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screaminglygay · 6 months

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KINKTOBER day 7

pairings: clown!carol danvers x fem!reader

summary: everybody is talking about this amazing show, so you needed to check it up for yourself.

warnings: smut!!!, public play, edging, teasing, dirty talk, fingering, mentions of anal, sucking fingers, kinda dom!carol x sub!reader, intoxication!, alcohol (one drink, but strong one), not proofread

word count: 2.5k

an: sooo, here it is, we´re almost in the end, i feel like this carol is really clumsy and cocky, which was fun to write, it´s not that long cuz my motivation is no where to be found, but i promise the last fic will be fire!:P thank you for reading!

(italics = your thoughts)

!MDNI!

Enjoy this spooky season and be safe!

“Step right up and prepare to be dazzled by the spectacular world of the Femme Fatale Circus! Under the grand, colorful tent that stretches towards the sky, a mesmerizing extravaganza awaits you. The Femme Fatale is more than just a one-time occurrence, it's a lifetime's trip into a thrilling and positively stimulating place. So come on in and have fun!” Was heard from the big speakers next to the many food trucks there.

As you fully enter the circus grounds, you're immediately greeted by the enticing aroma of popcorn and cotton candy, setting the tone for the entertainment. The lively atmosphere is electric, with children's laughter and adults' chatter filling the air.

Before the show started, you decided that you wanted to have something to drink, so you went to this food truck area, where anything you could think of, was there.

Because you´re too indecisive, it took you a while to choose, what you wanted to drink. But after some minutes, you finally bought a cherry vanilla drink, called "Sweet possesion" which you found later on that had 27% of alcohol in it. It was the worse type of drink, too sweet to realize that it has some alcohol. And of course you didn´t eat the whole day, so the affect was very quick.

As you turn around to walk back, you realize that all of the people, who were there with you just a minutes ago, were now no where to be found. Maybe the show have already started.

So you quickly tried make your way back, until something caught your eye. You stopped and tried so see what it was, or who it was.

And because the alcohol started working on empty stomach you didn´t second thought anything at all. And of course you had to see what or who it was.

As you were walking behind the food trucks, you stumbled over various cables, pieces of wood, and other debris scattered on the ground, making it a rather hard path to navigate. When you made your way to the back of the tent, you didn´t see anyone or anything, that got your attention before, util you hear what sounded like a horn of an ice cream truck.

Oh man, I´d like some ice cream.

What your drunk self desired, you´re drunk self will get. So after following that noice, you notice a big ice cream truck with a lady dressed as a clown. But as soon as you come closer, she spoke, "I´m sorry, we´re out, hun."

"Ah man, really? You don´t have even one last ice cream, I could buy?" You were genuely really sad, you really creaved some chocolate chip cookie.

"Everything is sold out. Sorry." She noticed how sad you´ve looked and she hated it, she´s a clown, she is supposed to make people laugh, not the other way around, "but if you come with me, I could look if there is anything back in the freezer, I´m very positive we will find something." She smiled at you.

"Really? That would be perfect!" You waited for her to come out of her food truck. Her costume is a delightful riot of colors, mix of reds, yellows, and blues. The oversized polka-dotted bowtie around her neck adds a touch of whimsy, and her suspenders hold up her dotted pants. Despite the playful outfit, her natural beauty shines through, her sparkling captivating eyes and radiant smile contrasting with the costume. Her makeup was also on point, nothing too loud, just simple makeup with a red nose on top of the whole look.

"Aren´t you supposed to be in the tent? You know, the show already started." The blonde lady giggled.

"I wanted something to drink and now I want ice cream, I´ll watch the show after my needs are secured." You giggled as the alcohol now hitting your system like a train.

"Oh?" The clown laughed, but you could sense that this was her genuine laugh, it didn´t felt forced at all. "Secured your needs? I can tell that you already managed the first one." She smiled at you as you two walked back into the circus tent. You could hear the thrilling show has already begun, with the crowd's excitement and the mesmerizing music filling the air.

"Are we in the backstage now?" You looked at the woman in front of you.

"You could say that, yes." She nodded and looked at you. "What?"

"This was one of my childhood dreams, see the backstage of a circus. It´s... not what I´ve imagined, but still very amazing!" You looked around as you notice all the colorful mess everywhere, many costumes, props, wigs, cages and lots of other circus tools.

"Well I´m glad I could be at your service." The clown smiled and opened a freezer. "Would you like a vanilla, chocolate-" before she could continue with describing what flavors are avalible, you cutted her off.

"Oh my god! Really? Um... do you have a chocolate chip cookie by any chance?" You were so happy, that there are some ice creams left.

"Yup, the last one," the blonde took it from the freezer and gave it to you.

"Thank you so much, how much is it?" You looked at her, already with the ice cream in your mouth.

"It´s on me." She winked.

"What? Are you sure? I could pay it-" This time she cutted you off.

"Let´s just say that I´m here to make all of your childhood dreams come true. Sounds good?" She chuckled at you, seeing the chocolate on your chin.

"Very." You nodded.

As you were eating the ice cream the clown just stared at you, with a smile on her face. She once again made someone´s day better, she´s wondering when it will be her turn, of being the one taking cared of.

It didn´t took you long to finnish the ice cream and when you did, you notice the look on the lady´s face. "I´m sorry, are you okay?"

She immediately smiled, but you could tell it was fake. "Of course, hun. I am," she stepped closer and wiped the chocolate on your chin.

"You know, I don´t even know your name, but I know one thing..." You threw the wooden stick into the thrash can, hoping she didn’t notice the blush on your face.

"And what´s that?" You definitely got the clowns attentions now.

"You´re a shitty liar." You giggled.

"Oh? Is that so?" She tilted her head.

"Yup, pretty much," you smiled at her, "even clowns needs their time to be sad sometimes," you added.

"There are some sad clowns." The blonde pointed out.

You just groaned and came closer to her. "I don´t mean it like that..." you looked at her waiting for her name.

"Sunny, Sunny the clown." She siad, what seemed like an automatic answer.

"I meant your real one."

"Carol." She mumbled out. "I´m basically breaking the clown law right now."

"What law exactly? That you can´t tell me your real name?" You tilted your head.

"Basically yeah, plus I let you come to the backstage and I gave you free stuff." Carol chuckled.

"So you´re basically a criminal, because of me. How noble of you." The drink made you very flirty and you didn´t mind it at all. And neither did Carol.

"But the real question now, can I help you? Somehow, anyhow. Let´s say as the payback for the icecream." You smiled at her, genuinely want to help her, even if it´s just a talk.

The circus show is still in full swing, the resounding cheers of the crowd and the lively music reaching your ears, as you´re standing basically next to it.

"The icecream was on me, like I´ve said before."

"And like I´ve said-" you finished your whole drink now, "is there anything I can do to make Carol be happy Carol without having to fake it?" Your whole sentence was rambled out, due to you trying to absorb the sweetness of the drink.

"I have few things in my mind." Carol smirked and stepped closer to you, then laughing it off right away.

"I mean... if it would help." Now it was your turn to move closer to her, very close.

"Oh?" Carol was shocked by your answer, since you didn´t looked like someone that outgoing, but one drink can do a lot.

"Oh." You smirked and met her gaze.

"That would certainly help." The two of you were so close that you berely whispered.

"I think so too." Since when are you this flirty? That drink must have been strong strong.

Before either of you could say anything else your lips crushed into hers. The time seemed to slow down, and your lips met in a tender, sweet kiss that felt like a gentle caress of two ladies who broke the "clown law" once again. But it was a moment filled with affection and genuine connection, that the both of you felt. Thanks to your drink, you had the courage to do such a thing.

As much as you were trying to fight over being the dominant one, Carol made sure to show your place right away. She pushed you against one of the boxes and immediately pinned your hands above your head. "Keep them there."

You simply just nodded.

Her hands didn´t waste a second and Carol grabbed your tits and gave them a tight squeeze. "You were so right, this is the best way to calm neerves." She kissed you again, this time bitting your lip. Overall you could feel the energy shifting into this harsher more needier way.

A sound of a cheering crowd made you tense up, you were still backstage, behind a black curtain, that might have been big cover up for you two, but anyone could walk in on Carol kissing you. This thought send shivers right into your pulsating pussy.

You wanted more of her, so you ran your fingers through her hair and even it felt amazing Carol stopped you. "What did I say?" She looked into your eyes. Being in this fuzzy state, you didn´t understand, what she was talking about, util you she took one of the ropes and started to tie you up to the hook, that was the whole time above your head. "Wait- Carol!" You realized what she was doing.

"Shhh, if you can´t keep your hand up, let me help." She kissed your neck as she finishes tying you up to the hook. "If someone walks in, we´re just preparing a new trick, got it?"

"Y-yes." You felt so good, but so needy at the same time.

"Besides... the way your moving your hips, trying to grind on nothing at all, tells me, that you wouldn´t mind anyone coming," she whispered into your ear. "Am I right?"

"N-no." You basically moaned out.

Carol chuckled quiete out loud, "You know, I don´t even know your name, but I know one thing..."

You roll your eyes, exactly knowing, where is thig going and because you want to be a brat your smile turned into a smirk and your head was slightly tilted. "Oh yeah? And what´s that?"

"You´re a shitty liar." The blonde whispered and bite your neck.

"Fuck-" You moaned loudly.

"Shhh, I know that you´re attention seeking little girl, but I want to have you for myself, at least for now. So shush your pretty mouth." Her words were harsh, but you didn´t mind at all, you just needed her.

"Hmmpf..." You bit your lower lip, hoping it would shut you up.

Carol hands slipped past your pants, into your panties. "Is this all for me? Oh my!" She smiled. "Wow, pretty girl. This is definitely making me feel better. You´re this wet from few kisses? You will explode, after your orgasm." She smirked agaist you, knowing how much she affected you.

Her strong hands made your legs open some more, so she has a better acces to you. Her middle finger tracing up and down your clit, she was teasing you and you truly felt like exploding right now on the spot.

"Carol-" you moved your hips closer to her, trying to grind on her finger, but it didn´t help at all.

"Yes?" She looked at you.

"Please, more-" You tried to move closer to her.

"You still didn´t told me your name." She had this cocky grin on her face.

"(Y/N)! It´s (Y/N)!" Her hand was put over your mouth.

"Pleasure to meet you, (Y/N). But if you want to cum today, you better shut it. Or you can´t and want me to put your mouth for better use?" Her finger was still on your clit and when she felt your pussy pulsate at her words, she didn´t need a verbal answer.

Her right hand was in your pants, still teasing you as much as she could, but her left hand slowly made it´s way up to your mouth. You instantly opened and sucked on the two fingers she put inside.

Carol smiled at you, finally pushing the middle finger inside, her thumb making circles on your clit. You were so resposive to her touch, bucking your lips right away, sucking her fingers harder. This was really helping Carol to ease her nerves.

She sped up her movements with both of her hands, two of your holes were so full, you just wished your third one would be too.

You closed your eyes, feeling so close, with how her fingers curled up inside of you. And on top of that she added her second finger and after few push in´s and out´s she added even her third.

You were a mess.

Letting someone, who you basically don´t know, fuck you in the backstage of a circus, while the show is in it´s finalle, letting to see you being a easy slut, who cums from almost nothing at all.

But before you could leap over the edge, you heard the announcement, "Let me intoduce you our lovely, sweet and most importantly funny clown! Sunny the clown! Everybody make as much as noice as you want!"

"Oh fuck!" Carol looked at you as you quickly opened your eyes, "I need to go, pretty girl." She kissed your lips quickly.

"No, no, no, no- I need you, please, please, please!" You whined.

"You just have to wait, I have to go, I´ll be right back." She kissed you once more and pull out her fingers, which your body responded with a flinch right away.

"Carol!" you whisper yelled at her.

"Oh right-" she took some blanket and throw it over you, so if anyone comes, they won´t notice you. "I´ll be right back!"

You have to be kidding me.

This moment made you sober up real quick, as she left you there naked, tied up, but mostly needy. And on a top of that, she threw a fucking blanket over you.

As you heard the crowd go crazy over Carol stunts and laughed at her jokes, you just wished she would be done soon, but after you heard people chant her name all over again and then again, you knew that you will be stuck in here for a long time.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to drink! 💕🫶🏻

#adele writes #carol danvers x reader #carol danvers #carol danvers smut #kinktober 2023 #clown!carol #marvel universe #carol danvers x fem!reader #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel smut

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hetalia-club · 29 days

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Hetalia Characters & How I Think They Would Fare In a Teen Slasher Movie (Ain't gonna lie most of these bitches die & you know it)

(Based on a lil fic I started last Halloween and gave up on. I cleaned it up and made it sound more like a movie plot rather than just a messy fic outline.)

Movie Plot: (Just so you're like not confused on what is supposed to be happening here) After the untimely death of their beloved high school friend, a group of young adults meet up for their annual camping trip to honor the death of their old friend (Italy). They all have grown apart over the years getting their own lives and separate friends. They have proclaimed this to be the last camping trip they will do before going their separate ways for good. Most of the group is happy for the tradition to end, some saddened feeling like they are just forgetting their friend by ending his tradition. Their finale camping trip is cut short when the group is plagued by an hooded figure seemingly hunting the group for sport, or is revenge? wooooo~~ scaaary.

