#even if the better place is in the fucking americas or in europe or somewhere else half the world away

[starlingsrps]

piping hot and fresh lizzie postwar paris notes under the cut

lizzie in this verse is basically fueled by the following from sylvia plath: "what horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age."

so.

if lizzie has to declare a home, it's probably washington. she was born there but raised all over europe until she begged for boarding school at fourteen so she maybe had a chance at normalcy. her father, robert, is a career diplomat and her mother, jessica, is the best damn career diplomat's wife and hostess you've ever met. she has one younger brother, matthew, who is ten years younger and holding down the family fort at georgetown.

she takes a lot of pride in her education. she's a graduate of miss porter's and smith and while she wanted to continue studying after smith, the mere prospect caused jessica ballard to need to lay down for a few days and she shelved the idea. she has a degree in french history with a specialization in the high middle ages and speaks very good french but isn't above pretending she doesn't know a word to be a shit.

her parents were back in washington by the time she was finished with school in 1938 (europe was heating up after all) and lizzie quickly joined her mother on the society circuit. were things still a bit grim? of course but jessica never let anything keep her from a party.

lizzie was starting to choke under it all when she met michael hayes at a garden party. he was interesting, with his own political ambitions and smart enough to keep up with her. he took her to the smithsonian for their first date and considering lizzie was approaching the decrepit age of twenty five with no ring on her finger, it was just about good enough. by the time he proposed in august of 1941, she knew they'd probably be passionately in love with each other but they were fond of each other, got along well, and wanted the same things so the rest would fall into place.

aaaaaaaaaaaaand then the war started for america so michael joined the navy and trained as a pilot while lizzie put their life and plans on ice. she did what every other woman of her ilk did during the war - she hosted fundraising drives with her mother and the rest of the junior league and volunteered with the red cross. she learned how to knit well and fast and could turn out a pair of socks quicker than anyone else in her knitting circle. lizzie always feels better when she's the best at something, even if it's just socks.

michael was killed in action during the invasion of sicily and a little piece of her, just the tiniest piece that she doesn't like to think about, wasn't sad for herself. for his family, for their friends, for her mother and her plans but for herself…a little bit of it felt like freedom. she hates herself for it. in the deepest privacy of her diary, she can write about it because there's no way she can ever actually talk about this with anyone.

the grief and the guilt over how quickly it faded gave her an excuse to turn inwards. she stopped knitting and volunteering and wound up reading every book in her father’s library in an effort to avoid anything to do with the war. she single handedly dragged her brother through his freshman year because god only knew he was fucking it up at rapid speed.

at the end of 1944, her father was appointed ambassador to france and lizzie is fairly sure her mother's joy at the appointment is still fueling her to this day and probably will for the rest of her life. robert moved to france to present himself while jessica and lizzie stayed back until the war ended it and it was deemed safe enough for them to go. her mother left in may and lizzie took grand advantage of a summer to herself before sailing in august.

she's due to start at the sorbonne in february, much to her mother's unending displeasure. somewhere over the course of her time alone, lizzie came to the conclusion that she was done living for anyone else. she'll help her mother - that's fine and she does like a good party - but with access to her trust fund, there's really very little that her parents can actually do.

lizzie’s very much at a crossroads in life. she can’t be the person she always thought she was going to be and it's time to be selfish!!! she can't wait!!!

[songmingisthighs]

Outlaw anon here!

LMAO, your last paragraph in your previous response to me made me giggle, as you should though. You’re not wrong in any way at all so i’m glad you’re unbothered.

Also desi countries are a small handful of them from South Asia. These include, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. I am pakistani but live in England!

Yeah people are just beyond dramatic at points, they forget all the good and let the bad overshadow. Yes it was disappointing, but they apologised and they just like h didn’t know any better. Therefore that disappointment is somewhat cancelled out as we need to look at circumstances. They’re Korean, the only places in the world that are so disturbed by these remarks are western societies.

Africa, South America, Asia in its entirety and parts of Europe are all still extremely racist to those who aren’t of their own race. They’re so patriotic too! Even desi counties have issues with each other and fight, horrible things are said back and forth between them but it’s not called out like it is with them.

So while yes, I understand that beacuse Ateez has a platform it’s good for them to not do such things which can spread negativity due to the connotations. It’s not that deep. It’s not their fault either, San sang along because he heard a word that sounded similar and it was just word association. He wasn’t mocking it at all. Plus, it’s San and Yunho, two of the elevens of a group that unconditionally supports their fans regardless of identity.

To all those who are mad and aren’t desi, lol stay mad and hop off ateez’s dicks. Let the Desi community talk because all I’m seeing is White American and English people complaining and saying ‘oh a lot of the Desi community is upset’. Bffr it’s likely they don’t even know what desi means😭

i'm not unbothered ig ?? like i take things with a grain of salt nowadays and i try to get as many perspective i could. i still obliterate the bitched who break my rules tho lmao

and oof okay thanks for clarifying about the desi countries thing

ikr like can you take you accumulated anger somewhere else ?? find a better way to release said pent up anger ???? i'll be mean rn and say if you care more about the apology rather than the people, might as well get off atinydom, we literally don't need toxic people who can and will harm the boys in a blink of an eye. no bc how the fuck can people turn on them so quickly ????? IT'S NAWT EVEN FUNNY like fuck shit ass man dude this better be a joke ?? a parody ???? a bad tiktok series skit ????

i'm so glad that there are desis like you who are able to see that san didn't mean any harm yknow. like in comparisson, you see what san did and then you see what gigi hadid did with her friends in china. now tell me you can't see the difference in intention.

those non desis who are mad are most likely those who said "if you're not desi, shut up" and i just find it ABSOLUTELY KIDNEY TICKLING HILARIOUS ghawd

[david-watts]

I think this just solidifies the fact that I can’t trust anyone or anything and I knew already the world was acting against me but the only way to get things fucking done is to do it all yourself. nobody else can be trusted to do anything. if you want something you have to fight tooth and nail uphill to get anywhere.

[dwellordream]

“…Now, if people are taught anything at all about medieval history it often is English medieval history. People with absolutely no other frame of reference can often tell you when the Norman Conquest of England took place, or the date of the signing of Magna Carta even if they don’t know exactly why these things are important. (TBH Magna Carta isn’t important unless you were a very rich dude at the time, sooooo.) If you ask people to name a medieval book they’ll probably say Beowulf even if they’ve never read it.

Here’s the thing though – England was a total backwater in terms of the way medieval people thought and was not particularly important at the time. How much of a backwater? Well, when Anne of Bohemia, daughter of my man Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (RIP, mate. Mourn ya til I join ya.) married King Richard II of England in the fourteenth century there was uproar in Prague. How could a Bohemian imperial princess be sent to London? How would she survive in the hinterlands? The answer was she was sent along with an entire cadre of Bohemian ladies in waiting to give her people with whom she could have a sophisticated conversation.

This ended up completely changing fashion in England. Anne is the girl who introduced those sweet horned headdresses you think of when you think of medieval ladies, riding side-saddle, and the word “coach” to England, (from the Hungairan Kocs, where the cart she arrived at court the first time came from). Sweetening her transition to English life was the fact that she didn’t have to pay a dowry to get married. Instead, the English were allowed to trade freely with Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire and allowed to be around a Czech lady. That was reward enough as far as the Empire was concerned. That’s how much England was not a thing. (The English took this insult very badly, and hated Anne at first, but since she was a G they got over it. Don’t worry.)

If England was unimportant why do we know about English medieval history and nothing else? Same reason you’re reading this blog in English right now, homes. I’m not sure if you know this, but in the modern period, the English got super super good at going around the world an enslaving anyone they met. When you’re busy not thinking about German imperial atrocities in the nineteenth century it’s because you’re busy thinking about British imperial atrocities, you feel me? So we all speak English now and if we harken back to historical things it gives us a grandiose idea of English history.

Say, then, you are trying to establish a curriculum for schools that bigs up English history, as is our want. Ask yourself – are you gonna want to dwell on an era where England was so unimportant that Czechs were flexing on it? Answer: no. You gonna gloss right over that and skip to the early modern era and the Tudors who I am absolutely sure you know all the fuck about. The second colonial-imperialist reason for not learning about medieval history is that medieval history doesn’t exactly aggrandise the colonial-imperialist system.

Yes, there are empires in medieval Europe. In addition to the Holy Roman Empire there’s the Eastern Roman Empire, aka the Byzantine Empire, whose downfall is often pointed to as one of several possible bookends to the medieval period. You also have opportunists like the Venetians who set up colonies around the Adriatic and Mediterranean, or the Normans who defo jump in boats and take over, well, anything they could get their hands on.

Notably, when these dudes got where they were going, they didn’t end up enslaving a bunch of people, committing genocide, and then funnelling all resources back to a theoretical homeland. The Normans settled down where they were eventually creating distinctive court cultures, and the Venetian colonies enjoyed a seriously high level of trade and quality of life without major disruption to local customs. Force was certainly used to take over at the outset, but it wasn’t something that resulted in the complete subjugation and deaths of millions halfway around the world from where the aggressors started.

No, the European middle ages are a lot more about local areas muddling along with smaller systems of rule. That’s why you have distinctive areas like say, Burgundy or Sicily calling their own shots and developing their own styles and fashions. Hell, even within imperial systems like the Holy Roman Empire Bavarians or Bohemians saw themselves as very much distinct peoples within an imperial system, not necessarily imperial subjects first and foremost.

You know where you would go to find some history that justifies huge imperial systems that require constant conquest and an army of slaves to keep them afloat? Ancient Rome. Remember how you got taught how great Rome was? How it was a democracy? How they had wonderful technology and underfloor heating, and oh isn’t that temple beautiful? Yeah, that’s because you were being inculcated to think that the ends of imperial violence justifies mass enslavement and disenfranchisement.

In reality, Rome wasn’t some sort of grand free democracy. Only a tiny percentage of Romans could actually vote. Women of any station certainly could not, and even men who were lucky enough to be free weren’t necessarily Roman citizens. Freedom here is particularly important because by the 1 century BCE 35 – 40% of the population of the Italian peninsula were slaves. Woo yeah democracy. I love it. And that’s not even taking into account all those times when an Emperor would suspend voting altogether.

Those slaves were busy building all the grand buildings your high school history teacher was dry jacking it about, stuffing the dormice that the rich people were reclining to eat, and basically keeping the joint running. Those slaves also necessitated the ridiculously huge army that Rome kept going because you had to get slaves from somewhere after all, so warfare had to be continuous. How uplifting.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this Roman nonsense is pretty much exactly what was going on during the modern colonial imperial age. You can say whatever the fuck you want about how free and revolutionary America was, for example. That doesn’t change the fact that only a handful of white property owning men could vote, and that the entire project required the mass enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans. That’s why you’ve been taught Rome is great. It helps you sleep well at night on stolen land because, really, haven’t all great societies done this? I mean without a forever war against anyone you can find, how will you keep a society going?

Our imperialist ideas about history lead to some weird historical takes. People love to tell you that no one bathed in the medieval period when medieval people had pretty much exactly the same sort of bathing culture as Romans. People laugh at medieval people believing in medical humoral theory despite the fact that Romans believed exactly the same thing and get a total pass on that front. The Roman ban on dissection is often taught as a medieval ban, shifting Roman superstition onto the shoulders of medieval people.

On-going Roman warfare is reported in glowing terms with emphasis on the “brilliance” of Roman military technique, while inter-kingdom warfare in the medieval period is portrayed as barbaric and ignorant. The Roman people who were encouraged to worship emperors as literal gods are used as an example of theoretical religion-free logical thinking, while medieval Christians are cast as ignorant for believing in God even when they are studiously working on the same philosophical queries as their predecessors. None of this makes any fucking sense.

But here’s the thing – it doesn’t need to. In a colonial imperialist society we have positioned Rome as a guiding light no matter what it’s actual practices and that’s not a mistake. It’s a design that helps to justify our own society. Further, this mindset requires us to castigate the medieval period when rule was more localised and systems of slavery had taken a precipitous dive. If only there had been more slavery, you know? Things might have been so much better.

Historical narratives and who controls them are always in flux. That old adage “history is written by the winners” comes to mind here, but that’s not exactly true. What the winners do is decide which histories are promoted, taught, and broadcasted. You can write all the history you want and if no one reads it, then it doesn’t really matter. That’s the gap that medieval history has fallen into. Colonial imperialism hasn’t figured out how to weaponise it yet, so it’s ignored. You could write this off as a “so what”, of course. Sure, maybe teaching the Roman Empire as a goal is a negative, but is ignoring medieval history really that bad a thing? You will be unsurprised to learn that I definitely think it is a bad thing, yes.

Ignorance about the medieval period is one of the things that is allowing the current swelling ranks of fascists to claim medieval Europe as some sort of “pure” white ideal. Spoiler: it was not. However, if you don’t know anything about medieval society how are you gonna argue with some chinless douche with a fake viking rune tattoo?History is always political. We use it to understand our world, but more than that we also use it to justify our world. Ignoring it helps us prop up our worst impulses, so let’s not.”

- Eleanor Janega, “On colonialism, imperialism, and ignoring medieval history.”

[meichenxi]

Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change. 

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'. 

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little. 

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don’t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’. 

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo. 

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so. 

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests. 

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same. 

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's. 

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone).  But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other. 

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough. 

 tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 24

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky receives your Christmas present.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by araniaart​. Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: So much fluff

AO3

You took your mission to get a present for Bucky just as seriously as your mission to seduce him. No alcohol was involved this time, just a little elbow grease and fighting through the cobwebs of the attic.

With your sister distracting Bucky downstairs after dinner (“Ohh, does this mean I can give him the shovel talk?!”), you had the time needed to find what you were looking for. A pile of cardboard boxes with your name written on them, along with the year you’d moved away from home.

You sat on the old wooden floor, opened a box, and began to rummage. Plushies and toys you hadn’t wanted to part with were in the first box. The next, various knickknacks you’d collected over the years. A crystal vial filled with water and gold flakes. A keychain full of dead Tamagotchis. A collection of bookmarks made out of wood and hand-painted with magical creatures.

Each new treasure brought a wave of nostalgia, bittersweet for a time when things had seemed simpler. No soul-sucking job. No demons stalking you, waiting for you to be alone and vulnerable to strike.

But there had been no Bucky, either. So while the memories held an alluring shine to it, you didn’t have a problem leaving the past where it was.

You came upon the object you’d been seeking tucked away in the third box. You opened it carefully, the weight surprisingly heavy in your hands. It was a picture frame, segmented into three parts that could close inward, almost like a book. An heirloom your grandmother had found at a flea market when her family had lived in New York.

It was clearly old, heavy with the weight of history, but the metalwork was delicate and beautiful. The last remains of a bygone era, a little bit tarnished and dusty but no less beautiful for it.

It reminded you of a certain other person from a bygone era.

Carefully putting away your childhood things and replacing the boxes, you went back downstairs and entered your mother’s study. The laptop on her desk was open to a webpage of a historical site regaling the Second World War. The glossy pictures you printed were still sitting in the printer’s output tray.

Taking the photos, you carefully cut them to fit the three windows of the picture frame. The pictures in them now were artistic drawings of anthropomorphic rabbits wearing whimsical, old-fashioned clothing. You carefully set them aside, planning to find new frames for your grandmother’s drawings; somewhere they could be displayed and not hidden away in the attic.

Technically, the frame was a family heirloom and probably valuable, but giving it to Bucky felt… right. He’d been a part of your life for much longer than two months, even if you hadn’t known it. The bond between you was strange, indescribable, and ran too deep to break. If that wasn’t family, you didn’t know what was.

Your mother would understand and forgive you, whenever you told her the truth. And you would tell her, someday. It was kind of unavoidable when you were dating an immortal being. You would go grey, and Bucky would always look the same…

The scissors froze halfway through a cut. What were you going to do when you grew old and withered? What happened to Bucky when you died? You’d thought about your own mortality plenty of times, but you hadn’t thought about the implications after meeting Bucky.

Would the bond break and Bucky would go on without you? Or would it hurt him. Kill him. Had the book said anything about the human slaves aging? All it had said in regards to death was they could die to protect the demon, giving the demon an extra life.

What if you couldn’t provide the energy he needed because you were too frail and gnarled with age?

What if Bucky didn’t want you when you got old?

What if—

Your jaw clenched and the scissors glided through the paper like a blade. Startled, you looked down at the photo, but thankfully you’d more or less cut straight. You stared at the photo, the last you’d chosen of the three.

A sepia photo of a handsome young man in a suit, the white dress shirt unbuttoned and showing the undershirt beneath, a familiar and easy grin on his face. Next to him, a scrawny blond boy who was much shorter, smiling reluctantly with encouragement from the brunet next to him. It was hard to believe the serious-looking boy would one day be Captain America and the young man next to him would become HYDRA’s most powerful soldier.

You carefully put the photo in one of the side frames. In the frame opposite, you placed a black and white family photo, one of Bucky, his sister, and both their parents. They were wearing their best clothes, the children on their best behavior, except the boy had an elbow pressed against his sister’s side as they both suppressed giggles.

The third photo, the one you placed in the center piece, was a simple one. A photo of Bucky in another suit, this one more formal, and his sister at his side wearing a pair of women’s trousers and a frilly blouse. They were both older than in the first photo, and according to the date, it was the summer before Bucky had been shipped out to Europe.

Bucky looked… happy. Genuinely, truly happy. You hadn’t included any photos from the war or him in uniform, though there were plenty to find. You didn’t think he’d want to be reminded of that time, and in all those pictures he’d seemed subdued, serious. It wasn’t an expression you were fond of, and the happiness he showed around his family and Steve Rogers was absent in them.

After all the pictures were secured, you leaned back and stared at them. You frowned and shifted restlessly.

What if he didn’t like it? What if it brought back painful memories he’d rather forget? You were confident that wouldn’t be the case, not after the fond way he’d talked about his family, but… reminiscing was one thing. Seeing the past staring up at you was another.

Sighing heavily, you stood and picked up the frame, closing it so only the polished metalwork was on display. It was better to get it over with, rather than stand here, frozen with the weight of doubt.

After wrapping the frame in pretty blue foil paper, you went into your old room and placed it on the bed. You took a deep breath—why were you so nervous?—and went downstairs to free Bucky from your sister’s clutches.

To your eternal shock, he didn’t look like a hostage when you found them in the kitchen. If anything, they seemed thick as thieves. Your eyes narrowed, suspicious of what tales your sister has clearly been telling.

