#encrypt folder

[foundagame]

Okay so after factory resetting the computer, going through the Windows 8 introduction setup, and considering whether to update the thing to Win10, then ultimately deciding against it because I don't want to run into compatibility issues, then going to lunch with my mom to take a break, I came back, put the USB flash in, transferred my copy of the game application and it's files onto the laptop and tried running it for the very first time-

Only for another error to pop up.

It says that "The program cannot run because [][][][][][][][] is being used by another program."

Idk what that means exactly, there aren't any other programs besides the basics that come prebuilt into windows 8, and it's not telling me what file is being used by another program, those brackets are all that pop up.

I don't know what to do here, now. What other program could be using the game executable?

Anybody know any programs I could use to at least extract some of the files that the game actually uses?

[jcmarchi]

Find Lost or Missing Files on Windows 11: Quick Recovery Methods - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/find-lost-or-missing-files-on-windows-11-quick-recovery-methods-technology-org/

Find Lost or Missing Files on Windows 11: Quick Recovery Methods - Technology Org

With the advancement in technology, data loss has become a common threat in today’s digital world. You may encounter issues like sudden deletion of files and folders on your Windows 11 device. Such instances usually occur due to accidental deletion, power outages, virus or malware attacks, and many other such reasons.

Luckily, there are several tools and techniques available that you can use to find lost or missing files on Windows 11 devices. In this guide, we’ll explore effective methods to restore your precious data, focusing on the utilization of Windows data recovery software.

Why do Files Go Missing on Windows 11?

Files can go missing on Windows 11 devices due to multiple reasons, ranging from accidental deletion to software or hardware failures. Here are some prominent reasons for data loss on Windows 11:

Accidental Deletion: Human error is one of the main reasons for missing files on any device. You may have unintentionally deleted files or folders while performing other tasks on your device storage.

Formatting Errors: Formatting a drive or partition leads to the deletion of all its contents, including files and folders stored on it. To avoid such instances, you should create backup of important data stored on your drive before formatting it.

System Crashes: Sudden system crashes or power failures while performing file operations, like saving or transferring files, can cause data loss. If the file system is not properly updated before the crash, it may corrupt or lead to the deletion of files.

Malware or Virus Attacks: Malicious software, like viruses or malware, can infect your device and files stored in it. Some malware may encrypt files and demand ransom for their release, while others may simply delete or move files without any prior knowledge.

User Permissions or Settings: Sometimes, files may appear to be missing due to incorrect user permissions or settings. If you don’t have the necessary permissions to access certain files or folders, it will disappear or become inaccessible on your device.

Quick Methods to Find Lost or Missing Files on Windows 11

Now that you are familiar with the reasons for the missing files, it’s time to apply adequate recovery workarounds to find lost or missing files on Windows 11. Let’s discuss these recovery methods one by one in detail:

Method 01: Check the Recent Items Folder

If you are sure that you haven’t deleted that file from your device but it’s just not appearing where it was supposed to be, then the first place you should check is the Recent Files section. For this:

Launch This PC on your Windows 11 device. Enter the path %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecent in the address bar and press the Enter key to open the Recent Items folder.

Now, sort the files that appear on your screen with the Date of modification. For this, right-click on space and select Sort by > Date modified.

Scroll down to check your files according to the date. You can search for the file by typing the filename in the search box in the top right corner.

Method 02: Find Missing Files Using File History Backup

Another method to find lost or missing files on Windows 11 devices is by using the in-built File History backup utility. If you have enabled File History backup on your device, it will automatically create backup of all files stored on your device and restore them, if data loss occurs. Here’s how you can find missing files using File History:

Type File History in the search box of your desktop and click on the “Restore your files with File History” option.

Now, open the folder where your deleted file was earlier stored. You can use the left and right navigation buttons to view the different backup versions.

Select the files you need to restore and click the green Restore

Method 03: Restore Lost Files with Previous Version

Another backup alternative to find lost or missing files on Windows 11 devices is by using the Previous Version backup utility. Windows 11/10 comes with this backup option to help you back up all your important data and save it to internal or external storage devices. If you have enabled this option, follow the below steps to find disappeared missing files:

Open the folder where your lost or missing files were earlier stored.

Now, click three dots and select the Properties

Go to the Previous Versions tab, select the backup version you need to restore and click Open.

Select the files you need to restore and save them at another location on your Windows 11 device.

Method 04: Find Lost or Missing Files on Windows 11 Using Data Recovery Software

If your files are still deleted and you have no backup, you can try using a Windows data recovery software to find lost files on Windows 11. One such amazing tool is Stellar Data Recovery Standard, which supports the recovery of lost or missing files from any device in a few simple clicks. You can easily find missing files, like photos, videos, documents, etc. using this amazing tool in no time.

The software supports the recovery of files from both internal and external storage devices.

It provides an easy and user-friendly interface which allows beginners or non-tech-savvy users to find their lost or missing files.

Allows you to preview the recoverable files before saving them to your device

The software is available in multiple versions; you can check their features and select the one that best suits your requirements.

Here’s how to find lost or missing files on Windows 11 Using the Stellar Data Recovery Standard tool:

Step 1: Install Stellar Data Recovery Standard software on your Windows computer. Launch the software and from the homepage, select the type of file you need to restore and click Next.

Step 2: Now, from the Recover From window, choose the storage location where the deleted file was earlier stored and tap Scan.

Step 3: Once the scanning is completed, preview the recoverable files and choose the files you need to restore. Click the Recover button to save selected files at the desired storage location.

Conclusion

Having sudden data loss or missing files on Windows 11 can be a stressful experience, but it’s not the end of the road. With the above-mentioned methods, you can easily find lost or missing files on Windows 11 devices. Just go through the aforementioned steps and best practices and enhance your chances of successful data recovery and minimize the impact of future data loss incidents. Remember, prevention is key, so maintain regular backups and avoid saving data on your device when you encounter such issues to prevent data overwriting.

[voidisverytired]

(based on a fic i'm writing atm)

Jazz Fenton who, after a bad reveal to the parents, starts to search for family that can take care of Danny because it is unsafe for him in Amity Park now. Jazz Fenton who finds the name Kane in her ancestry that then connects her to the name Wayne.

Jazz Fenton who shows up on Bruce Wayne's doorstep with a folder of proof of their relation with pictures; blood tests; family trees; etc. Jazz Fenton who says that Danny is "different" from the other boys and that it is too dangerous at home after their parents found out.

Bruce Wayne who shares this with his kids and they all come to the (logical in this situation) assumption that Danny Fenton is a trans man, proven more when their government files are encrypted and neither Tim nor Barbara can crack them (the Guys In White encrypted them and Tucker, upon finding out about this, further encrypted them just to see if he could (spoiler alert: he could))

Their theory is further proven even MORE when Danny is asked why he's still wearing a shirt while they're swimming in the pool of Wayne Manor (post identity reveal on the Bats' part because otherwise he'd question the scars) and Danny says he has scars on his chest he doesn't like showing (they are vivisection scars from the GIW)

I love the "accidentally assuming someone is trans" trope so much, it's so funny

*Everyone staring at Danny because he took off his shirt after spilling hot cocoa on himself*

Danny: What are you guys... oh. Oh, right, those.

Bruce: Those are... Daniel, are those dissection scars?

Danny, assuming the gig is up: Vivisection scars, actually. Or maybe it could be considered dissection, though I was definitely awake during it. I uh... guess I owe you all an explanation, don't I?

The rest of the batfam doesn't even care about the why or the how. They just want to know who did this to the Danny.

I love them a normal amount, I swear

[ralfmaximus]

Recall is designed to use local AI models to screenshot everything you see or do on your computer and then give you the ability to search and retrieve anything in seconds. There’s even an explorable timeline you can scroll through. Everything in Recall is designed to remain local and private on-device, so no data is used to train Microsoft’s AI models. Despite Microsoft’s promises of a secure and encrypted Recall experience, cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont has found that the AI-powered feature has some potential security flaws. Beaumont, who briefly worked at Microsoft in 2020, has been testing out Recall over the past week and discovered that the feature stores data in a database in plain text.

Holy cats, this is way worse than we were told.

Microsoft said that Recall stored its zillions of screenshots in an encrypted database hidden in a system folder. Turns out, they're using SQLite, a free (public domain) database to store unencrypted plain text in the user's home folder. Which is definitely NOT secure.

Further, Microsoft refers to Recall as an optional experience. But it's turned on by default, and turning it off is a chore. They buried it in a control panel setting.

They say certain URLs and websites can be blacklisted from Recall, but only if you're using Microsoft's Edge browser! But don't worry: DRM protected films & music will never get recorded. Ho ho ho.

This whole debacle feels like an Onion article but it's not.

Luckily(?) Recall is currently only available on Windows 11, but I fully expect Microsoft to try and shove this terrible thing onto unsuspecting Win10 users via Update.

Stay tuned...

[ms-demeanor]

Reading your post about safe anonymous leaking and nodding along and then going "well fuck I hope I can remember this later because if I ever consider it this is a bit incriminating to save in any way, huh"

The more people who use Tor, the less incriminating it is to use Tor.

The more you use things like Tor, the less weird it is for you to use signal and encrypted email services.

The more you use things like Tor and signal and encrypted email, the less weird it is for you to turn off the location on your devices and leave your phone at home when you go out.

It's suspicious as hell if you make a signal account the week before documents get leaked from your workplace. But it's not suspicious to have a signal account.

It's suspicious if you try to delete your google maps history the week after a protest. It's not suspicious if you don't have a google maps history because you don't use google maps.

All of which is to say: I don't think it's incriminating to check in on that post or bookmark it or start doing the things that it recommends because people should be doing the things on that post anyway. We should be using Tor casually. You should have a half dozen or so proton accounts just for convenience's sake. You should have signal, you should have your location turned off on your devices. You should be doing those things because they are good things to do, but doing those things also sets up an environment in which certain behaviors are less likely to be incriminating, or are less likely to be effective correlative evidence.

But also it has probably been a while since we talked about security nihilism around here; the deal is we live in a surviellance state and all of us are burned in some way. You sent an anon ask, but unless you sent it logged out and through an anonymizing tool, someone knows the originating IP address. If you sent it logged in, you may as well bookmark the post because you have already "contacted a security activist" in a way that can be subpoenaed (anon is only anon to the recipient! it is not anonymous to tumblr and courts can demand their records! that is why I said in the post that nobody who wanted to do any kind of leaking should say anything to me off or on anon!)

But also, consider your source: I have a bookmarks folder called "anarchist resources" that I had to remove from the toolbar because clients kept commenting on it during work calls. There is no way I'm beating the allegations.

But! Nihilism! If they want to charge you bad enough they won't need evidence to make it stick! So you might as well bookmark the post and install signal anyway. At least you can see if you can reduce your chances of getting caught!

[royharperwifey]

-–☆⁂☕︎Hacked☕︎⁂☆–--

Credits: I got this lovely idea from @sobbingscripter go give her some love on her fics. Part 2

[yearning!tim] [slow burn] [mlw] [x reader] [fluff] [cutesy!tim] [sequel?] [plot twist?] [damian wayne cameo] [reader has glasses] [tim has glasses] [I repeat TIMMY BOY WEARS GLASSES]

Tim is currently very high on energy drinks, trying to hack into Black Mask's mainframe. He is sure that he is behind the recent kidnapping, but he just can't prove it, yet.

He types in the encryption code into the Bat computer and before he can notice and fix his stupid caffeine induced typo, he clicks enter and he is met with a catalogue of photos.

At first, he sees screenshots from a lab website. Sionis working with chemicals? Then, he scrolls through and sees a photo of you. A young woman with at least 16 fries in your mouth, grinning at your friend.

Huh?

Tim closes the laptop and decides that he needs sleep. He's hallucinating and he needs desperate sleep.

After one of Alfred's soothing cups of 'sleepy tea' — that he's almost 75% sure has ground up and dissolved sleeping pills — Tim is out like a light.

The next morning, Time climbs back onto the Bat computer and nearly spits out his fresh croissant when he sees that you were not a hallucination of a pretty girl as he previously thought.

He scrolls through the camera roll, candid photos of the same young woman. Birthday videos, 0.5 photos, videos your friends took of you having a crashout about engineering homework. You were so cute with your messy hair and glasses gone askew on your face.

Tim threw the thought in the trash along with his croissant wrapper and continued his work from last night. He needed to get a grip. He types in the encryption code a second time, correctly and gets the same cellphone. Yours. He decides to dig a little deeper, but gets pretty distracted.

You're struggling with a homework question and asked many of your friends for help. Tim decides, you know, while he is in your phone, he'll just.. help you along. So, he types out a message, screenshots it and sent it yo your gallery.

>>—♡—>

"Oh my gosh. Look!" You say as you read the random Maths help that popped up in your gallery in a folder called 'Maths for pretty girls'.

>>—♡—>

That's how it started. You knew you'd been hacked but by a completely helpful guy. First it was Maths. It was the only reason that Tim hadn't un-hacked you, yet. Or, at least that's what he tells himself. In truth, he actually found your weird videos cute and the way you would send thank you pictures to him from the most unflattering angle known to man, captioned 'thank you mysterious elf'.

Tim despised being an elf but he supposed if a pretty girl called him that, he didn't mind.

>>—♡—>

After a month of Tim helping you with Maths, he decided to send a silly photo of himself, back. Was he dead on his feet? Yes. Was he on another caffeine high? Yes. Should he have gone to bed and left the Bat computer alone? Yes. Did he? No. But my goodness did he look damn good in blue light glasses, in a white t-shirt, messy dark hair as he leaned back in that gaming chair? Yes. Yes, he did.

Your jaw practically dropped when you saw that the guy helping you with your Maths problems was not only a nerd, but an attractive nerd. The universe was on your side.

You didn't respond because it was like 12am and you were half-asleep.

The next morning when Tim saw that he not only sent a picture of sleep deprived Tim to you, but he didn't get a single response. He was left on read.

He just sulked the whole morning and pretended he didn't jump when you added a picture of your outfit of the day to a shared album. He reached for his phone so fast, Bruce looked at him funny.

It was a cute dress. A dress. You looked so beautiful. The dress wasn't even revealing. it was flowey, had tulips on it. You had an adorable smile and your hair was down.

Tim decided to copy you. And not just in the 'oh I'll send an outfit of the day, too', way. He bought a similar dress and did the same exact thing. It made you laugh.

Days passed and you did the same, even adding a picture of you brushing your teeth to the album and so did he. And then Tim did something he was 89% sure was not his greatest idea.

He sent a photo of his phone number. On his bicep. Stupid? Yes. Cliche? Maybe. Effective? 100% you took a second to ogle his bicep before texting him.

The first thing he said was to meet up for coffee. You agreed. Did this mean that Tim was going to un-hack your phone? No. Did this mean he was going to start adding photos of random updates to the album, and calling Timmy and Me, a Project? No.

>>—♡—>

The coffee date made you a little nervous. This man looked good from all angles, even a crappy one where the only lighting was a computer screen while he was dead on his feet. And the first impression he had of you was 0.5 pictures and crashing out over engineering homework.

Tim thought the opposite. He thought that you were so pretty and confident and he was just a weirdo with an energy drink addiction and an atrocity of a sleep schedule.

"Why in Father's name are you dressed like that?" Damian asked as he stood at the doorway of Tim's room. Tim was wearing a Red Robin t-shirt, jeans and his yellow converse.

"Why? Is- Is there something wrong with it?" Tim was panicking. Maybe you didn't like Red Robin. Now his dreams of you getting all excited when he told you were crushed by Damian's tone.

"The colours are off. The red doesn't go well with your bright shoes. You don't want to scare off the girl."

Time froze. "How do you know I'm going in a date?"

"Because unless you're getting ready to play Binky The Clown at a Garfield Character Look Alike contest, you're not winning any points. Let alone with a female. They are complex species, Drake." Damian said.

"You got rejected, didn't you?"

"Shut up and change your shoes. Or very least the shirt. Perhaps the dress will match." With that parting sentence, Damian left. Dammit, he knew.

"I am not a cross-dresser, I swear!" Tim calls.

"No need to be ashamed, Drake. Grayson can do the splits without castrating himself and you like to wear dresses. We all have our things." Damian retorted, making Tim groan and flop down on the bed.

>>—♡—>

When Tim arrived to the cafe, he was not wearing a dress, nor the outfit from before. He wore a simple white tshirt, a pair of black jeans and his black converse. Who can go wrong with monochromatic? Colour doesn't look good on everyone.

That rule doesn't apply to you, apparently. You were so pretty. In a lilac dress, white socks that had frills on the tops paired with little black heels, and a pink cardigan. Your hair was down on your shoulders and your glasses hung low on your freckled face as you read a book in the corner. Tim puts his glasses on to make sure he isn't dreaming. Youre so beautiful. Did he even brush his hair.

He runs to his car and spends an extra 5 minutes fixing his hair. He then walks in like nothing happened and sits down in front of you.

"Hey, stalker." You say.

"Hey, gorgeous." WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?? Tim doesn't talk like that?? He is having an existential crisis right now.

"I- I mean. Hi. You're really pretty." He blabbers.

"Thanks. You're not too bad yourself. I like your glasses." You compliment. His brain short circuits.

"Me too. I mean, thanks. I like yours too. Nice eyes, by the way, where did you get them- I MEAN your necklace- chest. Dress." He lets out a gargling noise of embarrassment and buries his face in his hands. He wants the earth to swallow him right around now.

Then you laugh. At first, he's thinking 'oh my gosh, this girl is laughing at me'. And then, he's like, 'oh my gosh, this girl is laughing. She has such a pretty laugh. And it's directed at me.'

