#fem!roger taylor

[hysterical-freak]

fem!maylor

music: t.A.T.u - show me love

I wanna write the story for this girls, but i'm still lazy, sorry :(

So, they're both extraordinary persons here. We just have Brianna and Regina and... Lyrics

[anonymityisfunwriter]

"Slut!"

Pairing - Steve Rogers x Stark!Reader Summary - It was perfect. Lovelorn and nobody knows. Love thorns all over this rose. You almost forgot just how hard the fall back to reality is. But if they call you a slut, it might be worth it for once.

Steve Rogers Masterlist | Inspired By Taylor Swift Masterlist

"She goes through guys like a train-"

You immediately change the channel. The next one isn't better. You don't know why you thought it would be.

"The Stark last name and the long list of ex-lovers, that's her claim to fame. I mean, let's be honest here, she's a slu-" The tabloid reporter is abruptly cut off as the screen before you goes dark.

You look up to find Steve with the remote in his hand. He glares at the screen like the reporter was still talking, "You shouldn't be watching that."

"I'm used to it."

"You shouldn't be. It's despicable. They were - the things they're calling you-"

"A slut," you finish for him.

His eyes dart to you, that furrow between his eyebrows getting deeper and deeper with every word spoken, "It's not true. This isn't journalism, it's slander."

You weren't sure how this happened. Sure, it was only a matter of time before they found you out. This wasn't the first time. Not the second or the third either. If the press was to be believed, you were love sick. Love struck with a new man every week.

It wasn't the first time someone called you a slut. It certainly wouldn't be the last.

You stopped living your life in fear of what people would say a long time ago. Being this young was an art. And up until now, you thought you mastered it.

It was simple. You even had your rules. You followed them and no one got hurt - or at the very least, it minimized the damage.

They were going to stare at you. Strangers. Press. The flashing cameras. It came with being a Stark. If they're going to look, you gave them something to look at. You didn't so much as step out on the street with a single hair out of place. You were flawless. Always.

You were nineteen, and on the heels of a breakup with your second ever boyfriend, the first time someone spit that word at you - "slut!" It hurt, but it didn't hurt as much as you thought it would. It almost made you laugh. You realized that they didn't really care about your love life or about the trail of broken hearts you were supposedly leaving behind. They wanted a spectacle. They wanted a show. If you're going to be drunk, might as well be drunk in love.

It was easier after that. You knew the truth. The people around you knew the truth. You let everyone else believe what they wanted. You did what you wanted. You lived your life without worrying about being called a slut. They were going to call you one anyway. And if they call you a slut, you might as well make it worth it.

You gave just enough to keep them satisfied. Never anything too real. Never too much. Just enough that they wouldn't dare peak behind closed doors. Just enough to be able to live your life.

There were was a cost, of course. No one took you seriously. You dealt with the vague humiliation of the rumors constantly swirling about your hips and thighs and whispered sighs.

And though you inherited the Stark genius, no one cared about what you thought, what you had to say.

In that, the reporter was right, your love life was far more interesting than your thoughts on quantum mechanics or the military industrial complex. That was what you were known for.

For the most part, you were okay with it. You were willing to pay it all.

That was until you fell in love with Steve Rogers. Suddenly, you weren't willing to give them crumbs. You weren't willing to expose a love that felt this delicate.

You sit on the couch, huddled in your sweatpants, pensively staring at the blank screen.

This time, it was different. This wasn't a show, not a spectacle. It was real, an exposed nerve that the world decided was fair game. You were fair game and it was open season.

Steve settles beside you, draping an arm around your midsection. He kisses your temple, "Tony thinks it's probably best that you lay low for a while."

"Yes, well, my brother is the expert on PR damage control."

It wasn't the same though. You both knew it. Tony had done far worse with far more women. Yet, he would never pay the price you were paying in this very moment.

Steve's arms tighten around you like he's shielding you from the storm, "It's not right. It's not fair that you're being forced to sequester yourself. You're being punished but what exactly was your crime?"

"I fell in love with Steve Rogers, that was my crime." You fell for the man everyone wanted, the man who was in the wrong place at the right time.

"I'm sorry," he whispers against the crown of your head.

"For what?"

"You warned me this would happen."

It was true. You told him exactly what would happen, but even you didn't anticipate exactly how bad things would get.

You'd been with Steve for just under a year. And up until a week ago, only a select few knew. You both agreed to keep it a secret from the public. You felt protective over the love you shared, it was more real than anything else you'd ever had. You wanted to keep it to yourself, out of the hands of people that would tear you both to shreds without a second thought.

Steve felt the same. Though he was more worried about the enemies he made over the years.

It made sense to protect the relationship, to protect yourselves until you were both ready. You wanted to protect him from what you knew was lurking around the corner. Steve was still so new to the 21st century. Dating in the public eye wasn't easy. Dating a Stark wasn't easy. For almost an entire year, you used every publicity trick in the book - and it worked.

But then, you heard it, the whispers, rumors bubbled about your newest future ex-lover.

You only agreed to going public because everyone told you it was time, because they promised that the timing couldn't have worked out better than this. It was better to do this on your own terms than have it leaked.

No one knew how bad it would get.

"Are you sure? There's no going back after this," you whisper, standing in the hallway of your apartment. You could practically hear the cameras flashing outside your apartment. You'd never been this nervous to leave your apartment before. You'd been through the plan a million times. You'd be exposed to the cameras for a matter of seconds. Happy was already waiting with the door to your SUV open, ready for you to jump in. You'd walk outside holding Steve's hand - a sort of silent announcement to the world. "It won't be easy."

"I don't care," Steve promises, kissing the palm of your hand. "I'm tired of hiding. I'm proud to call you mine."

You tenderly stroke his cheek, "And if it blows up in your pretty face?"

He smiles down at you, "You're worth it."

"We'll pay the price, I guess." But deep down, you know. You'll pay the price, he won't.

The cameras had never been that loud before. Even though your announcement went off without a hitch, even though your publicist couldn't have been more pleased, not even they could have predicted how bad things would get.

It seemed like the whole world was calling you that four letter word.

At first, it was mostly online. People were mean, you knew that. You were prepared for nasty comments. Steve's most staunch supporters thought he could do better. People rejoiced in the spectacle your love life turned into. You were a laughing stock all over again. All that you were prepared for. Then some rabid fans leaked your phone number.

You decided that it would be a good time to disconnect anyway.

But it didn't end there. Not even close.

The day after you were expected to make an appearance for a charity you founded. It was just a quick 2 minute speech. And though the event had been throughly vetted, you'd never forget the way your blood ran cold when mid-sentence someone screamed that four letter word over and over again until security dragged them out. You continued until your speech was done, but there was no hiding the way your hands trembled.

From what you heard, the video was still making its rounds online.

You were expected to make an appearance two days after that. An event honoring your father. An event you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into to make sure it was impeccable, an event worthy of honoring your father. The same event you were practically uninvited from.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's just me. I come in peace," Tony jokes.

"I'm glad," you sigh. "I was worried I was going to have to get another number."

Tony sighs into the phone, "How are you holding up?"

"I've been better."

"I'm afraid I don't come bearing good news."

"What now, Tony?"

"That event you had Friday night, the one for dad?"

You pinch the bridge of your nose. You already knew were this was going. "What about it?"

"They want me to take over for you."

You bitterly scoff, "This week just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"You say the word and I'll tell them to fuck off."

"No, don't do that. It's for dad."

"You planned this whole thing single-handedly. You deserve to be the one up there." You don't say a word. He's right, you both know it. It doesn't change the situation you've been put in. "You are still going, right? Come on, you have to go."

"They broke into my house, Tony."

"What? Are you okay?"

"Happy just told me," you explain, sparing Tony the most gory details. "The one in L.A. Apparently, it is now covered in spray paint. You wanna guess what they wrote?"

"Where was your security?" Tony demands.

"Here. Trying to keep people off my sidewalk."

"I'm so sorry."

"I just - I don't think it's a good idea. At least until I get more security."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad you've got Steve there. At least I know he'll keep you safe."

You almost smile. Tony was never his biggest fan, but you mostly credit that to him being an overprotective big brother. And the situation you'd found yourself in did nothing to win Tony's over good graces, "It's not his fault, Tony."

"It kinda is, but I digress. Listen, we'll figure this out, alright? I'll go streak in front of the Tower if that'll take some heat off of you."

And though you effectively doubled your security in the last two days, nothing would change anyone's mind about you. You were the villain tainting their hero.

You broke down after that call, violently sobbing against Steve's shoulder. He just pulled you in even tighter.

It reminds you of why you're doing all this. So you can be together, out in the open. That in a world of boys, he's a gentleman.

You squeeze his hand, "You're worth it."

"I'm not worth having your reputation torn to shreds."

And maybe they're right about you. Maybe you do get love struck. Maybe his eyes are like the world's strongest liquor, and it went straight to your head. Maybe you do get love sick. Sure, your life has momentarily fallen apart. It's magic, madness, heaven, and sin, all rolled into one. But if they're going to call you a slut, it might be worth it for once. "But what if all I need is you?"

Steve Rogers Masterlist AnonymityIsFun Masterlist Inspired By Taylor Swift Masterlist

As always, let me know what you think! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated! 💛

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[michelle-is-writing]

Protector, Warren Worthington iii

Word Count: 4.5k~

I had been best friends with Warren ever since I met him.

Throughout our years in school, Warren and I had always stuck by each other's side. We hung out together, ate lunch with each other, and nearly forgot about all those people around us who would point out his wings to hurt him. It was like we were in our own little world, and in a way, we were.

We met in the second grade while our class was in the library. While looking for a book, I found Warren, huddled up behind a bookshelf in the elementary school library. He was red in the face and crying as he held his knees close to him. Instantly, I noticed his wings, of course - how could I not?

However, this didn't stop me from going up and asking him what was wrong. I can still remember the way his curls bounced against his scalp as he turned his attention away from his lap and up to me, quickly wiping away his tears to cover up his emotions. Despite being so young, he knew how to expertly do this as he pretended that nothing was wrong and he wasn't crying merely thirty seconds ago.

"What's wrong?" I asked, sitting beside him. I saw him tense up, his back straightening up as he laid his legs out in front of him instead of hugging them to his chest.

"Nothing," He instantly answered me, once again, pretending as if everything wasn't as it seemed.

Instead of saying anything more, I let the boldness I had as an eight-year-old takeover and pulled him into my arms, his figure becoming even tenser. Although, he didn't pull away, and instead, just stayed in that position until I spoke up.

"The kids are mean to me too," I told him, his breath catching in his throat. "And they shouldn't be because you seem pretty cool," I explained with a smile as he turned his eyes up to look at me again. "No one else here has wings, and they're really pretty."

From then on, we were practically inseparable. We weren't seen without each other, and despite bullies picking on us, we didn't let their words bother us. Even as we got older, nothing changed, and in spite of living in an expensive house with nearly triple the amount of space that my house was, Warren chose to stay at my place most nights. His parents didn't care about what he did, and my parents were more than happy to have him over.

When we reached high school, our friendship turned into an actual relationship between two lovebirds (no pun intended). Now we really were inseparable.

However, this changed one night when he went out to grab something from the store. I was sick, and needed medicine; so, being the thoughtful boyfriend he was, he decided he would go out and get some. I guess we underestimated how much mutants were hated in the area as Warren never came back.

Now it's been three months since he disappeared.

Every night since, I went searching for him, only to return to some hotel or hostel without him. I don't know what came over me tonight though. For all my life, I've always been told to avoid putting myself in dangerous settings, and yet, all of those lessons were cast away as I heard people screaming and hollering down an empty and dark alleyway while in Munich. My searching had taken me far away from home, but I wasn't going to stop until I found Warren.

Following the sounds of excitement and fury, I found a hidden door that led to what seemed to be a fighting ring. People surround the caged area, but I push through them, ignoring their waving arms with money held high. I stop at the metal fence separating the people from the ring, only to gasp in horror as my eyes fall over the white, fluffy wings I've loved for many years.

"Warren..." I hear his name being whispered through my lips, tears forming in my eyes as I look at his hurt and pained figure. Fighting for his life against another mutant, he spits blood from his mouth as he wipes away the blood forming on the cut across his cheek. The tattered t-shirt he wears, the same thing he wore the night he disappeared, barely hangs onto his shoulders by a few strips of fabric, the band emblem on the front no longer being recognizable. His arms have fresh bruises forming all along the skin while fading bruises covers the visible parts of torso. How the hell did he get here?

Too shocked to move, I watch as Warren throws a punch at the other mutant, only to hit the fence in front of him, the silver eliciting sparks as soon as Warren touches it. "Shit!" He yells while the blue mutant seemingly teleports to different parts of the cage, only to receive the same treatment as Warren did. Hearing his voice after so long makes me nearly choke on the air in my throat, the tears now falling freely. Seeing Warren makes me want to rip through the fence and save him, but seeing that the metal fence is electric, I can't simply do that.

Blinking the oncoming tears away, I glance in every corner of the underground hideaway and try to find something that might resemble a control panel. It isn't until I see a switch box on what seems to be a surveying floor that I begin running to it, successfully climbing up the steps to the higher level and stopping in front of it. Gazing back to the fighting ring, I see Warren shouting at the dodging mutant while people standing around the cage yell out vile words of hate and absolute greed.

"Warren!" I shout his name as loud as I can, placing my hand on the handle to the electrical switch. Instantly, his head darts toward the voice calling his name, every inch of his being relaxing once he sees me. I smile at him before nodding, his eyes following my hand as it begins pushing the handle downward. Just before the electricity goes out, I see Warren's dirty wings perk up just as the entire underground arena goes pitch black.

In the darkness, the people's screams die down while the clinging sound of the fence being ripped apart follows it. Mere seconds pass before I familiar arms wrap around me and tug me close to their body, Warren's wings flapping rapidly as he lifts us into the air and to the hidden door I entered through. Once we're outside, we quickly run as far as we can before stopping in another alley, far away from the other one.

As soon as we stop, Warren wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to him, his lips immediately attaching to mine in a fervent and much-needed kiss. His hand on my waist never falters in its hold on me, and instead, it squeezes the flesh there as if he were testing if I was real or not.

"I'm here," I tell him, sliding my hands down his face as endless tears fall from his cheeks and onto my hands. Staring into his tear-filled eyes, I can't help but cry tears of happiness as well. "I'm right here."

Nodding, Warren folds his wings behind him, slightly wincing at the pain of them conforming against his back. "Fucking hell," He mutters, placing his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. A few seconds pass of him just holding me before he kisses me once more. "I've missed you so fucking much."

Our sweet reunion is cut short by a black vehicle slamming on their brakes at the end of the alleyway. "Warren," I say his name, concerned at the sight in front of us. Warren turns around, only for his wings to burst out again, shielding me from seeing anything. Peeking under one of the long feathers, I see two men leave the vehicle before one of them points at Warren.

"That's him!" The man yells, "Get him!"

In an instant, Warren swings around and wraps his arms and wings around me, protecting me from the flurry of oncoming bullets. What appears to be eight shots sounds throughout the alley before the same car speeds off again as Warren begins to topple over. Was he shot?

Trying to catch him before he falls on his face, I wrap my arms around Warren and hold him up for a few seconds, only for his size to take over mine and fall to the side. Landing on his back with me on top of him, Warren waves his hand at me while shaking his head, his eyes shut. "I'm fine," He mutters, his voice now suddenly tired and drained.

Eyes wide and concerned, I turn him onto his side and look over him to see blood pouring from his wings. Between the layers of feathers, I find what seems to be four bullet wounds, causing me to practically lose it as the crimson liquid touches my hands. "No, no, no, no, no," I mutter uncontrollably as I place him onto his back. "Warren, Warren," I repeat his name, running my hand against the side of his face, his own blood smearing across his flawless cheek. "Warren, don't go to sleep!"

At my heartbroken plea, Warren opens his eyes, frowning at the sight of tears pouring from my eyes. "Don't cry, my love," He begs, his voice even weaker than before. He lifts a hand to my face, doing the same to me just as I had done to him. I quickly place my hand over his, holding it there as I feel the warmth in his skin begin slowly leaving it. "I... I love you..." He whispers, his eyes closing once again.

Just like a few seconds ago, I feel every ounce of sanity leave me as I watch the love of life wither away in front of me. "Warren, don't do this to me!" I shout, the tears now falling like a waterfall. I could barely manage not seeing him for the three hellish months when he was missing - I can't live the rest of my life without him.

"Warren!" I scream his name again, utter desperation being the only recognizable thing in my voice. Releasing a sob, I push my head against his chest and hear his still-beating heart. However, I know that if I don't get him to a hospital within the next few seconds, his heart won't continue beating like that. But what hospital will even help us?

"Ma'am?" I hear a woman's soft voice coming from the end of the alley, causing me to jerk my head up and see a blonde woman standing twenty feet away. Concerned, she walks closer to me before kneeling beside Warren and me, the knees of her pants becoming stained with his spilled blood on the alley ground. His wings are the first things that catch her focus, making me want to hold him closer.

"Please, don't hurt him," I beg her, my hand holding his hand a bit tighter. "He-he's a-" The woman cuts me off.

"He's a mutant," She points out, looking over at me. Still crying, I nod once, watching as a small smile appears on her face. Within a short second, the fair skin she once had transforms into blue flesh with darker blue scales, her eyes turning yellow and green while her hair changes into a much brighter orange/red.

"It's okay," She assures me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I am too, and I can help."

Her words, not to mention her sudden change of looks, shock me, but I nod at her, ready to do anything this woman says if it means saving Warren.

"Where's his family?" She asks me, her hand remaining on my shoulder as she kneels on the ground beside me.

"Me," I quickly answer her, tears still falling from my eyes. "I am his family."

"You're not a mutant," She points out, shaking her head with squinted eyes as she looks at me a bit confused. "And you care for him?"

