposite direction of "smaller" and invented an entirely Shinto derived religion that's customs and kami differed based on the Blue.

I even came up with particular weather that happen almost strictly up North (Ice Storms which are incredibly deadly at sea and Black Mist, a yet unexplained phenomena that seems to choke the life out of any one who gets caught outside) and then wrote up an entire "Old North" mythology that explains the two phenomena and why they often follow each other even though one happens strictly on land and the other typically at sea. I pretty much full on created a whole religion and mythology and wrote individual stories just so Law could have a whole culture that belonged to HIS blue. The myth in question involved a human falling for a siren, and just like actual myths I created multiple retellings and versions where the characterization changed depending on the message the storyteller was trying to express. But in most every version the Siren, Isa, had green hair (because of course the North associates green hair with fertility; oh that's another thing, I created a whole sex profession hierarchy for the North Blue with the one common feature among different types of sex workers being they typically dyed their hair green, like that was a way to physically depict that you were fertile and later that you were, you know, open to being fertilized) and regardless of how they are depicted they end up turning into the shards of an Ice Storm either because they accidentally take human captain's life, do so and then regret their hunger, or are told they have killed them and in turn kill themselves. Law was told the latter version as a child and so always felt bad for Isa, who didn't know they were eating the captain's life force but the crew could have just told him and he would have left and instead because he is "different" they think it's better if he simply destroys himself. It's a character Law can both identify with but also see aspects of Zoro in; both his physical appearance which I'm sure to Law he just pictures Zoro now, but also in his loyalty and honor which aren't as important values up North which instead values survival and strength.

As you can see if I presented an accurate list of my HCs for these two, it would be insane and make no Earthly sense. I just really enjoy world building, especially when that world building leads to two hot sword boys pining after one another.

Oh, did I mention the whole "green hair = sex worker" association and just how personally All Hearts Law takes that when applied to his Zoro-ya?

Yeah.....

ZoBurn FistRo PortZoro

ZoAce:

Upon meeting him during Alabaster, every single non Luffy Strawhat was - at least a little -totally into Ace. He just seemed so cool (and also hot.) He's like a sexy Luffy and the whole crew wanted some.

Zoro wanted it the most, bitches

[hexalianrebel-blackfeathers]

The Blackblood Files--Subject 023887

((REMINDER TO ALL STAFF: MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE END OF FILES FOR THE MOST RECENT NOTES.))

The Blizzard

Awareness: 1C (Appears to move instinctively toward crowded areas; makes no attempt to disguise itself beyond its form.)

Receptivity: 4B (Submits to testing easily; has an aversion to being touched, with very few exceptions. Seems to understand speech, but makes little to no effort to communicate with staff.)

Whereabouts: CONTAINED

Upon taking form, this Blackblood resembles a figure in a heavy hooded winter coat, along with layers including a thick scarf, hat, mittens, and heavy leather boots. [The scarf has a line of feathers made star shapes stitched along its center, resembling Hexalia’s Mark and implying that its neck is a weak spot it’s protecting; it is important to note that the host The Blizzard is controlling does not share a matching Mark, nor a Mark on their neck at all. Research is still being conducted to confirm or deny working theories.] It never makes an effort or shows desire to remove any of these accessories, and it grows agitated when it perceives any outside attempts to do so. The body underneath, if any, is impossible to see aside from occasionally glowing eyes.

The Blizzard exudes an aura of intense cold which it controls with apparently effortless skill. Even in artificial high-heat conditions, it is able to render its surroundings to near arctic conditions, as well as appearing comfortable despite temperature changes. As the epicenter of this aura, it keeps aggressors away by quite literally freezing them out. Observation and testing have shown that it is fully capable of manipulating the size and barometrics of its aura. This is to say, wherever it goes, The Blizzard is able to lower the temperature enough to cause localized snow flurries. There is debate among research groups on whether to classify this ability as true weather manipulation or simply a summon. [Addendum: Observation has shown that as trust is built with the Blizzard, it will allow certain others close enough to touch it. It seems particularly fond of being hugged. Reports made state that its touch is actually warm despite its cold aura being inches away.] 

Its method of hunting, if one can call it that, is…contrived, to say the least. Upon its initial rediscovery, we set it loose on a small city nearby. It seemed content to wander aimlessly, mostly avoiding interacting with others. But its aura was spreading the entire time, and within 72 hours, the entire city (and approximately 2 miles into surrounding areas) was blanketed by strange-colored clouds and covered in unseasonable snow. While most of said snow was normal water, researchers observed certain flurries that appeared in odd colors: a sort of mix of purple and green breezes within the fog of white. Observations and the few conversations with civilians has revealed that these flurries consist of some sort of ice magic--a crystalized potion, we believe--that blends into snow by resembling snowflakes. When these flakes come in contact with skin, the potion quickly melts and causes a ticklish sensation that only spreads based on how much exposure the victim has. We have observed instances of children and teenagers pushing each other into snowbanks and being rendered immobile with laughter as the snow melts into their coats. The Blizzard, apparently, does not necessarily need to be near victims when they’re laughing, so long as they remain within its aura. 

With painstaking effort, samples of snow were collected and specimens of these snowflakes were isolated. Researchers have nicknamed them “Feather Flakes” for ease of reference in files; they need to be kept at subzero temperatures when outside of the Blizzard’s aura to maintain crystalized structure, and, despite resembling snowflakes, each of them appear identical. From over 200 specimens inspected under magnification, only one shape has been identified: a sort of six-petaled flower, with each petal slightly resembling the feathers stitched into the Blizzard's scarf. [Addendum: Research and Development has managed to create a concentrated Feather Flake potion. DO NOT INGEST under any circumstance. Experiments are still being conducted at varying levels of dilution.] 

The Blizzard only begins to show active hostility after reaching a “starved” state. After two weeks of constant, isolated containment, the Blackblood showed signs of restlessness. When test prey was offered, it suddenly attacked by exhaling a focused blast of cold air apparently consisting mostly of its Feather Flakes. When its hunger was sated, its behavior became nervous, as if it were regretful of its actions. This was the first recorded instance of the Blizzard initiating physical contact; it hugged its prey close until its potion wore off and their laughter subsided. It is unknown if its embrace reduced the needed recovery time; further testing is planned. [Addendum: Due to recent discoveries, the Blizzard is no longer permitted to have close physical contact with certain staff members. Those newly assigned are advised not to indulge its requests for attention.] [Addendum 2: If she whispers, you are to ignore her pleas.]

NOTICE TO ALL ASSIGNED STAFF: Be advised that this file is slated to be locked and archived indefinitely. Please turn in any personally-kept notes and report final observations on this Blackblood before its relocation.

Final Conditions:

Awareness: 4A (Reportedly capable of speech. Openly expresses emotion and seeks fulfilment aside from hunting.) 

Receptivity: 3A (Still submits to commands and testing, but openly shows fear of certain staff members. Reports show failed attempts to conspire with its original handlers. Likely developing distrust and potentially attempting to deceive newer staff. Relocation is advised to be expedited.)

==========

Amalgamate #7: The Whiteout

Components: The Blizzard // The Tagger

Awareness: 3B (Performs strategic hunting tactics without being instructed. Occasionally ignores commands in favor of instinct. Learns quickly.)

Receptivity: 3C (Standoffish with certain members of staff. Acknowledges commands of those that have built trust with it. Rarely hostile to staff. No current reports of active rebellion)

Status: Complacent // Restless // Healthy

This Amalgamate was created and implanted in The Tagger’s host in an attempt to mitigate his rebellious behavior with The Blizzard’s compliance. It was awoken from stasis with no detectable complications and sent for testing immediately. Receptivity and Recall testing showed satisfactory results. The Whiteout performed several levels of tasks on command and returned to its handlers when called, even while outside without restraints. Because of the Tagger’s Trueblood bond with its host, the Amalgamate’s form builds around his body instead of fully overshadowing him upon transformation. The Blizzard’s heavy coat has been replaced with a sort of trench coat tied tightly at the waist with The Blizzard’s scarf. The Tagger’s original hazmat-type suit can be seen underneath, and its mask, now bearing a large Feather Flake design, appears to have been fused with The Blizzard’s original hat. The Whiteout’s hands and feet are covered by thick gloves and boots respectively, both wrapped tightly at the cuffs of its sleeves and pant legs to seal out the cold.

The Whiteout’s magical abilities consist of both the Blizzard’s aura and the Tagger’s summoning capabilities, with the former having gained an exponential boost in range and power. After proper preparations, the Amalgamate was deployed into Settlement S-F-TS-4 (See: Crater). It seemed to actively avoid interactions with locals, only rarely approaching undercover staff members before avoiding them as well. Said staff members reported sightings of the Amalgamate spray painting symbols in secluded parts of the city, mostly along its borders; its paint appears white, purple, or green, but fades to visibly nothing after a few hours, as if it were snow melting to water. Supplied photos and recreations don’t match any of the Tagger’s original repertoire, but certain symbols incorporate the Blizzard’s Feather Flakes into their patterns. Researchers are assigned in groups of two to monitor the areas these symbols are placed in twice a day. As of Observation Day 4 , the Whiteout has not attempted direct attacks, and while temperatures throughout the city have been quickly declining, no active phenomena has occurred. 

Recent reports and observations have captured the Whiteout’s most basic hunting method. It tends to lure or follow prey to secluded areas at night, cornering them before using its spray cans to blast a colorful haze into their face. This gas attack is nearly identical to that of the Tagger, but the resulting reaction is much stronger, rendering victims hoarse with laughter from even small doses. [Addendum: The Whiteout was called into the local base for testing, and, through sample collection, it was confirmed that this gas is an aerosolized version of the substance Feather Flakes are made of. Based on staff testing, this version, despite being somewhat diluted, causes near full-body reactions by simply being inhaled.] The Amalgamate has been seen both abandoning its prey after subduing them and occasionally staying beside them, as if to console them before it flees. Staff has made sure to intercept any locals that recognize the Amalgamate after its attacks. Concurrent records show that the Amalgamate appears to be growing restless, wearing its mask more often and returning to areas where it has placed symbols.

As of Observation Day 10, Temperatures within the Settlement have reached the average of the Blizzard’s original aura, and its chill can reportedly be felt for miles beyond the walls. Locals have been fascinated by the falling snow, given the local climate, but rumors have been steadily increasing surrounding the Whiteout’s presence and the increase in disappearances. Several locals said to be missing are not within the custody of staff. The Amalgamate has been making itself more scarce: actively avoiding most of its handlers and other staff when they approach. Noted sightings over the past two days have included notes regarding its appearance; its clothing and accessories have all begun changing color to a stark, bright white, which has now become uniform across its entire body. For the first time since its awakening, it has painted a face on its mask: the same smile the Tagger used.

==============

The following Audio Transmissions were received and recorded overnight between Observation Days 11 and 12. Consult the provided transcript as necessary. ===== (21:13) Handler 1: This is Handler 1! We’ve lost sight of the Amalgamate! It’s not responding to its signals, and this fog is blocking the cameras. [Clothes rustle in the background; a door opens, and screams can be faintly heard] We’re heading out to find it ourselves. Visibility is already low. Requesting precautionary backup. Rendezvous with us in town square. (22:00) [Footsteps can be heard running through snow, with scattered laughter somewhere in the distance. The radio falls into the snow as someone coughs and giggles softly.] It’s the fog… [The radio is pulled back; the voice is clear aside from their growing laughter.] Don’t breathe the--[Something roars in the distance; the radio falls as the voice is lost in loud laughter.] ///////////////// (00:28) Hello? T-This is [REDACTED], Researcher 7, of the Crater Division reporting from my Residential Acc--Look, um, listen, please. I’m in my house with my thermostat pushing 90 degrees, and it’s like nothing is changing. I’ve sent in today’s--or yesterday’s?--temperature reports already, but there’s been a sudden drop. I-It’s so cold, I can’t sleep. [She laughs wryly before pausing] Ah… Oh, that isn’t… Is the Observatory seeing this? How long--I have no messages about this. It’s a complete haze outside; visibility is next to nothing, m-maybe 20 feet. I can’t even see across the road; the closest lamppost is near covered in snow and… The snow is up to the truck tires. Okay, this isn’t anything like the expected conditions; please advise. (00:40) Researcher 7: This is Researcher 7. Block 4. All of the windows are frozen shut. I’ve woken the others, and they don’t have any notice about this either. [Someone calls her name; Her voice shakes as she walks to the source.] I’ve tried to make contact with the Handlers, but no one is picking up. How long has the weather been like this?  Researcher 5: [REDACTED], I can’t find anyone on the cameras. Half of them are all snowed to hell anyway. Security 14: I’ve been going back through the feeds. It’s not good. Researcher 7: …S-Sirs. Requesting Emergency Evacuation. We’re entering a Code 5. Alert all staff. //////////////// (03:27) …This… This is [REDACTED]. I’m Security Officer 22 in the Crater, and… How long were you going to wait to tell us? Did you know? I know you won’t respond, but I want to make sure that whoever finds this knows: They were right. They were always right.

==============

As of Observation Day 20, the Whiteout’s storm has yet to subside. Surveillance equipment is only rarely picking up any sound or activity within the Crater. The Observatory’s main camera cannot pierce the layers of clouds and haze to provide data, and many of the cameras within the city have either frozen in place or become covered in snow. Video logs showed the Whiteout’s various symbols glowing brightly on the night of Day 11; many of them, those bearing the Feather Flake symbol, began emanating the fog that now fills the city streets while others apparently summoned constructs made of snow to assist the Amalgamate in hunting stragglers. Several unmanned drones have been deployed into the Crater in the days since, and, through sample testing, it’s been determined that this haze is highly diluted Feather Flake potion. All data since the storm fell was obtained remotely, as the drones were lost before they could make their way back. Of the total 30 drones sent into the Crater, none have returned. Recovered video data shows the Whiteout or its constructs descending on the drones within minutes of their arrival, regardless of their entry point, suggesting it is able to detect movement anywhere within its aura. Data also contained footage of a home with a light flickering SOS in the window.

Current orders are to maintain constant observation. Continue deploying drones into the Crater at regular intervals to collect data. Keep the Amalgamate’s attention focused until further notice.

We would like to remind all staff that we are grateful for all you do for the Prince’s cause. Your Presence, Your Loyalty, and Your Sacrifice.

=============

Panda's Notes: Hey, it's me! >w< Thanx so much if you read the whole thing; and thanx even more if you enjoyed it! I wrote this for @squealing-santa's warm-up prompt involving "Feather Flakes". Clearly, I got kind of carried away. I'm really proud of this one though, even if it is a bit more monster than tickle. >w< I hope you guys are excited for Squealing Santa!

[cloudstrife-bbs]

Pupdates, or Unofficial Lack Thereof

Cloud is now 4½-weeks-old.

I still don't know which one has been assigned to me. The puppies are all still too young but, according to the breeder, beginning to show temperament. She says she's still a few weeks out from testing them, which to me, translates to 7-weeks-old before proper testing can be performed and assignments can be made. Plus, her constant repetition of "end of April"--- they'll be 8-weeks on April 16th, which is mid-April. Which also implies that she's keeping them until 9-weeks, which means he won't come home until April 20th or 21st.

Which, truthfully, feels like absolute torture for me.

I trust in my breeder to accurately place my puppy, and that's having a tremendous deal of faith in her. This is a decision for the life of whichever one Cloud ends up being, but she has to do this eleven times. Because the litter is so large, I have to share time and attention with at least ten other families. It would be nice to have a more personal relationship, but I sadly feel like this is gonna be another Sevit's Corgi situation: Money changes Hands, and the relationship is over, for the most part. Business only. Especially because Cloud is only a pet and not a show dog or a sport dog. I don't want to feel robbed of a potential friend and a potential network, especially because the breeder and I are both New Englanders, but I do feel robbed.

The breeder told me that she was going to have an Open House-type of Puppy Party on March 30th, for all the new puppy parents. (I don't know if I mentioned this in my last blog entry.) We are planning to bring up Cloud's very expensive, brand new Impact brand crate with puppy divider. (I hope it lasts as long as it says it does because I want it to be a dog heirloom for future Berger Blanc Suisses for the moolah we coughed up for it.) She also said to bring a towel/blanket that smells like us, and a toy, just for him. We bought him a squeaky plush Mr. Carrot, just like Bolt. We actually got multiples in case the toy doesn't come back with us. We've been sleeping with the towel to make sure it REALLY has our scent on it, but I also have another old bed sheet that I'm bringing to make his crate a bit cozier. I still don't know what time we're going to have to be there by (I asked once already, but received silence), but I'm going to shoot her a text on Monday asking again, trying to be as non-intrusive and friendly as I can in spite of my rampant anxiety. It's a 3.5 hour drive from here to there, and I would very much like to know how early in the morning we have to start out, especially if we want to avoid traffic on I84 through Hartford. I like to plan my life out accordingly and not wait until the last second.

The house is getting cleaner and cleaner and more puppy-proofed. Everyone is excited, waiting for more news about Cloud, but I only have very little to share. It's frustrating, and to be honest, it's contributing a lot to my stress and anxiety. I have all this love in my heart I am just waiting to pour into a puppy, and I feel fit to burst without anything to direct it into. I know that a new dog will be a challenge, but it's a good, healthy challenge that I'm deeply passionate about. I don't have any delusions that this is going to be a cakewalk. It's going to be sleepless nights at first, and lots of puppy biting and him not wanting to listen. Hundreds of repetitions of words as I teach him human language and proper manners. Definitely a lot of pee and poop on my kitchen floor as his body grows.

A lot of "Let me see what you have!" "A knife!" "No!" Hahaha!

But lots of playing, and new experiences every day as I socialize him to things like construction noises, grooming, and our every day life. He has to get used to loud sounds like nail guns, air compressors, miter saws, hammering, all manner of power tools, and I've already educated myself on how gundogs are trained to get an idea of how to desensitize him. He's going to go to puppy class for extra exposure to things, and I want him to learn to be calm and cool, nigh unflappable if I can shape him to be that way. But it's going to take tremendous hard work, discipline, consistency, and at least two years of puppy/teenage bullshit to get him where I want him to be. I'm no stranger to the process; it's just been a decade since I had a puppy. Dogs are to be my life's work, and I may be pushing 40 (I'm turning 38 this September), but this is only the beginning of my purpose. If the Spirits help me through their wisdom and kindness, my legacy will be my Dogs. They are my children.

Cloud: which ever puppy you end up being, I know you'll be brilliant and extraordinary. You are already my hero. You have no idea the darkness you're saving me from. You're going to have an incredible life with us, and you are worth this excruciating wait. I love you, so much. Mommy and Daddy are waiting as patiently as we can until we bring you home.

[radmerrmaid]

I. the world is a curse, it'll kill if you let it

Summary: Edward Nashton, your weird, solitary, coworker, has been in your mind a lot lately, an obsession that is clearly reciprocated. What happens when your paths inevitably cross?

word count: 7700k (not beta'd, sorry)

warnings for this chapter: soft!dark!edward (talks of depression, anxiety and self-hatred. alcohol and drug abuse. implied bullying, stalking, mysogyny and incel shit in general (hello, it's the Riddler). masturbation, hallucinations and voyeurism. do not interact if you're under 18.

Edward Nashton gets under your skin without you even noticing it. 

It’s the way he stares, at first. That is what catches your attention. The forcefulness of his eyes, so unashamed, makes you look away, embarrassed. You sometimes wonder if he does it on purpose to make you uncomfortable, a hint of annoyance at his lack of restraint. But he is excessively shy, quiet, a bit disturbing, yes, but mostly, just Edward Nashton from accounting. Harmless, despite what other people around the office like to suggest. 

Then, it’s those small glimpses of gentleness, of an adorable, almost child-like nature seen as awkward and creepy by your coworkers, but endearing to you. It’s the rose-tinted flush in his cheeks when you catch him staring. The timid nod he gives when he bumps into you in the break room; the way his shoulders tense, fingers gripping his mug tightly when he sees you’re both alone, but lingers idly as long as you’re staying, stirring his coffee slowly to give his agitated hands something to do. Trails a few feet behind you and your colleague Betty on the way to the bus stop, always caught off-guard when you look back at him. No one talks or interacts with Edward, except for your shared glances, and awkward gestures acknowledging each other's presence. 

You find it cute, at the very least.  You doubt that someone would ever have the sensibility to notice it in him, to see past the quietness and introversion. In this city, danger and darkness are found in every corner, sometimes it feels like it’s in the air, dreary and heavy like an invisible fog that enters slowly through your nostrils. It poisons everyone in its bitterness, and everything becomes perverted, eerie. It’s impossible, even naive, to expect something good from people, and even easier to assume the worst if they don’t perform certain social cues to an acceptable level. 

But Edward is different. Doesn’t make an effort to be liked, and just keeps to himself. You’ve heard people say he is the best accountant in the financial department, which you suspect is the only reason why he hasn’t been fired or heavily bullied — yet. That’s how he glues himself into your thoughts; part of you feels sorry for him, and another one feels irritated at his behavior (why can’t he just be normal?). But there’s also another part of you, kept under a thick blanket of normalcy, that just wonders what it would be like to play with him. You find yourself replaying the tiniest exchanges between the two of you, and catch yourself being utterly charmed by his awkwardness. Feel your chest swell at the unfamiliar, yet deeply appreciated, massage to your ego when you notice how affected he is by even the tiniest bit of attention he gets from you. You know it’s becoming an obsession, but you’re addicted to that small euphoric heat that burst quickly inside your gut when you see how easy it is to make him blush. 

“God, that dude gives me the creeps. Pretty sure he’s been following us.” Betty says constantly. You know for a fact that pretty much everyone else shares the sentiment. 

“No, he’s harmless. He’s a nice guy”, you defend him, always careful not to show too much emotion.

“Just because he fixed your computer? I would have it checked for hidden cameras or some shit he might have done to it if I were you.”

Edward makes a move unexpectedly; you’ve been complaining about the IT crew for a few days now. They are charming guys, except for the fact that you’d started to notice they only give a shit about helping out the women they want to fuck. Edward overhears you once and suddenly appears in front of you, offering to help. You give your laptop to him, surprised at his generous offer, unsettled by his sudden confidence, even when he stammers, blushes cherry-red, and doesn’t maintain more than three seconds of direct eye contact. He disappears with your computer to his cubicle, and returns it twenty minutes later, dropping it in front of you and disappearing as quickly as he came. Inside your now-fixed laptop, there’s a small piece of paper with neat handwriting. His phone number. 

Should be working fine. Call me if it doesn't.

Edward.

You squeeze the scrap of paper tight in your hand and shove it down a desk drawer before anyone can see, appalled by his boldness. Of course, the office creep is the one who’s going to get the hots for you, you think to yourself.

“Oh God”, Betty says, sarcasm and disgust in her tone, right after Edward scurry away to hide in his cubicle again: “do you think he’s got a crush on you?”

You don’t answer. She senses your embarrassment and leaves you alone. But you spend the rest of the day with guilt heaving in your mind, thinking maybe you’re taking this too far, and even more disgusted when you realize you’re warming up with excitement.

You’ve never been attracted to the quieter ones; no, you crave the extroverts, the charismatic type that fills up the room. Of course, those are the same guys that don’t even pay attention to you, or even worse, the ones that only see you as a playtime. The ones that don’t spend the night, the ones that never text back. I’m having fun, you’re a nice girl, but I’m not ready for a relationship right now. Not with you, at least. Sorry, sweetheart. 

An old therapist said once it’s because you want to be like them, want to be liked, want to be popular. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking depressing. You are constantly, ridiculously, trying to be around those you envy, thinking maybe you’ll be more accepted, would feel better about yourself. It doesn’t work, of course. You’re always chasing after your own tail, too distracted by your own mediocrity to maintain a healthy relationship — with yourself or with someone else. 

Sometimes, it all becomes too much. You’re broke and depressed, spend most of your free time watching TV, and partying too hard when the loneliness and boredom get too difficult to bear. 

But there’s Edward now, and suddenly, he’s occupying your mind most of the time. Eddie. You know he’s just like you. Except, of course, he’s not a liar like you are. He’s unapologetic himself, intense, different from any other man you’ve met before. He ignores the teasing of the assholes from the office and occupies himself with work, books, and crossword puzzles. Stares intently at everything that catches his attention, from the pretty new girl from reception to the news coverage of a political debate. You envy him. Sometimes you’re resentful, angry at him for being like that. And then you’re remembering his blushed cheeks, the shy, almost imperceptible smile he gives you, and only you.

That’s when you catch yourself staring back, wishing things would be different. Wishing you weren’t so fucked up, prettier, more interesting, more desirable. Then maybe everyone else would start to treat you better, to see you. Perhaps then you could reject him and make him suffer. Maybe you could ask him out, and then he would beam, thrilled at your invitation, and then you would let him wait until the restaurant closes, and then he would walk himself home, alone, telling himself that he probably deserved that for even thinking you would give him a chance.

That train of thought is the one that usually leaves you feeling like shit. Obscure, perverted thoughts are constantly flooding your mind, and somehow, your obsession with Edward seems to make them even worse, harder to concentrate away from them, to focus on being a good, nice person so people won’t notice you’re a crumbling foundation collapsing in itself. It’s the same train of conscience that leads to a bender, makes you put on a revealing dress and go out, spend the entire night dancing and drinking and using until you can forget how fucked up and disgusting you are. You crawl back to your apartment, in your clothes that now feel too tight, your feet hurting. It’s always after the partying that your apartment feels strange, foreign, faintly smelling like someone else. You pass out on the bed, feeling guilty and ugly, loneliness heaving in your chest.

The next day, you’re feeling torn apart at the edges, like someone chewed you out and spit you on the sidewalk. And Edward will be there, in the break room, stealing furtive glances until he can’t help but stare. Judgmental, curious, and filled with nervousness. That’s when you get angry.

You snap at him after a particularly rough night. You’ve been drinking the night before, threw up in the street, and took a ride with some stranger that miraculously didn’t try to mug you or rape you. Edward’s intensive staring pisses you off, makes you feel watched, and turns you hyperaware of how intrusive his presence is, and how it’s taking so much of your headspace. You surprise him with a biting remark, not loud, but challenging; doing something that probably no one in the office ever did.

“No one ever taught you that it’s rude to stare, Edward?”

It feels wrong even as the words come out of your mouth. Not because of their slight aggressiveness, but because it feels like they broke something, like the thin barrier that separates the two of you is now gone, like you’ve given him something you can never have back.

***

You are a distraction, Edward knows that. 

Just one of the pretty girls in the office, not even the prettier one, if he has to be honest. They’re all the same; most of them look right through him like he’s part of the furniture. The other ones are even worse; looking at him like he’s some wounded animal that deserves to be put down, wary as if he’s going to harm them, even if the only thing Edward sees in them is a bunch of stupid, boring, uninteresting girls who would never understand him.  

Then, you get transferred to his floor, and everything changes, because you’re different.

He identifies the façade right away. Maybe it’s because Edward can relate a bit, or maybe everyone else is just too self-absorbed to realize how painfully lonely and desperate for affection and attention you are. It’s almost written on your forehead, the way you go the extra mile to help, to please, especially for those guys around the office that doesn’t give a shit about you. It annoys him a bit and makes him especially angry and resentful of you. But he supposes you can’t be blamed because that’s how most women are, anyway. Trying really hard to please men that will end up treating them like shit. Girls never gave as much as a glance in his direction, disturbed and intimidated by his shyness, by his intelligence, and even by his gentleness and naivety, but he didn’t care anymore. All of those things didn’t matter, not now that he has found his true purpose, his mission.

Entertaining a certain hope of getting your attention is inevitable, after all, even after the arrival of the Riddler, Edward still isn't immune to his weaknesses and desires. But even then, he doubts you would ever treat him differently than the others, even if you’re nicer than they are. Just like everyone else, you must be attracted to the lie. The traditional molds of what a man should be; physical strength, conventional beauty, boldness, experience, and a healthy dose of misogyny, of course. A guy who will see you as a saint, not a whore, and give your life meaning. Give your children, a comfortable home, regular vacations, and a life of blissful ignorance and alienation. Isn’t that what every woman wants?

Edward believed that, too, once. When he was going through hell in that orphanage, or even after that, during college, he’d figured things would get better. But he knows the truth now, finally, the Riddler has helped him see that the sun only shines for a very small group of people in this city, and he would never be one of them. Too bad you couldn’t see it too. But he could show it to you if you’d let him. 

He always thought most people were boring, small little humans who tried to compensate for their lack of depth by being mean to him, to those who were too fragile to stand up for themselves. That’s not who he is, never has been. Edward is the broken victim of the shit that simmers under all of those lies. He will never be like them, will never fit in. It's why he became someone else, something else. That part of him — the Riddler, that is — resents you for it, but Edward is curious, and even the killer inside his head needs to admit that no one has ever made them curious before. Not like this.

But he is skilled and mature, and he's been preparing his whole life for this. He can keep them apart; the Riddler, the part of himself that has reached full potential, brimming at the edges with barely contained power, that craves blood and vengeance. But he is Edward, still, and Edward is weak, perverted by his longing, pain, and grief. But as long as he can control them both; everything will be okay. Together, they can solve the puzzles presented by their cruel lives, and even see the opportunity in them. He can indulge, as long as he never forgets about his true mission. 

So he allows himself to lust in small doses. To grieve your wasted potential, to imagine what it would be like when Gotham is finally cleaned, and when you — when everyone else — finally see the truth he’s going to uncover. He starts to pick you apart, staring greedily, revealing in all the cracks in the carefully rehearsed acts that show him you’re something else entirely. 

Even if you’re always throwing pleasantries around the workspace, being kind, and trying to get everyone to like you, Edward lives for the moments in which he can see the impending traces of corruption in your soul, anger, sadness, and loneliness threatening to explode. It reminds him of a crumbling building, in its final seconds before falling apart like it’s made entirely of sand. The recognition burns in his brain and sparks his curiosity as a good puzzle would.  Reminds him of himself. He has never related to anyone before; except for Batman, but like himself, Batman had the mask. You didn’t have anything that could give you power like that. Still, you turn that little key in his mind that unlocks his full attention. And God, what a fucking enigma you are. 

Passionate, observant, gentle. Charismatic, a classic people pleaser, desperate for praise. But so much energy is being spent in hiding what you truly are; anger, resentment, jealousy, anxiety. A carefully built appearance. When Lisa from the design team makes an unnecessary announcement to communicate her quitting the job to dedicate herself to her big shot lawyer husband. Edward is the only one to notice the glint of envy in your eyes and watches it disappears entirely, as quickly as it came to, giving space to a perfectly-faked smile as you hug her before anyone else. I’m so happy for you. Edward sees it all, even when nobody else can. The pure, raw despair and hopelessness. He recognizes it from the mirror. 

It stirs something inside him. A desire of having more, and isn’t great that the Riddler allows him to just take it? 

It's almost impossible for him to stop himself from digging deeper. That same day, he snaps and stops resisting and starts to give in to his obsession with you. To find out everything he can. He sees the social media posts, and the graduation photos on Facebook, and it’s only you. Smiling, but never showing teeth. No partner, no family, no friends.

