#guys i took like over an hour on just the upper part of the mask

[kazzastark]

Wip for my bbg

Og sketch

[cablecar-s]

to love and self loathe

part 1 part 2 part 3

I'm Just A Guy, With A Boomerang!

Okay, so maybe she was a tiny bit rusty as being Spider-Woman. No big deal, just a few more days or nights being in the suit and she can-

Wait- No, this was supposed to be the only and last time she was even putting on the suit. It was just a precaution! You know, if the other vigilantes weren't able to make it because of the decoy or whatever Black Mask was planning.

. . .

God what was she doing...?

Swinging from building to building, she headed into the direction of Wayne Manor. Except, she soon found out just how far the manor was from the city. By the time she made it to the manor, just on the edge of the forest where she saw the clearing of the rather large and gothic mansion, she was quite literally out of breath.

"Damn rich people..." She wheezed, slightly panting as she tried to catch her breath. Once her breathing went back to normal, she climbed over the aging stone wall and jogged over to the massive building. 

Scaling up the wall, she peeked through the multiple windows, making mental notes to herself as she continued to go through each window.

"Now if I were a bunch of thugs, where would I-"

And as if on cue, a large explosion shook the mansion, smoke coming out from one of the sides of the mansion.

"There, I would be over there." She sighed out.

Quickly crawling her way over, she let herself inside the very large ballroom, trying her best to not gawk at how fancy it looked whilst crawling on the ceiling.

"Nobody move! Or the brat gets it!" 

Looking down, everyone was in a state of panic while a thug with a black mask held a young boy hostage, a gun to his head.

With the smoke slightly clearing up, she had taken note that there were about 8 men, and they were all armed, wonderful.

All of them were shoving through the crowd of rich folks, seeming to look for someone in particular. While they were busy doing that, she quietly dropped down, trying to use the smoke and people, hopefully they didn't scream out when they saw her.

"Sorry, pardon me." She quietly whispered, squeezing past the many expensive suits and dresses. "I like the tie." She complimented, though everyone just gawked at her as she put a finger up to where her lips were supposed to be as she made her way over to one of the thugs.

"Hey." She called out, poking the thug's shoulder.

"Wha-" Turning around, about to aim his gun at her, she quickly webbed his mouth shut with one hand while the other had shot out a web to take hold of his gun to take it out from his hand. Shooting out another web to wrap his upper body, she jabbed the butt of the assault rifle into his stomach, causing him to let out a muffle 'oomph!'.

Stumbling back from the impact, she gave him a simple push into the wall before using her webs to keep the man stuck to the wall.

Dusting off her hands, she soon took notice of the many rich folks who only looked at her in bafflement. A bit embarrassed at the attention, the Spider cleared her throat, pointing behind her shoulder.

"I should.. I should probably go." Raising her hand up, she had her web shooter pull herself back up onto the ceiling, crawling on her hands and feet to get to whichever criminal she saw next.

For the next 20 minutes, she was able to take down two more guys before the hostage situation had gotten worse.

Finishing up with keeping one of Black Mask's stuck to the ceiling, the sound of laughter from Mask's men had garnered her attention.

"Now we're getting somewhere." The man holding Damian grinned cynically. Just opposite of him was another one of the criminals, now having Bruce Wayne as a hostage, another gun pressed to his head.

"Alright Mr. Philanthropist, you're gonna listen closely and do as we say: Within 24 hours you're gonna give us 20 billion in exchange for the brat." Damian's hostage tightened his grip around his neck, pressing the gun even closer to the pre-teen's skull.

"I will kill you all." Damian hissed out, but he was only met with getting hit with the gun, making him grunt in pain.

"Shut the hell up." His captor growled out.

"You can have the 20 billion, just leave my son out of this." Bruce said, doing his best in trying to stay calm.

The man only cackled, the sound of his gun cocking, his finger now hovering over the trigger. "We're gonna need the 20 billion first Mr. Wayne."

"Ahem."

All heads quickly swiveled to the sound, only to see Spider-Woman standing there, almost a bit awkwardly.

"Didn't know we were supposed to bring guns to a party as fancy as this." She commented.

It went silent for a moment.

Okay.. Great start.

"Who the fuck are you?" The young Wayne's captor hissed out.

"Oh you know," She let out a small nervous huff. "Just a passerby, thought I would take a look around Gotham and all." She waved a hand nonchalantly. "And you know, it's really nice in Gotham, well, of course, minus all the crime and guys trying to mug an innocent bystander every ten minutes."

She continued to ramble, her arms moving about.

People only looked at her like she was crazy, and honestly? She couldn't blame them.

She herself had no idea what in the hell she was doing, she just hoped she could find herself an opening before the situation escalated any more than it already has.

At some point, the captors were getting irritated, now finding her ramblings tiring.

"Would someone get rid of this bitch already!?" One of them yelled out.

In that moment, her senses tingled, but everything had almost gone in slow motion as the sound of a gunshot rang out, making people scream while some sort of black baton was simultaneously thrown at one of the captors.

Bruce Wayne's captor let out a pained yell as he had been hit with the baton, to the Spider's left though, another yell of pain was heard, as it was one of thugs who was about to shoot the woman.

"What the-!?" Damian Wayne's captor's attention quickly turned to where the baton and gunshot had came from.

Taking this moment of distraction, the female vigilante quickly shot out a web and yanked the gun out from the captor's hand.

"Hey!" Turning his head to look at her, she shot another web, making it cover his entire face. Alarmed, his hands quickly let go of the boy and tried to pull the webbing off. Damian, in response, turned to his captor and gave him a swift kick, knocking him back onto his butt.

There was no time to relax though, for from the corner of the Spider's eye, she saw another one of Black Mask's minions point their gun straight at Damian.

"Hey kid watch out!" She yelled. Quickly running towards him, she closed the distance by grabbing him with her web before shooting another web and pulling themselves up to the ceiling.

An echo of screams rang in the ballroom, everyone now running and panicking, all of the rich folk quickly trying to leave the now dangerous room.

"You alright?" She looked at the boy who had a scowl, arms crossed.

"I'm fine." He retorted.

Rude.

"Okay Mr. Grumpy-Pants." She muttered.

Hearing more gunshots, she looked over and saw two of Gotham's vigilantes fighting off the rest of Mask's men.

"Hey so, I'm gonna leave you up here real quick-"

"You will not-" 

It was too late though, the young Wayne found himself webbed into a cocoon, now stuck to the ceiling of his home while the Spider made her way down to help the two men.

"Release me at once!" He yelled at her, fuming.

Both Red Hood and Nightwing were preoccupied and cornered by Black Mask's minions. Both fighting the men and dodging the bullets they shot at the vigilantes.

Too preoccupied, Nightwing had realized too late as one of the men were about a second away from getting shot. But an all too familiar sticky string had pulled the gun out from the minion's hands only to be promptly knocked out with a harsh kick from behind.

"You boys need help?" She questioned, tossing the gun to the side.

"We have it just fine."

"That'd be appreciated."

Red Hood and Nightwing glanced at each other, but Red Hood seemed to be the one to look away first. With a smile, Nightwing threw his escrima stick, shocking a criminal as they went down while he looked back at the Spider.

The two nodded nodded at each other at the result of Red Hood's lack of resistance and made quick work of joining the two men. 

"I don't think I've ever seen you around in Gotham before." Nightwing turned a bit, dodging a fist that flew his way.

"Ah well, I just thought I'd do a bit of sightseeing." Spider-Woman replied, webbing one of the men's foot to the ground, causing him to fall face first onto the ground.

"And Gotham was your first choice?" The first Robin looked over at her, both brows raised, while simultaneously kneeing a man in his face.

She let out a small laugh, weaving her way behind a guy before shoving him to fall to his knees.

"I let the wheel of fate choose for me." She shrugged.

 Nightwing quickly picked up his escrima and tossed it to her, her web shooting out to have it come to her faster.

Once in hand, she tossed the escrima in the air a bit before catching it once more and hitting the man, who was trying to get up, in the back of the head, causing him to fall once more, though this time staying down for good.

"You two, less talking and more beating Sionis' men up." Red Hood grunted in irritation, taking hold of the man throwing a punch at him and bent it the other way, causing the man to let out a blood curdling scream.

Both Spider-Woman and Nightwing backed up into each other, their backs pressed to each other.

"Is he always that snappy?" She questioned, causing him to laugh.

"He's nice, I promise."

She only let out an unconvinced hum in response. 

Clasping his fingers together, Spider-Woman stepped into his hands as he threw her into the air. Finding her target, she shot two strings of webs to the ground before pulling herself feet first, giving the last guy a good kick, and a long-term concussion, to the head.

A satisfied hum left her lips, hands on her hips.

Nightwing whistled a bit, walking over to her. "You're pretty good." He mused.

She couldn't help but feel giddy at the compliment, remembering the adrenaline rush that comes with being a vigilante. 

"Why thank you." She said in a bit of a posh accent, one arm slinging behind her back while the other wrapped around her stomach, and bowed.

Nightwing chuckled at her antics as she straightened herself up.

"I thought I'd be a bit rusty, but it seems I still got it." She hummed brushing her shoulder. Soon, she felt something sturdy and warm brush against the back of her head, slowly tilting her head backwards, the looked as Red Hood was tilting his head down to look at her.

"What are you doing here in Gotham?" His robotic voice questioned. "And don't give me that 'sightseeing' bullshit." 

Turning herself around to face the slightly scary man, she looked up at him clearing her throat and held a finger up.

"Uh well, for starters," She started. She only looked as he continued to stare at her, waiting for a response.

God was he scary when you weren't a citizen.

She seemed to be having a hard time trying to come up with something, a sense of deja vu coming upon her. 

"I have.. Family..?" Her response was more of a question than an answer, and that only made Red Hood even more unconvinced.

"Really." He crossed his arms.

"Ye.. s...?" She slowly drew out the word a bit more, slightly cringing at how unsure she sounded herself.

"If you are done chatting then it would be smart of you to let me down before I come down myself!" A voice, slightly far away, yelled out.

All three vigilantes looked up towards the voice and saw Damian still stuck to the ceiling.

Nightwing snorted a bit at this, the Spider quickly clearing her throat.

"I uh, better go get him." Letting out a nervous chuckle, she glanced at the two vigilantes before webbing her way up to the ceiling, ripping away at the webs to get the boy out from his cocooned confines.

"I don't trust her." Jason squinted his eyes at her, watching her every move.

Dick rolled his eyes at this. "You don't trust anyone Jay- Ow!" 

His head went forwards, a light slapping noise echoing in the walls.

"Vigilante names, we don't know if she can hear us or not." Jason stated.

Dick only let out an annoyed huff, rubbing the back of his head, there was a bit of a smile on Jason's lips, his mood slightly lifting after giving his older brother a good smack.

The Spider soon let their youngest brother down back to the ground. They only watched in amusement as the two seemed to have an exchange of words before Bruce made his way over.

"You're alright?" He questioned his son, crouching down a bit to take a look at him.

"Fine." Damian huffed, looking away, arms crossed. "I told you this party was useless." He slightly glared at his father who only chuckled, giving a small ruffle to his hair.

"I'll make it up to you, promise." He smiled. Standing up, the billionaire looked at the female vigilante. "Thank you, for saving my son."

"Oh, I mean.." The Spider became a bit bashful, a sheepish laugh leaving her mouth. Rubbing the back of her head, she slightly looked away, waving her hand a bit. "It wasn't just me who helped too." 

She looked over at the other two vigilantes, the two seeming to be talking—more like bickering, no one needs to know that but them though—until Nightwing lightly elbowed Red Hood who begrudgingly followed behind the masked vigilante who made his way to them.

"Mr. Wayne." Nightwing said with a smile.

"Ah, Nightwing." The billionaire smiled, looking over at the man that stood behind the more chipper vigilante. "Red Hood."

Red Hood only gave the man a curt nod, muttering the billionaire's name as a greeting. He shifted his weight, having crossed his arms before promptly looking away afterwards.

It became a bit awkward after that, Spider-Woman only watching with slight discomfort at the odd greeting she had just witnessed.

Clearing her throat, all three men looked over at her. "Well I uh, I better get going." She pointed behind her.

"To New York?" Bruce questioned, raising a brow.

"What?" She questioned back, looking at the man before blinking a bit too much. "You.." She pointed at herself. "You know of me?" She asked, dumbfounded.

He chuckled at this. "Of course, you were all over the internet with your disappearance." He mused.

"Oh.." She mumbled, remembering seeing the many articles as well. Everyone questioning as to where she had gone, and if she was coming back.

The flash of a smile and a melodic voice calling out her name came to her, making her grimace.

"Everything alright?"

She snapped her head up to look at the billionaire who had a bit of concern on his face, the two vigilantes looking at her with questioning look.

"Uh, yeah, sorry." She hummed nervously. "All that fighting really tired me out." She winded up her arm, rocking back and forth on her feet a bit. "Anyways uh, thank you, for having me. Sorry about the mess." 

Her hands moved around all over the place, taking small steps back towards the large hole in the wall. "I'll be, I'll be going now, haha.." 

Turning around, a web shot out from her wrist and she had left with the wind. 

"Some party that was." Dick mused. 

"Father did you see how she stuck me to the ceiling like some insect?" Damian quipped.

"Maybe because you are one." Jason mused. 

Immediately, Damian's head turned to look at his brother to give him a glare. Bruce only sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Enough." Looking over at his two oldest, he gave them a questionable look. "Does anyone want to tell me what Spider-Woman is doing in Gotham?" He questions.

Dick shrugged at this. "Beats me."

Jason stayed quiet, a bit of a grimace falling on his face.

"Jason." 

The second Robin only rolled his eyes, looking at his adoptive father. 

"She seemed to have come to Gotham a week ago. Only trail she left was her webs." He informed, arms still crossed.

"And I wasn't informed about this because..?"

Jason shrugged. "Didn't seem important."

The father and son duo stared at each other for a good while, tension slightly building up.

Fuck, this wasn't how Jason wanted this to go.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Bruce beat him to it.

"Well as long as she doesn't pose a threat." He sighed out. "You two should probably get changed, I'm sure Gordan and the others will be here soon."

And right as Bruce said that, the distant sound of sirens could be heard, the colors red and blue flashing in a distance through the darkness and trees.

With a nod, both Jason and Dick went to leave—Damian following along to head to his room—Dick going on ahead, all the while Jason having stopped in his tracks after hearing his name be called out.

Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder, seeing Bruce stare at him for a moment, his lips pressed into a line.

"Will you..." He hesitated for a moment. "Will you be staying for the night?" 

Jason stopped breathing for a moment. 

Did he want him to stay? Or was he just asking out of formalities? Of course Bruce wanted him to stay, he was his son for crying out loud.

Jason's mouth suddenly felt dry, having to lick his slightly chapped lips. His eyes darted around the room, suddenly feeling like that walls of the ballroom were closing in on him even though there was a giant hole in one of the walls.

"No, I'll be going back to my place." He flexing his hand a bit to try and calm his nerves, feeling his clothes suddenly feeling a bit too small on him all of sudden.

"I see. Take care then. I'll see you tomorrow." Bruce said softly.

"Yeah." Was all Jason was able to muster before walking off, leaving the man by himself in the large ballroom.

His footsteps quickened once he left the room, a somewhat nauseous feeling overcoming him. Quickly moving the arms of the grandfather clock once more, he wasted no time going down the stairs.

Fast walking to his motorcycle, he kicked the stand up and stuck the key into the ignition.

"Leaving so soon?" 

Jason paused, hand just barely about to turn the key to start his bike. It was quiet between him and Dick, the two not saying a word.

"Bye." Jason said, his bike roaring to life at the same time, almost drowning out his goodbye as he sped off.

Dick only sighed, watching his younger brother leave the Batcave, the smell of exhaust and gasoline filling the air.

At least he's trying.

part 1 part 2 part 3

[generic-whumperz]

Vinny (Character Sheet)

Picrew

Playlist | Masterlist | Character Info

Playing opposing roles as Wyatt's partner in crime and Waylon's inside man, Vinny skillfully navigates the tumultuous dynamics between his older cousins, guided by genuine love and loyalty.

After The Aid's shocking murder attempt on Wyatt, Vinny took it upon himself to assume a greater role as The Aid's keeper, a move that revealed his pragmatic understanding of the asset's value to the Sullivans' empire and his surprising knack for diplomacy. When not attempting to broker moments of harmony between Wyatt and The Aid or covering supply runs for the family business Waylon mans, Vinny fuels his own destructive habits with Wyatt—recklessly hitting casinos and bars before scoring a bag to split for the night. Vinny is fiercely driven by his desire to help maintain family power and status in Apocamerica's supply chain, quelling both brothers by serving Waylon by day and partying with Wyatt by night. Despite his twisted, one-sided “friendship” with The Aid, his unwavering kinsmanship with Wyatt outweighs all as they both share a hunger for twisted delights–and Wyatt knows just how to fan the flames of his wild side.

Full name: Vincent Warren Sullivan (Vinny)

Role: secondary antagonist, Whumper/part-time Carewhumper

Date of Birth & sign: June 1, 1985 (47), Gemini (story takes place in the year 2032)

Gender: cis-male

Sexuality: pansexual

Height: 6'2"

Weight/body type/build: 180lbs-ish. Wiry, long-limbed, a bit pigeon-chested.

Hometown: Newark, New Jersey

Family Members: Sullivan family tree. He bounces around a lot because of work but basically lives with Wyatt. Very close with Wyatt and Waylon, basically their brother.

Left/right handed: right

Fav genre of music & anthem: 90s & early 2000s rap (claims East Coast is superior, yet his anthem is a West Coast classic), How I Could Just Kill A Man by Cypress Hill

Occupation: "Independent contractor." Jack of all trades and Waylon's right hand: fixer, security, transportation guard, caporegime (capo), hitman, former Army medic, torturer and snuff film cameraman. Somehow knows a little something about everything and always "knows a guy." He didn't get his HS diploma or GED; instead, he joined the Army soon after he got out of Juvie.

Ethnicity (+ American): Italian, French, Greek, English, Romanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Serbian, Armenian

Hair color & length: dark brown/brown-black wavy mid-length grown-out hair. Usually combed and slicked back to make it look straighter than it is, shaved down on the sides with an undercut. Some chest hair, but not super hairy. He is usually clean-shaven around his signature petite goatee.

Hygiene: looks like he smells like an ashtray and liquor, and usually does. Not the best hygiene, also not the worst, somewhere in the middle, but is more up-kept when on the job. He uses minimal products and will just dose himself with cologne to mask the cigarette and vodka smell. But he takes good care of his teeth and has a collection of grillz, usually sportin' gold tooth caps on both canine teeth + inlay, and gold trip gap filler between front teeth (pictures below).

Eye color: pale, steely blue, almond-shaped, and hooded eyes.

Skin tone: olive with cool undertones. He can get a lot darker if he gets a tan, but he is usually inside or hiding under shade if outside, so he's rather pale.

Facial features: long, inverted triangle-shaped head. Thin, boxy upper lip mouth. Long, downturned, Roman nose. Straight eyebrows with little to no arch. Narrow ears. Narrow jaw, long chin. Long, thick eyelashes that make him look like he's wearing eyeliner. He usually has bags under his eyes because he's running on nothing but 3 hours of sleep, caffeine, and coke.

Mannerisms: clicks tongue or runs tongue over his gold teeth, sniffs/wrinkles nose, clears throat, and purses lips frequently. Lots of face twitching. If he's not smoking, he's smacking on some gum or snacking on gummy candy. Fidgety, has a hard time sitting still, therefore he’s either pacing or bouncing a knee. Bit of a jabber jaw, sings or hums tunes (someone thought they had a rap career as a youngin). Gets bored easily. Obsessively cleans his guns and knives. Resting bitch face looks like he's unamused or irritated. He snorts and laughs a lot, always cracking jokes. Files his nails daily. Cracks knuckles, neck, and back. Shuffles a deck of cards he has on hand. Checks his tackle-box drug stash he carries around like a lunch pail.

Nervous ticks: it takes a lot to make him nervous since he's spent a lifetime rubbing shoulders with gang members, spent time in juvie, in the trenches of war zones, and as a professional hit man, and has killed countless anthrophages without hesitation. He's good at maintaining a level head in stressful situations, but even he has his limits. When he's actually nervous, he'll rub his chin with his index finger, comb his fingers through hair and scratch his head, yell and punch things, may shoot off bullets into the air or throw knives at something, and in an effort to collect himself, he'll swallow hard and count backward from 5 or 10 to try to ground and calm himself. Rolls his shoulders and shakes his head as if trying to shake off the tension.

Posture: relaxed, cocky and confident. Go-to stance is the power pose with his hands on his hips or clasped in front of him (and perhaps fingers wrapped around a gun). He often leans against things with one shoulder. Uses a swagger walk with a lot of sway in his shoulders. When sitting, he's usually laid back with his legs spread or hunched over, fiddling with something in his hands. Moves a lot and shifts from side to side if he's sitting or standing—rather douchey body language.

Style: in a pressed, solid black Giorgio Armani suit with black Italian leather loafers (when working), in a dingy tracksuit with a white tank underneath, or jeans with a T-shirt or button-up and a leather jacket with motorcycle boots. Wears chains around his neck, rings, and small hoop earrings. Always strapped and always blinged out.

Guns he always has within reach—Colt 1911 Government, 45 ACP, 7 + 1, Cathedral, All 24K Gold, and GLOCK 20 Gen 4 Semi-Auto Pistol (pics).

Health: for as many drugs he does, the amount of cigarettes he smokes, and the volume of alcohol he drinks, he's surprisingly healthy—or as healthy as he can be. He works out a few times a week and gets in his cardio with jogging and boxing. Agile and can fight. He doesn't have the best diet but thinks eating a salad every other day, chugging protein shakes, and eating trail mix is the secret to his health success. Enjoys a good smoothie creation with The Aid, and it doubles as a small, weird thing they bond over.

Piercings/tattoos: ears pierced and wears small rings, bunch of tattoos—like too many for me to go into detail right now. Here are some tat ideas I swiped off Pinterest (I didn't make any of these) to give an idea, a tat mood board, if you will.

Birthmarks/scars: scar around his neck from when a gang of kids tried to strangle him to death with a wire in juvie. He has a lot of scars from fighting and his time in the Army, but covered them up with tats.

Language(s): English. Thinks he knows Italian, doesn’t.

Personality: dependable. Loyal. Sycophant to rivals. Cleaver. Resourceful. Quick-witted. Surprisingly competent and knowledgeable. The embodiment of controlled chaos. Voyeuristic. Talkative. Spontaneous. Fidgety. Protective. Restless. Sarcastic. Tough. Cocky. Dangerous. Rowdy. Violent. Noisy. Impulsive. Vulgar. Aggressive. Pragmatic. Inquisitive. Can be cruel and debaucherous. Teasing. Eager. Can take on a mediator role between Waylon and Wyatt, or Wyatt and The Aid. Oddly, he reserves a gentler soft side (as gentle and soft as he can get, that is) for The Aid. Low-key psychotic and dominant (as are all Sullivans).

Vices: benzos (Xanax), cigs, coke (lines or rubs it on his gums, but refuses to smoke it because that's "crackwhore behavior"), shots of hard liquor (preferably Cîroc or Gray Goose vodka). Shooting things. Breaking shit. Throwing knives or darts. Going on a ride on his motorcycle. Dismembering anthrophages or cutting up an already dead cow at the slaughterhouse.

Voice: raucous, sarcastic, and neurotic. Has a thick New Jersey accent. Kinda raspy. Sounds animated and expressive with a wide range of tones, pitches, and speeds.

Smells like: burnt rubber and oil from doing donuts on his bike. Cigs, alcohol, leather, and too much cologne, probably something like Gucci Guilty, or GIORGIO ARMANI Acqua Di Gio.

Face claim(s): Adrian Brody.

Character inspiration: put all these guys in a blender, add ice, and shake it up, and you have yourself a Vinny smoothie—Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction), Edward Blake/ The Comedian (Watchmen), Todd Alquist (Breaking Bad & El Camino), Mickey Milkovich (Shameless).

Other: Admittedly, my second favorite Sullivan.

Moodboard

[dreaminlittlenightmares]

Can you write something featuring the Thin Man, Lady, and Hunter? It can be about anything I just want to see the Thin Man stuck between his two "love interests"

I like how some of us went Thin Man x Hunter and went yes~ Also, sorry for the wait on this one. Been rather stressed out and sick lately...

Title: Masquerade Word Count: 546 Characters: the Thin Man, the Hunter, the Lady CW: Mild Language Use

He watched both of them continue to bicker over the masks. The Lady wanted to get the Thin Man a half face mask that only covered his eyes. The Hunter, on the other hand, was pushing for a mask that would cover the mouth. Both masks were intricate in design and function, and the Thin Man wasn't picky about either. He was more of a hat person; it was one of the things he and Mono enjoyed collecting. The old broadcaster wasn't opposed to getting a mask for his collection. But, these two have been debating over which one would be better for the past half hour, and it was tiring.