"He's my best friend, the love of my life..." I answer her, my heart clenching as the words leave my lips. "Please, you have to help us!"

The woman nods, giving me a small, encouraging smile. "Kurt!" She abruptly yells, a teenage boy with blue skin and carvings appearing behind her with a blue puff of smoke following. I instantly recognize him as the other mutant in the pin with Warren earlier, and in spite of this, he doesn't try to get back at Warren while he's down.

Pulling his hand to get closer, she makes him get on our level before wrapping his arm around her and me. The stranger, Kurt, then wraps his other arm around Warren's almost lifeless body and tugs him a bit closer as well. "Get us all to the mansion nurse's ward - now!"

With the woman's last words, Kurt somehow does so, causing us to suddenly be in a nurse's station only a second later. This all confuses the living hell out of me, but with Kurt having a tail and red eyes, and not to mention blue skin like the lady, I don't know if I should be questioning the normalcy of anything at the moment.

Immediately, three scrubbed nurses rush up to where we are and pick Warren up from the ground. "He was shot, multiple times," The blue woman quickly explains, standing up from the ground. "He'll need blood, and you need to act quick."

Listening to her, the three nurses nod before taking an unconscious Warren back to what I could guess is surgery. Numb, I sit on the cold tile floor as I reach my blood-covered hands up to cross my arms and hold myself, my eyes stuck on the swinging doors that Warren was just carried through. Beside me is Kurt as he places a consoling hand on my shoulder, giving me a small smile.

"He vill be alright," Kurt assures me, his words helping me out a little. Giving him a small nod of my head, I take his held-out hand and stand up with him. "That is Raven, by the way," He adds as the woman from before moves to stand in front of me, taking my hand in hers despite it stained crimson.

"This is the Xavier mansion," She explains to me, "You're safe; we won't hurt you."

At her words, I nod. "I know," I tell her, giving her a small smile. "I trust you."

Smiling back at me, Mystique's eyes flicker behind me before her mouth slightly parts, her hand holding mine slightly faltering. "Who is this, Raven?" I hear a soft British voice speak up, causing me to slowly turn around and see a man in a wheelchair now in front of me. His eyes quickly catch my blood-covered hands and arms, shock taking over him. "Dear heavens, what happened to you, dear?"

I go to answer him, but my voice defeats me in doing so. Instead, Mystique speaks for me. "Charles, her and a fellow mutant were shot at in an alleyway when Kurt and I were passing by. He has wings, that's where most of the bullets hit him," She explains to him, "She has no ill will toward any of us - she just wants her boyfriend to survive."

A few seconds pass before the man, Charles, nods, staring at me with a frown. "I'm sorry to hear that, love," He tells me, giving me a single nod. "Raven, help her get cleaned up and fetch some fresh clothes for her as well," With that, Charles wheels himself out of the room and into the hallway where he enters the room at the end.

In a puff of blue smoke, Kurt leaves Mystique and me, letting us head to what I presume is her room where she wets a washcloth and begins rubbing the drying blood from my arms. "He will be alright," She tells me, saying Kurt's exact words from moments ago. "Trust me."

I nod at her words, but I can't believe them myself. What if Warren isn't okay? What if one of the bullets when through his spine and he's now paralyzed? I couldn't see all of his wounds so I don't know where they all hit him, minus the few I could see in his wings. What if the nurses and doctors can't do anything and he dies on the table? I can't bear to lose him - not again.

With my arms their original (s/c) color, I change into a pair of pajama pants and matching top with a school emblem given to me by Raven before walking with her to Charles' office. Stopping in front of his desk, Mystique and I watch as the man from earlier sits at his desk with his attention stuck on the novel stuck in his hands. However, it doesn't take long for him to notice our presence and put the book down with his glasses following.

"(Y/n), is it?" Charles asks me, turning his attention up to me. Surprised, I hesitantly nod as he speaks up once more. "No need to worry, dear," He assures me with a smile despite my caution. "I'm able to read minds and communicate through them as well," Charles further explains. "Raven and I were talking while she helped you with your arms and hands,"

"I understand you've been through a lot in the past hour, so I won't force you to talk about it," Charles tells me, making me let out a small sigh of relief. "But I am a bit concerned over the fact that you were in such a predicament that your partner was shot," Holding his hand out, Charles waits for me to place my hand in his. "I won't scour through your brain and look at everything you've ever seen or done - I just want to see what all transpired tonight."

Hesitating, I bite my lip in thought before shakily putting my hand in Charles, his touch being warm and welcoming. I feel as Charles does what he told me he would do, the images of the past month flashing before my eyes. Warren's disappearance, me finding him, and helping him get out are all shown before me like a home movie shot from my perspective. Because of this, I gasp a little, shocked at Charles' ability to do such a thing.

Slowly slipping his hand from mine, Charles' eyebrows furrow in thought before flashing his eyes up to mine, confusion written all over them. "You're a human with no powers or anything," He points out, slightly pausing in his words. "And yet, you've always loved a mutant?"

His words come out as a question, but to me, they're a true statement. I love Warren - I always have - and nothing about him will ever change that. "He's human just as I am," I tell Charles, giving him a small smile. "but, with wings," I further add, my smile growing sad as I lightly shrug. "How could I not love my angel?"

My words washing over him, Charles smiles back. "I like you," He tells me, Raven putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Your friend, I think he'll pull through. After all, he has a great incentive."

Because of Charles' words, I smile and give him a nod of thanks just as a question rises to my mind. "What... what is this place?" I ask, gesturing to the overall building. I know it has to be an establishment of some sort going by the built-in medical wing and wide hallways.

"This," Charles states, pointing his finger to the ceiling while his eyes remain on mine. "Is Xavier's a school for gifted youngsters," He informs me before nodding his head once. "This is a school specialized for children with mutations such as Warren, or Kurt, whom you met earlier."

Furrowing my eyebrows together, another question comes to mind. "Why have I never heard of this place before?" I ask, receiving a small smile.

"We're a relatively small school," Charles simply explains, "Ultimately, if your boyfriend would want to join, he could - now, you're not a mutant, but the unique and understanding attitude you give off, I'm sure we could work something out for you too."

His words make my cheeks turn pink in response to the compliment as I thank him, turning my eyes toward the ground as I try to fight the ever-growing smile on my lips. Just as I do this, I see Charles put a hand to his forehead as his eyebrows furrow before looking over at Mystique with a smile. "Raven, take her back to the medical ward," he tells the fiery-haired woman. "It seems that her friend was easily operable and now they're just waiting for him to wake up."

Almost immediately, I turn and follow Mystique out of the room with my pace just a little faster than hers. Soon enough, we walk through the doors and directly to the beds where only one of them is occupied, and the sleeping body in it is Warren's. The window behind him shines down on him with the bright and early morning sun highlighting his now washed and pure white wings that lie behind him. The sight is a complete contrast to what I saw only an hour ago with the almost black sky darkening everything around us and only emphasizing the dirt and grime that covered Warren's perfect wings.

"We told you he'd be okay," I hear Mystique's gentle voice beside me say, causing me to nod with an onrush of tears rising in my eyes. They were right, and my Warren is okay.

Moving closer to him, I sit beside Warren on the bed and take his hand in mine, his unconscious body unresponsive toward my touch and his perfect face never changing. "I'll let you two be alone," Mystique speaks up before doing as she says and walking back toward the door. Once I hear the swinging door shut, the tears residing in my eyes quickly fall over the barrier and down my face as I try to hold in my sobs.

When you love someone, you never want to see them in pain or hurting, and when they're laid up in a hospital bed with consciousness being a waiting game, it hurts you. It physically hurts you to the point where your chest feels heavy with dread, and your stomach feels sick with worry. It's terrible, and I wish there was something I could've done to protect Warren from getting shot.

"I'm so sorry," I sob, turning my eyes away from him and toward the floor. Raising my free hand to cover my mouth as the sobs tumble out, I don't notice Warren's hand gently squeezing mine until I feel the bed beneath me slightly moves.

Immediately looking back over to him, I see his eyes flutter open and quickly dart to me, confusion taking over his tired face as soon as he sees my crying form. "Why..." Warren slowly starts speaking, his voice raspy and scratchy with sleep. "Why are you crying, love?" He finishes his question, now trying to sit up.

"No, no, baby," I usher him to continue lying flat, moving to stand on my knee on the side of his bed before pushing his shoulders back down onto the mattress. Despite this, he still doesn't listen and moves to wrap his arms around me before pulling me fully onto the bed and holding me to his chest. Finally, Warren does lie back down, but in a matter of seconds, his wings are fluttering around me like any other time I'd be on top of him. My eyes quickly catch sight of the now bandaged wounds, and now that I get a better look, I see that there was one more bullet-wound than I initially thought. "Warren, your stitches!"

"It's okay, love," He sleepily responds, leaning his head back to look up at me with a happy face. "I'm so damn happy to see you," Warren confesses, his eyes gazing over me as if I were a precious gem.

If it weren't for the nurses cleaning the dirt from his face and body, I wouldn't have been able to assess the full damage the fighting ring did to him. Above his left eye is a healing bruise that covers a majority of the side of his forehead, and his bottom lip is split, making it swollen. On top of all of that, his green eyes are sunken in and practically taken over by dark circles.

Still, he continues staring at me, acting as if nothing is bothering him until a look of confusion fall over his face. "Now, are you going to tell me why you were crying?" Warren repeats his question from earlier, making me shake my head as more tears rise to my eyes.

"You almost died, Warren," I inform him, his face still unchanging. "I've been without you for three damn months, and the night I get you back, I almost lost you again - for good!" I add on, raising a hand to wipe away my fast-falling tears.

However, Warren beats me to it and places his hands against my cheeks where he gently holds me, his face now soft. I guess he hasn't assessed the severity of the situation. That, or he hasn't taken the time to fully realize that he has stitched-up bullet wounds adorning his wings.

"I'm sorry," Warren apologizes after a few seconds of silence. Despite expecting those two words, it still doesn't hit me any easier as I'm sobbing once again, this time, into Warren's chest.

Holding me close, Warren waits a few moments before moving his hands back to my face and turning me to look at him directly. As soon as he gets the chance, Warren places his rough lips on top of mine, the skin chapped from the harsh things he's been put through. Despite crying moments ago, my tears ultimately stop as I come to the realization of how much I've missed the feeling of Warren's lips on mine. Chapped or not, his lips are the pure definition of Heaven, and when they're on top of mine, it's like pure ecstasy.

Pulling away for air, I pant above Warren as he does the same, his hands now sliding down to grip my waist once again. "I love you," He tells me, "And I've missed you- God, how I've missed you," Warren adds, shaking his head as a small, almost unnoticeable tear falls down his cheek. "Each day was hell without you, and I can't be without you, not again."

Smiling at him, I lean down once more and peck his soft cheek before nuzzling my head next to his on the pillow, his hold on me never changing in the slightest. "You won't have to, Angel," I tell him, watching his lips quirk up in a smile at my nickname for him. Deciding on leaving the explanation of where we're at for later, I close my eyes alongside Warren and fall asleep, finally able to relax knowing he and I can be together with no one to stop or hurt us.

[georgeweasleyslostearhq]

hi

could you please do a BoRhap request? Where she looks after the guys during recording since her family owns Rockfield Farm and they love her cooking? But the guys (minus Fred who has Mary) all fancy her too?

❤️

SOMEBODY TO LOVE

Pairings: John + Roger + Brian x Fem!reader Summary: ^^ Warnings: none, I don't think Note: I did my best guys, I'm sorry

a knock came to your door as you finished up breakfast

you left the kitchen and went to the front door

you opened the door to see a blonde with long hair with sunglasses on

he was wearing dark, slightly flared jeans, a yellow v neck shirt underneath a greeny grey jacket with fur

behind him was a short haired brunette with a mustache

he pushed the blonde out of the way and held out his hand

"hi, I'm paul, this is Roger, From Queen" he introduced

of course you knew Queen was coming to your family's farm, it wasn't like you didn't know who they were and wouldn't let them in, it's just that you felt Rogers gaze planted on you and it made you feel a little nervous

"you're not" Roger scoffed quietly

"yes, of course, come in, are the rest here too?" you asked, stepping out of the way to let them in

"they're sorting out their luggage" Roger answered, taking off his glasses

"well, I made breakfast..if you're hungry?" you smiled tightly

"depends what you're serving" Roger smirked and looked you up and down

"pancakes" you responded quickly

"yeah, I could eat"

he followed you to the kitchen and he took a seat, shovelling food onto the plate in front of him and started eating

a few minutes later Roger had finished his plate and went back for seconds

"ah there you are Freddie" Paul spoke up, noticing the other three band members by the door

"we're also here mate" the tall, long curly haired brunette said, seeming annoyed by Paul's presence

"should I show you boys to your rooms?" you wondered, breaking the silence that filled the room

The three boys standing at the door all turned to you

"didn't know the farm came with a pretty lady" the curly Brunette smiled

"oh I'm Y/n. this is my Family's Farm. I live in the building beside this one, I'm just here to show you around"

"are those pancakes for us?" the auburn haired one said

"oh, yes! you can have as many as you want" you pointed to the mountain of pancakes you had made on the counter

"they are delicious" Roger said with a mouthful of food

"well I'm Brian, This is Fred and John and I see you've already met Rog"

"it's a pleasure to meet you guys"

"pleasure's all ours darling" Freddie beamed

"well I'll show you your rooms then" you said taking off your apron and leading them upstairs

"it's probably not what you're used to but your manager said it was perfect to get away from distractions so" you shrugged

you turned to face the boys and see Roger first

"you're in here. mister Taylor" you looked to the first door

"right" he grunted, walking into the room with his heavy luggage

"and that's yours, Mister Mercury" you pointed to the room in the corner to the left

"thank you darling"

"Mister May, yours is right here" pointing to the right side next to the bathroom

Brian walked into the room and you noticed John still standing on the top of the stairs

"oh, sorry. mister Deacon, you're downstairs" he walks back down the stairs and you lead him down to the room.

"I know it's small but it doesn't get nearly as cold as the other rooms" you informed him

"okay..." he frowns as he steps down

"well I'll let you get settled then, i'll show you and the band around when you're ready" you smiled, starting to go up the stairs

"are there still pancakes?" he asked, putting his luggage down on the bed

"oh yeah, they'd probably still be warm too" you answered

he soon started following you up the stairs to the kitchen to find all the other members of the band eating the pancakes

"Rog really didn't lie, these pancakes are delicious" Brian hummed

"we need more syrup" Roger lifted up the empty bottle of maple syrup

"oh..ok" you walked over to the fridge as John took a seat and started eating the food

"here you go" you grinned, putting the syrup on the table in front of them

-

it's been a few days since they've arrived and much to your surprise, you've seen more of them then you expected

you didn't think you would see much of them, you thought thy would be very busy and you didn't have a problem with that

but Roger, Brian and John all seemed to want you around them

Roger would casually flirt with you

Brian would always start up a conversation or make you help with with a lyric

and John would subtly make eye contact and smile before coming up to you to ask for suggestions

and they would all ask if you could cook them up something when they got hungry and said they liked your cooking, so much so that there would be barely any left for Freddie or you.

Roger was currently helping you make breakfast while Brian and John sat and ate while they discussed songs

"i put my heart and soul into this song" Roger spoke up as they talked about his new song he made

"no one is disputing that" John smiled, lifting up his fork

"and you don't like it because you want your songs on the album" Roger fought

"it's not that Roger" John denied

"then what is it?" the blonde raised his eyebrows as he stopped cutting bread

"I'm in love with my car?" Brian spoke up

you fought back a laugh at the thought of the song

Brian and John both made a questionable face as silence filled the air

"maybe it's not strong enough?" Brian suggested

"what does that even mean 'not strong enough'?" Roger frowned

"I know I'm late. What did I miss?" Freddie came in and poured himself some tea

John straightened his back and looked at the singer "discussing Roger's car song"

"is it strong enough, that's all I'm asking. If I'm on my own here, then i apologise" Brian put his hands up defensively

"how does your new song go, then, hm?" Roger walked over and grabbed Brians lyrics

"you call me sweet.. like I'm some kind of cheese" the drummer read out

you stifled a laugh as you cooked bacon

"it's good" Brian defended, looking at the John who was eating a sausage with a smile and Freddie who was stirring his tea

"wow" Roger sighed sarcastically

"is that-, is that you know- when my hand's on your grease gun..That's very subtle isn't it?" Brian read Rogers back

"it's a metaphor, Brian" Roger argued

"it's just a bit weird Roger, what exactly are you doing with that car?" John spoke, waving his fork around

"what do you think, Y/n?" Roger turned to you, looking for backup

you put the now cooked bacon on a plate and turned to the boys

"don't turn to me, I'm not getting involved" you shook your head

"children please, we could all murder each other but then who would be left to record this album?" Freddie butted in

"statistically speaking, most bands don't fail, they break up" John stated mater-of-a-factly

"why the hell would you say something like that?" Freddie frowned

John shrugged and Freddie turned back to the Blonde

"Roger, there's only room in this band for one hysterical queen" Freddie informed the drummer before walking out

"you know why you're angry, Roger?" Brian began again

"...why?" Roger breathed out

"'cause you know you're song isn't strong enough" the curly headed man repeated

"boys I really don't think you should be-" you started to say but cut off by Roger throwing bacon at Brian's face

"is that strong enough?" Roger questioned

"ok" you mumbled, looking at John, who smiled at you amusingly

Roger pushed off plates and glasses off the table angrily

"what about that?!" he asked before going over to find something else

"Hey!" you yelled at Roger, who grabbed a pot of Coffee

he turned and began to swing it at the two boys before he stopped as they put their hands up

"Not the coffee machine!?" they both yelled

Roger put the coffee machine down and you sighed looking at the mess

"I'll clean this up" he sighed after a moment of silence

"you sure are" you nodded sternly

-

you sat in the recording room on the couch with John and Roger as Brian got ready to record his guitar

Roger slung his arm around your shoulder as Brian got set up

"so..how about we go get dinner later" he suggested

"pardon?" you wondered

"you, me, i'll take you out to dinner" he repeated

"I highly doubt she'll want to go out with you, Roger, she's too good for you" John sighed

"and what? you're better?" the drummer scoffed, looking over you to the auburn headed bassist

John stared at Roger for a moment

"how's katie? last time we saw her was right before we left to come here" the Deacon wondered

"shut it mate" Roger groaned

your thoughts were cut short as Brian started playing

you focused on the music but felt John's gaze on you, you slowly turned your head to see him staring at you, smiling

"so, do you have a boyfriend?" Roger asked

"I don't see how that's any of your business" you crossed your arms, looking back at Brian, who's still playing his solo

"what if I want to ask you out?" he shrugged

"how come you're the one that gets to ask her out?" John leans forward to argue with Roger

"because I can" the Taylor boy smirked

"Roger, do you have to be such a man whore?" John questioned, his accent become more defined and thick

"I think you're just jealous you don't get women chasing after you" Roger huffed, leaning back on the couch, seeming to be not fazed

"ah yes, because all i need is women to make me feel better about myself, all i need and want is women around me to fill a void of unfulfillment" John rolled his eyes

"oh yeah? let's see who she wants more then" Roger raises his eyebrows as he took off his glasses to look at you

John frowned "you can't pressure her into choosing either of us...that's not how relationships work, Roger"

Roger stifled a laugh "who said I wanted a relationship"

"my point exactly"

"all i'm saying" is that she's probably looking for somebody to love and i'm right here" Roger raised his hands in defense

"what makes you think she wants someone?" John glared

"children, children. leave the poor girl alone, she doesn't want either of you" Freddie butted in

you found yourself wondering how it came to this, two members of the band Queen almost practically fighting for your, to be with you

it made sense about Roger, seeing all of those tabloids of him with new girls around his shoulder almost every week

but John? he didn't really seem the type

you tuned out of the argument and soon wondered when Brian came back into the room as you looked up to find him sitting with Freddie

"I think whatever happens, it's up to her, you shouldn't be trying to force something she does not want" John fought

"what are you guys fighting about?"

