#i miss him and his scoliosis

[ju5t777]

i wish i drew him more ;_;

a previous piece for cubeee's bday :D

[dexaroth]

put him in a situation to see if his designs works. it does i guess?

[fizz-pop-thwip]

I like to imagine that the super soldier serum enhances dreams too like it gives the affected really vivid and realistic dreams.

In Steve's case this was just overwhelming because not only was he having crazy intense dreams but in a fresh new array of colour that he'd never experienced previous. And it's extra traumatic on top of all of that when he started having nightmares about his experiences on the field.

Imagine it in Bucky's case too like, Jesus. He would wake up screaming and not even remember why due to the shock therapy he'd been receiving stunting his memory so badly. And when he's finally escaped Hydra and his mind starts healing is when these dreams would affect him the worst. Because now he actually remembers them and how horrible they are and his waking up to screaming finally starts to make sense.

But there would be a nice side to it too.

Steve will always know when Bucky's had a dream about the 30s because Bucky will be stuck to his back, hugging him from behind like they used to back then. And Bucky will know Steve has had one when he wakes up and stretches his back in an arch with a groan as if he still has scoliosis.

All it takes is for Steve to take his first deep breath of the morning, in those big lungs that he never used to have, for him to realise where he is again. Bucky just had to feel the big body in his arms.

They'll both just sit in the moment whenever it occurs because of course they miss it, before the fighting, before the war and the hell they now know. But they still have each other, so they never really lost home. They have each other so they're okay.

[unknownperson246]

a/n: Okay this might be reaaaaaaaaally oddly specific request… but what the reader had chronic back pain from scoliosis or something similar, and feels super guilty about how Duff has to do things for her on the days she can barely get up from the pain. But Duff reassures her and starts being all sweet and silly with her :’)

Reassurance:

words: 379

warnings: *fluff* *angst* *cussing*

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

You and Duff have been dating for a couple of years now. He knows about your chronic back pain and scoliosis. You were in a lot of pain for most of your life. You didn't know how to take care of yourself and felt super bad and guilty when you put that on someone else. You felt like a burden but your rockstar boyfriend Duff had opposing opinions and thoughts about taking care of you. He loved taking care of you whenever he could. When you asked for something it would be by your side within seconds. Duff was really loyal and he had only positive thoughts about your guys' relationship. Sometimes when you had severe pain your whole world would always fall apart. Duff would even miss some of his GNR rehearsals because of your severe scoliosis. Axl, Steven, Izzy and Slash were all super understanding about everything. 

“Duff it fucking hurts so bad. I feel so guilty about you always having to miss rehearsal because of me” you say looking at him.

“Y/N I promise you that it’s not that big of a deal” he says trying to reassure you.

“Duff I think it would be good if we broke up because I’m always in your way and I don’t want to be a burden on you or anyone” you say.

Duff looks really sad and hurt that you said you two should break up.

“Y/N don’t you dare ever say anything like that again. I love you and I love taking care of you. You're not a burden. We both need to stay committed” he says looking at you.

“You sure?” You ask sniffling.

“I’m 1000% sure.” He says smiling.

He ruffles your hair and you both take a small nap. After you wake up most of the pain is gone and he takes you to band practice in case you are in pain at home and he is not around to help you. You watch as Axl sings with his dangerous voice. You watch slash and Izzy pound their guitars. You watch Steven hitting his drums and you watch your boyfriend Duff play his bass. You felt instantly better being around with them all. You and Steven’s girlfriend were both really good friends. 

[scremogirl]

HII LOVE UR WRITING,, MAY I REQUEST (if no, pls ignore! :')

so theres this thing i do,,, as a clingy partner,, was wondering how ur yanyans will react?

Whenever reader wants some quiet quality type, they sit on the floor near where yandere's chair is, and lays their head on their lap and js continue scrolling on their phone...yanderes reactions??

★♑︎☆彡𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎✪𝐍!☆♏︎★

How my yans react to you putting your head in their laps

GN! Reader, ❤︎︎!!! Your words are in italics theirs are in bold. Check out their stories here ✩ ✰ 𖤐. I LOVE U FOR THIS ANON(•̀ᴗ•́)و

𝐓akenya

✩Does not know what to do

✩Literally will freeze like a deer in headlights when you show him any kind of affection.

✩Wants it so bad though!

✩Will act slightly like a tsundere if you call him out on how much he’s blushing

☆The head in the lap thing tho? You’re actually trynna kill him

He’s yet again invited you over under the guise of a study session. You knew this because A, you're not stupid and B, you’ve finished your work for the week. It was Friday and you had nothing better to do, so why not? The chance to lay in his large bed plus free snacks and fast internet? The chance was too good to give up. So here you are. Splayed out in his bed as he sits hunched over his desk to engrossed in his studies. You’re kinda scared he’ll get scoliosis from how long he’s been in that position. It’s been about an hour and some change since you’ve been here and you’re starting to get bored. And hungry. Your stomach growling over the video playing on your phone was enough to get you up and moving.

You call out to him and in an instant he drops the pen in his hand and turns all his attention to you. Before you get to tell him why you interrupted him so abruptly, your stomach answers for you. With a teasing smile it clicks in his head what you were gonna ask him and he asks you to grab some of those disgusting kale chips he likes on his way up. His house is basically a maze so you have enough time to think about the many ways you could clear your boredom.

Finally arriving at the kitchen you grab a handful of snacks and wave at the butler who's already stocked up once he learned of your arrival. This dude is loaded so he won’t miss anything, besides he got ‘em for you anyways. Speak of the devil, he hasn’t paid attention to you not once since you got here, it was his idea in the first place! Making your way upstairs you finally decide on the perfect way to clear that thought.

Handing him his snack of choice he thanks you before immediately returning back to work. However, he doesn’t get through much as he notices you haven’t moved. He’s about to ask what you're up to before you drop down to your knees and place your head in his lap.

“He-hey! What’re you doing? I can’t work like this,” you ignore him completely before whipping out your phone and opening your bag of chips. He’s about to continue his questioning when you raise your arm up and hover a chip close to his lips. He shakes his head to the other side but as soon as you see it snap back you shove it past his soft lips. You make sure to press down on his tongue just a little before pulling back and whipping the remaining saliva in his lips.

“Shut up,”

Not another word was spoken from him the rest of the day. You could feel his bulge against your head but didn’t pay it any mind. Who knows, maybe if he finishes fast enough you’ll finally get the attention you wanted.

𝐌icah

✰A common occurrence between the two of you tbh

✰It’s usually from him but he obviously doesn’t mind being on the receiving end; prefers it actually.

✰Can actually be quiet for once. He just loves to sit in the silence of such an intimate moment.

✰You on the other hand just wanted a comfortable place to take a nap.

“(Y/nnnnnn), I’m boreddd,” jeez can this guy exist without making noise. It’s not nothing you didn’t expect though, that’s just Micah is. You’ve known him too long to be annoyed by things like this so you just sigh.

“Put on a movie or something,” you don’t give him the. You don’t even give him the courtesy of eye contact seeing as they're closed. The bags under your eyes and slug of your shoulders as you lay down on the couch don’t go unnoticed. Yes! The perfect excuse for a cuddle session. Rising from his spit across from you he moves his way over to the kitchen, not forgetting to hand you the remote first already knowing he’d probably spend 10 min just looking for a good watch. Opting for YouTube instead you quickly put on some random try not to laugh in order to provide you some stimulation, resisting the cusps of sleep. Your eyes shift to the soft snow falling past the window, the cold not helping as you snuggle deeper into your blanket making you even more tired.

He returns with some hot cocoa and cookies as he takes a new spot next to you. You sit up and take the surgery treats as your eyes refocus onto the screen. His eyes stay on you though, enchanted at the thought of you. Ever since you were kids he knew he was gonna make you his and nobody would get in the way of that m. Not even you.

Too absorbed in la la land he fails to notice that you’ve already chugged down your drink and eaten your full of the cookies. He only snaps out of it when he feels pressure on his shoulders. As he lets you lay him down on the couch, he’s watching as you readjust the blanket to cover your whole body. You scoot your body down and lay your head on his lap snuggling closer into his warmth. Smoothing his hand through your hair (or scratching your back if your hair’s too short/thick) he listens to your breathing become more even. So happy that his sweet little angel finally catches some z’s.

𝐌iylo

✫I really CANT decide if he or Micah like it more.

𖤐The thing is with Micah, he’s been able to have his hands on you for years so he’s more used to affection.

𖤐Miylo on the other hand, before you “truly noticed” him has only ever been close enough as sharing a desk with you. There was that time when he had to help you out of a sticky situation(insert anon of him helping you become unstuck), but other than that he’s never felt your skin. (Besides the time he broke into your house and wacked his shit to your sleeping face before stealing your underwear (●’◡’●)ﾉ )

𖤐After you got over the fact that he wouldn’t leave you alone/became popular, he will never stop touching you

𖤐Putting your head in his lap is only sending yourself down into a long rabbit hole

You’ve been putting off this project for god knows how long. Being in various different clubs, applying for colleges, and the stress from your parents did no good for your health; physical or mental. The student council have all been divided for the purpose of a fundraiser you’re putting on for donations to various types of charity’s. You got satlled with the easiest so you couldn’t be to mad but the exhaustion from life was killing you.

“Finally! Now I can finally get some rest,” Christ, if you knew being apart the council gave you this much work you would’ve opted for something more functional. You hear a chuckle from beside you. Oh right… he’s here too. He wouldn’t stop bombarding you with his assistance, saying that “two heads are better than one,”. Luckily, you were able to block him out for most of this project but now you can’t. There’s only so much about his rambles on quantum theory and the newest Spider-Man movie you can take. What a fucking nerd. No matter though, all you're worried about is flopping down and living in your own world for a while and he wouldn’t stop you from that. He tries to say something but you're not having any of it.

Grabbing him by the tie, you yank him towards you. You feel just a little bad for how aggressive you were but knowing him he probably likes it. The blush in his cheeks and rubbing of his thighs only emphasizes your point.

“Listen close, all I want is to lay down and not have to worry about anything. So do me a favor and shut your mouth for a while and read a book or something; got it?” The nod you receive from him is timid but filled with obedience, that makes you smile a bit. You reach up and pay his head a little “Good boy,”

You shift him so he’s sitting up straight and shove his discarded book in his hands before laying down with your head in his lap. He’s frozen and shaking slightly but you don’t care. He realizes that and snaps back into himself probably realizing he won’t get you to be so willing to touch him next time. Getting comfortable he decides that maybe you wouldn’t mind him reading to you. And you don’t. His voice doing justice as you rest your eyes and continue to listen to the story.

Y’all I am so mad because I was writing in tumbler and my phone shut off and all my shit got deleted. I had to re-write Kenya's whole part and deleted most of the earth. N E WAYZ hope this what you asked for my love, ENJOY( ˘ ³˘)♥︎!!!

-Sos ❤️

[wolfydoesstuff]

heeyyyyyy guys

i was doing a writing contest with my friends to make an AvA fic based off of a pre-existing episode. i did the flashback and im actually really proud of this, so without further ado, here it is.

Eye Strain and Hand Pain - The Flashback

TW/CW: swearing, mild blood/gore (i wasn't allowed to do too much), implied cannibalism, implied self-harm