"You know," the Thin Man finally spoke up, "I can get both."

That was a terrible opinion to say out loud. The Lady and the Hunter snapped their attention to him and yelled, "You're not getting both!"

"You already have breathing problems," the Lady added, "A mask that covers your mouth is going to be uncomfortable for you. Especially how heavy and industrious it is."

"Still better than yours!" the Hunter shot back, "That's hardly a mask. You might as well just those stupid fake glasses with a mustache on it, and call it a day."

"Thin's face is too lean for the respirator mask," the Lady explained.

"And the masquerade mask is too fancy for someone as awkward as a turtle," the Hunter countered, and they went back to arguing again.

The Thin Man hung his head. This is why he never went with anyone when he shopped for clothes. His rocked out of his seat and took both masks in his hands. "I'll just get both," he said, "Who knows? Maybe I'll be onto something wearing both the Venetian and the Cyberpunk mask?" He placed over over his face, one covering the upper part and the other covering the lower part. The Hunter and the Lady stared at him.

"You look ridiculous," the Lady scoffed.

"Why do you want a mask anyway?" the Hunter asked, "I thought you were the hat guy?"

The Thin Man froze for a second. "I…uh…just want one?"

"For what?" the Lady pressed.

"Be…cause…"

The Hunter pushed away one of the Thin Man's arms to reveal the old man's blushing face. The Hunter squinted at him. "Because?"

"Because I want one!" The Thin Man shouted with a cracked voice. He moved the other mask away from his face. He was turning pink, literally, and started to glitch in place. A telltale sign he was more that flustered at the moment. He looked at both the Hunter and the Lady in their eyes. Even though their masks hid their expressions, he knew what they were thinking. "No. Stop that!"

The Lady and the Hunter started to snicker.

"S-Shut up!"

The Lady held two pointed fingers up by either side of her head, to resemble bunny ears. "Is this going to be like-"

"Shut up, I said!" the Thin Man roared, glitching violently from embarrassment.

"Ah, so you have a mask fetish?" the Hunter chortled, "Hahaha, got it." He walked away with the Lady following after, both laughing at their new discovery.

"I don't like either of you!" the Thin Man whined, reluctantly following, "You two can go directly to hell!"

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Clarity 5

As it turned out, her partner was a little unnerving. How long did he spend painting his face like that? What an odd hobby. Maybe it was some sort of artistic statement about the dichotomy between oppositional energies like yin and yang?

'I wonder if he does that every morning, or just when he goes on missions? I bet it's an intimidation thing.'

Aiko gave Zetsu a queasy smile, hesitating a moment too long before she gave a polite bow. "Please take care of me," she mumbled, nearly stumbling over the platitude.

"A pleasure to meet you, Uzumaki-san," came the neutral reply. That would have been fine, if the sentence "Or something like that," hadn't tumbled out in a deep raspy voice on the heels of the first sentence.

Uncertain, Aiko glanced up at Obito. He was wearing his orange mask again, but he gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up sign in encouragement.

'I can do this. He's probably a really nice guy.'

She beamed at her new partner. This was an adventure, and nothing was going to bring her mood down. "So, what's the situation?"

"We should hurry," Zetsu said politely, sounding distantly pleasant. "Kakuzu-san has arranged for us to meet our prospective client a few hours from here. It would be unwise to be late."

"Impolite," he added a moment later, once again slipping into his lower register.

Ok-ay…

"Alrighty then." Aiko managed to straighten her face into something a little less confused. "Lead the way, then."

Traveling with Zetsu was an awkward proposition, in no small part because he chose to seep hip-deep in the ground. Aiko stared, thrown off-guard. He heaved a beleaguered sigh and wavered back up until all but his shins were above ground, giving her a pointed look.

She didn't know what that was supposed to mean.

"So, we aren't running?" she asked uncertainly. She'd thought…

"This is much faster," Zetsu said curtly. "Grab on. We risk being late."

"Have a good first day back at work!" Obito waved from the door, clearly amused in the moment before he whirled away in a smear of orange and black.

'G- grab on? I begin to suspect that I have questionable taste in friends and associates,' Aiko thought with the air of a shocking revelation. Gingerly, she walked up to Zetsu and hesitated a moment before shrugging and tossing her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind. "Like this?"

"Hold your breath," he ordered curtly.

There was barely time to obey before they were enveloped in the earth. It didn't feel like she was moving, so much as that the ground was moving around her. The feeling was strange and not entirely pleasant—there was pressure all around, but much more around her feet and legs than on her upper torso. Did that make sense? It didn't seem to, but it was still true, even when she anxiously tangled her legs around Zetsu's shins and tried not to cling too desperately.

'It's strangely cold. I would have thought it was stuffy in the dirt. That's good to know, I think?'

If today was at all indicative, that knowledge was going to come in handy. Next time, she would find a jacket. And layer socks, instead of just stuffing a rolled-up pair in the toes of her boots.

That decidedly banal thought was cut off by her body's increasing demand for oxygen. Eventually she was forced to gasp—and took in air, instead of dirt.

'He's maintaining an air pocket,' Aiko realized. 'That's what is keeping us from being smothered. But that can't last long.'

A little frightened but certain that Obito hadn't rescued her just to have Zetsu suffocate her, Aiko stilled and tried to keep her heartrate and breathing low to save on oxygen. An approving rumble shook the bulky torso she was pressed up against.

Remaining calm had been the right decision. Zetsu seemed slightly less cool and disapproving when he popped up to the surface like a sprout, exposing both of them up to their waists. "Air," he commanded gently. Aiko tilted her neck back enough to pull her face out of her companion's black and red cloak and indulged her body's need for oxygen.

"I expect you to learn this jutsu as well," he remarked mildly, not struggling for breath at all. "I am currently shielding you from the negative effects of underground travel for the sake of presentation, but I do not intend to make that a habit."

Aiko opened her mouth, ready to respond when Zetsu sneered and growled out,

"It's a pain."

She blinked. It was probably better to ignore that. Still, he had a good point. She didn't have a latent yearning to get filthy, but it would be rude to depend on her partner to take care of everything. "Would you teach me?"

With her arms still wrapped around his torso, she couldn't see his face at all. That left her off-kilter when all he said was, "Hold your breath."

This time, Aiko sucked in a huge amount of air and immediately tucked her face into her companion's back.

"It can learn," Zetsu hissed, darkly amused. There was no time to respond- It? really, It?- before they were suddenly surrounded by pressure and cold once more.

'At least I wasn't surprised this time. It's easier not to panic that way.'

They traveled that way for a what seemed to be a painfully long time, broken up as it was by trips back up to the surface when the air pocket that Zetsu held around them began to stale and thin.

In reality, it only took two hours and twelve minutes. By the end, Aiko had managed to fall into a nearly meditative state, carefully controlling her breathing and trying to enjoy the body heat that she could borrow off of her comrade.

"Thank you," Aiko mumbled when they finally stood on solid land again. She carefully unlaced her stiff fingers and disentangled her arms out of the folds of Zetsu's cloak. She hadn't even noticed that her arms had worked their way under the buttons in a sad search for warmth.

It was lucky that he was such a nice guy. She rather imagined that not everyone would tolerate their coworker inadvertently feeling them up for hours at a time.

"Don't mention it." He hesitated, and this time she noted that his eyes glazed over slightly before he added, "Please."

'Does he not even know when he's being mean?' Aiko wondered, pretending not to notice the second statement. That seemed like a solid working policy.

"You will approach the client alone," Zetsu muttered, shaking his head and dislodging a bit of dirt that she hadn't noticed. Wondering if her hair was dirty as well, Aiko swept her hand over the top of her head and shook out her ponytail before she realized that her companion was giving her an impatient look.

"Why?" Aiko tilted her head slightly to the side, watching him a little warily. She liked the idea of being in control, but on the first job she remembered doing?

Nerves bubbled up in her gut, and she chewed on a nail. Until she realized that Zetsu looked like he was considering cutting off her hand. Aiko moved to meekly move her hand down, realized what she was doing, and took one last defiant nibble while maintaining eye contact. As if to say that she didn't take orders from him, thank you very much. Then she shoved that hand in the pocket of her skirt.

"I have a memorable face," Zetsu bit out.

Aiko took a moment to wonder if it was really his face that lingered in one's mind, or the enormous green fronds curling around his head. Either way, the point was fairly valid.

So she shrugged. "Alright by me."

"So you are the nuke-nin that I've agreed to hire? You do realize that I require the utmost discretion and speed. You must have completed this mission and meet me at the Nakamura waterfall by that evening at the latest."

The tall, thin man seemed a bit skeptical, frankly, at the disheveled and slightly muddy teenage girl that had shown up in his sitting room.

Aiko beamed up at him, radiating friendliness. She didn't want him to regret his decision.

"Yepp! I'm happy to work with you, Atsushi. You can call me- Masashi," she hastily decided. Damnit Obito, he totally sucked for putting that stupid boy's name in her head. It was somehow his fault that she blanked out at the last moment.

Her prospective employer cringed. His mouth dropped open in what was probably shocked outrage, but his brushy mustache partially disguised the motion.

'Did I say something? Was I not polite enough?'

"I mean, really happy," she over-corrected, widening her smile to contain an obscene amount of teeth. "I bet this is going to be very profitable for both of us."

Shimizu Atsushi, the third-richest man in Grass Country, wondered if this woman was balls-out crazy or actually so dangerous that she didn't see a problem in referring to her social superior in an incredibly inappropriate, familiar manner. He considered being offended, and thought better of it. It would be best to just get her out of his home.

He'd already fronted half of the payment to the intermediary, and getting it back would be difficult. If she failed and died, at least it wouldn't be in his front room.

(His prospective employee had genuinely forgotten about the polite convention of using honorifics. Obito hadn't cared or used them.)

"You will be helping me regain property that was stolen by a former retainer," Atsushi said sternly, shaking away the oddity in favor of professionalism. "The scoundrel has fled with my daughter."

"Alright," Aiko nodded slowly. "What's the missing property?"

Atsushi gave her a look that implied she was a moron. "My daughter Koto," he repeated slowly. With a sigh, he turned away. "Most importantly, of course. They also took a great deal of money and some heirloom jewelry, including my mother's wedding ring. I suspect that they will sell as much of it as possible. Recover both of them and what you can. If I know her…" the man sneered. "They will be headed for the coast."

'So… his daughter eloped, and stole a bunch of his stuff?' Aiko furrowed her brow, but took the information she was provided and left the manor to meet with Zetsu.

'I guess that makes sense. Even if she was his daughter, it was wrong for her to steal from him. I'll recover that and ask her to come home and apologize. And bring back the real thief, of course.'

She shook off the unsettling implication that Atsushi had referred to his daughter as property—he had probably just misspoken—in order to set off on her very first mission.

Well, sort of. She was counting this as mission number one.

At least the little brat was fast. Zetsu might have lost his temper and eaten her if she were completely incapable of keeping up.

He was sullen about his assignment, but maintained focus and contained his temper. This mission was more important than the brat realized, after all. If she were more aware, she might have wondered why such an apparently straightforward mission had been contracted out through a missing-nin instead of a proper village.

Missing nin were often used and discarded by employers because they had no village backing to protect them. That strategy made sense when the mission contracted out was prohibitively expensive or so blatantly dangerous or amoral that the proper village wouldn't take it.

Nuke-nin with any sense for self-preservation would be wary of a mission that seemed neither illegal or excessively easy. There weren't many reasons for a client to prefer to contract out a missing nin over someone from a ninja village.

It could always be that the customer was a criminal too wary of drawing attention to engage in legal business. Zetsu was unfamiliar with the client on a personal level, but most rich men were criminals in some way. Of course, that didn't mean they wouldn't risk going through legal channels if the job itself seemed legitimate.

As far as Zetsu could tell, there was no particular reason that the requested job would have been rejected by a shinobi village. That implied that the choice to hire a missing nin might be based on the fact that it was easier to get out of paying missing nin, or avoid the full price.

Kakuzu didn't have the ability to negotiate anything other than the highest price, even if the intent was to teach Aiko a lesson about nuke-nin getting fleeced. So there was no probability that the promised payment for this mission was low.

With that possible explanation out of the way, Obito had discerned that the client would probably try to have his hired thug killed after she had completed her mission. There was no reason for him to think the plan wouldn't work: that sort of thing happened all the time. Aiko hadn't laid claim to any frightening reputation, and the client hadn't been informed that he was hiring Akatsuki.

Aiko's job was to complete the mission, and discover that the world was shitty and people were cruel and stupid. As much as it rankled to play the hero, Zetsu would save her at the last moment, take her straight to Obito, and let him use the experience as an example as to why change was needed. When he then offered a potential cure for humanity's corrupt nature, Aiko would be ready to hear it.

"Hey, Zetsu? Are we going to stop somewhere for the night?"

'Already? She wants to rest so soon?'

Zetsu scowled. What spoiled, lazy shinobi Konoha turned out. It was no wonder that Madara-sama had attempted to fight the regime that led to such weakness.

"No," White Zetsu responded shortly. "We will press on and overtake them in the night. Once they are in our control, I will watch as you rest a short while before we return. Civilians are slow and not hardy. They cannot have gotten far in the course of two days."

'Obito coddled her by putting her in a house and buying her fancy equipment,' Black Zetsu scoffed. 'He should have let her walk about in the hospital garb and sleep on the cold ground a few nights, until she realized she could take what she wanted from those weaker.'

No, no, that wasn't how Obito wanted this to go. In order to ensure that she would be a suitable carrier for the Rinnegan, the child must be slowly acclimated to share their vision. That began with showing her that humanity and the current order was flawed and amoral, and then having Obito present the solution. It would be highly foolish to make the same mistake that Madara-sama had made in giving the Rinnegan to an unpredictable pawn. She wasn't particularly powerful as she was, but the Rinnegan could turn almost anyone into a respectable opponent. They did not have time to waste bullying a recalcitrant dojutsu user. She had to be molded properly before she was honed into a sharp tool.

They traveled running aboveground, despite the fact that traveling underground was faster. The head-hunter jutsu was very useful, but it did not enable tracking. Luckily, civilians left obvious trails. Not for the first time, Zetsu noted that his traveling companion was almost twitchy in the brush and copses of trees that they traveled through. Her head was constantly swiveling towards the smallest sounds, although she eventually began to be able to control the urge to look.

'She was a jinchuuriki's child,' Zetsu remembered idly from old conversations with Obito. 'I had forgotten that. Her senses are likely heightened due to fetal exposure to such a powerful source of animalistic chakra. The Nine-Tails is a fox, so her hearing and sense of smell are likely the most affected.'

Foxes weren't known for their vision—in fact, her eyesight probably was not augmented at all. But now that he knew what to look for, Zetsu was positive that the brat's senses surpassed what she should possess without conscious memory of training in chakra augmentation.

"What's this?" The brat stopped suddenly. Zetsu shot ahead of her several feet before he managed to stop, turning to glare at the waste of time.

It was wasted. She was on her knees, examining markings in the dirt with a little frown of concentration.

"I should know what this is."

"Yes, you should," White Zetsu agreed.

"This was where they camped last night," Black Zetsu cut in derisively. "Baka. You waste time."

The brat blinked at him. Zetsu suppressed a sigh of irritation. "Come," he bit out tonelessly, turning to move again. "They will be bedding down soon."

It took another four hours to cross the distance that their prey had managed in twelve or fourteen hours of daylight. The brat was flagging but focused through the minute trembles of her ill-used muscles.

It didn't matter that she was in excellent condition for a village shinobi. Missing nin lived much harder lives, and the organization formerly known as Akatsuki was composed of only the best. The brat would need to toughen up.

The camp was small and dark. Their client's former retainer was no slouch as a woodsman—their fire had been expertly covered, and they had been eating off of the land.

Yellow eyes glinted with the pale moonlight that provided the only visibility available. He shifted to check his companion: from her line of sight, he supposed that she could clearly see the slowly breathing figures curled together under a single blanket. The blue fabric had been pushed down far enough that the man was exposed head and shoulders. Only the woman's face was showing, curled as she was with her face on her partner's chest.

Neither was particularly interesting to Zetsu. Both were rather fit for civilians, but they were otherwise unremarkable. Human faces all looked so much alike.

"Immobilize them," Zetsu ordered in a low mutter. They were being paid to return the two alive, after all. If they woke and ran, the brat might get sloppy. She wasn't used to adjusting her force to cope with civilians after having trained with Obito.

The brat stiffened a little at being given orders but pulled a brace of glittering senbon out from her hip pouch.

He silently approved: it was difficult to kill someone with a senbon even if one's aim was poor. Even if she failed, her target would likely survive.

The first senbon flew true, four more flickering on its heels into the meat of the man's neck. He stiffened momentarily before going completely limp. For a moment, Zetsu was reluctantly impressed. And then the sleeping woman moved in her sleep, caressing up her lover's chest. The Brat didn't adjust her sixth needle in time, accidentally pinning the woman's hand to her lover's chest.

She woke up with a scream. It died in her throat an instant later when Zetsu shot a cloud of paralytic gas to mist over the two. He sneered at his companion, noting the frustration on her features.

"Incompetent," White Zetsu muttered. Black Zetsu just hissed.

The large pack the man had been carrying was indeed full of pilfered goods. Unzipping it revealed a careless tangle of necklace chains and bracelets, with rings clanging around the bottom among a pretty set of jade statuettes and an engraved puzzle box of some sort. Only one piece really caught Aiko's eye.

'Oh wow, that is pretty.' A bit guiltily, Aiko held up a jeweled hairpin so she could examine it better by the moonlight. 'I really like this.'

The hairpin wasn't even especially valuable or beautiful for the large collection. But something about the little blue dragonfly sparked at her memory and made her feel happy. Not just happy, but… safe.

Weird.

She wished she could keep it, but dutifully put it away and zipped up the bag.

It was hard to feel satisfied about that even as she re-packed the stolen paraphernalia (she would be the one carrying it from now on) and settled down in their targets' camp. Failure was sour and hot on Aiko's tongue. She had a hard time getting to sleep, kicking her feet against the hard ground and shifting around in a half-assed attempt at comfort.

Sourly, she tossed a glance over at the tangle of unconscious civilians. They both looked spectacularly uncomfortable, faces locked into grimaces. She couldn't bring herself to pity them, pathetic as they were. How could she? They were barely even the same species. They weren't anything like her. She was a monster, and had been long before she was an undead monster. The brief flashes of memory she retained were all of death and violence, a good deal of which she dealt out. If violence was what she had to offer Obito, she could at least have the decency to be good at it.

'I can't believe I messed that up.'

Sleep didn't come. Eventually, she gave up and turned to find her disgruntled partner. Zetsu's mood had become even blacker after her failure. He had left her sight, but she didn't think he would have gone far.

Surely enough, Zetsu slunk into visibility when she craned her head to observe the clearing.

"We should just go. There's no point in staying here if you don't intend to sleep and I can't."

For the first time, it seemed she had said something vaguely agreeable to her companion. Zetsu nodded. "You will run," he rumbled. "I will transport them with my digging technique. I cannot transport three dead weights."

Aiko winced at the truth in that. "Of course," she agreed. At least she could run without messing anything up.

She was starting to change her mind on Zetsu. He was a genuinely unhappy individual, and not friendly in the least. At least he was competent and efficient. He wouldn't be a terrible long-term partner.

'and I won't be either,' Aiko promised internally. 'I'll keep working and get better.'

It had been such a rookie mistake to let her needle loose. She had even seen the muscles tense before the woman move. Aiko just hadn't put that observation together with her chosen action in time to adjust her motions. The problem had been her perception and reaction time.

Experience would make that better, but so would practicing.

She forced away the temptation to mope and instead tried to encourage determination to do better. As soon as this mission was over, she was going to work her tail off. A good shinobi was efficient, quick-witted, tough, and endured all sorts of uncomfortable things like sleeping in the dirt and... and…

Hmm.

'Alright. I'm amending my resolution to be a better shinobi. That's going to be without the outside bits. I don't like sleeping outside and I'm not doing that.'

Aiko ran as hard as she could, until sweat dripped down into her eyes and mouth and she thought she was going to taste salt forever. She had to stop at one point to throw up. Unfortunately, that was several miles before she came to a fast-running river where she could rinse her mouth until her teeth were painfully cold. She made a sad attempt to clean off her face, but gave it up as a bad job. Soap would be required before she was anything approaching clean.

(At the time, she had not gracefully accepted that reality. Aiko cursed like a sailor when she remembered that the soap was in Zetsu's pack).

Despite pushing herself past what she thought was reasonable, Zetsu still beat her to the rendezvous point. Aiko slumped, mildly disappointed. She missed the appraisal her companion gave her.

"We will have to wait to return them," Zetsu said simply. "You are not expected until the next evening at the earliest."

Aiko looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the sad, filthy civilians awkwardly sprawled on the ground where they had been dropped. She wasn't an expert, but she began to suspect that Zetsu had drugged them enough to keep them unconscious and immobile for days.

"I'm going to get a hotel room," she said flatly. "Come or don't, I don't care."

He didn't. In the morning she checked out of her room with clean hair and a still-damp outfit that she had washed in the tub by hand. She found that Zetsu hadn't moved an inch, as far as she could tell.

Aiko got his attention by clapping her hands, though he undoubtedly already knew she was there. "How are we doing this, then?" she asked briskly, nodding towards the chumps they'd gone after. "If you can't be seen, this is slightly complicated. I don't think I can carry both of them."

She definitely couldn't carry both of them, although she could probably drag either one a fair distance by pulling on their ankles. That would have to be her backup plan.

Zetsu made a strange crackling sound that Aiko had no idea how to interpret. After a moment, he sullenly added, "I have little skill with genjutsu. I will wake one of them and it will be your job to convince them to return with you."

Aiko pursed her lips and looked down at the couple collapsed on the ground. She was tempted to wake the man, but he seemed highly competent. The woman was a cloistered noblewoman. She would be more susceptible to persuasions.

"Wake the woman."

Zetsu raised the smooth skin where another man might have had an eyebrow, but obligingly smeared something sharp-smelling over the woman's lips.

"Meet me two kilometers north of here when you are done," he instructed harshly before sinking down into the earth.

Fair enough. Aiko took a deep breath, tapping her fingers rapidly against the beautiful curved kunai that Obito had gifted her with, considering her strategy. By the time the woman groaned, her long, pale face contorting in discomfort, Aiko was ready.

"Wake up." Aiko bent and slapped the woman, and stared into startled green eyes for just a moment before fear filled them. She might have forced a thin smile over her face if she thought she could manage it convincingly—but she knew she couldn't it. If she moved her face from the impassive mask she was wearing now, she wouldn't be able to hide her own nerves.

All she had to do was out-bluff a civilian girl. A non-violent offender, one who had committed a crime but didn't deserve harm. Aiko carefully avoided looking at the bruise on the girl's left hand with a perfect dot of dried blood in the middle.

It wasn't anywhere near the brutality that she saw in her dreams or that she was capable of, but it was proof of the first time she remembered harming another human being.

She didn't need to hurt the girl, but the civilian needed to think that violence was a possibility to scare her into compliance.

"What's going on?" Consciousness didn't really improve the sour look of Koto's face. She was closer to handsome than pretty, with a long face, pointy chin, and slight bags under her squinting eyes.

'Wow, her voice is an annoyingly high pitch. That's positively grating.'

"Who are you?" Koto demanded, shaking her hair and struggling to her feet. She glanced down, noticed her lover, and turned white with what might have been rage or fear.

The silence didn't last long. It turned to shouted recriminations, insults based on Aiko's appearance, and threats that the other teenager had no chance of carrying out.

"-at bitch! What did you do to him? I'll-"

'If she were my daughter, I might have let her go. Jewelry or not,' Aiko mused impassively. Was this really what civilians were like? No wonder that Obito didn't let her mingle with them long than she had to.

"Ugly cunt!" Koto outright screamed in Aiko's face, her unimpressive chest heaving and eyes wide. She was shaking violently and apparently thought that getting louder would force Aiko to react. It didn't. "Fix him, or I promise I will cut you! I have friends who will come after you!"

Aiko watched Koto boredly. The taller girl fell silent once her voice went raspy, chest heaving with the effort of her vitriol.

"Are you quite done, Koto?" She guessed that the outrage and confused fear in other girl's face was a victory. Aiko capitalized on that momentum, keeping her voice a steady, inflectionless drone that all but screamed disinterest. It claimed she did this every day. "You're almost home."

She was surprised by the choking sob the other teenager let out, but didn't let that show.

"You really shouldn't have stolen from your father," Aiko mildly scolded, letting just a bit of disapproval color her tone. "I'm taking you home, and you're going to tell your father that you are very sorry."

