#i think i have at least another month before the machines get back and then ill have at least 3 or 4 projects to run samples for

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[appocalipse]

that guy ⊹ steve harrington

summary: After he's been to yet another failed date with yet another random pretty girl, Steve Harrington, your best friend, stops by at the diner your family owns for a late-night chat, same as he'd done a thousand times before. Steve is totally unaware of how much he's hurting you with his endless parade of dates, because after all — the two of you are only friends and nothing more, right? It's not like you have any secret feelings for him… | 2.6k words

── ࣪˖ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ──

The moment Steve steps through the glass doors of the diner, you wonder, for about the millionth time that month alone, what is it that you've done so wrong to deserve this kind of punishment.

It's Friday night, and on Friday nights, Steve Harrington goes on dates. It's just like clockwork, really: he meets a pretty girl, thinks she's the one, takes her out on a date, realizes quickly enough that she isn't quite what he was looking for, then comes here after having dropped her back home to sulk with you, in the diner that your family runs, still clad in the outfit he'd chosen especially for his failed date.

To be honest, he never looks sad, per se — more like disappointed. Frustrated, maybe.

You watch as he weaves around tables occupied by laughing friends, past booths filled with couples sharing desserts, then slides into a seat in front of you at the bar. Steve sits down with an exhausted sigh, ruffling up his hair before shooting you a tired smile.

"Hi."

You don't look up from where you're polishing the counter. "Bad date again?"

"Not even close. She talked about horses non-stop."

A quiet laugh slips past your lips despite yourself, and finally, you tear your gaze off the dark wooden surface of the counter to look up at him; he's got this pleased little smile on his face, the corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly in the way they always do whenever he succeeds at making you laugh, even if just a little.

How are you supposed to keep acting like nothing's wrong when he looks at you like that?

You clear your throat awkwardly and make yourself busy stacking clean glasses next to the coffee machine.

"So...not the one, I take it?"

Steve leans forward against the counter and props his head up with his hand, sighing deeply.

"I'm starting to think she won't ever show up," he says quietly, running his other hand through his hair. You chance another glance at him and note how genuinely worried he looks. It breaks your heart almost as much as it annoys you. "What is it that's wrong with me, huh? I just don't get it."

"Nothing is wrong with you."

"You don't need to be nice to me. We've been friends since forever, remember?"

The word 'friends' makes you wince a little bit inside, but you hide the reaction behind a neutral frown. "Do you think there's something wrong with me? Because I haven't found the one yet either, you know."

Steve's expression softens as he looks at you, and once again you feel that horrible twinge in your stomach that you wish would just stop already.

"It's different. I mean—you're not actively trying to find someone." He reaches out to pull one of the half-melted mints out from the glass bowl on the counter and pops it into his mouth with a shrug. "I go out looking for her and she just doesn't come. If she even exists, that is."

"She does."

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I wouldn't hold my breath. God, why am I such an idiot, y'know?" Steve slumps over the counter with a groan, burying his face into his crossed arms. "My love life is a trainwreck."

"At least you have one."

He glances up at you curiously and lifts an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Forget it. Do you want some pie?"

You're not about to tell him what you've only admitted to yourself mere months ago — that you're actually hopelessly, madly, stupidly in love with him, and that you have been ever since the two of you were just dumb kids racing around your parents' diner.

What makes it even worse is that you had no idea your feelings went that deep until Steve started going on these dates of his again. Before then, everything was normal — you met up every weekend and binged on candy, watched bad movies on your couch, drove around town together blasting The Clash on his BMW's speakers...it was good.

Until it wasn't.

"Wait, c'mon, you can't just leave me hanging like that," Steve presses. He shifts a little on his stool to better face you, then gestures at you with his hands. "You've clearly got something you wanna say, so, like—hit me. Lay it on me."

"Nothing. I'm just saying...at least you're trying, you know," you say carefully, measuring each word before speaking them. "And at least you're the one doing the rejecting. Could be worse."

Steve's eyebrows rise high up on his forehead and he looks at you incredulously. "Whoa, wait—are you trying to tell me you've been rejected?"

You busy yourself by filling two tall glasses with soda, then slide one to his side of the counter and keep the other for yourself. "Uh...kind of, yeah. But it's fine."

"But who the hell would even do that?" he blurts out. There's anger in his voice all of a sudden, a defensive fire in his eyes that makes you feel as if someone has punched you in the gut. "To you? You're like, the nicest person on the planet, and super pretty to boot. That's just—that's crazy!"

Your heart gives a violent little jump in your chest. He thinks you're pretty. Steve Harrington thinks you're pretty.

Pretty as a friend, you correct yourself immediately, and sigh as you sip your drink. Of course, it's nothing more than that — just meaningless words spoken in a moment of unthinking kindness.

"Seriously, who?" he presses on. "Give me a name. I'll fight him."

"You mean like you fought Jonathan Byers?" you smile behind your glass, looking at him from over its rim.

Steve looks embarrassed at the memory and drops his gaze for a second or two before meeting your eyes again with a playful little smile of his own. "Different situation, okay, but that's not the point. So? Who's the guy?"

"You...don't know him," you hedge.

"It's Hawkins. I know the stray cats here by name."

"Fine, well, even if you did know him, it doesn't matter. He didn't reject me, exactly...not really."

Steve frowns a little. "Okay, you're gonna have to start making sense now. This is hurting my head."

The funny thing is, he actually looks confused, as if he can't possibly fathom the idea of someone rejecting you. It's sweet, really — way too sweet for your liking, especially when you know fully well he doesn't see you in the way you'd want him to.

You lower your gaze to avoid his and instead focus on drawing random shapes on the counter with your index finger, where tiny droplets of condensation from your glass have pooled up on the dark wood. "I mean, I never really told him how I felt. Not directly. It just…never happened."

"Oh. Well, then how do you even know if he feels the same way?" he asks you, looking rather doubtful.

You steal another glance at him and almost regret it instantly. His eyes are trained on your face, patient and attentive like you're the only thing worth watching in the world. It makes you feel horribly small and selfish and guilty, because after all, what right do you have to want him when he so clearly wants someone else?

You feel like you could cry. You might, if you don't distract yourself with something fast enough.

"I just know. Do you want some pie? I'll go get you some pie."

Without waiting for a response, you rush off to the kitchen even though there's plenty of pies sitting on the display counter at the bar, and you make a beeline straight for the back exit.

The alley behind the diner is blissfully empty as usual, just a lonely dumpster and a handful of sad-looking shrubs and weeds peeking out from under the concrete.

No, you aren't going to cry.

This is stupid.

You press your back against the rough brick wall of the diner and breathe in deep the warm night air, then exhale slowly as you count to ten in your head.

When the door opens behind you and the diner's familiar chatter and clatter of cutlery spill into the alley, you wince, mentally cursing yourself for being so goddamn weak. You should have known better.

You don't have to look up to know that it's him.

"Are you hiding from me?" Steve's voice comes, quiet and curious and maybe just a little bit hurt, even.

"I got...suddenly nauseous," you explain weakly, still refusing to look up and meet his eyes.

There's a long stretch of silence, and you feel Steve move closer to you until he's leaning against the wall by your side. You finally look up and find him smiling, this gentle, amused little thing that makes your traitorous heart skip a beat.

"You look just fine to me."

You stare up at the sky, head against the wall. "I thought I was gonna throw up."

He's still watching you, you can tell; you're keenly aware of his eyes on you, so much so that your skin prickles at the attention. "No, you didn't."

"No, I didn't," you admit with a sigh, and turn your head to finally look at him. He's got this little half-smile on his lips, the very same one you fell for years ago, and you curse yourself silently for never learning how to let him go. Really let him go.

"Hey. Listen. You don't have to tell me, okay?" Steve says gently, pushing himself off the wall to step closer to you. He brings his hand up to your face and tucks a loose lock of hair behind your ear, letting his fingertips linger on the edge of your jaw for the briefest of moments, just long enough for you to wonder whether he knows what he's doing to you.

You don't dare to move. You're afraid of breaking whatever spell has seemingly come over him.

"I should've never asked. That was selfish."

"Forget it," you say.

He's standing close now, close enough that you have to tilt your chin up to be able to look up at him properly. There's a strange kind of tension in his eyes, something dark and unsure and tentative, and his gaze darts down to your lips just the slightest bit.

You're fairly sure you're just seeing what you want to see, your foolish heart playing tricks on you. But you panic nonetheless, feeling a sudden, irrational fear that if he moves any closer, he'll realize the truth — that you're a liar and a coward, that you've been harboring these feelings of yours for him for years.

"I should—I should go. Back inside," you mutter, pointing vaguely at the door with your thumb. "In there."

"Sure, yeah. Okay. In there," he echoes, not making a single move to leave. "Not out here."

"Yup. Exactly. In there."

"So you said."

"Yep."

The wall of the diner is digging into your spine uncomfortably, and your mouth is dry, and your knees feel weak, and your stomach is doing somersaults, and the longer he stares at you with those eyes of his the more you feel like you're burning from the inside out and—

He's not moving. All he does is look at you, really look at you, as if it's the first time he's really looked, as if he's seeing something that wasn't there before.

"Okay, so—"

You try to push past him towards the door, but Steve grabs your arm, making you stop dead in your tracks. He lets go as soon as you look up at him, lifting his hand in front of him in an apologetic gesture.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," he says. He swallows hard and rubs his palm on the front of his jeans, a nervous little habit you think he's always had. He runs his hand through his hair, mussing up the carefully gelled strands, and it's probably the first time you've ever seen him look so flustered.

He laughs nervously and gestures at the ground with his hands as he speaks. "Look, this is just—this is just crazy, okay, but I think I, uh, maybe sort of realized something."

You blink at him, not quite certain you're hearing him correctly.

"Realized what?" you ask, the words barely more than a whisper.

Steve clears his throat and nods at you, seemingly pleased that you've finally spoken. "Yeah, well, this is stupid, but you know how you're always telling me to listen to my gut?"

"You're not making a whole lot of sense right now, Steve."

"Just bear with me for a sec, okay? This is like, totally new to me." He holds his palms up, and you notice his hands are shaking a little. "I just need a minute, alright?"

He breathes in deep and exhales slowly, then shoots you an apologetic look.

"Sorry, this is just...really weird," he confesses. "Weirdly real."

"You're freaking me out," you tell him, but Steve only smiles at you.

"Maybe I should just show you. Because, I mean, what if I'm wrong? That'd be terrible, obviously."

"Steve."

"Yeah, I know, but hear me out, okay?" he says quickly, and takes another step closer. You stand your ground this time, if only because you don't trust yourself to actually move without your legs giving out. "So, look. Here's the thing. You're, like—you're one of the most important people in my life. You've been there for me when nobody else was, and I...you mean a lot to me."

"Steve—"

"Shut up, you're ruining the moment."

He takes another step forward until he's crowding you against the wall, hand coming to rest next to your head on the brick. He's close, so close that you can smell the scent of his cologne and shampoo and laundry detergent, and if you were to lean in even the slightest bit, your faces would bump.

Steve is a little out of breath, his lips parted ever so slightly. And he's still looking at you with that strange, searching expression of his.

"Is this okay?" he whispers.

"I don't—what?"

Your voice catches in your throat. There's no room for doubt in his eyes now, not even the tiniest, slightest sliver of uncertainty left.

"This," Steve murmurs.

He tilts his head to the side a little and leans in until you're sure your noses are touching, and you feel your eyes slip closed in anticipation.

"Is this okay?" he repeats in a whisper. "Please tell me I'm not crazy."

"I think I am."

His lips brush yours. It feels like an accident, doesn't last long enough to be anything but a dream. You can still taste the faint, sweet trace of sugar and mint on your tongue when he pulls away, though.

"Just to be clear," Steve whispers, his fingers brushing lightly over the skin of your neck, tracing invisible lines that make you shiver, "am I the guy from earlier? The one you like?"

You don't have it in you to deny it anymore.

"Yes. It's you."

A wide grin breaks out across his face, and suddenly he's everywhere; he cups your face in his hands, pressing eager, fervent kisses along the line of your jaw, trailing hot and open-mouthed down the side of your neck.

You giggle helplessly, grabbing Steve by his collar to pull him away from you and up to your eye level. He's breathing just as heavily as you are, his hair messy and his eyes bright.

"How do you do this to me, huh?" he pants, kissing your forehead, the tip of your nose, the corner of your mouth. "You just—you just completely knock me out."

A pleasant little thrill rushes up your spine at that.

"Oh yeah?"

"Completely."

You kiss him this time.

[kpopnstarwars]

Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?: Feyd-Rautha x Reader

A/N: ty taylor swift i attempted to base this fic on your song but then i divulged as normal

tw: 18+, smut, p in v, inkpie, oral (both recieving), sub feyd by which i mean feyd is DOMMED, spit, degradation + praise, one spank kinda, swearing, lil bit of crying, mention of evil baron activities so sa + pedophilia, tiny mention of cheating but none actually happens, lmk if there's anything else bc lbr there probably is i just forgot it

wc: 3.9k

Feyd-Rautha has gravely underestimated you.

It is true that you are not strong in terms of Harkonnen definitions, but you expected a man destined to father the Kwisatz Haderach to be able to see past that. What was that the Bene Gesserit were saying about superior genetics? You don’t see even a glimpse of that in his frosty gaze when he regards you - he looks at you as if you’re a delicate vase that may shatter in the lightest of breezes. He thinks he needs to fear breaking you.

He misses how you miss nothing.

You are not Bene Gesserit; you are merely one of their pawns, a genetic machination produced from centuries of manipulations and deceptions, but you can read a man better than the majority of their number.

The seething jealousy in the clenching off Glossu Rabban’s fists is like a monster sinking its venom laced fangs into his heart: starkly evident to you - as evident as the barely repressed, parasitic fear of inadequacy that lurks like a second beast within the first. Just the same, the gazes the Baron sends your husband do not escape you. Nor does the caged, wild look that washes over him whenever you leave his uncle’s chambers: the look of a man who inside is still a boy, relief washing over him that he has left unscathed and untouched for another time.

Even more nuanced than that, you see the vulnerability within Feyd-Rautha. He craves to be loved, the way he should have been as a child, when instead he was desired; all this at an age where the most he should have been doing was playing with carved wooden toys at his parent’s feet.

He believes no one can see the last, soft sliver of his heart that he’s fought to preserve, that wants nothing but to have someone to be vulnerable with, just because he’s buried it so deep inside of him that sometimes even he doesn’t think it’s there any more.

But you see it.

You see beneath it too, to a place that he himself is not fully aware of. A place where he hates who he has become - a wild, savage creature, bleeding from wounds that do not seem to close up, slipping in its own blood when no one can see.

It’s from here, from this place, that the urge to preserve you somehow originates. He thinks you are a flower whose petals will easily be crushed in his heavy, calloused hands, and he is wrong; in a strange way it endears you to him, that he believes that he is too rough to hold you. You do not think it is quite love - not yet, at least, it is only the third month of your marriage - but when you see him fighting to not be the beast that he is before you in an effort to spare you, something that is not just pity stirs in your heart.

You can hear him now, pacing, cursing under his breath in the antechambers. Sometimes he sleeps there, on the narrow sofa, and you’ve come to realise it is those nights when he wants you most. Aside from your wedding night, he has made no other attempts to produce an heir, and you find his restraint valiant, but stupid.

He could try as hard as he liked; he would not get anywhere close to breaking you.

Rising from your seat on the small, ornate stool at the vanity, you push open the door to the antechamber and take a step into the room. Feyd pauses his pacing with his back to you, and you can see the tension in his shoulders and the rigid way he holds his body before he turns around to face you. His pupils are dilated, his eyes dark, and you watch him regard you with something too untethered to be restraint.

‘Am I keeping you awake, wife?’

You shake your head. ‘I had not retired yet.’

You know he expects you to explain why you’ve interrupted him, but you remain quiet - your silence is as much of a tool as your words. He doesn’t speak either, but his eyes tell you enough; they do not leave your frame, hungry, torrid, and his fingers twitch as if they ache to slip you out of the simple shift you wear to sleep and touch you everywhere, to explore the curves and dips of your body.

Tilting your head, you smirk. ‘If you wish to give me your heirs, husband, I would advise another method that differs from staring one into me.’

‘You don’t know what I want,’ he growls, but his face tells other tales.

Stepping forward, you reach out to him but he backs away. Still, the sheer thirst in his eyes sears away at you, even as his actions fight against it, his fingers closing on the doorknob. His hands are steady, his shoulders too, but the tightness in his muscles betrays him as always. Usually, you’d let him go now, but tonight you wish to see how far he will let you push him before he pushes back, so you snare his forearm in your fingers, tugging at him as he turns the knob.

He doesn’t look at you. ‘Don’t test me.’

You smile, cloyingly so. ‘Why not?’

Lightly, you trace your fingers down his chest, straightening the fabric of his black shirt while you gaze thoughtfully up at him through your lashes, lips curving upwards at the indecision in his eyes. He fights it, wrestles with the burning need, but in the end, he prevails, transforming it into a streak of anger that colours his voice as he tears himself from your grasp, recoiling as if your touch ignites pain within him - and maybe it is pain, that he wants you so but fears to indulge himself.

‘Get away from me.’

Feyd-Rautha does not give you a second to do so, because he is the one haring down the dimly lit corridor, his jaw tight, nails digging into his palms. Truthfully, you have never seen him move that fast, not even in the arena, and it almost makes you laugh - the great na-Baron fleeing from his wife and his own lecherous thoughts.

Maybe you did not win this round of tug of war, but he has asked something of you - to get away from him. Over the next few weeks, you follow this to the letter, avoiding him like the plague; you do not interrupt his pacing in the antechambers, nor do you haunt the bedroom like you normally do, asking him questions that he cannot answer. Feyd-Rautha is sensitive to change and you know he will seek the reason for it.

There is a barely cloaked intensity in his eyes when he finally corners you, and under it, you detect recognition: he sees that you are not who he thought you were, and he sees that you are not so different from him - always observing, always planning, and so, mind shatteringly hungry.

You were just dropping by the bed chambers to gather some of your clothes. The night before, you’d relocated yourself to one of the guest bedrooms - you could sense Feyd’s resolve cracking, and you knew that this would break it for certain: coming into his chambers to find them empty, wifeless, your side of the bed damningly cold. Jealousy is clear in his eyes as he backs you against the vanity, filling you with a rising sense of triumph.

‘What has caused this change in your behaviour, wife?’

You raise a brow, faking confusion. ‘What change? I would argue it is your behaviour that has changed, Feyd, you who can barely stand to be in a room alone with me.’

He snarls. ‘Who were you with last night?’

‘I thought you wanted me to get away from you,’ you reply, keeping up your pretence a little longer. ‘I slept in the guest quarters. You do not reciprocate any of my advances.’

‘Advances?’ He echoes, incredulous. ‘You taunt me, wife. It’s like you want me to break you.’

Cocking your head, you regard him coolly for a moment, letting some of the sharpness of your unmasked gaze leak through, letting him see the calculation in your eyes - you see the wariness it incites in him as he realises again that you are not who he thinks you are. Wordless, you lean in close to him, bringing your face to his, hovering there.

And then you let your arm drop and make a swipe for the knife at his belt.

Fast as a viper, he catches your wrist in your fingers, but you smile, challenge in your eyes as you bring his second blade to his neck. You’d slipped it out while he was distracted with your other hand, and he blinks at the cold press of it to his skin.

‘That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ You murmur. ‘You’re not scared of me, you’re scared of breaking me. Who’s afraid of little old me, huh? No one is, Feyd.’

‘They should be,’ he whispers, and when you meet his gaze, it sets you alight.

‘Indeed,’ you reply softly, letting your lower lip brush his.

As he kisses you, his hands seizing your face and locking you to him, you hook his knife’s blade in the collar of his shirt and drag it down, slicing the fabric until it flutters to the floor. Pulling away, you take him in - the moonlight planes of his sculpted chest, the broadness of his shoulders, his roiling, keen gaze. This man whets your appetite in the darkest kinds of ways: you cannot wait to ruin him.