Tim looks up at you, a small smile on his face as he tries to calm the blushing down.

"So, what are you reading?" He asks.

>>—♡—>

A full 2 hours, about 3 hot chocolates and maybe a croissant or two later, the two of you finally bid goodbye. He watches you walk to a car. A very fancy car with someone in the front. His blood runs cold.

He's seen that guy before. That's.. Sionis' right hand. Shit.

>>—♡—>

"Of course she had to work with him. Of course." Tim whines once he gets home.

"Master Timothy, perhaps she is simply an associate of the man whom was driving her. Henchmen have families." Alfred consoles as he swaps out Tim's energy drink with tea.

"But I've seen that car before. The plates match up with a car that goes in and out of Sionis's estate on the daily. See, there's the car." The young man points to the screen as a car rolls into the driveway, the plates match up.

"Oh, dear." Alfred murmurs.

"Shall I let master Bruce know of this?"

"No, don't. I'll dig deeper. Be inconspicuous."

>>—♡—>

"You know, putting on a trenchcoat and sunglasses is not inconspicuous." Damian whispers in irritation.

"Shut up." Tim whacks his head.

"Sleep with one eye open tonight, Drake." Damian warns.

"Shh." Tim shushes as you walk past the cafe they are hiding at. You walk into a makeup shop.

"What girl goes shopping alone?" Damian whispers.

"Shut up." Tim says again, "Lots of girls go shopping alone."

"They don't even go to the bathroom with any less than a group. I wonder what they need that many girls for?"

"To compare chest sizes?"

"Disgusting. Point is- girls go nowhere alone, let alone shopping."

"Oh hey, Tim." You wave.

Damian looks up at you, muttering something about Tim's taste in women not being completely abysmal.

"Hey." Tim smiles.

"What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?"

"We came to spy on you." Damian says.

"What?" Tim acts oblivious. "No, we didn't."

"Right." You say, quite unconvinced. "Why spy on me? I'm just buying makeup."

"Why are you with Roman Sionis?" Damian asks. "I have no recollection of him working with females." He adds factually.

"I don't work with him." The words nearly make Tim leap with joy that you aren't working with him.

"Why were you in an out of his estate, then?" Tim asks once he has successfully stopped himself from leaping.

"I'm.. like his ward or whatever."

"What."

If I get 150 likes on this I will make a part 2

[starmocha]

sylus, zayne and caleb: who asks mc for nudes the most?

especially when she's away on training? or on a mission?

who's needier? (personal opinion is zayne would behave but then he'd break and i mean *break* and request the filthiest pics/videos. but then again caleb is a puppy. sylus has self control but as his heatwave secret time showed us, he can be very very veeeeery needy)

do you think they keep all the pics/vídeos or delete them with a heavy heart out of fear of their phones getting stolen and exposing mc to some lowlife unworthy of even mentioning her name?

what about pics/vídeos during sex? we already know sylus and mc are making their little vídeos, but I think sylus also has a polaroid collection of mc under him, on top, on all fours--he gets addicted to the way she looks while he's inside her

caleb would totally be into recording too

zayne's trickier, I think

mc would probably have to initiative the pic taking event lmao it'd have to be when things are innocent enough and she's saying she just wants some cute pics of him

she riles him up so much that he snaps a pic at the exact moment she's got his entire lenght in her mouth and is looking up at him and he says he wants some cute pics too

but I don't know, would love to hear your opinion if you're not to busy

sincerely,

an anon who's in the middle of a very stupid work conference and is very bored ☺️

😭 oh this was a good one to think about. …I don’t know why I wrote it like this, but let’s just roll with it lol

Personally, I don’t think any of them will ask directly for nudes. They’re all gentlemen. Of course, they wouldn’t be opposed if they’re offered some instead.

Video Call

Sylus is so tech-savvy, we’re not discussing that enough. He would for sure have a secret encrypted folder full of sexy photos and videos for his own personal viewing pleasure. His collection consists of all the ways he would take her and capturing her face at the exact moment she has an orgasm. After all, he doesn’t think it’s fair that only he sees it. He wants her to also see what she looks like as she comes around him. OK, my mind wandered a little too much this afternoon…this has nothing to do with what I had written above, but…squint and maybe it does…

Thinking of Sylus away on some hush-hush “business” trip. It’s been hard getting in contact with him. Perhaps there are no signals where he’s at.

The one evening she decides to break out her favorite “toy”, she gets a call from Crow Man himself, but it’s not just any call. He wants to video chat. Embarrassed, she quickly puts on a robe and tries to act normal as she answers his call.

He raises a brow, both confused and amused by what he is seeing. “Why is your face so red?”

She lies and says she had just finished doing some cardio exercises.

He calls her out on her bullshit. At that moment, they hear a faint buzzing noise in the background.

Shit. She forgot to turn the toy off before answering the call. With him watching knowingly, she has no choice but to confess.

“Really? A toy will get you off better than me?” He’s skeptical that she can be fully satisfied by a toy.

Indignant, she tells him that she already had two orgasms before he called.

Amused and intrigued, he challenges her to test it out in front of him. He would love to be proven wrong.

She’s caught off guard by his comment. Even more embarrassed, she asks meekly, “A-are you asking me to…in front of you?”

He nods and crosses his arms. “Unless you don’t think you can—”

“Fine!” She knows he is riling her up on purpose, but the mere idea of having him watch her is oddly arousing.

After finding a way to position the phone so he can see her perfectly, she disrobes and picks up the toy again. Sylus wouldn’t exactly say he is an expert on the different models of toys available, so he watches with intrigue as she positions the small toy, and the moment she feels it pulsing against her, she gasps, still sensitive from her previous climaxes.

Sylus draws in his own breath, silently cursing that he’s not in the same room with her right now. He watches in amazement as she shows off the different settings. Quick short bursts. Long, dragged out pulsing.

But her favorite? It’s the one that vibrates steadily and every few seconds, it sends a powerful pulse that has her arching, crying out. She maximizes the strength, and Sylus is getting hard at hearing how powerful the toy is, watching with darkened eyes as she loses herself, forgetting him and is entirely focused on chasing her next climax. With the way her clit is stimulated so heavenly, she isn’t even aware that Sylus had started his own fun, his hand wrapped around his large length as he strokes himself to the same pacing as her. It isn’t long before she comes again, the way she moans is enough to have Sylus spilling into his hand, panting along with her.

“Well,” he laughs, looking at the evidence in his hand, “You’ve certainly proven me wrong, sweetie.”

A few days later, she receives a mysterious package, giftwrapped in black. Upon opening it, she discovers several different new toys, a giant bottle of lube, and a bright red lacy teddy. There is a note: Play date this Friday?

Text Messages

Going feral at the idea of sweet, well-mannered Zayne being the filthiest. It’s always the innocent ones… Perhaps, she had a role in bringing out this side of him. After all, we know Zayne won’t do anything unless he has permission.

Zayne wouldn’t even think of initiating something like this.

But she would.

After hearing a co-worker share her experience with her boyfriend, she is now intrigued about trying something like this out with Zayne.

With him away on a business trip, she sends daily casual text messages to keep in touch.

Have you arrived safely yet?

What’s your hotel like?

Have you eaten yet?

I miss you.

Sleep early!

Are you tired? Don’t forget to rest!

It’s all so innocent and mundane, Zayne suspects nothing.

Then comes that message. It’s a video attachment. He clicks it and nearly drops his phone.

On the screen is his beautiful girlfriend, completely nude and her legs spread apart for the camera.

There’s a caption on the video:

Have a special treat waiting for you when you come home.

She squirts some cold whipped cream between her legs before dragging a dollop onto her finger and sucking it clean. She asks him sweetly, “Zaynie, you will help me finish this right?”

He can’t think straight, but he feels like he needs to catch the next flight back to Linkon now.

His phone starts pinging nonstop.

There are more risqué photos and videos. He’s losing his mind at seeing her posed in such provocative positions with so many different sexy expressions.

As he’s scrolling down this treasure trove of pictures and video clips, he gets another message:

I miss you, Zaynie. I can’t wait to have you inside me again. <3

*With me again. Darn that autocorrect ;)

Polaroids

Virgin Caleb is going to want to experiment with everything, including taking pictures and recording videos. I mean, he’d be cool with everything. It gets lonely in Skyhaven, so having some photos around the house would make coming home more…exciting. He would also keep that one special polaroid in his wallet.

Can’t stop thinking of Caleb and her finding an old polaroid camera and bringing it home one afternoon. They take some silly photos and experiment with it around her apartment. When they start play fighting, he accidentally pins her down, her shirt riding up to expose her chest and the camera snaps.

She’s not wearing a bra.

He’s straddling her.

The photo prints out.

As seconds tick by, the photo develops completely and it’s a perfect shot of her torso. Her shirt is pushed up, her beautiful breasts the main focus. Caleb swallows, his eyes darting from the polaroid to her pink nipples, knowing he should get off of her, but...he needs to get off now.

“Um…”

She teases him. “Are you hard already?”

He flusters and tries to glare at her, but it’s so hard to be mad when she looks so cute underneath him like that. Instead, he smirks and holds the camera up again.

“We’ve bought so many films,” he says mischievously, “we should put them to good use.”

She takes the first photo from him and presses her lips to it, her bright red lipstick staining the polaroid. He is even more turned on now. She waves it playfully at him, saying, “A gift for the colonel.”

Fuck.

They’re gonna have so much fun with the camera. He plans on taking enough to keep him entertained the next time he does patrol through the Deepspace Tunnel.

[sematarygirls]

GONE  GIRL.                             masterlist

if you know the whereabouts of this person, please call 911 or contact the kildare county sheriff's department at 252-290-6688

       NAV ! Part One. Part Two.

CASE NUMBER: 2023-KILDARE-002

CASE NAME: L/N, Y/N - Missing Person

DATE SUBMITTED: July 24, 2023 (Investigation Ongoing)

AGENCY: Kildare County Police Department

EVIDENCE TECHNICIAN: Officer J. Gingham

ITEMS ENCLOSED:

1. Incident Report

2. USB Containing Witness Statements

3. USB Containing Suspect Interviews

4. Anonymous Tips & Alleged Sightings

5. Manilla Folder of Crime Scene Photos

6. Subpoenas for Phone Records

  6.1. Victim's Call Logs

7. Subpoenas for Text Messages

  7.1. Victim's Text Messages

8. Search Warrant for 313 Lakeshore Drive

  8.1. Bottle of Unidentified Pills (Pending Analysis)

  8.2. Encrypted Flashdrive (Pending Analysis)

  8.3. Victim's Diary

  8.4. Threatening Letter (Pending Handwriting Analysis)

  8.5. Calender with Day of Disappearance Circled

  8.6. Shattered Picture Frame of Victim and R. Cameron

  8.7. Cellphone Charger

  8.8. Hairbrush (Collected for DNA)

9. Search Warrant for R. Cameron's Room at 115 Kingsford Street

  9.1. Pair of Victim's Underwear

  9.2. Collection of Naked Photos of Victim

  9.3. "R" Pendant Necklace (Victim was Last Seen Wearing)

  9.4. Bloody T-Shirt (Pending Analysis)

10. Victim's Purse (Recovered at Old Church on Whickam Road)

  10.1. Wallet with ID

  10.2. Torn QuickFuel Reciept

  10.3. Baggie with Unidentified White Powder (Pending Analysis)

  10.4. ChapStick Classic Cherry Lip Balm

  10.5. Keyring: House Key for 313 Lakeshore Drive, House Key for 231 Bradford Road, Unidentified Key, Heart Locket Keychain with R. Cameron's Picture Inside

  10.6. White, Silver, and Red Sobriety Chips

  10.7. Sunglasses

  10.8. Lo Loestrin Fe Birth Control

  10.9. Crumpled Photo of Victim and Unidentified Man

  10.10. Pink Hello Kitty Lighter

  10.11. Switchblade

  10.12. Trident Pineapple Twist Gum

11. Copy of Missing Person's Flier

12. Incident Reports from 313 Lakeshore Drive

13. Subpoena of Victim's Bank Statements and Financial Records

  13.1. Victim's Bank Statements and Financial Records

14. Subpoena of Victim's Medical Records

  14.1. Victim's Medical Records

CHAIN OF CUSTODY LOG INCLUDED

notes .ᐟ the layout isn't very pretty, but you get the idea. it's a detailed account of everything in the evidence box thus far

taglist .ᐟ @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @iheartjjmaybnk / @all4l0vee / @kissesfrmriri / @bradshawed / @fallbhind / @rafeslittleangel / @bakugouswaif / @fakedhearts / @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 / @riaras-everthroner / @memoirofasparklemuff1n / @rafeysangelbaby

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[mistymisfit]

Dirty A-Z headcanon game  

MINORS DNI!!!

Implied that reader is shorter than Jason. Most are GN reader, except the pet names (princess and ma) but other than no specified gender :)

My personal headcanons. Sorry everyone, I don't think he'd be all that kinky, he just needs some affection fr. I have a Dick Grayson version on my drafts, and he is a slut so wait for that one lol.

Finished this draft trying to get out of writer's block, I don't think it worked lol.

edit: fixed some typos

A - Alone time (how do they get off when they’re all by themselves? do they watch porn, is it all in their imagination, do they jerk off, do they use toys?)

On nights where he spends too much time away from you, and he starts missing your your kisses, your warmth, your jokes, your hands on him, and his on you, he's forced to take out the big guns. That encrypted (mentioned in point P) folder he keeps as protected as he can for your safety. It has a few videos, some of them more intense, others more goofy with you two laughing. The one he watches the most is the one that begins with him telling you to say something to check the sound and you reply with "I love you" a sweet smile on your lips. The camera's then hurriedly left on the nightstand, and your giggling ensues with him kissing you all over your face.

B - Bondage (do they like it? do they not? do they prefer to be the one being tied or the one doing the tying?)

Absolutely against being the one tied up, past traumas and all, he needs to be able to move for his peace of mind. Completely opposite opinion if you're the one being tied, especially if he's tying your wrists with his costume's garrote (ribbons).

C - Crying (is it a turn on? a turn off? do they cry during sex? have they cried during sex? what was the reason?)

Very much into you crying, and he definitely feels conflicted about it. He wants nothing more than seeing you happy and safe, so why is his dick getting hard when he sees tears streaming down your pretty face? Also, yes, he cries during sex!!! It's not always, but sex is such a vulnerable moment for him--something he struggles with very much, so he can't help but shed a few tears. And you're also into it. Truly matching each other's freaks.

D - Dominance (do they prefer to dominate, or be dominated? do they have experience as a Dom? Do they have a Dom that they trust already? What kind of things do they enjoy as/with their Dominant partner?)

Prefers dominating, low-key a control freak, and is obsessed with the amount of trust you have on him. If he's letting you take control, it's in a more "let me take care of you, baby" way. On some occasions, more often than he'd like to admit he enjoys it more when you both refuse to let the other take charge, usually happens after an argument (see next point). He'd never admit it but he likes that more than anything.

E - Extra info (any other fetishes? feet? leather? role playing? blood? fantasies that they might want to experience not on this list?)

Marking: He would never hurt you, really. But there's something about his teeth leaving a mark on your skin, the whimper you let out every time he does it, and the soft kiss he leaves behind after he's done. God forbid he draws blood, it drives him up the wall. It's only fair game that he'd let you do it too, catching himself proudly smirking when he catches a glimpse of the scratches you left across his back. Or the time you bit his shoulder as you came, he followed shortly after. He's never lost his composure that fast before.

Role-Playing: It started with you joking once, playing damsel in distress and acting like he'd just saved you from a life-threatening situation, but it awoke something in him. Something something about calming his anxieties about not being able to keep you safe. He asked if you could do it more often, you nodded excitedly. If you knew it'd get him so riled up, you'd put yourself in danger earlier. Would love to fuck in his Red Hood get up but he thinks it'd be too impersonal to you--you'd agree in a second if he asked.

Praise kink: He needs you to tell him he's good, that you want him. You told him "I need you, Jay," and he's never taken his clothes off so fast. Most times it's not sexual; he just loves hearing you tell him he's doing a good job.

Make up sex: Jason likes seeing you mad, something about how feisty you get and how you could be as stubborn as him turns him the fuck on. He likes how rough you both get, gripping each other's clothes, hair pulling and biting harder than what you two usually do. Sometimes he starts arguments for this sole reason.

F - Food play (do they like using food in the bedroom? are there any foods they prefer to use during sex or foreplay? any they’d like to try?)

He got hit with fear toxin one time, you spent a couple of days taking care of him until he came down from a nasty fever. A side effect to the antidote Alfred and Bruce couldn't work out yet. You spoon-fed him soup, and he swears he fell in love with you all over again. If he hadn't been so sick he would've knocked over the plate and kissed you senseless.

Also! He likes watching you eat whatever he cooks. Sometimes he waits for you at home with dinner ready, well aware you always come back home starving. Most times, too hungry to cook a decent meal. So watching you sigh when you take your first bite, telling him how good it is, how much of a good boyfriend he's for doing this for you, his blush reaches his ears. He's just winning his way to your bedroom heart with food.

G - Group sex (would they have a threeway? four? an orgy? do they put on a show for spectators? or do they like to keep it just between them and their partner?)

Another no for him. Jason's not good at sharing, he's way too possessive to share your attention. And honestly, it'd hurt his ego a little bit if you were to suggest it. He's insecure, so his mind would instantly go to "I'm not enough"

H - Humiliation (does degradation and insults get them hot? do they get off on humiliating someone else? what kind of humiliation is good for them?)

