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darsynia · 1 year

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Trust Fall | Ch 21a

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Summary: Tony/OC, ‘terrorists made us fall in love;’ IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Tony and Emory deal with the fallout from her former boss's meddling-- but Tony's not taking it lying down.

Length: 3,068

Taglist: @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @themaradaniels @starksbf @chickensarentcheap @tiny-anne

Excerpt:

“No! You’ve spent enough of your time in confined spaces, you’re not allowed to do something to Rory and end up with the armor confiscated and yourself thrown in jail!”

Tony’s completely unrepentant. He looks over at Happy and says, “See that? She knows my priorities!”

“Damnit, Tony! You are more important than that suit!” Emory flares.

In a hushed voice, Happy leans towards Tony and says, “You were right, I do like her.”

“Emory, you’ve seen what happens when bad guys get ahold of my tech!”

“I have! And I don’t want to see you become the ‘bad guy!’” Emory pleads.

Chapter Twenty-One: Mirage

Tony’s comment about Rory and the luggage makes Emory feel warm and cold in equal measures. Warm because of Tony’s outrage on her behalf, cold because while she’d expected as much from Rory, the sheer breadth of her boss’s outraged abandonment stings.

Emory hadn’t let herself think much about Rory since the kidnapping, first out of guilt, then out of confused loyalty and bitterness. Rory would want an apology and she’d probably demand to know exactly where Emory was. Failure to do either would result in… exactly what was happening now: a temper tantrum resulting in conjecture in the media.

“Em? Gonna need to start breathing again at some point,” Tony says.

“Argh! The only way to avoid this is to have never met her at all!” Emory groans in frustration. Tony makes the ‘c'mere’ gesture, but she’s stiff with regret, so he comes around behind her and pulls her close, his front to her back.

“I don’t follow,” Happy says, brows furrowed.

“I’m sure something could be arranged using the suit. For Science,” Tony mutters.

Emory spins around and pokes her forefinger right against his shirt-covered arc reactor. “No! You’ve spent enough of your time in confined spaces, you’re not allowed to do something to her and end up with the armor confiscated and yourself thrown in jail!”

Tony’s completely unrepentant. He looks over at Happy and says, “See that? She knows my priorities!”

“Damnit, Tony! You are more important than that suit!” Emory flares.

In a hushed voice, Happy leans towards Tony and says, “You were right, I do like her.”

“Emory, you’ve seen what happens when bad guys get ahold of my tech!”

“I have! And I don’t want to see you become the ‘bad guy!’” Emory pleads. She turns away from the stubborn look on his face and addresses Hogan. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you had more to tell us.”

“Two different government agencies called me today--”

“Was one of them the Strategic Homeland Inappropriate Expectations blah blah agency? You’d think they would have my number-- they do have my number, right, Em?” Tony asks in a playful voice.

“Hush now,” Emory tells him. “Info now, irreverent later.”

“Promise?”

“Tony, be serious! Rory accused you of murder!”

He’s unrepentant. “And you’re alive, standing here grouching at me! This is easily disproved. If the FBI shows up wanting to talk to me--”

“Which they will, today, at 2 PM,” Hogan interjects. Tony raises his voice and starts stridently arguing with him, but Emory’s mentally transported back to a time when everything that goes wrong is up to her to fix. If Rory spoke to both government agencies and the media, and SHIELD hasn’t gotten in touch yet, they’ve either dropped the ball, or they’re not paying diligent attention.

It seems that she’s once again misplaced her (however grudgingly given) trust.

Her throat closes up. Her chest feels like five bags of rice from that cave are stacked on top of it. When her knees begin to buckle and her ears start ringing, she staggers over to a piece of furniture and sinks into it. Emory wants to bury her face in her hands but the signals she’s sending to her muscles don’t work, so she slumps like a ragdoll, miserable.

Time passes, marked only by the sound of arguing male voices until they’re halted by a sharply worded rebuke from a female one-- Tony’s PA, Pepper Potts.

“Are you two kidding me? Look how pale she is! Harry, water and a warm washcloth, please?. Tony, there’s a call, I sent it to the bedroom phone.” The loveseat Emory’s sitting on sinks with the weight of another person, and a cool, reassuring hand reaches out to pat hers. The pat turns into a squeeze when Emory struggles to sit up. “No, please, take a minute, if you need to.”

“I’m just out of practice, I guess. Haven’t had to manage anything other than my own fear and Tony’s teasing for a while,” Emory says apologetically as she finally succeeds in sitting up. She smoothes the wrinkles out of the borrowed dress shirt with her sweat-damp hands. It’s hard not to be aware of the difference between herself and the immaculately dressed woman beside her. Pepper Potts probably never got stress pimples.

“From what I have heard, keeping Rory Fall in line was good practice for your ordeal,” Potts says wryly. “What did Happy get to tell you before they started butting heads?”

“Hardly anything, and it was more than enough, apparently.”

“From what I could piece together, your boss was looking forward to a fame bump from a reunion. When that didn’t happen, she started putting out feelers. The military won’t tell us anything, so I doubt they answered her, either. It looks like her initial statement of ‘Stark is safe, but where is my assistant?’ turned into ‘what did Tony Stark do to my assistant?”

Emory recognizes the behavior pattern, and she feels responsible. “Argh! I should have been able to see how selfish Rory was getting and headed it off. She wasn’t always like this! It was just… I don’t know. Easier? To always smoothe the way, I mean.”

“My uncle Morgan once told me, ‘Treat regrets like your next-door neighbors. You can peek through the curtains at them-- but you shouldn’t pay their mortgage.’” Her smile brightens, and she shakes her head. “That perspective really helped me stop letting my regrets live rent-free.”

“I can’t imagine you having many!”

“Thank you, but you’d be surprised. ‘We are, all of us, a work in progress.’

“Uncle Morgan again?” Emory guesses.

“Yes. I get to talk to him once every six months or so. The last one was yesterday, and I guess he just stuck with me this time. Back to business, though--” Potts says, reaching into the slim shoulder bag she’d walked in with. She pulls out an object but holds it against the black skirt fabric of her thigh as she offers Emory an apologetic expression. “Mr. Stark wanted to make sure you didn’t have to worry about anything breaking in the car, so instead of cleaning out one of our New York limos, he rented one, which means…” She hands Emory her flip phone. “Leaving it behind was a good tactic for privacy, I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you’d hoped.”

“I imagine you’re going to have to clean out one after all, when it’s time for me to go back,” Emory sighs, opening the phone to see that she’s gotten at least twenty missed calls from an unlisted number.

“He left strict instructions to leave you both alone, and you’d set ‘Do Not Disturb’ on the phone itself,” Potts says, sounding apologetic, but Emory waves her off.

“I appreciate that, but--”

The phone starts ringing.

“Go on,” Potts says, holding up her own phone, one of the ‘smartphone’ ones that Rory always had. There’s a text from Tony displayed on it.

Is the tête-à-tête over? I’ve got some bad news.

Emory closes her eyes, feeling for the button on her phone that will answer the call as she lifts it to her ear. Her energy generation right now is different from usual; rather than being sheathed from head to toe with layers that thicken as they power up, the energy is snowballing around her, gathering speed and potential in a tight, widening mass. The difference between this and her usual ‘layering’ is fascinating, but without any time to examine the phenomenon, Emory drapes herself in a dampening cloak of mental static and answers the phone.

“Hello?” She knows better than to use her name on a SHIELD-issued phone. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Potts let herself out of the room.

“Sorry Em. Vacation’s over,” Clint Barton says.

If it had been Natasha, Emory would have begged for more time. If it had been Fury, she’d have bitterly hung up and had a panic attack about what she’d just done. But Clint? She’ll listen to Clint. SHIELD knows exactly how to handle her when it counts, damn them.

“I figured,” she says glumly.

“I knew you would.”

His tone is grim, but there’s an edge of pride to it that washes away most of her circling, fear-based power surge. Cynically, she wonders if he knew that would happen, but he continues before she has a chance to ponder further.

“So, the plan is: in a half hour, a car will drive up to Stark’s mansion. Inside is an agent dressed up in flashy clothes and sunglasses, which you’ll put on once she goes inside. After an hour or whatever, you’ll walk out and get into the car, the agent driving will take you to a pre-arranged meeting place and you’ll take a helicopter back to D.C.”

“And the agent--”

“She’ll have to talk Stark down.”

“I meant how she’ll avoid the photographers, but that’s also true,” Emory says, scrunching up her nose in amused dismay. The agent would undoubtedly get an earful, unable to walk away from his ire without risking the decoy deception. She feels an ache at the back of her throat that feels metallic and wrong, similar to the tang she’d tasted when she’d first been injected with the serum.

“She’s a professional, she’ll think of something.” Barton clears his throat. “Better go say your goodbyes. I’ll see you later.” With that, he hangs up.

“Bye,” she says to the empty line, thick disappointment clogging her sinuses.

“Marching orders?” It’s Tony. Emory turns and sees that he’s standing against the wall by the door, shoulders hunched, hands buried in his pockets. “I think you left your jackboots in the bunker, but I can go get,” he adds bitterly, before pulling in a deep breath and closing his eyes. With them still closed, he grates out, “That was unfair.”

“Yeah, it totally was,” she says. Tony’s eyes pop open in surprise, and she explains, “I’m too junior for jackboots.”

The triumphant half-smile on his face grows slowly, but she can see it coming, and its warmth and affirmation is as inevitable as the sunrise. They look at each other, the time they have left ticking away in her head until his expression suddenly blinks into stubbornness.

“I have to go, Tony,” Emory says, hoping to head him off. Each word is a knife-stab to her own heart.

“No, no, I know that. We’ve got--” he looks at the expensive watch on his wrist. “‘Not Enough’ minutes left, now. I was trying for that last guitar solo, wanted to build some kind of armor for you, since I’ve got two of these,” he taps the reactor in his chest. “But back when I took out the one I’d made with Yinsen, I asked Pepper to put it somewhere I didn’t have to look at it.”

The bleak look on his face matches the ache in her heart. She nods in complete understanding.

“That was in Malibu. It’s in Malibu.” Tony spreads out his hands. “We’re down to ‘persuasion,’ here.”

“Or patience,” Emory says, standing up. “Natasha and Clint were trying to get my physical prep work done before the symptoms start up. Serum withdrawal, I mean. They’re expected to start in the fourth month since injection, and we’re there. The sooner that happens, the sooner we can get the mission over with.” She rubs her upper arms, knowing the room hasn’t suddenly become cold, it’s just her body shrinking from the task ahead of her. Her fear is already threatening to spool up her power generation, so to prevent that, Emory says, “I really think I can see the light at the end of this tunnel,” and hopes she sounds convincing.

Tony scrubs his hand through the hair at the back of his neck. “What if it’s a freight train?” She winces, surprised at the defeatist attitude, and he says, “Metallica. Never mind.”

“Well, either way, it’s too late to run, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Gonna need a plan B.”

Their last minutes tick past with zero fanfare.

Realistically, there’s not much Tony can do, not now, not when he knows that the woman he loves has so much riding (both morally and physically) on the mission that’s in so much jeopardy. Even the little things, like hoping to send Emory back in clothes he bought for her --after making crystal clear to SHIELD what ‘back’ can’t mean in terms of her treatment-- has gone all to shit.

He’s starting to take it personally. What good was buttering up the agent in California if everything is decided on the East coast? Tony resolves to make toast out of the guy in revenge if things don’t go well enough today, just to make himself feel better.

When the knock comes, it’s right on time. Tony watches from the receiving room doorway as Happy lets in the agent, who is dressed in a tight-fitting black miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and chunky heels. She’s blonde, and her oversized black sunglasses cover much of her face, leaving the impression of deep red lipstick over a plunging neckline barely covered by a stunning red leather jacket that hangs lower than the skirt. They’ve done their homework, at least.

Tony has to admit he’s looking forward to seeing Emory wearing all of it, but he can’t help but feel a twinge over the way SHIELD is framing their agent as ‘Tony Stark’s Kind of Girl.’ There’s no way that isn’t going to shake Emory’s confidence.

Is that their secondary objective?

“Fuck,” he swears under his breath as Happy leads the agent his way. Tony lets the door fall shut and turns to see Emory anxiously hovering by the window, trying to peer at the car parked in front through the gap in the curtains without twitching them sideways and risking being seen.

“What is it?” Emory asks when she glances over and sees the look on his face.

“They went a little overboard on the outfit,” Tony lies. There’s a rap on the door. “Stark’s Gibbet, ‘You Bring ‘Em, We Swing ‘Em!’” he calls out.

Happy opens the door anyway.

“Not overboard,” Emory murmurs when she sees the woman. That stings, but she’s right.

“Here you go,” Happy says to the woman, handing her a black leather bag that seems to be made out of the same amount of fabric as her miniskirt. Tony waves Hogan off, dipping his hand into his pocket to show him the edge of his cell phone so he knows that Tony will send him further instructions. Frowning, Happy nods, turns, and leaves, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.

“Okay, these are a pain,” the agent says, pulling off her sunglasses and stepping out of her shoes all at the same time. “I know why they designed them like this, I mean, our heights are pretty different, but man.” She sets the sunglasses down on a nearby table and digs in the black leather bag until she pulls out a fabric-wrapped bundle.

“Tony Stark, I’d like you to meet-- Oh, I’m sorry, all I can remember is the name from your fake name tag, from the day we met,” Emory says with obviously forced politeness. Tony notices that she has positioned herself between Tony and the agent, just like she’d done in the field. He wonders if it’s SHIELD tactics, then wonders if it’s standard SHIELD tactics or if they’ve trained Emory to be a barrier between SHIELD’s assets and their target. Sour, impotent resentment rises in his throat, different from Afghanistan, but similar enough.

“Agent Sharon Harris,” the agent says without acknowledging Emory’s slight in any way. She holds out a hand to shake Tony’s.

He sees Emory’s face fall as she realizes that the two of them might not have touched at all had she not pushed the introduction. Just in case, he goes for as macho a handshake as he’s ever attempted, holding back just enough not to injure.

Agent Harris doesn’t give any indication that his vise-like grip is anything more than a regular shake. If it hurts her, he can’t tell when he lets go. Hell, it hurt him a little.

“Director Fury told me to send her back out after anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half,” she says, a slight challenge in her eyes. She reaches up and digs her fingers impossibly into her scalp, coming away with a very convincing blonde wig. Underneath, her own blonde hair is neatly pinned down. “I was thinking seventy-five minutes would be just fine, though it might depend on how difficult it’ll be to walk in those things.” Setting down the wig, she unwraps the fabric bundle, revealing solid-looking shoe inserts. “May I?” Harris asks, indicating that Emory should sit in a nearby chair.

Emory walks over with an air of wounded dignity that Tony finds adorable. He knows better than to ever tell her that, of course.

The SHIELD agent tucks the inserts into the platform heels she’d worn into the building, snapping them into place and holding them up. “Try them on?”

Tony can’t help but admit that her agency has done their due diligence at very short notice, here. After enlisting his help to move some furniture around so the two women can sit close to each other, Agent Harris starts doing Emory’s makeup. As she tells the two of them a bit more about how SHIELD plans to get Emory out past the paparazzi, Harris constructs the same look that she walked in with, even using a thick gel to conceal the red in Em’s eyebrows.

When it comes time for Emory to change, Harris asks him to step out. They’re taking Emory away from him and the two of them won’t be allowed to be in the same physical space until after the mission, and he’s supposed to just accept that? The idea that’s been angrily forming in his mind will fail if he gives any indication of it, so Tony just walks over and kisses Emory, tongue and ass grab, the whole nine yards. Minutes later, when he pulls back, he can see sadness in her eyes. She thinks it’s a goodbye kiss.

It can’t be helped.As soon as the dining room door shuts behind him, Tony races up to his bedroom. He doesn’t have much time to change.

Next chapter, Tony makes his investment in Emory very clear by showing up where SHIELD doesn't expect.

((Note: hopefully it's clear that, because SHIELD needs it to appear that Emory and Tony aren't associating with each other, Sharon showing up is meant to look like a socialite there for an assignation))

#tony stark x oc #tony stark fanfiction #tony stark x original character #tony stark imagine #iron man fanfiction #iron man #iron man x oc #iron man x original character #mcu #mcu fanfiction #mcu fanfic #marvel #marvel fanfic #tony stark #series: autonomy #ocfairygodmother #fyeahsuperverseocs

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cuntstable · 1 year

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oh oh also top 5 fictional characters...if you can sum them up with a little paragraph + why you like them if you know. regardless of source material type

oh man. okay i tried to not write an essay lenght post but i. ended up doing that anyway LOL. so ill save everyones dashes with a readmore

1. pucci. obviously….. the main villain of jojos stocean, an insane catholic priest trying to create ”heaven” on earth, that in short is a world where everyone will know their fates/futures from birth and will thus be able to avoid tragedy and/or make peace with the inevitable, as inspired by his backstory thats essentially a tragedy formed out of crazy coinsidences or ”faith”. he wants to make a world where things like that cant happen anymore and is willing to die to make it happen LOL.

idk man like where do i even start….. its very funny bc reading stone ocean there wasnt any single Moment where i went crazy mode about him it just gradually happened like i finished the story and thought about him a little and went ”Wow. WTF.” like im almost certain half of the things i think are interesting about him are accidental and ive just added to all the vague thematic implications he has but still. like hes very clearly inspired by characters like oedipus from classical tragedies and he embodies the main themes of the story hes in perfectly As The Villain (memories, faith, the avoidance of faith, the strenght of the human spirit and will etc etc). all the while being an interesting and TO MEE incredibly compelling and sad character in his own right, and also an interesting criticism of the catholic church and christianity at large (religious mania, justification and blindness to atrocities through god, apathy and nihilism towards the material existing world in favour of focusing on some uncertain World to Come etc etc). ARGH

2. almalexia…….. main villain of morrowinds tribunal dlc, a mortal turned god now losing her divinity and trying to hold on to it as she slips into insanity LOL.

this is definitely a character thats been elevated to me by my own musings on her and what ive seen others do with her as opposed to just the source material but i do still love her lots… i think i just have a bias towards delusional insane manipulative religious villains doing awful things that theyre convinced are necessary for a better world. that and girlbosses LOL

3. klaasje disco elysium….. a lover of the murdered man the plot of the game revolves around, shes on the run for corporate espionage and works as an important clue giver to the main character….

she so criminally underrated its CRAZYYY to me that people dont talk about her that much. anyway yet another two faced manipulative character on the list……. shes so interesting to me because shes clearly an incredibly sad and lost person with a lot of guilt all the while STILL being a bad person. shes the kind of character who wants to simultaneously die and to keep living no matter what, so she throws everyone she cares about under the buss so she can keep running and then turns around and associates with the worst people and parties too hard and lives very dangerously. idk. its interesting to me. that and shes also generally an incredibly charismatic character both in game and TO ME.

4. yuyuko touhou….. a ghost princess who rules over the underworld of hakugyroukyo. shes the main antagonist of touhou 7 in which she tries to resurrect an undead cursed cherryblossom tree and the unknown person buried underneath, only to eventually find out that the person buried is her very own corpse.

shes been my favourite character for like over a decade LOL. my first ever Blorberino if you will…. i just like her a lot i think shes a fun character as this mysterious hedonistic ghost aristocrat that likes to play dumb and relax even if shes incredibly smart and powerful. and also reading fanwritten doujins and fics about her (ill be fair) very sad backstory (was born as a cursed human and ended up killing herself and being sealed away by her gf so she could live a grief free afterlife with out memories) as a 13 year old did lasting psychological damage to me and my taste in characters I THINK

5. lady hideko from the handmaiden movie…… a japanese aristocrat living in occupied korea in her adoptive uncles mansion, she runs away from her abusive life with her handmaiden after they attempt to scam each other and fall in love instead

shes a random ass character to throw into this list LOL but i do love her…. one of the cinema characters of all time….. and yet another favourite of mine that falls into the Insane Manipulate character archeotype. i could talk about her more at lenght but this post is too long as is so like ill just say that shes a man hating lesbian that murders her abusers and ditches her societal status to go and suck some korean peasant boobs. so ofc i love her lost :)

#THANK YOU… AND SORRY FOR THE BEAST YOU UNLEASHED WITH THIS PROMPT

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aching-tummies · 2 years

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"Us together on a Ferris wheel that is stuck with us being on the top. The management couldn't do anything and we are stuck there for sometime now. You have acrophobia and in order to avoid any mishap you haven't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. Now, you stomach is full on growling with continuous hunger pangs.

You beg to rub your stomach and when I hit the right spot I couldn't help myself and create a full blown stomachache for you.

Your tummy is really hurting now and you beg me to apply pressure. You're well aware about my fascination and let me have my way it it. But I lost control and now I'm full on probing your stomach disregarding your attempt to stop me."