Word count: I don't remember, but somewhere around 2,000

fic below the cut :3

~~~~~

For being a horrible atrocity, the killing spree was pretty fun. The poor civilians' frenzied shrieks, the two siblings' laughs as adrenaline pumped through their veins. Splotches of red covering their clothes, they didn't mind destroying anything they came across.

After all, why would they?

Destruction was all they knew.

Dark took a wheezy breath into his inhaler before tucking back into his stained jacket pocket and flying over to Chosen. He was shouting something incoherent at people running for their lives. 

Dark tapped his shoulder, fidgeting with the broken zipper on his jacket. Chosen spun around, eyes glowing bright crimson. "Un autre ? Ils continuent à venir comme s'ils le voulaient..." (Another one? They keep coming as if they want this...) he said with a manic smile, fading as he realized it was his younger brother.

"Hey, Cho!" Dark said quietly, a smile on his flushed face. "I.. I think we might have to wrap this up.. It's getting dark and my chest hurts a bit." 

Chosen nods, seeming a bit spaced out. 

An offhand comment of "Ever wonder what those fuckers taste like?" and the two siblings found themselves sitting around a campfire. Dark's heavy eyelids eventually closed, his head on Chosen's lap. The latter didn't mind carrying the former home.

~

Dark unclenched his jaw to drink some of his water. It felt good on his dry throat and eased the hunger clawing at his stomach. He hadn't moved from his computer for 14 hours now. 

Originally, the standing desk seemed like a good idea, but Dark's scoliosis has gotten worse over the years and now standing for so long just made his back hurt.

Hence the bottle of ibuprofen beside the computer. He had taken 5 now. 

Staring at the small numbers and letters on his computer screen was giving him a pounding headache that not even the painkillers could help. He ended up having to squint harder than was comfortable to even see much of what he was doing.

But with a final hit of the enter key, Dark was done. He felt like he was going to pass out. A quick glance at a clock told him it was either 10:30 or 1:03. Either way, it didn't matter. He finally finished his project, ending a 2-month hyperfixation. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had eaten or slept, which further explained why everything was aching. He was ready to just curl up on the floor and go to sleep and forget about the world, the animator, the hurt, when Chosen opened his door, even the soft click of the door ringing in Dark's ears. He turned his hearing aids down.

"Dark, I honestly don't care if I have to drag you out of here, you haven't left this room in 14–" Chosen starts, quickly being cut off. "Cho! Cho, I finished! You wanna see? I- I did it! Finally! It'll be just like you.. like we always wanted!"

Chosen chuckled softly. "Alright, alright... Since you say it's 'so incredible.' Just take it down a notch, okay? You're talking really loud." 

Dark rolled his eyes. "Just turn your hearing aids down." He paused. "But- But anygays, I have my thingy to show you!" He darted back to his computer, stimming excitedly. 

"O-okay, okay, so.. So, this is the ViraBot! I've been working on it for, like, 2 months! It can do a ton of- A ton of cool shit! A-and.." Dark's tone was shifting from excited to just plain manic. Chosen placed both hands on his shoulders. "Deep breaths." 

Dark did as he was told and started over with a sigh. "This, my dear brother, is the ViraBot." 

"It looks like a spider, but missing a few legs."

Dark shot Chosen a glare. The latter shrugged.

"But anygays, this thing has a ton of features, like..." Dark typed a couple things on his computer and the ViraBot on the wall suddenly had a bright red spike on the end of its... limb. Dark smiled. "And that's just the start."

He took the spike, its sharp end glinting in the warm sunlight. He forcefully stabbed his globe with the the spike and it immediately dissolved into some bare code, along with its stand. Dark grinned, his coal black eyes shining. "We can destroy the world, Cho. And anyone who would fucking dare hurt us the way that cursor did."

Chosen just stared in horror for a moment, his chest tightening painfully. 

Not another bloodbath.

Not more innocents' screams.

Not more fire and tears and broken bones.

Why would Dark want to go back to that after all this time living normally?

But then again, why wouldn't he?

Pain and death and killing was all he knew.

Dark loaded the ViraBot into its launcher, carefully contained in a red-and-white casing. 

"Dark. We don't have to do this."

Dark's excitement died down for a moment. His smile faltered. "...wh-what?"

He quickly puts his smile back on. "Come on, Cho! It's what we always wanted to do! Obviously we've gotta start with our biggest problem, the..."

"Dark..?"

"...cursor, who can fucking burn in hell. Like, how could he do those things to you? To us? Nobody can just do that..."

"Dark."

"...but I digress, this lil bitch will end up on his computer and fuck him up just as bad as we did! And then I can finally go to sleep. And drink water, it's been a hot minute since I've done that..."

"Dark."

Dark's hand was hovering over the button, either quivering from excitement or just outright shaking from the exhaustion of not sleeping for so long.

"What? Oh, do you wanna press the button? Yeah, that's only fair. After all-"

"Dark, stop."

"But.. What? This is what-"

"Dark, shut up! Have you ever considered that maybe I don't want this? That the whole world doesn't fucking revolve around you and what you want?"

Dark felt the all-too-familiar sting of tears forming in his eyes, but he swallowed and blinked them back. Fine then. Be like that, he thought to himself. I'll just... do it myself..

Shaky hands.

Breath hitching in his throat.

Hand lowers.

Rough hands, firm grip on Dark's shoulders.

"Dark, what did I say? We can't do this!"

Dark wanted to explain to Chosen why they had to, why it would be the best decision ever for them, why he had gotten a total of just 56 hours of sleep in the past two months. But as he prepared the explanation, the words died on his tongue. He couldn't force them out if he tried. 

So he just went for the button again.

This time when he was met with the rough hands, he ended up on 

the cold tile with his nose bleeding, a new crimson stain soaking into the collar of his shirt. He felt his hands heating up and unstifle-able tears welling up in his eyes.

A few seconds later, a wall crumbled.

Just like Chosen and Dark's once perfect relationship.

Soon things devolved into what was pretty much a fistfight, but with a few more broken walls. Everything blurred around Dark as he ran for the button.

His revenge.

His closure.

Only a moment after Dark's palm hit the smooth red plastic, he felt a small explosion and found himself in the air, falling.

"I thought you wanted this."

~

Chosen took a deep, shaky breath as memories of him flooded his mind.

In and out.

Hands ignited.

He got a sort of adrenaline rush from all this, and he hadn't flown in months. It was kind of nice to do it again. Feel the cold wind on this face, see everything from beautiful views.

Maybe once this was all over, he could go fly somewhere. Though, it wouldn't be the the same without Dark...

That's okay, times change. And who knows, maybe he'll-

Impact.

Chosen pulled away from the light blue barrier that the ViraBot had so easily gone through, coughing weakly into his arm.

That's gonna hurt later.

It took a painfully reddened hand to realize that no amount of punching would do anything.

~

Dark felt himself hit the ground with a... Well, he wasn't sure what it sounded like, but it sure as hell could've been the loudest thing he had ever heard. It at least felt that way.

With a soft groan, he rolled over from his back to his side.

"God, I think I broke... everything.." he muttered, taking a few moment to collect his scattered, betrayed, hurt thoughts before picking himself up, pleased with the fact that nothing seemed actually broken at the moment. He quickly looked himself over, wincing as he noticed the sheer state of his body. Through the charred and still warm hole in his shirt, he could see dark, black burns, deep red oozing from melted skin.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit..." Dark stumbled to his old... pitifully small house? Shack? Place...? He was honestly too disoriented to remember what the small structure's original purpose was, and his shaky ankles that, in hindsight, were probably sprained or something, threatened to give out at any moment.

Dark all but collapsed on the floor.

Down on his hands and knees.

Panting.

Saliva dripping from his mouth.

Tears dripping from his eyes.

He dug through the supplies stored under the table and pulled out some disinfectant, a shit ton of bandages, and a spare T-shirt.

He gingerly took off his current, very burnt one and set it aside. It was horrifically bloodstained anyway.

Mentally preparing himself for the burning sensation, he poured some disinfectant straight from the bottle onto the mess of stuff he didn't even want to look at.

Once he figured he had screamed and cried enough, it was onto the bandages.

From experience, bandaging yourself can be difficult, but not impossible after enough practice. Now, if your skin just stopped actively melting, that changes thing a bit, but Dark didn't really have a choice.

So he wrapped the slightly dusty gauze as tightly as he could around his chest and stomach, using a few too many pieces of tape to hold it in place. He then awkwardly pulled on the also dusty shirt and smoothed out some of the wrinkles. For the sake of being able to walk more comfortably, he also wrapped his ankles, which seemed to work wonders when he stood up and they only somewhat ached.

Maybe that was just his fast healing, though. If there was one pro to being created, it was that.

Dark let out a long, pained sigh before standing up on less-than-steady legs and pulling up the ViraBot code on his computer.

He glanced at the three whiteish scar lines on the back of his wrist.

Maybe they could use a fourth one to match.

~

Through strained eyes and sheer willpower, Chosen managed to break through the barrier.

A chilling sense of nostalgia gripped him as he traveled in the empty space leading to the PC.

He wanted it to stop.

His breathing picked up.

Tears stung his eyes for a moment.

If he was being honest, he really didn't want to go back to that place, but-

Another impact.

Okay, fuck what I said earlier, this hurts now.

More eye strain and hand pain got Chosen inside the PC.

The fight with the ViraBot was unpleasant, to say the least. Chosen didn't enjoy the metallic-tasting red in his mouth or the way his vision blurred and doubled after a while if he wasn't focusing on anything. But really, he didn't like that he and Dark's relationship was even more strained than his ruby-red eyes.

As Chosen left the PC, he gave a small nod of acknowledgement to his creator.

As he went back to face Dark, he couldn't help but feel like he was no better.

~~~~~

fun fact: this is my longest oneshot :3

heyyyy uh

the SH warning was there for a reason, but i mustve forgotten to copy-paste two lines, so i went back and fixed it TvT

[idontplaytrack]

good problem to have

Janis ‘Imi’ike x physically disabled fem!reader

Warnings: kind of a vent writing, descriptions of chronic health & physical conditions + symptoms. Light smut, fluff, Janis being soft for reader. This oneshot took a few turns at the end- I didn’t intend on ending it the way I did😂

The following depicts the worst side of reader’s experience with a physical disability and its chain of effects. Reader discretion is advised.

Janis looks at the clock on the wall as though she was having a staring contest with it. You’d been in the shower for nearly thirty minutes and the girl had half a mind to just walk in there to keep an eye on you instead. But she held back, she stays on the other side of the door as she hears the water running.

Half an hour ago, you angrily decided to sit in the shower - a warm, no- hot shower in hopes that the heat would alleviate the squeezing pain in your ribcage caused by your rather newly diagnosed condition of Costochondritis.

Janis was with you the night you ended up in the ER because of it. She watched everything went down and it shattered her heart seeing you so helpless. You didn’t exactly remember what happened because of the amount of pain that you were in- she tells you it was better that way since the doctor practically tried to gaslight you into giving you over-the-counter pain meds and sending you right back home. That was a month ago- and this, was technically flareup number one since that night. She fought for you, because you couldn’t. You actually couldn’t even take in a full breath, let alone open your mouth and form a coherent sentence. Janis’ Mom has been a big help throughout all of this as well, seeing that she even noticed something was wrong unlike your own who barely believed you. “Is she still in there?” Damian arrives at Janis’ with their favourite pizza. And both your homework for the day that you two’d missed

“Ya think?” Janis huffs.

“Is she…”

“She didn’t pass out. I knocked and she responded but she doesn’t want to let me in there.” Janis was just ever so slightly horrified by his assumption.

“Okay, good. Well, eat first.” He shrugs, unfazed by her glare.

As Janis refused to eat first, saying you weren’t back out yet, you opened the bathroom door and walked out. “Fuck this.” You remarked as you shut the door to the bathroom. “My back already hurts because my legs are not the same length, I have fucking scoliosis and now this added on to it? Does the universe want to torture me till I die or something?” Janis seemed unfazed on the outside, but inside she was actually so worried (she wouldn’t admit it to anyone). This never was a good sign, and the damage control needed to be fast. To top it all off, Damian’s never been around to witness such ‘episodes’.

Janis knew you didn’t really mean what you said, it was more so in the moment of anger, frustration and more importantly, the constant nagging pain then random weeks in the year where you would get heightened levels of the pain due to a ‘flareup’. How does it happen? You would have usually have done something to push yourself too much- whether or not either of you have realised it. And full disclosure, a big risk to take would be bedroom activities. You usually did not care until it was too late and end up pushing through the next few days with what feels like your whole body aching.

“Shit, I did not see you here, Damian.” You let out a soft gasp, a hand clutching at your chest.

“I wanted pizza. I sent him a text, and here he is.” Janis grins, “Sit down, lovey.” You did, eyeing the box Damian’s placed on the coffee table.

“I bought our favourite- trust me, we need this.” He joked, “They even gave us free garlic knots.”

“Oh, hell yes.” Janis rummages through the paper bag for some of that bread first while you reached for a slice of the pepperoni and sausage pizza.

“Hey, guys.” Janis’ mom was home. Damian and Janis greet her almost in unison, while you gave her a wave without saying a thing. “How are you feeling, y/n? Any better?”

“Barely.” You revealed.

“You came home to grab your lunch, didn’t ya?” Janis chuckled.

“Yeah.” Her Mom laughs, “Forgot it this morning. You guys need anything before I go?”

“I think we’re good.” Janis answers after pondering for a second, observing you and Damian as well.

“Alright. If your Ma calls the home phone, please pick up and let me know. Some guy at the coffee shop spilled his coffee on her and the phone’s a goner.” Janis’ Mom informed.

“Alright, well- did she back up her stuff?” Janis’ eyes widened for a beat.

“Yeah, but it’s just that she doesn’t have time right now to get a new phone.”

“Oh, okay. Get back to work, I wouldn’t want you to be late.” Janis shrugs, one of her hands on your back as you ate.

Her Mom flashes a smile, nodding, “I’ll pick up Ma on my way back from work, we’ll be buying dinner too. You guys are welcome to join us.” After Damian says he couldn’t— since he’d already promised his family that he’d be home by dinner, Janis’ Mom leaves with her lunch to go back to work.

————

Janis and Damian were engaged in a conversation over lunch, you on the other hand were more focused on whether or not you could make it through more of the day without relying on pain meds. They tasted foul and made you feel even worse- yes, even with the pain gone, the Tramadol gave you pretty bad nausea even after taking an anti-emetic. And you, having emetophobia would rather not go through that.

You were fine- you weren’t gonna collapse or anything, you were just in a lot of pain and physically uncomfortable. It was pretty much all you could feel, especially every time you took in a breath even slightly deeper. “Stay with me till this flareup is over.” Janis announced to you, “Your parents aren’t in town, and your sisters…I don’t trust them to be accountable for you. Don’t fight me on this.”

“Alright.” You agreed curtly, putting your plate containing a half-eaten slice on the coffee table, then you just curled up in a corner. “I’ll finish it later.”

“Yeah, sure, baby.” Janis smiled briefly, mouth full of food. Damian chuckled at her talking with her mouth full, earning a playful shove from the ravenette. You managed to fall asleep with their company, thank god. But when you woke up, it was just Janis alone.

“I made you some tea, y/n. Should help your chest pain some.” She hands you a mug, which you gladly took a few sips out of before putting down. “Thanks.” A warm beverage always alleviates your chest pain- the heat from it helps once you’d consumed it. Since it goes down your throat, it basically kinda just, spreads to your chest. “No problem, lovey.” She sits down beside you, putting the TV remote nearer to you in case you felt like watching something.

Here’s how it was: You couldn’t close a door behind yourself, you couldn’t wear a seatbelt on your own, you couldn’t stretch in any way because it would trigger a sharp pain in your chest. The condition was by definition, an inflammation of the cartilage of the ribcage. Thus, causing the pain. Even a cough or a sneeze would have you cursing and swearing, if not on the verge of tears. Little every day tasks are a huge challenge for you now, and it would be like this at every flare up. You hated that had to rely on her or someone else for such minuscule things. It made you feel useless.

While you finished up the tea, she was eating a bag of chips. It was evident to her that you were still in pain. When you first started experiencing it, you had it for a full week before it got unbearable and you had ended up in the ER. The worst part? Probably the physical exam where the doctor pressed down on your ribs and quite literally made you cry. But it did however, confirm your diagnosis. So you were glad you weren’t just seemed as ‘dramatic’(like the ER initially thought you were) and it made your Mom shut up about those remarks after Janis’ mother handed her the memo from the doctor. “I’m…really sorry. I just feel like shit and very unlike myself.”

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not, I’ve been such a bitch.”

“Look who you’re talking to.” She exhales, “I don’t care if you’re ‘ruder than usual’, you’re in a lot of pain right now, and you’re someone who’s already dealing with chronic pain from your legs and your scoliosis, whatever else…I get it. I see you going through every day and I don’t care if you’re sometimes gonna be a little snappy. A little grouchy. Or if you’re gonna wanna cry. It’s fair- seeing that I myself, and other people who don’t have to deal with chronic illnesses or pain.”

You quietly listen, closing your eyes while taking some shallow breaths. “I actually feel like dying. If this is what the rest of my life will be like, I’d just be a burden. Well, more of it.”

“Baby, you- oh my God, every day. You’re dealing with symptoms that would send regular people straight to the ER. So whatever you need, let me know. Take your anger out on me, I don’t care. I already told you I would do anything for you.” Janis continues.

“You’re so sweet.” You sniffled, a little too hard.

“Only for you, baby.” She winked, her hand on your knee.

You mentioned, “You know, I got my period while I was in the shower.”

“Which would explain the extra pain.” Janis scoffs, her hand stops at your lower back, giving you the needed warmth. “More hormones…more pain, which sucks, but in the meantime…you wanna watch some TV?”

You declined, “I just…wanna sit here with you.”

“Anything you want.” She kisses you softly on the cheek.

“My whole life, I’ve been the sick child. And now things just got worse.” You said to her while you feel her arm gently wrap around your waist, “I guess some days I just let the worst thoughts get the best of me. When I say I want…to die, it’s just that I want to stop suffering. I can’t focus or do anything when I’m in pain in makes me feel like nothing.”

“I hear you and I got you, okay?” Janis cups your cheeks with both hands, “I don’t understand fully, what you’re going through but I see how hard things get for you and I will always be here to help you- with anything. Okay? And Damian. He cares, I care. We love you. Hm? Don’t ever feel like you’re bothering people - we all need help sometimes and I just fucking love you and would do anything if I could make it better.”

You were already emotional, being on your period, hearing her say all that just made you feel like crying even more. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Here’s one thing you need to remember in times like these- I will be here for you, no matter the time of day. Call me, or text me. Whatever. But I will always, always have time for you.” Janis had her hands in your own, kissing them.

————

Now it was after dinner, so her Moms were in their room. And you, were in Janis’ room with her. You were laying down, your head in her lap as she massaged your aching head. “Janis.” You looked up at her. She glances at you, “Yeah?”

“You know how they say sex would help with cramps?”

“I heard.” She responded nonchalantly.

“Can you help me?” You asked straightforwardly after a brief silence.

“I can, if that’s what you want. But you’d definitely be in quite a bit of pain afterwards, everywhere else.” She raised a brow, a hand on your torso.

“I’m already in pain. Might as well make myself…feel good.” You sigh.

“You’ve got a point.” She hums, “I can definitely help you out. Just gotta go grab some towels.”

“You really don’t mind?” You asked her cautiously.

“Yeah.” Janis confirmed, “I have hands, I have vibrators…some blood’s not gonna scare me.”

You chuckled, “Okay. Ah, shit. That hurt.”

“Just…lay down and look pretty for me.” She winks, slowly shifting you onto the mattress fully so she could get off the bed and retrieve the towels.

After locking the doors and washing her hands, Janis lays the towel beneath you, carefully leaning down to kiss you while holding herself up on her palms. “You can stop me at anytime, alright?”

You nod, kissing her back. She began stripping each article of clothing off of you, carefully, watching your face to make sure she doesn’t hurt you. You kiss her this time, starting to feel your need for her grow rapidly. It really does not take you long when you were on your period. She stuck her tongue in your mouth, it exploring every little bit of it eagerly. You moaned into the kiss soon enough, and she takes it as her cue to do more. The back of her hand brushes over your nipples, the whimper you let out and expression on your face tells her they were way too sensitive. She leaves them alone, choosing to attack the known sensitive spots on your neck instead. She elicits the sounds of approval out of you extremely easily, as you feel the familiar rush between your legs. Reaching for a small bullet-shaped vibrator, she turns it on and presses it to your clit gently. You gasp, eyes nearly rolling to the back of your head as you got giddy with pleasure.

“You’re okay?”