And that’s when you froze.

Bucky was holding your infant nephew in his arms, looking for all the world like he’d done it a million times before. He didn’t look up at your arrival, his gaze entirely focused on the baby he was slowly rocking back and forth. Your nephew stared up at him with wide eyes, little chubby arms reaching up to try and grab a stray lock of hair.

You’d never experienced the phenomenon of “baby fever” before. You maybe wanted to adopt kids, sure, but have them yourself? It’d never been a priority or a desire… until that moment. The air had gone out of you like a sucker punch to the gut, replaced by yearning so strong it was a struggle to remain silent and not break the moment.

Somebody noticed your presence, though. Your sister was grinning at you like a shark from where she was leaning against the kitchen counter.

“There you are,” she practically cooed. “I was just telling Jacob about the time we snuck out of the house as kids and went to go perform ‘witchcraft’ in the middle of the woods at night.”

You made some kind of noncommittal noise, you were sure, because Bucky lifted his head and looked directly at you. Your nephew had managed to grab a lock of hair and was currently sticking it into his mouth.

Bucky didn’t notice, his entire focus on your face, a light frown forming. You still hadn’t moved or spoken.

“Did you find what you needed?” your sister asked, leaning forward to save Bucky’s hair from being eaten, lifting her son back into her arms.

“Uh. Yeah. I did.” You swallowed thickly, too much saliva in your mouth.

“Oh? What were you looking for?” Bucky approached, and when he was close enough placed a hand on your back and rubbed. The simple touch sent a white-hot flash through your system and you nearly choked.

“Nothing. I mean, something. Uh, you’ll see.”

Your sister gave you a pitying look over Bucky’s shoulder, and you communicated a silent what the fuck was that, you asshole, you know exactly what you did.

She returned the silent communique with a smug smirk, and then she drew you into a one-armed hug.

“I’m heading out, sis. Got an early drive back home in the morning. I’m gonna miss you.”

Your frustration evaporated in an instant and you returned the hug tightly.

“Drive safe,” you told her.

“You too. And call me more, or at least text!”

“I will, I promise.”

And you meant it too. You’d fallen out of touch with your family, and after appreciating everything Bucky had lost, you were going to make an effort to include him as well.

After you separated, your sister hugged Bucky with just as much enthusiasm.

“Take care of her, Jacob Miller.”

“I will.” Bucky tucked you against his side after your sister released him. Your face was on fire.

“I know you will,” she said with a conspiratorial smirk. “Because I watch a lot of crime dramas, and I know how to hide a body.”

“Oh, my God,” you groaned into a hand.

After your sister and brother-in-law said their last goodbyes and your familial humiliation was concluded, you couldn’t rush up the stairs fast enough, practically dragging Bucky behind you.

You shut the bedroom door and leaned back against it, releasing a sigh of relief, and then immediately sucked another lungful of air when Bucky crowded you against the door. His smile was amused but carried a hint of concern.

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah.” You nodded, smiling shakily as your stomach did flip-flops. It was hard to focus with Bucky so close, peering at you intently with those bright blue eyes.

“You sure?” He cupped the side of your face with a gloved hand, and you leaned into it immediately. “Because you got this weird look on your face. I didn’t go too far, did I? Your sister asked if I wanted to hold her son, and I didn’t think—“

“No, no.” You shook your head fervently, placing your hand over Bucky’s so you could squeeze it. “I’m happy you’re getting along so well with my family. Really. It’s… more than I could have asked for.”

His expression softened, the tension lines of his face smoothed out, and he leaned down and gently pressed his lips to yours. The kiss deepened when you tangled your fingers in his long hair, pulling him closer, and your knees would have buckled right then if he hadn’t been pressing you against the door.

What had started out as a chaste kiss was quickly going to end in somebody naked, so you pulled back and grinned at his noise of frustration.

“Just—hold on a sec,” you said. “I have something for you first.”

You ducked around him and approached the bed to where his gift laid waiting. Bucky was right behind you, not letting you go far as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“What’s this?” he asked, propping his chin on top of your head.

“This… is your Christmas present.”

Another small noise of protest when you turned around and tapped it against his chest.

“You really didn’t have to,” he said with a hint of exasperation.

“Uh, you took me flying. A little gift is the least I could do.”

Bucky looked from your face to the present, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. When was the last time someone had gotten the guy a gift? No, you didn’t want to think about that sad question or you might start crying.

He took the present from your hand, his expression still one of vague disbelief. You bit your lip to keep from smiling and ended up failing anyway. It wasn’t every day that Bucky looked so… cute. There was no other word for the little dip in his brows and the slight parting of his lips.

It was nothing to the expression he wore once he pulled open your less-than-perfect wrapping job, opened the frame, and saw what was inside.

As the seconds tick on and his face didn’t changed, where he didn’t seem to breathe, your excitement slowly drained away.

And then when his eyes grew glassy and red-rimmed, you started to panic.

“Is… is this too much?” you quickly asked. “Should I not have—Did I make a mistake?”

His guise dropped in an instant. It wasn’t gradual like it usually was; it was gone so fast you only had to blink.

Bucky wrapped his arms around you and pulled you against his chest, face buried in your hair as if to hide it. A fine tremor moved through his muscles. He was shaking.

“No. It’s—it’s perfect. I… Thank you.”

You raised your arms slowly and wrapped them around him just as carefully, holding him as close as you could. Being held in Bucky’s embrace never got old, or tiring; it was a place you could remain forever. By the desperate way he held you tight, you hoped he felt the same.

“Where… where did you even find them?” He pulled back and stared down at the picture frame, wonder on his face. No tears had fallen, but he still looked painfully fragile.

“Online.” You rested your head against his shoulder as your eyes fell to the pictures. “Museum websites. Lots of information on Captain America, of course, but quite a few on his childhood best friend.”

“Huh.”

“You’ve never googled yourself?”

“Once. Didn’t care to do it again.”

You winced. Of course, you had to go and bring up the fact most of the information on Bucky wasn’t about him, but about the Winter Soldier.

“Right. Sorry. Stupid question.”

Bucky sighed and carefully set the frame down on the nearby dresser. Without warning, he grabbed you by the back of your thighs and lifted, picking you up before setting you on the bed, swallowing down your squeal as he kissed you, open-mouthed.

You immediately went pliant, wrapping your arms and legs around him to try and get closer.

“That’s better,” he said, voice a raspy growl when he broke the kiss. His eyes were dark, pupils blown as he eyed you like a tasty meal. “Can’t beat yourself up if your mouth is too busy doing other things.”

“I can multitask,” you breathed out. Bucky grinned, a hint of sharp teeth.

“We’ll see.”

Next Chapter

[sapphicambitions]

Hey y’all so i made a book recs quiz earlier today but i had an even better idea. The quiz is fun and all but i think it’d be more effective to have all the questions and answers i made written out and books that i associated with those answers laid out so you can make more informed choices about which books you wanna read. Might be a dumb idea but i’ve been thinking about it all day and have nothing else to do so! Here we go. For the purposes of this, I have eleven books selected: Red, White, and Royal Blue, Carry On, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, They Both Die at the End, The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Of Fire and Stars, Tell Me How You Really Feel, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.  There are many many many more great queer books but these are my faves and the ones I’m recommending. This is all of course my own opinions about the books! 

Here we go!

Do you wanna read something that’s:

Women Loving Women? (Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Of Fire and Stars, Tell Me How You Really Feel)

Men Loving Men? (Red, White, and Royal Blue, The Song of Achilles, Carry On, They Both Die at The End, Aristotle and Dante, Gentleman’s Guide)

Pick a Place to Go:

Somewhere ancient (The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, Of Fire and Stars)

Europe (RWRB, Carry On, Gentleman’s Guide)

The ocean (The Abyss Surrounds Us)

America idk (They Both Die at The End, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante, RWRB)

What Book Series Shaped Your Childhood?

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Girls of Paper and Fire, They Both Die at The End)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (The Song of Achilles, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Crier’s War)

Harry Potter (Carry On, RWRB)

The Chronicles of Narnia (Gentleman’s Guide, Of Fire and Stars)

Umm i actually didn’t like book series growing up. I was more of a standalone book kind of person (Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante)

Pick an LGBT Movie:

Brokeback Mountain (The Song of Achilles, They Both Die at the End)

But, I’m a Cheerleader! (Tell Me How You Really Feel, Carry On)

Moonlight (Aristotle and Dante, They Both Die at the End)

Love, Simon (RWRB, Gentleman’s Guide)

The Handmaiden (Crier’s War, Of Fire and Stars, Girls of Paper and Fire)

Star Wars if they hadn’t been home of phobic (The Abyss Surrounds Us)

Okay Honestly I Have Three Favorite Tropes. Pick One. 

Enemies to lovers (RWRB, Carry On, Crier’s War, Of Fire and Stars, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Tell Me How You Really Feel)

Hurt/comfort (Girls of Paper and Fire, They Both Die At the End) 

Childhood friends to lovers (The Song of Achilles, Gentleman’s Guide, Aristotle and Dante)

How do you feel about science fiction / fantasy?

YES TO BOTH (Crier’s War)

I like the science stuff but i don’t like the magic stuff (The Abyss Surrounds Us)

I like the magic stuff but i don’t like the science stuff (Carry On, Girls of Paper and Fire, Of Fire and Stars, The Song of Achilles)

I don’t like either. I want real people and real stories (RWRB, Gentleman’s Guide, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante, They Both Die At The End)

How do you feel about having parents in stories about LGBT kids?

I don’t mind as long as they’re loving a supportive (RWRB, Aristotle and Dante, Tell Me How You Really Feel)

It’s not the parents story. I dont want them involved heavily with the plot. (They Both Die At The End, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Abyss Surrounds Us)

It’s realistic and i think it should be a way for kids with less than loving and supportive parents to see themselves in the stories and see how they can heal as the characters have from the trauma of their childhood and parents. (Carry On, Gentleman’s Guide, The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Of Fire and Stars)

Opinion on Period Pieces?

Does it count if it’s in the future? (The Abyss Surrounds Us)

It’s about the YEARNING and the HANDS and the HISTORY (Gentleman’s Guide, The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, Of Fire and Stars, Aristotle and Dante)

Miss me with that pride and prejudice shit. No thanks. Modern Day Only. (RWRB, Carry On, They Both Die at the End, Tell Me How You Really Feel)

How do you feel about royalty? Like the mood of it all?

Megan Markle is the only bitch i respect. (Red, White, and Royal Blue)

Okay honestly i love royalty shit. Don’t judge me. It’s a whole mood. (The Song of Achilles, Of Fire and Stars, Gentleman’s Guide)

I like royalty stories as long it’s about how to take them FUCKING DOWN break out the guillotine ladies!!!!!!!!! Down with the monarchy!!!! (Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Abyss Surrounds Us)

Hmmm no thanks (Carry On, They Both Die At the End, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante)

Do you want things to get steamy?

I mean i don’t mind a sex scene but let’s not get nasty. (Crier’s War, Of Fire and Stars, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Song of Achilles)

Ummmmmm no thank you i don’t want a sex scene (Carry On, They Both Die at The End, Aristotle and Dante, Gentleman’s Guide)

I only ever select the mature/explicit ratings on ao3. I know what im about. (Red, White, and Royal Blue)

How deep of a read are you trying to get into here?

I want a book I can completely immerse myself into. I want to be so pulled into the world that I’m awake till 3am reading the book. I want maps. I want timelines. I want to this book to suck me into its world and never let me go. (RWRB, Carry On, They Both Die At The End, The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, Gentleman’s Guide)

Just like something casual (Of Fire and Stars,  Tell Me How You Really Feel, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Aristotle and Dante)

How would you like your ending served?

Something that gives me chills (Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire)

Warm and lovely like a cup of tea that fills me up and makes everything okay (RWRB, Gentleman’s Guide, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante)

The kind of ending that acknowledges the characters just went through a LOT and probably need some THERAPY and probably sets up the sequel (Carry On, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Of Fire and Stars)

Like i wanna be wrecked. I should be sobbing. On the floor. (The Song of Achilles, They Both Die at The End)

What Do You Want To Do?

I wanna YEARN (RWRB, The Song of Achilles, Crier’s War, Of Fire and Stars, Gentleman’s Guide)

I want to feel seen (RWRB, Aristotle and Dante)

I want to laugh (RWRB, Carry On, Gentleman’s Guide, Tell Me How You Really Feel, The Abyss Surrounds Us)

I wanna get riled up and ready to kick some ass (RWRB, Crier’s War, Girls of Paper and Fire, The Abyss Surrounds Us)

I want my heart to go: “Oh.”  (RWRB, Carry On, The Song of Achilles, They Both Die at the End, Aristotle and Dante)

Emotional Check, how are you feeling in the quarantine?

I’m horny and restless. (Red, White, and Royal Blue. Trust me.)

Everything sucks! The World is Ending! (Okay homie you may not be in the emotional headspace for a dark story. May I direct you to: Carry On, Gentleman’s Guide, The Abyss Surrounds Us, Of Fire and Stars, Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aristotle and Dante, Red, White, and Royal Blue)

I mean obviously not fantastic but im in a pretty okay headspace (You are probably a little bit better suited to handle something heavier. May I direct you to: The Song of Achilles, They Both Die at The End, Girls of Paper and Fire, Crier’s War)

I hope this is helpful to anyone who’s looking for a new book to read!

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

I remember watching Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I don’t know if you’ve seen it but they addressed some racial issues. Watching the show, I did like how they addressed it but considering I myself am white, it’s not my place to say if it was done properly. But then I find out a lot of people thought it was unnecessary and it “diminished” the quality of the show (I wouldn’t know if they were black/white since users don’t say unless a picture us show. You can’t really assume who somebody is behind words if ya know what I mean?) I thought the show was great, so it was startling to find out people didn’t like it because if the racial issues. I notice it’s the same with LGTBQ+, as an example Tim Drake was revealed to be gay (one of the robin’s.) Many people didn’t like it because they’re “forcing” LGTBQ+ relating with politics when most comics are literally centered around that. Look at Captain America! Characters in comic are constantly having their stories changed from the original but suddenly when a character isn’t straight it’s a huge problem. People just find things to complain about not understanding how it may affect people

I want to address a little change in the semantics here but it is REALLY important.

See how different is saying that you're tired of corporations forcing racial and LGBTQ+ content to saying you're tired of the content itself.

We NEED representation. We need those talks about racial issues and discrimination and LGBTQ+ spaces and identities. What we don't need is that representation being shoved into a previous existing space as if it was some type of wild flavor or whatever sick crap the media is doing nowadays.

I'm not white. I'm latina in fact. I have never lived or go to USA but it can be an advantage, because I don't have to deal with the same amount od propaganda someone living out there has to live with. And let me tell you, Latam has to deal a lot with USA bullshit.

Let's be real and cynical for a moment: we're talking about a capitalist system, which means they want our money. No matter what, they want our money. And they're gonna do whatever it takes to gain that money. They're like "oh? Talking about racism and the LGBTQ+ community is what's giving money now? Let's do it!"

Whatever. That's the system.

I can share the feeling of hating how corporations are trying to shove down our throats certain content. Because it's not well thought or planned! We deserve well written poc characters, we deserve well planned plots and consistent arcs, the same with queer characters.

BUT and it's a big but, we need to start somewhere. We need to tell the media "this is what we want to watch: women getting the rights they deserve, teens not being oversexualized, poc and queer characters, more diversity". We first need to create spaces for this categories, their own spaces. Not spaces for white people adapted to other categories, no. We should not accept the remainings of whatever they produce. And now that we have the spaces, we need to push to give opportunities for people of those communities.

Marvel is not the best with diversity. They have fucked up several times, but still is highly important that they are showing representation, that they are adding that type of content.

What people needs to understand, yet again, is that things are not black and white. Are they doing things right? Yes, at some level. Should they do things way better? Also yes.

For example, if suddenly the bnha / mha fanbase decided to put Spinner as the most popular character, Studio Bones would try and show him more and his whole arc talking about racism within the bnha / mha society. Do they want the money? Well, they're gonna get but only once they start giving us the content we deserve and want.

Now, people who just wish corporations stopped making "gay shows" or "racial shows" do really need to shut up and stay down. It's been white media since forever, WE'RE tired of that. Their culture? I'm gonna admit, from the point of view of Latam sometimes talking about races can be pretty tricky. Even the more white man from Europe has African blood and million of identities running down his veins.

The culture of USA has been built in the back of the immigrants. Their culture has never been plain white! They're living a fucked up fairytail! What about the indigenous people of USA? The black people? What about the many other identities from Asia and Europe and Oceania and Africa? What about the Americans? Because there's a WHOLE continent called America, USA people are just part of the Americans of the north.

We can't stop talking about racial issues when most of USA itself is made of racial issues. As simple as that.

Aaaaaand this has been such a long rant. Sorry anon, I just get really angry with the whole Hollywood culture sometimes, and the fans who are incapable of seing the point behind the shows addressing racism.

If I've said something wrong, I ask people to point it out so I can apologize and change it. I'm not thinking clearly right now for the rage lol. I swear being latine goes hand in hand with having strong opinions about USA politics.

Also this is my point of view, personal, from my experience. I'm not saying other people can't have their own takes or opinions and I don't mean to invalidate anyone. I'm just ranting.