There’s the construction crane…wait…what direction was it pointed at from our house? What orientation would it be relative to the event grounds…it was slightly to the left from the living room…it’s facing to my right from this angle…so…is it even the same crane? ARGH! Ugh…

I clutch my stomach as a pitiful burble vibrates in the upper left quadrant, rattling against my ribs. Vertigo tickles at the back of my skull, dangerously close to triggering the sensation of nausea that usually hits slightly lower down. Queasiness is already in full swing under my palm, and I can’t seem to muster the pressure to squeeze it out of my guts. I close my eyes, desperately trying to slow my rapidly increasing heartrate as I feel what’s below me sway from the very slight movement of me leaning back in my seat.

“…dumb idea…” I fail to bite back my words.

“Hm? You say something, Sweetheart?” You look up from your phone where you’ve been nonchalantly texting some friends, maybe updating your status to ‘Stuck at the top of the Ferris Wheel--#romantic’ or something. Unlike me, you’re actually enjoying this.

Our city decided to put on a winter-time fair, complete with rides and everything. We came to the event to see the Christmas light decorations and attractions. Well, I came for the lights; you came because you heard they brought in a Ferris wheel. A really, really big Ferris wheel.

The health crisis kind of shot down traditional ‘romance’, the kind of thing that you craved. Dining-in at a place with non-disposable cutlery, having our hands brush up against each other in a container of overpriced popcorn, or just getting out and doing something together. A lot of places have been closed for the last two years and even without that it was hard enough to get me to agree to go anywhere. Sharing a blanket as we watch a totally-not-romantic movie at home is basically my go-to idea of a ‘date’. I agreed to come out tonight because you lit up at the opportunity to go to an event and have a “proper” date. The Ferris Wheel had me on edge though.

I’ve never ridden on a Ferris Wheel before. I’ve got a few phobias, but I wouldn’t count acrophobia among them. I just get really uncomfortable with heights or with see-through flooring. I get a little disoriented. My brain sees the thing and then fills in the sensation of falling, of having the ground beneath me disappear. It’s like that movie where the feeling of falling is supposed to be a sure-fire way to wake someone up…I get that imbalanced feeling whenever I’m high up or when the thing I’m supposed to be standing on isn’t as sturdy as I want it to be or when the railings are too low to be up to code.

A small part of me was hoping that we’d miss the last ride. You had your heart set on getting on the thing as part of the last ride of the night for the best ‘romantic’ atmosphere. The health crisis, busy schedules, and my guilt over my aromantic tendencies caused me to cave and agree to pre-purchasing tickets for the last ride.

I like how Christmas lights look so stunning in the dark. I like how the little pinpricks and tiny bulbs shine brighter than neon signs in the dark. You told me that getting to the top of the Ferris wheel would turn the entire city into a grand light display. The idea of witnessing that kind of thing is the only reason I didn’t bolt when we got in line for the Ferris wheel. I wanted to see our city as a sea of lights. Stupid, in hindsight. I’ve seen lit-up cityscapes in pictures. I’ve witnessed them while on buses between towns.

The idea of being disoriented, of my brain filling in the feeling of falling and leaving my stomach contents behind made me nervous. I didn’t want my brain tricking me into losing my dinner in front of you—this is supposed to be a date and all. So…yeah…I kind of skipped dinner…and lunch…and breakfast…and dinner the night before. I don’t even remember if I ate lunch yesterday. You had a closing shift yesterday and cooking for one wasn’t too enticing for me and I think I got absorbed in a hobby or whatever so that’s what happened to yesterday’s dinner. My alarm didn’t go off this morning, so I was rushing to make bus transfers rather than hunting down breakfast in the morning. We were busy at work, and I had the looming threat of the Ferris wheel to look forward to tonight, so I opted to skip lunch too. Our original plans had us going out to grab dinner before heading out to see the lights. I’d planned to maybe eat something light because my stomach was pretty achingly empty by lunch, but a coworker failed to come in, resulting in me agreeing to stay for an extra couple of hours until the boss could find a replacement.

I squeeze my eyes shut as my tummy rumbles angrily. I rub gently over my shirt, but the sensation seems to just wake my stomach up even more and I bite back a groan. Vertigo and nausea are still warring at the back of my head, but hunger has dealt a KO to queasiness in my guts…for now. I’m hungry. No. I’m beyond hungry. It feels like my stomach is twisting itself into knots, trying to take a bite out of itself in an effort to get something to digest into it.

GrrRRlll..rrrr…grk…

I curse under my breath. The hunger pangs are really intense and in my starved state I don’t have the strength to give myself a good massage. I’ve been feeling a bit faint since we got to this event. My body’s running low on energy. The lights were kind of blurry to me while we walked around. The hunger pangs had subsided (thankfully) while we were walking with just the occasional quiet rumble muffled by the warm layers of coats and clothing I have on.

I was staring out into the distance as our capsule slowly made its way up, higher and higher. I got on this thing to see the cityscape lit up before me like some huge birthday candle array and I wasn’t going to miss my chance to see it. Also, staring into the distance kept the uncomfortable disorientation at bay. The view of the horizon doesn’t change all that much, while closer landmarks would surely intensify the vertigo. As our pod rose, steadily, so too did the discomfort in my belly. The cramps were gnawing and chomping at the bit, preparing to snarl and embarrass me in front of you and ruin the moment.

That’s when it happened. With a massive jolt, our capsule just stopped. We were tossed around in our pod, like dice in a cup before everything just stopped. The jarring movement had sent you barreling into me, and your palm had buried itself painfully into my midriff. That set the hounds of hell loose in my guts and I’ve been fighting the hunger pangs ever since, digging my fingers into my tender tummy whenever I could feel a cramp building to a head. I’ve been disarming the growls amazingly well for the last ten minutes or so. Silver lining: the task of hiding my angry tummy has distracted me from the creeping vertigo of being over two hundred feet in the air, swaying in a pod of welded-together sheet metal.

Your sharp gaze snaps to my midriff. Screw it. Abandoning the pretense, I finally give into my body’s desires, and I curl up on my seat, opposite yours, bringing my knees up and sandwiching my arms over my achingly empty tummy. I lean to the side, resting my head against the cool metal of the side of the cart. The pod sways at my movements and I bite back another groan. It’s a good thing I’m so empty because I’m pretty sure I’d have thrown up when the ride came to such a jarring stop. Nausea is putting up a really nasty fight with vertigo in my head and it’s only a matter of time before the two of them decide to join forces to make me heave. Hunger has won the battle in my guts and queasiness is down, but not out. Once the hunger pang passes, I’m sure I’ll be back to feeling queasy too. As much as the hunger pangs hurt, I’m not looking forward to feeling nauseous and queasy on an empty stomach. Once we get off this ride, I’m going to hunt down something to cram into my belly to shut it up. Yeah, I’m tired from the unexpectedly long shift at work and all, but damnit I’m hungry and I want food!

The pod sways again and I groan, wondering if strong winds are the cause.

“Babe? You okay?” Nope—it was you, getting up from your side and walking over to my side of the gondola. The pod tips slightly as you sit down, and I swallow a puff of air from my stomach clenching in a non-productive heave. Unbidden, I let out a whine as my stomach cramps like a vice. I feel miserable.

Your hand tentatively reaches out, resting on my elbow and creeping forward steadily. Your slender arm acts like a shiv, getting between my knees and my arm and forcing me to uncurl slightly.

“Sweetie, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Your other hand has gone to my shoulder, trying to coax me out of my curled-up position.

“Unngh…urgh…h-hungry…” I moan and curl up tighter as my stomach clenches yet again. With our proximity, you finally hear the growl tear through my insides. A swell of pity wells up in you.

“Oh…oh, Honey.” You coo at me, pulling me away from my almost laying down position so that I’m now leaning against you. Your left arm goes across my back to rest on the far side of my waist and your right pries my arms away from my stomach, pushing incessantly against my thighs to lower my legs back down to try to make me more comfortable.

“Did they do that thing again where they scheduled your lunch break too early in your shift? You did take on those extra hours today.”

“Ah…uhm…n-no…” I look away from your gaze, suddenly sheepish. I rub at my belly again, hand worming between two of the buttons on my coat. I’d long since pulled the zipper down on my hoodie underneath, allowing me to rub at my stomach over my T-shirt. The lack of calories is making it hard for me to regulate my body temperature. My extremities are very cold and even with all those layers of clothing I feel like my core is quickly losing heat. It’s uncomfortable. “I…I kinda…s-skipped lunch…?” I shrink under your gaze. You’ve already put it together, knowing that I skipped breakfast too and that there wasn’t any evidence of me having eaten the night before either. Your frown tells me everything.

Body image and food/calories have been a bit of a problem for me all my life. We both love tummy-kink and indulge a few times a month. To circumvent the nastiness of eating problems we’ve got a hard rule about intentional fasting. We usually reserve it for days off when we can fully indulge in our fun side. Choosing to skip lunch on a non-kink day is a big no-no for us. You know I packed a lunch today, so the skip had to be intentional.

Grrrk…grrblrr…

My belly rumbles between us, almost like the awkward tumbleweed in old Western films. It breaks the silence and the awkward tension between us though. I shrink back into myself, curling up as best I can against the building clenching of my guts. I whine against it as the cramp intensifies beyond what I thought was the peak. My own hands fail to provide comfort. This cramp goes pretty deep, and I swear I can feel it by my spine. No matter how hard I try, my prodding fingers don’t provide any relief. In an instant, I’ve snatched your hand and have pulled it into the folds of my jacket. I press your palm against my belly, reveling in the slight warmth your hand provides.

You feel my stomach quaking beneath your palm as a result of the massive, empty rumbles resounding throughout. Quickly, you find the epicenter of the latest growl and prod deeply with two fingers. A whimper builds in my throat but my grip on your wrist pushes your hand deeper. You can feel the warm squishiness of my organs around your fingers, the differences in firmness giving you an idea of the edges of different organs. We wait out the hunger pang. You can tell when it begins to ebb, both from the easing beneath your fingertips, jabbed so deeply into me that it must hurt, and from the way my body unclenches. The sharp growl ends in a pitiful rumble that goes on for a few seconds. Migrating air bubbles send the sound churning around my abdomen until it tapers off somewhere. You pull your arm back as my grip on your wrist relaxes and I pout at the loss.

“Uhm…uh…c-could you…couldyourubmytummy?” I say the words in a rush, my face coloring. You know exactly what I asked but you can’t help but want to tease me just a little.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

I take a deep breath, wincing as the intake of air causes my stomach to spasm again.

“M-My tummy really hurts. I’m so…so empty. C-Could you p-please rub my tummy for me?” I tug at your wrist, trying to bring your hand back to its rightful place over my sore guts.

You smirk and move your hand on your own, but you don’t slide it back into my coat.

Pop…pop…pop.

You undo the buttons on my coat, starting from the bottom and moving up. You pull my coat open once the buttons are undone, revealing the partially unzipped hoodie. The temperature difference causes my stomach to spasm, and you make quick work of the zipper, pressing your palm firmly over the thin T-shirt hiding my tender, chilly midriff. You run your hand all over my belly, sliding your hands under my loose waistband and mapping out my starved guts. I haven’t allowed myself to get quite this empty in a long time and you’re having fun getting reacquainted even as I wince and groan as a result of your ministrations.

Without the muffling properties of my layers of clothes the growls are quite loud now. The sheet-metal of our small capsule creates an acoustic phenomenon that’s music to your ears as the growls ricochet off the metal and back to us. I whimper and shiver and squirm in your arms, fighting to pull my coat closed to trap as much warm air as I can. The movement of your arm prevents my coat from staying closed for long and any residual trapped heat quickly disappears. My only source of warmth now comes from you.

Your barely-there rubs across my tummy have caused my loose T-shirt to ride up, exposing my bare stomach to the elements. You’re transfixed, watching my abdominals contracting against the cold, twitching like I’ve been attached to a live wire. It’s adorable to you and it stirs your sadistic side.

I bite my lip and buck up a bit, trying to get more pressure and warmth to my gut. You’re leaning over me, and my hands are trapped at my sides in this position.

“C-Cold! B-Babe, i-it’s c-c-cold.” I whine as my stomach continues to convulse, much to your delight. In my starved state each muscle spasm is clearly visible and it’s like my midriff is dancing before your very eyes. You trail your fingers across it, barely touching it, walking two fingers over my bare stomach like some ballerina hand-puppet. All the while my stomach quakes from chills and the growls going off like pop-rocks throughout my digestive tract. I’m utterly empty right now and it shows.

The chill sets in, awakening a new sensation in my guts. Being achingly empty and chilly has mixed into a foreign ache that I’m having a hard time placing. My stomach is starting to hurt. There’s the ache from my muscles getting tired from being torn up in all the cramps, the gnawing hollow ache from being hungry, but I’m starting to feel a dull, throbbing pain in my organs. I wince, whining against the new sensation. My tummy continues to rumble, but nothing like the really loud one that caused me to ask for belly rubs. You look up, your attention broken by the pained whimpers I’m making. You lay your palm over my belly, providing some of the pressure I’ve been desperately seeking.

“Sweetheart, you okay?”

“N-Nnno…” I slur out while still biting back my cries of pain. “Hurts…s-s-stomach…h-hurts…” My teeth chatter. I’m so cold. “I-I…’m g-getting a-a stomach a-ache.” I squirm beneath you, not liking the building ache in my guts at all. A bubble of air squeezes passed all the clenched muscles and I let out a barely noticeable burp of empty air. My guts grumble at the loss.

You pull my shirt back over to cover up my belly and run your palm over the smooth surface, providing me with a little bit of warmth. You’re basically straddling me at this point.

“Sweetie, what color? Tell me honestly, do you want to stop?” We use the traffic light system often in our adventures and explorations. Red means ‘stop immediately’, yellow means ‘slow down’ or ‘continue…but with conditions/in a different direction’ something of the like, ‘green’ means all good and go ahead.

I think for a minute, the cold making it really hard to concentrate. I focus on your warm hand over my shirt. We’ll probably be up here for however long it takes them to fix the ride. What we’ve been doing has been a stellar distraction from the disorientation of being so high up. I’m starving, cold, and my stomach is starting to ache in earnest…but I don’t feel like I’m falling. Actually, lying here has made the vertigo almost completely disappear. My view out the windows at this angle just shows me the sheer black of the sky. I can almost pretend we’re getting frisky in the back seat of a car or something rather than hundreds of feet off the ground.

“Y-Yellow. I-I’m really c-cold. C-Cont-tinue…b-but…c-coat…warm…d-don’t want…d-don’t like…tummy ache…” I’m having trouble putting my desires into words, but thankfully, you get the picture.

You tug my coat back together, buttoning the buttons back together. You push the bulk of my infinity scarf into my coat, sealing in the warmth around my chest and neck. I expect you to get off me and allow me to sit up, but you do not. You use your hand to push my shoulder back down against the hard seat, the other slides in from the side, slipping between the buttons on my coat. You rub and prod at my tummy over my shirt from that position. I lie back again, closing my eyes against another building hunger pang. As it builds, you lie down over me, resting an ear directly over the epicenter of the building hunger pang over my thick coat. The hand buried in my coat doesn’t stop moving, prodding and probing at my belly and applying varying increments of pressure. Your intent being to churn up my guts and see how intense you can make my hunger pangs. In my starved state, I can’t actually push you off of me. Not that I’d want to. You’re warm and your familiar weight pressing down against me grounds me. An odd thing to say when we’re over two hundred feet above ground, but you get the idea. We have our safewords and the traffic-light system. We’ll be alright.\

Your palm presses deeply into the middle of my stomach as another large rumble starts to make my insides quake. Another puff of empty air is squeezed out of my guts by your hand. This one’s larger and slightly audible, drawing a sharp little ‘urp’ sound from my throat. I whimper after it, my throat hurting from the air pocket being so rudely forced upwards.

“Aww…well, you can’t be that empty if you’re burping,” You tease, your hand continuing to swirl slow circles over my still-quaking guts. “My, my, I wonder what’s in here. What could be making this cute little tummy so vocal?”

Pat, pat. A hollow thumping slap sounds from the impacts of you patting my sore stomach delicately—almost patronizingly.

A cramp builds, stuck at its apex. I bite back a grunt and wrestle your hand over to the cramping area. You’ve been intentionally avoiding that part of my belly, knowing that eventually your actions would create something intense over there.

“Press here—ah!—p-please!” I whine against the tightness of the cramp. It feels like it got stuck, like it’s a growl that wants to rip through my guts, but it’s just stuck. You smirk devilishly and move your hand away from the area, prodding at a smaller bubble of air diagonally across from where I so desperately crave some pressure. You chase the air bubble over, knowing that it’ll find its way over to the stuck cramp and add to the agony.

This edging goes on for a while, with you dancing your fingers lightly over the cramp but never pressing down on it. Eventually, you decide to grant me some relief. Using two fingers, you prod sharply into the cramp, causing me to let out an exclamation that’s drowned out by the long and painfully loud rumble that rips through the air. You don’t relent, pressing your fingers in deep and firmly as the growl forces its way around your invasive fingers. You’re definitely going to leave a bruise there.

My stomach throbs, though not from your actions. I guess the chill did its damage. I’m empty, in the middle of a nasty bought of hunger pangs that you’ve got no intention of letting pass, and I’ve got a stomach ache too on top of all that.

“Urgh…you’re buying me a burger or something on the way home.” I mutter, resigning myself to letting you have your fun. Honestly, I’m not even sure if I want to eat anymore tonight. I can tell that the new aches in my stomach aren’t a result of being hungry or your rough treatment. My intestines are reacting badly to the chill, twitching and twisting every which-way. If it’s still like this when I finally have an opportunity to eat, then it’s probably going to result in a nasty upset as my intestines fail to move anything along. On top of all that, the only food-places open at this hour are going to be fast-food. Past experience has taught me that breaking my fast on heavily processed, greasy, low-brow fast food often results in a really bad time for my guts. Still, the thought of food—any food—right now stirs a new hunger pang to life. The cramp builds quickly, surprising you as you feel my abdominals tense rapidly against your prodding fingers. It all comes to a head in a near-deafening growl.

You smile, continuing to poke and prod at my belly even as the growl echoes around us. A finger slips during one of your jabs, nailing the sensitive nerve at the base of my navel. I bite back a cry as it triggers another hefty growl before the last one had a chance to end. My digestive tract quakes and something sour stirs as gastric juices begin to secrete from various organs. My stomach burns, accumulating acid with absolutely nothing to dissolve in it. You kick your legs happily behind you, the very picture of a child entranced with a new toy. You hear it when the empty rumbles begin to get laced with some wet squelches, a sure sign that the acid levels in my stomach are rising. Finally, something other than empty air to push around my guts. The idea excites you, like discovering another level in a video game or finding out that your new item of clothing has real pockets. I lie there, letting you do as you will. I guess our first true date night in almost two years is a success: you’re happy.

#hunger kink #RPAsks #tummy kink #tummy noises

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justreadingfics · 4 years

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It’s a Deal -Ch. 13

Chapter Summary: Old memories come back to you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 3k

Warnings: angsty internal thoughts, no Bucky this chapter.

A/N: Here it is. I’m sorry I ended up not reblogging all the comments on last chapter before I post this one, but I’ve read and cherish them all, please don’t doubt that. Thank you, incredible Suz, @bucky-the-thigh-slayer you’re a Queen around here. The link to my masterlist, where you can find the other chapters, is on my description. Feedback is highly appreciated.

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You bet that if you told anyone about the scene playing out in your apartment right now, people would scoff their asses off at your face: Saturday afternoon, your living room, the Leader of the Avengers Tech Team, the Director of SHIELD – probably the most powerful organization in the world- and one of the scariest, if not the scariest spy to ever walk on earth. All three of you sitting on your carpet, barefeet, wearing tops and tiny shorts due the heat brought by the bright sun slipping through your windows. A big bowl of popcorn in the center and innumerous chocolate bars everywhere.

Those afternoons with the three of you are a rare event. First, you had your relationship with Eddie to blame, but now it’s mainly due to your work schedules that almost never are in sync, but whenever there’s an opportunity, there you are.

Your phone's message alerts ringing together bursts into the conversation and the three of you grab your devices simultaneously. You were dreading to see what it was, sure it was something from work, but a huge smile widens in your lips at what you see on your screen.

“Jesus…” Nat says, while, laughing, you three turn the screens to one another, confirming you have received the same message. “Bucky’s a lost cause with that cat. That’s the millionth picture I received of her this week. And she’s always doing something extremely exciting like… sleeping.” She rolls her eyes.

“But we have to admit that little asshole is kinda cute,” Sharon comments looking back at her screen and the picture of the, indeed, sleeping cat.

“She is, right?” You agree, with a huge smile on your face. You and Alpine may have had a somewhat rough start, but you can’t help but admit she’s an adorable little jerk who’s just very protective of her human.

“By the way,” Natasha smirks at you, putting her phone back on her pocket, “I had no idea that was what he meant when he said he would romance the shit out of you.”