“Still good.” You let out a strained reply. She breaks away from you completely, getting off of her bed. Then, she pulls you down to near the edge of the mattress, along with the towel. Grabbing your ankles, she was knelt on a rug, pushing them up as gently as she could, mindful about your hurting right hip. She’s never done this before, but you trusted her with your life. So you went with it. You feel her fingers tracing the stretch marks on your thighs, making you squirm because you were ticklish. She kisses you on your inner thighs several times before you felt her fingers teasing your folds. You whimpered, feeling her so close to where you needed her the most. She held your ankles together for a bit as she slid two fingers into you without trouble, pumping them in and out as her thumb rubbed circles on your clit. You were like a melted puddle under her touch, you wanted to moan, but you remembered her parents were only a couple doors down so you had a fist on your mouth to keep yourself quiet,

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do that.” She tells you, looking at you right in the eye. Her voice, it was so gentle and sweet…like honey, or a lullaby.

“Your Moms are home.” You reminded.

“They don’t care.” She stated, all this while her hands don’t stop. Your legs, now sloppily laid on her shoulders as she held the vibrator with that hand and returned it to its spot on your clit, adding on to the stimulation. And with her also curling her fingers upward to hit your g-spot, your release was even closer. “I want to hear you, my love.” She requested as she turned the small vibrator off and put it aside on the towel. Her fingers still hard at work as her free hand reached over to a draw in her nightstand to locate a thicker vibrator. She doesn’t turn it on, but instead she asks if she could use that in place of her fingers. You agreed, desperately wanting to get your release. The stretch you felt caused you to give her a throaty moan, but it didn’t hurt a bit, thanks to the extra lubrication. With every thrust, the more high-pitched your whimpers became. Until, they became actual moans that just couldn’t stop. You could feel her twisting it in between thrusts, it made you feel insanely good. It was never that easy until this time every month, especially not with this minimal foreplay. Her thrusts became harsher at the end as you felt the coil in your core, it felt so intense- it actually kind of ached. As you unraveled, she removes the vibrator and her fingers took over again, helping you down from your high.

When she helped you get up and into the shower, you caught a look of the aftermath, which wasn’t as horrific as you thought it would be. “I’ll be in with you in a minute, okay. Just be careful.”

“I’ll be fine.” You assured, sitting down on a ledge in the bathroom where her bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash usually sat. She dumps the towels in a pail filled with hot water. You couldn’t actually see anything on them because they were black coloured towels so that saved you from overthinking how the mess looked.

————

She returns to the bathroom with two sets of clothes for the both of you, leaving them on the countertop of the sink. Janis closes the door. “Hi, pretty girl.” She cooed, hopping into the shower with you.

“Hi.” You smiled in return.

You reached for the body wash, but she stops you, saying she’d do it for you. Well, and every other step of the shower. Suddenly, you got an idea. She’s helped you out, so you thought it was time for her turn. As she stood before you, her chest barely above your eye-line, your hand finds its way to her hip. “What ya doin’?” She asks you with a chuckle as she squeezes some of the body wash onto a loofah. The smell of lavender and camomile feels the air of the steamy shower. You took a careful breath- you loved this fragrance. “Do you want me to…y’know You ask, “You helped me out, I think it’s fair if I help you out now.”

She smirked. “I’m gonna say yes to that.”

Your pointer and middle fingers slide down her folds, you let out a quiet gasp feeling that she was wet. You had it down to a science, how to make her come. It did not take you more than fifteen minutes to have her be asking to come. You let her, without resistance, since she’d make it so easy for you earlier.

She lets out a giddy little laugh, helping you stand up from your seat on the ledge, “I love you.” Janis captures your lips into her own, giving you a lingering kiss as she presses her forehead against your own.

You fell asleep much, much easier that night. She wore you out- that, coupled with your typical tiredness you felt on your period. Before you could feel your pain in a plethora of locations amp up its intensity, you’d succumbed to slumber, feeling Janis doodle circles and other silly shapes on your back with her fingers. “I love you, Janis.” You mumbled sleepily as your eyelids drooped shut.

“I love you so much, baby.” She said wholeheartedly, that being the last thing you heard before falling asleep. Janis doesn’t stop tracing random shapes on your clothed back as for a few minutes, but she mentally ran through a checklist of the stuff she’d left on her desk- stuff that you’d need just in case: water, your medications, some snacks in case you needed to take the meds, plastic bags, heat packs and even the medicated pain relief plasters her Mom got you. You grumbled that it was a lot of work for her but she said it was no trouble. You felt bad, but she tells you not to. She always won. Whenever you were ill or brought down by cramps before this new condition took over and gave sick days a whole new meaning, she’d always make the time to take care of you. Even in school, she’d make the day go by easier for you by subtly doing whatever she could think of…sneaking you little individually wrapped pieces of your favourite chocolate or candy, bringing Advil or Tylenol in her bag with her for the week, even just by asking if you were okay so you knew that she cared and that she was aware that you were sick or having your monthly cycle so you could ask her for help if needed. You never did openly ask her for help, per se. But instead she’d ask if you needed anything because she just knew. Janis could read you like a book after having started off as best friends. She knew just how you behaved whenever you had something on your mind or whenever you weren’t at 100%.

Your Mother’s warned her that you were a big problem to deal with, as though you weren’t a human being with feelings. She bluntly told your Mother that even if you had problems, she didn’t give a shit the way your Mom did. She’d actually make sure you were treated with care. The night Janis got into it with your Mom, she made you a promise to always be looking after you and you told her you’d do the same for her. Neither of you have once broke that promise, which surprised your Mother to no end but slowly caused her to back off. Very unwillingly. Especially since you’ve learnt that, the lesser time you spent at home, the better it was for you. If being with Janis taught you one thing, it was to be unapologetically yourself and always standing up to the people who would treat you badly — that’s two, technically. But you get it. You were not a plaything for others to manipulate for their own enjoyment or benefit.

Everyone you passed in your life since knowing Janis, called her a danger, a problem, or just… ‘bad’, but you disagreed. To you, she was the opposite of those terms. Even when she had her little moments where she’d threatened to rip the head off of a school bully or break their jaw for each mean passing remark. That was her way of caring for people that mattered to her, because she knew that if she just let it go, those bullies kept going day after day. She had to show them that she meant what she said. And you loved her for that. And many other reasons, like how happy she made you, but yeah. You were her problem, and she was yours. As she said, playing along with your Mother’s words. Her wit - your Mother was no match to her. Janis will always have a comeback and Damian always enjoys witnessing such a situation. While you were soundly asleep, Janis stayed up thinking about the night your Mom called you a problem. She could not let that shit go as hard as she tried. Those words were as good as tattooed on her mind and she detested that.

‘You made her a problem. You caused her to have anxiety and be in ‘bad moods’. None of this is her fault entirely. How could you treat your daughter like that? You didn’t even call or text to check on her once.’ Janis thought.

She watches you sleep as her thoughts ran through her mind. Feeling the anger bubbling up, she takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down, scooting closer to you quietly to hold you in her arms.

‘You want to call her a problem? Fine. So be it. She’s a good problem to have. Screw you.’ Janis thought again.

“Nothing will ever make me mad at you.” She mumbles to herself, brushing the hair out of your face, “Good night, sweet girl.”

[kayatoastkkat]

guys omg the bonus story is canon

headcanon Creature has scoliosis now...we can be scoliosis buddies :D :D brought together by a shared horrible spine shape this is also a sign for Jekyll to make his corridor ceilings taller

BONUS STORY IS CANON!!! I REPEAT THE BONUS STORY FROM THE HARDCOPY IS CANOOOON!!!

for those who didn't get the hardcopy, Frankie already explains Miss Flowers made matching scarves for her and the Creature, which is sweet as FUCK I love you Flowers even though you've committed violin crimes

makes me wonder though, the potential idea of the vampire story Sage had of Dracula hypnotising Lanyon and Rachel needs to go save him with the gang as the bonus for book 2 could be canon too?? and if so..where in the TGS timeframe? it'd be funny if it took place like when Jekyll is running for his life while flip-flopping between him and Hyde's bodies though

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

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1. I remember that fic — lwg accidentally killed wwx and then raise Wen Yuan. JYL live in it. Sorry for mistakes — english is't my first language. Also it first time when I use tumblr too 😅 @derrenaissance​

FOUND? A Little Fall of Rain by Just_a_Girl_in_a_Crystal (T, 47k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Grief/Mourning, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Golden Core Reveal, Protective LXC, Protective LQR)

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2. A friend and I are hoping you can help find a fic for the next fic finder. It's a modern AU and LWJ is on the autism spectrum but wasn't tested until he was an adult because LQR either didn't want him tested or was in denial about it when LWJ was a child. There was possibly an aunt that was on the spectrum too. We can't remember anything else about it and have gone through the autistic lwj tag and our bookmarks on ao3 but none that we found sounded right. Thanks in advance!

FOUND! together, we’re just enough  by lulu_kitty (E, 134k, wangxian, past WWX/OFC, modern, younger LWJ,   bartender LWJ, older WWX, rich WWX, fluff, yearning, smut, bottom LWJ,   LWJ has scoliosis, slow burn)  

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3. Good day to all! There is a twitter fic that I wanted to read again but I forgot to save it (or like it). Can you help me find it?

Its about foxxian who goes into heat and he spend his heat with dragonji. Foxxian got pregnant and the jiang keep asking who is the father. Apparently, foxxian doesn’t know who is it. Then, when he gave birth, 3 eggs came out. The jiangs are shock. And when the eggs were hatch, all of them are dragons. So the jiangs knew now that the one who impregnant foxxian is a dragon from Lan Clan.

Thank you so much!

FOUND! Foxxian/Dragonji thread by @/cerbykerby (wangxian, cw: dubcon, mpreg, memory loss)    

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4. Hi! I wanted to know if anyone remembers that wangxian time travel fic where lan xicheng goes in this little sidequest where he adopts Xue Yang and Meng Yao??? I think??? And helped them have decent childhoods while wwx fixed everything else

FOUND? And Time Is But a Paper Moon  by sami (M, 138k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone  Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together) Lan Xichen is shown the future by Wwx via empathy. He finds XY and MY when they are still kids and brings them to Cloud Recesses.

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5. hi!! Thank you for all the hard work you are putting! I'm looking for fic where wwx is in the hospital after a car accident. When he wakes up he doesn't remember lwj because he has a six years memory loss and the two of them met five years prior to the accident. They were also about to get married. Lwj played the violin for a living and composed music for Disney if I'm not mistaken. Wwx was an engineer for prosthetic parts and he was working with wq. That's all I remember. If you have the time, I would love if you looked for it!

FOUND? High On Information by Latigra (M, 110k, WIP, WangXian, XuanLi, Hurt/Comfort, Amnesia, Established Relationship, Injury Recovery, Family Drama, Set in USA, Shitty US Healthcare System is Good for Fictional Drama, Modern AU, mild body horror, Traumatic Brain Injury, Warnings at End Notes, Past Drug Use, ADHD, Jealousy, Dom/sub Undertones)

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6. Hello! im looking for this wangxian fic that ive been missing for awhile now. I dont remember much but it was modern and everyone was a hitman or assassin (?) all i remember is that people were involved in the killing business. the only scene i remember is that JGS or JGY dies in the bathtub by being shot by LWJ or LXC. Oh thats another thing im pretty sure the way LWJ killed was by clean shots to the head. I know there's smut in it. It frustrates me so much that i cant remember more this was one of the first wangxian fics i remember reading

FOUND! 🧡 modus operandi by synonemous (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, Serial killer WangXian, Eventual happy ending, WangXian's Canon Kinks, Smut) Not everything fits - they are serial killers and jgy dies in a bathtub, but he wasn't shot / I think #6 is modus operandi too! HGJ kills with headshots, but JGY gets taken out by ZWJ, who comes out of retirement just for that one personal hit.

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7. i have been remembering a fic where at the start wwx is engaged to jzx and lwj is engaged to jyl and obviously in the end they switched partners 😂 but idk the title or author, does this ring a bell for anyone? thanks in advance!!!!

FOUND? Neatly Arranged by thunderwear (T, 45k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Angst with a Happy Ending, lwj’s mother is here but only briefly, RIP, Shenanigans, Fix-It, of sorts, Canonical Character Death, but not all, did i forget to tag pining, because this fic is like 90 percent pining, Hurt/Comfort)

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8. Hi i’m looking for a fic that I read a while ago but can’t find. Wei wuxian gets sent back in time after his death to the cloud recesses lectures. He ends up in the middle of a lecture and starts crying. He can’t handle it and attempts suicide by jumping off a cliff at cloud recesses but he is found and saved. I think he gets sanctuary or something but i’m not sure. Thank you your page is a life savor!! @st3wartladle​

FOUND? Without end by barisan (M, 70k, wangxian, major character death, time travel, suicide attempt, hurt/comfort, depressed WWX, protective LWJ, good uncle LQR, bad parents JFM & YZY, not YZY & JFM & Jiang friendly, implied/referenced child abuse & self harm, BAMF WWX, WIP) The scene you mention is right in the beginning of the fic.

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9. Looking for a vampire WWX/Hunter LWJ fic, that started with LWJ kneeling for the marriage ceremony and being bit, then the rest after that involved LWJ trying to keep away from WWX for his own good before they both get together. LWJ stays human. I think I found it on AO3? @bcaugust

It's not the right one(though it is one of my favorites and really close to the same vibe.) I also remember that the vampire bite would scar to indicate a spouse, if that helps anyone.

Not FOUND I Think Sunshine Would Treat Me Kind by vassal101 (T, 24k, WangXian, Exorcist LWJ, Vampire WWX, Human/Vampire Relationship, Fantasy, Vampire Bites, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Protective LWJ, Pining LWJ, Jealous LWJ, Pining WWX, POV LWJ, First Kiss, First Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Assassination Plot(s), Undercover Missions, Breaking Up & Making Up, Blood Drinking, Consensual Blood Drinking, horny vampire drinks from equally horny human, Falling In Love, i would say this is more angst than fluff, but it's not too too sad dw, Happy Ending, POV Third Person) reminded me of this one? Doesn't start with a wedding though, lwj simply arrives as a peace offering

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10. Hi!

So I'm looking for a fic that I can't find where I can't remember what exactly happened, but it goes something like this;

Lwj and Wwx are sleeping, Lwj gets a nightmare, and he doesn't tell Wwx about it, but he figures it out anyway and then Wwx waits to see whether Lwj will go back to sleep or have sex. They have rough sex in which Wwx specifically requests that he doesn't want to come. And then they talk (I think it was just outside on a porch or something?) And then Lwj fingers him and gets him off.

I'm sorry I don't remember more, I think it was one chapter and I'm really desperately trying to find this fic. If you could find it it would be much appreciated!!

Thank you!

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11. Heya mods, I'd really appreciate it if you could find this fic. It was about God Lan Wanji and him trying to find fellow god Wei Wuxian after he went missing. LWJ found him with the Dafan Wens and was living happily as a mortal with them. He wondered why WWX wasn't leaving or even thinking about his position as a god, but then it's revealed that his robes (which all gods need) were torn apart by the bad Wens. WWX also gives the robe to a'Yuan iirc. Read it on ao3, might've been a oneshot. @yetusagi

FOUND? Three Worlds, One Life by limedumplr (T, 9k, WangXian, Angels & Demons, Heaven & Hell, fairytale AU, Eternal Love Spinoff, Pining, happy ending I promise, Arranged Marriage, Forced Marriage)

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12. Hi! I’m looking for a fic where the jiang and wwx test their blood relation (not modern btw). I remember the rumor about sect leader jiang and wwx being father-son are just really just rumors because it shows that they are not related. However, when they test out madam yu and wwx blood, apparently they are related to each other. It turns out CSR’s parent is a sibling of Madam Yu’s parent (I dunno if they are really siblings but I know they a family) making it CSR related to Madam Yu (counsin ig)

Hi! I’m the #12 requester in the recent fic finder. Thank you but unfortunately it is not the one I’m looking for. I think the revelation of the blood related thing happened early chapter because as much as I can remember, madam yu treats wwx better after knowing they are related. She actually treats him as her nephew.