See point E. He's too in love to call you a bitch. He's not exactly opposed to the idea of having kids with you someday if you wanted to, and he just can't imagine calling the future mother of his kids a whore. However, he's not past calling you a "fucking brat" if you keep on teasing him or using a mocking tone every once in a while like "Aw, is it too much? Thought you said you were a big girl"

I - Impact play (here’s where talking about things like spanking, paddles, canes, floggers and the like.)

Not specifically into spanking but has slapped your ass before, heart skipping a beat when his hand left an imprint on your skin. You could awake something in him if you tried, for sure.

J - Jelly (what kind of lube are they using? is it flavored? have they tasted it? do they prefer to use something other than real lube during sex?)

He's a big boy, so you could imagine what he's got under his pants is proportionate to the rest of him. He'd use it to make sure he won't hurt you, but he's more old fashioned prefering making you cum a couple times to prep you.

K - Kissing (what parts of their body do they like having kissed? what parts of their partner do they enjoy kissing? do they like leaving marks / having marks left on them?)

He's a hungry kisser, knocks the air out of your lungs, grabbing your face, knocking things over as you take a step back not to fall type of kiss. Tied in with C, he likes kissing the tears off your face. Most random spots he likes to kiss are the back of your knees and your ankles when he puts them on his shoulders. If he's sitting down and you're standing in between his legs, petting his head, he'll most likely kiss your stomach.

He has a spot, his pulse point on his neck, not easy to reach considering his height, so he has to be in a horizontal position for you to reach. You kiss him there, and he melts instantly. And his back, if you manage to cuddle as the big spoon and start pressing kisses across his back, he could pass out right there. Matter of fact, any kiss from you makes him melt, he's touch starved, so any contact you initiate flusters him.

L - Lighting (are the lights on? off? do they have some kind of mood lighting set up?)

At first, off. You have to work your way until he's comfortable enough to have some dim lights on. He's too afraid to scare you off with his scars.

M - Masochism (do they like pain? scratching? biting? being bossed around? spoken down to? choked?)

Scratching, biting, are all fair game with him. He's a bit feral like that. Doesn't like being spoken down; his ego's fragile enough from all his own self-hatred. Being bossed around? He's almost incapable of following orders, this man had no figure of authority before Bruce when he was a kid.

N - Not yet (orgasm delay? orgasm denial? do they tell their partner not to touch themselves for a certain amount of time or under certain circumstances? do they delay or deny other things like bathroom usage or food? do they need to beg first? do they like being denied / delayed?)

He's tried, seriously, but all you had to do was beg a little and look at him with those glassy eyes, and his resolve faded away fast. He's unable to say no to you; you know it and often use it to your advantage.

O - Outdoor sex (have they ever done it in public? would they? where?)

Yes, on his car, the bat-mobile he stole once just out of spite (Bruce was well aware he took it- and traumatized to find out his adoptive son's reasons) and against his bike on an empty parking lot (that one was pure wish fulfillment for him)

P - Photography (are cameras allowed in the bedroom? do they send nudes? do they ask for nudes? would they ever record themselves having sex / being caught up in a sexual act?)

For safety reasons he doesn't keep any pictures or videos on any phone (he's got many). HOWEVER, he has a couple of encrypted-not even Babs wouldn't be able to hack- videos of you two for times he stays away from you for long.

Q - Quiet please (what’s the volume like in the bedroom? are they quiet? do they scream? do they like a loud partner? do they prefer if their partner is more soft spoken?)

He whimpers!!! he acts though but he's a whimperer!!! It takes a while before you warm him up to make more noise, he was shy at first. On the other hand if you were quiet he'd worry, he need some encouragement to know he's doing good.

R - Routine (do they have a routine when it comes to picking up one night stands? do they have scheduled sex with their partner? are things spontaneous or planned ahead of time?)

Jason's not really one for one night stands, he has problems with vulnerability--and intimacy as a consequence. He's more of a spur of the moment guy; everything else he does is planned-- stopping some villains' plans, striking a drug trade deal--, so he's glad he gets to be more spontaneous with you.

Once you're in an established relationship, and he knows you're okay with him being blunt, he'd straight up ask you. "Can we have sex when I get back home?" you got a text while he was out on patrol; you blushed and giggled before telling him "yeah" and "wake me up if I fall asleep." he replied with a smiley emoji.

"Babe?" His hands held your hips, correcting your posture. You could feel the warmth radiating from his body behind you, and there's no reason why he should be sticking this close to you. He insisted on teaching you some self-defense moves, so now you were both sweaty, the furniture in your shared apartment moved so you could have more space to move freely. Sure, he could've brought you down to the cave, but this was more private and intimate. You hummed in response, eyes looking up at him. "Wanna ruin the carpet?"

Or he catches you bending over, your arms resting on the kitchen island, mindless watching something on your phone. He stands behind you, hands grabbing your hips. You look back, and you're about to ask him what he's doing when he wins, saying "Haven't had you like this in a while, you busy right now?"

S - Sleepy sex (do they give oral to wake their partner up? do they like receiving oral to wake up? do they like fucking their partner awake? being fucked awake? how about being fucked to sleep at night? do they have lazy morning sex?)

Being fucked awake would probably be too overwhelming for him. And no matter how many times you told him it's okay, he probably wouldn't like that doing it to you. BUT he's very much waking you up kissing you so you could have lazy, half asleep, sex. In his head, it feels extra intimate, even more if he does it in the attempt to make you stay in bed with him a little longer.

T - Top or bottom (self explanatory…)

U - Underwear (what kind of underwear do they put on in the morning, if any at all… do they own any sexy underwear or lingerie?)

In your opinion, the sexiest underwear he could wear is a towel right after he showers, hair still dripping water onto his chest. It makes you come up behind him, wrapping your arms around his uncovered torso as he looks for clean clothes in his drawer. You stand on your tip toes to press your lips between his shoulder blades. He turns around, smirking and already knows exactly what you want.

"We'll get the bed wet" He reasons

"Don't care" You smile, fingers tracing his v line stopping where the towel starts.

V - Voyeurism (do they like to watch, or are they more hands on? are they more of an exhibitionist?)

Wouldn't like anyone seeing you two in that situation. Even if he convinced you to have sex in a risky place most times, he's already gotten rid of any possible outcome where you two end up on a certain list. Also watching? He can barely keep his hands to himself around, in a sexual way or not. He's just touch starved like that.

W - Water (pool sex? bath / shower sex? are they into watersports at all?)

I may be biased but I don't really think he'd be into watersports lmao.

Shower sex is a yes, he particularly loves when he comes back from patrol and you get in the shower with him, helping wash the blood off. He's always a bit shaken when he comes home, thinking about his own mortality and how fragile life is, and it ends up with something else. Just to feel alive. Jason's very fond of moments where you run him a bath, in the hopes of calming his nerves and the soreness in his muscles. You'd sit next to him, outside the tub, washing his hair. He'd always manage to find a way to convince you into getting in and riding him.

X - X-dressing (do they crossdress as a part of teasing / foreplay? does crossdressing turn them on? turn their partner on? do they prefer to do it or watch their partner crossdress instead? do they use other costumes? cat ears, tails, etc?)

Not exactly cross dressing lol. But if he catches wearing any of his clothes, it's over for him. You put on his Red Hood muzzle once, and he couldn't get it out of his head for a month straight.

Y - Yes, Master (what kinds of names are used during sex? do they like being called master / mistress, daddy, etc…? what names do they call their partner?)

Him to you: Sweet pet names, most used are princess, pretty, baby, him calling you ma with a breathless sighs makes you want to jump his bones--again.

You to him: Handsome, if you want to see his entire face turn red. He also likes hearing you moan his name. My love, you called him this once while sitting on his lap and felt his attitude change, clearing his throat, and moving you away from his crotch.

Z - Zones (what are their erogenous zones? what spots on their body should be touched, bitten, kissed, when someone wants to get them in the mood?)

Like mentioned before, his pulse point on his neck. If he's mad at you, all you have to do is trace your fingers under his shirt and over the hem of his pants, and he's already forgotten why he was pissed off to begin with. You were play fighting with him once and dragged your teeth through his bicep, threatening to bite if he didn't let you go, he didn't silently waiting for you to sink your teeth into his skin. Even hoped for a scar, a permanent mark that didn't come from violence but affection.

[buckets-and-trees]

Point of No Return [Fine Line Collection]

Characters/Pairings: mean Alpha!Bucky x curvy Female!Omega!Reader Word Count: 4.5k Summary: Bucky has continued to honor your tentative new arrangement, allowing your presence while he conduct business, this time with the men he's selected to be part of his inner circle. (not a stand-alone read)

Content/Warnings: omegaverse: scenting, alpha-omega bond, attention to bond mark; power dynamics; some manipulation; explicit smut: oral (female receiving), vaginal fingering, vaginal penetration, male ejaculation/insemination; beefy and voracious Bucky (is a warning)

Author Notes: I thought I'd be writing something else for this week of HBS, but here we are! Tried two other ideas, but this was what the muse wanted to work on! So this is my offering for WEEK THREE of @buckybarnesevents' Hot Bucky Summer - "Now now!" and exhibitionism.

Previous: Under Siege | Series List

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

The first thing General Levinson does, upon entering Bucky’s office, is drop an unsealed manila envelope on the desk and say, “You’ll want to see page five.” 

Bucky only briefly glances up. He flips the envelope on one corner and extracts the neatly typed dossier, his thumb running briskly through the pages until the one marked “5.” He scans it in silence, eyes flicking left to right so fast you’d swear he wasn’t reading at all, but you know better. 

You watch Bucky’s face for the telltale sign of news—amusement, irritation, the faintest raise of an eyebrow. But he betrays no reaction until the very end, where his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, and he hums, “Interesting.” 

Levinson sits—slouches, almost—legs crossed at the knee, hands steepled. He seems as comfortable behind enemy lines as he does in a penthouse drawing room. You remember, from your father’s own muttered warnings, that this was always the most dangerous sort of man: one who didn’t believe in sides at all, only outcomes. 

“Page six will interest you as well, but I’ll save you the suspense: your favorite little mayor has someone feeding her intel, and it’s not any one of the council rats who pissed themselves at last week’s performance.” Levinson flicks his gaze to you, but not in the way an alpha looks at an omega, or even a man looks at a woman. It’s a look of evaluation, the kind you’d give a high-value asset in an unreliable package. His gaze slides off you as quickly as it landed, but not before you register the calculation there: a curiosity about what you might know, or be, that no one else does. 

“Apparently, there’s enough chatter on the localized bands that she pulled at least three standing council members out of the territory before your men locked down the southern highways,” Levinson continues, voice bone-dry. “They’re regrouping in the Crescent District. Not an organized counter-offensive yet, but it’s only a matter of time.” 

Bucky closes the folder and drums his vibranium fingers against the lacquered desk. The sound is sharp, metronomic. “Who’s on the bankroll?” he asks. 

Levinson smirks, the barest twitch of his mouth. “If this were the old territory, I’d say probably Gowan, but the new seat of operations is running leaner than you’d think.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment, letting the silence expand—punctuated only by the measured taps of blue steel. Then he turns the folder so it faces you. “Tertiary sources?” he asks you, almost bored. 

You take the folder, or rather accept it as he slides it closer with one finger. The spine of the document is still warm from his touch, and as you begin to read, you’re aware of both alphas regarding you with identical, flat attention. 

The information is better than you’d expected: Cross-referenced wiretaps, heatmap overlays of encrypted comms, some social engineering so careful it could only be Levinson’s hand. You can feel your pulse quicken as you recognize names of old allies, family friends, people you thought had been cowed into irrelevance. But it’s the pattern of communication that draws you in—the subtle signals, the breadcrumbs of a resistance effort so careful it would have gone unnoticed had someone not been looking for precisely the right thing. There’s a kind of taut, ugly hope that blooms behind your ribs when you realize some of your father’s most trusted advisors are not dead, nor in exile, but embedded, alive, already building something. 

You bite back your reaction, keep your posture slack and your expression politely inquisitive. “If these contact points are accurate,” you say, tracing a column of numbers with your finger, “they’re not just regrouping. They’re triangulating.” 

Levinson raises his eyebrows, faintly impressed. “Exactly my thought. Most of the signals are low-velocity, until about two days ago. Then it’s all careful relays, little jumps from node to node, but always returning to one locus.” 

“The Ridge Market,” you say without thinking. 

“Bring in the others,” Bucky says. “We clearly have some priorities to discuss.”

General Levinson stands and moves to the wide double doors, opens them with a casual, proprietary ease. 

Nick Fowler, head of intelligence, is first through the door. He wears a perfect three-day stubble and a suit that, for all its perfection, appears to have never known a tailor. His eyes, pale as melting ice and twice as quick, land immediately on the folder in your hands, then flick to Bucky, who gives him a single, shallow nod.

Andy Barber, the new attorney general, lingers just behind him, hands deep in his pockets. 

Press secretary Ransom Drysdale rounds out the pack, today in a powder-blue blazer and gold watch, mouth already twisted into the preemptive smirk of a man who plans to lose no argument. 

The chairs scrape, the men settle, and Bucky—who does not stand for ceremony—simply waits them with a lazy crook of his finger. Levinson remains at his shoulder, half a shadow, half an extension of will.

"First order," Bucky says, his voice a weaponized monotone, "is this." He lays his palm over the folder. "Fowler, you’re lead on the Ridge Market situation. Devote as many assets as you need. Don’t burn them. I want to see what it grows into." 

Fowler nods, already two moves ahead in his head. "Soft touch, then. You want the inside of it, not just the edges?" 

Bucky glances at you. "She’ll consult on this. Knows the players and enough of their communication patterns." It is not a request.

Fowler’s eyes slide to you, and there is a visible recalibration, the shift from considering you a liability to seeing you as an asset. 

“So, Governor,” Drysdale says, “what’s our position, and has anyone told you lately you really need a chief of staff?”

Barber grunts, “If you ask me, that’s the real fire under your ass. Not the mayors or the market or even the threat of a counterforce. It’s the day-to-day. Things are running fine, but you will be able to do more with a chief of staff who can carry out your campaigns and keep things moving.”

Bucky gives Drysdale and Barber a look so flat and cold it would stop the hearts of lesser men, but these are the alphas Bucky has hand-picked to surround himself with particularly to have an inner-circle of strength. They wait for him to speak. 

“I already know who it’s going to be,” Bucky says, voice low, “I simply need him to agree to it.”

He doesn’t say the name, but you see the flare of amusement in Drysdale’s eye, the slight tic at the corner of Barber’s mouth. Whatever this private joke is, you are not yet party to it.

“There’s a bigger issue, though,” Levinson says, already on to the next battle. “With the territory stabilized, you need to address how people see you. The people expect the typical paradigm—Alpha as strongman, Omega as well-bred ornament. Half the territory saw their Omega heir offer herself up to you to save the people, and some of them liked the idea of her defeat. Some of them are angry as hell. Some of them don’t know how to read the new developments over the past few days with her by your side. If you want to keep the next wave quiet, you have to set the expectation of what an Omega is, and what a bonded pair looks like.” 

Fowler, who has been intermittently sketching something on his notepad, looks up and says, “He’s right. You can rule by fear, but you won’t get loyalty unless you give them something aspirational. The last three takeovers we’ve seen overseas, the territories that survived were the ones that adapted the fastest.” He glances at you, then at Bucky. “If you’re not going to put her in a box, you have to sell her as a new kind of asset. Otherwise, you’ll get the worst of both worlds. Everybody’s anxious.”

“We need to reshape what they aspire to, we need to make being an omega in this territory - this administration - look like a privilege. We need people to hunger for it, even as they fear it.”

Bucky’s metal hand opens, closes. The sound is like a slow gun cocking. "You want to sell her," he says, voice so mild you almost miss the threat. "As what?"

Fowler shrugs, a minimalist gesture. "The First Omega becomes an asset to the sitting governor. The only one with a real voice. You give her just enough leash that she’s not a hostage, but everyone is always watching for when, or if, she’ll snap it. This is how you recruit the next generation of loyalists."

Drysdale jumps in, "We can script it. It’s the oldest playbook in the world: dynasty, virtue, the taming of a prize. Public appearance with the both of you, minimum three minutes of live footage, no scripts. Let them see the bond. Touch her.”

“We do know,” Barber adds, “that the public display of her bonding initially and then the double bonding ceremony sent powerful ripples of perception through those who saw and additionally those who heard of it. The whispers about your recent council meeting are equally as alluring.”

The muscles in your chest are tight as you sit just off to the side of the circle, but you try to project as much impassivity as possible as Fowler, Barber and Drysdale discuss your fate like it’s any other marketing campaign. 

Bucky leans back, the sound of his chair creaking the only sign of his tension. "We'll do it. Schedule the public engagement for tomorrow at noon." He turns to you, a question in his eyes so brief only you catch it: Are you ready to play this part, or will you try to defy him with the world watching?

Bucky doesn’t wait for an answer. He crooks two fingers, summoning you to his side. The men around the desk barely pause. If anything, their attention sharpens, as if this, too, is part of the brief. 

You stand, approach, and he pulls you onto his lap without ceremony. You land astride his thigh, skirt riding up, the bare skin of your legs pressed against the wool of his suit. Bucky’s flesh hand settles on your waist, his vibranium palm spanning your entire upper thigh. The heat of his touch is a warning and a promise.

“This is what they’re talking about,” he says, not to you, but to the room. “The public doesn’t care about my policies or security protocols. They want to see us. To see her.” He runs his hand up, up, until his thumb is nearly under the hem of your skirt. “They want to see the bond. They want to see an omega who can take what’s coming, and stay hungry for it.”