“It suits perfectly, though,” Sharon comments, shaking her head and laughing with her.

“It does. Shame on me, I should’ve known better.” Nat agrees.

“He said that?” You ask with peaked interest you try to disguise in the quietness of your tone while you bite the corner of your lips.

The curiosity in the information doesn’t go unnoticed by them, who just snicker at each other. You decide to ignore that.

“The dude is smitten, Y/N, wake the fuck up.” Natasha not so gently throws a popcorn right on your face.

“Hey,” you whine.

“And so is she, giving that little dreamy look on her face. Wake the fuck up indeed.” Sharon sides with Nat with a huff.

“I’ve created two monsters…” Nat comments like you weren’t even in the room, referring to the fact she is the one who brought you two together.

“It’s not like that…” You barge in their little interaction, catching their attention, before folding your legs up and holding your knees, “I mean… yeah, of course… I can’t help having feelings for Bucky, I mean… he’s…” you pause, searching for the right words to describe him, “He’s Bucky.” You shrug… a small smile curling your lips, “He’s Bucky…” you repeat with a sigh while your gaze wanders away…

It’s just you don’t really need anything else to justify why it’s so inevitable to grow feelings for him and your friends catch on to what you mean, because when you look back at them, they both have stupid and dreamily little looks at you… ones that don’t fit to a couple of spies.

You clear your throat, letting your initial line of thoughts come back to you, “But it’s not that simple… There’s…’ you falter.

“There’s what?” Nat insists, in a kind way.

But “Who” was the more proper pronoun.

“Eddie…” You whisper.

“Argh…” Sharon groans, tilting her face to her side before, looking back at you, “What about Eddie?”

It was just yesterday that you had your little “encounter” with Bucky. You know it was no coincidence he was there, the little shit must’ve tracked you down… but you couldn’t make yourself care about that when it was so amazing… incredible… Not only the fact that he went down on you in such a shameless way and gave you a mind-blowing orgasm, like he always does. It was also the way he spoke to you…his attitude… not really imposing himself… encouraging you to have fun with your friends… no sign of jealousy. It made you feel special and free and… loved. Really loved for who you are and not for who you make yourself to be to please and that is a tremendously powerful feeling.

Still… you have mixed feelings about it all and Eddie is the reason. Being there with him felt familiar and comfortable, but, in some way different… better than before. It makes you think that he really is engaged into finding not just a way back to you, but also a way to make your relationship work and it certainly weighs over your heart.

You tell your friends all of that.

“Did Eddie notice anything?” Nat asks, reaching over for some popcorn.

“I don’t know,” you answer, “He wasn’t at the table when I returned, but he came back shortly, my friends were still talking about it, but we changed to subject once we saw him. The girls didn’t comment anything again, and he acted normal… I guess he didn’t.” You shrug, starting to bite on your nails.

There’s an annoying little feeling rising in you since the night before and, thinking over it, you recognize it as guilt. Guilt for doing that with Bucky while Eddie was there in Club, guilt for not being bothered by Bucky’s presence, while, at least initially, you were bothered by Eddie’s, guilty for enjoying that Bucky was the one who actively made a move when Eddie didn’t, for missing him more than you missed Eddie, for feeling more positively about his change of mind than Eddie’s, for wanting Bucky more…

Guilt because you know you’re falling for him. For Bucky. And there’s little you can do to stop it.

“What is it?” Sharon asks, tightening her lips and nodding at where you’re chewing your nails.

You promptly stop, bringing your hands to around your knees again, “I guess I wasn’t expecting either of them there.” You decide not to share your most recent thoughts with them.

“You know why both of them were there. It was definitely not a coincidence.” Nat reminds you.

“I know… but it's ok, they were polite...” You brush it off but add, quickly, fighting back a smile at the memories that flashes in your mind, “In their own way.”

“Polite? Even when Bucky had his face up your pussy?” Sharon teases, not letting that one go, and making you give in and let out a laugh while you hide your face with your hands for a moment.

“I was pretty excited to find out he was there, actually,” you admit and their faces light up, which you assume is prompted by your own expression. “It was a thrilling sensation… I can’t quite explain.”

“He really is in love with you…Bucky…” Nat tightens her lips and tilts her head.

You sigh, looking back at her, “I know…” You admit.

They both keep waiting for you to say something else but you don’t know what you could say. No… as a matter of fact, you do. You’re just not ready to put your thoughts out in the world. At first, you had your doubts if what Bucky was feeling was really that deep… but now… something has changed. You believe him. You really do. And you know you’re falling for him, too, but…

Eddie was the one you wanted for so long… you’ve made so many plans with him… Long term plans. You used to see yourself growing old with him and that’s an image that still somehow haunts your feelings. And now… the fact that guilt surrounds the feelings arising for Bucky inside you makes you feel like a cheater. You didn’t feel that when it was just sex, but now you do. And you’re damn scared.

What if you surrender to your feelings now and go to Bucky and then comes a day you’ll realize that you were wrong and Eddie will still be the one you really want? You wanted him for so long… can that really have changed? How can one let go of that feeling, that certainty of being right for each other, without being afraid of doing the wrong thing? And if that happens, if you do the wrong thing now, you will eventually hurt Bucky and that’s definitely the last thing you want.

That’s fucked up and you know it. But it’s what you’re feeling.