"W-what? Apologize- what are you, my grandmother?" The other teen seemed flabbergasted. Kami only knew why. Surely she expected that her father would want her back? Granted, he'd chosen a strange messenger considering he was wealthy enough to have his own staff. But whatever, if he felt like throwing money at Aiko, that was just fine. "There's no need for that," Koto tried slowly. "I can pay you."

Aiko raised an eyebrow. "With the things you stole from your father?" she asked dryly, pointedly lifting her shoulder so that the pack on her back was more obvious. It was the one that Koto's little boy toy had been carting. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

Koto opened her mouth, furrowed her brow, and then shut her mouth. She appeared to be momentarily broken.

Absolutely no sympathy stirred in Aiko's chest. The girl shouldn't have stolen: she'd written a check that she couldn't cash. Koto didn't even seem regretful. She just wanted to avoid the consequences of her actions. What a brat. She was far too old for that sort of behavior. If she had any dignity at all, she would accept responsibility and go home, now that she'd been caught.

"Please," Koto said, very quietly.

'Little weasel.'

Aiko felt her lip curl in revulsion despite her resolution to remain impassive and detached. "You're annoying." Against her will, her fingers curled around the one kunai in her weapon pouch. The other girl's wide eyes clearly caught the motion.

'I'm getting overly involved. I need to stay detached. This is just a job. It's not my problem that she totally sucks.'

Koto considered her chances for a long moment, staring at Aiko's face. Awkwardly, Aiko forced the tiniest smile onto her face, because the alternative was letting her resolve waver. She'd been trusted with a straight-forward mission. She could do this, even without Zetsu's help on this last part.

Koto crumbled. "Alright," she said quietly. "I'll come."

"That's good," Aiko chirped, turning away and giving a stretch. "You'll be dragging lover-boy here home. I certainly couldn't do it, I might break a nail." She rolled her neck, yawning. After a moment, she added in an undertone as if it as unimportant and not another threat, "If I'd had to carry you, I don't know how he was going to get to come with us."

The implication being, of course, that she would kill him.

The other girl wasn't strong, even for a teenager. Aiko would have done a much better job at pulling the unconscious lump of quietly drooling young man the mile or so to the isolated meeting point not far from the client's manor. But she much preferred to have her hands free. Sweating and huffing would have undermined the image she needed to portray. If she were in Koto's position, she would be looking for an opportunity to attack the bullying ninja and make free.

That wouldn't work, of course, Zetsu was probably somewhere nearby. He was a few miles at the absolute most, and would notice if Koto tried to make a break for it. Aiko still wasn't going to let it get to that point.

She mercilessly pushed Koto on, even after her pointy and not entirely pretty face was red as a cherry and her breathing had turned to harsh gasps.

"Maa, Koto," she drawled, not knowing why the taunt sounded so right, "Are you tired already? Do you want a break already?"

Aiko was pretty sure that Koto hated her, but they were making pretty good time, all things considered. She hadn't been to the meeting spot, but it was easy enough to recognize from the description that she'd been given.

There couldn't possibly be that many waterfalls around.

"Just drop him," Aiko advised carelessly, waving a nonchalant hand behind her and hopping up onto a large rock in the middle of the angrily bubbling stream fleeing the short waterfall. Well. She thought of it as short, but it was a good twenty feel from top to bottom.

If she wanted, she could probably run right up it, although it would be much easier to take the rocks.

(She privately resolved to do that once the exchange was over. It would probably be really fun to leap off the edge into the deeper pool collected at the bottom).

The sound of Koto's breathing became muffled—she put her hand over her mouth, Aiko decided—and footsteps that the civilian probably thought were quiet sounded out behind her.

'I'm surprised it took this long.'

Aiko turned lazily, her right hand whipping up to grab Koto's wrist. She twisted, letting the momentum force the girl to drop the jagged rock she had picked up. Aiko gave a not entirely pleasant smile.

"At least you're not entirely gutless," she remarked, watching the determination in Koto's eyes turn back to hopelessness. When the other teen wrenched her arm away, Aiko let her. "But you're going to have to do much better than that. Try not to embarrass yourself next time you try to kill someone who kills for a living, yes? Or just be smarter."

Wow, this was kind of fun. It was all bluffing, but Koto didn't have to know that.

(it wasn't exactly bluffing. She knew that she could snap a man's neck with her bare hands if she had to, and that wasn't the only way she had seen her dream-self brutalize another human being. If she had to, she could do things Koto couldn't imagine with just one little blade. It only took one).

Koto whimpered, spineless again.

Ugh.

Disgusted, Aiko gently pushed the girl backwards until Koto stumbled out of the river, falling to her bum on the mud.

"Stay there," she sighed. "Or come up with a better plan. It'd be better than glaring at each other for another hour," Aiko mumbled under her breath.

Koto's hostility simmered like a physical thing, leaving her practically generating a stormcloud over her head.

It didn't exactly enhance the wait.

When Shimizu Atsushi strolled into sight, it was with two men at each shoulder. To be more specific, they were burly men, carrying unconcealed weapons. They looked like hired muscle.

Aiko frowned, unease stirring. She hadn't seen anyone like that on the premises when she had met with Atsushi before.

Koto gave a strangled sob, climbing to her feet and brushing a bit of hair off of her face.

"Masashi, I didn't expect you to beat me here," Atsushi remarked, turning curiously calm eyes on his distraught daughter and the limp form of her lover on the ground. "You do good work. Koto-chan, I'm glad to see you unharmed. I was so very worried."

Oddly, she glared at him.

Atsushi's face twisted in concern. "Kinji-kun, would you please secure Aki-san here? I feel nervous knowing that a dangerous thief is unsecured."

The man furthest from Atsushi's right shoulder nodded, muscling his way past them. His thick geta sank slightly into the soft turf and his tan pants and shirt fluttered in the wind. Aiko caught the motion out of the corner of her eye, but didn't turn around enough to keep her focus on 'Kinji-kun'.

Something wasn't right. Aiko moved slightly, opening up her chest and shoulders so that she could keep an eye on the entire clearing.

Strangely, Koto was the only other person who really seemed tense and alert like that. Atsushi and his four staff members were all relaxed looking.

And then 'Kinji-kun' picked up Koto's lover like he was a doll, easy as you please. He gave one last glance at Atsushi before he grabbed the unconscious man's lolling chin with one enormous hand and twisted, bracing the handsome and suddenly very dead thief against his chest.

The quiet pop was almost shocking.

Aiko's mouth dropped open in shock.

'Well, I honestly did not expect that.'

In the moment of quiet, Koto's voice was very clear. "Ninja-san, they'll kill the two of us as well. That's the kind of man my father is. Fight for me."

That wasn't a half-bad argument. She palmed her kunai warily, taking a step backwards.

Atsushi left out a barking laugh. "Koto-chan, you're not supposed to share family secrets. You see, this is why we have problems." He took a casual step forwards, rolling his shoulders. "Yes, ninja-san, I'm afraid that I don't intend to pay you. No one would disbelieve me when told that a violent nuke-nin attacked my family and attempted to rob me blind. It's just business, I assure you."

'I can't believe this crap.' Aiko gritted her teeth, deeply unhappy with the change in situation. 'He asked me to come here with the intention of killing me once I did what he asked to save a couple bucks? What an unmitigated buttmunch.'

That wasn't the kind of dickery she could overlook. True, she could easily run away. There were problems with that. First of all, it would feel like letting Atsushi win, and her pride couldn't tolerate that thought. Secondly… she maybe owed Koto an apology, because apparently there was a good reason not to want to spend time around her dillweed father.

The decision she was about to make was a terrible one, frankly. The first time that she picked a fight probably shouldn't be when she was tired from running over ten hours yesterday and outnumbered. But apparently, she wasn't a practical kind of girl. That was good to know.

'Well, shit. Now would be an awesome time to have backup. Where the hell is Zetsu when I need him?' Stubbornly, Aiko took a deep breath and decided that now would be an excellent time to switch loyalties.

"Koto?" She prompted, widening her stance. "Suggestions?"

The relief that washed over the other teen's face told her that she'd made the right decision. "Stop them before they stop you."

Well gee, you think?

Apparently Koto wasn't going to be much help. Ah well. It had been a long shot anyway. She could probably do this.

Atsushi didn't seem like a combatant to her, but Aiko was reluctant to rule him out. His daughter was scrappy enough that she was wary of him—it had to come from somewhere. That meant she had at least four opponents, possibly five. Four opponents of unknown skill was a poor match-up for her first real fight. They wouldn't be gentle with her like Obito was. In other words…

'I don't think I can afford to let them make the first move.'

She assessed the situation with a blink. Kinji was still away from his fellows, ten feet separating him and backup. She stood roughly equidistant from him and his peers.

That was why Aiko swiveled on the balls of her feet and took a running leap at the loner, counting on the comforting weight of the blade in her right palm. He dodged to her left—

Which was perfect. She side-stepped behind him with a swivel and cut his throat from behind. He dropped to her feet with a gurgle.

(She winced, but pushed the regret and disgust away. She couldn't be bothered by this, this was what she was supposed to do it was who she was it was what she'd been training for).

Someone screamed, but she didn't know who. Blood was pounding in her ears and she had to move, had to move, she'd seen this a dozen times in her sleep if she didn't move fast enough they would get her and she would be dead for real this time.

Aiko ignored the hot blood making her grip slippery and took a step backwards, forcing the fastest bodyguard to make the choice between jumping over his dead fellow or lose momentum by stepping around him. The dark-eyed man chose to take a graceful leap over Shinji, moving to bring his blade out to meet her.

It was the wrong decision. He couldn't dodge while in the air, and his hand couldn't move rapidly enough while weighed down by his sword.

Her target was fairly obvious. The simplest, most direct solution was the best.

She let her kunai slide into his right wrist and jerked it haphazardly up into the meat of his arm, intentionally brutalizing the hand holding the short sword in his grip.

He screamed like a stuck pig and stumbled when his feet hit the ground, sending his weight crashing down. The downed man was struggling and moaning, clutching at his wrist with his free hand, but Aiko didn't have time for pity. Unless he was ambidextrous and realllly determined, that should be good enough. She probably didn't need to have killed the first one either, but in her defense, she'd just watched him kill a man.

'They're so slow,' she noted in mild surprise, comparing her opponents to Obito, her only other sparring partner.

Perhaps it had been premature to jump straight towards so much force. They were… they were just civilians, apparently. Hired tough guys who basically amounted to genin level fighters. With that in mind, she adjusted her grip on the kunai to leave the blunt head uncovered. The weight was a comfort in her hand as she danced around the second man who had attempted to rush her. The last was standing in front of his nervous-looking employer, attempting to look menacing.

Her heartbeat slowed to manageable levels. It was hard to believe she had been so nervous about the thought of a real fight. She'd seen this a dozen times and her body knew the motions like it knew how to walk. It was piteously easy to give the man she'd stepped behind (a scarred bear of a man with a blonde ponytail) a good, hard whack on just the right spot on the back of his head with the blunt end of her blade.

He dropped like a rock.

Aiko sighed, shaking her hair back as she turned to look at the two threats left. Judging by the way they were gaping at her, she looked pretty badass at the moment.

The moment was ruined by a piteous whimper from behind her.

'I completely forgot about him. That's…embarrassing. What if he'd gotten back up and rushed me from behind?'

Her face went red as a tomato. "Oops?" she half-asked, rubbing at her head until she realized she was smearing blood over her hair. Atsushi turned a remarkable shade of purple.

"Stop her!" he snapped, shoving weakly at the bulky guard in front of him.

The remaining bodyguard looked a bit conflicted. His clear blue eyes looked at Aiko. Then he glanced at the man crying –something about his mother?—and shaking his mangled wrist. Then he looked back at Aiko with a question written on rugged features.

"I don't have a problem with you," she offered, shrugging.

He smiled, tense shoulders relaxing visibly. "Good to know, shinobi-san. I think that it is time for me to look for a new job."

"Probably," Aiko agreed, watching Atsushi shake with impotent rage. "You won't be getting a letter of recommendation from that one, I think."

He paused, giving a deep sigh that loosened the tight material of the red yukata across his chest. "…I don't suppose you might be looking for a hired thug? Or that you won't mind if I don't change my sinful ways?"

"Thug away," Aiko instructed, a smile tugging at one side of her mouth despite herself. "But I'm afraid I don't need any assistance today, kind gentleman. We should part ways. If I see you again, I'd love to work with you."

"Excellent. My name is Akemi, shinobi-san. Please take care of me."

Aiko paused, frowning. She was pretty sure that was an alias. "That's a girls' name."

Akemi (and he was such a large person for someone named 'beautiful brightness') raised an eyebrow. "Coming from you, Masashi-san, that rings a bit hypocritical."

Fair enough. She didn't say another thing as Akemi reached out and thumped Atsushi on the head impersonally with a meaty fist, idly catching the bony man before he fell and tucking the now-captive under a well-muscled arm.

That might have been the end of it. She had nearly forgotten that Koto was still there, until the other teenager stood, brushed off her clothes, and said in a very dry tone, "You do realize that they weren't the people my father was intending on betraying you to. He didn't expect you to defend me. You're a terrible missing nin, by the way. Utter shit at your job. And this is coming from someone raised in the yakuza, so I know what I'm talking about."

Aiko frowned at that, not sure if she should be insulted. "Then who was he planning on selling me out to?"

Koto sighed, rubbing at her face tiredly. She looked like she'd had a hell of a week. "If I know him, he's contacted a village. They'd reward him half of whatever bounty you have, which would mean you'd dragged me back nearly for free. You got cheated, moron."

Oh. Other shinobi were coming. Probably a whole team of them, too. Hmm.

Yeah, she wasn't sticking around for that.

"I should go," Aiko mumbled, wiping her blade off on her shirt and tucking it back away. Then she aimed a beaming smile at the other two, hands clasped in front of her torso. "It was very nice meeting you all! I'm sorry about that misunderstanding Koto, if I'd known he was going to kill your boyfriend I wouldn't have brought you back. I'll just take this bag as payment."

Something twitched in Koto's eye. She conspicuously said nothing.

"I should go too," Akemi said awkwardly. "I'm a deserter and all. I suppose you should tell whoever shows up that you were attacked by rogue ninja who robbed your father or something so that you don't get arrested."

"I will try to remember that," Koto all but hissed, before turning a sneer at her very unconscious father. "Although it won't matter what I say, once father wakes up."

Akemi looked down at his burden, and then nodded. "Ah. I see." He hit Atsushi again, much harder this time. That was satisfying, actually. Aiko smothered a rather vicious smile. She really shouldn't mix business and pleasure, but the man had tried to have her killed for doing the job he hired her for.

Koto blinked. "That'll work."

Aiko was already halfway out of sight.

"Uzumaki," Zetsu hissed like a curse, sliding out of the ground. That had not gone as planned.

The idiot civilian girl that he had dragged across the countryside shrieked when she saw him for the first time. It took only a moment to shut her up, and not much longer to tip her unresisting corpse up into the hungry plant material around his chest and store the nutritious meat for later. He killed the two thugs that the brat had left unconscious (one was nearly bleeding out anyways) and hunted down the runner to do the same.

It was positively infuriating; he wallowed bitterly as he ripped the last witness to Aiko's face apart. No one had done what they were meant to. Atsushi had improperly timed the ambush and then shown his hand too quickly, robbing Zetsu of the opportunity for his scripted 'rescue' of the brat, who would then feel loyalty. The brat had erred just as badly by forgetting herself and making friends with people that she should have been killing. When he returned to the rendezvous spot (after a short break to begin digesting in peace) Zetsu aimed a baleful glare at the redhead. She didn't even seem to notice. Moron.

Fuck it, Obito could sort this out. And come up with a less convoluted plan with reduced risk for error next time.

The very lucky and very late Kumo nin who responded to honored tradesperson Shimizu Atsushi's call for assistance were baffled when they arrived seventeen minutes after Zetsu left.

[hannahssimblr]

Dean: A case study & my justification.

Now that part 2 is over, I can finally share my feelings about Dean, the thought behind him and where he came from.

First off, I didn't think he'd cause so much discourse. To me, because I knew who he was from the moment he was introduced, I was surprised to find that so many people liked him. I kind of thought "oh no, maybe I've done something wrong here" But then I realised that actually, that probably sounds about right. If I didn't know his motives I would have liked him too.

When I was twenty three I knew a guy a bit like Dean. Our relationship was complicated, and the exact ins and outs of how it was defined aren't really relevant, but the point is, he was manipulative and emotionally abusive.

I was young and fresh out of college, and he was in his late twenties and yet somehow there was a part of me that felt like I always had the upper hand on him, like I thought always knew what he was thinking. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I thought I was able to handle him, and I'd always believed deep down that I was too clever, too astute to be one of those women who ended up with an abusive partner. Now I know that I only felt that way because I'd never been in their shoes.

Abusive people don't come into your life announcing that they are going to hurt you. They come in quietly and nicely, they make you laugh and give you the type of attention they've figured out that you want. At the beginning, when I met him, I actually wasn't remotely interested, but he viewed this fact as a challenge, and tried extra hard to get my attention. He'd play all kinds of mind games - the same way that Dean did. Dean deliberately insults Evie's work in order to check how much it will bother her, and then acts like he's just being constructive. He blocks her from his phone just to test her and see if she'll come crawling back begging for attention. Every time they're together he's reading her, he's checking her face, he's watching her every movement to see if what he's doing is working and if he's bringing her around to being with him. He knows she is too good for him, but her self esteem is so low that she doesn't know that. He will play that to his advantage.

I got wound up around my guys finger without even knowing it, and looking back, I can't even tell you how I got there. But I know that there was one time that I began to get bored and lose interest in his flirting, and he came over to my house with a wrapped gift and a poem he'd written about me. Then we lay on the couch with the sun streaming in the windows and he stroked my hair for an hour. He didn't want to be with me, he didn't want to be my boyfriend, he was just reeling me back in. He was seeing what it would take to get me back in his orbit again because he could sense I was slipping away and he had a hunger for attention. Dean does the same thing to Evie when he sees that he's made a potentially disastrous mistake and let his mask slip. He goes to a bookshop and tries to find the most personal gift possible. Not because he cares about her, but because he needs to keep on playing the game. Men like this know the right things to do, they know perfectly well how to appear sincere.

The moment I confessed feelings to him, I'd lost. For me it felt straightforward, it felt like, oh, well we obviously like each other so let's date now. He didn't want to date. He "couldn't". I can pinpoint that as the day that everything took a sudden nosedive. Within a few weeks I felt completely trapped. He stopped pretending to be nice, and he took advantage of my feelings and my willingness to be kind to him. He asked me to do unreasonable things. He'd impose on me, force me to complete tasks and then insult me for doing them wrong. He camped out in my house one weekend working on a project he wouldn't let me help him with (because I mess everything up), and made me cook him three meals without ever saying thank you. In fact I think he said "I don't like this type of food." it was horrifying, humiliating, and for some reason I felt like I couldn't get away from it. There was a visceral moment when I cried in confusion on a set of stone steps in my town with my best friend, and I told her that I felt like I was in an abusive relationship, but couldn't have been because he wasn't my boyfriend. I didn't have the self esteem to get away from him.

Many of the things Dean says to Evie in the final chapters are variations of the things said to me during this time. I think that's why writing those parts was so painful for me. I literally paced around my apartment trying to get the nerve to do to Evie what had been done to me. In the story, Dean starts turning on Evie the moment they agree to date non-exclusively in the park. From chapter 16 until the end he is, in my opinion, horrendous with her. He struggles to keep the mask on at all in 16 and 17, covering up his rage and impatience with thin layers of rehearsed understanding. He says what she needs to hear, but he's not even really bothering to make it sound genuine anymore. She won't have sex with him. He says it's fine, but then leaves the library in annoyance five minutes later. She finally gives in and does it, and he doesn't enjoy it. He worked so hard and gave so much of his time and effort to getting her clothes off, and now she's let him do it and he wasn't satisfied. All of his manipulation was for nothing.

Dean eventually just uses her for her central apartment by the end. It's closer to work than his own place, and it's easier to crash there after a night out. He doesn't care about any of the promises he made to her, and even though they continue to have sex, he's not doing it because he has affection for her. She's just conveniently there. He cares about her feelings so little that he's happy to tell Marnie all of the personal details that Evie would be mortified to share. He doesn't care about her, nor does he care about Marnie or Fiona or anybody else. He cares about the pursuit of women, the challenge of snagging those who are 'out of his league' just to prove to himself that he can. I wanted to show that by chapter 20, he actually only wants to have sex with Evie when he's on MDMA, that's the only time that he enjoys it, and she, with self esteem whittled down, has accepted this as her reality, for any of his chemically enhanced affection is better than his sober disdain. She has nobody else in her corner anyway, so she might as well just let him drag her to the bottom with him.

I like to think that the hints of Dean's motives would be obvious if you were to go back and read it again. I was honestly, incredibly fascinated by the response to him and the debate around whether he was bad or good. It felt like there were people who could plainly see what he was doing and people who, like me once, saw the things he was doing as normal and easy to explain away. That's the thing though, he was doing normal things. Walking someone home is okay, maybe touching someone's palm at a party is okay, but it's not always about these singular actions. It's a gut feeling, something inexplicable. A heightened feeling, you noticing that something is missing from their gaze, a feeling of being observed or tested by them. I know to be aware of these things now, but I would have never ever known that when I was 19.

I’ve been holding off talking about my intentions for him for a very long time, and honestly, chomping at the bit to tell you who he really is, but the discussion was so varied and interesting that I was actually happy to step back and let everyone talk. I was also a little afraid of admitting my own blindness when I was in a similar situation. I realised during part 2 that I really don't have control over the characters and how likeable or unlikeable they are. A hero to one person may be a villain to another.

I know this is a long post but I'm glad to get it off my chest. Now you know ;)

[har-rison-s]

mask & seek: 4

batman x fem!reader

based on: Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she's from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson's universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn't trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤

a/n: fuck, i just realised i've put the wrong synopsis of this story for the last 2 chapters i'm so sorry guys, my mistake LMAO. sorry to break y'all's reality like that, i really am. so hi. because this is the first chapter that really deals with the multiverse stuff head-on, i have to clarify that in this DC universe new york doesn’t exist. i haven’t read a lot of the batman comics, so i’m not really sure if it exists there. but since gotham (at least in my opinion) is based off new york city, i’m writing it so in this au that new york isn’t a place in America. hope you get what i mean :D happy reading. i’m seeing the batman again tomorrow!!!!! beyond excited

main masterlist

bruce wayne masterlist

part three

part five

warnings: descriptions of injuries, of fixing one; brief mention of using a knife, mentions of needles and catheters (i hate them so much); slight insecurity talk; oh and the best one - silent pining :)

word count: 4.8k

a/n: (who got you frowning like that baby girl) took me 15 minutes to find a suitable gif, god help. full credit to owner / maker!!! 

y/n grunts and wobbles from one foot over to the other, holding her side. it hasn’t been a particularly successful night, to say the least. one of their opponents had a nasty knife, and, unluckily, she wasn’t as agile to avoid its sting. “my place is so far away…” she whines, thinking of any other place to go where she could tend to her wounds and rest. just a little. only an hour or two of sleep sound heavenly right now. plasters and gauze around her waist sound nice, too. and she’d love some water. or hot cocoa.

bruce’s ears prick up at the desperation in her words, and he turns his head sharply to her. “we can go to mine,” he tells her in his vigilante-husk that she knows fades away as soon as there’s only the two of them in a room without their masks on. she gives bruce a confused look and quizzical eyebrows. he notes her unstable stance and tries to identify her injuries.

“you sure?” she asks.

he’s never taken her to his place before. he’s never even offered to take her there, either, in the last four months of them working together. she doesn’t know where it is, what kind of property it is—but does that really matter? they’ve always gone to her place because it’s in the center of gotham, and she’s just always had the upper hand in that. plus, she has a first-aid kit and wound-tending skills, which—she’s quite sure—batman doesn’t have.

bruce nods and then struts the few steps over to her. he reaches an arm around her shoulders, his other arm circling the front of her torso, holding onto her hand above the problematic spot in her side, “i’m sure,” he tells her and begins to lead her down the dirty old alley, into the depths of the narrows, it seems to y/n, helping her with every step, “i’ll take you on my bike.”

she finds the last remnants of humor in her system and makes a chuckle, “that’s what a girl’s gotta do for you to take her on a motorbike ride—get nearly beaten to death?” she asks him teasingly. bruce has learned over time to take her humor as it is—as humor—even in gloomy situations. and so his lips tug upwards in a half-smile at her joke. but he can’t distract his mind from her being as injured as he was on the night she saved his life. okay, no, she’s worse tonight than that.