Absently, you trace the outline of the tent in his pants with the tip of the knife blade. A breathy noise leaves him, and he freezes as if he can feel the cold kiss of the metal against his skin; you laugh, delighted that he is so mouldable in your hands.

‘Get on your knees,’ you command, seating yourself on the end of the bed.

It’s captivating, his lack of hesitation as he follows your orders. He sits back on his heels, looking up at you, and you can tell that he’s letting you see him like this, you can tell that if he didn’t want you to have him like this, you wouldn’t, but still, you reach out, gently skimming his shoulder with your fingertips.

‘All you have to do is say, and I will stop,’ you say.

He dips his chin. ‘I do not think I’ll have to.’

You smirk, something savage and powerful and thrillingly depraved rearing its head inside you, awakened by the sight of the na-Baron kneeling at your feet. That will be his last coherent sentence tonight.

Pausing, making him wait, you lean down a little, inspecting his features, the ardour in his eyes. He looks at you as if you hold the universe in your hands, as if you hung the stars in his sky, as if you are a  goddess, and he wants nothing but to worship you until he is expended.

You spit on him.

It lands on his cheek, and his eyes widen a fraction. A shudder wracks his body, and he simply stares up at you, breathing heavy, before slowly, his lips part, and he sticks out his tongue, his request evident. You grab his jaw, squeezing so that he opens up wider, and spit in his mouth - the low groan that leaves him as he swallows is fucking delectable.

His cock twitches in his pants when you pick up the knife. Tracing the blade over the shell of his ear, over his cheekbone and over his lips, you marvel at the way he holds still, awaiting what you’ll inflict on him next like a good little toy.

When the metal reaches his jaw, you nick the skin, drinking up his sharp intake of breath and the clench of his fists as the blood trickles down the column of his throat; you catch the droplet of crimson on your tongue, licking a careful stripe up his neck, grinning when you catch his lips in a kiss and he trembles at the taste of his own blood. Feyd is greedy, his tongue brushing against yours as he leans up into your touch, the way his mouth works against yours hot, fervent, pleading.

Planting a palm to his sternum, you push him back, chuckling when he strains to follow you, eyes glazed, lips swollen. You spot a streak of red and swipe your thumb over his lower lip, wiping it off before standing.

‘Get up, strip, and get on the bed,’ you bid him, pulling your own shift over your head.

Feyd scrambles to follow your orders, yanking his pants down, and you take your time to admire his muscle sheathed body; strength ripples beneath his skin, a sweet dichotomy to his weeping cock, rock hard and flushed rosy. He halts his movements, as if he’s pinned down by your appraising gaze.

‘For whom do you wait, husband?’

As he turns to get onto the bed, he’s a little too slow and you swat at his ass. A choked sound leaves him, and you laugh at the way his knees almost buckle. Feyd’s ears run red when he lies down on the mattress, and you straddle his thighs, sneering at the way he twists his fingers in the sheets, squirming beneath you.

‘Pathetic.’

You don’t give him time to respond, instead wrapping your fingers around his cock and pumping up and down fast, and he gasps at your rough touch, his back arching and his hands coming up to touch you - you wave them off you, meeting his eyes.

‘No touching,’ you intone, the hint of warning in your voice enough to render him obedient.

This time, you take his cock head in your mouth. He’s so fucking sensitive, reacting as if the sweep of your thumb down the underside of him and the slide of your tongue over him is mind shattering; it doesn’t take you long to get him teetering at the edge of his orgasm, just for you to pull away at the last moment.

His thigh jolts, weak pleas of your name leaving his lips, gripping the sheets so hard you wonder if they’ll rip. Again, you take him in your mouth, deeper, one hand dipping to play with his balls; you revel in the wretched sound that he makes when you hollow your cheeks around him, your teeth grazing up his length. You toy with him until you think he’s moments from breaking, until he’s writhing upon the sheets, face contorted in pleasure loaded with sweet, sweet agony.

‘Please let me come,’ he whimpers, voice cracking, the look in his eyes crazed, pitiful. ‘Please.’

You decide to give it to him, jerking him brutally fast until he comes; it hits him like a tidal wave - his eyes roll back in his skull, his body tensing, rigid and impossibly taut before he goes boneless, a broken cry of your name on his lips as he spills all over his stomach. A single, ecstatic tear slides down his cheek as his orgasm seizes him, snatching him up and shaking him like a ragdoll.

Lingering at his side, you wait until he’s come down from his high before getting up to retrieve a damp cloth from the bathroom, perching on the bed beside him and cleaning up his come, pressing kisses to the surprisingly soft skin of his hips. One wavering hand comes to rest in your hair, and you glance up at him, biting back a smug grin at the dazed look in his eyes.

‘Feeling okay?’

He nods.

‘Words,’ you chide.

‘Y - yes, na-Baroness. Better than okay.’

You raise a brow at that. You did not specify for him to call  you anything, so this is all his doing; he fidgets beneath your gaze, and you note that he’s growing hard again, his cock stiffening between his thighs.

‘Can I…’ He begins, but trails off, thinking better of it.

‘No, little na-Baron,’ you reply coyly. ‘Tell me what you desire.’

His eyes scorch you with their yearning. ‘I want to taste you, na-Baroness.’

You smile. ‘As you wish.’

You lean back against the pillows, letting your legs fall open for him. It’s somewhat comical, the way his eyes widen as he sees your slick cunt, and he swallows harshly - you can almost sense his mouth watering. Carefully, reverently, almost, he nudges your knees over his wide shoulders, bringing his face close to your pussy, admiring you. It’s as if he’s testing himself, waiting to see how long it takes for him to break and taste you.

Lurching forward, Feyd groans, low and deep and right against your clit when he laps at your heat, quickly becoming insatiable as his tongue moves masterfully at the apex of your legs, laving over your clit and curving in and out of you. Bolts of pleasure spear through your body, fierce like crackling lightning at the eye of a storm - he is everything to you in this moment. He shatters you, breaking you and mending you anew.

As he brings you closer, your body begins to shake and your legs close around his head; you suffocate him with your thighs, and you can tell he lives for it from the way he fervently grips your ass in his large hands, kneading the flesh and moaning into your pussy.

Something pulls tight within you, deliciously so, and you cry his name in warning, fingers curling around the base of his neck to hold him still as your hips buck, rutting into his face. Dimly, you can see him grinding into the mattress as you fuck yourself on his tongue - the chafe of his nose against your clit makes you shatter, and you fall apart for him with a ragged cry, nails digging into his shoulders.

You’re still coming down from it when Feyd begins to lap at you again, dutifully cleaning you up, and you twitch with the slight overstimulation, hooking a finger under his chin to see his eyes: his gaze is loaded with the heat of a thousand suns, and yet somehow it is also bleary, drunk. A laugh escapes you, and you tug at his hand, encouraging him to lie beside you.

‘Good boy,’ you hum as he nuzzles into your touch. You can feel him achingly hard against your thigh, and you let yourself catch your breath before reaching down and wrapping your fingers around his cock. ‘Want to fuck me now, hm?’

He nods avidly. ‘Yes, na-Baroness.’

All it takes is for you to half spread your legs before he’s climbing eagerly between them, hesitating before looking up at you for permission. You dip your chin, smirking, and then he’s sinking into you, burying himself inside you.

Voice cracking, Feyd chokes out your name, and he shudders, gasping at the velvet vice of your cunt as it clenches, bearing down on him. Sharply, you rock your hips up to meet his, and this time, a soft, keening whine leaves him, and he squeezes his eyes shut, biting down hard on his lower lip.

He can barely keep himself from spilling inside you.

‘You can barely hold it, can’t you, my little na-Baron?’

His words come out jumbled, his speech scrambled, mind ground to a standstill by the all consuming heat of your cunt; he babbles out protests, saying that he can, desperate to prove he can, stammering that he wants to make you feel good.

Cruelly, you buck your hips up against his again, and a pained sound looses from his chest, but he thrusts to meet you, hips lurching forward, his arms almost buckling either side of your head. Panting, he pulls out slowly before slamming back in, unable to stifle the whimper that tears from the back of his throat when you rake your nails down his shoulder blades, claiming him, littering his shoulders and neck with bites.

‘That’s it,’ you sigh as he finds his pace. ‘Just like that, good boy.’

A strangled noise tears itself from him at your praise, and he fucks into you, frantic, almost feral. Eventually, his thrusts begin to turn sloppy, and you kiss him in order to steal his breath and taste his fervid moans of your name on your tongue as he comes deep inside you.

Pressing a palm to his lower back, you pin him there, buried snugly within your pussy as you reach down with your other hand and rub your clit hard - it takes but a moment for you to come, and he writhes at the cataclysmic feel of your walls fluttering around him, overstimulating him, his mouth falling open in a silent cry as he comes again with your cunt milking his cock.

Completely spent, Feyd goes limp, and you rub your hand over his back, smoothing circles on his skin with your lips to his forehead. The post orgasm clarity begins to hit him, and you feel him go rigid - slowly, he pulls out, his seed leaking out now that he’s not filling you, and he attempts to get up, but his legs are too weak and he collapses beside you instead, his chest heaving, his eyes still a little hazy, still fucked out, even as he fights for lucidity.

There’s something on his face that cuts at your heart - a look of expectancy, as if he’s waiting for you to get up and leave now that you’ve had your fill of him. Concerned, you reach out, and he leans away from your touch.

‘Feyd,’ you murmur. ‘It was not too much, was it?’

‘N - no,’ he replies. ‘I just…’

Sitting up slowly, you look him right in the eyes. He stares back, bewildered, but you press a finger to his lips, foregoing your own fumbling words to instead recite the pledge of allegiance of a Harkonnen soldier to their general; his eyes widen - you know you have hit home. You’d exchanged wedding vows, of course, but these have a different meaning: you see it in the respectful way it is uttered, a soldier acknowledging his superior’s presence.

You pledge to him not only your heart, but your sword - your service - too.

‘Wife,’ Feyd bites out. ‘Surely you do not mean - ’

‘I mean it,’ you cut in. ‘Every word.’

Again, you reach for him, and this time he does not flinch away, letting you tuck him close to you, his breath coming out shaky. Gently, you tip up his chin, planting a chaste kiss on his parted lips, and he returns it slowly, wondrously, no teeth or tongue, just the gentle brush of his mouth against yours: the innocence of it is bittersweet - has anyone ever kissed him this tenderly?

Carefully, you withdraw, wanting to see him, but he does not let you meet his eyes, instead hiding his face in your neck, his lips at the hollow of your throat. You grant him the privacy of not being seen when you feel wetness on your skin, his hot tears tracking down and pooling in your collarbone - his hands ball at his sides, and you pry open his fingers and lace yours with his, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Tightly, you wrap your arms around him, holding him with a hand cupping the back of his head, cradling him to your chest.

Your voice is quiet in the still air, but it carries as if through an arena, a promise arcing through the air like a soaring arrow.

‘You no longer walk this world alone, Feyd-Rautha.’

best believe when i started writing this i did not anticipate the 2x 'good boy's 🧍

dune taglist: @callumsgirl @oh-you-mean-me @insufferablyunbearable

[missmonsters2]

Your Touch is My Shelter

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: 6 months later, Natasha returns from the dead. It's a tightly kept secret as it's unknown how she returned, but everyone claws and fights about who will keep watch over her like savages. You're far down the list of people who should protect her, but you find yourself unable to leave her be.

Warnings/Tags: hurt/comfort. undisclosed trauma. physical and mental signs of trauma. angst. somber assisted bath time. sad hair braiding. emphasis on hurt AND comfort.

Note: This takes place after endgame :-) the dates might be inaccurate idk i did my best 🥲 ha-ha enjoy 👁️👁️

Masterlist || Library Blog || AO3

Reminder there's no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Count: 5.2k

Please do not copy, repost, or translate my work anywhere else.

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You heard the news through Bruce. 

Well, it was through Bruce telling Pepper, and you just happened to be at the coffee machine getting shitty coffee. The quality drastically dropped since Tony was gone, and you've been putting off telling Pepper she needed to literally buy anything else. 

You didn't really know how long was the appropriate time for someone to grieve before you could ask if they could buy another brand of coffee.

Tony was gone. 

A part of you thinks you keep putting off telling Pepper because then you'd have to face—really face—he was gone. 

Steve was gone. 

What did it matter, really, in the grand scheme of things? Coffee was just coffee, and it'd probably taste fine if you just put a shitload of sugar and creamer in it. 

Vision was gone. 

Honestly, you only really noticed because it was the same brand as whatever was stocked up at the Avengers Compound. 

Natasha was gone. 

But perhaps the coffee always tasted bad at the Compound and it had nothing to do with Tony being gone. Natasha used to bring coffee into the office most days for people, and Clint filled in the other days. 

Maybe Tony Stark just liked shitty coffee, and you were only now just noticing it. 

Natasha was back. 

Your hand faltered at the coffee machine, spilling a little of it on your hand, and the burn stung immediately.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked as he noticed you inhale a sharp breath.

"Yeah, I'm fine." You smiled awkwardly at him before looking at Pepper. "Morgan's fine. She just has the flu and her fever's gone down. Make sure she gets plenty of rest and fluids. I'm going to set up a humidifier for her and help her settle into bed with a movie and wait for her to fall asleep before I head out."

Pepper let out a heavy breath, putting her hand over her chest in relief. "Oh, perfect. Thank you so much for coming suddenly. I just—Morgan doesn't really like going to the hospital, and suddenly she started throwing up and having a fever—"

"It's fine, Pepper," you waved off her ramblings after you wiped what you spilled on the counter. "You can always call me if you need me."

"Seriously, I think I might just employ you full-time as a live-in doctor if you say that," Pepper joked, and you laughed. 

"I am already your live-in doctor, just for one of your research labs. instead."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You don't think about Natasha—at least, you try not to. 

You heard things here and there about it through Pepper. Apparently, she's being held in a government facility similar to The Raft, detained like some criminal they needed to study instead of the war hero who sacrificed everything to save the world. 

It made you sick to your stomach. 

But you hear that Clint, Bruce, and Nick Fury have been fighting to get custody of her, so you don't think about it. There were people who knew Natasha far better than you did and were way closer to her than you were. 

She was in good hands. 

So, you continue on with your daily routine to pass your monotonous days, unaware you're waiting for some kind of update.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

The next time you heard about Natasha Romanoff, it was Clint and Bruce cornering you at your lab.

"What?" You panicked, tensing up. "Why me?"

"You're the only person Natasha ever sought out to treat her," Clint answered, and you felt even more lost at the fact he knew. "Natasha allows medical professionals onsite to help her, but there were times she left to go see you. That has to mean something."

But, of course, he knew. He was Natasha's...best friend. And Clint was an incredibly nosy person, even if Natasha didn't tell him. 

"I've only treated her a handful of times—literally only five times. I don't know her that well," you shook your head, trying to walk around them. "I didn't even know she had a sister until you told me."

"Please," Clint begged. "I'm fighting to get her out, and the doctors they have looking after her are shady and callous with her. I can only visit her with Nick's influence, but it's not enough to get her out of there."

"And what do you suppose I can do?"

"You're a renowned cellular biologist," Bruce cut in. "If they're holding her for research, we want someone on our side who will at least treat her like a human being. The faster we get answers, the faster we can get her out."

"Please," Clint begged again. "Natasha needs help. She's...different. And it's only going to get worse if she remains in there. She's not talking, and they won't let her go until they can find some answers."

It felt wrong. 

You don't want to study Natasha Romanoff like an animal. Despite being a scientist with an inquisitive mind, you don't care about how she returned.

But it sounded like Natasha would be researched whether you liked it or not. And if that was the case, you do wonder how the other doctors may be treating her.

"Fine, we're going first thing in the morning," you gritted out, unable to block out the handful of memories of times you've treated her.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

June 2012

"Oo, that looks painful," you hissed in sympathy as a redhead with a busted lip and nasty gash on her temple entered the med bay.

There was a snort that sounded like a half-grunt. "It looks worse than it feels. I hope I'm not intruding, but Tony said I should see you to be treated."

"Natasha, right?" You asked slowly, gesturing to a seat for her to take as you grabbed some medical supplies. 

"Yes," Natasha replied, equally slow with caution.

"Tony talks about you a lot," you tried to reassure her of whatever paranoia she might have. It probably didn't help that Natasha was still in her catsuit and probably would've preferred to be called by her alias.

"Well, don't believe everything he says," Natasha gives a light but somewhat tight smile. 

"Oh, so you aren't a unique woman with high intellect, sneaky, and rightfully smug?" You teased, and it was flattering that you could make a superhero laugh. 

You began treating Natasha's wound carefully. 

"You're pretty good at this, doc," Natasha commented as you blew on her brow, even if it didn't sting. "You're pretty gentle. Must be why Tony says you're his personal doctor."

You chuckled. "I'm actually a cellular biologist. Tony is funding my research and pretty much my lifestyle. With the money he's paying me, he can come crying about his boo-boos anytime. Although, he doesn't really come to me for serious stuff. It's usually if he has something ridiculous like a papercut."

"But you can treat wounds and other medical things?" 

"I was on my way to becoming a medical doctor before I decided to go into research instead."

"Huh," Natasha hummed, raising her brow at you. "Smart cookie."

"I'd like to think so," you finished cleaning Natasha's wound and putting a bandaid over it. "Feel free to come see me if you need any other basic medical aid. For a pretty redhead, it's free of charge."

"And if I come back blonde?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," you smiled, and Natasha smirked back at you.

"Smart and funny. Tony has it too good."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

April 2014

"This is the worst bandage job I've ever seen. Who did you go to see for this? A grocery clerk?"

Natasha grunted. "Hi, to you too, doc."

You looked at Natasha, noticing how different her hair is now. But it's been about two years since you have seen her. Despite your offer for her to come to you anytime she needed help, she never did. Or she rarely did, you supposed. 

You could only deduce that Natasha was used to caring for her wounds on her own. That, or she didn't trust you. 

"Alright, let's go to my office," you sighed. 

"Am I interrupting?"

"Not really, kind of hit a brick wall."

"Oh, me too."

You looked over at Natasha, who had a straight face, but you noticed the bruise on her temple outside the obvious gun wound on her shoulder.

You pursed your lips. "Will you hate me if I laugh?"

"Not at all. On the contrary, I may like you less if you don't."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

June 2015

"You know, when I told you that you could come for me for basic medical aid, I feel like you didn't understand the meaning of basic."

"Is this too complicated for you?"

"No."

"Then am I unwelcomed?"

You pursed your lips at the redhead, who stared at you with a tiny upward quirk on her lip. "No," you sighed. "Just not sure why you'd want to see me for such serious wounds. There are other more experienced doctors."

You lift Natasha's shirt up, looking at the long gash on the side of her stomach. "We're gonna need to stitch this up. I've been doing research with Dr. Cho, and we have a new machine that can help with cell tissue generation. It would be faster than me manually stitching—"

"It's fine," Natasha declined. "I'd prefer if you manually did it."

You frown lightly at the fact but relent to the redhead's wishes. Another year passes, and Natasha's hair has changed again. 

You worked silently on cleaning Natasha's wound, and she also declined the anesthetic. You focus on stitching up the wound with precision and care.

"I like to go to you for some things because your touch is gentle," Natasha said quietly, but it felt so loud in the silent room. "It makes me feel human when I can feel your touch."

You looked over at her face briefly, but Natasha wasn't looking at you. You don't take any deeper meaning into it. She's someone who's probably felt dehumanized most of her life. The machines that can heal her twice as fast would be fine for life-threatening injuries, but it probably all feels clinical. 

You looked back down at the stitch. "Well, as long as you're a redhead, it's free of charge."

"Don't kid yourself, I would look perfect blonde."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

September 2016

"What are you doing here?" You hissed as you pulled Natasha in quickly, peering outside before shutting the door. 

"Why? Am I unwelcomed now?" Natasha's tone sounded a little hurt, and you scan her body. She didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere that required immediate attention, but you did notice crusted blood at the edge of her nostrils. 