You sense the performance in his touch. His hand trails even higher, the blunt edge of his thumb now grazing so close to the apex of your thighs that you hold your breath, waiting. 

Bucky’s voice is slow, deliberate, as he continues. “We learned something in that first week,” he says, his hand moving with lazy certainty ever closer, but not touching your clothed cunt yet. “She likes an audience. I like her like this. Everyone gets what they want, but, gentlemen, if we are smart, we figure out how to use it beyond the two of us. We need something for the masses, but we cannot be on display so freely, we have to be the rarity.”

His hand slides under the edge of your underwear, the pads of his fingers merciless as they slip under the waistband of your underwear and find your cunt, already slick and growing wetter by the second. The cool vibranium of his thumb settles on your hipbone, pinning you in place, while his two flesh fingers part your folds and begin to stroke, slow and unhurried, both a violation and a benediction. You gasp, the sound embarrassingly loud in the hush, and your other hand grips his shoulder, clinging to composure.

The scent of your arousal blooms in the room’s warm air, and the men around the desk catch it. You register it in the minute adjustments of posture, the softening of conversation, the way Fowler’s lips part and Barber looks away and then back, unable not to. 

You can feel how Bucky registers their reactions to. He noses at your throat, his breath hot against the mark at the base of your neck. You feel the wet drag of his tongue as he licks it, sending a pulse of heat through your body. There’s a deliberate showmanship in the gesture; he holds your eyes for a fraction of a second, then flashes his gaze around the table, daring anyone to flinch.

He finds your clit and presses, circles, until your hips twitch against his hand in a silent plea. His lips graze your ear, intimate and low for you alone: "Good omega." 

He doesn't slow, doesn't shield it from view. The men around the table do not look away. The pull of what's happening is gravitational, inescapable. You become the locus of the room, the axis of power and desire, as he works you with an exquisite, infuriating patience. 

"The new order," Bucky says conversationally, as though he is discussing the weather, "is not about fear or brute force. That's old thinking. It's about making something so compelling no one wants to tear it down." His fingers move more insistently, and you bite your lower lip to keep from whimpering. "You put a real omega in the public square, bonded to the Governor, not just a trophy but a weapon. You show them a pair as volatile and as bound as any mythology. They watch for the cracks, for the moment she breaks, and it never comes. The absence of failure is its own propaganda." 

"You want her to be a martyr," says Barber, his tone flat. 

"Not a martyr. A miracle," Bucky corrects. "She survives everything. Every humiliation, every pleasure, every blow. That's how you teach a territory to crave order. You become their darkest appetite." 

Levinson studies the tableau, his head tilted. "No other region has ever pulled that off, not for a generation. Old world, maybe. Here? It's a dangerous bet." 

Bucky's hand never leaves your cunt. By the way he holds you, you think he could make you come right here, right now, with the whole room watching, and all you'd be able to do is arch against his hand, because your omega instincts purr with satisfaction at being so thoroughly possessed, at being the focus of such raw, possessive desire. There's power in this submission, you realize - in knowing that the most dangerous alpha in the territory wants you so badly he won’t wait for privacy. 

“We are the bright opening, but we manufacture this,” he explains, ”rarity. A singularity. You make it clear the only way to aspire to what we have is through total loyalty to order. To me. To us.”

He slips his fingers out, and you whine at him leaving you empty. Then he brings his wet digits to your lips as though offering communion. “Open,” he rasps, and you do, parting your mouth so he can swipe your essence across your tongue in full view of the assembled men. Your taste is sharp, salt and want, and for a queasy instant you wonder how it must feel to be the living center of a cult, adored, sacrificed, remade again and again.

His hand rests heavily at your throat. “This is how we win forever, not just for a year or a decade,” Bucky says. “We reprogram the appetite of the territory until even our enemies cannot imagine another way of wanting.”

Drysdale leans back in his chair, and for the first time since he entered, he looks you straight in the eye. “You’re going to make her the center of envy.”

“Not just envy. Obsession,” Fowler says, untwisting his pen and rethreading it in slow, thoughtful turns.

Bucky locks eyes with you, and you feel the raw current of his need, not just to possess you but to make your bond an epoch. “This is about the animal in everyone. Give them something to fixate on, and their unrest will stay all teeth and no bite.”

You feel a spike along your bond, some mixture of anticipation and heat, and you realize Bucky is as close to the edge as you are. He wants to push you, to make you shatter, but to do it in a way that will become legend, a story retold in every district until even the most resistant omega dreams of being you. 

He stands with abrupt, predatory grace, lifting you with him. Your skirt is bunched at your hips. He slips out of his suit jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, exposing the gleam of vibranium and the roped muscle of his right arm. His flesh hand presses your chest down onto the lacquered wood, pinning you with the effortless strength of a war god. The cool air hits the exposed backs of your thighs. 

You sense every eye in the room: the generalized hunger, the predatory curiosity, the inescapable knowledge that you are about to be shown, again, exactly whose you are.

He doesn’t bother with your underwear; he simply rips it, the elastic popping against your skin. His hand spans your lower back, pinning you down, and without warning his cock—already hard from the spectacle—pushes between your legs, breaching you in a single, blinding thrust. A cry wrenches from your throat, sharper than anything you’ve made for him before, and the men around the table shudder in answer, an audible ripple of breath and muscle contracting. 

He fucks you at a brutal, unhesitating pace, each drive of his hips jarring your body forward, forcing your abdomen against the unforgiving edge of the desk. There is no gentleness, no pretense; he is using you, claiming you in an act of pure theater, and you sense the precise calculation in every movement. You are a weapon and a message. You are his. 

Your eyes blur with the force of it, pleasure already cresting inside you, and somewhere in your mind you feel the atmosphere in the room change: a tightening, a collective focus that neatly telescopes down to the hinge of his hands at your hips and the point of his cock spearing you open.

There’s a howl somewhere—it takes a moment to realize it’s your own voice, torn raw as he pounds into you. There’s nothing left of the careful, self-possessed woman who started this meeting. You are shaking on the edge, bent to the shape of his will and the angle of the desk. Every thrust drums the breath from your lungs, every wet slap of skin is punctuated by the guttural rumble of his satisfaction. 

He doesn’t break rhythm as he twists your head to the side—his vibranium fingers gentle for only this, maneuvering your face so you look out, directly at the audience of men with their masklike faces, their barely leashed hunger. Some of them have their hands fisted in their laps, cocks swelling obvious behind the thin wool of their trousers. All of them are breathing too fast, eyes wide. 

You come, and it’s not quiet, not contained, not modulated for the benefit of civilized company. It’s a noise from the animal core of you, a breaking of all protocol, a shudder that garlands the room with the velocity of your need. You think you might black out for a second, so total is the pleasure, so shocking the shockwave as your inner muscles seize and clamp around Bucky’s cock. 

He does not stop. If anything, he intensifies, using the leverage of his hands to wrench you against him, an exultant violence that makes your soul shiver. You are aware, distantly, of the men at the table, how their rigid silence has given way to a kind of seizure—rubbing, shifting, the rasp of wool and the pop of a button as someone’s restraint shreds under the force of what they’re seeing. 

You’re still spasming when Bucky slams in, his cock driving so deep it feels like he’s fucking the soul out of your body. You are nothing but light and wetness and his name scraped raw from your lungs.

Bucky spends himself in a handful of punishing thrusts, hips bucking against your aftershocks. He empties inside you, the heat of it flooding you so suddenly you groan, and the sound is so feral, so lost to dignity, the men in the room instinctively look away. 

He stays inside you for a moment, cock still twitching, his hand never leaving your nape, as if anchoring you to the desk is now a metaphysical rather than mechanical need. Then he draws your back against his chest. You’re reeling, legs unsteady, vision swimming. His mouth finds your ear. “Remember this,” he says, low and soft so only you can hear.

Then, to the men, he says in a cool voice, "You saw what I wanted you to see. Go figure out how to manufacture it for the public."

There is a scrape of chair legs, hands smoothing down pant legs, a flurry of wordless compliance. Levinson is the last to linger, studying you where you sprawl, debauched and splayed, equal parts ruined and remade. His eyes flick to Bucky’s; there is a nod, the simplest of compacts between predators, and then the office empties.

You can’t move for a long minute. Bucky does not speak, does not offer you comfort or reproach. Instead, he gathers the slack of your body up in his arms and sits you on the edge of the desk, your skirt bunched at your hips, your thighs still trembling from the aftershocks.

You study each other for nearly a full minute of silence. Then, finally, you say, “I don’t know what to think.” 

Bucky, eyes still glazed with the aftermath of violence and pleasure, says, “For now, that’s the point.”

Then Bucky pushes your knees apart and drops to his haunches, mouth level with where you leak his come onto the polished wood. His hands are on your thighs, pinning you in place, but it's not necessary—there is no possibility of you moving, of protesting, of wanting anything else.

He licks you as though nothing and everything is at stake. Slow, deliberate, the broad plane of his tongue scraping up every trace of his last act of dominance, tonguing his own saltiness from your folds and then deeper, insistent, flattening you against the desk with the weight of his hand on your sternum and the brutal pressure of his lips at your core. The office, the world, the entire narrative curve of history, narrows to this: the cool afterglow inside you, the hot abrasion of his mouth as he eats you out with the same focus he brings to violence or governance. You are nothing but pleasure, raw nerve and wetness. 

He doesn’t just tongue you to another orgasm—he makes it a series, each one more fractal and helpless than the last. By the fourth, you are wrecked and the wood under your back is slick with sweat and your own slick and tears you didn’t know you’d shed. Bucky is merciless in this too, his hands mapping every inch of your thighs, your sides, your breasts still clothed in the blouse you’d chosen for this day and now ruined, buttons pulled askew, your bra wrenched above the bruised arch of your nipples so you spill heavy and trembling for him.

He feasts on you. There is no other word for it. He unravels you, makes of your body a single, quivering animal moment, repeatedly tasting himself in you, letting you hear it—the wet, obscene melody of his wanting—until you can’t contain the noise in your throat. 

And when you come yet again, you muffle the scream in the crook of your arm, sobbing out the last of your composure to the empty office. You have no desire to stop him, and you can feel through the bond how insatiable he is for you, in return. It feels at the same time more feral yet more concentrated than it did before, and you wonder if it’s possible that he’s becoming as lost in you as you are in him.

There’s a short knock at the door, and Bucky barks, “Not now!”

But the door hisses open anyway. Nick Fowler enters, phone jammed to his ear, voice urgent but composed. 

“Sorry, Governor, but it’s Curtis is on the line, says they’ve gotten a positive. He found our man.”

For a moment, Bucky does not move, does not even look up from where he still holds you pinned to the desk by one trembling thigh. You see the flicker of calculation in his eyes, the split-second assessment of whether to finish what he started—whether to drag you through one more climax, to show Fowler that there is no force in the universe that can interrupt the Governor’s pleasure—or to pivot, to let the moment stand as a promise of what you will return to, and answer the call of power instead. 

He chooses the latter, or maybe only delays the former. With a last, bruising kiss to your cunt he stands and quickly, adjusts his tie, then efficiently rearranges your skirt and blouse so you’re somewhat decent. Bucky hoists you off the desk and onto your feet. He moves you with so little warning that your knees try to buckle, but his hands are sure and unyielding. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then runs his vibranium palm up your thigh one last time, a silent claim.

"Give me the phone," he says, his voice clean, crisp, as if the past ten minutes never happened. 

Fowler hands over the cell, glancing at you only once, then looking studiously at the floor.

"This is Barnes," Bucky says, and his eyes flick to you as if daring you to turn away before he's ready.

The voice on the other end is tinny but urgent. "I've got him, sir. Overnight, he cut through the northwest perimeter, he didn't know about the new surveillance we installed at the borders. He’s holed up at the freight depot, just over the border. Visual confirmation says he’s armed. Likely has a support crew of two, maybe three. Window’s closing before he moves again."

Bucky’s eyes flash in satisfaction, the momentary glaze of pleasure replaced by diamond-edged focus. He says, "That’s why I sent you, Everett. Bring him in. Discreetly.”

Who has been the target of the manhunt Curtis has been on?

And what will the inner circle propose to manipulate and seduce a society to bring them fully to submission?

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[wandascrush]

Traitor

Warnings: angstttt, betrayal, arguments, romantic tension, very stressful situations, lying, toxic Nat ngl, allusions to sex

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x f!reader, Wanda Maximoff x f!reader, Avengers x f!reader

A/N: Part 6 of my DIWK series! Summary: The truth always has a way of coming out- and todays the day

Fast forward four months 

   The wind blew fiercely against your window as you awoke, sensing an unusual tension in the air—a buzz, as if nature itself was angry. You fluffed your shaggy h/c hair and swung your tired legs out of the warm bed, extricating yourself from the comfortable embrace of a woman’s arm wrapped around your waist. Not just any woman, but Natasha Romanoff—the world’s greatest assassin, a highly skilled martial artist, and your girlfriend. Well, kind of. She didn’t want to label it, and you’d gotten used to that. Things with Wanda had fizzled out, and she was now one of your closest friends. Stability was slowly but surely creeping back into your life.

Just then, your phone buzzed on the nightstand, pulling you from your morning trance. An encrypted message from Agent Hill: another file to drop off at the HYDRA data server and report back. No pleasantries, no reassurances. The anxiety that once clouded your mind about this operation had dissipated over the months. You had grown confident in your skills, so close to the finish line now. You just needed one more piece of information about a new serum they were developing—something about a super-soldier project. Deliver that, and you would be officially done with HYDRA, Samantha, and all the vile people who worked there. A free agent—literally.

You pulled the file from its folder, reviewing the intel they provided this time. Not bad, surprisingly.

You dressed slowly, your legs sore from prior activities with your “girlfriend.” Natasha’s sleeping form rustled in the sheets before settling, a gentle huff of breath escaping her lips.

At the base, you navigated the winding corridors, each step echoing louder than the last. The data server room was buried at the heart of the building, and each doorway you passed felt like a checkpoint in a prison. Fluorescent overhead lights buzzed, casting a stark, sterile glow that complemented the coldness of the place. Reaching the server room, you slid your ID across the panel, entering as the heavy door hissed shut behind you.

The space was mostly empty, save for the hum of servers and the dull glow of screens casting eerie shadows. A lone technician glanced up at you, nodding in acknowledgment. You were well-known by now—both for your envied operation and proximity to HYDRA’s high command.

You approached one of the terminals, connected your encrypted drive, and waited as it loaded the contents onto their system. But as you watched the file transfer, doubt crept in. How many more lies before they caught up with you? Were they already catching up, and maybe you didn’t know it?

The file finished transferring. You removed your drive, pocketing it quickly. Turning to leave, you caught the technician watching you from the corner of your eye, his gaze lingering a moment too long. You met his eyes and offered a quick nod, concealing the flicker of alarm you felt as he turned back to his work.

Returning to the compound that afternoon felt like a relief. As you stepped into your hall, orange shadows of the sun creeping in through the glass walls, the quiet was broken by a familiar voice.

“Back so soon?”

Natasha’s slid into your view like silk. She was leaning against the wall in the corridor, arms crossed, her expression unreadable—as per usual.

You tried to keep your face neutral, but her sharp gaze seemed to peel back every layer you’d carefully constructed. “Mission ended earlier than expected,” you replied.

She arched an eyebrow, gaze narrowing slightly. “Right. Just strange. Fury usually sends the rest of us a notice when someone’s out. And you leave me a note. Or text.”

“It was classified,” you shrugged, trying to deflect, hoping she wouldn’t probe further.

Natasha’s smirk softened, but her gaze didn’t waver. She stepped closer, her presence intense. “You’ve been slipping away a lot lately, honey,” she murmured, her tone low. “Everyone’s noticed.” Her beautiful green eyes bore into you, calculating your every expression.

There was no accusation in her words, only an edge of curiosity. But the weight of the lies began to press down, your chest tightening with the guilt you’d tried so hard to ignore. “It’s not like that, Nat,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

She reached out, her fingers grazing your arm—a touch that felt like both an anchor and a pull. “Then what’s it like?”

For a heartbeat, you wanted to tell her. Instead, you swallowed the words, your throat tightening. “You know how this job is, Tasha. It’s complicated.”

A flicker of something—hurt, maybe—crossed her face before she masked it, letting her hand fall away. She stepped back, crossing her arms again. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

She scoffed, “Doesn’t seem that way.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.” You squeezed past her, accidentally bumping her shoulder as you did.

Her hand caught yours. “You know I can help, right? Whatever it is.”

You forced a half-smile, “Not this time, honey.”

Natasha held your gaze for a moment longer before nodding, though the air between you felt strained, taut with the things left unsaid. She turned and walked away, leaving you alone in the dim corridor, the weight of her words lingering.

You stared at the ceiling, Natasha’s words looping in your mind. Everyone’s noticed. You wondered if that included Wanda. The thought of her finding out, of her piecing together the truth, was terrifying. She’d already uncovered your family’s past—if she found out everything else…

You didn’t want to think about it.

About twice a week, Natasha would come and sleep in your room, especially after tough training days or a bad mission. Tonight? She didn’t so much as text you. Ouch.

The cold floors at 3 a.m. felt soothing as you walked to the kitchen to grab a drink, catching sight of Wanda curled up on the couch, staring out the window.

Her expression was unreadable.

“Wanda?” you asked, the surprise clear in your voice.

“I couldn’t sleep again,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Her gaze was intense, searching your face as though trying to read every unspoken thought.

You grabbed two juices from the fridge, crossing the room to sit beside her. For a moment, neither of you spoke; the silence was thick.