"who gets to take this beautiful lady out" Roger smirked, nodding towards you

"who says either of you get to?" Brian spoke in a confused manner

"oh don't tell me you want her too?" Roger groaned

"what's so wrong about that?" the guitarist questioned

"I'm gonna go" you sighed, getting up

"are you still going to make us pasta tonight?" John perked up

you chuckled "I think you all need a break from my cooking"

"NO!!"

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

[idliketobeatree]

No more jokes. If S3 doesn't give me canon ineffable wives I'm gonna tell your kids they were fem!Aziraphale and Crowley

(God knows.)

[magickcandie]

Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader

(not my gif)

You weren’t necessarily dating Roger but it was well known he favored you. Everyone liked being around you but it wasn’t the same as it was with Roger. However on this particular afternoon, you had received a phone call from Brian and he didn’t disclose that much information. He said the address of the hotel and just said “Quick! It’s Roger.” Frankly that could mean a lot of things but either way you were on the next taxi there. When you had reached the door, you carefully knocked on it. Immediately it swung open and John ran from the room. His shirt was ripped, hanging on his shoulder. Freddie followed after, not bothering to say anything but one thing. “The gremlin is in there.” You peeked through the door and saw Brian talking to Roger who… was holding a TV! “Roger?” “Y/N! Thank God!! Help me! Your boyfriend is insane!” Brian shouted. You wanted to laugh. “What’s happening?” “He was angry after rehearsal.” “Angry at who?” “All of them! They’re ruining my song!” Roger shouted, taking a threatening step towards the window. Brian rolled his eyes. “It just needs help, Rog. Doesn’t mean you need to throw a telly out the window.” “You can go, Bri, I can handle this.” He seemed more than happy to leave and turned to exit the hotel room. “Come on, Rog, put it down. What if we get a drink instead?” It took a little more persuading and having to actually grab the TV from him, but you managed to walk him down to the bar. You thought about Brian said. “Brian said something.” Roger said first. “Oh? Right. Do you… I mean-” “Y/N, I really like you. I think you’re on of the best things to happen to me.” You smiled at him, taking his hand in yours. “I fancy you too, Roger.” He nudged your shoulder, clinking your glasses together and taking a drink.

Freddie held his hand on his hip. “Damn.” “I told you I’d win.” “Did you plan for Roger to angry! You could’ve planned anything else so he didn’t rip my shirt.” John argued, looking down at his borrowed shirt from Freddie. “No I didn’t plan for his anger. I just said boyfriend in front on Y/N and hoped she’d over think it.”

[vixemi]

Idk if anyone will know what I’m talking about but I’m trying to find a imagine about Roger Taylor played by Ben Hardy who cheats on reader with a fan I believe. Let a girl know if you find it.

[fem-queen-week]

Fem Queen Weekend - August 4-6

Break free from the constructs of gender with Fem-Queen Weekend. Genderbending of all kinds is welcomed and encouraged, including gender swap, trans characters, and nonbinary characters. All Queen-related romantic ships and friendships are welcome.

🌼 August 4:

Commune

Friends to Enemies to Lovers

Questionable Choice

OnlyFans

Period Piece

🌸 August 5:

2000s Reality TV

Tattoos & Flowers

New Skill

Second-Hand Embarrassment 

YouTubers

🌹 August 6:

Stolen Innocence

Exhibitionism

Still a Better Love Story than Twilight

Polyamorous

Folklore

☀️ Information:

All art forms are welcome

Tag @fem-queen-week in your entries

Upload to our collection on ao3

Delete all hate and do not interact

[lgwifey]

GETTING OLDER PART FIVE

platonic!lennon gallagher x fem!reader

platonic!gene gallagher x fem!reader

summary : In which a nepotism baby finds herself dealing with her first true life issue, letting him go.

warnings : n/a

PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE PART FOUR

PART SIX

MASTERLIST

2022

It was Saturday, Saturday morning.

Near eight-thirty five, Saurday morning.

Y/n had been woken up by clattering outside. She'd found out that the block of apartments across from her's where going to be having work done on their roof starting tomorrow, today they where just putting the scaffolding up.

She didn't live anywhere too fancy, it was a nice neighbourhood of run down 80s council estate flats which had been bought by a developer a decade back and refurbished.

She moved out of her dad's house when she was seventeen, moved into this place on her £500 a month sallary from small modeling jobs.

At first she had lived there with Lennon. They split the costs, it made it more managable to pay for the overpriced London housing. But when they both became more well known to more inclusive brands, Lennon moved out. They where going to both moved out, each get a apartment near each other in a better part of the city, but y/n had already made a home there.

Plus, it wasn't a bad flat and it was only her living there, so it wasn't as though she was running out of space or squashed.

It was too chilly of a morning to be walking about in the thin, satin pyjamas, so y/n had immediatly grabbed one of the hoodies off of her floor and searched the depths of her sock draw for some of her hiking socks, from when Gene went on a fitness spree and made them all climb up Snowdon in the October weather.

When she came to think about it, she didn't actually hate that day, like she always told Gene. Sure, she started her period early and had to climb the sheep infested rock whilst she was pratically dying from cramps, and they had to get the train back down because Thalia had an asthma attack when they reached the halfway point, and Lennon was hungover and nearly fell of the side of the mountain. All in all, it was a total shipwreck of a day out, but it was a little bit fun. Not that she'd ever admit that to Gene.

Her mind paused as she felt herself laugh a little. Why was she suddenly remenising everything ?!

She pulled the hoodie, which happened to be another one of Gene's which he had 'borrowed', this one was from a night out when her dress was refusing to protect her from the cold.

"Alexa, play 2000s indie rock." "Playing station, noughties indie rock."

She muttered a thanks to the machine before rolling the socks up to slide them on, and once they where on, throwing her folded pyjama bottoms back straight.

When she realised she wouldn't be able to hear the dot in her bedroom, she stopped it.

The model catwalk strolled through the open doors to her kitchen to find a bottle of the smoothie Gene had totally butchered the day before. She wasn't one for throwing away perfectly good food and drink.

"Alex, wait no, Echo connect to Y/f/n's iphone" "Searching... Connecting to Y/f/n's iphone... Connected."

"Merci Beaucoup."

As she scrolled and tapped her phone to find her favourate Spotify playlist, the one filled with breakup songs which was hidden under the concerning amount of true crime, girl's beauty, general waffle and ancient history podcasts. After second thoughts, she clicked onto one of her favourate true crime podcasts and played the episode which was based on the Kray Twins, having been obsessed with the gangsta siblings since Tom Hardy played them in Legend when she was fourteen. She had already listened to it twice but always found that she would end up hearing a fact that she hadn't picked up on the first time round.

As she listened to the slightly annoying Bristol accent start talking, y/n opened up the rustic red bread bin which was sat on the worktop counter and dropped two peices of the bread her mum always freshly made for her, once her daughter left home Debbie made sure to drop by every other day 'just to drop off a loaf of bread', into the more modern designed, bright red toaster.

As her breakfast began to toast, she tapped onto her insta to see if anyone had updated their stories or pages, if they hadn't then she could always resort to some good ol' fashioned 'stalking people you went to school with to take the mick out of them'.

As y/n clicked off King Alfred's Year Eleven slag's account, a text came through from Lennon.

"Dad's for dinner 6:30 . U and gene are together still"

Gene had a hold of Y/n as they arrived back in the dining room, Molly having had left a few minutes before them so that they could act out the situation they had thought up.

Just a simple situation which would infuriate Lennon, well hopefully infuriate Lennon.

The younger man's arm rested around her waist, the metallic black fabric being slightly dissheveled.

Lennon was the first to catch sight of the 'couple' when they reappeared after their twenty minutes of dissappearing. That meant that he was the first one to catch sight of y/n's faded out lips and the slightly rose tint around his brother's mouth. The slight tint which ran a trail over his cheeks and neck.

Upon seeing the expression on her brother's face, Molly held off a smirk from her face.

Liam caught onto their presence once they had seated themselves.

The chairs had been pushed in from where they had left them so the sound of the wooden floor having something pushed along it awared the rest of the table to y/n and Gene.

"Had some fun ?"

The time had arrived.

Gene gave an annoyed side eye to where Molly sat, slightly hunched over with her hand over the bottom half of her face.

"I wish."

Y/n lightly smacked him up the side of his head, pulling him to sit down in the chair beside her.

"So, Jane" Y/n took a sip out of her crystalised glass, the lightly shaded pink liquid slipping down her throat like it had been doing all day. "Why d'you like our Lens then ?"

Jane looked over to where she was sat with large eyes, completely shook by the question. Before she could open her mouth to answer, the Taylor was already blabbing on.

Gene and Molly where holding in laughter whilst Liam pretending nothing out of the usual was happening, Debbie sat excluding herself from the conversation in hopes she wouldn't laugh too loud and Lennon glaring at his friend as she made hand gestures and almost knocked a full glass of white wine over Molly.

"Because, sure he could be considered attractive but why do you actually like him."

"Y/n/n, I think you've had enough now-"

"No it's alright babe."

The evening continued like that, y/n coming up with bizzare question which interigated Jane and annoyed Lennon. Sometimes Liam, Molly and Gene joined in whilst Debbie attempted to discourage them.

[justiceformeplease]

Hey sooo um yes i know i have not posted for about a few months maybe since last year?? I don't even know how long it has been but i know it's been a while and I'm sorry for not posting but i have lately been kind of stressed with school and life problems and i know that isn't a good enough excuse but i really am trying my best and stuff.

Since I'm finishing exams tommorow people can send requests that i could do over the summer and stuff

People i write for :

Ben hardy

Joe mazzello

John deacon

Roger Taylor

Kirk Hammett

Eddie Munson

Tasm Peter Parker

Warren Worthington

Serj tankian

Daron malakain

Btw i usually write x FEM!readers but i can also do male as well, i will usually do fem if there is no indication that you want male!reader

[borealis-strange]

[joyless-somebody]

Jo smiled and brushed her thumbs over Reg’s cheeks, looking down at her almost curiously, “How are you so pretty? Look at you.” She ran her hands down Reg’s sides as she smiled and let her head tip back, “Can I kiss you?”

“Fuck yeah.”

For the first prompt of OnlyFans for @fem-queen-week !

[michelle-is-writing]

Sick, Ben Hardy

Word Count: 1.2k~

Saturday nights are always date nights for me and Ben. No matter what, we always go out and do something fun together. We'll go to dinner, watch a movie, see a game, anything that sounds like a good time. We always make an effort, and nothing ever stops us from spending time together.

However, as I lay in my bed with nonstop nausea filling my throat and stomach, I feel the need to cancel for tonight. During the seven months that we've been dating, neither of us have ever canceled a Friday night, and that's always something I love about us. Once again, we always make time for each other, so when I think about calling Ben and saying I can't go tonight, I feel even worse.

Reluctantly pressing the green button on Ben's contact, I hold my phone up to my ear and listen to the ringing tone as I wait for him to pick up. As more seconds pass, I find myself trying to hug my blankets as close to me as I can while my body begins to shiver. This stomach pain is starting to cause me to feel cold as well, and it sucks.

"Hello, darling," I hear Ben's voice pick up after the second ring, making me smile. I always love hearing his voice. It carries this tone of protection in it that gives off a feeling of happiness at the same time. "Are you ready for our date?"

At his question, I close my eyes and swallow down the guilt that rises to my throat as my smile lowers into a frown. He sounds so happy - excited, almost. Do I really have to take that away from him? All because of something that could probably be treated with medicine?

As soon as the thought of maybe suffering through the pain and going on a date, another stomach cramp pushes into me, making me almost hunch over in my bed to get through the pain. "Actually, Ben," I start, my free arm wrapping around my stomach as the stinging sensation passes. "I was calling to tell you that I can't come," I explain, my ears almost catching the sound of his heart breaking through the phone speaker. "I think I caught food poisoning from my friend's food at dinner we went to the other night."

"I ate it, and I seem fine," He tells me, his words making me shake my head with an amused smile.

"That's because you have an iron stomach, Ben," I joke, hearing him chuckle on the other end. "And, besides, if you can eat your own cooking, then you can eat practically anything."

"Oi!" Ben dramatically exclaims as if my words hit him with a punch. I laugh at his silliness. "Such harsh and hurtful words from the woman I love!" He further chides as I clench my already hurting stomach from laughing. He soon joins in on the laughing before speaking once more. "But that's alright love. I understand you're not feeling well. I love you! And I'll be over in ten minutes."

Just as quick as he said his last words, he hangs up, leaving me to stare across the room with wide eyes as my phone remains resting in my hand, Ben's picture flashing once before the screen goes dark. Did he really just pull a fast one on me? Just like that?

While thinking about Ben, yet another wave of nausea rolls over me, causing me to turn onto my side with my knees close to my chest, a pained groan escaping my lips at the same time. What if this isn't food poisoning, and it's something contagious, and I accidentally give it to Ben? It's not that I don't want him coming over (I'm glad that he is), but the last thing I want to do is make him sick as well.

For what feels like an eternity, I lay on my sides, switching between the two when another cramp comes along. It isn't long before I hear keys being inserted into my front door, twisting and turning before the piece of wood opens and closes a few short seconds later. Footsteps sound throughout my tiny apartment until my bedroom door gently opens, a head full of blond hair and shining blue eyes staring back at me as I smile from my current predicament on the bed.

"There she is," Ben says with a sweet smile. Wearing a plain grey t-shirt and black sweats, he takes one step into my room before happily sighing. "And just as beautiful as ever."

Blushing, I roll my eyes and flop onto my other side to dramatically turn my back to him, only receiving a laugh back before I feel his warm body settle behind my cold one. As soon as he touches me, it's as if all of my nausea and cramping dissipate, the warmth from his body acting as a heating pad for my achey body.

Ben wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to his body as he kisses my temple, his lips soft and warm like fresh pastries. At his sweet affection, I smile even more and raise my hands to rest on top of his, only for him to interlock our fingers together. Even when I'm sick and not able to do the things we usually do, he's still the best boyfriend I could ever ask for.

"Would you like me to make you some soup?" Ben asks, leaning down to nuzzle his face in my neck. Underneath the covers, his legs intertwine with mine, bringing me just enough warmth to stop shivering so bad.

"No, just lay here with me, please," I tell him, snuggling my body further in his hold as a soft sigh escapes my lips. There's nothing better than lying in the arms of the person you love - especially if they're a natural heater.

"Oh, and like I said earlier," I begin, remembering our earlier conversation. "Your cooking is something special," I remind Ben with a smirk, listening as he snickers behind me. Okay, maybe there's nothing better lying in the arms of your boyfriend and teasing him for his helpless qualities.

"I can put on a video or something, go off of that," Ben suggests, leaning his head over mine to cuddle closer to the front of my neck. "Or, I could be safe and just order something," he offers, making me smile.

"That would be nice," I tell Ben, nodding my head. Just as he goes to get up to grab his phone presumably, I tug him back down and snuggle even further into him. "In five minutes, of course," I clarify, hearing him snicker behind me again.

With a simple "okay," Ben gets himself comfortable once more before resuming holding me close. I guess no matter what, Saturday nights will always be our night and not even a stupid stomach bug can stop that.

[georgeweasleyslostearhq]

Can I request a fluffy John Deacon x fem. reader long fic where it’s Christmas Eve and John surprises reader with a present and when reader opens it, it’s a velvet box and when reader looks inside it turns out to be a ring and John takes it from her and gets down on one knee and goes into this speech about how much he loves her and that when he met her it was love at first sight and he asks reader to marry him?

Yess! so cute!