NOT FOUND! All Things Belong by kuroi_atropos (M, 64k, WIP, WRH & WWX, WangXian, WWX is a Wēn, Abuse, Whipping, Manipulations, Warning: WRH, Smart WWX, Possessive Behavior, Warning: JGS, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con) it turns out in the later chapter that wwx is somehow related tu mdm yu via his grandmother (who was cssr's mother). And said grandmother was a distant cousin or just from yu

Unstoppbble by Immortal WangXian (Mr_Pervert) (M, 47k, wangxian, JC/LXC, JYL/JZX, immortal WWX, immortal LWJ, good parent YZY, good parent JFM, good uncle LQR, good XY, evil JGY, yin & yang cultivation, time travel fix-it, WN lives, MXY lives, WQ lives, supportive NMJ, YLLZ WWX, possessive LWJ, protective LWJ, fluff & smut, crack, action/adventure, mpreg, WIP)

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13. Hello, first I want to thank you for your service! I am looking for a fic where there's a scene where Lan Xichen sets up a dinner date to introduce Lan Wangji to his boyfriend Nie Mingjue. However, Nie Huaisang came to the restaurant because he lost his apartment keys and he was looking for his brother for help. NHS brought his bestie Wei Wuxian with him so LWJ mistook WWX as LXC's boyfriend. @ksoostrauma

FOUND? Man on My Mind by brooklinegirl (E, 50k, WangXian, Modern AU, Sex Cam Worker WWX, Identity Porn)

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14. just wanted to find a specific fic. It is one where wangxian time travel, and everyone is suspicious of them in the sunshot campaign. Jin guangshan suggests using a magic ball to spy on them, but it turns out they just end up combing each other's hair of something intimate but not shameless?

FOUND? lan xichen is very concerned (and confused) by theninjacat (T, 3k, WangXian, POV Outsider, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Sunshot Campaign) I just read it, and the hair brushing spying thing was fresh on my mind and in my AO3 history!

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15. Hi! Please help. I lost some of the fics I was reading, and cannot remember where I first saw them (was using incognito at work, but there was an update and pcs got restarted). It's about the cultivation world punishing ppl, especially Wens, at the BM. During war, they see only Yiling is not attacked, and the guardian, who wears a mask and talks through WQ, accepts to help them if he gets married to a clan heir, as a warranty they won't turn on him. There's a scene where an assasain gets to the camp and is about to kill JYL, but Yllz saves her. Do you know it? @allthoselhb

FOUND? Tumblr post by ShanaStoryteller I think this is 15

15 sounds very familiar but I can't find the fic. If it helps, I think it's the one where YLLZ is walking around with a swirling mask of resentful energy all the time and never speaks, and Wen Qing is his voice. Everyone thinks WWX is dead

For 15, I don't THINK it's these, but have similar elements, so maybe, or at least interesting? I forget the name, but there's one fic where wwx and lz never met before the war, and wwx and the lans insist on an arranged marriage between him and a main clan member after the war (they live on burial mounds, not quite a sect kinda big household vibes) to kinda legitimize themselves to protect their people, thinking anyone sent by the clans to the "evil" yllz must be abused/not valued, so they'd actually be saving someone from a bad situation and into a married in name only respected guest situation. Only they get lz instead. Lxc is very worried for awhile thinking lz must be getting abused meanwhile yllz is a masked but perfect gentleman who proves to be a kind dedicated family leader/lord of the area and lz becomes sympathetic/supportive and ends up falling HARD for him and adores ayuan

there's also another one. Idk about a mask, but in it I think jgs? Tricks both wwx (backed by the bm wens) and the lans into thinking that each other are insisting on some sort of forced political marriage with each other, with the Jin being a "neutral party mediators" when actually the Jin are threatening and pressuring both sides into it/lying. Wwx lz and Co find out when they meet for first time on Jin grounds and unite against the jin.

there's also another fic featuring masks, where the yllz is more spooky unknown who always shows up wearing a full face? Silver mask, with the designs changing every now and then. You later find out that the identity of yllz is being shared between wwx, the wen siblings, and I think mxy? And this is during sunshot campaign after the sects asked for their help (tho they might of also offered it as a strategic move for themselves?)

~*~

16. ive been looking for a fic where for some reason wwx stays with the nie after the ssc. nmj threatens to cut off wwx's tongue if he does demonic cultivation but wwx just depresses his life away instead. jgy blocks letters from everyone so hes really isolated. eventually nhs brings him out of his shell and hes eventually allowed outside his rooms. Later, lxc comes to play clarity/rest, and in the training grounds wwx has a panic attack after being accused of cursing jyl and her second pregnancy whoch he hadnt even known about. Now that i think about it, it probably actually takes place after qiongqi pass.

follow up for the imprisoned in the nie fic, im fairly sure that in the summary, nhs is like "you used to be so confident and happy..."

FOUND! Always walked a very thin line by tucuxi (T, 22k, WangXian)

~*~

17. Hi, can you help me find these fics? I've been going crazy! They were on ao3; I hope they haven't been deleted!

A) I think wwx was a ghost, & found himself at the Cloud Recesses in the aftermath of lwj's punishment. Lwj was in bad condition and almost died (a couple of times?) Eventually there was some sort of ritual to bring wwx back into a physical body, & he was in the adjoining room bc he was also very weak. (NB: this is not the fic where wwx is actually astral projecting from Baoshan Sanren's mountain, it's a different one).

B) Lwj stayed at the Burial Mounds, & his health was very poor, he kept getting very sick quite often. At one point there was an epidemic in Yiling; some of the Wens died, and then they went to go help in the town bc of their medical knowledge. Lwj had to stay separate bc of his fragile health; he had to tend the fields alone and he couldn't attend the funerals.

Hi, I messaged recently for help finding 2 fics, so naturally I finally find one of them again not 24 hours later 🙈 The one with Lan Zhan in poor health at the Burial Mounds/the epidemic situation is Over the Rotted Bridge by vailkagami! I can't believe I forgot about the necromancy or Lan Zhan being mute!! I would still love your assistance with finding the other one 🙏🙏 Thank you!

17B)

FOUND! Over the Rotted Bridge by vailkagami (T, 314k, WangXian, Temporary Character Death, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, LWJ dies, Wei Wuxian doesn’t die, neither do (most of) the  wens, JYL also lives, Original Character(s), outside pov, YLLZ WWX,  Canon Divergence, CQL Verse, Illustrated, Grief/Mourning, Non-Consensual  Resurrection, mute LWJ, Hurt LWJ, Slow Burn, canonical death of a child  (mentioned), Survivor Guilt, PTSD)

~*~

18. hi!! for the next fic finder, i have been looking for a fic for a few weeks but since it's been some time ive read it, its lost in my history. it was a time travel fic, where wangxian get back into their bodies during the wen indoctrination. the pov was actually jc's if im not mistaken, but i remember clearly that in the end he accuses lwj of seducing wwx into demonic cultivation, after wx kill the wens there and wwx raises an army. thank you <3

FOUND! I’m pretty sure this one is ❤️ Wen Chao’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day by Shializaro (T, 2k, wangxian, time travel, BAMF wangxian, outsider POV, Mojo’s post)

~*~

19. Hello! For the next fic finder, can you help find this fic? It's a sickly WWX because of his live in the street before. I dont remember much but there was a horse riding lesson, he learn about strategy, and when he make a journey alone to make his sword. In his journey he met with imperial soldiers that patroled around capital and befriend them. I think he calmed a resentful mother cat too i think. It's a WIP story. I read that recently in this year but i think it was a fic from around 2019-2020? Thank you @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

FOUND! A Burning Cold by MountainRose (G, 29k, Chronic Illness, Pre-Canon, Nirvana in Fire Fusion, Character Study, Wen Bullshit, Snow Beetle Poison) is a sort of Nirvana in Fire fusion called A Burning Cold by MountainRose locked to archive here / but it's restricted for logged users;

~*~

20. Looking for a fic where the focus iirc was more on LWJ teaching/raising lan juniors to express their emotions healthily.

Sorry, I don't think it's To be of use, I remember it being something shorter. Also WWX came back towards the later part of it.

not FOUND To be of use by Erisette (Not Rated, 53k, LSZ & LWJ, Found Family, Accidental Baby Acquisition, (kinda), Father-Son Relationship, Missing Scene, Good Teacher LWJ, Seclusion Lite(TM), Fluff, Worldbuilding)

FOUND? Gathered Herbs & Sweet Grasses by hansbekhart (Not Rated, 19k, LSZ & LWJ, WangXian, dad wangji, LWJ’s Questionable Parenting Skills, Grief/Mourning, Recovery, Injury Recovery, Hopeful Ending, Canon-Typical Violence)

~*~

[tiny-cloud-dragon]

FF7: Random Bits 02 - Chapter 1

I went to my old fanfiction.net page and started trying to recover my fics that I have posted there. I'm trying to get them saved on my laptop since they went bye-bye on my damaged external drive.

This is an AU where Zack never died, and it takes place after the events of Advent Children. The two idiots have started their own army for undisclosed reasons (aka I couldn't think of a good one, but thought it would be fun if they did).

[Setting: Zack and Cloud are out in the field, terrorizing,..er, training the new cadets.]

[Location: Training field, early morning. The new cadets are learning all about marching columns.]

"You call that a marching column?!" Zack snapped at the cadets lined up in front of him.

"Look at this, Cloud!" he continued in exaggerated disgust.

"They think that raggedy mess is a proper line!"

"I've seen circles with straighter lines." Cloud agreed quietly.

"You hear that?" Zack shouted at the trembling cadets

"General Strife has seen circles, circles, with straighter lines!"

"Your granny's back is straighter,"

"My granny's back is straighter, and she has scoliosis!"

A snort of amusement emanated from the group of new cadets, fluttering skyward like a bird breaking cover. The entire platoon, as one man, tensed up like a cable under strain.

Zack's glowing eyes pinned the offender with a sharp, disapproving gaze. The young man was suddenly treated to an unwanted close up of Zack's face. The term 'high definition' took on a whole new meaning.

"Did you just laugh at my granny, cadet?" Zack growled, the sound resonating all the way down the chain of evolution to snarl threateningly at the cadet's vestigial inner prey animal.

"S-s-sir, No Sir!" the cadet shouted desperately from his unwanted 4k view of his life going down the toilet. Tickets to the show must have been sold out because the rest of the platoon had somehow managed to take ten steps away from him without doing anything as offensive as actually moving.

"It sounds like he thinks your granny's back problems are funny." Cloud remarked casually.

"You think my granny's crooked back is funny?"

"Sir, NO SIR!"

"I should certainly hope not! She ruined her back spending years doing back-breaking work,"

"Hoeing," Cloud interjected.

"Hoeing every day!" Zack continued without missing a beat.

"Something wrong with hoeing, cadet?" Zack bellowed a mere hair's breadth from the young man's face as he tried and failed to hide a smile that was slowly crawling across his mouth like a sine wave.

"I don't think he likes hoes," Cloud said in that off-handed tone.

"You got something against hoes?" Zack demanded. "Do you know how many businesses would be shut down without hoes?"

"People would starve,"

"People would starve, cadet. Starve!" Zack shouted. "Have you ever tried to garden without a hoe? My granny can't grow vegetables without a hoe! You want her out there, with her crooked back, pulling weeds by hand so you can have fresh vegetables?"

"He's grinning like he needs more vegetables in his diet..." Cloud pointed out.

"Is that why you're grinning like that, cadet? Your guts have a hostage situation going on?"

The cadet's face went red under the strain as the laughter built up to critical levels and he desperately tried to keep the lid on it. The tendons on his neck stuck out like cords as his lips peeled slowly back from his teeth. Tears began streaming from his eyes.

"That's one heck of a bathroom war face."

"That's what happens when you don't like hoes," Zack continued mercilessly, "You can't grow vegetables, so you can't eat vegetables, so you get the dry butt-brownies! It's just wrong!"

"Irregular."

Zack turned away, deciding that the young man had suffered enough. The poor kid was still just a cadet after all. He made a low woof! sound and one his large mako-wolves appeared. Sparkling a faint blue around the edges, the wolf bellied up to its pack leader, waiting for his command.

The ability to summon a whole pack of the creatures was one of Zack's special abilities. It turned out that SOLDIERs could continue to evolve, and most gained a variety of unique personal abilities, along with the ability to take on an alternate animal form after gaining their wings and reaching the rank of 1st Class ELITE.

Zack looked down at the fawning wolf and said "Bring me a hoe!"

The wolf poofed away, and reappeared seconds later with Scarlet, who was not at all happy with her lunch being interrupted.

“No!” Zack said snapped, impatiently at the wolf , “A garden hoe!”

The mako wolf poofed away, taking an irately screaming Scarlet with him, and returned moments later with the correct item. Zack took it, and dismissed the wolf with a pat on the head and a "good boy!"

He turned to the trembling cadet and said "This is your hoe. You will carry it with you at all times. If an officer asks you why you are carrying it, you will respond with, 'This is my hoe! I love hoes, sir'!"

"And hug it," Cloud added.

"And you will hug that hoe, cadet! Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" the cadet replied in a carefully measured tone even though he was screaming internally.

"Now line up!" Zack ordered. The cadets snapped into a much better version of a tidy marching column. Good job, boys! he thought proudly, while maintaining the outward expression suggesting that the cadets had just barely avoided the grade of U for Unsatisfactory.

Zack stepped aside and relinquished command to Cloud with a flashy salute. It was his turn to observe and take notes on performance.

"Cadets, forward march!" Cloud moved the cadets forward and started the marching cadence.

"I'm a Barbie girl,"

"In a Barbie world!"

Zack relaxed into a comfortable slouch, recording the drill on one of their fancy new camcorders. All of their drills, exercises and activities were recorded strictly for evaluation purposes to determine what methods and techniques would work best for each group (and in some cases, individuals), and what parts of the program needed adjusting. It was definitely NOT so Zack and Cloud could watch them later in their quarters while eating snacks and laughing.

Zack caught movement out of the corner of his eye and he left the camera on its tri-pod, setting it to follow the tracker on Cloud's armband. Memory sidled up and went pssst! as it passed him a mental note. Oh, yeah, Him! Zack thought with a mischievous grin. The Inspector had arrived, and he already looked unhappy.

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

was going to do the actual headcanon part of the gravity falls form first but that part is taking far too long and we need to talk about this so this one is happening first

(also, if you were the person who said this, im giving you the benefit of the doubt and saying this is a case of ignorance and not maliciousness)

someone, in the section about physical disability headcanons, said that no one showed any signs of obvious physical disabilities, and that, if there are, they cant be particularly debilitating (otherwise its not canon-adjacent)

uh so fun fact stan is canonically physically disabled. he has hearing aids, dentures (if not having teeth isnt a disability i will be genuinely shocked), and also deals with daily pain (potentially, the cane he uses in tours could double as a walking cane for when the pain makes it difficult for him to walk)

also, mr. poolcheck canonically has a prosthetic hand

what is the connection between all of these things? we didnt know about them until we were directly told.

if he hadnt removed his prosthetic, you would have never known that mr. poolcheck was missing a limb. because its not obvious otherwise.

you dont know that stan uses hearing aids until the end of season one/beginning of season 2 when the cameras in the gideon pins mess with them. if that hadnt happened, you would have never known that stan uses hearing aids. because its not obvious.

you dont know that stan has dentures until you are directly shown so. because its not obvious.

you dont know that stan suffers from daily pain until late season 2. you wouldnt have known about that if we hadnt gotten his perspective waking up, because he never talks about it. its not obvious.

moving on to real people, scoliosis is a great example of this. is it obvious in some folks? yes. but theres also plenty of cases where its not. and it can absolutely still cause issues for those latter people

you know, it also completely ignores internal physical disabilities. you cant look at someone and just know that they dont have a heart condition. or that they dont have an intestinal disorder. or that they arent immunocompromised. or that they dont have a blood disorder. or that they dont have arthritis. or that they dont have nerve damage. or that they dont have diabetes. i cant possibly list every single "non-obvious" physical disability here. there are so many, and they all just get completely sidelined when you think like that

the point is that "you cant have a debilitating physical disability because its not obvious" is a harmful way to think. it just doesnt work like that.

if you yourself are physically disabled and notice i said something incorrect here, please tell me so i can fix it. i dont want to misinform anyone- thats how you get these sorts of sentiments in the first place

[yum-zlurplie]

💔👽🦾😶 for infected (if ur still doing it)

you bet ur shiny ass shoelaces i am

💔 he misses poptart a shit ton, and forces unpleas to shape shift into a cat similar to poptart to cope. he also probably adopted jermbo to try and make up for the loss of poptart

👽 he has a tendency to get way to close too people when talking to them, let almost touching the other person

🦾 he is partially deaf, which is why he gets so close to people. he has hearing aids but keeps forgetting to put them in, because his virus makes him have amnesia. he also has mild scoliosis

😶 he spends a SHIT TON of money on monster energy drinks

[trashland-llamas]

Floor Time?