“here we are,” he says once they’ve rounded the corner far from the site of their recent fight, and a beautifully subtle motorcycle comes into y/n’s view. bruce rests her against a near-by wall while he goes to unlock the vehicle, and y/n can only make out a “wow” at the sight of the thing. all black and, though it has signs of frequent use, all the surfaces look like silk. this motorbike sure is worth getting beat up for.

bruce unlocks the bike and comes over to y/n again, with two helmets in his hands. he helps her put hers on—y/n’s vision has started to blur and sway a little, and her limbs grow weaker and weaker by the second—then he secures his own helmet on and helps her walk over to the bike, his hand on the small of her back, the other still holding her hand. once at the bike, he places both hands on her ribcage, right below her chest, and, trying to do it both gently and with strength, lifts her up onto the seat of the motorbike.

y/n cries out like a hurt child—first time bruce has seen and heard her like this in all this time—and her face twists up from the pain, her features and the tears in her eyes visible in the as-of-yet open screen of the helmet. it breaks bruce’s heart to hear that sound from her. “i’m sorry,” he tells her quietly, sincerity thick in his husky voice, “i know it hurts.”

she gives him a momentary glance through the slit in her helmet, and their eyes connect in a deeply private look for a few moments. trust, loyalty and submission are dark undertones in their eyes, and for those few moments, they just stare into each other’s orbs, searching them, exploring them, emerging themselves into them, not saying a single word. they’re sure that not even thoughts pass through their minds in that brief time.

their faces close, bruce’s hands on her body. care for her pulsating through them with every pump of blood his heart makes. y/n nearly reaches out and runs her hand across the side of his face. if only he wasn’t wearing the helmet, she could thread her fingers through that night-black hair and be even closer to him than she is now.

he knows her. he knows nothing about the her that she is on the surface. he doesn’t even know her name. but he knows her essence, he knows her depths. and he knows how important it is to her what she’s doing, and what they’re doing together. he hadn’t realized how much meaning it held to him, too, until now. and he, too, almost reaches out to touch her face. both of their shyness wins over their boldness to act.

but when he finally does, having gained the courage and boldness to, he touches her to close the screen protector on her helmet, so she wouldn’t get any dirt, mud or possible rain into her eyes or face while they drive. the air of disappointment hangs between them afterwards—a sour one. but y/n is losing consciousness and willpower too fast to dwell on it much. and he’s supposed to be caring for her so, even though his body screams at him to move his hand lower, to cup her neck from the side in the gentlest, most affectionate manner, he withdraws from her to get onto his motorbike.

y/n is feeling or seeing hardly anything at all right now, but when batman rests his gloved hands on her legs to move them on each of his sides, she almost moans. almost, and thank goodness for that. he finds her arms next and pulls them around his torso, pulling her body closer onto his. “hold tight onto me,” he tells her, “don’t you let go.”

and she tries her best to do that throughout the quick and bumpy ride around gotham. she has no idea where he’s taking her exactly, she couldn’t map it out in her current state if she tried. all she sees are lights and objects flashing past her at lightning speed, and she hears all kinds of different sounds around her, as well. the world blurs into one big tornado milkshake from her point of view, and she can hardly keep herself conscious. but she has to, otherwise her arms will let go of bruce and she’ll fall off. and merely the thought about those consequences sobers her up for the remainder of their ride.

the noises and lights fade away towards the very end of it, and y/n furrows her eyebrows as she feels the world around her go quiet, so quickly and suddenly. she sees only darkness now around her, the single light source in it being batman’s motorbike light at the very front. she moves her head slightly to the side and lifts it, too, to try and recognize her surroundings. as if that’s going to do her any good, what with her state and the unknown place she’s in.

then batman pulls his motorbike to a stop, inside a room or hall—y/n can’t really tell—that has some barely-working lights on the ceiling, as well as rows and rows of something moving, something alive. she can’t see what it is, but it looks like a huge quantity of some small creature.

bruce makes sure to move y/n off the bike before she can slide off it, and he hoists her up bridal-style in his arms, carrying her over to one of his desks afterwards. he lays her down gently on her back, lifts the helmet off her head, and does the same to himself, ridding himself of his cape and armor, too, immediately afterwards. y/n tries to move, tries to sit up on top of his messy desk, tries to get a hold of herself and the situation, but bruce captures her again before she can make any movement. “don’t move,” he tells her in a half-commanding and half-pleading whisper. he takes her mask off—he’s seen how she does it before, and he slips it off with complete ease—and looks into her eyes again. he sees her eyes for real now, and he sees her face, too—hurt. a bruise on her cheekbone, a cut in her cheek. how did he let this happen? her eyelids are fluttering in weak efforts to stay conscious, but she mostly fails. how can she look so heavenly even in a state like this? “just stay with me.” bruce finally tells her before scooping her up into his arms again. she won’t get the help she needs down in his lab cave.

perhaps alfred has some first-aid kits. no doubt he has those, he’s patched bruce up many times before. bruce gets into the elevator and presses the level number for the living quarters of wayne manor. he glances down at his partner, and his heart lurches in his chest. her face has gone pale. he looks down to where her side is hurt, her hand still lightly hanging onto that spot, and bruce gulps. her thick, dark blood is seeping through her suit. it’ll be ruined.

his trembling hand reaches over to the dark patch, and he cups the side in the gentlest way he can, so as not to cause her any more pain. and he feels the wet liquid against his skin, coating his pale pigment a dark color immediately. bruce grows scared of it, of how that feels. her blood on his hands. his first instinct is to let go of her, of what makes him scared. but he doesn’t. he can’t. he pulls her even closer into his hold, and now he looks at her face again. his blood-coated hand absent-mindedly reaches up to her cheek.

he just wants to feel her in his hand, feel that she’s still there, feel that the silk of her skin is still intact. y/n doesn’t feel much of anything at the moment, bruce’s touch on her in those multiple places is such a far-away feeling. one she wants to feel completely, but is miles away from, unable to reach. she’d much rather drift off to sleep now. she feels so tired. there won’t be any harm in simple slumber now, will there?

bruce doesn’t understand how this escalated so quickly. she was joking just some ten minutes ago, and now the very life is fading away from her. bruce doesn’t know if he’ll be able to… he doesn’t even want to say the words. in short, he’s not sure if he’s fully capable. he needs help.

and it arrives sooner than he expects. as the elevator pulls to a stop at the right floor, the door slides open and no other than alfred is standing right behind it. the older man is immediately confused about bruce using the elevator at all, he’s confused as to why the man who will always be a boy in his eyes has come up at all. bruce breathes a quiet gasp of pleasant surprise, and then he almost trips over his own tongue while trying to say something. “bruce, what are you—” but alfred’s question stops half-way when he notices the limp figure in his godson’s arms. and the blood on the figure’s side, the blood on bruce’s hand. and then he sees the desperate look in bruce’s eyes.

“help,” he manages to say, “help her.”

alfred sees the slowly-healing bruises on bruce’s own face and arms, but he nods. the woman in his arms is in need of much more urgent care than bruce himself. alfred doesn’t need any closer inspection to determine her state of health, and how important it is to act now. so without another word, he ushers bruce to the spare room he set up himself a month or two after bruce started his vigilante night shifts. a room with everything that a badly injured person could need. a bed, medical equipment, books, even a tv, and a bathroom connected to it. one of the guest bedrooms that alfred couldn’t bring himself to make into a storage room.

his breath trembling, arms shaking, eyes filling up with tears, bruce carries y/n to the large bed as quick as he can. he and alfred lean over her for the older man to determine what they should do first. cuts along her arms, those two bruises on her face, and the big, bad bleeding injury in her side. alfred looks to bruce. “what were you doing?” he asks his godson, and sees he’s staring at the woman before him with glassy, strong eyes so full of emotion as he’s ever seen.

bruce shrugs. “nothing extraordinary,” he says, “was like any other night. only…” he gulps, “only the thugs had more weapons we didn’t know about.” he shrugs. “i don’t know how it happened,” bruce’s breath hiccups in his throat, his voice now verging on crying, “can you just help her, please?” he finally looks at his godfather. bruce doesn’t care how he sounds. he just wants her to look alive again, to be alive.

“we both can,” alfred assures him, “we’ll need to take off her suit to get to that horrible wound. you do that,” he walks off towards the small trolley of medical equipment in the room, “we’re gonna clean it, and then we’ll have to stop the bleeding first and foremost.”

bruce looks at y/n again. he needs to take off her suit. will she be okay with that? would she be okay with that? he wants to ask her, but, judging by the pale, unconscious look on her face, that’s quite impossible now. bruce just doesn’t wish to expose her to him while she’s unconscious and doesn’t know he’s doing it. but he needs to get over that, over those anxieties. her life is at stake.

so he turns her over to her side just for a moment, while he finds the hidden zipper in her suit and unzips it. she makes a small noise, a near acknowledgement of bruce moving her around. much to his peace of mind, a bra comes into view, the black strap of it hugging around her back. as soon as the zipper is down enough, bruce turns her over to her back again and carefully, with all the caution he can muster up, he takes the suit off.

holes show in places where the suit—and her skin, too—has been cut into. dried blood sticks around the corners of them, but some blood is fresher than some other. bruce gulps at the sight of it, but keeps peeling the spandex off her. once he’s peeled off enough for the biggest injury to be out in the open, he leaves the rest of it be, the elastic fabric bunching around her hips now.

god in heaven, it looks really bad. she hasn’t just been cut, she’s been properly stabbed. somewhere near her large intestine, though bruce doesn’t know precisely where, and just hopes that it’s nowhere critical. alfred has come up beside the bed, where bruce sits with y/n, and prepares some disinfectant and cloths for them both to use. disinfectant. just the same one she always uses on her own and bruce’s wounds. he’d make a smile at that connection if the situation was any less grim than it is.

“here, just—” alfred hands the tools over to bruce, and he quickly takes them.

“i know how,” bruce tells him and immediately gets to work. alfred gives him a puzzled look, and bruce can feel it on his temple as he gets to cleaning her bad injury. there’s so much blood, it’s seeping down into the sheets. they’re gonna have to change them if she’s staying here.

alfred connects the dots. “so she’s the one after my job of patching you up nearly every night, is she?” he asks his godson. alfred begins to prepare a needle and catheter for the stranger’s vein, so he can hook her up on a pain-killer patch.

“think it’s the other way around now,” bruce tells him. alfred shakes his head with an almost-smile. no matter how long bruce holds a cloth to her wound to stop the blood, it keeps pouring like a waterfall.

“she’s losing a lot of blood, bruce,” he tells him, “you know a hospital would do a much better job than us.”

bruce gives him a sharp glare, “and you know why we don’t do hospitals,” he says in a grave voice, “she also heals faster than us.” he adds then, and keeps tending to her hole of ever-pouring blood now that he’s cleaned it. alfred raises his head after adjusting the catheter into her vein. she makes a small noise at that, too, obviously having felt the prick to some extent, no matter how subtle. bruce’s heart lurches in his chest at the small noise, his eyes immediately looking to her face.

“what do you mean, bruce?” alfred asks. bruce just looks at him momentarily.

“she’s enhanced,” he says, “doesn’t work exactly like you and me would in these cases.” alfred’s still confused, but he brushes it off, telling himself he’ll probably find out later or won’t need to. the important thing now is to make sure this woman survives the night.

“what about her blood? does that regenerate faster, too?” he asks, and then shakes his head again. “we’ll need to get more for her. you don’t know her blood type, do you?”

bruce doesn’t, but he can find out. he finally dares to look below her face, where those sacred letters lie, an abundance of information with them. that tells him everything.

y/n parker

birth date: 04/06/1994

city of origin: queens, new york city, NY

occupation: barista at saint jeremiah's coffee

former occupation: waitress at mudd's cave

OPEN MEDICAL FILES? the system suggests.

bruce hesitates a little, processing all this new information on her all at once already, but then nods at the system’s question. an out-poor of medical records, vaccines and tests done comes up in his vision. thank god he didn’t take out the lenses in the cave, or this would have taken a lot, lot longer.

allergies: lactose, strawberries, tulips

blood type: AB+

chronic diseases: none

blood type AB+. the same one as bruce’s. he looks to alfred, who meets the younger man with an awaiting look. “she has my blood type,” he tells him the discovery. and she wasn’t born far from his birthday, either. just a couple months earlier. how curious.

“interesting,” alfred says finally, “i’ll try not to drain you too much, bruce, so i’ll take just a drop now and we’ll see—”

“take as much as she needs,” bruce says with dark determination in his eyes, “i’m not injured.”

“can’t exactly let you die, sir,” alfred argues back and prepares another needle and an empty plastic patch to withdraw bruce’s blood. bruce doesn’t care what happens to him. alfred might take every drop of his blood if it meant y/n would be saved. saved. certainly an interesting word.

alfred knows what bruce thinks of himself in this case. he never cares what happens to him. what matters to him is what happens to the world. that his job has been done, that it has been done well. bruce doesn’t care if he dies, either, as long as his message and goal has been fulfilled. this time, the world is swapped for y/n. she’s all that he cares about, all that matters right now. y/n. what a name.

knowing this, alfred fills two of those empty patches with bruce’s blood. just to see if it might be enough. the prince of gotham has to admit he feels light-headed already, he guesses his worries and stresses, and over-all regular exhaustion from the fight before have been slowly draining him, too. but he helps alfred patch y/n up with cotton and gauze to secure her injury, protect it from the outside factors.

alfred handles the patching up itself—plasters, balls of cotton and gauze. bruce merely helps move the unconscious y/n around slightly, so that alfred has no trouble wrapping the gauze around her waist, so that they don’t make her injury worse. bruce’s hands splay on her partly-covered hips, the very tips of his fingers only digging into her skin very slightly to lift her hips up and down from time to time. bruce has to say he feels awkward and not right, handling her the way that he is, while she’s unconscious and ignorant of the way he touches her.

but that over-whelming care he feels for her, that has gained almost an animalistic trait, seeps through and makes that anxiety of his sink. he’ll just have to tell her about what he and alfred did while she was unconscious, and she’ll understand. there’s no way she won’t. he won’t tell her, of course, how right her silky flesh felt against his rough hands, how well she fit into his hands, and how his first instinct was to touch the rest of her skin, as well. he’ll keep that to himself, and will hope that urge will pass with time.

after her injury has been wrapped up and secured in isolation from any harm, the two men of wayne manor work to settle y/n into bed properly. while alfred changes the sheets, bruce lays her on a near-by couch, and rids her of the rest of her suit, throwing the ruined piece to the ground. thankfully, she’s not as badly injured anywhere else in her body, so she can rest now. bruce searches the cabinets next to the large bed for any clothes, and, luckily, there are a couple pieces laying about. he chooses sweatpants and one of the plain shirts for her.

while he pulls the pants on her with ease, bruce experiences trouble with the shirt. how can he put it on if she’s connected to the blood patches through her vein? he has a bit of trouble figuring it out, but at once he does. he pulls the shirt over her head, puts her mobile arm through the sleeve, and then carefully puts the attached-to-the-patches arm through the sleeve, as well, but leaves the small wire that’s pumping blood into her to snake upwards. it now runs across her upper arm and sneaks out through the top opening in her shirt, further running up to the adjusted patch, just closer to her now.

she doesn’t make a noise or move at any point in all this ruckus, and bruce is glad to see her at peace. she’s not as pale anymore already, and her breathing has regulated. she’s healing herself and is getting the amount of blood she needs. as she now lays in the bed, dark grey sheets tucked around her, pillows in the same dark grey tone tucked behind and below her, bruce just watches her. alfred is cleaning up their medical equipment, but he’s doing it quietly in another corner of the room. bruce hardly acknowledges his presence at all. he just watches her as he sits in bed beside her.

how her chest rises and falls with long, even breaths. how her eyes flutter here and there—she must be dreaming—and how her fingers twitch slightly at her sides. he hopes it’s something pleasant she’s dreaming of. y/n. his whole world seems to have changed now that he knows her name. y/n parker. it doesn’t change her in his eyes, and it’s strange that he knows her name. he’s not entirely sure he wanted to know her name, now that he does. it’s strange.

her origin being new york city explains… exactly nothing. bruce doesn’t think he’s heard of a place like that before. the system showed him a state, too, behind the city, but it didn’t ring a bell, either. what could she be doing here, in such a place as gotham, if she’s from there? it sounds like a famous place, one bruce should know. but he doesn’t. though, he reckons, he’ll spend some time searching for it during the day, once she’s all settled in under the covers.

even though he wants to be at her side at all times. he wants to be here when she wakes up, he wants to be here with her when even the smallest thing happens. but he also has her suit to work on. that ruined, full-of-blood suit. after this incident, he can’t let her roam around the city in spandex and rely on her agility or his protection to keep herself safe. he won’t hear any protest from her about it, either. he can’t let her be this vulnerable to these thugs, or to anyone for that matter.

bruce blames himself for what happened to her. he never cares what happens to him, either if he’s fighting alone or together with her. he didn’t even catch one of the thugs striking her with a knife, brutally stabbing her, until the very end of the fight. how could he have not seen it? how could he have not heard it happen? he should have been by her side, should have kept a closer eye on her. yes, they’re both kind of independent in their fighting styles, but still, they work as a team, they’re supposed to be looking out for each other. how could he have let this happen?

the dawn rises and ignites light across the sky, which can be perfectly seen through the window of this bedroom. bruce sees it only when that light hits y/n’s cheek in a soft manner. he turns to look around the room, then, and finds alfred sitting in a chair in one of the corners. bruce rises to his feet and draws the big curtains closed, so that y/n wouldn’t be bothered by light from the world and could sleep as long as she needs to. he feels a sour tone as the last ray of the sun caresses his own face, but he pulls the curtains completely closed.

“you should get some sleep, too, bruce,” alfred says quietly as he rises from the chair, “she’ll be alright without you. just needs time.” he walks over to the door. bruce turns to look at him.

“how much?” he asks in a hush. his and alfred’s eyes connect. the older man shrugs.

“a couple days, if she gets better.” he answers. “a week, just to be sure.” he tells bruce. “if she doesn’t get better, well… then we’ll really need to get her to a hospital.”

bruce averts his eyes from those of his godfather’s, but nods. neither of them are doctors, scientists or miracle-workers, even if they try to be. so they can’t always expect themselves to be able to do everything. some things are out of their hands.

“i’ll send breakfast up for you, you need your strength. then you can get some rest,” alfred informs bruce, his ringed hand tapping on the thick mahogany door, “as for her,” he looks to the sleeping woman in the bed, “we’ll get her a meal as soon as she wakes up, alright?” bruce nods in response, still not saying anything. “good night, master wayne. or should i say—good morning.” alfred says and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. bruce knows he’s exhausted, too. the paper work usually keeps alfred up at night, but when that’s not the case, then it’s bruce that keeps him up. this time, it’s both bruce and his accomplice.

alfred will enjoy to get acquainted with the woman when she’s in a much better state, because, dare he say, she’s been keeping bruce busy in a healthy way, and she’s been caring for him now that bruce forbid alfred to do so. bruce has also been in better moods lately, and alfred can only thank her for that. he just has yet to know this wonderful person.

with half of the sent-up breakfast in his stomach, the blood loss and exhaustion wearing his body down and the darkness of the room due to the drawn curtains, bruce can’t keep himself awake anymore. sitting by the bed in one of the bigger sofa chairs, on the side she lays in, and watching her, he feels himself nodding off every once in a while. eyes drifting closed and head dropping onto the mattress. so he finally gives himself that sweet release—bruce gets comfortable with half his body on the mattress and half still in the chair—and lets slumber take complete control of his body and consciousness.

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[thenovelartist]

HEYY i LOVED the TOT dad headcanons !! idk if your requests is open but if it happens to be open can you make a dad!ToT character headcanons where they meet their daughter’s boyfriend for the first time hehe <3

I am going to apologize this took me almost 2 months to get to!

I'M SO SORRY!

Vyn

Good grief.

This girl knows her dad. And she will not bring home ANY boy until she is very certain that she sees a future with him.

Why? Because Vyn is a very protective papa.

And as such, he will use every ounce of his training to psychoanalyze this prospective suitor to determine if he really is good for his little girl.

Rosa and her daughter have to team up and have a game plan to stop this from happening.

Er… at least keep it to a minimum. There is no stopping Vyn, and they know it.

Ultimately, his daughter will have a talk with him prior to the meeting.

They will discuss everything about the guy she is bringing over, from his past to his current work and education to his future plans.

The conversation will end with Vyn assuring his daughter he trusts her and his daughter telling her dad she’s okay with him being protective…

But that he was also the one to teach her about false masks people put on to impress others and how to spot PUAs from a mile away, so give her the benefit of the doubt here. She was careful with her manhunt.

Only then will Vyn lighten up…

A little.

He still totally psychoanalyzes the man.

But will shake his hand at the end of the night and mean it when he says “it was nice meeting you.”

Because by then, he’s certain that his daughter did find a good guy and he can relax a bit.

But only a bit.

Because his little girl has grown up.

His audio diary will be a mess later.

Artem

His girl is dating?

This poor man. He’s a wreck.

He tries to not be overbearing.

Rosa has to be by Artem’s side every step of the way, assuring him that she’s nervous too but that this is part of their kids growing up.

Before the guy comes over, Artem asks his daughter to describe him.

His daughter tells him everything she knows, which sounds good enough to calm Artem down a bit.

He will play nice, he promises. But! Artem warns her that if he does see any problems with the boyfriend, Artem will face his daughter privately later to discuss his worries.

His daughter accepts her dad being protective but tells him she’s not worried.

When the day comes where they meet, Artem is wound up tighter than a spring. But he does genuinely welcome the man his daughter brings over.

He is mostly in lawyer mindset at the beginning of the night. Artem is assessing the man, asking him questions, striking up a conversation about him.

And eventually, Artem begins to feel comfortable with him and relaxes.

By the end of the night, Artem is still a little tense, but it’s much easier to hide it.

Give him a little more time; he’ll eventually accept his daughter’s boyfriend.

And when he does approve, he’ll pat his daughter’s shoulder and tell her, “You chose well.”

Marius

Nooooo! No boyfriends! Ever!

He hates it.

His little girl has grown up and doesn’t need her papa anymore!

Rosa has to tell him to stop being such a drama queen.

But really, Marius is worried.

He knows that it’s part of growing up, and it isn’t like he doesn’t trust her.

He just has problems trusting people around her.

His daughter does her best to tell him that her boyfriend’s a good guy.

But Marius won’t believe it until he meets him.

When meeting him, Marius goes into business mindset mode. He’s professional and desperate to show he has the upper hand here.

Rosa is there to play mediator and pat Marius’ arm when he gets a little too intense.

At the end of the evening, Marius will insist the man isn’t good enough for his daughter.

“Dad, you two literally sat for an hour and discussed art.”

“No one will ever be good enough for you!”

His poor daughter.

It will take a while for Marius to stop pretending that he doesn’t like his daughter’s boyfriend. He’ll have to admit at some point that she picked a good guy.

But today is not that day!

Luke

Luke’s gone.

NO! Bad joke. HE LIVES AND WE KNOW IT!

Luke’s cool with it. Why? Because he’s known the boy for years.

He watched said boy and his daughter grow up together.

Suddenly, Luke has a lot more respect for Rosa’s parents.

He wonders if they ever suspected he and Rosa would fall in love and what they thought about it.

But looking now, although Luke is underlyingly nervous (it’s his daughter and he’ll never stop being the protective papa), Luke ultimately counts himself very lucky.

Because he knows that his daughter’s boyfriend is a good guy. He knows he doesn’t have to worry about said boy breaking her heart or if he’ll really stay by her side through thick and thin. Because he’s already proven his character.

However, Luke does want to take the boy aside and have a man-to-man talk.

Luke thinks about all the things he wanted to have said to Rosa’s dad. That leads him in the conversation with his daughter’s boyfriend.

It’s reassuring to connect with the young man like this, and Luke lets his daughter go knowing she’ll be in good hands.

But he does get a little pouty when alone. “Take care of her, will you?” he mumbles to himself. “And don’t be stupid like me. Make sure you’re alive for her, yeah?”

[velvett-tearss]

Checkmate — Eren Jaeger

summary: A vicious cycle where you and Eren fight over who gets to light the match while dousing each other in gasoline.

warnings: toxic relationship, manipulation, domestic altercation, slut-shaming, gaslighting, cheating, heavy cursing, suggestive themes, mentions of alcohol and marijuana use, fem!reader (she/her)

genre: modern au, angst (?)

word count: 3.4k

a/n: my venus scorpio hates to love Eren lmao pls don’t think this is a healthy relationship, (lmk if i forgot any other warnings pls), this was on repeat while i wrote, hope you enjoy it <3 (again, pls lmk if I missed anything!) and stay safe!

You knew it was wrong. Everything about you and him was wrong. Nothing could justify it anymore, you knew that much. You didn't think you could lose yourself in the game, but you had.

And, all of it was Eren's fault.

He didn't worry about feelings, responsibilities, or duty. He didn't care if he came back later than he said he would you, if he left you waiting in that pretty dress you had picked out just for him.