[footballxwrites]

Ridiculously in love with your writing so giving another one😂

So read reports that Christian pulisic maybe going back to the bundesliga to play for Bayern so maybe you could write one on that where he feels guilty for not having been able to probably make it work in Chelsea. He’s been with his fiance since they were like 12 and she’s a British citizen and an arsenal fan so she was definitely the happiest when they moved to london as because she runs her own company and their main office is in London. Christian feels like a crap fiancé also because now she’ll have to travel up and down every other week like she did when they were in Dortmund, and she’s done and sacrificed so much for him and he couldn’t even make it work so she can be in her hometown for once and also be with her family, plus they’re looking to start a family so this travelling business and not having grandparents around the corner isn’t ideal either. With all this plus not starting games plus family stuff weighing him down, he starts to be distant from her and she obviously notices. She gives him a bit of space at the beginning but then quickly realises that they should talk about it like they always have in their relationship. So she brings it up and he lets out everything and she’s like “ don’t be stupid, I want the best for your career and if that’s in freaking Finland well go there, you’ve had a tough year and not the ideal start to your time at Chelsea ans that’s okay. Everyone has set backs but we need to make a comeback so we’re gonna do what’s best for you and then go from there. Europe is small and London to Munich or wherever it is isn’t too bad at all, plus you know I genuinely like travelling for work. And when the kids come we’ll just figure out a schedule that puts them first and have you seen our parents, they’re gonna be coming and seeing us all the time. It’s fine, we’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be just fine” and then Christian is just crying by then because how did he get so lucky blah blah blah... can’t wait for this one xxxxxx

Long Distance Love ♡

𝖧𝖺𝗁𝖺 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗇𝗄 𝗒𝗈𝗎! 𝖨 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗊𝗎𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖨 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗂𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍 (𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂𝗍 𝗆𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗌 𝗌𝖾𝗇𝗌𝖾 𝗅𝗈𝗅)...𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗌 𝖨 𝖼𝗈𝗎𝗅𝖽𝗇’𝗍 𝖻𝖾 𝖻𝗈𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗉𝖾𝗅𝗅 𝖼𝗁𝖾𝖼𝗄 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗌𝗈 𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗆𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗌 𝖺𝗋𝖾 𝗍𝗈𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝗈𝗇 𝗆𝖾 😅𝗑

January 10 2021

Suddenly, you felt him stir slightly, readjusting his arms that were snaked around your body, which made your head shoot up to gaze at him, seeing his eyes fluttering open and a lazy smile creep upon his lips as he leaned into a kiss. His arms were quick to pull your waist against his so your head was flat on his chest, listening to the peaceful sound of his heartbeat, instantly making you feel at home. You little moment was cut short when his phone went off and he rushed out the room with a groan, leaving you annoyed and your heart pounding, having a feeling you knew exactly what the phone call was about, hoping he come back and give you the answer you wanted to hear...

“It’s gone through...the transfer” he sorrily spoke, making your breath hitch in your throat, although knowing it was a high possibility of the move actually happening, a part of you was certain he’d be staying here in central London for at least another year. “Guess you’d better get packing then” you softly laughed, feeling disheartened to say the least, the words of “it’s happening” not being the ones you wanted to fall from his lips, “look can we talk about this properly-“ he began, reaching for your hand as you swiftly dodged his grip and made your way to the bathroom, ready for a complete meltdown about everything, “No I have to get ready for work...while I still have my own business” you trailed off, letting the door close behind you with a slam...

————————————————

January 2 2019

"The real question is, how did I get so lucky?" you giggled before he gently pushed the mug of coffee into your hands while leaning in to plant a small kiss on your forehead. Instantly, that warm feeling flew through your body just from the smallest, loving touch he gave you, it never getting old. “Good morning, beautiful." he mumbled against your lips, before wrapping his arms around your neck and resting his head on top of yours, “and a very good morning to you handsome” you smiled, feeling the most relaxed you’ve felt in a while, lifting your gaze to him, love dancing in your eyes as you leaned in to clasp your mouths together.

"Kissing you never gets old," you mutter softly as you both pull away, Christian flashing you a cheeky grin before spotting his luggage packed and ready for the off beside the front door of your new complex, a sigh falling from his lips, “can’t believe I arrived here a week ago and I’m already flying back to Germany” he frowned, pulling a pout. “It’s only six months and it’ll be over before you know it, I’m not going to lie I will miss living over there, especially the weather” you giggled, messing up his perfectly gelled hair to which you got no thanks for, “hands off, this took ages to do” he said, pretending to be serious and grabbing your hand as if to say ‘go on do it again I dare you’. “I’m gonna miss you, the apartment’s gonna seem empty without you here...and it means I have to build all the flat pack furniture from IKEA myself” you huffed, pointing at the hundreds of cardboard boxes filling the spacious room as he laughed, culling your face and running a finger along your cheek, “you’ll be fine, we’ll FaceTime every night and whenever we have a minute spare because you’re gonna be busy as hell now...my super business woman” he winked as you shook your head, still not quite believing you actually own a company, like a whole ass company belonged to you and it was mad to just even picture it.

“Ah shut up, you’re making me blushing Mr Pullisic, now go before you miss that flight of yours” you grinned, going in for one last peck while shoving him out the door with a struggle, feeling like his clingy self wasn’t ever gonna leave, “I love you, see you in half a year” he happily said, grabbing his many cases and walking out, letting the door gently fall closed...

——————————————————

July 1 2019

The classic iPhone ping went off as an incoming text message lit up your phone screen, instantly opening the pic attachment of him saying ‘en route’ which meant he was on his way and by god you couldn’t wait to just see him in person after all this time. He barely got through the front door before you took a leap, linking your legs around his torso as his hands secured under your thighs to carry your weight. Squeezing him tight, you rested your head in the crook of his neck, enjoying his presence as a laugh escaped his lips, “missed me just a bit?” he stupidly asked, not even bothering to let you answer before smashing his lips on yours for the first time what felt like in forever.

Gently tapping your legs, he slowly placed you feet on the ground and then cupped your face, pulling you in for another long, loving kiss, “so how’s everything been then, and by the way you’ve done a good job decorating this place” he nodded, eyes gazing at all the modern interior, “funny you asked, I managed to open two more branches this week, one in Gateshead up north and the other in Manchester!” you exclaimed letting out a small squeal, not able to control your excitement any longer as his eyes went wide with joy. “I didn’t think you could make me any prouder but I guess I was wrong eh” he gushed, heading over to sort out his cases, “I’m saying the same about you” you laughed as he pulled out a couple man of the match awards along with a jersey signed by all the teammates. “It felt strange to say goodbye to them after all these years...but it’s time for a fresh start, here in London with Chelsea Fc and with you” he whispered, excited for the new chapter in your lives to finally begin.

——————————————————

The next year could only be described as perfect for the both of you, his career taking off and loving every moment at the club, getting along with everyone in the dressing room and then loving the fans and atmosphere within the stadium, and knowing you were in the stands somewhere cheering on your ‘captain America’ made it all the more special. As for you, your company was doing beyond amazing, going from National to world wide, owning buildings in Dubai, Spain and you’ll never guess where, Germany. Your main branch was of course London, where the company was founded and to which was the office you managed and were based at, meaning you rarely visited the abroad ones but you weren’t complaining, with you being a London gal to be in your home city with your own bloody business was unimaginable, not to mention you were only a 20 mins drive from your family.

Oh yeah and he popped the question about four months into the move on your eight year anniversary which you of course said yes to, already having planned out your dream wedding, the pair of you agreeing to have it here rather than America with work and travel and all that malarkey.

For the first time in ages, it all seemed to be coming together for yous...

———————————————————

January 10 2021

8 hours later and the two of you hadn’t spoken all day, with him going off to what you assumed was his last training session and proceeding to ignore you and your many questions, you decided to go to work too, trying to get this whole moving countries once again after only one fucking year back home thing off your mind.

“Right that’s it, you’re going to talk to me Christian because you must think I’m a mind reader or something and I can just tell what’s going in in that brain of yours” you said, stumbling through the door and throwing your keys in the side before throwing yourself on the sofa beside your sad looking boyfriend. “I’m sorry” was all he could say, looking down at the ground leaving you with a confused frown on your face, “enough with the apologies, I just want to know what this means, for us” you sighed, placing a hand on his cheek and giving it a small pinch, hoping it’d put a smile on his lips.

“Well I’m definitely leaving Chelsea, guess not everything works out...but it means I’m back off to Germany” he said as you slowly nodded, “you have to do what’s best for your career, ok?” you smiled, running a hand through his hair as he was quick to shake his head, “no I can’t. I don’t wanna leave you, not again. And anyways we’re supposed to be trying for a baby and that’s going to be a challenge if we’re in different countries don’t you think?” he’s spoke with a slight laughter. “I’m not arguing with you Pullisic, go and sign that contract and get yourself away to Germany to revive your job. I’m not saying I’m going to drop everything and move again because I have my work and life, but I can easily fly out and visit, you’re forgetting I have an office over there. As for kids, we’ll get to that part when it comes around...so just take one step at a time and get on the phone to your agent to tell him you’re taking the transfer” you blurted out with a soft smile, knowing exactly what you were saying and that this was just another step in your life, at the end of the day, life isn’t life without it’s challenges along the way...❤️

———————————————

If you got this far reading it, I hope you enjoyed it! x

@kingkepa @champagne-coys @footballcloud @footballmagical @alexajanecollins @masonmounts @hoely-pavard @hazardybala @jamesmaddiscnx

[let-love-run-red]

Never Shall we Die - 1

Ok loves, I’ve had this in my WIP folder for awhile. I wanted to do this one right, IE actually have a story planned before I published the first chapter lol. This is a first for me, and I hope you like it! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged loves.

Before we start, this story was inspired by the lovely @beskarbabs​ Pirate!kylo story Thieves and Beggars. It is absolutely wonderful, and I recommend checking it out and giving her some love!

AO3 link

Masterlist

Another government meeting in the largest house in Port Royal. You sighed, sitting in the chair at your father's side. Ever since Mama had died, you'd been attending the meetings she would have, sitting in her place, tracing the grain on the ornate table top and wishing for something else to do.

Today it was something else about the boats. About the pirates, about the merchandise being moved. More boring things. You were ten! you wanted to be out playing in the gardens and chasing your father's hunting dogs around the grounds, finding flowers that your mother would then braid into your hair while she sang to you.

The thought of it made you miss her all the more. The Scarlatina had struck her hard, taking her energy and your unborn sibling. She had been too tired to play, to sing to you, to love you. And you supposed that wasn't her fault, but you had been angry with her. Thought she didn't love you. You wished for her to be taken away, considered running away so she would realize how much she missed you. You were so angry that when the doctors said she didn't have much time, you refused to see her. What did they know?

You always regretted that, you thought. What if seeing her had made her want to stay? You supposed you'd never know. 

You looked up and realized your father was on his feet, shouting with another man in a fancy coat. He wouldn't notice your absence. You stood and walked towards the door, hiking up the skirt of your dress as you walked past the guards. They likely assumed you were headed to the chamber pot. Rather than taking a left down that hall, you continued straight, ducking out into the garden and sneaking out of the cracked wall, to the marketplace, where you did your most interesting people watching.

                                                 ***

"Blow high, Blow low, and so sailed we, the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea, Sailing down 'long the coast of High Barbaree."  He sang quietly to himself as he walked down the streets of the markets. He tried to keep the drool in his mouth as he smelled the cooking meats and fresh fruits. He looked in all the stalls, thinking of how even one of those fish could feed him for a week. He stopped when he saw an unmanned stall, peeking over the edge to see what it contained. 

Corn, bushel upon bushel of fresh green corn, just lying there, unattended, begging him to take them. He felt his stomach rumble as he imagined what his mum could do with even one ear of corn. He thought of cornbread, and boiled kernels, corn pudding, and without thinking of the repercussions he snatched two ears and tucked them under his vest. 

He tried to hide the smile on his face as he walked down the street, trying to keep hold of the large vegetables. He hadn't realized the tops of the corn peeking out of the vest, and didn't notice until someone planted a large hand on his shoulder and spun him around.

"What have ye got there boy?" The man snarled, reaching into his jacket and pulling the ears of corn out.

"N-nothing." He stuttered, trying to squirm from the man's grip and reach for the corn.

"It sure don't look like nothing." The words were spat in his face as the man grabbed his arm and dragged him towards a pair of guards walking down the street towards him. He started trying to pull his arm away, kicking at the man and trying to go dead weight, but nothing worked. He couldn't be arrested, what would mum do? He grabbed the man's arm, pulling himself forward and sinking his teeth into his forearm.

The man shouted, dropping his arm and turning to smack him. He ducked under the fist, scrambling to his feet and running towards the only empty alleyway he could see. He wove through feet and dodged skirts and shoes, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the guards. 

He finally ducked behind a stack of barrels in an alleyway, smacking his head into someone else's face.

"Hey!" She cried, standing up and glaring down at him. She couldn't have been much younger than him, maybe only a year or two. She was wearing a fancy pale blue dress with a shiny gold necklace on. A castle rat. He sneered, ready to snap at her when he heard the guards.

"Where'd he go?" They snapped to one another. He watched the girl turn, her (h/c) curled hair bouncing around her face. She opened her mouth and Kylo pulled her down by her arm. She landed in his lap and he wrapped an arm around her middle to pin her arms down, using his other hand to cover her mouth.

"Shh!" He hissed in her ear while she struggled against him. It wasn't until the guards had walked past, and she was trying to bite his hand, that he released her. She scrambled away from him, turning to fix him with a bewildered stare.

"What do you think you're doing!?" She snapped. Kylo pushed himself up to his feet, looking down at her.

"Running." He said.

"But it's hard when a castle rat is in your hiding spot." He snapped at her. She seemed taken aback at that.

"Were you running from the guards?" He was silent in response, looking around to make sure the coast was clear before walking out from behind the barrels. She followed him, pulling the skirts of her long dress up and trying not to trip over the cobblestone in her fancy heels.

"Are you a thief?" She snapped, running ahead of him. He pushed past her to walk down the street, weaving between people and hoping she would leave him alone.

He had no such luck.

"What did you steal?" She pestered him. He continued to ignore her as he walked, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers while he tried to avoid stares from people.

"If you don't tell me, I'll get the guards." She said, catching up with him. He growled low in his throat, wishing she would go away.

"They're right there, they'll listen to me over you, I know it." She said. He finally snapped, grabbing her arm and pulling her into another alleyway.

"Corn! I tried to steal corn. I'm hungry. Now will you fuck off?" He asked. For the first time since he'd met her she was silent. He tried to walk past her when she gently reached out and tugged on his sleeve.

"I'm sorry you're hungry. Would you like me to get you something?" She asked. He looked back at her with furrowed brows.

"I'm the governor's daughter, I can take whatever I'd like, and the guards can't do anything." She said. He shook his head, trying to push past her again.

"Wait, please!" She called, following after him.

"What do you want?" He snapped. 

"I don't know." She said. He let out another sigh. He should have gone with the guards.

"You seem interesting." She said, looping her arm through his and leaning against him, the way his mother did with his father. Was it a lady thing? He wouldn't know. He resisted the urge to push her off as he walked through the streets towards the docks.

The two walked in silence. Well, he walked in silence, she rambled on and on about her father and what he did, how her mother had died, how she was important to the government, how she would grow up to marry the Commodore or some such nonsense. He was only half paying attention as they approached the docks. He admired the ships, both the small ones docked and the larger ones in the port that were too deep in the draft to come close.

"Did you hear me?" She asked, poking him harshly in the side. He winced and looked down at her.

"Have you ever been on a ship?" She repeated.

"No. I haven't." In truth, he wanted to be. He wanted to be sailing on a ship away from this wretched place. He wanted to take his mother and father and give them a better life somewhere else. Maybe to America, his father had taken them here, to Port Royal, in hopes of a better life. But they lived as peasants, scraping and begging for every last scrap of food. Maybe, if he had a ship, he could take them to the motherland. To Europe, or France even. But he was stuck here, on the docks, watching the ships come and go.

"I can get you on a ship." She said suddenly. He looked down to her with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows.

"What?" 

"I said I can get you on a ship. Do your ears work?" She asked, tilting her head.

"Yes my ears work just fine." He snapped. "What's in it for you?" He'd learned, nothing came for free in life. Especially not in Port Royal. 

She shrugged as she stepped forward. Her arm was still linked with his, so he followed her as she walked through the docks towards where the East India Trading Company ships were docked.

"I just want to know your name." She said. "And I'm bored, the ships always have interesting things going on." She said, walking towards the largest ship docked. It was named The Hyperion, and it was gorgeous. It was one he figured was to sail soon, it had been docked for a few weeks. 

The hull had been painted a rich navy blue, with the posts and rails a royal gold. The sails were a pristine white, every rope was in the proper place, and the men swarming about it had not a hair out of place. It was perfect in every way, the perfect ship.

He hadn't realized he'd broken into a smile until she commented on it.

"Wow, you're more excited by a ship than a pretty girl." She lamented, unlinking their arms. He hadn't moved as he inspected the ship.

"Want to go?" She asked, poking him in the side again. His jaw dropped as he turned to look at her.

"Can, can we?" He asked in disbelief.

"I told you, I'm the governor's daughter. I can do whatever I want to." She said with a grin. He rolled his eyes again.

"But!" She suddenly shouted, startling him.

"You have to tell me your name!" She finished. He let out a heavy sigh. He didn't care for her to know him, to be able to track him down and bother him further, but oh how he wanted to board that ship.

"Name, or no ship." She said, folding her arms like a petulant child.

"What are you, eight?" He snapped.

"I'm ten actually." She huffed indignantly.

"Fine. My name is Kylo." He said walking towards the ship. She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him back.

"Last name too Kylo." She said. He kind of liked the way his name rolled off her tongue. It sounded smooth and elegant.

"Ren." He huffed. She grinned.

"Kylo Ren is a lovely name." She said, before turning to the ship.

"Wait a minute," Kylo called. She turned back to look at him.

"What's your name?" He asked. She laughed.

"You don't know my name already?" She poked him in the stomach. Why did she keep poking him?

"It's (y/n) (l/n). Now come on Kylo, we haven't got all day to sit around talking." She flounced off towards the ship, and Kylo tried his best to follow her closely without being noticed. 

She paused by the gangplank, waiting for the traffic up and down it to cease, before she dashed up it with surprising speed. Kylo had to actually run after her before she dragged him down behind a stack of crates near the railing.

"I thought you said you could do what you wanted?" Kylo hissed. She shushed him and nodded.

"Then why are we cowering behind crates?" He asked. She grinned sheepishly.

"Well, technically I'm supposed to be in a meeting with my father now. And they've likely noticed my absence." She said, glancing around. So she was running too? That intrigued him.

"Come on." She said, grabbing his shirt sleeve and dashing across the deck to the open hold and scurrying down the ladder. They were on the gun deck now, and she dragged him behind a cannon as a pair of the royal navy walked past. He turned, examining the cannon next to him. It was a demi cannon, it could probably fire a 15 kilogram solid shot straight through a pirate ship!

As he moved closer to it, (y/n) hissed at him to stop moving. He hadn't realized why until there was a sickening snap, and the demi cannon started rolling backwards into the walkway. He looked down to see he'd knocked the block from behind the wheel of the cannon. He ducked as it swiveled and almost smacked him in the face.