That night, he dresses up in leathery-deep green like he’s used to by now, mask falling on his face like a balm of relief, and watches all the filthiness of the city from his recently-rented place right by the Iceberg Lounge. Unabashed criminals, upstanding citizens indulging in their true natures, hidden in plain sight. He walks over every step of his mission, revises his meticulously planned steps, talks to his followers, and yells at the camera about every single disgusting thing he sees and feels until his throat is sore. When he turns off the stream, he’s so fucking hard it hurts, and all he thinks about is you you you. Imprinted in his mind like a painting, clear in every detail, so real he can almost feel it move inside his brain; sitting in the uncomfortable squeaky chair and watching TV absently, soft fingers cradling a steaming porcelain mug with cat ears, and the gentle, honeyed smile you give him when he arrives at work, melting all of his rage with warmness and sweetness, the barely-there hint of mischievousness in your curved lips almost feel like a hallucination, but it’s there, and he sees it. He’s the only one who can. He jerks off thinking about fucking you until you're crying, telling him I'm sorry, I'm sorry… I see it now-fuck, you were right. I'm sorry, please please please don't stop…

The next day, you're there as always, and it’s different. Even if Edward feels deeply embarrassed, even if the need to look away when you catch his eye is still overwhelming, the insistent itch that is the Riddler’s existence scratches at him, as a feral animal stuck inside a small cage in the corner of his brain. He spends the entire day agitated, anxious, stealing glances at your cubicle, the memory of him jerking off to the clear image of you is still fresh in his mind. He’s still dripping with the satisfaction, fingertips still buzzing with the chaotic energy, traces of the Riddler still clouding his judgment. It’s always difficult to shake himself back into normal after a particularly satisfying night of being in the mask. Riddler’s voice is relentless, and Edward needs to put a lot of energy into keeping the violence at bay.

Do it, the animal whispers to him, mockingly. We both know she wants it, and you should take it. 

Edward trails after you like it's a fucking instinct, like a dog sniffing out food, when you get up for a mid-morning coffee, and the monster inside him laughs when he overhears you complaining again about having a shitty laptop for days and being utterly ignored by the guys in IT. 

Poor thing, it says, again, derisively, tone dripping with malignant intent. You can help her. And help yourself. 

Dripping with the satisfaction from last night, fingertips still buzzing with the chaotic energy, traces of the Riddler still clouding his judgment; Edward doesn't even think before he's walking towards you, doesn't even register his mouth opening to offer to fix your computer for you while you stare at him in surprise.

He ends up with your laptop all to himself for about twenty minutes, and he makes it fucking count. Make sure he's got enough to penetrate every crevice of your life. He feels like a fucking idiot even as he’s scribbling his phone number on a piece of paper and shoving it inside the computer. Even if you’d never text him, or worst, even if you’re deeply disturbed by his advances and never look at him again, he’s got what he needs from you. 

Edward is deliciously tempted to pull a sickie just so he can haul ass home and enjoy all the new material, but he's smarter than this. He waits patiently for the clock to strike 5 pm, so he can get the train home, finger dangling the pen drive with all of your shit in his coat pocket, and he almost wants to pull it out and kiss it. It's only when he gets home, almost giggling with excitement, that he realizes that the thin membrane that separated Edward's obsession with you and Riddler's eagerness to take has been severely damaged.

He becomes bold after that. With access to your phone records and internet history, Edward can’t stop himself from falling into a pit of obsession, drinking every last sip of your chaotic, yet gentle and warm existence like a man starved. He finds out about the drinking, about the occasional cocaine, about the loneliness, the despair-fuelled nights out when you just want to forget about how miserable your life is. He gets it, feels the same, even, but he has the mask. The Riddler is his final stage of evolution, is the façade of Edward that is going to make everyone sees the truth about the people of Gotham and how they are living a lie that is hurting people in all the ways suffering can be inflicted upon. So he’s going to fight back. He understands that not everyone can do it, too.

He loses one more battle against his urges on a Friday night. The social media photos aren’t enough, the pixelated image of you does nothing to soothe his hunger, and the voice keeps telling him to do something, so he gets up, puts on his coat, and walks into your address almost in autopilot mode. The fact there’s a rooftop nearby where he can easily break in and see your apartment window feels like a gift from the Universe, an encouragement, even. See? It’s so easy, getting what you want, the voice tells him. It’s almost like you’re made for him, everything working out perfectly in favor of him being closer and closer to you. 

The expensive binoculars he gets to help him watch the Iceberg lounge from the Riddler's place serve him just right, and he waits and waits and waits, patiently, until the Gotham’s sky starts to darken, the warm weather giving in to a pleasant breeze that gets intense from this height. And then, you’re stepping into the window, and Edward’s grateful there’s not anyone around to hear how his breath catches, as soon as he recognizes you. From the rooftop, he watches as you quickly walk around your bedroom hurriedly; you’re finishing dressing up, and getting ready to go out, and he watches fascinated at how beautiful you are, even from this distance. Your hands expertly put on long, gold earrings. Little jumps as you put on your high-heeled shoes. Objectively, Edward shouldn’t even be excited about seeing you; he was never a fan of tight clothing, exaggerated accessories, and heavy makeup, but something about the way you’re dressed tonight makes him deeply, deeply affected. He hasn’t felt like this for a girl before, completely enticed, bewitched by every aspect of your being. His hands are trembling around the binoculars. Something about the exposed skin of your thighs, the darker shade of blue, slightly metallic, hugging your curves in a way that is just so… Fuck, he would give everything to get closer to you, smell you, to feel…

After you leave, it’s easy to get in. In less than ten minutes, Edward’s able to climb your fire escape and enter your balcony. There’s a small glass table with a chair, some plants that are being overwatered, and a trash can filled with beer bottles. He’s almost giddy, arousal and excitement too overwhelming, sharpening his senses, and the sinister nature of his actions is quickly discarded. You would never know he was there; this is for him only, his secret indulgence. If this is the only way he can get closer to you, the only way he can consume your presence and existence, he is not going to refuse himself.

Edward can’t stop himself from giggling when the balcony’s door opens on the first try, unlocked. Well, should have locked the door to keep any creeps from getting in.

The scent is what hits him first, like a swift punch in the face. It’s when he realizes that he has never been in a girl’s bedroom before, and it gets his cock hard almost immediately. The air is honeyed, the mixture of scented lotions, perfumes, and other products is light, but so unfamiliar that he needs a few moments to accustom his senses to it. Vanilla, coconut, strawberries, lavender. He breathes deeply, eagerly trying to glue all the traces of you into his nostrils. The perfume on the nightstand, your choice for the evening, is warm and spicy. Your closet door is open, spilling a mess of colorful fabric as you’d probably ransack it looking for tonight’s outfit. Your vanity is weirdly empty, and he takes note that you’d probably don’t bother wearing too much makeup to going out, just like in the workplace. 

When he sits on the bed, there’s already noticeable tent in his pants, and his dick twitches painfully at the soft give of fabric under his thighs. A pang of shame courses through his veins, hot and sizzling. This is probably the closest he will get, so he takes his time. Edward’s long fingers are trembling, and he sinks them in the comforter. The apartment is small, the bedroom even smaller, messy as fuck, but the sheets are expensive. In the bed, your smell almost chokes him in its intensity. He rubs his hand on the sheets, sweaty palms rubbing against cotton. It feels forbidden, like he’s touching softness that he wasn’t supposed to. He faintly remembers your amused voice telling Betty hell yeah, I spend a lot of money on bedsheets, I love being comfy. 

Disgust and embarrassment make him close his eyes as soon as he pictures you in his mind. This is your space, your most intimate place, and he’s here, tainting it with his indecent appetites just because he’s too pathetic to ever be here under normal pretenses. Edward rests his head on one pillow, and the scent of your coconut shampoo shoves a needy whine from his throat. He’s rubbing his cock already, palm squeezing over the uncomfortable stretch of his pants, and when he opens his eyes, he sees you clearly; a vision, the materialization of his vivid imagination and lack of control. Your hair is a little bit wild like every other Monday — when the weekend has been rough, and you didn’t get the energy to comb it and style it too neatly. It’s his favorite day of the week: usually, you’re too tired and hangover and the mask you wear to fool anyone else is barely holding on. He strokes his cock through the damp fabric of his pants, thinking about the way your eyes narrow and your lips twitch in annoyance. He plays the casual, angry-fuelled commentary he overhears once from you like a mantra; this city is disgusting, Betty. People like us are always getting fucked and no one gives a shit. 

Your image is blurring at the edges, and Edward tries to distract himself from his own desperation to focus on you again. Your dress from tonight is dark green now, leathery and slick, and it shines so bright he can barely look, and it reminds him instantly of his mask, wishes he could have it on, so he could at least have a little bit of control under your relentless gaze. Without it, he’s just Eddie, and you hover over him on the bed, a gentle, patient smile pushing the corners of your lips up, brows slanting as your head tilts to the side, but your eyes travel over his pathetic figure with a pure, ominous appetite, that kind of look that he has come to love it so much, the evil glint that betrays your true, resentful, angry and frustrated self, the one that everyone else is too dumb to see.

Not him. He sees it. And he wants to see more. Wants it for you to look at him with it, to indulge in your true nature just like he does. 

Right now, the satisfaction of his own hands on his cock brings enough euphoria for him to lose himself completely, to blur the lines between his senses and reality. Everything smells like you, so he can pretend you’re standing right above him, smiling perversely, watching him stroke his cock greedily. Your voice is engraved on his brain, so he can picture it whispering that’s it, baby, you’re doing so good… He never thought he needed the praise so much, that just the thought of you using a pet name on him would make him want to blow his load so easily, but it does. He’s whining, sweating, biting his lips enough to feel the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth, and then he’s coming, thick spurts of cum on his knuckles and he can hear your laugh. 

Shame comes immediately, so quickly that it surprises him, unexpected in his intensity. Edward gets up in a jump, a stream of whispered shitshitshitfuckfuckshit as he hurriedly goes to the bathroom to wash up. He surprisingly manages to get clean without disrupting anything in your particularly messy bathroom, and thankfully doesn’t get any of it on the sheets. His face is burning, his hands shaking, and tears start to prickle in the back of his eyes, humiliation burns in his stomach, the sweat cooling on his skin making him feel dirty and stupid. He’s alone in some poor’s girl bedroom, he broke in. You’re a fucking loser, a pervert. That voice comes back, sounding too much like what he remembers from your tone. The echoing sound of your imaginary laugh blends into a whisper of disappointment, and even though he’s almost crying from embarrassment, he’s nearly getting hard again. 

It gets even worse, even more humiliating, when he leaves your apartment in a hurry, and as soon as he hits the street, he starts to miss your smell and the softness of your sheets. This is as close as he can get, and he’s definitely, definitely crying now. Separation anxiety burns in his chest, and Edward is horrified (and aroused, so fucking horny it hurts) when the thought of coming back with the Riddler’s clothes and laying back in your expensive, silky sheets occurs to him. 

This is wrong, he thinks to himself, feeling his throat constrict as he walks back home. 

No, it’s not. You are the Riddler, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

Not this. Not breaking into some girl’s apartment just because he has the hots for her.

It’s more than that, and you know it. Stop fighting it.

***

Edward’s feelings toward you become harder and harder to understand. The dynamics of his relationships are all very clear in his mind, like his own image in the mirror, even if those people don’t even know he exists. Bruce Wayne is everything he should have been, the prince of Gotham who revealed in Gotham City’s sympathy and became a heartthrob while he suffered at the hands of their cruelty and poverty, becoming a creep with a dead-end job. Batman is the one who gets his need for vengeance, of cleaning the streets of their filthiness, even if his method is unsophisticated and simple, his reach is limited, clouded by righteousness and another lie that is good versus evil. He gets all of that. But he doesn’t understand you.

His urges, desires, and fantasies all come together to form a complex puzzle, a cipher that has its own intrinsic workings, and, the worst part of it all, he can’t control it. At first, he categorizes it as Edward’s thing, his desire to be loved and accepted and cared for all but an annoying inconvenience to his full rise as the Riddler, but he quickly realizes that it’s getting almost impossible to separate the both of them, especially because you’re as appealing to the masked figure as you are to the boy underneath it. Especially when he starts to notice the similarities between the two of you. 

It’s the drinking, at first. The beer bottles on your balcony, the tinkling of the spoon hitting the mug when your hands are trembling too much in the morning, the hurried trips to the bathroom as the sickness of hungover strikes too hard, the pungent and acrid smell clouded by perfume after. And it’s also the faltering grasp on your gentle and charismatic persona; he starts to notice that it becomes harder and harder for you to pretend. Someone mentions the mayor, the election, or something, and it starts a tension in the break room. You’re sipping from your mug, staring with disdain at the TV while Don Mitchel Jr. babbles on about his imaginary reality, where Gotham City thrives against criminals, not perishes because of them. 

“I fucking hate that guy, but we all know that the lies won’t stop with an election, no matter who wins”

It makes everyone else uncomfortable, not because of the statement,  which makes Edward smiles, and even let out a hum of approval. But because no one expects such apathy from you, even the foul language sounds foreign coming out of your lips. But Edward knows you better, can sense the faltering appearances,  and part of him is happy at that, even feel responsible for it. Deep down, maybe you know that it’s all pointless, that real change is violent and catastrophic and Gotham needs to die before it’s reborn. Maybe it’ll become easier for you to understand him. Why he’s going to do what he’s about to do. 

The lies won’t stop, no matter who wins.

But he would stop them. Him.

That week, he pays you another visit, dressed as the Riddler. 

***

Edward doesn't break like you expect him to.

He does get red, his eyes widened a little, but he smiles, a cute little quirk on the corner of his lips. Caught, nervous, but not afraid. It unsettles you, even more than you already were. Especially when you feel a certain tint of satisfaction when he reacts so prettily to your meanness. Okay, maybe you were trying to get a rise from him by making him uncomfortable. People in the office were mean to him every day, but you like him, so it’s not wrong, right?

"I'm sorry", he says, and his voice sounds hoarse from disuse, barely audible if it wasn’t just the two of you and the morning news in the break room. He clears his throat, and tries again: "didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

It's still too early in the morning, Mondays are usually slow, but Edward is already there. It's not often that it's only the two of you together, but when it happens, it's usually when he keeps the staring to a minimum. You usually don’t mind the company, even if you don’t speak to him. His quiet presence doesn’t take too much effort to interact with, and it’s even… nice. Not today, though. Because he openly stares, analyzing, calculating, and curious. It’s heated, too, like he’s painfully interested in your every move, and in your confusion and eagerness to act accordingly, you don’t know if you should be annoyed, tell him off for being a creep (because, as much as you don’t like it when everyone else says it, he fucking is), or take the opportunity to get to know him better.

You kind of want to do all of those things. 

The heat of his gaze is impossible to ignore, burning your side all the way from the coffee machine, while you hold your mug and keep your eye glued to the TV. There's another reporting over the upcoming elections in a couple of months, and you're fucking tired and annoyed. The bottle of cheap wine you chugged the night before wasn't enough to make you sleep better, but it was enough to give you a hangover. Plus, you spend the last of your paycheck on it, and now you'd have to wait until Thursday to get groceries. Luckily, you still had some canned tomatoes and pasta in the pantry.

Living in this city gets a little harder every day, and pretending you’re a happy, young person thriving in the face of difficulties is becoming even harder. The fact that Election Year fills people with hope is even worse. You think hope is the worst fucking thing ever because when shit doesn’t get better, people start turning on themselves to find someone to blame. Meanwhile, the criminals and the elite are getting richer, and you’re here, anxiously waiting for your next paycheck to get fucking groceries. 

Edward keeps staring, senses your irritation seeping from your pores, in the way you were clutching your mug a little tight. It's worse today, he can tell, because you keep chewing on your lip absently. 

God, you looked hot. A fucking mess waiting to happen. Edward is suddenly reminded of those headlines about women who simply snap one day and kill their entire families, a bloodbath that leaves people fucking terrified, because how could someone who’s perfectly normal do something like that? As if they’re not creating a perfect environment for death. It didn’t occur to him before, but it must be hard, being a woman. The constant need to please and be accepted, simmering side by side with so much anger and frustration at being treated like fucking garbage. He gets it. He really does.

"It's okay, I probably look like shit, right?" it's back. The self-deprecating and humble little smile, eagerly trying to pass off as charm. He almost feels angry at that, wants to grab you by your shoulders and shake you until he makes you see that it's not it. People like you and him shouldn’t need to diminish themselves to appear more likable to people. "Mondays aren't really my day."

Maybe it’ll get better by the end of the year, you think to yourself. Maybe then people would return to their usual alienating headspaces, worrying about shit that doesn’t matter, and you’d do the same. Perhaps when the shit show is over, you can’t at least stop seeing that asshole mayor’s face every morning on the news. You sigh heavily and dump the rest of your coffee in the sink.

“You don’t”, he quickly responds, and when you look confused in his direction, he blushes hard, blinks confusedly, and adds: “look like shit, I mean. You don’t look like shit. You look great.” 

Fuck, he is cute. In a very disturbing way — like someone abandoned an injured puppy, threw them carelessly in your lap, and told you coldly to end its misery. Edward usually keeps his distance, but today he seemed closer, and that makes you feel funny. Maybe irritated at his proximity, but curious. Isn't he supposed to be this scary little boy, shy of everything and painfully awkward? Maybe you've been too bitter to notice he’s nice to talk to and appears to be interested in you, unlike most people in your workplace.

"Thank you, Edward", you smile at him sincerely, because yeah, maybe you're shallow, but it does lighten up your mood a bit. And maybe you're also naive and stupid, but Edward doesn't strike you as the type who would compliment someone just because. "I needed to hear that."

He blushes. His cheeks get this pink hue, right under green eyes that seemed too fascinated to look away, even if he's twisting his hands in his pockets, shoulders tense in nervousness. He nods in response, and you think this is it, but he adds: "Rough night?"

Your smile falters slightly, brows furrowing. You consider lying, but somehow, you simply can't, and then you're saying: "always a rough night in this city, right?"

You're surprised by your answer. You don't even remember the last time you've answered a question about yourself honestly in this office, not even for Betty. Mostly because you feel as if you start being honest about how you're feeling, then you won't be able to stop, and then you're going to be fucked. 

But it's so easy with him. He lets out a quick breath, smiles sympathetically, like fuck yeah, and nods at you, agreeing with your grim statement, and keeps staring, waiting for you to elaborate. Looks genuinely interested, leaning against the counter by the coffee machine, a plain black mug in one hand while the other moves slightly inside the pocket of his damp raincoat.  His gaze never leaves your face, his entire attention on you, every sense tuned to your answer to his casual inquiry, curious about the reason why you snapped at him, and ready to offer his ear, so you can vent about how you fucking hate everything and everyone.

Jesus, am I that desperate? I'm about to start crushing on the office weirdo.

And you are super normal and adjusted, right? As if.

"What about you, Edward? Did you do anything fun this weekend?" 

He thinks it is weird that, usually, this level of interaction with a woman would make him burst into tears by now, but not with you. He's fucking nervous, yeah, because he’d never been this obsessed with someone before, not like this. You're his dream, but Edward sees too much of him on you not to feel at ease. He understands you, sometimes even more than you understand yourself. Your voice echoes in his head, your honeyed, kind tone penetrating every nook and cranny of his brain.

For a wild millisecond, he thinks about telling the truth. Yeah. I waited for you to leave, so I could lay on your bed and jerk off smelling your dirty panties. I came so hard thinking about your pussy that I blacked out for a few seconds. Fuck, it's a miracle he's not getting a boner right now. The attraction and desire always hit him unexpectedly, and it leaves him dumb. Tell the truth. God, he's going fucking insane, you drive him insane, to the point where the smartest, sanest part of him is the sadistic terrorist. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Fuck, what is he thinking?

"I fantasized about killing Don Mitchell Jr."

He freezes. Thinks what the fuck, starts shaking like a leaf, thinking, that's it.  Edward just outed himself as a killer before even doing anything. Also, just weirded out the only girl who's ever been genuinely nice to him in God knows how long.

But you laugh. Not a nervous laugh, but a genuine one, and you shake your head, saying oh man, I didn't see that one coming. And then turn to him, eyes sparkling so bright he thinks he's going to pass out. 

"Yeah, I think I might have lost some time on that fantasy too.", and then, fuck, then you think about it, turns your entire body in his direction, body language open while he stands there looking stiff as fuck and tries not to pop a boner in the break room while you both talk about murder. “We’re having the same fantasies, huh? How about that?” the smile you give him is dirty, and he seems deeply rattled by your advances. 

Huh. Interesting. 

“Feels like every single thing that comes out of his mouth is a lie. But then again, this entire city is built on lies."

Your tone is much more even when you continue, and he’s grateful for having something to divert his attention from your obvious flirtation. That was flirting, right? He can’t remember ever being in flirtatious interaction before. But he knows you. He swallows, throat suddenly dry as a desert, his tongue heavy as a brick inside his mouth. You lick your lips, corners of your mouth twisting in a smirk, and he feels a cold, sticky panic attached to his limbs. Lies. Lies. Lies. She knows. But you're gentle about it, your voice tinged with disappointment, and it moves him. Compels him into speaking without his brain even acknowledging he's opening his mouth. 

"Wouldn't it be great to see him exposed one day?", he asks, and he can feel himself smiling sadistically, small, but still. 

"Yeah, of course", you answer immediately, like it was so obvious. And Edward's pretty sure he's sporting a semi at this point. "And he's not even the only one-

"What are you guys talking about?"

Betty storms into the break room, presence loud, obnoxious, and throwing a bucket of cold water in Edward's head, and he feels like he can murder her on the spot. He can use the bland butter knife to gauge her eyes out just for interrupting the two of you. But the moment, it's ruined. Even before he can rearrange his thoughts in his brain, that cunt is already talking everyone's ears off about her fucking weekend as if someone gave a shit, and meanwhile, the kitchen is already feeling up with employees.

It all feels like a dream, and he's ready to return to his miserable routine when you poke him in the shoulder, smile, so sweetly he wants to burst into flames, and winks playfully. 

"Have a nice day, Eddie. Thank you for giving me the mental image of our mayor dead."

He beams at that, genuinely, because, well, he is many things, and immune to dry and morbid humor is not one of them. 

Oh, he would give you that image, in a way that you're definitely going to love him for it. 

You’ll see, Edward promises, watching as you leave the break room to go back to work. He’s no longer afraid, shy, or even there anymore. He’s The Riddler. You know what you have to do. See? She wants you to do it. Yeah, he’s going to do this for you. He’s going to focus on his mission and give you what you want. And then you’ll love him for it. 

Next Friday, the Riddler sees you in his hunting ground — entering the Iceberg Lounge, and all the illusions of ever controlling his urges and desires die.  

***

[hansensgirl]

please don’t take him (even though you can).

summary. | She can have anyone she wants, but you can never love again. Not without him.

warnings. | Major angst, cheating, nightmare mentions, anxiety, yearning, nail-biting, insecurities, mental heath issues, mentions of violence, abandonment, implied smut, talk of death, grief, some religion stuff (not major), loneliness, mentions of torture, PTSD, split personality disorder i think, this is really angsty and possibly triggering so please be aware of the warnings! 18+

word count. | 12k.

pairings. | Bucky Barnes x Reader, Winter Soldier x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff.

a/n. | THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 6K!!! i love each and everyone so much like serious i will kiss you all!! happy valentine’s day as well!! based off of jolene by dolly parton and love by daughter. thank you to my love @mypoisonedvine for beta-ing and listening to me talk about this fic every now and then! ilysm! this fic is very near and dear to me, so please reblog it 🥺

The Soldat’s sentences are broken, just like he is. The words fall apart as soon as they roll off of his tongue. So much to say, so few words, so little time. His hands are as cold as the bitter Russian winters, as cold as his stare. The Soldat doesn’t know what to feel. He’s as numb as when one’s entire body has been bitten by frostbite.

His voice is deeper than it was for the man he once was. From the screaming, from the crying, from the torture. He has no control, not even over his own voice. He keeps quiet and thinks. He thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks. Something has dawned on the Soldat. He does have control. But for how long? He only has it for a few minutes, maybe even hours. But it’s enough. He only has it until the soul of his mission’s body has left. He only has it until their eyes hold no life in them.

It’s 2014, and the first sentence he has completed is “I love you.”

You can remember it well. November 17th, the snow had fallen early and neither of you were prepared. Milk intended for hot chocolate boils on the stove and the crackle that the fire brings was the only sound in the room. He watches you from afar as you slowly stir the milk with a wooden spoon — the only one that he hadn’t accidentally snapped.

He doesn’t like the cold, he never has. Though he’s always warm, the cold haunts and taunts him. Memories and nightmares come with the snowfall and ice. “Are you okay, Winter?” you ask him, and he snaps out of a blank trance.

Winter. He likes being called Winter, although he loathes the season.

He nods his head after some careful thinking. Through the mess that is his mind, he manages to ask himself if he’s okay. Is he? No, he isn’t. He’s not sure why he nodded, but damn is he grateful for that smile you give in return. One in a million, you’re a burning star. The brightest there is, and the shiniest diamond ever. You’re rare, the person who poets write about and singers cry about. But you’re the only one for him. Only his.

“What flavours, Winter? Would you like to try something new?” you ask him, bringing the heat down and taking the milk off of the stove. Winter gets up from his spot near the fireplace and strides over to you. He likes the way you don’t choke in fear when he walks towards you.

You show him the numerous flavours of cookies you had baked that morning, and allow him to take as long as he’d like to choose. “M…” He struggles to say the word, scared that he’s being too demanding and that it’s a trick. HYDRA often did that. Fooling him just so that they could harm him, even though they never really needed a reason. “You can have anything you want, Winter. Anything.”

You reassure him, hesitatingly putting your warm hands on his warm face. He looks up at you, and you give him a soft smile that makes him want to cry with love. “Macadamia?” he requests politely. You hand him the macadamia cookies and smile, before grabbing one of the chocolate bombs you and he made the other day.

“Would you like to pour the milk, Winter?” you question him, grabbing his favourite mug. It was white and had a cheesy pun that always made him smile. “Yes.” He keeps his answers short, scared that he’ll say the wrong thing, or that he’ll abuse his privileges. The stories… The harsh stories they tell about him contradict him. He looks just like that feared soldier; the one you should run from.

But God, he’s just a broken man. Not too far past repairing, but just enough that it takes certain special tools to fix him. He towers over you like a brute, a powerful stare that would make anyone but you cry. He takes the carton of milk for you, cracking a slight smile when he remembers that you were so weak that your hands would shake when lifting it.

Your heart warms as his lips stretch. Before, you weren’t sure if you even had a favourite sight. But now… now you know. He’s your favourite sight. He pours the milk with shaky yet careful hands, and you envy his strength through your admiration. He stops just at the right time without having you tell him. Independence. He’s learning.

You break pieces of chocolate into the cup and let the hot milk melt the sweet treat, before adding a dash of cocoa powder. You both watch in wonder and awe as the milk turns into hot chocolate. Winter takes his cup from you, and thanks you. “You’re welcome, Winter,” you say, placing your cold hands on the mug.

He watches as you sigh at the warmth, knowing that your body doesn’t radiate as much heat as he does. “S- Share?” he offers you, taking note of how you’re slightly shivering. You nearly choke on your hot chocolate as he proposes the utmost tempting action ever. “My blanket…” He adds on, making you take note of the blanket your father gave you that rests on his shoulders.

It’s not necessary, but it gives him a type of comfort that only you can give as well. “Please?” you ask, shivers crawling up your spine and goosebumps rising on your skin. You walk closer to him, padded feet barely making any noise as they rest on top of creaky wooden floors.

He opens the blanket like wings and takes you under his arm like a bird. Ready to show you the world, even the nastiest bits and pieces of it. He wraps the majority of the blanket around you and he’s infatuated with the relaxation that you radiate. No threats, no impending dooms. You stand side by side, not so silently sipping on your hot chocolate because you love the little smile he gives at the slightly loud slurps.

Winter doesn’t know what comes over him. Courage? Cowardice? A spur of love? His mind is too messed up to think that clearly. He turns you around to face him, the blanket falling to the floor with a slight thud. Who knew wool could be so heavy?

Heavy like your heart. Heavy like the tension that lingers.

Perhaps it’s not courage or cowardice, and in fact, it’s Bucky who used to flirt like a maniac with every girl in the neighbourhood. He bends down and plants a kiss on your lips — at least that’s what he thinks it is. You’re easily goo beneath his coarse hands as they cup your cold face. He doesn’t move his lips and you don’t either. You’re both content with the simple yet unique kiss.

He pulls away and you have to admit — you’re breathless. From both the lack of air and from happiness. It’s rare to have such feelings be reciprocated. “I love you,” he bluntly admits, and never in your life have you been so shocked. “W- What?” you ask incredulously, taken aback yet you can already feel your body, soul and mind taking off to cloud nine.

“I love you.”

He repeats himself and God knows he’s willing to say those three words and eight letters over and over again just for you. “You do?” you ask him, feeling tears well in your eyes. “Yes. I love you. Love has immense, yet measurable effects and changes in the biochemistry of the brain. I mean- my brain? The three basic parts of love are driven by unique blends of brain chemicals…”

He pauses to take a deep breath.

“Every time I look at you, I have the term, ‘butterflies in the stomach.’ It’s caused by a reduction in blood flow to the stomach. I have the strongest urges to protect and love,” he explains with more words than ever.

Never in your life have you ever heard the words that are pouring out of his mouth. “Do you…?” he nervously questions, feeling his heart palpitations speed up at such a rate, it’s like he’s having a heart attack.

“I love you, even more, Winter.”

It’s 2016, and your Winter is almost a different person.

His name is Bucky– James, he tells you. You call him Jamie. Information discovered from trips to the museum and paragraphs of articles and textbooks fill out the blank spaces of his life. Apparently, students learn about him and the rest of the Howling Commandos in school. But you haven’t been, so you wouldn’t know.

The night terrors are tough, but they’ve been slowly improving with you by his side. You’re both broken in your own ways, but you have each other, and that’s enough. He doesn’t mind it when you call him Winter, but you know it makes more sense to call him by his true name. You’re fine with anything, as long as you have him.

“My, my… Did you wake up in a good mood?” you ask him, hugging him carefully from behind because you know that sometimes he doesn’t want to be touched. That’s fine. “Maybe… I was thinking of going out today. Alone. Will you be safe?” he asks you, handing you the best meal he can scrounge up. Biscuits and tea. “Always, because I have you,” you tell him, making him give you a sad smile.

You don’t have a table, so he lifts you up onto the counter that is next to the sink. Inside, there are stacks of dishes. Neither of you have the energy to wash them, but today you will, to keep yourself busy. He’s already dressed; tight red henley on top of two more sweaters that are stretched out over his broad chest.

Jeans that barely fit his thick legs, combat boots that he stole and a cap that conceals his identity from wandering eyes. He watches as you eat, just in case you accidentally bite your tongue, burn yourself or choke. He’ll always be there for you. “Did you eat?” you question him, breaking your last biscuit and handing the bigger piece to him.

At first, he refuses to take it. Doubts from HYDRA still linger, they never can go away even with the most reassurance and love from you. “Please? You can lie and you can choose to not answer, but at least take this,” you beg, placing the half in his gloved hand. He presses a chaste kiss to your lips; the taste of orange pekoe tea making him sigh.