You keep it to yourself, though.

~~~

It’s a few hours after the girls left your place, you take a refreshing and long bath and are about to put on a movie to relax a bit more for the rest of the evening. Maybe that way you can put your thoughts and feelings in order.

That duality of emotions is crushing your mind. You wanted some time alone and you had that… now, you can’t help the feeling that you need to come to a decision, a conclusion of some sort, you just can’t keep pushing it further. For better or for worse. Or you will lose your mind soon.

A comfort movie is in order for all the thinking you need to do, so you set “The Prisoner of Azkaban” on your TV before you head to the kitchen. You’re still pretty full of all the junk food the three of you made a feast of the whole afternoon, so you decide to prepare just an old recipe of peach iced tea your mom has taught you. Perfect for the hot weather, too.

You’ve just added the ice in the jar when your intercom rings. You frown wondering who could that be and check your phone for any missed calls or messages, finding none before answering the intercom.

“Yeah? Oh… no, yeah, sure, come up.” You press the button to let him in. Your heart beats just slightly faster, wondering what could he possibly be doing there.

“Hi,” he greets, once you open the door after he pressed the ringer.

“Hi,” you answer, and without even thinking, just keep staring at him, blocking his way into your apartment while he stands at your door, holding a big box in his hands.

“Can I come in?” He asks, when you say nothing else.

“Oh, yeah, of course, sorry.” You step aside, allowing Eddie to walk into your living room with a tight smile on his lips.

“Please,” you gesture towards your sofa and he nods, walking with you over there, “I was about to pour me some iced tea, would you like some?” You offer, tentativeness still present in your tone, while the big box secured in his hands grasps your attention for a second.

“Your mom’s recipe?” He asks, his whole face lightening up as he takes his seat.

You chuckle and nod.

“Oh, hell yeah, then.”

You take just a little longer than you actually need to fix the tea for the two of you in the kitchen. For some reason, his presence, after the night before, what you did with Bucky and after you coming to terms that you are, indeed, growing feelings for the other guy… it just unsettles you.

After taking a deep breath or two, you come back to the living room. Some small conversation ensues while you take a seat by his side and you two drink from the tea you’ve just prepared.

“Ahm…What’s that?” At some point you give in to the curiosity and nod towards the box now on your center table.

He smiles, before placing his cup on your table and taking the box in his hands. He shifts on the sofa, making room for placing it on one of the cushions between the two of you. “I was taking a look at it at home earlier, it just… I couldn’t help myself… and decided to come by to show you.”

When he opens the lid, placing it aside, you take in the contents, which makes your heart beat a bit funny at the surprise. You recognize pictures of the two of you, letters, a few souvenirs… All of them represent a memory of your relationship.

“Oh…” you say. You know all that stuff had been stashed in some place, but you never knew he had taken them with him once he moved out.

“Yeah…” Eddie brushes the back of his neck, peering at you from beneath his lashes, “I guess I really wasn’t that confident about my decision when I left…” he shrugs, looking down at the box again, “I just couldn’t leave it behind.”

You give him a tightened and brief smile, before placing your teacup on the table and starting to fumble through the items inside the box. You let out a breathy laugh when you find a picture of the day you two have met… he had founded a study group on advanced software creating techniques and you were the only one to show up.

“Oh my God…” you laugh.

“Yeah… what a couple of nerds,” Eddie chuckles, looking at the picture.

He helps you through the shuffling when you go through some more pictures from college, his family, your family… the day you two closed the deal to buy the apartment… the letter you received when you were both accepted in the Avengers tech team…

You feel the tears gathering in your eyes before they start silently rolling down your cheeks… It’s a weird sensation, it’s like meeting with an old part of yourself, an old friend. One that has never really left, but you almost don’t recognize anymore… leading to a nostalgic and longing feeling.

They’re all good memories stashed on that box… of course… you guess no one is really keen to proposedly keep a souvenir from the bad ones… but that’s not on what your focus lays right now. Your attention is caught by a particular thing from the box. A small gasp escapes your lungs at the sight.

You look up at Eddie, whose eyes have been intensely trained on you, before you grab the object in your hands.

It’s a scrapbook you two have made through college years. While you silently and carefully go through the pages your life passes in front of your eyes. Movie and concert tickets… more pictures… a few drawings… software ideas you had together… little notes you’ve written to each other… and then, on the very last couple of pages, there they are.

You remember them. The day you two decided to write a letter to each other, telling how you wanted your future to be.

You roam your fingers through the frayed papers… you don’t have to read them again to know what’s there. You remember. Without knowing, in the end you two had written the exact same thing in both letters… among other small stuff, you two wrote you wanted a kick ass job, live in the city in an apartment of your own… and stay together forever.

Your watery gaze follows when Eddie slides down to the floor and kneels before you, taking your hands in his, “I meant every word then and I still do,” he says, softly, staring deeply into your eyes, “I can’t see my future without you… I just can’t.” He shakes his head, before it drops.

You see how his lips twist before he looks up at you again, with a saddened look on his face, “I know how that guy makes you feel…”

Your body freezes just as your heart does and you feel the precise moment when it splits in two. That heavy sensation comes back to your chest when the image of Bucky pops into your mind and suddenly there are two lives running before your eyes. One there, with Eddie, with everything you've ever dreamed of… the other running straight into Bucky's arms and leaving all of that behind.

And you know there's only one right for you.

You're brought back to reality by the sound of Eddie's voice.

“I- I know about what happened last night, I, ahm, I’ve heard the girls…” he stammers but holds his hold on your hands when you shift on your seat and he senses your discomfort. “No… it’s ok. “I know it’s new… it’s exciting…” he continues, nodding and hastily licking his lips, “And you deserve to explore that. You do… it’s ok.” He puts on a small smile, “But I want you to know that I’m here. I’m waiting for you. I’m waiting for us… for our future. No matter how long it takes. How much fun you need to have with that guy before you realize what I already know.” He smiles wider, “Because I know you and I are it. We’ve always been it.”

You’re frowning while looking down at him. His words making their way into your senses.

You free one hand of his secured hold to reach over and cup his smiling face.

He leans into your touch.

You make a decision.

#Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky x Reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #it´s a deal #it's a deal ch. 13

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rebelwrites · 3 years

Text

Anger and Lust

Jax Teller x Reader

Slightly NSFW

“Please tell me why you morons are ambushing me at work” you sighed leaning against the counter.

“Because doll we haven’t seen you in a while” Tig grinned. “And I want an iced coffee and only you know how to make it how I like it”

“Mmmm not buying it Tiggy” you said arching your brow at him. ““There’s something more I know it”

“Fine you caught us, we are having a party tonight and wanted to know if you are gonna come?” Juice asked.

“I don’t know” you shrugged “it would mean seeing him”

“What happened with you two, you were always good friends growing up?” Tig asked.

“He changed Tig, he’s so annoying I just can’t stand him any more” you glared.

“See I don’t think that’s the case little one” Tig smirked “how I see it is you started to realise how attractive the boy is and got scared”

“Pffft” you laughed “far from the truth”

“So then enlighten us” Tig smirked.

“Nope that is the truth you are getting” you shrugged.

The truth is when you and Jax was younger, you started flirting, one thing led to another and ended with you sleeping together, Jax taking your virginity and then ditching you.

“Just please come, Gem is busting our balls to get you to come” Juice said.

“Yet she can’t do it herself” you shrugged. “But if I say I will come will it get you idiots out of the shop”

“Yeah” Tig said with a goofy grin on his face.

“Fine” you sighed in defeat “I guess I will see you assholes tonight then”

“You love us really” Tig said leaning over the counter and kissing your cheek.

“Mmmm now get out before I kick ya asses” you laughed.

“What about my coffee?” He pouted giving you puppy dog eyes.

“Gimme five” you huffed pushing yourself off the counter to make this iced coffee.

“Such a doll” he winked.

- - -

The party was in full swing but you had still yet to see Jax, which you was slightly grateful for as you now had alcohol running through your veins and you made bad decisions when you drank. Like sleeping with Jax 6 months ago at a random party after you got into a screaming match.

You was in your own little world and had zoned out when Jax walked out of the door topless, he noticed you gaze was definitely in his direction and smirked walking up to you.

“Like what you see darlin’” he winked pulling you out of your bubble.

“Urm am I supposed to be impressed?” You glared but couldn’t help run your eyes down his toned body.

You couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t hot because he was.

“You see you say one thing but the fact your eyes are raking over my body gives the game away darlin’” he smirked pulling his top over his head, slipping his kutte over the top. “You know where to find me sweetheart”

“Argh fucking prick” you huffed downing the rest of your drink. You knew coming here was a bad idea as you stood up and went to find Tig.

“What’s up doll?” He asked sensing your mood as you rested your head on his shoulder.

“One word, three letters and is the definition of an asshole” you groaned. “I mean it’s like he gets off on watching me get wound up”

“Ye know wha tha is love” Chibs smirked “sexual tension”

“Fuck you Chibs” you said rolling your eyes.

The night went on and you was slightly drunk, and currently trapped in a corner outside by Jax.

“Why are you so aggressive to me darlin’? We used to be good friends” Jax whispered placing his hand on your hip.

“Oh I don’t know, you took my virginity and then did a run for it” you spat.

As the words left your mouth you saw the look of guilt wash over his expression.

“You know I was with Tara and couldn’t stay” Jax sighed.

“Argh then why did you fuck me then” you hissed. “You know I can’t stand cheaters”

“Hang on a minute, you let it happen as well” Jax sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. “So I don’t get how this is just my fault and you didn’t have any issues when you was sucking my dick and screaming my name 6 months ago when we had this same conversation”

“I forgot how much I fucking hate you” you shouted pushing him hard causing him to stumble back.

The air around you changed, it felt heavy and you didn’t miss the look of lust in Jax’s eyes.

“You think you are gods gift” you spat “when you are just a womaniser”

“God you’re so fucking hot when you’re mad” Jax smirked as he stepped closer to you causing you to shove him again.

In one swift movement Jax now had you pinned against the wall, arms about your head and his lips attacking yours. You mentally cursed yourself at how you body melted to his touch.

You was both preoccupied to notice Tig walk out and quickly turn back to run to the others.

“Chibs you owe me £20” he smirked holding his hand out.

“Ye kidding me?” He sighed shoving his hand in his pocket.

“Nope things are getting pretty steamy out there” Tig laughed.

Jax pulled away slightly, resting his forehead against yours.

“I wish I never met you Jackson Teller” you breathed, lips grazing as you spoke.

“We both know you don’t believe that darlin’ now why don’t we go somewhere more private and you can show me just how much you hate me” he said lowly before biting your bottom lip.

“Lead the way douchebag” you giggled as he snaked his arm around your waist.

You didn’t know whether you would be going back to how you used to be with the friendship but what you did know was you was going to be sore in the morning, because angry sex with Jax was always hot and rough.

#Jax Teller #jax teller x reader #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy x reader

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duphyduphy · 3 years

Text

"Angel"

Summary: Childe's usually outgoing and bright persona was oddly muted that day, enough for Lumine to notice. Maybe that's why he got so recklessly injured while he was helping with her with her commissions. Lumine takes him to her teapot to nurse him back to health, but the two realized something during a peculiar conversation they had after Childe regained consciousness.

This chilumi fic was inspired by the recent housing system update in 1.5! Enjoy!

Childe was feeling a bit hazed. His usually outgoing and bright persona was oddly a little muted that day, enough for Lumine and Paimon to notice. He was less talkative and seemed tired for some reason. He didn't even pry her about having their usual sparing matches like he usually does, which she found to be out of character for him. Maybe that's why he got so recklessly injured while he was helping with her with her commissions.

"Argh!", the traveller and her flying companion heard from a distance.

Lumine turned around to see Childe getting struck by one of the Mitachurl from the back as he was fighting off another Hilichurl.

"What's wrong with him today? That was just a Mitachurl. Those guys are big but we fight them with ease all the time. Is he injured or something? Is he distracted?", Lumine thought to herself as she ran towards his direction to help him. Her pace sped up when she saw him fell to the ground.

"CHILDE!"

His vision went black.

***

"Ow... my head hurts"

Childe slowly opened his eyes to find himself in what seems to be a bedroom.

"Where-where am I? Was I knocked out?"

"Hey... you're awake" a soft, almost melodic voice spoke to him.

Still half awake, Childe blinked a few times and turned his head toward the source of the sound to find out that it was coming from Lumine. She was sitting on a chair beside the bed he was laying on. Her hand rested on top of his own, gently stroking his bruised knuckles. Her face worried yet relieved. Her expression was accompanied by a small smile. He would never say it out loud, but he always did found her to be very beautiful. He's sure many men thought about the same thing when they saw the infamous Honorary Knight. What most men didn't see though, was his comrade in action, in the battle field. He still remembers their time in the Golden House, how almost marvelous she looked as she showed him her capabilities. She was definitely powerful, astonishing nonetheless. He also feels some sense of guilt whenever he thinks about that time. She was just a pawn to him then, but now, she was becoming someone more. Even Childe himself has yet to understand this strange feeling. Sometimes he thinks it's distracting. Sometimes he wonders if she thought the same way. In other time, he wonders if she still wants to trust him after what happened.

"Childe? Is your head still hurting?", Lumine asked as she leaned in to place her hand on his head, which he later realized, was wrapped in bandaged.

Snapping back to reality, Childe's face gleamed a dim sheen of pink to the sudden close proximity of the two. Still collecting his consciousness, he looked around and realized that his chest and stomach area was bandaged. He wasn't wearing his shirt either.

"Did- did you take of my shirt?"

"I- WE- WE HAD TO PATCH YOU UP SOMEHOW!! YOU- YOU WERE BLEEDING OUT! I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU WERE SO DISTRACTED TODAY!!!", Lumine said in a slight panic.

"Calm down! Haha! You're always so easy to fluster", Childe said with a coy smile.

"Ugh. I was really worried when you collapsed like that you know... You did seem really tired and you didn't talk much today either but I didn't expect you to get knocked out like that."

"Aw... did you really think I would be so easily defeated by a mere Mitachurl. I'm a Fatui Harbinger, girlie", Childe smirked with cocky tone.

"And yet, here you are. Well, YOUR WELCOME for caring and patching you up, Mr. Fatui", Lumine said, rolling her eyes while letting go of his hand.

"Wait~"

Before Lumine's hand could move further away, he gently took hers in his.

"I'm sorry I worried you. I guess work got a little tiring and I didn't get enough sleep for the past couple of nights so, I guess I was a little drained. Regardless, thank you for patching me up, Lumine"

Childe has a plentiful amount of nicknames he gave Lumine. Whether it be girlie, traveller, Honorary Knight, comrade, or princess, but rarely does he ever call her by her real name. She blushed to the sudden change in how he addressed her. She found it to be almost sincere and genuine. It made her blush, but she turned her head around so that Childe wouldn't notice. Unfortunately for her, he did notice and took pride in how he's able to form that reaction out of his dear traveller. He always found teasing her quite enjoyable and entertaining.

"Hmph. You're lucky me and Paimon were there with you when you collapsed. Who knows what would have happened if we weren't. Paimon litterally had to drag your body to safety while I dealt with the remaining Hilichurls and Mitachurls"

Lumine always did possess a caring and nurturing personality. Why else would she go out of her way to bring him to her home to treat and care for his wounds personally instead of taking him to Bubu Pharmacy.

"She's just caring. If anyone were in my place, she would do the same thing. There shouldn't be any other reason to this", at least, that was what Childe thought.

"Yes, yes. I'm the luckiest man in the world. I like what you did to the place by the way. Last time I was here, there was nothing but a bed. Not to mention it not matching the interior of the house at all"

"Childe. Are you trying to kick yourself out?"

Her reaction made him laugh out loud with such satisfaction which eventually made her laugh as well.

"Anyways, that Mitachurl beat you up pretty badly. I suggest you stay here for the night to rest. I don't mind really. Plus, you said you haven't been getting enough sleep so... actually why are you loosing sleep anyway? Is work hectic at the moment? I don't know what goes on in the Fatui so uh-"

"About that, uh... work is fine, I guess. I've just been thinking about some things"

"Is... everything okay? What's been on your mind?"

"What ever may I be thinking about that made loose sleep, hm~? Who knows? Maybe it's because of someone I've been thinking a lot about. Maybe it's not~" Childe said as he gave her a smirk.

Childe expected Lumine to get annoyed, maybe even a little curios at his statement. Admittedly, that was his way of hinting his attraction towards her, but he just wanted to play safe and see her reaction. And indeed it was unexpected.

"Is- is that so? We-Well...", Lumine said quietly with a very noticeable red tint on her face.

There was a long silence for a good seven seconds. You could almost here the crickets.

"Shit. Why did things become awkward. I was just teasing her. Does she maybe like me back or is she just flustered-"

"ANYWAY! I'LL-I'll get you some fo-food! Stay here. I'll be back haha... Don't move around too much!", Lumine said frantically as she quickly stood up from her chair and left the room.

Childe gave out a big sigh.

"This is not good. Whatever! I'm pretty sure it's nothing. Ugh, I feel like a school boy having his first crush. Pathetic"

Childe tried to forget the awkward moment they had just a few minutes ago by looking around the room. She really did do a lot to the place. It was nicely furnished. He looked at his side and noticed something at the bedside table. It was an Aster flower placed inside a vase. It was the flower he gave to her during the Windblume festival out of coincidence. Some memories flashed back to his head that made his face softened.

"What an angel", Childe softly said to himself.

Lumine accidentally heard him from outside the room just as she was about to bring him his food.

Just something in my head that I could not bother to illustrate with art so here's a fic instead. i hope you enjoyed my chilumi offering for the day. Smirks and blushes. I think you can tell I like those quite a lot. Teasing. Teasing galore.

#chilumi #childe x lumine #childe #lumine #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin impact fluff #1.5 update

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chaeryybomb · 4 years

Text

should you fight them?

nct dream edition

listen y'all it's 4am and I can't sleep so here I am with another crack reaction fic because y'all loved the nct dream rooftop fights one

I would say all the dreamies have fighting experience because they're always together

so you gotta have some basic knowledge too

here's some times

when making a fist, never place your thumb in between your fingers. make sure your thumb is like resting about your index finger

if you're going in for a kick, your stance has to be wide. the basic stance for a kick is one leg forward and the other at the back

slightly bend both legs before kicking, makes it easier for you to kick and you'll feel less stiff

the elbow is one of the strongest bones so use it to your advantage to elbow someone

if you're trying to turn while kicking, you have to move your entire upperbody as well. from waist down

oh and make sure to flatten out your feet. kick with your top part of your feet, never kick with your toes. you're going to break if you do

anyways leggo

huang renjun

honestly if you have the confidence to fight THE huang renjun

go for it ig

but there's a 98% chance of you losing

the 2% chance is him suing you so either way it's a lose-lose

b u t theoretically, if you DO fight renjun

honestly you would need some height advantage

and I'm not talking like,,, tall height

no I mean you have to be shorter than this man

mans is so used to fighting people taller than him, I strongly believe he will be left confused fighting someone smaller than him

like you have to be under 165cm

that's where you get the advantage to kick him in the knees and mans goes down

but like kick em from behind the knees so so 1. you don't hurt your feet, 2. his knees would ✨ b u c k l e ✨

in all honesty you also have to be fast and agile

like you need to dodge his hands because if you get CAUGHT

he will STRANGLE YOU

PLACES YOU IN A C H O K E H O L D

but yeah the only way you can beat him is you have to be shorter than him AND you need whatever confidence you pulled out from your ass fhshdhshd

10/10 would not recommend to fight unless you're looking for a death wish

no but seriously if given the chance don't fight huang renjun

mans may look SOFT but he's lit rally the devil fhshdhs

lee jeno

just no

don't even tHINK ABOUT IT

you're not fighting lee jeno and that's it

why??

WHY???

WHY DO YOU THINK

HE'S LITERALLY THE MOST BUILT IN NCT DREAM BESIDES JAEMIN

MANS CAN PLUMMET YOU

the only reason he won't do it is because he's niCE

AND WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FIGHT JENO

he's gonna be S A D

"w-why would you want fight me, y/n?"

(╯︵╰,)

you're gonna make jeno sad and renjun will come for your ass so honestly you'd be fighting renjun

so yeah don't fight jeno

just don't okay you heartless monster

lee haechan

in all honesty

you can fight haechan

there's a 50/50 chance of you winning

hyuck's not weak but he isn't strong either so—

he's gonna spend most of the time taunting you so you just need to sucker punch him to shut up—

you need to act i n t i m i d a t i n g

scare him a bit ya know

you definitely would need speed because he's fast

he's a runner

and you're going to need to chase him

it's a game of cat and mouse basically

pros of fighting haechan: you get to bragging rights if you win

cons of fighting haechan: 127 hyungs will be there in a millisecond to fight you and that's a whole another post

but if you win, he's gonna be so salty about it and is gonna start calling you out fhshdhhs

he might just hate you for it so being hated by haechan is not worth fighting him

na jaemin

jaemin would let you win

he can beat your ass but he'll let you win because he loves you

he's just that sweet okay

like I said, jaemin's the second most built in nct dream

so fighting him would be a stupid decision

but no mans will accept your challenge and let you win

he will literally f a l l when you touch him

you don't even have to punch him

one touch and he goes down

"aRGH YOU WIN Y/N, I LOST!!!"

dhshdhs he makes his losing really dramatic

but he thinks it's worth it because you get to be proud and happy!

so yeah "fighting" jaemin is a good idea if you need a boost of serotonin

beware he's gonna be pouty the entire time so—

but oh boy if you make him like mad mad

bye you won't live to see another day

there's two sides of jaemin, loud jaemin and quiet jaemin

and quiet jaemin is s c a r y

basically fight loud jaemin and not quiet jaemin

zhong chenle

HE'S NOT GOING TO EVEN GIVE YOU A CHANCE

AND HE WILL S U E YOU

chenle has the money and he will use it against you fhshdhs

unless you have the money too or yk have a lawyer family member

then the whole fight will be in court fhshfh

BUT BUT BUT

let's say you do fight him

you would win tbh

i don't think chenle's much a fighter

he's like haechan, he likes to tease and taunt people instead

so honestly you have the higher ups of winning

I recommend fighting with earplugs in because he's going to be screaming most of the time so yeah

but I really really don't recommend fighting chenle

chenle can look scary too

and plus he can and will definitely sue you so—

park jisung

now why would you want to fight this baby boy?????

HUH?????

like I would fight you for wanting to fight jisung

unlike jeno, you can at least still sorta fight him

BUT JISUNG IS OFF LIMITS

ALL 22 HYUNGS WILL COME AFTER YOU

A L L O F T H E M

boy may be tall asf but he's defenseless

he's just a giant lanky baby

why do you want to fight him???

okay but you would win if you do BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT

actually it kinda is since the post is should you fight the dreamies— wAIT NO

DHSHD POINT IS JUST DONT FIGHT JISUNG OKAY

like really go fight jaemin instead

he's the safest bet

but no jisung is OFF LIMITS

OFF LIMITS I SAY

and so what if you win