CHRISTMAS SURPRISES

pairings: John Deacon x Fem!reader summary: ^^^^ warnings: too cute

"hey, I got you something" Your boyfriend of 5 years, John said walking down the stairs with a wrapped box in his hand

"well put it under the tree then" you smiled at him as he sat down next to you on the couch.

it was a cold night and the fireplace was on, warming you up as you drank hot chocolate.

"just open it" he held it out for you to take

"but it's not christmas yet, that's tomorrow, can't it wait only a few more hours?" you leaned into him resting your head on his chest, hearing his heart race, so fast you would've thought he ran a marathon. it made you wonder why

"no it can't" he stated

you put your hot chocolate on the coffee table and leaned back into him, taking the box from him, you looked at him and raised an eyebrow

"what is it?" you asked him

"I'm not gonna tell you, that would ruin the surprise" he rolled his eyes

as you ripped the wrapping paper of the box, John leaned forward and took a sip of your drink, trying to hide his nervous face as you opened his gift.

you opened the box to see another, smaller box inside. You pulled the box out and looked at it. the pretty red velvet box you held in your hand made your smile.

it hadn't been the first time he's given you a box like that, only a few months prior he gave you a similar box with a necklace inside, and a year before was a pair of earrings.

"you give me too much of these, i practically have a whole draw of similar boxes" you joked with a giggle, he didn't look as amused as you though, his face held something different.

your smile faltered as you noticed his uncomfortable state

you looked at the box and became confused, it made you wonder...

you opened the box slowly and looked at it intently, a beautiful ring, decorated with the prettiest of diamonds was staring right backup at you

you looked up at John and a lump formed in your throat, he slowly took the box off you and got off the couch, making his way down on one of his knees.

it's that type of ring.

you body begun to feel hot and your vision went blurry

"John-" you start to say

"can you let me talk sweetheart?" he managed to smile shyly

"sorry" you apologised, sitting up and grabbed onto the blanket covering your legs

"you are- the best the that has ever happened to me, and I love you with all my heart, you make me want to be a better person and I am forever grateful for you. I have never wanted anything more than I want you, and it's been that way since we met- at the bar"

--

"I'm going to talk to her" roger said to the bored John.

Roger had dragged John to a bar, telling him he needed to put himself out there.

"you go do that" John sighed.

Roger had been staring at a girl sitting at a table on the other side of the room. she sat there talking to her friend who seemed uncomfortable to be there

"but I can't just go and take her away from her friend"

"look Roger, I think I might just leave-"

"you have to come with me" Roger pulled John up from his seat and made his way to their table with John trailing behind

"hey ladies!" Roger greeted joyfully

"hey" the girl said, looking up at the Roger and John hiding behind him

"need a drink?"

after a while, Roger and the girl were practically on top of each other on the other side of the booth, leaving John sitting awkwardly next to a girl he doesn't know the name of.

"what do you say we get out of here?" Roger suggested to crystal.

"yeah sure!"

they leave their seats and begin gathering their things

"wait no- you're my ride" the girl beside John said to crystal

"I'm sure John will give you a ride" Roger replied to her.

the girl next to him sunk in her chair, feeling dumped

"bye" Roger waved, winking to John before leaving with his new one night stand, leaving John with a girl he didn't know. he looked over to her, seeing that she was already looking at him.

"I'm John" he smiled nervously

"I know, your from that band" she said sheepishly, looking down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers

John was caught off guard, he didn't know what to do or say in this situation

"what's your name?" John asked

"Y/n"

"thats a pretty name"

John noticed the girls face turn a light shade of pink as he said that and it made him nervous, realising what he said

"thanks" she smiled at him sweetly

the two begun talking for two more hours before realising the time

"I should probably get going, it was nice meeting you John" the girl said, picking up her purse and putting her jacket on.

"we should- uh- do this. we do this" John stuffed up his words

"i'd like that" she giggled before she wrote down her contact on a napkin and gave it to him

"bye John" she smiled, kissing him on the cheek, getting John all flustered at the affection

she walked out of the bar, smiling at him as she looked back at him

John sat there for a minute before he got up and walked out with the napkin in his pocket.

he saw that is was heavily raining and he worried for you, you didn't have an umbrella on you and you didn't even have a ride.

you didn't have a ride

John looked around and noticed you, waiting for a bus while soaking wet

he couldn't leave you out in the rain like that, he wouldn't. especially because you were the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and one of the sweetest.

"I can give you a ride" he stated as he got closer to you, getting drenched

she turned around and smiled at him

--

"it makes me wonder what would happen if i left you out there in the rain, but I'm glad i didn't. I love you more than anything in the world and I would appreciate it if you would let me spend the rest of my life with you. so, sweetheart, will you marry me?" John finished his ramble

you couldn't come up with any words to reply with and john was left there for a second of silence.

you decided your throat was failing you and just kissed him. running your hands through his long hair and pulling him closer. he pulled away for a second to look at you

"I need an answer" he said, looking down at the ring

"yes! why would I ever say no?" you told him before placing another kiss on his lips

he placed the ring on your finger and let a deep breath he didn't know he was holding.

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

okokokok i hope that was alright

[magickcandie]

Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader (pt. 2)

(1) Somehow, it really did slip your mind to tell Roger that Freddie thought he should be asking permission his to take you out. Nonetheless, you two constantly went out for dinner. You kept it slow, just keeping to dinner or going out to lunch. That went on for a long time. Eventually you started dating but kept it quiet. That too went on for a long time. Although anyone who noticed anything would notice you and Roger. 

You waited with the band in a back room, skimming through a magazine across from Roger who was also doing the same. 

He grabbed the end, shutting it and lied against booth seats. You noticed he took his sunglasses with down with him. 

You too lied down, turning to look at Roger who was propped on his elbow. He was looking absently elsewhere but turned to look at you. 

(not my gif) You smiled at him. 

“You have my heart, Y/N.”

“Take that elsewhere before Freddie gets in here.” 

You looked up and back to see Brian and John entering the room. 

“We weren’t doing anything,” you said, using the table to hoist yourself back up. “Besides, it’s not like Freddie needs to know.” 

“Fred -” 

“Fred doesn’t need to know what?” Freddie himself asked as he walked into the room. 

“Roger and Y/N were getting it on under the table,” John accused. 

“No we weren’t!”

You glared at him, and to make matters worse, it didn’t help that when Roger surfaced, he was grinning ear to ear. 

“There’s a good time for everything, dears, but not under a table.” He said firstly. He then came around to your side of the table, nudging you to scoot in so he could join you in the booth. “So how long were you planning to hide it from me?” 

“Fred, it’s not necessarily you. We really didn’t want to tell anybody. At least not yet.” 

“Well how long?” 

“Mm, about a couple months.” Roger responded. 

“My dear, you’re so much better than Roger.” 

Roger, wether joking or serious, made of face of hurt. 

“You were happy when I first told you about it though.” You argued instead. 

“Well yes, but I was hoping you’d both come to your senses and kiss each other already.” 

John made a stifled laugh. You watch Brian hit him on the arm. 

“I’m so confused right now.” 

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m happy for you.” Freddie said to you. “And you, you better not hurt her.” 

“Why would I do that?” 

(not my gif)

Freddie made a face at him as if he was going to say something. He was silent for a second before speaking anyway. “Well let’s go, dears, and let Roger and Y/N continue what they were doing under the table.” 

John, and you, bursted out laughing. He and Brian left the room with Freddie. 

You leaned over the table top to plant a kiss against Roger’s lips. 

[captainsimagines]

the albatross || B.B || One-Shot

Summary: "Locked me up in towers, but I'd visit in your dreams. And they tried to warn you about me..."

Pairing(s): Winter Soldier x Vampire Fem! Reader

Trope(s): Unlikely friendship; Forbidden vibes; Awkward tension

Based on the Song: The Albatross by Taylor Swift

Total Word Count: 17,000+

Warnings: This one-shot contains explicit language, an identity crisis, graphic depictions of violence and blood loss, trust issues, cigarette smoking, and depressive thoughts/ideas. You are responsible for your own media consumption. This is purely fanfiction.

If you would rather read this fanfic on AO3, here is the link.

Author's Note: I really liked this idea and surprisingly, it just spilled out of me. The ending is pretty open-ended because I do imagine a part 2, but I won't write it unless there's demand for it. Either way, I love this one-shot. I hope you guys do, too. ---xxMoni

~

The Soldier enjoys watching the stars.

The Captain likes to tell him these stories about Bucky Barnes, about how he also liked watching the stars when they made camp in war-torn France. Bucky Barnes would pretend to know the math behind it all, and though the Captain said the math was a load of bullshit, he swore up and down that Barnes did know how to read palms, however.

The Soldier doesn’t know how to read palms, but he does know how to calculate the stars now.

Hearing about his past self always put him on edge. He has another man’s name, another man’s face, another man’s life story. The Soldier was expected to relearn this, to find that lost part of himself that is “deep down, Buck, I know it.” Sometimes he’d remember that he liked strawberry jam, but only if he tried it out of pure coincidence. Sometimes he’d remember the voice of a man called Gabe Jones, or of Dum-Dum—Dugan—and it reminded him that he was two people at once. Those memories were no longer his—they were—but not really. 

He was not—is not—Bucky Barnes anymore. In his head, at least. 

He knew two things with absolute certainty though, two things the old Bucky Barnes would be happy the Soldier is keeping alive: Steve Rogers is his friend and it is the Soldier’s job to protect him, and that a thousand conversations are said in comfortable silence if you simply listen. 

He passes the cigarette to the woman beside him, blowing the smoke out slowly into the frigid air. He hates the cold, but it’s better than a freezer. Freer up here on the roof of Avengers Tower. A chosen solitary. She takes the cigarette carefully, her grip extra tight since they’re hanging over the ledge. Legs swinging, hair rustling in the wind. Dropping the cigarette would cause no harm, only annoyance. They only bring four of them to their nightly meetings. 

She inhales deeply, her decaying lungs inflating just the bit, her mouth doing most of the work. She doesn’t need to breathe, he’s found. On the rare occasions he is in her presence during the day, she never does. Not even to comfort those around her who watch her warily. He likes that. Placating others was tiresome, and the Soldier had refused to do it for anyone besides the Captain until he asked. For some reason, the crease between his brow makes his stomach turn and he knows Bucky Barnes would hate him for not smoothing it over. 

The Soldier studies the woman at his right. He detects hints of dust—old cardboard, maybe—in the smoke she exhales. Her skin hadn’t paled in the way popular media suspected, nor did her hair turn white. Her skin looks ashy, her cheeks a little gaunt. The only proof she’s undead are the red eyes—he’s never seen her smile to verify the fangs. 

They never exchange words out here. No one knows they’re out here at all. He had come out for fresh air after a particularly nasty fight with Stark a year ago and found her leaning upside down on the ledge. If she had jumped, he doesn’t think he would have leapt after her. He didn’t know her and would not miss her. Let her fall and his world was unmoved. 

A year of nightly cigarettes and no more than a hundred words between them. They had built a sort of camaraderie—after a long day of pretending to be alive, they would sulk in peace together. 

He knows her name, and she his. They have never called each other those names, but he suspects she would call him James before anything else. She doesn’t seem to want to be called anything. She’s content to sit in mutual silence and bask in her invisibility. 

But the Soldier has seen her every night for a year, and everytime she is still solid. Everytime she is still dead. 

The team has forbidden anyone from being alone with her. The Captain has forbidden him from being alone with her. Stark and Banner have a fear of the unknown, and what is unknown is uncontrollable. The Soldier wonders why she was invited to the team in the first place if she was going to be locked away and hidden from the world. He wonders why the Captain even rescued him if he was going to be a red stain as well. She refuses to answer their questions, refuses to show them how she feeds, and refuses to put a single limb in the sun for experimental purposes. The team is not sadistic enough—Stark isn’t sadistic enough—to force her to burn so he can scribble the results in a notepad. So unless she’s willing to be a science experiment, she cannot be trusted. 

Unless the Soldier suddenly remembers the memories of a man lost to time, he cannot be trusted. 

So he watches as her painted lips delicately wrap around the cigarette, their last one, and allows the strange delight to roll over him at the sound of her soft sigh. 

“Goodnight,” she mumbles, her voice resembling the rustling of leaves in the dead of night. She has the same unsettling demeanor as he, perhaps more loose but still as real. The Soldier is meant to unnerve people. If they are terrified of him, they understand the depth of the mission. They will fall in line. As she rises, she grows in stature and dwarfs him. He finds he likes being the second most frightening creature in the room. He likes having a twin, finally, one that is not screaming inside his own head. 

“Goodnight,” he replies, his gaze on the twinkling city lights. Brooklyn winks at him, refusing to fade. 

The Soldier hears the roof door slam shut, and he is suddenly alone.

—————

The team is arguing. 

Stark and the Captain crowd the large room they use for briefings while everyone else sits patiently at the long table. The Soldier occupies the single seat at the far end, the closest person to him being the Widow. She is watching the scene unfold with a stoicism that could rival his own, but she is more susceptible to that twitch in her upper lip. When Stark takes a dig at the Captain’s two-timing morality, she speaks up. 

“You’re both idiots. I don’t see why we have to go empty-handed here, guys.”

Stark does his best to not roll his eyes, opting instead to squint at the Widow. “The mission is childsplay. I just think we’d have a lot more fun and a ton more juicy stories to tell if we bring all of us—”

“The answer is no, Tony. I will not bring—”

“Say it, Cap. I’m sure our cheeky little assassin here would love to hear your reasoning.”

The Captain sighs, his large hands resting atop his slender hips. The Soldier has a vague memory of a group of men around a campfire, all singing a tune in French and sour-tasting liquor spilling from their tongues, and the Captain watching with the same stance but with a grin instead. He realizes fast that this memory is attached to Bucky Barnes, and it is better off dead. 

“Buck, you know I don’t like sending you out when there is no need.”

The Soldier hates team missions. He has no issues with killing—he’s rather good at it. The issue at hand is the lack of privacy, the dependence on one another, and the trust oozing from the Captain. The Soldier isn’t the best friend he so desperately wants, and he doesn’t know how to tell him that. Staying at the Tower is the best course of action in any situation. He frightens more people than he helps, and he would only get in the way. 

He doesn’t respond to the Captain. He remains quiet, his brow furrowed as he looks between the two angry men. 

“It’s a routine inspection, Cap. This would be the perfect opportunity to bring him and the vampire.”

His stomach clenches on itself, though he gives nothing away outwardly. He’s as still as ever, hands softly gripping the handles of the chair. He reminds himself to blink more than five times a minute, and that he needs to move more muscles than just his eyes. He’s too accustomed to being frozen for long periods of time. He is no stranger to perching for hours, to hiding in the shadows. The Captain had told him his lack of movement was uncanny. 

But the mere mention of the vampire—

She had not gone on any missions yet. Her recruitment was more of a trial-run, on the basis that her input about vampires proved to be worthwhile. But it had been a year and Stark and Banner were no closer to studying the intricacies of such creatures. All they knew, or all they assumed, was what they saw from her. And since she was not allowed out of the Tower or on missions yet, they had seen little. 

“What if she goes insane and feeds on a civilian?” the Colonel chimes in, shaking his head as the Captain scoffs at the accusation, “What? You don’t think she’d run given the first opportunity? I’ve told all of you that what you’re doing here is inhumane. Just because she hasn’t seen the sun in who knows how long doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to see a damn bakery or a night-time play. And keeping her locked up will trigger her to hurt someone sooner rather than later.”

The Soldier had never wondered about that. She and him were so alike that he just assumed she was content with her situation. He’d much rather be here than under the tentacles of Hydra. He believed she would much rather be here than in the sewers. 

And it hit him—

How did she feed now?

“JARVIS doesn’t necessarily divulge details, but she’s clean with her victims. Ah, you see that on my scrumptious arms? Goosebumps. I’ve caught her eyeing these veins.”

The Soldier tilts his head, interested. The Widow marks it. 

“She’s well-fed, then,” the Captain says, though the Soldier hears that subtle shake in his voice, “How do we know she won’t escape—”

“You’re acting like she’s our hostage,” the Widow snaps. She immediately casts an apology across the table. “If she escapes, she escapes. The sun will slow her down, and she knows it. You’re all debating this as if she’s tried. She hasn’t. She has caused no trouble so far. You’re all just too scared to send her out into the wild because you haven’t gotten to know her.”

The room silences. The man at the other far end of the table, the one he usually sees with metal wings across his broad shoulders, nods in agreement. At every briefing the Soldier has sat through, Wilson was the only one to ever bring her up in conversation. Small mentions that asked where she was at that very moment, if she had shared her family history yet, if she had fed and if not, was there anything he could do. The Soldier suspects Wilson would offer his own neck if the others agreed to it. 

He doesn’t like talking about her at these meetings. Everyone acts like they have the perfect read on her. They don’t—even he doesn’t. But he does have first-hand knowledge on what the strain of her lungs sounds like, and the exact timbre of her voice. The Soldier knew more than them, and it spoiled him rotten. 

“This is a controlled mission, Cap,” Wilson adds, shrugging. “I think this can be good for her. For Barnes. For you.”

The Soldier loosens a shoulder—the tiresome act of placating—and studies Wilson in the few seconds he’s afforded since the Captain is debating inside his head. Wilson is around his age, give or take a year or two, and he has never spoken ill about him before. He’s heard the Widow and Barton murmuring their distrust about the Soldier in the beginning, but he believes the Captain shut it down. Stark’s jokes were endless, but he finds them humorous sometimes. He is the only person to ever pull a smirk from him. Wilson never spoke bad about anyone. He doesn’t know if he likes that or not. He’s grateful in an odd way, but confused mostly. There are countless things to hate him for. Tender hearts are so easily breakable, and the Soldier finds he does not want to bruise Wilson’s. 

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” the Captain concedes. “Buck, you up for it?”

A choice. He’s not used to having choices. 

“Okay.”

—————

Clouds block the majority of the stars tonight. 