"Kylo!" (y/n) snapped as he scrambled backwards, bumping into the canon on the other side of her and sending that one rolling back too. There was a commotion on the upper deck as people flooded down to the gun deck, catching the cannons as the ship rocked lightly. They hadn't caused any damage, but Kylo knew that they could have, and that was enough to execute someone.

Strong hands grabbed him by the upper arms and dragged him to his feet. (y/n) stood, rushing towards the guards.

"Wait! Stop! Don't hurt him please!" She begged, trying to catch his shirt sleeve. The soldiers paused momentarily, before dragging him to the main deck. He heard the soldiers addressing (y/n) gently while they pulled him up the steps.

He was thrown, quite unceremoniously, before the captain of the ship. He looked up to see a face he recognized, Commodore Whiteford. He lowered his head, trying not to cry. He knew the punishment for stowaways, and it wasn't pretty.

"A stowaway Commodore, he tried to loose the cannons on the gun deck." The soldiers said. Kylo focused on the grain of the wood under his palms, willing it to be a fast execution.

"No! He's not a stowaway!" He heard (y/n) shout.

"Miss (l/n), what are you doing here? Everyone under your father's command is looking for you!" Commodore Whiteford snapped.

"I was exploring! He followed me onto the ship, it's not his fault, don't hurt him." She growled. Well, growled as much as she could. Commodore Whiteford looked at her with pity.

"Miss (l/n), you mustn't run off. Your father is worried sick over you. Come, my son will escort you back." Commodore Whiteford said, whistling shrilly. A lanky boy, older than Kylo, jogged over.

"Jackson, please make sure Miss (l/n) makes it safely back to her father." He said. The boy nodded, stepping forward and grabbing (y/n)'s arm harshly. She winced and let out a whimper. Something about the sound made Kylo's blood boil as he moved to stand up.

"Hey!" He shouted. No sooner than the word left his mouth did Commodore Whiteford have his rapier drawn with the blade pointed at Kylo.

"You will not address my son, street rat!" Whiteford snapped. Kylo cowered slightly before hearing (y/n) shout in pain. He looked over to see Jackson dragging her down the gangplank. She'd tripped and lost a shoe, allowing the splinters from the wooden plank to dig into the sole of her foot.

"You're hurting her!" He shouted. Before he could move he felt a searing pain across his face. He stumbled backwards, landing on his back on the deck. Blood dripped into his right eye, it stung. He lifted a hand to his face, brushing against the shred of fabric from the collar of his shirt. There was blood running down his face and soaking into his shirt from his chest. He couldn't breathe as it smeared across his hands.

"The mark of a stowaway, and treason." Commodore Whiteford snapped. He turned to the rest of the soldiers.

"Bind him, and drag him to the gallows. He is charged with attempting to pirate a ship of the royal navy." He growled. Kylo was too shocked to protest as the soldiers pulled him to his feet, shackling his arms behind his back with heavy iron cuffs.

                                                 ***

"Father!" You shouted, tears streaming down your face as the nurse wrapped your foot with wet linens. Your father was pacing in front of you, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Mum always said he'd get wrinkles if he kept making that face. But she wasn't there to tell him that anymore. He turned to look at you, kneeling down next to you and taking your hands in his own.

"(y/n), my sweet, he's been charged with attempted piracy, there is nothing I can do for him." He said, looking at you sadly. 

"He bears the mark of treason. Even if I could pardon him, there would be no life for him." He finished. You pouted and turned away from him.

"It was my fault." You whispered.

"What?" 

"It was my fault we were on the Hyperion in the first place!" You shouted in his face.

"Young lady, do not lie to spare the life of a peasant." He snapped at you. You looked at him, your own thin brows furrowed this time.

"I'm not lying! It was my idea, he was trying to leave, but I asked him if he wanted to see the ship! I didn't think there would be any harm, we weren't going to steal it, just look!" You tried to explain frantically. 

"Even if that's true darling, he's on the gallows march now. There is nothing to be done." He said softly.

"I will never speak to you again if he dies." You seethed. He let out a hefty sigh, rising to his feet and pacing again.

"You'll get over him my love." He said.

"No I won't! He's my friend!" You shouted again. Despite only spending a few hours with Kylo, he was one of your closest friends, well, friend that wasn't your cousin anyway. You thought of his crooked smile, his lips that looked so soft, and the long dark hair that had whipped around his face in the sea breeze. 

"I love him." You pouted. That stopped him dead in his tracks, and you knew you'd found your in.

"You what?" 

"I love him father! And if you let him die I shall never speak to you again! I'll follow mama to my grave and never speak another word to you!" You cried, willing the tears to fall again. You didn't realize it, but as the tears fell, your true feelings for the scrappy boy you'd lured onto the ship were spoken aloud.

Your father seemed taken aback as he watched you cry. The nurse had long since left the room, and he hissed lowly.

"My daughter will not fall in love with a peasant boy." You hoped you hadn't pushed him too far, this was Kylo's only chance.

"If I pardon him, you will never see him again, do you understand?" He snapped. You nodded frantically and he crossed the room, grabbing you by your arms and hauling you to your feet. You yelped as you put weight on your injured foot.

"Do you understand!" He yelled.

"Yes! Yes father, I understand." You cried in fear. He let you sit back in the chair, sweeping out of the room towards the stables. You followed him as quickly as you could on your injured foot.

When you caught up with the gallows march you easily spotted Kylo. He was the only child in the mix of adults. His shirt was ragged and his wrists bled from the iron cuffs. You had to resist the urge to gasp as you followed your father's white stallion on your small dappled gelding. 

"General, wait." Your father called as he pulled his horse to a halt. You kept your gaze trained on Kylo as he looked up, and your heart sank.

His beautiful face was now split by a long red scar that started above his eyebrow, and ended below his collarbone. There was blood smeared across his face and chest, soaking into his shirt. There were tracks streaked into the blood where his tears had cut a path through the redness. You resisted the urge to leap from your horse and run to him.

The general approached Kylo with the ring of keys, unlatching the shackles from around his wrists and ankles. Kylo hesitated, shaking slightly before your father rode towards him. Kylo balked slightly as the stallion stopped just short of running him down.

"You are never to see my daughter again. Do you understand me?" He hissed. Kylo nodded frantically, stepping backwards. Your father kicked his horse harshly, causing the stallion to rear slightly as it screamed.

"Go!" He yelled. Kylo scrambled backwards, falling onto his back and pushing himself away from the horses hooves as it landed again. He rolled over, pushing himself to his feet and running away from the gallows march, through the crowd, and out of your sight.

[hopelikethemoon]

California Vacation (Javier x Reader) {MTMF} [smut]

Title: California Vacation  Rating: Explicit Length: 4100 Warnings: Fluff and Smut (cock warming, modified doggy style) Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set in late May 1998. Outfit inspo here. Summary: Reader and Javier take a well deserved vacation. 

@grapemama​ @seawhisperer​ @huliabitch​ @pedropascalito​ @rogrsnbarnes​ @thewallpapergoesorido @twomoonstwosuns​ @gooddaykate​ @livasaurasrex @ham4arrow @plexflexico​ @readsalot73 @hdlynn​ @lokiaddicted @randomness501 @fioccodineveautunnale  @roxypeanut​ @snivellusim @lukesrighthand​ @historynerd04​ @mrsparknuts @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @exrebelshocktrooper​ @awesomefandomsunited @ah-callie​ @swhiskeys @lady-tano​​ @beskar-droids​ @space-floozy @cable-kenobi​ @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes​ @findhimfives​​ @pedrosdoll​ @frietiemeloen​​ @arrowswithwifi @random066 @uncomicalhumour​ @heather-lynn​​ @domino-oh-damn @cyarikaaa @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl  @yabby-girl @xqueenofthecraziesx @punkass-potato @coredrive​​ @pascalesque​​ @theduchessofkirkcaldy​ @queenquazar @sabinemorans​ @buckstaposition​​ @holkaskrosnou​ @yespolkadotkitty​ @fleetwoodmactshirt​ @seeking-a-great–perhaps

This was the life. 

Top down convertible, hair loose in the breeze, Javier’s hand on your thigh as he drove along the coast. It was perfect — like something out of the movies. You could take a hundred pictures and still not quite capture the way you felt. 

And sure, you missed the girls, but you had both desperately needed a little time away from everything. After the way the DEA story had landed, you both needed to get the fuck out of there for awhile. Without the kids. 

Connie had initially suggested Mexico — Cabo, to be specific. But how the hell could either of you sit on a resort beach and not think about the cartels just beyond the American tourists? The DEA was the last thing either of you wanted to think about.

You reached down and rested your hand over Javier’s on your thigh, slotting your fingers in between his, you ran your thumb over the side of his hand. “I can’t get over how gorgeous this place is.”

Javier tilted his head, grinning at you as he caught your eyes. “Then you fit right in with the scenery, baby.” 

“Drive.” You rolled your eyes, squeezing his hand. 

He chuckled, running his hand down your leg, “What?”

You bit down on your bottom lip, winding your fingers through your hair as it whipped around you in the wind. There wasn’t a bad view to be found here. 

Javier looked good on vacation. Even after only one night in California — which was mostly spent dealing with jetlag at the hotel — he already seemed relaxed. And relaxation suited him. 

You reached over and played with the hair at the nape of his neck. His lips drew upwards with an easy smirk as he tilted his head to look at you, “Enjoying the scenery?”

“Very much.” You grinned. Even after all these years, Javi still managed to let loose butterflies in your stomach. The way he made you feel hadn’t dissipated. 

The winery the concierge at the hotel had recommended was still partially under construction — but the tasting room and vineyards were open to the public. It was insanely gorgeous, to say the least. The Castle, as it was referred to, was an ornate mansion fashioned after the French Normandy style — and there was nothing like this in Florida. In fact, it looked like something you had seen on Travels in Europe with Rick Steves. 

Not that you and Javier curled on the sofa on Sunday afternoons and watched travel shows on PBS. One day, you’d manage an honest to God trip beyond the realms of North and South America. 

Javier walked around the convertible to open the door for you, “Ever the gentleman.” You teased as you took his hand and stepped out of the car. You leaned over the side of the car, grabbing your purse and situating the strap across your body. “Shit, this place is insane.” You remarked as you interlaced your fingers with his.

“When they’re done with all the landscaping, this is going to be one hell of a destination.” He remarked, gesturing to the upturned soil along the pathway where they’d clearly recently put down seed. 

“I think they’re set to open next summer — officially.” You explained, shielding your eyes as you took in the scenery. “I think we might have to come back.” 

He shrugged a shoulder, “We could make it a yearly trip.” 

“Hopefully we don’t have a reason to escape every year.”

“You don’t think a nice post-semester getaway — just the two of us — sounds like a fantastic plan, baby?” He questioned with an easy smirk as he released his hold on your hand and wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you in so he could steal a kiss. 

You pursed your lips as you pulled back, reaching up to ruffle the hair that fell against his forehead as you considered his suggestion. “I could be tempted.” You grinned at him and leaned in to kiss him again, before you escaped his grasp. “Come on, the tasting starts at noon.” 

Javier pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and followed after you up the pathway. “In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place like this.” He remarked as he took your hand again. “I’m feeling underdressed.” 

You snorted, “You look fine, Javi.” Your eyes raked over him — dark denim jeans and a short sleeve linen button up suited him. “Better than fine if I were the judge.” 

There were already several other couples and groups waiting in the tasting room when you both arrived. They offered tastes of their 1994 Estate Merlot, before ushering everyone onto a tour of the winery and the vineyard. You had never really made a study of winemaking practices and you actually found the whole thing rather fascinating. 

“The day is still young,” You remarked as you leaned against the side of the convertible, arms folded across your chest as Javier came to lean against the car beside you. “We could go to the beach.” 

Javier glanced at his watch, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “I think Bodega Bay’s probably an hour from here.” He nodded his head in agreement. “You got the map?”

“Am I not the trusty navigator?” You teased as you moved to stand in front of him. “We can eat dinner there and then head back for cocktails at the inn.” You suggested, resting your hands on his shoulders as you leaned in to kiss him. 

He rested a hand at the small of your back, as the other gently cupped your cheek. 

“Newlyweds?” Someone questioned, interrupting the moment. 

Your brows furrowed together as you turned your attention towards the woman who had spoken, “Excuse me?”

“I have a keen eye. It’s easy to spot a pair of newlyweds.” The older woman stated, smiling between the two of you. “Are you on your honeymoon?”

Javier chuckled, raking his fingers through his hair as he gave your hip a squeeze. “Sorry to disappoint, ma’am, but we are neither married nor on our honeymoon.” 

You stifled a quiet laugh, by the woman’s flummoxed expression. 

“Really?” She clasped her hands together, “I could’ve sworn that was the case.” 

“We’ve essentially been together for almost eleven years.” You admitted, your fingers curling around Javier’s as you took his hand. “I guess it’s nice to know we give off honeymoon vibes.” 

“I’m the wedding planner for the estate,” The woman offered, extending her hand as an introduction. “Sheila Wise.” 

“It’s nice to meet you,” You said politely. “The grounds are going to be beautiful when things are finalized.” You gestured back towards the mansion. “I can see the appeal of getting married here.” 

“Are you local?”

Javier shook his head, “Florida.” 

“Well, welcome to California. Are you staying nearby?”

“We’re staying in Sonoma at an Inn for a few nights,” You explained, leaning against Javier. “We just got in last night actually.” 

“You two must be awfully jet lagged.” 

Javier chuckled, scratching at his jaw, “It’s no worse than having a newborn. You got any recommendations? We’re in Sonoma until Tuesday and then heading to the coast mid-week.” 

“And then San Francisco,” You added. “We fly back out next week.” 

“You should drive down to Armstrong,” She suggested. “You’re less than an hour away and with the weather today, the forest is going to look beautiful.” Sheila looked between the two of you. “Oh, you two really are just a lovely couple.” 

You blushed, “Thank you.” 

“We were actually considering driving down to Bodega Bay,” Javier reminded you, squeezing your hand. “You wanna hit the Redwoods today?”

You shrugged, “I’m easy. We are staying at the coast later this week.” 

“Alright, baby, let’s go look at trees.” He winked at you, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand before he turned back to Sheila. “Thanks for the recommendation. We might be back next year to see the progress.” 

“Do you mind taking a picture for us?” You questioned, releasing your hold on Javier’s hand and leaning into the car to grab your camera from where you’d stowed it under the seat. 

“Of course!” Sheila took the camera from you, gesturing for the two of you to pose. 

You cupped the side of Javier’s jaw, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek as he grinned at the camera. You didn’t have nearly enough pictures of the two of you together. She took a second shot with you leaning against him, his arm curled around your waist. 

“I hope you have a wonderful visit,” She said warmly as she passed the camera back to you. 

“She is a remarkably spritely old woman,” You remarked once she was out of earshot and you were settled into the car, sorting out a route on the map that would get you to the state park. 

“Hope you’re that spritely when you get old like me,” Javier quipped with a smirk, taking his sunglasses off and tucking them into the front of his shirt. He stifled a yawn as he rubbed at his eyes. 

“Wanna go back to the hotel?” You questioned, leaning over to play your fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. “We can go poke around the plaza in town. Find somewhere to eat.” You brushed your knuckles against his cheek as he turned to look at you. “This is supposed to be relaxing, not exhausting” You reminded him. 

“Gotta reserve some energy for tonight, right?” He remarked, tracing his tongue over the edge of his teeth as he met your gaze. 

“You mean since we fell asleep last night?” You quipped, giving his leg a pat. “We can sit on the patio and crack into the bottle we bought.” You bit down on your bottom lip as you met his eyes, “And then we can have fun.” 

Javier leaned over and kissed you, “I’m looking forward to it.” He brushed his nose against yours before starting the car up. 

 ————

 “Why didn’t we settle in California instead of Florida?” You questioned, setting aside your menu as you looked across the table at Javier. “It’s not as hot as hell like Miami is.” You shook your head. “This is the right way to dine al fresco.” 

Javier took a sip of his wine and sank back in his seat, looking quite relaxed as he looked around the bustling downtown plaza area. “You know what the best thing is?”

“What?”

“We don’t have to worry about people recognizing us.” He rubbed at the side of his neck. “Yeah, it was national news, but everyone knows we’re in Miami.” 

You sighed heavily and shrugged your shoulders, “It was a lot.” Dealing with the back and forth in the newspaper had been emotionally fatiguing. “I don’t know what I expected, honestly. I just wanted it out there. You know?”

“Yeah,” Javier nodded, rocking his jaw. “I don’t regret it. It needed to be done.” 

You nudged his foot beneath the table, “I know everything coming out like it did wasn’t ideal. But it’s not like either of us have ever pretended to be someone that we’re not.” 

“It was pretty fucking clear the DEA had some idea about who they thought I was.” 

A faint smile cracked at the corner of your lips, “Everyone’s wrong about you, but… I think we cleared that up.” 

Javier snorted, “On the front page in black and white. I still wish Vickers had given us a fucking heads-up.” He made a face, “That was the most uncomfortable class of my life.”

You laughed, reaching for your wine. “Did they think they’d break us?”

He gestured vaguely with his hands, “Probably. I mean the whole thing blew up in their faces. Painted me out to be a saint and threw a half dozen of their guys under the bus.” 

“It opened up a whole new scandal,” You pointed out. “I’m kinda glad the whole thing took the pressure off us. Elena is a saint.” 

“We should get her something,” Javier suggested. “Think Hallmark has a card for that?”

You tapped your finger against your lips thoughtfully, “We should write in with the suggestion.” 

Javier leaned forward and took your free hand into his, “Dear Hallmark,” He began, barely keeping a straight face. “Please write a greeting card for when you need to thank a hooker you slept with nearly a decade ago for orchestrating the mass confessional of Colombia’s finest.” 

Your head tilted back as you laughed, “Please put that in your autobiography. “

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, “It’ll be in there.” 

The waiter came then to take your orders. Javier ordered a fancy sounding Tortellini Alfredo with prosciutto, while you opted for the Eggplant Lasagna. Despite dinner and wine being more than enough, you both managed to share a serving of tiramisu before walking back to your hotel. 

“Do you miss the kids?” Javier questioned as he stepped out onto the balcony with the bottle of wine you’d purchased at the winery. 

“A smidge.” You admitted to him as you pulled your robe around your shoulders, relaxing into your seat. “Monica assured me that she’d call if there was any trouble.” You scooted your glass across the table for him to fill it. “And she hasn’t called.” 