He’s always been partial to green, even though he can’t recall ever drinking it. He reluctantly eats the piece and you stare him dead in the eyes as he does so. “You know I’ll always love you, right?” you speak up once he’s finished. You know all the proper manners like they’re written on the back of your hand. When you were younger, they were.

In loopy cursive. Black Sharpie ink settling into your skin and you can remember the way your father scolded you for doing so. The memory is fresh, fresh like the tears you notice in Bucky’s eyes. He nods, and you down the rest of your tea. You never had a preference between tea and coffee. You were grateful to have either.

They both had their flaws, and they both had their strengths. “And I’ll always love you, лунный свет,” he whispers, closing the space that divides you both. His lips — slightly chapped yet so soft — are pressed against your cold forehead. Your mouth falls open in a gasp, but it’s not one of surprise.

No.

It’s of satisfaction, and you find yourself doing it more often than once. “What does that mean?” you ask him as you trace the teacup with one of your fingers. There’s still a bit of tea inside of it, but it’s barely anything. Not enough to quench a thirst. But since it’s come from him and since his murder-scarred hands made it, it’s enough for you.

Your finger dips, and it’s only then when you notice there’s a small chip. You don’t resent the cup for it, no, not at all. In fact, you find yourself a bit more enamoured with the piece of cheap china in your hands. “Moonlight,” he bluntly tells you, before taking the cup from your hands. You don’t even realize it until he replaces it with his hands.

Oh… He doesn’t like it? Now– now you hold a little bit of resentment towards it because if James doesn’t like it then maybe you shouldn’t. “Why?” you ask as you wrap your hands around his. You lace your fingers together and you can feel the stark contrast. On one hand — your right hand — your skin is comforted by the cotton glove he wears.

On your left hand, your skin is comforted by his bare, rough hand. “Well, лунный свет, what do you think it means?” he asks you in return as you trace the stitches on his glove and the grooves of his hand. “I… I’m not sure. I’m sorry,” you apologize to him. Your head ducks down in disappointment, but not with him. It’s for yourself, as always. “Don’t be, sometimes we don’t know everything,” he tells you softly, “and that’s okay.” His words reassure you as always.

“You’re just like moonlight. You’re wise, the brightest of them all. No matter how small you make yourself, you always manage to make everyone marvel at your beauty. You’re mysterious, always a surprise, but only for some. Your aura– your brightness, it never ceases to amaze people. It helps me through the darkest times. The world needs you, I need you,” he monologues to you, and you find yourself at a loss of words. “James…” You whisper, looking up at him.

His eyes are still a bit bloodshot, but they’re glassy and you can see right into his soul. “I love you, лунный свет, until the end of love,” James whispers to you, and he places a chaste kiss on your lips. “I love you, even more, Jamie, until the end of love. Until the end of time,” you whisper back, shutting your eyes. Bucky squeezes your hands, and you do the same in return. His head slightly knocks yours as he places his forehead against yours.

“Until the end of time, лунный свет.”

It’s still 2016, and you’ve lost your Jamie.

And it’s not like he’s somewhere in a sea of people, or some nook of a large building. No, he’s gone and you don’t know how to get him back. He told you to wait in the park that nobody usually goes to. Well, if you count both yourself and James as nobodies. You watch from afar as destruction and terror rips your home apart, and you pray that James is okay. You need him.

Surprisingly, nobody notices you. You wear most of James’s clothing, as it all couldn’t fit in the two backpacks he packed. You don’t mind, because you’re trying to forget about the small gun that’s in your boot. You don’t even know how to use it, and he knows that. “It doesn’t matter, лунный свет, once they see you with a gun, you’ll automatically be the strongest person there.” His words echo in your mind and so do his actions.

He dressed you in a rushing manner. His eyes kept locking with yours. Through his soft, almost scared complex, you can see the soldier you met two years ago –– only murder in his eyes, ready for a mission.

You bite your nails and try to ignore the screams from passersby “Until the end of time, until the end of time, until the end of time, until the end of time…” You repeat the phrase over and over, hoping the Gods above can hear the plea in your voice. “Please don’t take him, even though you can, please don’t take my Jamie,” you beg out loud, looking up to the sky that greys the same way old memories do.

He’s not okay, he's probably dead… And you left him there to suffer. How selfish could you be?

“Shut up.”

I’m not wrong, I never am. I wasn’t wrong about Father, was I?

“I… That’s different.”

Is it though?

You bite your tongue, whatever snarky remark you just had has now lost itself in the mess that is your mind. You’re conflicted as always. Should you stay, and let Jamie get hurt? Or should you help him? You spend a good few minutes repeating those questions over and over. You feel like you have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. You let out a satirical laugh, and you know that you seem insane.

Two days ago, you had brought up a saying to Jamie.

“My father… He had this saying. When someone has lived their full life, but it still seems to go on and on, it means that God and the devil haven’t come to an agreement yet,” you tell him, pulling at a thread that hangs on his jacket. “An agreement about what, лунный свет?” he asks you, looking up from the pamphlet he stole from a museum in a town near Bucharest.

It’s crumpled, but everything is legible still. “Who has to take them,” you smile up at him, and he returns it. “Perhaps, that's what's happening. They’re still arguing, still negotiating. That’s why you’re still here. If one of them were ready to take you, they would’ve done so already. But they haven’t,” you explain to him in your usual soft voice. He once told you that your voice is one of the best things to listen to.

Better than music, better than laughter, better than the admissions of ‘I love you’ you tend to trade.

“Maybe you’re right, лунный свет. You know, you’re different from the rest of us– them,” he whispers to you, taking in the way your face creases in certain spots when curiosity takes over. “How so, Jamie?” you ask him, setting down the needle, roll of thread, and jacket. “You have hope, faith,” he starts, “it’s both dangerous yet helpful. It’s what separates you from the demons of the world.”

“лунный свет!” James calls out. You look up from the ground and the movie of your life with James pauses. “Jamie…” You whimper, taking in his form. He’s bruised and battered, cut up and injured. Just like when you found him on the porch of your home. “Oh, Jamie… What happened?” you ask him, feeling yourself begin to panic. Your heart quickens, and you rush to him like he’s about to die.

“We have to go, лунный свет. It’s a hideout, it’s for your own safety,” he briefly explains to you and he grabs your arm. His grip is perfect. Not too tight, but not too gentle. You can tell he’s scared, but you know he’ll never admit it. “I have to go fight, but I’ll be back for you. Do you know the Avengers? It’s– Argh– We don’t have enough time. But I’ll tell you all about it later, лунный свет.” James is all business and nothing else.

You’re worried, so worried. But you have hope, and you have faith, and you know everything will be okay in the end. “But you’ll stay safe, right, Jamie?” you question him. He doesn’t respond, the only thing coming from him are grunts of pain and puffs of determination. “Answer me, Jamie. Promise me you’ll stay safe,” you demand of him in a strong voice. Never in your life have you ever raised your voice like this, but when it comes to James’s safety, you no longer care.

“I promise, лунный свет, until the end of time.”

It’s still 2016, and your Jamie is going away.

He’s leaving this world, but it’s for himself. You hold back all the pleas, all the begging you have in your body because you know he wants this. He needs this. His train is going to depart soon, off to a faraway land. A cold one, to be exact. You feel tempted to remind him how much he hates the cold, but you choose to keep your mouth shut. You’ve learned a lot in the past few days, more than when you were in high school.

Steve, Jamie’s past, what HYDRA is, the Avengers, the types of evil in this world–– They’re all things you’ve learnt. Your Jamie isn’t a different person, he isn’t. He just has more to him now. You replay the horrific memories of the past days in your mind over and over, even though you hated them. You look through the glass doors, and ahead of you is James in all his beatific glory.

In front of him, though, is the Black Widow. You don’t know if she’s from Jamie’s past, but you know they have a connection. The way they speak to each other; low and soft, just like summer rain. It’s almost the same way you speak to Jamie, but it’s not quite like it. He smiles up at her, and you remember how much you love his side-profile. It’s envious, really. But then again, Jamie is perfect in your eyes, despite his horrors and his scars of his past.

Of Winter’s past.

Your Jamie and Winter have their similarities. You’d make a list, but it would go on forever. You keep your eyes trained on his face, one of your favourite things to look at. Dare you say, he looks at her like no other. You’ve never seen this look on his face. But then again, your Jamie is going away and maybe it’s that impending nervousness. She looks at you. Her green eyes –– ones that just encapture you in the best way possible –– lock with yours. You feel insecure, almost as though she’s judging you.

But one of Earth’s mightiest heroes would never do such a thing.

She’s judging you, you know. Probably thinks you’re some nobody, some pathetic little girl who can’t even defend herself.

“No, she isn’t,”

And how can you be so sure?

Right. How can you be so sure? You watch as she gives James –– your Jamie –– a pat on the shoulder. She walks out, through another door and you feel as though she did that just to avoid you. And honestly, you don’t blame her. You walk in, hesitatingly of course. Each step of yours is wary. Your old, beaten-up sneakers barely make a sound against the floor. Your Father always said you walked like a ballerina and spoke like a princess.

“H– Hi, Jamie,” you quietly greet him. He looks up, his eyebrows drawn together and his lips are puckered in thought. He gives you a small ‘hi,’ and you smile at him. “Are you hurt anywhere?” you ask him, taking his form in again. His cuts and wounds are all bandaged and healed up. You recall the marvel that is the explanation of how he heals so quickly. The super-soldier serum, curated by HYDRA just for Jamie.

“No, Shuri and Helen fixed me up. And now, they’re gonna fix my mind,” he tells you, all while letting out a light-hearted chuckle. You smile again, just to ease the tense a bit. But even you can’t fix it. “I may be back to my old self, but I’m a walking time bomb. I’m dangerous, and I need to heal. For the sake of myself, and others,” he tells you sadly. He looks up at you and he gives you a grin that isn’t his usual happy one.

Yours falls, and his follows. “It’ll only be a year, maybe even a few months. Everyone here is smarter than Tony Stark, they’ll probably figure it out,” he reassures you just like how he used to whenever you got worried. You nod, and it’s just a farce. You’re not sure if you hope he can see through your façade or not. He sighs and looks at the door. The same door that Natasha walked out of just a few mere moments ago.

You don’t look back. You don’t follow his gaze. Why waste your time on something that will hold no meaning in the future, when you have the love of your life in front of you? You tilt your beard and swallow, just the way your mother used to. At least that’s what your father told you. “I love you, Jamie. I’ll always love you, until the end of time,” you whisper to him.

“And— And I love you too, лунный свет.”

It’s 2017, and along with your Winter, they’ve taken James’s love for you.

You don’t blame them. You don’t hate them. They’ve helped James heal, help him be better (even though God has already curated such perfection). The past seven hundred and thirty and then some days have been painful. The past seventeen thousand, five hundred-twenty hours have been slower than ever. It’s not like you’ve been keeping count. No, but Friday has.

The team — the Avengers — don’t allow you to come with them on their trip to Wakanda. You expected it. Ever since Steve and Tony put their differences aside for the sake of the world, you knew you’d be shunned from the team. Wanda, Sam, and Rhodey have tried to be friends with you, but after a debriefing with Tony, they couldn’t even lock eyes with you.

Once again, you don’t blame them.

You stay locked in your room, and you don’t mind it. It’s nice. It is true that people really do look like ants from such a height. You know the glass is bulletproof, but it feels like it’s seconds away from breaking. You love seeing the rain patter against the glass, just like how you love to see the snow melt as soon as it touches the clear surface.

You wonder if they’ve cut his long hair. You love his locks. Strands of brown mixing, the occasional lighter brown strands standing out. You love the length of his hair, too. Reaching just at his shoulders, and even past them. You love the way it tickles your face, especially when he bends down to kiss you.

You love everything about him. You always have, and you always will.

Your room is small. You can’t handle big spaces — Friday tells Tony, and he scoffs. Truthfully, you’re content with anything. He could’ve given you a broom closet to live in, and you wouldn’t complain. But you like small spaces. Big spaces make you feel a bit overwhelmed. Stark Tower has many wonderments to it.

For example — the technology. If you don’t like the scenery of the concrete jungle, you can change it to the view from Tony’s vacation home in the Hamptons. You always did have the wish to travel the world. From the streets of France to the lovely waterfalls in the Philippines. But the thought of being high up in the sky, with the small chance of crashing. It may be one in five million, but you won’t take the risk.

Even air crafts have their faults and flaws. Like having only two or three backup plans, the bathrooms, the limited space, the fact that if you pay extra you get better treatment, and the food options. But everyone looks past these things and they’ve been reduced to small issues that just don’t really matter. As long as the big picture looks perfect, the small details don’t matter.

You wish you could see yourself that way. A beautiful person at first glance. Where your details –– your flaws –– don’t mean anything. Because as long as the big picture is perfect, the details don’t matter. But you’re a detail-oriented person and every single thing matters. Even the little things that nobody will see. If only you could see yourself the way both Jamie and Winter see you. They know you have flaws, like the way you don’t like listening to helpful advice sometimes.

“Ms… Mrs. Barnes?” Friday calls out. You look up to where the voice comes from. Up above you, and a little to the side is a speaker. It’s small, barely noticeable. “Y- Yes, Friday?” you ask her, setting down the old mirror that was once your grandmother’s. It has a few cracks, but they aren’t serious enough to mess with anyone’s reflection.

“The Quinjet with Ms. Maximoff, Mr. Stark, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Rogers, Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Vision, Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Barnes is arriving,” Friday tells you. You swallow thickly — nervously. You may have been preparing all week, but all that effort goes down the drain. Will he act differently? Will he be ecstatic to see you? You ask yourself all these questions, and the answers to them just seem to taunt you.

“Will you be waiting at the entrance for them?” She speaks up after a few beats of silence. You nod before you remember Friday doesn’t have eyes. She can see, but she can’t see. “I will, Friday. Thank you,” you tell her. You set down the mirror with its face on the top of your dresser. You look around and you can just feel as though there is something missing.

Truthfully, you aren’t used to your room. You miss the wooden walls that held scratches from the furniture. You miss the coziness the fireplace emanated. You miss the view of the hills covered in snow. You miss it all. This concrete jungle isn’t made for you — you aren’t made for it. You stand up and with short steps (intentionally short), and the feeling of marble underneath your feet instead of wood works up your nerves even more.

You can hear commotion –– more so people whisper shouting at each other. “God, Rogers, get a grip! You look and sound like an old lady worrying about her grandchildren,” Tony snaps at Steve, before calling out for Friday. “Friday?” he yells, shoving one of his hands into the pocket of his pants. “Yes, Mr. Stark?” she answers back.

“Is the room ready?” he asks her, and the rest of the Avengers take a seat in the living room. “Yes, Mr. Stark. Welcome to the Avengers Compound, Mr. Barnes. If you need any assistance, just call for me.” Friday’s voice is always lovely. She reminds you of an aunt who is always ready to take care of her relatives.

You don’t hear Jamie’s lovely voice and you’re worried. You can see some parts of the living room from your spot in the hallway. “Just try not to kill any innocent people, okay?” Tony sneers, earning a smack on the shoulder from Pepper. Pepper always seemed nice to you, but your encounters with her were usually a bit awkward and short-lived. Steve is ready to throw his shield at Tony and so do the rest of the Avengers who were on the Captain’s side.

“’S fine, Steve. I deserve it anyway,” Bucky whispers loud enough for you to hear. Your heart jumps for joy — your Jamie really is back. You take another step, carefully, of course. “You don’t deserve that… Are you okay, Buck? Do you need to lie down? Drink water? Fresh air?” Steve attacks your Jamie like a mother and you can see why they got along so well in the past.

“I’m fine, Steve. Really. I just want to take a tour of this… this place,” Bucky admits to Steve, and Tony just can’t pass up the chance to roll his eyes. Bucky turns his head around as he takes in the large room. The television was so huge, he feels as though he is at the cinema. He doesn’t turn all the way around, so you must deal with the sight of his back. His clothes are nothing like the clothes he used to wear back in Romania.

He looks like he just attended his own funeral.

“You sure, Buck?” Steve asks him for reassurance. Bucky nods and he thinks about how much he misses his goats. “Alright, but remember to call for Friday if you get lost.” Steve pats Bucky on the shoulder and Tony is the first to walk out of the room, as usual. Pepper follows him, knowing how Tony gets whenever he sees Bucky. “Can I see my room first?” Bucky quietly asks Steve, making sure nobody else hears.

“Of course, Buck. It’s upstairs, is that fine?” Somehow, Steve believes that Bucky has a fear of heights. Though Bucky fell from a great height back in 1940-something, he’s not scared of heights. He’s more terrified of the cold and of trains, especially ones that run between mountains.

“Everything is fine, Steve,” Bucky snaps, growing tired of his best friend’s constant worrying. Steve raises his hands in surrender and you can tell Bucky doesn’t like that. “Hi, Jamie,” you greet quietly. You immediately regret ever leaving your room as everyone whips their heads around to face you. Bucky’s lips fall open in a gasp.

“Doll,” Bucky whispers beneath his breath. You take in his face and he’s just as beautiful as ever, if not more. Wisps of his hair fall and frame his face. He has a slight five-day-old scruff, one that is clean but also slightly messy. You remember the way you would sit in his lap, razor in hand, as you clean up the edges of Bucky’s beard.

He pushes past Sam, past Wanda, past everyone — hell, even past Steve who doesn't take the shove lightly. He nearly trips over the white couch that stands in the way. He comes up close to you, and you look up at him. You watch his eyes — but you don’t look into them. For some reason, you can’t seem to lock eyes with him. “Oh, my doll… I’ve missed you so much,” he whispers softly as he cups your face with his murder-scarred hands.

“Jamie…” You easily mimic his look of shock with a mix of adoration. You’re not sure how you ever said goodbye to the man in front of you — no, the man he used to be.

Now, he’s different. He’s not your Winter, your Winter is gone. They’ve taken him from you, and if it weren’t for the circumstances, then you would’ve fought them until the last tooth and nail. “I’m back, Doll, and ‘m all yours,” he whispers, bringing your face forward to his. You close your eyes and you think he’s going in for a kiss, but he stops when his lips are inches from yours.

“But I need to get better first, Doll. I need to get used to everything, is that all right?” He asks even though he should already know the answer. Right? You don’t know what they did to your Jamie. The rushed explanation filled with words you don’t understand only left you a confused mess. “Of course, Jamie. ‘Until the end of time,’ remember?” You whisper back.

He keeps quiet.

It’s still 2018, and you’re at an impasse.

You loathe impasses. You may persevere every now and then, but impasses just seem to love you. The saying, “you attract what you fear,” is terrifyingly true. You’re scared of impasses. You know they love to knock you down and kick you until you’re sputtering with blood leaking from the corners of your mouth that rarely ever turn up anymore. But they still occur.

It’s been a year and five months since Bucky came home, and each passing day has its difficulties. Whether it be nightmares, panic attacks or intrusive thoughts. But you’ve been there with him for every step. When he didn’t want to go to therapy alone, you went with him. When he couldn’t sleep after a rather gruesome nightmare, you told him some childhood stories. It feels like nothing has changed, truly.

But Jamie isn’t Jamie — and you don’t know what to do. “Jamie, do you want anything to eat?” You ask him, holding a plate of pancakes you whipped up once you knew nobody would be in the kitchen area. “Is– are those pancakes?” He asks you, turning around from his desk. You nod and look down at the impressive stack. Dr. Cho told you to make sure Bucky continues to eat. Sitting on the small table next to you – the ottoman – is a cup of steaming hot tea.

It’s not orange pekoe, it’s earl grey, Your father loathed it, saying that it’s meant for the elderly even though he had a head full of greys and aching joints. You’d laugh him off, but then pour him a cup of green tea. “Yes, some of them have blueberries,” you tell him, stretching your full arms out at him. You see that look of contemplation in his eyes again. “Would you like to eat with me?” You ask, knowing how he can get when those thoughts pester him.

“Of course, I’m all but a gentleman,” he jokes, and you give him a smile. “That you are, especially when it comes to the ladies,” you add, and he blushes. Bucky looks down and tries to hide the shy smile from you, and you allow him to do so. It’s not like you haven’t memorized every bit of Jamie, even down to the small things. “Is there any syrup? I’ve been craving sweets all morning.” Bucky grabs the second plate and he almost hesitates in grabbing a few pancakes.

You turn back around to get the tea, knowing that Bucky wouldn’t feel as embarrassed with taking food. “Here’s some tea, you don’t have to drink it, though.” You set the filled China cup on the glass table and the clink it gives lasts for a split second. “Remember when we would buy about three boxes of orange pekoe tea? Even though it wasn’t the best — especially since it was for so cheap — we’d still drink it like it was water,” you reminisce to him out loud as you take a pancake off of the stack.

There’s silence, and you swallow thickly. “It’s okay if you don’t remember, Jamie, I myself forget a lot of memories too,” you quickly reassure him, fanning the flames before they could even start to burn. “No, it’s not okay… I’m sorry,” he apologizes, gripping the specially made fork tightly. He hates it. It makes him feel like some sort of danger. Someone that breaks people and things so easily.

“Don’t be sorry, Jamie, or else I’m going to have to start apologizing for things that aren’t my fault,” you threaten him, and he cracks a smile. “Alright, only because I know you’re going to become annoying.” He grabs the syrup and drowns his pancakes with sticky delightfulness. “Yeah…” Your voice is all but monotonous with a hint of sadness.

He probably thinks you’re already annoying, you follow him around all the time… Do you ever let him do other things? Without you? Like hanging out with friends, healing on his own, cooking his own food… You’re so clingy.

“Shut up.”

You only want me to shut up because you know I’m right.

“What are you doing today?” you suddenly ask him. You haven’t dug into your pancakes yet, so you stare at the food in front of you with a strong glare. “Uh, well I’m not sure,” Bucky admits, and you only then realize how much you’ve held him back. “You should hang out with Sam, or Steve, or maybe even accompany Banner in the lab,” you suggest to him, looking at his plate. It’s nearly clean, with some streaks of syrups and a few occasional crumbs.

“Sam’s busy training with Steve, and I know Banner works best without someone hovering over him like a hawk — well, more so a raven. I’ll probably just hang out with ‘Talia, she’s been of great help with my healing.” Bucky takes the tea from your side and slowly sips it. “‘Talia?” you ask him. The name doesn’t ring a bell, but you’re sure that it’s a nickname. “Natasha, she went through something similar as me, so I’m hoping she can give me some advice,” he clarifies quickly.

“Oh, that’ll be great for you,” you exclaim to him. “I know… You don’t mind, do you?” he asks with one of his eyebrows raised. He’s never done that before. “Never. Go enjoy yourself, Jamie,” you urge in a soft voice, looking at him from the brim of his teacup. The sight reminds you of when you first moved away from the city.

The sun was rising in the distance. A few clouds shrewd over the lovely sight, but the yellows and oranges were stronger than the greys. From over the horizon, the sun made its way up to the sky. You watched from the porch with a blanket wrapped around your body. You miss those simpler days.

The ones where the only problems you had were the cold weather and the homework your father had given you. Sheets of paper sat on the table in the living room, with your multiplication tables written on them. Your sevens and eights always messed you up, but your father knew you could do it.

“Do you have any plans for today?” He questions, staring into the half-full cup. “I might go to that huge library Tony has, one of the agents was saying they have these seats called ‘bean bags,’ isn’t that funny?” You let out a harmless giggle, one of those small ones a protagonist would have that would make their love interest swoon. “I’ve sat on one. Not very nice. Natasha and I are the only ones on the team who hates them,” Bucky says as his tongue pokes the inside of his cheek.

The other day, you caught him with a mouthful of blood. It wasn’t from a punch in the face or a knife in the guts.

“Oh, maybe I’ll join you two,” you playfully tell him, wiggling your eyebrows to the best of your abilities. Bucky just stares at you, a small glint of humour in his eyes but it slowly disappears and your smile goes away along with it. “Hm.” He downs the rest of his tea and you wonder how he isn’t wincing with pain from the heat. Oh, right, he’s a super-soldier.

Bucky begins to stand up and moves to take the dishes to the kitchen but you quickly stop him. “It’s alright, I can take it,” you reassure him. Without realizing it, your hand strokes the wrist of his bionic arm. You look up at him and smile, instinctively giving him that look you used to give Winter. Bucky hesitatingly shrinks away from you, and your smile drops. Nononono– Too much…

He smiles and walks out the door, not even sparing you one of those lovely second glances. Sighing, you settle the plates upon each other and the tension leaves the room behind him. You’re careful to avoid the syrup on one of the plates. The feeling of stickiness against your dry, cold hands will be unpleasant.

The thought of it has you shivering. A small electric shock climbs up your spine and you’re glad that nobody is there to watch you shake it off. You carefully pluck the fork from Bucky’s plate and place it next to yours. “Hey, Friday?” you call out into the empty room. “Yes, Mrs. Barnes?” she answers, ready to be at your service.

“What books are there in the library?”

It’s been around 92 days since Jamie told you about him and Natasha, and you can feel reality slip through your fingers.

Bubbles of giggle erupt from the common room. Never in your life would you ever have called a living room the common room, but words always seem to stick. Just like the syrup on these plates that just don’t seem to go away. You don’t mind cleaning up after the heroes. You’re glad.

You have something to occupy yourself with, or else there’d be holes in the floor for your incessant pacing. You run semi-lukewarm water over the plates, hoping the dried syrup would melt. You recall the way your father would terrify you into loathing sweets. He’d show you the way syrup would ‘harden underwater’, and he’d tell you that’s what occurs in your blood.

It’s too bad that a few days later, you learned that blood is thicker than water and the world is filled with nothing but lies. It’s scary, really; trusting someone with your whole life while they toy you around like seeing you be oblivious is a pass time.

Your hands warm up under the water and suddenly you wish you hadn’t left your bed this morning. “Bucky, stop, my face is all red,” Natasha demands through her laughs, and James snorts. “So? I like seeing you red, it’s my favourite colour,” he retorts and Natasha rolls her eyes.

You can’t see the playful, friendly banter, but you can hear it. It makes you smile. You love knowing Jamie is having fun, he deserves it. “Hey, you,” Sam greets, walking into the kitchen. “H- hi, do you need anything?” you ask him, halting your movements.

“No, just got done training those new recruits and I’m already fed up,” he complains and you giggle. You know Sam is being light-hearted, so you don’t take his words too heavily. “Well, a busy man like you needs a big breakfast. There are some pancakes over there, help yourself.”

You wait until he busies himself so that you can continue to wash this plate. You look at it — it’s covered in a mix of suds, syrup and water. You notice there’s a small chip on the edge of the plate and you can’t help but wonder where the piece went. If it were a piece of clothing, you would accuse the washing machine. But it isn’t, so you suppose it just went missing.

You place the plate back in the sink and sigh, before grabbing a sponge. The colours always confuse you. How can two contrasting colours go so well together? It’s beyond you, truly. Maybe your grandmother would’ve known, she always did know a little bit about everything.

Maybe she’d know what’s wrong with you.

You don’t say anything, knowing that you might weird Sam out. You roughly scrub the syrup off and it’s a bit too joyful to see it all gone. “Hey, Sammie,” Natasha chirps, patting her fellow teammate on the shoulder. You halt your movements. “Hey, Nat. Are you doing anything today?” Sam asks her, his eyes following her.

“Other than hanging out with Bucky, no, not really.” She tells him. She stands right next to you, a little too close for your personal liking. She opens up the cupboard and you continue to wash the dishes. You ask yourself if she’s watching you, or if she’s judging you.

Looking up, you accidentally make eye contact with her. You quickly look away and you’re not sure if she does the same. “‘Scuse me,” she whispers, stretching over to the cupboard on the other side. You stare straight at the sink, but your eyes fail to miss the locket that hangs from her neck. It’s slightly opened, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. The gold is slightly aged, perhaps a gift from when she was younger. Or maybe she got it recently, and a battle in the fields damaged it slightly.

On the outside of the locket is an engraving. You squint your eyes to read it, as the shaking from her movements messes up the text. “Until the end of time…” You read in your mind, and you drop the plate in the sink. Everyone in the room flinches and Natasha steps away. Sam stops eating and you’re utterly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” you quickly apologize, picking up the plate. It’s not broken at all, but you still feel so guilty.

Natasha looks at you for a brief moment and you look back at her. She darts her eyes to your still hands. If she focuses just a bit more, she could see the way they shake. You look at the locket one more time, trying to see the inside of it. You need to know who’s a photograph she cherishes. You need to know who she cherishes in her heart, until the end of time.

The black and white photo of Jamie moments before he was shipped out reveals itself, and your heart drops.

“Friday?” you call out, setting your book down onto the bed. You place your makeshift bookmark –– a polaroid of Bucky — into the page. “Yes, Mrs. Barnes?” she answers. “Isn’t it a good thing that Jamie is socializing with his teammates?” you ask her, sounding like a worried mother. “It is. It’s just what the doctor prescribed,” she jokes, adding a mechanical laugh to her words. “Well, more so his psychiatrist. Dr. Cho is the doctor he gets his medication from. And his psychiatrist suggested socializing,” she clarifies.

You wonder if she’s against the joke mechanism Tony added to her system.

You laugh, just to ease the tension but it doesn’t do anything since she’s an A.I and you’re the only person in the room. “Thank you for laughing, Mrs. Barnes,” she graciously says as much as she can. “If it’s a good thing, then why do I feel so…?” You trail off because you don’t know any words to describe the emotion you’re feeling. “Anxious?” she completes, and you sigh. “Yes, anxious,” you admit.

“The other day, I was washing the dishes. I could hear James and Natasha laughing. Jamie’s laugh was music to my ears. It was like that song you hear on the radio occasionally, you know? But he doesn’t laugh like that with me, he doesn’t laugh like that with anyone else,” you solemnly tell her. “He spends so much time with Natasha — and usually I wouldn’t mind, I wouldn’t even bat an eye — but it just makes me anxious, Friday.”

Your voice is filled with concern, and Friday herself has never heard you so worried. “She… She had a locket. It was gold and heart-shaped. It had a very special phrase engraved on it, and the picture inside is Jamie.” You swallow thickly as even you can’t fathom the words that are falling past your lips. “I held back from telling you this, but Ms. Romanoff and Mr. Barnes had a past together,” Friday admits.

“Pardon?” you ask incredulously. “Back in Hydra, Mr. Barnes trained Ms. Romanoff. They had secret romantic rendezvous and were in love. Then, when the Red Room and Hydra found out, they were separated,” Friday tells you. “It’s probably why they’re so close, Mrs. Barnes. She’s his most recent relationship before you,” Friday reasons to you. It makes sense, it makes so much sense. “Should I be worried, Friday?” you ask her, smoothing your hands over the sheets that you lay atop of.

“No, Mrs. Barnes. Would you like to know why?” she asks you. “Yes, please,” you whisper, looking down at your hands. They’re sweaty, yet so cold. “Because that was in the past, Mrs. Barnes. Mr. Barnes is in love with you, he’ll love you until the end of time,” Friday sweetly tells you. You smile and then dip your head. Bucky loves you just as much as you love him.

It’s been a month since the talk you and Friday had, and you’re starting to doubt her words.