all you get is to brag about beating park jisung but then you're gonna live in guilt forever because you fought park jisung

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danny-chase · 3 years

Note

Big Brother instinct, Dick and either Cass, Gar, Danny Chase, Steph, Kara, Rose, or anyone else u want

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Batgirl (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dick Grayson & Cassandra Cain, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne Characters: Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Dick grayson centric, Fire, Burns, hair styling, Ice Cream, Hurt/Comfort, Late Nights, Fluff and Angst, Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Missions Gone Wrong, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain is bad at feelings, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings Series: Part 11 of Bad Things Happen Bingo Summary:

Dick talks with Cass after a mission doesn't go as planned.

Fic under cut

“Argh!” Dick snaps back to attention as Bruce’s angry grunt rattles through the cave. The few bats still in for the night stir, their wings rustling in the distance. An avalanche of papers fly off of Bruce’s desk, and his grizzled form slumps forward, hands firmly planted on the table. His shoulders sag under some unknown strain; as if he’s carrying the weight of the sky.

“Hmm.” Dick blinks back another wave of exhaustion, he’s not working on a case – but Bruce is – and company always makes working more fun. Besides, Bruce is on a time limit and Alfred can’t stop him from escaping his room. So. Here he is. He took an oath - it’s his job to help.

Dick’s eleven and Bruce’s a pillar of reassurance – a precariously stacked pile of rocks constantly on the verge of crumbling. He has no idea how to pick up the pieces. No idea how to seal the cracks. “Bruce?” He mumbles, swinging his legs off his spinny chair. Bruce doesn’t look up, his mouth drawn in a tight line. The ghost of tears well in his eyes. Not good.

Dick scoots off the chair, lightheaded for a moment. He shakes the stars out of his eyes, nodding back and forth, up and down, like Bruce does when he’s sleepy. It’s late. He has school tomorrow. Not that it matters. Bruce will let him skip if he asks the right way. He jogs in place for a few seconds, readying himself, warming up his muscles.

There’s not much he can do to help, but he can at least put on a little show. He runs forward launching into a cartwheel, picking up the papers as he goes – Bruce likes his tricks, sometimes they even make him laugh, sometimes –

Bruce snags his ankle out of the air, his quick reflexes saving Dick from crashing into the edge of a counter. He finds himself hanging, the world stuck upside down as his hands dangle inches from the floor. “Thanks.” He looks up at Bruce’s weary face.

A yawn escapes his lips, and the corners of Bruce’s mouth twitch. “I’m going to have to child-proof the cave at this rate.” He tries for humor but it falls flat, his hearts not in it all.

He stares up, sticking his tongue out. Bruce’s frown doesn’t fade. “Are you okay?” He asks. Bruce’s hands fumble, and Dick swings dangerously low to the floor before he’s recovered. Not willing to take the chance again, he curls up, grabbing Bruce’s forearms and pulls himself up through his arms, settling himself on sturdy shoulders.

Bruce drops his feet. “I’m fine. Why would ask that?” He sounds almost hurt and Dick’s too tired to figure out why.

He slides down easily, Bruce gently deposits him on the floor. “You looked sad.” A yawn leaves his mouth without permission, he stumbles slightly, and a hand clamps down on his shoulder. He reaches back up, and Bruce throws him up against his shoulder, wrapping him in a hug.

Dick yawns contently, his eyelids fluttering without his permission, as Bruce starts walking towards the stairs. “I’m sorry…” The arm around his back pulls him a bit tighter. “I’m just not enough.” A shaking hand combs through his hair and Dick squeezes back because he doesn’t know what to say.

Bruce grunts as he takes a step up the stairs. “Sleep on it?” Dick suggests, resting his eyes for just a moment.

“Mmhmm. It’s bedtime.” Dick’s half asleep by the time they reach the top. He’s not sure he hears Bruce whisper, “You’re a great kid, chum.”

It took Dick years before he really understood the feeling. And even more years before he made the connection that that was how Bruce had felt on late nights spent scouring for clues that just didn’t seem to exist, having worked for days straight on three hours of sleep, and watching Gotham send all of it up in flames setting you back months on an investigation.

He’s learned there’s nights it’s impossible to save everyone – hell, he’s seen Clark get his ass kicked, and Clark’s damn near close to god. Dick would know – the Titans have fought their namesake. But the Titans have fought humans and lost despite half their members being godlike, and besides that most days now he’s alone. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries, how much he plans, how prepared he is; sometimes things just go to hell and a handbasket and there’s nothing he can physically do to prevent it.

Most of the time, he’s fine with that. It’s fine he has limits. Logically, he knows he can’t be expected to everything. Logically, he knows it’s a waste of time to worry about it. Logically, he knows it’s okay to take a night off, watch a nature documentary, invite a friend over, stay in and spend the night simply existing.

But it feels like he could be doing more – should be doing more. He feels that restlessness overtake him, and springs to his feet “Bruce I-”

Bruce gives him his patented bat-glare from where he’s sitting, looking up from a familiar pile of papers. Once it would have intimidated him into sitting back down. Now he just returns it with a patented one of his own. “-I think I’ll suit up and head out for the night, Tim could probably use some back up with-”

“Dick.” There’s this exasperated tone that Bruce can only ever seem to muster when saying his name. He pauses for a just a second, his eyes flickering down to Bruce’s clenched fists and tight shoulders. “Let me handle it.” It comes out as an order, but reading between the lines, it’s a plea.

Bruce would never admit it out loud, worry practically bleeds out of the man. Guilt gnaws on the inside of his chest, though, he’s not sure what it’s even from; the guilt of making Bruce worry or the guilt of being a useless sack of broken and bruised ribs while people need Nightwing’s help. Being benched sucks, but he knows enough to compromise. “Let me run the comms? Babs could use a night off.” She sleeps less than him and Bruce knows it.

The gray streaks in Bruce’s hair stand out all the more as he lets out a bone deep sigh. Dick rolls his eyes – he doesn’t get to do this right now. “You literally let me go out last night I don’t understand why-”

“Last night was an emergency. I didn’t have a choice.” His frown widens, his face etched in an eternal look of pain, mixed with disproval. “Two nights ago… you almost…” His mouth seals itself shut, unspoken words hanging in the air between them. It’s Bruce that breaks the gaze first. “Run the comms, don’t overexert yourself. It should be a quiet night…” He stands, hesitates before walking off “And get to bed early.”

Dick bites back a laugh, Bruce hasn’t talked to him like that since he was thirteen. “Alright.” He resists the urge to poke fun, and follows Bruce through the passage behind the grandfather clock.

“So Ives was talking about the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with me the other day, and we might go see it this weekend if I have the time. Gee- I can’t remember the last time I saw movie in theaters or even really hung out with him.” Tim’s endless chatter helps him stay awake in the dimly lit cave. His throbbing ribs help too, maybe he shouldn’t have tried doing push-ups. “Dad and Dana want to drop me off, but Ives has a car now, though dad’s still worried cuz of the time some wacko tried to stop us at a traffic light.”

Dick hums, a smile creeping its way up his face. “I can drop you off if it’s an issue.”

“Really?! That’d be awesome, you could stay for the movie if you wanted to, but I don’t know if you’d like it, I mean are pirates really your thing? I always figured you’d be more into Vikings or probably aliens actually, or something like-” A red light flashes on the screen, and Dick snaps to attention.

“Hold that thought.” Tim’s chatter ceases immediately as Dick furiously types on the terminal. He punches into the main line. “Batgirl how fast can you get to the corner of 16th and Murphy’s Ave, there’s a building on fire and you’re the only one anywhere near the Upper East Side.” A 911 operator calms down a hysterical woman in his left ear, Cass asking direction in the right.

He pulls up a map. “I-I can’t find a way out!” The woman shrieks. “I don’t know what happened, I was sleeping and-” she breaks off into raspy hacks.

“Go straight, turn right after three blocks down.” Dick winces, as the lady continues chocking on smoke. “C’mon Cass. Get there.” He mutters off the line. He eyes his cycle sitting idly in the bay – he’s twenty minutes out; Cass needs backup. He opens up another line. “Batman I need you to follow Batgirl, what’s your eta?”

Bruce grunts back, he hears thudding over the line. “Fifteen minutes.” The woman screams in his other ear, he yanks the earbud out as a massive bang nearly blows out his eardrum. Picking it back up, he can’t hear the woman anymore, only the roar of flames and falling debris.

“Shit.” He pulls up video from a street camera. “Shit.” The building’s collapsing in on itself. “Permission to call the league?” He clicks through to their line of communications, his finger hovering over the button.

“Here.” Cass scrambles into view, bursting through a window. Shit.

Bruce learned his limits long ago. Dick’s finally settling into his. Cass? They simply don’t register on her radar. The buildings coming down in mere minutes; she’s going to get killed.

“What’s the situation?” Bruce yells in his ear.

“Batgirl get out of there!” He screams at Cass. She’s going to die – the building’s not stable, and he’s the one that sent her there. “Make it five minutes – the building’s coming down.” He yells to Bruce. “Batgirl!” He watches a few windows blow out. A firetruck careens down the street.

“Permission granted.” Bruce huffs and Dick can’t click the button fast enough.

A couple more windows blow out, and the building seems to lean to the side. Finally he sees Cass climb back out a window, holding a couple kids in her arms as she leaps to the ground. “BATGIRL GET THEM CLEAR!” His heart pounds in his throat as she runs forwards, the building groaning behind her, crumbling to the side. Chaos erupts, chunks of flaming debris cascading from the top of the building, as the second floor merges with the first.

Dick blinks, his mouth dry. “There’s more people-” he can’t hear Cass over the ensuing cacophony as he watches the building topple to the ground. “NO!” He faintly hears her scream as the screen erupts in static.

Dick slams his fists on the desk. His chest constricts painfully. “Nightwing. Report.” Bruce’s steady voice reminds him to breathe. His chest spasms. Shit. “Nightwing!” Bruce demands as he tries to catch his breath.

“Building collapsed.” He manages to get out. “One sec.” He takes a few deep breaths, leaning back in the chair for support. “Batgirl report.” He’s greeted with silence. “Batgirl, please, if you’re there I need you to respond.”

“I…” Cass trials off. Dick sighs in relief. “I’m sorry.” The line cuts off. Well. Shit.

“Nightwing! I’m headed to the location.” Bruce squawks. Dick sighs.

“It’s going to be a long night. Search and rescue, I’ll call in backup.” Shit. So much for an early bedtime.

“Hey.” Someone shakes his shoulder. He makes a grab for their wrist and misses, his mind processing where the hell he is. He blinks a few times.

“Cass?” Her hair’s plastered to the side of her head and she’s covered in soot. Nicks, rips, and tears decorate her costume. Dick wipes his eyes as the ashy smell of smoke overwhelms his senses. Cass takes a few steps back, heading towards the locker room. “Wait.” He had something to say to her, his mind racing to catch up.

She hops up onto a counter. His mind shuffles through the events earlier in the night. “Bruce sent you back?” Cass nods glumly. The rescue efforts weren’t going well when he dozed off. The JLA sent in everyone they could spare; there’s nothing they can do anymore. Not that Bruce won’t try.

Cass’s lips are sealed. There’s a haunting expression in her eyes, her shoulders slump forward, her hands firmly plant themselves on the counter for support.

And his friends think he’s too much like Bruce.

“Hey.” He starts. She gives him a weary look, tears welling in her eyes. Well, maybe not exactly like Bruce. “Look, I’m sorry I put you in that position.” Cass shakes her head. “Sometimes things like this happen. I should have-”

“Stop.” Cass pulls her feet up on the counter, getting dust everywhere. “I should have been faster.” She swallows, refusing to let the tears spill over. “My fault.”

Dick watches as she glides off the counter, yanking off her gloves and dropping them on the floor. Burn marks dot her hands and the edges of her hair are singed. “You did everything you could.” She hesitates, before taking a step towards the showers.

“Not enough.” She mutters before storming off, leaving a trail of soot in her wake.

He stands up. “Cass.” The lock snaps shut with a click as she slips into the bathroom. Leaving Dick in an empty cave once more.

By the time he returns downstairs, Cass is already out of the shower, looking displeased. “You took my clothes.” She notes unhappily, a pale pink towel tucked tightly around her shoulders.

Dick watches water drip down from her hair, pattering on the floor. The trail leading back to the bathroom is now mixed with water and soot. Alfred’s going to be pissed. “I took your costume.” He clarifies. “And I brought you clothes.” He gestures towards the open door.

Cass scowls, planting her feet defiantly. “I’m going out.” She reaches out a hand. Dick shrugs – there’s no way she can find where he hid her filthy suit before they get a chance to wash it.

It’s all too familiar, reading the lines across her brow, watching her shoulders slump when she stills, and scanning red rimmed eyes. “What are you going to do like that?” He points out, Cass angrily storming towards him. “You’re tired, you’ll just end up being in the way.” He dodges left as a fist flies past his face. “You would have hit if I wasn’t right.” She’s faster than him on his best days.

She glares at him with pursed lips, staring before turning on her heel and storming off towards the bathroom. The door slams behind her, triggering the rustling of far away wings.

Dick sighs – he hopes he wasn’t this temperamental when he lived with Bruce. “Come up to the kitchen when you’re done, I need your help with something.” The lie rolls easily off his tongue, though he feels a twinge of guilt as Cass groans behind closed doors.

Cass’s eyes widen as she enters the room. Dick offers a smile as she edges closer to the table. He tosses a spoon, she snags it out of the air. “Dig in.” There’s a carton of chocolate ice cream – double chocolate chunk brownie sundae with hot fudge and chocolate sprinkles to be precise – and tons of candy. It’s not stuff Bruce keeps around, but Dick’s has a stash at Tim’s house reserved for movie nights. He’ll restock later.

Cass vigorously stabs the ice cream with her spoon, a smile dancing across her face as she takes a few bites. She pauses, sticking the spoon back in the cartoon, looking up with a confused expression. “Why?” She’s wearing fluffy pajama bottoms, fuzzy socks, and an old worn college sweatshirt that’s frayed at the hems. Dick can almost pretend he’s back, talking to Donna after she broke up with Roy their sophomore year of high school.

She’s watching Dick carefully. He hums casually. “You had a rough night.” This is what the Titans always did. She shrugs.

“Things happen.” She shovels a few more bites into her mouth. “I want to go out.” It’s hard for Dick to find her tough and grizzled when she’s guzzling gummi worms, kicking her feet back and forth on the stool.

“Consider this a reason to stay in.” She gives him a sideways glance. “You did as much as you can, that’s enough.” Cass looks pointedly at her ice cream, not hesitating before diving back into it.

“Spar with me?” She licks a skittle before sticking it in her mouth.

Dick snorts. “If I don’t have a heart attack, I think Bruce would.” She snaps up to attention, grabbing his wrist and quickly finding his pulse point. “I’m fine, Cass.” Her hands are freezing. He places one of his on top of hers. “If you weren’t there I wouldn’t have been.” He says quietly, catching her eye. “Thank you.” She pulls back as if burned, quickly busying herself with the candy. He waits a moment before adding, “I think those kids you saved are grateful too.”

Cass throws a bag of M&M’s at him, he’s a second too slow and it pelts him in the face. “Noted.” He grins. “Uh, also, I’m going to have to do something with your hair.”

“What.”

“Cass, hold still.” She immediately stops squirming under his hands. “Thanks.” She hums back, tucked under an old blanket that never seems to leave the back of the couch. Bruce still isn’t here, but Tim checked in after his stakeout, and headed home a half an hour ago. He snips away another lock of burnt hair, tossing it into a trash can next to him.

He rests his forearms on the back of the sofa, contemplating which section of her hair to start with next. “You find one you like yet?” He asks, peeking over her shoulder at the images of hairstyles.

“Uhh.” She scrolls a bit more. “I don’t care.” She tosses the phone up to the top of the couch.

“Mmm.” He didn’t expect much else. Donna texted him a picture earlier to copy – something easy to pull back but still stylish. He attacks the next section, carefully brushing out the tangles, starting bottom to the top. He’s oddly grateful for all those times he did Donna and Kory’s hair.

‘Practice for when Bruce finally adopts a girl.’ They used to tease. ‘You’ll have a real sister, and if his track record holds she’ll have black hair and blue eyes.’ He’s never lived the irony down. Though, Cass’s eyes are a beautiful warm brown, so Donna and Kory can take that.

“You know.” He keeps his tone light. “Most hairdressers and their clients talk.” Cass remains set in stony silence. “Though I guess most people go to a salon to get their hair cut.” He just visits Joey. “Some people say it’s like free therapy.”

“You talk a lot.” Cass notes. He pulls up doodle jump on his phone and passes it back to her. She plays a couple rounds before the phone’s placed back beside him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He already knows the answer, but still asks all the same.

“No.” Bruce never wanted to either. Barbara used to talk to him… before he left for the Titans and took years to look back. Though he likes to dream otherwise, he knows there’ll come a day when Tim won’t want to talk to him anymore either.

It doesn’t get any easier being shut out. “That’s alright. If you change your mind I’m here.” He grabs the shears, snipping away another dead end.

“Thanks.”

“Dick.” A hiss awakes him, light following soon after. He squints, turning away to bury his face in a cushion. “Where’s Cassandra?”

He turns, eyes snapping open as he quickly scans the sofa. The blanket hangs off the edge, Cass nowhere to be seen. One of her custom batarangs sticks out of his armchair’s armrest, a few inches from his hand. “She must have found her costume.” He notes, glancing towards the pajamas crumpled in the doorway. His eyes meet Bruce’s as he lets out a tired sigh.

His hair’s dripping, fresh from a shower, and it’s singed at the edges. Dick nods towards the sheers on the coffee table. “Tomorrow.” Bruce decides, crossing the room, picking up the blanket as he goes. Dick pushes down the footrest, slowly rising to his feet. His ribs twinge at every move, in hindsight, falling asleep hanging off the side of an armchair wasn’t his best idea. Bruce hovers closer than normal, watching carefully, worry lines set in concern. “Bed.”

Dick’s too tired to argue. “Bed.” He agrees. And though Bruce doesn’t carry him, he accompanies him up the stairs.

#bad things happen bingo #dick grayson #cassandra cain #batfam #batfamily #nightwing #batgirl #my writing #sorry i've had this request for like 2 months but you know what we made it eventually 💀😅#thanks for the request anon!#i couldn't resist doing Cass but shout out to you remembering Danny Chase exists like dang iconic

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cheri-translates · 4 years

Text

SOS! My husband is wallowing in jealousy and can’t free himself! (a translated one-shot)

I translated this one-shot, “SOS! 老公沉迷吃醋无法自拔”, written by 谢谢我知道我很可爱z on Weibo (with permission) because it’s adorable :>

She intentionally used very basic Chinese with few descriptors, so I embellished it slightly for a fuller reading experience!

I’ll be keeping the original writer updated on comments left on this work because she’s the one who deserves all the credit 💕

[ present ]

“Gavin. Gavin?” You wave your hand in front of your husband’s face. “What’s wrong? You’ve been lost in thought ever since we returned from the amusement park.”

Gavin whips his head towards you, responding flatly. “Ahem, it’s nothing. I... I need to use the washroom.”

As though he’s fleeing from something, he rises from the bed and bolts straight to the bathroom.

“That’s strange,” you muse with a frown. Turning towards the gigantic, ridiculously soft bunny resting near the headboard, you nuzzle into its arms and a contented sigh escapes from your parted lips. “Mm, whatever.”

There’s just something comforting about plush toys.

[ earlier today ]

The pink bunny was a prize from the amusement park.

When you and Gavin walked past the shooting game booth earlier in the day, the plush had immediately seized your attention. However, you also noticed the group of young children who were looking eager to have a go at the booth.

While having a husband from the police force would make winning an easy feat, you felt that it was embarrassing to basically snatch a lollipop from a baby.

Out of sight, out of mind, you thought to yourself.

Tearing your eyes away from that adorable and tempting plush toy, you matched Gavin’s pace. Fortunately, the array of attractions which followed provided a much needed distraction.

Halfway through a simple lunch, Gavin left to get drinks. Or at least, that’s what he claimed.

More than ten minutes had gone by since he left, and you were starting to feel worried. Just as you decided to give him a call, he walked through the doors.

With a pink stuffed bunny in his arms.

Your eyes sparkled.

Paying no heed to the other diners, you lunged over to him, giving him a generous kiss. Gavin’s ears remained flushed for almost half the day.

“Gavin, you...” your words came out a little clumsily due to excitement, pressing the huge bunny to your chest, burying your chin in its softness. Your eyes flitted from the bunny to Gavin. “You didn’t ‘bully’ the kids, did you?”

He patted your hair, and you heard his gentle laugh and clear voice from the top of your head.

“I didn’t. Most of the kids are having lunch now, so the booth was pretty much empty. Also, there are other prizes available.”

“That’s good to hear.” You clutched the bunny with one arm, then pulled Gavin back to your seats contentedly. “How did you know that I wanted this bunny?”

“Ahem,” his face was once again coloured with a reddish hue. “You kept looking at it just now.”

“That’s not true, I only looked at it for three seconds at most...” you explained, but was cut off by his following sentence.

“And this bunny looks like you. It’s very cute.”

You quickly lowered your head, feeling your cheeks turning warm.

“L-let’s dig in. Are there any other attractions you want to try? It’s rare for the both of us to have time after a year of being married, so we definitely have to play to our heart’s content.”

“All right, whatever you say.”

You were in an incredibly good mood when the evening set in and the two of you were ready to return home. You suggested walking home, and Gavin agreed.

As usual, he carried the bags in one hand, and took yours in the other. He noticed that you were holding the rabbit in your arm. “Let me.”

“No need, no need,” you laughed and gently waved away Gavin’s outstretched hand. “How could a strapping young lad like you carry such a childish stuffed toy?”

You loosened your grip on his hand.

“Here, I’ll carry it with both hands, so I won’t be tired.”

The right hand you had let go of paused for a moment. Gavin’s brows furrowed imperceptibly, but his expression smoothened out in an instant.

“All right, let’s go home.”

After reaching home, you immediately rushed into the bedroom and placed the bunny on the headboard, utterly satisfied.

Gavin frowned when he saw this, as though he couldn't quite understand something.

“Does it need to sleep?”

You grinned broadly and responded, “It’d be much more comfortable to hug it to sleep.”

“You need to hug it while sleeping?” He questioned.

“Bingo~ You snapped your fingers, tossing Gavin a glance, wanting to see his reaction.

You didn't expect Gavin to sit at the side of the bed wordlessly, an unreadable expression on his face. You waved your hands in front of him, but he hurriedly escaped to the bathroom.

With the door closed behind him, he whispered under his breath, too softly for you to hear. “Am I not comfortable enough?”

[ present ]

Outside, you rub your chin and mutter to yourself.

“He isn’t angry, is he? Did I say something to make him angry?”

You sigh.

A man’s thoughts are truly difficult to decipher.

At this moment, a familiar ringtone resounds, notifying you of an incoming message.

It’s Minor.

[Message from Minor:] Sister-in-law! Sister-in-law! What happened between you and Bro Gavin?

Confused, you reply with a:

The next thing you receive from him is a voice clip. Grabbing your wireless earpieces from the bedside table, you press ‘play’.

From the speed at which Minor is talking, you can immediately tell that he’s incredibly frantic.

“Argh! You have no idea how aggrieved my Bro Gavin feels! He says you’ve been giving him the cold shoulder, so he had no choice but to send me a message asking what to do if his wife’s heart has taken off with someone else. Didn’t the two of you go to the amusement park today? How could such a thing happen? Even though this is a relationship between the two of you, I was once your great deskmate and now your employee at work. Sis-in-law, I’m not trying to be judgmental, but Bro Gavin is talented, handsome, and outstanding in so many areas. How could there be a young man in the amusement park who’s even more attractive and you can’t bear to part with?”

“No, Minor...” you reply with a voice clip, your eyes fluttering shut as you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I didn’t meet any young man... And no, I didn’t give him the cold shoulder. I’ll talk to him properly, all right? In short, this is all just a misunderstanding, and we’re sorry to have made you worry.”

After removing your earpieces, you recall the afternoon’s events and come to a conclusion:

Gavin. Is. Jealous.

And he’s jealous of a stuffed toy.