And, you loathed that about him. You loathed that Eren Jaeger was free. Totally and utterly free of everything and anything. Nothing would hold him back. He wouldn't allow it to come to pass.

He had his freedom, but you had something else.

You questioned things when you weren't satisfied with the answer you had been given. You did things just to see what would happen after. You pushed people just to see how long it would take from them to fall over the edge.

You had often been told you were simply too much to deal with. That you pushed people's buttons until they no longer wanted to be around you. That you stole parts of their sanity until they had no choice other than to run away.

But, you never saw it like that. You didn't mean to be a parasite who ate away at people's peace and patience. You simply liked testing your boundaries.

So, you preferred the word curious.

Maybe Eren had been walking around the earth without shackles his entire life, but you knew everyone was a prisoner to something, even someone like him.

Naturally, you wanted to see what it would take for Eren to break. He was so shameless, so completely free of any care in the world. Eren obeyed his own rules and his alone. He was such an inconsistent asshole half the time, but you couldn't help yourself.

You wouldn't forgive yourself if you had looked away from that charming smile and those pretty teal eyes.

Despite the facade of him being a simple-minded person, you found out what was truly hiding underneath the mask.

Eren was intemperate with a sharp tongue and a loud mouth. He did things his way, and there would be no other option. There was such a mix of emotions boiling inside him, it was like it was asking to be disrupted.

How could you not indulge yourself?

You knew it would be gratifying to see how he would react when backed into a corner. Would he cry like the others? Would he fall to his knees and beg for your forgiveness? Or, would he shut down?

How long would it take for him to leave you?

Eren was already known to be hot-headed, and you wondered what it was like to burn. You figured it wouldn't take long to find out how far you could push him. He was the crybaby type, so you didn't think he would be hard to crack.

But, he wasn't like the others.

See, Eren Jaeger wasn't a person who would easily crack. He wasn't the guy who gave up under pressure. In fact, he was the complete opposite. He was a fighter, and he would stop at nothing till victory was his.

It was only too bad for him that you were the same. Your thirst would only be quenched when you saw him break. You needed it more than you had ever needed anything.

You pushed, and he pushed harder. You shouted, and he shouted louder. You bitched and moaned and complained and did awful things to him, and Eren did them right back.

It was an endless cycle between the two of you.

You would do something to tick him off. Maybe it was telling him how Jean looked so sexy in black or how Armin's intelligence was out of this world you didn't know how he wasn't dating anyone.

Perhaps you were a parasite who ate away at your own liberty to do what you wished. You stretched yourself to push him into a corner, and it always worked.

Whatever it was, Eren would explode on you. You knew it pushed his buttons, it fucked with his mind, and that's why you did it. Because maybe it would be the day he finally gave in to the pain you inflicted on him and leave you for good.

Sometimes it would be him doing something that rubbed you the wrong way. Perhaps you wore something too short, so he called you a whore before fucking you like one. Or, he didn't answer your texts all night because he was with God-knows-who.

You shouted at him, called him all sorts of different names, and even trashed his apartment if you felt like it. Eren would fight with you, blame you for pushing him far enough as to dip a toe in the unforgiving pool of infidelity, and the two of you wouldn't speak for a week or so.

"I can't even walk around my own damn apartment without you being so annoying!" Eren shouted with so much force you held back a flinch. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, green eyes wondering about the room.

You didn't know if he was shit-faced, high, or a mix of both. You didn't care anymore. It seemed like you had been arguing for hours, but who really knew? All perception of time was lost on you when you were around Eren.

All this started because he asked you to stay the night at his apartment. He usually preferred to go out and have some fun around town, but this was his way of making it up to you for leaving you stranded at the restaurant on your last date.

Well, it was a way for the both of you to make up with each other. Before Eren decided to steal your phone and drive away without you, the waiter serving you had left his number for you. It was only the consequence of your actions earlier that night.

You spent most of the evening flirting with him every chance you got. Batting your eyelashes at him, leaning against the table the slightest so he could get a peak of the dainty little necklace that sat pretty on your cleavage.

He wasn't even that attractive, really — you and Eren both knew that — but he still let his emotions get the best of him. If there was one thing you could trust to be consistent it was his red-hot anger.

"Don't leave when I'm talking to you!" Eren ordered, green eyes blazing hard at the back of your head. He watched you walked around the house, following you to continue your argument. "What? You're gonna go and cry like a little bitch now?"

"Why can't you leave me alone, Eren?!" you screamed, grabbing your sweater and shoving it into your bag. You turned around only to find him inches from your face. "I'm not staying here if you're gonna be a dick!"

He let out a dry chuckle as you continued gathering your things. "What a perfect fucking excuse to go fuck that jerk in your class, right?" Eren hissed, reaching to grab your arm. "Gosh, can't you ever just keep your legs closed for a night?!"

"Keep my legs closed?!" you shot back, shoving him away from you. "You're the one who's been out doing who-knows-what, Eren! You're the one who comes home with lipstick stains from whichever whore you fucked!"

"You shouldn't talk about your friends like that."

You snapped your neck to him.

His face was stony with his jaw clenched, and his hands balled up in fists. None of those things frightened you, though; it was those eyes of him. Those pretty green eyes that had once stared at you so sweetly, so lovingly long ago.

Now, all you could see were glaciers in his irises.

You swallowed down the thick lump in your throat. "You are such a fucking dick." you declared, averting your gaze from his cold one. You advanced to the door, but he caught your arm in his grip again.

"Let go of me." you ordered, attempting to pry his hand off your arm, but he wouldn't budge. "Fuck, Eren. Are you fucking stupid and deaf? I said—"

Your voice got caught in your throat when he shoved you against the wall of his bedroom. He had you caged in, one hand pinning you to the wall and the other right beside you.

It seemed like Eren learned from the last time he tried to keep you from escaping. His last efforts of getting you to stay put were always futile, and you somehow still managed to break away every time.

He always tried to grab you a second time, but you left his cheek with a bright red outline of your palm, smacking him good and hard before leaving his apartment in a fray.

None of your past escapes mattered right now, so you continued squirming around in effort to release yourself from his iron clutch. "Wow, I guess you're not as stupid as you look." you scoffed, your other hand clawing at his.

"Don't be such a bitch." Eren ordered, but you continued your attempts to leave that were only feeble against his strength.

"Why don't you go with your other girlfriends, hmm?" You scoffed, reaching for his wrist and struggling to release your arm. "Tch, Eren, you're fucking hurting me. Stop—"

He brought you towards him, pulling you into his arms. You let out a grunt of disapproval as you tried to shimmy out of his crushing hug. "Oh, my gosh, let me go! I don't want you!" you protested, pushing your hand against his hard chest to create space between you, but he thrusted you back into his chest.

"Don't be such a bitch." Eren murmured into your ear. He had one hand wrapped around your upper back, keeping you close to him, while the other held your wrist tightly to stop you from pushing him away.

His shirt still smelled like the cologne you gifted him for his last birthday. Eren was extra kind to you that day, holding your hand and giving you kisses on the cheek.

The fresh scent was familiar on your nose. You breathed it in, allowing yourself to give in to his touch. "I'm not a bitch." you told him, closing your eyes. You hoped it would help you travel back in time to that beautiful spring day.

He only grunted in response, leaning his head against the top of yours. You felt the slight brush of air down your neck when he let out a sigh. The hand that held your wrist released it, finding purchase on your waist.

A few moments of silence passed between the two of you. Eren's fingers found solace in the ends of your hair. You hadn't realized how much his words affected you until you felt your hair twirl around his fingers.

Did he really think you were a bitch? Is that why as much as you loved his cologne, you could still smell the unfamiliar scent of someone else on him?

If he cared about you, why would he leave you alone in his messy apartment all night? Why would he even bother inviting you? Why did he make an effort to speak to you so lovely that your heart fluttered?

"I just wanted to have a nice time with my girl, and you're making that so difficult. Why?" Eren questioned softly, a strand of your hair between his fingers. "Why do you go out of your way to do shit that irritates me?"

Tears prickled your eyes. "I could ask you the same thing." you replied, holding back the urge to sniffle. How could you not cry when he hurt you? You loved him with so much of yourself, and everything he did seemed like it was just to cause you harm.

"You're so mean to me, Eren. You never treat me like you should."

"I know." he said, the movement of his mouth against your head. "I don't mean to treat you like that, baby. I'm sorry. I really am." You didn't believe him, though. You didn't even want to look into his eyes because you feared you would be right.

You let out a sigh, wiping the tear that escaped the corner of your eye on his shirt. "You're bad for me, Eren." you stated, turning your head to rest against his shoulder. "You're a bad guy and a bad boyfriend. You cheat on me and call my names, and you make me cry."

Eren hummed, rubbing your back in circles. "I'll be better. I'll try harder this time." he offered, his tone almost sounding pleading on your ears. "I promise I'll do better for you."

You didn't believe it. Eren couldn't do better. He was sick with an incurable disease. He no longer felt safe in his own body. He couldn't trust his thoughts to lead him to the correct answer. It all started when he met you, and your infection spread throughout his entire system.

You had infiltrated his way of thinking and acting, his way of feeling and speaking. Eren Jaeger would never be the same person he was before he met you.

He couldn't hide his disdain when he was around his friends, not with all the remarks you made of them. Did you really think Jean was better looking than him? Was it his hair?

Maybe he should start spending more time in the library. Would that make him him look smarter in your eyes? Would you come to him for help with your homework or would you still go to Armin?

And, it was in your silence that his questions of doubt were answered. "You don't believe me." Eren stated as if he were reading the very thoughts from your mind.

A bolt of lightning shot through your spine at his tone. This was the side of your boyfriend you hadn't quite figured out yet. He could loving and playful and crack jokes all day, and mean and standoffish where he wouldn’t even look at you, but he could also be fucking sadist.

His fist curled into the roots of your hair, yanking your head back to meet his gaze. There was a sharp ache pounding on the back of your head, but you forgot all about it when you saw the slight curl of his lip.

"No one else would put up with you. You know that, don't you?" Eren asked you, green eyes appearing darker than they ever had. "You know no one would ever give you the time of day like I do."

"I know." you managed to tell him, leaning into where he gripped your hair to ease the pain you felt.

"Do you?" he questioned, raising a brow.

You tried your best to keep the hammering of your heart against your chest from showing on your face. Eren may have been a sadist, but he wasn't the only one.

"Yes, Eren." you stated, deciding to take a risk and place a gentle hand on his shoulder. You felt him tense under your touch. "You misunderstand me. I only what what's best for you and me. That's all I ever wanted."

He furrowed a brow at your words.

Sure, you would admit that Eren had power over you. He was stronger than you, taller than you, quicker than you. He was the one who had your back against a wall, and it was your hair in his fist.

But, you had something he didn't. You honed the skill he wouldn't be able to polish for years to come. He may have been overly aggressive and carried the ability to make an environment where he would always be the person with the most power, but you had experience.

And, that was something he couldn’t create.

"I've done so much for you, Eren. Why would I go through all this struggle if I didn't want to be with you?" you explained, forcing a pout on your lips. "Is that how you feel about me?"

His grip on your head began to loosen. "No," Eren forced out, eyebrows so scrunched forward they lost their sharpness. "That's not what I want. I was—"

"If you know that, then why would you stand me up?" you demanded, gazing you at him. "If you know all I want is for you to be happy, why would you start a fight with me? You know I would never hurt you like that, baby."

"I didn't mean to start a fight." Eren admitted, swallowing. "I just don't want you to leave me. I don't want to be alone. I don't know what—"

"I know. You don't have to explain it to me, baby. I know exactly what you're thinking." you told him, reaching for his hand to hold in yours. "It's okay, Eren. I know you wouldn't ever want to hurt me, right?"

He nodded, teal eyes watching as you brought his hand to your pillowy lips. You placed a feathery kiss against his knuckles. It had been so soft, so sweet that he wanted to cry.

He had just had car sex with one of the girls who lived in your dormitory's building, and you were kind enough to give him another chance. He did something that hurt you, and you still only wanted what was best for him.

"I love you." Eren sputtered out. His eyes were wide at you, and his voice sounded like he was begging you for something you refused to give him.

You let out a sweet sigh, eyes snapping to his. "You love me?" you repeated, taking a moment to savor the way the words felt on your tongue. Your brows furrowed at the words. "Do you really?"

He nodded quickly, maneuvering his hand to hold yours. He peppered kisses along your fingers, your knuckles. "I do. I really fucking do. I love you." Eren assured, kissing the inside of your hand before grabbing the side of your face.

You raised a brow as he planted soft, needy kisses along your cheeks. "How much do you love me, Eren?" you inquired, bringing your hand to massage his scalp.

Eren swallowed, looking up at you. He was quiet. You blinked back at him, waiting for his answer. You had been so surprised to find he had nothing to offer you in that moment.

You quirked a brow at his silence. "How much, Eren? How much do you love me?" you repeated, voice advancing from a curious tone to a demanding one.

He shook his head, bringing your lips to meet his gently. He tasted like . . . was it honey? Or was it just how sweet the lies he told sounded on your ears?

You weren't able to tell what his mouth tasted like, but you knew you had earned another spit sister? Had he kissed her the way he kissed you? Did he feed her the same lies he did you? Could she taste him? Was she able to put a finger on what the candied flavor on his lips was?

Eren pulled back from you slightly. You couldn’t tell if it was his turquoise eyes that were glassy or if it was yours. "Too much." he told you, lips brushing against yours. "I love you too much." He collided his face with yours, tongue slipping into your open mouth.

His kisses travelled lower — along your jaw, down your nec. He sucked hard when he found your pulse-point, only stopping once a soft moan escaped your swollen lips.

There really wasn't a way you would ever leave him, even if you tried to. Despite all the fights, all the times you professed your hate for him, all the times you tried tried to break it off, Eren stayed with you.

But, it was the same for him. Even if you hurt him, flirt with his friends right in front of him, cuss him out and manipulate him the way you had already done a profuse amount of times in the past, Eren would always love you. How could he not?

Maybe it was because both of you were equally fucked in the head, or because you both loved the concept of pain whether you be playing the role of the inflicted or inflicter, but in some twisted way, you never wanted to leave him.

Somewhere in the messed up relationship that you two had, you realized you loved him. God, you fucking loved him, even if he treated you like a pet.

And, he was your favorite toy. Yours to use and to lie and to fuck. Whether Eren Jaeger was so free he couldn't help but trample over you, or you were too much, too curious that you pushed him to the very brink and a little more, one thing wouldn't change.

You knew it was wrong. Everything about you and him was wrong. Nothing could justify it, you figured that much. You didn't think you could lose yourself in the game, but you did.

And, all of it was Eren's fault.

note: welp they were toxic huh

[yourmcu]

Birthday

Pairings: The Avengers x  reader

Summary:

It’s your birthday and the team gets creative on how to surprise you, putting their acting skills to the test.

Word count: 2,350

A/n: just a little something because,, well,, it’s my birthday *runs away* also it’s cheesy, hopefully it makes sense lmao

Warnings: uhhh brief mention of explosion? mostly fluff

The Avengers wanted to get creative for your birthday this year. For the few years they've known you they picked up on things about you. One, you paid no mind to your birthday at all and just considered it a normal day like the rest of the 365, Tony took note that you hated parties, at least the really big ones, something that involved only the team would be good.

Okay, you sound like a party pooper, but that isn't the case; it's not a crime to just... not want to have a grand celebration, right? And people singing the 'happy birthday' song to you too while you just sit there in silence. It's awkward, you once told Natasha. It’s also awkward and hard for you to receive presents even though that’s what birthdays are all about, you’re still getting used to it since you knew someone like Tony Stark.

Well, the team think you're an amazing friend and they all treat you like family. They're so glad they met someone like you.

You're immediately called to the conference room on that day. Only to find the team arguing and pointing fingers at one another.

You kinda just slot in, sitting on the chair you usually sit on whenever there's a meeting or mission briefing. Glancing around, you try and find out what they're fighting about.

Security. Suits. Brief mention of Ultron. Rhodey busying himself with phones, probably making a lot of calls. Natasha and Clint talking among themselves, only raising their voice whenever they're included in the conversation which mainly consisted of Tony and Steve arguing.

"Suit up, get the jet ready." Steve dismisses but before he could walk out himself you raise your hand.

"Hey, sorry, I just woke up," you say sheepishly but coolly at the same time. "What happened, is everyone supposed to go? Can I read the file?" Because if this is an Avengers-level threat that required everyone, you'd want to know all about it.

His sharp and expression softens slightly when he looks at you. "No file, I'm afraid. Some of the compound's security protocols have been compromised, someone hacked in." He proceeds to tell you how they particularly had interest in Bruce and Tony's lab so the other rooms were untouched.

Apparently, they took blueprints and materials, maybe a handful of Tony's suits.

But if you think about it, those two carelessly letting the security to their lab loose? Highly unlikely...

You push the thought to the back of your mind and nod when Steve tells you to get ready. Stark tech can be dangerous in the wrong hands, after all. Let alone the Iron Man suits.

Fortunately, those things have trackers. Leaving you to wonder again why those idiots don't even try and take them off so they won't tracked?

Sat on the floor of the jet while everyone was strangely quiet but once again you didn't pay any mind, you sharpen a few of your knives. Natasha sat on a stool near you, idly picking her nails. An hour into the flight you furrow your brows and look around.

"Are you guys okay?"

"Yes," Tony states quickly and a matter-of-factly. They all share glances before he continued. "It's the tension. Sorry. My fault."

"It's not your fault, Tony," Bruce starts.

"I'm sorry, to whom were those stolen suits again?" Steve speaks up as well and you could tell it's gonna be a full blown argument again.

"Now hold on just a second-" Tony faces the super soldier to counter.

You merely blink, not expecting a simple question to turn out like this. Clint just glances from the pilot's seat and Natasha almost cracks a smile by the look of your face. If only you knew it was all fake, all planned. But what does she know? You're a spy too, maybe you've figured out what they're up to and decided to play along.

Sad to say you're still oblivious. Maybe the fact that you only slept three hours last night is one case. You wanted nothing more than your bed right now.

Heck, not one of them wished you a happy birthday but you didn't notice at all.

Tuning out their bickering you sit down next to Natasha who's the only one not in the argument.

"I haven't seen Wanda all day," you say and she turns her head to face you. "Or Sam, or Bucky."

"Probably not back from their mission." Natasha answers promptly.

You frown at that. "Steve made this sound like an Avengers-level threat, and it is, shouldn't they be here?"

You don't wait for a response, opening up a globe-shaped hologram that shows where the jet, represented by a blinking dot. Your eyes slightly widen when you see the target location which is one of the places you've been dying to visit your whole life.

Maybe it's just a coincidence. You definitely didn't expect to visit it for the first time on a mission though.

Natasha clears her throat. "Hey, have you read the book I gave you?" She subtly closes the globe up when she catches your attention.

You shake your head bashfully. "You know I'm a slow reader. Give me two months then I'll come back to you." You laugh. Natasha smiles and tells you to take your time. "Have you read the book I gave you?"

"I loved it."

"I knew you would!" You say excitedly and the next few moments you discuss about the specific book. She's just glad you didn't ask any further questions about the location.

--

All of you split up once you reach the base but Rhodey and Bruce stay in the jet as backup. The place reminded you so much of the old Avengers tower, only with darker themes. You're paired with Clint who you follow to the side of the building, with surprisingly no cautiousness. He just... ran in, entrance deserted of guards.

You all had a digital, tech checklist to see what was stolen including all the suit names. So far you've searched two drawers now and still no sign of any agent or guard. But it's weird since the others are clearly doing their part on their floors. Thuds, footsteps and sometimes banging sounds could be heard all around.

“Finally," you mutter when you hear footsteps behind you, spinning around so suddenly to surprise your enemy and take him down with ease. You raise an eyebrow when they don't put up a fight at all.

Clint was in front of a computer when you peek in to one of the rooms but he waves you off. "I'll meet you on the next floor. This'll take a second."

"One suit on the roof!" you hear Steve grunt through your earpiece.

"Remember to remove the arc reactor, that'll shut them down for sure." Bruce reminds through everyone's comms.

You hear Tony let out a noise. "Might have a problem with that, Banner, they're all reprogrammed."

Expecting the man with seven Ph. D's to worry, it only took him a minute to respond back. "It's your tech. I don't believe they could do that completely especially having them for only twelve hours."

"In that case," Tony sighs. "There should be a kill switch under one of their reactors."

"Which one?" Natasha grunts.

The deafening silence from Tony's line explains it.

You fight your way though the thugs which again, don't put up a fight. Sometimes you throw one punch and they're out cold, leading you to believe the intense training Bucky insisted you do worked. The only tough ones were the Iron Man suits themselves.

Ripping out the arc reactors wasn't easy. You had to use all you force. On the second one you encounter it got the upper hand and blasts you through a wall, the impact sending sharp pain to your head and back.

You hear metal thumping of a suit so you get back up and attempt to get your hands on the Iron Man in front of you.

"Hey, hey. Same team. Look," Tony grips on your wrists and lifts his mask up. "You alright?"

“Yeah," you pant, relaxing a bit. "Yeah. One of them got m-"

"We just discovered a bomb, northwest," Clint says. By ‘we’ he means him and Natasha. The redhead speaks right after. “Two and a half minutes. How many suits left, Friday?”

"Only one more suit is fully functional."

You get out of Tony's hold and sprint up the stairs. "I got it."

He smiles to himself. The plan is all coming  to place.

As soon as you enter the room you dodge a blast from the much bulkier Mark XVI. Of course they'd want to make the stealth suit more powerful. You launch yourself towards it, stomping on an arm while trying to dodge blasts from the the other one.

"Y/N! Fifty seconds!" Steve shouts in your earpiece.

You could've just jumped out, leaving the compromised suits here to be blown up but being under pressure made you panic and set your only goal to find the switch.

The suit could still set off a blast from the arc reactor so you couldn't really get your hands on it without losing a freaking arm.

"Get out of there!”

But you didn’t have enough time. So you just curl into a ball against the wall, accepting your fate.

A pop did go off. Loud, but you didn't feel yourself torn into pieces right after. You also heard a bunch of aye’s and oh’s. Redwing whirs by to your head to drop off a birthday hat.

"Happy Birthday!”

Your eyes fly open. Turns out the only thing inside Mark XVI was confetti. Natasha walks over to you to inspect and make sure you're alright.

"What the hell?" Your eyes widen at her, then at everyone. Sam and Bucky were now standing with them, smiling at you amused.

"I think she's in shock.”

“You think?”

Steve glares at Tony with a hint of amusement. "I told you it would be too much."

"Trust me she prefers something like this instead of a big party. Don't you, Y/N?"

"What do you mean?" You take off the hat and clutch it between your hands, appreciating Natasha rubbing your back as you try to collect yourself. "How is none of this real?"

"We basically faked a mission for you." Rhodey says.

You look around all the rubble. "This building, the people, suits-"

"Bought the place," Tony states. "Hired stuntmen, did a few tweaks on the suits...”

"God, why would you do that?" You bury your face in your hands, not knowing if you should be laughing or crying. "I punched those guys!"

"They'll be fine, they signed up for it."

You gently get up and brush off some confetti off your knees.

"But back at the compound... you guys were yelling at each other and during the whole thing you all sounded serious," you point out. "Was that all part of the act?"

Especially when that 'bomb' was about to go off. Steve's panicked voice made you scared for your life, only to know that it was all fake.

They all show signs of agreement, laughing.

"We'd make such great actors." Natasha smirks.

"Alright, the cake isn't going to blow itself." Clint walks up to you with said cake and you meet him halfway.

Everyone gathers around and before they could inhale to sing the stupid song, you cut them off. "You all know I hate to be sung at. Can we just get this over with?"

They all burst out laughing, you giggle in the process, blowing out your candle. You all group hug right after. The laughter makes you miss the sound of faint thunder outside.

"Look who's late." Bruce points out.

"Yes, I got here as soon as I can, my apologies." Thor smiles sheepishly.

Your ears perk up at the all too familiar voice of the god of thunder. Moving everyone of the way, you leap to hug him. "Thor!"

"Happy birthday, dearest Y/N." He grins and pats you on the head. "I'm afraid my - I mean - our gift, is with Loki at the moment."

"Enough with the formality, I’m just glad you’re here.”

Peter rings up Tony to tell him everything's set up at the huge building they rented for your low-key party. Just the Avengers. Peter, Vision and Wanda were in charge of setting things up over there, from decorations and food. Sam and Bucky also helped a bit before they arrived at the fake base.

So you all get into the jet again, this time you look at the windows in awe to see what the city's like. You also asked a bunch of questions on how they pulled something stupid but unique fake mission like that.

Once you've reached your destination, the place was simple yet big enough to fit everyone. Tony really took notes for this year. You didn't like anything too fancy or elegant, and you didn't like huge-ass parties with hundreds of people you've never met before.

Here you're with your family eating, drinking booze and playing games, generally having a good time.