You lie awake in your bed. Caffeine-provided adrenaline pumps through your veins. This isn’t the first time you’ve stared up at the ceilings since you’ve arrived. Ever since Sam made you a cup of coffee from the new machine Stark bought, the bags under your eyes have gotten worse. You warned Bucky about it and he laughed. Just not as hard as you wanted him to. At least he heeded your advice.

Bucky lays asleep next to you. He lays on his right side, even though laying on his left side would make more sense. Bucky always gets better sleep when he lays on his left. You crack your knuckles quietly, even though you can’t wake him up. He used to be such a light sleeper, only because of the vivid nightmares he would get. You hate when he would get his nightmares. The terrifying images that taunt him would always cause him to have a panic attack.

It’s been over a few months since his last nightmare.

You want to turn on your side so badly–– and you can. But your mind can’t help but make you wonder if he’ll wake up. You look to your side when you hear a snore escaping Bucky’s mouth. You let out a coo, even though you used to think snoring was annoying. Your father’s snores would always bother you. You used to joke and say that one night, he’ll wake the sun up.

You gently turn on your left side and a small part of you hopes he’ll do the same. Maybe then you’ll get some warm cuddles to make your sleep. You shut your eyes because the city lights are far too bright at night. The sheer curtains obviously can’t hide New York’s bustling and liveliness. You slow your breathing down and relax your body. Hopefully, sleep can come to you soon.

Next to you lies Bucky. He’s quite literally in dreamland and he doesn’t want to ever wake up. Everything is so realistic, almost as though he’s living another life when his eyes are closed. He has a smile on his face, one that can charm almost anyone. The last time he had a dream like this wasn’t back in the forties — no. It was last night, and now sleeping is a lot better for Bucky.

Natasha giggles, loudly. It’s a cacophony of different sounds. It’s not fake, like the ones you hear on television. It’s real. It’s so vividly real that it makes his heart swell loudly. He looks to her first, making sure she’s enjoying herself before facing the judging stares from Tony and Rhodey.

His hand is intertwined with hers. He rubs his thumb on her skin and he knows what’s running through her mind. She shoots him a look, one that he chooses to ignore. He gives her a smirk and then brings her hand up to his face. He closes his eyes and presses a kiss on the diamond ring she wears.

The scenery changes.

It’s some time in 1992, and he’s holding onto her tightly. She’s asleep, with her locks of auburn hair spread out against the floor. She lays on his chest, and he makes sure she’s comfortable enough with him. Sure, his spine may ache and his under-eye bags may have deepened but he doesn't care.

“Natalia?” he whispers, checking to see if she’s asleep.

She’s knocked out cold and he’s glad. After what he just put her through, he doesn’t blame her. Hours upon hours of what they both like to call ‘training’ has her sleeping like a baby. He chuckles, and he hopes the rumbles in his chest don’t wake her up.

“Hi, Winter,” she hums, rousing from her sleep.

He curses and she giggles. Natalia rubs the tiredness from her eyes and she stretches as much as her body allows her to. “How long until they come?” she asks him. He looks to the make-shift alarm he stole from a mission and sees an hour marked on it. “One hour, Natalia,” he says.

She hums in delight. “Do you think this one hour will take a while? Or will it go by as fast as light?” she questions. Her accent is heavy, but it’s so beautiful. “Fast. Time well-spent goes by fast,” he tells her. “And how do you know this will be time well-spent?” she looks up at him.

“Time spent with you, is always time well-spent, Natalia.”

You hold your breath. Bucky mumbles sweet nothings to Natalia — Natasha. You want to cry so badly but then again, you don’t want to wake Jamie up from his dark paradise. You try to tell yourself it’s just a dream, that everything will be okay and that there’s nothing to be worried about. But even your thoughts fail to reassure you about the man lying next to you. You don’t know whether you should wake him up, so you bite down on your bottom lip and hope that this whole thing is just a dream.

“Did you sleep well, Jamie?” you ask him, folding his laundry for him. He looks up from the book he’s buried in and nods. “Amazingly, I’m so glad I can finally get some shut-eye now,” he tells you. You hum and Bucky looks at you. “Is everything alright?” he asks. “Yeah. Just peachy,” you say. He mumbles a quick okay and goes back to reading his book.

Jamie has a wonderful attention span, so there’s no reason for him to be stuck on the same page for around ten minutes. You have an idea as to what’s on his mind. Well, more so who. Natasha. “Any weird dreams?” you ask him after a few seconds. This time, you’re pairing up Bucky’s socks. “N– No, I don’t think I dreamt of anything.” He lies through his teeth and you know this because he has a tell.

Whenever he lies, he stares out into the distance. It’s usually to your right, but that doesn’t matter.

“But that’s good, right? No more nightmares.” You hold a pendant in your hand and it’s not yours because you broke your necklace a few days ago.

“That’s true,” he dryly agrees. It has the letter ‘N’ written on it. It seems like it’s new, unlike Natasha’s locket. You place it on the dresser softly. “You know, everything has a meaning. Nightmares, dreams, even dreamless nights,” you start. “I know, some are worse than others, though,” he follows. “Sometimes, nightmares mean change,” you continue.

He nods, but you don’t see it. “When you dream, it might be that you have some wishes or conflicts that have been suppressed,” you sweetly tell him. Bucky looks at you, but your back faces him. “And even not dreaming means something. When you don’t dream, it might mean that your mind is free of all the bad things,” you roughly shut the filled up drawer and Bucky squeezes his eyes shut at the loud sound.

“Sorry…” you sheepishly apologize. “S’ alright,” he smiles. “Well, my burning question relates to that, I guess,” you admit. He raises an eyebrow and you turn around. Your fingers tap against the oak wood of the dresser. Sweat that has built up for the past morning or so leaving an imprint of your fingers on the wood. “Do… Do you remember when you used to call me ‘moonlight’?” you ask nervously.

Bucky pauses whenever small movements he was making and you make direct eye contact with him. You look away immediately, though. “A– As a nickname?” he asks. “Yeah… You’d say it in Russian. There was beautiful reasoning and meaning behind it…” you explain to him. Your voice carries more hope than anything. He stays silent and you shakily exhale.

You know exactly how to pronounce it. “лунный свет.” You look up at him. “I… What was the meaning?” he asks. “I– I have it written down. Just wait, don’t go.” You move towards the bed and reach underneath your mattress. Your father would always hide things like that. Sometimes, you’d catch him placing your works of finger-painting underneath the bed.

You lift it and retrieve your little notebooks. It’s not much, but it’s something. You flip to the page that you wrote on two years ago. You smile once you reach it and turn back around. Jamie hasn’t left. “This page. I wrote it down when you left to go to the market. I remembered each word and I still do,” you cheerfully tell him. He smiles up at you and you hand him the book.

You’re just like moonlight. You’re wise, the brightest of them all. No matter how small you make yourself, you always manage to make everyone marvel at your beauty. You’re mysterious, always a surprise, but only for some. Your aura– your brightness, it never ceases to amaze people. It helps me through the darkest times. The world needs you, I need you.

The words are beautifully written. They’re traced over in black pen and even have little stars scribbled around them. “I said this?” he asks, in an almost incredulous tone. “Yeah, word for word,” you assure him. “This is really sweet, and I probably said this, but I don’t remember calling you moonlight, Doll. I’m sorry…” He sadly admits to you. Your heart drops, but it’s alright. He may not remember it, but you do. Maybe one day he will.

“It’s okay, don’t apologize,” you tell him in a sad tone. You take the notebook back from him and place it underneath the mattress. Jamie watches you as you do so. “Are you sure?” he asks on more time, just to be sure. “I’m sure. Dr. Cho and the others said this is normal, Jamie,” you assure him. “Alright.”

Everything is alright. Everything was alright. Everything will be alright.

You carry the laundry basket against your waist and you can’t lie and say you didn’t just bury your hands between the clothes as soon as they came out of the dryer. The common room is mostly empty. Wanda and Clint are out on a mission. Tony, Rhodey and Pepper are on a trip. Steve and Sam are training recruits. Vision and Bruce are in Dr. Cho’s lab. You assume Natasha is in her room and James is in yours.

But even assumptions can be wrong.

You hear that laugh that’s as soft as summer’s rain — Natasha’s laugh. It’s beautiful, just like her. But you can’t compare her beauty to anything, it’s beyond that. You walk up to the room where you can hear her, and pear through the small crevice the door has. She looks at Bucky with those emerald green eyes of hers. In them is absolute love and adoration.

“лунный свет, you look so pretty when you laugh,” Bucky tells her. She smiles and blushes, before giggling again. “You’re too sweet, Buck,” she whispers. Bucky grabs a hold of her hand, and his thumb rubs against her ivory skin. “Can never be too sweet when it comes to you, лунный свет,” he counters.

Your heart cracks, especially at the seams.

It’s been a week since Jamie called Natasha “лунный свет,” and you’re determined to get him back.

She must know she can have anyone she wants, but you can never love again. Not without him. That’s why you’re wearing a dress you borrowed from Wanda. You bite your red-stained nails nervously. It’s an improvement since your last date night with Jamie. Last time, you both shared a box of macarons that he stole from the grocery store. Underneath the moonlight, he once again professed his love for you. But this time, he gave you his dog tags to wear.

You have them on. They clink with your each and every movement but you don’t mind the sound at all. You spread a blanket onto the wooden floor. It has some similarities to the two sleeping bags you used back then. They were similar colours and took up the same amount of space. You throw some pillows on top, arranging them in a circle. The record player in the corner plays “‘Till the End of Time” by Perry Como.

You hum along to the melody of the song. You remember when Jamie said it was one of his favourites. You jumped in joy because it’s also one of your favourites. You carefully light the candles that are scattered around the room. Friday is already on alert in case one of the flames gets a little too big. You open the box of macarons and place them inside the little circle you have going on.

You set down other food items — such as croissants and a charcuterie board. It was all for cheap, mostly due to the bargaining you did with the old lady at the store. As soon as you dropped the words “date night’, she immediately went with whatever you had to offer. You turn back around and try to search for the scrapbook you have been making for the past two years. You always saved it for something, but that something doesn’t seem to be in your future.

“Where are you, little book?” you ask out loud. Your voice is in a sing-song melody, just like how your father would have his. You search around the dresser. You check in the drawers and the jewelry box but you can’t seem to find it. You decide to check the desk, because if it’s not here then it has to be there. You scan the top of the desk but don't find anything.

Carefully, you grasp the golden handle of one of the drawers and pull it open. The drawer glides easily, and if your father were here, he would’ve marvelled. You don’t find it, so you lift some stray sheets of paper. “Please be here…” You beg out loud. But it doesn’t turn up, and you pout like a little child. You drop the sheets of paper, but something grazes against your finger.

If you weren’t so out of it, you’d probably squeal in fear. Twine that’s pulled at the ends tickles you and you giggle. Your eyes follow to where it comes from, and you find a sealed envelope. You frown out of pure, ingenue curiosity. You pick it up and spin it around in your hands. It’s a beige envelope, one of the many you gifted Bucky on Valentine’s Day.

The twine wraps around it with no useful purpose. Only for the aesthetics. On the back has your name, written in cursive scrawl that belongs to one James Buchanan Barnes. You turn it back around, and carefully open it. Your father taught you that there’s a specific trick for opening envelopes. It was one of the many secrets your family had. And by family, you mean Jamie, your father and your grandmother.

It may not be much, but it’s more than enough.

Inside is a letter. More of Jamie’s handwriting fills your view and you don’t mind it at all. You pull the letter out and unfold it. You start to read it, only taking in the way his handwriting looks. You sit down on his chair and your eyes take in each word.

Dear лунный свет,

I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. You can hate me, you can be disgusted with me. You can do whatever you want. But promise me, you won’t let what I’m about to say hurt you. I’m in love with Natasha. I’ve fallen out of love with you and listen, it’s not your fault. How can it be your fault? You’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.

But I’m in love with Natasha. I have been for the past year or so. When I saw her again two years ago, something inside me happened. I got butterflies, as stupid as it sounds. She’s everything I want, everything I need. We go way back, and she knows me like the back of her hand. I’m sorry, лунный свет. I am so fucking sorry. I know writing this letter isn’t the best way to do this, but I feel the need to do so.

Love,

James Buchanan Barnes.

You can die right here, right now. You wonder if this is some kind of sick joke Bucky is playing on you, but after sitting there for a few more minutes, you realize it isn’t. Suddenly, the candles burning around you are pointless and so is your entire being of existence. You sit there, stupefied and filled with hurt. You let the letter fall into your lap and slip down to the floor, where it meets the wood with no sound.

The record scratches but you don’t even wince. Now, the voice of Perry Como is all warped and haunted. You hate it. You hate everything. You shut your eyes and sigh quite loudly. She took Jamie from you — your Jamie. Your throat tightens up and you feel like time slows down. You break down, the dam crashing down as the water flows at high pressure. It’s all so much at once. Tears leak from your eyes and drip down to the desk.

You hang your head, almost in shame.

Why are you crying? This was bound to happen.

“Can you just shut up for once?” you cry out.

“Mrs. Barnes, is everything alright?” Friday asks. “Yes, Friday. Do you mind leaving me alone, please?” you politely request. Your voice nearly cracks from the tears. “Of course, Mrs. Barnes,” she says, before dinging away. Mrs. Barnes… You’re not Mrs. Barnes, were you ever? She was always Mrs. Barnes, and she always will be. You let out a choked cough, one that uses all the strength in your body that isn’t destined for your crying.

You look down to the opened drawer and then to the letter on the floor. A groan escapes past your lips. It’s one of pure hurt and pain. You can feel your heart shattering into pieces. Each shard cuts your insides and you struggle to calmly breathe. You grab a sheet of paper from the drawer and pluck the pen that lies on the desk. You take a deep breath and begin to write your heart out.

Natasha,

Please, please don’t do this. I know you may be in love with him (which is the best feeling ever, I know), but please don’t take him just because you can. I also know that nobody can control their feelings. But even love disappears one day, right?

You could have your choice of man, Natasha. But I don’t think I can ever love again. Not without him. If only you could see the way Steve, Sam and Bruce look at you. You can have any of them, so why did you choose Bucky? Why are you taking my Jamie from me?

He dreams about you. He calls your name in his sleep. He calls you moonlight and I’m sure you don’t know the true meaning of it. But if you ask, he’ll probably tell you. This is coming off as rude — I know. It’s not what I want but I want you to ask you one thing only.

Please don’t take him, even though you can.

You scribble your name at the bottom of the page. A tear drops from your eyes and soaks into the paper. You re-read each sentence, and with every word, you hate yourself even more. You throw the pen at the wall, not caring that it breaks at the impact.

You want to send it to her so badly, but your father always told you to never fight fire with fire. Would she even listen to you? Probably not, so why try? Jamie isn’t coming back because Jamie doesn’t love you, he hasn’t for a while. You look away from the letter and to the candles that decorate the room.

You’re so foolish, thinking Jamie could ever love you. He did once, but this isn’t your Jamie. Your Jamie is gone and so is his love for you.

You fold the letter up until you’re satisfied. One end slightly overlaps the other but even the smallest things that would usually bother you doesn’t matter now. Nothing does. You bring the letter to the burning candle and let it light on fire. Along with the paper goes your instinct to fight for the love of your life.

You can never love again. Not without him.

[alrightberries]

dante’s inferno

request: wassup homie could you maybe write a college au fic where levi and reader are rommies, then one day reader brings home an adopted cat without levi's prior knowledge? You could decide what happens next lol. Tysm 🥺

❈ pairing: levi ackerman x reader

❈ genre: fluff, semi-crack ❈ word count: 4k

❈ summary: college au. in which you bring a stray cat to your dorm and your neat freak roommate won’t let you keep it.

alternatively: a compilation of college shenanigans where you and levi are best friends who are bad with feelings (ft. an unamused cat named dante)

❈ trigger warnings: profanity. mentions of alcohol and smoking. implied smut.

a/n: this was supposed to be loosely based on the nine circles of hell according to inferno by dante alighieri— hence the title— but i did my research wrong so now it’s loosely based on the seven terraces of purgatory according to divine comedy. i’m keeping the title tho.

Inspired by this art by @ryuichirou on tumblr.

Permission to repost art was granted by the artist. Do not repost/edit the art without explicit permission from the artist.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

i. first terrace: pride

“We’re not keeping it.”

“But why?”

“We’re not keeping it.”

“But why.”

Levi’s tongue clicks in annoyance. His eyes glance next you where the offending creature lay on your bed; tail curling, paws kneading at his your favorite fleece blanket. Quite frankly he’s a little offended when the little shit has the audacity to glare at him back.

He’ll never admit it, but his ego’s a bit bruised because the cat’s glare was slightly better than his.

“I said no,” he firmly replies, looking back to you. “It’s bad enough I have to share a room with an anarchist who has no respect for boundaries—“

“One time, I forgot to use a coaster that one time!”

“—and now you expect me to share a room with a dirty fur ball who does nothing but eat, shit, and sleep?”

“He’s a cat, Levi.” You murmur, scooping the cat into your arms. “And he has a name,” you give a nervous smile when you see your rommate grit his teeth. He feels a headache coming.

“You named it?”

“Dante is not an ‘it’.”

Levi makes a move to step closer but immediately stops when the ‘Dante’ hisses at him.

“Aw, he likes you.” You coo.

“Clearly,” he replies unenthusiastically. “Listen,” he sighs. “I respect your cat’s pronouns but that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to stay. Or do I need to remind you of the mac and cheese incident?”

Okay, maybe he was on to something. If you got caught with a pet in the dorms you’d breach your third and final warning, and you’d be forced to dorm off-campus. The fact that you were still here after the mac and cheese incident was solely because Levi pulled some strings (aka asked Erwin, golden boy of the campus who owed him a favor, to pull some strings).

But you couldn’t just let Dante go. There was something about him that felt so familiar; something about his black fur, thin silver eyes, unamused snarl, and overall grumpy demeanor. Especially endearing was the way he’d grumble and pretend to be annoyed whenever you tried to cuddle him but would complain if you stopped.

You just couldn’t figure out who or what he reminded you of.

Maybe you would’ve figured it out too if you weren’t so distracted with watching Levi and Dante stare at each other. Your eyes dart back and forth between the grouchy cat sitting on your bed and your grouchy roommate sitting on his desk. Both were slightly crouched over with their heads tilted up in a show of dominance; they were engaged in what seemed to be a glaring contest, gunmetal irises unamused and mouths taut in a snarl as they protected their territory.

You sigh. You really, for the life of you, couldn’t figure out why Dante felt so familiar.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

ii. second terrace: envy

Levi is not jealous. He’s not.

At least that’s what he tells himself as he sulks alone on his bed. His arms are crossed and his lips are in a pout, eyebrows knitted in distaste, occasionally glancing to your side of the room where you sat up on your bed. He’s sure whatever movie you chose to watch together is interesting and all, but right now all he could pay attention to was that stupid cat. Sitting on your stupid lap. Getting its fur stroked by your stupid hand. Getting all the love and affection his stupid self should be receiving.

It was him you should be cuddling, not Dante. Saturday nights were reserved for him and you, not you and a cat while he happened to be in the room. He’s been trying to make a move on you since high school and he can’t fucking believe he’s losing your attention to a cat. Sure, he’s always been too chicken to make a move and had to suffer seeing you get together with assholes— as per your type during your emo high school days— but this was a new low. He can’t wrap his head around the concept that he’s losing his longterm crush to a motherfucking cat.

When you coo at how adorable the fleabag was for what felt like the 50th time that night, Levi decides he’s had enough of the cuddle-hogging piece of shit.

Wordlessly, he crosses to your side of the room and lifts the cat from its perch, ignoring your protests as he sets it down on the floor and tells it to ‘scram, you little fuck.’ He uses a hand to dust your lap free of any microscopic cat particles Dante probably left behind before lying down his head down once he was satisfied. He grabs your hand to put it on his hair.

“Stroke.” He orders, eyes closing.

“What? No! You pushed off Dante.”

“He was in my spot.”

“You couldn’t have given up your lap pillow for one night?”

“One night?” He scoffs and turns to look at you. “You’ve been abandoning me for two weeks. That disgusting, tic-infested, rabies-carrying slob has no business sitting on your lap.”

“He’s not disgusting, you gave him a shower before you agreed to let me keep him. And I took him the vet to make sure he had all his shots. He’s clean, Levi.”

“Tch, good. Now throw him out and let him find someone else to freeload from.”

“Okay, what’s going on?” You guffaw. “You’ve been grumpier than usual. And why’re you being such an ass to Dante? He’s just a cat.”

“Don’t think he’s special in some way. I’m an ass to everyone.”

“Then why does it feel like you’re always extra mean to him?”

He doesn’t reply. His lips are downturned into a frown when he looks away with a click of his tongue, and you realize with a sigh you won’t be getting an answer from your cryptic roommate soon. Your fingers start mindlessly stroking his undercut when you get lost in your thoughts— a habit you developed through years of Levi using your lap as a pillow. He always complained the first few times you did it but you knew it calmed both him and you, and that it put both your minds at ease. Moreso Levi right now, apparently.

You’re keenly aware of how he seems to curl up into you the more you keep going. You watch as his shoulders slump down when you stroke the side of his face, and his eyebrows relax slightly. From your angle, you could even see the way his eyes close in content. Maybe even a tiny smile if you were being delusional.

Your lip twitches upward.

“Oh my god, Levi, are you jealous of a cat?”

“Shut up and play with my hair.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

iii. third terrace: wrath

“You owe me a new cravat.”

You blink up at your roommate. “What?”

“You owe me a new cravat.” He repeats. He pulls from his pocket a white piece of fabric— barely recognizable— torn into shreds, releases it mid-air. It gently lands on your open palm.

“Wait, did Dante do this?” You ask, eyeing the slik in your hands.

“Unless you went feral in the middle of the fucking night and decided to cut up my clothes, yes.”

“Oh my god, Levi, I’m so sorry. I swear Dante will never—“

“You actually owe me three cravats,” he interjects. “The first two I overlooked since they weren’t that expensive but I draw the line here.” His lips are downturned into a frown, eyes poorly concealing his clear distaste. “This one’s my favorite and it was made from silk.”

You eye the fabric in your hands once more before nodding in understanding, setting down the once beautiful cravat before taking out your wallet. It was only fair that you paid him back; he was being more than generous with letting your cat stay and keeping it a secret, and now you wonder how many bad things Dante’s done that Levi’s overlooked or simply never brought up with you.

“Sure, I’m really sorry. How much do I owe you?”

Levi doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls out his phone and types something on what you could only assume was google, most likely looking for the same brand of the cravat your cat had just torn into shreds. You weren’t entirely sure how much those could cost, but surely you could afford—

“What the fuck!” You screech, eyeing the page with very, very hefty price tags listed. Holy fucking hell where did he even get the money to buy something so expensive. Gulping, you nervously look up at your unimpressed roommate. You already knew he was taking it easy on you; his aura was the only thing intimidating, at least he wasn’t giving you the murder eyes. And even though he was a man of his word, you were thankful he hasn’t reported Dante.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that Levi looked pissed beyond belief.

“Uhm... can I pay you with a check that’ll definitely bounce?”

“You will pay me in cash.”

“Fuck, fine!”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

iv. fourth terrace: sloth

Levi silently works on his desk. His laptop’s open in fromt of him, numerous notes from classes and books from the library surrounding him. The gentle sounds of clicking and clacking echoe throughout the room as fingers typed at the keyboard, eyes concentrated and lips pulled taught as he focuses on his task. He’s on a roll. He’s almost done with this part of his research, nothing could snap him out of this, he just needs to—

“Levi, when do you think Dante will come back to me?”

He stops typing and grits his teeth.

This is how it’s been the entire night. Ten minutes of peace before you ask him some stupid questions that could’ve been answered with common sense.

“Fuck if I care.”

“Do you think it was something I did?”

He resumes typing. “Yes.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“No.”

“Even after all we’ve been through?”

“Still no.”

“I miss him,” you sigh. “I miss him so much.”

“Then you shouldn’t have left the door open.”

It’s been a week since Dante escaped the dorm and Levi doesn’t understand why you’re still so depressed about it. I mean, you only lost a cat that you loved and treasured and treated like family. Surely a week of moping around in your pajamas and eating nothing but chips and soda was catharsis enough.

He hears you shift in your burrito blanket, presumably to turn away from him so you can sulk into the wall next to your bed. Good. Now he can get back to working on—

“Levi do you think Dante-“

“Enough.” He grits, slamming his laptop shut.

“Where’re you going?” You ask, eyeing the way he hurriedly stuffs papers and books into his bag along with his laptop.

“Out.” He replies, grabbing his keys and his coat. “I can’t stand this shit anymore.”

Your head is burried in your blankets when he slams the door shut and all you could do was slump down because great. You lost Dante, and now you’ve royally pissed off Levi.

Great. Just fucking great.

Unlike your cat, however, your roommate comes back hours later, just before curfew. He doesn’t bother with a hello— he never does— and neither do you, opting to stay hidden underneath the sheets. Though suddenly, there’s a dip in the mattress followed by a pur next to your head.

Could it be?

“Dante?” You murmur, lifting your head from underneath your cocoon of fabric. Small black paws and silver eyes meet your gaze. “Dante!” Immediately sitting up, you pulled him to your lap, scratching his little head and cooing about how much you missed him as he purred and curled into to you.

Levi would never say it, but he missed seeing you smile at the little fleabag.

You turn to look at your roommate. “How’d you find him?”

“Asked around the campus. He wandered into another dorm building and probably thought it was ours.”

“Well yeah but... I thought you hated him?”

“I do.” He replies instantly.

“Then why’d you find him?”

“I hate him, not you.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

v. fifth terrace: avarice

“I fucking hate both of you,” Levi grumbles, staring at the dorm.

Towers of boxes lined his supposed to be clean dorm room. He had a hard time prying the door open since it was blocked, and he wasn’t even sure how the boxes weren’t blocking out the light from how high they were piled. Dante’s sat on a stack of box directly next to the door, purring and flicking his tail around. Levi squints his eyes and glares at the little shit.

“You especially.”

“Mrow?”

Levi’s day had been, with no irony or sarcasm at all, amazing. He got a good grade on his research paper; the guy in front of him at the cafe accidentally ordered an extra serving of (coincidentally, Levi’s favorite) tea and gave it to him for free; and he got full marks for the presentation he’s been worrying about for weeks. His class even got dismissed early so he had an extra hour for lunch. He knew you didn’t have classes, so in honor of his great day he thought he’d do something nice and take you out for lunch. His treat, of course.

But any trace of his good mood vanished when he went back to the dorms and got greeted to a room that looked like it came from an episode of Hoarders.

This is what he gets for trying to be nice.

“Levi! Is that you?” You called out.

“What the fuck happened?”

You laugh sheepishly— at least Levi thinks you do. He couldn’t see you beyond the hundred boxes that took up your shared room. He hears some rustling and the sound of things being moved around before finally your head pops out from behind a wall of brown, smiling at him apologetically before walking towards him (and tripping a few times).

“Remember when I said I’d order some toys for Dante as a surprise?”

Levi’s eye twitches. “Don’t tell me—”

“I accidentally ordered 10,000 instead of 10. Online shopping struggles, am I right?” You nervously chuckle at his pissed off face. Levi was not in the mood.

Your smile widens as you make twinkly gestures with your hands. “So uh... surprise?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

vi. sixth terrace: gluttony

The clinic is still when you first entered.

The harsh smell of alcohol and sterile metal makes your nose grimace, and the coldness of the thermostat brings goosebumps to your arms. Behind the wall, somewhete in the waiting room, cats are hissing, dogs are barking, and you could even hear the sound of birds angrily chirping and rattling their cages.

Dante cowers in fear on the silver table, and your heart aches. His ears are down and his fur’s standing on its ends, but you couldn’t comfort him. Not right now, at least. The veterinarian still needed to do a few more checks.

You gulp, “how’s... how’s Dante looking, doc?”

“Not good,” she murmurs. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and she takes a deep sigh as she eyes the information on the chart. “It’ll take months before he can walk properly again, possibly more if we don’t do anything about it soon.”

“Don’t tell me... is he—-”

“I’m sorry, my dear,” she sighs. “But your cat is heavily obese.”

The corners of your lips twitch down into a frown, and your palm is warm when you start to stroke Dante’s fur. He calms down a bit from your touch, less on edge but still guarded as he warily eyes the doctor’s gloved hands.

“But I don’t understand,” you reply. “I’ve been following the recommended diet you put him on, and I haven’t been feeding him anything other than the cat food and vitamins you recommended. How’s he still obese?”

“Well, we could look into other solutions, but for now I think we ought to look at whether or not Dante has an underlying health problem.”

Levi tunes out the chatter between you and the vet, bored eyes staring into nothing. He’s leaning against a wall and he’s watching the cat carrier. Your bag’s slung over his shoulders and your coat’s in his arms, and he was sure you didn’t even need him to be here for “moral support.”

He mentally scoffs. You probably just needed a chauffeur to drive you for free, and honestly, Levi would rather feel like a chauffeur than a coat rack.

His eyes make contact with Dante’s, and all the fear in the cat’s eyes is suddenly gone, replaced with a steely glare and bared teeth. A warning, one no one else notices but him.

Levi gives him a solitary nod, understanding what Dante wanted to say.

Don’t tell Y/N I’ve been sneaking to the neighbors.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

vii. seventh terrace: desire

There’s something about the buzz of alcohol and nicotine that makes Levi confident—- the liquid courage in his veins and the smoke in his lungs clouding his judgement. Perhaps that’s where he finally gets the balls to cross the room, drunken eyes on your equally intoxicated ones, before he pulls you in for a kiss.

The kiss starts slow, with lips just interlocking and lightly testing the waters. But then he feels your tongue make its way inside his mouth and your fingers weave into his hair to tug him closer, and Levi loses the last threads of inhibition he has. His tongue massages yours and one of his arm wraps around your waist, the other comes down to grope and knead your ass. He feels you walk backwards and your hand pulls at his tie, dragging him with you. Suddenly he’s trapping you against a wall, lifting one of your legs up to wrap around his hips so he could grind his crotch into yours.

Levi doesn’t expect his first kiss with you to be like this; messy and full of tongue and spit, full of fingers clawing at clothes and small grunts escaping your lips. He was hoping it’d be more romantic, with warm cheeks and fingers softly intertwining, shy kisses exchanged through little smiles.

But he’s not about to complain—- he’s wanted to be with you for years, and god he loved having you like this. Loved having you all hot and desperate, trapped between his firm chest and the wall. His cock is hard in his pants, and he just about growls when he feels you start to undo his belt, the fly of his pants coming down as you got on your knees and stared up at him with innocent eyes as you pull out his aching boner. There’s a cheeky grin your face when you pump at his length, and your tongue peaks out of your mouth before—

“Levi, are you okay?”

His eyes snap open, and he’s greeted to the sight of your worried face directly above his.

“Fuck!” he yells, and his forehead slams into yours when he flinches away. “Sorry, sorry” he quickly ammends when you yelp in pain.

He’s covered in sweat, he notices. Chest heaving, heart beating a little too loud for his liking, and he silently pulls the blankets over his cum stained boxers when you sit beside him.

God, he was really hoping you wouldn’t notice the fact that he came in his pants like a high schooler. And it was before dream you even got to suck him off. How much more pathetic could he be.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you nod.