On nights like these, he focuses on the multi-colored lives of the occupants in surrounding apartments. There are some setting up Autumn colors, others keeping their sleek, modern aesthetic. The Soldier thinks he enjoys a splash of color. He has a habit of draining it all, but he likes it while it lasts. 

The apartments are sporadically lit. Many have retired to bed. There’s a family of four returning and passing around boxes of takeout. A woman sits up in bed and reads a large fantasy novel, her cat resting lazily at the edge of her silk sheets. A teenager adjusts his computer monitor and readies a new level on the game he’s playing, an empty pizza box on his desk. So many lives happening at once—it overwhelms the Soldier. He does nothing all day besides lay in bed and eat and bathe when he has to. He has been wanting to take up knitting—something to do with his hands. Loading and taking apart guns isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be.

“They are going to take you on a mission,” he says, passing the cigarette. Her expression remains impassive. She inhales deeper than usual, his only indication that his statement affected her.

“Oh.”

She’s quick to brush him off. Good. She’s not so easily rattled. “I am going, too,” he adds.

A shrug. She passes the cigarette back. He inhales, an odd flutter in his chest as he wraps his lips around the lipstick-stained stick. 

There’s a bruise on her jawline. Tilting his head, he follows the length of it. It takes him a moment, but he finally recognizes the shape. Five purpling indents, one palm-sized. 

He didn’t even know she could bruise. 

A sudden wave of rage nearly has him marching back into the Tower, ready to interrogate every team member at gunpoint. Their distrust shouldn’t warrant violence. Then the Soldier inhales the toxic smoke again, realizing that his emotions are pointless. The Soldier does not feel, nor does he feel sympathy for others. 

The Soldier questions the validity of that statement.

Still, he ponders who could have possibly injured her. The only ones able to inflict such pressure and not kill are him, the Captain, Stark while suited-up, and the God. But they had no evidence of what strength she could or could not handle—it was entirely plausible that a regular man hurt her. And since she does not leave the Tower, the man could have been one of her meals. 

Her meal fought back.

“How do you eat?” he asks before he can swallow it. He used to be punished for asking questions. 

She turns her head slowly. It’s unsettling to the Soldier, so much so that he averts his eyes. “You know what I eat.”

“I asked how. Not who.”  She blinks at him. “You don’t leave the Tower.”

This is the most they’ve spoken in one sitting. He always assumed she’d be the one to speak first. It seems she assumed the same.

“They bring me my meals.” A quick jump of his brow indicates his surprise. “You didn’t know that.”

He shakes his head. Does the Captain know? The Soldier had heard about interrogations happening at the Tower… Were these the same victims? 

“The bad ones they keep alive. Captives. I get my pick of the litter,” she explains, though her solemn expression betrays the joy in her tone.

“Does it bother you?” he asks. The Soldier doesn’t care—shouldn’t care—and yet, he asks.

“I don’t care.” It seems she’ll not care for the both of them.

He wonders how often she needs to feed. If blood is the only thing she needs to survive. His knowledge of vampire lore comes from a few, mediocre clicks around the internet. Most articles or opinions claim that blood is their life source, but the exact time-stamp vampires can go without it is still a mystery. If she were to go without, willingly or not, would she wither away? Would she simply cease to exist?—How peaceful that sounds, actually. Would it be painless or would she feel every second? The Soldier did not feel time pass when frozen, nor did he comprehend it when allowed to breathe on his own.

“Are you skilled with weapons?” he asks. Invasions of privacy, like the Captain said, were not always welcome naturally. The truth was so much easier to obtain with a gun in hand, harder to earn with a fake smile. What really mattered was having the mission go smoothly. Maybe then the rest of the team will leave him alone and stop trying to make him assimilate. Maybe if the mission went smoothly for her, she’d steal their attention. He would be free. Free to just be.

“I don’t need them, but I have them.”

Irritation is an emotion that encases him fully nowadays. Irritation, agitation, resignation. Her bluntness rivals his, and it's itching at his skin. He liked it before—what is different today? “I am going on this mission, too. I need to know what you are skilled at to ensure the mission is a success.”

She flicks the dead cigarette bud over the ledge, watching as it gradually shrinks from sight. It was their last one. He will bring an extra one tomorrow. 

“There are no stars tonight,” she laments. Her lips twist into a small pout, nearly invisible. She has pretty lips. “Goodnight.”

He waits until she’s gone to frown. The Soldier is confused. 

—————

The team likes to get together Friday nights and watch movies in the common room. Usually the film is chosen to satisfy the Captain’s ignorance. His too, he has found. Though no one but Wilson includes him in that conversation. 

The Captain, Stark, Banner, Wilson, and the Widow are the only ones present tonight. The younger agents are suspiciously absent, but he somewhat remembers Stark mentioning a Friday night outing. Figures, considering the ones in this room are easily recognizable. 

If he were to walk around Times Square, would he cause a panic? The Soldier has been photographed a few times since returning from the shadows and each time the news outlets treat him like an enemy of state. He is, in a sense. There are plenty of things he knows that can crumble governments, but there’s no point in sharing them now. He’s not at war. He’s not under control. But he wonders what it would be like to walk around and enjoy life. To go out with friends, to dance, to go feed some pigeons. He could try—the Captain will definitely go with him—but he doesn’t know how. After so many years of feeling the sour depths of his soul, how is he expected to break through the surface in one day? The urge to be normal gnaws at him, twisting and peeling flesh and muscle, but it is so much easier to just lie in bed. If enough time passes, maybe it will just happen. 

Time was going on, speeding past his memories and lungs. Too fast, so fast he couldn’t grab time’s dangling string to slow it down. He wanted to yank it back, scream at it that he’s trying to remember, and that his new memories are preventing him from finding the ones from before. There’s so much new information that he wanted to, needed to, slow time down. How was he ever able to be Bucky Barnes again if time prevented him?

He likes when the younger ones are around. They’re less judgmental. They actually try to speak with him. Granted, it’s stupid things like: “What was the Great Depression like?” or “Straight up, who was the harder kill? Kennedy or Stalin?” The Captain usually shuts them down, but he can’t help but chuckle from the absurdity of it once he’s alone. 

“Feels weird watching this outside of a seventh grade classroom, but I promise you Steve, it’s a classic,” Wilson says, clapping the Captain on a shoulder. “The Outsiders is a rite of passage, and you my friend have not truly assimilated until you watch it.”

Sitting on a stool rather than the giant couch, the Soldier takes immediate interest in what Wilson claims. If he wants to be normal again, shouldn’t he try with the basics? Watching a movie didn’t seem all that bad. 

He’s distracted by the repetitive popping in the microwave to feel the presence at the doorway. Everyone quiets, and the Soldier straightens. He marks the distance between him and the Widow, and though he’s positive she can protect herself, he debates how he would shield her with his body. 

But there is no weapon pointed at them or enemy breaching the premises—it’s her. 

She burrows deeper into her oversized sweater, the hood covering most of her forehead. She ducks cautiously, eyes squinted as she peeks at the overhead beams. She looks ashier in the artificial light, but no less beautiful. He’s seen her during the day before, but always when she was protected by shadows. 

“Fangs!” Stark cheers, the half-drunk beer bottle in his hand sloshing violently, “We’ve already chosen the movie so don’t bitch about it like Banner always does. Popcorn’s almost finished, and we’ve got wine in the fridge. You like reds or are you like Cap here? Can’t tear a moscato from his cold, dead paws even if you were the strongest person in the world.”

The Soldier gives Stark an incredulous glare, as does the Captain. Offering her food, mentioning cold, dead hands. It gladdens him, however, that though he is the most unpredictable person in the room, he isn’t the stupidest. 

“I personally like reds,” Wilson interjects, casually strolling forward to hit the light switch. She visibly relaxes. “Want me to pour you a glass? We can talk shit about Stark together as he learns how to play the movie.”

Stark mumbles something about how the cheapest technology is often the hardest to understand. Wilson leads her into the kitchen, innocently rambling about wine tours and tasting. The Soldier meets her eyes as she passes. There is simple acknowledgement, but no words. It’s as if they don’t know each other at all. 

He has no claim to that anyway. He shares as much as she does. 

She takes a glass of moscato, curiously. He would have assumed—and that’s just it, isn’t it? He assumed.

The others settle into their spots. She looks around, a peculiar look on her delicate face. Vampires were supposedly ageless, but he sees the age in her eyes, in how she holds up her head. He’s been told that while he wears the mask, his eyes look tortured. Like they’ve seen too much.  

Her eyes held an ancient power, tainted with misery, and yet all he finds himself wondering is what color they were before she changed.

She sits on the lone recliner closest to Wilson, tucking her knees in and leaning her upper body on a pillow. She balances her wine as she adjusts, ignoring the interested stares from the others. 

“I watched this movie when it first came out,” she shares, her voice an elegant whisper. The Captain watches her warily, as does Banner. 

“So did I. You’re not special,” Stark responds, clicking the play button. The Soldier stands, but he doesn’t know what for. To defend her? To add to the harassment? To walk out of the room? 

Her small chuckle surprises him. Surprises all of them. He takes one step forward, then another, until he too is a part of the group. He chooses to sit on the cushion just beside her recliner. If he had a cigarette, it wouldn’t be so different from all the other nights. 

The Captain attempts to ignore him, but ultimately fails. The Soldier senses his relief, his hope.

They watch the movie in comfortable silence, interrupted only by Stark’s or Wilson’s personal additions. He doesn’t mind, though. He likes the movie enough to quell that poisonous irritation. It’s toward the end when he looks at her, when his curiosity gets the best of him. 

There is a sunset on the screen. 

Silver glistens across her waterline. 

Then it’s gone, because nothing gold can stay. 

The Soldier resonates most with a simpler quote. He longs for normalcy, no matter how much he prefers solitude. The voice screaming in his head won’t let him forget it. He repeats the quote several times before the end credits: "I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me."

He used to tell himself that pain was temporary and that being put under would limit it—he always believed that one.

He’s angry that Johnny dies and that Dally kills himself. He’s angry because the Soldier cares about the Captain more than anything and would do the same. He’s angry that he, with his contaminated past and bloodied hands, can still watch the sunset. He’s angry because since she’s dead, she cannot.

—————

“I’m guessing there’s an angle here, Cap. Why else would she make nice now?”

Sometimes Stark made him question the team’s so-called heart. He assumes the Captain had to plead his case, and has continued to do so when the Soldier showed no signs of improvement. She hadn’t put up a fight when they informed her of the mission, nor did she ask any questions. The barest of nods and she was given her orders. He would have liked to be in the room when they discussed this, but he received the automatic manila folder outside his room door. 

Target: Male, 56, Hydra scientist maintaining one of eight remaining Hydra bases in North America. Assumed to be armed and dangerous. No history of super strength, night vision, or combat training. 

And in each folder the Soldier is given his team and his task. Sometimes he’d argue with the logistics considering he knew more than he let on, but this seemed simple enough. He sneers at the use of their code names. 

Soldier Objective: Joined by “Widow” and “Fangs”, retrieve the data on the main computer. Data pertaining to Hydra, Project Insight, Project Paperclip, and NASA is to be handled with care. The Soldier and Widow are cleared for hand-to-hand combat. 

He should have received everyone’s objective. To function as a team, as the Captain so desperately wants, he needs to know each detail. Knowing in advance saves lives, and omitting this now is going to get someone killed. 

As long as that someone isn’t the Captain or Wilson, the Soldier did not care as much as he should. 

Now, while walking through the dimly lit hallway with two women watching his six, he understands why the team made this her first mission. The base was mostly abandoned, there was a limited paper trail that was easy to follow, and it wasn’t too far from New York. A night-time mission usually meant difficult entryways or an ambush. He finds he enjoys the quiet walk and flickering lights, and the small conversation the Widow and the Vampire make. He’s still vigilant and hyper-focused on finding the computer lab, but he allows his mind to knock over one wall. 

The sound of women gossiping and giggling sounded a lot better than the complaints and curses of men. 

“Come on, there’s got to be someone on the team you think is hot.”

The Soldier rolls his eyes at the Widow’s comment. He doesn’t bother looking back. It’s the same thing every single time: the Widow asks the question, the Vampire answers. Neither of them include him, but he doesn’t mind. Though he sits with her every night, he doesn’t actually know much about her. And the short replies the Widow also offers make him feel… appreciative. He’s learning, he’s retaining, he’s—

He shakes his head when he compares this lesson to a filing system, as if the women guarding his back are mere test subjects, or targets. As if the information he’s learning could be used against them. 

It’s hard to rewire your brain, your thoughts. Once something has burrowed deep into each crevice, it’s hard to pull it out. Change is hard, rare, and celebrated once successful. The Soldier’s wiring needs to change if he is to ever learn anything new for the innocent purpose of being human. 

“I think the Captain is good looking,” she answers, huffing a laugh when the Widow hums in agreement. 

“He’s a tough one to crack.”

“But you’ve cracked him.”

The Widow waits for the Soldier to secure the corner before walking forward and punching in a code. He sees her narrow her eyes, a small smirk gracing her pale lips. 

“I am cracking him.”

The Soldier has seen the Captain blush around the Widow, has seen him shield her before others, and has always walked beside her in support. He didn’t think it meant anything—the Captain was kind to everyone. But there is a… tenderness shared between them. Perhaps cultivated over the long months they were searching for him. She and Wilson were the only ones who believed there was a chance they'd even find him.

“He likes you. His heart pumps quicker when you’re around.”

It should bother him that she’s exposing the Captain’s feelings. But the Captain deserves an intimate form of companionship, something to take his mind off the fact that the Soldier has no problem drowning in solitude.

“You can hear our blood?”

“Only when I concentrate.”

The Soldier lifts a hand to stop them. There’s a soft rustling behind the door they are meant to enter. Drawers being opened. If it is indeed their target, then Wilson and the Captain are running around for nothing. His unit wasn’t supposed to engage in any arrests—he has half a mind to just bring the Widow along. 

He splits them up. The Widow remains with him. He’ll confront the target as she works the computers. He turns to give the last order, but is softly interrupted. 

“There’s a back door just around the corner. I can pick it and blend into the shadows.”

The Soldier thinks about it, then nods. “Do not engage unless I order it.”

A misty rogue. Stark is insane—she could be useful on more daunting missions.

Armed with two shortswords, one gold and one ruby, she pulls on the hood of her cloak and gives them a small smile. A smile that said she’d follow his directions and remain hidden forever, if needed.

He and the Widow work in tandem, noiselessly picking the lock and creeping into the room. With her red hair pulled up, she shimmies along the wall quickly, heading for the largest of the six monitors. The only light comes from the handheld flashlight their target uses to read loose papers. His frantic eyes search for something along the black, redacted text. The Soldier simply struts forward, his mask doing most of the intimidation, his boots announcing his arrival. Their target clutches a file close to his chest as he retreats. Off to the side, the Soldier vaguely sees the back door open and close. 

“I’m unarmed,” their target squeals, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”

What ridiculous lies, he thinks. Hydra did not apologize, nor did they beg for ceasefires. They trained him to ignore such pleas, such excuses. And by the way the Soldier grips him by the neck to lift him, he was trained well. 

“When I let you go,” the Soldier says, his voice a deadly timbre, “give me the weapon you have at your back.”

The target struggles, his gurgling embarrassingly loud. A monitor brightens, and the Widow waves as she gets to work. The target, once recognizing her, loses most of his hope. He is dropped and the weapon clatters to the floor. The Soldier does not retrieve it—it is yanked into the shadows. 

“We thought you were dead,” he says, panicked eyes never leaving the mask. No one ever wanted to look him in the eyes. No one ever wanted to hear him speak. 

“I’m going to reach into your coat and grab that file. Make a move and I will break the first bone I come into contact with.”

“Mm,” the Widow hums, her downloads beeping one-by-one as they finish, “Steve frowns on that if they surrender willingly.”

“Complete the download,” he orders. He doesn’t like when the Widow rambles during these missions. The more he grows to enjoy her company, the more distracted he’s destined to get. The more he avoids interaction, the more efficient he’ll be. 

And lonely—

“It’s done,” she says, rolling her eyes. She stands at his side, arms crossed. “Just sedate him already so we can get out of this rusty hellhole—”

He turns to look at her. One quick glance at the red menace. That’s all it takes. 

The target draws a knife and whips it wildly, slashing the Widow across her neck. It’s unlike her to be so ill-prepared. The Soldier doesn’t know whether to press his palm across her neck or kill the target. This has never happened before. The team is going to question his capabilities, his true alliances, his reflexes, his empathy—

The target yelps in agony. The decision is made for the Soldier. 

He has no choice but to bend his neck to the hunter behind him, holding him close and ripping through his carotid. The Widow curses and holds her wound, her steady voice settling the awful worry in the pit of his stomach. 

Worry… For his team. He would smile if the situation wasn’t so chaotic.

The spray of blood is mostly contained. Her fangs dig so deep that blood seeping from the puncture is caught by her lips. Her lipstick stains his pale neck, paler now as she consumes him whole. Barely concealed by the shadows, she hungrily drinks without remorse. Payback. Her red eyes glow brighter than he’s ever seen them, black veins crawl and stretch from the corners, and he swears there’s smoke surrounding her strong body. Like a bad omen, a demon emerging from the depths of gloom itself.

He falls limp in her arms, his dead eyes blindly watching the Soldier as she drops him to the floor. His eyes were once blue. They’re white now.

“Are you okay?” she asks the Widow, standing somehow taller, solid. 

The Widow looks at her drenched hand and nods slowly. “I’m not opposed to one of you carrying me back.” The wound is superficial, but no less alarming. He picks her up and holds her close, signaling to his newly nourished partner. She gets the hint. Hauling the dead man over a shoulder, she waits for him to lead the way. 

Barton takes the Widow from his arms, his laughs overlapping her own. The Captain checks on her before marching over to him and the woman with dried blood on her neck, who then drops the target at the Captain’s feet.