Nyo!America- Is the final girl aka the 'main girl' (This is how I will refer to her to save time) the movie is centered around. we are rooting for her the entire time. Think Sally in Texas Chainsaw, or Sidney Prescott in Scream. (Lives) America- America would be the mean jock/popular/rich guy, probably had a girlfriend he wasn't very nice too. Does not really want to be there. His sister is the main girl. (Gets killed but does get a few good swings in on the killer/monster though. You don't really care that he dies he was a dick anyway.) England- The nerdy book worm kid that you're like "surely the killer will take pity on him" but they don't. Probably one if the first few to die before everyone is really aware there is a killer about. They find his body later while running away (Gets killed and you are meant to feel bad a bout it. His death is uncalled for and not deserved. Used to set a tone for how cold hearted the killer/monster really is.) Canada- Ends up getting away. He's sent to get help with the only working care after the killer sabotages the rest of them. He drives to the nearest gas station 10 miles away and no one believes him. Instead of going back he leaves everyone there stranded. It's a real dick move. But he does end up coming back at the end to pick up the survivors. Like thanks I guess? (Lives, but a what cost honestly. Can you blame him though?) Russia- Is helping the killer/monster in some way. His betrayal is a big reveal at the end. It shows little flash backs showing him thwarting the heroes at every turn. He has a change of heart last second. (Gets killed by the killer close to the end after siding with the heroes.) China- He is pushed off a cliff by Russia (secretly) when they all split up to find help and everyone thinks he's dead but he comes back later limping out of the woods all cut up to rejoin with his friends after the killer is dead. Everyone who lived is really happy to see him. (Lives) Italy- Gets killed pretty brutally by the killer several years before the story stars. He was known to be someone that everyone generally liked. His gruesome death took their small town by storm. What's worse is his killer was never caught and remains at large getting away with it so it seems. The whole movie is centered around his friends getting together for an annual camping trip several years after his death. (Killed) Romano- Surprisingly, he survives! He is the one who is with the main girl the entire time. He probably get's hurt really bad at some point. Loses a finger, breaks his arm or leg, and or gets stabbed. You are lead to believe that he will die at one point and he confesses his feelings for the main girl. The main girl leaves him some place for awhile saying she will "go get help". She comes back with Japan. (Lives) ~Everyone else is down below~

Germany- The voice of reason. The one who ends up making a great sacrifice to take out the killer/ monster. Stand back to hold the door for everyone so they can run. It was his car Canada stole. He feels responsible for the group since it was his idea to go camping one more time in the first place. (Killed/sacrifices himself) Japan- Because he was driving in from out of state he was supposed to meet the group at the campsite. On his way he’s run off the road by the killer/monster. He never shows up and no one can get ahold of him (no cell service of course). We are lead to think he is dead him being the killers first victim but he’s found later knocked out in his car by the main girl. He’s hurt but only has a few cuts and bruises (lives) Prussia- At night he goes off by himself to wait for Japan's car to pull in to the camp site. So he could lead him to where they made camp. They are still hoping he'll show but he is instead found by the killer (Killed)

Austria- Thinks everyone is playing a joke on him. He does not think it's funny that everyone 'keeps disappearing' and thinks it's bad taste considering the reason they are all on this trip. Everyone begs him not to break off from the group but he goes off by himself anyway. (Killed) Spain- Is actually the killer hiding behind a charming personality & his devilishly good looks. Why was he so mad at his former friend group that he felt the need to pick them off one by one? Don't know never got that far tbh. Was going to work that out as I go. Probably a pretty shit reason though imo. Most likely jealousy over something.(Dies...OR DOES HE? Yeah he does.)

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neochan · 1 year

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≡ 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐌 (𝐇.𝐑𝐉, 𝐋.𝐌𝐇, 𝐙.𝐂𝐋, 𝐋.𝐃𝐇)

「 MEMBERS 」 ⋮ fae!mark lee, fae!huang renjun, fae!lee haechan, fae!zhong chenle ft. mentions of fae!jaemin, fae!jeno & fae!jisung

≣ content warning ⋮ some arguing but other than that, nothing.

≣ a.note ⋮ i'm thinking about turning this into a fic/series so like. . . please tell me if this interests you. i have characters in my head. plot. and everything. of course it would include smut but this is such a refreshing, fun, light concept. also i wrote this so fast so please disregard any mistakes.

≣ word count ⋮ 0.7k

"it's strictly forbidden."

chenle's glacial tone reaches through the depths of surrounding fae. it wasn't a statement; it was a command. one that no one would dare to break. except for -

"forbidden by a rule made thirty millennia ago." mark speaks up, shifting in the silver-backed throne, "by ancestors who are no longer in power, may i remind you."

chenle grits his teeth but bites his tongue. he couldn't disagree with mark, at least not out loud.

another boy yawns - his figure draped across his pure gold throne as if it were a couch. "i'm with lele. humans aren't supposed to step foot in high fae court."

renjun, another fae sitting off to the left, speaks up. "hyuck, sit. up. straight."

the younger boy grumbles, but obliges and rights himself. his boots hit the checkered tile with a loud thump that rings out through the open ceiling.

marks wings transition from translucent to a dark shade of purple when he stands up and starts pacing.

maybe they were right. it was forbidden. but wasn't the whole point of his role as the oldest high fae to change rules. better them? times have turned for fucks sake. didn't chenle understand that?

renjun pipes up again, "i think mark makes some good points. the rule is very old."

"oh shush up jun. you'll follow anything he says." a stony glare erupts on chenles face.

"sorry for wanting to progress our lands. i know you're still stuck in the past."

chenle all but leaps from his throne, "don't you dare speak of my past as if you know- "

"ENOUGH!"

marks command ceases all speech and the two bickering boys settle back in their thrones. chenle wants nothing more than to drag renjun through the dirt, but this was not the time, and one look from haechan solidifies that.

"this court was not made for arguing. do that later. right now we need to solve this issue." the purple wings flutter as a shiver runs through marks body, "we're running out of time."

"how are we supposed to decide anything with half a court?" haechan mumbles to no one in particular.

"jeno, jaemin, and jisung are caught up with individual matters." mark sighs, "since this is time sensitive, we have no choice but to decide ourselves."

"well i vote against it. having a human - having her, come stay with us... we're separated for a reason." chenle stands up and grabs the long sheathed knife at the foot of his royal seat. "that's my vote. now if you don't mind, may i be excused." he clenches his jaw. he hated having to ask permission to leave the court - it was humiliating.

mark throws a hand in the air and dismisses him, "very well."

spinning on his heel, chenle exits the room swiftly. if he stayed one minute longer, blood would have been spilled.

"renjun?" mark asks without looking in his directions.

the blonde headed boy shrugs, "i have no problem with her coming here. in fact, i would love to be a host to someone other than fae. it'd be refreshing." his voice carries through the rafters, lily blossoms blooming in it's wake - the spring courts gift.

haechan doesn't wait to be asked. "i'll agree on one condition."

marks rolls his eyes, "what?"

"she can't step foot in my court. let her be with you all she pleases," haechan shoots a glance at renjun who was picking at his nails, "and renjuns too. but i want nothing to do with her."

"deal." the confirmation flies from marks mouth faster than it should have. "then it's set. she's coming here to stay for. . . i don't know how long."

renjuns curiosity would never be tamed. "when will she arrive?"

mark looks almost nervous when he answers - brows pulled together and knitted in worry. his lips pucker and he fidgets with the end of his tight-fitted tunic.

". . . tomorrow morning."

the only reply is haechans amused snort.

#nct x reader #nct dream x reader #fae!nct dream #fae!nct #haechan x reader #renjun x reader #chenle x reader #mark lee x reader #nct dream imagine #nct dream fic #nct drabble #nct dream drabble

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vivelarevolution13 · 1 month

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moving like a river of trouble crossing

Rating: M | Word count: 10,260 | Tags: Set in the lead up to and right at the end of CATWS, Character Study, PTSD, Grief/Mourning, Dissociation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug (And A Friend), Wait No Not That One, Going Down Memory Lane, SHIELD Has Shitty Therapists, Horrible People Still Acting Like People, Captain America Politics, Natasha's Love Language Is Surveillance, Folks Trained For Violence Engaging In You Guessed It: Violence | Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff, implied Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Brock Rumlow (non-explicit, but still reasonably fucked up by virtue of Rumlow being Rumlow)

(belated) fic for @catws-anniversary, day 2. Thank you so much for putting it together, guys! | march 27th theme: steve rogers | prompts: guilt, "it kind of feels personal" | part of a WIP to be published on AO3

and because I apparently can't help myself with the music-fic thing, playlist for this here

Good morning Captain Rogers. It is 05:15 AM, EST. Up 'n' at 'em. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 04:41 AM, EST. Would you like me to set the blinds to a lower density? Don't you nuh-uh at me, sunshine - get your lazy ass out of bed. You're gonna be late. Good morning, Captain Rogers. I understand you are under some duress right now, but please do not be alarmed. It is 2:32 am, EST. The year is 2012. You are in New York City. You are safe. Please try to take a breath. Would you like me to call anyone?

Good morning, Steve. Good morning. You're gonna be late. You awake? You awake yet?

Sure. Sure, he's awake.

That afternoon he packs his bag, the single duffle that fits all of his earthly possessions. He tries to ignore the vaguely smug tone of Fury's voice when he tells him they already have an apartment set up for him in DC: ten minutes from HQ, real convenient, and has he ever been to see Lincoln Memorial? He'll love it, it's a nice spot for a walk, especially in the summers, or so Fury's been told.

Steve's been to DC, but he's never beeen to the memorial, never seen much of the city outside the confines of the hotel the USO booked for them. He thinks he can count the grand total of places he's gotten to see up close on his right hand, and half of them were in the European Theatre. The other half he's running from now.

He's sure it'll be grand, he tells Fury. Beats the smell of moldy brick in the heat and a patchwork city manifesting ghosts out the corner of his eye, he doesn't say. ii.

They get him a therapist as a part of his onboarding at SHIELD. It’s due diligence, they say, in the aftermath of New York – someone to help him transition into his new role. But it’s been almost nine months now, and Steve’s learning their language, the words that get caught up in between all the red tape: saying assistance when they mean overwatch.

“This is supposed to be a safe space, not an interrogation,” the woman says at the start of her first evaluation, meeting all of his unease with a reassuring smile, and something about the misplaced quality of it puts him on a knife’s edge.

He only pieces it together the second time he’s called in to meet with her, when he's a bit more clear-headed and a whole lot more impatient than during their initial encounter. It only takes a few perfunctory exchanges before he starts registering the image as a whole: the painstakingly nonthreatening, gentle demeanor, the conservative clothes she’s wearing; the pale complexion and the sharp features and the unmistakable lilt to her voice, soft and rolling and decidedly more old country than east coast.

It would feel almost perverse, he thinks from a distance, if it wasn’t already painfully transparent and tactically inept to boot: this attempt at the same trick that didn’t work in their favor the first time around. He supposes he can’t blame them for trying to fill in the gaps between what they could scrounge up from paper and old photographs with something predictable and comforting, something expected of his background and what is now probably regarded as an antiquated time period.

He also knows that going off of little information when dealing with a potential threat is dangerous. What’s even more so, he thinks as he nods politely along to the lady's explanation of their work together, is believing you know more than you do, and that’s the easiest mistake to exploit.

Here's a fact probably still recorded somewhere on a faded death certificate: Sarah Rogers never lived long enough to get gray in her hair like that.

Here’s another, probably only still recorded in his memory and nowhere else: his mother had been fiercely caring, yes, and compassionate to a fault, but her kindness had never translated to docility, and it sure as hell had never translated to softspoken dishonesty.

So when the shrink bearing a near-painful resemblance to her starts asking incisive questions enshrouded in unoffensive words and indulgent tones, Steve packs his entire reality into a series of half-truths without batting an eye and doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt.

Yes, he’s eating. Yes, he’s sleeping well. No, he’s not on edge – sure, it gets hard, sometimes, but exercise helps, meditation, music. Going out into the world, meeting new people. Trying new things. Yes, he’s ready to be back in the field. No, not so much so that he’s itching for it. Yes ma’am, he’s doing fine, just fine, thank you for asking. iii.

“I heard Hannah’s single,” Romanoff's saying, and it’s not the first time his brain is latching onto the fact that she’s keeping pace with him without losing too much breath, without any discomfort in the cool air that's just starting to roll in as fall bleeds into the city, painting it in darkening evenings and dimming colors. “You know, from forensics? Glasses, leggy, science-y type. Blonde – you like blondes, right?”

“I’m starting to think you only have one thing on your mind,” Steve pants, pushes harder ahead until his calves start burning, just to see if she'll allow herself to follow. Keep moving, keep moving. You awake yet? “Gotta admit, it’s making it kinda hard to enjoy all this quality time we spend together.”

“What, you’re going to stop inviting me on runs? Aw, Rogers. Break a girl’s heart, why don’t you.”

“It’s not really an invitation if you just show up without me letting you know where I’m going, you know.”

She shrugs. “I needed to burn some energy, and you’re not exactly the most unpredictable person in this city.” Her ponytail whips over his shoulder as she follows his sharp right turn around the War Memorial and passes him towards Constitution Gardens, too close and competitive. “Brunette, then? There’s a girl in operations, real tough, good with a gun – at least your propensity for that type has been well documented, but I guess you didn't really have enough time to enjoy it, y'know, all the way –”

Steve knows she’s talking about Peggy, he does. It doesn’t help the hard-wired alarm bells going off in the back of his head any. He digs his heels in, skids to a stuttering halt over the wet pavement, and somewhere in the back of his consciousness he’s quietly pleased that it catches Romanoff off guard a little.

“What, too far?” she jokes, but her eyes are quick over his face; cataloguing the boundaries, the places she can still push.

He's sure it's well-meaning, as much as a blatant handler can get. But some habits are just harder to shake than others. That, he's intimately familiar with.

“If I say yes, will you stop? Or at least stop tailing me?”

“I don’t tail you. That’s below my paygrade,” she says, mouth quirking up at the corner like that’s all the punchline she needs as she types something into her smartphone. “I’ll text you her number. She likes spicy food and old movies.”

“Sure, fine. Great.”

“It is. You'll see.” The phone disappears back into one of the many hidden pockets of her skin-tight leggings. The marvels of modern technology, Steve thinks. Natasha quirks a challenging brow. “Now can we start the actual run finally or have you reached your limit, grandpa?”

He's all but ready to chicken out of the date all week, fighting the urge to cancel at the last minute, but he figures the girl doesn't deserve his bad manners just because he feels like spiting Romanoff when she tries to play his puppetmaster.

In the end it goes...surprisingly well. As Romanoff described, Lina’s beautiful and sharp and a little closed off, tough as nails and maybe even more rigid in her approach than him, but once they get over the initial hurdle of awkwardness and expectations the conversation flows with relative ease. They swap the basics, they talk interests and habits and what moving to DC's like, fun little stories from growing up; he tells her about the butcher on his block when he was a kid that kept a rooster in the backyard, and she tells him about the kid on her floor at community college that set the dorm on fire trying to boil an egg. They talk SHIELD and her work training the new recruits and there’s a spark in her eye as she dives into giving him a breakdown of what he should look into, BJJ and MMA and gyms around town that would be discreet enough to take him in.

“SHIELD’s got plenty of hand-to-hand experts,” she says in a pensive tone over the dessert, “but it can get a little…”

Steve chuckles around his spoonful of the sticky rice, the sweetness of the mango across the back of his palate soothing the previous burn of the spice. Turns out he likes Thai food, too. Who would’ve thought. “Intense?”

“Testosterone-riddled, I was gonna say,” Lina grins, conspiratory. “And paranoid. Not the best scene if you just want to learn,” and he nods along because it’s true, and because it’s a relief to have someone else say it for him.

So it’s nice, and sweet, and ultimately entirely impersonal. He walks her to her door and she gives him a kiss on the cheek, and when she explains how she’s not really looking for anything right now her dark eyes are warm and honest but not overly apologetic. It’s a gesture he’s grateful for.

“Besides, not to be blunt, but you don’t seem all that…” She trails off, waving her hand.