“Yeah, m’fine, it’s just...” your eyes are distracted, staring off into space. Fingers trace his thighs, and you sigh. “You were having a nightmare,”

Levi blinks. “What?”

“You were having a nightmare,” you repeat. “Kept tossing and turning and groaning in your sleep. And you kept making these... funny faces,”

“...right,” he nods. Sure, a nightmare. A nightmare he never wanted to wake up from.

It takes about ten minutes to reassure you that yes, he was fine, don’t mind the way his cheeks are flushed, he was just... shaken up from his nightmare, is all. Then you’re back to bed, sleeping the night away, and twenty minutes later he’s on his way back to bed too; this time with a fresh pair of boxers and a content look on his face, all thanks to him finishing off his fantasies in the communal bathroom during his shower.

The door makes a quiet click when he shuts it behind him, and he freezes when he catches sight of Dante sat up on your bed, tail flicking behind him as he gives Levi a knowing look.

Levi squints his eyes, and he threateningly whispers, “you tell no one.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

epilogue

The half empty room brings a frown to your face, and all you could do was pout as you sealed up the last of the boxes.

“Why do you have to leave again?” you ask, and Levi turns around as he finishes folding the last of his clothes. He shrugs. “Cats aren’t allowed in the dorms.”

You owed him your entire college career, that much was sure. The RA’s found out about Dante, and Levi had taken the fall to spare you. He wasn’t required to move out since it was only his first strike, but he insisted on doing so so that Dante wouldn’t be alone, saying he already found an apartment nearby and he’ll never hear the end of it from you if he didn’t take Dante with him.

Bullshit. Levi had a soft spot for Dante, you knew that much. He wasn’t doing it for you, he was doing it for himself. Though normally you’d be overjoyed to know that Levi really did secretly like the cat he pretended to hate so much, this time, you were just pissed. You couldn’t believe a fucking cat was stealing away the guy you’ve been in love with since high school. Sure, you were too much of a coward to ask him out, but he was basically your boyfriend already—- the entire campus knew you inadvertently had dibs on each other.

“Yeah but... do you have to leave me alone?”

“I asked you to come with me, and you said no.” He points out. “I still don’t see why when we’ve been roommates since we were freshmen.”

“It’s different off-campus!”

“How?”

“Because it’s like... it’s like we’re moving in together, y’know?” you reply. “And it seemed wrong to move in with you when we’re not even dating.”

“Let’s do it, then.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighs, handing you a spare key to what you could only assume was his new apartment. You glance between him and the key in your hands, and he rolls his eyes when he realizes that you still don’t get it.

“I know we’re doing this backwards since couples don’t typically move in before the first date,” he says before gesturing to Dante. “But we already have a son, and I know you’re his favorite parent. We can share custody until you can move in with me.”

You blink. “What?” Your brain stopped working when Levi referred to you as a couple, and you’re pretty sure your heart stopped beating too. At this point, anything he said went in one ear and out the other. He flicks your forehead.

“Hey— ow! What was that for?”

“You weren’t listening.”

“And you’re being a prick!” you grumble. “It hurts, y’know.”

He scoffs. “What do you want me to do? Kiss it better?” he scoffs.

Your mouth moves faster than your brain, “I’d rather you kiss me.”

Wait. What?

Before you could go back on your words, Levi shrugs. Warm palms gently grab your cheeks, pulling your face closer to his. Your eyes widen and you momentarily freeze, brain definitely not working anymore. He hesitates when you don’t make a move, but then you’re shyly leaning forward, and that was all the confirmation Levi needs.

“If you insist,” he whispers, and suddenly your words die on your tongue when his lips interlock with yours.

alrightberries © 2020. do not modify or repost.

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[the-insomniac-emporium]

Bound Blood (Cassandra Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 2

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village

Rating: T+ for blood, language, nudity, and horny

Warnings: Implied pain/blood kink

Summary: Local vampire tries to give her human soulmate a bath, but the human is feral and loving it. Then it gets a lil horny, to both of their frustration.

Previous Chapters: 1: Sharing Is (Not) Caring

2: Bloodbath, Baby!

“I take it you changed your mind about the clothes? Or am I supposed to use these towels like a makeshift toga?” You asked, glancing around the bathroom, eying the ornate tub with mild interest. This certainly wasn’t where you had expected Cassandra to take you, especially not when she had somewhat promised you garments to wear. There were no pants or shirts (or even dresses) in sight, just a rack of the softest looking towels you had ever seen. It was admittedly difficult for you to resist the urge to use one to wipe the blood off of your shoulder. However, you figured that it would be best to save that for after you were given a good behavior prize. After all, it was much more fun to be a bastard if your “victim” (not that Cassandra really counted as that) knew how polite you were capable of being, and you were, under normal circumstances, very polite. Most of the time. Maybe.

“What did I say about talking?” Cassandra snapped at you, glaring at you from her perch on the counter. She was sitting on the edge, waiting for something, occasionally eying the room’s entrance.

“You told me to shut up for ‘five minutes’. It’s been eight, at the very least! I’ve been holding back, just for you, babe,” you replied, smirking as you did. For a moment your soulmate seems to consider chucking a bar of soap at your head. Eventually she thinks better of it, opting to roll her eyes at you instead. “For the record, I did count, just to be sure. Wouldn’t have wanted to make any assumptions about the passage of time, considering how fast time seems to fly when I’m with a loved one.” Unfortunately, this does not get a rise out of Cassandra, who has shifted to face away from you. Not yet willing to give up your buffoonery (and assuming that you would not, in fact, be getting a good behavior prize anytime soon), you released a loud, exaggerated sigh, before switching tactics.

Standing up with the blanket still curled around yourself, you maneuver over to the tub, eagerly climbing inside. With how large it was, laying down was fairly easy, though you weren’t entirely flat. Wanting to be as comfortable as possible, you adjust yourself and the blanket until it covers you, while letting one end go behind your head like a pillow. It’s nowhere near as nice as you had hoped. On the plus side, however, is the attention it gets from Cassandra. Before long she’s standing adjacent to the tub, staring down with an expression of exasperation.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She asked.

“Napping, obviously. Care to join me?” You answered, without hesitation. Then you gently pat the blanket, as if offering to let her sit on top of you. This only serves to make her angrier. Now she’s leaning over the basin, bracing one hand against it, her other hand reaching to grab your throat and pull you towards her. The two of you are so close that you can’t help but blush, and the feeling of her skin against yours is weirdly attractive. “I should have known you were the kinky type. Not that I mind,” you murmured, gaze wandering a little farther south than her lips. Before you know it she’s shoved you back down and let go of you. She shakes her hand a bit, like she’s just touched something gross, but you see the pink rising on her cheeks. As much as you want to tease her, the sound of approaching footsteps takes priority. Soon the door is opening, revealing a stressed servant, a pile of clothes in her arms. Suddenly you’re glad that Cassandra pushed you away, considering you don’t think she would have enjoyed having someone walk in on the two of you in that position.

“Lady Cassandra, I have what you requested. Would you like me to draw a bath for you? Or-” she pauses when she sees you, clearly unsure of what to make of your behavior. Hell, she almost drops what she’s carrying, and makes a soft ‘oh’ sound. Presumably dying inside, Cassandra quickly takes the bundle from her. Then she stands between the two of you, blocking line of sight, looking as tense as could be.

“Just get back to work, and don’t mention this to anyone,” she growled, gesturing towards the door. As soon as the maiden closes it behind her, Cassandra is turning back to you. “Get rid of that stupid fucking blanket or I’m forcing you to wear wet socks.” Understandably, you start giggling at her request, hardly able to believe that she had really just said those words out loud. “Would you prefer I cut up the soles of your feet? I’ll heal long before you do, asshole.” Now that makes you pause, trying to figure out whether or not her threat held up. Even though everyone had a basic understanding of how blood bonds worked (the less romantic, and more historic, way to refer to soulmates), the specifics were confusing for most people, including yourself. Would your aching wounds bother her? Or only the initial injury?... Somehow you had a feeling you’d figure out the answer within the next few days.

Until then, you decide to err on the side of caution, for once in your life. Still, you roll your eyes before you pull the blanket up and out of the tub. Again you spot a faint rosy tint on Cassandra’s face, and her gaze most definitely lingers on places other than your eyes. In the end you have to bite your lower lip to stop yourself from calling her out on it. Gotta get some clothes first, you think, then back to being a dick. Holding back only gets harder from there.

Wordlessly, Cassandra takes a seat by the front of the tub, where your feet are propped up on the edge. Giving you a judgemental look, she pushes them aside so she can reach the controls knobs easier. You give an exaggerated pout in response, only for her to ignore you completely, trying very hard to look anywhere but at you. It was in stark contrast to how she had looked at you a mere half an hour earlier. There were several interesting things to note about her behavior, and you found yourself almost excited to figure out the puzzle she presented. Did she care about you now? Simply because of your blood bond? Did she have a genuine soft spot for romance?... Those sorts of questions were all you could think about, even as Cassandra turned the handles, letting cold water splash into the tub.

“I’d say ‘fuck you’ but honestly, were I in your position I would likely do the same,” you said, shivering a little. Cassandra raises an eyebrow, staring at you like you were stupid, before turning the handle a bit more. Eventually you figure out what she meant by it. “What, you guys don’t have a quality water heater? This is Romania for fuck’s sake. I would have figured the water would be a hell of a lot hotter by now,” you added, only for her to splash some still very much cold water on your face. “Is this fun for you? Are you enjoying this? God, I hope you assholes have Legos somewhere in this maniac menagerie, so I can step on them while you sleep.”

“Do you always spit in the face of kindness?” Cassandra asked, moving towards the other end of the tub as she spoke. Once more you laugh, though this time it’s much more of a hollow sound, and your smile doesn’t reach your eyes. “My sister wanted to kill you, but I pulled your pathetic corpse out of the basement, now I’m letting you use my bath, and you’re mocking me. This is why I don’t bother with this shit,” she growled, even as she wets a washcloth and starts dabbing at your wounds. On one hand you understand her frustration… but on the other you couldn’t get the image of her past victims out of your head.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be clean than not,” you started to say, pausing to think for a moment. Then you reach out, putting your hand over Cassandra’s, making her freeze in place. It’s soft enough of a touch to surprise her. Which is why it’s so easy for you to snatch the towel from her hands. “You ‘don’t bother’ with this ‘shit’ because you’re a fucking sadist, who thinks all humans are beneath you, who acts like she has every right to bleed innocent people dry, who thinks she’s God’s gift to this goddamn hellhole we call Earth. Do you think this makes up for your sins? Do you-” her nails dig into your arm and she grits her teeth in pain- “think that I can forget listening to the screams of your victims? Whose graves is this castle built upon? Whose fucking bones am I standing on? Who died to keep you alive? How many other versions of me have you killed, in other timelines, in other lives, where the universe didn’t demand that we be together? I’ve seen your heart, girl, and it’s as raw as they come.”

There’s a brief second of intense, furious eye contact. Then a flash of movement, a rush of pain, tears filling the corner of your eyes. Blood pours from the new hole in your shoulder, but Cassandra is quick to lick it up. She’s groaning in between each run of her tongue across your skin, clearly feeling it every bit that you were, yet she shows no signs of stopping. If anything, her pain seems to spur her on harder. Even you can’t help but blush a little as you struggle beneath her grip. Why did vampires have to use their mouths? Why couldn’t they get blood transfusions, like the rest of society? This way, your pleasure mixes with your misery, leaving you confused, and the fact that you’re still naked is not at all helping.

“Oh fuck off, please,” you gasped, trying to push her off of you. To your surprise, she does as asked, pulling away after one last lick. When you turn to look at her, you see your blood covering her lips and dripping down her chin. “You’re a mess, Cassie. Hot water?” With that you return her favor from earlier, splashing some of the (finally above room temperature) water in her direction. Most of it misses her. A few drops, however, do manage to hit their mark. Then she’s wiping her face on her sleeve, scowling the whole time. There’s still plenty of blood on her face afterwards, but it’s nothing compared to what’s gathering on your shoulder. She eyes the wound, nostrils flaring briefly, a predator dying for one more bite. “If you bite me again, I swear to whoever that one lady y’all worship is, I will bite you. My teeth aren’t made for that shit, but I don’t care. We’ll both be miserable and that’s it, baby! That’s love! I’m threatening you with an unhealthy perception of affection, dipshit!”

This time you expect her to move away, or hit you, or do anything other than what she does. Calling your bluff, she moves around the ever-filling tub, pausing to turn the water off, before hiking the edges of her dress up and… oh. Oh. Somehow she’s in the tub with you now, legs on either side of your waist, presenting the side of her neck to you with a knowing smirk. But you are not known for your cleverness. Nor your ability to make good decisions, at that. Perhaps your blood loss was starting to affect your cognition. Whatever made you so feral, so beautifully unhinged, you embraced it with utter glee. Soon enough your teeth find themselves on Cassandra’s throat, digging in enough for you to feel your blood bond reacting. For a moment she stiffens in response. Then she relaxes, even takes in a rush of air that sounds oddly content, leaning into your touch. What the fuck? You think, almost shocked enough to let go. Almost.

“What’s the matter, pet? I thought you wanted me to know what it felt like on the other side of things?” Cassandra teased, voice quiet and low. Something about her tone sends a familiar, although unwanted, feeling to your core. Still, her words egg you on, and you find yourself biting harder, tugging at the skin a little. More tears gather in your eyes, but you fight through the pain as best as you can. You drag your teeth across her skin, wishing for sharper canines, before letting go to inspect your work. There’s a clear outline where your mouth had been, but not a single drop of blood. Frustrated, you go back in for seconds, choosing a different spot to target. Again you go through the motions, only for no crimson to stain your lips. This cycle repeats several more times, with you running your tongue along her neck in between bites, so focused that you don’t realize that she’s grinding against you until she stops.

“I need to file my teeth,” you mused, trying to forget about what you had just done. Now that it’s over, Cassandra seems to feel the same, and she quickly climbs back out of the tub. She’s refusing to meet your gaze, instead focusing on arranging the clothes the servant had brought earlier. By the time she’s facing you again her blush is almost entirely gone.

“Finish cleaning up, then bandage yourself and get dressed. I’ll have a maiden wait outside to bring you back to my room. Don’t even think about trying to run,” Cassandra said sternly. You’re too distracted by the thought of what happened to give her any snarky response. So she simply nods to herself, then leaves, slamming the door behind her. Though you had expected to be relieved by her absence, you find yourself groaning, holding your head in your hands. Why is she so attractive? This is probably illegal, you think, in at least several countries. Or it should be, at least. Now that she’s gone, there’s nothing to distract you from the price of her attention, with your shoulder and neck aching horribly. Cleaning up was going to hurt even worse. Still, you think, at least I’ll have some time to think of new insults. With that in mind, you begin to wash away the blood, thoughts entirely consumed by your newest ‘partner’.

[wannabe-fic-writer]

Avengers Ladies x Reader : What’re the Chances

Summary: The biggest accident turns into a night of unspeakable actions.

Warning: 18+ Implied Smut, Nudity, Language, Suggested Polyamory 

Request: Yes / No 

Word Count: 2,124

* * * * * * 

It’s dead silent.

Not a single sound comes from anywhere, even as you move about in the kitchen. You’re trying your best not to make a sound so that you don’t wake up the women asleep in your living room.

This very moment offers you time to fight your headache with coffee and process what the hell happened yesterday.

Steve and Tony had returned to the compound with a canister filled with some weird looking substance. The instant you saw the purple mist with spores floating through it you were intrigued. The scientist in you begged to test, study, and analyze it to find out exactly what it was.

It actually didn’t take much for them to turn it over to you, it is your job as the team’s scientist to deal with these things. So, while you locked yourself up in your lab, the guys of the team went out in search of the HYDRA scientist that created the substance.

Things had started off fine, you were well on your way to uncovering what the weird mist was and its effects. However, as you were releasing it into a larger containment unit, Carol, Natasha, and Wanda had taken it upon themselves to barge into your lab.

Carol and Wanda were bickering, Natasha chastising them, and all their loud voices had startled you when they came into the lab without warning.

Only you had caught your slip up. You literally slipped up, the canister detaching from the seal and allowing some of the mist to spill into the atmosphere before you could reattach it. 

Wide eyed, you watched each woman, as well as yourself, breathe in the seemingly harmless air, When asked why you looked so worried you brushed it off and got back to researching. 

In a way you were curious to see how the air affected you all, analyzing all of your behavior might give some clues as to what the substance does. And boy did you figure it out quickly.

Aside from the substance itself, the atmosphere shifted.

Their bickering stopped moments after they entered the lab, replaced by incredibly flirty words and sultry gazes. That was all it was in the beginning, until Carol ran a hand across Wanda’s shoulders and the back of her neck.

The blonde’s touches fanned the sparks into flames.

In the blink of an eye they were kissing, hands roaming to places that you were sure they hadn’t been before. Both women had been caught up in each other and you were worriedly intrigued, so lost in thought that you hadn’t noticed the redhead who snuck up behind you. 

Suggestive words slipped from her mouth like silk into your ear, accompanied by her hands wrapping around your waist and resting low on your belly, mere inches from slipping into the waist of your pants.

While you had been able to not react to the substance in your body, her gentle touch and whispered words seemed to bring the effects to the surface. A shiver raked up your spine, manifesting itself into a feeling that shot to your belly.

It was an incredibly familiar feeling that, due to the substance, you freely fell into.

Everything from that moment on was sexually charged. Hands roamed skin, moans and sighs filled the air, orgasms cursed through your bodies like lightning striking through the sky.

Clothes had been scattered about the lab but you all ended up in the living room of your private floor in the building.

You all fell asleep in each other’s arms, bodies covered in marks, completely blissed out arguably overly blissed.

When you woke up, your hand was cupping the breast of an all too familiar redhead, and the thigh of an equally familiar blonde was pressed up against your core that seemed to throb whenever she moved.

Last night sprung into your mind and you shot up, hand ripping away from Natasha’s body like she was fire. Apparently they were wiped out, admittedly you weren’t sure how you were awake either but that was the least of your worries.

After having scurried off to your room to shower and pull on clothes, you brought out a change of clothes for each of them and went straight to the lab. It didn’t take long, applying what you know, to confirm your suspicions. 

One hour testing it, told you what you needed to know and from the lab you went to the kitchen, where you still are.

Your coffee is gone, headache slowly subsiding, and based off the sounds in the living room, the girls are awake.

Taking a deep breath, you slowly make your way into the room. The confused looks on their faces turn to realization as they look at one another, and then all three sets of eyes are on you.

“Um,” you swallowed, clearing your throat,“ morning, I-I made coffee.” You stumbled over your words, not liking the feel of their eyes on you like that and trying not to look at them too long.

The image of their bodies will forever be ingrained in your mind. How you would manage to shake the feeling of their hands and mouths on you, you aren’t sure.

“Thank you.” Wanda mutters softly and all you can do is nod.

“I brought you all something to wear, what with your clothes being in the lab.” You suggest, glancing up only to catch Natasha’s blanket slipping from her upper body.

E/c eyes widen at the sight of her perky breasts and pert nipples, the memory of your hands on them playing in your head. A glance up shows her green eyes trailing your body and heat spreads over every part of you.

“I’ll give you a moment to change, feel free to use the bathrooms or my room or whatever.” With a nod to yourself more than them, you nearly scurry back into the kitchen.

Part of you, the cautiously curious scientist part, can’t believe you managed to infect yourself and your friends with sex pollen. While another part of you, the madly attracted to each of those beautiful women part, is beyond pleased with last night's events. 

The instant you know they can’t see you anymore, your face is buried in your hands.“ I have to tell them.” A groan falls from your lips, muffled by your hands.“ They’re gonna kill me.”

Using the last moments of your life, you fix them each a cup of coffee to their liking, maybe that’ll soften the blows. 

“We all had sex last night.”

You damn near spill every drop of coffee in your hands at the words bluntly spoken by Carol when you step back into the living room.

It’s clear, when Natasha and Wanda don’t react how you did, that this conversation was already in progress when you came in. So you try not to lose it, instead taking a deep breath, and walking over to hand them their coffee. 

The blankets are folded and sitting by the hallway entrance, all of them completely dressed now. You ignore the slight disappointed feeling you get and sit on the far end of the couch Wanda is on. When they all start to try and make sense of this you figure it’s time to say something.

“It was my fault, I did it.” You blurt out, eyes squeezed shut which makes you miss the soft smiles on each of their faces.

Natasha sighs,“ Y/n we can agree that you’re charming but if I recall correctly, we all did it.” She says, making you open your eyes.

“Yeah L/n, I most certainly did not go down on myself like that.” Carol smirks.

Wanda’s eyes widen along with yours.“ Don’t be so crude Carol.”

Shaking your head, you run a hand down your face,“ okay that’s not what meant, to clarify, I mean,” you push off to stand in front of all of them,“ the substance I was testing is a sex pollen. When you all came into the lab it scared me and some may have gotten in the air and infected us.”

“What?!” They each exclaim. 

Carol pushes herself up off the couch and glares at you. Wanda stares at you in shock. And Natasha raises a further curious eyebrow. 

The glaring blonde steps closer,“ what did you make us do?”

Your eyes widen, hands held up as if to calm her,“ I didn’t make us do anything. Sex pollen is complicated. This particular one enhanced the libido and lowered our inhibitions. But nothing was forced.”

“I don’t completely follow.” Wanda says.

Breathing in deeply, you exhale slowly,“ um, some sex pollens cause the infected to act without a single thought, cause their focus to only be on their sex drive, which could lead to them doing things they wished they hadn’t. This one though, as mentioned, just lowers the inhibition. Our brain's way of restraining us from doing certain things, sometimes things we want to do.”

“We did what we wanted to do, without second guessing it as we might have in the past.” Natasha says, eyes looking dead into yours. 

Hearing the words spoken makes a million and one thoughts surge through your mind and for that moment you recall last night, not the way their skin felt under your fingertips or how they tasted on your tongue, you recall the thoughts you were having.

There was this feeling of, finally, that coursed through you. Finally, you were able to kiss them. Finally you were able to hold them. Finally you could act on the thoughts you’d forced yourself to ignore. 

In Natasha’s eyes, you swear you see that same thing. 

Looking away, you say,“ I know none of us were expecting last night to happen and had I been more careful it wouldn’t have but we can’t exactly change it. A-and I mean, it helped me figure out what that stuff was.” You try to see the brighter side. 

“So, do we pretend this never happened?” Wanda asks. All of your eyes move to look at her at the faint sound of disappointment. 

Did she not want to? 

Carol quirks a brow,“ don’t sound so down sunshine.” She sends a wink to the younger woman, then crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts up in the tank top you’d given her.“ I can’t say I’m inclined to pretend.” The look she gives you let’s you know she caught you staring at her chest.

“Admittedly I had fun last night for a multitude of reasons and I’m not anxious to forget about it.” Natasha says, sharing a look with Carol before they both glance at you and Wanda.

Wanda opens her mouth to speak, only to bite her lip in thought. Those soft light green eyes look into yours, seemingly searching for an answer.

You shrug,“ I’m a terrible actress so pretending is out for me and if there’s a chance for a repeat of last night, maybe after a date or two, I’d be cool with that.” 

“Asking us out already L/n.” Carol teases and you chuckle. 

“What’re people going to say? What’ll the team say?” 

Wanda’s concerned questions grab all of your attention and you sit yourself down beside her this time. 

For the first time since last night you touch her. This time not it’s not driven by lust, instead by what could become love. Your palm lays on her knee, fingers on the side of it. 

“Nothing needs to be said about anything. We don’t even know what this is or what it could be-” you start and Natasha finishes for you,“ so there’s no reason to worry ourselves over this.”

Carol sits on Wanda’s other side and copies your action of placing her hand on the brunette’s knee.“ We’ll handle whatever anyone has to say when the time comes.”

The youngest of you looks around into each of your eyes, softening with each glance. You pull a small smile and that makes a bright one burst across her face. 

Your moment, that started last night, is interrupted. 

“Great you’re up, get anything on that substance?” Steve comes in, halting in his steps to take in each of you.“ Am I interrupting something.”

One look at Carol let’s you know that she was about to say yes but refrains from doing so. 

Chuckling, you squeeze Wanda’s knee and stand,“ yeah I got all the results in my lab Cap.” You wave for him to follow you, not missing Natasha’s last words.

“You wouldn’t believe what it took to get them.” 

With a smirk you glance back at her and she winks. 

You never thought you’d ever say it but, thank the gods for sex pollen.

* * * * * *

Taglist: @owloftheshadows

[soldmysoultootomeboys]

Cuddling with the Brothers

why were some of these so hard to write it felt like pulling teeth omg i'm so sorry Mammon, I couldn't think of anything for you ﾟ(*´□`)ﾟ

Lucifer

A rather tricky demon to sleep on and one that requires immense planning

First of all it has to be private, otherwise expect to wake up alone with only his coat thrown over you.

His room or his study would be the best place to start. And that's what you had originally intended, that is until you hear the solemn notes of a piano echoing through the halls

Having only gotten up for a midnight snack you take a detour wandering past the kitchen until you reach the music room where Lucifer sits playing a somber tune

It's one you don't recognize, but it feels familiar nonetheless

His playing doesn't break in the slightest when he asks you to come in and you wonder how long he knew you were there

You do as he says, sitting down on the great long bench and watching his fingers dance along the keys. It's cold, having only expected to be out for a moment you're only wearing your pajamas

Lucifer says nothing when you huddle closer, resting your head on his shoulder, even though it must be constricting his playing. But he relaxes at your touch

And slowly you fall asleep, to the lullaby of piano and the gleam of stars far above you

Mammon

Like Lucifer he requires some planning, if only because he absolutely melts the moment you try to hold him

As an absolute sucker for cuddles he would be more than happy to be held at any time if not for the fact that he's also a complete tsundere

But with a little effort and a bit of bribery in the form of his recently revoked Goldie (Thanks Lucifer!) you are finally able to get him to sit still

He looks so embarrassed, fidgeting with his shirt and avoiding your eyes but when you finally go to hold him he just melts

Just be prepared for the puddle of cuddly demon that does not want to share you with any of his brothers

Levi

Levi’s labyrinth of a room was something you questioned constantly, filled with all sorts of curious things from sacred treasures (i.e, figurines) to old tombs (manga). However there was something that you knew for a fact, and that was that Levi slept in a tub.

Why? Was it comfortable? Did it hold some weird secret that would explain Levi’s behavior? You had to know.

So you do what any sane rational human would do when living in a house full of demons. You sneak into his room.

Levi was supposed to be out today for the new release of one of his video games.

You peek inside making sure the coast is clear before shutting the door. Inside the bathtub is a mess of blankets plus a full body pillow with a picture of the famed Ruri on it. At the very least it seemed somewhat comfortable.

Time to try out this new bed.

With nothing left to lose you bodily fling yourself over the side landing with a soft whump into the cocoon of pillows.

Immediately the sheets begin to move under you, limbs flailing for purchase and a familiar face pops up from beneath the covers. When Levi sees you he turns bright red, a flustered expression replacing the confusion on his face.

But if anything his thrashing becomes even more panicked. You roll to the side accidentally pinning him under you and he freezes.

“Mc what are you doing here???!”

When you finally explain he looks disappointed

Of course this was just a mistake you didn't want to see a stupid otaku like him

Before he could continue his rant you wrap your arms around his chest

“I guess this is fine.” He mutters still refusing to look at you.

With your new partner secured you’re free to nap as you please

Asmo

He has the BEST bed

Of course you want to get your nap on in his room

The problem is how to do it without implying something more

Knowing Asmo if you tell him you want to sleep on his bed he'll show up au natural which is not something you want to see when you're trying to take a nap, gorgeous skin or not

You decide to sneak in when he goes for one of his shopping trips

Once you actually lie down all your suspicions are confirmed

Asmos bed is amazing

Feather soft and absolutely covered in pillows you feel like you're in a cloud

You're almost asleep when you're awakened by an ear shattering squeal

If you wanted to sleep with him you should have just said so!

Asmo throws himself at you talking of all the "fun" things the two of you could do in his room

Like Levi the best option at this point is to just smush his body with your own, just make sure not to mess with his hair

It might seem counterproductive but pinning him down limits how much he can actually touch and after a few flirtatious comments made by yours truly he'll settle down enough for you to drift back to sleep, now with a new cuddle partner

Expect to wake up to a million new devilgram pictures of you two in bed and an angry Mammon banging on the door

Satan

The hard part is figuring how to do it without him getting mad.

You decide best time to do it is when he's reading or watching a drama as he probably won't move, as long as you don't obstruct his view. It takes a while to actually catch him like this. The man paces.

When you finally do see him in his chair you flop onto him curling on his lap.

He's more amused than angry.

“What are you doing mc?”

“Taking a nap :)”

After that he lets you be.

Satan is a surprisingly good nap partner. No one bugs you since most of the other brothers are too afraid of his wrath making it a good place to go if you want some peace and quiet.

You do notice that he starts sitting down more once you join him. It's more common for him to be already sprawled across a chair with a book in one hand.

It's fun for exactly as long as it takes Satan to get angry at one of his dramas and accidentally yeet you across the room.

He'll apologize but it might be time for you to get a different perch.

Beel

Beel uses the cat rules

If you lay on him he will not move unless absolutely necessary. It could take a direct order from Lucifer to make him budge

But if he really has to go he's taking you with him. Holding you carefully so he doesn't jostle you he'll walk around with you in his arms until you decide to wake up

He will try so hard not to get crumbs in your hair and he mostly succeeds

but at one point he does drip guacamole down the side of your comatose face

Freaks out but it's okay because he uses a chip to scoop it back up and everything

what you don't know doesn't hurt you

lets just hope you don't notice the strange sticky spot on the corner of your cheek

Belphie

The king of naps

Sleeping with him ensures good dreams and deep sleep

It's not hard to find him passed out somewhere and if you flop onto him the most he'll do is give a sleep grumble before throwing his arms over you and burying into your chest.

Just don't expect to get up any time soon

If worst comes to worst Beel is more than willing to carry both of you wherever you need to go

on the rare cases where he's awake and your not he will see how many of Beel's snacks he can stack on your head before you wake up

[ickle-ronniekins]

tangled up

request: from nonnie! “love those sharing a bed tropes... not saying you should do it but you should definitely do it”

pairing: fred x fem!gryffindor!reader

word count: 2.3k

A/N: ummmmmm love this request, i'm in suuuucch a fred mood lately

warning(s): brief mention of war, ~implied sexual content~ i suppose

tag list: @mintlibri @seppys-return-to-madness @how-do-life-does @fopdoodledane @fredd-weasley @iprobablyshipit91 @semmelsemi @cottageoflove @laneygthememequeen @snakesonaplane-7 @keoghans @dreamer821 @wtfweasleyy @62442-am @the-hufflepuff-of-221b @obsessedwithrandomthings @thoseofgreatambition @harrysweasleys @sleep-i-ness @shadowsinger11 @shadychaoticcollection @haphazardhufflepuff @afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff @hood-and-horan @letsfightsomeorcs @theweasleysredhair @purpleskiesstorm @hxfflxpxffs @wand3ringr0s3 @finecole @angelinathebook @highly-acidic @purplefragile @90shermione @zreads @susceptible-but-siriusexual @hollands-weasley @andromedaa-tonks @bbstrawberry0421 @princessof-theuniverse @cappsikle @mytreec @imseeinggred @idont-knowrn @flyingserpxnt @auroraboringalis57 @godricsswords @jejegu @annasofiaearlobe @starlightweasley @alwaysasadaesthetic @thisismysketchbook @izzytheninja @imboredandneedalife @hemmoporro | message me to be added loves!