“I suppose that’s reassuring,” Javier’s gaze flickered to your face as he filled your glass, pushing it back towards you. “You buy that just for the trip?”

You nodded your head with a smirk. “I figured we needed a little treat.” You smoothed your fingers over the satin ruffled sleeve of the dusty rose robe. “And I don’t actually have any robes.” You brought your glass to your lips and took a sip. 

Javier chuckled, “It’s a good look on you.” He remarked, picking up his glass and taking a sip as he stepped around behind you, his eyes turning towards the horizon. “Hell of a view.” 

“The mountains are gorgeous. They’re so different from the ones I grew up with.” You reached up and rested your fingers over his hand at your shoulder. “I’m guessing hiking is off the agenda?”

He gave your shoulder a squeeze as he walked around and sat down in the chair across from you, “Who do you think I am?”

You snorted, “Alright, alright.” You took another sip of wine before you rose to your feet and moved around to sit on his lap. “Better?”

“Much better,” Javier assured you, resting his hand at your hip as he sat his wine glass aside. “Did you have fun today?”

“I did,” You said with a nod as you slipped at your wine. “That winery was gorgeous. Can you imagine living in a house like that?” 

“Makes our house feel like an apartment.”

“Right?” You sat your glass down on the table next to his, shifting in his lap to face him. “Did you have fun?”

“Of course I did, baby. I spent the day with you.”

“Ugh, gross.” You scrunched up your nose, but kissed him nonetheless. You nipped at his bottom lip, fingers cupping his jaw as you sank into the kiss. “Sometimes you say the corniest shit.” 

“You bring that out of me. You’ve only got yourself to blame, baby.” He told you, rubbing his hand down the top of your thigh where the robe fell against your skin.

You scraped your nails gently down the back of his neck, fingers toying with the soft hair there, before you dragged them through his hair. “Oh, it’s my fault you make dad jokes?”

“Well, who made me a father?” 

“Me. Twice.” You rolled your eyes. “I must be crazy or something for facilitating your descent into dad jokes.” You tugged at his hair. 

Javier played with the tie of your robe, loosening it just enough for him to slide a hand inside, his fingers playing against your bare side. “You like my corny jokes. Don’t lie.”

“I never lie.” You traced your finger down his nose. “Back in Colombia, you were definitely funnier than Murphy.”

“Only way to keep sane.” 

“Seriously,” You pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I think Josie is going to have our brand of humor. She’s already so sassy.”

“She’s all you.” Javier tilted his head and stole a kiss. “Sofía — I’m not sure about.”

“She’s grumpy, just like her father.” You punctuated your sentence with a kiss to his lips before you moved to slide out of his lap. You snatched up both glasses of wine and moved towards the doorway back into your room. 

Javier had loosened your robe enough so that it fell open completely as you stood in the threshold. Beneath the robe was a pair of satin shorts and soft bralet that matched, both edged with white lace. And given the look on his face — he was thrilled with the choice.”

“Like what you see?”

“Goddamn, baby. Sometimes I think you’re intentionally trying to give me a heart attack.” He remarked as he slid the balcony door closed behind him. He sat the half-drunk bottle of wine aside as he kicked off his shoes, “You look fucking incredible.”

Even still he managed to make your cheeks warm. You finished off your glass of wine, before setting his down on the nightstand. “I thought you might enjoy this.” You remarked as you let the robe slide off your arms and pool by your feet. “I might have another one saved for when we get to Sam Francisco.”

“You spoil me, baby.” Javier ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Holy shit.”

You perched on the side of the bed, trailing your fingers along your collarbone as you watched him undress. He slowly worked the buttons of his linen shirt loose, before tossing it aside carelessly. “Come here, Javi.” You requested, spreading your legs as he approached you.

Javier laid you back on the bed, draping himself over you as his lips claimed your mouth. One of your legs curled around his hips, grinding against the growing bulge in his jeans. You could feel the hard line of the zipper pressing against you and you sought friction from it. The satin fabric cling slickly to your cunt, the satin darkening there as your arousal grew. 

Fuck. The man knew how to kiss. Lips hungry against yours as his tongue plundered you like you wished his cock would. God — you were aching. Wine always managed to make you horny. 

You tugged at his hair, desire spark through you at the groan that left his mouth from the gesture. “You like that, Javi?” You taunted. “Our lives might’ve been printed on the front page, but there are so many things only I know about you.”

Javier grinned down at you, “To the grave, baby.”

“To the grave.” You repeated as he dipped back down to kiss you again. You worked your hand in between your bodies, fingers desperately working to get his jeans off. 

He took a step back, undoing his belt before he shoved his pants down his hips and kicked them off. Your eyes flickered downwards to his erection, clearly straining in his boxers. “I feel like I should invest in satin.” You teased, “You seem to really enjoy it.”

Javier rolled his eyes, “Fuck you.” 

“Wish you would.” You retorted with a smirk, running a hand down your torso, before playing your fingers over the soaked crotch of the satin. You bit down on your bottom lip to suppress a sound as you circled your clit through the fabric. “Javi. 

“Middle of the bed, on your stomach.” Javier told you, his eyes snapping to your face. You wanted to taunt him, to drag this out longer — but the flint of control in his eyes made your stomach flip with desire. 

You complied, putting a little sway in your ass as you crawled onto the bed and laid down flat on your stomach in the center of the bed. 

Javier moved to join you, the bed dipping under his weight as he moved to straddle your upper thighs. He ran his hand down the center of your back, a tender touch that came in sharp contrast with the sudden slap he delivered to your left ass cheek. You jerked, grabbing the sheets as you cried out in surprise. 

“Baby, was it too much?” He questioned, rubbing the cheek he’d just injured. “Shit—“

“It’s good. Very good.” You assured him.

“You know your safe word, baby.”

“I do. And I don’t plan on using it.” You countered, wiggling beneath his weight. “Don’t tease, Jav—“

You muffled the next cry of pleasure against your pillow as he delivered a second slap to your right cheek. It was probably wrong just how much you enjoyed it. The pain that merged into pleasure. 

“You’re fucking soaked, baby. Fuck, look at this perfect pussy.” He drawled out as he dragged his fingers through your slick folds. The touch was just teasing at first, gathering up your arousal and smearing it all over his fingers. 

You lifted your hips towards him, desperate for more. You bit down on your bottom lip as you felt his fingers tease at your slick center — working one and then two fingers into you. The angle was perfect, making two fingers feel tight within you. A precursor to what you were desperate for. 

Javier worked his fingers in and out of you, dragging them right over that sweet spot without ever giving it his full attention. You could feel the pleasure coursing through your veins, but it was never enough to push you over the edge. 

You moaned into the comforter, as he kept his fingers within you and stroked them over that sweet spot. That pleasure causes you to be caught off guard as his free hand landed against your bare asscheek. 

“Fuck. You clenched so tight around my fingers, baby. Think you’re ready for me cock?”

You flipped him off in response, amused by the low rumble of laughter that escaped him. Javier slid his fingers from your cunt and replaced the with his cock. 

He fed it into you slowly, sinking inch after inch into you until you squirmed beneath him. The angle was incredible. You could feel every inch of his cock stretching you. 

Javier palmed at your ass, gripping them tightly as he worked his cock in and out of you. Every forward thrust had him hitting that sweet spot within you, your body so ready to come for him. 

He stretched out above you, his weight pressing you into the mattress as his cock stayed seated within you. Javier took your hands into his, keeping them pinned to the bed beside your hands. “That’s it, baby. Be a good girl and stay still for me.”

You drew in a shaky breath, the roughness of his voice sending a shiver down your spine. “Keep it right there.” He ordered you, releasing one hand so he could curl it loosely around your throat. He wasn’t trying to leave a mark, they’d be too hard to hide in dresses and bathing suits. 

“Are you just going to stay like this?” You questioned, grinding back against him as you clenched around his length. 

Javier squeezed your hand, “Is there a problem with that?” He questioned, bucking his hips forward, “Just stay still, baby.” He soothed, dragging his fingers down the column of your throat. “You feel so good like this.”

It did feel good. You could feel every inch of him buried within your cunt and the weight of him crushing you into the mattress was a relished sensation. It felt like every part of him was pressed against you. 

He released your throat, brushing your hair aside as his lips hovered by your ear, “I want you to come for me, baby. Can you do that for me?”

You swallowed thickly, “Like this?” He nodded, kissing your shoulder. “Javi.” You begged, clenching around him again.

His fingers tangled in your hair, his grip tightening as he started rocking into you, a slow and steady thrust — one where he barely pulled out before he was pressed back into you.

You shifted beneath him, grinding back against his every move. “Fuck!” You gasped, feeling your body flutter around his cock. “Goddammit, Javi.” You urged. 

“Do you want me to stop, baby?” He questioned, his hand moving to give your hip a reassuring squeeze. “What do you want, baby?”

“I don’t want you to stop.” You told him hastily. “I just want you to fuck me. Please.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Javier pulled away from you, sitting back on his knees — using the angle to drive into you again and again. 

This was what you had wanted. Javier pounding you into the mattress until you forgot what your name was. Javier fucking you until all you could was come around his cock as he spilled into you. 

It was the best way to start vacation. 

[5289belle]

Captain America’s Legacy

Summary: When Katerina Rogers watches as the flags smashers cause further mayhem, she knows she needs to come out of hiding and go help Sam and Bucky take them down, all while dealing with the fact that the United States government replaced her dad with some idiot as Captain America.

Meet Katerina (Katy) Rogers, the daughter of Natasha and Steve. Will take place during the falcon and the winter solider with some flashbacks to black widow and civil war. Also Tony is alive in this timeline, Steve did that snap instead, Natasha still died getting the soul stone.

Chapter One Captain Americas Legacy 

Sitting on the bed in her hotel room in Paris, Katy looked up to the tv and watched as Sam Wilson gave away her dad’s legacy to some museum. How could he when her father had chosen him to replace him while he lay there dying, anger and grief swelled up in her as she angerly switched off the tv.

It had been six months since she lost both of her parents within hours of each other and it hadn’t gotten any easier, she was all alone with her grief. Wanda was off somewhere trying to get through her own trauma and grief, Clint was taking time to be with his family again, thinking of him getting to be with them again made it easier to handle her mama’s sacrifice. It hurt too much to be around her mama’s family, they all reminded her too much of her mama. Tossing and turning in bed she found it difficult to sleep when she knew what awaited once she did manage to go unconscious for a few tortured hours.

Sometime around six and five am she managed to fall into a semiconscious slumber, until her alarm went of at noon. Rolling over to turn it off and turn back into her pillow to get a little bit more rest. Soon she would have to get up and leave. Never stay in one place too long, that was her motto, the constant moving helped to keep her mind distracted.

About two weeks later she was strolling through the streets of London when she spotted the news paper stand. On the front cover it read “Cap is Back” below it described how John Walker was the new Captain America. Unable to read anymore she back away and ran back to her hotel room. Flipping on the tv to try and forget what she had just seen, she looked up to see the man in question having a interview on Good Morning America. She felt sick to her stomach, scoffing she sat down to see just who this Walker guy was.

“It’s the greatest honor of my life um, but I I’m just a little shocked how’d a guy like me end up here?”

Ugg, his obvious self-depreciation was revolting, as if. She could tell he was trying to hard to emulate that humble hero, trying to emulate her dad. After watching a few more minutes to get a better understanding she decided she had enough and flipped the channel. In its stead a news report about the flag smashers was playing.

Apparently they were escalating and even caused a panic and injuries at a robbery. Watching the news footage, she noticed that one of the masked smashers had apparent super strength. That was news to her, to her knowledge the only ones with the super soldier serum that was still alive was, her dedushka(grandpa), all the former black widows had a form of the serum including Yelena and her babushka(grandma), Bucky, and herself. Though her was from her parents passing on their enhanced genetic codes.

Letting out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding in, she looked down to her hands. This whole situation was getting out of hand and obviously the GNC couldn’t handle. She knew she couldn’t hide out anymore, not when people were getting hurt. It was time to go back home and follow in her parents’ footsteps.

Two hours later she was on a plane, heading back to the states.

Hopping out of her uber she thanked the driver and closed the door. Now she only had to find Sam and get to the bottom of the situation. According to his phone he shouldn’t be too far off. Not too far up ahead she spotted him with Bucky, having one of their usual banters no doubt. Though the closer she got to them she noticed Bucky a bit more. He had cut his hair, and hot damn if it did not suit him. “Fuck me” she muttered to herself before noticing and blushing.

You have got to be kidding me when did she find herself thirsting after him. Okay be cool she thought to herself, but damn he really was hot.

“Well I don’t trust redwing” Bucky said to Sam and he followed after him.

“You don’t have to trust redwing, but I’m gonna go see if he’s right. Because I have a feeling they might be part of the big three.” Sam replied back slightly annoyed by the other man.

Hold up, the big three? What the hell is that? Apparently Bucky didn’t know either because he asked Sam “What big three?”

Looking at him incredulously he replied “ the big three, androids, aliens, and wizards”

Shaking his head Bucky said “that’s not a thing’

“Since when has that been a thing?” Katy interrupted with genuine interest.

Both men looked over in shock, they hadn’t expected to see her. Not after she took after and disappeared.

Bucky did a double glance real quick, she seemed different somehow.

“Where have you been all this time? We looked everywhere for you.” Sam said with a worried expression. Giving them a tight-lipped smile, she looked away towards the skyline and then turned back to them. “Oh, you know, touring Europe.” Grimacing she continued “ I just, couldn’t face it. It was easier to disappear, but when I noticed all the trouble the flag smashers were causing and the GNC inability to do anything, I decided it was time to come back.”

“Are you doing any better?” Sam asked. “Of course, others wise I wouldn’t be here. Any way what the hell is the big three? I’ve never heard of that..”

Rolling his eyes Sam, looked to Bucky and then back to Katy. “ You know the big three, anytime we fight anyone it one of those three.”

“So who are you fighting now? Gandalf?” Bucky replied back sarcastically.

Taking a moment to register what he said Sam responded back incredulously “ uhh, how do you know about Gandalf?”

“ I read the hobbit, in 1937 when it first came out”

“So you see my point”

“oh, I love the hobbit. I read it back in fifth grade” Katy said to aloud, glancing at the both of them she was surprised to see they looked shocked at her admission. “What, it’s a good book.”

Looking back to Sam Bucky replied “No I don’t, there are no wizards”

“Doctor Strange” Sam said to which Bucky quickly replied “Is a sorcerer”

“ahh, ha ha. A sorcerer is a wizard without the pointy hat.” Sam said smiling in triumph.

“No, a wizard does magic with a wand or stick, a sorcerer used their hands” Katy interview with her commentary.

“Same difference” Sam looked over to her.

“Any ways’ he went on “they use brute strength, just like you guys and are incredibly annoying like the guy in front of me with a staring problem” With that he walked away to the plane with Katy and Bucky hot on his heels.

“I’m coming with you” Bucky and Katy said in unison to Sam.

“No you’re not”

“Uh, yeah we are. I’m not just going to sit back while I could be doing something to help people. Okay so I am going with you rather you like it or not. She said with a snarky tone, looking for Bucky to back her up. He merely nodded to her and followed Sam into the plane.

“Fine you and Cyborg can come with, just don’t annoy me” Rolling his eyes Sam couldn’t help but think how much she reminded him of Steve, always sure of what they were doing.

A few hours later sitting on the plane Bucky and Sam were having some kind of stare off. Looking between the two of them she couldn’t believe it. Seriously they were to grown ass men behaving like teenagers, her partners on this mission. Joy. Standing Bucky asked, “So what’s our plan?” Sam merely looked over to him and went back to putting in his earpiece and handing one over to her.

“Great, so no plan” Bucky said while sitting back down.

Torres interrupted with “Thirty seconds”

“Enjoy your ride Buck and Kat”

“Nah you can’t call me that”

“Why not, that’s what Steve called you”, shooting back Bucky said “Steve knew me longer, and Steve had a plan”

“Fifteen seconds to drop”

“I have a plan”

“Really? What is it?” he said while spreading his arms out walking toward Sam and Torres. Following after them Katy, stepped closer to Bucky.

Sam just jumped out the window, rather than replying back and dealing with those two.

Looking over to Torres Bucky asked “Great, where is the chute?”

“Were 200 hundred feet. It’s too low for a chute”

Huffing, Katy looked to Torres and asked, “Do you have some rope?”

“I don’t need it anyway” Bucky said while walking over to the open doorway and ripping off his sleeve with the metal arm.

“Yes we have some rope, why exactly” Torres questioned, looking over at Katy.

“Perfect, I can use that to jump out. Thank you”

Looking back to Bucky he replied, “You sure about that?”

“Yeah”, with that he jumped straight out.

Walking back over with the rope he handed it to her and watched as she wrapped it around herself and then to the plane, “have a nice flight” Without she dove right out of the plane and did a flip while holding out to the rope and scaling down to the ground. After fifteen seconds she let go and free fell another fifty feet before lading and doing her iconic superhero pose.

Looking over a few dozen feet, she noticed Bucky laying on the ground trying to catch his breath. Letting out a chuckle and smiling she walked over to him to make sure he was okay.

Standing over him she put her hands on her hips and looked down while asking “Are you okay? That looked like it hurt”

Suddenly Sam interrupted with mirth “I have all of that on camera, you know that right”

Then redwing flew over to them, Bucky merely looked over to her and said “Yeah, im fine. How are you?” and then looking over to redwing hovering above them he grunted “ Get out of my face, Sam or I’ll break it.”

In the comms he just simply said “okay, head north”

Sticking her hand out to him she offered to help him up. Reaching to take her hand with her flesh one she pulled him up, and then quickly took a step back flustered at his proximity, “come on lets go” with that she went north.

Walking into the abandoned building Bucky and Katy looked around, while walking around redwing swooped right by Bucky prompting him to swat at it while she chuckled, and Sam said “don’t hurt him”

While they walked up to Sam he called out “You’re doing that staring thing again”, looking down to his wrist he continued “They’re in there.”’

“Where’s they guy?” Bucky asked, “I don’t know, I think they’re smuggling weapons, though.”

“Well, I think you could be right”

“hmm,” was all Sam said.

“Well, I think we should do something about it rather than just standing here and bantering about it” Katy called out with a smirk and then walked closer to get a better look to see what the two guys were doing.

Looking over to her Bucky had a light smile reach his eyes at her quip, while Sam just laughed. “There’s only one way to find out, I see a clear path. I say we take it.”