He winces. “Interested? I am, really, but...” And that’s just it, isn’t it. He’s interested; she’s wonderful, just his type, seems to like him well enough. But.

“Look, I get it. We’ve all been there. Can’t really avoid it in this business.” She shrugs as if to say what can you do, smiles up at him knowingly. “Wrong place, wrong time, right?”

And Steve thinks, yeah. Yeah, something like that. iv.

“–piece of shit, every time, wet sand all up in the fuckin’ thing. Goddamn Kandahar all over again,” Rumlow’s muttering, agitated and half to himself, and Steve doesn’t ask about the last part, just dumps his own gear on the rack and drops down onto the bench. They might be friendly, but they’re not friends – Rumlow doesn’t owe him his history. “I get sent to the fuckin’ desert in this weather one more time, I’m gonna start missing New York winters.”

The jet’s engines hum at his back, adrenaline leaving his body in slow pulls as he watches Rumlow work, notes the intermittent scarring over his hands as they strip the jammed gun down like it’s muscle memory, quick and capable. There's not a spot on him that seems unmarred, really - the scars are a continous, scattered motif up to his face, moving faint in the dim light of the jet.

Loved being in the ring, he'd said once with a wry grin, as far back as I can remember. Might've gotten the shit kicked out of me more than was strictly necessary, though. Accounts for me ending up here, in any case.

He’s drawn this exact scene, it occurs to Steve before he can push it away; down to the boxer's shoulders, down to the complaining, and more than once.

“You from the city?” he offers, an easy distraction that Rumlow seems grateful for.

“Yeah. Yeah, born and raised right off of Arthur Ave.”

“No shit?”

“Yep. Good old Belmont.” He looks up, gaze turning sharp at whatever he catches on Steve’s face before he can look away. “Wouldn’t think you’d know where that is. You ever even been past Central Park?”

Steve gets a flash of washed-out color and brilliant light, of Art and Charlie and the rest of them from the Y dragging him up to Harlem; thinks of the queens with their elaborate glamour and loud, unapologetic laughter and that last wet spring before the cops started shutting everything down, of stumbling tipsy towards the A down 155th Street with empty pockets and Jeanie giggling into his shoulder about some honey-eyed daddy that gave her a sweet kiss goodnight. A well-insulated secret, a fleeting memory of feeling like he could swallow the world whole.

It’s not what Rumlow’s talking about, he knows. He nods anyway.

“Loved that neighborhood. My folks moved us out to Staten when I was in high school, though,” and Steve must make an involuntary face at that because Rumlow chuckles and says, “Alright, tough guy. Not all of us had the privilege of living within two blocks of Prospect Park.”

“Neither did I, but it sure beat Staten," Steve snorts. "And it wasn’t even as much of a privilege, back then.”

“Yeah, I think you’ll notice a lot of things’ve changed.” He tilts his head, scratches contemplative at his stubbled chin. Steve wonders if he’s projecting the bitterness in Rumlow’s voice. “A lotta things’ve gone to shit in that place. Food’s still way better than fuckin’ DC, though. Not nearly enough Italians over here.”

“Yeah. All that white marble and not a single decent, roach-infested deli. Real shithole. Should put that on the tourist brochures,” Steve says after a moment, testing the waters. It gets another laugh out of Rumlow, low and maybe a little surprised, and the sound settles like molten lead in Steve’s stomach, grounding. v.

One morning in November he gets a phone call from a Washington Post journalist asking for his statement on the newly planned Captain America exhibit, and then in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it feat of persuasion it’s three days later and he’s somehow been roped into a grand opening ceremony, a speech and a press conference at the Smithsonian.

It lasts for-fucking-ever.

By the time he's back in his neighborhood his ears are ringing with leftover noise and applause, his cheeks sore from a constant smile that'd felt more like a slashed tire than a friendly gesture even as he was forcing it. He'd reverted back to the Best Foot Forward, Always mentality of the bonds circuit quick enough - but at least back then it felt like it had a marginal purpose, no matter how flimsy or false. Back then it didn't drain him this much, he doesn't think, no matter how frustrating. Best Foot Forward these days feels more like sleepwalking his way off a cliff than anything else.

The second he's through the door he shrugs out of the tie and starched shirt chafing at his neck, tries not to think about how he still would've preferred all the commotion and the pretense to the unfamiliar silence of the otherwise big apartment building. Tries to give the feeling resurfacing in him now that he's got attention enough for it a name other than unbearable.

Here's the thing: pain, Steve knows on an intimate level, is something you get used to. It's not to say you forget it exists completely: you just subsume it, you learn to expect it. It’s less about it becoming a habit and more that it becomes a part of you when you’re not looking: fills up all the empty crevices it can find and creates a mold, and that’s the shape you start to take if you live with it long enough. The problem with that is that the longer it goes on, the less space in you there is for other things.

He was five the first time he got really sick. It'd started simple enough – the winter of ’23 came early and sudden, and New Year’s Eve found him in bed with a fever that earned the dreaded prefix scarlet soon enough when the spread of dotted red started taking up more and more space on his body. He'd spent two weeks feeling like someone's dangling him off the edge of the unknown, and much longer than that after with his mother's watchful eyes following him from the window whenever he left the house, like she couldn't force herself to look away.

But he made it. Despite all indications, little Stevie Rogers didn't die, and it was a miracle with a capital M. All he had to do is make peace with having a somewhat faulty heart as a keepsake of his survival and maybe never playing for the Dodgers, which is not to say it stopped him from trying.

But then next year it was the whooping cough so bad it cracked a rib, then his left ear giving out on him after a prolonged sinus infection, then the asthma he barely even noticed amidst everything else until it layed him out flat midway through a game of stickball bad enough it landed him in the hospital. The minor league dreams dissolved fairly quickly after that.

In ’25 he missed more school than he attended. The kids from down the block came round to call on him less and less, and it wasn't too long before they forgot completely and it was just him and a handful of toy soldiers left, with names like Joe and Jack and occasionally if he allowed himself, Steve. Their neighbors started smiling at him more. The grocer started handing him a fistful of candy under the counter every time they came in, looking at his mother in a way that said sorry for your loss and that Steve hated with a passion, least of all because he couldn't even enjoy the pity because hello, here comes diabetes. Then it was the pernicious goddamn anemia and months and months of the liver-fucking-everything diet followed closely by its sworn enemy the ulcers, and then the growing pains, and then the bad back, and then the bum joints –

Here’s the thing about pain: the longer you carry it, the more you forget you’re doing it in the first place. You ignore it because it’s the only way to survive it, because what the hell else are you supposed to do? And that’s when you start thinking you have it under control. You start to think you’ll be ready when it comes for you again.

Here’s the other thing about pain: you’re never ready. It comes as a surprise each time. He wasn’t ready in ‘30 when the neighborhood suddenly started reeking of despair and death and he wasn’t ready in ’36 when his ma went and he wasn’t ready in ’44 when he got shot in the neck and thought oh, so it can still hurt like this. I can still bleed.

Then '45 rolled around and a new thought followed, a miserable dot at the end of a sentence: maybe bleeding out would've hurt less. At least it would've made us even.

None of that experience and understanding stops him feeling it now, again, still, like an interrupted line from that first fever chill to here, standing in the middle of his living room with a glossy brochure full of dead faces in his hand and an exhaustion so deep it roots him to the spot.

And then there’s the anger, of course: equally familiar but much more muted, less expressive than it used to be, dancing around the edges of everything else. He looks back down at the crumpled pamphlet, to where the folded-unfolded-refolded creases cut through the title:

Captain America’s team: the top tier of the World War II effort and a leading example of integration!

As if they were somehow Captain America's or even the US army’s to begin with; as if it was encouraged and Steve didn’t have to stand around in moldy tents arguing his brand-new, star-spangled ass off with Major Whatshisname and Colonel Whoever-the-fuck for days on end just to keep them eating in the same mess hall and sleeping in the same barracks. Nothing about any of the ugly parts, about the blood and the bureaucracy and the bullshit. Nothing about any of them, either - no mention of Dernier's politics or Gabe's professorship or Morita's writing. Not a single inch of space left for their families or their own stories except as a footnote in Steve's own, a way to make it picture perfect.

Nothing about Bucky other than the barebone facts: he was Steve's friend, he was a good soldier, he died. The meat and blood and soul of the person, left out; the fact of whose fault it ultimately was, conveniently gone.

And that name – the Howling fucking Commandos. The bunch of them would’ve busted a rib laughing at it, laid out all grandiose like that. For one, it’s still as ridiculous as it was back then – sounds more action novel than historical account and distinctly less bureaucratic and arbitrary than the Specialized 107th, which is what they were strictly called in the paperwork. Personally, Steve always thought that out of the variety of nicknames they’ve been awarded, the Invaders was by far the most fitting. Truer to wartime, to what it was they really did, and far more threatening if it ever reached the other side of the line. Then again, from what he’s gathered so far, it seems like America’s done far more than its fair share of invading since. It definitely accounts for the 180 degree change in branding.

Turns out it’s still all about selling comic books and war bonds. And Steve, too caught up in his own sorry wallowing, is just going along with it.

Jesus, he thinks, the tone of it coated in a wry, familiar voice nestled in the back of his brain but much harsher than it ever was in reality, drop the philosophy for one goddamn minute. Anybody ever tell you idle hands are the Devil's playthings? Get moving, Rogers. Trade the speeches in for something useful.

So he does: chucks the paper into the empty white fruit bowl collecting dust on the countertop, turns the TV on to a random channel to break the silence. He doesn’t recognize the title of the movie playing but it’s soothing, the background awash with static and the accents just familiar enough to make for pleasant white noise. He heats up his leftovers, sprawls out on the couch and gets to reading the reports Fury had unloaded on him, tuning in every so often to the witty back-and-forth dialogue. It’s maybe half an hour of squinting at indecipherable bureaucratic jargon before he finally gives up, lifts his head to rub the sleep from his eyes.

One of the men on screen – Nick, Steve thinks, or maybe that one’s Mikey, he hasn’t been following along all that well, to the work or the film – is trying to dissuade the other from visiting his mother’s grave in the dead of night.

It’s 1 in the morning.

That makes it nicer.

It doesn’t make it anything, Nick. A grave is a grave. There’s not a religion in the world that says a person’s soul is buried with them in their grave, the man argues, and it’s like whiplash pulling him out of the serene lull, the memory of a name over a plot in Greenwood he’d never gone to visit, and he thinks, a little disoriented – of course there’d be no soul in that patch of land. The grave itself is empty.

They’d given him reports in the beginning, too: a neat stack of papers, most of them stamped DECEASED in glaring red letters, and the single mocking MISSING IN ACTION. At the very end there’d been a laughably short list of contacts; among them a phone number and address for one Rebecca Barnes-Proctor.

God help us all, he can imagine the voice of George Barnes saying even now, jokingly abject, our Becca’s married a Proddie.

But there had been briefings, then, and the shitshow over Manhattan, and in between all of that the days where he couldn’t even find the will to leave his apartment block, let alone go to Brooklyn. Over and over, he’d given himself the same excuses as with Peggy – it would be too much, too soon, too selfish to usurp her life like that.

Of course, the truth of it all was much simpler. All too cowardly, too, in a way that has the guilt blooming with a vengence somewhere in the pit of his stomach: he didn’t have the guts to look Bucky’s baby sister in the eye, no matter her age, and say, I’m sorry you didn’t get a body to bury. I’m sorry the one time he needed it I didn’t do the job he spent his whole life doing for me. I’m sorry I left him behind when it should have been me down there in the first place.

He watches the two men stumble around in the muddy dark of the graveyard and yell and bicker in a way that strikes Steve as bitterly melancholy, the familiarity of it unmooring.

Mike, y’know what? Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do, Nick finally admits at the foot of the tombstone, wild-eyed and devolving into a rambling laugh, and ain’t that a kicker. Welcome to the club.

It’s very hard to talk to a dead person, we have nothing in common. Hi, ma.

Nick, you’re making me forget the kaddish, Mike chides with mounting frustration as Nick keeps giggling and it’s not funny, it’s really not, the whole premise of it deeply morbid, but Steve finds himself laughing right along with Nick’s hysterical hiccups, his childlike plea of I don’t wanna die, ma.

You don’t get a choice in the matter, his own mother had told him when he was maybe 8 or 9, faced with the concept of death the first time when Mrs. Kowalski from 4C got sick, if that’s the way the chips fall, then that’s God’s will. But what matters is the middle, what you choose to do with it. Do you understand?

He didn’t, really, not back then, and ten years later when they’d lowered her into the ground all he could think was: what is the point of it, anyway, of all those right choices, if all that happens is you end up dying alone?

Steve hadn’t been, of course. For all of the isolation he’d felt during those last few months of his mother’s illness, he’d never been really alone. There’d been the Barnes’ and the old ladies from church and even some of the folks Sarah had helped treat at the hospital coming by and Bucky, Jesus Christ; Bucky crying at the funeral and saying kaddish for months like Sarah was his own and letting Steve rage and lash out until all the fight had drained out of him, his arms like a vice around Steve’s shaky frame.

And there’s the actual goddamned truth, he thinks, bone-weary. The only truth that matters, the one that’ll never get written on any museum walls: Steve was only ever as strong as the people propping him up.

I think that’s the reason we’re such good friends, Nick is saying to Mike when he tunes back in, and Steve’s not laughing anymore, hasn’t been ever since his throat had gone tight a long few minutes ago, because we remember each other from when we were kids. Things that happened when we were kids that no one else knows about but us. It’s in our heads. That’s how we know they really happened.

What are you talking about? I know what really happened when I was a kid.

Yeah, but no one else does, Nick says, painfully earnest. I mean, everyone we knew as kids is dead.

He shuts the TV off with a soft click, waits a long while before the heartbeat pounding in his ears has settled. Thinks about what it really means, then, to embody the final resting place of all your ghosts.

Maudlin, Bucky’s voice echoes in his head again, fills out the crevices of the silent apartment like a slow bleed. Always gotta be so maudlin, Rogers, like you’re Scarlett O-fucking-Hara. Just get up. Get up, Steve, c'mon.

“Yeah,” Steve sniffs, wipes a rough hand over his eyes; laughs again because it’s a damn joke, all of it, and he can afford to lose the plot in the privacy of his own home. “Yeah, fuck you too, asshole. Go haunt somebody else.” vi.

"Heard you had an eventful weekend," Rumlow comments when they all pile into the locker room the following week, a little roughed up and beat and stinking of iron and sweat but otherwise in decent spirits. "Seemed like a good time, all those pretty girls throwing themselves at you to shake their babies and kiss their hands or whatever."