“What the hell happened?” Anger. It’s an emotion so rare for the Captain. At least, it’s rare to the Soldier. 

“Concealed knife. I didn’t check him thoroughly,” he answers, his explanation true enough. He should have known even Hydra scientists kept an extra weapon on their person at all times, especially small ones. He just didn’t think the Widow would get nicked so easily—that she didn’t see that coming at all. 

“But why is he dead?”

She raises her reddened chin at him to boldly say, “He attacked. The downloads were complete. We weren’t even supposed to run into him. That was your job.”

It’s obvious the Captain wasn’t expecting her response. Immediately his face loosens and his shoulders do that guilty-drop the Soldier sees often. “You’re right. Your team wasn’t supposed to encounter him at all. It’s a mistake on my end.”

“Not that we didn’t have muscle to defend ourselves,” she lightly jokes, then kicks the pale body on the floor. 

“We’re going to have to report this.”

“Do what you must.”

“And—” the Captain strains, looking to the Soldier for assistance. But he knows what he’s about to say, and gears up to fight it. “And because this is an on-duty death, you need to go to psych.”

“Don’t send her there,” the Soldier cuts in, his stomach dropping. “Say I killed him. Just don’t send her there.”

“That’s not how this works, Buck.”

“Psych is a glorified therapy session that fails to help even the lowest of street cops. It’s judgment, not help.”

“I can’t override it.”

The Soldier sighs, argument after argument swirling in the mess of his mind. The times he went to psych were all the same. Constructed in a way that made him feel like killing was always the wrong choice. Neglecting that now, he has the choice. Sometimes he’ll claim a stray bullet, but the majority of his kills are necessary. They are strategic. They are his own. 

“It’s fine,” she says, tilting her head at her kill. “Not the first time I’ve been evaluated.”

“Psych can be bypassed if the kill was a team-effort. I’ll see if I can get Fury to sign off on it.”

She shakes her head at the Captain. “You wanted to know more about my life, yes? I’m assuming these things aren’t confidential to you or Stark… But when you do go talking about me to the others, make sure to mention that I drained him dry.”

—————

"Do you hate me for it?"

The Soldier offers an unimpressed look. He hands her the cigarette and blows out the smoke burning his throat. “Funny.”

There’s a quirk at her lip. She takes a longer drag than usual, trying to mask it.

“They all hated me for it back then.”

“Who?”

“Family. Friends. Enemies. Lovers.”

“And you cared what they thought?”

She shrugs, stealing a second drag. “At the time.”

Her lipstick is a brownish-maroon today, and he finds himself studying the tint before bringing the cigarette back to his mouth. He doesn’t share anything nowadays besides cigarettes and a living room. The Captain offers him food, money, advice—the Soldier takes but never gives. 

Her face contorts slightly, her jaw ticking. Such extravagant movements for the simple outcome of showing her four canines. The points extend maybe half a centimeter longer than the rest of her teeth. Because of her minimal overbite, the teeth slide perfectly against one another. She runs her tongue over the top two.

He wonders how his victims would have reacted if they got to see the lower half of his face. There would have been no smile accompanying the kills. He had growled from frustration, to incite fear. Teeth weren’t necessarily frightening. They’re a barrier to words, the shield for tongues, the blades against intruders. Her teeth were her life-force, the blades needed to let those intruders in. 

“How was your evaluation?”

A small snort. He looks at her—her ancient grace, the absence of grays at her roots, her glaring red eyes. 

“They kept asking if the smell of Natasha’s blood affected me.”

“Judging by your nonchalance, I’d say you went completely feral over it.”

Another quirk at her lip. He likes the movement. 

“You believe that I wouldn’t attack any one of you. Thanks.”

He does. She hasn’t attacked him up here, hasn’t attacked anyone on the team, and has never tried to escape to wreak havoc on the city. He doesn’t tell her he does, but she feels it somehow. Her shoulders loosen.

The tension slowly dissipates from his body as well—a revelation both amazing and concerning. The Soldier should never have his guard down. He should always be prepared for a fight.

“The ones they bring me are always so happy to be led to their deaths,” she says, a small frown quickly forming then disappearing. “Sometimes I wait until they’re asleep. Or when they’re facing the other way. Sometimes I drain them when they’re inside of me.”

He blinks. “You have sex with them?”

“I never leave the Tower. I can’t leave. I’ve been living alone for so long that I don’t even think I can go into the real world and bring someone home. Would you know how?”

He doesn’t need to think about such a ridiculous possibility. He can’t even find it within himself to give Wilson a matching pat-on-the-back. “No.”

She gives a small nod. Absent of pity, filled with strange empathy. “I tell them they’re going to die. I ask them how they would like to go. They choose that most of the time.” She chuckles, “I only offer it to the cute ones.”

“They’re bad people, though.”

“They’re dying anyway. Might as well die feeding me.”

He doesn’t remember it, but the Soldier considers sex—or pleasure, really—to be too much of a gift. The people they capture and keep to interrogate are scum of the Earth, his tormentors. She’s rewarding his villains. 

Anger floods his chest, violent and nasty. She snatches the cigarette from his rigid fingers. 

He could push her off the ledge. No one will miss her. He will. She’ll probably survive the tremendous fall. She’ll continue the cycle. She can’t leave the Tower. He can’t leave the Tower. 

“I don’t have to sleep with them,” she says, her voice so quiet he wouldn’t be able to hear without his advancements. “But when I do, they taste a little sweeter. I haven’t had sweets in so long… Not since my birthday. Did you know I died on my birthday? My mom bought me chocolate instead of donating those five cents to the war effort. I wasn’t a child anymore but she never forgot my birthday… So, I can make it through ten minutes of boring sex. And when it’s done, for a blessed moment, I remember the taste of sugar and my mom’s smile when I broke the bar in two so we could share.”

For the first time in a long time, the Soldier is speechless. Because he sympathizes… A once frozen emotion thawed by the mention of chocolate and a mother. He tries and fails to remember his own mother’s face. After so many years of only being able to see his eyes, he prays they matched hers. After so many years of being force-fed genetically-modified trash, he has forgotten the taste of chocolate.

His anger is replaced by a solemn peculiarity that itches along his insides. He is aware of his loss, her loss, the logic in her kills. She feeds blindly in the hopes of feeling whole again. Has he done anything to feel whole again besides bury the screams lower and lower? 

“I was feral today because we were never supposed to come into contact with the target and he almost hurt you. He managed to hurt Natasha. I did what I had to do.”

And she was being punished for it. 

“He tasted disgusting, by the way.”

The Soldier, honest to God, laughs. Not expecting it, her shoulders tense and she jumps a little. He shoots his flesh hand out to hold her still, gripping her thigh as she pulls her gaze back up. Instinct—he does not want her to fall after all. 

“Sorry,” he says, surprising himself. Then, as he allows a tendril of Bucky Barnes to escape through the walls he had forged from steel, he jokes, “I’m still stuck on the fact that when you fuck, you think of your mother’s face.”

His ill-timed vulgarity is rewarded with a sudden cackle of her own, a vicious and underutilized sound that pulls her lips back and showcases all four sharp canines in their primal glory. Crinkles by her eyes, she sits with the aftershocks of it.

He gives her the first drag of their last cigarette.

—————

He had been exiting the Tower with Wilson when it started.

Three large booms above had them ducking for cover. Debris slammed into the concrete and damaged parked cars while burnt furniture landed in odd angles after barely missing pedestrians. Smoke clouded their aerial view—there was no way Wilson was going to be able to fly through the black cloud blind. It was up to Stark and the Colonel to fly directly from the roof. 

“Cap, what the hell was that?” Wilson yelled into his phone. He directed the floor staff away from the building and into the cafe next door. The Soldier analyzed each person, their expressions, the things in their hands. The smoke blocked his view of the lower rooftops. No one tried storming the bottom floor. There were no planes or helicopters around, and the glass had shattered outwards. 

The threat was internal. 

“It seems one of our captives managed to plant explosives before—” The Captain stops, his voice heavy with exertion. “JARVIS doesn’t think we’ve been compromised or that there are any intruders. Just good ol’ fashion bombs.”

“We’ll get everyone down here to safety. You guys handle the top,” Wilson says, wiping a nervous hand over his head. 

“Ask him which type of captive it was,” the Soldier tells him, failing to keep his rising panic leveled. Wilson’s bewilderment is marked in his brow, but he asks anyway. 

“He doesn’t understand the question—”

“Was it one of the captives we sent back to the police or was it one we sent to be fed on?”

Wilson waits for the Captain to clarify, still not understanding the danger of the situation. “Fed on.”

The Soldier sprints back into the Tower and clicks the elevator button, cursing when the lights flicker out. Stark and the Colonel were busy flying people out, the Widow and the Captain were securing the floor, Banner was putting out the fire with the young ones, and the God was probably doing all three things. Though all honorable, they were also clueless. Because if the explosion had happened on her floor, there was no floor left. No walls. No tinted glass. And though there was black smoke clogging everyone’s nostrils and burning everyone’s vision, the sun was still shining. 

“Come outside again and bend your knees,” someone orders from behind him. The Witch tilts her red head at him, a regal seriousness twinkling in her eyes. He does as she says. She contorts her glowing hands, and he is lifted through the thick cloud and past several dozen floors before landing on the seventy-seventh.  

Flames nip at his exposed arms, but the burn is nothing compared to the strain on his lungs. He limits his deep gulps and barrels through turned furniture and glass. Screams come from further down the collapsed hall, but he hears Banner amongst them.

“Rogers!” he yells, swiping at exposed wires hanging in his way. Electricity shoots up his metal arm, momentarily paralyzing it. He holds his breath and waits for the upgraded vibranium to reboot. 

“Bucky! Over here!”

“Did you find her?” he asks when he reaches the Captain, dodging Tower employees on their way to the Colonel a few feet away. The Colonel flies three down at once, his return time averaging ten seconds. At this rate, ten more trips and the entire floor should be evacuated. 

“I can’t see anything past this damn smoke!” the Captain explains, coughing loudly as he brushes stray ash off the Soldier’s singed shoulder. He allows the touch, feeling gratitude rather than his usual discomfort. “She’d be knocked out by now. This smoke is killing me.”

He shakes his head. “She doesn’t have to breathe. The smoke isn’t the issue. If I was her, I would hop from shadow to shadow, but she can’t even see those. One wrong move and she could step directly into the sunlight.”

“She doesn’t have to breathe?” he asks. Fascination paints the Captain’s face before he switches again. “What do you suggest?”

“Don’t ask why I know, but I know you and I can hold our breaths for at least three minutes before we need air.”

Hydra loved their experiments. The Soldier is grateful he doesn’t have to do this underwater. 

“Then I’m right behind you, Barnes.”

They stalk through the heavy smoke carefully, using the collars of their t-shirts to wipe the burn at their eyes and to inhale deeply after the first three minutes. There is no sign of their resident vampire, only debris and some of Stark’s failed experiments. The floor above had also fallen, but the steel beams were still intact. No one lived above or below her, but that didn’t mean Stark hadn’t splurged on unnecessary furniture and decorations. Each step they took was a cautious one. Only the Soldier could push and pull burning wood and fabric out of their path without risk of burns, and the shield covered their heads as glass fell through the floor above. It would take Stark approximately a week to repair this, but for now the Soldier thanks whatever entity listening that the damage wasn’t catastrophic. 

He had just started to call this place a home. The only place where he was afforded solitude. Choice. 

Having it burned to the ground should have sent him on a spiral, a thought that irritated him more than scared him. He doesn’t like starting over from scratch. It was hard enough to do the first time without a base. But all the thoughts occupying his head right now are about her, how this is her home too, and that she needed his help.

“Buck! Over here!” 

The Captain tries lifting the large stone of concrete blocking the small sanctuary she’s hidden in, but it’s no use. The surrounding glass and heated metal are pinching and burning his palms. She does not scream for help, nor does she alert them of her location. She’s eerily quiet. 

He looks around, then down at his own body. He’s wearing black, and the Captain is wearing white. They have to be quick.

“Move!” he tells him. In sync, the Soldier slides his metal arm beneath the concrete and lifts—the Captain reads his mind verbatim, stripping himself of his shirt and preparing to wrap her upper half. She screams in agony, the sound scraping along the walls of his matted skull. The Captain barrels into the small crevice, shielding her with his body. 

“We’ve got you,” the Captain says gently, coughing off to the side. The Soldier can’t see her, but he trusts the Captain’s calm reaction. 

“Go!” he yells, the concrete slab pulling at his shoulder. Ten more seconds and he’s going down with it. 

The Captain picks her up and runs in the direction they came from, the Soldier following. He can’t see her face, but he can see her arms. What looks like silver rashes blister and boil as they hang in full view of the sunlight. 

He catches up to them, adds to their shield, and dares to hold her limp hand in his.

—————

She doesn’t go to the roof the next four nights. He does not smoke without her, but he brings a pack just in case.

The Soldier sits on the ledge, scarily desperate to be spoken to, alone with his own damning thoughts.

—————

He sneaks into the Captain’s snack cupboard in the middle of the night. There are chips of all sorts and flavors, packaged noodles, and packets of sauces from various restaurants. The chocolate is in a box of its own, three or four bars already missing. It’s one of those famous brands, popular during his time and still. With a final glance down the quiet hall, he steals a bar and closes the cupboard.

The silky wrapping is familiar to both his metal and flesh hand. He has eaten this candy before. A lifetime ago. Another person ago.

He peels the wrapping and breaks off a single rectangular piece. Crisp and clean. He slides his flesh fingertips together, smoothing the chocolate into his skin. The smell is overwhelmingly intriguing, so much so that his mouth waters. 

He bites the warmed chocolate, swishing it around his tongue. Vanilla, caramelized sugar—the creamy texture suits the sweetness, the aroma of cocoa soothing the tension at the base of his neck. He takes another small bite, and this time he has a vision of a woman’s face, older by maybe a year or two. The same eyes, hair color, and top lip as him.

Bucky Barnes had a sister. He had a sister. She liked chocolate. He bought her a bar with his first paycheck. He remembers something other than bloodshed and angry voices. He remembers his sister’s eyes and the fact he was a working man when it counted the most. He wipes at his wet eyes with the back of his metal hand, wincing from the scratch. 

“I had the same reaction when I tried chocolate again after I woke up.”

The Soldier doesn’t move a muscle. He watches the Captain approach the counter with a good-natured smirk. He holds his hand out, waiting. The Soldier hesitates—and it hits him then that he wouldn’t be able to share the chocolate with her anyways—but he breaks a piece for the Captain. Whether it’s because his whole opinion on the Captain has changed after he protected her with his own body, or because the Soldier wants to take one cautious step forward on the path to healing, so be it. He doesn’t make a fuss about the sharing, just brings the chocolate to his mouth and enjoys the piece just as the Soldier did. 

“Dernier used to rant about how French chocolate was elite,” the Captain chuckles. He lifts himself onto the counter. His sleep attire consists of gray sweatpants and those tight, white t-shirts the Widow buys him. As he rakes his eyes further, the Soldier nearly cackles from the sight of the Captain’s black and yellow socks depicting small, alien-like cartoons with goggles and overalls. 

Steve Rogers used to sleep in socks all the time. The Captain does the same. 

“Did we ever eat chocolate during our time on the front line?” he asks. The Soldier uses the roof of his mouth to somehow spread the flavors. 

“They sent us some packaged kits but it wasn’t the same. This chocolate is made from cooked milk, not powdered. We didn’t complain, though. It was nice to taste something from home, even if it didn’t exactly match Ma’s baking. But Falsworth found some real chocolate in a bombed bakery right outside of Poznań—”

“It was Morita.”

The Captain blinks. “What?”

“Falsworth pointed out the bakery, but Morita was the only one with big enough balls to actually go in there and bring us back the sweets. He grabbed some flour and sugar bags, too.”

The Captain chews his piece slowly, his gaze never leaving the Soldier’s. Fascination, sorrow, elation—all of it fighting to overtake one face. He doesn’t like that he can’t pinpoint the exact emotion attacking the Captain, or that they don’t match the four primary ones. 

“Yeah, Buck. You’re right. It was Morita.”

That screaming voice in his head quiets now, opting for a more subtle cheering. Pride, he realizes. 

The Soldier shares the rest of the chocolate bar with the Captain, and then another, all while they reminisce about the Howling Commandos. It’s equal parts warped memories and clear ones. But that doesn’t matter, because what he doesn’t remember the Captain clarifies, and vice versa.  

—————

A week after the attack, the Soldier is the first one to arrive on the roof, cigarette box in hand. He has gone every night, and every night he has sat alone. The absence of the undead shadow he’s come to expect is odd, almost as if his presence alone unsettled the unnatural balance of things. Death was natural, but she defied it.

This felt too normal. 

The roof door opens. He hasn’t opened the new pack yet. She takes small steps to the ledge, wincing slightly as she swings her right leg over. He watches her and says nothing—the team doesn’t speak about their injuries unless they’re serious, and she doesn’t speak to anyone at all. 

He’s never asked her about her relationship with the others. He only knows how she is with him. It feels unbalanced somehow. She knows more about his character now than anyone else, besides the Captain, because he doesn’t speak with anyone else. He doesn’t know what she does with the other twenty-one hours of her day. He feels he’s allowed to ask considering just how vulnerable he’s seen her. A small part of him feels like that’s taking advantage. 

“You could have started without me,” she says, the low timbre of her voice still strong enough to raise the hair on his arms. Not even the upcoming seasonal chill has succeeded in that. He doesn’t get cold often. Unless he’s dreaming. 

“They don’t taste the same if I do.”

It’s bold, what he says. She’ll think he means a cigarette is best shared with a friend and conversation. He won’t tell her the two reasons he smokes at all: It elicits a soothing, guttural response that sends him back to midnight campfires serenaded by distant stories of home, and because he’s come to enjoy the taste of red, of brown, of pink, inked at the white base. 