“We’re not assassins”

Grimacing as his reply Katy looked over her shoulder and then looked back.

“I’ll see you inside or not.” Bucky replied in his deep baritone voice staring out Sam, then walking over to Katy.

“Hey, come on man. I’m just messing with you. Come back” smiling Sam trailed after them.

With Bucky leading they way she trailed behind him.

“Look at you. All stealthy.” Chuckling Sam continues through the comms “all stealthy. A little time in Wakanda and you come out White Panther”

“It’s actually White Wolf”

“Huh”

“All right, I’m inside therefore, way ahead of you.” Crouching down her looks over to Katy and then back to the scene in front of them. “It’s not great, but very doable with Katy and I”

Feeling a presence creeping up behind her she looks back to see Sam stealthy creeping up behind them.

“huh”, Bucky said in confusion”, then went on in a sarcastic tone “Hello. How are you?”

“Good. What did I miss?”

“Nothing”

Huffing out she replied between them “Boys, can we get back to the mission? Kind of important here..”

“Alright let’s go” Bucky replied

“No wait.” Sam said.

“I got a vibranium arm. I can take them”

Something felt off about this, it looked almost too easy, before she could say anything Sam quickly responded “And I can fly, Katy can take them down with hand-to-hand combat. Who gives a shit? Wait.” “I wanna see where they’re going”

“Now wait a minute, I can do more than that” she said offended.

“There’s two people”

“You only see two?, what about you Kat?”

“That’s what I saw. Bucky responded while looking over to her.

“I only see two, but I..” She stops to take a break and then looks at them unsteadily. “I can sense more, if that makes sense.”

Both men are surprised by this and look at her questioningly.

Sighing she looks to them and the says “About seven years ago I was taken by the red room, and they experimented on me, apparently they saw an opportunity with my already enhanced DNA. From that I’ve been able to sense things, kind of like a sixth sense. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s all I got.” Unable to elaborate anymore she looks away and hopes they will be satisfied with that answer.

Noticing her apprehension, they let it go for now and focus back on the mission. Bucky has a straight face, yet there’s concern there and a bit of understanding.

“Let me see what redwing sees.” Looking down at his wrist Sam points of the multiple body heat signatures redwing is picking up.

Grateful they let it go, she looks over to see that there appears to be five people.

How many people you see now? One, two…. Oh, here it comes again. Four, five. Yeah five.” Sam continues while Bucky just snaps “fine”

“Yeah.”

“So they’re strong whatever. All right lets go.”

“No, no wait. Shit”

Watching as the people look up from the noise, the trio held still trying not to be noticed. Finally, they looked on and continued their tasks.

“Alright, lets move” A woman call out to the other people. Waiting for them to be out of sight the three follows after . Looking at his wrist Sam notices that one of the trucks has an eight person in it. “I think they have a hostage he remarks.”

With that Bucky and Katy run off towards the truck while Sam flies towards it.

Running up the truck Bucky jumps up onto the back and opens the door climbing in, with Katy hot on his wheels. Walking in further he begins to look around, trying to find the hostage. Looking around they notices the crate and the contents, “They’re stealing medicine. Vaccines”

Looking up she notices a young woman poke her head out from one the crates, she looks scared and slightly hopeful. Alarm bells are going off in Katy’s head, but before she can do anything Bucky is saying hi and getting himself jacked out of the truck.

“Oh shit” she remarks before kicking out the woman and then turning to Bucky to see him being pulled up onto the car truck by two guys. Jumping up onto the other truck she goes to help him out with the other woman right on her heels. Turing around she blocks a swing from the red head and take a step back raising her arms and falling into a defense position.

Thrusting her foot forward she kicks out at the woman and hit her gut before she can even react. Thanks to her mom she has the quicker reflexes and quickly continues on her attack, turning to check on Bucky.

In her distraction the other woman get a kicks in and sends her flying back before Bucky’s feet, redwing then comes soaring in taking shots. The woman jumps up and catches it and then uses her knee to break it in half.

While on her back Katy quickly jumps back up landing with her one foot tucked in a kneeling position and the other in front while her hands are touching the floor.

Bucky looks up and happily says “I always wanted to do that.”

Sam’s going to be pissed she thought with a smirk and then turned and lashed out at the guys holding onto Bucky, sending them stumbling away. Ordinary her kicks would have wiped them out, but with the serum the just took a few steps back. Annoyed by this she turned around to see Sam swooping down and kicking the woman.

Ha she thought, I knew it.

While Sam was engaging in combat with the woman Bucky yelled out “Good of you to join the fight Sam” Quickly Bucky and she took on the other two men. In the meantime, the fight was joined by the other truck rolling up and two other men joining.

Sam was kicked onto to other truck leaving Katy to run up to the other guys and quickly jump up towards them, using her body as leverage she wraps her thighs around one of the guys and uses the momentum to throw him down, quickly raising her wrist she shoots out one of her widow’s bites from her gauntlet. It was a gift from her mother for her eighteenth birthday.

To her dismay it didn’t take him down for long, “Damn super soldiers” She muttered to herself.

Suddenly one of the men fighting Sam was hit by her father’s shield, looking up she noticed a helicopter with that Walker idiot jumping out. Rolling her eyes, she went on fighting.

Before she knows it the shield is flying around nocking the flag smashers down, while another mans jumps down on a rope. Great another idiot to contend with, who the hell is he supposed to be?

“Sam. John Walker, Captain America.”

“Lemar Hoskins”

Walker continues “Looks like you guys can use some help”

The two men say, responding to the questioning looks.

Ugg she thinks he looks way to proud to be brandishing that shield around. Dark thoughts quickly take over her mind, the very sight of him enrages her. Using that anger she quickly takes out her opponent.

The woman quickly makes her way up the Walker and Hoskins, Walker goes to hit her with the shield and then throws it out the other guys, while it soars back Bucky catches it with ease, handing it over to Walker reluctantly.

Witnessing the whole thing, the only thing that comes to mind to Katy was “Damn, that was hot” While slightly panting, blushing and hoping no one notices she looks towards the other two.

The fighting continues for a few more minutes before Bucky is pushed off the truck, faltering at the sight she receives a swift hit to the gut, quickly focusing back on the task at hand she continues to fight. Worried over Bucky still she notices Sam swoop in and them him and Bucky tumble away onto the field. With her head turned away her opponent kicks her off the truck sending her over in the direction the other two went.

Tumbling onto the ground below her and then rolling onto the grass, she berates herself for allowing herself to get distracted enough to get her ass handed to her. She was better than this, trained by a former red room assassin and a freaking super soldier since she was her girl.

Standing up she notices Sam and Bucky walking towards her.

“Well, that went horrible. We got a asses handed to us back there. I mean we are professional’s right? Because after that it seems like were amateurs. It’s embarrassing”

“Yeah, we sure did. Although I might add they were all super soldiers” Sam tuned in while him and Bucky walked off onto the road following after her.

“Well, this should be a fun walk back” Bucky said aloud looking straight ahead. Are you okay doll?” He said looking towards her.

Stuttering in her steps at the name, she quickly collected herself and responded with a smile “Never better, always love it when I take a tumble off a moving semi-truck, in the middle of nowhere.”

“Only twenty more miles to go of this” Sam intoned.

[csykora]

After ‘84, Igor felt the pieces were beginning to fall off the Red Machine. 

He hated being called a robot as much as he hated being called a soldier. He didn’t know what the world wanted the Green Unit to do on the ice or off it, how they had to behave, before someone would believe they had feelings. On the worst days they were too tired and numb to feel anything else.  

When he’d met Bobby Clarke, who he thought looked like a hockey angel with a blond halo and no teeth, Bobby commented about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Igor didn’t know how to say that he’d definitely never been allowed to go to Afghanistan, and under the uniform he didn’t deserve to be a soldier, for good or bad. The national team was a tool of the Soviet government: at the same time it was a comfort for ordinary people in cold little apartments in mining towns where the players grew up and also a prop in the illusions that kept everything how it was. 

The illusion went skin deep: every time they left Russia, Igor was issued a snappy winter coat and brand-name Western clothes, so no one would think the Soviets looked poor.

[A black and white photo of the Green Unit posing, smiling except for Igor, in matching windbreakers with saddle shoulders and bold stripes. This was a hot look, about 10 years before the Soviet Union Costuming Department thought it was a hot look]

Underneath the coat or the beautiful red sweater, everything was a mess. At one point, at a tournament in Canada, a Canadian player would hit Igor from behind. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the Soviet management hadn’t provided enough hockey pads. Igor was wearing a partial set he’d borrowed from a high school team that played in the host arena earlier that day. (Across Europe and Canada I bet there are grown men, still hockey fans now, who have no idea they once owned game-worn gear from the world’s top scorers. To Igor’s fans those pieces might be worth as much as he ever earned in his CSKA career.) He would play the rest of that tournament with broken ribs.

The only outsider he’d met who seemed to understand, however briefly, was their friend Vanya. Asked what it was like playing against those Russian robots, Wayne said, 

“Robots don’t hurt when they lose.”

By June 1985, Slava was recovering from that knee injury that had sidelined him for half the last season. He and his little brother Tolya, now a CSKA rookie, drove back for the start of training. Their car was hit, and Tolya was killed. Slava thought about leaving that season, but their parents told him to keep going, and just try to live for two people.

In November, the players at Arkhangel heard a rumor: someone had written an article, in a Soviet paper, that criticized the hockey program. Anything that wasn’t awe was criticism. Someone got their hands on a copy, and Igor, Vova, Sergei, and Slava huddled around their usual table that evening, hiding each other as they read it in turns. Igor reread it twice. He’d read Canadian and American papers that dragged the Soviet system, but never something like this, that got it--almost--right. It didn’t have all the details to understand the illusion--how they trained, how Tikhonov acted behind Arkhangel’s walls--but it guessed some.

Glasnost was beginning, a long rustling cracking thaw opening new streams of information and communication like Igor had dreamed. The Canucks drafted him that year, and then Vova. The Devils had dibsed Slava and Lyosha a few years before, and the Flames wanted Sergei. There was a place for them, waiting, if they could ever get to the NHL. But there wouldn’t be any thaw in Arkhangel as long as Tikhonov ruled it.

The ’85 World Championships were held in Prague, and ’86 in Moscow. Igor played both, and nothing else. For two years, no one saw him outside the Soviet Union. 

In December of ‘85, CSKA was supposed to tour North America. Igor was dressed and ready. Then he heard his passport, which he had used a hundred times before, had run into problems. Coach told him not to worry, but to stay behind in Russia and--how convenient--keep training for the championships in Moscow. Igor woke up at three in the morning to watch the games he was supposed to be playing. He learned that Canadian journalists were asking about him: apparently, he had tonsillitis. Igor wasn’t entirely sure where his tonsils were. 

Two months later CSKA played in Sweden. Strange, how his tonsils still weren’t better, and his passport was still missing. Two nights before they were set to leave Tikhonov called him into the office, in front of the team, and told him so. But the next evening Tretiak, now a more senior officer, came out to visit the barracks. He hugged Igor and promised him he would do what he could to get the passport by the time they were supposed to leave the next morning. Igor went to bed hoping. At 4:30 AM the coaches woke him just to tell him the passport wasn’t there yet, so the team really would be leaving without him. 

The third time it happened, he was told to go back to the passport office to file everything all over again--maybe he had fucked up his passport. He didn’t bother. Taking away travel had been one thing. But doing it in front of the team, in front of the Green Unit, so that he knew that they knew that he had let them down somehow, broke his heart. 

He was still allowed to play inside the Soviet Union. As long as he was with CSKA, the other Greens treated him the same as always. If they had known how bad things were going to get, Igor thought they would have done more sooner, but he knew that they didn’t understand what was happening. In between games, he spent his days in office buildings, being grilled about suspicious activities like listening to rock music, calling his mom too often, or kissing Canadians. 

“I was at fault all around. That I gladly gave interviews to journalists. That I liked the NHL...that I like rock music. That the living standard there impressed me. All this was raked up into a pile. I was the enemy. Because, you see, if I liked the American way of life, then in general I was an American by heart. All of this they said about me.

By nature, I am clearly a Russian. I do not like everything in America. It cannot be that somewhere is as in a fairytale, and somewhere else is total darkness.

Particularly, it seemed, my [friendliness] offended the preservers of government secrets….I also knew a little English. Therefore I had the possibility to rub elbows with whomever I might come in contact: hockey players, journalists and even immigrants. And, they assumed, to each of them I could give important information--everyone getting an equal share, no doubt, in order to be fair.”

He couldn’t talk to his friends from other countries, or his Russian friends either when they traveled without him. On the street outside between the rink and the party offices, none of his former fans would speak to him, except to ask or tell him their opinion if he really was a traitor.

He was wanted everywhere but home. Obviously, no other country believed that a 25 year-old athlete who had been the best in the world six months before had been brought down by tonsillitis multiple times in a row. There’s only so many tonsils a person can have. Obviously, every other country thought Igor must want to defect, the one thing he did not want and couldn’t convince anyone of. So each host on the international hockey circuit was bouncing on their toes, first Canada, then Sweden and so on, thinking maybe the Soviet Union would slip up and let him come to their tournament, he'd defect, and then they’d get to keep him. Obviously, the Soviets noticed that, and squeezed tighter.

Each time the team left on tour, he was told to spend his time alone training harder and hope. If he was good enough, maybe he’d make the next tournament. His body, always a battle-ground with Coach Tikhonov, became a hostage situation. The more Tikhonov told him to train, the less he ate. Eventually he was eating mostly fruit, and restricting his water intake. 

He stopped pretending to defer to anyone.  He used to be the sober one between his hot-head wingers, and now he egged every fight on. Sometimes he faked an American accent, calling Coach “Tikhonoff” the way American broadcasters had at the '81 Olympics.

One day at the rink he bumped into figure skater Lena Batanova, who “knew nothing about hockey and could not have cared less.” She had been through worse training than he had growing up, only to win two World Championships, and then be slighted from a third. They understood each other without having to say anything.

[Igor washing dishes in their Moscow apartment, turning to glance at Lena pressing up him.]

That summer he stayed up late talking with his friends, and realized he wanted to marry Lena. He asked her the next morning, and she said yes. Behind Igor’s back, Slava, Vova, Sergei, and Lyosha went to Coach Tikhonov’s office, and told him that they would play every other day of the year if they had to, but they would be going to Igor’s wedding. Coach wouldn’t allow the three days for a traditional Russian wedding, but he had to give Igor one.

Waking up the morning after the wedding, Igor checked the mail and found a summons to appear before the Central Committee of the Communist Party. His friends, who I imagine lying hungover on his and Lena’s new couch and floor, rushed for their unused books to help him study up on Communist doctrine, in case he got quizzed. This is presumably when Lena woke up, realized she’d married a whole line of hockey players for their one communal brain cell, and rolled back over. Igor reported the next morning, probably with flashcards Vova had made for him in his pocket.

The Party officials congratulated him on getting married and gave him the wedding gift they were sure no one else would have gotten: his passport. We have to guess the logic here, if there was one. It’s possible the Party thought he wouldn’t risk his wife, or that two years had just been enough to realize the team wasn’t working without him. 

But he was allowed to go to Canada for the Calgary Cup before the end of ‘86, and everyone had questions about his two years of tonsillitis. Igor, for the first time in his life, didn’t talk. But that just left the hockey world to gossip. Two months later it was announced he’d be in Quebec City for another tournament, and right before they arrived a Quebec newspaper printed a version of the night out with Gretzky--with quotes, they claimed, from Wayne. This time the tournament organizers called someone from every team up for a pregame presser. I imagine Igor shrugging at his KGB handlers and sliding away to the stage: nothing could stop him talking now.

Except the Canadian journalists. They wanted to interview Team Canada first. Igor stewed, and then looked up to see an oncoming Wayne. Someone had asked him about the alleged quotes in the article, which Igor had snagged a copy of to read the second they let him loose in Canada. Apparently Wayne hadn’t. 

“‘Believe me, Igor,’” Igor remembers Wayne blurting out. “‘I didn’t say what was printed in the paper. I’ll tell them it didn’t happen! But what is your position now?’”

“‘Do not worry,” Igor promised him. “‘Now, everything is okay.’”

“Oh, awesome,” (I’m assuming again) Wayne said. “So do you want to come over later and hang out in my mom’s basement?!”

“If the KGB pulls a gun, then call me.” --Wayne Gretzky

Weirdly, I’ve never seen this inspirational quote cross-stitched on someone’s wall. 

The next Canada Cup was held in August ‘87 in Hamilton, Ontario, which is like, basically next door to Wayne’s parents’ house. So the afternoon before the first game, Wayne sent his dad Walter to the hotel where the Soviet team was staying. Walter asked in Ukrainian if he could chat with Igor, who had to come down to the hotel lobby to meet him, since visitors were absolutely not allowed to wander up to players’ rooms. Walter invited his son’s friend over for dinner. Igor cut eyes at the KGB agent in the corner, and said he had to go upstairs and ask Coach. Tikhonov said no before Igor started talking.

Igor came back downstairs and apologized to Walter, who thought hard for a minute. He told Igor to ask what if the whole Green Unit went to Wayne’s house for team bonding? Coach Tikhonov considered, and said no, and Igor went back to Walter. 

Walter hitched up his suspenders, and announced to the KGB that he would talk go to Coach Tikhonov now.

He told Tikhonov he would be honored if Coach came to dinner at his house that evening, and if Coach felt like it, he might bring the boys over too. Tikhonov said he’d love to. 

Tikhonov, Igor, Vova, Sergei, Slava, Lyosha, and a KGB operative spent a delightful half hour packed in a car together driving to the Gretzkys' house, where Walter and Phyllis were throwing a cookout. Walter and some of his local buddies had barbecue and corn on the cob on the grill, and Phyllis had quizzed her son about his Moscow trip before throwing up her hands in despair and making a big batch of her mother’s Polish dumplings and sausage.

Nothing makes me happier than the image of Wayne Gretzky, beaming from ear to ear, handing famously fussy little Igor Larionov a piece of barbecued corn on the cob. Igor had to explain that yes, they had corn in Russia, but they ate it on a plate and not like squirrels. Walter offered him a beer, and Igor looked to Coach Tikhonov before saying no. Tikhonov allowed the players to have a soda.