"Shows how much you know. The pretty ladies were all balding men over the age of 50," Steve says, only half-joking, shrugging into his civvies with a wince. There's a cut on his side where he fell a little too close to a protruding piece of rebar that's already reopened twice by the time they've gotten off the jet, but despite the sharp sting of it he's feeling better than he did just a mere twelve hours ago.

Idle hands turns out to be true enough. Wryly, he thinks he might owe sending an apology up to Sister Andrea, although he figures anyone that enjoyed using a ruler on little kids that much wouldn't have ended up in Heaven, anyway.

"But sure, it was alright. A little too much attention all at once, if I'm being honest."

"Oh yeah?" Rumlow huffs. "Big talk coming from someone who dresses like you do. I hope you didn't show up there wearing that."

Steve frowns down at the faded jeans, the fitted grey shirt – one of many pairs that came with the closet in his apartment. It rubbed him the wrong way, at first, but it's easier in the end; not having all that wide array of choice dumped over his head all the time. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Nothing. I just get worried they're gonna start cutting off blood flow at some point, y'know," Rumlow grins, his teeth very white in the bright fluorescent lights. "God forbid we go to a bar one of these days, I'd have to mind every creep from here to Dupont tryna get a peek down your shirt."

"Fuck off," Steve huffs, feeling heat flush down into his neck despite himself. Yeah, blood flow really isn't the problem. He gestures at Rumlow's own undershirt, all slick black and skin-tight, motion packed in. "Look who's talkin'."

"Yeah, but I don't dress like this out there. This is all for you guys," he yawns with a stretch, all exaggerated bravado. "I got one of those, y'know - work-life balances. Out there I clean up nice. You, I imagine you sleep in that shit."

Steve snorts. "You'll be happy to know I clean up just fine. Got the one suit and everything."

"Is that right? They get you decked out in some bespoke threads for the parade, Cap?" He chuckles at the face Steve makes when the word bespoke fully registers. "See if I believe that without any evidence."

Steve digs out his phone reluctantly. He does have pictures, is the thing, woke up the next morning feeling like a sack of potatoes tossed from a great height just to see his phone light up with an email from SHIELD's HR with an attachment sent over for approval - like he was a celebrity ending up in a tabloid, he thinks again with distate, like he should care much either way what he looked like. He thumbs through his email to the one labeled FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, and shoves it over at Rumlow before he drops onto the bench to sort out the rest of his pack.

"Looking good, you weren't kidding. And the mural's all heroic," Rumlow comments lightly as he scrolls through. "Wait, don't tell me - the little mustachioed, scruffy looking one is the frogeater, yeah?"

Steve laugh comes easier this time. "The little mustachioed, scruffy looking one would've kicked your ass six ways from Sunday if he'd heard you call him that. Yeah, that's Dernier. Gabe, next to him," he lists, trying not to think about how it comes across that he's memorized the order, "Dum Dum - he didn't like that nickname, either - Bucky, Monty, and Morita."

"Sure were big on callin' each other everything other than your names, huh?" The joke is followed by a stretch of quiet, and when Steve looks back up Rumlow's frowning at the phone a little, a flicker of uncertainty over his face that Steve doesn't get to figure out before it's gone. His face smoothes out into a mostly neutral expression, an undercurrent of something unnerved and white-hot, and Steve can't help himself.

"What?"

Rumlow passes him the phone back with a shrug. "Nothing, just - haven't seen those pictures since I was in high school," he says, a little distant like the memory's faded to oblivion since, and hell if Steve'll ever stop finding it strange that all of them ended up in dusty old school books, long obsolete. "Long time ago, now. Guess I just remembered all of you being much older, is all."

He leans back against the wall of lockers, pensive, watches Steve fumble with the zipper of his hoodie where it keeps sticking for a minute. "You must miss it, though. The good old days. Your people."

Steve clears his throat, yanks at the cheap piece of plastic again. The fit and cut, he might've gotten used to - but he'll never get over the waste; just how quickly everything falls right apart in the future. "Yeah, well. Like you said, it was a long time ago."

"It was, wasn't it. Longer for some than others, though," he says cryptically, and Steve really has nothing to say to that that won't land him right back where he was two days ago. He doesn't have to, in the end, because Rumlow throws a curt nod at his front, and it takes a second too long for him to interpret what his zeroed-in expression means, to register the dotting of blood through the thin fabric of his shirt. "You're bleeding all over the place again."

"It's fine. Don't feel it much," Steve says. Something's different. What's different? Wake up.

"Sure. Never do, do you," he says, gesturing to the hoodie with a thoughtful expression that's inching away from the easy banter. "That shit's gonna stain, though."

"I was gonna throw it out anyway."

It should be enough, and in any other situation it would be. Any other situation he'd shrug it off with more conviction, Rumlow'd call him a tough guy with just the right amount of mockery, and the tension would pass. Except that Rumlow had to lead them into uncharted territory and Steve hadn't been quick enough to notice before he was flailing, too exposed.

Except that instead of a quip what he gets is Rumlow's stepping into his space, the casual slouch of his shoulders replaced with something more deliberate when he reaches for where Steve's hand is still holding onto where the teeth of the zipper have gotten all gnarled. In a heartbeat Steve's back to square one: keenly aware of the proximity and every inch of his body in the cramped space; back to that first day in the elevator with Rumlow's dark eyes turned on him with a questioning look and a twist to his mouth that said it's a pleasure, Cap but meant I've been here long enough - you don't impress me any more than any other kid I've seen this place chew up and spit back out.

It'd been enough to get his spine straightening of its own accord back then, too; the sheer challenge of it, pushing at the boundaries of hierarchy. It makes him want to pull away now, want to put the usual distance between them, to get the hell out of this stuffy locker room. Makes him want to push forward until he meets something immovable and solid. Want. want, want - too much and for things that were unreachable. That's always been his problem, hasn't it?

The sound of the zipper is too loud in the mostly empty space when it gets yanked loose, pulled up and over the slow spread of the stain, and Steve realizes with a start that he didn't notice the chatter die down as the few stragglers left the room. Realizes that he hasn't moved a muscle in a good minute, like a butterfly with its wing pinned.

Rumlow's touch lingers, just the barest pressure under his Adam's apple, and Steve's breath catches. Rumlow makes a considering noise.

He snapped a guy's neck with those hands not two hours ago: a thoughtless, instinctive thing in the middle of the ambush that was waiting for them. It's not that Steve's forgotten it; Steve's aware of it to the point of failure. It's just that it got bound up with everything else, the easy reliance and the ribbing bordering on rough and the adrenaline under his skin like a necessity.

Wake up.

Rumlow's eyes on him are sharp, a little curious. Less surprised than they ought to be.

Wake up, get moving, get out of sight. We've been here before.

Steve swallows. "Thanks."

"Sure." Rumlow steps back to hoist his bag over his shoulder and the moment breaks as quick as it came on, the whole uninterruped line of him lax and easy again, surface friendly. "Now you won't scare the guys at the front desk."

And then he's off down the hallway, leaving Steve to lean on the cool metal of the wall and do everything but think about the sudden feeling of being off balance, a little too tight in his skin in a way that only half has to do with the too-quick beat of his blood, the lingering smell of Rumlow's cologne.

vii.

Funnily enough, the Christmas gala almost slips his mind – an extraordinary accomplishment, considering that he spends most of December thinking up viable excuses not to go, dodging Romanoff’s questions and sideways looks with the agility of a man running for his life.

“We can hang out with the civilians. Break the record of how many weapons contractors you can piss off in one night,” she says one brisk and sunny afternoon when she manages to drag him out to a coffee shop barely across from SHIELD, the steam from her tea swirling up in billows to fog her opaque sunglasses. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know any civilians,” he says, deliberately obtuse. It’s a joke; he can’t help that it’s also mostly true.

“What about Kate?”

It’s not a surprise anymore, really, that she knows everything about his life, that she has no problem making that clear to him when she wants to. He’s fine with it, he has to keep reminding himself. Maybe it’s a control thing, like when she acts like she’s not holding back when they spar, a holdover from some other life. Maybe this is the closest they get to trust, and it doesn’t matter. Much like the tails that he pretends not to clock, the check-ins and evaluations and this whole neatly preordained life someone else's drawn up for him – it comes with the package, and what difference does it make, anyway? It’s simpler like this. He can do his job, and if thinking that he’s a situation she has a handle on makes Romanoff feel better, then that’s fine, too.

“What about her?”

“You talk to her yet?”

“I talk to her all the time,” he points out. Natasha cocks her head, the rest of her expression as obscure as her shaded eyes.

“It’s for a charity. The gala.” She keeps switching lanes. Trying to get him to stumble, he thinks.

“Yeah, Ms. Potts said.” Two can play at that game. “You want a date so bad, why don't you pester Barton this much about it?”

“Clint doesn’t need pestering. It’d be good publicity if you showed, you know.”

He scoffs; there it is. “For what, the charity or Stark Industries?”

“So it is about Stark, then.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, over-sweetened and dark. 100% pure Colombian arabica, apparently, and with the price tag to reflect it. The acidic taste sticks at the roof of his mouth. “I don’t have a problem with Tony.”

He doesn’t. Stark’s a good man, he thinks, despite having inherited all of Howard’s arrogance and none of his approachability. Whatever tension was there in the beginning had dissipated, though, the second Tony plummeted thousands of feet from the sky after having, for all intents and purposes, blown himself up to save all their sorry necks. They’d broken bread, shaken hands, parted ways.

For the best, probably. Good man or not, Tony has a singular way of getting under his skin.

And then there’s also the fact that being in Manhattan just doesn’t feel right, not with the destruction still settling over everything like a cloud of noxious dust, the fenced off craters and leftover vigils scattered every few blocks like an improvised graveyard. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 4:47 AM EST. It is a new day. Do you see it? Do you see it yet? Are you awake?

It’s not new, this sense of loss: looking at the city and feeling grief, compounded.

“Not what I said.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“I’m saying SHIELD throws shitty office parties.” Natasha frowns and chugs half the scalding cup in one go before pushing up from the table, checking her phone. “I have to go,” she says, gives him a long look that he can’t really decipher, unusually lingering and far too serious by Natasha's standard. “Come to New York, Steve. Or at least think about it.”

viii.

He goes to see Peggy again, because of course he does. She greets him at the door with her most pleasant, polite smile this time, the kind reserved for strangers – Time for my medicine again, is it, darling? – but it’s alright, he understands. They’ve explained it to him, the good and bad days, how there’s rarely any constant. He’s grateful, anyway: just so grateful to have her around, as much as he can. Which is why he doesn’t flinch when she cries, when she calls for him like it’s been another seventy years, why he holds her brittle hand in his until she gets hazy around the eyes again and he feels a nurse’s gentle tap on his shoulder, hears her suggest that he come another time.

He takes the Harley out on the highway and drives aimlessly for the rest of the evening and well into the night, down and out and then back again until the traffic has thinned out to semis and the rare leftover commuter. He watches the speedometer kick up to 80, 90, a 100, the bike struggling, feels the rumble of the engine all the way up his spine when it skids unbalanced over the odd ice patch and thinks, grateful, grateful, grateful.

ix.

“You’re up late.”

“Hey.” Most of the building’s emptied out by now – he’d thought he’d find some privacy in the abandoned atmosphere of the holidays, and instead here Rumlow is when he was meant to be three states over, strolling through his periphery looking like he’s got nothing but time on his hands. “Thought you left with everybody else.”

“Nah. Had some business to take care of.” He settles against the wall opposite Steve, watches him shake out a one-two-three pattern that has the chain of the bag groaning. “Thought you’d be at Stark’s fancy party and putting that suit to good, promotional use.”

He never gets a chance to think about it, it turns out, getting called in two days before Christmas and ending up sending Ms. Potts – Pepper, please, call me Pepper – an overly apologetic, last-minute message excusing himself from the night. It’s a good call, in the end. The last thing he needs tonight is to be stuck in a room full of obscenely drunk, obscenely rich people expecting him to gush over the hors d’oeuvres and play at appearances.

He feels as though what he’s doing right now isn’t much different, though. It takes a whole lot of effort and posturing to dredge up a wry smile for Rumlow, anyway. “Well, it’s been busy here. Couldn’t fit it into my packed schedule.”

Rumlow snorts. He gets that expression on his face, sometimes, that same brand of amusement that makes Steve second-guess whether he’s actually in on the joke or just the punchline of it, that gets him hot under the collar in all the wrong ways. The punching bag chooses this moment to finally release its desperate grip on the physical realm, flying off the chain with one last pitiful creak and sending sand spraying across the floor. Rumlow’s eyes track the movement with unabashed fascination.

He walks over to the neat row of bags Steve’s lined up and picks one up with relative ease, a casual show of strength. “So you gonna talk about it,” he pipes back up, handing Steve the replacement, “or do I have to keep standing around here until you’ve run the rest of ‘em into the ground?”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever’s got you shredding through these poor fuckin’ things at 11 pm on Christmas Eve.”

He wants to point out that he could be asking the same question – that there really is no reason for Rumlow to be here this late when he’s still technically on medical, to be in his usual tac clothes and looking as wired as Steve’s feeling. You ever take a day off? he considers asking, but that’d be prodding. What’s worse, it’d be hypocritical.

“Nothing, you know how it is – mission ran long. Had some leftover energy.”

“Yeah, Rollins mentioned you guys ran into some kinks.”

It’s not exactly the word Steve would use to describe the shitshow of that morning, utter failure avoided by a narrow margin because it was an old school lab, Christ, still had extracurriculars on the weekends and everything, and they just charged in half-blind.

It’s rigged, naturally. The room blows as he’s getting the janitor out, tears the face of the building open towards the sharp drop below, and all Steve can think is what a stupid, avoidable way to die. The electrical fire smell lingers for a long time after the explosion, the patter of the wet snow through the blown roof nowhere near enough to put the flames out.

They’re told to avoid detailing the collateral in the report, after: SHIELD had no way of knowing the complete situation beforehand, they say, short and brooking no argument, and Steve’s getting real damn tired of hearing that. By the time they wrap up cleanup he’s shivery and exhausted and when he finally dozes off on the long flight back with his ear to the monotonous drone of the engine, it’s to vague, uneasy bursts of the taste of ash in the mouth and many small, cold hands dragging him deep into the frozen ground.

Absurdly, the first thing he thinks of when he startles awake is Dugan’s thick mustache chained solid with frost, lips blue with the cold and grumbling under his breath.

"Gee, you're looking awful familiar there, Dum," Gabe'd say, biting off the ends of his sentences with the chatter of his own teeth. "Made this snowman that looked just like you when I was a kid - all white and lumpy with a great big bush over his lip. 'Cept his carrot nose was half as long and he never ran his fuckin' mouth this much."