"No, but you could get caught here," you shook your head at her. "They're looking for you and the rest of team cap everywhere."

Natasha shrugged. "I highly doubt Tony has your place under surveillance. We don't meet enough for anyone to consider looking for me through you."

You sighed, not sure what to feel about the statement. "I suppose. I don't work for Tony anymore, anyway."

Natasha's brows furrowed.

"Why?"

"I don't agree with what he's doing."

"So you're on Steve's side?"

"No, I think Steve was obstinate too. They're both stupid. Men are stupid."

Natasha laughed before wincing as she held her nose.

"What happened?" You brought her over to your couch before finding your first aid kit.

"I broke my nose," Natasha shrugged. "Can you believe breaking my nose saved millions of girls?"

"With you? Yes." You smirked as you tilted her head to look at the injury closer. "Lucky you. Looks like you don't need surgery. Do you always come here immediately after you save the world?"

"Yep."

"Couldn't even clean your nose before you did?"

"And deprive you of giving me care? I wouldn't dare."

You snorted, carefully cleaning the blood in and around her nose. It was silent again before Natasha spoke up.

"So, what happened with your research stuff now that Tony's not sponsoring your work?"

"Pepper is funding it, even though she knows I won't share anything with Stark Industries at the moment. She doesn't want me to sell my research or provide any data to other companies."

"Smart cookie."

"And a really hot blonde."

"This feels targeted. It's like you know I might dye my hair blonde soon."

"You're still a redhead; I have no idea what you mean. I like your hair, though. Braids look good on you."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

June 2018

Natasha showed up at your front step, holding her rib. There's a look of genuine relief at seeing you.

"You're still here," her voice sounds empty and hollow. "You're still here."

You pulled her inside gently. You're still in shock yourself. You were on a walk when people started disappearing left and right. The sheer panic on the streets was chaos as you were dialing Pepper frantically, almost crying when she picked up the phone. Then there were actual tears when you called other people in your life, and half of them didn't pick up...and they weren't going to. 

"I'm here," you swallowed. "What happened to your rib?"

"I don't know." Natasha looked so lost. There was the look of failure and self-blame all over her face. 

"Does it hurt?"

"I don't know."

You grasp her wrist, carefully moving her hand away from her rib before gently putting your fingertips against them. Your fingers trail up, down, and around. 

Suddenly, Natasha broke into tears. 

"Does it hurt?" You asked, panicked.

"You're still here," was all Natasha choked through her tears.

You didn't know what to do other than treat her wounds more gently than ever before while reassuring her you hadn't disappeared. You were one of the many people on this planet still here. And when she was better, she'd get the rest of them back. 

It was a long and exhausting night, and Natasha fell asleep in your bed, and you made sure she was comfortable before leaving to sleep on the couch.

Natasha's hair has changed again.

"You look good blonde."

That was the last time you saw her. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Natasha's hair has changed again. She's gone back to being a redhead with blonde tips. Her hair was a mess, barely brushed, and looked knotted. 

The room was big and had padded walls, a singular bed in one corner, and a toilet and sink in another. There were lights in parts of the cell but also areas of darkness. It looked like a fucking prison cell. 

You were looking through an unbreakable glass window, the middle holding up a microphone you assumed was linked to the speaker in the room.

Natasha stood in the middle of the room under the light in a hospital gown falling off her shoulder. Her hands were covered in scars, and her lips were so chapped, you were sure they'd split even if Natasha breathed the wrong way. 

Natasha was only a few feet away from you, but it felt like she was a million miles away.

They let you see her alone under the guise of privacy as you saw her.

You felt you weren't supposed to see this—see her like this. 

A sense of dread filled you at the blank expression on Natasha's face at what she'd gone through—what she was still going through. 

She was a hero, and this was how they were treating her? This was someone who had fought wars repeatedly for this stupid country and the rest of the world, and they had her locked up like a mental ward patient from the 1600s.

You thought the government had gotten better. There were reforms and peace after people came back from the snap. This wasn't how they were supposed to treat someone who'd given up their life to ensure everyone got theirs. 

It shouldn't matter that she came back; she had still given it up in the first place for them. 

Natasha didn't even seem to recognize you through the glass as you stepped closer to the microphone. She looked past you as if she could tell the exit was somewhere behind you. 

"Natasha?" You said into the mic, and it bellowed into the room.

Nothing. 

"Nat?" 

Natasha's eyes were listless. She was a broken, empty shell that seemed more like an animated corpse than actually being alive.

You swallowed, trying one more time. "You're still a redhead. Looks like it's still free of charge."

Natasha's eyes flickered this time, her head tilts towards you as she blinked with focus. It was just a spark, but it was something, and relief spreads through you. 

"Not completely." You could barely hear her voice, but it was coarse. Cold.

There should've been a joke about some kind of discount, but Natasha didn't make it. You were speechless.

You didn't know what to say. Don't worry, you're trapped in here, but I'm going to help with the research, and hopefully, we'll get you out soon?

It was like prolonging a death sentence. You were horrified.

"Just—wait for me," the words flew out of your mouth so fast but you meant them with every ounce of your being. "You're gonna go home with me today."

Natasha's eyes sparked at the words but just as quick as you saw it, they died out, falling back into listlessness. She turned, stepping into a darkened corner away from your view and prying eyes of the cameras as she said, "No, I'm not."

You realized she's probably spent weeks watching Clint, Bruce, and Fury try to get her out unsuccessfully.

The resignation made something lurch in your throat and eyes sting with desperation and rage. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"So, we can send you a contract—"

"You're going to release her to my custody," you cut off some government official. He was old, wearing some kind of toupee that was slicked back to hide his balding head. 

He looked at you in disbelief, almost laughing like you were some stupid, naive young girl. 

He looks at Clint and Bruce, who are also just looking at you in shock.

"As I've told your friends and Nick Fury, this is out of their hands. The Accords are still intact as of right now, therefore—"

"I don't care about the Accords. You will release her into my care. I'm more than qualified and I have the resources to find the inane answers you're looking for while rehabilitating Agent Romanoff," you cut him off again, able to tell that it was irking him. 

"That won't be necessary as you can see we have the resources here," the government official raised his brow at you.

"Your resources can't compete with Stark's resources."

It was no secret that Tony had left a very sizable fortune to you in his will, outside of everything he gave to Pepper and Morgan. And it was also no secret how close you were with the surviving Starks. 

"Doctor," the government official sighed, obviously making it sound like you were a nuisance. "If you're not here to join our research team, I suggest you go on your way and remember the NDA you signed."

You glared at him even more. "I'm not leaving without Agent Romanoff. You will hand her over to me, or you will regret it."

"And exactly how will I regret it?" The government official looked smug, and you smirked back at him.

"I'm still in talks with the government regarding my research, and I will pull out and sell that information outside of this country as I'm free to do so. I know Dr. Cho is in talks between the US and South Korea about her nano-technology. One word from me, and America can fall behind on those advancements as well." You pulled out your cell phone in a threatening manner. "Pepper and I will pull out all of our money from the very same banks and company investments that you're supporting and make you watch as they collapse one after another."

"You'd ruin our entire economy—our country by doing so!" The official was red in the face. "You'd put your entire country into chaos?" He sneered at you.

"I will if you don't give me Agent Romanoff!" You sneered back at him. "It's not like you won't eventually get your research and answers if she's in my custody. It works in both our favor."

The official is staring at you, glaring and seething.

"I imagine your colleagues and superiors will pin the blame on you if this entire economy and country goes into ruin because if I have to do that, I will say that it's the government's fault. The NDA said I can't specifically talk about Natasha and this place, which I won't. But I'm sure some journalist will discover the truth and plaster all over the news what you're doing to a war hero," your voice was so vindictive; you're not sure if you've ever been so cold before. 

"So," your voice was flat, devoid of emotion now. "What will it be?"

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

It was agreed that Natasha would stay in a cabin that Pepper owned out in the countryside. You were to provide monthly updates on your research and rehabilitation progress. And while this was in headway, neither you nor Natasha was free to leave the country or this planet. 

Clint initially wanted you and Natasha to stay with him and his family, but you declined. You pointed out that it would be hard for him and his family—his children, especially—to see Natasha like this. 

Pepper had everything prepared while you gingerly collected Natasha.

"We're going home, Natasha," you said softly, shrugging off your jacket to wrap around her shoulders. But Natasha still didn't react, even if she let you take her hand and drag her out of the facility. 

During the car ride, you mentally planned what you needed to do. Natasha needed to eat, take a bath, and rest. 

"Have you eaten yet?" You asked the redhead, sitting stoically in the car, straight as a rod. 

There was no answer. Natasha was peering out the windshield, her hands perfectly on both thighs. Clint looked worried as he looked at you.

"Natasha?" You gently placed her hand over hers. You could feel the bumps of the white scars over her hand. A part of you is too frightened to ask where she got these from. 

Natasha looked down at your hand over hers before looking at you. Her eyes were so empty. Such a dull green like dying grass.

"Did you eat?" 

Natasha nodded once before looking back outside the windshield. 

You looked at Clint, trying to give him a reassuring smile, but deep down, you were afraid you had no idea what the fuck you were doing. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"Pepper says you've been here before, but let me know if you need help finding anything," you brought her into the house where Natasha just stood, looking at nothing in particular. 

"Um," you took a shaky breath. "How about a bath? I'm sure it'll be good to get the grime and stale air off of you." 

Natasha didn't move on her own, so you began to lead her up the stairs to the bathroom. 

It was a detached tub near the high window to get plenty of sunlight without anyone being able to peer in. 

"I'll just get this started for you," you offered. Turning on the tap and pouring in a liquid that formed into bubbles. "Just make sure to check the temperature and adjust. Pepper says that sometimes that faucet can be a little finicky."

You turned to Natasha, who stood there, staring at the wall. She was unmoving, making no gesture if she was waiting for you to get out or to start undressing.

"Do you, um, need help?" You asked, but there was no answer. 

Maybe it would wake her up a little once she was in the water. 

"I'm—" you took a long breath in. "I'm gonna help you undress and get into the tub. If you get uncomfortable at any point, let me know and I can stop or do something else."

It wasn't like you've never seen a naked body before. You've seen plenty both in your sex life and field of work. You've even seen parts of Natasha's body when you've treated her. You just never thought you'd see Natasha fully naked. 

You slid your jacket off her shoulders, letting out a puff of breath. You looked past her as you undid the string of her hospital gown. You looked up when you slid down her underwear before guiding her towards the tub. Your gentle guiding seemed to spark Natasha into mechanically climbing into it herself the rest of the way. 

"Okay, cool. Um," you stuttered. "I'm sure you've been through a lot. Once you're done, we can get you into bed and if you're hungry later, I can make you something."

You were getting used to the lack of answers, but it didn't make your stomach drop any less. "Just let me know if you need anything."

You don't wait for a response this time, leaving without shutting the door fully. Down the hall, you leaned against the wall, swallowing harshly. 

It feels like you brought a lifeless shell home. A part of you wonders if Natasha really did return or if this was just some lifeless doll. 

You didn't want to think about it anymore, so you pushed yourself off the wall and into a bedroom with a suitcase and unzipped it open to grab some clothes.

When you were heading back, you heard the water still running and frowned. 

"Natasha?" You called as you opened the door. The tub was overfilling, and you rushed to turn off the faucet, trying to not slip.

Natasha was sitting how you left her, staring ahead at the running water but not really looking at it.

You sighed, relieved that the bathroom floor was designed with wood and curved so that any water would naturally run towards a drain in the floor. 

You go to check the temperature of the water and find that while it was initially fine when you turned it on, Natasha hadn't attempted to adjust it, and the finicky faucet ran nearly scalding water. 

"Jesus, Natasha, you're going to hurt yourself," you yelped. You braced through it and stuck your hand in to drain the tub halfway.

You inwardly sighed, knowing you would have to help Natasha through the entire process. You began to refill the tub, monitoring the temperature and shut it off when it was filled adequately. 

"I'm going to help wash you if that's okay," you muttered. "Just let me know if you prefer to do it yourself at any point."

You grabbed a nearby stool and sat on it before grabbing the loofa. You began with Natasha's shoulders and arms, trying to wash parts of her that were easy to access.

Natasha tensed as you washed her, so you tried to be more slow and careful. 

"It's just me," you said softly, trying to reassure the redhead. "I've always taken care of you."

Natasha said nothing, but her shoulders relaxed slightly as you continued. There wasn't much dirt on her, but the stale air that was surrounding her began to fade away. 

Her knees were propped up, folded to her chest, and you washed down her thighs and legs, trying to not think of anything too much as you did it. You tried not to think about the scars on her hands and feet. 

Readjusting your stool, you went to sit behind her. You used a cup to wet Natasha's hair, trying to detangle some of it gently first. It was then you discovered a shaven spot in the back of her head, where there was a large scar. You realized that was where Natasha's head hit the ground when she—

You swallowed, trying to suppress the anger that they shaved her head to get a look at something so private. 

You squeezed a considerable amount of shampoo in your hands and gently rubbed it into her scalp. Natasha tensed at first before your fingers massaging her scalp made her relax, her body leaning back against the tub and her head into your hands. 

It was quiet as you did this. You shampooed her hair twice before slathering it up in conditioner and finally getting out the rest of the knots. You drained the tub, grabbing the shower head to rinse her down once more before you grabbed a towel and helped her out. 

You helped put a bathrobe around her to help dry her as you didn't think you had the gall to fully dry every part of her by hand. Grabbing her clothes, you led her to her bedroom, setting her down on the bed. 

Natasha sat silently as you towel-dried her hair with gentle hands. Her eyes fell closed as you began to blow dry it. Your soft fingers tousling her hair. 

So delicate. 

When it was dry, you set the blow dryer aside. 

"Hm, your hair is pretty sensitive and might be for the next week. It might be better to braid it so it doesn't tangle and break when you're sleeping," you commented, mostly to yourself. 

You took sections of her hair, delicately beginning to put her hair into a french braid. 

"You've always had beautiful hair, red or blonde," you complimented Natasha as you finished. You moved to sit in front of her to check if you did okay from the front. There wasn't a response, but Natasha opened her eyes. They focused on you, looking at you as they traced over the features of your face. She was studying you apprehensively. 

Natasha lifted a hand, slowly reaching up as her fingers brushed the side of your face. It felt bumpy from the scars, but it made the back of your throat burn. 

"Am I really here?" Natasha mumbled as she then traced your cheek before your lips. "Am I really here with you?"

Your eyes were burning now. You couldn't even answer right away because you were afraid your lips would start trembling. 

You lifted your hand, hesitating at first, before you held her hand against your face. "Yeah, you're really here."

The edges of Natasha's eyes began to brim with tears. 

"When I jumped, I didn't die right away," Natasha whispered. "There was a feeling that something bad was going to happen. It didn't get me yet, but it was going to."

You couldn't help the tears that began to fall over the edge of your eyes when they overfilled. 

"Something bad happened to me," Natasha's lip trembled. "It's still happening to me."

You gripped her hand tighter unintentionally, but it was like it grounded Natasha. 

"I was scared," Natasha admitted. "I was scared that even if you came to me, it wouldn't go away."

Then, Natasha grabbed your hand and placed it against her cheek. It was still warm from the bath and blow dryer. 

"But I can feel your touch," Natasha sighed like it was a relief. "It's gentle and I feel human. I'm scared I'm not really here."

"You are."

Your throat felt clogged with raw emotions, and you didn't know what to do with it. You've only seen Natasha a handful of times, and maybe it's because the more you do, the more emotionally charged you both feel. 

"You're really here," you told Natasha, using your thumb to caress her cheek. You didn't know what else to say. 

All you can do is offer her shelter under your touch.

[theminecraftbee]

Tango's half-asleep in a cabin he's sharing with Impulse and Skizz and Joker and Zed. It's been loud the past few days as they set up. Most of them plan on being busy during the break, so they won't all be sharing it that often, but they'd needed a place to crash when they weren't busy doing other things. Impulse had offered to let them stay in the Vault Hunters server, but it's practically tradition, shacking up together in a cabin in the woods and pretending no one can get to them. It's rare that they use the cabin for more than a few weeks--rare any of them need it for that long--but it's nice. Traditional. Useful to drag each other to when they get too workaholic.

Honestly, Tango's just been napping. He'd gotten Decked Out to a place it could be run alone, and then he'd gotten decoupled from Decked Out in a process he doesn't really want to talk about that sort of melted his brain out his ears again. He'd gotten yelled at for getting possessed again, and hugged, and then told to describe in exhaustive detail what being possessed was like because as much as Tango loves his friends, neither Zedaph nor Impulse are like, normal about things like that, and--

Tango's legs had barely worked during the end-of-season party. Turns out being part of a machine for like, three months, has an effect on the body when you're removed from it! Haha. Who would have guessed? He'd shared some drinks with the hermits, conspicuously avoiding alcohol on account of the room spinning enough without it, and then told Impulse he had to leave for his own good, please, Pearl could drink him and Gem under the table stop trying to prove otherwise, and they'd departed.

And Tango had taken a nap. And another nap. And... wait for it... another nap.

It's supposed to be a longer break this season. Tango is contemplating napping for at least a month. He deserves it. For him.

Anyway, he's half-asleep in the cabin, halfway still snoozing and quarter of the way catching up on the technical journals he hadn't been reading while he was Decked Out, and quarter of the way remembering how like, fingers work when they're not being puppeted by a massive death machine of his own design, when he catches a look at the time and date, pauses, and realizes something.

"I forgot," he mumbles. "Huh."

He waits a moment for the howling of the absence Decked Out's wind to be replaced with eerie, indescribable silence, like the world had been replaced for months at the start of the season whenever he saw a reminder. The thing is, though, he's just--he's too tired to grieve more. Tired, and satisfied with his work, and he's safely in a cabin in the woods where Skizzleman is sleeping in the bunk above him, snoring with a loudness only Skizz possesses. His brain is still halfway leaking out of his ears and he still sort of craves raw meat. His tongue is real, by the way. He keeps noticing it? His tongue is real? Man, he'd say he doesn't recommend getting possessed, but he's totally going to do it again, and--

"I forgot," he says again, testing out the word against his lips. "The day I died passed and I forgot about it."

Huh.

He waits a few more minutes for the panic to claw at his chest. It strikes him then, though, that it hasn't for some time, and some of that may have been his brain being used as a processing chip for Decked Out in equal measure with like, being his brain, so he didn't have room for that, but. Even before then. Even in the moments he was the most himself.

Huh.

"Toppers?" Skizz asks from the top bunk. "What are you doing awake, huh? It's, uh--dark, I don't know what time it is, I broke my clock."

"My sleep schedule broke during the Decked Out thing," Tango says, "I told you that."

"Yeah, but like--did you have a nightmare about evil cows or something?"

"Evil--what do you think Decked Out is?"

"I was there! I know what it is!" Skizz says. He pauses a moment. "If you need something..."

Tango lies back and thinks of his friends. They were smiling as they left, this season.

"No, I'm fine. Don't worry about it. It's just that it's 1 AM on the 23rd, is all."

"Oh, man, that late?"

Tango laughs. "Yeah. That late."

He means something different than Skizz.

"Do you think ghosts eat people more if they're sleep-deprived?"

"You are actively going to make it worse for yourself. Also, wait, did you say you broke your clock? How?"

"No, listen--"

He's late.

That's alright.

He'll always have time later.

[mangoshorthand]

Hii I'm a real sucker for your smuts and I was wondering if you could do a five one where he walks in on reader riding their pillow and thinking about him while doing it (and they haven't had intercourse in a long while because of apocalypse stuff and all that) and the aftermath where you can do anything with it after but I'd really like it if five was being gentle to the reader :<

Sorry this is a long req I hope you write it and it's okay if you dont wanna, thankiee 🫶

Your welkiee! Hope you enjoy. 😊 Lucky Fucking Pillow | Five Hargreeves/ F Reader 3k words, Rated E

It had been four weeks: four fearful, lonely, miserable weeks. You felt stupid, irritated with him. You hated the fact you were waiting at home for him like the sweetheart of a world war two vet, living on the letters he sent from the front lines. 