You give the other five Avengers big hugs. Vision's never usually a hugger but for you he made an exception just for today. Everyone was surprised when he lifted you off your feet and spun you around.

"Hugging has a lot of good benefits," Vision says when he lets you go. "Astounding, I know. It is recommended eight times a day, hopefully you've already gotten that much."

You giggle at his remark and Wanda rolls her eyes playfully. “Thank you, Vision.”

“Splendid, that means I don’t have to give you one.”

You turn around to see the god of mischief himself carefully hand you a wrapped box. Loki chuckles when you smile at him. “Happiest Birthday.”

“Loki.... you know you and Thor didn’t have to-”

“Thor? That one’s from me. I assure you.”

“Y/N!” You hear Tony call from the other side of the room. “It’s time for presents, little miss. Good lord this looks like Christmas morning.”

-

unfortunatley i am that extra to post a birthday fic woo hoo

[kookiecrumb]

jhs || The Night (is still young)

wc: 1.3K

pairing: hobi x reader

summary: Is there anything more romantic than finding love again in New York City?

warnings: some strong language, alcohol consumption

genre: fluff, exes!au

rating: PG

a/n: I be feeding y'all while I work on my bigger projects. I just have ideas, okay?! :P

-

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, the kind of afternoon you would sleep through if you had no plans. You opened up every window to let the sunshine into the house. A breeze blew through the kitchen, the smell of dark-roast coffee floating throughout the house mixed with the fresh scent of laundry. You cringed at the bitter taste, regretting drinking it black.

This was the kind of afternoon you'd call Hoseok over for. It feels so strange to have him far away. For such a long time, it was the both of you, together. You think the person who was most shocked by the news of your breakup was your sister.

She had introduced the both of you, back in graduate school. He was a business major, which would have been a red flag, but he made you laugh. He'd never done anything to hurt you, not even at the end of it all.

Hoseok was the light that shined within you. You were glad to have spent that time with him, loving him. You did not regret it for a second, and you think he knows that. It's been a year, and there's a clear reason why you've stayed single.

You're sure that something inside of you still misses him. There's no incentive for you to get over him. Your friends egg you on, teasing you endlessly, claiming that you're still somehow still in love with him. You are.

You two don't talk anymore. He crosses your mind in moments like these, where his memory lingers in your coffee mugs, in the lazy afternoons, in the sunlight that washes the kitchen. He's supposed to be here. Your heart aches in a beautiful way for him, even if he's gone.

You know the real Hoseok is proposing a business deal across the country to a group of higher-ups, flashing his beautiful smile to seal the deal. He's never been the type to have one-night-stands.

You just couldn't do long-distance. He got a job in California working for a wonderful up-and-coming firm, and you couldn't do LA. He took a part of you with him.

In the first few months, you couldn't get your mind off of him. You negotiated with yourself in the spare moments of your day. During office hours, between tasks, on your walk back home, up the winding stairs of your Upper East Side apartment.

Something still tugs at you about it. It's almost as if, when he got on that plane to LA, he took a long, invisible thread with him and stretched it across the country.

If that were true, he'd feel it too. You're sure of it, he misses you. He's stronger than you are, though. He's more rational.

You cannot control how you feel. You can bury your feelings. You can hide them, mask them, pretend and fantasize, but the truth was that Jung Hoseok would probably move on from you and that did hurt.

Three years of a loving, supportive relationship does not wash away over one night of bar-hopping with your girlfriends.

"Come on! There are soooo many hot bachelors in New York. You'll find the one soon enough," they'd say with a shot of tequila pinched between their fingers and a lime in the other hand. "Jung Hoseok is just a guy! You know how guys are!"

He wasn't just a guy.

For your first anniversary, he gifted you this beautiful Tiffany diamond necklace. He had it delivered to your office the day of, a note attached with an elegant bow to the black velvet box. "Love you," it read. Fifteen minutes later, a delivery of a dozen roses came.

The boss shook her head. "Must be nice."

You smiled. Both of you were old fashioned romantics. You enjoyed the simple things...together.

He'd hold your hand everywhere you went, his fingers tucked beneath your delicate fingers. A silver band adorned your ring finger. He'd kiss it when he greeted you, his eyes always meeting yours as his lips touched the silver. "Hi, dear," he'd smile.

Your coffee was now cold.

You tossed the rest of it down the sink and washed the cup, putting it to dry. Your phone began to vibrate against the granite countertop.

You put down the towel you used to dry your hands and picked it up, placing it between your ear and your shoulder. "Hello, this is Y/N," you chirpped.

"Hello, dear. I was just checking in on ya. How are things, how're ya holdin' up?" It was your aunt.

You owe her your career here in New York. She was the one who recommended you to your job. She's well-connected in the business world, and because of that, she regularly checks up on you to give you a heads-up about the happenings of the city that never sleeps. It's almost scary how much she knows. You never question it.

"They're...holdin' up!" You laughed. "It's just me now…" You lean over on the countertop.

"Yeah? Oh, honey…" you could almost hear her pouting. "He's just a guy! You know! You're rich, you're young, you're in New York!"

"You're so right…" you hissed. "But you're also wrong because--"

"No! I am not ever wrong!" She sings, playfully. "Have you gone out yet? Have you met anybody?" She offered.

"Not really," you frowned. "I'm not looking."

"Let me put this simply. The sooner you go out there and assess your options, the better you'll feel about the whole ordeal. It's just a matter of time. We don't waste time, this is New York," she cackled.

"Okay, Aunt Liz. I got it."

"You got it. You do! You got this," she echoed, reassuringly. "Okay, I got a brunch to go to, so I'm gonna have to say goodbye!"

"Alright, I'll see ya," you removed the phone from your ear.

"See ya, babe."

You put the phone down as the disconnect tone played. You're disoriented for a second before glancing back at the clock. Fifteen minutes have passed, but it was already as dark as midnight. You rubbed your forehead in frustration.

You didn't have the energy to call your boss to ask for tomorrow off. Why did you do this to yourself?

The last of the Rosé ran down your throat last night while you were watching Mean Girls for the third time while doing that clay face mask. Fuck.

You stared at the keys hanging from your wall for a good while before ditching your robe, throwing on some pants and slipping into your boots. You grabbed the doorknob and pulled it with gusto.

Hoseok stood, buried in his black puffer jacket, completely bare faced with a terrified look on his face. You would have laughed if you didn't cry first. He was holding two bags of groceries, including a tall bottle of rosé. "Sorry!" He shouted.

"I really, really didn't mean for you to encounter me like that. You must be confused," he urges. "I quit."

You want to smack him. Instead, you jump into his arms and squeeze him as hard as you can. "Don't fuck with me, Hoseok. Don't fuck with me!"

"I'm not! I won't. I couldn't. I'm not as strong as you think I am…" he sighs, tucking his head into you. "I missed you. I missed you, I missed you. I love you."

"Let's talk," you hold his head in your hands. "We need to talk." Your eyes darted from one eye to the other.

He nodded. "Yeah, of course. I got dinner," he gestured over to the plastic bags leaned against the door to your place.

"Thank you. I was gonna have depressing chicken alfredo again," you sobbed. "Stupid!"

He laughed. "You're calling me stupid, babe?"

"Yeah," you sniff. He put you down, examining your state. You did look a little rough.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants that he wore throughout the entirety of his seven-hour flight. "Well, how 'bout it?"

A moment passed where you're just studying one-another in disbelief.

"Come inside," you finally said. "The night is young, and so are we."

Hoseok smiled thoughtfully and followed you in, shutting the door behind you. He would never leave your side again.

-

[helliontherapscallion]

Yellow Carnations (Destiny Written in Begonias Part 1)

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Summary: After hearing something deep within the woods, you give into curiosity and investigate. Who knows, whatever you find could be a prize.

Warnings: Swearing, slightly graphic violence (just some zombies getting dismembered)

Word count: 3,715

(A/N): So, welcome to my new series! I have so many ideas for this that I’d love to write. This story will be very gay, fluffy, and sorta angsty, so buckle up my children!

So just a lil background info: the reader is Techno’s adopted daughter. She is a piglin hybrid, but she is more human looking than piglin. This takes place about eighteen years after the most recent events of the SMP.

                                           ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

“Techno, I think we have enough ender pearls for tonight.” You glanced to your side to look at your father and Philza, the enchantments of their armor glowing dimly in the moonlight and the orange light of the torches in their hands. Philza stretched his body and his wings out, a small groan escaping his mouth and small cracks sounding from his joints.

“The night’s still young, Phil!” Technoblade grinned, his gold capped canines glinting slightly. His hand moved to gently rest on the handle of his sword.

You snorted to yourself, “you two, however, aren’t.” A small shove came from your side making you stumble slightly, laughter bubbling from your throat.

“I’m just going to pretend that I didn’t hear anything,” Philza crossed his arms and looked off to the side. Though, you could hear a smile in his tone and the beginnings of a chuckle.

“I’m sorry,” you chuckled, “Dad set me up for that one. The opportunity was too good to pass up.”

“I’ll set you up for longer training sessions if you keep going for… ‘opportunities’ like that.” He glanced down at you with amusement glinting in his eyes and tugging at the corner of his lips.

His statement, though lighthearted, immediately made you stop laughing. You knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t joking; the last time you laughed it off you had to endure two extra hours on top of the four hour sessions you had daily. By the end of the punishment, your arms felt like they were going to fall off.

“No! I take it back, you guys are young! Not a single-”

“You’re digging yourself an early grave if you finish that sentence, kid. Besides, you can’t pass up opportunities like these!”

“I think I’m good for now,” you shivered slightly when a breeze blew past you. It was starting to grow colder as the night dragged on. Technoblade, noticing this, wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you close to him securely. Though the Blood God never shows mercy, he couldn’t let his only child succumb to a head cold; that’d just be barbaric.

You jumped at the feeling of the freezing netherite making contact with your bare arm. “Sorry,” he murmured sheepishly, “forgot how cold the armor is… We should probably head back, it’s getting cold.”

As your family started to make their way back towards the tundra, banter was exchanged between the three. The journey out of the forest was uneventful, only a few mobs had attempted to attack or sneak behind you. Just as you reached the edge of the forest, a noise caught your attention.

It sounded like it was only a couple of minutes away; so faint that if you weren’t actively listening for it, it would have nearly been lost in the night. If you strained your ears, you could hear the trampling of dry leaves making you assume that there were several people or animals in that area. Alongside it, there was a faint whimpering.

Your curiosity was piqued, just what was making that noise?

“(Y/n), is everything alright?” You looked back at Philza. It seemed that they walked a bit away from you while you stopped at the forest’s edge to listen to the sound.

You absentmindedly nodded, “yeah, Uncle Phil. I think I left my bow back in that clearing when we were taking a break so I’m just going to go grab that. You guys can keep going home, I’ll be right behind you.”

“We can go with you-”

“No, you don’t have to. I’m old enough to go alone.”

Philza and Technoblade then spoke at the same time, “alright, we’ll just meet you there.” “Absolutely not.”

Philza elbowed Technoblade’s side lightly and looked up at him. They were silently communicating with pointed looks and pursed lips, every expression understood completely by the other. You never understood how they did that, even if they raised you. You could remember making a journal dedicated to deciphering their expressions, but you never could truly understand it (that, and ‘nose scrunch and eye narrow’ meant multiple things).

Eventually, Technoblade’s shoulders slumped and he ran a hand down his face tiredly, “you know the rules?”

You rolled your eyes, “of course I do. Fight to win, go for the throat, if you lose your weapon go for the pressure points. You remind me daily.”

He stared at you for a moment before his ear flicked, “don’t take long, we’ll be waiting.” They both turned and started to trudge towards the spruce forest in the distance.

Without a second thought, you ran into the forest with your ears perked. Following the noise was easy, the whimpers had turned into high pitched whines. You leapt over stumps and ducked under low hanging branches as they blocked your way; nothing was going to stop you from finding out what was making that noise.

Eventually, you broke through the trees and found yourself in a grassy clearing surrounded by large stones. If it were spring, you’d imagine wildflowers sprouting everywhere you stepped. A small spring sat in the furthest corner of it, waterfalls cascading over the jagged stones and crashing into the water below. Near the cliffside, a hoard of groaning zombies swarmed something and they were closing in on it. Now, what was it they were attacking?

You quickly unsheathed your golden sword and sprinted towards the hoard. The crunching of the dried, colorful leaves under your feet was enough to drag the zombies’ attention to you.

Adrenaline coursed through your veins as you made your first swipe at one of their torsos. In an instant, the zombie was bisected and fell to the ground. With a twirl, you slashed at multiple zombies at once. They all collapsed to the ground as their rotting flesh was torn and couldn’t support their crumbling bodies any longer.

As soon as all of the zombies were laying dead on the ground, you wiped your blade off on one of their torn tunics and sheathed it. Taking a step back to look at the bodies littered on the floor, you smirked; this was too easy.

Now, without the obstacles, your prize awaits you. Eagerly, you looked over to see what the zombies were swarming. Instead of the scared villager you were expecting, the person that stood there completely took your breath away.

The woman was wearing a simple white dress with a baby blue shawl shadowing the upper part of her face. Her skin was fair and her face was round, a button nose laid in the center of her face and plump pink lips slightly parted showing off straight white teeth. Curly dark brown hair framed the sides of her face and spiraled down to rest on her shoulders.

She was tall for a human, about five-foot-ten if you were to estimate. Her hands moved to clasp in front of her elegantly, your eyes catching sight of light blue nailpolish decorating her perfectly shaped nails.

Red was starting to dust her cheeks and her breathing was starting to return to normal. That was good, at least she wasn’t going into shock. For someone who nearly got eaten alive by the undead, she looked relatively calm and well put together.

“Are you alright?” You tried to keep your voice even, but there was a light wobble to it. You thickly swallowed, cursing yourself for showing any emotion in front of this stranger. The mask that hid the upper part of your face gave you a sense of security and safety, it hid most of your emotion.

You saw her lips move, but no sound came out. Were you going deaf like your father? You shouldn’t be; you haven’t blown up an entire nation yet. You stepped closer in hopes of hearing her better, “excuse me?”

Her lips curled up into a smile, dimples appearing on her cheeks, “Oh, I just said that I’m fine, nothing else. May I get the name of my knight in shining armor?”

Her voice was soft and light. Though it was on the deeper side, it had feminine, euphonious undertones; it was like honey was dripping out with every word she spoke. Just by the way she spoke, you assumed that she came from the nearby kingdom.

You smirked, playing along with the small game she was setting up. Stepping closer and kneeling, you grabbed her hand and brought it to your lips. Her hands were soft and velvety, a part of you longed to hold it in yours all day long.

Against her knuckles, you spoke, “(Y/n) Blade at your service. And you, my fairest lady?”

“Princess Helen Dahlia Eret, but please, call me Dahlia; Helen was my mother. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

You snorted, she was really dedicated to this game. You’d just play along with her, why not? It’s not like you have anything else to do. “Well, princess, it’s about time for you to head back to your castle.”

You looked up at her through your eyelashes and caught sight of the outline of her shadowed features. You could see her purse her lips, “you think I’m lying, don’t you?”

“Forgive me for thinking so, your highness!” You snickered, “the princess shall not step foot outside of her chambers, lest a scrape shall mar her flawless skin!”

She smirked before placing a delicate finger underneath your chin, tilting it upwards. You could feel your face grow hot as she removed her shawl. Ivory white eyes stared back at you smugly, sending a shock through your body. You weren’t sure if the jolt you felt was from her beauty or from the fact that she wasn’t lying.

“Would you like to try again, my knight?” She cooed to you, her other hand coming down to rest on your cheek. You stood up and gaped at her, “oh fuck, you’re actually the princess.”

A part of you wanted to dislike her for her title and for the royal blood that coursed through her veins. That blood tainted her, filling every nook and cranny with vile corruption. “All governments are bad,” Technoblade had taught you early on in your life, “they should, under no circumstances, be trusted.”

Though her parent Eret had been a fair king, always attending to the needs of their people, you were anticipating their corruption. If your memory serves you right, they were the one that betrayed the revolutionaries during the L’manberg Revolution simply because of their thirst for power. If they were a power hungry traitor before, who’s to say that they won’t be blinded by it again?

Every fiber in your body screamed at you to sink your sword through her abdomen to put her down, just like the bloodthirsty hounds that hailed long before her. You could just end her right now, make it quick and just leave her body here. It’d be easy and it would bring chaos to the SMP Kingdom, causing mass paranoia and tearing it apart from within. It’d be delicious, something that would give you a high you’d ride for years. You wanted to paint the grass with her blood, but something deep within you protested.

Filthy blood nourished her body, but that didn’t take away from her sheer and complete beauty or the way she covered her mouth with a delicate hand to hide her laugh. That did not take away from how she had cupped your cheek moments before, your skin still tingled where her hand was. That didn’t suppress the butterflies that fluttered wildly in your stomach when she stepped into the moonlight.

She put her hand out and smiled, “won’t you accompany me to my castle, my faithful warrior?” You merely put on a cold, uncaring facade and side stepped her.

“...You got yourself here, yes? You can find your way back.”

“Well you see,” she moved to rub the back of her neck and awkwardly chuckled, “I was hoping you know the way back?”

You couldn’t stop the snort that escaped your mouth, something about her made her irresistible. “You’ve got to be kidding me, you just ran blindly into a forest?”

“Hey, you would too if you were being chased by zombies!”

“Excuse me, who was the one that just slaughtered said zombies in under a minute?” You raised an eyebrow and looked down at her.

“I don’t have a sword like you do,” she crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at you.

“Even then, I doubt you know how to use one. Here,” you unsheathed the large sword and held it out to her, “I bet you can’t even hold it up.”

“Can too!” She protested before snatching the sword out of your hands. She grunted slightly at the heavy weight, almost dropping it, but she quickly steadied it. Looking up at you with a smug, slightly reddened face, she shook slightly. “See? It’s not that hard.”

You quirked an eyebrow beneath your mask, “oh really?”

“Y-yep,” was all she managed to choke out before she stepped back and dropped the tip. It swung down and buried itself inside the dirt below, scouring the earth as it made contact.

Smirking at her, you took it back with ease, putting it back into its sheath slung around your back. You once again stepped around her and started walking in the other direction.

“Where are you going?!”

“To the castle, you said you wanted me to take you home.”  

She rushed to your side and grabbed your arm with both of her hands. They snaked around your bicep and tangled themselves in your cape. You could feel yourself soar at the contact; you had to fight against every instinct to hook your arm with hers. You ripped yourself out of her embrace and put some distance between the both of you.

She crossed her arms and hugged herself, shivering slightly, “how are you not cold?!”

“It’s barely cold out here,” you mentally scolded yourself for being a hypocrite, “you’ll be fine.”

She said nothing and continued to walk. As you got further and further into the forest, she merely started shivering more. You could hear her teeth chattering loudly and could see goosebumps decorating the skin on her bare arms. Sighing, you unhooked your cape and slung it over her shoulders.

She squeaked in surprise at the feeling before realizing that you gave her your cape. She grabbed the edges and pulled it closer to her before snuggling deeper into the cloth; you could feel your heart explode at the small sigh that she let out and the content hum that left her mouth. Just as she looked up at you, you made quick work of looking away. The ground was very fascinating at the moment.

“Thank you,” she murmured. You just curtly nodded, avoiding looking at her.

The walk to the castle was short, luckily she hadn’t run far from her home. Just as the castle walls were in your sights, she tried holding your arm again. Once again, you stepped away from her.

“C’mon,” she chuckled, “I don’t bite.”

“Well I do. You really need to learn not to trust a stranger, princess.”

“Well, we aren’t strangers. We know each other’s names, do we not? And besides, I bet you’re just a massive teddy bear.”

“I don’t know what your teddy bears looked like as a kid, but they certainly weren’t me. If I wanted to, I could take your hand clean off with a single twist and pull,” you growled out. She was silent once more as she led you towards a specific part of the castle.

“...Why are you so defensive? At least treat me like you did before we knew each other!” She unhooked the cape and shoved it towards you. You gladly took it and put it back on. To your sheer embarrassment, you felt joy as you caught a whiff of books and expensive perfume. It smelled like her.

“...I could’ve just left you back there if I wanted to, consider this a favor. Respect is earned, not given. Even to royalty.”

You turned to leave, you cape swishing behind you as you turned. Before you could walk off, a hand on your arm stopped you. “Wait. Even if you’re a massive jerk,” she sighed out, “I still have to thank you. So, thank you for saving my life; I’m indebted to you, my douchey knight.”

She leant up on the tips of her toes and gently placed her lips on your cheek. You froze and watched as she turned on her heel. She walked towards the entrance with several glances back at you, some of them being smug and others being questioning. It was like you were entranced underneath the veil of a spell, unable to move until she disappeared from sight.

The walk home was quiet with no mobs sneaking up on you. The entire time, the memory of her kissing your cheek replayed endlessly in your head. Though the very thing you disliked more than anything was embodied in her, you couldn’t help but fall for the natural charm she had. You were probably just tired, it was getting late into the night after all.

As you walked through the door, you could see Technoblade impatiently waiting for you on the couch. He had a book open in his hand and his half-rimmed glasses were perched on the bridge of his snout.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, I just ran into more mobs than I anticipated.”

Technoblade said nothing as his eyes flickered over your body, looking for even the smallest of scrapes. When he didn’t find anything, he nodded to himself and stood up. Tiredly, he walked over to you and ruffled your hair before trudging to his room.

“Are you sure the only thing you ran into was mobs?”

“Yeah,” you cleared your throat, “just a lot of zombies.”

He rolled his eyes and gave you a knowing smile before walking over to you. He swiped his thumb across your cheek and showed it to you. It was stained with a light pink color. “In all of the centuries I spent living in this world, not once have I seen a zombie wearing pink lipstick or,” he took your cape in his hand and sniffed it slightly, “cherry scented perfume.”

Your face exploded in heat as you made hasty work of scrubbing your cheek making the older man laugh quietly at you, “all you’re doing is smudging it all over your face. Some warm water and soap will get it off fast… Now, wanna tell me who gave you that?”

You stared at his smug expression and quickly came to the realization that he wouldn’t let this go unless you told him. Or, at least until you told him what happened.

You sighed and started to remove your armor, placing it on the armor stand situated between Philza’s and Technoblade’s armor. You had insisted that the armor stands were in this specific order, it just made sense with the height differences between the members of the household. Since you were between Philza’s and Technoblade’s height at 6’4 (and still growing), it made sense with the order of the armor in terms of size.

You made your way over to the couch and sat down with a sigh, Philza following suit. He gave you a reassuring smile, “whenever you’re ready.”

So you told him everything that had happened that day. Needless to say, Philza was happy for you, asking you questions about the interaction.

“It sounds like she’s perfect for you, kiddo.”

“That’s the thing, Uncle Phil. She isn’t,” you ran a hand down your face and leaned back onto the back of the couch, your head resting on the top of the cushion. You heard Philza shift slightly before he grabbed your hand.

“Now,” he asked gently, “what makes you think that?”

“She’s King Eret’s daughter. Helen Dahlia Eret,” you sardonically chuckled, “I really thought she was just joking when she said ‘princess’.” Every part of you wished that that was a joke. That she would laugh and tell you that it was part of the game she was playing. But no, she just had to be royalty.

“Eret’s better than most, they are a good king,” he reminded you.

“Still, there’s royal blood in her. She’s actively a part of a government… I wanted to kill her on the spot; hell everything in my body was screaming at me to slaughter her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Sometimes, someone is more than the blood inside of them; maybe she isn’t as bad as you think she is. Someone could be born into a family of saints and still destroy everything they touch. On the other hand, someone could be born surrounded by the lowest of humanity and grow up to become the best person you’ll ever meet. You have to understand that blood isn’t everything to a person’s character.”

You didn’t say anything, contemplating what he said. She didn’t seem like someone to rule with an iron fist, and neither did her parent. Tubbo was the first person to come to mind. He was raised by a malicious, tyrannical idiot, a man that had valued absolute power and booze over anything else. Your uncle turned out to be the most caring person you’ve ever met, always making sure that those around him are in a good mood even if he himself wasn’t.

However, it’s best to be cautious of somebody. Your mind flashed back to Wilbur and Dream, the two men rotting away in Pandora’s Vault together until either their time alive is up or time itself expires. They were charismatic and kind on the outside, but on the inside, they are two of the most heinous men you’ve ever met. 

It seemed like your mind was running in circles, bouncing between both conclusions like it was being slammed between two surfaces.

“...Do you think you’ll see her again?” Philza asked you, rubbing a thumb over your knuckles and squeezing it comfortingly when you didn’t respond immediately.

You sighed, standing up and walking out of the room, “if the odds are in our favor, we won’t see each other any time soon.”

                                          ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

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[travellingarmy]

║Xiao║ Misunderstanding

Requested from Wattpad.

Gender-neutral.