She hums lightly and finally swings her left leg over. Again the movement seems to hurt her. He notices her skin is ashier, cracking where her laugh lines would be, and her red eyes emit a soft glow. Her lips are nearly white and her hair refuses to hold in any natural moisture. She’s drying up, and yet she takes the cigarette he offers and inhales until decayed lungs inflate. 

“You look terrible.” The trapped voice within him curses at him relentlessly, probably begging to be sent to the front lines to take over this battle for him. Flirting was Bucky Barnes’ thing, not the Soldier's. Then again, the Soldier doesn’t think he’s trying to flirt. But he doesn’t want to dismiss her either. 

“Yeah, that happens when I go a few days without eating.”

“They’re not bringing you food?”

“They’re repairing my floor. Their minds are elsewhere.”

“But… You look terrible.”

He shuts himself up by taking a long puff, avoiding her amused gaze. He’s not trying to be funny, but it does make him feel a little better to know she isn’t taking his careless words seriously. 

“I haven’t left the guest room. The windows on your floor aren’t made for my condition.”

How could the team, how could he, be so clueless? He should have checked on her when she didn’t come the first night. Should have knocked on her door and checked if she had enough damn pillows. Banner should have visited and taken the opportunity to ask those subtle but obvious questions. 

“How long can you go without?”

“Forever. I won't die from it.”

“But how long before it hurts?”

The question surprises her. She takes the cigarette from his fingers cautiously, as if the question was tied to a physical one. He’s aware that she’s physically weak, vulnerable, open to prodding—completely exposed. 

She thinks for a moment before saying, her shoulders hunched and eyes glowing softly, “It hurts right now.”

He does not think before saying, as he snatches the smoke back and gets a little lost in the brown lip stain he can now taste wholly, “What would happen if you drank from me?”

Her eyes widen ever so slightly. Both curiosity and outright distaste floods her once calm expression. He should be offended by that, but instead he waits. Strangely… excited for her answer. 

“I’ve never had a true, willing victim before.”

“Don’t call me a victim.”

“I’ve never had a true, willing supper-plate before.”

“Better.”

 She huffs a short laugh. “As hungry as I am, drinking from you would be a poor decision.”

Because of the serum, because of the bite marks, because they barely know one another—the reasons are endless, really. But the Soldier wants to help, and wanting is rare. 

“Do you have to kill?”

“No.”

“Will it leave a mark?”

“A little one.”

“How much do you need?”

“As much as the typical person would donate.”

“Have you ever gotten sick from someone’s blood?”

She takes a long drag, contemplative. “Once.”

He realizes that for the first time in a long time he knows more about the science portion of things, rather than the brutal aspects, before Banner and Stark. Not even psych got these specifics. He is truly two steps ahead, and something like… greed, envelops him. A peculiar type of greed—a fanatical smugness at the fact that he of all people has taken the time to learn something the others have given up prying for. 

The Soldier, for once, is being considerate. Elation pools in his empty stomach because of her hesitation—because she is considering his well-being. 

He nods, his decision final. “Drink from me.”

“Quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“You’re killing yourself because you won’t ask for help.”

“Asking for help,” she drawls sarcastically, frowning. She flicks the dud into the aerial abyss and reaches for their second cigarette of the night. “Have you asked for it?”

He lights the end for her. “I don’t need help.”

“You’re just as isolated as I am. According to Natasha, we’re unhealthy.”

“My seams aren’t unraveling as we speak.” Even as he says it, he knows she’ll counter it.

“That’s the difference. You can see mine. Your seams are in here,” she explains, pointing at her own temple. “I’ve accepted my death a long time ago.”

His brow draws together. “If that were true, you would stay here until the sun came up.”

Shaking her head, she blows the smoke out in two short spurts. “Mostly everything about being human is dead to me. My heart no longer beats. If I don’t mask it with perfume, you’ll start smelling rotting meat. I sleep, maybe, ten days of the year. Wine is the only human thing I can consume without vomiting. I am a dying paradox, forced to pretend. But my mind is my own, and though my heart is frozen, it’s still there. I may be dead, but I don’t want to die.”

The Soldier wakes each morning, his mind finally his own, his heart somehow intact. He has a team who tries to support him, a friend who would destroy the world for the memory of him, and a vampire companion he has never thanked for simply being there. His heart beats the same as it did in 1945, he sleeps a full night through one-hundred days of the year, and he hasn’t drank wine since moving into the Tower. He is living, and yet he has no life. He is forced to pretend to be Bucky Barnes, forced to automate the husk of a living paradox. They tried to kill the human part of him, and when they partially succeeded, he wanted to die along with it. His memory is dead, slowly reviving, and he doesn’t want to die now. 

He makes an apathetic noise, unwilling to reveal just how much her vulnerability burrowed into his own. “The offer is still on the table.”

The cigarette is halved. 

“It’ll hurt a little bit.”

“As long as you don’t kill me.”

She considers once more, even studying his neck as she does. The Soldier has been at the will of others before, but this is different. He chose this.

“Then get comfortable. I don’t want you falling over.”

Their feet hit the roof at the same time. It’s the first time he notices how much taller he is. The second cigarette is flicked away, the third—for now—stays in the pack. She dusts the back of her sweatpants off, cleaning her arms next. She’s nervous, he realizes. That funny smugness comes back, stronger than before. 

“Take as much as you need,” he offers, his smirk widening when she rolls her eyes. She crosses her arms and inspects him head to toe, a smirk of her own to match his. It’s suddenly intimate. Her eyes glimmer and shine so bright he no longer wants to lift his head to see the natural wonders—the two brilliant rubies taking him apart piece by piece are the most unnatural wonders in the world. What does he look like to her? Is there a scarlet glow outlining his body? Can she see the way his index and thumb tap together, the only physical sign of nerves he’ll show anyone. Can she hear his steady heartbeat, trained to combat adrenaline, and through the ruse can she see how desperately Bucky Barnes is banging on the walls to escape? Not to oppose the incoming bite, but to be the one to feel a woman’s mouth on him again. The Soldier apologizes to him, promises that it isn’t anything sexual, and whispers that he’ll break him out soon. Little by little, he’ll help pull the dead man inside of him to the surface. 

“Tilt your head for me,” she gently instructs. She swallows hard. He does as he’s told. 

Slowly, she creeps forward. Close enough that he should feel her hot breath, but there’s nothing at all. Her cold palms rest on his cheeks, scratching against his stubble, the pads of her thumbs near the corners of his parted mouth. Boldly, she traces a hand down his angled neck—pauses—then hooks his hair behind his ear. The Soldier involuntarily shivers, but he does not reprimand himself. 

“Ready,” she murmurs, excitement glimmering in the swirl of crimson. Are his gray ones just as potent?

“As I’ll ever be.”

Just as they did back at the Hydra base, the skin around her eyes deepens in color, black veins extending far down her cheeks. Her fangs, once hidden by her tempting lips, nudge his neck. Four needle points, though the two on top are the first to puncture him. He hisses softly but quickly relaxes into her strong hold, their chests pressed together. Before he can encourage her, she bites down. 

It’s… 

Otherworldly. Bizarre. Erotic. 

She moans as she drinks, and he—matches it. 

One hand delicately holds the other side of his neck, the other trailing to his waist. He can’t trust that she knows exactly what she’s doing, lost in her bloodlust, so he tries to ignore it. Tries to ignore the serum rushing to heal his wound and the once dormant, primal reaction of his blood rushing south. But she drinks plenty, greedily, and he’ll offer her more still. 

She detaches herself, licking at the injury. He shuts his eyes and suppresses a groan. She takes this reaction as pain, however. 

“Did I hurt you?”

He shakes his head. “Was that enough?”

“Can you handle a little more?” He nods, and she punctures him again. 

He gets lightheaded the longer she drinks, but it’s worth it. Her skin is returning to its natural shade, her eyes are dimming, her lips are moistening. Even her grip feels stronger. Unlike the last time, there is no smoke circling them. She is simply feeding, visible to the elements. Visible to him. 

And apparently, visible to their first ever trespassers. 

“Three seconds, Fangs! One, two—”

The Soldier throws a knife backward just as she removes her bloodied teeth, landing a perfect stab in one of the crevices in Stark’s suit. The Colonel sneaks up behind her and hauls her up into the air. Stark flies behind him, holding his arms to his sides. 

“I always knew you were into some kinky shit, Sergeant. But unsupervised? BDSM one-oh-one, make sure your partner can be trusted.”

“Let me go,” he warns. Then, deeper and more brutal, “Let her go.”

Stark scoffs, but lets him go anyway. “She was just eating you. I think your sympathies are leaning toward the Axis—”

“She wasn’t hurting me! I let her feed because you bastards haven’t fed her in days!”

Stark and the Colonel pause, their eyes meeting. The latter seems more surprised. “Shit, Tony. Is that true?”

“Hold on, hold on, back up. Let me think about this.”

The Colonel interjects, his brow rising. “What’s there to think about? Did you feed her or not? Did you let her starve?”

“I’m not in charge of it!” Stark makes a small hand motion to tell the Colonel to let her down. The second her feet hit the roof, she’s wiping his blood from her jaw. He wants to tell her not to. It was her claim, her right. She need not be ashamed for simply surviving. “But I can see where our wires have gotten crossed,” Stark concedes.

The Soldier leaves his neck as is. Blood slowly trickles to his collarbones and into his t-shirt. Stark follows it, the slightest twinge of curiosity flashing across his bearded face. 

The Soldier steps closer to him, his gaze enough to unravel even the strongest of men. “How can you forget one of your own?”

Still, Stark persists, his self-assurance unrelenting. “If you haven’t noticed, Barnes—You two are the most reclusive, secretive, stone-faced people on this team. I avert my eyes whenever one of you even enters the room.”

“I didn’t hurt him.”

They all turn to her. He hates how small her voice sounds, how modest she makes herself. To defend herself. 

“Yeah, we see that,” Stark says, rubbing his temples. “Don’t know why we bothered. If he wanted you dead, I’d suspect you’d be… deader.” 

“Then leave,” the Soldier grinds out.

“Barnes—” the Colonel sighs. He extracts himself from his suit, the silver absorbing the moonlight. “We just caught her feeding from you.”

“With permission.”

Stark mumbles, “Glad to know the Winter Soldier is all about consent—”

“We need to report this. She’s never… She’s never done that before,” the Colonel decides, though his expression tells him he’s in battle with his own words. “And if it’s because we’ve made her recruitment mirror captivity, then we need to re-evaluate the ethics, Tony.”

“For now, no one is allowed on the roof.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s fine,” she says, straightening her shoulders. “I put you in danger and they saw what they saw. If I want to be a part of the team, they need to know everything, right?”

The Colonel steps back into his suit, the closure of his mask unsettling something within the Soldier. Masks function as detachment, as a lie. He knows the man underneath, but he is forced to make peace with the myth. 

“Meet us bright and early in the lab,” Stark orders her, masking himself as well. He motions for her to follow.

Before the door shuts, she looks over her shoulder. No mask in sight. 

“Smells like cigarettes up here,” Stark mutters, coughing dramatically.

—————

She is restricted to the lab for the next two days and ordered to complete another round of psych. No matter how often he threatens to put a knife in Stark’s neck, he doesn’t budge. The Captain swears that no invasive procedures are taking place, that he is present for any and all questions Stark and Banner are throwing at her. He says she is cooperating, even telling them how and how often she needs to feed in order to be effective in battle. They find that the serum did not affect her at all.

But when he sees her at the end of her imprisonment, her red irises no longer hold an excited or even tame glow. They are void. 

They remind him of his own. 

And he is terrified.

—————

He awakens with a jolt, immediately pulling the gun from underneath his pillow and aiming at the intruder with sleepy eyes but steady hands. The shadows do little to conceal her, especially with the slight glow from her eyes and the fact that the moon shines upon her. She’s forgone her usual black clothing tonight, and instead dons pink—a cotton two-piece night set. Slight collar on the shirt, shorts for bottoms. Pockets. If he didn’t recognize her shadow like his very own, he’d wonder who exactly was standing at the edge of his bed, watching him sleep. 

“Shoot me. I want to see what happens.”

He lowers the weapon, glaring at her playfully. “Funny.”

“Never been shot before. Curiosity kills me daily.”

“Can you bleed out?”

“I can bleed. But no, I can’t bleed out.”

“Is it your blood?”

“No. It’s the blood I consume. I use it for energy.”

“What are you doing in my room?”

She smirks, shrugging her shoulders as if her unannounced presence is normal. “I knew they were going to bar you from the rooftop and were going to send me my dinner around this time, so I took the opportunity.”

He draws himself further up the bed, his naked chest on display. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he pats the space beside him at the same time. He hears her snicker, the accidental innuendo making him blush. It’s a weird feeling—to be thought of in that way. To think in that way. 

She hops in beside him but stays above the blanket. He raises a brow. 

“I would only make your bed colder.”

It truly is like lying beside a cadaver. She produces little heat when she feeds, but this… This is her natural state. He feels it all, distinguishable from the natural chill of night and three feet of distance. 

“Do you like being cold?”

“It makes summers easier.”

“You’re inside all the time.”

“In general.”

He hums and brings a pillow up to clutch against his stomach. 

“What are you really doing here?”

She shrugs. “I’m public enemy number one right now. The Captain and Wanda may still like me, but I don’t talk to them. Not like how I talk to you.”

“I’m not the friend you want to talk to about your feelings, or have braid your hair.”

“Damn, and I was really looking forward to that.”

He rolls his eyes. The moonlight slices through the curtains of his bare bedroom, cutting right through them. They are separated by the light, and in a peculiar turn of events, he envies the moon for it. The one constant that brought them together, now splitting them in half. 

“When do you think they’ll calm down?”

“Depends on how willing they are to listen to me.”

“Well, you’re hardly ever wrong.”

“I’m never wrong.”

“Hardly. So, I guess what you say is good news.”

He chuckles, the barest of brushes with their shoulders igniting an ache in his stomach. He wonders if she is similarly affected. If she, too, feels the odd connection between them blossoming into something stranger. He is used to feeling nothing at all—conditioned—and yet, skin-to-skin is like learning a whole new language. Fluent in many, the Soldier believes this language of silence is exclusively their own.

“I’m sorry Stark and Banner kept you in the lab for so long.”

“They let me wander.”

His lip quirks. “Did you give them what they wanted?”

“Do you mean, did I break?”

“Were they trying to break you?”

She opens her mouth to say something, something witty he assumes, but she chooses not to. Instead, she shakes her head and bares honest eyes. “No. But I told them what they needed to know. Over time, they’ll start feeling like teammates. And I, a part of the team. They need to know about my condition, and when I’m ready, they’ll know me.” 

He realizes why her impassiveness used to irk him so—she is him, he is her. They are carbon-copies. He is speaking to himself, and he sees and feels what the Captain does. Sadness. Emitting from her, growing within him.

“Do you enjoy being excluded?”

“Do I enjoy being alone?”

“Same thing.”

She rearranges her legs, crossing the right one over the left. “It’s not the same thing. Being alone is for peace of mind. Exclusion is… forced.”

“Isolation, then. Like what Stark said. Basking in our reclusiveness.”

“I’ve been alone a long time. I find comfort in it, but I don’t like being lonely.”

“I’m not following.”

She smiles, turning to look at him. He meets her eyes—there’s a shimmer of gold in them. “I came here tonight because I don’t like being alone at this hour anymore. I like our silence. Our proximity. I’m not lonely when I’m with you, but we can be alone together.”

“Ah,” he sighs. Nervously, he holds her stare and says, “I like our time together, too.”

It’s refreshing, being open. Usually he delivers truths bluntly, honesty with a punch, and information without remorse. With her, it’s easier to be the Soldier. It’s easier to try and reach deep into the pit of what’s left of his soul, and pull out Bucky Barnes.

“Natasha’s nice. We can invite her to smoke with us.”

“No.”

She laughs. “Noted.”

“What about Wilson?”

“He wouldn’t smoke, but he’d be fun in conversation.”

“You speak to him often?”

She hums, considering. “He always speaks to me if I’m in the room. The Captain, too.”

He likes that—people he considers friends treating her kindly.

“What do you talk about?”

“The weather, mostly.”

He snorts, the sound completely unflattering. She doesn’t seem to mind. “Idiots. Do they describe the sun to you, too?”

She laughs again, the original melody caressing his skin. “I don’t blame them. I’m pretty closed off during the day.”

“You should come train with me sometime. The windows can be covered.”

“I forget you’re the expert with knives around here.”

“Knives, yes. Daggers, no.”

She moves to sit criss-crossed, facing him. “It’s not all that different. Plus, what I use are more like shortswords anyway.”

“How old are you again?”

She grins, fangs and all. Beckoning him, his blood. He sits up higher. 

“Never ask a lady her age.”

“I see times haven’t changed.”

“What else do you remember from those times?”

A little, he wants to say. Barely anything at all, he wants to scream.

“I remember ladies wore more than this to bed,” he teases, pinching a loose thread at her shorts. 

She raises a brow. “What nuns were you dating?”

“Don’t tell me I’ve been lied to my whole life.”

“Sometimes,” she breathes, the air she expels completely artificial, “they wore nothing at all.”

“Liar.”

She bounces as she gets off his bed. Her smile remains, and he finds that he’s been sporting one of his own the entire time. 

“Liar. One of my top five pet names.”

He watches her walk away, and before he can stop himself—

“What do you like being called? By your first name? A nickname?”

“I quite like being called Fangs.”

Damn Stark to all the Hells. He gives a playful scoff, “Your first name will do.”

“Call me Fangs.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Get out of my room.”

She rolls her eyes, and checks the hallway before squeezing through the slight gap of the door. “Goodnight, Barnes.”

“Call me James.”

“Your last name will do.”