GN Reader

'Is it floor time?' Gaz didn't give y/n a chance to respond before he joined them, lying down next to them. He knew by the painful grimace on their face that this bout of floor time was thanks to their scoliosis pain flaring up. 'Yea, it's floor time.' Y/n had told him once before that there was nothing they could do but let it run its course. The muscles in their back along with their hips seized. So Gaz decided on the next best thing; his company. That and if his one worry came true; them stuck on the floor, they'd have someone nearby to help. 'So what was that screaming I heard earlier all about?'

'I put a fake centipede in Ghost's mask.' Frowning when their laugh turned into a pained grunt. 'He ripped his mask off so fast. Had to hide for two hours.'

'Where'd you hide?' Y/n asked, their knees sliding their legs flat. Muscles slowly relaxing. After a few moments, they brought their right leg back up before going back to a resting position. 'The vents.' Gaz's voice a bit sheepish. 'How the fuck were you able to get up there?' He didn't miss the surprise in their tone. 'Jumped from the kitchen counter. Ghost didn't even try to pull me down, he just waited.'

'He is a patient bastard, I'll give him that.' Now sitting, y/n made an uppies gesture, silently asking for Gaz to pull them up. 'Thanks for distracting me.'

'And here I thought you loved my voice. Floor time's fun, should do it more often when you're not in pain.'

[80pairsofcrocs]

baby scarab || 59

@divejffsgvdhv - omg just thinking about layla finding out about bebe scarab and casper. then that talk with the moon boys, layla and yn. 😮‍💨

-🧞‍♀️

~~~

anon - what is there was a thing like a flooded kitchen and mk system and y/n fail at everything miserably and then layla pulls up liek “tf?” and fixes everything thing then asks “how did you ppl survive without me gd” and it’s just sort of a nostalgia chapter with all the early chapter vibes of mk system and y/n flashbacks

~~~

A/N : DAMN these requests are from A WHILE ago!! glad im getting them done :))

masterlist - marvel masterlist - series masterlist

A/N : THERE IS NO MORE SCHEDULE, IM SORRY also thank you all sm for the support and requests :)))

please enjoy, and don't be shy if you want to be in the taglist, just ask <3, sorry for the long wait

pairings : steven grant x (platonic)reader, marc spector x (platonic) reader, khonshu x (platonic)reader, jake lockley x (platonic)reader

TW : medicine (pills), spidey stuff, mentions of violence, language, angst, very rushed and hard to read, mentions of sex, memories!! let me know if i missed anything.

~~~

you somehow woke up earlier than everyone else.

on a school day too, nonetheless.

so you decided to try and make breakfast for your parents.

key word is tried.

there was currently a fire blazing on a pan of burnt whatever the fuck you were making in the sink, while you ran to turn off the stove.

the smoke alarms went off, and you heard two alarmed voices.

“y/n! what happened?! are you okay?!” “oh shit! fire!” “por favor dime que no te quemaste, nena” all three of your fathers exclaim all at the same time, while layla rushed in after.

jake ends up fronting out of panic, and helps to put out the fire while layla waves a towel around the smoke detector, effectively shutting it off.

“i’m sorry i just wanted to make breakfast for you guys for letting me take a couple days off school-“

“hey don’t apologize. wait, since when do you do anything for us?” marc asks jokingly as jake lifts the burnt pan up to inspect it once the fires out.

“hey!” you start accusingly. “i do stuff for you all the time” you defend, to which marc raises an eyebrow through a mirror.

“i asked you to pick up your dirty clothes off the floor and you told me to stick it up my ass and then you shot webs in my face” marc deadpans and layla laughs before coming up to join you guys.

“you two need to be nicer to each other. i mean, hey, at least this kitchen hasn’t looked worse right?” she asks rhetorically, making you and steven make eye contact through a mirror.

~~~

"so? what's going on?" steven asks. you smile and set your phone face down on the table, your hand still resting on it. "casper doesnt need surgery, which is great since he wouldn't have to take the risk of his scoliosis getting worse." you shortly explain.

steven chuckles. "oh, that's great! i'm happy for him" he says, and you go to put your phone in your pocket but notice it won't come off your hand.

"y/n? you good?" steven asks, noticing your issue. "it wont come off" you tell him, shaking your hand to try and get your phone off.

"kid, quit joking around and eat your dinner" marc tells you from the reflection on the table.

"i'm not joking around! it wont come off" you grit out at him, holding your hand out to steven.

"pull it off" you waves your hand, and steven hesitates in doing so, but grasps the free end of your phone and tugs lightly, surprised that it wont come off.

"what in the bloody hell-" he starts, tugging harder while you're pulling back as well. "did you stick your phone in glue?"

"no! i dont know whats going on!" you exclaim worriedly.

with another strong pull from each of you, it finally comes off, making you and steven almost fall back in your chairs. you touch your hand to the table and notice that it doesn't stick. you look scared and confused at steven whos touching your phone.

"its not sticky. what on earth.." steven trails off, sliding your phone to you from across the table. "that was strange" marc points out.

you keep forming you hand into a fist trying to see if your fingers would stick, but you get nothing. you shakily sigh and nod to yourself while going back to eating.

"y/n-"

"please pretend that didn't just happen" you request. "i don't even know what the hell just happened"

steven nods slowly, and goes back to his plate as well. the rest of the dinner being quiet, unusually quiet.

~~~

after dinner was a mess. you made a mess while helping steven clean up.

first it was when you pulled a drawer open to put clean silverware in it, and yanked it right out of the counter, silverware flying everywhere.

the next was when you were washing your dishes and you went to turn the water off, and ended up ripping the handle off and caused water to start spraying everywhere.

and the last? well it didn't exactly make a mess, more like stop one from happening.

steven had almost dropped one of your glass cups while you were turned around, but a tiny ringing in your head made you turn around and catch it right as he dropped it.

you were having a weird day, ripping drawers out of your counter, tearing off part of your sink, the whole phone incident, and now catching something you didn't even see fall.

and as of now, you were sitting on your bed, knees to your chest while holding onto your khonshu stuffed animal. steven insisted you go take a couple minutes to rest while he cleaned up.

you felt terrible.

steven doing all the work, cleaning up your messes. it wasn't fair, you should be there helping him, but you're stuck here after what just felt like a fever dream.

"child, why do you look like that?" khonshu says from on top of your dresser, slouching so that there's about an inch between the top of hi head and the ceiling.

"rude" you scoff, hanging on tighter to the soft fabric in your arms. "not like that. why are you frustrated?" he rephrases.

you sigh and lean your head on your knees. "there is something wrong with me" you mumble.

"yesterday i complained about my backpack being heavy and i literally ripped a drawer out of a counter." you take a shaky breath. "that's not normal. nothing about what just happened out there is normal!" you reply, close to shouting out of stress.

"calm down child, you'll be okay" khonshu does his best to comfort you. you're thankful for that, even though he sucks at it.

you squeeze the plushie impossibly tighter, calming your nerves.

"is that.. the tiny, soft version of me?" khonshu asks, pointing to the tiny soft version of him that is in fact in your arms. you nod and purse your lips. "yep"

"its ugly" he insults.

"you're ugly" you retort.

khonshu gasps. "take that back, mortal"

"you first" you wrap your hands around the plushies neck "i will strangle you just like i'm strangling this" you threaten.

"you wouldnt"

"i would"

"yeah? well you're small" khonshu insults again, standing up to try and intimidate you with his size. you weren't going to lie, you were very small compared to him.

"you're just a tree" you respond, getting up as well, leaving the plushie on the bed.

"i bet you can't even touch the ceiling!" khonshu starts laughing at you, tapping the ceiling with the giant moon stick he carries every where.

"oh yeah? watch me" you jump up a couple times, finally touching it the third. "see? you.. yo-you.." you trail off. you look down and see that your feet aren't touching the ground. you dart your head up, and see that all the pads of your fingers are stuck to the ceiling.

you look to khonshu, who seems as surprised as you are. your bottom lip shakes, and you try to get your hand off the ceiling, when you hear your door open.

"hey, y/n how are you fee-" steven freezes.

"help me" you say. "now. please. fuck-" you try to pry your hand off.

"alright kid, hang on" marc was fronting now. he reaches a hand up to your wrist and tries to pull it off, this time coming off easier than your phone did.

you would have fallen if marc hadn't caught you. taking his hands off your waist once he knew you wouldn't fall, he takes your hands in his and looks them over.

"marc..?" you now look visibly shaken up. "what the fucks going on?" you ask yourself.

"i'm as clueless as you are" he answers, letting go of your hands. "maybe you should see a doctor." he suggests and you shake your head.

"they are going to put me in an asylum" you shake your head more. "this!-" you gesture to your hand" -this, is not normal!" you start freaking out.

"i was just sticking to the ceiling marc. THE CEILING!" you tell him, and you stretch your arms out in a t-pose. "if i go to a doctor, they are going to transport me to area 51!" you finish and you feel a tingle on your wrist and a 'thwip' noise.

you jerk your head to the right, seeing as it was your right hand that tingled, and see what looks like a spider web stuck to your wall, a couple strands still connected to your wrist.

you slowly look to marc again, whos staring at the web in utter shock. "that just came out of you" he mutters.

"don't say it like that" you cringe. "but yeah. it did" you say in a quieter tone.

marc claps his hands all of a sudden and points at you, making you jump. "you were bit. by a spider." he says and you nod. "those are spider webs" he points to the webs on your wall.

"wheres that spider?"

"gone. reduced to atoms" khonshu cuts in. you and marc look at each other in confusion.

"is that a metaphor...?" you ask, looking back to the bird

"no, child. i destroyed it" he answers slamming his stick on the ground.

"like completely destroyed it? or just like kind of destroyed it?" you try to get him to elaborate.

"i crushed it."

"then what?"

"i saw a bird eat it"

"was the bird you?"

"no"

"is this an important conversation?" marc interrupts. "okay, so until you get this under control don't touch anything, alright?" marc directs towards you, and you nod, completely lost.

"until then.. i don't know." he shrugs. "i got nothin'" he finishes.

"what?! what do i do?! i have school tomorrow!" you try to remain calm.

"hey hey hey, calm down" marc says, and he puts a hand on each of your shoulders. "for now just try to control it a bit, okay?" he tells you, and you nod.

"alright, good, lets go sit down" he leads you to your kitchen table and gets out some sticky notes and a pen.

you sit down in the same spot you were for dinner, and marc sits down in the chair next to you. "so what exactly is happening?" he asks, getting ready to write.

"i ripped the handle off the sink"

"right. maybe its some form of super strength" marc starts scribbling on the paper.

"i was hanging onto the ceiling by my fingers" you deadpan.

"sticky hands" he writes down and you scoff. "'sticky hands?' what are you 5?" you say sarcastically. marc gives you a look. "yes. now what else?"

you hold your arm out again, and this time webbing shoots out of your wrists and towards the mirror steven was freaking out in. "web wrists" marc writes down.

"you're a child" you acuse.

marc doesn't answer, just looks at the paper in contemplation. "do the webs.. do they come out of anywhere else?" he hesitates.

you gape at him. "i sure hope not!" you smack marc in the shoulder, and of course, your hands sticks and you sigh.

"just think about it coming off" marc suggests. "what do you think i'm doing, idiot?"

"don't call me an idiot" marc warns, and you give one final yank and your hand comes off his sleeve, you both sighing out of relief.

~~~

“yeah, totally” you agree, making layla raise an eyebrow.

“anyways, i’m sure you’ve left trash in places though” she starts. “especially you, marc”

“well i’m not the one who stuffs wrappers in people’s pockets” marc looks towards you, which makes you scoff.

~~~

"hey kid, i-" marc started, but stopped when he realizes you weren't even in the room anymore. "you didn't see her leave?" marc asks steven and he shakes his head.

"we were busy talking how was i supposed to know she was going to leave?!" steven freaks out, and notices khonshu was gone as well.

"well at least khonshu is with her" steven points out. the two are silent for a moment. "i feel like that's even worse than her being alone" steven says and marc nods along.

there's a crash from the kitchen and marc looks towards you door. "oh sweet mother of god.." marc gets up off your bed and hastily makes his way out of your room where he sees khonshu perched on top of one of your kitchen counters.

marc gives the bird a questioning look, and khonshu responds by pointing at the counter that marc couldn't see behind, referring to the fact that you were probably over there.

so with a sigh, marc makes his way over behind the counter quietly, and sees you eating pop tarts with your knees to your chest.

"kid" marc starts, crouching down next to you. "what are you doing?" he asks and you look to him with distress written all over your face.

"khonshutoldmethatimgoingtolayeggslikeaspiderandidontwanna-"

"don't talk with your mouth full" marc tells you, so you nod and swallow your food before speaking again.

"khonshu told me that i'm going to lay eggs like a spider and i dont wanna lay eggs that so gross" you slur out, shoving more of your pop tart into your mouth as marc turns to glare at khonshu.

"y/n, darling, you aren't going to.. lay eggs. don't listen to him." steven tells you from the windows reflection. you nod at him and yawn, finishing your pop tart and reaching over to stuff the wrapper in marcs pocket.

"why- nevermind." marc starts, ignoring the fact that you just used him as a garbage can. "come on, back to your room" he hooks an arm under your already bent legs and another around your shoulders, lifting you up carefully and with ease before walking back to your room, you being dead silent the whole time.

he carefully sets you down on your bed, and you immediately go to hug your pillow tightly. marc sighs and covers you with a thin blanket, since he didn't want you over heating and moving your taweret plushie so that its in front of you if you need it.

"marc?" you rasp out with your eyes now closed. "yeah?" he answers, and you sigh.

"i don't feel good" you murmur, burying your face in your pillow. "i know, just get to sleep and i promise you'll feel better when you wake up" marc tells you and you sigh tiredly again.

"promise?" you meekly ask him and he smiles slightly.

"promise" 

~~~

layla sighs. “both of you just help me clean this up at least, there’s burnt.. whatever that is all over the floor” she says in disgust.

you and marc exchange glances before doing so.

layla ended up making you scrape the burnt stuff off the pan, and she made marc sweep up the floor.

all while she sat there and watched.

that’s just your mom for you though, it was a lesson learned.

you spotted a small dye stain on the counter though.

it was red.

from when you dyed your hair like months ago, the colors of your suit.