Didn’t you simply hug it in the afternoon? Didn’t you simply place it on the bed and plan to hug it at night? Does he not understand the heart of a woman? How could he get jealous over this?

You find yourself laughing softly, recalling the forceful kiss he once gave you when you were on that blind date a few years ago.

He does look pretty cute when jealous.

Suddenly, an idea flashes across your mind, and you know exactly how to coax him.

At this moment, Officer Gavin returns.

You instantly lean back against the bunny, pretending to be scrolling through your phone in a casual manner. “Hubby, did you have fun today?”

You seldom call him “Hubby”.

Keeping a close eye on Gavin’s reactions, you notice that he falters in his steps once he hears the rare term of address.

“It was okay.”

“What do you mean ‘okay’? We had so much fun, and you even gave me this stuffed bunny. I’m really happy!” You place your phone to the side, looking straight at him with a grin.

Another pause.

Gavin lifts the covers and sits on the bed. “...you must be tired from today. Go to sleep.” Then, he lies down and no longer makes a sound.

Gavin’s looks really upset, you think, laughing internally. Could he be regretting winning the rabbit for me?

After laughing wildly in your heart a grand total of 800 times, you purse your lips and say, in a serious voice, “All right, let’s go to sleep.”

After switching off the lights, you settle under the covers with your back facing Gavin, squeezing the bunny to your chest.

Not too soon after, an arm slowly snakes across your waist from behind, and you can feel Gavin’s warm breaths on your ear.

“Honey.”

He seldom calls you "Honey”.

“Mm? What’s wrong?” you ask, feeling your heart clenching in mild guilt.

“Did you sense that... I wasn’t in a good mood today?”

“Mm... I sensed it...” you slowly turn to face him. “But since you aren’t willing to tell me about it, I won’t probe.”

He coughs lightly.

“Could you let go of that rabbit? You’ve already... hugged it for half the day.” After speaking, he even gives you a sincere, puppy-eyed look.

No longer able to control yourself, you burst into a stream of laughter.

“Officer Gavin,” you twist your body slightly to place the rabbit on the bedside table. Without any obstructions, you wrap your arm around his waist. “Can I understand this as you being jealous, and jealous of a stuffed toy?”

“Ahem... I’m not.” Even in the dark, you can see a visible redness crawling up a certain person’s face.

“Liar,” you immediately plant a kiss on his cheek, and lean closer to whisper into his ear. “Your face is red.”

Chaos ensues after that.

Gavin presses you down, the bed sinking under the weight as he leans down to kiss you - your forehead, the tip of your nose, your chin, your exposed collarbone.

He draws back, keeping his gaze on you.

“Then I’ll admit it.”

Another kiss. This time, on the lips.

You can’t tell how long this continues, but by the time you come to your senses, your lips are slightly swollen and his fingers are fumbling to unbutton your pyjamas.

“Hey,” you swat his hands away, splaying your right hand on his firm chest. “You said that I was tired.”

With breathy laughter, he grabs your wrists and clasps them on the bed. Leaning in close to your ear, he says in a hoarse voice:

“You said that I was a liar.”

[ a while later ]

“Actually, the bunny isn’t just for you.” Gavin muses quietly, playing with the ends of your hair as you lean on his chest.

“Hm?”

“At first, I was thinking that if you didn’t like it, we could give it to our child in the future.”

#mlqc #mlqc gavin

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shijiujun · 3 years

Text

[ENG] History3: Trapped Novel - Chapter Nine

Translation Masterpost can be found here

Disclaimer: Translations are entirely mine - these are not official translations and some phrases have been changed for better English interpretation so you’ll definitely see better/different translations elsewhere. Also keeping in mind when we translated this we aren’t exactly thinking about the style of writing and this translation is as close to the novel as we can make it XD So yes, some parts may be a little awkward to read. And yes some teeny weeny details and words may not turn up in the translation because the Chi to Eng mind acrobatics didn’t work out. If you see asterisks, scroll all the way to the bottom for notes!

Full chapter below the cut

Note: JFC I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS DAMN THING, BYE H3T NOVEL CRIES I DONT WANT TO BE PLAGUED BY THIS ANYMORE HAHAHA - Also give the masterpost a few hours, I need to update the new links with my new username ARGH - History3:Trapped novel translations are now COMPLETED (with the exception of terrible sex scenes).

This was a muchhhh longer chapter than usual (more than 30 pages) + gosh I have a lot of things to say about the sex scenes because they’re just totally not logical but never mind I’m glad to like be done with this hahaha. It’s dragged on for long enough!

---

Chapter Nine

Inside the abandoned warehouse

Chen Wen Hao and Tang Yi have their guns trained on each other, and at the same time, they are staring at Shao Fei in shock, who just said ‘Chen Wen Hao is your father’.

“Don’t panic, the evidence is in my pocket.”

Shao Fei holds up both his hands, and then slowly reaches into the pocket of his jacket with one, pulling out two pieces of paper folded together, and looks at Tang Yi and Chen Wen Hao.

“One of these is the birth certificate from the hospital, and the other is the note you wrote to Li Zhen-jie.”

Chen Wen Hao’s expression morphs entirely, and then he turns to his henchmen and says, “All of you go outside and wait for me.”

The men guarding Chen Wen Hao’s safety put down their guns and then head outside to the open space outside of the warehouse.

“The both of you put down your guns first, so you won’t regret in case you misfire, and then listen to me finish speaking, okay?”

Both men in confrontation with each other exchange looks, and then keep their weapons at the same time.

Shao Fei heaves a sigh of relief, and continues explaining, “I found these two things in Li Zhen-jie’s belongings, and I also went to Tang Yi’s adoptive father to confirm it. Tang Yi, you were born on 21st October 1990, and Chen Wen Hao, you began serving your sentence in February 1990, and when Li Zhen-jie went to visit you, the date was 17th May 1990.”

Realising what this means, Chen Wen Hao’s eyes go wide, and he mumbles, “It cannot be… this is impossible… Li Zhen told me she aborted our child, so it can’t be…”

In the third month of pregnancy, the mother will begin to feel nauseous and most due dates are calculated 266 days after confirmation of the pregnancy date, that means if Li Li Zhen was already pregnant before Chen Wen Hao entered prison, then the expected due date indeed would have fallen somewhere in October.

Chen Wen Hao rushes over suddenly, gripping at Shao Fei’s shirt collar tight, “Are you using this to make me spare Tang Yi because you knew Li Zhen visited me in jail before?”

Shao Fei is almost entirely breathless from the tight grip, but still continues with his answer, the closest thing to the truth after piecing all the clues together, “I don’t know what Li Zhen-jie said to you in jail when she met you, all I know is that after she visited you, she applied for a year long break, and this is unusual for a workaholic like her.”

“And after she returned to her post, she never once applied for long leaves and did not get married either, so there’s only one possibility left. Tang Yi, is yours and Li Zhen-jie’s son.”

“Son… I have a son… a son…” Chen Wen Hao repeats dumbly, loosening his grip on Shao Fei’s shirt collar.

As if juxtaposing Chen Wen Hao’s helplessness at this moment, Tang Yi seems as cold and calm as he always is, “So what if this is true?”

“Tang Yi, Li Zhen-jie may not be a good mother, but she was loving you in her own way. When you ran away from home when you were 12, she immediately went South to search for you, but still lost all clues of where you went.”

Tang Yi’s lips curve up in a sneer, “I only have three family members in this life. My adoptive mother, Tang-ye and Hong Ye. Everyone else are unrelated strangers to me.”

“Tang Yi…” Shao Fei softly calls his name, his heart aching as he looks at Tang Yi’s expression, trying to suppress the pain.

“Tang-ye is the most important person in my life, he is my father… and you, you’re only a murderer who took him away from my side!”

He says the word ‘murderer’ through gritted teeth, slides his gun out from his waist, and points it at the murderer he managed to draw out after four years. Seeing this, Shao Fei immediately puts himself in front of the gun.

“No, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.”

Chen Wen Hao has not yet calmed from the emotions of guilt he is feeling, and then he looks at his son who’s pointing a gun at him, shocked.

“You’re lying!” Tang Yi looks at the man in front of him angrily. “I remember your face very clearly, you’re the one who killed Tang-ye, it’s you!”

“It’s true that I was there to look for Tang Guo Dong, because I wanted to question him, to ask him why he had to sabotage me like this? But I didn’t kill him. When I reached the scene I only saw him pass something to Li Zhen, and then there were two gunshots, and they fell to the ground, their blood spilling out…”

Chen Wen Hao has his face in his hands, filled with guilt and anguish.

“If you’re not the murderer then why are you trying to have me silenced? Why did you bring a gun there?”

“I’d only just witnessed them being shot and then I saw you, if it you were me, wouldn’t you take your gun out to defend yourself? As for that gun… yes, I wanted to kill him. These twenty years, I hanged on because of my hatred for Tang Guo Dong, and now you’re telling me, the person that I’ve wanted revenge on is not Tang Guo Dong’s bastard son, but my son? I don’t even know who I should vent my hatred on now, why did my life turn into this?”

“Are you done?” Tang Yi immediately unlocking the safety on his gun, and then to Shao Fei who is blocking his way, he snarls, “Get out of the way!”

The person in front of him does not move, however, raising his chin instead and staring at Tang Yi head-on, “If the murderer really is Chen Wen Hao, then why would he have stayed put after he killed them? Besides, even if he did have a reason to kill Tang Guo Dong, he definitely wouldn’t have killed Li Zhen-jie.”

“…”

At the flawless argument, even through his anger, Tang Yi finds himself frozen to the spot, before he finally lets his right hand, which is holding onto the gun, fall back to his side.

“Chen Wen Hao, I’m not taking your life (now), and when I find evidence to prove that you are the murderer, I will kill you myself!”

Once he’s done, he turns and leaves.

“Tang Yi!”

Shao Fei quickly chases after him, and attempts to hug him from the back to calm down the man whose emotions are teetering on the edge of a breakdown, but the other shakes him off, hard.

“Meng Shao Fei! You know how long I have been waiting for this day, why did you stop me? Why?”

“Because he’s not the murderer.”

“You!”

With his raised arm, the fist that is about to descend is retracted at the last moment, and instead lands heavily on the car engine’s top, the sound deafening. He then pushes away the Shao Fei who stopped him repeatedly previously, sitting in the driver’s seat and stepping on the accelerator, leaving the long-time abandoned warehouse at high speeds.

“Tang Yi…”

Shao Fei follows after him shakily, and can only watch the other drive away, standing in the same spot.

Tang household

The door is slowly pushed open to reveal a room shrouded in darkness. A man sits unmoving like a statue at the end of the bed, and with an aching heart, Shao Fei walks over, opening his arms to embrace the angry and anguished Tang Yi.

“I’m sorry… I know it’s hard for you to accept this…”

This is why when he discovered the truth, he was hesitant, because the truth would hurt the person he cares about the most.

“I don’t care if Chen Wen Hao is my biological father or not, only Tang-ye is the most important person in my life.”

“I know, so all the more we need to find the real murderer, right? Ah-“

Tang Yi pulls Shao Fei onto the bed with force, using his firm chest to cover Shao Fei’s back.

“If you don’t want this, push me away.”

The hot puff of breath coming straight from his throat comes into contact with a spot behind Shao Fei’s ear, and this is the last chance he’s giving his partner to flee from him.

Shao Fei is pressed face first on the bed, and he can even feel the other’s hardness at his butt, “I’m drenched in sweat all over, how about you let me go take a shower first… mmn…”

He’s flipped over and with his face turned up, Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi in a room that is not illuminated by any lights except for the moonlight.

Their breaths become increasingly harsh, and through their tightly pressed bodies, they can feel the other’s breaths and heartbeats with every rise of their chests.

Tang Yi supports his weight with a hand against the bed, and looks at the person lying down, “Push me away, or shall I continue? You pick one.”

The ends of Shao Fei’s mouth curve, and then he reaches up to grip at the man’s shirt, tugging him downwards until he’s right in front of him.

He answers, “Continue.”

—

“Tang Yi…”

Their tightly pressed lips slide across each other’s, the dryness turning wet with the saliva coming from the sides of the mouths, and Shao Fei never once realised that he had such an intense thirst for making love.

But perhaps he was wrong, because the other person wasn’t the person meant for him, and just like before, he never thought that one day, he would fall in love with another man. A man who’s built exactly like him.

“Sss… ha….”

Deeply inhaling after exhaling the carbon dioxide in the lobes of his lungs through the gaps between his teeth, he emits a sound left to everyone’s imaginations.

Tang Yi loosens the hands cupped around the sides of Shao Fei’s face, and gazes deeply at the eyes which have chased after him for the past four years, unwilling to give up.

“What’re you looking at me for?”

Shao Fei wants to flee, and yet cannot help but fall into himself that he sees (reflected) in Tang Yi’s eyes. How contradictory. Is this what loving someone else is like? It’s like holding a raw egg in the palm of his hands, afraid of losing grip if he holds on too lightly, but also afraid to crush it if he holds on too tightly. His heart is just like a dandelion floating in the air. It flies with the breeze from time to time, and lands without the help of the wind.

“Thankfully, I didn’t kill you then.”

He does not deny that there were a few times, Tang Yi wanted to make the cumbersome thing that was Shao Fei disappear with the simplest but also most violent way, and he is thankful to the him who decided to change his mind, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to have Meng Shao Fei in the future. At this moment, this is a Meng Shao Fei he cannot bear to let go.

Shao Fei’s mouth curves in a smile, and he compliments himself, “What a pity it would have been to kill me, you would have one less person to argue with you, and no one would point out your flaws right in your face, like I do!”

Tang Yi once again kisses the mouth that is still moving, but it’s different this time as the kiss is deeper, hotter.

“Hmm… Tang… Tang Yi…”

The tongue that slid into his mouth is exploring every inch and sensitive crevice, making sure that Shao Fei is filled with his own scent inside and out.

His competitive spirit is piqued, and Shao Fei unceremoniously returns the favour with equal fervour. His hands reach out towards Tang Yi’s back, and he tightens his hold behind the other’s neck. Pushing the tongue that’s marking its territory inside his mouth back into Tang Yi’s own mouth, he draws out the other man’s desire more passionately.

“Hnn…”

A satisfied moan sounds from his throat, akin to the purrs of a large-sized cat.

Changing the direction of their kiss endlessly, they don’t stop until they slowly run out of breath. Tang Yi’s smile is indulgent, his thumb swiping at the saliva stained on Shao Fei’s lips.

“I’ve underestimated you after all.”

Thinking that Tang Yi is praising the way he took initiative in the kiss earlier, Shao Fei smugly answers, “This is nothing, I’m like this, once I’ve decided on something, I definitely will get it.”

“No, what I mean is, I definitely underestimated you-“

Tang Yi grabs the wrist of the other’s dominant right hand and guides it to the lower half of his body until Shao Fei’s palm is pressed against the part of his body which has already hardened in reaction, before answering fully.

“-how much you tempt me.”

“…”

Because of this, Shao Fei’s ears turn red immediately, obviously visible on both sides of his face.

“What about you?”

“Don’t, don’t say anymore!”

He immediately curls backwards but is unable to avoid the palm that is already pressed against that spot between his legs, separated by the material of his light blue denim jeans. On the already hardened spot, Tang Yi rubs, his hand moving up and down.

“You’re hard too.”

Tang Yi’s tone reveals delight as he says this. Knowing that it is not only just his one-sided attraction to the man, Tang Yi grabs onto the hardened member under Shao Fei’s pants with pride, feeling Shao Fei’s thirst for him and also coming clean with how much he wants Shao Fei.

“Of course, it’d be weird if I wasn’t hard from our intense kiss earlier.”

Shao Fei turns his face away out of embarrassment at having his cock caressed like this under his jeans, but ends up revealing his red ears to Tang Yi. As a predator, just like a large feline creature, Tang Yi naturally is not willing to miss out on this opportunity, and so he opens his mouth and with his sharp teeth, he targets Shao Fei’s left ear, and bites down.

“A-hah!” Shao Fei startles at the pain, inadvertently making a pornographic sound.

A tongue delves into Shao Fei’s sensitive ear, and the wet sounds as Tang Yi licks at his skin causes his member to fully harden.

“Tang… Tang Yi…”

“Hmm?”

Tang Yi responds to the other’s soft call in a deep, nasal tone lazily, his sharp teeth rubbing against the soft spots of Shao Fei’s ear. This thrill, which he both anticipates and is afraid of, makes Shao Fei’s body shudder again and again.

“You… can’t be…” he swallows, then asks, testing the waters, “…thinking of topping me, can you?”

Sexual intercourse between two men means that one of them has to be on the receiving end, unlike sex between a male and a female, where the male is always the one driving the desire of the other.

“If not? You want to top me?” Tang Yi asks, laughing as he frees Shao Fei’s left ear from his teeth, and turning Shao Fei’s face towards himself.

“Who said that I must definitely be under you? I can-“

“Shh,” Tang Yi says, his eyes curved as he puts up a finger to Shao Fei’s lips.

“Of course I’ll be topping you, because I began loving you way before your confession on the hospital rooftop.”

“When?”

“The abandoned hut in the mountains, do you remember? The things you said to me.”

“Tang Yi, you genuinely want to leave the underworld and that’s why you’re trying to reform, right?”

“I’m using this as a ruse and pretending to go legal, but in actual fact I am-“

“My bad, I was too full of myself to just think you were like that… Tang Yi, I’m sorry!”

“…”

“Hey, I’ve already said so much, you should at least give me a response?”

“This is the first time I’ve seen a monkey capable of reflecting on himself.”

“Hey! Who’re you calling a monkey? I’m telling you, even if you are sincere in wanting to reform I will still be watching you. As long as you use any illegal methods, I will still arrest you and throw you into jail!”

“You’ll keep watching me?”

“Yes! Watching you! Using both my eyes to watch you!”

“Okay, then I’ll let you always, always, always watch me.”

“From then on, I realised that when I look at you, I experience a different kind of emotion.”

It was just that at that time, he still did not understand that this was a sign of a budding love quietly planting itself his heart.

“It was then,” Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi in disbelief.

He thought he was fated for a rejection after having loved Tang Yi first, and in the end, the person who fell in love first was actually Tang Yi.

“Okay! I admit defeat, I’ll let you top me.”

There is no winning or losing in love, there is only whether he is willing or not. And he is both willing and accepting of this.

“Don’t worry and give yourself to me, I definitely won’t disappoint you with my skills.”

—

“Ah…. Hah….”

Shao Fei sits at the head of the Super King bed, biting at his bottom as he watches Tang Yi, who has his face buried in the lower half of his body. The man is like a devout follower, crouching between his separated legs, which have long been divested of his jeans and underwear, thrown to the floor next to the bed. Just like how they do it in dramas, whenever sex happens, the floor is always littered with clothing items.

“If you’re uncomfortable, remember to tell me.”

After the reminder, Tang Yi once again buries his head between Shao Fei’s legs, gripping onto his upright member and using his tongue to lick at the sensitive head.

“Ahah…” Shao Fei opens his mouth and inhales at this.

He’s never had a girlfriend and could only ever use both his hands to satisfy his desires. Even though he has seen this image thousands of times, he has only been able to see this on several unsavoury sites. Who knew that when he is surrounded by someone’s mouth, the feeling would be this pleasurable. Being licked by a wet tongue triumphs over the satisfaction he feels when he masturbates by hand.

“Tang… Tang Yi…”

He can only call the other’s name repeatedly, just like a child who has just learnt to speak, his mind going increasingly hot, speechless.

“Hnn, mnn-hmm…”

Tang Yi retracts his tongue and then swallows the hard organ whole. Although Shao Fei’s size is not huge, it still fills up every crevice of his mouth.

“Ahah… oh god… oh god…��

His hardened member is suddenly engulfed by a hot and wet place and as it ventures deeper and deeper into the mouth, and because of Tang Yi’s gag reflex leading to the uncontrollable contractions of the throat, his red tip is being tightly squeezed. The pleasure rushes up suddenly from his groin, and he almost has an out-of-body experience from this.

His ten fingers are curled up in Tang Yi’s hair; he wants to push away the head that is making repeated bobbing motions, but is also unable to resist pressing the back of Tang Yi’s head forward whenever he moves downwards, all to get further into the deeper parts of his mouth.

The pressure on the back of Tang Yi’s head is too forceful, but Tang Yi resists his gag reflex from having this hard cock down his throat with only a furrow of his brows, as he continues to draw out Shao Fei’s pleasure.

“Ah… Ahah… Ahah….”

Not enough, it’s not enough!

He wants more, he wants it deeper, he wants to feel even greater pleasure!

His brain and loud thoughts drive Shao Fei’s body to lift up his waist and send his member into the deepest part of Tang Yi’s throat as he presses on the back of the other’s head.

“Mmhm-“

“Ahah… ahah… ah-“

The lines between Shao Fei’s eyebrows deepen as he gradually loses control over his movements. Tang Yi does not stop Shao Fei’s almost-violent motions until Shao Fei loses himself entirely in a thrust and shouts, a thick liquid spilling into his mouth.

Finally spent, his raised hips naturally drop back onto the bed in its original position, and the movement has his softened member sliding out of Tang Yi’s mouth after his release.

Tang Yi turns over, opening his mouth and coughing incessantly to expel the mixture of cum and saliva lodged deep in the back of his throat. It drips onto the floor next to he bed, sliding down Tang Yi’s mouth and jaw.

“Tang Yi! Tang Yi are you okay?”

After Shao Fei calms his harsh breaths, he finally realises how despicable his earlier actions were and immediately sits up. Feeling guilty, his arm goes around Tang Yi’s shoulder as he looks at the man he loves, hurting for him.

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

Tang Yi lifts his left arm and wipes away the traces of Shao Fei’s release left on his mouth and jaw, then seriously says, “As long as it’s something you want to do, I will not stop you.”

It doesn’t matter if it was Shao Fei’s relentless chase throughout the past four years, or his almost violent actions during sex.

“You! Damn it!”

Tightly clenched fists strike against the soft bed, and his heart lurches, biting at his lower lip. Then, Shao Fei hooks his hands around Tang Yi’s neck as they fall backwards, hard.

The bed makes a twinge of protest at the force of their weights.

Tang Yi stares at Shao Fei who’s trapped under him, waiting for the other to tell him why he’s acting like that.

“Tang Yi you listen to me! No matter how much I say it hurts later, you’re not allowed to stop. I want to use everything I have, and love you fully!”

The ends of Tang Yi’s mouth curve upwards, and then seductively he says, “If you dare to seduce me, then you must be responsible for putting out the fire.”

“Who’s scared of who? At most I will just ask for leave from the station tomorrow!”

“Meng Shao Fei…”

“What?”

“Remember to call in sick for a few more days.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m very certain that when you’re able to leave this bed, it’ll be at least two days later.”

“Fuck! Mmm-hmm-“

Tang Yi, I regret it already! Let me go!

Tang Yi!

—

“Remove your hands!” Tang Yi orders, glaring at Shao Fei who is using his hands to cover his face.

“I don’t want… it’s… hah…. it’s so embarrassing…”

His ankles are caught in Tang Yi’s hands, his legs spread wide and his butt lifted up as Tang Yi’s cock forcefully thrusts inwards, emitting wet sounds. Because this position allows him to clearly see this secret spot, a spot which his fingers have never come into contact with in the past 30 years, and yet it is this very same spot that is being driven hard into repeatedly by another man’s hardened cock.

“Ah… ah…. Tang Yi… you… don’t…. you’re too much… a…hah…”

Damn it! How is this guy’s stamina so good?

“Remove your hands!” Tang Yi frowns.

He likes seeing the way Shao Fei’s face is flushed red because of him, the expression he’s making as he is in trapped the depths of lovemaking, out of control.

“Ah-ah!”

Another deep thrust and Shao Fei cries out even louder than before.

“Meng Shao Fei!”

He warns in a low growl. On this planet, it is only this person who would dare to oppose him twice in a row.

“Ahah… jerk… Tang Yi you’re a fucking jerk-“

Shao Fei removes his hands from his face, and with what he thinks is a fierce gaze, he glares at the man who’s thrusting into his body. Tang Yi licks at the corner of his mouth and smiles, satisfied, “It’s a really nice expression, why would you hide it?”

His hips are aching and his legs hurt from the intense workout, and Shao Fei doesn’t know that what he thinks is a powerful frightening expression, looks like a tiny cat with its claws out to Tang Yi. Cute, and it makes Tang Yi want to bite him, hard. And so he does as he wishes, loosening the hold he has around Shao Fei’s ankles, letting both of Shao Fei’s legs fall back onto the bed, and then he lowers his body and bites hard on Shao Fei’s left nipple.

“Hmm… you… you bit me!!”