—————

The Soldier grips the handles of his chair and limits his air consumption to a whopping ten breaths a minute. Any more oxygen and his adrenaline will spike. He does not want to cause a scene, no, not when the Colonel and Banner are doing that for him. 

“I think we all need to calm down and look at this situation from all sides,” the Captain reasons, the strong timbre of his voice carrying over Stark’s. 

“Cap, your bleeding heart is showing.”

The Colonel sighs, “See reason, Tony. She was starving because of our carelessness. And because we never initiate conversation with her, we didn’t ask!”

“Nuh-uh, don’t group me in that shit. I talk to her whenever I see her. I was with my sister all week so I’m excluded from your witch-hunt,” Wilson declares, leaning back in his chair, his expression one of extreme disappointment.

“Buck, we believe her when she says she wasn’t hurting you. But what in the world made you think that it was safe for her to feed from you—not even considering the serum—at all?”

“There you go, treating him like a kid again,” Stark grumbles with a heavy roll of his eyes. The Soldier turns his head slowly, his glare half-hidden behind his hair but deadly enough to make Stark clear his throat. 

“Oh, shut it, Tony. Which is it then? He let her because he’s such a kid, or he shouldn’t have let her because he’s such a kid?” the Colonel argues.

The Widow leans her head back and brings her feet up to rest on the table. “And there you guys go again, acting like he’s not in the room.”

Banner interjects, massaging his hands together as he stutters, “Drinking his blood could have made her even more super than she is. We had no way of knowing for sure because she had rejected every test before this week.”

“And did you find anything different with her blood?” Wilson asks.

“Ah! That’s one thing we discovered. She doesn’t have any,” Stark shares, clapping his hands together.

“Considering the lack thereof, there was no blood to intermingle with his, so to say. She can’t absorb it permanently,” Banner explains further. 

“Something we should have known when she first joined the team!”

“Tony, are you afraid that she’s going to be addicted to his blood now? Or any of ours?” the Widow asks, raising a trimmed brow. She looks around the table, her gaze softening slightly as it lands on the Captain. Still, she moans, “God, you guys are stupid.”

Stark makes a rattling scene as he pulls a chair out and sits down. He intertwines his fingers, mimicking a student. “Elaborate, then.”

The Widow stares at him for longer than the Soldier ever has. Her silence is as deadly as his, but more cutthroat. Where Stark would pinch until the Soldier either swung or bolted, he submits for the Widow. Be it that he’s known her longer and has more respect, he doesn’t know. 

“Did any of you read my report about the mission a few weeks ago? Or did you just send your own to Fury and call it a day?” No one answers her. “Of course. If you did read mine, you would have read where I elaborated on the capability of her self-control. I bled first. It was my blood out in the air. The target hadn’t seen her. Barnes would have dealt with him first and given me the second look. She had the opportunity to go toward my open neck and have a feast. But instead, she tore into the man who hurt me.”

The Soldier can’t help the smirk that forms when it clicks. “You let him cut you on purpose.”

“Glad to know my work is being appreciated.”

Stark leans forward, actual shock painting his face. “You jump started the experiments? That was your idea?”

“Well, you and Banner were getting nowhere.”

He turns to the rest of the table, his smirk replaced by a frown. “She wasn’t going to hurt me because I trust her. And she trusts me. We’ve met every night for the past few months to share cigarettes and conversation up on that roof. Not once before did she even look at my neck.”

“Makes sense for those two to be close,” Banner mumbles, somewhat apologetic. “Remember when you wouldn’t let me or Tony operate on your arm after T’Challa gifted you it?”

“Look, if she’s angry at us then we will all apologize and try to understand where she’s coming from—” 

He abruptly stands, cutting Stark off. He marks the Colonel and the Widow reaching for the guns at their hip. Stark looks offended for a second—

He’s had weeks to learn how to show… empathy. Weeks to learn how to look at someone and have his eyes speak for him. Stark closes his mouth, his brow relaxing, his gaze intense. Decent. Human.

“It’s not some competition between her and I. She’s not trying to be angry, or angrier than me. She’s sad. She didn’t let you into her world because you never asked! Never got to know her. You’re terrified of her not because she looks like she can kill you, but because she looks three seconds away from killing herself. You see nothing in her face—the same nothing like in mine. It’s a hazy type of nothing, and soon you will realize you shouldn’t have been afraid of her, you should have been trying to help her.”

“Buck…” the Captain breathes, restless. 

“I’m not about to kill myself, Rogers. Don’t worry. But everything would be a lot easier if you all just… asked what you wanted to ask. The more you tip-toe around what you think is happening, the longer you build up this scenario that ends in flames. I like my silence, and sometimes I like when it’s interrupted. If you listen to my advice, you’ll know when to bother me and when to leave me the fuck alone.”

The Widow snickers, but there’s pride in her look. Praise he never asked for, and never will. Though, he’s glad his argument is supported. He’s glad the red-haired menace of a woman was creative enough to seek answers herself. The only one with a spine, it seems. 

“I trust her,” he repeats. He really needs them to know that. “You’ve asked questions about her condition and you got your answers. Now, ask about her next time.”

—————

They get the call late into the night. Rousing them from sleep, the Captain tells the team to suit up and board the quinjet in under fifteen minutes. The flight to Moscow will be a long one, and the chilly descent won’t make anyone happier. They are expected to land when the moon hangs high again.

The Widow cannot return to Russia. The Soldier can’t either, but he’s better at evading. He knows how to navigate the icy forests. Wilson, Stark, and the Colonel are grounded for risk of being shot down. The only ones cleared for this mission are himself, the Captain, Barton, Maximoff, and their vampire companion. 

They split into two teams. The Captain and Maximoff head east. Barton accompanies him, and though he does not explicitly say it, he is watching just how close the Soldier walks near the woman who drank his blood three nights ago. 

The mission is to infiltrate and leave no hostages. Killing on a team-effort. They succeed. On record, the Avengers weren’t in Russia at all.

The Captain calls an all-clear and the Soldier corroborates. Sunrise is nearing. They need to return to the quinjet immediately. 

He doesn’t hear the high-tech drones flying at ground-level. But he does hear the rustling behind the trees, the regular breathing from trained lungs. He orders Barton back but it’s too late. He steps on an explosive and is sent into the air. Stark’s expertise extends to their suits as well so it’s a miracle Barton doesn’t lose a limb, but their position is known. He calls for assistance over the comms. Smoke billows at his side, then disappears altogether. As he deals with the men sprouting from hiding, she deals with the ones still crouching. Blood sprays and his legs tire fast without Barton there to help. He doesn’t even know where he landed. 

He tries calling for the Captain again with no luck. It’s an ambush with their best combat agents, and they are sorely outnumbered. If it was just guns and knives, even arrows, he could beat them all. The weapons they have are electricity-based, some fire. He’s battling his own men while also checking at the corner of his eye that sparks and heat aren’t one of her weaknesses. Because if she’s downed, he can’t go for Barton. She is a priority. 

If no one helps her, she’ll burn. 

“Go find Rogers!” he screams to her as he smashes his metal fist into the stomach of a man much larger than him. 

“I’ll go for Clint! He couldn’t have landed far—”

He’s struck by a bullet before she finishes her sentence. Her terrified gasp is perhaps the saddest part about this whole ordeal. She doesn't need to breathe, she doesn't need to gasp. He lands on his back, his stomach branded by lead, directly in this morning’s first ray of light.   

“James!”

The Captain confirms Barton’s safety, then his panicked questioning bombards the comms as he is informed of the Soldier’s condition. Her voice sounds different over the earpiece. Somehow lighter. Frightened, but lighter. Shadows attempt to cover him from afar, but they can’t reach. She’s not close enough. She digs into necks and plunges her gold shortsword into the other available meat she can find. The Soldier has been shot at many times, but shot? Once when he was Bucky Barnes, twice during his seventy year prison sentence, and once more since arriving at the Tower. Only the wound during the war had been in the stomach, and he had miraculously healed in three days then. He hadn’t thought twice about why that was. 

These are the worst injuries—get shot in the middle and suddenly every part of your body hurts. He can’t think, can barely breathe. If he isn’t helped soon, the serum will battle his natural adrenaline to the point he could die from shock. 

There are hands on his shoulders, then under them, lifting poorly. She screams and screams and screams. He smells burning flesh. He is dropped momentarily and sees the flash of a gold dagger, then the crimson of the enemy. Again, he is lifted, dragged. Again, she is screaming.

They take cover in every shadow she can fit in. She waits, whimpering under her breath, then does it all over again. He can’t fully open his eyes. 

She does this twelve more times until they are far enough from the enemy. She shoves them into an empty cave and immediately begins removing his leathers. 

He doesn’t remember much after that.

—————

The unmistakable scent of cooking rabbit hits him before the stabbing pain in his abdomen.

“You owe me,” he hears a cranky voice mutter, the voice he’s come to expect whenever the sun disappears and the moon kisses the stars. He’s on his back, his metal fist practically fused to his stomach. When he opens his eyes fully there are branches blocking his view of the night sky. There’s a campfire to his left, flames growing higher as it cooks the animal hovering over it. He moans in discomfort when he turns his neck a little more, but it’s worth it. 

There she is—skinning a second rabbit and skewering it a second later, frown on her beautiful face, cloak torn from the bullets that grazed her. Without the hood, the injuries from the sun are on full display. Scattered, silver patches mark her natural tint, slowly healing but obviously causing discomfort. She pauses her cooking to scratch at herself relentlessly, cheeks and neck bearing her lashes. 

“What do I owe you?” he croaks, coughing automatically. She abandons the dead animal to grab their emergency water containers. She holds the back of his head as she gently pours water on his lips first. Once moistened, he takes the container from her with his flesh hand. 

“I don’t like killing animals,” she says, helping him sit up. He winces and lets her move him to the base of a wide tree. 

“Sorry,” he replies absentmindedly. “You should eat, too.”

“I already did. You’re getting my leftovers.”

He eyes the fire, then the surrounding forest. “Is it safe to have one burning so high?”

She steadies the second rabbit over the wooden grill and turns the other one. She gives an unimpressed hum and remains facing away. “I dragged you for miles. I doubt they will catch up soon.”

“Miles?”

“The Captain was ambushed, too. Going to him would have put your life at risk.” A pause, then a twinge of distress. “And I wasn’t strong enough to protect you and fight anymore.”

“This had nothing to do with your strength or competence. The sun—”

“The fucking sun,” she grinds out, her usual low tone rising, “Because of the fucking sun, it made me incompetent. I am a hazard in the field when I have to cower in the shadows while my teammates are getting their asses handed to them.”

The Soldier pinches an eye closed, fixing his position slightly. “I can handle my own ass, thank you—”

“I was a nurse in the war.”

He pauses, his heart clenching. “Our war?”

Our war, he says. Like he and the Captain owned all the pain, the consequences, the deaths, the aftermath. 

“I didn’t even know I had… died. I woke up in the middle of the night surrounded by the corpses of my men. I walked for miles until I found the gods-awful British army.”

He chuckles at that, even if his stomach begs him not to. 

“I guess the enemy had a predator on the field. Makes sense… There were a lot of bodies to feed from. I stayed in the tents and worked well into the morning. And when my refuge was attacked, I left the tent so I could help.”

She doesn’t see the pitiful look he gives her. 

“I burned so badly. And while I burned, I couldn’t reach the downed soldiers. When it was all done, instinct won… I fed for the first time that night. They all tasted like bile. When I finally found my own base again, I had a birthday card and chocolate waiting for me. I ate the entire bar even though it made me sick, even though it tasted like dirt. I was questioned about how I survived when so many died, why I kept giving my rations away, why I refused to work during the day. So because of the fucking sun, I let good men die. I could not have that happen today.”

Silence hums between them, the gentle crackle of the fire speaking for them. It occurs to him that she does not need the warmth it provides, but that she built it for him. For the sole purpose of feeding and comforting him. Something liquid figuratively drips into his stomach, swirling chaotically.  

She removes the darkened rabbit from the fire and hands it to him. He thanks her with a nod of his head, and bites into its thigh. The meat is dry, but he has half a mind to thank her for removing its head so he doesn’t have to stare into dead eyes. 

“Clint’s alive, by the way. Idiot landed in a gods-honest haystack a mile from the rest of the team.” 

He laughs as he chews. She nods her head at his stomach. 

“I’m fine,” he assures her, lifting his metal hand to showcase the dried blood. The bullet went right through him. “I’m just sore.”

A few minutes pass before he speaks again, his meal half-eaten. She’s handed him the second rabbit already. 

“Thank you,” he says honestly. “I’m not used to being saved. I find it odd that so many people want to save me. It was a calculated sacrifice, and I owe you my life.”

“Calculated,” she drawls. “I didn’t think much about it. You give me too much credit.”

“Well, if you didn’t think about it, then you’re just as much of an idiot as Rogers.”

The first smile of the night graces her face, now mostly healed from the silver patches. 

“It wasn’t your fault. Someone took advantage of—” he pauses, the words too familiar. “Someone took advantage of you when you were helpless. When you were left for dead. And when you tried to help, you got the short end of the stick.”

“Some dull stick.”

He steadies his breathing, then takes another bite. The ache in his stomach feels less burdensome as he eats. 

“You’re a veteran.”

“Do nurses count as veterans?”

“Fuck yeah they do.” They share a laugh, a moment. It’s as intimate as can be, the most intimate they’ve ever been. Even more so than when she had her teeth in his neck. 

“Thank you,” he repeats, though the sentiment means more now. “For being a friend.”

“Thank you for not dying on me. And for trusting me,” she says, her red eyes glowing faintly. “Do I surpass the Captain?”

He chuckles. “He’s my closest friend. I think you’re my best friend.”

“Whatever that means,” she mutters, her quip a balm over the entire night. 

They speak for the next few hours. It’s the most he’s spoken since coming home. Where his tongue would dry out and his head would turn hazy, he finds peace and urgency instead. Peace in her voice, in his mind. Urgency to tell her everything and nothing, all at once. 

The Captain finds them before sunrise, and the Soldier—for the first time since reclaiming pieces of Bucky Barnes—hugs his closest friend because he simply wants to.

—————

Three weeks later, they are allowed back onto the roof. She brings the cigarettes this time. A different brand, one he vaguely remembers Dum-Dum complaining about. Said they were lady-smokes. He considers their taste, a memory for Bucky Barnes and a new experience for the Soldier. Those truths can coexist. 

He quite likes their flavor. 

“If you could take a bite out of anyone on the team, who would it be?”

He chokes on the smoke, fanning it away as he tries to control his laughter. “It’s actually insane of you to ask that question—”

Her mouth splits into a wide smile, her fangs showing. “Aw, c’mon! Indulge me! Who would it be?”

“Who would you want to taste?”

“Well, I’ve already tasted you.”

His chest tightens, suggestive of a lot more than he is ready to admit. She’s transitioned to blood bags instead of the vein, and some archaic part of himself is glad for it. He doesn’t necessarily want her mouth on anyone’s neck, besides his own, ever again. 

“Yeah, you have,” he says quietly, cheeks reddening. “I don’t want to say who I’m thinking.”

She takes a short drag, smiling around the cigarette. “You’ve thought about it?”

“You want to hear it or not?”

She passes him the stick, her eyes glowing momentarily. “Yes, yes. Sorry, sorry.”

He waits a moment, savoring the taste of her on their smoke. He wonders if one day they’ll upgrade to joints—if it would affect either of them at all. He clears his throat before admitting, “Thor.”

Silence. He takes another drag. 

“I’ve thought about him, too.”

He doesn’t choke on his laugh this time. It’s loud, flowing down into the crowded streets and mixing with reality. For so long his silence has placated his mind and unnerved others—he’s becoming human again, resurrecting.   

She matches his volume, taking the cigarette from his steady fingers. “Seriously! If I were to bring up the question of whether I need human blood or humanoid blood to sustain me to Tony and Bruce, oh! They would call him down to earth to find out immediately.”

Is it possible to bring someone who’s undead back to life, too? Were they living all along? Were they just suspended in an unmoving abyss and once something sparked, they chose to climb again? Is it ever that simple? It took him years, then months, weeks, and suddenly, days. He hasn’t broken through the skyline just yet, and neither has she, but that sliver of solace, that sliver of knowledge that it’s possible… That’s what makes him want to continue on. To hold hands with time itself.  

“I have no doubt they would,” he adds, running a hand through his hair. He breathes in the crisp night air, and feels absolutely no remorse as he asks, “What did mine taste like?”

She considers, eyes crinkling. “Sweet. Like toffee, or more what I remember toffee tastes like. When people are happy, they taste like sugar to me, remember?”

“I was happy?” he says doubtingly, but his mind doesn’t believe his own uncertainty. It’s been a long time since he’s been happy, since he was his old self. Maybe the moment her teeth met his skin, he was Bucky Barnes. Maybe he was a new rendition of his old form—with one new emotion. Learning, retaining, earning this new life. “I’m happy,” he repeats because it’s true.

“I think I’m happy, too.”

God, she’s magnificent. 

“You know what makes me even happier, though?”

“What’s that?”

“Thai food,” he says honestly, ignoring her playful scoff. “I’m serious. Let me take you out tomorrow night. And… when we return… you can taste it for yourself.”

She tries not to smile, but it splits gracefully. “That sounds so weird—”

“Hey, I’m trying here!”

She passes him the cigarette, only their second of the night, and scoots closer on the ledge. “Fine. You can take me out. But there better be wine or else I’ll complain the whole time—”

He grabs her hand, flesh on flesh, warm and cold. Intertwining their fingers, they both study the connection. Again, silence breezes through them. There is no longer a gap, no longer just smoke being shared. 

She does not pull away, but instead leans her head down and rests it on his shoulder. He savors the weight, high on the prospect of time itself, and rests his own head over hers.

xx

A/N: Let me know if you guys want a part 2, if not then this is a perfect one-shot for me! --Moni