“It was two years yesterday that I held his,” she began, her voice hesitant. “I… I didn’t even remember.”

You glanced down, your hands twisting together as you gathered your thoughts. “I know,” you whispered. “I didn’t want to remind you, since you didn’t mention it.” Wanda adored her brother, and you adored her. You didn’t want to worsen her pain by adding a reminder. 

    Her hand reached out, covering yours, her touch warm and steady. “I visited his grave earlier,” she swallowed, “left a small baby’s breath bouquet.” “It’s always only one bouquet, but today when I visited him- there were already flowers there.”

  You didn’t know if you should also mention that you left flowers, but when you looked up, Wanda’s eyes were already staring into yours. Her gaze softened, and you felt the pull again, that magnetic connection that made your friendship feel impossible sometimes.

“Wanda…” 

She gingerly brushed a strand of hair from your eyes, tucking it behind your ear. 

“Now your hair is perfect.”

“It’s always perfect, witchy.” 

Her cheeky white smile glowed in the darkness. 

   The next few days most of your training was done with Peter, Clint, or Steve, completely ruling out the possibility of any more relationship messiness. The tension with Natasha, the fragileness you held with Wanda—it was all starting to pull at the threads of your mind once again.

You will never forget that day. That was the day your life changed forever. You often think of what might’ve been, if you hadn’t joined the avengers and all. Just stayed as a high level SHIELD agent. 

Maybe it all would’ve been fine, if not for that Thursday. That stupid fucking Thursday. And for Nick Fury. But you didn’t know all that yet. 

   You swiftly moved through the hallways on your way to meet Bruce in the lab, your mind elsewhere, when a familiar rasp called your name. 

“Y/N.”

You turned to see Natasha, her gaze sharp, expression unreadable. She nodded toward one of the empty conference rooms. “We need to talk.”

You followed her inside, the silence between you thick with unspoken words. You felt like a little kid in trouble with the principal. When the door shut, she turned to you, her arms crossed, her stance tense.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked, her tone steady but laced with frustration.

Your heart pounded, every instinct screaming to deflect, to lie. But standing there, facing Natasha’s intense gaze, the walls you’d built felt paper-thin.

“I…No.”

She took a step closer, her voice soft but firm. “Y/N, I don’t know what’s going on, but I will find out.”

The intensity in her gaze, the determination, left you breathless. She was offering you an out, a lifeline, but taking it would mean unraveling everything. You were practically at the finish line. 

Just as you opened your mouth to speak, the compound’s alarm blared, cutting through the tension. Natasha’s gaze flickered to the door, her expression shifting to frustration. 

“Of course,” she muttered, looking back to you. 

She turned and left the room, leaving you standing there, your chest tight and burning. 

    The mission had been going well until you were cornered in a tight hallway by a mercenary, his face hidden by a tactical helmet and wielding a blade that gleamed under the dim light. You threw up an arm to block his initial swing, but he was relentless, landing a hit to your side that knocked the breath from you. Blood trickled from a cut on your arm, but you pushed through, angling for a counterattack.

    Before you could make another move, a blast of red energy hit from behind, sending the attacker flying into a wall. Surprised, you turned to see Wanda, her hands crackling with energy. She stepped between you and the mercenary, red tendrils floating around his head before he fainted. 

“Thought you might need a hand,” she said, her tone light, but her eyes betrayed the worry simmering beneath.

You forced a smile, though your pride ached at her interference. “I had it under control.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but she didn’t push it. She held your gaze a moment longer, “Sure you did, L/N.” 

Before you could answer, Natasha’s voice crackled through the comms. “Y/N, Wanda—stop messing around and regroup. Now.”

Her tone was clipped, cold, and even through the comms, you could feel the chill.

You two shared a quick, slightly guilty glance before moving back to rejoin the others. Throughout the rest of the mission, Natasha barely looked at you, and when she did, her expression was hardened, her gaze flicking quickly between you and Wanda with a disapproving edge.

Back at the compound, you found Natasha in the common area, gathering her gear with sharp, precise movements. You hovered nearby, hoping to talk, to get a hint of what was going on, but she barely acknowledged you.

“Nat,” you started, your voice soft.

“What?” Her tone was harsh, her eyes narrowing. “Something you need?”

You faltered, caught off guard by the bite in her voice. “I… I just wanted to check if you were okay.”

She scoffed, a cold smirk pulling at her lips. “That’s rich. Last I saw, you were the one who needed backup. I didn’t realize Wanda was your personal rescuer.”

The words hit like a slap, the sting of her jealousy clear. You opened your mouth to respond, but she cut you off, grabbing her bag and shouldering it without a glance in your direction. You tried to lighten the mood, “A little jealous, Romanoff?” Although you were teasing, the joke came out so soft, genuine. You gently touched the small of her back, gazing at her with worried eyes. 

“Let’s not pretend this is anything more than a job, Y/N,” she said, voice low and unyielding- she shifted out of your touch. “That way, you won’t get distracted.”

“I think we should continue our conversation from earlier-,” you were cut off before you finished your sentence 

“And what if I don’t want to talk? Ever thought about that?” 

“Earlier you said you were here for me, that I’m not alone. I don’t understand, you know I care about you. Just talk to me-,” you hadn’t anticipated the crack in your voice at the end, catching Natasha’s attention, but of course, only for a second.

She packed her bag faster. 

“Natasha please-”

“Enough!” Her loud voice bounced off the walls. 

“So what are we then? We sleep together, we share a bed, you care about me- I know you do. So what is this?”

Natashas jaw clenched, and when her eyes looked at you, they held something you’d never seen, “It’s just sex, Y/N.  Grow up. It’s what adults do.” 

She rushed past you, shoulder bumping yours, leaving you standing there. Wounded and more confused than ever- the Romanov specialty. 

As you entered a new log into your journal that night, spilling your heart about HYDRA, Wanda, Natasha, a knock sounded on your door. For once, you just wanted to be left alone. You threw the journal under the covers, running to the bathroom.

You poked your head out of the door, “In the shower, can’t talk!” You hoped it was loud enough for whatever guest to go away. It wasn’t. 

  As the scent of vanilla and citrus soap slid down your skin, rubbing any grime away and relaxing your muscles, Wanda walked into your room. She figured she’d just wait to talk with you once you got out of the shower, plopping herself down on your bed. However, as soon as she sat, something hard and stiff was felt under her, something very uncomfortable. Wanda slightly lifted herself off of the bed, blindly moving her hand around for the stiff object- finding a small journal. It was a dark red, canvas cover. Your initials were etched into the bottom right corner. 

As you stepped out of the bathroom, the sight of Wanda sitting on the edge of your bed, her hands trembling, sent a chill down your spine. Your journal lay face down on the floor, its secrets exposed. Droplets from your wet hair trickled down your back, the cold seeping through your pajamas and onto the wooden floor. The room was thick with silence. 

Wanda’s eyes, wide and glistening, locked onto yours. Her voice, barely above a whisper, broke the tension. “How long?” The weight of her question pressed heavily upon you.

Your heart raced, each beat echoing in your ears. The walls seemed to close in, the air growing thin. You opened your mouth, searching for words, but found none.

Wanda’s gaze hardened, a mixture of hurt and betrayal evident. “All this time… ” Her voice cracked, the pain palpable.

You took a tentative step forward, hands outstretched in a plea. “Wanda, I can explain—”

But she recoiled, as if your very presence burned. “Explain? How can you possibly explain this?” She gestured towards the fallen journal, her movements sharp and erratic, “It’s you. You’re the traitor, you’re the mole,” she glared at you accusingly. The red glow in her eyes grew with each second. 

Desperation clawed at you. “I  was told to lie. Ask Fury he put me—”

“Fury? Are you serious?” she interrupted, her tone dripping with disdain. “Was any of it real? Or was I just another pawn?”

You shook your head vehemently, “No, Wanda, you have to believe me. My feelings for all of you are genuine.”

She stood abruptly, red wisps crackling from her fingers, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” 

   Before you could utter another word, the door swung open with a resounding thud. Natasha stood in the doorway, her face a mask of cold fury. Behind her, Steve and Tony loomed, their expressions grim. Natasha’s voice was icy, each word laced with venom. “Is it true? Have you been feeding information to HYDRA?”

Your knees threatened to buckle under the weight of their collective gaze. You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to stand upright. “It’s not what it seems. I was working undercover, on Fury’s orders. I was a SHIELD agent before an Avenger, you guys know this.”

Tony scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Convenient excuse. Got any proof?”

You reached into your pocket, fingers trembling, and producing your phone. “Call him! Ask him. Fury will tell you everything, promise.”

Steve stepped forward, grabbing your phone out of your hand- crushing it. His eyes, usually filled with warmth, were now cold and distant. “Your promises mean nothing to us anymore, Agent.”

Tony stepped further into the room, all of them cornering you, “Besides, Fury’s off grid with Maria. We just got the call.” He sucked his teeth, “But if  you two worked as closely as you say, you would’ve known before us.” The bite in Tony’s words wasn't missed. 

Fuck. 

As they turned to leave, you dove for your notebook on the ground, picking it up and practically shoving it toward Steve, “This! Read this!” ragged breaths left your mouth, “everything that’s been going on is in it. From the first day.”

Steve glanced at you warily, looking back at Natasha, “Can we trust this?” 

The redhead’s gaze toward you was icy, completely void of emotion. Your eyes pleaded with her. She didn’t care. 

“Absolutely not.” 

[shadyfestivalperfection]

Blueprints For Forever ~Drabble

Summery: Y/N finds Tony’s hidden file: blueprints for a home designed entirely for her, every room inspired by a memory they shared.

Characters: Tony Stark x f!reader

||Main Master List|| ||Drabble Master List||

She wasn’t snooping.

Not exactly.

She’d just opened one of Tony’s encrypted folders on his tablet labeled “Y/N—do not open unless you love surprises.”

So, naturally, she opened it.

Blueprints spilled across the screen: a modern lakehouse, a cozy rooftop garden, a library full of her favorite titles, a closet already filled with shoes she’d once admired in passing. Room after room designed around memories—her laugh in a rainstorm, their first movie night, the time she fell asleep in his arms reading a trashy romance novel.

At the bottom was one final file: “Our Future.”

She was still crying when he walked in behind her and whispered, “Say yes, and I’ll build it brick by brick.”

-the end

[furioussheepluminary]

𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐥

pairings: liar x liar, non idol au

synopsis: lies

warning: lies, ft minsung, hyunjin and changbin

a/n: if you have extra eyes for errors no you cant.

previously...

The house was quiet. A deep, heavy kind of silence that wrapped itself around the walls like a second skin. Only the occasional creak of old floorboards or the low hum of the fridge dared to stir. Bang Chan stood at the doorway of his room, the faintest sliver of light from the hallway catching the rigid line of his jaw. He glanced down the corridor toward your room. Your door was shut. He’d waited long enough, listened for your breathing to settle, watched the soft shuffle of movement behind your door stop. You were asleep. Finally.

He stepped back in and closed his door behind him, locking it. The folder he brought back earlier in the day—one he hadn’t dared open in front of her—now sat like a loaded weapon on the desk by the lamp. Cream-colored, slightly wrinkled, marked with a simple black label:

OP–SHADOWGATE : EXT-4271

He opened it. Slowly. The pages were crisp, printed in typeface and scattered with clipped photos, redacted names, and codes he recognized as off-grid intel. Private databases. Not FBI. Not CIA. This file had been buried beneath four layers of encrypted shell companies and abandoned ops.

But what hit him first was the photo.

You. Y/N. But not as he knew you.

The Y/N in the file wore darker clothes, your hair shorter, your eyes sharper. You looked… cold. Calculated. Military-grade precision in every movement. Every surveillance still of you was timestamped—none of them recent. All of them deeply embedded within reports about missing data, covert meetings in Singapore, Berlin, Tunisia… and one photo that made the breath catch in Chan’s throat—

A handshake. With a known arms trafficker.

What the hell? Page after page confirmed it.

Y/N L/N. No government affiliation. No agency tags. No loyalty flags. Not FBI. Not CIA. Not Interpol. Not even MI6. Instead, three bold letters marked the top corner of one document:

SCU. Chan stared at it, blinking.

Special Covert Unit. A name only whispered in the deeper shadows of intelligence circles. It wasn’t part of any official government. It was a freelance shadow operation—made up of former agents, soldiers, defectors, and ghosts. People who didn’t officially exist anymore. People who could do what governments couldn’t.

And you were one of them.

He ran a hand through his hair, standing abruptly and pacing across the room. The betrayal simmered just beneath his skin. You had lied to him. Let him believe you were an agent, his colleague. You played the role perfectly.

And now, he realized, you’d probably been tracking him. This wasn’t partnership. This was surveillance.

FLASHBACK — 5 HOURS AGO

The dim alley behind a nondescript Vietnamese café. A man stood near the loading door, lighting a cigarette with trembling fingers. Bald. Tall. Wire-rimmed glasses and a nervous tic.

Chan approached with his hood up.

"You said you had something I needed," he muttered. The man barely looked at him. “Your girl’s not who you think she is.”

Chan's silence made the man nervous. He reached into a leather pouch and handed over a sealed file.

"She’s on her own payroll. SCU. Has been for years. She's gotten in deep with people you’d shoot on sight. Singapore? That was the third time she’s crossed paths with Petrov. She might not even want you alive.”

Chan had stared. Said nothing. Took the file and left.

The rage started to build in his chest. A quiet fury. His heart beat hard against his ribs, but his hands were steady. He didn’t know what her game was yet… but he would. He grabbed his burner phone from beneath the loose floorboard under his bed and tapped out a quick, encrypted message to Jisung:

BIRD’S IN SHADOW.

SHE’S SCU. NEED A DEEP DIVE. NO MISTAKES.

PRIORITY ONE.

DO. NOT. TELL. HER.

He hit send and watched the message disappear into the black void of the encoded network.

Then he stared at the door. The one separating him from the woman who saved his life—

and may have been the one holding the blade to his throat all along.

---

The sharp ping of a notification cut through the heavy silence of the room, cracking the late-night calm like glass underfoot.

Jisung groaned into the pillow, half-buried under a tangle of bedsheets and the warm weight of Lee Know draped across his back. Lee Know stirred slightly but didn’t wake. His face remained tucked against Jisung’s shoulder, breathing soft and slow.

Jisung squinted at his phone from under the covers, fingers fumbling to unlock it.

One New Encrypted Message — Burn Line [CHAN]

> BIRD’S IN SHADOW.

SHE’S SCU. NEED A DEEP DIVE. NO MISTAKES.

PRIORITY ONE.

DO. NOT. TELL. HER.

That jolted him awake.

He sat up too fast, causing Lee Know to mumble something and shift with a sleepy arm reaching for him. Jisung gently slid out from under him, muttering, “Sorry, baby. Emergency. Sleep,” pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Lee Know didn’t even flinch—dead to the world.

Jisung padded out of the room barefoot and pulled his laptop from under the couch cushions in the living room. His fingers flew across the keys like they’d been waiting for this exact command.

SCU.

He already didn’t like it. SCU wasn’t just off-books. It was the stuff of ghost stories shared between agents over whiskey and paranoia. An elite, unaffiliated covert unit—ruthless, self-sustaining, and impossible to track. The fact that you were one of them? That was bad enough.

But what he found next was worse.

Kallisto.

He hadn’t seen that name in years. The last time it came up, a Russian scientist had vanished from a NATO stronghold. The whispers pinned it on Kallisto—a faceless middleman known for smuggling secrets, laundering intelligence, and forging high-level cover identities.

Every major intelligence server had fragments of Kallisto's digital fingerprint, but no one could identify him.

Until now, obviously. Jisung cracked open one of SCU’s old Istanbul logs. He cross-referenced Y/N’s operation history, missions involving black sites, off-grid assassinations, chemical extraction. And there it was.

An encoded drop-off record.

Marked: KALLISTO — ESCORTED CARGO: L/N

The IP trail was faint. Half-wiped. But he knew this code. He knew this formatting. His eyes widened.

"...No way."

He dug deeper. The metadata on the embedded cryptographic pings led back to one person.

HWANG. HYUNJIN.

“What the actual hell…” Jisung whispered. Hyunjin. The eccentric art dealer. Hacker. Occasional ghost in the machine when they needed access to black market caches. Your silent little tech whisperer. The guy you “called sometimes.”

Hyunjin was Kallisto.

The black-market ghost tied to former Russian intelligence circles. Jisung leaned back in the chair, letting out a long, low breath. His skin felt clammy, the adrenaline finally catching up to him.

You had lied. Big time.

And suddenly, everything about you—your calm, your silence, your innocence—it all made sense. He stood, went back into the bedroom, and gently shook Lee Know awake. “Minho… wake up.”

Lee Know blinked up at him, groggy but alert. “What’s wrong?”

Jisung knelt by the bed. “We’ve got a problem.”

---

They sat side by side on the couch now, Lee Know scrolling on his own device, eyes scanning the material with practiced calm. Jisung was pacing.

“She’s SCU. Confirmed. But that’s not even the worst part—she’s been working with Hyunjin. He’s Kallisto, babe. Like, the Kallisto.”

Minho stilled, a slow exhale leaving him. “Petrov’s operations. The Geneva leak. That guy?”

“Yeah. And Y/N had contact with him on record. Multiple times.”

“So, either she’s compromised,” Minho muttered, piecing it together, “or she’s playing some kind of deep game. Either way…”

“We can’t let her know we know,” Jisung said. “She’s too good. The second she suspects, she’ll vanish.” Lee Know nodded slowly. “Then we make a backup plan. Containment strategy. Something in case she decides to flip on us.”