“Only you, Meng Shao Fei, would dare to let me repeat the same instruction thrice.”

With both hands on each side of Shao Fei’s waist, and different from the heavy and intense thrusts from earlier, Tang Yi settles into a slower rhythm. In this tightly filled channel, Tang Yi’s cock is well lubricated with the help of pre-cum left inside, and with the tip of his alarmingly-sized member, he unceremoniously strikes against Shao Fei’s prostate.

He drives Shao Fei’s pleasure towards the peak again and again, but before he can truly reach it, Tang Yi would retreat. Shao Fei, who is pressed under him, is just like that rock which is endlessly pushed by Hercules in Greek mythology as he is unable to obtain the highest pleasure from this.

“Hah… hah-ah… Tang Yi you… you… purposely… ha-ah, you purposely-“

“It’s so difficult to serve Officer Meng. If I fuck you too hard, you say you’re embarrassed, and now that I’m fucking you slowly, you say it’s not enough. Unless… this body, instead of me treating it gently, you wish for me to torture you mercilessly?”

“Shut… shut up…”

Absolutely not intending to admit that he does indeed want to be fucked hard, into his deepest parts, Shao Fei is almost driven insane by this slow friction. Biting at his lips and staring at the evil man, he curses him in the back of his mind, and then suddenly hugs his arms around Tang Yi’s neck, using a grappling technique to hook his legs behind Tang Yi’s back.

Tang Yi squints, looking at Shao Fei, who has attacked him with such a move.

“Damn it! Since you won’t move, I’ll move!”

With that said, he lifts his butt upwards and takes the initiative to ride Tang Yi’s cock with his soft entrance. Although it’s very tiring and almost impossible for him, it at least makes him feel good.

“Ha… ah…. ah…..”

Using his hole to rub against the hard member, Shao Fei finally finds the uncomfortable sensation being alleviated. But… it’s not enough…

“Ah-ah… Tang Yi… help me… hurry up and help me… It’s not… enough like this… ah…hah… it’s not enough….”

“Beg me.”

“I beg you, I beg…”

“Beg me to fuck you?”

“Yes… I can’t, I can’t take it anymore, hurry…. hurry up and fuck me, fuck me hard, ah-ah…”

Shao Fei shakes his head, scattering the hair strands on his forehead, stuck there by sweat.

Finally hearing the other man’s initiative, his hands lock around Shao Fei’s waist, and then Tang Yi thrusts heavily into the spot that will make Shao Fei cry out the loudest.

—

Having completed their intense lovemaking, both men lie on the bed on their sides facing each other.

“I can’t, I’m going to sleep first, goodnight,” Shao Fei yawns, and then shuts his eyes.

“Sleep then! Goodnight.”

Tang Yi looks at his lover’s face, and recalls what Tang-ye said to him before…

“Xiao Tang, one of these days there’ll be that person that will make you understand what a marvellous feeling it is to live a simple and normal life.”

At that time, he didn’t believe Lao Tang’s words at all. To him, being normal means allowing oneself to be bullied, and he does not want to be bullied anymore. Thus, he needs to become stronger, until no one dares to hinder his way and stop him from doing what he wants to do.

“Tang Yi! I’m chasing you for life!”

But there is indeed one such person, who stumbled his way into his tightly guarded heart, who said this to him standing on the hospital’s rooftop as he pointed at him.

“Tang Yi.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you give me a wish?”

“Okay.”

“I wish that I will be at your side for every birthday from now on, and with me around, you’ll no longer be alone.”

He thought it would be a lonely birthday, but instead he received a cake that made him so touched, a cake made personally by Shao Fei, even though it didn’t look very nice. And…

The third birthday wish, promising the rest of his life to Tang Yi.

“Lao Tang, I finally believe in what you said.”

Tang Yi’s mouth curves in a faint smile. He caresses at Shao Fei’s lips with his finger, and repeats what he said told Shao Fei before…

“Meng Shao Fei, you made my life so different. You made me experience warmth again, so I hope you live on well, for my sake.”

“Also, I love you. I really, really, love you.”

At a riverbank

“Why did you arrange to meet?” Yan Zheng Qiang asks, his back facing another person who is approaching from behind him.

“I just wanted to tell Sir that my previous mission is over.”

The man with red hair responds to the other person standing at the riverbank with a seemingly harmless smile on his face. Yan Zheng Qiang turns, and considers Jack, who has delivered a USB into his hands.

“This includes all of Xing Tian Meng’s information, and also what you care about the most, Chen Wen Hao’s current list of deals and channels.”

“The information has been verified?”

“Of course.”

“You’re as good as expected, it’s not a waste of the station to hire you at high costs.”

Jack smiles and accepts the other’s compliment, then says, “Since this mission is already over, let’s talk about our next one, I believe Interpol will be very interested in this.”

“I’m listening.”

“Chen Wen Hao’s actual battle place, a complete set of information from Cambodia.”

Yan Zheng Qiang’s eyes narrows as he looks at Jack in disbelief, “These few years, despite having worked with the Cambodian government, we have been unable to penetrate this drug channel. Chen Wen Hao has planned everything well and has corrupted both the good and bad in the region, just you alone, you’ll be able to reach in?”

“If it’s just me, of course I wouldn’t have any solution, but it’s a different matter altogether if Chen Wen Hao personally invites me in.”

“For a mercenary who does as he’s paid, you’re actually giving up the interests laid out before your eyes?”

Jack shrugs and smiles, “It can’t be helped. Who asked me to have a liking for thrilling challenges, and I get more intrigued by things that are more difficult to obtain. Don’t worry, since I have taken the initiative to cooperate on this, the price is negotiable, as long as you deal with Xing Tian Meng for me, I will be able to help you infiltrate this channel. How’s that, are we good on this deal? Or not?”

Yan Zheng Qiang thinks about this for a bit, and then reaches out with his right hand, “Okay, we will be responsible for dealing with the aftermath of your leaving Xing Tian Meng, and I hope you will be able to give us more information of the drug trafficking deals in Southeast Asia.

Jack returns the handshake, and smiles, “No problem, sir, may our cooperation be pleasant.”

—

“If the murderer from four years ago is not Chen Wen Hao, then who is it?” Zhao Zi mumbles to himself dejectedly as he walks on the road, having just left work at the station.

“Shorty, is there gold on the floor? Aren’t you afraid of hitting something if you walk with your head down like that?”

Having just looked up, he sees Jack squatting at his doorstep, and who knows how long he has been waiting here?

“Why’re you here?”

Jack stands up, pinching at the other’s cheek, and teases, “I wanted to see you, so I came.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t have the mood to joke with you today.”

“I’m very serious, shorty…” Jack loosens the grip he has on the other’s cheek and his tone is suddenly somber, “if I can’t come and see you for a period of time, will you miss me?”

Frightened, Zhao Zi’s eyes go wide as he looks about his surroundings anxiously, “What did you do? Was it something illegal?”

“I can’t say and I don’t want to implicate you in this,” Jack shakes his head, his mouth curving up in a forced smile.

At this, Zhao Zi is even more certain that Jack has done something bad that he can be arrested for, and immediately takes out his keys to open the door without paying the person next to him any mind.

“You haven’t answered my question from earlier-“

Jack has only just opened his mouth and is immediately dragged into the house, the other covering his mouth, and as they walk, Zhao Zi says in a low voice, “Hey! Speak softer, what if you’re found out by someone else? Damn it, you still dare to come to me after having done something illegal, did you forget that I’m a police officer, and all my colleagues are policer officers? I can let you hide for a night, but tomorrow you have to leave first thing in the morning.”

“Pfft!!!”

Jack pulls down the palm covering his mouth and with a tug, he brings the man into his embrace and kisses at his cheek.

“Hurry up and answer me. If i left, would you miss me? And do you like me or not?”

Zhao Zi does not reply, and quietly closes the door with reddened ears.

Police station rooftop

Shi Da Pao sits on the rooftop of the station by himself, his mouth biting at a cigarette as he stares at the moon-less sky. Around his feet on the ground, several cigarette butts lay, and it’s apparent that he has been sitting here for a while now.

“Whoo…”

Another heavy exhale of white smoke leaves his mouth.

The wallet he has between his fingertips holds a photo of his daughter when she was younger, and every time he was tired at work he would open his wallet and look at it a few times, thinking about how he would be able to see her run to him happily when he get home, and with her arms raised, she would shout, “Daddy, a hug!”

No matter how much pressure he was under, everything was easily forgotten. His daughter is his power bank, always giving him power which is full of love and hope.

“Xiao Ya… Daddy is sorry, he is sorry…”

On the protective plastic cover over the photo, teardrops continue to fall one after the other.

He then wipes away the teardrops on the plastic film and shuts the wallet with the photo inside, and then throws the last cigarette onto the ground. He gets to his feet and uses the bottom of his shoe to stamp out the cigarette and then leaves the rooftop as a cool breeze blows over him.

He heads downstairs and walks into the floor with the label ‘Inspections Team’.

Tang household

“Good, good morning.”

Finally having the strength to leave the bed, Shao Fei sees Tang Yi who is already preparing breakfast when he walks into the kitchen, and immediately shifts his gaze, greeting Tang Yi awkwardly.

“Are you still okay?”

Tang Yi looks up and sees the other person who has one hand pressed at his waist as he pulls a chair at the dining table back and sits down, and Tang Yi’s mouth curves upwards.

“Great, I’m great, I’m totally reinvigorated and filled with energy- sss….”

Wanting to pretend that everything is fine, Shao Fei has only just straightened his back when that spot begins to throb, after having been put through the grinder the previous night.

“Officer Meng’s stamina is not bad.”

“Of course.”

“Then next time I don’t have to be considerate towards your body, and can do it until I’m satisfied.”

“What? You did it twice yesterday and you’re still not satisfied?”

With a red face, Shao Fei looks at the Xing Tian Meng leader in alarm, who after doing so many things to him, could not only carry him to the bathroom to clean him up, but also wake up bright and early in the morning to make breakfast.

Tang Yi’s smile deepens as he places the already made breakfast in front of his lover, and then opens the fridge to take out a coke, placing it on the table. Then, he pulls out a chair and sits down opposite Shao Fei.

“Tang Yi…”

Shao Fei observes the other’s reaction, and after hesitating for quite a while, he opens his mouth finally, “If you find the murderer before me, please hand him over to me, and don’t put me in a difficult position between my relationship and duty to my profession.”

If Tang Yi kills someone, then he will be a criminal who must face the punishment of law, and as a police officer enforcing said laws, Shao Fei will have to arrest him.

Tang Yi looks up and watches this man, who aside from his adoptive mother, Tang-ye and Hong Ye, is the fourth person whose life is more important than his own, and changes the topic, “Head to work after you’re done eating!”

“Tang Yi…”

Shao Fei wants to try and persuade him again, but he’s interrupted by a Jack who has just walked into the kitchen.

“Boss, we caught He Hang.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there.”

Tang Yi, in the moment he gets up and leaves the table, is immediately caught by the man seated opposite him.

“Leave it to the police!”

Looking at the other’s determined gaze, Tang Yi sighs, and removing Shao Fei’s hand, he says, “All i can promise you is to send him to you while he’s alive.”

“…”

Shao Fei watches as Jack and Tang Yi leave together, and then the phone he has in his pocket rings. The moment he picks up, he hears Zhao Zi’s panicked and rushed voice.

“Zhao Zi what is it? What? You said laoda turned himself in at the inspections team?”

Investigative Team Three

“Zhao Zi be clear, what do you mean by laoda turning himself in to the inspections team?”

Shao Fei asks Zhao Zi who is waiting at the door once he sees him, after having rushed from Tang Yi’s house back to the team with his foot stepping aggressively on the accelerator on his way back.

“I’m not sure either, but Jun Wei went to ask, and it seems like laoda admitted that he was secretly involved in the resale of drugs back to the underworld.”

“How is that possible? Why would laoda do that? What’s the motive? What motive does he have?”

“Could it have something to do with Xiao Ya’s surgery give years ago?”

After Zhao Zi says this, everyone descends into silence, and only Yu Qi asks, confused.

“What happened to Xiao Ya, what surgery?”

Zhao Zi looks at his junior and explains what happened five years ago, ‘You only joined the team last year so you don’t know, but Xiao Ya was really sick last time, and what was it…”

“Leukaemia,” Shao Fei continues where Zhao Zi left off. “At that time laoda was almost driven insane from desperation, and there were no matching bone marrows locally. Everyone on the team helped to check if they were matches, but none of us were suitable.”

Standing at the side, Jun Wei sighs, “After finding one for a year, just when everyone thought there was no hope left, laoda suddenly found a matching bone marrow from some other channel, and that’s how he saved Xiao Ya.”

“Could it be that laoda resold the drugs to the underworld because he needed the money to save Xiao Ya?”

Everyone’s expression is somber, silently agreeing with their junior’s deduction.

Then, the phone on the table rings, and Jun Wei rushes over to pick it up, but his face falls when he hears what the latest new update is.

“What is it?”

Jun Wei looks at Shao Fei who has walked over, and answers, “Top brass wants to open a large scale internal investigation, and that another member from the team is involved in the case.”

“Who?”

“Ah Zhi.”

Everyone immediately turns to look at the seat that originally belongs to Zhou Guan Zhi, and Shao Fei becomes uneasy.

“Zhao Zi, where’s Ah Zhi?”

“I haven’t seen him from just now onwards.”

“Go with me to find him at his house.”

“Okay.”

Shao Fei rushes out quickly after finishing what he said, and Zhao Zi swiftly follows, one hand clutched tight around his phone. Seeing her seniors leave so hurriedly, Yu Qi asks Jun Wei, dumbfounded, “First it’s laoda, and then it’s Ah Zhi-ge. We are police officers, right? Our job is to uphold justice, and go after criminals, right? Then why…”

The woman’s eyes go red and she is unable to say anymore. Jun Wei pats at her shoulder with a sigh, unsure how he can reassure the other as well.

Private club, inside a room

“I didn’t think you would come and beg me,” Si He Hui’s leader looks at the bills piled on the table in front of him and says, sarcastic.

Zhou Guan Zhi looks at Lao Ke, his palms sweating, “Ke-san, I know you have contacts, anywhere in Southeast Asia is fine, all I ask is that I am able to leave here as soon as possible.”

“You brought the team to ‘take care’ of me just a while ago, and now you’re begging me? Officer Zhou, you’re trying to fool me, is it?”

“Ke-san, we’ve known each other for more than a decade, and you know exactly how many times I’ve let you go in between, and besides…” Zhou Guan Zhi’s eyes darken, and he hints, “You still have some ‘items’ in my possession, and as long as you arrange for me to leave, I will make sure those things disappear from now onwards.”

Lao Ke side eyes the person sitting in front of him, and laughs, the sound cold, “If it wasn’t because you had no choice but to leave the team you wouldn’t even be here looking for me, so I’m afraid those things you have on me, you won’t be able to use them yourself.”

“You’re right, I won’t have any use for them, but Ke-san don’t forget, my colleagues are still eyeing Si He Hui’s every move, and I’m very sure they will be happy to receive these ‘things’.”

Lao Ke’s expression freezes immediately, and after a moment of hesitation, a smile returns to his face, “Let’s talk it out, let’s talk it out. Fine, I’ll help you this one, but the price…”

“Another 10,000 NTD, I will give after I’m on the boat.”

Zhou Guan Zhi takes out another 10,000 NTD from the backpack he has on him, then puts it back inside.

“No problem, the location and time I will let Officer Zhou know later.”

“Okay.”

After confirming his escape route, Zhou Guan Zhi opens the door and after checking his surroundings to make sure no one is following him, he then walks out of the room with his head down.

Inside the club, Chen Wen Hao is speaking to another man surnamed Wang as they walk out from another room.

“Xiao Wang, I’ll leave finding the person to you.”

“Chen-ye, leave it to me! I’m just very curious, is the person you’re looking for really so important?”

“Very important, and he’s not easy to find because I’ve never seen his face and only remember his back, and it is also an impression from four years ago. Just from these clues, asking you to help me is indeed trouble for you.”

“Chen-ye you stand on too much ceremony with me by saying that, don’t worry! Even if you give me just a single strand of his hair, I will be able to dig him up.”

“Good, then I’ll have to entrust you with this.”

Chen Wen Hao reaches out and somberly shakes the other’s hand. Right at this moment, however, the door to the room in front of them suddenly opens, and Chen Wen Hao casually looks at the other once. Just as he’s about to look away, that person suddenly pulls up the hood on his shirt, and then quickly leaves, his expression full of anxiety.

In that moment, the scene before him aligns with the hazy memory he has from four years ago. He points at the other man and orders, “Get him!”

“Yes.”

His two men rush over immediately from behind him, and restrain the hooded man on the ground.

Outside an apartment

Numerous members from Investigative Team One stand inside Zhou Guan Zhi’s apartment, and plenty of items are scattered all over the ground.

Shao Fei and Zhao Zi have only just reached the door, and before they can say a word, the officer standing outside the door stops them.

“I’m sorry, we are searching through the house right now, so the both of you cannot go in.”

Shao Fei looks at the other and asks, “A search? I’m from Team Three, can I ask what’s the situation right now?”

The man standing at the door side eyes these two officers who have turned up in a hurry, and answers, “Zhou Guan Zhi is suspected to be involved in a homicide case four years ago, and also a drug trafficking case. The warrant for his arrest is out.”

“Homicide? Which one?” Shao Fei persists.

“I’m sorry, due to confidentiality, we are unable to reveal much.”

Zhao Zi tugs at his good friend’s sleeve and says, “Ah Fei, we should leave here first and see if we can find Ah Zhi.”

“Mnn.”

As Shao Fei walks down the stairs, he thinks about what the person just said, and suddenly realises what the last piece of the puzzle of four years ago is…

Five years ago, laoda resold the drugs confiscated by the police because he urgently needed the money for Xiao Ya’s leukaemia treatment, and Zhou Guan Zhi was one of the people involved.

Four years ago, Tang Guo Dong who had begun reforming Xing Tian Meng met up with Li Zhen-jie, and according to what Chen Wen Hao said, Tang Guo Dong once handed over a package to Li Zhen-jie, but after the homicide happened, that package was taken away by the shooter.

And now, Zhou Guan Zhi is involved in a homicide that happened four years ago, and this is related to drug trafficking.

It can’t be-

“I know who the murderer from four years ago is!” Shao Fei shouts at Zhao Zi who’s standing in the stairwell, his feet coming to a stop.

“What? Ah Fei you know?”

“Zhao Zi, I’m going to go find Tang Yi, you hurry head to the station and get some people over, hurry! Any later and we won’t make it!”

“What do you mean by we won’t make it? Ah Fei! Ah Fei!”

With that said, and not caring about Zhao Zi’s calls, he immediately rushes down the stairs. He opens the door to the car he parked in the alleyway and sits in the driver’s seat.

“Tang Yi, you must not do anything foolish!”

Inside the speeding car, Shao Fei frowns as he holds onto the steering wheel, then steps harder on the gas pedal, quickly driving towards Tang Yi’s house.

Tang household

“Tang Yi!”

Shao Fei pushes aside the Xing Tian Meng lackeys that are blocking his way to the living room, and once he goes in, he sees Zhou Guan Zhi with his hands tied behind his back, his face bloodied as he kneels on the ground. In front of him on the table, a picture of Tang Guo Dong and a gun is placed there.

Tang Yi stands next to the table and glares at Tang Guo Dong’s murderer in anger from a higher angle, and then reveals a cruel smirk. His fingers are dripping with Zhou Guan Zhi’s blood.

“Ah Fei! Save me! I beg you please save me!” Zhou Guan Zhi hollers anxiously, seeing that the person who walked in is someone familiar, as if this is his only chance of survival.

“You still don’t intend to tell me the truth? Good, since this mouth is of no use, I shall knock out your teeth one by one.”

Tang Yi cracks his knuckles, the sound of his bones interlocking echoing.

“Tang Yi…”

Shao Fei walks until he’s in front of this man, whose murderous intent is apparent. Looking into his eyes, he tries to calm the person whose emotions are out of control down.

“If you kill him right now, we’ll never know the truth! You let me bring him back to the station to investigate, and I promise I’ll give you the truth back from four years ago.”

“The truth?” Tang Yi sneers, and says, “I don’t need to know the truth, all I need to know is that this is the person who killed Tang-ye and that is enough!”

Shao Fei sighs as he turns around and walks to Zhou Guan Zhi, and from start to end says what he found out.

“Ah Zhi-ge, I already know that the people who released the confiscated drugs from the station is you and laoda. Li Zhen-jie, who has always hated drugs, must have found out about this and so cooperated with Tang Guo Dong to find the internal mole in the station, but they would never have thought that the people she was looking for were the both of you.”

“…”

Zhou Guan Zhi glares at Shao Fei, who has deduced most of what happened, his entire body trembling.

“I just don’t understand, laoda did it to raise the funds needed for Xiao Ya’s medical fees, then what did you do it for? That you needed such a huge sum of money?”

“Gambling debts…”

Shao Fei inhales sharply, his eyes reddening as he looks at his colleague, who he has gone through so much with, and then asks, “Then why did you kill Li Zhen-jie and Tang Guo Dong?”

“I… I didn’t… I didn’t…” the person who still refuses to tell the truth shakes his head vehemently.

Tang Yi picks up the gun on the table and presses it against Zhou Guan Zhi’s forehead, then unlocks the safety. As long as Tang Yi’s index finger moves on the trigger, he will turn into a cold corpse. In the face of the threat of death, Zhou Guan Zhi sobs and yells at the only person who can save him now, Shao Fei, as if mad.

“Yes! It was me! It was me! He Hang told me it was Li Li Zhen and Tang Guo Dong who were cooperating to investigate the people in the station, and he said I would be done for, so I… Ah Fei… please bring me back to the station… I beg you… I don’t want to die here, I really don’t want to die… Ah Fei…”

“Tang Yi, let me bring him back.”

Shao Fei looks at the man, who has blood and tears all over his face, with both disgust and anger. He heads over to Tang Yi’s side and reaches out to press down on the muzzle of the gun pointed at Zhou Guan Zhi’s forehead.

Even though he knows the truth, Shao Fei can barely resist the urge to beat up this man, who he once thought of to be his brother, but as a police officer he has to stick to his duties and the law. This is a line he will not compromise on.

“These four years, all I’ve been thinking of everyday is how to take revenge for Tang-ye!”

“But I can’t watch you kill someone in front of my eyes.”

“Then arrest me!”

Bam!

The sound of a gun firing shocks the three people present in the living room.

Blood drips down his fingertips onto the floor incessantly.

“Don’t.. don’t kill others…”

Shao Fei, who pushed Zhou Guan Zhi aside and dived towards the gun, says weakly as he looks at the man who is holding onto him tightly.

“Why did you have to stop me like this….”

Tears fall uncontrollably onto Shao Fei’s face.

“As long as I can stop you from killing others, I.. it doesn’t matter….”

Wanting to use his usual tone and smile to chase away the shadows cast over the other’s heart at present, Shao Fei is unable to even lift up an arm to wipe away his lover’s tears.

“Meng Shao Fei, you’re the stupidest police officer I’ve ever seen.”

“And that’s why I fell in love with you, is that not?”

Those pale lips curve indulgently, and he turns his head a little, wanting to see the other man’s expression more clearly, but he pulls at the bleeding wound on his right chest.

“Don’t move.”

Tang Yi uses a hand and presses at the gunshot wound, applying pressure to slow down the flow of blood, and at the same time uses his bloodied hand to make a call as he says anxiously, “I need an ambulance here, someone was shot.”

“Meng Shao Fei, you better live on well.”

Shao Fei’s heart cannot bear to see Tang Yi’s tears as they fall continuously onto his face, and looking at the man who has said this through gritted teeth in a threatening tone, it’s as if they have gone back to the days of their first meeting.

That stoic, expressionless Xing Tian Meng leader that no one dares to approach-

-Tang Yi.

#history3: trapped #history 3: 圈套 #history 3: trapped #history3 novel #h3t #tangfei #tang yi #shao fei #translations

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highonchocolate · 3 years

Text

Take Two: The Guardian in Gotham Chapter 14

First Previous Next Ao3

I suck at fight scenes, sorry.

---

“Alright, so the rules of the spar are pretty simple.” Diana stood in front of them, arms crossed. She was flanked by Batman and Superman, who waited as she listed out the details.

“Hits to the face are not off limits, refrain from hair-pulling, no breaking any bones, or causing injuries other than minor bruises.” She paced back and front before them.

“Since you are all heroes, I expect you to fight properly, and not resort to cheap tactics. Are there any questions as to what is allowed and what is not?”

“Uh, yes.” Ladybug raised her hand, fighting the urge to duck her head nervously when Diana’s gaze landed on her.

“Go ahead.”

“Is bantering allowed? Because we actually end up doing that a lot during spars.”

“Bantering is fine. Make sure you tap out when you're done.” She reminded them before standing on the side with the older heroes to watch.