You held it together until just before he left, duffel bag over his shoulder.

“The situation’s dangerous; unpredictable. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

On the floors below you, you could hear a bustle of activity as his siblings made similar preparations to leave.

“Why is this your responsibility?”

He looked at you, disbelievingly, the hand not supporting the bag went directly into his pocket.

“This is the world. Am I supposed to sit at home and wait to be subsumed by another apocalypse?”

You shook your head, bringing your knees up to your chest, not able to articulate what you were feeling.

“Let me come with you then.”

He let out an exasperated sigh, picked up the last of his morning coffee and knocked it back, shaking his head. 

“I’m not having this discussion again. I’d want you beside me in anything else, but not in this. If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself. Your best chance of survival is staying well away.”

“What if you die? What am I supposed to do?”

From slight irritation, he softened further. Bending from the waist, he kissed your forehead.

“I love you, okay.”

He crossed to the door, but a strangled sob made him turn back. Your face was suddenly red, tear-streaked. When you spoke, the words tore themselves from a tight throat. 

“Don’t go!” 

He closed his eyes, hand still on the door handle. He let out a breath and dropped the duffel bag, turning back around, crossing the room in two strides and holding you close, your head against his chest.

“I have to, angel. I’m so sorry.”

Since then, your days had been spent scouring the horizon for impending doom and following the news incessantly for any hints of what was going on. Your nights had been spent sleepless, remembering Five’s caresses and trying to get your head around the fact that you and everyone else could die at any moment.

You at least knew he wasn’t dead. He got messages to you sporadically; short dispatches from the field. They appeared mostly via an ancient telegraph machine stowed in Reginald’s old office. The most recent of these hadn’t been very encouraging:

We’ve got a plan, but it’s tenuous. If it doesn’t work, we’ll really be fucked. If that’s the case, then I hope to see you on the other side, -F x

smut below cut

They were four sexless weeks too. You quickly discovered that it takes more than the threat of imminent death to crush the human capacity for horniness. Before that month, you would have thought it would be a deluge of cold water on your libido, but that was far from the case. 

On the contrary, knowing that time could be short, all you could think about was having Five in your arms again: running your hands all over his body, the feeling of his lips on yours and the sensations of his lovemaking. 

As you lay in bed, his phantom was a heavy, intoxicating presence. Your need for him was strong tonight. You rolled to look at his empty side of the bed and imagined his head on the pillow. His eyes (that fickle forest green that masqueraded as blue in some lights and brown in others), you imagined them shaded by his hair. You saw his raised eyebrow, his smile, soft and suggestive, with the dimple that only appeared on one side of his face, recessing two large freckles by his mouth.

You pulled his pillow to you and buried your face in it. It smelled of him. You inhaled it deeply: his aftershave, his antiperspirant, his shampoo, a hint of coffee and something more  indefinable: a more fundamental scent that was all him.

It was this last smell that made your stomach flip, that made you breathe in the scent of the pillow again. It awakened something primal in you: ripples from your center outwards; flutters down each of your limbs. 

Before you knew it, you were stripping off your panties and kneeling up in bed. One hand held his pillow to your face and the other held your own pillow between your legs. When you started to grind, it was him beneath you. In imagination, he was teasing you: not allowing you to get on his dick until you came from humping his leg.

It wasn’t enough friction, so you sped up your hips, snapping them back and forth desperately. There was a whisper of something, a tingle from your neglected pussy, so you chased it, sinking deeper into the fantasy and imagining his hands squeezing your hips, guiding you as you rode him.

“Oh, Five,” you whispered, feeling your body begin to respond, wetness gathering between your labia, “Five, fuck.”

You threw your head back and closed your eyes.

“Hm,” said an approving voice from the doorway, “that lucky fucking pillow.”

You gave a violent start, dropped his pillow and turned around. There he was, framed in the open doorway. You gave a grateful, ecstatic cry.

“Five!” 

In nothing but your t-shirt, you were across the room in a leap and bound and throwing yourself against him, holding him to you with sudden, tight urgency.

He immediately stiffened and let out a sharp groan of pain. You loosened your grip

“Oh my god, what happened? You’re hurt! Are you okay? Is it over? Is everyone okay? Is the world okay?”

He was holding himself stiffly, but now his pain had faded, his face was amused. He leaned forward and kissed your lips. On your side, the kiss was desperate, joy-filled; on his, more passionate. His tongue flicked between your lips before he broke away.

“How about this? l answer each of your questions if, each time, you answer me one in return?” he said, smirking. 

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he said, smiling gently, “but that wasn’t a question.”

You were too happy to see him to have space to be irritated by this game.

“Fine. What happened to you?”

He moved as if to put his bag down on the chair. Seeing his wince, you took it off him and placed it there yourself.

“Thanks. It’s just a wound. There was an explosion. I was hit by a piece of flying steel.”

“Shit,” you whispered, looking down at his chest and the bandages that must be underneath his shirt, “oh my god, are you okay?”

“Hey,” he admonished, “it’s your turn to answer a question now. What were you doing when I came in?”

You looked at him with annoyance.

“You know what I was doing.”

“Yes,” he smirked, “I want to hear you describe it.”

“I was masturbating.”

“How were you masturbating?” he pushed.

“It’s my turn to ask a question now,” you said, using his own tactic against him, “How long will it take to heal? Are you seriously hurt?”

“That was two questions,” he said, stepping towards you, “but I’m feeling generous: I’m not seriously hurt. It’s a flesh wound. It’ll heal nicely.”

You looked at him with concern and he shook his head with a smile. 

“Now it’s my turn: what exactly were you thinking about when you were humping that pillow?”

“You,” you mumbled, “I missed you.”

“What exactly? You didn’t answer properly.”

You feel your face flush.

“I was thinking about fucking you. On top. Riding you.”

Five’s smirk grew, biting his lip and raising his eyebrows suggestively. You hurried on.

“Is the family okay?”

“All present and correct.” he said, moving even closer to you and stroking your hip in gentle circles.

It was a long, long month without you. There was barely time to think, let alone have the privacy for any ‘self care’ sessions of his own. Now that it was all over, his dick was complaining rather vocally about this neglect; insisting that if it didn’t get inside something warm and tight within the next five minutes, it would be most seriously displeased with the rest of him. 

As if to punctuate the point, it was now requisitioning rather a lot of blood from his brain, leaving him rock hard and almost lightheaded with the rush. 

“You’re so horny for me, aren’t you? Humping your pillow like a dirty little girl?”

“Was that a question?”

“Yes.”

You sighed as his hand snaked around to your ass. He stroked one of your buttocks up and down slowly, palm cupping the curve of your skin.

“Then yes: I’m horny for you.”

“How horny?” he said, immediately, squeezing you gently.

“Did you save the world?”

“Are you wet for me?” he said, huskily.

The fingertips of his other hand came to rest on your thigh. His eyes, dark in the low light of the bedroom, captured yours and held them firmly, authoritatively.

“If you’re not going to answer my question, I’ll have to find out for myself.” 

You looked back at him and his lips twitched. Slowly, he walked his middle and index fingers between your legs and parted your labia. He let out a low ‘oh’ as he felt the sopping folds waiting for him.

A jolt twitched down the boner now pressing insistently against the crotch of his pants. 

“How about you ditch the pillow and have a piece of the real thing?”

His fingers slipped slickly up and down your slit and you nodded, trying not to let your knees go weak. Your hands came to the hem of your shirt, pulled it over your head and discarded it so that you were standing naked before him. 

As your breasts bounced free, his befuddled mind could only think how much he’d missed them. He bent forward eagerly to try and take a nipple into his mouth, but froze mid-stoop with a wince and harsh intake of breath.

“Ow. Shit.”

He straightened up slowly, stiffly and leaned against the door, experimentally stretching out his limbs.

“You okay?” you said, worried. 

“I’m fine.” he muttered, hand over his injury, “Got a bad case of hornybrain. Made me forget I was impaled by a steel bar for a hot second there.”

You winced in sympathy and rubbed his clothed stomach in circles. When the pain had abated and he was again looking at you with lust behind his eyes, you leaned in and whispered to him.

“Looks like you’re going to have to stay still and let me do all the work.”

His lips parted but no words came out, for once unable to think of anything cocky to say. You could see the glisten of saliva on his tongue. You smirked and lowered yourself so that you were kneeling in front of him.

He laid his head against the door and exhaled as you deftly freed him of his pants and let them fall to his ankles. He squeezed his eyes closed, thoroughly undone by the mere suggestion of being sucked. He was even hornier than he realized. 

He groaned in a strange mix of satisfaction and need as you licked him through his underwear, using one hand to pull the fabric taught around the thick five and a half inches imprinted there in harsh relief. The stretch and your saliva made the white material semi transparent and you felt a pleasant twist in your stomach as the hint of soft, flushed skin beneath. You lost yourself, aware of nothing but the perfect outline of his glans beneath your tongue and the heady, pheromonal smell of him. 

He made another tight, needy sound as you put your lips around his still-clothed head.

“Please.”

How could you refuse him? Pulling at the elastic and reaching in, you pulled him out to twitch in the open air. It looked painfully hard, as always curving slightly to your left but otherwise sticking straight out like an exclamation point to his arousal.

Slowly, still inhaling that intoxicating scent, you took him into your mouth, slowly sucking him. You hummed appreciatively at his solid, hot skin between your lips. You were in heaven there, happy to keep sucking him as long as he’d let you.

“You don’t know how much I need this,” he said, weakly, knees buckling as you built to a steady rhythm. You paid close attention to his head, enjoying the little pop it made as it left the tight seal of your lips.

He looked down at you with hazy eyes, watching the way your lips pouted as you slid your lips up his length. When you caught his eyes, the pupils suddenly widened and he immediately looked away, head snapping straight back to look up at the ceiling.

“I can’t look at you right now,” he breathed, by way of explanation, “You’re too perfect; I’ll come too fast.”

You flushed, glowing with his praise. Though Five was a loving partner, his compliments were usually hidden beneath layers of self-consciousness and sarcasm. Him saying this now was evidence of how overwhelmed he was: inhibitions swept away in the rush of reunion. 

Slowly, you withdrew and laid your head against his stomach so that his cock rested on your cheek. You looked up at him adoringly, simultaneously enjoying the intensity of his arousal and giving him time to calm down.

“I love you Five.”

“I love you too, baby.” he said, voice breathy and hoarse, “Now, please god, take me to bed and treat me like that pillow.”

You smiled, rose to your feet and led him to the bed, helping him out of the pants around his ankles. Standing by his side of the bed, you kissed his lips gently, enjoying the way his dick stabbed and pressed periodically at your thighs. When you broke apart, you looked into his eyes, at his soft look with his thick eyelashes shading his eyes. 

Aware of his injury, you supported him as he lay down, helping him to ease onto the mattress with the bare minimum of pain. His solid presence in your arms as he let you assist him was bliss.

Though you were being careful not to place any weight where it would hurt him, he pulled you into his arms. 

“Please,” he whispered, “I want you to fuck me. Ride me. Just use me to get off. Use me like a goddamn dildo. I don’t care.  I need you.”

You smirked at this.

“Who are you and what have you done with Five?”

“Please.”

More begging. You didn’t have it in you to tease him, not when you too were desperate to feel his body against yours, to feel him inside you, to mingle your sighs and your pleasure with his.

You slipped him inside you and gasped. The resumption of this perfect coupling alone told you just how much you needed it. You knew you missed it, but now he was inside you again, you realized that it made you whole. His small keen as he slid home was enough to send a fluttering shudder from your center outwards.

“Let me take care of you,” you whispered, leaning close to him.

He nodded, biting his lower lip and caressing your hips.

Slowly, you began to grind against him, rolling your hips with him inside you, moving on top of him just as you did the pillow. This time, it really was Five beneath you, his cock twitching inside you, hitting and charging that sweet spot inside you until it felt like you were buzzing with his electricity.

“Oh fuck,” you moaned, “Five!”

“I-don’t-deserve you,” he panted, “So perfect. Perfect. Beautiful girl…so goddamn sexy. I love you. I-fucking- Ah!”

He always got more talkative yet less coherent the closer he got. He was watching your swinging breasts, hanging a few inches above his face. You leaned forwards immediately, keen to give him what he couldn’t take for himself a few minutes before.

He took the hint eagerly, taking your nipple into his mouth and groaning along with you at the change of angle. He suckled enthusiastically, hungrily; hand leaving your hip to rub your breast with his palm. 

His groans now sent miniature, warm vibrations onto your nipple, creating a new center for charge to build upon. As it crackled down your limbs, stoking the heat in your stomach and groin, you moaned, wanting to ride him hard- ride him like a bike - but you were reluctant to let loose in case you hurt him. 

Instead, you rolled your hips upon him desperately. Judging by the sudden shout from him and the ache from your pussy, this motion was to both of your liking. You were on the edge now, teetering.

“Gonna come. Gonna come.” he whispered, urgently, removing his mouth from your titty with a wet sound.

He meant this to warn you but, instead, his desperate voice gave you the final push.

As you came, your pussy clenched, squeezing him suddenly. His eyes shot open and he all-but squealed at the unexpected stimulation. His hips surged upwards, the pain from his chest eclipsed for the moment by this maddening, raging orgasm. It felt like your pussy was milking it from him, pulling his rapid shots of come up into itself. 

At last, you came to a stop. 

“Is the world safe?” you asked, after a warm breathless minute or two.

“Yes,” he said weakly, “the world’s all okay.”

You carefully climbed off him, laid beside him and held him. There was the fresh smell of his shampoo and antiperspirant. The smell of home if ever there was one.  After a minute or two becoming heavier in your arms, he spoke again.

“Well, the world’s certainly all okay now.”

He stroked your stomach as if you were made of paper-thin glass, inclining his head towards yours as he spoke again.

"I meant what I said: you are perfect, you know."

Request masterlist >> HERE

NOTE:

I take Five requests, I'm fairly versatile in what I write (fluff, smut, angst, psychological character study- I'll try it all) but I will consider them on a case by case basis. See masterlist for request status and more.

[livwritesstuff]

i’ve been very quiet so srry - my week started with my annual performance review (which went well) and ended with an emergency surgery (also went well) so…a lot going on to say the least

this is a deleted scene from the first chapter of plant a seed

When Robin called, Steve and Eddie were in the phase of newborn parenthood where they froze every single time the phone rang (because said newborn was napping more often than not and when she was, there was a 50% chance minimum the phone would wake her up).

So when Robin called and the ringing of the phone broke the otherwise peaceful silence, Steve froze and he waited. When the baby didn't wake up, Steve exhaled a sigh of relief and answered the call.

"This is Steve."

"Hey Steve-o!"

Steve immediately recognized the voice as Robin's – of course he did, even if he hadn't heard it since she and Nancy left for a work trip in Japan a little over a month ago.

“Oh shit,” Steve said, because this means that Robin and Nancy are finally home, finally back in their Boston apartment fifteen minutes away from his and Eddie's in Cambridge instead of the opposite side of the entire world, “You’re home!”

“Yep,” Robin replied, popping the P, “That plane was a million degrees, I’m pretty sure. No more August flights if I have any say in it. Anyways – wanted to let you know we made it back unscathed. What’s new with you guys?”

“Uh…” Steve began, not totally sure where to start, because Robin didn't know about the baby he and Eddie had been placed with two weeks ago and she certainly didn't know that they're going to adopt her (because they'd landed on that decision that very day – about two hours ago, to be specific), “Well–”

“Hey, do you still have those placements?" Robin interrupted, "The kids who like to read the Goosebumps books?”

“Oh,” Steve blinked, “No. They went back with their mom a couple days after you left.”

“Damn. Been a while. Forgot this trip was longer than usual – wait, so are you between placements now, then? Hey, we should finally make that trip to P-Town!”

"Might need a raincheck on that," Steve said with a laugh, because at the moment a trip to the goddamn grocery store required at least a day's worth of planning, "We've got another placement right now – a newborn. We've had her for, uh, for just under two weeks, pretty sure."

“Shit, a newborn?" Robin repeated.

Steve faintly heard Nancy's voice, though he couldn't make out exactly what she was saying. He listened as Robin recounted to her what he'd just said, then started to laugh.

"Nancy just said that if she misses out on a chance to hold a new baby, she'll kill you," Robin told him, "Any idea when she might move on?”

Steve paused for a second. He and Eddie had decided earlier that they wouldn’t be telling anyone about the baby until the adoption was finalized, but…it’s Robin. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever kept a secret from Robin before, certainly not something this big and certainly not for very long.

He has to tell her.

“We’re, uh, we’re actually adopting her.”

Robin was silent.

Then –

“Holy shit – Steve.”

And then –

“I’m coming over right now. Immediately. Wait–” Robin stopped, “Damn, I can’t be a dick and come over unannounced anymore, can I? Because you guys have a baby. A baby. And she’s gonna be yours? What the fuck? Wait, let me start over.”

Robin paused long enough to take a deep breath.

“Steve Harrington – my best friend who’s finally fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a dad – when will you allow us to come and be formally introduced to our niece?”

Truth be told, Steve wouldn’t say no to a visit from Robin and Nancy that day (especially after the our niece comment), but their case worker had just started faxing over all the paperwork to get the ball rolling on the adoption process and Steve has a feeling that he might catch Eddie trying to fill that shit out as it came out of the machine so tonight they might be a little occupied.

"Tomorrow?" he suggested.

"Morning?" Robin added.

Steve laughed, "Sure. Tomorrow morning."

"Bright and early, dad. Holy fuck, I can't believe you're a dad."

"You can't?"

"No, I totally can."

[mingsolo]

PAUSE + PLAY

wonwoo x reader (f) / g: meet cute, 90s au, fluff, strangers to lovers / wc: 4k / warnings: cursing, some nipple action, mingyu being a sl*t, / r: nc17

written for Now, That's 90s! collab, hosted by @beomcoups and I! ngI struggled not because I couldn't write this one, but because life is kicking my ass and I couldn't find the time to really sit and think through it... anyways it turned out pretty cute please read if you can <3

A drop of sweat rolled down from your forehead, you blew some air to your face but of course it was hot and it made you dizzy. “Is this thing even on?.” you shouted from the other corner of the shop, to your co-worker, Mingyu.

You stood under the AC trying to feel if there was actually cool air coming from it but you couldn’t feel but a weak wave of hot air over you. 

“Yeah, that thing is better off.” Mingyu shouted back, where he was lining up tapes in the kids section. “By the way, could you help me check the return box? There’s some tapes missing here, they should be there.” 

You waved out, going to the returns box at the entrance of the store. A few tapes were in, three Toy Story 2, one Tarzan and a copy of 10 Things I Hate About You along with two Armageddon at the bottom. You placed the movies on the counter as Mingyu was approaching you. “We need to rewind them first, all of them!” You say inspecting the tapes, “Geez, why do they never do it?.” 

Mingyu laughs and shakes his head. “The sign even says “Please” on it, right?.” He taps the hardcover of the vhs box, where “Please rewind before returning” signs reads on it.

“And it's so hot to be in the rewind room!.” you nag once more, taking the tapes with both arms and dragging your feet to the back of the store and rewind the tapes before someone comes looking for them. Mingyu returns to his previous spot on the kids section, not without laughing at you first. 

Despite the whole minute that it took you to get there, you are now placing the tapes into the machine, leaving the door open so some of the air could get in, the small and dark room feels suffocating just by being two steps inside it. In the speakers of the store, the faint sound of Genie In a Bottle plays on and you start humming, partly because you have the song stuck in your head thanks to Mingyu playing the cd over and over when he is on shift, and because it somehow helps the task be a little less tedious.

While on it, you hear the bells ringing meaning a customer has come to the store. You peek out to see a familiar tall figure enter, waving his way in walking directly towards the back where Mingyu was at the kids section.

“Hey!” you heard the guy saying until he disappeared from your line of sight. You tried to peek out more but it won’t be possible without you stepping out of the room, so you hurried up the process to get another glance before he’s out.