you smile thinking of the memory, but mentally cringe when you realize how faded it now is.

~~~

"y/n darling, why do you have so many colors?" steven asks, digging deeper in the box to find just about every color of the rainbow and more.

"because i'm quirky like that. now help me pick which ones i should do" you suggest and steven nods.

"you should do red and blue. like your suit" jake starts and you smile at the thought.

"that's actually not a bad idea" marc says, and steven picks up both the red and blue boxes, holding them out to you.

"let's get it started then" you start, taking the boxes and moving to the kitchen sink.

"it won't stain the sink, right?" steven asks.

"not if you scrub hard enough" you deadpan, making him give you a look.

"no, it'll be fine" you tell him, but he still seems skeptical.

"if you say so" he mumbles, watching you open the boxes to grab the tubes of color out of them.

"i'm going to do one side red and the other blue" you say more to yourself than anyone else, yet steven still nodded in acknowledgment.

"do you have gloves? because if you don't you're going to stain your hands"

oh steven. shut up. as much as you love him, he's sort of a dorky idiot sometimes.

"..yeah, i got gloves" you answer, tying up your natural hair so that it wouldn't get in the way.

"if you want you can do one half and i can do the other" you offer, steven nodding slowly.

"what if i hurt you? i don't want to accidentally pull on your hair too hard" he worries, and you shake your head slowly.

"you won't" you answer, digging through the box again and throwing a pair of gloves at him along with the red dye.

"it's simple, just rub the color into my hair i guess. then i have to wait twenty minutes to wash it out" you tell him, and he nods again.

you start doing so with the blue, after putting the gloves on of course.

steven watches first as you squeeze some of the gel into your hand, then just running it through your half of your hair.

steven reluctantly does the same, and you watch with a small smile as he carefully copies your movements.

once you were both done, you pinned it up and sat up on the counter while setting a timer with your phone after taking your gloves off and throwing them away.

steven takes his gloves off and throws them away as well, then looks to you with pursed lips.

"now what?" he asks and you shrug.

"i don't know" you sigh.

steven looks at you for a moment.

"you look like something's on your mind" he starts, and you look up at him. "care to share?"

"...it's stupid" you wave him off.

"then it shouldn't matter"

"it's about casper" you starts, steven leaning on the counter next to you.

"i.. i want to ask him to be my boyfriend" you end quietly, steven smiling at your statement.

"oh that's lovely" he replies, and you see marc and jake with different expressions from the reflection on the window above the sink next to you.

"are you sure he's the right one?" marc asks and you glare at him.

"nonono- i'm not criticizing i'm just making sure that you're making the right choice" he corrects and you nod.

"you don't have to worry about me. this isn't life or death, it's-"

"it's just a relationship, i know" he waves you off, making you snort and turn to jake, who has a smile on his face.

"you must let me know what he says, mi vida" he begins. "if he says no, i can always have a talk with him"

"that won't be necessary but thank you" you tell him, and as if on cue, your phone rings, signaling that casper was calling.

"well? answer it" steven nods to your phone, so you pick it up and press the small green button.

"hey, y/n i have a question" you hear instantly.

"you could've texted me"

"i wanted to hear your voice" he starts, steven listening with a smile.

"anyways- if you want my mom made bread again and wondered if you would come over for dinner"

you look to steven for permission, to which he nods.

"yeah, i'd.. i'd love to" you answer and you hear someone telling his name in the background.

"oh- that's allison i have to go. but text me when you're on your way" he hangs up, just like that.

you make direct eye contact with steven, waiting for him to speak.

"good, now you can ask him to be your boyfriend tonight"

your eyes widen a fraction. "what? no. not today i just meant like in time-"

"if you don't do it, i'll have khonshu cast another spell on you" steven grins.

your lips part in shock. "you wouldn't"

"i believe i would" he replies, to which you glare at him.

khonshu decided to appear next to you, perched on the counter. "he is not bluffing" he tells you.

you turn to glare at him, then back at steven. "fine" you throw your hands up in the air.

"but if he says no-"

"which he won't" steven interrupts.

"-jake is not going to have a talk with him" you conclude, and jake scoffs from the window.

"but it would hurt your feelings" he tries to justify his reasoning to beat up a 16 year old boy.

"there will be no talking" you tell him sternly and he nods hesitantly.

you're about to give a mini lecture to marc, when as if on cue your timer goes off.

"that was the quickest twenty minutes ever" you mutter. "okay, time to stain the sink"

"y/n you said it wouldn't stain!"

"i'm kidding, don't be a baby"

~~~

“y/n your phones ringing” marc tells you, breaking you from your head.

you look to him and see that he had your phone in his hand, and then observed that casper was calling you.

you sigh and answer it on speaker since you had to keep scraping the pan.

“why are you calling me so early?” you ask, and you hear a scoff.

“because i want to know if i can walk you to school and i was actually doing research” he says and you make a face.

“..about what?” you ask skeptically, while both layla and marc listen in.

“do you remember like a month ago when your cramps started and you said they felt like someone was smashing your uterus with a hammer?” he asks and you think back to your last period, when your cramps had gotten particularly painful.

“yeah why?” you answer.

“i found a solution” he starts and you raise an eyebrow.

“solution? like a tylenol?” you ask and you hear him hum before snickering.

“no- no actually i was looking online at things that could help relieve cramps and i’ll bet that you didn’t know that orgasms can in fact help”

“hey casper?” you ask as you feel your face heat up.

“yeah?”

“you’re on speaker”

there’s silence for a second.

“..who’s.. who just heard that?” casper asks hesitantly.

“both her parents, that’s who” marc speaks up, coming up close to you, who is internally dying.

“you couldn’t have just texted me? i woulda laughed if my parents weren’t in the room” you scold, and marc gives you a look.

“hey, you’re lucky i let the whole sex thing go but-“

“excuse me, the what?” layla interrupts and comes to stand to the other side of you.

“..shit” marc mutters, and you sigh.

“casper, i’ll see you at school” you say quickly before hanging up.

you slowly turn to face layla who doesn’t seem to find the situation funny.

“go get ready, i need to have a talk with your father” she falsely smiles at you so you just simply nod and do as she says, hoping she won’t give marc that bad of a talk.

~~~

"what fucking time is it?" marc complains, handing the control right to steven when he realizes how tired he was.

"oh wow thanks mate. it's only 7:38, quit being a baby" he yawns, slowly getting up off the bed.

"you think she's still sleeping?" steven asks out into the open, moving around the kitchen to make some tea.

"she better be, she had a rough night" jake answers, remembering how you masked the emotions you felt after watching all of them nearly die.

"what about casper? is he still here?" steven asks and he's only met with silence.

"yeah. nice talking to you too, numbskulls" steven rolls his eyes, leaving his kettle to heat up with the water to go check on you.

now, when he opened your door he's was met with a faint aroma he hadn't ever smelled before in your room, and that's when he felt the broken webs on the doorframe, and the fact that you were laying on top of casper.

he tilted his head as he ventured in a little more,

not wanting to intrude to much while you were asleep.

that's when jake noticed a couple things.

he saw a still damp washcloth on your nightstand, one of your bras was thrown onto the floor, which was not like you since you kept all your clothes private, oh and don't forget the pack of condoms on the floor next to it.

"steven get out" jake says and steven furrows his eyebrows.

"wha-"

"go drink your tea. just get out"

"but why-" he looks down, and his eyes linger on the box.

"oh my lord... are those-"

"are those fucking condoms?! are you kidding me?!" marc exclaims, and steven sees you stir in your sleep, so he scurries out of the room, shutting the door quietly.

steven was in shock. he was frozen in place as marc and jake argued.

"they did not- there's no fucking way-" marc starts.

"you're in denial amigo. it smelled like sex in there" jake retorts and marc feels like crawling into a hole and dying.

"but she-"

"but she what? steven said she was a horny teenager" jake scoffs and steven hums in denial, slowly walking back to pour his tea.

"i didn't say that, i said she was getting to the age where those type of hormones are-"

"steven please" marc cuts in and steven nods in understanding.

your door clicked open, revealing you rubbing your eyes and putting on one of your sweaters, closing the door behind you and calmly moving into the kitchen to reach up in the cabinet for your pop tarts.

"how are you guys feeling?" you ask the guys worriedly, eyeing stevens leg and seeing through the hole in his pants where the knife was that there wasn't any more blood or cuts, he was good as new.

"we are good, but you-"

"were you busy last night?" marc asks and you tilt your head.

"not necessarily"

"okay so what did you do?"

you stayed quiet, trying to figure out if he knew anything.

"me and casper-"

"i knew it!"

"-built a fort on the roof" you purse your lips and marc scoffs.

"oh yeah? what about after that?" he asks, not fronting and stepping closer to you.

"we went to bed"

"the same bed?"

"yep"

"hm"

marc takes a step away, leaning against the tower and finishes preparing stevens tea for him.

"so why was there a box of condoms on your floor?" marc asks nonchalantly and you choke on your pop tart.

your face turned as red as ever, and you looked down at the floor.

"we're going to have to have a talk, kid" marc starts, while you continue to hide your face from him.

"and your little boyfriend is invited too"

~~~

marc wanted to kicked casper out.

well, not kick, he just wanted to threatened him if he didn't get his stuff and leave.

marc needed him to stay though, so he could go over some ground rules.

which is what you were doing now. sitting on the couch while marc paced back and forth in front of you.

"listen, i know you're mad-" you start but are cut off.

"no no no- not mad just very disappointed" marc pulled the disappointed card, making you scoff.

"you're only 17, you have your whole life to do.. that" he starts and you sigh.

"and especially not in this house, or at least- i don't know pick up your clothes and the.. the uhm-"

"condoms"

"thank you steven- pick those up off the floor" marc continues and you nod.

marc takes a breath and runs a hand through his hair. "i can't do this- steven do you mind?" marc asks and steven hums.

"i got it, mate" and marc passes the control to steven, and he looks at the two of you.

"alright. yeah" he nods to himself. "so obviously you knew what you were doing, judging by the box of condoms on the floor" he starts and you groan, looking to casper who's just as uncomfortable as you are.

"hey- don't make that face you did this to yourself" steven says to the both of you, making you lean back and cross your arms.

"as i was saying- just because you practiced safe sex doesn't mean you can't contract diseases-"

"steven please stop" you say and cover your face with your hands.

"but you need to know that-"

"please no"

"darling-"

"steven"

he gives you a pointed look. "alright, alright just- if you decide to do it again just make sure you do it safely"

"and if you'd like you can talk to a doctor and get yourself some birth control"

"talk to a doctor?" you repeat. "no fucking way"

"watch your language, and yes, talk to a doctor" steven starts. "i reckon you haven't seen one of those for a long while, hm?" he asks and your silence gives him his answer.

"i should probably go-" casper starts but is so rudely interrupted by marc suddenly fronting.

"hang on just a second" he begins. "on no circumstances will you ever- and i mean ever lay a hand on my daughter until she's 18, you hear me?" he says sternly and casper nods frantically.

"good, now if you need to go then you should probably do so before i change my mind" marc tells him and he slowly gets off the couch.

"do you have everything?" you ask him quietly while marc turns back around to engage in conversation with steven and jake in one of the mirrors.

"yeah, my moms expecting me home soon" he shrugs and you walk him to the door after he puts his shoes on.

"i'm really sorry" you apologize. "i didn't think they'd find out- i should've-"

"hey, it's no big deal" casper smiles at you, opening the door.

"are you sure? please know that they would never actually hurt you" you say quickly and he chuckles.

"calm down and forget about it okay? he is about to pat your shoulder before he remembers the no touching rule.

"i'll call you later" he nods to you and you give him a confused look.

"no kiss?" you playfully pout and he rolls his eyes.

"now you look desperate" he says, making you scoff and take him by the collar of his shirt to deliver a quick kiss to his lips, then pulls back to nod at him.

"have a safe trip home" you tell him seriously and he nods, walking back so that he's in the hallway.

you close the door behind him and turn around slowly with a giddy smile on your face, marc giving you a weird look as you lock the door.

~~~

you came out of the bathroom after getting completely ready for school to see marc sitting on the couch with his arms crossed.

“what happened?” you ask, not seeing layla anywhere.

“i’m grounded” he scoffs and you smile at him.

“how’s it feel?” you start. “and where’d she go?”

“it feels fantastic” he begins sarcastically. “but she went up to the roof to probably punch something” he answers and you cringe.

“but it’s freezing outside, it’s almost winter” you say and he nods.

“she won’t be gone long, so i’d get to school before she can come give you a talk too” he tells you while both steven and jake agree.

you nod and head towards the door to get your shoes on.

“i’ll see you guys later, love you” you exclaim out towards your boys.

“love you too, sweetheart” “adios, mi vida” “have a nice day, love” are the responses you get before shutting the door behind you.

and now, you were waiting in your apartments lobby for a probably embarrassed casper to arrive.

and what a day it’s going to be.