Wayne started asking him how everything had been since the last time they hung out, and didn’t get why his friend wouldn’t talk to him at first. Igor might answer one question, and then act like he didn’t understand. Sergei and Vova really didn’t speak English, and kept elbowing Igor to explain what was going on and why Wayne was smiling at them like that, but Igor was still pretending he only spoke Russian and hesitated to translate for them. Finally Wayne realized Igor was clamming up every time Tikhonov got within earshot.

Wayne went to Walter to change the game plan. Walter would use his Ukrainian to ask Coach Tikhonov about his many amazing accomplishments, while Wayne told the whole party he wanted to show the other boys his medals, which were all down in the basement. Unfortunately the Gretzky family’s basement was very small, and housed Wayne’s many, many medals, so only two people could possibly fit down there at a time: one Gretzky, and one Russian. Tikhonov thought about it, decided he didn’t care about someone else’s medals, and gave the okay.

 Just in case, Wayne deputized his dad’s buddy Charlie, who did not speak Russian or anything like it but was somebody’s dad from suburban Ontario, to chat up the KGB agent.

So Wayne began to escort the Green Unit, one by one, down to his family’s basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed them a beer. The two of them chugged their beers together, trying not to take suspiciously long or laugh too loud, and then ran back up to change out for the next boy.

Nothing happened that night. It didn’t change anything, except that Tikhonov never found out. The Greens had been able to get one over on him, because they didn’t have to do it alone.

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[tiesandtea]

SUEDE: Style & Substances

Alternative Press, May 1997 (no. 106). Mag cover. Written by Dave Thompson. Archived here.

Suede Give Us A Glimmer...

Bleeding through the debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. Dave Thompson travels to London to discover why Suede are one of the few bands that matter in an age of stars who are "just like you."

Brett Anderson leans against an amplifier, hands in pocket, shoulders hunched. To his left, the rest of Suede are playing Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross"; to his right, a television crew is fiddling with camera angles. He wants a cigarette, but he never smokes this close to showtime. Instead, he swings a keychain and glowers into the monitors. It's rehearsal time in Studio Four, a theater-sized room as the BBC, and the only person who's enjoying himself is an increasingly rotund-looking Jools Holland. He's the host of this evening's show, and he's away in another room entirely. 

Later...With Jools Holland is a British TV institution. Less than three years old, it has nevertheless sewn up a comfortable niche somewhere between the chart-conscious grooviness of Top of the Pops and the more indulgent pastures of MTV Unplugged. It's a showcase for bands to run through a handful of new songs, play a favorite or two and give a taste of their live prowess without boring the unconverted senseless. Boring themselves senseless, of course, is another matter entirely, and as Suede are counted into the third rehearsal of their opening song "Trash," you can almost sense the desperation in Anderson's face. Then the action starts, and he's utterly transformed. Though he's barely moving and scarcely singing, he's conveying an intensity that explodes from his very presence, drawing the most disinterested eyes in his direction. Even the soundmen look up from their meters, and the camera crew compete for his undying attention. If Anderson weren't a rock star, he'd make a great lunatic. But because he is a rock star...well, he's probably a lunatic anyway. You would be, too, in his shoes. If the 1990s have given us anything, it's the demystification of the rock star. From the boy-next-door Weezers to the angst-ridden whiners, the message is the same: I'm no different from you; I'm no better than you; and, of course, I'm just as screwed up as you. Enter, or more properly, re-enter Suede, with their third album, Coming Up (Columbia). And all that hard work reducing idols to idiots counts for nothing. Because Suede couldn't be "just like you" even if they wanted to. Bleeding through the "is he?/isn't he?" debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and the "does he?/doesn't he?" of his rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. The scent of teen spirit clings to them, the doomed romanticism of consumptive youth which peaked on their last album, 1994's Dog Man Star, and peeks through the stunning Coming Up. Suede deal in emotional extremes, from the A Clockwork Orange apocalypse of their "We Are The Pigs" video in which armed hooligans howl through a burning industrial landscape while Suede gaze down from giant video screens, to the incandescent loneliness of the current "Saturday Night" video, in which a London subway station is transformed into a rave to which the band have not been invited. The band's junkie chic is as apparent in the stoned immaculate presentation of their latest wasted-youth album-cover artwork, as it is in the gorgeously gaunt frame which Anderson angles for the television cameras. Add a live show that oozes subversive glamour; couple that with the fearless decadence of Anderson's greatest lyrics, and whether it's all an act or not, Suede are a walking advertisement for the joyful sins of sleaze. Backstage in the bowels of the BBC, Anderson sighs. He's heard all this before. "Yeah, you can look at it like that, but that's other people's interpretation of it, and that's their problem. You can't look at yourself through other people's eyes, then worry about what you say through their ears; you've got to have some self-belief in what you are." Which is, right now, the biggest thing on 10 legs. Across Europe and the Far East, Coming Up charted at No.1 and has already outsold both its predecessors. Three singles have kept the pot boiling ever since, and the current Suede line-up (their fifth on record since their 1990 "Be My God" 7-inch single debut) is their strongest yet. Like Brian Eno's departure from Roxy Music, founding guitarist Bernard Butler's exit did not so much rid the band of one creative spark, as open the door for the flowering of another. Anderson's unequivocal grasping of the reins, only partly aided by the recruitment of guitarist Richard Oakes, may have diluted Suede's overall sound, but it has sharpened their vision to a razor's edge. The further addition of keyboardist Neil Codling fills the gaps that teen maestro Oakes couldn't plug; the Simon Gilbert/Mat Osman rhythm section is a thunderous roar that never lets up; and Coming Up is unmistakably the sound of the same great band that recorded Dog Man Star. The difference is, Anderson affirms, they've stopped pissing around. "After Dog Man Star, everyone thought we were going to do an operetta or something like that. But you get things out of your system. We wanted to refocus the band, the fact that we were virtually starting again; we wanted to readjust the basics." And did it work? "You can't completely divorce yourself from your past. I haven't got the memory of a goldfish; I was aware that I'd made two albums before it. But it felt fresh, and it felt as though we were making the record away from a lot of the crap you have to deal with, away from the spotlight, which was great. Plus...", and here he gestures to new arrivals Codling and Oakes, "... there's less of an obsession with self-importance, which was definitely a change in the band. The last two albums were quite precious and self-important, and that can be good and that can be bad." Ah, preciousness. Plough through five years of Suede press and the buzzwords leap out: "superficial", "fake", "David Bowie" - three hollow sides to the same soulless coin. But most of the people who call Suede "pretentious" are the same ones who fancy the Spice Girls. And the closest those cynics get to class is the corridor outside the school room. "It does bother us a bit," says Anderson. "People always want to polarize bands into camps, and what I always find objectionable, even with journalists who are pro-Suede, is, they always want to write about us as an alternative to this good, honest musicianship going on elsewhere, which kind of implies that there isn't any good, honest musicianship going on within Suede." Anderson resents that implication, just as he resents the accusations of vanity that are flung at him with equal frequency - the two go hand in hand, after all. "People ask, 'Are you vain?' Hang on, let me turn the question around. If you were going to appear on television in front of five million people, you'd probably look in a mirror to see what you look like. You'll brush your hair and put a bit of make-up on because you don't want to look like a pig. Does that mean you're vain? I don't think it does. "Ninety-nine percent of my career thought is dedicated to thinking about music; a very tiny percentage is spent on image. I may go shopping once a month; but while I don't think we're the honest blokes down the pub, we're not kooky weirdos either. We're just what we are." A decent image, though, is still worth a thousand songs (ask Marilyn Manson), and if it's not their Englishness that holds Suede back in the U.S., then it has to be their appearance. They look weird. Catch the "Beautiful Ones" video: Codling apes the same abstracted pose of diffidence and boredom that once made a star of Sparks' Ron Mael; and Osman and Oakes look like they're trying to extinguish a particularly persistent cigarette end. Their singer is fey. Imagine Bryan Ferry if a stick insect stole his trousers. Their music is arty. And they come on like they're somehow special, so special that America poses little interest or challenge to Suede. Other bands make no secret of their desire to crack the country, nor do they hide their disgust when they fail. Suede, though, never seemed bothered. Past U.S. tours (three so far) have been languid affairs, barely publicized flirtations which almost gratefully acknowledge that as far as most people are concerned, Suede might as well be a lesbian performing artist. Anderson dictates the band's Stateside manifesto: "I don't give a shit." "Don't get me wrong: please don't portray us as some sort of anti-American thing, because we're not. But as far as America is concerned, you can talk about airplay and videos, but all it really boils down to is the fact that America doesn't like Suede. And I'm not going to knock it, if they don't like it, they don't like it." And what don't they like? Kurt Cobain had a tummy ache, and a nation felt his pain. Trent Reznor's dog died, and a nation held his hand. Brett Anderson wrote songs about holes in your arm ("The Living Dead") and pantomime horses ("Pantomime Horse"); he equates love with flyaway litter ("Trash"), and he's never been in rehab. "I hate that rehab shit! That's one place where America get really suckered, with those rehab rock bands. Let me explain what going into rehab means. It means you're cool because you used to do drugs, but now you're a good lad, and you're really '90s, so you want to give them up. But it's a complete excuse, and anybody who says it or does it is a complete careerist. I don't think the public shoulg go out and buy records by people whose record companies have told them to say they're going into rehab. You want to talk about fakes and falseness in the music business; I think this rehab rock thing is such a lot of dog shit." So you don't just say no? "I can't sit here and honestly say that drugs are bad for you, because I don't believe that, and I don't think anybody with a brain believes that." He elaborates: "Smoking a bit of pot and taking a bit of LSD can open a few barriers in your mind, although I certainly don't think taking smack, taking coke or taking crack does anything. I know I've taken drugs before and looked back on it and said, 'That's fucking crap; you should have got your act together and stopped taking them.' They just numb you and turn you into a wrong-thinking fucking idiot. "But that's the whole problem with drugs, isn't it? You can't say 'drugs' because there's so many different factes to it. 'It's an aid to creativity.' Well, some of it is, and some of it isn't. You can't paint everything with one brush." As for the veneer of glamour which Suede's own observations convey, the danger that, to quote the new album's "The Chemistry Between Us," "we are young and easily led," Anderson remains equally adamant. "There's no point in trying to filter things like 'Don't talk about this, don't talk about that.' Lots of times when I'm talking about drugs, I'm talking in a pedestrian context. I'm not trying to make it into a big deal; I talk about it like I'd talk about anything else that's in this room." And though he agrees there is a moral question, he also believes it's impossible to do much about it. "The only way you can set yourself up as something moral is in the broader sense, by not treating music as this completely throwaway, meaningless thing, and not treating the sentiments expressed in the music as completely throwaway, meaningless things. "That's where I see my position morally, someone who can write a love song and actually bring a degree of warmth to someone else. You can't act as censor in your words; you just have to be positive about what you're doing and see that making records that people love, that people cling to, and that help people through sticky patches in their lives is, at the end of the day, a positive thing to do. There's very few things I think that are positive in the world, but music is one of them." And that is that. In an age when a star is only as big as his last three videos, and most stars are as interesting as a line at the post office, Suede are three albums into a career that means more to more people than any of the bickering of Suede's petty, wormwood competitors; and certainly far more than the bitter, twisted harping of their detractors. Stars shine, shit stinks, and the lowest common denominator is nothing to be proud of. No one really wants to watch Hootie feed his blowfish, but Brett Anderson spends "Saturday Night" moping around on a subway train, and it's the best thing on MTV this year. Who cares what else he gets up to? Turning as he heads for the soundstage, Anderson won't be drawn. "My drugs of choice are ginseng and chamomile tea, but don't worry. I'm going into rehab soon."

[cocos-cocoapuffsarenotforsale]

Not Him~~Part 4

MASTERLIST

Part 3

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader

Warnings: Protective!Bucky, Protective!Tony, Dad!Tony, Takes place during Captain America: Civil Ware, Use of the Word Whore, Little Angsty, Pregnant!Reader, violence, swearing, CANON DIVERGENCE!

Taglist: @chewymoustachio

A/N: Hey guys, I finally updated Not Him! Let me know if anyone wants to be added to the taglist (or removed). Sorry if you have already asked, it’s been a while and I’m having some difficulties with finding it. Hope you all enjoy the update! Xoxo

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It was a long and grueling flight, and to make matters worse apparently, your baby was no fan of flying. You had lost count of how many times you had to puke during the flight. But finally, you were landing in Siberia, you had been nervous that you had gotten the coordinates wrong until you saw the Quinjet. You let out a sigh of relief, you were going to see Bucky soon. After spending practically 24/7 with him in little apartments all over Europe it was really hard to not be with him.

“Dad?” You say after you landed the helicopter but before he could vacate the aircraft.

“Yes, Princess?” He asked letting out a small huff of annoyance.

“Remember your promise,” you command before opening the helicopter door. Goosebumps immediately cover your skin and you're unsure if it’s due to the cold, windy weather or if it’s because of the eerie calm outside the HYDRA facility.

“Stay behind me,” your father ordered as he took the lead entering the building.

The two of you remain silent until you walk into the main chamber and see Bucky and Steve standing in the middle of the room. Both of them look on edge and bewildered. 

“Buck?” You call, approaching the men carefully and quietly.

“Y/n?” He asks, turning around to look at you. His face goes from confused to shocked to angry, all in a matter of seconds.

“You were supposed to go home! He was supposed to take you home!” Bucky shouts accusingly, as he points a finger at your father.

“We did. She explained the Super Soldier dilemma to me. I wanted to help. I couldn’t bring the others, Team Cap is in prison, Nat’s on the run, Peter’s just a kid. I don’t know how to get in touch with T’Challa, Vision is inconsolable right now, and Rhodey-Rhodey-” Your father’s voice broke off. 

“Tony, what happened to Rhodey?” Steve asks, taking a step closer to Tony.

“He’s paralyzed, he almost died. He’s still in critical condition.” You explained for your dad, knowing it was too hard for him to vocalize right now. Rhodey was your dad’s best friend, through everything he was there. When your mom ran out on the two of you, only after getting as much as possible from your dad financially, leaving him with full custody of a newborn. Rhodey was there to help your dad adjust to single parenthood. After your dad was kidnapped, Rhodey was there, when Pepper dumped him after finding out his bisexuality, Rhodey was there. Through all the turmoil with Steve and your dad, Rhodey was there. He was there through it all, and the thought that Tony had almost lost him was too much for your dad to bear.

“Tony-I-I’m so sorry,” Steve said, pulling your dad into a Super Soldier sized hug.

“Where are the other super soldiers?” You asked, trying to bring everyone back to more pressing matters.

“Dead,” Bucky replied stiffly. You looked at him, bewildered by his hostile attitude and saw the fury still raging in his eyes. Fuck, looks like you were going to be getting quite the lecture later.

“Dead?” You repeated incredulously. 

“I’m not sure why he wanted to bring us here but apparently he wasn’t interested in the other Soldiers,” Bucky explained, walking closer to you, he pulled you into a tight embrace and buried his face into your hair. He took a deep breath, inhaling your familiar scent.

“So what does he want us here for?” Your dad asked looking around, the tension in the room was overwhelming. What could this man have in store for you?

“Hello Avengers,” you hear a cold voice answer. “Really Mr. Barnes, did you think I wanted more of you? I hate you, all of you. Earth’s defenders, that’s how you Avengers like to think of yourselves, right? Well, I’m sorry to inform you that you actually are Earth’s destroyers. You cause devastation and pain wherever you go.”

“Where are you?!” You shout looking around trying to find the man.

“Don’t worry about that. Why don’t we watch a little video?” He replies, the computer turns on and a video begins to play.

“I know that road,” your dad mutters. No! Why would this man want to show him this?

“Let’s get out of here,” you say trying to tug your father away from the screen, but he doesn’t budge.

“Why not let your father find out the truth Y/n?” The voice taunts and you feel your blood run cold. He wanted to destroy your family. That was his goal. To tear the Avengers apart.

“Dad, let’s go. Now!” You demand, giving his arm a harsh pull, but his feet remain firmly planted in front of the screen.

“What does he mean, ‘the truth’?” Your dad questions, an unfamiliar edge in his voice.

“It doesn’t matter.” You argue trying in vain to get him away from the video. But it’s too late, the car drives past the camera and the motorcycle follows quickly. You freeze, knowing exactly what was about to happen. The look on your dad’s face makes your knees go weak, you had never seen him look so...destroyed.

“You killed them?” He growled, turning to Bucky, who instinctively raised his gun in response. Steve steps between them quickly, before they can hurt each other.

“You knew?” Your dad chokes out looking at Steve, the betrayal clear in his eyes. Steve’s lack of reply is all the confirmation Tony needs.

“You knew what he did. And you never told me?! How-how could you?! You defended him!” He roars at Steve.

“Daddy-” You start but are cut off when your dad whirls around to stare at you. 

“What about you? Did you know? Did you know what that monster did to our family?!” He spats before shoving Steve out of his way and blasting one of his Repulsors off at Bucky. Luckily, Bucky is able to dodge that blast and the following ones.

“ENOUGH!” You shout, using your powers you pin your father to the wall, with his arms stuck at his side.

“I will not let any of you harm the others. Yes, I did know. Steve told me before I accepted the mission. I decided not to tell you because I knew all it would do was hurt you. I was trying to protect you.” You explain pacing around in front of your father.

“That’s not your job. You should’ve told me.” Your dad argued.

“Why? What good would it have done? Well?” You demand, feeling the frustration bubbling up in you.

“I would have known the truth! How could you be with him? The monster that killed your grandparents, tore our family apart!” He shouts back.

“He is not a monster! You raised me to be open-minded and to forgive. Bucky didn’t do those things. He was tortured for years and had his mind fucked with! HYDRA created the Soldier, the Soldier did those things, NOT BUCKY! HYDRA is the enemy! Not Bucky! He is just as much a victim as we are!” You insisted.

“I raised you to be a good person! I don’t even recognize you anymore! I raised you to be better than a whore for a terrorist!” He yells and all of a sudden you see the color drain out of his face when he realizes what he said. But it’s too late, he already said it. You feel your knees buckle and the tears are streaming down your face as you sink to the ground. Bucky is by your side in an instant, while Steve stares on shocked. Bucky quickly scoops you up in his arms, fighting his natural impulse to beat your dad to a pulp for what he said to you. Bucky rushes out of the building towards the Quinjet, Steve hot on his trail after finally snapping out of his shock.