In the month you have been working there, you have seen this guy come in at least once a week. You were sure he was Mingyu’s friend as he always walked directly towards him or looked for him especially after picking up some tapes. The past times he had come with you on shift without Mingyu, you had the bad luck of always doing something like rewinding tapes or in the bathroom, never getting the chance to even greet him when he entered the store.

One thing for sure, hee was cute as hell. Cat like eyes and thin defined lips, huge black frames on his face, making it look smaller. And you noticed only by getting little glimpses of him, as he was always in a rush or something, never staying more than five minutes. You thought of asking Mingyu who he was but decided not to as you were still new in the store and even if you liked and had fun working with him, Mingyu has proven to be the teasing type, and he wouldn��t let you work in peace if you dare asking him about this other guy.

Just as you were cursing at Armageddon for rewinding so slowly, you heard them saying goodbyes and the chiming doorbell announcing he was out. 

With a sigh you rolled your eyes and finished your task without hurry, hoping the cat boy would come back soon and you were luckily enough to be on the counter to greet him. 

.

.

.

Today was a Monday, and the week promised to be a quiet one. Not many new releases came to the store yet so customers wandered a little bit before getting out, or just asking when would you stock Sleepy Hollow or why you had so few copies of The Sixth Sense. You tried your best to give every customer a smile at the beginning but after a month of getting the same questions over and over, you just shrugged and advised people to come back later, and maybe the previous customer had brought it back by then. 

Mingyu was way better with customers, both girls and guys. ‘I’ll get it ready and rewinded this afternoon for you’ he said with a wink to a middle aged lady, who shamelessly smiled and flirted with him while her kid smudged chocolate from the bar he was eating on a copy of Inspector Gadget.

“Great, now I have to clean that.” you glared at Mingyu as he saved the piece of paper with the woman’s number on his back pocket once she and the chocolate kid were gone. “I swear to God I’ve seen her come in with her husband.” you arch your eyebrows at him. 

“That doesn’t seem like a me problem.” He shot gun fingers at you and got back to his task on the counter, where a few other ladies waited for him.

You chuckled and started spraying windex on Mathew Broderick’s face covered in chocolate, laughing at how Mingyu flirted shamelessly with every single one of them, all at once, but they didn’t seem to mind. 

Once good ol’ Mathew’s face was clean you left the tape back on the shelf, when you heard the bell ring. “Y/n, can you help?” Mingyu hurried to tell you, he was now surrounded by the women as he showed them a copy of Between Your Legs animatedly. “This one is from our exclusive foreign section, so exotic! And the plot is fascinating…” He looked at the ceiling and the ladies followed.

You shook your head and got up from where you were squatting, seeing the tall figure of cat-boy coming through the door. He looked at the commotion on the counter and figured out Mingyu was busy at the moment. He hesitated for a second before turning back ready to head out when you sprinted towards him, shouting “HI!! WELCOME IN!” maybe a little too enthusiastically. 

“H-hi,” he said back, a little startled by your shouting. Mingyu also looked up to you for a moment, but he was quickly back to answering curious questions from his little fan club. “Uhm, I’ll be back later when-”

“No! Please, I know Mingyu usually helps you out but please tell me what can I do for you?,” you smiled with pressed lips and your voice two tones higher than how you usually speak, but you couldn’t help it. Seeing him in front of you confirmed your suspicions, he was stupidly handsome, freakingly hot even behind those thick square glasses. His hoodie smells like coffee and the cap he was wearing backwards made the earring on his left ear seem more dangly. 

“I really would prefer to wait for Mingyu…” 

“Nonsense!” you guided him towards a free counter next to where Mingyu and his harem were discussing Between Your Legs, quickly putting some space between you two before you would get inappropriately close and start sniffing his sweater, your eyes shining brightly as you spotted cat hairs on them. 

God he is so hot for a nerd!!!

“So, what can I do for you today, I’m Y/n by the way,” you smiled again and you could swear you creeped him out by the way he started sweating. It was hot as hell inside but still, his ears turned red and the tapes he was carrying under his arm were starting to slip from his grip. He quickly put them in the pocket of his hoodie, smiling awkwardly and glancing at Mingyu behind his frames. 

You glanced at Mingyu too, who began chuckling, losing for a moment his track on the plot of the movie he was explaining. 

“Are you going to return those?” you extended your hand but he stood still, tapes still packed into his hoodie. “No?,” you asked again. He opened his mouth briefly but smacked his lips loudly looking at the ceiling. 

He looked at Mingyu and his expression changed from mortified to annoyed. He bit his cheek and took a deep breath before taking out the tapes and laying them one on top of another before you. 

Night of the Giving Head, A Beautiful Behind, Yank my Doodle! It's a Dandy!, and Throbin Hood laid on the counter before you.

There was a few seconds of silence, only broken up by Mingyu’s suppressed wheeze. You cleared your throat lightly, taking the tapes and checking if they were rewinded. “Oh a rewinder, that’s unusual!” you chuckled dryly not really knowing how to break the wall of ice that suddenly appeared in front of you.

“I didn’t watch them,” He cleared his throat, avoiding eye contact. “That’s why they are- anyway.” He sighed and stopped, releasing it seemed like he was making up excuses for not one in particular. 

“You don’t have to explain,” You tried to sound friendly and not make a big deal, but you had so many questions and this selection was the last thing you expected to see him with. “We are a judging free video store,” the words coming out mechanically as you remembered the training video Mingyu played for you once on your first day.

“Yeah…It’s not… Can we please get this over with quickly?,” He returned to his mortified expression and you nodded quickly annotating the returns on the logbook. “Thanks,” He smiled awkwardly at you before tapping the counter once, glancing quickly at Mingyu one more time before sprinting out.

“He’s going to murder me, but oh god, it was worth it!”

Mingyu was now smiling ear to ear, waving goodbye to the last girl that visited the shop for the day, her phone number written on his palm. “I got no more sticky notes left,” he said before sticking his hand out to her.

“Yeah that was… I didn’t even know we had these.” you were sweeping the floors as the store was about to close, keeping yourself busy for the rest of the day still thinking about the Night of The Giving Head cover inside your mind. “Wait, he’s your friend, does he only watch porn?.” 

Mingyu laughed loudly, helping you out by taking the trash bags out of the bins and emptied them in one big plastic bag. “Maybe, why do you ask?” he arched his eyebrows at you. 

“No reason, it was just- he doesn’t look like the porn addict type.” 

Mingyu laughed louder. “Wait till I tell him you think he’s a porn addict!” He collected the dust you were sweeping onto the plastic bag, making a knot and throwing it on his shoulders. 

“Wait! Why would you tell him that?!” 

“No reason…” he smirked, walking outside to take out the trash. 

.

.

.

The next week the store got busier than usual, so Mingyu and you barely got to chat with each other about cat-boy or anything really. He had also switched shifts to train a new employee, a younger guy, probably a highschooler, who he spent most of the time in the mornings, leaving you alone to take care of the closing shift. 

Saturday came quickly, and you were alone in the shop. Lights were almost all out, and you were finishing stocking some new tapes that came that afternoon, the last task before officially closing. 

Somehow the humid air was insufferable even by night time, so you were sweating bullets over the thick fabric of your uniform shirt. You couldn’t believe they made you wear this in this hot weather, but alas, you were transpiring and melting under it. 

As you finished putting the tapes on their respective shelfs, you walked towards the bathroom where you had a spare shirt, not before turning the volume of the radio a little, you played music a lot in the shop and the customers seemed to like your taste more like Mingyu’s.

Once there, humming to Bills Bills Bills, you were looking for your spare shirt when you noticed you it wasn’t there. “What the-?” you cursed under your breath, sure you had one hanging on the stall reserved for staff. One glance at the sweaty uniform shirt you just took off and you knew you won’t be wearing that again. “Come on, I already put roll-on….” you whined. Then you remembered there were a couple of uniform shirts in the lockers, maybe too big for you but that would do for today and you will return them tomorrow. 

And so you were signing,

Can you pay my telephone bills?, 

Can you pay my automo’ bills? 

If you did, maybe we could chill…. 

When suddenly the tall figure of cat-boy appeared in front of you right by the counter. He stared. And you stared back. And his eyes stayed on your face for a a few seconds, but they quickly drifted a little down, on your lace see through bra, nonetheless.

“What the fuck?!” you shouted, sprinting towards the locker room. 

“Im sorry! I knocked, and the lights were on…. I thought…” you could hear him speak but there was a high ringing pitch in your ears that made his voice fade away as you took one of the spare uniform shirts and slipped in over your head. “The fuck you needed to wear a see through one today, huh?!” you covered your face with both palms.

“I’m sorry… I better go…”

You heard footsteps and shouted “No!” back but when you were out you could only see his back walk out the door.

You blew raspberries, feeling insufferably hot under the hot fabric of the oversized uniform shirt, that covered you like a circus carp. “Too much for our second encounter, cat-boy.” 

.

.

.

The next day you got to the store a little early, trying to catch Mingyu before he left for the day, and to your surprise, he was waiting for you.

“A nipple piercing!” 

“Good afternoon to you too!” you sighed, walking towards the locker room with Mingyu’s tail wagging at your ankles. “And how could he notice that?! It was dark!” you threw your backpack at your locker, huffing and puffing, ignoring Mingyu’s curious eyes.

“I guess he was really paying attention,” he teased. You shot him a glare and he raised his arms signaling peace. “Hey, don’t be mad that he told me, I’m his best friend and well, he actually came looking for you, how could he know you liked walking around the store naked when you were on shift alone?” 

“I-wasn’t-naked.” you slapped the locker room shut. “Wait… he came looking out for me?”

Mingyu wiggled his eyebrows in response. 

“Tell me everything, or else.”

“He likes you, duh.” Mingyu moved toward his locker, pretending to roam for something but you knew there wasn’t anything there. “He has had his eyes on you, since the first day he saw you working here.”

“But why hasn't he talked to me? He always comes in and it’s gone in a second.” 

Mingyu clicked his tongue. “He had a bad break up two years ago, and honestly he’s pretty shy, maybe that’s why we are such good friends, we balance each other…” you crossed your arms signaling he was deviating from the topic. “... So he wasn’t sure how to approach you, he has been coming here asking me to be a wingman but I refused, I was trying to encourage him so I told him you were going to be alone yesterday.”

You sighed, walking out the locker room with Mingyu behind you, ready to get off.

“Want me to tell W-”

“NOO!” you shouted, making the couple of customers in the store turn their heads at you. “Don’t tell me his name, I want him to tell me when he finally comes and talks to me.”

Mingyu chuckled and nodded, messing your head a little in sign of encouragement. “Get him, tiger. I’ll pass the note out.” He winked and you shrugged as he walked out the store.

Needless to say, all the way to the evening your stomach was swirling inside you. You jumped a little every time the doorbell chimed, and it sank back to your stomach everytime cat-boy wasn’t the one entering.

It was almost seven and you were waving goodbye to the last customer of the day before you changed the sign from open to closed, when you heard the bell one more time. 

The couple of teens walked past cat-boy as he entered the store and they walked out. You could hear loud stomps inside your chest, and you were pretty sure they were so loud he could hear them too. You looked at the mirror wall to your left, and despite being a few feet away you could spot the newest shades of red adorning your face. 

As he walked closer, you smiled shyly, spotting the same color on him too.

“Hey,” he waved so tiny that you felt like your body was becoming butter, cause despite standing up, you felt melted, all over the floor. 

“Hi,” you replied back, not knowing what to say really. Dissociating a little from the awkwardness you focused on him. All of him. His fluffy hair, not hiding under a cap this time. The black thick frames. He was wearing a black sweater, a turtle neck one. Few noticeable white hairs on it. You remembered marshmallow, your cat, and smiled without noticing. 

“Y/n,?” you heard his voice crack, noticing you smiling.

“Sorry! Seeing the cat hair on your sweater reminded me of mine.”

“You have cats?” his eyes became a little bigger. “Me too!”

“Yeah.. I can tell by the cat hair,” you chuckled.

“Right…” he scratched the back of his head. “Well I have a couple.. A few.” 

“I love cats! I only have marshmallow because my landlord doesn’t let me have more, but one day I will!” you were glad you mentioned the cat hair cause this gave you a shot to talk more comfortably. “By the way, did Mingyu tell you my name?”

“I asked him, the first day I saw you here working.”

“Not fair, I didn't let him tell me yours.”

“Huh?” He arched his eyebrows, puzzled. 

“He told me you came looking for me yesterday… Sorry you find me like that, I swear I don’t usually walk around naked when I’m alone here…”

He laughed. “Mingyu told me you probably did.”

You scoffed. “He’s the whore not I.” 

“Can’t defend him from that,” He lowered his head a little, “Sorry I told him about your… well I was frantic after seeing you like that and ran straight to his dorm, I was too shocked I guess, I wasn’t trying to be a creep.”

“And what about the pornos? Night of the Giving Head, seriously?” 

“That was Mingyu! He dropped them at my dorm the night before telling me I should distract myself from being a coward and not talk to you…” He speaked fast and you were trying to follow up. “I swear I didn’t watched them, I tried, but they were too tacky”

“There’s tasteful porn?” you laughed.

“There should be… somewhere” he laughed back. 

“Bet the bastard wanted you to return them so I could catch you myself!” 

“He a hundred percent did.” 

There was a moment of silence after the laugh, and you felt like staring at the floor because looking at him was becoming addicting too quickly. 

“Want me to help you close? I want you to walk out with me for a while, maybe get some coffee?” He suddenly speaks, and you snap out of the mental image of you two sitting on your couch, a few cats around. 

“Uh- well I just need to take out the trash and I’m ready, I- would love that,” He smiles from ear to ear and stands straight, making you notice he’s like, really really tall. 

“I’ll help you with that, be ready when I come back!” He sprinted towards the entrance where the two plastic bags laid one beside the other and took them out. You run towards the bathroom as soon as he’s out, changing your ugly uniform shirt into your spare one, feeling relieved when you notice is there this time. After putting roll on, combing your hair a little and putting some perfume you walk out, finding him waiting for you near the entrance.

He asks if he can wash his hands and once that’s done you close up, and you start walking beside him to nowhere in particular. 

You suggest walking to your recent favorite spot, a part cafe, part flower shop near your apartment. Walking there you talk about your studies, the tedious but fun times at the video store, his job at the library (he was such a nerd!), his and your cat, about everything and nothing in particular, and time just flew by so quickly.

“This is so nice, I didn’t even notice the hour!” you say checking the casio watch on your wrist. And he does the same. 

“Let me walk you home, I would feel bad by letting you take a cab at this hour.”

“It’s not far away…” you object but he insists. “Fine, but just by the door, what if you are indeed a creep or something!” He pouts and gives you the stink eye. You laughed, delighted how quickly you became comfortable with each other.

Once at your door you ask him to give you his palm. “I learned this trick from our dear Gyu,” you say, taking out a sharpie pen from your backpack and writing your number on his palm. “There, call me as soon as you get home, I’m not done talking to you.”

You thanked him for the coffee and sprinted towards your complex door without letting him say anything else. 

A quarter to eleven, your phone starts ringing. 

Grabbing the cordless phone from its base and throwing yourself over your bed you answer. “Hello?,” 

“I was about to tell you my name and ask you on a proper date,” you heard his shaky voice from the other line. He must have literally run or sprinted towards his own apartment. “But you ran away.” 

You smiled, twirling your hair, eyes closed remembering every moment since you closed the video store a few hours ago.

“Y/n?,” 

“Not yet cat-boy, I want you to tell me only after you first kiss me.” A few moments of silence before he speaks again, you can’t see him but you know he’s smiling too.

“Deal, then I won’t be cat-boy much longer.”

@mingsolo please don't repost/translate to any sites.

[inknopewetrust]

𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎

summary: you are recruited to the spider society after conducting a batch of vigilante actions against the men who killed your husband, miguel and well... their leader isn’t like the man you remembered.

pairing: miguel o’hara x spider-woman!reader [wc: 12.7k]

warnings: language. this has got everything: backstory, meeting, conflict, angst, sadness, tie-ins with the film, (i hope you're reading this in a stefon voice), ethical dilemmas, vigilante shit, violence, romantic love strains, etc., etc.

Manhattan was rainy. It was always rainy.

But let’s do this again, shall we?

The skyline was high. Muddled variants of blues and reds, the colors that had painted your life for a decade now. It was silly to imagine a world of color beyond that–it's all you knew, you had nothing left.

And all of that nothing was the consequences of the dealings of a few bad men.

You breathed in deep. They were right there, right below your feet.

Their laughter in their indifference to life was vexing. It made your blood broil and bubble to the surface where you thought your eyes may have been red and your grip on the stone building was onerous.

In the distance, police sirens blared across the city where crime did not take a backseat because their most treasure hero was rogue. People were in trouble but you saw cessation of hope with every second that passed and those in charge did nothing to avenge your husband.

Husband. Nevertheless, what you had was gone and never coming home to you. The least you could do was try to find the justice to be brought by your own hands.

"Nah, man..." One of the men–a blonde, high-tech worker from the east side of town–shook his head. "We can't go there. They've got cameras all over the place! Ain't no way we are gettin' out free."

"Well then we go downtown and hit one alongside the river. We'll set up a boat and get us to Brooklyn before they can even suspect anyone was there," another collaborator said. Blondie shook his head determined.

"You think Spider-Girl isn't gonna be waitin' for us?" He scoffed, scuffing his shoes against the pavement. You perched straighter as you peered down. Spider-Woman. It was Spider-Woman.

“She got Mikey last week, Simon two days ago… we don’t have much left and if you think robbin’ fuckin’ Wall Street is gonna save us, you’re wrong.”

A sensible criminal with blood on his hands. Nice.

“Besides, they got the police captain on her ass and while they’re out lookin’ for her, they won’t sweat the small stuff,” blondie pulled a black ski mask from his jacket.

“It’s now or never,” he slipped it on and walked to the door of the bodega on the corner. He held out his hand as if his friend was actually a true friend and not a piece to his own networked puzzle.

Your stomach turned and the sight made your spine tingle.

Outside on the sidewalk of the street in the rain of New York City, the two men who were left of the dirty dozen walked into the grocer with no intention to buy anything.

It hadn’t dawned on you that as you dropped to the pavement, you weren’t wearing your suit or mask.

The hub was quiet.

In this slick world, everything was silver and green and the headquarters were no different — yet too different for Peter to know that he wasn’t from this universe and always felt out of place.

A picture on desk that wasn’t his grounded him to a separate reality; one of love and hope and a small child’s laughter.

Spider-Byte’s was typing away on the keys beside him while he tapped away on the table top.

Nothing exciting had happened since the… glitch. It had been a long nine months without the glue that had put him back together.

That was until Spider-Byte’s computer started beeping in a manic fashion. It was a sound neither of them had heard before. A high pitched siren blaring loudly from a machine the the left of Peter, a button glowing red and flashing.

“Uh,” Peter pointed to the button, “you got any clue what that’s about?”

Spider-Byte shook her head as she pulled up a database on a screen. Her tech hands glided over the keys like music, fluid and fast and working with a purpose.

“Some system Miguel’s got here,” she muttered and Peter attempted to cover the small speaker beside the button with his hand—it didn’t work.

“Where is he? He said he’d be right back and now we’re facing the end of the wor—“

“I doubt this is the end of the world, Peter!” Spider-Byte cut him off harshly. “Now would you be useful and go find Miguel?”

As the dutiful Spider-Person he was, Peter rushed out of the central lair and into the bright white halls of the headquarters. Everyone he passed he asked the same question:

“Hey! You’ve seen Miguel anywhere?”

“Yo! Seen the big man around?”

He slid up to a group of variant Julia Carpenters as they sipped on coffee in the cafeteria. Peter gave them a sly smirk, trying to be cool, and snapped his fingers.

“Have any of you seen the boss today? Looking fine as usual.”