And despite the cold and the misery, Dugan would elbow him and Gabe'd elbow back, obstinate. And Bucky'd laugh, Bucky'd call them all a bunch of fucking morons, and do they really want their last to be the Germans hearing them squabbling like two bitter old biddies out on the steps of the church for the whole neighborhood to see? Think of the image of our troops, golly gee. God forbid.

He strips out of his wet suit at the compound by rote and doesn’t think about the numbing cold of December among towering trees, of snow burning his fingers raw, clinging to his lashes. He runs until his lungs burn and it’s nothing like that thin, strangling air of the mountain range, nothing like warm skin sticking to icy metal, muscles all locked up and tears hot like bile in the back of his throat and the wind screaming in his ears, and –

Winters are warmer now, somebody’d told him at some point. Something about northern lights and the ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Kinks, right.”

He smooths out the edges of the tape that’s come loose over his knuckles, tries to tuck it in where he’s spotted red through the fabric. Suddenly he’s all too aware of the seconds lumbering on in silence, the eerie, empty quiet of the building; Rumlow looking at him with a single-minded intensity that makes the back of his neck prickle with heat, gets him on edge in a way he doesn't want to parse, doesn't have the energy to hide from.

It'd be no use, anyway; sometimes he thinks Rumlow can smell it on him, blood in the water.

“Alright, then.”

He aims a perfunctory jab at the bag and lets it swing back to catch it mid-air, brand-new vinyl creaking under his fingers, and considers ignoring the man altogether. He's not feeling generous with his words tonight. “Alright what?”

When he turns back around Rumlow’s ditching his holstered gun on the bench. Steve didn't even notice he was armed. “You said you got some energy to burn – so let’s go a few rounds.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Come on,” and it’s his voice in the end, if he’s being honest with himself, that makes Steve fold; the cajoling tone and those long, tightly rolled vowels that curl and hook into the sheltered space behind his ribs. “C’mon, man, it’s been a while. I could stand to let off some steam, too.”

Come on, do it for me, Bucky had said in dozens of different iterations over the years and then only once after when it had meant something, only once when he was really asking, back up against the hard bark of the tree with his hands dangling between his legs like a man who had no more use for them. You gotta promise me, Steve, he’d tried, low and worn thin, and Steve didn’t, couldn’t find the words to that wouldn’t be a complete lie and a betrayal. Instead he’d leaned harder into his side, hand at the back of his neck, and wanted and wanted and wished like hell, not for the first time, that he could drain the misery and exhaustion out of Bucky’s body at every point of contact.

Come on, Rumlow says, and Steve goes, Pavlovian.

He rewraps his hands in silence, waits for the other man to tape up before he steps into the ring.

“Y’know, it could’ve been worse,” he says, circling Steve, tone casual, “No casualties is better than what we get most days. So you might as well stop with all this self-flagellation bullshit, Cap. It’s no good.”

“You wanna keep talking,” Steve goads him because it’s worked in the past, because it really has been a long day, “or do you wanna fight?”

They start off slow, Rumlow testing the waters and Steve pulling his punches by habit by now. He manages to land a few hits that don’t really scratch the surface, doesn’t pull back in time to avoid Rumlow’s hook. His blood rushes at the first, second, third collision, zings up his spine and sharpens everything out, bright Technicolor; it’s good, doesn’t even hurt, he’d almost forgotten –

It gets real brutal real quick, after that.

“C’mon. What, you gettin’ bored already?” Rumlow says the third time he gets past his guard, an edge of something mean and frustrated in it. He strikes out again just to skirt off Steve’s belated block, more provocation than actual intent. “Jesus, you fallin' asleep on me? Fight the fuck back, old man.”

“Look who’s talkin’,” Steve gets out, putting distance between them. “Ain’t you supposed to be passed out drunk on eggnog in Staten Island right now?”

“You ever stop running your mouth? No wonder you were the neighborhood punching bag, kid.”

“I weighed a 100 pounds soaking wet, I had to compensate. What’s your excuse?”

He’s slow this time, too. Rumlow’s not someone who signals. The kick to the plexus sends Steve stumbling back and something pops, loud. He coughs once, twice; shakes it off.

“Aw, there he is. You’re alright,” Rumlow says, deceptively sweet, dismissive. “You’re just fine. Come on, Cap. You gonna quit being a pussy or what?"

Here’s the thing: he’s not sure he likes Rumlow all that much, really, can’t read him all the way to be able to say for sure; isn't sure that he wants to. They don’t know each other, not in a way that counts – it’s only been a handful of times that they’ve even worked on the same team in the time Steve’s been in DC, even less they've gotten to have anything that counts as a real conversation outside the single locker room incident, but he’s been leading men long enough that he can pick up on the patterns. He can see the way Rumlow commands respect among STRIKE, knows the type, besides: collected and confident and purposeful, committed to the cause to the point of failure. Violent, too, sure, shooting for the head when Steve’d still be asking questions; a little too rough around the edges, sometimes, yes, but so what – Steve’s seen his fair share of that. Steve’s lived it, felt it on his own skin, inside and out, been in it for three whole years. So what. He’s not about to run away screaming.

It isn’t even the first time they’ve done this, beaten the shit out of each other after hours in the deserted facility. It’s not the first time he’s seeing Rumlow in this light, eyes dark and focused; liking it a little too much, maybe, liking riling Steve up and drawing blood. A natural progression to all the things about him Steve maybe didn't want to notice and all the things that had his full attention since the second they met.

It’s fine – Steve figures, this body can take it. It’s what it was made for, anyway. Steve figures better here than out there, and out there Rumlow’s all brutal efficiency and casual competence and Steve trusts him to have his back, get the job done, which is the only part that matters. Steve trusts him, is the thing, and that carries more weight likeability ever could.

Rumlow’s fist connects with his jaw and he feels it rattle up into his teeth, the dull pain like a live current through his body, whiting everything else out: you awake, Steve? You awake yet? Is it enough, to still be able to bleed?

So sure, maybe it’s the violence that gets him. Maybe it’s that Rumlow fights just dirty enough and doesn’t pull his punches with Steve, grins at him sharp when he spits blood from his busted lip and squares back up. Maybe it’s just that he’s not afraid to touch him or look at him wrong. Everyone else seems to be.

He blinks sweat out of his eyes and creeps in close, lands a few swings in quick succession that have Rumlow easing off, head snapping to the side.

“Yeah. That’s it, there you go. C’mon,” he laughs, pushes damp hair out of his face in a well-worn afterthought of a move, and Steve –

Steve has to remind himself, is the thing. Every goddamn day of the week he has to keep reminding himself of where he is. Eventually, he thinks, it might stick – but God, he’s sick and tired of it.

They don’t even look alike. For one, Rumlow’s much older than Bucky ever got to be. Has the scars and the experience and the too-mean edge to his voice to prove it.

But in the end, when he's got Steve face down on the floor, breath hot down his neck, it turns out it doesn't really matter all that much.

He bucks anyway, if for no other reason just to prove a point to himself, just to feel his bones grind together. You're still moving, you're still just going forward, heart pumping like it's gonna burst with it. Rumlow twists his arm further up his back, grip iron tight. “I said stay down.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Steve pants into the mat. “Pretty sure this ain’t within kickboxing rules.”

“Pretty sure there was no talk of rules in the first place. I keep tellin’ you, don’t I, you gotta get that or else people’ll think you’ve gone soft. Someone might take advantage.”

“You ever quit talkin’ shit?” Steve throws back at him.

“Nah.” Rumlow shifts, the weight of him heavy and hot, too close. Steve can’t catch his breath. Rumlow’s knee is still pressing into his back and he can already feel a bruise spreading at the bottom of his ribs that’ll be gone in the morning. He doesn’t even feel it all that much. He never even – “See, I don’t think you’d want that.”

Steve could break the hold with ease. He could throw Rumlow off and still walk away with most of his dignity intact. Steve could do a lot of things.

He’s fucking tired, is the thing. He’s in his body and buzzing hard out of his head and it hurts, Christ, it hurts so bad, has for such a long time now, and it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter one bit.

Keep moving, keep moving. Maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe it's alright if it's not him, anyway; a river of trouble, cross currents, carrying him along.

It’s just easier, in the end, to trust someone on his team. That’s all there is to it. It's easier, it is, it's getting there at least, Steve keeps telling himself as he lets Rumlow take him apart in more ways than one.

Eventually, he thinks, he might even believe it.

He meets Sam Wilson on a humid day in late May when the sun's barely made its way up, the sky an overripe color and all of his bruises already healing or healed or tucked neatly all the way back under the surface. Like many things with him these days, it starts off as muscle memory; then a shot in the dark, then relief when it works.

It still takes all of his willpower not to physically retreat when he's hit with the familiar, tired refrain:

You must miss the good old days, huh?

But then Sam cuts straight through the middle of it: Sam calls his bluff, quick as hell but with kind, serious eyes and an outstreched hand, and by the time the sleek black car rolls up to the curb with a roar Steve's got another title in his little book of the future and a chest that feels slightly lighter than it did when he jolted awake at 3 in the morning.

Romanoff pulls them back out onto the street without a word, and he doesn't even mind the knowing look she casts his way all that much. Just looks out the open window, the spring air whipping past as the speedometer ticks up 40, 50, 60, and thinks about whether the farmer's market will be open when they get back in: having some fruit in that goddamned fruit bowl might be nice for a change.

(epilogue)

When all is said and done, he thinks he really should have seen it coming. There was no talk of rules, and it's Steve's own damn fault for not listening. When the dust settles and the Potomac still reeks of a gasoline fire, when Steve's switched back onto battlefield efficiency despite the nightmares creeping into his subconscious with a vengance, it really shouldn't feel personal.

Except for the memory of Rumlow's slick grin in the too-bright, too-close space of the elevator, except for the phantom feeling that he can still sometimes smell scorched skin on his stomach; except for the way Bucky's horrified expression is burnt into the backs of Steve's eyelids like a brand, like a scar that won't heal fully.

Except that it's nothing but personal, in all the ways that matter.

Sam looks at him in question when he pauses in the middle of breakfast, eyes glued to the closest thing that passes for a modern TV in a roadside diner in Bumfuck, Iowa. Hospital breakout, the breaking news states, three dead, seven injured, dangerous fugitive on the loose. Be advised. Do not engage. Do not engage.

Yeah. Too fucking late for that now, isn't it.

"You alright?"

That's a loaded question, he thinks. I'm not sure what that really means and I don't know if I have for a while, he thinks.

You awake, Steve? You awake? You see it yet?

"Fine," he says, and digs back into the cold, gummy pancakes. "You think they got any blueberries in this place?"

Sam's face cracks into a smile, dubious and slow and then all at once. Sure, if you say so. Sure, I see what you're doing, but I'll trust your lead. Prop me up, I've got you right back. "Man, I don't think they even have hot water, but. Gimme five minutes and a Captain America name drop, I'm sure we can figure something out."

#this got very long jesus christ #I overthought it so now I'm just hoping it fits the event and the prompts??? anyway #so unbeta'd. my apologies and also enjoy! I hope!#catws10 #catws anniversary #steve rogers #brock rumlow #natasha romanoff #don't wanna tag sam because he only shows up for a blink of an eye but. he shows up and also I love him<3 #idk if it’s actually an M rating but. just to be safe #cw: violence #(but only barely)#gaslighting #by sheer virtue of the bastard involved #stevebucky #steve rogers/brock rumlow #I don't know the tag for that and I kind of don't want to know #this was really interesting and challenging and ultimately very painful to write ngl #my fic

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sweetheartturtle2007 · 1 year

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Family Matters

Type of fic : angsty

Type of reader : female child turtle reader

Version : TMNT bayverse

Prompt : “This is not how family is supposed to feel like.”

"¡¡Why can't you just follow my orders for once!!" You heard Leo scream from the living room of the lair.

"¡¡Well maybe if your orders didn't were the stupidest things I ever heard !!" Raph responded with an angry tone that made your body start trembling a bit.

The last nights have been like this,your brothers would come back from patrolling and immediately a fight between Leo and raph will break lose.

Splinter always tried his best to make the boys calm down but they'll always start fighting again once master splinter leaves the room. They had been pretty heat up lately, you didn't know why but you just hoped it would stop soon or later. Donnie and Mikey tried their best at stoping them but it will never work so they give up and learned how to deal with it everyday.

But you couldn't,you didn't want your big brothers to fight almost everyday, it was making you sick to your stomach and you didn't know what to do.

Another night..., Another fight..., It was like this during the whole month of October, November and December, you couldn't help it anymore, you cried everytime your brothers fight until you fell asleep from exhaustion. This was supposed to be a family not a boxing ring, you tried your best to tried and get them together and have a healthy brother relationship again but it never worked...

You tried to ask April for advice but she was way too busy with her work to even visit the lair, Casey was in the same situation and Vern wasn't too much help, so you were alone. You'll cover your ears with earbuds or with pillows but your brothers screams were much louder,

Mikey told to you to try and ignore it, that maybe everything will pass during Christmas and that everything will be ok, Donnie said the same,so you just hoped that they were right.

You are the youngest one of the five and even you at your age ( 9 years old) knew about how families are supposed to be together during every happy,sad or stressing moment, but your family wasn't so united right now.

You were in your room playing with your monster high dolls, minding your own business, when suddenly you heard the characteristic sound of screaming coming from the entrance.

"¡¡Why can't you heard what we have to said during mission!!" Raph yelled, you could hear him throwing stuff around the lair, he was clearly furious.

"Because missions are supposed to be about concentration,speed and justice, not some kind of emotional support meeting" Leo responded yelling as well.

You sighted, another fight as always, why, why couldn't they just stop with this already, you're tired you want your two loving brothers back,not this pair of hotheads.

You stayed in your room playing with your toys, ignoring all the commotion coming from outside, your heart shattered with every sound of the fight from outside, your family, it felt like it was shattering...that was your worst fear.

Dinner time came, and as always, the ambient was tense, you came out of your room holding your favorite plushie in one of your arms, the tense in the room was so heavy you could swear that it was gonna swallow you whole.

You helped Donnie set the table, once it was all done everyone came to the table, it was quite, the only sound that could be heard was coming from the plates and utensils in the table.

"so...¿do you two boys want to talk about something in particular?" Your father spoke looking directly at your two brothers sitting in front of you. No one said a thing, everything stayed silent.

"if you boys aren't going to repair things up I won't have other choice than remove you two from patrolling" splinter sighted gerting back to eat.

"¡¿WHAT?!" your brothers yelled at the same time, getting up from the table suddenly.

"¡master splinter you can't do this!" Raph exclaimed, he was clearly furious, this made you feel uncomfortable with the situation.

And as fast as a snake, a fight broke between your brothers and father.

" y/n...go eat dinner at your room..ok? " Donnie said taking his plate and running to his room as Mikey did the same.