~~~

A/N : it took fucking forever to find the specific memories from the earlier chapters omg but it was sooooooooooo fun i hope to do something like this again!!

~~~

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[endollvors]

Health Check! Sneak Preview

The Pitch: MCU Steve Rogers, guy who never quits, is quietly sent home after the serum "fails." It did not, in fact, Fail. Steve Rogers, 5'1' Super Soldier, 6 time recruitment office applier, makes up a new fake name and Joins the Army anyway.

Thus starts the legend of Reeve Dodgers.

Below is the entire text of the document for this AU, including some planning materials, in roughly chronological order.

Content warning: I was left unattended with the crackfic and it got a little a The Horrors of War™ in it, sorry.

Steven Grant Rogers’ Shitty Aliases

Rebecca Stoker (pornlord)

Barney Harrison (recruitment office)

Jim “Jimmy” MacKenzie (recruitment office)

Abraham Buckner (modern NY “Cult Survivor”)

Corporal Reeve Dodgers (Military injoke)

Grant Carter(SHIELD Analyst)

Clint: he’s called Dodge because he’s so small no guns can ever hit him

What’s Wrong with him :)

Asthma

Scarlet fever

Deaf in one ear

Color blind

Scoliosis

Heart murmur

Yearly Pneumonia

Anemia

December ’39 Bucky discovers that Steve Rogers, 100 pounds soaking wet, has been rationing his food in order to save money to bribe a guard at the docks and get to Europe in order to join the war effort. He moves into Steve’s apartment immediately in order to prevent his favorite flight risk from dying of his own stupidity.

Feb. ‘42 A new recruitment office has opened just outside of Brooklyn, which means it’s time for Steve to come up with a new fake name. Jim “Jimmy” MacKenzie has shoved enough newspapers into the heels of his shoes to pass as five foot one and has mastered the art of breathing shallowly enough that the rattling in his lungs could be missed, probably. He ignores the twinge in his joints as he stands straighter than his body can really support and smiles as the doctor.

~

Bucky’s eyes flick over Steve in an automatic pattern. Steve can almost see the checklist in his head. His legs to see if he can walk, Chest to check his breathing, cheeks for fever, knuckles for fighting. He’s not even doing bad today, except for his mood. So he’s a little irritated when Bucky falls in step with him, firmly settled on his good side, and then deliberately slows his pace.

~

Steve meets Howard Stark once before he gets the serum. It’s kind of a whirlwind.

~

The vitabed is cold against his skin, the metal leeching what little warmth he’s able to produce. He hisses through his teeth as rows of needles inject him with a burning cold that sears through his body. He presses his palms flat against the table as it tilts up and the metal encases him, close and dark even with the reinforced window he’s not really tall enough to see out of. Things must have gotten really loud, because even he can hear it with his bad ear. Someone is screaming.

The light fades and he feels weirdly floaty, like something that should be there isn’t anymore. The metal casket opens with a burst of steam and the air of the lab feels cool against his chest. He opens his eyes to a dizzying sight. He squints at the scene in front of him, there’s something different. He blinks again as the world once again fails to coalesce into something that makes sense. He stumbles over the footrest as he tries to stand and Peggy rushes forward to try and catch him. He palm flat on his chest. It’s loud in here, so loud he wonders how they can stand it with two ears. There’s a high pitched humming coming from, somewhere, his left he thinks. And there’s paper shuffling and Peggy is asking him a question, her hair is weird right now but that’s not important, he should answer. It would be rude not to answer. It’s bright in here. How does he feel? He takes a breath, the shallow kind that doesn’t rattle in his lungs and manages to stand under his own power this time. His spine feels wrong, but it doesn’t hurt, there’s none of the tingling numbness he feels occasionally either. 

“Taller.” He says, grasping onto the only really familiar sensation he’s felt since the experiment started. He knows what taller feels like. He’s faked it often enough. He opens his eyes again, not really sure when they closed, and looks up past Peggy to the rest of the room. Something sharp and sick twists in his gut. Without being lost in the buzzing sensation under his skin, he can focus on the faces around him now, the tension in their shoulders, the techs studiously avoiding eye contact. This too, is familiar. They’re disappointed. Some hide it better than others, Peggy’s wrapped up in real concern, her hand still ready to support him. Dr. Erskin’s in guilt, cleaning his glasses compulsively. He watches Howard turn back to his overloaded console with a sneer that shows teeth.

“Oh, uh.” He feels small and exposed for the first time in a while, since he was handpicked to try. Since he finally managed to get as far as basic training. He knows that there’s not much left for him here, that they expected it either to work or to kill him. He runs his fingers through the stretches he uses before drawing to keep them busy.

~ i'm considering having the nazis explode the lab anyway~

He blames the way emotions choke his throat for how long it takes him to notice. He knows his pace is too fast, he knows that his bag is too heavy, he knows that he’s pushing himself past his hard learned limits. He puts his key in the lock to his front door, already resigning himself to days of recovery when he blinks and realizes that he hasn’t had to stop to rest, on benches and garbage cans and strangers' front steps. He knows how this is supposed to go. Resting for longer and longer, measuring his path from block to block in single desperate steps. Instead, his twenty minute walk home had actually taken twenty minutes. His legs don’t even hurt. He takes a deep breath and feels his chest expand smoothly, he can’t taste blood in his mouth. His back doesn’t ache under the weight of his duffle. He’s thinking so hard about that he forgets to use the trick to get his door open, too long away and too much in his brain. It screeches as it opens smoothly under his hand. Too smoothly considering how poorly hung it is, considering that Steve’s almost dislocated his shoulder trying to get it unstuck before. He closes and locks it behind him before dropping his duffle only a few steps into his shoebox apartment. He scrubs one hand harshly over his face and back through his hair before taking the final two steps to drop onto the dusty bed. He’s tired, exhausted really. It’s strange to experience without the all encompassing fatigue that makes his bones ache. He’s asleep in seconds.

He wakes up the next morning to a painless existence and the fact that his door is definitely broken.

How to Make Friends and Influence Wars

Basic training is weird the second time around. Steve thinks that maybe he’s doing it wrong, but it’s an improvement over the first time, when, to everyone except Dr. Erskin and Peggy, he was doing it wrong, and they told him so constantly. He knows he can do what they ask, he knows that in a pinch, he could do it before, if he wanted to taste blood in his mouth and pain in his spine and be a bit feverish and bedridden doing paperwork the next couple of days. This time he focuses on control, on learning how hard ‘as hard as you can’ is for regular people, on learning how to fight with too little weight to offset his brand new strength. Because being able to deadlift a jeep matters a lot less than it should when he still weighs a buck fifteen and his sparring partners can pick him up just as easily. He’s considered putting weights in his shoes.

He gets into fights, at basic. He finds himself oddly off kilter to be on the other side of an uneven fight. He learns more than during actual instruction, mostly because, no matter how accidentally, breaking the bones of his fellow soldiers is a bad way of making it to where there are people who deserve their to have bones broken. He ends up settling on a surprisingly underhanded method of sort of tripping them, either onto the ground or his fist. It puts a kind of limit on the force he exerts.

~

Dear Miss Peggy,

It’s been a couple weeks since I last saw you, hope you’re doing well and keeping the boys on their toes. I’m thrilled to announce that after eight applications I’ve been accepted into the army for the second time. By the time you receive this, Private Reeve Dodgers will have already shipped out to put those bullies back in their place.

Your friend, Steve Rogers.

P.S. Find me, finally fighting fit in the 74th infantry regiment. Hope to receive your letter.

~ Horrors of War™ interlude~

There’s not a lot for him to do, his first couple weeks on the front. His above average assessments can only do so much in the face of his short stature and weedy build. Personally, he thinks that somebody that everyone believes couldn’t possibly be in the army is probably pretty suited to infiltration training. He’s put on ambulance duty, instead. It’s not as exciting as he’d hoped, but he enjoys it. It feels like helping. The girls at the nurse’s station are smart and no nonsense and they usually listen to him when he says he can do more, even if the first time they’re clearly trying to punish him for overpromising. He feels a smile spread across his face the first time he hears Sue call for Dodgers across the tent because she needs him to do heavy lifting. It’s more immediate than anything he could be doing with an M1911. The M1911 still feels heavy on his hip though. He stands in the medical tent and flexes his hands as he watches another ambulance full of stretchers get unloaded. He’s fast and strong and sturdy in a way that the men he helps the girls care for aren’t, and he knows it. It itches in the same way that made him go to the recruitment office eight times.

Sue catches him halfway through lacing up his boots, even though it's the middle of the night. He ties a knot and straightens up. She stops tapping her foot and sighs.

“Dodgers.”

“Ma’am.” Steve doesn’t fidget under her gaze. “Thought you’d be asleep.”

“Medical doesn’t sleep, Dodgers.” He nods, and she uncrosses her arms to grab his elbow. He follows as she drags him back to the main tent. “You want to be a hero? Take your gun and go kill some nazis?”

“Ma’am.” He says again. She laughs, and it’s tired. The gray in her hair catches in the dim lights of the ward. They come to a halt in front of the curtain to the intensive ward.

“Ok, Dodgers, here we go.” Her fingers tighten on his sleeve. They stop in front of a bed that’s sectioned off to protect burns. Steve can hear his breath rasp from where they’re standing at the foot of the bed. He doesn’t know if Sue can. “This is Sargent George Richards. He’s a hero. He saved the rest of his squad when their shelter was firebombed.”

She leads him to another bed. The shape under the blanket is missing pieces. There are dried tear tracks on his cheeks. “This is Captain Dume. He’s a hero. He and his men got cut off behind enemy lines and he brought almost forty of them back with him.”

The last bed in the ward has a man in it that’s even younger and thinner than Steve is. He’s twisted in his bed to keep pressure off his wounds. The pattern reads shrapnel. Most of his face is covered in bandages. Sue lets go of his arm and smooths her skirt. “This is Private Jones. He’s a hero.”

Jones twitches as Steve looks at him, takes a sharp gasp and shudders all over. It’s a nightmare, probably. “Who did he save?” Steve whispers, unwilling to break the silence of the ward. Sue looks at him, looks right through him.

“Nobody.”

Steve takes off his boots and goes back to bed. He lasts another week before he walks out of camp at one in the afternoon. He comes back a week later with eight men and a mostly healed knife wound in his side. He tells everyone but the nurses that he got lost. Everyone but the nurses believe him.

~Horrors interlude ends~

Private Reeve Dodgers, as is becoming true to form, has once again disappeared while on mission. Godspeed.

~

Bucky has lost track of time, the ceiling is fading in and out of focus and he’s pretty sure that he’s started hallucinating since the last scientists left, some, days? hours? ago. For example, He can hear Stevie talking to him, Stevie’s at home in Brooklyn. He shouldn’t be here, it’s dangerous. He opens his mouth to tell the Steve hallucination that, and only manages a hoarse creaking noise. 

His head turns with what feels like monumental effort and he sees a familiar face juxtaposed with a short military haircut and baggy green fatigues. His eyelids flicker and he decides to listen to what Stevie is telling him instead. “Those nazi bastards are too dead to hurt you anymore, Bucky.” His split lip starts bleeding again when he cracks a wobbly smile. Steve always did know what to say. He feels the steel bands bolting him to a table release to the familiar sound of Steve’s pleased “Yes!” 

He leans forward with as much of his strength as he can muster and promptly collapses against his own knees. He blinks back into awareness to the sensation of being carried. Yes, he’s being carried, and Steve is holding him like he doesn’t weigh anything. He knew he was hallucinating. He tunes back into the one sided conversation.

“Stevie,” He says to the ground as it passes by, and coughs. “I think I’ve been drugged.”

“Really?” His hallucination says, apparently not concerned with Bucky calling him by the wrong name. “Why do you say that?” It does sound just like Steve.

“You’re here.”

“Buck, I am here. Joined the Army and everything.”

Bucky nods and feels his whole skull try to rattle apart around him. “Ok, punk.” He says and loses consciousness before his hallucination can reply.

~

Phillips turns to Peggy and says, with a carefully even tone, “I know that man.”

Peggy brushes an imaginary stray hair out of her face and says, tone light. “Do you?”

“Don’t.” He says through gritted teeth, his jaw so tight it had to hurt. “You know. I saw your face, you weren’t surprised.”

~

Bucky’s spoon stops halfway to his mouth, the mess tent gruel threatening to slop back onto his tray. He fixes Steve with a look of deep disappointment. “Reeve Dodgers?”

Steve smiles back, unrepentant, and tugs his tags out from the collar of his shirt. Bucky puts his spoon all the way down and hooks his fingers in the chain to haul Steve halfway over the table and look himself. He groans.

“Reeve Dodgers.” He says again while Steve resettles. He picks the spoon back up and some porridge drips off it into his peas as he points at Steve. “That, is the worst one yet.”

“It worked.” Steve says, and watches Bucky try and fail to keep a straight face as that fact sinks in.

Under direct orders from Captain Reeve Dodgers.

Steve has been awake for several minutes longer than anyone realizes. Eyes closed and breathing steady while he listens to a ballgame for the second time. The room is quiet, outside of that, there’s no street noise that he can hear. The announcer takes a familiar 5 second silence before he continues his chatter. It hits him then, that he can’t smell cigarettes. He opens his eyes to gentle yellow light and rolls his head on the pillow while he tries to take in the room. It’s too clean, is one thing he notices immediately. There’s no life in the place, no ashtrays, nothing hung on the hooks, no forgotten coffee cups or scattered notes. The walls are freshly painted. There’s no scuffs on the floor, or grime built up in the corners of the room. His fingers tighten in his pristine sheets and he turns his head to the door to meet the heels clicking down the hallway.

The nurse comes into the room with a wide smile and too little urgency. Every nurse Steve has ever met either walks with a brisk efficiency that could cow generals or with the exhausted slump of too long hours. It’s the afternoon, or it’s supposed to be, and her uniform is still crisp. His eyes go to the top corner of her uniform pocket, looking for the reinforcement that’s always sewn there to help it handle the extra weight frontline medicine requires. He smiles at her and her too elaborate for daily work hair.

“Hello, Ma’am.” He rasps around a dry throat and smiles, bright and a little confused. “Where,” he trails off with a slow blink. “‘M I stateside?” he asks and he doesn’t bother to smooth out the brooklyn accent. He watches her face through carefully half lidded eyes for the tells he knows will be there and finds them. He already knows she’s lying to him.

The not-nurse hurries forward when he wavers a bit trying to sit up with too stiff muscles. Hes tired, more tired than he’d thought he was while lying in bed pretending to be unconscious, but he knows tired, he’s worked through tired worse than this. She catches his shoulder with manicured fingernails and he nods his thanks as she helps him slowly scoot back to lean against the headboard.

“There we go, Corporal.” She says, and the accent’s subtle in a way most people can't fake and American without a hint of anything else in there like his has, after almost two years in Europe with necessity upgrading his understanding of German from conversational to fluent. It occurs to him for the first time since he woke up from what he’s pretty sure was dying, that he might actually be in the United States.

~

New York is wrong. But it’s a better kind of wrong than the friendly cream colored room he woke up in. It’s real, and it is still New York. He survived six weeks alone in occupied France while only knowing how to say ‘I’m with the French Resistance’ and some extremely specific conversational German. It was the first time he’d ever been accidentally recorded as killed in action and when he learned that when he gets shot he has to get the bullets out immediately. All in all, an interesting trip. He can handle New York in– he squints, too quickly to be noticed, at an abandoned newspaper on a bistro table as he passes by –apparently the new millennium. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his slacks, picks a direction, and walks without urgency. Eventually, he finds a building he recognizes. He tucks his hands into his pockets, turns at the next corner, and walks a brisk couple miles to the library.

He ducks into the stacks the instant he arrives, and tries to remember his dewey decimals enough to not have to ask for help. He manages, though he’s deeply suspicious that some of them have changed since the last time he was in a library. He collects what he expects is an eclectic pile. He collects a few books on current events, an entertainment magazine, and a book on technology that, based on the size of the text and density of its pictures, is probably intended for children. He refuses to be embarrassed, if anyone deserves introductory material it’s him. He also, after his book on the state of the world names too many countries he’s never heard of, gets up and grabs an atlas.

He pretends to startle when the librarian approaches his table because he probably would have been engrossed in his book if he couldn’t hear her conversation with the woman at the circulation desk. His head snaps up and his eyes go to her hands before her face. He lets how unsteady he really feels slip through his wobbly smile in a way he didn’t at the facility he woke up in.

“Hello ma’am?” He looks at the page number for appearances’ sake and closes his children’s encyclopedia of technology. Her expression is briefly calculating before it smooths out and she asks the question that she’s been workshopping with the rest of the staff all morning.

“Hi honey, you finding everything you need?” Her smile is neutral and encouraging and he’d compliment her on it if he hadn’t decided to play into her assumptions. “Us Librarians are here to help.”

He can’t blush on command anymore, so he averts his eyes and lets out a slow deliberate breath through his mouth. “I, thank you.” he says and tugs a little at the collar of his shirt, aware after his jog through the city that it’s obviously old fashioned. “I’m, new here?” He makes it a question to avoid the way the truth is exactly opposite, smoothing out his accent into the broad neutral one he learned during the war. “And I don’t, really,” he trails off and shrugs helplessly at the bank of computers off to his left. He’d thought they were new study corrals, at first and then made an abrupt retreat once he saw it was set up like some kind of telegraph office. According to the encyclopedia, he’s kind of right.

The librarian’s face softens, “That’s exactly what I'm here for. I’m Emma.”

“Abe, uh, Abraham Buckner.” Steve says and starts to gather his books into a pile. Out of the corner of his eye he watches her watch him.

“Biblical.” She says.