Synchronized, the Julia’s pointed to the empanada station and sure as shit, there was Miguel, talking with the vender who yes, just happened to also be a Spider-Man.

“Miguel!” Peter screeched from the table and Miguel’s mind went soured. A violent jolt to his instincts as the new father came barreling toward him.

“¡At no…!” Miguel mumbled to himself as Peter skidded to a halt, dropping his hand on Miguel’s shoulder with a clunk.

“Hey, Boss! Whatcha… watcha doin’ out here?” Peter chuckled nervously and Miguel narrowed his eyes. “You said you’d be right back.”

“I did,” Miguel drawled. “I told you five minutes and it’s only been three, Peter.”

Peter laughed, glancing around the space as confused gazes began to pick up on the pebbles of sweat that dripped from his temple.

“Oh! You don’t say?”

“What’s so impo—“ Miguel began but never finished. Lyla appeared out of thin air with a casual urgency unlike Peter’s frantic one.

“We’ve got a doozy here for ya, boss.”

With Lyla, everything came to life smoothly. As she snapped her fingers, holograms of screens appeared like magic and on them, an un-masked, Spider-Woman was beating the shit out of thieves in a bodega.

“Jesus,” Peter whispered to himself.

“He doesn’t come here,” Miguel replied without a smile nor a chuckle but it took Peter back.

Miguel was watching the woman carefully. This Spider-Woman was not apart of the society and was actively doing what no Spider-Person should do. However, Miguel knew the actions. He felt them deep within his bones and the mistakes he had made as a newly minted Spider-Man 2099.

“Name’s Y/n L/n… a former nurse who got mixed up in a bad batch of blood for a transfusion. This isn’t the first time we’ve been alerted about her,” Lyla debriefed and Miguel snapped.

“What do you mean, ‘not the first time?’”

“These are a group of men she’s been targeting. It’s got to do with her,” Lyla cleared her throat that was nonexistent, “canon event.”

“We have to bring her in,” Miguel began walking away from Peter and Lyla followed. “I am NOT having some vigilante shit show up on this doorstep. Peter, get Jess, brief her and get a day pass to bring along.”

“Miguel,” Peter wagered, “what if this is associated with her canon? What if she’s just an anti-hero in her world?”

“She’s not,” Lyla piped back in. “She’s a hero, hero. And this isn’t part of her canon event. You’ve gotta know how grief moves people?”

Miguel grunted, Peter sighed.

“Get Jess. I’ll wait for you,” Miguel pushed on Peter’s shoulder to send him the other way.

Once alone and down the winding halls near the center of the headquarters, Lyla spoke again perched on Miguel’s shoulder.

“Miguel, I think there’s something you should know?”

“Know what, Lyla?” Miguel’s attitude had always been sour—she had been there from his creation and it never changed. He never truly smiled, he never truly laughed.

Miguel O’Hara was a tough nut to crack in a world full of people who lived off joy and laughter.

But she could feel the sensations radiating off of him. Those strident lines of afflictions that were masked by the way he covered his face. The tense nature of his shoulders as he walked further and further away but closer to a person he’d never thought to face again.

It felt like an intrusion all over again.

“You know what, Lyla?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she defended, hologramed hand squeezing his shoulder. “But there are a million Peter’s and Gwen’s and MJ’s out there.”

“This isn’t her,” Miguel huffed. “She would never do this.”

“But she is, Miguel… and her canon event is you.”

“So a possible disruption?”

“It’s already happened,” Lyla explained, giving immediate explanation to your actions. Miguel did not know you in this way, but he could imagine why such feelings would manifest in violence.

“Good, good.”

Lyla scoffed, hopping to her feet. “I wouldn’t say it’s ‘good,’ boss. You died in her world. You were married in her world. I think she’s gonna wanna slap you for even existing in another timeline.”

“Why?” Miguel quirked a brow. “You know her or something? Keeping secrets from me now?”

To save her, Peter and Jess entered the lair with their bands glowing. Lyla simply shrugged and disappeared before they jumped into an Earth that would feel like they own but be nothing like it.

“Miguel," Jess was already shaking her head. Three months pregnant and still doing work, both Peter and Miguel would not be surprised if the child arrived wearing a suit of their own. "There's no anomaly there–there hasn't been a case in that world of a villain glitching from another."

"It's not about the bad guys," Miguel walked toward them to meet them in the middle. "What she's doing no Spider-Person has done before and what's the purpose of a society if we don't help one of our own?"

Lyla appeared between the three ready to open the portal.

"One last thing, folks!" She walked around casually glowing and pushed up her heart shaped glasses to her hairline. "She's not wearing her suit - so if you don't work fast, her identity will be known to the public and well! We just can't have that, can we?"

"Fantastic!" Peter complained as Miguel opened up the portal. "They are a bit suffocating really, if you asked me."

"Well we didn't," Miguel gruffed.

"What's her name? Just Spider-Woman?" Jess asked. "Should we just yell 'Hey! Spider-Woman! Stop it! You're actually a good person!'"

"Y/n. Her name is Y/n and don't freeze up when you see her, alright bud? Alright! See you all when you get back! Have fun!" Lyla waved, patting Miguel's leg as she walked the floor and disappeared once more.

Stretching out his legs, Peter did not miss the glare Miguel gave Lyla. His eyes cold and hardened; he knew so little of this leader but felt he knew so much. Miguel wasn't like the other Spider-People and well, he assumed perhaps you were not either.

Peter missed that he should have recognized your name.

He had been there with Miguel when the other world collapsed.

"Anything else you wanna tell us, boss?" He pushed. Miguel shook his head and slipped on his mask in more ways than one.

"She's disturbing her own canon by going rogue. I'm not going to let her destroy it because she's... upset."

Jess laughed and Miguel was indignant. "If she's a bad egg, she's a bad egg, Miguel. You can't save everyone."

"She's not a bad one!" Miguel scolded her, pointing out toward the darkness of the portal. "She's not supposed to do this and we need to fix this! Y/n is good!"

Peter smirked, wiggling his brows. He could sense Miguel's anger muddled with a nervous fear he never had. "Y/n, Miguel... first name basis already and we haven't even met her. You move fast, don't you?"

"Oh, you are so fucking annoying! She was my wife!"

Peter's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Oh no! Not again, nope!"

"She doesn't exist in this world anymore, Peter," Earth 928, "and in another timeline, she's taken the mantle."

Jess jutted her hip out as the whirring of the portal loomed over them. "So you exist in her's too then? This won't be too confusing. It's just like Peter and MJ or Gwen in the thousands of realities that exist."

"Sure, sure," Miguel said. "But there are only three realities where she exists and," he cleared his throat as he looked down the portal, "this is the last one left."

"We shouldn't risk it. We can't collapse another world."

"We won't collapse it."

"How do you know that?" Peter questioned. There was always a level of selfishness when it came to those someone loved most.

"I just... I just know! You're not in charge here, Peter. If I don't have any hesitations right now, then neither can you."

"Well then," Peter strutted through the portal and turned around before his body was completely gone, "Let's go get us another Spidey then, yeah?"

And he saluted Miguel and Jess before jumping in.

"You've been monitoring her world?" Jess asked and Miguel looked to his feet. She had never seen him so bashful. Never one to make a scene of rash emotional actions, the causation would need

"I watch over many worlds."

"Yeah but come on," She dug, "this is a lot different than those worlds. You know her."

"I don't know her," Miguel defended himself and took a step further into the portal. "She isn't my wife. She's just a version of her that I don't know."

"Mhm," Jess hummed and drummed on her arm as they remained crossed from the moment Miguel said you were his wife. "Let's go meet her then. Then you can go on and on about how she's everything you remember but not the same."

And she walked through the portal before she disappeared to leave Miguel alone.

With clenched fists, Miguel breathed in deep and appeared in a reality he promised never to interfere with.

Inside of the bodega, the two men bartered with one another in the aisle. They looked to be two friends having a conversation in the middle of the shop but their intentions were not pure.

The bell above the door rang as you entered. Shoulders and hair wet from the rain, the cashier paid you no mind as he changed the station on his portable radio sat on the counter.

There were three civilians inside. One, the cashier who was oblivious and that is the sole reason these thugs decided to hit the bodega. An 'easy' target to get in and out. Two, a woman who was going grey at her temples. And three, a teenage kid with untied sneakers.

You ducked behind a shelf as you watched them in the aisle beside you. Between the chips and pretzels they concocted their idiotic plan in the presence of innocent people as they always did–it was how their bank robbery disaster went sideways six months ago.

When civilians are present, one of them will always try and become the hero. It is what Miguel did and now he's six feet under in a cold box.

"Excuse me, Miss," the older woman pointed to the bag of chips that your hand was resting on. She turned your attention away from the men. "Could I get one of those? I don't mean to be a–"

The men began to make their moves and you were distracted by the woman. She had kind eyes. Easy and familiar and a familial feeling to them as she waited patiently for you to move.

"Yes, yes," you replied as you got out of her way. "Sorry."

You didn't know why you apologized. Maybe you felt sorry she found herself in this bodega at an hour such as this.

"No worries, dear." The boy wasn't far from her either. He was shuffling through a freezer looking for a drink that wasn't there.

As she grabbed onto the bag, the radio dropped to the floor and turned off. It startled everyone inside and the cashier filled the silence with his desperate pleas.

"Oh my," his jaw chattered, "please... I don't have anything.... I-I-I I've gotta lot of student lo-o-oans and I really n-need this job."

He was staring into a silver barrel of a gun by the hands of the blonde who orchestrated everything. The older woman screeched behind you and the freezer door slammed shut with a "oh hell no!" following its thud.

You imagined the fear they felt was the same Miguel felt that day. Sitting there, hostage on the bank floor with a check to cash from his mother for his birthday.

The check was in evidence splattered with his blood.

In the neon light of the bodega, you made a choice to never let that happen again.

The cashier kept muttering whole-hearted pleas and the friend reached over the counter to open the register's drawer but it was locked.

"Unlock it!" Blondie ordered, shaking the gun closer and closer to the cashier who looked close to wetting himself. Behind you, the older woman crouched to the floor began praying to herself.

"Unlock it now, you son-of-a-bitch! You wanna end up on the floor? Open it!"

The cashier, who now you realized had a name badge on that read 'Max', began to reach for the keys that were hooked onto the counter.

Fear in his eyes, anticipation in theirs, anger in yours.

Anger always caused the tides to turn.

You reached your hand forward in a quick motion and the web that released itself from your wrist snatched the keys from the hook. Max flew backwards in a jolt of despair and the barrel was soon pointed at you.

"Oh you have got to be kidding!" Blondie screeched and fired a shot. He missed. It was sent right into a chip bag and exploded them all over the floor. You tossed the keys to the older woman and went for the gun.

Like child's play, the gun flew across the bodega and into your palm to be crushed like a piece of fruit. It was still hot from being fired and its pieces crumbled to the floor.

"What the fuck–" the woman stuttered.

"So," Blondie spoke and you hated his tone. Condescending and mighty. "Spider-Woman has a face..."

This friend pulled a bracelet from his pocket that lit up green. It glowed as brightly as the neon signs in the window blurred by the rain.

"She does," you replied. "And it will be the last face you see."

He laughed. They always did. It was an inescapable pattern of dealing with enemies who thought they would win. They never did, and they all thought the same way.

"Is that so? I would really hate to have the Bugle's headline to read: Spider-Woman killed innocent civilians at the 6th street Bodega." He let out a series of tisks with a shake of his head. "Who knew heroes could be so bad?"

He looked to his friend. "Herman..."

The friend, Herman, locked eyes on you and approached quickly and with a heavy hand charging with the green of the gauntlet. You could hearing the whirring and the loading of the power.

Instead of moving out of the way, you turned and pushed the older woman away. She slid on the slick floor into a corner with her bag of chips still in her hand.

The shock hit you with a staggering power. It blew you backwards into an ice freezer in the back of the store. As you landed on the ground, the woman whimpered in the corner and the boy caught your eye underneath a table by the restrooms.

He couldn't have been more than fifteen.

And he wasn't going to die today.

So, you got back on your feet and brushed off your jacket. The residual sting of the shock began to wear off and the men looked at you with a challenge.

"Who knew fighting the Spider would have been so easy?" Blondie laughed. "Where were you when we started? It would have been a much more fair fight."

"Busy," you spat.

"Huh," he hummed with a nod of his head. It was like he was trying to clock you–the way his eyes squinted and he tilted his head just a bit higher than it normally would have been. "Say, have we met before?"

"I'm sure I would remember. This is certainly a pleasurable encounter."

Blondie didn't let the words sting. You weren't a Spider who stung with a bite.

"I've seen your face before..."

"Maybe I just have one of those faces," you quirked a brow and Herman charged his gauntlet again. "Is this the worst you can do? Threaten a few innocents and have your friend do all the work? What happened to real criminals, huh?"

"Funny," he walked like a villain. Hands in his pockets, shoes scuffing the floor. "I've heard that one before." His mind raked the last time he heard that.

"Well it must say something about you then."

Herman went to shock again and you shot a web at him. He went soaring into a wall, head hitting it hard.

"I know!" He snapped his fingers like a lightbulb went off inside. Clarity now in a world filled of unclear ways. "I've seen your picture before."

"So what?" You matched his movements as he moved toward the center of the store. Every tight aisle blocked your view like a shutter.

"'Is this the worst you can do?' Someone told me that a short time ago. A man who tried to get in my way."

Miguel.

He was at the bank. He had his check ready, he was at the counter. Miguel had his wallet out and prepared.

He had a photo in his wallet.

"And I think you know how that turned out for him. But here's the thing, Spider-Woman... I don't hate the idea of having that same fate met you tonight. I imagine being so deep underneath the ground it gets a little lonely."

He stopped at the center, so did you.

"I think it's time for you to join him."

But all you saw was red.

There was an intense pulsing pressure inside of the bodega. You weren't sure how much time had passed as your fist dug deeper and deeper into the man who spoke too much and had little to act upon.

Whimpers of those left inside were deferred. The begging of his friend fell on deaf ears.

In the corner beside the three civilians–the woman, teen, and cashier–a glowing hexagonal portal opened to the dimension in which they lived. It hummed like a freezer and moved like something from the cinema they watched last year but instead of aliens appearing from the abyss, three people emerged no different than the way they walked.

They were people, human. Three Spider-People in a world that already had a Spider-Woman.

In their perspective the heroes were welcome. They were terrified and huddled within one another as one robber was webbed to the wall and the other was being beaten to a pulp by a woman with super-human strength.

"Peter," Miguel motioned to the civilians in the corner, "get 'em out of here."

The humble servant Peter was, he acted quickly. His nervous high-pitched voice soothing their fears with panic and disbelief that three masked people walked through a portal as though it was any other day.

"Get the man down, Jess," Miguel pointed to the guy webbed to the wall. Jess tipped her head to the side with an amused, sly grin on her face as he wept. Chick's a badass, she thought.

A violent one at the moment, albeit, but a badass nonetheless.

Fist hovered in the air, you went rigid as the sensations coursed through you. A striking feeling that felt more like a severe headache that came on too quickly, the immense pressure your body suddenly took on wasn't unfamiliar.

You had felt them before. It happened when something in the air changed. When something you knew could disappear or when time was suddenly running short. There was no term for it nor did any other person in this world feel what you felt.

The man below you gurgled. It was, just like the sensation, a sound that awoken something within you. It cleared the vision from red to reality and suddenly the harsh lighting of the bodega and the reflections of the neon signs on the linoleum filled in the edges.

"Shit," you stammered as your grip on his body lessened with every second.

Those consistent strums of radiating itching went from the top of your head to the base of your skull. A humming in the distance turned into a whirring sound that was too extraneous to come from a small place such as this one.

In an instant, the aluminum window covers were pulled from the ceiling by a pair of red, glowing lines reminiscent of webs. It shut out the outside world and the rain that had been pouring down for hours. The neon lights no longer reflected themselves on the flooring.

A hero, a villain... at some point those had all become the same to you.

The ideas that propelled them to act were all based in something that made them feel passionate enough to target an opposing force. When a hero turns to the fragmented middle of the road and balances the line of enemy and friend, the revelations of such shame grow from a deeper place of pain.

"Let him go."

The voice in your head sounded so much like Miguel.

And once your senses stopped going wild, your heart lept into your throat at the thought.

You buried him. You buried him six feet under.

The door to the bodega's alley opened and closed.

"Come on," the voice said again, "let him go and we can clean up this mess."

"Stop," you mumbled, shutting your eyes as your fists clenched the man's jacket harder. The one that had been in the air dropped to his chest. It was wet with the mixture of sweat and blood.

"Stop it please. Please stop it."

"Those civilians are gonna go get the police," his voice was low. It was that kind of voice that Miguel would use to talk you down from a nightmare–or maybe what this dimension had made you.

"And when they get here, what do you think they're gonna do when they see you sittin' over him?"

"Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking–" you repeated again and again. A thud in the distance set the blonde's friend on the floor and a web kept him in place once more.

"Boss they're gonna take her," another voice, not one you had ever head before filled the room and suddenly you were terrified that it wasn't voices you were hearing in your head. "We gotta bring her back with us."

"Alright! Three darling innocents saved again by, you guessed it," a far too cheerful voice added to the collection, "me."

You were curled into yourself over the blonde. Peter saw a woman, not dressed in a traditional uniform, use her powers for bad. But he saw the destruction of the man and knew that it wasn't from sheer wickedness.

He had seen you care so much before. It had to come from a place of caring.

"Well," he cleared his throat, "this is... a lot." And then he blanched.

"Jess," Miguel motioned to your static figure. He turned around and walked away as if to say 'you got it.'

There was an inflection in his voice that made Jess bristle. She hated the tone; removed and vacant. He was already living a humorless existence and the idea that this dimension made you act this way fractured himself in a new way.

"You heard him," Peter went scouring the aisles, plucking a bag of dried beef from a shelf to shove his mouth with. "You got this!" He gave a half-hearted thumbs up.

So, Jess had this.

She didn't crouch down. She didn't attempt to place a hand on your shoulder or help clean off your hands.

Jess kneeled on the other side of the man and your distant eyes met hers to know you weren't alone. You weren't alone in your pain and you certainly weren't alone in this world.

Your first thought was that she was pretty. Your second thought was that this woman was pregnant and that made you sad.

"Looks like you've gotten yourself in a bit of a mess," she spoke quietly but acted quickly. She placed her fingers on the pulse of the man.

He was breathing.

"Who are you?"

"Name's Jess."

"Jess," you repeated, "and Jess comes from...?"

She saw your lip tremble, eyes welling with tears. Jesus, she thought, she wasn't ready to be a mother if she couldn't deal with a thirty-something spider-woman who happened to be Miguel's wife in three different dimensions.

"Earth–404."

"Earth?"

"You felt that, right?" She motioned to her head, mimicking a tingling sensation with her fingertips. You nodded.

"Well, a lot of us have it... and I mean people like you and me... and I know it makes no sense, but if you can fight mutant enemies, maybe you can imagine there are other worlds out there."

"Like planets?" You sniffed and your hands began to shake. Everything bubbling to the surface of pain and anger. "You're from another planet?"

"Not really, but kinda, sure," she agreed for your sake.

"And your friends?"

"Different planets too."

You breathed in a shaking breath. Somewhere in the distance, you could hear the sirens begin to blare. It may have been 10 blocks or 6 blocks, but they were coming and they were coming in fast.

"Now," Jess cleared her throat, "it looks like you've gotten yourself in a little situation that needs a bit of help."

Jess was the most sympathetic she had ever been. The way your hands shook, your tiredness expanded beyond you. Maybe it was the fact she knew what made you go off the deep end that made her feel more thoughtful.

"They, um-"

"It's ok," Jess said and didn't let you finish. "We just need to get you somewhere safe, ok? Me and my friends can help you."

The sheen in your eyes was cloudy. Face wet and brushed with splatter of a man who was not yours, there was a lifeline to get you out of here and you had to take it.

You shook your head softly before it became more frantic. "I don't have anyone to go to... I don't have anyone."