You took your plate and run to your room closing the door behind you, you could still be hearing the commotion outside. You finished dinner while reading one of your favorite books, you went back to the kitchen again after a while, everything was quite but you could hear master splinter's angry screams coming from the dojo,you left you plate in the sink and went back running to your room, you couldn't deal with more screaming an yelling anymore, you tuck yourself to bed and hugged your plushie. Normally Leo would tuck you to bed and read you a story but unfortunately he stopped doing this right after the first fight in the lair started.

You woke up the next day, went outside of your room, everything was quite, did nobody woke already?, How you didn't know how to read time on the clock.

You went to the kitchen and found raph sitting there, anger in his face.

"Good morning raphie!" He didn't great you back, he just mumbled something under his breath. You sat Infront of him, waiting for him to do something. You couldn't reach the cabinets since you were still little so normally one of your brothers or father would serve you your cereal for breakfast.

But raph didn't move an inch, nor looked at you it was almost like his own soul leave his body leaving it just there sitting.

You waited for a long time, maybe you actually woke too early, you rested your head on your arms on the table and fell asleep.

Until a little shaking woke you up

"y/n ? What are you doing here sleeping?" It was Mikey.

You looked around noticing raph wasn't there anymore, did he just leave you there?.

"i was with raphie..." You looked at him and then back again to the place where Raphael was earlier.

"I don't see him anywhere" "he was here" you pointed to the place where he was.

Mikey and you eat breakfast together, Donnie joined later along with master splinter but raph and Leo where nowhere to be seen. After breakfast you went to the bathroom, you took a little froggy themed chair you had and put it in front of the sink, you got up and took your toothbrush and started brushing your teeth. Once you where done, you got back to your room.

"how much time will this last...?" You said under your breath, remembering what happens at breakfast, you were tired you wanted your family back.

Today was the day! The day that you and Mikey loved the most, Christmas!.

The lair was decore with Christmas lights and guirnaldas, you looked at the beautiful tree your brothers had make with you, you make beautiful Christmas decorations with paper and glitter along with Mikey.

You two were finishing decorating the entrance of the lair, you handled him a deer made out of paper that you make.

"¡look! ¡look! ¡Look Mikey! ¿Do you like it?"

"yes dudette it's amazing" he laughed while petting your head. He was so happy seeing you enjoying your favorite day of the year, specially with everything that had happened.

After finishing he picked you up and put you in his shoulders, you both laughed together and went to the living room to play some video games, Donnie was there checking some of the Christmas lights.

You both sat Infront of the tv, Mikey was just about to start the console when master splinter called him.

"Michaelangelo, Donatello! ¿Can you come here for second?"

"!Yes father/ pops!"

"aww but the videogames..."

"sorry dudette, I'll be right back" he pat your head and leave the room.

You took the remote and started going through some chanels until you found barbie and the nutcracker movie and decided to watch it. You were enjoying yourself until...

"¡there you go again with your bullshit!"

The thunderstorm started

"¡quit complaining about what's true!, You're just a big rock head!"

Again...why...why now?, On the most special night of the year why now?.

"¡I'm so done with you all you do is complain, complain, complain and complain about every fucking shit I do!" Raph was screaming so damn loud...you were already covering your ears.

"¡Oh well, I'm so sorry mister I think with my muscles, it isn't my fault you can do shit the correct way!"

"¡fuck you!"

In just a minute they started throwing fist at each other, things started flying around the house and your brothers came in running in a second along with your father.

They tried to get them to stop but the situation was pretty heated up.

"¡come here and fight like a man!"

Fight...fight...fight....fight..fight...

That's it...

"¡¡JUST STOP ALREADY!!" You screamed from the top of your lungs, angry, done and completely furious with all this shit.

Everyone froze with your scream and looked at you, they never expected you to snap like that.

"¡I'm so done with you both screaming and fighting with each other all the time, I'm so done, I'm so done, I'm so done,¡This is not how family is supposed to feel like!, Why can't you both just stop!, You're just making me hate this place even more then when you started fighting!" You voice broke with each second that passed, the fat tears coming from your eyes make your vision blurry as you try to wipe them away from your face.

"¡If this continues for longer then I rather leave this place because this doesn't feel like home anymore! Not without my brothers being united..." You couldn't help but keep crying and yelling, you reached your breaking point.

You ran into your room and closed the door shut.

Everyone remained still until splinter spoke.

"look what you both had done..." He glared at raph and Leo and went after your. Mikey and Donnie followed.

Raph and Leo stayed there, just watching, processing all the things you said, did they really make you feel that way? They didn't mean to..they never meant to make you, their little sister, feel like her home wasn't her home anymore.

"i..think..we really mess up..."

"yeah..yeah...we did..."

They both just realized all the pain they had make you go through after all this time...

Now it was time to repair it...at least they hope they could...

Merry Christmas I'm back sugar cubes ;3

Requests are open, please check the pinned post before requesting

#requests #tmnt imagine #tmnt #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2016 #tmnt fandom #tmnt michelangelo #rottmnt #tmnt raphael #tmnt x reader #tmnt bayverse #bayverse turtles #bayverse leonardo #bayverse raphael #bayverse tmnt #tmnt fanart #teenage mutant ninja turtles #merry xmas

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functioningtrashcan · 3 months

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Rearranging Canon

I was thinking, what would've happened if Miguel tried to intercept Miles before Spot got to him? What if Miguel knew not to trust Gwen or Jess to deal with 1610? He seems like the type of guy to subscribe to the "if you want something right, you gotta do it yourself" mentality. So, here's an au I made (at least, I haven't seen any fics with this premise yet)

This is just a preview of something I've been thinking about a lot. Hope you guys enjoy

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

"Sooooooo, uh, Macho Libre sir... when do I start?"

The child standing next to him was still shaking, costume torn and hair singed. Her grin was plastered on, breath quick as she tried to ease the mounting tension in the room. He could hear how fast her heart was still beating nearly 40 minutes after leaving her home universe behind.

"Start what, exactly?"

"I- you know. Spider.. society... stuff?"

It took everything in Miguel not to glare at Gwen from his spot across the table from her. She stayed silent the whole time it took them to walk from the portal to the cafeteria, and now she's biting the inside of her cheek like she needs to move on from this as quickly as possible.

"You're not doing any 'Spider Society' stuff right now." Miguel kept his tone as firm as he could without sounding angry at her. He was angry, just not at her. She was just a kid, after all. Super-powered kid or not, she couldn't brush off watching her own family - her own father - point a gun at her with intentions to shoot. It made his blood run hot and cold at the same time. What type of man would do that to his own daughter?

Gwen herself barely picked at the food in front of her. Miguel kept his eyes trained on the half eaten plate of empanadas in front of him, but he could still sense her eyes peering holes into him.

"Whatever you're thinking, no."

"I- "

"First rule of Spider Society," Miguel started, standing up, "is to listen when I ask you to do something."

He must've raised his voice, because Gwen flinched before he got to the end of his sentence. Shock, if only he knew a better way to connect with the skiddish thing immediately after such a traumatic event.

"Please, no worrying about any missions right now." Miguel softened his voice. "Jess prepared your room for you. Go."

Silently, Gwen slipped off out the door and down the same hallway they came. Miguel sat back down, sinking his head into his hands.

"Lyla."

The little hologram glitched into existence.

"How much more time before the prediction?"

Already running out of time. Great. There was now less than a year before the original anomaly was set to destroy the multiverse, and nearly all of the spiders who came with it. No matter what he tried to do, Miguel couldn't figure out the catalyst. Something big happened after that collider went off, something bigger than a new Spiderman in a world where a new Spiderman shouldn't be. Whatever it was, he had no choice but to stop it from happening.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. 7 months. That's all he had to figure it out. None of his teams were any closer to getting it, and now that Gwen was here, Miguel was almost certain that he had to figure it out. Before the multiverse collapsed, before the anomaly was set loose on them all, but most importantly, before Gwen caught wind of who the anomaly was.

Gwen's plate still stared at him from across the table.

Every force was working against him, it felt like. How was he supposed to fix everything if he couldn't even talk to one kid properly?

Kids. It's always kids. It's always-

"Miguel! Hey Migs! Miggy!"

Miguel scrubbed his face with his hand. A bumbling idiot in a pink robe slid into the seat next to him.

Nevermind, he would rather the emotional conversations with the traumatized kid.

"Hey Migs, I've got some exciting news-"

"Make it quick, Parker."

"Oh come on, you always say that."

"I always mean it."

"You're no fun anymore." Peter B Parker groaned at Miguel, casually draping an arm over his stiff shoulders. "What's up with that? You're the only Spider here with no sense of humor, and it's like you've gotten worse!" He grinned, scrubbing his knuckles into Miguel's scalp. Miguel swatted at his arm.

"You have three seconds."

"Yeesh, alright, alright." Peter took the hint and slid off. "Wanna hear some good news?"

"No."

"So MJ just got back from a doctor's appointment - for the baby, remember?" Peter continued. "The baby's coming soon and they were just checking to see if she was healthy and what's going on, that kinda thing." He took an empanada from Miguel's plate and bit into it sloppily. "Kid's already gonna be the best thing ever, I can tell. I feel like such a dad already."

"Uh huh, wow." Miguel really couldn't care less right now.

"Y'know, I think a kid would really suit you-"

Miguel shot him a glare.

"....not that I'm saying that you should replace your daughter, but you should really do something else with your time!" Peter chuckled nervously. "Kids are so healing."

"You're not a dad yet."

"I will be in a few weeks! I'm tellin' ya, I never thought I would enjoy baby shopping as much as I do."

Miguel sighed heavily out of his nose.

"I'm trying to figure out a way to deal with the anomaly, Parker."

Now it was Peter's turn to look serious.

"Don't tell me you're gonna hurt the kid, are you?"

"No. Of course not." Not unless it ended up being necessary.

"Because he really isn't that bad- I'm sure he doesn't even know his world is a problem. And hey, you gotta cut him some slack," Peter shook Miguel's shoulders slightly, trying to wring some lightheartedness out of him. "He had a terrible teacher."

"Absolutely horrible, you're right." Miguel deadpanned.

"I know!" Peter laughed. "I did the best I could with him. He was like a practice kid, almost."

"He deserves a better teacher."

"I mean- hey, woah," Peter put his hands up in mock offense. Miguel quirked an eyebrow at him.

"I'm right."

"I wasn't so bad. I got him on his feet, and-" Peter kept babbling on. Whatever this story was about the ill-fitting costume and the failed web-swinging tutorial, Miguel heard it a million times. He couldn't be bothered to listen so closely, and instead, his mind lingered on something new.

He deserves a better teacher.

That could be it. That could be the answer Miguel's been looking for.

Miguel stood up again, nearly knocking over the table and Peter.

"Woah, Mig-"

Miguel roughly pulled Peter up from his seat and clapped him on the back.

"For once, you were useful."

"My stories?" Peter was confused, but Miguel was already halfway across the room.

"Tell the others I'll be out for a while. You're in charge of watching Gwen. Tell Jess that assigning teams to catch anomalies is her job now."

"So I don't get a fancy job now?" Peter jogged up to Miguel, obnoxious story forgotten. "Where are you going?"

"Earth-1610." Miguel replied simply. "I'm going to give the kid a better mentor."

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

And scene! Lemme know if I should finish this au

(Also, I've never posted fanfiction here before. If you guys have any formatting tips, help a trash can out)

#atsv #miguel o'hara #spiderverse #gwen stacy #spidergwen #miles morales #peter parker #peter b parker #into the spider verse #across the spider verse #astv #miguel is kind of a dad here #or at least hes trying #a failking is failing and whatnot #au #fanfic #spiderverse fanfic

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loveshearsmith · 7 months

Note

Hey, your fics are honestly so well-written, I don't usually read "x reader" but I do frequently branch out to genres I'm not familiar with and I really like your writing style

I saw on your pinned post that you take requests and I have an odd one. Recently, I've become lowkey obsessed with the idea of Ross Gaines x Joseph Lisgoe and was wondering if you'd ever be willing to write a fic about them? I'll be honest, I have no idea how specific you like requests to be, but I'm giving you free reign to take it in any direction you see fit. If you're up for it, then thank you so much! If not, then fair enough and I wish you good luck for your future stories 😄

thank you for your kind words!! i want to give this a go for you (so sorry for the delay in responding), but to be 100% honest, i'm not entirely sure i'll give your vision much justice! i'm very used to writing 'x reader' and i have never actually written 2 character ships before...

because of this, i've decided to do a short drabble style so that i don't have to delve into too much specific detail for a story line, and risk messing up lmao. i really hope this is okay, let me know what you think and hopefully i might be able to branch out into more similar subjects in the future :)

p.s. my blog is starting to look like a ross fan account at this point... and I'm not mad about it lolll.

---

Opposites Attract - Joseph Lisgoe x Ross Gaines

[not proof read]

his slicked back hair, narrowed eyes, and angry demeanor did nothing to intimidate ross. "i'm telling you, you've got the wrong house. i don't owe anybody anything." ross' tone remained calm and collected, which only seemed to agitate lisgoe even further.

"oh, yeah?" he drew closer to ross, forcing himself further into the doorway. "then how come your address is the one printed on the fucking paper slip?" lisgoe shoved the paper that he was holding to force it against ross' chest, encouraging him to hold it himself and read it. ross lifted the paper and glanced at it nonchalantly, before looking back at the angered man with a shrug of his shoulders.

"i really don't know. i'm sorry that i can't help you" ross said politely, stepping slightly backwards to close the front door between the pair of them.

"don't you dare even think about shutting this fucking door on me." joseph moved his foot into the door frame to act as a door stop, causing it to be left half-open.

with an excessive exhale of air, ross re-opened the door and stared questionably at the man before him. "what do you actually want from me?"

"I've only told you about fifty times, i want the money you owe me! i'm not leaving here until i get it."

ironically, he did end up leaving empty-handed, having realised that ross was perhaps just as stubborn as himself. joseph lay in bed that night, thoughts racing about the strange encounter he'd had that day. ross. why was he so... different? he had been so relaxed the whole time that lisgoe was shouting in his face. joseph's terrible anger and extreme persistence is the only thing he had to use in his power against people. it was the only strength he ever needed. so why was ross so unphased? it infuriated him...

the next day, lisgoe wandered the streets with barry and glen, ready to tackle the next set of debt-avoiders. joseph stood still in his tracks as a familiar face walked towards him down the street. "well if it isn't mr. gaines! we were gonna be paying you another visit later today" joseph spat, sarcasm lacing heavily in his voice.

"i'm not entirely sure why. you'd be wasting your time, to be honest." there it was. that calm voice that joseph hated so much. ross was supposed to be scared of him, what was he doing wrong?