They leaned over the laptop together. Drawing lines. Mapping timelines. Creating an algorithm that would flag any divergence in her behavior.

“She’s not FBI,” Jisung added softly, almost like it stung.

Lee Know watched him, his hand finding Jisung’s knee. “This is bigger than her now. We play nice. Act like we trust her.”

“And if she decides to go full double-cross?”

---

SOMEWHERE IN BERLIN — FIVE YEARS AGO

The rain was silver in the glow of neon. Cold. Soaked into the cracked asphalt like bloodstains washed clean too many times.

Hyunjin leaned against the shadowed mouth of an alleyway, hood up, hands in the pockets of a double-breasted coat tailored to perfection. Beneath it, a handgun pressed against his ribs and three encrypted drives waited in his briefcase like poison seeds. His gaze flicked upward, catching the silhouette of the woman through the haze—sharp steps, no hesitation, like she wasn’t scared of anything.

She shouldn’t have been there.

And yet… there she was.

Y/N.

She didn’t flinch when she saw him. She didn’t blink, either. Just stood before him like she already knew his name.

“You’re Kallisto?”

He smirked. “I don’t usually get called that to my face.”

“I’m not most people.”

God, that voice. It wasn’t soft—it was steel sharpened in silence. She carried herself like a storm that forgot how to scream. Beautiful in a way that made him ache, because it came with distance. She was untouchable. Purpose incarnate.

She was his type of problem.

---

PRESENT — SOMEWHERE IN TURKEY, KALLISTO’S SAFEHOUSE

Hyunjin sat barefoot at a sleek marble table, screens aglow in the dim light, lines of code reflecting in his tired, brilliant eyes. Cigarette smoke curled into the air like a dragon’s breath, untouched. His hair was half-tied, sleeves rolled up, black ink peeking from the veins of his forearm.

One screen displayed a dossier.

L/N, Y/N. Alias: Sparrow. Former asset of Operation Daggerfall. Unverified handler clearance.

He stared at her picture longer than he needed to. They’d met in Berlin by accident—but what followed was no coincidence. Y/N had needed access to something no agency would touch. The CIA had written her off. MI6 had wanted her dead. The FBI wouldn’t touch her without a valid background.

Hyunjin gave her one. He buried her records so deep no database could scratch them. Gave her a full identity, a backstory rooted in minor ops and forged casework. He made her real, not just on paper but in the eyes of the federal machine.

Why?

Because she was the first person in his life who didn’t ask him who he worked for.

And he liked the lie that he wasn’t dangerous around her.

---

THREE YEARS AGO — RUSSIA, THE BLACK VAULTS

K.B.V. — Komitet Bezopasnosti Vnutrennyaya. The Committee for Internal Security.

Hyunjin had been part of them once—not fully initiated, but deep enough. A rogue intelligence offshoot made of remnants from the KGB, rebranded under the skin of modern espionage. Hyunjin had been brought in as a teenager. A prodigy. A cyber mercenary capable of crashing entire power grids and rerouting missile guidance in under seven minutes.

He had worked operations where no one left alive. Where targets were innocent, and missions weren’t labeled necessary, just paid.

But somewhere along the way… he cracked.

It was a girl, actually. A blonde. From France. He never talks about her. After that, Hyunjin started playing both sides. Selling intel to the West. Helping the ones meant to disappear. That’s how he ended up in your orbit—how he became the one man you could count on to clean up her messes.

But he never told you about his KBV roots. Never told you that your fingerprints were once auctioned on the dark web and he was the one who bought them before someone else did.

He protected you. He watched your walk into fire. He patched her comms. He killed for her—quietly, efficiently. And every time you said “thank you” in that clipped, mission-focused tone… a small, pathetic part of him ached. Because you never looked at him the way he looked at you.

---

He pulled up footage—grainy but clear. The gala. Again. The kiss. Chan’s hand on her waist. Her lips against his. Hyunjin stared at it like it betrayed him personally.

He leaned back in the chair, exhausted.

“…You never wanted me,” he said into the silence. “But you keep calling.”

He closed the screen and locked everything down. Then turned to the window, watching a city he didn’t belong to breathe in the dark. And in a hidden vault under his floorboards, a letter addressed to Y/N sat sealed. Unread. Unsent. Just in case he ever didn’t come back.

---

The morning peeled itself from the edges of the horizon, warm gold bleeding into the sky like ink dropped into water. The air was still damp from the night rain, and the cobblestones outside the safehouse glistened faintly in the soft light.

Inside, Y/N zipped up the final bag with the kind of practiced grace that made it clear this wasn’t her first covert exit. She wore a dark hoodie, her hair tucked beneath a cap, and had the quiet look of someone already in the next country in her mind. Chan watched her from the doorway, arms folded, his face unreadable except for the faint shadow beneath his eyes—a storm bottled too neatly.

He knew. Everything. But she didn’t know that. He grabbed his own bag off the floor, slung it over his shoulder. “You double-checked the back exit?”

“Twice,” she said, brushing past him lightly. “You’d be surprised how many ops go south just because someone forgot to check for cameras.”

He gave a small, empty smile. “Wouldn’t surprise me at all.” They stepped out into the dawn.

---

The taxi smelled faintly of cigarettes and lemon-scented wipes. The driver grunted something in Czech and pulled away from the curb, the soft rumble of the car the only real sound as the city began to stir around them. Chan sat by the window, his hand curled loosely near his mouth, eyes locked on the blur of minarets and rooftop pigeons sliding past. Y/N sat beside him, her gaze forward, one leg bouncing slightly.

He broke the silence casually, voice wrapped in silk and smoke.

“You ever work with anyone out of South Carolina?”

Her eyes flicked to him. “SCU?” A pause. Careful, he thought.

She shrugged. “Not directly. They’ve got their own ghosts. You know how it is—oversight, contracts, a lot of red tape. Why?” Chan tilted his head, still watching the window.

“Just… someone mentioned a woman in one of my old circuits. Said she moved like she wasn’t trained by the Bureau.”

Her eyes narrowed just slightly, just long enough for him to catch it. “You think I move like that?” He smiled faintly, turning to look at her now. “I think you move like someone who doesn’t wait for orders.”

That earned a breath of a laugh. “Maybe I don’t.” They lapsed into silence again. But in Chan’s mind, wires were already reconnecting. Her answer wasn’t defensive—it was practiced. Slick. And vague enough to slide past the truth without ever touching it.

She’s good, he thought. Too good.

The taxi rolled to a stop in front of the departure’s terminal. Morning travelers bustled past with overstuffed luggage and sleep-laced chatter. Chan and Y/N stepped out, blending in with the chaos like shadows.

As Y/N adjusted the strap on her carry-on, her phone buzzed. She glanced at it.

[Jisung]: Your flight's confirmed. Prague to D.C, gate C-22. You board in 1 hr. You’re welcome.

Chan’s burner buzzed next. He checked it discreetly, heart thudding low and slow like a warning drum.

[Jisung]: Kallisto = Hyunjin. Confirmed.

He’s deeper in Russian circuits than we thought.

Do NOT confront her.

Play along. We’re building the counter-plan.

Chan’s jaw tightened. Just slightly. He slid the phone back into his jacket, turned to Y/N with that easy, almost-charming look he wore like armor.

“C-22,” he said. “You want coffee before we go through security?”

She blinked, surprised for a second by the shift. “You’re buying?” He smirked. “You’re still recovering from that fish crime you ordered last night. I owe you.”

As they walked into the terminal, he walked just a step behind her. Watching. Calculating. And the entire time, he smiled like he didn’t know a thing.

---

The room was dimly lit, washed in a cool blue glow from the multiple monitors lined across the wall like portals to chaos. The table was cluttered, half-empty mugs, a bowl of almonds, USBs scattered like confetti, and at the center of it all: Jisung, hunched forward in a hoodie, eyes flicking fast over the screen.

Lee Know sat behind him on the edge of the couch, arms folded, head tilted with that signature mix of exasperation and fondness. His hair was messily laid back, and he wore nothing but a black sleeveless tee and joggers that slung low on his hips.

“Baby, it’s past three,” he said gently. “Your brain’s going to short-circuit. Come to bed.”

“I can’t,” Jisung mumbled, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. “We just pulled up something off that Turkish backdoor server. There’s something encrypted buried under the Havana list—some weird metadata…”

Lee Know sighed through his nose, padded barefoot across the floor and crouched beside him, eyes scanning the screen.

“… ‘OSCAR,’” he read aloud.

Jisung leaned in closer, typing furiously. “That name was tagged on the Havana trade manifest. Not as cargo. As the person who signed off Petrov’s transfer. But this doesn’t make sense—there’s no trace of her anywhere. No photo. No paper trail. It’s like someone built a ghost and gave her a name.”

Lee Know stared at the file; expression unreadable for a second. Then he stood, walked behind Jisung, and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pressing his lips to the side of his boyfriend’s head.

“You are too sexy to be this stubborn, you know that?”

“I’m trying to focus here.”

“And I’m trying to get you to sleep so you don’t pass out in the middle of a firewall breach tomorrow morning.”

“I said I’m fine—”

Lee Know leaned down and kissed him again. This time slower. Then once more. Again.

Jisung’s fingers slowed on the keys. “Lee Know…”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing.”

“I’m kissing you.”

“Why are you kissing me?”

“Because when reasoning fails, seduction prevails.”

“I hate you.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am lying.”

Lee Know slipped around and gently straddled him on the chair, pressing their lips together properly this time—hands warm against Jisung’s jaw, mouth coaxing the tension out of him in lazy, warm kisses. Jisung gave in with a soft groan, arms looping around his waist.

“Just a minute,” he murmured against Lee Know’s lips.

“Take your time,” he whispered back, dragging the kisses slower, lazier, trailing from his jaw to his neck. “I’ll keep you here till the sun comes up if I have to.”

They didn’t speak after that. They just swayed together in the low light, lost in something too tender for words—breaths mingling, mouths brushing, the tension of espionage fading for a moment into something personal. Familiar.

Then,

PING.

The laptop chimed. Jisung blinked against Lee Know’s collarbone, dazed. “That… was the metadata dump. It decrypted.” Lee Know groaned dramatically and flopped back into the couch, dragging a throw pillow over his face. “If that turns out to be a decoy file, I’m deleting the internet.”

Jisung pulled himself up, adjusted the screen—and then froze. His brows furrowed, fingers hovering above the keys as an image popped up.

“Holy sh—”

“What?” Lee Know sat up. Jisung didn’t look away from the screen. His voice dropped.

“That’s her. Oscar.”

An elegant silhouette in grayscale. No face. But the metadata showed something else: A log of clearance codes used during Operation Nightfall. Signed off… under the name Reynolds.

Lee Know leaned in, eyes narrowing.

“…They’re working together?”

Jisung nodded slowly, jaw clenching. “And they were in Havana.”

---

Rain whispered against the windows of the high-rise apartment, streaking the glass in slanted gray lines. The place was sharp—clean lines, sterile decor, too polished to be personal. Just like the man who lived in it. Reynolds stood in front of the bar, pouring himself something darker than his thoughts. The amber liquid sloshed into the tumbler with a quiet clink of ice. He looked tired. More than tired. Worn. His tie was loosened, top buttons undone, and there was a trembling tension in his jaw that hadn’t been there the day before.

Behind him, Petrov leaned back on the leather armchair like a cat that knew it had nine lives. He wore black, all black, a cigarette lazily perched between his fingers despite the no smoking sign Reynolds always insisted on. His eyes tracked Reynolds like a man who expected a bullet—but wasn't scared of it. “You look like shit,” Petrov said calmly in his thick Russian accent, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling.

“I ran into Oscar last night.”

That got his attention. Petrov straightened, the smirk dissolving from his face like fog. “…She’s here?”

Reynolds turned, drink in hand, and gave him a cold, slow look. “In my goddamn living room, Viktor.”

Petrov held his gaze. “I didn’t call her.”

Reynolds’ voice cracked with low fury. “Bullshit. You compromised the gala. She shook your hand in the middle of gunfire. You were a goddamn beacon.”

“I was saving your operation—”

“You were making yourself the center of it,” Reynolds barked, slamming his glass down on the bar with a sharp crack. “Now she thinks we’ve lost control. She thinks I have. She threatened to light this entire op on fire if I don’t have Bang Chan’s head before the deadline.”

Petrov rose from the chair, the smirk now fully gone. “I swear to you; I didn’t say a word to her. She doesn’t know about Chan. Not from me.”

“She knows enough to show up unannounced,” Reynolds snapped, stalking forward. “And if we don’t get in front of this—if we don’t figure out something, she’ll pull the plug and do it her way. And her way? It’s not clean. It’s not political. It’s nuclear.”

They stood there, the weight of a thousand betrayals thick in the air.

Petrov flicked his ash into the tray, then muttered, “So what now?” Reynolds pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking. Calculating. The mind of a man who'd sold both secrets and souls for survival.

“We give her something,” he said finally. “A breadcrumb. Not Chan. Not yet. But something that makes it look like we’re playing ball. And in the meantime—”

He looked up, eyes sharper than a blade in the cold.

“—we come up with a contingency plan. In case she decides we’re no longer necessary.” Petrov nodded slowly, then lifted his glass.

“To desperate partnerships,” he said dryly. Reynolds didn’t toast. He just turned away, staring out at the rain.

“God help us all if she realizes how far off-script this really is.”

---

Terminal 2, Gate 22, En route to Washington D.C

The check-in line was long, but not noisy. But Y/N wasn’t distracted. Not really. She stood a few paces behind Chan as they waited at security, watching him with that instinctive sharpness she'd honed for years. Something about him was different. Distant. Not cold—but guarded. He hadn’t said more than ten words since they’d left the safehouse.

She watched the tightness in his jaw as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His hand gripped the strap of his bag a little too hard. His lips were set in a firm, unreadable line.

And Y/N, despite every instinct telling her to just play it cool, found herself leaning toward him gently as they passed through the security scanner.

“You alright?” she asked softly, keeping her tone light. “You’ve been weirdly quiet. Not that I’m complaining. It’s just… not your usual kind of quiet.”

Chan looked at her. For a moment, his eyes flickered. Like something inside him softened just enough to let the truth nearly spill out. But instead, he offered a faint smile—a hollow one.

“Just tired,” he said. “Didn’t sleep well.”

“Nightmares or intel?” she teased, her voice playful but careful. He let out a small exhale, neither confirming nor denying. Just moving through the moment like a man carrying too many unspoken truths.

She didn’t press. Not yet. As they approached the gate, their boarding passes beeped and they crossed into the jet bridge, walking side by side in the sterile tunnel that led to the aircraft. The hum of the engines rumbled ahead, but her mind stayed focused on the man next to her.

Maybe it was the look in his eyes. Maybe it was instinct. Or maybe it was that unshakable thread between them—tension, trust, and something else they never had the courage to name. Just before they stepped into the plane, she said, “You know… whatever it is you think I’m hiding from you… maybe just ask me, Chan.”

That stopped him. He turned to her slowly, brows barely lifted, lips parting slightly as if caught off guard. She gave him a small shrug, eyes calm but not challenging. “I’m not saying I don’t have secrets. We all do. But if you want the truth, you can always ask for it. I won’t lie to you.”

That hit harder than it should have.

Because the file still burned in his bag. The truth already stared him in the face, and yet—her voice made him hesitate. Made him doubt. And that scared him more than anything else. He nodded once, eyes dropping to the floor for just a beat too long. Then he stepped into the plane, leaving her to follow behind, unaware that the first real fracture had just begun.

---

The room was dark except for the flickering light from at least six different monitors. Strings of code cascaded like falling rain across black screens. The air smelled faintly of soldered wire and burnt coffee, evidence of Hyunjin's relentless routines. His desk was a chaotic masterpiece: old USBs, passports, a disassembled burner phone, and a half-finished oil painting of a fox that had long since dried unfinished.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, a single cigarette resting between his fingers but never lit. His gaze flickered over the final set of coordinates he’d decrypted an hour ago.

Location: Prague > Departure: DC

Subject: BANG C. / YN

He exhaled sharply through his nose. They were moving faster than expected. With the same elegance he brought to his art, Hyunjin leaned forward and opened a separate interface. His fingers tapped quickly, unlocking a channel so heavily encrypted it would take even the best black hat a week to scrape the metadata. But Oscar? She’d receive the message in seconds.

He clicked the microphone icon and spoke low into it:

> Oscar. Your package is mobile. Destination: Washington D.C. ETA six hours. Suggest containment on landing. You still want the ghost or just the soldier?

He released the mic, leaned back, and pressed SEND. A soft beep confirmed it was received and decrypted. He sat there, motionless, fingers steepled. His eyes didn’t blink for a few seconds. Because despite what he had just done—despite the mask of cold indifference he wore so well—it wasn’t just a mission. Not when it came to her. Not when it came to Y/N.

Hyunjin whispered under his breath, “What the hell are you doing, pretty girl…?”

He was about to pull up the next operation file when another alert blipped in the corner of his primary monitor.

Incoming Message: UNRECOGNIZED KEYCHAIN

Encryption: NERVE Protocol / Red Spider Variant

Location masked

Brows lifted. He hadn’t seen this protocol in years. Only a handful of elite black-market hackers used it. Most of them were ghosts. Off-grid. Untraceable. Curious, he opened the message.

> KALLISTO. I see you. You can paint in Prague, hide in Spain, sip tea in Seoul. But sooner or later, I'm gonna unplug your router and use your bones as Wi-Fi extenders. :) – spider.exe

Hyunjin blinked. Once. Twice. Then he snorted—actually laughed. Loudly.