The cool October air had a bit of a bite to it -- it seemed as though Bill and Fleur’s wedding was ages ago. You wrapped a blanket around your shoulders to reduce the chill in your bones.

Suddenly two redheaded figures appeared with a pop! onto the field outside of your home. By what you could see, they’d apparated just before the line of protective enchantments -- a type of advanced magic only a very intelligent wizard could do.

“Bloody hell -- you’re a life saver, you know that?” George exclaimed as he finally reached you, wrapping you in a warm embrace. “I couldn’t be there for one more moment.”

Fred rolled his eyes and explained, “He means at Auntie Muriel’s. Being a bit overdramatic, are we, George?”

The elder twin shot his younger brother a look of amusement as George dropped his bag onto the floor and ran a hand through his hair. “Overdramatic? Tell me, Fred, would you like to go back?”

Fred then draped an arm across your shoulder and peered at his brother. “And reject our best mate’s offer to spend time at her lovely home? That would be so rude.” George swore he saw his twin shudder a bit, no doubt at the thought of returning to their Auntie Muriel’s to endure more yelling and criticism. George shot him a very sardonic look, and laughed lightly.

“Glad you two decided to come -- it’ll be nice having someone else in the house. I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in months,” you waved your wand to pull three teacups from the kitchen cupboard and started the kettle. You felt a sense of ease at having your two closest friends here. “Should be alright out here, at least for a while.”

Fred glimpsed around your tiny little house. It was small, but exceptionally tidy with a very cozy feeling to it. It looked much different than the Burrow, but still emanated that feeling of home. “Lovely place you’ve got.”

“Thanks, Freddie,” you replied, handing him a steaming cup of tea. He gingerly took it out of your hands. “Just one problem.”

The twins chorused together, “What?”

“I’ve only got one extra bed.”

If the room hadn’t gone so eerily still at your comment, you never would have noticed the small jab to the hip George gave his twin. Fred grunted a bit and stifled a cough. “Oh, no worry -- George already said he’ll take the floor.”

Fred earned himself an eye roll and another jab.

You waved them both off and blew on your tea. “Don’t be silly! I’ll take the floor. You two’ve just got to battle it out for who gets the bigger bed.”

As if on queue, George immediately hoisted his bag back over his shoulder. He began walking away and pointed toward your very tiny spare bedroom off of the kitchen. “This one here, yeah? Thanks again, Y/N, really appreciate you letting us escape the wrath of our aunt -- I’m absolutely knackered, hope you two don’t mind if I turn in!” and with a quick wave to you and Fred, George closed the door and you both almost immediately heard very loud snoring. You and Fred exchanged a laugh.

You made sure everything was in order for Fred before leading him to your room. But you noticed he hadn’t brought his stuff with him -- you saw his belongings near your front door. With a wave of your wand, you brought it forward.

“I’m really okay to sleep on the couch,” he told you, pointing back toward the front.

“I’m not going to have you sleep on the couch,” you replied, shaking your head. “Besides -- you’re not staying out there. I might be a bit dramatic, but the couch is too close to the windows and the front door, and though I’ve been safe here for a while..” you voice trailed off a bit, and you swallowed down the nerves bubbling up inside of you. “Just -- we never know where the Death Eaters are. You take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

You patted Fred’s shoulder, ready to head back out to your front room, when he took your wrist in his hand and whirled you back around to face him. “If I’m not allowed to take the couch, neither are you.”

You crossed your arms and swallowed. “Fine,” you replied with a grin. “Have got tons of extra pillows and a massive blanket here somewhere -- let me go and fetch it. Go on then, make yourself comfortable.”

“Merlin, you are being thick today,” Fred chuckled, and you noticed traces of the young boy you grew to love. He caressed small circles on the back of your hand. “Would you just sleep in your own bed?”

“But --” your breath caught in your throat. You glanced at your own bed, easily big enough for two, maybe even three, and went against your better judgement before you could overthink it. “Just share with me, then. Nobody takes the floor.”

A hint of nervousness flashed across his features before twisting into a cheeky grin. You continued on when he stayed silent, “What’s the matter, Freddie? You’ve been my best mate for the better half of the last twenty years. I mean, I’ve seen you in your bunny slippers, for Merlin’s sake --” Fred flinched uncomfortably at the memory of you catching him, late one evening in Gryffindor tower, in bunny slippers his mum had knitted for him as a child. You had never let him forget it.

His grin deepened alongside the crimson red colour of his cheeks. “Listen, woman, they are soft and keep me nice and toasty, alright?”

“Whatever you say,” you replied before sliding yourself underneath your warm blanket. You patted the other side of the bed in an accidental sensual way and realized how that must’ve come across. You quickly cleared your throat and turned off the light before you could see his reaction. “Erm -- there are extra pillows on the couch if you need.”

You felt his body slide in next to yours, and you could still make out some of his facial features from the faint light of the lightning strikes outside. He was definitely still grinning. “I’m fine, really.”

You figured out quite quickly that neither of you were able to sleep, especially because it was only eleven p.m. and because of the wild wind and rain that were howling outside of your window. The words were spilling out of you before you could help it. “Fred?”

He turned on his side to face you. “Yeah?”

You were laying on your back, looking up at your ceiling in the darkness. “Are you afraid?”

When he didn’t answer right away, you turned your head to face him too. Each time the lightning struck it was bright and vibrant, and highlighted his features in a more intimate way than ever before. He threaded his brows together and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I am.”

It was weirdly comforting hearing him say that he was afraid. The man who didn’t have a serious bone in his body was actually scared. It was strange and unnerving and brought a sense of solace to you all at once.

You sucked in a breath, worried that your normal evening anxiety would show solely through the look in your eyes. You turned away to glance toward the ceiling again when you felt Fred brush his fingers gently against yours under the covers. Your breath hitched at the contact.

“I think it’ll be okay though.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I suppose I can’t..” it was so weird, hearing him speak like this. He shifted again. “I just think.. we’re more prepared than before. Think there’s more of us this time. Besides, we’ve done our studying, and we’re all brilliant wizards.”

A smile tugged at the edges of your mouth. “You are kind of brilliant.”

“Wow,” he breathed, and it was almost a whisper. You noticed the way the edges of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Care to return the compliment first?”

“Hang on,” he replied, placing his hands behind his head in a bit of a relaxed state. “I need to bask in this for a moment.”

“Oh shove off, you git!”

You playfully swatted him before he retaliated. Soon enough you were both sitting upright, thwacking one another with pillows and laughing into the darkness of the night. Fred fell to the floor with a dull thump, and you stifled lots of giggles and shushed him as he slid back into bed next to you. “You’re going to wake up George!”

You weren’t sure how long the two of you were swatting at one another. It could’ve been hours, or perhaps days. But then the storm grew more fierce, and you found yourself scooting closer to him in bed. Fred always had a way of making you forget about everything going on around you. It was always surprising to you how you’d be able to drown out the rest of the world, as long as you listened to him talk, or as long as you watched him work on his inventions with gentle hands. Even in lessons, back in school, when he’d teasingly wink at you from across the classroom, you were pretty much rendered completely useless for the rest of the day. When it was just you and him, the rest of the world might as well not even exist.

He must’ve noticed how you zoned out, because he asked, “What’s on your mind?”

You turned on your side to face him fully this time. “Just reminiscing.”

“Yeah? About what?”

“Remember when we bumped into one another in the corridors during our fourth year -- I was sneaking sweets up from the kitchens, and you were attempting to sneak into one of the classrooms to finish working on inventions?” You smiled at the memory. “And then Filch was roaming around, and we nearly got caught?”

Fred laughed. You were happy that he remembered. “Never sprinted back to the common room so quickly in my life. That ruddy cat of his was clawing at my ankles.”

“Between the fact that I’d hardly gotten any sleep that night and the adrenaline rush, I was bloody exhausted.”

Fred snorted. “Yeah, you fell asleep in the armchair next to the fire almost immediately when we returned and began to snore rather loudly, if my memory serves me correct.”

You grinned, not skipping a beat. “Yeah, my snoring is almost as embarrassing as those slippers of yours.”

You expected him to groan and throw another pillow in your direction, but instead he just deepened his smile and reached out and placed his hand next to yours on the edge of his pillow, your fingers almost touching. “I dunno -- I thought it was cute.”

You really hoped the steady drumbeat sound of your heart was drowned out by the sounds of the thunder outside. You weren’t so sure though. “Yeah?”

He wet his lips and nodded. “I remember having to wake you up because it was nearly four a.m. -- fire had died out and you looked so uncomfortable in that armchair -- I just wanted to carry you upstairs. Except..” Yeah, jinxes by the professors at each respective staircase. Boys weren’t allowed in the girls dorms, and vice versa. You knew exactly what he was getting at.

You felt a swift surge of confidence overtake you, so you gently moved your fingers a few centimeters before you slowly intertwined them with his. He didn’t flinch. Your voice was softer than you expected. “What else do you remember about that night?”

It was an opening -- you didn’t want to be so blatantly obvious about it, but Fred could always read you like a book. You hoped he still could, after all these years. Luckily for the both of you, nothing had changed. He took the opening. “I remember wanting to kiss you.”

You bit your lip, hoping to suppress the nerves that were bubbling up inside of you like fizzy champagne.

Fred laughed cheekily. “Never got a chance, though.”

Before you could think more on it, you nudged his leg with your toes and scooted closer to him. You could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, you were so close. “Then kiss me now.”

His mouth parted slightly in surprise, but nevertheless he inched forward and caught your lips with his. They were soft -- softer than you ever could have imagined, and so was the kiss itself. He tasted faintly of mint, and and you found yourself breathing in deeper when he trailed one solitary finger across your jawline and down your neck. The feel of him against you warmed up your entire body in a way that the common room fire never could.

He sighed against your lips before reluctantly pulling away. “Mmm we should’ve been doing this the entire time,”

You laughed softly and brought your fingers to your lips, hoping to still feel that electricity. “Yeah, we probably should have.”

All thoughts of the war seemed to subside as he leant in to kiss you again. Somehow, being with him, your limbs entangled together -- it was enough to make you forget about the war on the horizon, everything that was about to happen. As far as you were concerned, as long as Fred was beside you, tangled in the covers of your bed, everything would be alright.

He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes. His voice was rough and sensual and soft all at the same time as he wiggled his eyebrows at you. “Thanks for inviting me to sleep in your bed.”

You grinned and raked your bottom lip through your teeth. “Yeah, well, like you said -- we should’ve been doing this the entire time. Figured I’d get a jump start on what we’ve missed.”

He laughed and wrapped his arms tightly around your hips. Goosebumps sprouted on your skin as he lazily trailed his fingers up and down your spine and told you, “Knew you were my favorite for a reason.”

[lipstickchainsaw]

Kris...?

I finished Deltarune chapter 2 a couple of days ago, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since, so now you all get to share in some of those musings!

Spoilers for Deltarune chapter 2, naturally.

The situation surrounding Kris is a little complicated, because we, as the player, as explicitly possessing them against their will, which means most of the actions they take are not theirs, they are ours.

This dichotomy is present in each of the protagonists of this series, but Kris is most clearly unhappy with our presence. Frisk seems to have very little of an opinion on our actions (to the point where them not being us is a reveal), and Chara’s relationship with the player is too complicated to really delve into here, but there’s some mutual egging on happening in that relationship. (I doubt I will be able to avoid Chara as a subject entirely, given the similarities between them and Kris, but this isn’t primarily about them.)

But our control over Kris is not absolute. Kris is able to assert themselves in various ways, most prominently by literally ripping the player out of themselves, by ripping out the SOUL, but this is where the interesting things start:

For one, the battered birdcage suggests that Kris has ripped their SOUL many times already, which means they’ve done so before the player turned up to take possession of them. This would imply that someone else has take possession of Kris before. The first save we override when playing Chapter 1 is Kris’, which means that they resisted that possession and took control over themselves back before we showed up.

Secondly, Kris willingly puts the SOUL back in in chapter 2. This is either because Kris recognises that they need that SOUL, even if it comes with possession, or because it offers some other advantages that make the possession worth it in some sense, but we’ll get into that later.

 Who is Kris?

So, we know Kris does not like the possession (his response to the Spamton fight makes this exceedingly clear), but beyond that, there are a lot of details we can fill in about who they are.

For one, Kris has really grown to like Susie. They protect her entirely of their own volition when fighting the King, and the Susie Tea heals Kris the most (Ralsei Tea notably does not, but we’ll get to that). Maybe it’s because Susie gets to be as rebellious as she wants, and Kris appreciates having someone around to call out the bullshit they see around them that our control doesn’t let them comment on, maybe it’s something else. It’s hard to tell, because Kris’ relationship is filtered almost entirely through us, but their other relationships aren’t.

Berdly acknowledges that Kris is the third-smartest person in class (which means Kris is the second-smartest, depending on how much help they’ve received from Toriel), and we know from basically everyone that Kris has been a little creepy, unsettling and quiet for a good long while now. They used to do a lot of mean pranks (especially targeting Noelle). One could argue that these pranks went a little too far, but Noelle doesn’t seem to be that upset about those pranks anymore.

This is made more interesting when looking at that moment in chapter 2, where you, as the player, can prank Noelle on the forcefield puzzle, but then, when Noelle pranks Kris back, Kris looks very upset about this. This either means that Kris has gotten over their pranking days, or it’s the unfairness involved that makes this specific instance unpleasant.

We also know that Kris really, really loves Asriel, and wanted to hang out with Asriel and his friends a lot as a kid, even if that meant people like Catty and Bratty taking advantage of them, and we know Kris studied the occult with Catti at some point. Kris also likes to play the piano, and is very frustrated that we don’t know how to.

Oh, and there’s that weird (bomb?) shelter to the south of town that Kris apparently has a history with.

 What’s up with that?

The sound coming from that shelter is plenty ominous already, but Monster Kid and Snowy’s conversation in chapter 2 makes it very clear that Kris has gone in there, and the minor interaction with Susie afterwards indicates that this is not something that Kris likes to talk about.

Now, that shelter is pretty clearly associated with Gaster, and Gaster has been known to experiment with souls, so I do not think it’s much of a stretch to suggest that this is where Kris was first possessed, and things turned for the worse for them.

Kris and Noelle have also gone through something pretty traumatic, possibly involving Noelle’s sister Dess (likely short for December), and the location mentioned for this event makes it very likely that these are the same thing.

So Kris explored that shelter (with Noelle and December, perhaps), stumbled across something bad, and likely got possessed, which they struggled with for a while (turning quiet and strange in the meantime, and alienating the people around them), before fighting the possession off and being left depressed and exhausted, almost perpetually.

But then, there’s another side to Kris.

 The Knight

In chapter 2, we learn that Kris is the Knight, who has created at least two dark worlds, and creates a third at the end of chapter 2. Kris either cannot do this, or does not want to do this, while we’re possessing them, but what’s left of Kris after they rip their SOUL out is a shambling mess of a person, which goes some way to explaining why they accept the SOUL back after they’ve done their thing.

Now, we don’t know Kris also created the original dark world in the supply closet (and we know that one existed before the one in the abandoned classroom), since Ralsei never mentions the Knight creating that one, but, well, Ralsei has been keeping his information close to his chest.

It is interesting, however, that Kris created the dark world in the abandoned classroom before we showed up to possess them, so clearly we are not the (only) reason they’re doing this, but if we aren’t, then what is?

 Ralsei

Ralsei is always incredibly supportive of Kris, to the point of seemingly crushing on them over the course of the games, but Kris does not seem to quite return those affections (given the lukewarm response to the Ralsei Tea compared to the Susie Tea), regardless of whether we do.

Ralsei is also very mysterious, and has, so far, not shared everything he knows about what’s going on. There’s also some hints in the Snowgrave route that Ralsei knows the player and Kris are not the same person, and that he’s using our ability to switch perspectives to actually talk to Kris, which means he isn’t necessarily hiding things from Kris as he is hiding things from us. Just look at how quickly he tells Kris not to think about the Spamton fight, after Kris has their outburst (if you choose to let them say ‘no’).

So, I think Ralsei may be making plans with Kris behind our backs, which makes it very possible that Ralsei knows Kris is the Knight, and is creating these new dark worlds, which would seemingly contradict his desire not to blanket the world in darkness, but, well, there could be a lot he’s hiding from us still.

Does that mean we’re the bad guys? Does it mean Kris and Ralsei are the bad guys? Either is possible, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable of Kris and Ralsei to keep information hidden from the powerful entity possessing Kris. We could be nice, sure, but at any point we have the power to do something awful (a fear the Snowgrave route proves to be very real), so I can hardly blame the two of them for not telling us everything immediately.

So maybe Ralsei’s relentless encouragement and pushing for pacifism is meant for us? To make sure our possession of Kris is as easy on them as possible? And on those occasions where our possession gets to be too much for Kris, they can rip their SOUL out and deal with all the bubbling anger and frustration by unleashing it on some tires, and creating a dark world, before putting the SOUL back and go on with whatever plan Kris and Ralsei have going on?

Do their choices matter, in the end? Do ours?

 I have another thing I want to write about that theme, but it’s not entirely related to this one, and this is long and rambling enough already, so let me know if that’s something you’re interested in and I might put it together.

[doctorbunny]

MILGRAM theory time: Haruka!

This isn't going to go super in depth (famous last words) but there's a few heavily debated parts of Haruka's MV I want to share my findings/thoughts on because I think this is my new special interest and during my quest to get best boy's song to 1 million views I have been looking over his first MV with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

Disclaimer: As the Jackalope said in the "This is the MILGRAM" trailer, we don't necessarily know everyone's crime from just the first video, its possible that a lot of things will be re-contextualized in the second MV, however I am not psychic or bilingual and thus will only be working with content released before August 20th 2021 and translated into English (which could cause some language/cultural details to be lost on me as translation is not a 1 to 1 process).

TW for discussions of ableism, child abuse, murder and animal death. Also this is really long so sorry to all the people that follow me for non-MILGRAM stuff

Firstly, I want to start on the topic of Haruka as a person. He is disabled. He does not have 'the mind of a child' (although he is 17, making him legally a minor in both North America and Japan). He is not just 'child-like'. And he is not mentally ill (well he might be, in the sense that many disabilities like Haruka's have strong comorbidities [where a person has two or more conditions but neither directly causes the other] with anxiety, depression and PTSD, but usually when I see people talk about him 'struggling with mental illness' they go on to refer to aspects of his disability). Sometimes on tumblr, people like myself, will see canonical traits written into a character and identify them as being traits associated with our disabilities/mental illness and headcanon them as such. Sometimes this even involves saying things like "It's basically canon!" Although we understand that these characters were probably not the result of a writer intending to write a disabled person. When I say that Haruka is being written as a person with a neurodevelopmental disability, I mean the writer intended to write a disabled character and wrote them in a way that they wanted the audience to pick up on. As an autistic person (which is one of many neurodevelopmental disorders and also something I probably didn't have to specify because who else would be writing an essay about a series they got into a few days ago at 11 o'clock at night) I really like how Haruka has been written so far. There's definitely some parts of him that have been exaggerated so abled normies can pick up on his disability (namely how his MV 's main motif is really child-like drawings) but the writers also included a lot of smaller details I appreciate like how it is noted he avoids eye contact when talking to other people and is depicted as nervously pulling at his sleeves in official artwork, or how he says he finds his prison uniform (which has tight straps) 'relaxing' and when he gets nervous/tense, he will dig his fingernails into the palm of his hands. (These last two potential being examples of 'self stimulation' [aka stimming] where a person seeks out specific sensory stimuli in order to help regulate their nervous system/emotions, in this case the tight uniform creates a comforting, secure feeling [you may have heard about some people preferring to sleep under weighted blankets for this reason] and digging nails into his palms sounds uncomfortable/painful but is done in an attempt to deal with a greater sensory discomfort caused by the situation/environment) I also appreciate the depth he is written with, he struggles to communicate verbally but in his MV and interactions with other inmates is shown to have insecurities, opinions and a consistent thought process (this is all basic character stuff but unfortunately not always present in disabled characters)

Also I want to add that (in terms of what we've been shown so far) Haruka did not kill anyone because of his disability/mental illness. Disabled people are not inherently more innocent than abled people. But there is no disability/mental illness where a symptom is that you kill people and real people have to live with the stigma when you speak carelessly and suggest things like "Haruka is the kind of mentally ill person who kills people as a cry for help" 🧂 (or at the very least real people have to read BS like that and cringe). TL;DR Haruka is less child-like and more onion-like (as in, he has layers) 🧅🧅🧅

Now is the actual theory stuff, oops:

Every prisoner in MILGRAM is supposed to have committed murder in some way, obviously considering Yuno just had an abortion (which i personally do not consider an act of murder) whilst Mu literally stabbed someone to death, this definition is stretched a bit. But it is not agreed upon yet who Haruka killed/how many people he killed or why he killed.

In his MV he is shown to have chased after his dog into a forest, seen something off-screen, then beaten something into a messy pulp with a rock. Some people think the dog is a red herring and that Haruka actually killed his mother/the girl from the fireworks show/his brother. I do not agree.

First: I believe Haruka when he says he doesn't have a brother. The MV literally starts by Haruka looking in the mirror and then switching between the him now

and a really similar looking younger child who just so happened to be a key feature of his memories (I don't have the vocabulary to explain it but its like cinematic parallels that establish this is the same person at different points of their life)

Its not impossible that this is Haruka's secret younger brother, but i think its unlikely. I saw someone saying they had to be different people because Haruka looks less happy than the child but like, most 17 year olds are less visibly happy than when they were 7 (or however old the child is meant to be). Life happens.

So when Haruka is shown pushing the child around and eventually strangling him, this isn't meant to be literal (homicide or suicide), but a representation of how conflicted Haruka feels about his younger self, who may have committed the murder (if you've ever been kept awake cringing at memories of something you said in the past and wishing you could go slap some sense into your former self, this is like that but 10 times more self loathing). The lyric "I am always repeating yesterday," implies he might think about this specific past event a lot.

Moving on, its pretty well accepted that Haruka's parents were abusive in some way and Haruka internalised a lot of it: he constantly apologises, he says in his interrogation questions that his one wish come true is that "[he] want[s] to be loved" and describes in his MV how when he couldn't find the words he was looking for ("you're unfair") one of his parents "would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”". He seems to know its unfair but also still says he 'loves' his family, possibly mistakenly believing it is his fault, but also showing an awareness of his situation (and how his parents might behave).

Now, the MV is stylised in a way that makes certain details unclear, but there is one clear detail showing that Haruka's dog was killed

This is the first close up of Haruka and the dog. Haruka's mother is just out of frame supervising, but they look pretty happy. Notice how the puppy has a silvery chain for a collar. Somehow, this dog gets out of the house but only Haruka is shown chasing after it (whether his mother was searching elsewhere or didn't bother following her disabled son into the forest is unclear). Either way, young Haruka is now in the forest, unsupervised.

By the time he finds the dog, there is already blood, suggesting it was initally attacked by something else.

is this a sigh of relief from a boy whose finally found his beloved pet or a jealous weakling glad that nature took its course and he is finally free of that meddling mutt stealing all his mummy's attention? /j

I think this shock at the discovery that 'there is blood on his hands' could imply that rather than literally getting the blood from his dog, Haruka has seen his already injured dog and realises that if the dog got out because of him (he is previously shown to be aware his parents seem to blame him for everything) then he is the reason his dog is injured/dying and will be blamed for it. (this scene plays over the lyrics "It’s fine, though it’s really not It’s really fine, though I don’t really think so When I tried to understand it, You’ll make that disappointed face again" suggesting he is trying to avoid making his parents disappointed and letting the family pet escape into danger is something that could make them very disappointed)

now we get into rock murder (this is present-day Haruka implying that this is either: not how the scene really played out; the writers really wanting the audience to know that this was Haruka's doing and not someone else's; or this turns into a separate incident that happened much later [although note that the red sky and blue moon is the same as when young Haruka first appears at the start])

b the corpse is beyond mangled now, but its clearly the dog because the silver chain collar is still there, to the right of the body. (circled in red for your convenience :3)

My hypothesis is: Haruka didn't set out to kill his dog, but upon finding it injured (we don't know the severity aside from bleeding and also it not being able to run away from Haruka kneeling down above it w/ a big rock so it could range from treatable with a lot of vet help to already on death's door, TBH I don't think Haruka would know the difference) He knew he'd be blamed for this; made into a villain who let the poor puppy come to harm. He panicked and killed the dog out of some idea that it would make him the victim here (since he'd be found crying over a dog corpse, which might make a parent go comfort him rather than getting angry about what could've happened to the dog). This is over the lyrics: "I cried, I screamed I wanted to be a pitied and loved weakling I was in denial, I was in denial I just had to make sure I’ve become a victim, I’ve become a victim" (there's another theory that he was also jealous of the dog, which could work here too, since this is not some calculated plot; rather its a rash decision) This ties in with his Japanese song title (translated as Weakness) which is a play on a phrase sort of like "The strong eat, the weak do not" to become "The weak are eaten by society" or "The weak eat each other to survive" [once again I am reminding everyone this is based on second hand information from the youtube comments section (from users mitchki and Alphaistic) because I do not speak Japanese] This second meaning (The weak eat each other to survive) makes sense under the reading that Haruka killed his dog in order to 'survive' making his parents disappointed for the dog escaping.

Miscellaneous points:

We don't know where Haruka's necklace came from yet, it must be a gift since the most expensive thing he's ever bought was cotton candy. The younger child in the video isn't wearing it and neither is his mother or the girl in the purple dress.

Haruka's home seems quite big, at the start we can see a large flower garden outside the window and there's a forest in walking distance. This might suggest his family is quite wealthy

Haruka probably did go to school at some point as homeschooling is not a legally accepted as an alternative to public schools in Japan. (However it is estimated that up to 5000 families homeschool, this is uncommon) A lot (about 62%) of Japanese schools apparently have a 'special needs' classes and there are about 505 schools focused on educating intellectually disabled students (although I do not know which sort Haruka would've needed as whilst intellectual and development disabilities can be comorbid they aren't the same). Now, if children aged 7-14 don't go to school, their parents receive a fine, but its possible that if Haruka's parents are wealthy, they just paid it to avoid sending him to school. (This might imply they wanted to hide him or were generally ashamed of him in some way) However high school education (for students over 14) is not legally required and its likely that even if Haruka went to elementary/middle school, he hasn't been around people his own age in at least 3 years. As he seems quite lonely and glad that the other prisoners give him attention.

I don't think Haruka's parents are divorced and if they are, its not his father who left. Haruka mentions in the 30 questions that he thinks he disappointed his father. But still includes him as part of his family ("My father and mother and me"). A theory I've seen is that his father was disappointed by his son being disabled and left. but developmental disabilities (especially in non verbal and semi verbal children like Haruka) can be diagnosed before the age of 3, so I feel it is unlikely that Haruka would bring up his father if he left that early in Haruka's life

All MILGRAM prisoners have covered one of DECO*27's older vocaloid songs (DECO*27 is a well known producer who composes the music for MILGRAM) Haruka covered 'Two Breaths Walking' (https://youtu.be/puXLfVWrz2Q) which is about a boy's first relationship and how his mother's jealousy set him up for failure as the relationship becomes toxic (specifically it has some very funny out of context lines like "Whose breasts are you sucking on now?") so yeah, mommy issues: the song (Also: some people say in the song, the boy kills the girl at the end, but this isn't literal, TBW is the first of a trilogy of songs about the same relationship, it is followed by Android girl then Two Breaths Walking: Reloaded and the story resolves with the couple reuniting as adults and getting in the relationship again, although its not necessarily as abusive as before, its still implied to be codependant ending on the line 'We should live like oxygen tanks, sucking breathe from the words each of us exhale, until our last breathe')

In all seriousness, the scene where younger Haruka is walking through the city with his mother but it keeps repeating until older Haruka pulls the younger one away might indicate an attempt to focus the happier memories of his parents (since this is also over the lyrics "Why is it breaking? Tell me why? Please don’t change If I tried and couldn’t say it, You would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”" which depict a worse scene) I think both his parents are still physically present but have become far more emotionally distant, not giving him as much attention, which exacerbates his loneliness from not having any friends his own age to talk to

And if one of his parents did leave? I think its likely his mother since she is shown disappearing out of his reach after the dog-incident (inferring she got angry/disappointed in Haruka anyway) This could also be where he got his necklace from: Its something his mother used to wear (although this is 100% a guess) and that's why its shown to be important to him

This one is just me, but i didn't realise until a rewatch that when Haruka is watching the younger him and the girl running together, the background has fireworks. Haruka mentions fireworks being a key memory to him so I wonder if this was one of the first/last times he got to make a friend...

On three separate occasions in the interrogation, Haruka mentions not liking animals. Despite this, he is depicted as sleeping with a rabbit plush and on his birthday art (I'd include that too but tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post, so here's a link) he is standing next to a giant blueberry and strawberry cake with two bunny themed biscuits at the side. Through my experiences of seeing Japanese fandom art on pixiv, sometimes rabbits are used to insinuate a character is cute and timid in fanart.

Meaningless details: Haruka sleeps with his necklace on; he sleeps on a bed and not a futon; at first I thought he woke up holding his plush's hand but his hand is merely next to the toy; and considering the state of the pillow and blanket, I wonder if he moves a lot in his sleep or if the is just because in this case he seems to be waking up from a nightmare about the dog incident...

Final note: I've spent so many hours writing this I don't remember if i was building up to any big finale or not but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Feel free to add on in the comments/reblogs.

[novoaa1writes]

child’s play

pairing(s): natasha romanoff & f!reader (familial), wanda maximoff x f!reader, bucky barnes & f!reader (platonic), steve rogers & bucky barnes, tony stark & f!reader 

summary: 

you’ve agreed to stay with natalia (for now). you don’t yet trust her, but you figure it’s a start. soldat remains a mystery to you, and, when steve rogers enters into the equation, everything just seems to go from bad to worse.

in the meantime, you share a couple moments with natalia, talk to a pretty girl, and think a little about what it truly means to be a kid.

also available on ao3

word count: ~8,300

rating: mature

warnings: trauma, a fair amount of blood/gore, ptsd, violence, injury, swearing, implied/referenced sexual content, mentions of kids being forced to seduce old creepy men, death (not of any main characters), non-consensual memory alteration, brief mention of racism

notes: uhmmm... so. why is the world always falling apart?

— —

PREVIOUS PART: “BLACK WIDOW JR.”

— —

Natalia shows you to an empty room, says it’s where you’ll be sleeping tonight. Then she promptly exits to take a phone call, leaving you alone in your new living space—temporarily. 

It’s nice, you suppose. 

An empty desk in the corner, blanketed by a thin layer of dust; a wooden chair to match.

A stout dresser pushed up against the wall—similarly coated with dust. 