"oh, you know exactly why." he gritted his teeth. "your name is on that paper, you owe us money and that is that!"

"have you perhaps taken this up with your little minions?" ross gestured towards the two cowardly men stood behind lisgoe, who were not helping the situation at all. "clearly somebody has made a mistake here. i've never even heard of you in my life, mr. lisgoe, i certainly don't owe you any money." ross' tone was more sarcastic this time, especially on the emphasis of joseph's name, which only caused chills to travel over his skin.

before he could even respond, ross had walked past them and continued down the street, swinging his briefcase happily as he went. shock and bewilderment momentarily lingered on joseph's face as he watched the man leave, before his eyes landed on his two useless workers, quickly resorting to his usual stern expression.

"he seems pretty certain he doesn't owe anyth-" barry began, before being silenced by lisgoe's rough hand that grabbed onto the back of his neck and forced him to walk forward, continuing their journey in silence.

---

it was late evening and lisgoe lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to relax with a mind racing yet again over his impenetrable client. before long, he gave in and jumped up, pulling on his jacket and rushing out of the door.

ross sat alone, reading a book contently on his couch, before a buzz from the intercom interrupted his quiet evening.

"hello?" he answered, waiting to find out who was at the door. "it's lisgoe. let me in."

ross chuckled slightly, "why would i do that?"

"because i fucking said so." he was stern. not in a mood to be messed around with. and ross seemed to realise that.

the main door buzzed open and joseph raced to ross' apartment number, suddenly coming to a halt as he came eye to eye with ross who stood leaning smugly against the doorframe. "are we still not done here?" he said slyly, watching lisgoe's face as it washed over with anger.

"what is the matter with you, gaines? why aren't you intimidated by me?" his brows were furrowed and his fists were balled so tightly that his knuckles turned a pale white.

"why would i be intimidated by you?" he seemed genuinely confused. "i know that i don't owe you any money, so there's nothing to be afraid of." he smiled slightly, which made joseph's blood boil.

"you listen here," he inched up to ross, backing him into the door and staring deep into his eyes, his voice now so low and close to a whisper. "i spoke with my idiot coworkers, they did make a mistake and it turns out you're not in my debt. you should consider yourself extremely luck-"

"you came all the way here to tell me that?" ross interrupted, maintaining deep eye contact with the man who stood so close to him that he could feel his breath on his face.

"no!" lisgoe spat, grabbing ross' shoulders and pushing them into the door he was leaning against, frustration flowing through his veins. "i came here to make you aware of who you could've been dealing with. and who you just might be dealing with one day if you're not careful. i am one of the most powerful people in vasey, and i don't think you're taking this seriously enough."

ross breathed yet another sarcastic chuckle, still completely unphased by the insecure debt-collector. "why are you so annoyed that i'm not scared of you?"

lisgoe's grip on his shoulders loosened, dropping his hands to his sides. he took a step back and swallowed deeply, trying to process his question.

"i- i'm not." he stuttered, lying through his teeth. of course he was annoyed. he just couldn't understand why his usual scary behaviour didn't have the same affect on ross as it did with everyone else. he was intrigued, more than anything. ross was uninterested, which made him... irresistible, in a way. lisgoe wanted to make him interested.

"something wrong, lisgoe?" ross questioned, tilting his head and looking at the man with raised eyebrows.

"wipe that smug look off your face before i cut it off" he grumbled, revealing his small pocket-knife that he held in his blazer.

"okay. i just have one question for you," gaines began. "if you know i don't owe you money, and you're not annoyed at me, why are you stood here after-dark pointing a knife at me?"

"you just don't get it... do ya?" lisgoe sniggered, tucking the blade back into his pocket. "i thought you were supposed to be smart."

"well, no. i don't get it!" ross' voice raised slightly. "however i'd still say i'm smarter than you..." he mumbled.

"watch ya fuckin' mouth" joseph grimaced through gritted teeth. his eyes trailed over ross, flicking up and down before landing back on his face, making eye contact.

a heavy silence fell over the two of them, the atmosphere tense. ross swallowed hard as they stared at one another. "what...?" he almost stuttered, unable to read lisgoe's expression. the first time he ever let his guard down in front of lisgoe.

joseph approached him once again, closing the gap between them, breath hot on his face.

"you're so hard to read, gaines. like a closed book." he whispered, his words so quiet for only ross to hear. "...can you open yourself up to me?"

---

a/n: welllll there it is. wasn't really sure how to end it so it's kinda weak and rushed. like i say i'm inexperienced with character ships, but i enjoyed writing that (eventhough it was only short.)

there might be a part 2? if i can come up with any ideas or if you want to suggest anything for me!

#ross gaines #joseph lisgoe #the league of gentlemen #the league of gentlemen imagines #reece shearsmith #league of gentlemen #fanfic #joseph lisgoe imagine #ross gaines x joseph lisgoe #opposites attract

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residentdormouse · 3 months

Text

20 Questions for Writers

Thank you for the tag, @thecharmedburrowspn-files - your timing is insane. I just started writing again after months of inactivity. (Only 500 words, but shhhh. Progress 😅) We'll see how long the motivation train lasts, but fingers crossed I can ride it for a while.

How many works do you have on AO3?

Only 4 and one is tiny. Nothing to brag about here. Only started posting on AO3 in '21.

What is your total AO3 word count?

292,884

What fandoms do you write for?

It's really only The Stand. I have 517 words in the Stranger Things fandom with 'Even in Death', so it feels kind of cheap to include that. My newest work is original, so no fandoms at all. I have one that is tabled for now that goes into True Blood a bit, but I'm not sure if that's really going anywhere.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

'Something like a Spiral' got a whole whooping 17 kudos. That's my leader. Yup, we're good here.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Of course! I just wanna talk to people about my favorite blorbos, and if you're commenting, then you probably at least understand vaguely what I'm rambling about. Small fandom is small, and I welcome all interaction.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I would say the ending of 'Just Keep Diving Down' gets this, although I would call it more bittersweet. It's not the happy ending the characters would have wanted, but it's far from the worst. There is some massive angst (MCD) towards the end, so fair warning there, but death isn't necessarily the end.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

'Something Like a Spiral', I suppose. Can you really have a completely happy ending with this setting? But, I'd say it's the happiest of the options. It's hard for me to say 'Supply Run' because they're all one shots, and I really don't feel like there is an 'end' per se. It's more like outtakes in my mind. But some of them end on a good note.

Do you get hate on your fic?

Thankfully, people have kept all negative comments to themselves. Hopefully, there's not many out there.

Do you write smut?

Eh, if you can call it that. I'm not overly explicit, but there is sex. Enough that I feel the need to put '***' lemon warnings before and after like the fanfiction of old.

Do you write crossovers?

The 'True Blood' story I mentioned before is a cross with 'the Stand' and the world I created for 'Diving'. I just wanted Eric to have to deal with Flagg and vice versa. Who better to deal with their shit than their own doppelganger. Karma.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. Hopefully not. I'm in a small fandom though, and the only person writing with a focus on my preferred blorbo. Not sure anybody else would want it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, and I wouldn't even know where to begin on this. I would be up to try though! I've done short RPs before, I would assume it's somewhat similar?

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I do like the Mulder/Scully ship that was mentioned. I could go for Katniss/Peeta time. Buffy/Spike. There are a few. In Stand world, I'd never be able to split Stu/Fran, and I'll jump on board the Lloyd/Flagg train. (Although, I do love redemption, so I'd rather see a good 'Randall get your shit together' spin to it.)

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The True Blood crossover. It doesn't make much sense without reading my prior Stand stories, and honestly, I don't know if anybody even made it through the whole thing. Again, small fandom, I'm inserting OCs, only person writing with a focus on Glen. It's a very catered only to me story, and a long one at that. (101k for the first and 186k for the second.) So yeah, tacking on something to the end of that, eh, may just stay in my head as thoughts for funsies.

What are your writing strengths?

I have just about zero self confidence, so I'm not sure? I would really hope it's keeping the tone and voice and motivations of characters consistent. Obviously they'll change throughout the story; everybody is affected by what happens to them. Change is inevitable. But are their changes consistent to their character? I hope so. Character development was always my favorite part in building a story.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have just about zero self confidence? I don't know if I get too convoluted with the story. If I force too much change to what I want to see. Am I clear with what I say? And there's always goddamn typos no matter how many times I proofread...

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Aside from simple phrases, I'll pass. I don't want to butcher somebody's language, and I'm definitely not proficient in any other language. Hell, I can barely get English right. Massive respect to anybody who can do this.

First fandom you wrote for?

I just started here recently, so the Stand is really it for me.

Favorite fic you've ever written?

They all have a soft spot in my heart (which, I mean, you're supposed to write for you, right?) Spiral was my first, and has a lot of scene that I go back to read, so I guess that? But it is very close to canon in a lot of scene and plot, so Diving is more original in the overall story, I suppose. And Supply Run is a short at straight canon compliant scene inserts. So they each have their arguments.

If you would want to join, no pressure tagging to: @imagine-you @mrsmungus @cxttlefishcxller @asirensrage @darknightfrombeyond and @fattybattysblog

And anybody else who wants to join! OPEN TAG!

#thank you for the tag!!#mouse's tag games and reblogs

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intrepidacious · 10 months

Text

time after time: reread edition [1]

series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

word count: 6.0k

chapter warnings: canon-typical violence, accidentally starting a time loop, banter, pretty angsty to start us off with ngl, reminder to read the fic premise. please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

read the full chapter here | series masterlist | reread masterlist

wouldn't you know it, it's friday already!! this is a reread of already published chapters, so if you're new to this story, i would highly suggest not starting here and reading the actual story first. please be aware that by clicking the read more you're gonna see spoilers for chapter one 💚

how it started

welcome to the reread. i'm pretty sure this is the part of the post i'll only do once, but we'll see how it goes.

i swear to god, i only wanted to write a fun little time loop fic. it was never supposed to be this huge thing; it just kept growing. it's two years later now and i'm still writing—granted, that's after taking several long breaks because this story gives me headaches like no other, but still. i've never poured this much love into one story, i think.

and we can all blame russian doll for it.

turn back the clock – tl;dr

we start with a mission. sam, bucky and the reader, soon-to-be nicknamed twelve, are checking up on a secret lab. against all odds, bucky gets killed right before the fight seems to be won. twelve uses her time powers to prevent this from happening, loses consciousness and wakes up in her bed earlier that day. she goes through the entire day again, thinking her reset worked as intended, only for bucky to die in a different situation during the same mission and her waking up in her bed again.

behind the loop

welcome to my first running commentary on my own story. you’re gonna be sick of me really soon.

depending on how new you are to this story, you might not know that the chapter titles are all taken from movies. sadly i haven't seen most of them but the ones i have seen do feature a little in one way or another. more about that when we get to that point, though. the title cards for this story were also so fun to make because i just recoloured the actual movie posters!!

i’m gonna be honest with you, i keep forgetting that this first flashback exists. but i lowkey love it?? i like how it sets the tone for the angst that’s stitched into the very fabric of this story while simultaneously being juxtaposed with the first actual, very blunt introduction of our main cast.

the start of that mission was one of the first things i ever wrote for this fic, but the whole transition from the upstairs lab to downstairs and the actual fight scene were the last parts before posting.

“Do you think I’d pass up the opportunity to hear the two of you scream in terror when the vampire puppets creep up on you?” “Gotta disappoint you, cap,” you grin and wait for him to check the map. “I only scream when there’s good reason.” “I don’t wanna interrupt,” Bucky interrupts over the intercom, “but they’re heading your way now, so get a move on.”

writing banter is one of my all-time favourite activities. i also already knew at this point that i was gonna write a lot of it over and over again, and so i needed to vary the interjections in order to not bore everyone to bits. i like to think it worked out, but you tell me.

my beloved nightmare flashmob was such a fun antagonist to include. they will be named in the next chapter but if there are comic readers among you, i feel like i have to apologise because i definitely haven’t read enough of them to properly do these guys justice. they did seem like a logical step up from the version of the flag smasher(s) we encountered in tfatws, though. plus, there’s just enough of them to be a realistic threat to three very capable superheroes.

And then his eyes glaze over. You scream.

i’m so evil lmao

You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.

spoiler alert, you’ll encounter that sentence a couple of times. and i still love it. fun fact, i genuinely set my playlist to shuffle to decide on the song that was going to play to wake her up, and this was the one i landed on. and i couldn’t have come up with a better choice. honestly, look at the lyrics and tell me i’m wrong. i love how things work out sometimes.

originally, the decision to set the story on july 4th was very practical because i needed my available settings to be limited. this isn’t punxsutawney, pennsylvania in the middle of a snowstorm, this is new york city after the blip. i wanted our characters to have at least somewhat limited options what to do during their ever-repeating day. (on a sidenote, do you think we’ll ever see avengers compound again in the mcu? how long are they going to rebuild that thing? anyway.)

“Feels a little … déjà-vu-y.” “I know the type,” Sam says. “Wanna talk about it?” You do. But the time stuff is your problem to deal with, and so you shake your head.

isn’t it great to have a full ensemble of characters who absolutely will not talk about their feelings to each other? (derogatory) is it more interesting from a narrative point of view? … i suppose.

i love twelve’s rings though. are they entirely useless for the duration of this loop? maybe. but i love that she has them to physically show her how stuck she is <3 other things that i love: bucky calling sam bud. it just makes sense.

A surge of emptiness goes through you, unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Time seems to still for just the blink of an eye as Bucky’s head is thrown forwards.

and there we have it. ✨dread.✨ this is such an evil way to end a chapter, wow. i had fun, though. was it fun for you?

how it's going

well, actually. i've been writing chapter seven as well as a secret bonus chapter this week, and i've made reasonable progress on both which i'm quite proud of. i really hope i can report that i got started on chapter eight this time next week, but we'll see. i think the worst of my writer's block is gone, at least. and all it took was a little self-indulgence and an external deadline. who'd have thunk.

if you made it to this point of my rambles, thank you. lmk how i can keep these interesting for you to read, and if you have any questions about the story, you know where to find me!! also: please please please consider leaving a comment or a reblog on the actual chapter. it would mean the world 💚

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes series #marvel fanfic #mcu fanfic #time after time

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twogyuu · 11 days

Text

an unfinished tale [one - teaser]

Pairing: Wonwoo x fem!reader

Synopsis: In an age absent of DMs and dating apps, a year you're not supposed to exist in, you defy all odds and manage to fall in love with the neighbor down the hall from your uncle's dorm. Part of you wishes he feels the same, part of you hopes he doesn't - for the sake of your heart and his.