"You do," her hand hovered over the man's body as Peter came back and lowered himself beside Jess. "You're gonna have a whole group behind you if you let us help."

"We'll get you all cleaned up and then introduce you. There is a whole universe of us out there."

"Us?"

"Spider-People?" He questioned, brows furrowed. Jess hadn't been explicit.

"A society," she drew back from Peter. "Like myself and Peter," indirectly introducing him, "and you and–" she stopped short.

"And you want me there?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "I mean, we could use some more badass Spider-Women around."

"But I–"

"Don't worry about all this, alright? We all have our moments."

Peter reached out his hand for you to take. There was a certain level of hesitancy you felt; perhaps it was a trick or maybe you were trapped in another nightmare. But Peter gave a small smile. He gave off a warmth that Jess had exuded and made you nearly forget that there were three voices and not their two.

You took Peter's hand.

The man was breathing, he would live even if he didn't deserve to. The sirens were no more than 3 blocks away.

"You gonna need one of these," Jess held out her hand to reveal a rubber bracelet.

"A day pass," she explained, "to help you adjust."

"Adjust?"

"It's better to ask fewer questions," Peter scrunched his face. "Less confusion for you."

You slipped on the bracelet.

"We good here?"

It was that voice again, the one from the back of your head.

"We gotta go. Time is ticking."

Except this voice wasn't the back of your head now that you've realized there were others in this bodega. As you rose from the floor and began walking as Jess led the way, the friend was passed out on the floor and a glowing hexagonal portal was lingering in the back of the store.

The sounds, the sensations... it meant something.

"All good, Boss. The robbers will live."

The man in the blue suit–from what you could tell–nodded and looked in your direction but said nothing. There was something in your body that was sending alarm bells to your mind but you ignored them.

They weren't like the sensations you had felt before. These were different in a way you couldn’t explain.

“Right let’s, ah,” he hesitated as his hands rested on his hips. You looked at him and he looked away. “Get moving then.”

“What’s going to happen when I go through that thing?” You pointed to the portal.

He didn’t look at you. He couldn’t look at you. All he saw was his wife who used to laugh at his corny jokes and rest her head on his shoulder in bed. He saw, in one dimension, the mother of his child and he saw a happy, generous nurse who loved her job.

But when he looked at you know, part of that image was shattered.

You were a little bit broken and a little bit worn down by the world you lived in. You had blood-splattered clothing and tear stained cheeks and it was enough to make his heart ache more than it already did.

“It will pop you out just where we want you,” Peter said as he took a step into the portal and his body began to glitch with the moving sphere around him. “Just walk in and it will do the rest.”

“And it’s safe?”

“So far, yeah!” And he ran off before he disappeared.

“I’ll see you there, alright?” Jess turned to you, then looked at Blue before giving a smile that was as flat as a dead man’s heart beat.

She walked in just as suave as she came.

Suddenly, it was just the two of you and it felt strange.

There were so many feelings lingering that you couldn’t grasp onto. The air was comfortable but hesitant; there was a barrier of distrust and burden, but one that itched to reach out a hand to help.

“You know,” you sniffed back a chuckle, “I half thought I was crazy for a second.”

“About what?” He asked. “The fact that you almost killed a man or the portals? Both are equally crazy.”

In any other circumstance you would have thought he was being sarcastic.

You shook your head. You were beginning to feel the weight of your actions.

“I thought I heard voices… a voice in my head.”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah,” you glanced at the portal.

A lull. The whirring of the portal, the sounds of police cars went mute when you looked back. Blue was looking at you but you couldn’t see his eyes. You couldn’t see a thing and indeed, you didn’t know his name.

Blue.

Miguel’s favorite color was blue.

“Thank you,” you said earnestly. “For coming here. I think I’m still a bit shell-shocked,” you laughed and he knew you were, “but maybe I was waiting for this… I don’t know.”

“It’s our job.”

Blue was done with the conversation at that point. He walked to the portal, his body glitching just like Peter and Jess’s did.

“Come on,” he motioned to you.

“What’s your name? The other two—they introduced themselves.”

“Spider-Man.”

“That’s not your name.”

He let out a huff. “You wanna be caught by the police? Fine.” He began walking again and the glitching became more erratic.

“Who’s to say you’re all not some group of aliens trying to kidnap me? At least the other two looked like me!”

His patience too was skating on thin ice.

“Come on, kid, let’s go.”

Maybe you weren’t crazy.

“What did you just say?”

He turned his body back to you and walked out of the portal. On the precipice of where you stood just beyond and where he did, he towered over you.

“I’m giving you a chance here. You come with me now or you’re dead here.”

“Kid. You said ‘kid.’ Why did you say that? Why did you say I was a kid?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, let’s go.” Like a rhythmic pattern, he turned back around.

“I’m not crazy. I know I’m not fucking crazy.” You sure as hell looked it. “Why did you say kid? Who told you to call me kid?”

“No one—“

A sudden banging on the door to the bodega caught the attention left in the room. Blondie started to gurgle, you stood steadfast, and Blue was agitated.

You took a step into the portal. Progress.

“Nobody calls me kid, no one. Why won’t you tell me your name? Who the hell are you people? Who are you?”

“We don’t have time for this!” The way he said your name that followed was one you had heard a million times.

It was just like Miguel used to say.

“Take off your mask.” You demanded and stepped further again.

“Take off your fucking mask or I’m stepping out of this goddamn thing and going to prison.”

The police began to feverishly hit the glass with their batons.

“Take it off,” you begged, “please. Please let me see you.”

And how could he say no to his wife who begged so mercilessly?

There was a time where you replayed that moment over and over in your mind.

You could still feel the way your breath caught in your chest. An immense wave of emptiness washed from you and filled with a jittery dismay that had no outlet.

His eyes were no different; the way his lips sat and his brow furrowed.

You felt the silent shed of tears mask your face before the glass breaking set Miguel moving toward you, grabbing your hand and pulling you through the portal.

His touch was the same.

And when he opened his mouth, what he sounded like was different from what he said and you were quick to realize that this Miguel was not your Miguel.

This Miguel despised people who lived happy lives.

This Miguel was mean and callous and demanding

This Miguel worked beyond reasonable hours and made being a Spider-Man his life’s purpose.

That was not your Miguel.

There was no making sense in that moment. You either believed it or you didn't and if you didn't, then they'd drop you back off in a world that had your face plastered on wanted posters and big screens in the middle of the city.

So you made sense of it and made some semblance of life within the four walls of the Spider Society headquarters with the Grade A asshole known as Miguel O'hara – not your husband.

The grief of that worked in waves. It came and went when life continued to move. It was strange to think that what brought you here, to this future, occurred one year ago.

Sat by a window looking out into an Earth that was not yours, you swung your legs as those thoughts crossed your mind. The chatter of a thousand Spider-people filled the space around you.

A thud sounded on the beam a few feet from you. Soft, nearly mute shoes tapping their way beside you. Green. The color of artificial grass in a children's playset, nearly blue.

"Watcha doing?"

There was never a moment of peace here. But you closed you eyes, sighed and a smile quirked on your lips.

"You daydreaming? I wonder what it's like out there..." Gwen Stacy joined the Spider-Society three months ago. "It looks so... contempo."

"Contempo? Where did you hear that?"

"I read you know," she tipped her head up in mock offense. "Kids do read when they're in school."

"Yeah, yeah," you brushed her off.

"So... what are you up to today? I was thinking we could monitor the dimensions with Jess and maybe catch a bad guy or two–" Gwen's fists mimicked boxing, "–and then Peter said he'd bring Mayday around–"

"Slow down," you chuckled. "I am up to nothing, thanks for asking and if that's what you want, sure."

Her eyes lit up when on most days they didn't.

"Really!?"

"Mhm, yeah, sure."

"Great!" Gwen got to her feet and wrung her hands. "Jess was in the control center so–"

"Control center?"

Gwen hummed, hands clasping behind her back comically.

"Yep! Just... chillin' by a screen. You know, she's got that baby on the way and all so we thought it'd be best to keep her inside for the time being and she doesn't like that but she said–" Gwen went on and on as the words came pouring out.

"Gwen."

"–that she would rather die than have to sit here and watch screens all day. I told Peter she would hate it and he agreed with me but sometimes he brings–"

"Gwen."

"–Mayday around just to cheer us up that we haven't gone on that many missions and its always well... you know... and we feel like we can't do anything to help out sometimes–"

"Gwen!" You shouted at her. She stopped her rambling; blue eyes wide and ears listening. "Just... take a breath, alright?"

"Sorry," she said sheepishly.

"You don't have to be sorry," a sharp breath steadied you. "I'm not going to go with you to the control room."

"Please," she begged. You imagined this is what it was like having a teenage daughter who wanted the most unattainable of things. "I promise it will be fine! Miguel's not even there so you don't have to worry about what he said last time!"

"That was three days ago, Gwen!"

"So what!?"

The last time was three days ago.

Ever since you arrived, it had been nothing but anger and hostility pushed toward you from him but you were not easy on him either. It was hard facing a piece of your past that had every connection but no foundation at the same time.

Earth 9591 was in ruins and the screens replayed the horrors of the people over and over. It was desolate. Earth was crumbling in on itself and a medieval Rhino had found itself in the mess as Earth 9591 Peter was on his last leg.

According to Miguel, this Peter was supposed to experience this.

"We can't just let him die, Miguel," you argued as he stood up on his platform above you and Peter. "There is a chance he could live and we're reducing him to nothing because of his goddamn canon?"

"We can't mess with it, you know that." Miguel's patience was running thin. "Every time we can't interfere you come here with the same argument and the answer is always no. It will always be no."

"Why?" You pushed. Sometimes just seeing his face now made you mad. The questions of why this Miguel got to live when your's didn't was something that constantly simmered within you.

"You plucked me from my Earth and brought me here so why can't we do that for him? He'd be healthy and safe here."

"This is supposed to happen to him," he huffed your name as he turned back to the screens. "Not every battle is going to be one that Spider-Man wins and if we mess with it, we threaten that whole dimension."

"Well it sure as hell looks like it's in a bit of trouble, boss," Peter let out a nervous chuckle.

"And so it is."

"But what of Rhino, hm?" He hated the way you rose your eyebrows in question. Every version of you did that. "That's not supposed to be his fate."

"One less villain we have to worry about."

You let out a frustrated groan. "When did you become so heartless? We save people here, Miguel. We don't let them suffer."

"I'm not heartless. I'm being realistic and the fact is that 9591 Peter isn't gonna live and his world will become uninhabitable. That is part of his canon, end of story."

"So my canon said to bring me here?" You asked, hands on your hips. Peter inched backwards from you because he could feel the rumblings of the volcano bubbling.

"Take me from my home and bring me here for what? To have another person go along with every decision you make? Newsflash, Miguel, that's not going to happen."

"Oh, really?" He laughed, sarcastically, and looked down at you from above.

"Yes, really. Maybe this canon bullshit is just that, bullshit. Maybe you made a mistake–"

"I didn't make a mistake," he defended loudly. "I am not letting other worlds get destroyed because of stupid decisions."

"So it's only a stupid decision when it's a reality that we both exist in?"

If Peter hadn't known any better this would have sounded like a fight between a married couple.

"That's not what I said," Miguel brought his hand to the bridge of his nose and squeezed. "We can't go around making those same mistakes. I am not putting any other lives in danger."

"But you did it when it benefitted you."

Miguel mumbled to himself up there. You couldn't hear. Peter took more steps back and Spider-Byte ducked behind her consul. Miguel's brown mop of hair slicked back with the motion of his hand.

"Well you would've liked that world too."

"I liked the one I was from."

God, some days he really disliked you.

At the same time, when Miguel looked down at you, he saw the wife he knew in a different capacity and it sent his mind spiraling. He didn't sleep, he barely took the time to care for himself because all he could think about was the dimensions of happiness that you both had and the one you've both found yourselves in now.

He hated that he loved the body of the woman he knew but couldn't fully trust the version of you that existed now.

"We're not going."

"Miguel,"

He lept from the platform and onto the level you stood on. Still as large as before, his shadow filled your space before he did and for some ungodly reason, the presence of this Miguel made your heart pump furiously as your husband had.

Miguel had that look in his eyes that made them appear red. Fist clenched at his sides and that same lingering sadness emitting from his person.

"Not another word."

He hated the challenge you took from him.

"Why is it ok that you took me from my dimension? To serve some sick purpose of remembering your wife?" You spat at him.

You were just like her... just a little more broken.

"I'm not her, Miguel."

"You think I don't know that?" His voice was nearly caught in his throat. "You think I don't know that you're not her? It's pretty goddamn obvious you're not her."

"Oh yeah?" Your voice was no different.

You hated when you fought with Miguel in your dimension and that didn't change in this one.

Peter thought he should look away.

"Well she's not here, is she?"

Miguel stared at you. He couldn't help the way his eyes moved over your face. He saw the same eyes, nose, and lips. You were his wife just as he was your husband.

"No," he said as a ghostly whisper, "she's not."

"And maybe I'm not like her but you're not like my Miguel either... so don't make this fall on me. I didn't ask to come here."

"You're here now," Miguel's voice was devoid of feeling. "So get used to the rules. We're not going."

And he stalked off with Peter following on his tail.

If you closed your eyes you could see fragments of Miguel. Now, however, this Miguel was beginning to eclipse those memories.

"Shit..." Spider-Byte snickered from behind her monitor. Her blue glow filling your vision as you looked at her. "I wouldn't take that, mama. I'd kick his ass."

Miguel wasn't there. He was off saving a dimension because canon was all that mattered and Jess was monitoring that other universes just as Gwen had said.

It was a relief.

So, you sat back and watched as Jess and Gwen flipped through the different footage from the dimensions that either lit up red for an anomaly or maintained green for a perfect balance.

Jess flipped through them quickly. Every world passing by your face within a second of seeing the light on the panel turn green. The few instances of red sent her pressing on a communication button before Gwen could complain that she wanted to go out and fight.

Gwen lingered on worlds. She looked at the images as though she wished to be a part of them.

She hesitated moving on from a boy in a black suit just a second too long.

"Gwen?" You asked her as her hand hovered over the button. She was intently looking at him as he moved about the fire escape.

"Gwen?" You reached out a hand to shake her shoulder. She bristled out of her spell and pressed the button before you could ask any questions.

It would be several months later that you'd learn that the boy was the source of it all.

Miles Morales had heard a million versions of the same story.

It all began with a name and that named person being bit by a radioactive spider that magically gave them powers and they used them to save the world, or fight street crime, or kill mice (in the case of that Spider-Cat he saw in the lobby).

They were all the friendly, neighborhood hero that the world needed.

Until the collider messed with their functions and required a society such as this to take on a much larger purpose.

And Miles was taken aback.

He had never felt so seen sans the moment he walked through the doors of the complex. Every turn he made, a new Spider-Person was uniquely fit into their world so different than his own.

Within the chamber of villains from other dimensions, he saw a Spider-Woman without a suit.

"So people like, live here?" Miles asked Gwen who shrugged.

"Some do. We can stay for as long as we like and then go back to our dimensions when we need to."

"And suits are optional?"

Hobie turned around and gave Miles as questionable gaze.

"A uniform is binding, man," he told Miles. "Use what makes you comfortable."

Gwen nearly galloped ahead to the Spider-Woman with a digital portfolio. Miles saw the way Gwen's eyes lit up just as they did when they saw each other again.

Hobie was the one to introduce you. Your named rolled off his tongue like butter–so casual and cool in a way Miles did not believe he ever could be.

"She lives here," He explained. "Can't really go back to her dimension so she does a lot of cataloguing. The main man doesn't want her out of missions... you know," Hobie spun his finger near his forehead, "little crazy that one."

"I'm not crazy, Hobie," you called out as Gwen pointed toward your group.

"No, you're right," he corrected himself. "He's the crazy one."

"That's more like it," you smiled and Miles felt a boyish crush form in his stomach. "Hi Miles. I've heard a lot about you."

You did. Gwen had been giddy in the way she reminisced about her time with Miles. Even Peter put in his two-cents about the way he trained him and it went incredibly poorly for the greater part of their journey together.

You missed a good chunk of time by not being present when they all converged on the same dimension. It may have saved you from yourself.

"Hi," he waved back nervously.

The party kept walking with your addition. Beyond the orange cells of villains captured and waiting to be returned home, a center of technology he could dream of appeared in front of him.

It was just a tour.

Lyla appeared beside you.

"Miguel's hangry," she complained as she looked at her non-existent nail-beds.

"He's probably just angry."

"No," she shook her bob, "it's the hangry kind. You should have the kid pick up something for him... a gift."

"Gift," you chuckled. Miles looked so green. He was amazed by the technology of the go-home-machine that you weren't sure how he would react when he reached the hub. Walking through all of the test technology before going to Miguel's station... he'd be on cloud nine.

"He'll be expecting the party soon."

"I'll stay behind."

You were certain Miguel would be able to hear this conversation but Lyla had a mind of her own–she was artificial after all.

"You should come with. Miles could use your perspectives."

"What perspectives?" This was the longest conversation you had ever held with her. "Oh, Miles," you mimicked, "don't beat criminals to a pulp... um, don't let your anger get the best of you... don't kill people.... yeah, good advice."

"I meant a motherly figure here."

"I'm not a mother, Lyla. Besides, he's got Jess for that."

Lyla glitched to the other side of you. "Jess hasn't taken to him like she did you and Gwen."

"He's got Peter."

"But he could use you too."

You gave a tight-lipped hum.

"Or," she countered, "maybe you need someone like him. It's always strange what effect kids have on adults... makes them... soft or something. You should see the videos of Miguel!" She laughed, you didn't.

"He liked to play soccer with her."

Her. In another dimension, you had a daughter.

"Why are you telling me this?" You asked her.

She waved her hand dissuasively. "Miguel's not going to, so I might as well."

The party began to make their exit. Down to the liar they went and as they walked, Lyla floated in the air beside you. Miles kept peaking back like a child on a holiday.

"Miles," you called out to him.

"Yes?" He turned around quickly and at attention. He was a cute kid. So nervous and out of his element. If it weren't for his merry misfit group of friends, Miguel was sure to eat him alive.

"Do you have a question or is there a reason you keep looking at me?"

He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. Miles then pointed to Lyla.

"Is she a Spider-Person too?"

"No," you told him and Lyla glitched to him. "An A.I. that Miguel created. She knows all."

"She flatters me," Lyla murmured back a smile.

Miles turned back around and continued on with his conversation that bounced between Gwen and Hobie. Lyla disappeared from the hallway as the sounds of old, tinkered experiments and Miles' struggles painted a picture of a much different boy in your mind.

While his struggles were not yours and you'd never understand them completely, his want to belong struck a chord with you in a way it did with Gwen.

There was a family that could be built here if the realities of pain could be ignored.

Above on his floating platform, Miguel slowly descended as Miles gaped in a slight awe. Yes, it was dramatic. Yes, it was unnecessary and it made you roll your eyes.

Hobie stuck to the wall in the back. Gwen took Miles to the edge and you leaned up against a pillar not far from Hobie.

"Miguel O'Hara," Gwen introduced, "meet Miles Morales."

And then Miles butchered his introduction with cheer. He offered up those empanadas which Miguel slipped right into the trash.

And like Gwen, he fumbled his words by rambling about how to catch Spot.

Miguel threw the trash can at them both only for Hobie to sneak the empanada out of the box and into his hand without blinking.

And then everything spiraled out of control.

Miguel's meter began to spike an angry red as the frantic nature of his focus within this world had been protecting the multi-verse. Here, in this room, Miles was the supposed source of it.

If it wasn't for Miles, many of his problems wouldn't exist and he'd be grateful but he can't be, simply because they are truly real.

"Hey Miguel!" Peter's voice broke through the silent seconds. Miles perked up at the sound. "Come on, go easy on the kid. He had a terrible teacher. He had no chance."

"Peter!"

The two hugged like old friends.

"Miles!" Peter put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be afraid of my friend Miguel. He just looks scary. He's got no bite."