“Spider.exe?” he muttered. “That’s cute. Very cute.”

He leaned forward and quickly activated three different defense protocols, sealing his connection routes and initiating a trace sweep. Not to find them—he wouldn’t succeed. But to at least see what sort of game they were playing.

He stared at the signature tag of the hacker’s handle again. It was old-school. Reckless. Personal.

“…Who the hell are you?” he whispered, the smile still on his lips, eyes sharpening like a wolf finally smelling blood.

Because someone was watching him.

And even though they were clever… Hyunjin had survived the K.B.V. by being smarter.

---

Jisung leaned back in his chair, legs folded, hoodie sleeves pushed halfway up as he spun a pen between his fingers. The laptop screen in front of him still had the encryption pulse active—the same encrypted system he’d used to poke the bear.

Or rather, poke KALLISTO.

Lee Know was somewhere in the background brushing his teeth, humming a tune from that one old K-drama he refused to admit he liked. But Jisung? He was grinning, eyes wide and glinting with mischief as he typed again into the Red Spider interface.

OUTGOING MESSAGE

> Yo Picasso.exe — you draw fast but you paint slow. FYI, I'm the nightmare that crash-lands your Dropbox and plays Baby Shark on loop till you cry in Morse code. Wanna play tag, comrade?

ENCRYPTED SEND > DELIVERED

Beep.

He waited. Not even fifteen seconds. His eyes caught the alert on screen.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION – USER: APOLLO.S13 // KALLISTO

Encryption Signature: Modified Russian VektorShell – Unscramblable

Jisung whistled. “Damn. Old school and expensive…”

Then the message decrypted.

RECEIVED MESSAGE

> Tag requires two players. You don’t ping like NSA, but you’re not FSB either. Your syntax is juvenile, your jokes? American. But your footprint is clean. Too clean. Either you’re new, or you’re very good. So tell me: how long have you been inside my system?

Jisung blinked. “Oh, he thinks I’m inside.”

He cracked his knuckles, rolled his neck, and grinned like a devil in a hoodie. “No idea who I am? Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

He quickly began coding his reply—half jokes, half riddles, all wrapped in a sarcasm sandwich.

OUTGOING MESSAGE

> Define ‘inside.’ Metaphysically? Emotionally? Or spiritually? Because honestly, I’ve been living rent-free in your RAM since you sent Oscar that voice memo. C’mon, Kallisto. Play a little.

Another beat.

Ding.

KALLISTO REPLY – 1:38 RESPONSE TIME

> Cute. But cute things die first. Keep poking, spider. When I find your web, I’m setting it on fire.

Jisung snorted, closing the lid of his laptop slowly like he’d just made eye contact with the final boss of a game. He leaned back further, arms crossed behind his head.

“Oh, he mad mad. Baby boy got attitude.”

Lee Know walked in, towel over his shoulder, frowning. “You’re flirting with Russian hackers at again?”

“…Technically he’s North Korean-trained but, y’know, semantics.”

Lee Know sighed, but smirked. “You’re not gonna tell him who you are?” Jisung grinned. “Nah. Not yet. Let’s see how long it takes Picasso to realize he’s been painting on my canvas.”

---

FLIGHT 297 – SOMEWHERE ABOVE KENTUCKY

Cabin dim, engines humming low, and the soft glow of overhead lights pooling like moonlight around their seats.

Y/N leaned back into her seat, head tilted toward the small window, watching as clouds slithered past in the night sky like pale ghosts. The plane wasn’t packed—just a scattering of sleepy passengers lost in their own silence. She’d been watching Chan from the corner of her eye for about twenty minutes now.

He was quiet. Too quiet. And something about the way he’d been since they left the safehouse was… off. Not cold. Just… calculated. Like he was mentally running risk assessments on everything, including her.

She didn’t press. Not immediately.

But curiosity and survival had a similar itch, and eventually, she turned toward him, voice soft. “So… what’s the plan when we land in D.C.?”

Chan didn’t look up right away. His gaze was fixed on the seat in front of him, fingers tapping rhythmically against the fold-down tray. Then, slowly, he shifted in his seat, casting her a quick glance before leaning a bit closer.

“Friend’s place,” he said simply, voice low. “Guy I trust. His name’s Changbin.”

Y/N’s spine straightened by less than a millimeter. Her eyes didn’t blink. Her breath didn’t skip. But something in her stomach knotted.

CIA.

She knew the name. Not from files, but whispers. Operation Scarfall. Beirut. The Berlin Deviation. He was the CIA handler you didn’t want to get on the bad side of. And he was close to Chan?

Shit.

But her face? A masterpiece. She smiled gently. “How close are we talking?” Chan exhaled a quiet chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “He almost got me court-martialed on my first inter-agency mission. Gave me hell for three weeks because I mislabeled a cipher doc.”

Y/N blinked. “Sounds like a great first date.”

Chan gave her a look, one that almost held a smile—almost. “He earned my trust the same way I earned his. We nearly died pulling each other out of a blown-out building in Benghazi. Haven’t been able to get rid of him since.”

Y/N nodded slowly, still pretending. Still sweet. Still the Y/N he thinks he knows. “And you think he’s the best place to start?”

“He’s not just a friend,” Chan said, voice flattening slightly. “He’s a fixer. Quiet but connected. If there’s anything left buried in D.C., Changbin can dig it up, burn it, and sell the ashes to the highest bidder.”

Y/N tucked that away. Filed it next to “Find a way to keep Changbin at arm’s length.” Chan’s eyes narrowed slightly, scanning her features. “Don’t worry. I’ll be the one to break the situation down to him.”

“Situation?”

He hesitated. “You. The mission. All of it.”

“Ah.” She crossed one leg over the other, lips curling into a soft smirk. “You think he’s not already ten steps ahead?” Chan scoffed lightly. “He probably is. He’s probably listening to this conversation right now. But I owe him the explanation anyway.”

She nodded, turning her gaze back to the window, watching the lights of a city far below flicker like dying stars. And deep inside—beneath the calm, beneath the softness—she wondered:

How long could she keep playing this game? Because it wasn’t just Chan anymore. It was CIA. And Changbin. The man who once interrogated KALLISTO in a shipping crate in Kaliningrad.

This was going to get messy.

REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT – WASHINGTON, D.C.

The air is heavy with dew and anticipation. The city sleeps—restless and unaware.

The plane’s wheels kissed the tarmac with a soft, tired bounce, jostling the passengers gently awake. Cabin lights blinked on fully, casting shadows over drawn faces and travel-weary limbs. Y/N stirred beside Chan, stretching subtly as the pilot's voice crackled overhead, welcoming them to the District of Columbia.

They moved in silence, the kind bred not of awkwardness but of focus—of sharpening blades before the next fight.

Baggage claim was a ghost town, the conveyor belt humming like a tired lullaby. Their duffels arrived quickly—black, nondescript, and heavy with secrets. Chan hoisted his without strain, glancing once over his shoulder as Y/N lifted hers. Always watching. Always calculating.

Outside, the chill was sharper than expected, the kind that bit through jackets and whispered of coming storms. Chan stepped a few paces away from her to the curb, phone in hand, raising it to call a cab. And that’s when her phone pinged.

One message. Unknown number.

Encrypted tag: MirrorOp-11.

She unlocked it, frowning faintly as the screen displayed:

> The spider’s getting closer to the web.

Better check your corners. – K

Her breath hitched just slightly—barely, but Chan caught it.

Unbeknownst to her, as she tilted the screen just slightly for a better read, he caught the top of the message from over her shoulder. His gaze flickered, lips twitching into a slow, almost amused smile.

Kallisto.

He knew that message wasn't from just anyone. And "the spider"? It was one of Jisung's oldest hacker tags—playful, dangerous, elusive. The digital equivalent of a red laser pointer and a loaded gun. Still pretending not to have seen a thing, Chan turned and flagged down a taxi with an easy wave, his voice calm.

“Over here.”

The yellow cab rolled up with a tired groan, headlights splashing across their faces. He opened the door for her first like always, and she slid in, her phone slipping into her coat pocket. Chan followed and closed the door behind them, then leaned in to the driver.

“Northwest. 14th and T Street,” he said smoothly. The driver gave a nod and pulled out into the sleepy city streets, tires whispering over damp asphalt.

Y/N’s expression was mostly neutral, but Chan didn’t miss the subtle tension in her posture, the tight hold on the strap of her bag, the way her eyes darted once to the rearview mirror, checking for tails out of habit.

“You okay?” he asked casually, glancing sideways at her. His voice had that soft, worn edge like coffee at dawn. “You looked like you saw a ghost back there.”

Y/N turned to him, lips already lifting into a gentle, practiced smile. “Yeah,” she replied easily. “Just... tired.”

He tilted his head, studying her just a beat longer than necessary, then nodded. “Of course,” he said, leaning back against the seat. “You’ve been through hell.” His tone was comforting. Reassuring. The protective leader. But his thoughts?

If you only knew what I saw.

If you only knew who I’m talking to. And what we’re building behind the curtain. The cab turned onto a main road, headlights cutting through fog, and the Capitol slowly began to rise like a giant in the distance watching them.

And Y/N?

She pressed her lips together and glanced down at her phone once more. She didn’t reply to the message.

Not yet.

Because suddenly…

It felt like someone else was watching the spider too.

---

The taxi hummed quietly as it pulled up in front of a narrow street lined with quiet row houses modest, but timeless. Each brick home had the same bones but showed off its own personality: a windchime here, mismatched flower pots there, paint chipping in just the right way. And in front of one—olive green door, cracked white trim—was where Chan told the driver to stop.

“Here,” he muttered, already reaching for his wallet.

Y/N stepped out first, stretching her arms with a quiet sigh as Chan paid the driver. The morning air was still cool, birds chirping overhead in the sleepy hum of D.C. suburbia. They looked like tourists, really. Two travelers with their bags and fatigue under their eyes. Nothing suspicious. Nothing wild. Just two people with too much history tucked into carry-ons.

As the car drove off and the sound of its tires faded, Chan walked up to the doorstep and gave three sharp knocks against the wood. There was a pause. Then footsteps. A shuffle. The squeak of a hinge and the door cracked open.

“Jesus Christ,” came a voice, deep and raspy, still thick with morning. “Who the hell fucked you?”

Chan barked out a laugh. “Real welcoming, Bin.”

“Hey,” Changbin grinned, stepping back so they could see him fully. He was barefoot in sweatpants and a black tee, hair messy, a toothbrush still in his mouth like a cigarette. “Had to be said. You look like a war crime.”

“I was a war crime,” Chan said with a smirk. “Come on, Y/N.”

Y/N stepped forward cautiously, bag slung over one shoulder, eyes darting over Changbin with subtle appraisal. She recognized the CIA air before he even spoke—calculated eyes, compact build, that low hum of suspicion always thrumming under the surface.

Changbin blinked at her. “And you are…?”

Chan shifted beside her. “FBI. She found me.”

There was a beat. Then Changbin’s lips twitched.

“A she found you?” he said, brow raised. “Damn, low blow, bro. I thought the Ghost of Langley would be found by some tatted-up Russian or an old white guy named Walter, but this—?” He let out a breathy laugh. “Nah, I like this better.”

Chan rolled his eyes and flipped him off as he crossed the threshold. “Eat shit.”

“Already did. The yogurt expired two days ago,” Changbin shot back, closing the door behind them with a heavy clunk and twisting the locks. He looked back at them. “Make yourselves at home. Couch is yours. Kitchen’s to the right. Don’t touch my protein powder or we fight.”

Y/N smiled politely, easing her bag down by the wall. The space was cozy in that ex-operative kind of way—bare walls, sturdy furniture, hidden cameras in the corner if you looked hard enough. Homey... if your version of home came with bulletproof blinds.

Chan looked over at Changbin again, that subtle softness tugging at the edge of his mouth.

“I missed you, bro.”

That wasn’t something they said easily. Not in this world. Not unless they meant it. Changbin’s expression flickered. “Yeah, well… you better’ve. I had to watch your name bounce through six different kill lists like a damn ping pong tournament.” He crossed over and pulled Chan into a half hug, the kind where you clap each other’s backs hard enough to bruise. “Good to see you in one piece, man.”

“You too.” Chan stepped back, grinning. “How’s your girl?”

Changbin snorted, dragging a hand through his hair. “Mad at me. Thinks I took a late-night op to avoid therapy again.”

“Did you?”

“Obviously.” He gave a shrug like: what’s a man to do? “She’ll forgive me. Eventually. I bought her a plant.” Chan shook his head with a smile. “You’re gonna die in your sleep.”

“Probably. At least I’ll die pretty.”

And just like that, the door to safety had shut behind them but the door to strategy, to planning, to war, had quietly opened. And no one said it aloud yet, but it was there in the glances, the sighs, the heaviness behind every word.

Because this wasn’t just a safe house.

This was the first chess move.

I can't wait for my lovely blue to see this 😙

Taglist: purple means I can't tag you

@whatdoyouwanttocallmefor @pessimisticloather @alisonyus @rockstarkkami @morkleesgirl @yoongiismylove2018 @imeverycliche @katchowbbie @pixie-felix @maisyyyyyy @katyxstay @day138 @necrozica @nebugalaxy @strsforjsb @iknowyouknowminho @imagine-all-the-imagines @jc27s @igotajuicyass @jitrulyslayyed @sh0dor1 @idiotmaterial @leeknow-minho2 @btskzfav @glenda2107-blog @jeonginnieswifey @makeawitchoutofme @nikki143777 @sharnnnnnn @akindaflora @chungdol @lillymochilover @lixies-favourite-cookie @heartsbystars @idol-dream-catcher @iknow-uknow-leeknow @rachmmb @min-doesnt-know @maxidential @ebnabi  @burntbang @therealmrsbahng @ari-hwanggg @xxxxmoonlightxxx @rossy1080 @hanniebunch @tricky-ritz @woozarts @zerillia @lveegsoi @queenofdumbfuckery @intartaruguinha @lorialia  @btch8008s @jamroses @hhwangsmoon @pnkcasket @alix-nai

Check out my pinned if you want to be added to the taglist!

~kc 💗

[good-chimes]

[HOTGUY!] HAS ONE NEW MAIL

Users with permissions to this shared mailbox:

Bdubs (role: Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes, Actor). Last login: Today.

Cub (role: Hotguy PR Agent). Last login: Today.

Scar (role: IT’S ME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ONE AND ONLY!). Last login: 215 days ago.

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: are you there?

is this hotguy’s email? i thought you were coming on patrol?

Why do you NEVER ANSWER YOUR PHONE

-cg

 ------------------------------------

To: Cub, Hotguy PR Agent

From: Bdubs

Subject: The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises

Dear Cub (if that’s your real name),

Now that you’ve been working for Scar for several weeks, I realized I never sent you any AGENCY INTRODUCTION documents. That’s okay! None of us are perfect, despite what you might feel when you look at me.

For your ENJOYMENT and EDUCATION, here are:

The Founding Principles of Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises

1.   Bdubs is Scar’s favorite employee.

1a.   Bdubs is also Hotguy’s favorite employee DESPITE the fact he does not technically work for Hotguy, and no upstart new PR agent is going to change that.

2.   Hotguy’s identity is a secret. You must never reveal that we both work for the same person. Take it to your grave if you have to.  

3.   However, if you see someone talking shit online about Hotguy or Scar you should immediately defend his honor. I often do this and you can see the results in the shared folder admin\arguments_bdubs_has_won. You might not be as good as me at winning debates on the internet—don’t worry!! I can give you tips.

4.   Here at the agency, we have the HIGHEST STANDARDS in responding to emails from the public. I noticed there are SEVERAL HUNDRED UNANSWERED EMAILS sent to Hotguy’s addresses that redirect to our shared mailbox. Scar is a very busy man! It is YOUR JOB to clear these out.

5.   We are open and helpful with everyone. Except hostile journalists. And the TCG. And the tax authorities. And anyone who might want Scar to do anything unreasonable like ‘be on time for something’. Keep this in mind as you go through the inbox.

All The Best!!!

Bdubs

P.S. I have noticed that admin\important_documents is now full of files called ‘virus1.exe’ ‘virus2 (gov encryption).exe’ ‘virus3 (might be sentient).exe’ etc. Explain this!?

 ------------------------------------

To: Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

From: Cub

Subject: RE: The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises

Yeah man cool this all sounds great

Scar seems to have a few email addresses that feed into here. i’ve sent replies according to which one the public emailed:

hotguy@hotguy.com — i replied to some of these but then i kinda got bored and started sending links to cool space facts instead. People will appreciate these i’m sure.

EMAIL_HOTGUY!!@hotguy.com — sent everyone a bulk reply of “Thank you for EMAILING_HOTGUY!! Hotguy loves you!”

FAN_LETTERS_THIS_WAY@hotguy.com — sent everyone a photo of Scar in his Hotguy costume

I_NEED_HOTGUY_NOW!@hotguy.com — sent everyone a photo of Scar in his Hotguy costume minus the shirt

super.cool.arrow.giveaway.for.fans@hotguy.com — sent everyone who gave their address some trick arrows. Only some of them will explode.

law.enforcement.collaboration@hotguy.com — redirected this one to spam

boring.tax.stuff@scargoodtimes.com — also redirected this one to spam. replying to the IRS just encourages them.

inbox zero, my friend. we’re ready for the next concerned citizen to write to us. Let’s go.

Cheers,

Cub

P.S. don’t worry about the viruses. Just a hobby. they’re in \important_documents because I needed a folder that scar never clicks on.