Genre: Fluff, crack, smidgen of angst, first/last loves, time travel!au, 90s!au, college!au, uncle/roommate!chan, chan has a twin brother who is reader's dad LMAO, fairy godmother!seokmin; featuring friends!seungkwan, vernon, and jihoon too 💙

Warnings: profanity

WC: 573 (est total chapter WC ~5k)

A/N: This is a Wonwoo fic, I promise 😂💀 He's just not featured a whole lot in the first few chapters because we're setting up scene! Likely, full chapter to be released at the end of the month or early May :) Please look forward to it!

masterlist

His roommate sat up from his bottom bunk, one hand propping himself up, revealing the top of Chan’s emerald green and white tracksuit. Hair on the back of his head stuck up in all sorts of directions, some strands standing straight up due to the static.

He furrowed his brows, lips setting into a pout – both in confusion and curiosity. Chan asked slowly, “You brought . . . a girl . . . back to our dorm?”

His eyes drifted from Vernon to the person in question, taking note of her saddened state, but most importantly, her rather bizarre fashion. Vernon understood because he had the same reaction – he just didn’t show it well. At first glance, she didn’t look weird: she wore a cropped bubble sweater with a drawstring around the hem that hit her at the waist, meeting right where her pair of black leggings started. A pair of Converse All Stars with thicker than usual white rubber soles donned her feet. It was all in the subtle detail that just felt off – the leggings made it feel like she was from the last decade, and hell, when did Converse get a height boost? (Where could he find some?).

Chan’s gaze landed on her face again – she looked so . . . familiar. Did he know her from somewhere? Have they met before?

Chan opened his mouth to say something, only to shut them again, lips twisting tight, wagging his finger at her. The feelings are at the tip of his tongue, but he had no words to express them.

Regardless of his confusion, the girl stood stiff under his scrutiny, hands pressed into the sides of her legs as she peered at Chan. She seemed too absorbed in her own thoughts to care for Chan’s obvious judgment. Her eyes wide and chin trembling, as if he held the world in his hands and he was the hero she was waiting for all this time to bring comfort to her misery.

The adoration and relief that swam in her eyes was strange and nostalgic . . . almost as if he was her–

“Do I know–”

“Dad!”

She launched herself into Chan’s chest, tightly wrapping her hands around his waist and collapsing into a whole body-shaking sob. Vernon figured it had been a rough day for her already, but perhaps more than she led on and she was only finally giving into stress.

“Dad?” Chan repeated in an exacerbated, nebulous tone. He immediately looked from the girl then to Vernon. Chan pointed at her, shoulders raising to silently ask, where the fuck did you find her?

Vernon couldn’t help but smile a little, only offering Chan a small shrug in reply before nonchalantly, sauntering to his side of the dorm. He deposited his backpack underneath his old, unsturdy wooden desk that was on the verge of collapsing from all the books piled on it. Vernon settled into the spinning office chair, leaning back and propping up his feet. He had no plans of intervening at any time soon. He was a believer that people should feel their emotions. The girl seemed too fraught and crying seemed therapeutic for her as she clung onto Chan.

On the contrary, Chan was distressed, unsure of if he should push her away or comfort her. The former felt wrong. . . genuinely, she seemed so sad and desolate. At the same time, he was incredibly uncomfortable.

Dad?

He was certain he did not look that old! So damn rude.

#wonwoo x reader #wonwoo fluff #wonwoo scenarios #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines

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shhhhhuuuush · 2 years

Text

Join me under the cut because this will get long

I'm assuming you got here thru AO3! I'm sharing a couple snippets I edited out of The Very Real Adrien Situation:

(1) the original draft for the beginning of this fic, where chat noir comes through the window and instead of marinette jumping his bones they banter for a bit

(2) conversations about marinette's crush on adrien that I cut out

(3) some goofy banter I cut from the scene where marinettes going down on adrien, post-adrien-reveal

(4) the beginning of another sex scene that would have happened at the end of the fic but seemed like overkill and i didnt care enough to write it

Under the cut so this isn't crazy long:

[My original draft for the beginning of the fic - at first, the scene where ladybug + chat noir are tied up together didn't exist, and we just started at marinette's apartment right after margarita night]:

He's got a terrible idea.

A really excellent terrible idea. An idea that might be outrageously sexy.

He hears a key in the door and calls back his transformation. Marinette opens the door to a green flash, and says, "Were you hanging out detransformed again?"

"Just recharging," he says.

"Recharge in my bedroom, that way I can't walk in on you."

"I can always hear you coming, don't worry," Chat Noir says. "How was coffee? Ruined by the Akuma?"

"Completely," Marinette says, smiling. "Now I have to reschedule, and it's SO hard to get on my boss's calendar." She hangs her coat up, revealing her tight graphic T, cropped barely above her high waisted jeans. He can see her stomach as she lifts up her arms, meow.

"What was that?" Chat Noir says, cupping a hand to his ear and craning his neck. It makes Marinette roll her eyes and laugh. "I can't hear you," he says. "You'll have to come closer."

"I suppose so," Marinette says with an exaggerated sigh. She covers about half the distance to the couch and leans against the kitchen island. "How's this?"

"What's that? Pardon?"

She takes a couple exaggerated steps towards the couch, stopping about two feet away. "How's this?"

"I think I'm going deaf," Chat Noir sighs. "Or you're too quiet."

She covers the last step to the couch and collapses right on top of him. The suit makes it easy to take her full weight. She rests her chin on her hands above his breastbone, and says "I'll get you a hearing aid. Two sets of hearing aids, for both ears."

"Ah, there you are," he sighs, shifting a bit to situate his legs more comfortably in between hers. "I missed your pretty voice."

"I missed your sweet talk. How was the fight?"

"It made me think of you," he says, fluttering his eyelashes at her.

She laughs and says, "Translation, you spent the whole time looking at Ladybug's butt, and got yourself so horny that you can't let me walk through the door without lying on top of you."

"Slander on my good name! I'll have you know I spent the whole time fighting the akuma, and then afterwards, as a treat for doing a great job saving the city, I did look at Ladybug's butt."

Marinette laughs again. "And? How was it?"

"Same as always - perfect, and almost as good as yours." Chat noir snakes his hands over Marinette's ass and parks them in her jeans pockets. She wiggles invitingly under his hands.

"Mmm, you really are in the mood," she says, and her tone of voice says she approves. She starts to play with the open zipper at his neck. "Tell me you don't have somewhere you need to be in an hour."

"For you I have all the time in the world," Chat noir purrs, tilting his chin back to encourage her.

She pulls the zipper down just a couple inches, just far enough that her mouth can reach the exposed skin. She gives him a neat kiss on his chest, and says, "want to play superheroes?"

Temping, but Chat Noir has a worse idea.

"I have a counter offer," he says.

"I'm listening," she says, her fingers playing idly over the skin she's uncovered.

"It might be related to some intelligence I have gathered about your own romantic taste," Adrien says, unable to keep the teasing delight out of his voice. "Maybe about a past crush. Maybe a handsome celebrity model."

Marinette's fingers stop moving on his chest and she pales. "I don't know what you could possibly be talking about."

"Does the name Adrien Agreste ring a bell?"

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

[early fic conversations about marinette's crush on Adrien]

He grins at her, and leans her face towards him so he can kiss her mouth, with feeling. She sinks into it, but he doesn’t let her stay for long, so he can ask: “Fantasies? Please tell me you have a whole library of fantasies.”

“Of me with another man?” she teases.

“You’re not with another man,” he reminds her, and he lets his claws trace over her bare back so that she shivers.

She says, "I thought you’d be more jealous, to be honest.”

He laughs a bit at that. “I thought you’d never see me again after we started roleplaying Ladybug. I think I owe you one.”

She smiles at that, so he supposes he’s gotten out of the conversation safely. “Fantasies,” he demands.

“It would be different from how I fuck you,” she says. “With you… I’m never nervous. You make me confident. Maybe to a fault. But it’s easy to ask you to… touch me, to fuck me, anything.”

-chat noir action to show hes listening and break up the monologue-

“Adrien makes me nervous. Not like he used to, but sometimes there’s an echo of it – I want to impress him too badly. I want him to look at me a little too much. And I can’t always read him.”

“A mystery man?”

“A mystery dork,” she corrects. “But I could say the same about you.”

“You have a type,” he grins.

“I have a type,” she agrees.

“So how do you fuck him?” he says.

She laughs. “You won’t be distracted, huh?”

“I have to hear what the other fucking options are. I’m only getting the chat noir treatment. What am I missing out on?”

[in here: marinette starts to explain a fantasy by saying she wants adrien to "find her at a party, you know what I mean?"]

“Tell me what you mean,” he says, still playful with the laughter from a minute before.

“Something like... the lights are low, the music’s loud, and… I used to imagine, you know… I wanted…”

She gives him a look, but gets to the point. “He would see me through the crowd. And he’d think I looked so good that he’d come ask me to dance. And he’d pull me in really close, you know?” She’s pressed up against him. He has no trouble imagining. “We’d get to the dance floor and he’d have an arm around my back, holding me tight to him. Like right away. He wouldn’t even mind that I was a bad dancer, cause it’s just an excuse to hold me.”

She can’t get closer to him, but she shifts so he can feel her move. He winds his arms around behind her and holds her there, like she’s describing. She slips her arms around his neck.

“Like that,” she says. “Really close.”

“Hot,” Chat noir says encouragingly. “So he’s got you out on the dance floor. He’s snuggling up close to you. What would you have done? If he touched you?”

She fights a bashful grin and says, “I was too shy to do anything, really. But – if it’s a fantasy – if it went the way I wanted – I would have kissed him.”

“Just kissed him?”

“Oh no,” she whispers, flirting. “Nothing ‘just’ about it. I would drag him into a dark corner, and… I wanted him to drag me to a dark corner. And touch me more than you can do on a dance floor. Touch me like he couldn’t help himself. I—I used to…”

She trails off and he realizes he’s been sitting still, hanging on her words.

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

[sometime after the adrien reveal while marinette is being sexy at adrien]

She's admiring him. Her eyes wander up and down his body in an obvious way, and she gives him an approving nod, like she's the one putting on a show. It's intensely flattering, and sends a pulse of want through him.

He wraps his hand around his own cock, to give her something to really good to watch. She licks her lips as he strokes himself, but only lets him get a couple in before she sits back up stops his hand.

"Lie down," she says.

"Who do you want to lie down?" He teases.

"I want Adrien and Chat Noir to lie down," she says. "I want to fuck my two favorite men."

He laughs and bends over to steal a fond kiss before following instructions.

She takes off his jeans.

"See?" She says, while he gives in to laughing. "It's not that hard. Some people can take off their partner's jeans without being bribed with sexy talk."

"You sucked me off before you did!" he accuses, and she says,

"I didn't even make you ask once!"

"We took the same amount of time to de-jean each other,"

"I am still wearing a shirt! With my bra undone underneath it!"

"Oh woe," Adrien sighs, leaning back into the mountain of pillows that Marinette keeps on her bed. "The lady's suffering is deep."

"You ARE Chat Noir," she huffs, and he winks at her. She rolls her eyes, twisting her mouth to stifle a smile. It takes refuge in her eyes. "I can't believe I spent six years pining after a horrible dork."

"Seven, I think you said," Adrien supplies helpfully.

"Yes, thank you, seven years," Marinette returns. "We could have cut that down to a quick two if you had just tossed a couple puns my way in Collège."

"Oh no," Adrien says, propping himself up a little to get on her level. "Now I can't sit here and say nothing. Remind me who you let into your window?"

"I can't think who," Marinette says coolly.

"Remind me who you seduced with a little red dress?"

"I only like sophisticated, suave-type men."

"Remind me who - " Adrien starts, but she cuts him off by saying,

"Oh my god - I'm ridiculous - I'm dating both of Paris's most eligible bachelors. That's just greedy!"

Adrien laughs too. "You know," he says, "there was an article last year in Dimanche that compared us. I mean, compared me to me. Chat Noir and Adrien. The consensus was that Adrien is more handsome, but Chat Noir is more romantic. I'll show you - I bought the magazine and saved it, to show Ladybug someday."

"Oh," Marinette says. "I saw that, actually. That's... kind of sweet. That you saved it to show her."

Adrien grins. "I think she'll lose her shit when she finds out I'm a model. She already says I'm too much to handle, I'm going to get a good laugh out of her for this."

Marinette is looking at him fondly. It's an impossible reaction to talking about another woman. He supposes he doesn't have to worry that his reveal will change how she feels about Ladybug. About how he feels about Ladybug.

Of course it wouldn't - if she IS ladybug, she wouldn't mind at all, some traitorous part of his mind whispers. Stop it, he whispers back. down that road is disappointment.

Marinette says, "I don't think Ladybug would even have to ask. I think you'd have already taken off her shirt."

Adrien easily sets aside his thoughts to tease Marinette. He says, "Ladybug is a strong woman who can take off her own shirt."

"Ladybug wants some attention from her impossible model boyfriend," Marinette says, slipping easily into the roleplay.

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

[started to write them fucking at the end of the fic, but ran out of steam and couldn't justify it for the story so i cut it. here's how far I got]:

“Go again?” She says, all Marinette again, but still Ladybug. He almost laughs, she must know he does.

“Yes,” he says, answering her seriously anyways. “Definitely. Please.”

“Good,” she whispers.

“What’s the plan, my lady?” He asks.

She sighs. “Stay there. On me. I just want you in me.”

He kisses her deeply on the mouth, and then says, “great, I’ll remember that,” before he picks himself up off her and moves until he’s between her legs, and he kisses her deeply a second time, not on the mouth.

She laughs at his change in direction, so he digs his tongue inside her until she sighs, “Ooh, wow. It’s so much better without the suit. Next time I’m taking it off right away.”

“Oh no, not so fast,” Adrien says, raising his head at that. He uses his thumb to keep touching her while he talks, running soft, wide circles around her clit. “Marinette. You can’t. You know what that suit does to me. In excruciatingly private detail, you know what that suit does to me.”

She gives him some kind of bashful grin. “Yeah,” is all she says.

“Yeah,” he repeats, and it comes out much more serious than he intended, because he’s looking at her and she’s looking at him and she knows how much he wants her. “Yeah,” he says again.

“It wasn’t to tease you,” she says, as he lowers his mouth back to her clit, to replace his fingers. “When you told me about Ladybug. I wanted it. I really… wanted it.”

He licks her slowly, pushing his whole face into her, savoring the hot slide of her against his tongue. As sappy and romantic as he wants to be. Like he can sing her Romeo and Juliet poetry from right here, between her legs. Like he can hand her a rose, silhouetted by the moon, if he touches her right.

She settles her hands in his hair, and breathes, “I didn’t know I could have it.”

“Tell me,” he says, shortly, so he can bury his face back in her.

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

THANKS if you read this!! It's possible nobody did this is pretty hidden. But it can't hurt to make it available.

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