Without further prompting, Ladybug and Chat Noir walked onto the mats. Ryuko, Viperion and Queen Bee stood beside Superman, observing them keenly.

“On my whistle!” Diana called, prompting them to nod in acknowledgement.

Ladybug rolled her shoulders and shifted her weight, sinking into a defensive stance. Across from her, Chat Noir mirrored her stance. He narrowed his eyes in playful anticipation, crouching low to the ground. She lifted her chin slightly in challenge, and he smirked back at her.

“Ready to get your butt whooped, Alley Cat?”

“You can try, Buggy!”

Diana's whistle trilled sharply, and the spar began.

Ladybug immediately crouched and swung her leg in an arc. Before her foot could make contact with his legs, Chat Noir was already jumping. He flipped backwards, landing on his feet. There was a dull smack as he landed two quick hits to her ribs and shoulder. She gritted her teeth and punched him in the solar plexus. He sucked in a startled breath, eyes wide. She pushed her advantage, hitting him twice more on the jaw and torso. On her third blow, he brought his arms up and blocked, the punch landing on his forearms. He lashed out, sending several quick strikes towards her face and stomach. She hastily retreated to avoid them, wincing as her shoulder complained.

“Had enough yet? He teased, inhaling the stench of cleaning supplies as he breathed.

“You're the one panting, not me!” She yelled, launching a kick at his chest.

He ducked and jumped forward, tackling her face-first onto the mats. She gasped, all her breath knocked out of her.

“Is that all you got, Bug?” He sat on top of her, one leg in the middle of her back, the other across her knees, grinning cheekily.

She huffed out a laugh, eyes casting about for a way to get out of the pin.

“Harmless kitten!” She taunted, buying herself time.

“Baby bug!” He called from above her, no doubt wearing a smug smile.

“Scrawny!”

“Tiny!”

“Stalker!” She shot back desperately, trying to get out of his hold.

He inhaled sharply from above her, hands loosening their grip on her arms.

She felt guilt twist in her chest, but ignored it. With a heave, she threw him off and lunged. As he stumbled back, she tackled him, bringing him to the floor with a thud. She quickly pinned him, restraining his arms and pressing him into the ground with her body weight. He didn't even try fighting the hold, simply tapping out the moment she pushed him down.

When she helped him up off his feet, there was no trace of his earlier joy on his face. He looked at her with an unreadable, melancholic expression, before turning away and walking over to the rest of their team. She sighed at his retreating back, feeling guilt twist in her gut, before pushing it away. He would understand, right? She reasoned, It was just a harmless joke to get out of his hold, that’s all. It’s not like I meant it or anything! Right?

Whatever. She ignored the small voice in her head chanting That was wrong. That was wrong. Walking over to stand beside Queen Bee, she noticed that Chat had stood as far away from her as he could get, in between Batman and Ryuko. She resolved to talk to him about it later, choosing instead to watch as Viperion and Ryuko began their spar.

---

“Alright, that’s it for today.” Diana announced as Ladybug and Queen Bee stepped off the mats. “We’ve seen all that we need to see, and I believe it’s near noon in Paris, so we’re at a good stopping point for today.”

“We’ll use the information we gained from today to set up a training schedule and regime for each of you, and next time we meet, we’ll formally begin your training.” Batman informed them as they walked back to the room with the Zeta Tubes.

“Do you know when we’ll be meeting next?” Chat Noir asked. Those were the first words he’d spoken since their spar.

“Most probably in a few weeks, we’ll need to find a time that works for everyone.” Superman explained, holding open the door to the entrance hall for them to walk through.

“Thanks.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“That makes sense.” Viperion agreed, standing beside Ladybug as she prepared the portal.

“Would you like for us to give you times when we are free?” Ryuko asked over Ladybug’s call of “Voyage!”

“That would be helpful.” Diana said, waving as one by one they stepped through the portal.

“See you soon, then!” Queen Bee called before it shut behind them in a flash of electric blue.

They stood there silently, the five of them, on the Eiffel Tower for a long moment before it was simultaneously broken by their laughter. Even Chat Noir cracked a small smile.

“Oh my gosh, that was totally nerve wracking!” Queen Bee exclaimed, still laughing.

“Right?!” VIperion agreed. “They’re all so intimidating! I felt like they could see all my past sins!”

“What sins?” Ryuko joked, nudging him playfully.

“Guys!” Queen Bee exclaimed, “It’s noon! Let's get lunch!”

“Sure!” Chat Noir agreed from where he leant against one a support girder. “But, ah, you three go on ahead. I need to talk to Ladybug for a sec.”

“Alright! See you in ten?” Viperion checked.

“See you in ten.” He confirmed.

As soon as they’d left, he slumped against the beam, head turned away from her.

“Let’s talk on the roof.” Ladybug suggested, pointing to Chloé’s hotel.

He followed her without complaint, landing on the roof and detransforming.

He turned away as she dropped her transformation, looking out at the skyline instead.

“Adrien?” She asked, tilting her head curiously. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes!” He snapped, turning around to glare at her. “Something is wrong!”

“Well what is it then?” She crossed her arms, annoyance seeping into her tone at his harshness. “I don't have time to deal with your little temper tantrums!”

“That!” He yelled, gesticulating wildly. “That is the problem! You keep acting like I'm just a stupid sidekick-fanboy hybrid that's obsessed with you! We're partners! Or at least, we're supposed to be! But it's hard for me to feel like your equal when you say things like you did back there! You called me a stalker-”

“Well you are!” Marinette interrupted, anger rising. She waved her arm in the air. “You have your little...Ladybug shrine or whatever all up in your room-yes, I've seen it!-and you’ve literally sat out on a battle because you were mad that I didn't love you back!”

He threw his hand up in the air, annoyance written on every line of his body. “That was in the past! Newsflash, it isn't all about you! I stopped harassing you to go on dates, and I don't have a shrine for you anymore! I'm aromantic demisexual, and I. Do. Not. Love. You! Not like that, at least!”

He jabbed his finger at her accusingly. “And stop acting like you're a saint as well! You literally spent your free time stalking me around the whole city of Paris and concocting insane plans to go on a date with me!”

She took a step back in shock, her feelings jumbling together into a roiling knot of shame and anger at his rage-filled accusations.

“You had a literal pull down chart of my entire schedule in your room and an entire wall covered in my pictures!” He ranted. “Do you know how creepy that is?! Do you know how unsafe that made me feel?! Knowing that one of my closest friends was obsessed with me? It literally rattled my world! I apologized for what I did to you, all the harassment and ignoring your situation, but you-you just shoved your mistakes under the rug like they never happened! Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, you always try to rationalize a lot of the mistakes you make! There’s always some explanation or the other. And that's just so...argh!”

He paced around the room, pulling at his hair in anger and frustration.

“Not to mention, you think your life is hard?! At least your parents loved you! The only person that loved me was my mother, and she fucking died okay? My dad was an emotionally repressed asshole, who knew nothing about showing affection in an understandable way, and he fucked me up! Badly! Like, I’m literally touch deprived. He consciously knew that being alone all the time while dealing with grief can fuck a child up. And he still left me alone! After my mom died, I can count on one hand the number of hugs I’ve gotten in that household. One hand!” He shouted, eyes wild, chest heaving.

She felt herself getting defensive, her anger rising like a tidal wave. “Oh yeah?! Boo-hoo the poor rich baby didn't get some hugs from Daddy. Get over yourself! My friends, who I've known since we were like, five, voluntarily beat me up! Several times! You couldn't possibly know how that feels!”

“You're right I couldn't!” He yelled, face screwed up in anger. “I couldn't because I've never been to school! My entire life is planned and thought out! I have no say in anything, I have literally zero independence! My whole life is in my Father and Nathalie’s hands! So no, I don't know how that feels!”

“And you know what Adrien?!” She shouted back, not bothering to control her voice.

“My life is pretty hard! I'm dealing with bullying at school, homework, commissions, patrols almost every night, as well as trying to keep my identity secret from my parents, because they like to check up on me!”

“Oh yeah?! Well, guess what?! Your leaving made Lila that much more comfortable with hanging off me! She constantly grabs me, pulls me around, she’s kissed me without my consent! You left, and she didn’t have to restrain herself anymore! And god forbid I tell anybody, because we all know they’re under her spell! And my father?! Hah!” He laughed, but there was no humor behind it.

“He’d just tell me to suck it up! Also, have you forgotten that I take almost all the hits for you?! Because I haven't! I take all of them! All of them!” He whirled around, glaring at her.

“I've died so many times! For you! And I remember exactly what it feels like, because I don't have the luxury of a mind wipe from your magical healing cure! So don't come here saying I don't know what it feels like to be bullied, unless you want me throwing this back in your face too!”

She inhaled sharply, ignoring the pain in her chest from his words. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she pulled out Kaalki’s glasses and prepared to portal back to Gotham. “You know what?! I can't deal with this right now. I'm leaving.”

“Stop running from your problems!” He shouted from behind her, the rest of his words cut off as she shut the portal behind her and collapsed on her bed.

@laurcad123 @liquid-luck-00 @toodaloo-kangaroo @stainedglassm

#maribat #marinette dupain cheng #damian wayne #adrien agreste #chloe bourgeois #luka couffaine #kagami tsurugi #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #lila rossi #alya cesaire #lgbtq characters

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kabira · 4 years

Text

05 | job hunting

pairing — spider-man!vernon x ofc

featuring — joshua, yeji (itzy), felix (skz), yangyang (nct)

word count — 2.9k

genres — spider-man au, marvel au, fluff, action, angst, humor

warnings — none

note — so...you might have noticed some changes to the pairing. i’ve decided to go ahead and convert this to an x ofc fic because when it’s a 3rd person pov thing the ‘you’ pronoun kind of jumps out at you and it just sounds really unnatural lol. she’s been left race-ambiguous in the description, and she’s pretty cool, so i hope you like her !! even though she doesn’t show up very often djskalskjs

go to fic masterlist | main masterlist

Vernon stepped out into the open, finding himself on the highest level of the Helicarrier—not the top floor, but the deck itself.

The wind was strong, pushed by the rotator blades keeping the carrier in the air, and he shivered on feeling the sudden chill descend upon him. He hesitated, resting his palm against the side of one of the structures containing the blades, and glanced around. The aircraft was massive, big enough that despite being right next to the Quinjet runway, he couldn’t see any of the city beneath.

When he finally spotted White Tiger, she was sitting near the edge, mask in hand. At first, he was apprehensive about her being spotted, but when he got close enough, he realized they were way to high for anyone on the ground to be able to make out her features.

New York was easily a couple thousand feet below them, the tallest buildings looking like toy figurines from the high vantage point. The harbor glittered a dark blue-green underneath them, catching the dying light of the sunshine like little stars contained in the water. It was a breathtaking sight, so beautiful that it washed away Vernon’s initial fear as easily as a wave clearing away dug letters on a sandy beach.

He glanced at Yeji, pressing his teeth against his lower lip. She had her back to him, shoulders tensed—of course she would have heard him approach. Her hair was still up in a ponytail, but swayed lightly with the breeze. Even as he stood behind her, she said nothing, remaining silent and stony as she stared down at the view below.

“It’s nice up here,” he murmured. “Unless you have a crippling fear of heights, that is.”

Silence.

Vernon sighed to himself, slowly taking a seat next to her on the sun-heated deck, and pulled off his mask. The air was cool against his sweat-soaked skin, but did nothing to set his heart at ease. That was the hard part, one he had to figure out himself.

“So, White Tiger, huh?” he asked, scrunching up his nose as he looked at her sideways. Her chin rested on her folded forearms, which were balanced against her knees, legs crossed at the ankles. It should have been a relaxed posture, but her muscles were too tense, standing out like steel cables on her arms and sides. “Do your powers have anything to do with that jade amulet you wear?”

She unfolded herself, unconsciously touching the amulet that hung from one side of her gray belt. It was a vibrant green color, looking fragile like glass, but despite her generally offensive style of fighting, there wasn’t a single scratch on it. “It was my father’s,” she answered dully. “And my grandfather’s before him. The amulet is a family heirloom that passed down to me when the rest of my family died, and with it, the powers it bestows upon the bearer.”

“Oh,” he said, a little surprised. He hadn’t expected her to speak, but she had opened up, despite the still guarded tone of her voice. He pulled his knees up to his chest and looked out at the view, feeling calmer than before, but also a lot more awkward. “Are you afraid of the water?”

She glanced over at him, a confused scowl on her face. “What?”

“The water,” he repeated, indicating the harbor with a tilt of his head. “Aren’t cats supposed to be scared of water or something?”

Her eyes narrowed, but not before he caught the glimmer of amusement in them. “I’m not a cat,” she said. “The amulet gives me the agility and tenacity of a white tiger, but not all its fears. Are you afraid of house lizards, spider boy?”

“Well, one in particular.” He half-smiled. “But he’s back to human now, so I guess not really.”

She gave him a small smile back, one that indicated she got the joke. It wasn’t a big gesture, but it made him feel a bit better—which was funny, since he was the one supposed to be comforting her. He recalled Luce’s words from their earlier conversation. There’s no harm in being decent.

“Look,” he started, reaching up to rub the side of his neck, “I’m sorry about what I said back there. You said you knew I didn’t like you guys, but that’s not true. It’s just—it’s a sudden change,” he mumbled. “To have a whole team of supers in the school, and so soon after the—incident, it just set me off.”

She said nothing, waiting for him to continue. He shook his head. “You probably don’t know what happened a few weeks ago, and what happened, it’s not your fault. Heck, it doesn’t even have anything to do with you.” He laughed weakly. “The incident that took place, it followed a regular pattern I already should have known. When superhero stuff and real life mix, nothing good comes out of it. I wasn’t prepared for you guys, and I took it badly. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

Yeji hummed. For a few moments, they sat in silence, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. For Vernon, it felt good to get all of that off his chest. It was hard to admit to something because of his pride, but putting it out there made him feel a bit better. No one liked seeing their faults, but to him, it was better than hurting someone he didn’t really want to hurt. In a way, even the superheroes around him were innocent people who could become collateral damage.

“What incident?” she asked.

He glanced at her, a little confused. She stared back at him with her eyebrows arched, as if expecting him to say something. “Sorry, what?”

“I told you about my family, how I came to be in possession of my powers,” she said. “Your turn. What incident were you talking about?”

He bit the inside of his cheek, staring at her thoughtfully. “Do you know Harry Osborn?” he asked at length.

She nodded. “The Goblin—I mean, Norman Osborn’s son.” She gave him a curious look. “Wasn’t he at Midtown with you?”

“Yeah.” He looked away again, studying the lenses of his mask. Speaking about it was difficult, and he wasn’t too sure about instantly opening up about such a horrific incident to someone he had met two days ago, but his instinct told him he could trust White Tiger. Either way, there was no harm in talking about that day, at least not the general aspects of it. “And you probably also know about how Norman Osborn was taken down.”

She nodded again, slower this time, looking thoughtful. “Wasn’t there a bargaining chip of some kind involved?” she asked. “Wait, sorry. I meant a human hostage.”

“Yeah,” Vernon murmured. He hung his head, running his spandex-covered fingers over the cloth of his mask, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness in his throat, but it hurt to do that, like there was a thorn stuck in his flesh. “Long story short, Harry Osborn…well.”

Yeji glanced at him in surprised concern, and he looked away, avoiding her gaze. Now would come the pitying glance, the awkward condolences, the unsure silence. He had had enough of that in the past few weeks.

“I get it,” she said, to his immense surprise. When he looked back at her, her eyes were sad, but there was a firmness beneath them, like stable ground at the bottom of the river. Even if she didn’t quite know all the details, they both spoke the language of loss, and it didn’t need words to be understood.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said.

“I won’t.” She turned her face away, towards the sky, and he followed suit. The silence this time was more than comfortable, it was comforting. “No more details?”

Despite himself, he smiled. “Not yet,” he replied. “You have to get past level twenty first.”

She snorted a laugh. “I don’t really play video games,” she answered. “It’s a little difficult to fit in when you live in the same quarters as a couple of teenage boys, but I can’t do anything about it.”

“Really? You can drop by after school sometimes and I’ll show you.” He grinned, then grimaced. “Or maybe Aunt May can. I’m not the best at them, she kicks my butt on Night game night every time.”

“She sounds amazing already. I can’t wait to meet her,” Yeji said, smiling. “And while we’re on the subject of family—argh, I’m totally going to sound like Agent Fox, but here’s the thing.” She shifted her weight, sitting with her legs crisscrossed. “I know it’s hard to deal with loss, and that it’s different for everybody, but protectors feel guilt on a different level than everybody else—and you can’t carry that kind of weight around with you.”

Vernon picked at a small cut on the leg of his costume. “Agent Fox,” he repeated. “You too, huh?”

Yeji winced. “Therapists aren’t really equipped to deal with our kind of experiences,” she said. “I mean, what do you say to someone who had to physically fight their best friend’s dad because he turned into a genetically enhanced green monster?”

He laughed.

“Agent Fox might not be your best bet, but there are other things you can try,” she continued. “I know you probably don’t want some kind of preachy advice, but for me, being White Tiger helped.” She ran her fingers along the grooves of her amulet again, as if deriving comfort through its touch. “Doing something, even little things that just keep your mind off the past, it helps.”

He thought back to Luce’s words. “Like getting a job?”

Yeji frowned. “I guess,” she said. “If it doesn’t take over your time as Spider-Man, that is.”

“That’s twice in a day someone’s advised me to get a job,” he said. “Maybe I really should go ahead and get one.”

“Maybe you should,” she agreed. “But I have a feeling most normal jobs won’t interest you. If you’re going to work, might as well work on something you’ll enjoy.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, the gears of his brain already having been kicked into action. “I think I already have something in mind.”

The last time Vernon had met Dr. Curt Connors, it had been as Spider-Man.

It was not an experience he had particularly enjoyed, since it had been one of his bigger fights had had left him with a hairline fracture and a few bruised ribs, holed up in his room for a week to nurse himself. Gym had been worse than usual that Tuesday.

As he pushed through the revolving doors at the entrance of Roxxon Industries, he was already beginning to regret his decision a little bit. Sure, there was no way that Dr. Connors could know his secret alter ego, but the knowledge didn’t help his nervousness one bit.

Plus, with Oscorp pretty much in ruins, the research scientist had shifted his work to a different corporation, and Vernon didn’t know his way around the new building at all. It was a tiny thing to be so worried about, especially for a person who had faced Doc Ock at the age of sixteen, but even the little things seemed big now that he was out job hunting.

Vernon clutched his father’s briefcase tighter, taking his visitor’s pass from the front desk and heading up the escalator to the designated room. Dr. Connors had met Vernon Parker exactly once before, when the latter had shown up at his old laboratory asking about his father, Richard Parker, Connors’s former colleague.

Back then, their conversation had been cut short by a Spidey emergency, and after that the only time he’d been able to see the doctor was while battling him as the Lizard. Vernon had been too afraid to go back afterwards, scared of the decades old formula Connors had developed which turned him into the monster, and what he might discover about his father’s work.

But Dr. Connors had made him a proposal that the boy remembered three months later—that Vernon was always welcome to come work at his lab. Now, the idea of being a simple research assistant didn’t sound very great, especially when the project was so controversial that its funding had been hanging by a thread even at Oscorp, where they weren’t exactly known for their safe experiments. However, biophysics had always been fascinating to him, not to mention the fact that it was his father’s legacy.

He guessed it was about time he went back to claim it.

Vernon stood in front of the door awkwardly, unsure what he was going to say. But he lifted his hand, and he knocked.

“Come in,” came the doctor’s voice from behind the door, and Vernon took a deep breath before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The room was bigger than he had expected it to be. It definitely wasn’t just an office, with multiple tables and various small instruments and charts held down by random objects acting as paper weights spread across them. Tall shelves lined the wall behind the main desk and the one opposite it, stuffed with old and new volumes. The doctor’s table itself was pushed into a corner to make way for everything else, but despite the packed space, everything was organized. It was a pattern Vernon knew from his own room: order in chaos.

Dr. Connors was standing behind his desk, reading through a paper on a clipboard in his hand. He looked up as Vernon entered, and a range of emotions flashed through his eyes when he saw him—first confusion, then recognition, then fear, then guilt. Finally, the doctor smiled, straightening as he placed the board back on his table.

“Vernon,” he said, and Vernon felt a thrill upon seeing that he remembered his name. “A face I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Vernon tried to press his lips into a smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace. “I would have come by earlier, but what with midterms and everything happening in the city…” He hesitated. “I was just a little afraid, I guess.”

“I understand,” Dr. Connors said, and it wasn’t just an empty phrase, like he actually understood Vernon’s fear of facing his father’s past. But then, maybe he did. “I would have liked to see you again after our conversation was cut short, but perhaps a few months’ lapse in between was necessary.”

Vernon thought back to the Lizard incident a couple of months ago, when Dr. Connors had injected himself with an underdeveloped serum, turning himself into a giant lizard. “I read your recent article on the lizard formula,” he said slowly.

The doctor’s hand froze on the table for a moment, but relaxed just as quickly. He looked up at Vernon with a gentle sort of intelligence in his eyes, a look so different from the Lizard’s that he had trouble believing they could be the same person. “Did you, now?” he asked. “And what did you think of it?”

“Genius,” he breathed, and Dr. Connors’s eyes lit up even more. “I looked through my dad’s old papers, and cross-checked the changes with your research.” He opened his mouth and closed it again. Better get this over with quickly. “I know this must seem abrupt, but I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go on.” Dr. Connors inclined his head, gesturing at a seat with his good arm. The other one ended up to just above the elbow—a sight that reminded Vernon that it was the doctor himself who had been the first human trial for his cross-species grafting formula.

“The last time we met, you asked me to come work with you in your lab,” Vernon spoke slowly, hesitating between words. “And when I read your paper, I saw that you would continue to research further on the gene splicing and the, uh, the blood-brain barrier and—” He cut himself off, realizing that he had begun to ramble. “I was wondering, after last time, if you could—”

“Take you on in my lab for the research?” Dr. Connors completed his question for him, positively beaming. “Of course! Your father was a genius, and you follow in his stead. It would be a great advantage to have you on the team.” His smile faltered a little. “And then, even after all these years, I owe him my life and its work,” he added in a lower voice. “I’d be glad to have you.”

“Really?” Vernon looked at him with rounded eyes, clutching the case tightly enough that the skin of his knuckles paled. “I—wow. Thanks, Dr. Connors.”

Dr. Connors shook his head. “There will always be a place for Richard Parker’s son at my lab,” he said. “If you’re free, I could show you around the lab now, just so you get the feel of the place. Unless, of course, you’re busy right now, in which case you could swing by later.”

Vernon laughed, relieved and gratified and ridiculously happy. “I have all the time in the world.”

“Great,” Dr. Connors said. “When can you start?”

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