 ------------------------------------

To: Cub, Hotguy PR Agent

From: Bdubs

Subject: Re: The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises

Dear Cub,

Interesting. INTERESTING.

Don’t think you’re going to work your way into Scar’s affections with CLEVER VIRUSES and SHIRTLESS PICS OF HIMSELF. I see your game.

I’ve been Scar’s agent for years and I think when things heat up you might find this job too hot to handle.

All the Best!!!!

Bdubs

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: TCG Special Officer <vigilante.oversight@tcg.gov>

Subject: OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

Dear Hotguy (civilian identity unknown),

We are currently undertaking a review of your recent vigilante activities as ‘Hotguy’.

Vigilantes (‘heroes’) are encouraged to protect citizens and cooperate with the TCG. For this we require vigilantes to regularly communicate with their TCG liaisons, attend emergencies on request, and support law enforcement operations.

None of our emails to <law.enforcement.collaboration@hotguy.com> have been answered—I was going to say ‘in some time’, but I checked our file on you, and it turns out the right word is ‘ever’. You have never answered an email from the TCG. I am sure you can see why this is an issue.

We do admittedly have some difficulty getting vigilantes to ever listen to us, but this is a new low in obstructionism.

We have requested your assistance in investigating thefts from two biotech laboratories, vandalism at a local redstone supplies shop, and multiple call-outs to security incidents at Mumbocorp. You have completely ignored all of these requests. We note you have instead caused widespread chaos, disrupted several TCG operations, and at one point impersonated the Mayor in order to trick ‘Doctor M’ into purchasing a non-existent bridge. 

May I remind you that vigilante activity is only legal insofar as we decline to prosecute heroes for property damage. Kindly reach out to our liaison department immediately so we can work together on collaborative action under the direction of the correct authorities.

On behalf of Head Agent V. Berger,

Special Officer #49

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: are you there?

who is answering hotguy’s emails and why have you sent me a list of top supernovas! this is NOT HELPFUL

 ------------------------------------

To: TCG Special Officer <vigilante.oversight@tcg.gov>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for reaching out about the availability of Hotguy. Hotguy is unable to respond himself because he is rescuing kittens from tragically falling into rivers, an activity that has fully occupied him for the past eighteen months.

This is quite the list of criminal events, my friend. I thought the TCG had this kind of thing under control. It’s concerning that you don’t. Doesn’t make your TCG department look super great, huh?

Thinking about it, this really seems like something the Police Commissioner should know about. If you’ve lost the Commissioner’s email address, don’t worry. I found it on a forum.

Cheers,

Cub

Hotguy PR Agent

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: TCG Special Officer <vigilante.oversight@tcg.gov>

Subject: Re: OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

Dear Hotguy’s PR Agent,

I understand as a law-abiding Hermitopia resident, you may be alarmed at descriptions of disorder intended for Hotguy’s eyes only. Please do not be concerned.  We also strongly recommend you do not forward this chain to the Police Commissioner. As you will see from the news, the city is peaceful and everything is completely under control.

Kind Regards,

Special Officer #49

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

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

THERE ARE THREE HUNDRED CHICKENS WITH LASERS ON FIFTH STREET

tell hotguy to call me he’s not picking up!!!

-cg

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

To: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Regrettably Hotguy is not available as he is escorting orphans to the North Pole to tour Santa’s workshop.

Cheers,

Cub

Hotguy PR Agent

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

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

it’s JULY

 ------------------------------------

To: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Hotguy believes in being prepared

is this really cuteguy? what’s going on?

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

i was coming back from patrol and going to pick up my pizza. i always get pizza, cub, you have to understand this is an important part of patrol.

when i turn the corner to my normal pizza place there are

AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED CHICKENS WITH BEAK-MOUNTED LASERS

ALL OVER THE STREET

BETWEEN ME AND MY PIZZA

they’re milling around and scratching like someone just dumped them here. whenever they squawk they burn a tiny hole in the nearest wall. i tried to get near one to look at the device on their beaks and i nearly got my finger burned off.

now i’m on a roof. i want my PIZZA, cub. i’m a close-range fighter and i’m not getting up close with a laser chicken. this seems like a hotguy problem!

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Helloooo,

My name is Pearl Moon, and I’m a reporter with the Hermit Herald. I heard Hotguy has a new PR agent at this address. I’m not going to lie, I’m delighted. Hotguy’s a great guy for a quote, obviously, but getting hold of him is kind of a nightmare.

I’m at the scene of the Eighth Annual Fried Donut Festival. I’m contacting you because a citizen running a stall has allegedly just seen a, I quote, “weaponized chicken”.

According to them, it shot an “adorable laser” into their supplies, punctured a hole in their fruit toppings cooler, and ran under the stalls. I’ve been on this beat for a while and this sounds like a Doctor Monster or a Zedaph special to me. Personally, my money’s on Doc.

I know your client and Doctor Monster go back a long way, so I was wondering if we might see Hotguy himself swooping in?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

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

To: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Dear Concerned Journalist,

Thank you for your email. As you know, Hotguy is currently in Canada fighting smallpox by shooting individual bacteria with a special crossbow, for which he has received a commendation from their Prime Minister.

I’ve just contacted him to get a quote about the chicken and he definitely said, “Seems bad.”

Enjoy the festival! Feel free to send Hotguy a souvenir donut box to my address.

Cheers,

Cub

Hotguy PR Agent

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

there’s some kind of festival with crowds of civilians going on in the next street. the chickens are wandering towards it. to make everything worse, i think i saw a newsreader van.

this is funny but also very bad.

i’m going to see if i can lead the chickens away from the festival with some bait, since hotguy’s obviously too busy admiring his own biceps in the mirror to help. i’ve got half a granola bar and an apple core. this is going to work really well for eight hundred chickens. here goes nothing.

if hotguy wakes up from his afternoon nap, you can tell him we didn’t even need him.

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Dear Cub,

I’m pretty sure Canada doesn’t have smallpox anymore. I don’t think anywhere has smallpox.

New update: Several hundred chickens have just erupted into the festival from a side street. They all appear to have lasers. The sheer weight of poultry has overturned two artisan donut stalls, which has caused what I’m going to describe as “mass panic” as people try and avoid the laser beams. People screaming, people running, everything coated in a fine layer of powdered sugar. No injuries yet, but it looks like the Prize-Winning Triple Marshmallow Churro Donut display will never be the same again.

Also, I swear I just saw Cuteguy.

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

i got ONE chicken with the granola bar and NOW IT’S DECIDED IT’S MY BEST FRIEND. it keeps trying to fly into my arms! this is not helping!!

its friends are now all over the stalls. the laser chicken breed has discovered a new staple food and it’s fried donuts. this is NOT my fault. clearly none of this is my fault.

oh god now there’s two TCG agents coming over to see what all the shouting is about. the chicken radius is growing. there’s a folk band on a bicycle and a chicken just launched itself into their tuba.

i’m going to try and round the rest of them up. keep the TCG off my back and tell hotguy to do ANYTHING HELPFUL AT ALL.

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Situation update: Cuteguy is in the middle of a huge crowd of shouting people and appears to be clutching a chicken. Also, Doctor Monster has turned up. He’s trying to give a dramatic speech about his “evolved chickens” from a nearby rooftop through a loudhailer, but I’ll be honest, everyone seems more interested in Cuteguy.

#laserchickendisaster and #whereishotguy are trending on Chatter, but no sign of Hotguy yet! Sure he doesn’t want to give us a longer quote?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

 ------------------------------------

To: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

I have a cool contraption that you could probably use for catching chickens. downside is you do need some plutonium. Not much but, like, not a legal amount.

Alternately i also have a great recipe for roast chicken

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

we are not roasting these chickens, cub, the chickens have done nothing wrong!! And WHY DO YOU HAVE PLUTONIUM, WE TOLD YOU TO STOP THE DARK SCIENCE. DO SOMETHING USEFUL ABOUT THIS FESTIVAL SITUATION INSTEAD.

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Situation update: Doctor Monster has now turned his loudhailer on Cuteguy and accused him of stealing his evolved chickens. He seems very upset. The Doctor has declined an interview, but I’ve got some incredible photos and the powdered sugar really suits him.

I’m trying to get a quote from Cuteguy but it’s quite difficult to even see him through the crowd, and the chickens, and the German street band, and the displaced donut vendors, and the TCG agents who are trying quite earnestly to get to him, and—did I mention—the chickens.

My camera team is getting some great footage, but do you know what his plan was here?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

everyone in the crowd thinks i own these chickens!! one of the chickens has set fire to a hot oil vat and a journalist is after me and an old lady keeps trying to hit me with her handbag!!!

DOC IS NOW TAKING POT SHOTS AT ME FOR NO REASON AT ALL. I HATE THIS JOB.

i’m behind cover

it won’t last

if you don’t get hotguy here now i’m never speaking to him again

 ------------------------------------

To: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

From: Cub

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

nooo you’re doing great man, knocking it out the park. Doesn’t sound like you need Hotguy.

you’re a hero too, right?

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

okay cub listen.

i don’t WANT hotguy. if i could fix this chicken situation without the city’s most annoying vigilante turning up to take the credit, believe me, i would have done it already.

but you know what hotguy can do? he can win the crowd. hotguy’s always on the right side. nobody would ever accuse hotguy of owning fifteen hundred laser chickens. he tells people about hope and teamwork stuff and they believe him.

oh god

the TCG are here and i’m apparently target number one.

they’ve just spotted me on this gazebo and i’ve got no good roof to jump to. i’ll have to make a run for it. if you don’t hear from me again, i might have got arrested.

hotguy spouts all that rubbish about teamwork, but hey, it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t believe in it himself!

 ------------------------------------

To: Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

From: Cub

Subject: what I’m about to suggest is legal

we should help him huh

do you know where scar is? like which cell phone towers might be close. I’ve got a map of the towers if you can give me a location.

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Cub, Hotguy PR Agent

From: Bdubs

Subject: this sounds NOT legal

BDUBS TO THE RESCUE, AS ALWAYS. You’re welcome.

Scar is actually recording a snack commercial over on Twelfth Street. Details in projects\casting_directors_bdubs_is_not_feuding_with\dumb_projects_we_have_to_book_for_money\Sparkle!Cereal!

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

To: Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

From: Cub

Subject: this is 100% legal white hat hacking definitely

okay I’ve remotely accessed Scar’s phone and put a klaxon on it. Should be audible two hundred yards away.

I’m gonna call him now.

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Situation update from your reporter on the ground (still no quote from the guy himself?)

Cuteguy has been showing great stamina in the chase that’s been going on. The camera crew is impressed!

He is currently being pursued by:

1.   Doc

2.   Doc’s cyborg guard robot

3.   Two TCG agents

4.   Three hundred and sixty chickens (approx.), one of which believes Cuteguy is its best friend

5.   Several animal activists attempting to recapture the chickens

6.   A bar crawl that seems to think they’re doing a parade and wanted to join in

7.   A German band on a long bicycle with two clarinets and a man trying to shake a chicken out of his tuba

Cuteguy is…looking back over his shoulder?

Oh, wait! Situation update paused!

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Cuteguy <cuteguy@freemail.com>

Subject: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

HE’S HERE

HE’S ACTUALLY HERE

FINALLY

 ------------------------------------

To: Hotguy <hotguy@hotguy.com>

From: Pearl Moon <Pearl@hermitherald.com>

Subject: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Hotguy has arrived!

He’s swooped in with three trick arrow shots that set off fireworks above the crowd, rappelled straight up to Doc on the roof, and started a fist fight with him. It’s very dramatic. I’m not sure he’s actually landing any of those blows.

Helpfully for Cuteguy, no one is looking at him anymore. He’s surreptitiously putting distance between himself and the TCG agents.

Doc is now making another speech while fighting Hotguy. If I’m honest, he seems pretty happy he’s finally getting the credit for his own evil plot. We’ve got a close-up on him. Doc would like us all to know that this is the future of poultry, the future of lasers, and possibly the future of donuts? Last part a bit unclear as at that point Hotguy threw his loudhailer off the roof.

Meanwhile, Cuteguy is trying to lure the chickens away from the civilians with pieces of donut. This would be working better if the crowd weren’t all shoving forwards to try to get a better look at Doc.

Doc has taken off on a jetpack declaring he’ll “be back!”. Hotguy has given him a thumbs up.

Oh, now Hotguy has finally caught on to what Cuteguy is trying to do and is chivvying the crowd to help herd the chickens away with donuts for bait. Donuts are flying. The crowd is now enthusiastically participating in this donut-tossing activity. The chickens are delighted. Hotguy has spotted our camera team chasing him and we’re getting a lot of that action-shot this-is-my-good-side pose.

Hotguy and Cuteguy work together pretty well when they get going, huh?

Now Hotguy has swung down to land in the middle of the crowd and put an arm around each of the TCG agents, who are heavily dusted in sugar and look somewhat sheepish. What a nicely framed shot! Almost as if Hotguy pushed them into position for the cameras.

Well, I suppose I’m writing an article about how much Hotguy helps the TCG.

Your client owes me one.

Doc’s guard robot has rounded up the chickens that Hotguy and Cuteguy have funneled back into a nearby alley. It seems to be putting them in large nets. The local pizza place has a sign that says RIGATONI JONES PIZZA: CLOSED DUE TO CHICKEN EMERGENCY, and for some reason Cuteguy seems upset about this. Excitement over, I suppose?

I do hope you tell Hotguy how helpful the Herald was! Next time he’s got a tip-off to share, just tell him to remember your friendly local journalist Pearl Moon.

He knows where to find me ;)

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

 ------------------------------------

To: Cub, Hotguy PR Agent

From: Bdubs

Subject: hmm

You know, Cub, I’ve been thinking. That wasn’t bad, how you got hold of Scar. NOT BAD AT ALL. I am starting to think you might be a useful type of person to have around.

All The Best

Bdubs

 ------------------------------------

To: Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

From: Cub

Subject: Re: hmm

cheers man

i’ve rigged the klaxon so it plays when either of us or cuteguy calls scar. if he waits too long to answer it starts to play the whole Lilo and Stitch movie audio. if anyone asks this is not technically a virus.

-Cub

 ------------------------------------

To: Cub, Hotguy PR Agent

From: Bdubs

Subject: Re: hmm

I LOVE it. I love it.

You know, I have a whole list of casting directors I think you could test some virus development on. It would do them good. Keep them on their toes!! (I believe this is called…“white hat”).

I am HEREBY going to let you into my most SECRET FOLDER.

<Bdubs@scargoodtimes.com> has shared admin\nemesis_list

Maybe start with ‘casting_directors_who_do_not_recognise_bdubs_talent-spotting_genius’ and ‘producers_who_were_rude_to_scar’

 ------------------------------------

To: Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

From: Cub

Subject: Re: hmm

leave it to me, man

we’re gonna go far

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[ START | PREVIOUS | NEXT ] [ MERCH ] [ MISC ]

My piece for the Hotguy comic zinethology! Thank you so much to editor @antimony-medusa and designer @cocoabats (I have used tumblr’s format for most of it because my eyes are too bad for pdf scaling on my phone, but for the FULL INCREDIBLE HOTGUY EXPERIENCE you will want to download the actual zine at @hotguycomiczine!!)

[ms-demeanor]

Maybe I should wait for the PDF, but I’ve been thinking about password managers lately and might forget to check for that. My problem is that if there’s one thing I want to never ever put on the cloud to potentially get compromised, it’s my password information. But if there’s one thing I don’t want to lose access to, it’s also my password information. This seems to rule out both local options like KeePassXC and remote ones like Bitwarden.

I've started to become somewhat annoyed by the "there is no cloud, there is only someone else's computer" thing (this is a general thing, not specifically directed at you but you reminded me of it).

The risks of putting things on the cloud are that the internet or the provider will go down and you'll lose access to your data OR that the data will be compromised because the information is essentially public because it's on someone else's device.

Losing access because the provider crashes and burns or because there is a global internet outage is a distinct possibility, however with most password managers it is very very easy to download a copy of your data, which you can then store as an encrypted file on your desktop.

With companies like Bitwarden and Proton, which have open source encrypted cloud storage, your risk of compromise from being on someone else's computer is essentially zero. It IS important to make sure that you're finding a provider who is actually encrypting your shit and is not holding onto your password, which is why Bitwarden and Proton are the providers I keep recommending (privacyguides.org has recommendations here; bitwarden, protonpass, and keepassxc are all on the list, all of these are extremely safe options).

And that's where I have the problem with the "other people's computer" thing. I would have zero problems with storing a properly encrypted file in the comments of a facebook page. If a document had good encryption I would post it on livejournal and not worry about people getting into it. If you are working with good encryption, there is zero risk of compromise when keeping your shit on someone else's computer.

So I actually think the solution for either side of this conundrum is the same: If you're worried about losing access to your password manager because a service shuts down or the internet blows up, download a copy of your data to your desktop and store it in an encrypted folder on your computer. If you're worried about losing access to your password manager if your physical hardware is damaged in a disaster, export a copy of your data, save it as an encrypted file, and upload your encrypted file to gmail for all it matters - they will straight up not be able to get into it.

But that's also all kind of beside the point because a major feather in Bitwarden's cap is that you can self-host. It doesn't need to go on someone else's cloud, you can put it on your own server and never worry that someone else is going to tinker with your password manager.

Either way, you are sort of worrying beyond your means because if you're not using a password manager right now you are almost certainly at greater risk of credential stuffing attacks than anything else and need to put out that fire.

Anyway if you're at Harvey Mudd have you tried Dr. Grubbs across from where Rhino used to be? Everything on the menu is great but there is this jalapeño garlic sauce they've got to go with their mains that is so good that I want like two gallons of it.