Fluff.

Word count: 1.8k

---

A familiar sound of laughter could be heard coming from somewhere at the lower part of Wangshu Inn that had gotten the attention of the last surviving yaksha. A laugh that he found annoying, yet would miss if it weren't around. Your laugh.

He wasn't going to admit it, but he would always wait for you to come to meet him daily. He would rush in clearing the area for monsters, not wanting you or any other mortal getting hurt-- but you especially.

However, he notices that your laughter that grew closer from the stairs leading up to the highest part of the inn- where he was- was seemingly.. Too joyous, let's say. What were you laughing at? Were you talking to Verr Goldet on your way to him? No, she's always behind the reception desk during working hours; no way is she with you. And as rude as it may be, her humour was quite dry to have you cracking up that much.

The curious yaksha's golden eyes look towards the door, waiting for you to step on the last remaining stairs that'll finally allow him to see you and whatever- or whomever- was making you laugh. He knew that you weren't alone as he heard a second set of shoes. They were heavy. A man? Well, that was soon answered when he saw your figure peeking in his line of sight, along with the person you came with. Although he doesn't show it, what he saw was not a pleasant sight.

Who was the guy next to you?

His eyes narrow. Something in him made him feel.. Strange. He doesn't know what word (or words) to use to describe such mortal feeling but he knows that he hated it-- hated the sight with you laughing the way you did to another. You never laughed like that when you were with him.

You looked away from the person with who you had such a wonderful conversation with and to Xiao who was leaning against the railing. You didn't notice that something was off with him; he looked annoyed just like every other day you met with him so you greeted him with a smile. "Xiao! Hey, sorry to keep you waiting," you said. Xiao did not reply to your greeting and focused his attention on the taller male beside you. Then, "Who is he?" His head nods to the stranger, arms crossing. The guy seemed shady but nowhere in his perfect appearance could the yaksha pinpoint what was off with him.

"Oh, right. I should introduce you guys to each other. Xiao, this is Childe. Childe, this is Xiao-- the one I was talking to you about some moments ago," you said. "Hey, it's good to meet another of (Y/N)'s friends." Childe smiles, a hand rest on his hip. "Likewise," Xiao replies, although he didn't really mean it. All he wanted to know was what this Childe guy's relationship with you as you had never mentioned him in your guys' one-sided conversation before.

"Anyway, (Y/N), when are you finally going to accept my invitation?" Childe looks towards you with eager eyes. "What invitation?" You raised a brow at the ginger. "Eh? Did you forget? How could you, (Y/N)?" Childe dramatically clutches his shirt over his chest. "I thought you loved me!" Xiao's ears perked. "Just hurry up and tell me," you said.

He chuckles. "For our date, of course!" Childe leans closer to your face, giving you a close-eyed grin. Xiao, who had no choice but to listen, unknowingly tightened his grip on his arms. Date? So, you guys are..

Xiao clicks his tongue. "I need to go," he said briefly before disappearing into thin air with trickles of black and green smoke. You couldn't even ask where he was going. "Uh, weren't you gonna give him that?" Childe points at the tiffin in your hand. "Ah, you're right! Darn it.." You finally perfected how to make almond tofu and wanted Xiao to be the first to try your cooking so it was truly a shame that you weren't able to give it to him. "Well, since he left, can I have it?" Childe asks. "No! This is for Xiao only!" You glare at him. "And can you please stop calling our sparring sessions a date?" Childe only laughs at that.

"Well, I guess I'll leave this with Verr.." you said to yourself, eyeing at the tiffin. It was a shame that you won't get to see his reaction but you can always ask tomorrow. You wondered what it was that he needed to tend to but shortly concluded that he probably needed to take care of monsters around the area.

-

Tomorrow came but he didn't show up which was odd since even though he may look like he doesn't want you around, he never really pushed you away. In fact, there wasn't a silent agreement for when you two would meet up at the highest part of Wangshu Inn. You asked Verr if Xiao ever had the chance to eat your almond tofu but she said that he rejected it and that he would be turning in for the night.

A day turned to days until it was nearly a week. Again, you went to Wangshu Inn and again, Childe wasn't with you that day so it was a bit quiet. You didn't have anything else planned for today, wanting to spend today with Xiao since you didn't yesterday and the days before that.

It became the waiting game long ago and before you knew it, you could see the sun setting on the horizon yet again. Where was he? Yeah, he may be the conqueror of demons but you couldn't help but worry. After all, it was still possible for him to get hurt.

You waited a bit more until the sun was fully out of sight. Another day has ended and he still hasn't shown. Sighing defeatedly, you stood up from the chair that Verr had brought for you. However, before you could take a step away from the chair, Xiao appears before you at the centre of the balcony.

"Xiao!?" One look at him, you gasped at the state he was in. He still had his mask on and was covered in blood and scratch marks, using his spear as support. He was unaware of your presence, unable to focus as he was lightheaded.

You rushed to his side and that's when his head looks up from the ground to you. "(Y/N)? What are you doing here?" he managed to ask, sounding so weak and tired. "I was waiting for you.. But never mind that-- what happened to you?" You reached your hands for him and just when you made contact with his shoulders, he collapsed in your arms. "Xiao!"

Your voice was loud enough to alert Verr, Huai'an, and Yanxiao who rushed upstairs, all worried for the yaksha that protected Liyue quietly. "Xiao? What happened?" Verr asked, equally worried as you were. "Let's get him to his room first and patch him up. Save the questions after he's healed," Huai'an said. Agreeing, you brought Xiao to his room that was unoccupied for most of the time while Verr fetched the aid kit.

After giving you the kit, you were left with the task of bandaging the male, knowing that he would most likely refuse help from them. You sat on a wooden chair while he sat on his bed, things needed to patch him up were spread on the nightstand. It was quiet for the first couple of minutes since you were too busy cleaning his bloodied arm. It was only when you wrapped his upper arm nice and tight did you talk. "Uh, can you take off your shirt..?" you say softly that one would need to strain to hear, but not Xiao as he always had keen ears.

"Why are you here?" he asks coldly which caught you off guard. Sure he spoke with a seemingly cold tone but this time, it really sounded as if he didn't want you here. His eyes never once looked at yours when you were wrapping his arm.

"X, Xiao..? What's wrong?" You felt your heart squeeze itself. He remained tight-lipped. That day, when you brought Childe along, he felt a mix of emotions of jealousy, anger, and sadness. "Nothing is wrong. Just go.." he said. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Somewhere to be? No, I was waiting all day for you to come back," you said. "I was beginning to worry ab--" "I don't need your concerns. I have lived longer than you and fought many monsters. I can handle everything by myself," he cut you off, sharply. "Why don't you put those silly feelings of yours on someone else?"

"What wrong with you, Xiao?" you asked, not once raising your voice. "I told you, nothing is wrong with me--" He finally looked at you, but what he saw next made him stop and all those feelings he had previously dissipated. You weren't crying but tears were certainly threatening to fall as you bit your bottom lip. "I.. (Y/N).."

You shook your head, wiping the tears with your arms before you stare at him right in the eyes. "I was worried, Xiao. I was worried if you were hurt or worse!" you raised your voice, but not in anger. "What did I do to make you mad? Please, tell me!" Your eyes reflected desperation and sadness.

He looks away. He felt bad, knowing that it was wrong of him to lash out at you for something as stupid as feelings.. Feelings that you won't reciprocate.

"It's nothing.." he said, this time, in a calmer tone. "Why won't you tell me?" you asked, reaching your hands to cup his face so that he had no choice but to look at you.

He hesitated. He wasn't sure if it was right to tell you since you were with someone else, and he didn't want to ruin what friendship you two had. But the sadness in your eyes made it hard for him to keep it a secret. "I.. Was jealous.." He confesses, looking down at his lap, face feeling hot in embarrassment.

"Jealous? Of who?" you pushed on. He gulped before saying, "Your.. Boyfriend."

You blinked, confused. Then, "Boyfriend? But I don't have one.." you voiced. Xiao looks up at you, face showing surprise. "What? But that guy with you.. He said.." It took a while but you now soon know who he was referring to.

"Ah, we aren't in a relationship, I promise! When he said date, he was asking for a sparring match really," you explained. "A, and actually, I like you, Xiao.. I have always liked you."

Hearing the confession, Xiao did not wait for a second longer and put a hand behind your head, pushing you closer to him until your lips met with his. It surprised you at first but soon melted into the kiss, eyes fluttering shut. What felt like hours was actually just a few minutes and you two pulled away.

Looking at him, loving his golden eyes that were filled with love for you, you smiled. "Well, let's finish fixing you up."

---

[thran-duils]

And Those I Can’t Charm, I Can Kill (P.3)

Title: And Those I Can’t Charm, I Can Kill (Part Three) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mafia!Tony Stark. Too many fringe gangs were making ties and your father noticed. He reached out to the Stark mob for an alliance, offering up a piece of his territory at first. When Stark told him he had enough land, your father offered up the next best thing: you. He knew Stark needed a wife and what better way to solidify a relationship between the two mafia families? You were not naïve, you knew the life and you were trained with guns and negotiations. Your father had made sure of that. The two of you had seen each other on multiple occasions at mafia get togethers and knew of each other. Stark accepted the transaction but little did he know he was going to get a little hellion handed over to him that would not kiss the ground he walked on. He would grow to love it too. Words: 2,559 Warnings (more WILL be added, I am sure): Eventual smut, power dynamics, sexism, smut, public sex, fingering, dom/sub powerplay, kidnapping, violence, death, knife kink, gun kink, angst with a happy ending Author’s Note: I’ve been listening to this song on repeat for AN HOUR as I’ve been writing this. What a club song.

Part Two || Part Four || Masterpost mobile || Fanfic masterpost

A handful of days later, you were following a bouncer through a crowded club. You and your friends had gone out to dinner and Tony had told you on the phone to come here after dinner. It was Natasha’s birthday, and you were supposed to be there to celebrate it with them. He had granted you permission to bring some of your friends. You were unsure if it was just him being nice or if he wanted to know who your friends were for a better read on you. Perhaps it was both.

“This is nice!” One of your friends said in your ear as the group of you were let into the roped off VIP area.

The plush, white seats of the multiple long booths were glimmering in the neon lights and your eyes were drawn to the sectioned video screen, watching the underwater animation on the different screens. Some people were already here, but the only one you recognized was Bucky. He was sitting with a couple of other men, and he gave you a little wave. You acknowledged him in return and noticed he took his phone out. There was a large chance he was texting Tony to let him know that you were there. Keeping tabs still and the thought of it made you scowl.

Even more so when you knew Tony was not there yet. If he wanted you here so bad, where was he? You could have gone to a bar after dinner for a while rather than just coming straight here like he requested. He had been on a business trip the last couple of days, and you were not close to Natasha. It was all about appearances for him. Appear happy. Appear like a power couple. You had acted your part well the other day in the restaurant and he had been satisfied with that. You had felt a flutter of pride seeing how he smiled at you, how impressed he had been at how you handled yourself. Like he saw some worth in you other than a trophy wife.

“Where are the drinks?” Your friend asked, interrupting your thoughts, and you snorted.

“My thoughts exactly.”

<><><>

Tony walked into the VIP section, followed by Rhodey and Bruce. His eyes were running over the people in there, some of them from his crew and the others, Y/N’s friends. He quickly realized Y/N was nowhere in sight and he sighed, annoyance bubbling in his chest. He had specifically told her to come here after they finished dinner. It was after 10:30pm; there was no way she was still eating dinner.

He had been in Atlanta the last couple of days and had just gotten back home mere hours beforehand.

Donning a mask of contentment, he walked over to the table where Natasha was sitting with Clint. He held out the bag he was holding, and Natasha waved him off.

“You did not need to buy me anything. You already provided this amazing space to celebrate me.”

“Take it or I’ll make you open it,” he half teased.

She kissed his cheek and he smiled in response, handing the bag off to her.

Standing straight again, his eyes landed on the ladies in the booth. Bucky was nowhere in sight, so he could not ask him, so he walked over to the women. They eyed him, some looking at him with curiosity, others with arousal.

“Ladies,” he greeted.

“Mr. Stark?” one of them ventured.

He flashed a smile, “Guilty. Can any of you tell me where my lovely wife is? Did she leave?”

“She’s dancing!” The woman closest to him answered over the music.

Tony exhaled, “Right. Okay. Thank you.”

“Thank you for inviting us!” the first girl said and he nodded.

“Anything to make Y/N feel more comfortable.”

<><><>

Near the railing, Bucky had already realized himself Y/N was not upstairs with the group when he noticed Tony arrived, so he was putting eyes on the crowd outside the VIP section where he had a better view of the dance floor. He was hoping to get an eye on her before Tony did in case anything was less than savory. She had left the section awhile ago and had not come back. In his drunk haze, he had not been paying close enough attention to the amount of time. Stupid stupid stupid. She was a target as much as Tony now, probably even more so because she could be held for ransom as collateral. He should have been paying more attention. He was not her body guard though; that had been Erick. And he had followed her down.

“Christ,” Bucky said to himself as he spotted Y/N near the bar.

“What?” Bruce asked him, his hand coming to rest on the railing as he peered over the crowd.

Bucky startled at Bruce’s voice but recovered quickly. “Where’s Tony?”

“Right here,” Tony answered from behind him. Bucky swallowed sharply before turning his head. “Where’s Y/N? Her friends said she was dancing.” He joined them at the railing. “Has she been drinking a lot?”

“They had a couple shots when she was up here. She left about twenty minutes ago to go downstairs. Erick went with her,” Bucky informed him. He saw Erick was off to the side though, not interfering with the scene in front of him. “She’s by the bar… with that guy.”

<><><>

The man’s hand slipped up your skirt and you stiffened.

Trying to pull away you turned around to face him. Taking a step back you kept dancing but carved out some space for yourself. The guy looked amused by the action and his hands were pawing at your hips again, yanking you close again. His hands slipped back, gripping at your ass.

“Okay,” you forced out a laugh, hands coming to his arms. “Let’s keep it friendly.”

“I’m being perfectly friendly,” he answered, refusing to let you get away.

Attempting to pull away, you said, “Friendly as in PG. No hands up the skirts.”

The guy chuckled, trying to pull you back to him. “Sweetheart, with legs like that, can you blame me for trying to touch you?”

“Yes, I can,” you told him, pulling away with more force this time. “We’re dancing, not dry humping.”

“Is there a difference?” he asked, still all smiles but you could see the tight lines at his eyes. The smile was becoming more forced. He was getting impatient. He was on you again, hands coming to your sides.

“I’m married. There’s a big—” you started to say before you were suddenly jerked away from the guy and a figure came in between the two of you.

It took you a few moments to register it was your husband. His back was to you but you could sense he was enraged.

“The fuck is your problem?” the guy shouted at Tony above the music.

“My problem is you’re touching my wife!”

The guy’s eyes shot to you, where you were standing behind Tony. He tried to brush of the awkwardness by crassly laughing, “Maybe you should tell your ‘wife’ to not be such a slut and guys like me wouldn’t put their hands on her!”

Tony’s fist collided with his center, right below the rib cage. The guy’s eyes bulged, gasping for air. Tony socked him again in the same spot with precision, causing his knees to buckle. Tony’s closed fist came down hard across his cheek, whiplashing the guy’s head and knocking him completely to the ground. The crowd had parted, and it was just the pair of them in the small circle, the music still bumping. The guy had not even stood a chance.

He turned on you now and your eyes were wide, shocked he had just beaten the crap out of someone in front of everyone.

“You. Me. Upstairs,” Tony ordered loudly to you, his hand clamping down around your arm.

“They’re gonna call the cops!” you gasped.

“They shouldn’t. I own the place,” Tony responded gruffly, his hand tight around your arm as he dragged you away.

When had he taken over? This place used to be Balthazar’s. Erick was there suddenly, and he was already pulling the guy to his feet. He told Tony he had it and Tony barely registered that he had heard him. You felt eyes on the pair of you as he moved through the crowd that parted easily for him at first but the further you got from the scene, it was a normal inebriated crowd dancing their lives away.

Tony was pulling you up the stairs and turned you away from where the VIP section was on the other end of the upper floor.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” you demanded.

He did not answer you and took you down the hall that was marked Exit. He held up his watch to the door and it unlocked, and he pulled you inside. There were a couple of men sitting on the couches inside the room – you guessed it was the manager’s office.

“Get out!” Tony barked at them, and they scrambled to do what he said as quickly as possible.

As the door locked close again, Tony whipped you around him and let go of your arm in a fluid motion. His nostrils flared, his eyes wide with his anger. He was visibly shaking when he snarled, “How dare you disrespect me like that! Not even just in public but in my own fucking club!”

Just as enraged at being handled like you had been, you shouted back, “I didn’t ask him to touch me like that, Tony! I was trying to get away from him! Or were you too wrapped up in your own damn ego to notice that?”

Tony snorted, “You didn’t have to ask him if you were already dancing on your own! Seems to me you were looking for trouble! You should have stayed upstairs!”

“Yeah well, good thing you were there! I apparently need a handler!”

Tony was on you, hovering. “I’m glad you recognize that because you drive me insane!”

You shoved him and his eyes were wild, angry you had done it. Well, fucking good! He was blaming you for something you had not done, and he did not need to be so goddamn close. You did it again when he still didn’t give you space.

“I drive you insane?” you demanded.

“Immensely!”

“Right back at you!” you retorted. “Maybe you shouldn’t accuse me of things I haven’t done! You did the right thing taking me away, but your anger is completely misdirected! I wasn’t trying to disrespect you! I wanted to just dance! And then some guy comes and lays hands all over me! I told him I was married and he didn’t care! That was the problem! Not me wanting to dance! Redirect your anger, you pompous asshole!”

Tony’s hand came up to lazily point at his chest, sarcasm dripping, “Oh, I’m an asshole?”

“Did I stutter?”

“According to you, I just saved you from an uncomfortable situation!”

“Do you want me to throw you a fucking parade for acting like a decent human being who saw someone in trouble and came to the rescue?”

“You’re so goddamn overdramatic!”

“Overdramatic?”

“Did I stutter?” Tony spat back.

Your chests heaving from your passion, the anger thrumming, the two of you stared daggers through the other. The music was muffled by the door, only the bass thumping.

The air was tight.

Tony’s lips parted ever so slightly, and your eyes fell to the movement for a brief second before meeting his gaze again.

Too tight. It was spilling over.

You threw hands at him but in a different type of aggressiveness. Your fingers curled into his shirt, yanking him to you instead of away. Your lips crashed together, and his arms found their home around you. Your back hit the wall and he was grinding his pelvis into you, both of you gasping for brief air in between passionate kisses. His hands ruched your dress up over your hips and he quickly came to grip at your ass as he groaned into your kiss.

“Unzip me,” you gasped and he did so without any more direction, shoving the dress down your body, leaving you in your bra and thong.

Tony was breathing erratic, watching you hungrily.

“Lose them,” you told him, meaning his jeans, tugging at them, and he caught the gist.

The two of you moved in tandem, shredding clothing left and right until you found yourselves up against the couch, the back of Tony’s calves hitting it first. Climbing up and straddling him, you dipped down, holding his jaw as you kissed him with fervor. Tony’s tongue slipped past your lips, swirling around you own. You moaned into his mouth, grinding your hips and he responded in like.

His hands were gripping at the base of your ass, pulling you closer, forcing your pussy to brush against him harder.

You pulled away and he instinctively followed, his lips still pursed. You smiled at the sight, and he noticed, expression falling if only for a moment. You guided him to your entrance and you sunk slowly. His fingers flexed, his breath catching.

“God, you’re drenched,” he murmured, his cock fitting inside, brushing every nerve. “You’ve been such a goddamn tease.”

“A tease?” you asked, sinking completely and he groaned loudly, fully seated inside. “Maybe I was waiting for you to prove yourself! Apparently you can handle me.” You pulled back up, only his head buried in your folds to tease him. “What a coincidence.”

Tony responded with digging his fingers into your thighs and he thrusted hard.

Nipping at his nose, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders.

“Stop stalling,” he growled. He was impatient.

He had been waiting for this for so long, you could gather that. If what your friend had overheard at the wedding was any indication of that. Well, you were going to let him have it.

You were bouncing, your thighs slapping against his. You were falling into the complete and pure pleasure. It was different with him; he was yours, you were his. You controlled the movements and he let you. He was so goddamn attractive and you felt the emotion overwhelming you that you were really married to this man. You needed to stake your claim and it only made you ride harder.

Tony held you close, whispering about how beautiful you were and how lucky he was. Bite marks were left along the top of your breasts, his tongue swirling around your nipples and sucking in. He was worshiping you, completely lost.

And when he gripped you tightly, you gasped when you felt his cum coating, finishing deep. His hand came down, almost slapping, and his thumb found your clit between your bodies. He was rubbing with precision, encouraging you in soft tones.

“C’mon, baby.”

He had you tumbling and him still fully seated inside, the two of you shared in a moan as you clenched.

You grinded your hips once more, enjoying the feeling of him inside. The intimacy was what had been missing, the two of you holding out on the other, too preoccupied with being shielded. This felt good and you hoped it was not a fluke.

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21​ @undecidedsworld​ @holl2712​​ @agustdowney​  @biiskuitx​​ @buttercupfangirl​​

Fic tags: @patheticallysentimental​

[ragingbookdragon]

Through Hoods, Through Lace, Through Hearts--We'll Find Our Healing PT.1

Jason Todd x Reader Story (Arkhamverse)

Word Count: 2.6K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: I started playing Arkham Knight again and got inspired. Who woulda thought?? Enjoy! -Thorne

Gotham wasn’t exactly safe since Batman—or Bruce Wayne—had died. All things considered, it wasn’t as bad as it used to be now that Red Hood had moved in and started tackling the criminals Batman had left behind—permanently. Killer Moth had been the first and Roman Sionis was the second to go, and while Red Hood hadn’t outright claimed it, the leftover crew that hadn’t been pumped full of lead, had said that they saw the vigilante leaving, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. And it didn’t stop there.

Red Hood had started in on Penguin’s gang too. Now that Batman wasn’t around to stop the weapons and drug smuggling, it’d given the infamous gang leader a free ticket into Gotham. There were some reports about the neighboring vigilante Nightwing coming over from Blüdhaven to stop him. Rumor had it that someone said they even saw him and the Red Hood working together at one point, but it didn’t seem all to believable as the latter didn’t seem to be the partnering type.

That being said, with no one to stop him from killing all the criminals he wanted, a lot of the small-time fish got out of the business, not wanting to be met at the end of Red Hood’s handguns—it’s the exact reason she got out of the game. The money was good, and she was a damn good thief, but no amount of payout was worth her life. But somehow, trouble always managed to find her again.

***

Her file might’ve gotten deleted from GCPD’s database, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to take the easy way down the street and risk an officer recognizing her. She stuck to the back alleys like usual, ignoring the catcalls and sleazy comments about her outfit, but still keeping her brass knuckles around her hand—could never be too careful in Gotham.

Working an honest job sucked in her opinion, and the only thing more humiliating than working at Super-Babes was the number of tips she was getting at the end of her shift. Maybe if she smiled and flirted a bit more, they’d give her a tenner instead of a fiver. She’d half a mind to shove that five down the asshole’s throat after he ran his hand up the back of her thigh, but she was lucky that Tony had been working the kitchen shift—watching him throw the guy out on his ass was payment enough.

Even if she was managing to scrape by, working a restaurant job was kicking her ass, and something deep inside her itched for one more heist, but with the Red Hood stalking the city, there was no way in hell that she was going to risk it. The man had a reputation for leaving bodies and shell cases, and she wasn’t going to be the former. No, she was working towards a better future, getting back on track, and even if she was waitress, she was doing a lot better than most of the old crew. Most of them had either joined up with Black Mask, in hindsight, a horrible error on their part, or gotten thrown back into lockup. She was lucky—she got out during the recovery of Gotham after the whole Scarecrow and Arkham Knight deal. But that didn’t stop them from sending her the occasional request of her skills. All they received was a big ‘fuck no and fuck you’.

“(Y/N), (Y/N), (Y/N). Finally tracked you down.” Speak of the devil.

“Alex,” she sighed heavily as she turned halfway, catching sight of her old partner—and old flame, but that wasn’t important. “Figured you would at some point.” Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

Alex chuckled and leaned against the wall. “No need to be so touchy. I just wanted to talk.”

(Y/N) shook her head and hiked her purse higher onto her shoulder, fingers tightening around the brass knuckles in her pocket.

“If it’s not about my next shift at Super-Babes, I don’t give a rat’s ass what it is,” she countered, glaring at him.

“That’s where you’ve been working?” he questioned, but his tone gave way to the knowingness in his gaze. “Really?”

“Not like there’s anywhere else for ex-thieves to apply, Alex,” (Y/N) grumbled. “Employers are pretty meticulous when it comes to criminal records.”

“I’m not.”