An adjoining bathroom with not one, but two full-scale mirrors—one spanning the entire wall above the sink, and another secured on the inside of the door. 

Beside the bathroom, a spacious walk-in closet, empty save for a couple tens of hangars dangling from the rods. 

A massive wooden bedframe for an incredibly large bed—at least twice as big as the threadbare twin-size mattress you’ve been sleeping on since before you can remember, and three times as soft. 

The pillows are fluffy like marshmallows. The grey sheets and pillow cases feel as if they’ve been hand-threaded for royalty. And really, the matching poofy duvet-comforter-thing is just the big fat cushy icing on the velvety American cake. 

Even sitting on the edge of the bed feels like sinking into a cloud. 

It’s plush, luxurious… comfortable. 

You kind of hate it on principle. 

Not to mention, there’s a decently-sized window built into the wall just opposite the bed—2m x 1.5m (10’ x  5’), if you had to hazard a guess. A quick tap to the pane tells you it’s bulletproof polycarbonate, so at least that’s something. 

Doesn’t change the fact that the sightline it provides into the room itself is… substantial, to say the very least. 

You remember when Natalia began staying intermittently at the newly-christened Avengers Tower shortly after the alien invasion of New York. It was a fucking headache to surveil, even when you had eyes on her. Too much exposure, not nearly enough on-site security, a hundred and one weak spots in Stark’s beloved J.A.R.V.I.S.’ programming. 

The year would’ve been… 2012, you think? The timeline of it all is so… scrambled in your brain. 

You make a note to check that later… maybe record what you can remember, then supplement it with documented events from the news. A sort of… written chronology. 

Perhaps it won’t all feel so jumbled if you can get it on paper. 

Either way, it stressed you out, Natalia staying at the Tower. It still does.

You suppose it makes you feel marginally better to know she’s on the other side of the wall. Marginally.

On the exterior, you could clock potential threats from an elevated perch, have a chance to neutralize them before Natalia or her Avengers ever knew they’d existed. 

On the interior, you’re a sitting duck. Then again, should something happen, you’re in a better location to quickly secure her and begin plotting a viable escape route. 

It’s a trade-off—proximity to Natalia for the loss of an ideal vantage point on the outside. 

Then again, if the events of Leipzig and Siberia (and Sokovia) are any indication, the single greatest threat to the world-renowned Avengers has proven to be none other than the Avengers themselves. 

… In which case, the heart of Avengers Tower is exactly where you’ll want to be. 

Yes, this is a trade-off you can live with. For now. 

With another glance between the too-large window and marshmallow bed, you make the executive decision to gather some intel. 

“Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” you ask tentatively. It feels strange, speaking out into an empty room and expecting it—her—to answer. 

“Yes, Miss Y/L/N?” Her response is quick, her intonation calm like a freshwater creek. 

It’s only years of training that keep you from jolting at her offhanded use of your surname. 

“Is the window in this room two-sided?” It must be, you think. Still, it’ll put your mind at ease to know for sure. 

“I presume you mean two-sided in the sense that the exterior is reflective, while the interior is transparent.”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes, Miss Y/L/N. It is.”

Ah. Sightline eliminated. 

“Okay. Thank you, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” You pause, glancing up at the ceiling. “And… you can just call me Y/N.”

“Is that what you’d prefer?”

The objectively rather simple query knocks you back on your heels. What I’d… ‘prefer.’ 

Jesus. It’s been a long damn time since someone asked you—not your many faces, not your undercover personas, but you—what you ‘preferred.’

It takes you a moment or two to realize that F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s still waiting patiently for your reply. 

“Yes,” you answer, silently scolding yourself for the momentary lapse. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Of course, Y/N,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. defers graciously. 

And with that, she’s gone. 

You do another quick walk around, surveying the space, taking in its dimensions. 

Finally, you sit yourself cross-legged against the wall just underneath the large, rectangular window. There, you rest for the moment—simply taking it all in.  

It’s early afternoon, still. Golden sunlight strains from behind storm-grey clouds in gloomy skies overhead. The streets of New York City are overcrowded, bustling with activity. Sirens wail from a distance; the stifled sounds of overlapping shouts and car horns from street level filter up through the walls—a constant melody in The City That Never Sleeps.  

One point of entry. Two, if you count the window. 

One exit. (Though, worse comes to worst, you can always make one of your own. You’re creative that way.)

Old S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue long-sleeve shirt; sweatpants (sans the drawstring) to match. Boxer briefs instead of panties—an interesting choice, considering you still don’t know who dressed you. 

No bra, hair pulled back into a sloppy bun. 

No shoes. No weapons. And, as you still have Natalia firmly down in the ‘Undecided’ column, no allies.  

You’ve certainly faced worse.

You fold your hands in your lap, let your eyes flutter shut. You filter out the sounds of car horns and disgruntled civilians and mayhem from down below until all you can hear is your breathing alongside the constant hum of the air conditioning. 

If you strain yourself hard enough, you can just make out the quiet murmur of Natalia speaking on the phone from the other room. You’re sure that if you really wanted to, you could listen in on the conversation. 

You kind of do. 

And yet, it would be an encroachment—an invasion of her privacy, that which she no doubt treasures greatly, even now, in an age where true privacy is more scarce than ever. Especially now. 

You will not be one to take what precious little of it remains from her. 

So, instead, you sit, you listen, and you wait. 

— —

“I don’t want to fight you,” you tell Natalia, leveling her with an admonishing look.

“Why?” Natalia asks. “Scared I’ll kick your ass?”

You do another visual sweep of the training space around you. It’s empty save for floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three sides, an expensive-looking assortment of Tanto blades mounted on the nearest wall, and a metal bench sitting near the door-less entry way. 

You huff out a sigh, willing to let some of your frustration show if it’ll finally get her to stop treating all of this as one big joke. “You can’t be serious with all of this.”

“You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

Where to start... The blades, the offer to spar, the lack of heavily-armed security waiting to drop you on your ass the moment you step out of line. “Is this a test?”

Natalia’s gaze softens, if only slightly. “No.”

“Would you tell me if it were?”

“Yes.”

You eye her for a long moment. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I still don’t want to do this.”

Natalia appraises you for a minute… then two. It takes everything within you not to shrink away under her scrutiny. “Why not?”

Well. No way you’re answering that.

You take a breath to gather yourself, silently willing a sense of calm upon your frayed nerves. Then, you settle into a fighting stance—feet a shoulder’s width apart, loosely-curled fists at the ready. 

You make sure you’re looking her dead in the eye when you say, “Alright, Babushka. Hit me with your best shot.”

There’s a hint of something like barely restrained glee sparking in Natalia’s eyes before she’s lunging for you in a blur of motion, not an ounce of hesitation in her graceful movements. 

You can’t help the wolfish grin spreading across your face as you duck down at the last second, causing her heavy-handed swing to miss by a couple centimeters where it otherwise would’ve knocked you into next week.

Game on.

— —

It’s steady going, for about the first 10 minutes. 

You manage to get in a couple good hits—maybe one for every two or three Natalia lands on you. 

She’s fast. Not as quick as you, but what she lacks in speed, she makes up for ten times over in endurance and poise. She’s a prima ballerina, through and through, even when she spars. Especially then. 

She makes the fight feel less like a fight, and more like a dance. Her, the refined, porcelain-faced lead; you, her… flat-footed, bush-league partner. 

Though, truth be told, it’s always been that way. You may well be the program’s biggest success since Natalia, but dancing has never been your strong suit.

Regardless, you find yourself falling into a familiar two-step—block, kick; duck, punch. Twist out of the hold, dodge another jab.

Cheeky banter flows steadily between hits, like you’re… friends, or something. Well, not friends. Acquaintances? 

Whatever. Point is, you’re not actively trying to kill her, and she’s not actively trying to kill you. In your book, that’s tantamount to some degree of unity. 

You duck a high kick, land a quick jab beneath Natalia’s rib cage. Hop up just in time to clear the sweep kick hurtling straight for your ankles.

You’ve only just settled back on your feet when Natalia surges up from her crouched stance to throw a vicious uppercut. You lurch back onto your heels to avoid getting hit, sending all your balance right off the fucking deep end. 

“Come now,” she purrs in Russian, advancing forth to match you step for step even as you stagger backwards. “You can only evade me for so long.”

It’s meant to be a tease, a quip, nothing more; but upon hearing it, you freeze. Every muscle tenses up, your joints lock, and all you can see is red, red, red. 

Red like Natalia’s hair. Red like Madame B’s painted lips. Red like blood. 

Blood smeared between your thighs, blood staining the snow, blood dribbling down your chin.

A never-ending torrent of red, red, red.

Come now, little one, a younger Natalia says, advancing on you like a predator would its prey. You can only evade me for so long.

You stumble back, teeth gritted as shards of broken glass slice your bare feet. Your vision blurs, your fingers feel cold, and the gash in your side… warm and wet. An endless flow of blood so very, very red.   

A bone-cracking blow against your jaw whips your head to one side, blood and saliva spurting from your bleeding lips. You stagger away, balance compromised… only to have your back hit a wall of cold, hard brick.

Fight back, she orders you, her voice so very hard and cold even as blood runs wet and warm between your trembling fingers, dousing you in your own inadequacy. You’re so weak, so fucking weak—sliding down the wall, jagged brick tearing every scabbed-over lash on your back open anew. Let’s see the little kitten use her claws.

Her face is the last thing you see before it all goes black.

Black…

‘Black Widow lives. Find her.’ You carve that phrase into the wood of a loose floorboard beneath your bunk with a shiv you stole from an older girl named Svetlana. 

The letters are messy, and the tips of your fingers bleed from pulling out splinters, but this is important. 

They’re sending you to the chair this afternoon. You don’t know why, and they won’t tell you.

All you know is, the chair hurts. The chair… takes things. It takes your memories, rips them apart and mixes them up until none of it feels real anymore. 

After the chair, you’re a clean slate. An empty vessel. A loaded weapon ready to be aimed and fired. 

You go through the motions of everyday life in a daze, like you’re sleep-walking. Nothing feels real; nothing feels like it matters. 

A mark shoves himself inside you with zero foreplay, growls a slew of racially derogatory and outright demeaning things into your mouth as he fucks you. You feel nothing. 

You shoot a target at point-blank range, spatter his brains across the walls, taste the coppery tang of his blood on your tongue. 

Zilch. It’s as if you’re not even there. 

Sometimes, things come back. They’re always incomplete—bits and pieces. A name you should know but don’t; a face that looks familiar but isn’t; a sense of crushing grief a mile wide, but you don’t know for the life of you who it’s for.  

There’s only one part that always, always, always comes back: Natalia. 

Hell, even when your own name doesn’t come back, she always does. 

The dimple in her cheek, the startling green of her eyes, the coppery red of her hair. 

It’s not until you remember Natalia that you are a person again… that you are you again. 

So, you carve the words into a loose floorboard—Black Widow lives. Find her. Crawl down under your bed, ease it back into place. 

When you return, it’ll be there. It’ll remind you that you’re not crazy for missing a ghost. 

No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times they wipe you… it’ll be there. You’ll remember. You have to. 

A series of chimes echo throughout the dusty dormitory—one, two. Then, silence.  

2:00pm. 

You’ve got an appointment with the chair in exactly 15 minutes. 

You sit yourself down on the edge of your bed, hear the mattress squeak. 

One breath, then two. In, out. In, out. 

It’s grey outside. Cloudy skies, thick snow blanketing the grounds. All the gloom and doom so characteristic of this hellish place where little girls come to die. 

And then, as you watch, a flash of red amidst the grey. More saturated than Natalia’s hair, more luminescent than blood. A mirage that bathes the untouched snow beneath it in flares of brilliant crimson. 

You think you recognize it. 

A strange thought. 

It’s red, red… so very, very red…

You awake to screaming. 

No chimes. No snow. 

Where is the sky? 

Light assaults your senses. It stings, makes your eyelids flutter. 

So bright. So bright. 

LEDs? Probably. 

You blink. What’s an LED?

Your vision sharpens. Your eyes still burn, but pain will be compartmentalized. You will not break. You are marble. 

Two faces loom over you—feminine. Pretty. 

Red. So much red. 

Blood?

No… hair. Eyes. Jacket. 

Red, red, so much red. 

The older one is shushing you, her brow creased with worry. 

Are you the one screaming?

The younger one looks panicked… fearful. 

Doesn’t she know that to show fear is to admit defeat? She cannot surrender. She mustn’t. She’ll die. 

Will you be the one to kill her?

Her eyes are red. They glow like lanterns. Why are they red?

Natalia had red hair. No, not ‘had.’ Has.

Black Widow lives. Find her.

Whose words are those?

Your fingertips throb. Splinters under your nails.

Red hair tickles your chin. 

Red hair… 

Natalia had red hair. 

She was a dancer, a prima ballerina. There were 28 of them in the Bolshoi… and then there was one. 

Dancing, dancing, dancing. Always dancing. 

Blood leaking through the toes of her slippers. 

Blood in your mouth, wet and warm. 

Blood on her face as Natalia looks down at you and tells you that she’s sorry, begs you not to die. 

A shudder runs through your body. You twitch and grasp your side.  

Dry. No wound. No blood. 

You glance down at your hands. 

Dry. No wound. No blood. 

That doesn’t make sense. 

This doesn’t make sense. 

You were bleeding. Where’s the blood?

Where’s the red?

“Y/N!”

Deafening white noise explodes in your ears. Someone’s calling out a name. You think it might belong to you.

Light overhead. 

So bright. So bright. 

LEDs? Probably. 

Your throat aches.

Someone was screaming… Was it you?

“Y/N?” That voice… You know that voice. 

Or do you?

A familiar face looms in your periphery. 

Green eyes. Red hair. 

“That’s it, little one, just breathe.” 

Natalia used to call you ‘little one.’

Another face beside hers. Wide eyes that glow… red. So red. Tears streaming down her pretty face—weakness. 

She can’t show weakness. Doesn’t she know that?

“You’re crying.” Your voice sounds distant, tinny to your own ears. 

The crying girl just frowns. Does she not understand you?

“She said, ‘You’re crying,’” the other one translates. Red hair. Green eyes. Natalia?

“Oh,” the younger one sniffles, hands trembling as she wipes hastily at her tear-stained cheeks. She wears silver rings, at least one on each finger. Why do they look familiar? “Sorry.”

Why is she apologizing?

“Stop apologizing,” you tell her, your words gravelly and rough. The inside of your throat feels as if it’s been scraped raw. Every word you speak is agonizing, but she needs to hear this. “Madame will hear you.”

The younger one sniffles, looks to the older one… to Natalia. “What did she say?”

Her English is stilted, heavily accented… Slavic. Sokovia, perhaps?

Sokovia… 

Fuck. Your head is fucking killing you.

Natalia shakes her head, a grim expression on her face. “She thinks she’s still in Russia,” she murmurs, so quiet you have to strain to hear her. 

Sokovia. Von Strucker. HYDRA.

Two enhanced targets—a brother and a sister. Eliminate them, quickly and quietly. Make it look like an accident. 

You see them… kids. 

The girl is red. The boy is blue. 

Your finger on the trigger, bleached-blonde hair in the crosshairs.

They’re kids. 

Suddenly, the scene changes, and the girl looms above you. Red flickers in her eyes. Why is she here?

Doesn’t she know you’ve been sent to kill her?

“You need to go. Now,” you tell her. “I have orders.”

The girl blinks, shaking her head like she doesn’t understand. She’s still crying. “What?”

Suddenly, Natalia is there. “Y/N, I need you to listen to me. You’re—”

“Natalia, don’t kill them—the twins. Please. They’re kids,” you plead with her. Madame must have sensed your weakness, sent the Widow to finish the job. “Take me back to the chair. Don’t make me kill them.”

Natalia frowns, looking deeply troubled, but eventually nods. “I won’t harm them, Y/N.”

You barely hear her. 

“You can hate me, Natalia. I can take it. But, please… Let them live.”

“I will, little one.” Her voice sounds rougher than usual. You wonder if she’s coming down with a cold. A foolish thought. She was born in the cold. “I’ll protect them.”

“Okay… Okay…”

A white-hot flare of agony as something bursts in your brain. Bits and pieces, a torrent of memory… 

Darkness.

Handcuffs.

Gas.

New York City. 

Natalia.

Tony Stark. 

Soldat. 

Wanda?

You look up. LEDs burn your retinas. Two faces loom over you. The stench of antiseptic tickles your nostrils. 

Where are you?

Avengers Tower. 

Natalia didn’t lie about that. Why didn’t she?

You remember… A training room. Tanto blades. 

“Alright, Babushka. Hit me with your best shot.”

Did you say that?

You sit bolt upright, adrenaline thrumming through your veins. 

Blood fills your mouth, wet and warm, a coppery taste that never leaves your tongue. 

You jump down onto the floor, run over to the sink. Someone says your name, but you ignore them. 

Wait. How do you know that that’s your name?

Your legs feel wobbly. You grip the edges of the countertop for balance, spitting blood and saliva into the silvery basin, hacking it up noisily like a cat with a hairball. 

When it’s gone, you feel empty. Your mouth still tastes like copper. 

You turn on the faucet, rinse your mouth out until the taste of bad pennies goes away. Once, twice, three times. 

You hear voices behind you. One of them is familiar, but the other… Hm. 

Your temples throb. Fuck, your head is killing you. 

You slowly turn around, gauge your surroundings. Assess, evaluate… then act. 

Two figures. They both fall silent when your gaze lands upon them. 

Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Codename: Black Widow. 

Designation: Unclear. Threat Assessment: Deadly.

Wanda Maximoff. Codename: Scarlet Witch.

Designation: Unclear. Threat Assessment: Deadly.

“Y/N?” Natalia asks tentatively. 

English. She’s using English. 

That’s fine. Your English has always been quite good. 

You watch her carefully. There’s something you’re missing here. Something big. “You’re… ”

“Natalia. I trained you, once.”

A scene flashes in your mind’s eye—a pale-faced dancer. Fiery-red hair pulled into a perfect bun; not a single strand out of place. Blood soaking the tips of her slippers, leaving wet red marks everywhere she steps on an empty stage. 

Why is it empty? It shouldn’t be empty. 

Should it?

There were 28 dancers in the Bolshoi…  

And then there was one. 

“You… You were a dancer.”

A hint of a smile pulls at her lips, though it’s more than a little bitter. “Yes, I was.”

“Have I just been to the chair?”

She shakes her head. “No. We were training.”

A nebulous memory begins to take shape in your broken mind. “Blades on the wall… Mirrors.”

Natalia’s gaze flares with relief. “Yes. I think you had a flashback. Something I said…”

A stab of pain in your chest. You don’t want to think about that. 

You turn to the other one—Wanda. “Your rings… the black stone. Is it onyx?”

Wanda blinks—once, twice, as if taken aback. Her cheeks are stained with mascara and tears. “I—Yes,” she answers, glancing down at her hands, then holding them out to you as if offering them up for inspection. 

A strange endeavor. 

You examine them for a moment or two, if only to put her mind at ease. Her nails are painted black, chipped in various places. It suits her. 

“In Iskitim… I saw a flicker of red light over the snow,” you say slowly, meeting her gaze. “Did you… Were you… ?” You trail off. 

You don’t know quite what you’re trying to ask. Maybe whether or not she was there somehow, even as you feel incredibly stupid for thinking it. 

“That was me,” Wanda confirms with a shaky exhale. “I was there… in your head.” 

Oh. Okay. Maybe not so stupid after all. 

“Never again,” you tell her firmly. At her furrowed brow, you add, “I don’t want you going back there. Ever.”

“You were lost in memories.” Wanda’s voice sounds so forlorn, and… sad. “I was trying to bring you out.”

“I don’t care,” you inform her, and perhaps it’s crude, but it’s true. “You will never feel that anguish.” You don’t know why you feel so strongly about it, but you do. “You will not see it in your dreams, in your nightmares… I do not want that for you.”

Wanda falls quiet for a long moment… then two. 

“You saved me once,” she says eventually. “My brother, too. If—and when—I can, I’m going to help you. I don’t care if it hurts.”

“Stubborn,” you mutter. 

You also want to add that you don’t think deciding not to assassinate two kids you were assigned to assassinate equates to ‘saving,’ but you bite your tongue. You’re in no mood for a petty dispute.

Natalia arches a brow. “Remind you of anyone we know?”

You don’t roll your eyes, but it’s a close thing. Instead, you shut your eyes and exhale slowly, grounding yourself for what you’re about to ask next. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No,” Natalia answers simply. 

You peek at her through one eye, then shut it again. “Would you tell me if I did?”

“Yes.” No hesitation in her response. 

You let both eyes flutter open, inspect the two of them carefully when you ask, “What did I say?”

To Natalia’s credit, she does well to keep a mask of composure intact. The same cannot be said for Wanda, however, whose nervous sidelong glances give her away in zero seconds flat. 

She would be horrid at poker.

“Tell me.” 

“You said… ‘Black Widow lives. Find her,’” Wanda recites. There’s a haunted look in her eye that’s telling you it was much, much more than that. 

All of a sudden, realization dawns upon you. “You saw it… didn’t you?”

Wanda hesitates, then nods. “Yes.”

“What did you see?” you ask. 

“A room… like a dormitory. Many beds. You were… sitting on one of them, carving words into a piece of wood.”

“A loose floorboard from under my bed,” you supply numbly, nodding for her to continue.

“A clock rang twice… 2:00pm. You had… an appointment with the… ” She hesitates, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. It looks swollen and irritated, like she’s been biting it quite a lot recently. “The chair. You carved it because it was… the only thing that would come back after.”

You manage another nod even as nausea churns low in your gut. “And that’s all you saw?”

“There was so much snow outside… And your feet—you had no shoes.” She winces. “Your toes were bruised and bleeding.”

“Dancing takes its toll,” you explain with a shrug even as Wanda begins to look a little queasy. “Natalia can attest to that.”

Wanda nods, though she still looks troubled. And nauseated. Not that you blame her.

 You flick your gaze to Natalia. Her expression is like stone—stiff, unmoving. 

There’s more. 

(Isn’t there always?)

“What else did I say?”

“You—”

Natalia stops Wanda with a gentle touch, her eyes never leaving yours. “You told Wanda to stop apologizing,” she recounts, sounding as though she’s taking great care to keep her tone even. “You didn’t want Madame to hear her.”

Bile rises in your throat at the mere thought of Wanda at Madame’s mercy. 

“You told Wanda she had to go. That… you had orders.” Natalia swallows thickly, a thin sheen of moisture in her eyes. “You begged me not to kill them—the twins. Told me I could take you back to the chair, just so long as I didn’t make you kill them.”

Your eyes burn. Your jaw aches from clenching it so hard. “What else?”

“You said… that it was fine if I hated you. That you could take it.” Natalia’s hands are clenched into tight fists at her sides. If you look closely enough, you can see them tremble. “Then, you begged me once more to spare the twins’ lives. I said I would.”

Fuck. You blow out a long breath. “Anything else?”

Natasha shakes her head slowly, eyeing you carefully all the while. “No.”

You don’t know why, but you believe her. You nod. 

Quiet falls on the three of you, then. It’s a little tense, but not unbearable, by any means. In many ways, you actually sort of welcome it. 

You don’t want to think about everything you just saw, everything you just heard… everything you just said. You don’t want to talk about it, either. 

Instead, you busy yourself with taking stock of the situation. 

Same clothes: boxer shorts, long-sleeve shirt, sweatpants. No bra. 

Hair pulled back. No cuffs. 

Bright lights overhead, no mirrors… Your surroundings have changed.  

You’re in some kind of… medical room. There’s a bed covered in paper—the kind you’d see on a medical exam bed. It has creases in it where you once laid. 

The walls are clear—bulletproof polycarbonate, you hope, but perhaps even Tony Stark has not yet reached that level of paranoia. After all, what’s the point of bulletproofing individual cubicles inside a bulletproof building? 

Around you, outside the glass dividers… a lab. Digital readings floating in air, a Holotable, an Iron Man suit. It’s an old one, you can tell—the Mark V. 

Bulky, loud. No gold, just red and silver. Collapsible into a suitcase, if you’re remembering correctly. 

Never let it be said that you don’t do your due diligence. 

The man himself is currently hunched over blueprint designs on a workbench near the Holotable, muttering incessantly to himself. His dark hair sticks up in strange places, and there are more than a couple questionable splotches staining his wife-beater. 

As if sensing your gaze, he quiets and looks up; catches your eye. 

“Hey, Little Red!” he calls, flashes you a grin so wide it looks painful. He looks like hell. “Tash said you were dying. Glad you’re not.” Natalia snorts, and Wanda poorly stifles a giggle. “I’m ordering food soon. Personally, I’m craving Chinese takeout. Also, I want a fortune cookie. You like Panda Express?”

You eye him for a moment, then turn back to Natalia. “He’ll grow on me, you say?”

Natalia shrugs, amusement sparkling in her eyes. “Give it time.”

— — 

Stark has F.R.I.D.A.Y. order a truly insane amount of food from Panda Express, calls it a ‘family dinner.’

You wonder if that means the other Avenger ‘Super Friends’ will be taking part, as well. 

You don’t know if the possibility makes you nauseous or just wary. Perhaps both. 

Natalia ducks out after Stark places the order, citing a promise she’d made to spar with James. Says she’ll be back within the half-hour, then leaves—but not before winking at you and slanting a meaningful glance towards an oblivious Wanda. 

You don’t give her the middle finger, though you’re sorely tempted.

… Which leaves you alone with a raving Tony Stark still hunched over some flashy new Stark Industries design, and a pretty-faced witch with eyes like the ocean and a smile that makes your heart beat a little faster in your chest.

Love is for children, a voice in your head reminds you. It sounds a lot like Madame’s.  

“Alright, ladies, you’re free to hang out here if you’d like,” Stark tells the two of you without looking up from his designs. “Food’ll be here in 20.”

Wanda nods towards a couch on the other side of the room, then shoots you a questioning look. “Would you like to sit?”

You nod. “Sure.”

— —

Wanda brings her knees up, folds them neatly in front of her. All the while, her eyes never leave you.

And you? You make it a point to sit perfectly still under her inspection, no matter how it makes you want to scream. 

Everything hurts. Your head, your legs, your heart.  

It’s been but less than a day since you were in Iskitim. Your wrist aches where you cuffed yourself to the bed frame, your stomach throbs from the powerful gut punch Ilya threw in training, and your head… is a fucking mess, quite frankly. 

Your little episode from earlier certainly didn’t help with that.   

You feel… off-kilter. Raw. Every nerve ending exposed for all to see, like you just came from a particularly grueling session with the chair.

“Can I ask you something?” someone asks, and—no, not someone. Wanda. The witch. Silver rings. Onyx. 

You turn to her, willing the chaos in your thoughts to settle. “Sure.”

She hesitates for a moment, then, and you swear you see the faintest hint of red flare in her eyes. “You’re… in pain.” 

Whatever she was going to ask, that definitely wasn’t it. But now that she’s made the deduction, you doubt she’ll let it go. 

You sigh, tucking your legs beneath you criss-cross applesauce style and turning to face her. 

(You learned that term ‘criss-cross applesauce’ while undercover as an American high-schooler in the state of Maine. It was… three years ago? Four?) 

“Looking inside my head will only ever bring you unpleasantness and pain,” you tell her. It’s almost hurtful for you to note that not a single word of it is a lie. 

“It’s not always a conscious thing,” she murmurs. It almost sounds like an apology. “Even when I’m not searching for it, I’ll walk into a room and just… feel what the people around me are feeling.”

“Do you feel it as if it’s happening to you?”

“Not quite,” she says with a slight shake of her head. “Though if I focus hard enough, I can. Most of the time, it’s more like… scrolling through radio channels.”

“Well. You should tune mine out, then.”

You aren’t saying it to be mean, but the crestfallen look that flits across Wanda’s features is more than enough to have you backpedaling.

“I just mean it in the way that… I don’t want you to feel what I’m feeling. It…” you trail off, hesitating. “It hurts.” Well, look at that. Aren’t you just Captain Honesty today?

“You saved me,” she offers softly, pain in her gaze. You can’t tell if it’s from your tactlessness, or the memory of her late brother, or both. 

“Ah, that old chestnut…” You force out a chuckle. “I don’t think it qualifies as ‘saving’ if I was the one sent to kill you in the first place.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I thought about it,” you tell her bluntly. “I surveilled you for days. I had you and your brother each in the crosshairs on multiple different occasions.”

“But you didn’t pull the trigger.”

Stubborn. “I think you might be missing the point here.”

“I don’t think I am,” she counters without a beat of hesitance, something like righteous indignation saturating her tone. “Letting us live meant consequences for you. Serious ones.”

You shrug it off with a dismissive wave. “By that time, the chair and I were well-acquainted. It was like visiting an old friend.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she says. It’s different from how Natalia says it. With Natalia, it’s more a command than anything else. A warning, even. With Wanda, it’s a plea. “I felt that memory… the way your stomach dropped when the clock chimed 2:00. You were terrified to go back there.”

You swallow down bile. “Fear is a part of life, Wanda.”

“It shouldn’t have to be,” she argues. “Not like that.”

“I choose to believe it made me braver.”

Wanda arches a brow. “Silver lining?”

You almost smile. Almost. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Wanda falls silent, then. Eventually, she says, “I never said ‘Thank you.’”

You give her an odd look. “‘Thank you’?”

“For saving me and Pietro that day.”

You huff out a laugh, like it’s funny. It’s not. “Don’t thank me for that.”

Wanda shrugs, a playful twinkle in her eye. “Free country, no? At least, that is what they tell me.” You roll your eyes at that, and she giggles. “So… Thank you.”

You eye her for a long moment, caught somewhere between exasperated and amused. “I’m not going to win on this one, am I?”

Wanda breaks into a broad grin that reminds you of breaking dawn on the isle of O’ahu—warm, gentle, beautiful. “Nope.”

— —

Natalia returns with Soldat, who gives you a sharp nod the moment he steps off the elevator.

You don’t return it.

James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes. Codename: Winter Soldier.

Designation: Unclear. Enemy (?). Threat Assessment: Deadly. 

Your brain is still… scrambled. 

He seems to understand (or at least take it in stride), though the concerned look Natalia sends your way is less reassuring. 

The food arrives moments later in large rectangular pans. It smells like fried food, grease, and… Orange Chicken? 

A sliver of memory in your mind’s eye. 

Dinner in Hong Kong. 

Your cover: A conceited, self-obsessed, American college student. Jenna Abrams. Adopted. Brought up by nice, white parents. Taking a semester abroad in Hong Kong as part of an effort to get in touch with her “ethnic roots,” or… something.

Quote-unquote “authentic” Orange Chicken at a family-owned joint a handful of kilometers from Victoria Peak. It wasn’t even on the menu, but the chef laughed and called it his ‘American Special,’ served it up free of charge. Your Cantonese wasn’t great, but you pieced together enough to understand that Orange Chicken was not, in fact (and never had been), a traditional Chinese dish. 

The smell is vaguely similar, though Panda Express has nothing on Sūn Chúshī’s cooking. 

You shake your head to clear the foggy recollection. You can examine it later in greater detail.

Another man comes up to join the five of you in the lab. Broad-shouldered, blonde… jacked as hell. 