“Y/n, I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry!” Your dad calls after you, but you ignore him, instead curling into Bucky’s side.

“T’Challa?” You hear Steve ask in shock, causing you to turn your face from Bucky’s chest to see what’s going on.

“Captain,” the Prince greets. “I must apologize, Sergeant Barnes. I was wrong to try and harm you. I just discovered the truth. My actions were despicable, not the actions of a king. I hope to learn from my mistakes.”

“Apology accepted,” Bucky replies, shocked that he was even receiving one in the first place.

“I have dealt with the organizer of these events. May I offer my assistance to the three of you?” T’Challa offers.

“Got somewhere we can hide out for a while?” Steve asks, half-joking, half-serious.

“I know just the place,” T’Challa replies with a small smirk, motioning the three of you into his aircraft.

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Part 5

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Night call' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

'Night call'

Chapter Summary : Yirina is celebrating with Park and the team about their first mission but bad thoughts are here......

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +4000

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Well, we can say that this first mission within Park's team was a great success for us. No one was wounded or even had a little cut on their face, everyone was okay and frankly, no one here expected what we were going to discover into the crate we got out of the van. At first sight, we could have said that it was just some rockets-launcher until we got some in hands, discovering small packages of drugs, hidden inside each launcher. Stone was also into drugs at the same time as guns....very diversifying.....

After we saw that, we decided to go search the warehouse for any intels that we can find and to be honest, the dead bodies ain't going to talk for us except for any pieces of paper we can find. I searched the office where Garrett used to have throw the only guy alive and I found a sort of list containing some of Stone's contacts gathered all around Western Europe that is helping him to transport his guns and now his drugs out of the continent, either going in Africa or in America, especially in the south of it for the drugs cartel. Those contacts did became our priority to get Stone out for good while still focusing on Adler's case...and in that warehouse, nothing was linked to Adler.

Once we were done with the searching in the place, the MI6 cleaning crew along with some BND agents finally arrived to clear the place up and to take over everything inside of it. We helped them in their tasks including unloading some crates, giving them some indications as Park and Greta were talking to their respectives organizations member to brief them of our moves. We soon left after we considered to have done in here, returning to our cars to go back to the safehouse but we know that the day weren't done for us yet.

As Park told us, it was obliged that we all needed to go take a drink somewhere and Garrett was the one who gave us the perfect place for that. So, when we arrived back to the safehouse, we were just here to unload our equipment from the car before leaving the place again to go to the bar Garrett and surprisely, it wasn't even so far from the safehouse. Walking was the solution to go there as it was getting dark in the city.

"Thinkful, Yirina ?" It was Park's voice that broke me out of my thoughts as we were walking on the sidewalk, she was next to me as Greta & Garrett was in front of us, leading the way.

"Yeah...." I replied, shaking my head to regain consciousness from the situation. "Just some thoughts that came in me." I added, looking at her with an smile. It was thoughts about Zasha....still wondering if I did helped them escape that prison and also about the last time I tried to have some free time....with Park.

"I told you that because you were going to enter inside a light pole." She scoffed, making me look in front of me, there were in fact a light pole and I was really going to enter into it if she wasn't there for me. "Thank me for that."

"Thank you, Park." I said in a lovely voice, getting myself close to her to avoid the light pole. We were in our little discussion as Greta & Garrett were discussing on their own. "Thanks for been there for me." I whispered to her.

"You know well that I'm always there for you." She affirmed before quickly make a kiss on my cheek at the same time as we were walking, making me blush from it, thinking that we could go somewhere quiet and away from the other and do our things but since she proposed to go take a drink with the team, it was better to stay true to our little goals. "Don't worry, we just gonna take some drink and we're back at the safehouse, okay ?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just....I remember what happened the last time we did something like that." I looked at her with an small sad face, thinking of the moment where she was taken away.

"Yiri." She started, putting her hand on my shoulder. "It's not going to happen again." She was already knowing about what I was talking about. "And if it does, you will not be alone to save me." She added, giving me a lovely tap on the shoulder. "So, be positive and be well, do it for me, okay ?"

"I will." I breathed, giving her a kiss on the cheek like she did and like me, she blushed from it. "I'm doing this for you." I smiled at her, before looking back in front of me, seeing Garrett looking at a bar just at the other side of the street.

"Ah, here we are !" He exclaimed, opening his arms towards the bar. "Might get ready to finally have a drink." He looked at us as we arrived near him with Park. "So, inside or outside ?" He asked us.

"Inside !" Greta was the one to reply directly to him. "I'm not going to stay outside to freeze my ass." She added, joking about it and by the end of it, she was....looking at me.....I might have a feeling that Greta isn't aware about me & Park and it start to get a little weird around here.

"So, we're going into that bar or we're staying here ?" Park asked Garrett who rolled his eyes before he engage himself to cross the street as we followed him. "Well, let's go inside, then."

The bar we were going wasn't so filled with people when we got inside : peaceful, quiet with just some peoples at the counter, some at the tables. It was more like the last time I had a free moment with Park into that diner. We entered it and hopefully, we didn't became the center of all attention when we got in. I think no one would wanted to know who was the group of 1 guy and three women who just enter the bar.

We decided to install ourselves at a free table away from the others in the corner of the bar. I sit next to the window, Park getting on my side while Greta chose to sit right in front of me and Garrett just next to her. We waited at least 1 minute after we sit for an waiter to finally come to us to ask our own drinks.

"I would take a simple beer." Garrett was the first one to tell what he wanted before he looked at Greta.

"I'm taking the same thing as him." She responded, now looking at me.

"I will....take a scotch." I asked, remembering to have liked it during that troubled memory even if I wasn't a big drinker, couldn't forget too the bourbon I drank back in the New Orleans days ago. We all then looked at Park.

"I will take the same thing as her." She looked at me with an smile....2 bears for Greta & Garrett...2 scotchs for me & Park.....Once our drinks were commanded, the waiter left us, now awaiting for our drinks to come. "So, who's paying ?" Park asked to everyone, even at me who didn't have enough to pay for everyone.

"Don't know, it could be you." Garrett suggested, putting his arms on the table, his look focused on Park.

"Or you !" She suggested back, making the same things as him while me & Greta were looking at them, like if an friendly confrontation were going to happen "Yeap, it's you !" She exclaimed after Garrett removed his eyes from her for just an second....they were doing an gaze battle

"For christ sake..." He muttered to himself, looking defeated in a understanding way to Park. "Fine, I'm paying, miss Park." He said it in a lazy voice. "Anyway, I did promised you an drink after 'Goldeneye."

"Really ?" I asked, very curious in an second.

"It isn't the first time that Garrett found himself against Perseus so when we striked Stone during that operation, Garrett was there." Park replied to me before looking at Greta. "Greta was there too."

"It was quite an operation to say." Greta admitted, looking at me.....until I start to feel something stroking my legs and I knew it was Greta herself.....damnit, that's getting weird but I was finding myself like paralyzed from it, trying to calm myself in the inside. "It was better to have us three instead of the CIA."

"What do you mean ?" I questioned everyone, struggling to not thinking about Greta, slowly stroking her legs against mine, just wanting her to stop that.

"Let's just say that to get Stone, I had to get off the grid with Garrett & Greta, Adler said that I was too close from it to intervene but like I said, fuck him and his orders." Park responded honestly and what she said was all true. "We got the mission done before he could act."

"Well, I'm impressed." I confirmed, knowing Park well, my voice getting a little troubled with Greta still doing it to me. "I must say that.....it's very nice to finally meet Park's friends." I silently groaned at the middle, getting Park attention on me.

"You're okay ?" She asked me, having heard me.

"Yeah, it's just my chest." I replied, putting my hand above the scar I had on my chest made by Duvall in the New Orleans. "Still hurting me a little." In fact, I did this just to hide the fact that Greta was literally stroking my legs.

"What happened ?" Garrett was sounding curious, looking at me with one arm on the table.

"Just an supremacist in the US who gave me an scar..." I showed him the scars, removing the part of the shirt covering it after I was finally able to remove the dressings that was on it yesterday. "Got myself captured by the fuckin' Klan !" I scoffed, making Greta & Garrett eyes go wide because they didn't know of that.

"Damnit......" He breathed, looking away for an second before he showed to me the palm of his right hand, revealing a big scar on it. "Got it during an knife fight between me & an old friend...Megan." He looked at Park and Greta who already know of the story. "And....your scar on your head, how did you get it ?"

"This ?" I put my index finger on the scar at the right side of my head "Someone tried to kill me but the bullet managed to make this, skull is harder than we thought !" I exclaimed, tapping with my finger on my forehead. Park nodded to this.

"Quite an story." Greta affirmed, her left arm holding her head until she redressed herself in her seat, stopping her stroking. "Might need to go to the toilet before we start to drink."

"Yeap, me too." Garrett thought at the same time as he got up from his seat, allowing Greta to get up too. "We're coming back in at least 2 minutes." He added before he walked away with Greta at his side to go to the toilets, leaving me with Park.

"There's something you didn't tell to Greta, I think." I called Park out from her thoughts, one minute after the others has left

"Really ?" She whispered to me, curious.

"She's been stroking my legs since we got sit on that table." My response make her eyes go wide and to bite her lips.

"Greta...." She said to herself, putting her hands on the table, almost clenching her own fists. "I didn't tell her of our relationship, I'm sorry."

"I thought she was already aware of it." I said, confused.

"No, I prefer to not talk about it because Greta still want to make me jealous after we broke up in February." She looked at me, getting her hands on top of my right hand. "Listen, it's just you that I really want to be, okay ?" I nodded to her with an big smile.

"But, we're gonna tell her, right ? Because I will not support to have her touching my legs all night." I asked her, looking nervous about it.

"Don't worry, I got something." She removed her hands from mine as Greta & Garrett came back from the toilets. 'You're going to like it." She winked at me discreetly as the two got sit on their seats.

"Talking about us ?" Greta redressed herself on her seat before I could feel her leg for just one second and then, I start to feel Park's left leg getting wrapped around my right one, moving it by her side......I was loving it because it was stopping that weird moment with Greta !

"No....about us..." She smirked at Greta who was slighlty confused on her face before she calmed herself as the waiter finally arrived with our drinks : scotch for us, beers for Greta & Garrett. "Well, cheers !" She took her glass in hand to toast as we all took our glasses.

"Cheers !" We said all at the same time to toast and then, it was the beginning of our little celebration in team.

I wasn't so willing to take another drink after I finished the first one, still having that feeling that I'm not an big drinker and I don't want to get myself on that risky road. I was feeling more safe since Park decided to get my legs under her control away from Greta. I was liking Greta as a friend but not like that in a love way. Park wasn't so willing to talk directly to her about us but I think she wanted to make some littles signs that she's with me.

At least, we could finally have a peaceful time in that bar, staying 2 hours in it, talking about everything and nothing about everyone but more about them, not wanting to put my life in the front. We didn't want to get too much drunk as tomorrow, we were going to plan our next move as we are maybe going to start with taking care of one of Stone's contacts in West-Germany, taking them out one by one.

After these 2 hours, we finally left the bar to go back to the safehouse but.....I wasn't feeling so well and peaceful even if I took a single scotch glass. My thoughts....it was all mixed, thinking of Zasha, my past....and Freya. I was remembering what I did back in the New Orleans when I called her and I was feeling bad to have done this even if a part of me want to call her back and this part....was like dominating me now. So, on our way back as Greta & Garrett took the lead while me & Park was still behind, I stopped her for a second.

"You're not looking okay, Yiri." She exclaimed, confused to have her stop in her walk. "Something's wrong ?" She asked.

"Hm....I might need to....get some fresh air, I'm gonna stay here." I was feeling so pale, just wanting to stay near a bench just next to us, ready to sit on it.

"Yirina, you should not think about...."

"Please, Park, let me take some fresh air." I pleaded to her, cutting her. She wasn't understanding why in a sudden, I wasn't feeling well.

"And let you here ?" She shook her head to me before I put my hands on hers. "Yiri."

"Please...Park...." I was like in a loss of words, wanting to be just alone. "I know the way back." I was sounding more pleading before she finally resigned herself to leave me here near the bench.

"Okay but don't take too many time." She grinned at me before landing an kiss on my forehead. "I don't want you to freak out and me too." She added and I smiled at her before she decided to walk away, hesitant to do it to join the others that were probably awaiting for us.

In my mind, I just wanted to call Freya but not as Yirina but as Bell. It was the only thing I couldn't control about me right now. I waited that Park was out of sight with the others to look around, sit on that bench, for an telephone booth in the streets and by luck, there were one just at the other side of the street. I decided to walk to it, getting stressed all the way to it, my blood was like freezing when I entered the box. I slowly take some deep breaths as I was composing Freya's number that I perfectly remember.

Each beep of the phone was giving me enough chills inside of me, I couldn't back down this time and I had to talk to her.....even if 'Bell' is the one that will talk, not me. I just needed to stay calm and not make an crisis in that tiny box....just breathe and everything will be fine, you can do this, Yiri !.....you can do this....Bell !.....

"Freya Helvig !" I could hear Freya's voice through the phone, she didn't even have changed it and by hearing it, I closed my eyes for one second, taking a last deep breath.

"How do you know me ?" It was the first question I asked her, sounding very sure of me and someone like who was having doubts.

"Yiri ?" She was sounding confused to hear my voice. "How did...."

"Don't call me Yiri or Yirina like the two times we met !" I ordered her harshly to her, literally cutting her, looking around me. "Listen, if you don't want me to hang up the phone, you're adressing me as 'Bell', understood ?"

"Y-yes....yes, Bell !" She said, troubled to call me by that name

"To answer your question, I've got your number during an operation days ago." I replied to the question she was surely going to ask me, the one where I cut her. "And you want to know where & why I'm calling you ?"

"Yes, please tell me everything !" She pleaded at me, her voice almost cracking.

"I'm calling you from an phone booth and why....let's say I want to know why the Perseus agent called 'Wraith' is knowing me." I responded, biting my lips at not telling my real location, risking too much here....I couldn't tell her name because it would have betrayed me.

"Listen, I think they did something bad on you, Y.....Bell." She started, almost breaking her promise and me who almost hanged up the phone. "Can you tell me how they're calling you ?"

"Jessica Blackwell, said 'Bell' !" I breathed, saying that name. "Listen, I'm the one asking the  questions : how do we have supposely meet ?"

"It's....it was during our youth....Spring 1957 where Perseus retrieved me after my parents died and presented me to you." She revealed to me, sending some panick inside of me, discovering more about myself.  "We became....sisters...and lovers in 1978."

"About that ring, how did I gave it to you ?" I asked.

"Afghanistan in September 1980....you proposed to me !" She responded, confirming the memory I had when I proposed. I closed my eyes for an second at hearing this, my left hand shaking from it. "Listen, Yirina, please....."

"Don't call me Yirina, for fuck safe !" I told her in a strong british accent, getting myself angry and in me, I wasn't supporting that. "Why are you insisting in it ?"

"Because that's your real name !" She exclaimed, almost crying. "I don't know what happened to you but if the CIA....the MI6 or anyone in the West did something bad on you, I swore to kill them to the last." My blood froze up again to hear that. "I'm sure they did something bad on you."

"Why they will do that to me, Jessica Blackwell ?" I questioned her, faking an incomprehension.

"I understand now." She sniffed sadly. "They brainwashed you !" I could hear the start of the angriness in her voice, she was right....but Bell wouldn't believe. "Those fuckers....Yirina, they harmed you !"

"That's it, I'm hanging up !" I got myself angry and I was ready to do it until I could start to hear her cry through the phone.

"Wait !" She sniffed again, hearing her moving on something. "Will you....call me again ?" She asked me and to be honest, I wasn't sure of it. "Please."

"I'll think about it." I whispered before I brutally hang up the phone, leaving me alone into that phone booth, trying to calm myself down....until I start to cry in it.

Yirina was taking back control, getting Bell back inside of me and I could only cry about thinking of what I just did. What I started back in the New Orleans, I continued it here and I didn't know if it could make me feel better or more bad, I was mixed. I finally decided to leave that booth, still crying to return back to the safehouse, cleaning up the tears that was falling from my eyes with my hands, just trying to clear up my thoughts but I couldn't do it.

I arrived back at the house and when I entered it, the lights were closed meaning that everyone was already in their bedrooms, sleeping. I closed the front door behind me to join Park in her room. There were an fourth bedroom in the house and everyone except Park think that this one is mine, thanks to one of Park's advice. When I opened the door of her room, I wanted to step back but it was too late, she was sitting at the edge of the bed, still dressed up and awaiting for me.

"I'm sorry." I started, closing the door behind me, she was looking worried about me, not moving from her bed. "I fucked up again."

"Did...did you called Freya ?" Her eyes went wide, having guessed what I did alone as I sit next to her and I slowly nodded.

"I'm sorry." My voice cracked and then, I started to cry again, getting my arms around her, my head against her chest. "Please, forgive me." I pleaded with all my might "Please !"

"It's okay, don't cry." She whispered at me as she put her arms around and slowly fall on our back on the bed, she's never angry at me and I think that it was better for me. "What did you say ?"

"I....Bell wanted to know how 'Wraith' was knowing her." I replied, talking of Bell like if it was another person "I'm so sorry, I fucked up."

"No, don't say that, I'm here." She continued in her recomforting despite hearing me apologizing again and again.

"She....she said that she will do everything to bring me back to here but.....I can't go back to her, that would mean that I will go back to Perseus." I explained, my voice cracking at fearing about returning back to Perseus, something that I don't want....I never want to happen. "I need only you, you're the only one that's bringing me hope and redemption."

"Thanks....thanks you." She was sounding moved by it before she landed a kiss on the crown of my head.

"I don't want Freya to be harmed and I don't want you to be harmed." I told her, reinforcing my hold on her in a lovely way. "It's you....only you, Park !"

"Thanks." She whispered before we both decided to move under the blankets, still dressed up in our clothes. "It's only you too, Yiri."

"Thanks." I reciprocated her words, looking at her with an little grin. "I....I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." She repeated, putting her hand on my cheek and...I loved her touching my skin with her hands so I decided to move comfy inside the palm of her hand, touching her arm with my left hand. "I'm always at your side to the end....to the death."

"Me too." I breathed, getting closer to her before I landed a cold kiss with my lips on hers, giving her a little smile too  before I put my hand on her face, finally smiling for real after I did.....

"We're going to do this...together....to the death !"