She glowered at him. “I’m not interested in whatever you want me to do for you.”

“Even if you’ll get paid?” he suggested.

“I can’t believe I’m going to ask,” she sighed, eyes narrowing at the grin that split across his face. “What are you doing?”

Alex pulled out a file and walked up to her. “I knew you couldn’t resist a big payout.”

“Fuck you,” she grunted, swiping the manilla folder from him. “Shine a light for me.”

He pulled out his phone and flicked his flashlight on, watching as she read the papers, occasionally flipping the sheets.

All at once, she paused and gaped at him. “Wayne Manor?” She blinked. “You wanna `excavate Wayne Manor?”

Alex nodded and turned the flashlight off, stowing the phone back into his pocket. “Good plan, isn’t it?”

(Y/N) breathed in shock and lowered the folder. “Are you insane?”

“I’m failing to see your issue with this.”

“You want to excavate the home of a dead man. You really can’t see the issue with it?”

“That he’s dead?” Alex offered. “Technically that’s not graverobbing. He’s been dead for like a year and a half.”

(Y/N) turned and took a step. “That’s not the issue Alex!” She spun back around and hissed, “Bruce Wayne was Batman.”

“Keyword was. Not anymore.”

“I don’t give a shit. If Bruce Wayne was Batman, then there’s a very strong chance that there’s still defenses laid around the grounds.”

“In that pile of rubble? Not likely, but that’s why I need you to help me.”

“No,” (Y/N) declared. “I’m not going anywhere near that place.”

Alex let out a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest. “And why not? You never really liked Batman. Didn’t he put you in jail once or twice?”

“Bruce Wayne was a good man that did his best to help this city whether he was dressed as Batman or not.” She affirmed. “He saved people, gave them jobs, helped them turn their lives around. No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want any part of this job, Alex. Now, later, or forever. I’m trying to do better, and you should too.”

Alex scoffed. “Oh please, getting tips for dressing like slutty Wonder Woman isn’t doing better (Y/N), and you know it.”

She ignored the insult and shrugged. “Maybe not, but I go to sleep at night knowing that I’m not going to get shot by Red Hood or some greedy gangbanger.”

At that, Alex paused and stared at her. “Are you really afraid of that prick?”

(Y/N) scowled. “That pricktook out Black Mask and his entire operation within twenty-four hoursthen immediately turned his attention on the rest of the scumbags in this city.” Taking a step towards him, she added, “He doesn’t break bones and leave you lying in pain like Batman did, Alex. He makes sure you don’t get up again. Ever. I’m not risking my neck for anything that’s stuck in Wayne’s basement.”

The man across from her was silent for a moment, then sighed. “I can’t sway you in any way?”

She yanked her hand out of her jacket pocket and flashed the knuckles around her hand. “I’d stop swaying and start running instead.”

Alex opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was, “Oh fuck!” then he spun around and hauled off like his ass was on fire.

(Y/N) stood there dumbfounded. Sure, she could be intimidating, but there was no way she was that scary. Instead of questioning it, she shrugged and shoved the folder into her skirt, then turned sharply on her heel to start on her way back to her apartment. Until she walked straight into someone’s chest.

She gasped as she stumbled backwards, knowing she was going to fall on her ass when strong hands grasped her upper arms, keeping her upright. (Y/N) looked up and met the very man she’d been talking about. Suddenly, Alex’s explicative and escape made perfect sense.

“Oh fuck!” she blurted out, and impulsively swung her knuckled fist at the jaw of his helmet. He caught her hand with an ease and spun her around, pressing her front up against the brick wall.

“Fuck me. Oh, fuck me,” she hissed, cursing herself for not telling Alex to stick it where the sun didn’t shine the second he found her. Now here she was about to get murdered by a trigger-happy vigilante with a grudge.

“Really? Right here? But someone could see us?” The humor in his tone drew a startled laugh from her and she pressed her cheek against the wall, so she could see him.

“I swear to God I don’t have anything to do with him. Fuck, I’ll tell you whatever you want about him and his plan if you don’t kill me.” (Y/N) sucked in a breath. “Please don’t kill me. I swear I stopped pulling heists after Halloween last year. I work a decent job. I keep my nose clean. I don’t get involved in that shit anymore. Please, God, don’t—”

“Will you stop talking for like ten seconds?” Red Hood griped, one hand leaving the grasp he had on her arms behind her back to feel around her middle.

“HEY!” she shouted, thrashing wildly. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!”

He pressed her harder to the wall. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Calm down.”

“I’ll calm down when you get your fucking hands out of my skirt your fucking pervert!” (Y/N) spat, leaning on one leg to kick at him with the other.

“All I want is what’s in your skirt,” he sighed and pressed one of his thighs against the one kicking him. “Christ,you’re a handful.”

“And you’re a fucking sicko!” she retorted indignantly. “Is this how you get your rocks off? Assaulting innocent women? You’re so fucking disgu—”

“Got it,” Red Hood declared, and yanked out the file she’d shoved in the side of her skirt. (Y/N) fell silent when he held it beside her head. “See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

She could tell he was smirking behind the red helmet and she scowled at him. “You’re fucked up, buddy.”

Shrugging, he flipped open the file and started reading. “Would’ve been easier if you hadn’t tried to run on me.”

“Well excuse me for thinking I was about to get murdered and having the initial instinct to haul ass.”

Red Hood chuckled at that, and despite how wrong the entire situation was, the low drawl made shivers go down her spine.

“Wanna tell me about your friend?” he coaxed and (Y/N) froze.

“He’s not my friend,” she suddenly protested. “I haven’t been around Alex since last year.”

“Really? You two seem fairly chummy.”

(Y/N) craned her neck to look at him. “We used to fuck when we worked together.”

“Mhm,” he hummed knowingly. “Lover’s spat then?”

Barking a laugh, she countered, “Like you wouldn’t believe.” She stared at him. “I got out when you started putting people down. Didn’t want to be a casualty.”

“That’ll do it,” he snickered. “So, you don’t know what Alex’s been up to since last year?”

“No, and I want it to stay that way, but he thinks that if he waves enough heists in my face, I’ll cave and run back to the money.” (Y/N) groaned and rested her head against the wall. “Look, I don’t know what he’s planning, and I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with whatever that plan it. Honest to God.”

She gazed at him, feeling something akin to tears gathering in her vision, and pled, “Take the file. Hell, take all the money I’ve got in my purse if you want, just don’t kill me.” A single tear ran down her cheek. “Please, I’m begging you. I don’t wanna die now.”

Red Hood’s weight disappeared from her back and he murmured, “I’m not going to hurt you. I want the opposite in fact.” The honesty in his words made her body feel weak and her knees started to go out beneath her. “And there she goes.” He caught her before she fell.

Gently lowering her to the ground, he helped her sit against the wall. (Y/N) leaned her head back and let out a long sigh.

“Oh, thank God.”

He laughed. “Life flashing before your eyes?”

She gave a half-hearted smile. “You’ve got no idea.”

This time when he laughed, it was dark, and it made her stomach churn. “Actually, I do.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over them, then he knelt in front of her, handing her purse back to her.

“Here.”

(Y/N) took it with a nod and stared at him. “So, what happens now?”

He was quiet for a moment, then he waved the file. “I go stop your friends from digging around Batman’s home.”

“Good luck,” she replied, starting to her feet when he tutted.

“Ah-ah-ah.” He motioned for her to sit back down. “We’re not done yet.”

She grunted at him. “What do you want?”

“Information on your friends.”

(Y/N) felt her brows furrow. “Can’t you find that out yourself?”

Red Hood shrugged. “I could, but I’m always looking to make my job easier.” He observed her for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills.

Waving it in front of her, he said, “You tell me what you used to do for them and what all they’ve got going on, and you can have this.”

(Y/N)’s jaw went tight as she stared at the roll. That could pay rent and bills for at least two months. She needed the money. Her eyes darted to the mask and she swiped for the roll, but he raised it out of her reach.

“Nope,” he ribbed. “Info first.”

“Ass,” she grumbled, but conceded with a sigh. “Fine. Have it your way.” (Y/N) clambered to her feet and dusted off her tacky skirt, watching as he did the same.

“Follow me to my apartment.” Before he could say a word, she thrust a finger into his chest. “And do it from the rooftops so people don’t see you.” Her face set in a glare. “I don’t need any unwanted guests trying to get in because they saw you following me.”

She started off when Red Hood grabbed her forearm, not harshly, but firm enough to make her stop and stare at him questioningly.

“What’s your name?”

She blinked, not expecting that. “It’s (Y/N). (Y/N) (L/N).”

He nodded. “And what did they call you when you worked as a thief?”

(Y/N) huffed. “Not everyone has an alias, Red Hood.”

Chuckling, he retorted, “Yeah, but someone as pretty as you no doubt had one.”

She felt her stomach flutter at his flirt and her cheeks warmed as she looked away and replied, “They used to call me, ‘The Lady in Lace’.”

“The Lady in Lace?” he repeated, then stood next to her and pulled out a grappling gun. “Have a matching outfit, Lady Lace?”

(Y/N) shoved him in the side. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I think I’d rather see,” Red Hood flirted and pressed the button, shooting off towards the roof of the building.

It was gonna be a long night.

[buckysgoldenheart]

How to Piss Him Off

Jealous Henry x Reader

Summary: Henry makes you go to a party you never wanted to, and it makes you feel like crap, so you make some choices that has Henry getting upset fast.

Words: 3495

Warnings: Cursing, basic quick smut, jealousy, general sassiness.

Notes: I messed with this story so much I now hate it, so I don’t even know if anyone will actually like it but let me know if you do. It’d probably make me feel better about how much I fiddled with it and how long it took :’D

Needs serious editing at some point.

You hated parties. Why would you go to a party when you could be home reading or playing video games while gorging yourself on junk food? That would be so much better than being surrounded by a forty or fifty intoxicated and horny people.

You were dragged kicking and screaming like an eight-year old, just to be forced to watch some drunk woman in a slutty dress rub herself all up against your friend. It made you all the more thankful for the amount of alcohol the party—whoever’s it was—provided, because while Henry didn’t exactly look comfortable with the situation he was in, he certainly wasn’t shoving that girl off of him. So, you would drink until the spectacle in front of you turned so blurry you couldn’t tell who was grinding on who.

When Henry’s hand eventually found her waist, you unglued your eyes and turned to refresh your drink. A guy in front of you chuckled as you filled the plastic red cup to the brim, took a sip, then poured more to replace the amount lost. You looked up at him sheepishly, but all he did was beam back at you, his bright, green eyes shining and white teeth showing. It did something to you; twisted your stomach, sent shocks to your core, made your breath hitch. He was so hot, it almost made you push Henry to the back of your mind.

You smiled a little more confidently. “Sorry, is this your party? I’m not trying to drink all of your alcohol.”

He laughed, took a long drink of his beer and shook his head. “Not my party. Drink up.”

“Whose is it?”

“Oh, I have no idea. Just here to take what is freely given.” He gestured to the snacks and drinks surrounding him. You chuckled and he asked your name.

“Y/N,” You said, then for some reason, blushed.

He stuck his hand out in your direction and you took it. “I’m Aaron.” When you tried to pull your hand away, he held on tighter. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter? It’s hard to talk here.”

You considered for a moment. He was right, the music and over-packed room did make it difficult to have a decent conversation, but something inside of you didn’t want to leave Henry with a woman that clearly wanted to fuck him. Though, what did it matter. It was not as if staring at him from a distance would keep him from getting in her pants, so you looked back at Aaron and nodded.

He led you away, down a hallway, to what seemed like a second living room with only a few other partiers inside. The small group lounged on couches and armchairs, drunkenly discussing their various existential crises. Aaron snickered at them and sat on the love-seat in the back of the room and, with a tug of your hand, you fell on it beside him.

You both awkwardly looked around the room, blue and purple light bulbs giving it a soothing glow, while Aaron sneaked his arm along the back of the small couch behind your head. Your body was already so close to his, all he would have to do is wrap that arm around your shoulders and you would practically be in his lap.

“So,” He began, drawing your eyes to his. His face was so close, lips barely three inches away, and you couldn’t help but notice how he kept looking at yours. “Tell me about yourself.”

So, you did. In exchange, he told you about his life, and you found yourself enjoying his company more than you expected. You laughed more than you thought you would. And at some point, your legs had draped over his lap and his hand was rubbing up and down your bare thigh, slowly pushing up your skirt with each stroke along your skin. You knew what he was doing, and you didn’t mind it. The least it would do was keep your thoughts off Henry probably getting his dick sucked in some other room of the house.

His fingers finally slipped under the hem of the velvety fabric and grazed your covered core; the thin, lacy material doing very little to lessen the sensation of his touch. You gasped and he looked at you in silent question. When you nodded, he grabbed your waist and pulled you to him until you straddled his hips.

You put your hands on the sides of his face and slammed your lips to his as his burning touch ran up and down your spine. A moan erupted from the both of you, tingling your lips, as he grew harder beneath you and you ground your hips down. You shoved a hand between your bodies to his belt buckle, trying your best to undo it. Thankfully, the crisis group had left a half hour before because you had no intention of moving to a bedroom. You needed this. You needed to forget Henry, at least for one night.

Just as Aaron put his hand on the back of your neck to kiss you harder, you were yanked up and off his body. Aaron opened his eyes, confused, much like you were, as to why Henry’s large hand now gripped your upper arm.

“Henry, what the fuck!” You yelled as he glared down at Aaron buckling his belt.

“We are going home,” Henry demanded through gritted teeth, looking at you in a way he never had before.

“What? No, I—”

Aaron stood fast, his eyes darting between you and Henry. “Woah, buddy, let her go. She clearly wants to stay.” When he reached a hand out to pull you back to him, Henry lightly yanked you further away.

You jerked your arm in a weak attempt at freedom. “Yea, I want to stay!”

“No! You are drunk. Let’s go!”

Aaron shook his head and gave you a sympathetic smile. “Your bodyguard is intense, sweetness.”

You huffed and tried once again to shove Henry’s hand off you. “Tell me about it. Get off!”

When Aaron stepped to you, you thought he was going to try and kiss you, but instead he leaned down to whisper his last name in your ear and brushed your cheek with his knuckle. “Look me up, yea? I’d love to see you again.”

You giggled and agreed before Aaron walked past you, smirking at Henry and harshly bumping his shoulder on his way out the door. Henry whipped you around to face him.

“Get your stuff.”

“I didn’t bring anything,” You sneered.

“Then go,” He said, slightly pushing you in front of him. “March it!”

---------

Outside, Henry stared at you, waiting, though his patience was running thin. “Y/N, get in the car.” You frowned at him and crossed your arms, prompting a hefty groan from Henry. He took a deep breath and tried a little softer. “Y/N, Please, get in the car. Please.”

Rolling your eyes, you relented and sat yourself in the leather seat. Henry shut the door hard enough that it made you jump, stomped to his side and drove down the long driveway. You didn’t talk until he passed the exit that would take you to your house. “I thought you were taking me home.”

“You’re too drunk to be alone.”

You leaned your head against the window. “I’m not that drunk.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

He looked at you, eyebrows drawn together. “Oh, yea? You normally dry hump strangers in a secluded room at a party, do you?”

You watched out the window as he parked the car in front of his house, then met his eyes. “I do what I want, when I want, and tonight I wanted to dry hump a stranger in a secluded room at a party where the only person I know abandoned me to get grinded up against.”

His grip on the steering wheel turned his knuckles white, but then he got out of the car, went to your side, and opened the door for you. You ignored the hand he extended to you and marched to the front door of his house.

As you stepped into the foyer, Henry threw his keys on the side table, and you took in the room. “Where is Kal?”

“At a friend’s,” He said, walking to the kitchen. When he came back, he shoved a glass of water in your direction. “Drink.”

You rolled your eyes but did as he asked. Both your hands wrapped around the cup as you glared at him over the rim. When not a drop was left, he took the glass and turned back to the kitchen. “Go upstairs and go to bed.”

Your jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Go upstairs—” He began again as he returned to the room.

“Oh, I heard you. I’m just trying to figure out how you have the audacity to tell me what to do.”

Henry sighed. “Y/N, will you please—”

“No! What the hell happened back there? What the fuck did you think you were doing, huh?

“I was protecting you.”

“From what? A hot guy whose tongue I was more than happy to have down my throat? Protecting me from something I wanted to do?”

He clenched his teeth and swallowed hard. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? Did you think I didn’t want him? If I recall correctly, I was on top of him.”

“Stop! Y/N, you did not want to have sex with him!”

“Oh please,” You scoffed. “I’m not that drunk, Henry. I’m barely tipsy. I knew what I was doing. But, fuck, I don’t know why I’m surprised you got in the way. For the last year, every man I’ve met you’ve practically chased away with a pitchfork.”

“Go. To. Bed!”

“Don’t. Test. Me!” You yelled, “God, you are unbeliev—”

Before you could finish, Henry had put his hands on your cheeks, pulled you in, and kissed you. Your eyes went wide at the feel of his mouth on yours and how firmly he held you close, keeping you from escaping. It sucked the air from your lungs, and you were so temped to give in to him, to wrap your arms around him, part your lips, and let his tongue slip between them. If only he hadn’t been such an ass.

You quickly put your hands on his chest and shoved. He stumbled back a couple steps, your weaker strength somehow enough to overpower him. The look on his face, the shame of doing what he had, was unable to be masked.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Henry winced at your tone. “Y/N—”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

He said nothing as the remnants of your words echoed around the large room.  

You shook your head to yourself. “I’m going home.”

He quickly grabbed your hand as you hurriedly walked past him, and you frowned again at the grip on your wrist. Looking up at him, all you could see was pain in every feature of his face, in every bit of the blue in his eyes. “No, Y/N, please don’t. Stay. I’m sorry.”

The desperation killed you. His voice broke around the words, and his grip, though appearing rough, was light and soft. He would let you leave if you wanted, he just hoped you wouldn’t.

“Fine. Explain.”

He released you and rubbed the back of his neck. “I just…I don’t…fuck, I…”

“Ok, I’m leaving.”

“I love you,” He said to your back.

You died. Or some part of you did. Your heart, maybe; possibly your brain, for you weren’t sure you heard correctly. You couldn’t take another step, shoes somehow glued to their spot on the floor.

His hands on your shoulders had you looking in his eyes again. “I tried not to, ok. I swear I gave it my best shot. I didn’t want to ruin anything between us, but I couldn’t help it.” You felt his fingers trail down your arms until he could lightly squeeze your hands. “I’m sorry.”

Everything inside you was screaming, but you could only manage a whisper. “H-How long?”

Henry sighed and closed his eyes. “A year.” You stepped back and jerked your hands from his hold, but his still reached out, chasing the touch you so briefly allowed him. “I know…I’m sor—”

“Stop apologizing. Just…stop.”

He might’ve said something after that, but you couldn’t tell. His words had started to fade, and your vision was turning fuzzy as your brain tried to focus on your thoughts and how they were beginning to consume you. You loved him. It had been months of agony and anxiety and pure pain every time you saw someone else fawning over him. Then he does this, and suddenly you want to wail and throw a brick at a wall, or punch him in the chest before sobbing into it with his arms around you. It was too much. You had never done well with an overstimulation of emotions; they made you want to collapse and sink into the floor.

You took a deep breath, slowly exhaling like your mother had taught you, and said, “You’re right, I should go to bed.”

He looked at you like you had grown an extra limb, but you didn’t miss how the sadness in his eyes remained. Without a word, you turned on your heel and hiked up the stairs to the guest bedroom you had stayed in many times before. Moments after you closed the door, you heard a groan from below and the unmistakable sound of glass shattering against a wall.

---------

You couldn’t sleep. You didn’t even know why you bothered to try. Every hour felt like a month, and the more exhausted you became, the more your body felt like it had just trudged through miles of thick, solidifying mud; but your mind was vigorously racing with your heart. It was agonizing, and you couldn’t take it.

Rubbing your hands over your face, you dug the base of your palms in your eyes, and with an agitated whimper, threw the covers over your legs.

Henry’s room was just down the hall to the left, and without knocking, you eased the door open and stepped inside. He was so beautiful when he slept, but something worried him; you could see it by the little crease between his brows. You wanted to make it stop, to soothe his features.

You lifted the corner of his comforter and sneaked underneath it, wiggling your body close to his until not even an ant could fit between you. Facing each other, you brushed his hair back from his face then stroked his cheek where scruff was staring to grow. His eyebrows scrunched together at your touch and his body shifted under the covers.

Before he could fully wake, you leaned forward to softly press your lips to his, and after a moment, his arm wrapped strongly around you and forced what little oxygen you had left out of your lungs. You moaned when he kissed you back, sucking your bottom lip with a small bite before pushing his tongue in your mouth.

He made a small grunting sound as if suddenly coming to his senses, then broke your kiss and opened his eyes. “Y/N, what are you doing?” He whispered. There was a note of worry in his voice as if he thought you might regret your actions come morning, so you softly shushed him and ran a finger along the curve of his razor-sharp jaw. A look of uncertainty came over his face, but then you kissed him again.

He rolled on top of you without a second thought and you slid your hands down his chest before slipping one in his sweatpants. When you wrapped your fingers around his cock, he moaned and began to gently thrust into the warmth of your palm. 

“Are you sure,” He asked, nudging his nose against yours.

With your free hand, your fingers wound into his hair and gently tugged. “Yes.”

Henry groaned and slammed his lips to yours again. He pushed his sweatpants down passed his ass just enough to let his cock spring free, bunched the hem of the oversized t-shirt you wore up to your navel, then edged your panties to the side and slammed himself inside you. You both gasped.

“Fuck,” He mumbled as he dipped his head into the curve of your neck and started pressing kisses on your sensitive skin. He bit your shoulder when you lifted your hips, silently begging him to move, then painfully slowly started to thrust in and out of you. “You are so…perfect.”

A tear slipped down your cheek as you wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders. You had never been put through a whirlwind of emotions all in a single day. You had never felt this wanted. You had never loved someone the way you did him, and every bit of it flooded you until it had no choice but to spill out somewhere.

“God, I love you,” He whispered before kissing right under your ear. His lips trailed along your jaw and he licked away the saltiness of your tears.

You tried to speak, but all you could manage was a whimper as your walls began to clench harder around his cock. Each shove inside of you reached deeper than the last and you felt it bringing you closer and closer to your release.

Tangling your fingers in his hair, you pulled his face back so you could connect your lips and curl your tongue around his. His kissed you long and slow, drawing each second out as if you wouldn’t allow him the chance again if that kiss broke, and something about it ached a spot in your heart. All you wanted was to reassure him, so you separated a hairs width. “Henry…I love you.”.

Blue eyes seemed to brighten, and his lips parted. A quick breath puffed against your face and you inhaled him as he started to pound into you harder until you came with a sharp cry and a whimper of his name, your walls milking him until he spilled himself inside you with groan.

His massive, muscled body collapsed on top of yours, but you didn’t want him to move. Even as you felt him begin to soften inside of you, you refused to separate your bodies, so you wrapped your arms snugly around him.

“You love me?” He asked, lifting his head from the curve of your neck and staring into your eyes.

Swallowing once and nodding, you moved your hands to either sides of his cheeks, and said, “I have for months. I just…”

Henry touched his forehead to yours and let out a clearly disappointed sigh. “We both wasted all this time pretending.”

“We’ll lose our minds thinking about it too much,” You said and tilted your lips up to press them to his, pulling a small groan from his chest before he rolled on his back with your body flat on top of his. “Henry, I’m so sorry about what happened at the party. That guy—”

Henry’s grin had you pausing as he rubbed at his forehead.

You cocked your head to the side. Smiling at the reminder of you all over another man was not what you expected. “What?”

“You’re sorry,” He said, sifting his fingers through the waves of your hair. “Sweetheart, that is the last thing you should be. I’m the one who made an idiot of myself. I just…” He took a breath, “I got sick of this girl not leaving me alone and all I wanted was to find you, but when I did, that guy had his hands and mouth all over you and I…lost it.”

With a soft smile, you ran your index finger over his bottom lip. “How about we just called it even, yea?”

Henry hummed, unsatisfied with that decision, but at the playful look on your face he surrendered. One of many things he loved about you: holding grudges was not something you cared to have much experience with. “Fine. If…”

“If…?”

“If you move in with me.”

“What!” In your shock, your body jolted upright, but you found yourself held tight by a pair of thick arms around your waist.

“You stay here all the time anyway. You’ll just sleep in my bed now, not the guest. And the lease is almost up at your place.”

An awkward laugh passed your lips. “Henry…”

“You’re smiling. You can’t lie to me now.”

You rested your forehead against his chest with a light groan. Henry chuckled at the sound, and the rumble in his chest soothed you to no end. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“Maybe,” He replied, and you looked up at him. “But I want you here, with me. So, what do you think?”

With a quick, deep breath, you shook your head. But then you smiled and said, “…Yes.”

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