He’s not in uniform, just a white T-shirt and khaki pants, but there’s no mistaking that distinctive all-American profile. 

Steve Rogers surveys the room with a serene blue-eyed stare, the ghost of a grin on his lips… until he lands on you. 

Shit. 

His shoulders tense as if bracing for a fight, gaze narrowing upon you. “Who’s this?” he asks no one in particular. 

Natalia saunters right up to him, pats him on the chest. “All good, Cap.” She has all the confidence in the world for someone who’s about one-third of Rogers’ size. “This is Y/N, and we’re keeping her.”

“Essentially, Tasha as a teenager,” Stark pipes up, then playfully mouths ‘Nightmare’ across the room without a hint of subtlety.

“Keeping her?” Rogers’ expression softens as he looks from Natalia to you and back again. “Is that so?”

“For the record, I told her not to,” you say. It comes out as more of a mumble than anything else. 

Natalia snorts. 

Rogers raises his brows, turning his attention fully upon you. “Did you and Nat know each other before this?”

Slowly, you nod. Every modicum of your being is screaming for you to cut and run as his cool blue gaze holds yours. 

There’s just something about him… Did you meet him before?

“Buck, too?”

Soldat winces. “Stevie…”

Stevie… 

Another sliver of memory. Nazis… New Jersey… Brooklyn. Steve Rogers. 90-something pounds, asthmatic. Enlistment papers… 

“Yes, I met Soldat,” you tell him. “He hated New Jersey. Later, he…” You pause, trying to make sense of your scrambled thoughts. “He told me a story about his best friend, a scrawny kid who hated bullies. Always getting himself beat up in alleyways. He… wanted to enlist. Lied on his papers… said he was from New Jersey.” Bewilderment splays itself clearly across Rogers’ clean-cut features, and the way he’s looking at you… utterly gobsmacked, like you just stole his precious shield. “Soldat said that just made him hate New Jersey all the more.”

Soldat stares, lips parted in awe. Rogers wears an identical dumbstruck expression beside him, while Natalia is… studying you, again, like you’re a broken puzzle and she’s keen to fix it. Fix you. 

For a long minute, no one—not even Stark—speaks. 

“I… am sorry,” you say eventually. Your head throbs; it feels like someone took a battering ram to your skull. “I didn’t… I didn’t remember that until now. I…”

Fuck. Does that mean you and Soldat were… friends?

You can’t look at him right now, much less Natalia or Rogers. 

It’s a relief when Stark finally speaks up, but you don’t have it within you to find the irony in it. 

“Alright, I hate to be that guy,” he interjects in a blasé tone that suggests he very much does not hate to be ‘that guy.’ “But can we figure out the complete action-packed origin story of our amnesiac Black Widow Jr. at a later time? The food’s getting cold.”

Just like that, the tension in the room goes from stifling to bearable, and the knot in your chest loosens… somewhat. 

Soldat rolls his eyes, Natalia snorts, and Rogers presses his lips together in a transparent effort to ward off a grin. 

“I get first dibs, obviously, ‘cause I’m me,” Stark continues blathering on, already peeking under the aluminum wraps of each dish. “I’ll make sure to save some Beef Broccoli for you, Capsicle, along with Terminator over there. Old men need their fiber.”

“You’re hilarious,” Rogers deadpans. 

Soldat scoffs but shakes his head with a good-natured grin. “Much obliged.”

“Oh! And Wanda gets first go at the Honey Walnut Shrimp. It’s her favorite.”

Wanda flushes pink but flashes Stark a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“Chop-chop! What are we all standing around for? Let’s eat!”

— —

After Stark’s self-proclaimed family dinner, Natalia joins you in the elevator.

Her voice is soft as she asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take the both of you to her floor. 

Once there, she’s quick to say, “Privacy Mode, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Though, please alert me if Tony is still awake by 4:00am.”

“Of course, Natasha.”

Then she traipses over to the sofa, settles herself comfortably on one end.

“Join me?” she asks, gesturing to the other.

You do. 

It’s quiet, for a bit. 

Eventually, you decide to bite the bullet.

“I didn’t mean to ambush Soldat and his friend like that,” you tell her. “I’m sorry.”

Apologizing is… new to you. You hope you’re doing it right. 

Natalia waves it off. “No apologies necessary,” she assures you, leveling you with an unreadable look. “I should’ve briefed him about you before he came up. That’s on me.”

“He was with you for the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” you say. It’s not really a question. 

Natalia nods, raising a brow. “Let me guess… You were in the neighborhood for all of that, too?”

You roll your eyes. “Some of it, yes,” you admit. “I remember being… surprised that it was Soldat who shot down Nicholas Fury. I couldn’t understand why.” You tuck your knees up to your chest, suddenly feeling rather small. “I thought I hated him,” you mumble. 

“But now you don’t?”

You frown. “I… don’t know.” 

All of a sudden, an errant thought seems to squeeze the very breath from your lungs—Is Soldat safe? 

“Does Soldat live here?”

Natalia nods, watching you carefully like she can sense your disquiet. “For now, yes.”

“So he’s safe?”

Natalia’s expression instantly softens. “Yes, Y/N. He’s safe. If anything were to happen to him, F.R.I.D.A.Y. would inform us.”

“But what about Privacy Mode?”

“Emergencies such as a team member in danger would warrant an automatic override on all privacy features. We’d get the alert instantly, just like Tony and everyone else in the Tower.”

The tight feeling in your chest subsides… somewhat. “Okay.”

“You’re worried about him,” Natalia observes.

Slowly, you hazard a nod. You hate being so transparent. “I don’t know why. I hated him for what he did to you.”

“And now you don’t?”

“No.” You stare out into nothing, force yourself to relax. You can talk to Natalia about this. There’s no chair… no Madame. “I’m still angry. It’s just… there’s more now.”

“More?”

“Before, I was angry with him because he… He shot you.” A flood of snapshots running through your head… that time he smiled, and— “But now, I’m remembering that he… He was warm. He found me… I was freezing. There was so much snow. I… I couldn’t feel my hands. I was going to die alone in the cold, and he found me.”

And just like that, the dam in your chest bursts.

Memories pour through you like water through a sieve—an endless flow of tiny little droplets and nowhere to catch them. You’re tripping over yourself, scrambling and desperate to name them as they come, say every detail aloud… lest you forget all over again. 

“Days later, he made soup. It was horrible. I told him so. He didn’t get offended. He… He just smiled and shook his head, muttering something under his breath. It was… the first time I ever saw him smile. I said, ‘Wow, Soldat. I didn’t know you could do that.’ He… ” Hot teardrops fall onto your hands, and you realize that you’re crying. 

You lose your train of thought. What were you talking about? Snow? 

Soldat. 

“When you left, Soldat… he… trained me. Handled some of my missions. They had to keep sending him back for re-programming, because he often killed the old men who slept with me. I… I told him to back off, that it was for the mission, but he always said that I was too young for those men to be touching me… that it wasn’t right.”

“He never, ever touched me like those old men. It confused me. In Hafnarfjordur, I asked him if he was a homosexual.” Natalia barks out a startled laugh at that, but her eyes are shiny… glistening with unshed tears. “He just stared at me, but he looked a little sad, too, and said that he wasn’t. I asked him why he looked sad, and he told me that I’d asked him that before. Twice that he could remember.”

“I told him… the chair made things fuzzy. He was so angry when I told him that, he snapped his gun in half. I asked him what was wrong, and he said I was too young for the chair. That annoyed me. I… I thought he was just being patronizing. I told him that even Karpov thought I was old enough and strong enough for the chair.” You huff out a sigh, shaking your head at the memory of your own immaturity. “He spent the remainder of the week fuming silently from afar.”

You inhale shakily, feel more tears fall. Your chest aches. 

“After that, we returned to Russia. He was still so angry. He… he attacked Karpov. I begged him not to. I… I called him James. I didn’t mean to let it slip, I-I don’t even know where it came from, or how I even knew that that was his name…” You rub the tears from your cheeks with trembling fists. “They made me watch as they put him in a big metal tube.... froze him. After that… I don’t remember. I think I went to the chair. I didn’t…. I don’t think I saw him again for a very long time.”

You shut your eyes and it feels like surrender, fresh tears streaming down your cheeks. “Fuck,” you curse under your breath.

Your chest heaves; you can’t stop trembling. 

Natalia doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to hug you or offer up meaningless platitudes. You’re glad for that. 

You need… You need to breathe. In, out. In, out. Calm. Measured. Poised. 

In… Out.

Natalia doesn’t speak, and neither do you. 

The only sounds are the hum of the air conditioning and your heaving breaths as you work to get yourself under control. 

The tears are still warm and wet on your cheeks when you manage to ask, “Why is he important, Natalia?” You sniffle audibly, and it’s just a testament to how far gone you are that you don’t even have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about it. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know,” Natalia answers gently. “But we’ll figure it out. Together.”

You eye her for a long moment through blurry, tear-stained vision. 

She doesn’t waver, just calmly holds your gaze—a lone anchor in a sea of tumultuous rage and mismatched memories. 

It breaks you. She breaks you.

You lunge for it—for her, latching onto her and burying your face in her neck, still crying like a fucking kid. She doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t freeze… Just catches you, wraps her arms around you and pulls you oh-so-close like she’s been waiting for you all this time.

Your tears wet her skin, and you can’t say sorry. You can’t say anything. All you can do is grip her tighter and breathe, breathe, breathe... let her be the strong one this time, holding you together even as everything else falls apart. 

“I’m glad I found you, Natalia,” you sob into her neck. Your Russian is even more stilted than usual—choked with tears. 

You think you feel her place a kiss atop your head, then. It just makes you sob that much harder. “I’m glad you found me, too, little one.”

— —

Later that night, you’re sitting on the floor of your room. It’s a quarter past midnight, Natalia’s working in the kitchen, and the floor is… quiet.

No one breathing on either side of you. No whispers. No handcuffs.

No more tears, either. You think you’ve cried enough to last you a lifetime. 

Moonlight streams through the window above, shedding light upon the open notebook in your lap. 

You haven’t written a single thing. 

It’s just… It’s all so jumbled in your head. You don’t even know where to start.

You sit there for another ten minutes trying to make sense of your scrambled thoughts, silently willing yourself to just write something… anything. 

Another ten minutes pass, and your pen hits the paper. 

You don’t write about Natalia, or Madame, or the dancers of the Bolshoi. 

You don’t write about Soldat, or Karpov, or a scrawny asthmatic kid named Stevie. 

You write instead about eyes like the ocean, silver rings, chipped black polish. Long chestnut-brown hair, a smile like breaking dawn on the isle of O’ahu. A boy and a girl… brother and sister. One blue, one red. 

The assassin who let them live. 

You write for hours until your eyes sting, your hand aches, and you’ve smeared black ink all over your hands. And then you write some more. 

You barely take notice of the sky turning from deep blue to indigo overhead, a molten sun peeking out over the cityscape horizon. 

You have one last thought as you sketch the curve of Wanda’s jaw, the delicate slope of her pert nose, the way her lashes fall just so upon unblemished cheeks—Is this how it feels to be a child?

— —

link to masterlist

— —

end notes: i used chinese for sūn chúshī ( 孙厨师 ) even though it wouldn’t be pronounced the same way since hong kongers speak cantonese, but cantonese jyutping is confusing as fuck okay. sūn = a fairly common last name in china. chúshī = chef / cook

also i kinda left it open-ended-ish because i don’t know if this is something i wanna come back to in the future...

also i won’t lie i’m not totally sold myself on how this turned out (especially in this format... i don’t know how y’all read such long ass things on a tumblr post instead of ao3), so definitely feel free to let me know what you thought <3

— —

NEXT PART: THE COST OF BUILDING BRIDGES

[justletmeplayminecraft]

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes Mumbo will find himself frozen in place, struck down with fear and doubt.

He'll find his mind echoing with the "but what if" and "you're not good enough to stop them leaving" and he'll begin to lose his vision as his eyes become clouded with tears.

He'll take out his communicator and, with shaking hands, send a message into chat;

<MumboJumbo>: Hey I need some reassurance, could someone stop by?

And the hermits will always stop by. Sometimes just one, sometimes many, but he'll always get at least one hermit at his side in a matter of minutes.

"It's okay" they'll tell him. "We'd never abandon you" they'll say.

"Wherever we go, you'll always be welcome. Until the end of time."

oh my gosh this is so good ;-; hold on lemme see what i can write

warnings for self-doubt, fear of abandonment, implied anxiety attack

Mumbo knows what caused it this time. A combination of late nights, feedback on the HCBBS and being in Scar's base. Everywhere he looks is an incredible creation, more amazing than he could ever hope to achieve. He's felt the thoughts building over the past few days, shoving them down as deeply as he can. Which is always a mistake.

Ironically, it all spills over when he's looking at those same tiny mushrooms that excited him so much before. It's just so clever! It's so smart! And it's something Mumbo would never think to do. He's not smart like this, doesn't have Scar's creativity. He has no idea why the hermits keep him around when they could have more people like Scar. Probably because they know he has nowhere else to go, because they're good people and-

No, no. He tries to remember Xisuma's advice. He needs to breathe. Don't spiral. Long breath in, hold, long breath out. In, hold, out. His vision is blurry, eyes stinging with tears.

He keeps that mantra in his head as he pulls out his communicator. Hands trembling, he manages to navigate to the global chat. He doesn't bother reading the previous messages.

<MumboJumbo> csb somebody come over? need somrone rn

<Xisuma> mumbo? where are you?

<GoodTimeWithScar> Mumbo?

<ZombieCleo> where are you mumbo?

<MumboJumbo> msgic village

<ZombieCleo> omw

<Xisuma> let me know if you need back up

<ZombieCleo> will do.

By the time Mumbo hears rockets overhead, he's curled into the base of a tree. The bark presses hard against his back, his face hidden in his knees. He focuses on his breathing. All of those thoughts are blocked out of his head. He knows they're stupid, he knows. The hermits must be so tired of this by now-

"Mumbo." A voice calls, derailing that notion. "Where are you?" He raises his head, rubbing his eyes with a sniffle.

"I'm over here." Mumbo's voice shakes as much as the rest of him. There's a crunching of grass, and he flinches when he hears a twig snap. Soon enough, a wave of red hair falls in front of him, Cleo crouching to his level. She has a gentle smile that is in such contrast to her usual sarcasm.

"Hey, Mumbo. You want to go inside?" He nods. He can't quite find the words to say, so he accepts Cleo's hand as she pulls him to his feet. His suit is crumpled, pulling in all the wrong places and it only feels more stifling. Cleo walks with purpose, searching each building until she finds one that's mostly liveable, with a fair amount of grumbling about Scar and chestmonsters.

It is nicer inside the house. She sits him down on an old sofa, ruffling through already messy locks. The suit jacket is discarded and laid carefully over an armchair. Mumbo tucks his feet onto the edge of the sofa, wrapping his arms around long legs. A blanket is soon wrapped around his shoulders. Mumbo snuggles into it, disappearing until he's a head and two black socks in a pile of blue fabric.

"There you go, do you want some tea?" Mumbo nods. Tea sounds nice right now. He gets a good hair ruffle before Cleo vanishes in search of the kitchen. He can still hear her moving around, cursing under her breath as she tries to navigate Scar's overflowing storage. Mumbo laughs softly, more air than noise. He closes his eyes, resting his chin on his knees.

Cleo's good to him. She came here so quickly, like she often does. If not Cleo, then it would've been another hermit. They always drop everything to come help him. He just- is he really worth that effort? He doesn't do anything in return for them. Maybe it was a mistake calling someone over, he should've just dealt with this on his own, they're going to get frustrated he keeps doing this-

"Mumbo," Cleo calls. Mumbo blinks as he finds himself back in reality. "I can hear your thoughts from here. Do you want honey in your tea?" Mumbo squeezes his fingers into the soft material of the blanket, listening to a distant kettle boil. He breathes in a scent similar to a library. Something old, with a hint of magic.

"Yeah, honey would be nice."

"Got it!" He occupies his mind by looking around the room, naming each of the things he can see. There's a bookshelf against one of the walls. The top two shelves are decorated by various trinkets. Little statues and toys, sentimental items that Mumbo doesn't know the meaning of. The bottom shelves are filled with books from various designers. Scar showed him some recently, pouring over the art with a bright grin. Mumbo hung onto every word he said. A solitary redstone book sits amongst them, and Mumbo huffs an amused breath.

When Cleo returns, he's looked at the curtains, one of them pulled tied open, the forgotten mugs on the coffee table, the various doodles scattered in sheets of paper, the plants that are somehow alive and Cleo, who isn't. She smiles, passing Mumbo the mug. He curls his hands around it, pleased the heat isn't unbearable.

"So which ones do I need to fight this time?" She asks. Mumbo chuckles. The blanket has slipped further back so his hands can stick out.

"You don't need to fight anything," he replies. Cleo crosses her arms, dropping into the space next to him.

"Really?" He looks into the steaming tea. Cold isn't a problem in the jungle, not during the day. But the heat is a good grounding point. Though he could get lost in the way the steam catches the light, shimmering white patterns painted in the air.

"It's the usual," he finally concedes. "With some added 'I'm only bothering you and you're all going to get tired of needing to help me.' You know." Cleo hums. She does know. Mumbo sometimes wishes his doubts would get more adventurous, and then remembers what a terrible idea that would be.

"Do you have the book?" She asks. Mumbo shakes his head.

"I think I left it in my- no, Scar's base." He would usually keep his book of affirmations in his enderchest, but he was a bit flustered with the whole move. He thinks he left it under his pillow.

"I'll ask Scar to bring it over later."

"You don't-" She gives him a look. "Okay. Thank you," he amends. Taking a sip of the tea, he sighs. Cleo knows just how he likes it. The honeyed taste is a much-needed treat.

"So, you know what I'm going to say?"

Mumbo smiles, telling her, "Say it anyway."

"Mumbo, you could be the biggest spoon in the world, and we'd still keep you around, right?" Mumbo laughs, falling into the script with ease.

"Right."

"You're our family. We don't care if you don't achieve these incredible feats, though you do, by the way. We're lucky to have you here, and it makes me smile everytime I see what you're up to. Big or small." He hides his wet smile behind a sip of tea. There's no hiding the tears gathering in his eyes. "Mumbo, you're an amazing person, alright? The best annoying baby brother I could ask for. Wherever we go, you can come with us. As long as you want to."

"And if that's forever?"

"Then it's forever. And I'll consider myself lucky everyday you decide to stick around." Mumbo sinks back into the sofa, finally letting go of the tension he was subconsciously holding. "Right. Now let me read all the chat messages."

Mumbo laughs, reaching up to wipe his eyes, "Seriously?"

"We care about you, you dork." Cleo sits forward, holding her communicator up. She takes a deep breath, continuing in her best gameshow voice, Mumbo laughing the moment she speaks, "And first up, we have Xisuma! Asking me to tell you that he cares about you and he's always here if you ever need to talk." Mumbo settles back, a wide grin on his face, content to listen.

-

Cleo carefully takes the mug from Mumbo's hands, the redstoner offering no resistance as he yawns. His eyes are half open, blinks growing longer every time. She brushes hair from his face, gently lying him down until he's resting in her lap.

"There you go," she soothes. Mumbo quietly rearranges, hugging Cleo's legs. "You've done so well. You can rest now." Mumbo's sleepy hum brings a smile to her face.

She watches as Mumbo's breath evens out, his body growing heavier on her. She carefully tucks the corner of the blanket in before pulling out her communicator, snapping a quick photo.

<ZombieCleo shared a photo>

<ZombieCleo> mission successful

<Xisuma> :-D

<Stressmonster101> awwwwwwww <3

<iskall85> some much needed sleep i'd say

<GoodTimeWithScar> I'll be over with the book when I find it

<ZombieCleo> don't worry, i think he'll be out for a while lol

She smiles at her communicator and the lanky redstoner in her lap. There are very few sights that warm her undead heart more than this. She leans back, and settles in for however long Mumbo needs her.

[percywinchester27]

La Petite Mort

Word count: 2.1K

Pairing: Dean X Reader AU

Warnings: None, just fluff, humour and implied sex ;)

Series Summary: The reader has just shifted to a new flat and boy, someone on the floor has a really banging sex life! The passionate moans have been keeping her up for several nights in row and enough is enough! Reader has her suspicions, but is it really the green-eyed hottie from room no. 307?  

A/N: It’s a neighbours!AU. I’m finally writing one. So excited to share it with you guys. Hope y’all like it! <3

Beta: The best babe, @deanssweetheart23​​​​​

Everything was fine till the banging started. Pun very much intended.

The shift had been smooth, the job was going great and life was finally on track. You had slid under the covers with the most satisfied smile in years only to be woken up to a lady very, very, very happy with her life.

Oh yeah… oh yeah… ahhh right there… oh fuck yeah…

You sat up right in your bed, eyes wide, face hot.

Third night in a row. Third fucking night. Literally.

What in the good heavens? The landlady might have mentioned this while renting out the flat!

Shoving the pillow over your ears, you fell back onto the mattress, closing your eyes shut very tightly. Eventually sleep overtook you and you lapsed into lousy dreams of trying to catch the taxi which kept evading you. Not a metaphor for your sex life at all. Nope.

The disturbed sleep didn’t help your mood the following day. Everyone at the office thought of you as a happy-go lucky person. Lately, they were seeing this whole new dark side of you. Sleep was essential to your functioning. 

In the evening, on your way back, you stopped by the coffee shop downstairs to pick up a brownie. It was a little place; busy yet quaint. The barista, Charlie, made two hearts in your coffee instead of one. That put the biggest smile on your face. 

At least, the day was ending on a high note.

Your newly rented flat was on the third floor of a very complicated building. One staircase did not directly lead into another. An entire hallway had to be crossed to get to it. The design probably broke a hundred different by laws and someone was definitely paid off in the city civil office to get a construction permit. You did not want to imagine how the people would fare in case of a fire emergency. Learning the escape plan was like memorising the map of a treasure hunt. You escape, you win. You lose… whoops! Better luck in next life. But the rent was cheap and you were already living all the clichés of a struggling writer- one incomplete book, a job at a publishing house and addiction to coffee. So, yes, you would brave fire when it came to being able to afford a living.

Struggling with the brownie package and the coffee in your hand you jammed the key into the door. It didn’t go in. 

What the hell?

You tried again, and once more the key got jammed. On a closer look, you realised that the lock didn’t resemble yours at all. Stepping back, you peered at the door. 307. Not 306- which was yours.

The floor design was insane and instead of the flats being lined up next to each other, they were all fronting one another in a haphazard fashion. Shaking your head, you took a step back and jammed the key into the lock of your own flat.

Jesus! You’re losing it, Y/N.

Shirking off the mild irritation, you cooked yourself a hot cup of instant noodles, put on your favourite TV show and slinked into your couch. Tonight’s episode was going to reveal who the murderer was and you had been dying for the suspense to finally end. 

Just when the protagonist was about to point a gun at the killer in the shadows…

Oh my God... you’re incredible… aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh…

You completely abandoned the TV and jumped up from the sofa. The fire hazard might still be worth it, but the thin walls so weren’t.

On tiptoes, you made your way to the east side wall, putting your ear against it. The noise wasn’t coming from upstairs. That was the only sure thing. But it was impossible to pinpoint the direction. The moans were reverberating through the walls. So loudly that there was no escaping it. Not in the bedroom, the kitchen or the living room sofa. 

Of all of them, the east wall seemed like the culprit. 

Right there… yeah…

307. Whoever it was in that room needed to calm the FUCK down. You grabbed your blanket and dragged it to the end of the living room, fuming. What ticked you off was how much this was ticking you off.

It’s sleep you told yourself. The lack of sleep was the only thing making you mad. The sex noises couldn’t be it. Because there were other noises- a dog barked somewhere occasionally, one of the rooms had a very loud stereo and someone was too much into baking- the beater was ceaseless. No, it had to be the timing and your wrecked sleep schedule.

Just like the nights before, you covered your ears and started reciting the story of the manuscript you had been reading at work. Eventually, sleep overtook you again.

The next morning you woke up in a crappier mood. If that was even possible.

Breathing down on anything and everything, you locked the door on your way out for work. Turning into the corridor, you ran into a wall of solid flesh. 

In your groggy, sleep deprived state, the first thing you noticed was the way he smelled- leather and whiskey and something headier than that. It was divine. Next, you looked up into those eyes- stunning green, like sparkling water running over jade.

“Easy there, sweetheart!” The guy smirked. 

You straightened yourself and took a step back. In front of you stood the most handsome guy you had ever seen. He was tall, with dirty blond hair, almost brown, and those stunning eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” you muttered, trying to collect your scattered thoughts. You had one of those dumb faces that gave away every damn thought crossing through your brain, so obviously you tried your best not to meet his gaze. Which was a shame really. That face demanded to be ogled at. Let alone the body that followed.

“No, no… I didn’t mind at all.” 

You saw him reach out to the door of 307.

“You’re the one who lives there?” You asked through gritted teeth. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Sure. You want a tour?”

Uhgg the best looking guy and he has to be such a douche!

Slipping past him, you stomped off towards the stairs. This too-good-looking-for-the-world asshat had been ruining your nights and in turn your life. 

You knew it was wrong to be mad at him without, at least, talking about the issue first. A polite conversation explaining your situation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world now, would it? But how does one start a conversation pertaining to that? After all, he wasn’t exactly the one making the noise. What would you say?

So, hey would you mind pleasuring your girlfriend a little less? 

Or better. Ever heard of a ball gag?

Mere thought of it made you shudder.

The work day was spent trying to shove your neighbour's stupidly handsome face out of your mind. It didn’t help that your mother kept calling, repeatedly. You knew what she had to say. How you should have taken that bigger job at Royal’s publishing. How the writing career might never take off. How you really should get a boyfriend now, or you’ll be the only unmarried cousin in the family.

Usually you could entertain your mother with well-timed hmms and ahhs. Today wasn’t that day.

Bone-tired and absentminded, you jammed the key in the keyhole in the evening, only for it to get stuck again. You looked up at the door. 307.

Well, shit!

Putting both your hands into it, you yanked the key with all your might, just as the door opened. There he stood, with his crooked smirk, dimples digging in, wearing nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt and sweatpants that hung all too low on those hips.

“You don’t need to break into my house. I already offered a tour.” Of course, god gave him an irresistible voice. Cause at this point, why not?

“Sorry,” you muttered, looking anywhere but at him. “I keep getting the wrong door. This one’s mine.”

“Oh, so you’re the one in 306!” You could feel his smirk more than see it. “Looks like you’re having a good ol’ time in there.”

“Excuse me?”

The guy raised scratched the back of his neck, face apologetic. “You might… ya know… just keep the voice down in there?”

The audacity of this guy!

“Rich of you to ask anyone to keep it down!” You hissed. “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend to keep it low?” 

With that, you shut your door in his surprised face. The worst part was, after bumping into him in the morning, your mind was producing distinct images of him in the bed, doing things to a woman. You had tried your best not to let them make a home in your head. But like a stickly tenant, they refused to evacuate. No wonder it was hard to look him in those brilliant, brilliant green eyes. The guy was hot! There was no denying that. You weren’t even willing to accept to yourself just how much time you had put into imagining him naked.

If anything, the denial mixed with your pre-existing irritation and sleep deprivation had you ready tonight. 

So the moment the enamoured voice started begging, you hopped out of your chair. You had every intention of yelling yourself hoarse at the delectable resident next door, but the moment you stepped into the corridor, you came face to face with the very man. 

He was- thankfully, completely clothed- looking a bit harassed, himself.

aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh… right there...

Your head whipped up to the suspected direction of the voice, and back at him. “Wait, you aren’t… it’s not...?”

His face mirrored your expression of surprise and then he burst out laughing. “Looks like we’ve both been played.”

“Not intentionally,” you said, peering at the adjacent doors, mostly to not look at him. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

He shot a glance at the door opposite to his. “If it’s not you, my best guess is that guy over there. I mean, if you ask me, Nick over there doesn’t look the type to make a woman that happy… but what do I know?”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions about people,” you said, taking a tentative step towards the said door.

Mr. hot guy smartpants laughed. “Oh, trust me. He’s the douchiest douche you’ll ever meet. Guy like that? Definitely selfish in bed.”

You frowned at him.

“He asks women in the street to smile more,” hot guy explained.

“Uhhgg… yeah you’re right. It’s definitely not him.”

Hot guy pointed his fingers at the rest of the doors. “That one’s rented by three guys. I don’t think it’s them. Mrs. Hendrickson over there works night shifts. I have no clue who lives in there,” he pointed to the last door, directly in front of you.

Goodness you’re amazing...

“Yes, lady, we already know!” He called out.

You couldn’t help the giggle that burst through your lips.

His eyes softened. “Dean Winchester,” he said, offering his hand.

“Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N,” you said, taking his. He had a firm grip. A very funny sensation gripped your stomach. Like a flutter. Nervousness? 

“It’s great to meet you, Y/N.” He smirked. “I sure wish the circumstances were better.”

You bit your lip. “Listen, I’m sorry for the comment about your girlfriend. I was just mad about, you know... “

“Don’t worry about it. My non-existent girlfriend is very cool. She took no offense.”

You snorted.

“I was dead serious about the house tour,” He winked. “I can promise great coffee.”

“Sure, sometime soon.”

He shot a look at the door with the unknown occupants again. “I hate to leave this here, but I think we should get whatever kind of shuteye we can while they’re quiet over there, huh?”

“Oh, yeah!” You hurried back to your flat. “Night, Dean.”

He gave you his crooked grin again, just a hint of mischief. “Night, Y/N.”

You knew it wasn’t him now, and he was right about making the most of the quiet and fucking off to sleep, and yet, each time you closed your eyes, your mind decided to replay your imaginations for you. With a start, you sat up in your bed, a thought occurring to you like a hit on the head- If you had been thinking about him that way? Had he been imagining you as well?

Blood rushed to your face at the very idea. Though a tiny part of you begged for the answer- would it be such a bad thing if he had?

*********************

A/N 2: So? So? SO??? What do you think?

I value each and every reblog more than I can tell you! Thank you! Feedback is love and life!

This series will have a total of 5 or 6 parts max.

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La Petite Mort Taglist:

@deanssweetheart23   @cosicas-cuquis​   @like-a-bag-of-potatoes​   @mlovesstories​   @feelmyroarrrr​   @thefridgeismybestie​   @gabavaldman​   @akshi8278​   @michellethetvaddict  @fandomoverdose666​   @badlittlehabit99​   @lastcallatrockysbar​   @mrswhozeewhatsis​   @thestralsaregood​   @yoursmilemakesmeloveyou​   @notan-applepielife​   @stoneyggirl​   @tricksterdean​   @sea040561​   @i-is-for-inspiring​   @torn-and-frayed​   @flamencodiva​   @sunflowers-n-rocknroll​   @binxy   @sdavid09​   @sherala007​   @ohgodwhybloggg​   @mogaruke​   @seekingkairos​   @tootsie562   @pansexualgrapes​   @soitiswritten05  @shesnotmaria​   @miss-nerd95​   @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​   @atc74​   @onethirstyunicorn​   @thoughts-and-funnies​   @deandreamernp​   @deanwinchesterinthedarktower​   @outofnowhere82​   @traceyaudette​