“Yeah, it’s-” he starts, and almost says Jewish before he remembers that he’s supposed to be escaping a cult. “Catholic, mostly.” The verbal stumble apparently looks natural enough because the concern is back on Emma’s face as she hands him his last book.

~

Fury stops in the doorway to his own office at the sight of a stranger sitting in his visiting chair, the top of his blond hair and enormous ears peeking out over the back of the seat. The boy turns at his entrance and he catches a glimpse of blue eyes. “Hello sir!” It’s that kid, the one they found in the ice. Corporal whomever from World War II. The one who somehow managed to rabbit out of a secure facility and disappear. “That was a lousy fake 1943, I was at that ball game.”

“You don’t say.” He drawls, deciding to ignore the elephant in the room. “We worked with what we had.” He sits at his desk and focuses on the human museum exhibit that’s been missing the last three weeks.

“So I gather I’ve been, out of action, for a while.” The kid says with half a smile, apparently to break the tension. It doesn’t work, but he almost respects it.

“Longer than anyone expected, I’ve got some questions I’d be pleased if you could answer for me.”

The kid’s face scrunches up with a familiar distaste.

“What’s your name, Corporal?” The kid blinks at him, surprised for apparently the first time since getting defrosted.

“Carter.” He says finally. “Grant Carter. I’m uh,” he pauses and flashes a sheepish smile. “Pleased to meet you?” Well, that would explain some things. He narrows his eye at the kid.

“Any relation to a Margaret Carter?” A question and a test all in one.

“You mean Peggy?” The kid asks, leaning forward for a smile, his hair flopping over his forehead.

~

Agent Grant is pretty sure he pissed off Director Fury somehow. He doesn’t remember doing it, in fact, he’s only spoken to the man a couple of times, but Carter feels like a punishment for something. He showed up out of nowhere, said Fury hired him directly, and has been making his life complicated since. Grant Carter is a bizarre little mystery. This is not an opinion his other coworkers share for the simple reason that they’re not around him that often. Derek has to work with him directly, and thus gets a front row seat to the blue eyed boy wonder’s many idiosyncrasies. It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the kid weren’t genuinely fantastic at his job, and also the at least two other jobs he’s invented in the footnotes and margins of his analysis, or if the two of them didn’t work well together. They’re referred to as a unit now, which bodes poorly for his chances to escape. They’re The Grants. He is, much to his chagrin, Old Grant, which everyone insists is because he was here first, and not because, outside of his jawline, New Grant looks like he should get carded at movie theaters.

The thing is, that there’s something wrong with Carter. None of his pieces fit together. When they’re not assembling reports that, despite being the same length as everyone else’s, contain vastly more information, he’s drawing what looks like comics at his desk and trying to make the oddest small talk that Grant’s ever heard outside of Strike Team Delta debriefs. He should just write Carter off as a liar, considering how often his stories seem to directly contradict each other, but this is SHIELD, and Carter was hired by the Director personally. So he just has to put up with it when he drops really alarming anecdotes into normal conversation. Field agent anecdotes. Things that pint sized twenty somethings who say they had asthma as a kid should not have experienced, let alone survived.

~

Two weeks into his job as Grant Carter, SHIELD Analyst, Steve is in the vents. He doesn’t technically have to be in the vents, but they’re surprisingly clean and he’s finished his assignments early enough to work on his extracurriculars. He’s in the process of investigating a new path to The R&D labs when he hears something. He goes entirely still, before turning his head to angle his good ear toward the sound, not that he has a bad ear anymore, but old habits die hard. There’s definitely a scuffling sound coming from the next junction. He assesses his options. He probably won’t be able to get away without alerting whoever else is in the ductwork with him. But he’s strong, and his size tends to give him the advantage in close quarters like this. So he sits and waits for what is definitely not a raccoon to turn the corner.

A head of shaggy blond hair appears around the corner, purple hearing aids hooked around his ears. The vent under his chin casts thin stripes of light across his face and the underside of his jaw. The tension in Steve’s shoulders relaxes when he recognizes the guy even as he freezes the same way Steve did when he realizes he’s not alone. Specialist Clint Barton turns to stare at Steve. There’s a few moments of what would be silence if the break room they’re situated above had been empty. Instead there’s the subtly surreal background noise of a man humming some 90s pop song people always expect Steve to recognize while he goes through the ritual of fixing himself coffee. It almost breaks the tension. Clint’s as allowed here as Steve is, by which he means not at all, but it’s not a matter of national security, so he smiles and presses a finger to his lips. The thud when Clint’s head hits his forearms and his shoulders start shaking with repressed laughter is probably quiet enough that other people couldn’t even notice it. He’s had to learn that all over again, what’s normal to hear, some funhouse mirror of when he lost his hearing in the first place. He props his chin on his hand and waits for Hawkeye to finish. Eventually he picks his head back up, gives a sloppy wave and shuffles through the intersection towards whatever his destination is. Administration was that way. Steve thinks through the building layout while he waits for Barton’s feet to clear the path. The guy is genuinely enormous. Steve has no idea how he fits his shoulders through here.

~

He meets Hawkeye twice more before they ever talk. Dubiously legal vent travel just doesn’t provide many opportunities for it. The closest they’ve gotten is Steve looking up the modern ASL sign for “criminal” and the two of them almost blowing their cover when he used it to tell him to go ahead. He had somehow failed to consider that they might see each other outside of dusty metal tubes. He puts his lunch tray down on the cafeteria table without looking and continues to make bewildered eye contact with Barton from across the room. Hawkeye changes his path and beelines to his table. Steve blinks for a second before just sitting down and poking at his potato hash. Hawkeye’s tray clatters in front of his eyes and a second later the man himself is sitting cross legged and grinning on the opposite side of the table.

“So,” he says, and gestures with his spork, “Agent or Analyst?” Steve swallows his bite and smiles his ‘I didn’t do anything wrong’ smile. He holds his hand out to shake.

“Agent Reeve Dodgers, at your service.” Barton’s holding his hand in a firm grasp and opening his mouth to say something else when his hand spasms in Steve's grip and he starts wheezing.

“Oh my god, that's amazing.” He says, to Steve’s confusion. “Reeve Dodgers. I’m gonna use that.”

“What?”

“Your name can’t actually be Reeve Dodgers, right?” Hawkeye says, and finally releases his hand. It isn’t, but he has no idea what would make Barton react like that.

“It is when I’m in the vents.” 

Barton makes a noise like a wet shoe on tile and continues to shake with laughter. His fingers curl over his smiling mouth as he rests his elbow on the table and leans into it.

“What’s so funny?”

“You don’t know? You have to know. Captain Reeve Dodgers?”

“I-” Steve starts, It can’t actually be about him, he was never technically promoted past corporal and surely if SHIELD knows who he is they wouldn't let him be Grant Carter instead. “Captain?” 

“He’s not a real guy. It’s this old military thing, ‘Under direct orders from Captain Reeve Dodgers?’”

“From the forties?” he says, somewhat strangled.

“Yeah! So you do know.”

“I’m familiar with the name.” He says helplessly, and takes a bite of his food.

“It’s when a guy goes rogue but he nails it. Crazy odds, excellent results. Save the base stuff.” Barton picks up his sandwich and shredded lettuce falls out of the bottom as he gestures with it. “They don't want to court martial him for going against orders. So they say he got orders, and then everyone pretends to believe him.”

Steve blushes from the tips of his ears down to his neck. He takes another bite.

~

“Hey, Pintsize. How was the espionage?” Steve barely pauses before he wiggles the rest of the way out of the vent. He brushes off his pants before he glances up at the man who caught him. Tony Stark is leaned up against the battered table out of the line of sight from where he crawled out.

“Hey, Stark.” He says, and checks how gray the dust has made his palms before he can track that into his hair. The answer is very, and he grimaces. “Can I get you a coffee?”

“You have to know I’m harder to bribe than that, kiddo.” Stark says with a disparaging snort at the pile of single use pods next to the machine. “I’m a billionaire.” His eyes go back to his tablet though his focus never wavers from Steve.

“Bribe?” Steve glances up from where he’s washing his hands in the tiny kitchenette sink. Through a well ingrained habit, he scrubs briskly and efficiently up to his elbows. “Why would I try to bribe you? It's manners.” He dries his hands and turns to the cupboard for the mugs.

“Is it also manners to break into the R&D labs?”

“No, that’s a hobby.” Steve says and flashes a smile over his shoulder. He sets the machine, then spins and hops onto the counter next to it. Just to be an asshole, he pulls the newest prototype he liberated from the labs out of his pocket and starts fiddling with it.

Stark’s head tilts a full thirty degrees.

“Is, are you confessing right now?” Stark asks and his eyebrows furrow over his sunglasses. “Because usually it’s harder than this.” One of his hands snaps up to gesture at where Steve is perched on the counter with a shaking emphasis on the prototype. “There’s a whole process to this, you know?”

“Oh?” Steve says encouragingly, and reaches out with his free hand to grab his coffee. Stark continues on like he hadn’t heard him.

“You deny it, maybe pretend to get angry. I pull out the security footage, read out part of your personnel file,” He flashes the tablet screen, paused on a view of Steve in the east R&D lab. “You cry or threaten me or something.”

Steve looks at Stark for a moment. “Do you, want me to threaten you?”

“Yes! No. Don’t tell Pepper I said that.” He points sharply at Steve. Steve takes a sip of his coffee.

“Are you threatening me?” He asks, entirely unthreatened. “Because, I don’t think this is SHIELD protocol.” He takes another sip of coffee while Stark vibrates in place.

“I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense. You don't make sense! You put everything back. With notes. Good notes, even. for an analyst.”

Steve nods.

“You don’t steal from me though.” Stark says, accusatorily, angry for the first time the whole conversation. “Is Starktech not good enough for you?” Stark waves the tablet in his off hand with a sharp nonchalance that would make Steve worry if he didn’t know that Starktech tablets aren’t actually as fragile as all that glass makes them look. Steve puts down his coffee and pauses a moment to gather his thoughts.

“You haven’t pissed me off yet.”

“What?” Stark says, snapped out of the anger as quickly as he fell into it, and minimizes the security footage. He taps out a note in some incomprehensible shorthand even as he cocks his head at Steve in question. “I piss everyone off, it’s one of my many charming qualities, ask Fury, ask anybody.”

“Fitzsimmons’ stuff never leaves the lab. If Natasha didn’t exist I think Clint would be in platonic love with them.” He juggles the prototype sub sonic grenade between his hands. His ankles bounce lightly off the cabinet doors.

“I steal from Granger the most because he's an asshole who does shit work with unintuitive design.” Stark nods, sharply, and opens his mouth for what would almost certainly be a pretty amusing rant about Granger’s many various deficiencies. Steve smiles at him before continuing. He likes this Stark far more than Howard.

“Nothing makes him madder than a polite little post it note on the gizmo he’s just started the loss paperwork on. Admin thinks he’s embezzling.”

Stark starts to laugh like it’s been surprised out of him.

“So Granger deserves it, and your dad was a rat bastard. But I don’t know you, Tony.” He says, and leans back against the wall. “You seem nice.”

“Me? Nice?” Stark seems to be stuck somewhere between theatrically offended and genuinely bewildered. Steve shrugs.

“Yeah, you know the names of the whole R&D department and design almost all of the good armor and recon tech.” Something complicated and vulnerable flashes across Stark’s face for a moment. Before being replaced with a practiced smirk that would look more at home on Howard’s face.

“You’re also,” Steve starts, and leans forward into the edge of Stark’s space, dropping his voice into a conspiratorial tone, “not going to snitch.”

“You’re a weird kid, Carter.”

“You’re probably the only person in existence to sneak expensive equipment into a lab. We’re both weird.” He hops off the counter to go back to his job and Stark’s face snaps back to normal.

“Hold it, pipsqueak. I hacked SHIELD for this.” He says, and goes back to his tablet. “I mean, it’s not hard but-” he cuts himself off and flicks his wrist as if to dismiss something that's not actually there. “No, what I want to know is why your recruitment file is classified. Your birthdate is sealed, which I've literally never seen, by the way, and you’re talking like you knew my dad.”

“I did know your dad.” Steve says, because it's true. “He was an asshole.”

“You look like you escaped a daycare. You can’t be older than 30.”

“Yeah, and I knew your dad.” Stark looks like he’s winding up to scream, then he takes a breath that hisses through his teeth.

“He died in 1991.” He says, flat and accusing.

“I wasn’t there for that part.” Steve takes another sip of coffee.

~

Pepper’s heels clack on the tile before coming to an abrupt halt in front of Steve and, by extension, Tony. On account of the fact that Steve is all but carrying him.

“Hiya Pep!” Tony says cheerily even as he continues to flop bonelessly over Steve’s head and shoulders. Tony continuing to take shameless advantage of being six inches taller than him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Potts. I’m Grant Carter.” Steve says, as polite as he can manage with Tony’s elbow mussing his hair into his eyes.

Pepper’s eyes snap to him and narrow in calculation. “Tony.” She says, a very particular note in her voice, one that Tony, at least, seems to recognize immediately, if the way his head snaps up is any indication.

“No!” The arm on top of Steve’s head repositions into an incredulous point. “No, Pep, he isn’t.” Pepper gestures at the two of them with the stack of paperwork in her hands and Tony makes a noise in his throat. “I know what you’re thinking, and frankly I’m appalled. He’s a consultant. I stole him.” Tony smiles. From what Steve can tell at this angle it’s one of his better ones, if a bit manic. “As if I would stoop so low-” and there’s the short joke, Steve shrugs his shoulders and Tony’s free arm swings wildly as he tips off balance before Steve rights him.

“I’d apologize for him, ma’am. But I think you might know him better than me.” Pepper’s eyes focus back on Steve and she smiles. 

“Hello, Mr. Carter, what’d you do to get saddled with this idiot?” There’s a whine from Tony. Both of them ignore it.

“Stole from him.” Steve smiles broadly. 

“He disrupted his inner ear all on his own”

~

Steve’s deskmate is ignoring him again, he’d thought they were getting along. He refills his water bottle at the station in the office hallway and tries to think of anything he’s done that would warrant it. It’s not a work issue, he’s pretty sure, because all of their evaluations have been almost glowing. He gets his part of the work done quickly, he doesn’t make that much noise when he’s in their shared office working on his other job, and he tries to get the dust off when he gets out of the vents. He’s jarred from the thought when Rosa tries to draw him into a conversation about a television show he’s never heard of. He extricates himself in his favorite way, by telling the absolute truth with a smile.

“You know me, Rosa. I’m a 90 year old man.” She laughs and waves him off. He flips his water bottle in his hand with a showy toss and turns back to his office. Dirch is standing in his direct path and glaring. Steve winces.

“Hey Derek,” Rosa calls, “Always good to see The Grants together.” His attention snaps to her for a moment and an insincere, closed mouthed smile before returning to Steve.

~

“Ok, I don’t get it.” Clint says conversationally from where he’s hung himself upside down from a support beam in the ceiling.

“Get what?” Steve simulsigns along with his words from his place on the other side of the hanger.

“You were in World War 2, Dodge. Why do you ‘mostly’ know Canadian French?” Clint makes air quotes before he nocks his next arrow. He draws and fires all in one motion, and it strikes the bullseye next to Steve’s head.

Steve considers how to answer the question, then considers whether he knows enough ASL to actually say his answer. Instead he says, “You’re from Iowa,” He signs ‘Corn’ instead of just finger spelling the name. “Why do you speak Russian?” He catches Clint’s eye and makes a point to look genuinely curious. Clint laughs loud enough for it to echo and fires another arrow at his head.

[reinemichele]

I'm in a Lot of pain, & I'm allergic to some things my neighbors use (that has seeped into the carpet/furniture -> it seeps into my hair) & it always makes me really sick (IE dizziness, fever, intense brain fog, headache/migraine, nausea, congestion, wheezing & difficulty breathing, hives, itching/burning eyes and throat, contact dermatitis -> anything I touch can cause hives including my clothes or hair, etc etc etc...) and it basically requires 1-2 showers a day and shampooing my hair 2-3 times per shower to get it out of my hair so I can have an hour or two of thinking clearly and breathing without difficulty... But showering multiple times per day for 4-5 days takes a lot of energy, which is already eaten up by my histamines and immune system working overtime + me trying to function through that laundry list of symptoms

I've tried talking to my neighbors about this multiple times, but... they either just don't understand, or they don't believe me. Most people don't believe me when I say what I'm allergic to, which is why I'm being vague here. I've tried to tell them to find a new petsitter, but I'm afraid they'd just take their dog to a kennel... He's around 10 or 11 now, and I just don't want that for him :( So when they text me asking if I can petsit a week before they leave [and don't have much time to find a new petsitter], I say yes

Anyway, because of the pain I'm in and finding out it's scoliosis, my mom insisted that I don't spend more than 1 hour at a time at our neighbors' house, and just go and check on them periodically. I feel bad doing that, but... my neighbors are only gone for 3 days this time, so it's not like I'm leaving them to be lonely for an entire week.

Anyway 2.0 . ALL of this to say lol that even tho I've only been over at my neighbors for 1 hour at a time and spending most of the day here, my cats are making it known that they don't like me being gone and miss me 😭 Ali is using her "sad wet pathetic widdle baby" meow, which she usually reserves for when I close the bathroom door, Kacey meows sadly when I go near the front door, and Bailey spent like an entire 5 minutes purring, drooling (happily), and insistently rubbing his cheek (scent glands) all over my hand this morning. I was like, "Aw, you don't want me to smell like anyone but you."

It's very sweet, even tho like I said I've spent most of the time here and only 45 minutes to an hour at my neighbors' before coming back home for 3-5 hours. It makes me sad that people still insist that cats are unloving/indifferent to humans. Every cat out there has the potential to be this openly affectionate, they just need to be shown that humans are trustworthy. And there's other forms of affection from cats, like slow blinking and just sitting in the same room with you, silently enjoying your company. You just need to be patient and meet them halfway, when it comes to reading body language and initiating affection first 💞