He had seen it once. He chose to ignore it.

So he went on with his little break up of Miguel's serious moment and you watched unfold from the shadows, the orange glow of your tablet keeping you busy while Mayday swung around the room and Miles exasperatedly came to terms with Peter being a father.

"-You always say the 'fate of the multiverse' and my brain dies."

You chuckled to yourself, glancing up at Peter as he circled Miguel. Miguel was holding Mayday like he had never held a child in his life.

That was the kind of thing your Miguel did.

"You guys smell that?" Peter sniffed into the air. He swiftly picked up Mayday and swung right by Miles and Gwen and straight to you.

"You smell that right?" He held her up high. Yes, yes you did smell that.

"That is entirely your problem, Peter."

"Miles–" Miguel caught their attention again. "–You disrupted a canon event."

"Canon event?"

"The kid wasn't thinking," Peter interjected. He held onto Mayday as you strung a web for her to bounce on. Miguel was half torn between the conversation he tried to be stern about and the watching you weave a web for that little girl.

"That's not how he works."

"That's insulting," Miles commented.

Hobie got up from the floor to stand next to you. He caught Mayday in the air, saluting her with two fingers.

"Taking a crap on the establishment... I salute you."

"What are you upset about?" Miles furrowed his brows as Miguel stepped off the platform and walked towards him. The boy would be amiss if he hadn't felt his stomach drop to his feet in the menacing way Miguel O'Hara walked.

"When isn't he upset about something?" You murmured from the back.

"I saved those people."

Ah, yes. Pavitr's dimension. Miguel had been in the go-home-department when it happened.

"And that's the problem," Miguel clarified. "Lyla, do the thing."

As she always did, Lyla appeared with a semi-oblivious nature.

"Huh? What thing?"

"The thing... what do you mean 'what thing?' The information explaining thing!"

She gave a casual 'ok' and the room changed before you.

You had never seen everything before.

Jess had talked about it, Peter mentioned what it looked like, and a few others who had seen it claimed it left them more confused than anything.

It was a bright blue tree, in a sense. Woven with a variation of color that reminded you of the sea at mid-day and the sky at night, everything was a timeline of complete facts of the world. Every moment of every person's lives were tied to this one branch of 'everything.'

Expansive and high, the tree of everything bloomed over your heads and Miles was the one trying to come to terms with the sincerity of it. However, just as he had begun to grasp the idea of everything being resembled by a tree with branches that diverged from its timeline, the room changed to a red web.

Hundreds and hundreds of webs interconnected by lines that captured the very lives in that room. All of them facing convergence by multiple lifelines to different events, canons, and realities that make up a person's existence in the, as he had coined, the Spider-Verse.

"The lines... where the nodes converge?" Miles asked aloud.

"They are the canon."

Every web around him had different nodes. Some had more than others, some had barely any. He noticed a cluster of three big webs with few canon nodes.

"Their chapters apart of every Spider's story, every time. Some good, some bad... some very bad."

Miguel pulled down a cluster to showcase the very bad. You had a sinking feeling somewhere along the line the 'very bad' also included you.

A row of Spider-People emerged in the same position. He saw Peter, he saw Gwen, he recognized you, and then himself leaning over the body of a loved one who perished too soon.

Like a story, Miguel walked through varied canon events that were to occur in many Spider stories. A police captain, a lover, the event that turns someone into a hero, the struggles of the hero.

Miles looked at each of you as a fragment of your past appeared before him.

"That's how the story is supposed to go. Canon events are the connections that bind our lives together and those connections can be broken that why anomalies are so dangerous. Inspector Singh's death was a canon event."

A police captain.

"You weren't supposed to be there."

Even though you weren't there, you saw it unfold from the safety of Lyla's simulation. People running, a bridge nearly collapsing.

"And you weren't supposed to save him. That's why Gwen tried to stop you."

You could see the gears in his brain turning. He was hurt, misguided in his efforts to be a good Spider-Man because it was suddenly becoming a conflict for him. Miles tried to be good. He tried to save people and even doing so, he seemed to mess up.

It was so different from the Spider-Woman you used to be.

"I thought you were trying to save me," Miles admitted to Gwen who had turned her back from him. She kept her eyes to the ground.

"I was. I-I was doing both," she took a chance to gaze back at him only to see the hurt.

She was just doing her job.

"And now, Miles," Miguel sighed and he walked around the space. He planted his feet beside you and Miles took a glance and couldn't tell who was friend or foe.

He didn't know where he stood himself.

"Because you changed the story, Pavitr's dimension is unraveling. If we're lucky, we can stop it. We haven't always been lucky."

Miguel looked at you. He looked at you with a sheen in his eyes that you'd hadn't see from this version of him. For once, he looked as sad as he felt on the inside.

And for once, he wasn't fighting with you about what was right or wrong in that moment.

"That wasn't me!" Miles defended. "That was the Spot."

"It's what happens when you break canon."

"How do you know?"

"Because I broke it once myself."

There was a part of you that wanted out. You wanted out right that second because you had seen enough. You had seen the destruction, had been part of some destruction, and seeing Miguel's world crumble animatedly in front of you wasn't something you wanted. But your feet stuck to the floor. Planted, like mud, waiting to be freed.

It was your story too and you didn't even know what happened.

"I found another world where I had a family. Where I was happy."

In the web, the cluster of three was connected by one single strand to a much larger web with varied canon events. Whatever this was, Miles imagined, was Miguel's universe.

"At least a version of me was. And that version of myself was killed."

This time trying to catch a thief who stole a woman's purse. Not a bank robbery.

"So I replaced him. I thought it was harmless."

You looked away at the scenes. Miguel with her. A little brown haired girl who loved soccer and he did her homework at the kitchen table with her. A father who looked adoringly at a daughter who was joyous and knew no pain.

"But I was wrong."

Then the world began to collapse. In his arms, the girl disappeared as though she had never existed.

"Isn't that right, Peter?"

Your head shot up towards Peter who looked away from you. He had seen you before, in a different reality where you too were happy with the life you lived and where you were happy with a daughter who loved Miguel too.

"Peter?" You gave a weak call to him. He shut his eyes tightly. "Peter, you knew?"

Miles felt the way you felt. A shell of a hero without a purpose with people who made very choice feel like a mistake.

You walked up to Peter. Miles saw the white-knuckle grip you had on the pink robe. This was more than just friends making choices feel like a mistake.

"You knew me?"

Miles glanced back at the web. The three small webs that had little to them stuck out like a bouquet of flowers. Each their own small story.

“Whose is that?” Miles gestured as he tried to ignore the way you prodded at Peter for answers. Perhaps Miles already knew that Miguel had made this more complicated than it needed to be.

He had already destroyed one reality for happiness. Miles imagined that this man could ruin many more if it meant one more second of living.

“These ones?” Miguel pointed to the web of three.

You knew it was yours without even realizing it.

“That’s mine," you breathed in deep.

Even though you hadn't gotten along in this world, Miguel felt the weight of his secrecy fall heavily onto his shoulders.

“You see, Miles,” Miguel started, “there are infinite dimensions were we exist. All these webs here,” he pointed to the connecting lines that reappeared of many lives, “are realities were someone like you may exist. Maybe not as Spider-Man but as something.”

Miguel looked to you and for the first time since he met you in your reality, he saw the woman he fell in love with.

“And her dimensions look a bit different.”

“Why?” Miles questioned. “Why don’t ours look like that?”

“Because you can exist in infinite realities, Miles,” you told him in a voice that reminded him of his mother telling him a relative died. “And I can’t.”

“There is only three of her that exist in our… Spider-Verse, as you put it,” Miguel stated. “And one of them collapsed.”

In a hologram, he saw you in the world they had all just witnessed disappear from reality. Miles saw you running and running and he could see the destination, Miguel and that child, so close yet too far away.

And then there was nothing.

“Oh,” Miles felt sadness creep within him. Gwen wanted to comfort both you and Miles but couldn’t muster it in front of Miguel.

Peter wasn't sure what to do.

One strand of three disappeared.

“And in the other, she’s not here anymore.”

"What dimension is that?"

Miguel sighed. Hands on his hips, he met Miles' intense stare instead of yours.

"This one."

“So there is only me now,” you have a half-hearted smile.

“I thought you said you were the only Spider-Man in this dimension?” Miles asked Miguel as he tried to make sense of this world he found himself in.

“I am,” Miguel clarified. “She’s not from this dimension. Her… alternate self isn’t here anymore.”

He recalled the images of all the Peter’s and Gwen’s and Jessica’s mourning their canon disasters. Loved ones, friends, lovers.

The second strand of three disappeared.

“Does that mean if you…?”

You nodded your head at Miles. Peter put his hand on your shoulder at the admission.

Miguel focused on that hand. He saw the comfort, he saw the friendly love and knew he had wasted time. He had wasted months being angry at you when you weren’t the cause of it.

He had watched over your dimension to keep you safe while you struggled and in his own pain, he made the unity between you strained and unrealistic.

But he also knew the greater purpose.

“I guess I just have to pick the right side.”

You tried to bring levity.

You didn’t realize that you’d be picking Miles and your friends or Miguel and the person you knew because if you didn't you'd lose everything.

And you needed to save yourself in one dimension you still existed in.

Earth 42.

A/N: this isn’t proofed yet. I can totally see a million different sequels to dive deeper into the relationship between reader and Miguel.

As always, comments and reblogs are the best feedback a writer can ask for. I love reading any comments you all leave 🥺. Thank you so much for reading.

Tags:

@csmt-m @er4tous @gracielou0518

[salsasvault]

The Supermarket

this started off as a continuation for the gym!simon fic but it just became it's own thing

supermarket!simon x reader, cw: stalking, dark simon riley

Part one

1 │2 │3

Simon Riley hasn't experienced kindness, so when you show him some, he goes a little crazy.

Grocery shopping is either the funnest thing in the world or the biggest pain in the ass. And right now you're feeling it's the latter.

After a long day of work, walking around a crowded, loud store was not your ideal night. But having no-anything and little to no money, forced you off your spot on the couch, leaving it and your unfinished show behind.

You've survived, barely, trotting the shopping cart, leaning your full body weight onto it for support, eyes half closed as you wait in the checkout line. The day you’re most drained had to, of course, be the busiest day this grocery store's seen.

As you mindlessly scroll through your phone, a sudden sharp pain surges through your back, you’ve been, of course, crashed into by the cart behind you. Letting out a breath of surprise you turn to face the culprit.

Face still twisted in pain, you see a boy, around 10, with not an ounce of remorse on his face. A little annoyed you turn back, and not a minute later you're interrupted by a man, presumably his father. He makes an excuse, profusely apologizing, and so you, of course, accept the apology, give your classic,

"Don't worry about it! It happens!" and what tries to be a genuine smile but miserably fails.

Exasperated, your head is now seated between both your arms as you wait impatiently for your turn.

When you eventually near cash, another thing seems to be against you. The man in front of you, of course, seems to have forgotten his wallet.

You take a quick peek at the total, 115$, a steep number, one that you don't think you could afford, but the line won't move if he doesn't find a way to pay, and the nice thing to do is cover it.

So you chime in,

"Hey, y'know what it's okay I got it," You give him a soft smile, reassuring him that really it's no trouble. Sure you’ll have to skimp on next week's groceries, but a good deed's a good deed, you suppose.

He doesn’t move, like he hadn’t heard you, until you make your way to the machine does he finally speak.

“S’alright, don’t need them anyway.” He goes to leave.

“No really, it’s no problem,” click, you move fast, the money's gone through, not much he can say now. All you can hope for is he takes the food, and leaves so you can crawl back to your couch.

He turns around, looking at you, albeit a little weirdly, you can only see his eyes, the other half of his face covered with what looks to be a mask, the ones that wrap around your neck.

You pay no mind, averting your eyes to look at your cart, on any other day you might be more pleasant, smiling, maybe even small talk.

But the day seems to just get longer and longer, and he stares for another beat, a soft, “Thank you.” follows.

He picks up the bags, all five in one hand, you stare a little too long at the hand that holds them all, before snapping back to reply.

“No problem, have a good night.”

Was his response a little lackluster? Considering you really can’t afford anything else for the month, yes, but who knows maybe it made his day, you shut yourself down before you overthink the whole thing.

Finally, your turn you finish everything up, and your total's 95$, again more than you can afford, and so you put back the homemade burger buns, bread’ll have to do, and that pasta sauce is given back too, along with some extra produce.

You’re total comes up 55$, a number you feel a little more comfortable committing to, you're handed the bags, and you leave.

You take them out to your car, putting them in securely, and head home.

After you’re home, seated on the couch, laptop atop your lap, mindlessly scrolling through various shopping sites, do you receive a call.

Your phone rings often, at least twice a week with a number you’ve never seen and an area code far from where you are, chalking it up to a scam call every time you’ve never answered, this time no different.

You take a quick glance at the phone next to you, not recognizing the number you go back to the pair of red shoes that were on sale for a dangerously good deal.

Your phone rings again, a little weirder this time as scammers tend to call once and move on, but on the off chance it’s not a scam, you're sure they’ll leave a voicemail or a message.

A ding is what furthers your confusion, and the message itself is what chills your bones.

“It’d be in your best interest to answer that.” 

Was it highly unusual? Sure, we’re you a little scared? Yes, but then again it could always be a wrong number. You had recently changed phone plans, and your number changing with it so really it’s a simple explanation, you do however feel bad for whoever that was meant for.

Your phone rings again, worrying you further but you leave it, if whoever texts again you’ll respond, just to put an end to the dings.

“Don’t make me ask again.” 

A little intimidated by now, your mind starts to jump to conclusions, you haven't met anyone new, and haven't given your number to anyone recently.

You text back.

“i think you have the wrong number”

“Last I checked, this was the pretty sweetheart from the supermarket, was it not?” 

You swear your heart stills, before coming back to life, beating tenfold.

This could very well still be a wrong number, everyone goes to the store, just because you did today doesn’t make you special, probably some guy trying to chat up a cashier.

“sorry, i really do think you have the wrong number” 

Your mind flickers through the number of possibilities, it could be a prank, one of your friends trying to scare you. Though, this wasn't the kind of prank they'd pull.

“You sure?” 

“yes???” 

“Then why can I see ya texting lovie? All comfy with your laptop, I think you should get that those, red suits you.” 

Your head whips around to the window your sofa's seated next to, no one's out there, it’s not possible, you live in an apartment building, 20 floors above ground. The only way he could see you was if…

“who is this” 

You get out immediately, sure it’s cliche but it’s all you can manage, all that comes into your anxiety-riddled mind. You're suddenly aware of every noise and every shadow in your living room.

“You know who it is.” 

“i really don't buddy, just answer the question” 

“I think the better question is how got inside, check your kitchen.” 

You feel like you've been doused with ice water, heart beating so loud it's the only thing you can hear. The thought of getting up to investigate, when he's more than likely to be inside. You guess you waited too long contemplating because you hear another ding sound from your phone.

“Check your kitchen, don’t make me make you sweetheart.” 

Your heart skips, hesitantly you stand, slow steps moving toward the kitchen, your eyes scanning for any movement, anything, ears on high alert for the drop of a pin.

When you finally make it around to the kitchen, you're eyes once again scan the corners, the pantry, and then they fall on the counter.

Sat atop are four bills, four hundred dollar bills, alongside a note.

It then finally clicks into your head, the man in front of you in the line.

Surprisingly neat writing,

Had to pay you back,

See you soon.

Eight words scrawled onto a page. Your mind is overwhelmed with the questions flying through, pay you back with four hundred dollars? See you soon?

You grasp at your phone, rushing to text him, to gain some answers, maybe even report him to the police. Pulling open your messages, the text threads disappeared, along with his number from your call log.

You're left even more confused, did he have access to your phone? When was he in the apartment? Was he still here? If he wasn't how could he see you?

Anxiety overwhelms you, as you stare at the large sum of money and the only trace of him on your kitchen counter. 

[spectres-n-soap]

Yet the Rain Comes Anyway - Soap x Reader x Ghost

Content warnings - Death, dead body, grief, pregnancy, afab body, afab reader, angst, medical stuff, panic attack, MW3 is canon, I remind you again that SOAP IS DEAD

Series Masterlist

Blog Masterlist

A/N - My childhood cat is being put down this week so brace yourselves for the angst that will be unleashed from my heart when he passes.

You're tapping your foot against the tile floor rapidly. The unnatural smell of a sterilized hospital made the hairs on your arm stand up. Safe to say, you hate the hospital.

You stood in the morgue. It's strange, you had never been in one before. The lights were all turned on but there was no natural lighting to clear up the uneasy feeling you felt. You had asked for this, to see him before they turned him into ash. You could back out, the workers wouldn't judge you. Death wasn't an easy thing to stare down even if you work in a field where death is always right around the corner.

You steeled your resolve. You wanted to see him, you wanted to see your John just one more time. You nodded to the morgue worker and they opened the little cabinet. Was John ever afraid of tight spaces? They slide out the tray he was laid on and your entire body goes cold. He was pale, his wound patched up to the best of the morgue's ability and his eyes closed.

You remembered the way on TV the eyes would go glassy and gray. You're glad his eyes aren't open, you wanted his electric blue eyes filled to the brim with life and mischief to be the only version you know. "Oh John." You muttered as you traced the features of his face with your eyes. "I'm so sorry."

A nurse walks into the waiting room and calls out your last time. You try to stand, it's getting more and more difficult, you think bitterly to yourself. Still you swat away Simon's hand out of habit and stand up by yourself and toddle towards the nurse, hand on your stomach. The nurse glances at Simon, the look she has on her face obscured by the mask.

"He's with me, don't worry." You assure her and she begins to walk, leading the two of you to the hospital room where you'll likely spend the next hour or so. Bless her heart, your nurse, as she goes through the checklist of symptoms to make sure the pregnancy isn't going sideways. She keeps glancing at Simon in what you now understand is apprehension. You smack him and whisper, "Did you have to wear your balaclava?" You hiss.

"I was out of face masks." He replies swiftly. You lift up your shirt on instinct when the nurse moves to the ultrasound machine. This song and dance has been done more times then you would like but, you glance at your stomach and place a hand on it again, feeling the baby kick against you in response. It was for them.

The nurse spreads the gel across your stomach and uses her tool to show you them. The baby, Johnny's baby. "Their looking healthy Mum." The nurse says with what you assume is a smile. "Would you like to know their gender?"

"No." You swiftly respond and Simon glances at you. You didn't want to know if it would be a boy or a girl, it just felt like another weight on your shoulders.

"Alrighty." The nurse says, "Would you like a print out of the ultrasounds?"

"Yes." Simon replies for you and the nurse nods. She tells the both of you that the doctor will be in soon to discuss your labor plan. That comment gets another look from Simon, this time you return the look. The moment the nurse leaves the room, Simon is asking questions. "Why don't you have a birth plan yet?" At least he isn't asking why I don't want to know the gender, you think thankfully.

"I just, I lost track of time." You mutter. Between everything going on within the months of your pregnancy, trying to get out of bed each day. Trying to live with the fact that he isn't here and you're doing this alone.

Simon sighs your name and shakes his head, "Well, then we'll just start planning now."

You're sitting in his truck and looking at the contact for John's mum. She had given it to you, telling you to contact her if you need her. You've been staring at it for minutes, thumb hovering over the message option.

"Would you really come with me?"

Simon looks over at you for a second, "Of course, I promised I would." He says with no hesitation.

You look at the message option and press down on it and begin to type out of the message.

"I'm sorry I didn't get into contact with you sooner and I'm sorry this is the reason why I am. Your son and I slept together a few weeks before he was MIA. I'm pregnant by your son, I didn't sleep with anyone else so I promise this child is your grandchild. I'm 30 weeks pregnant and on leave if you want to meet up."

You turn your phone off, place it face down after sending the message and try to ignore the fast beating of your heart.

Your phone dings while you are sitting at the dining table picking at your dinner. Simon looks at you, raising his eyebrows when you don't pick it up to see the message. You ignore his looks and try to focus even harder on stabbing your mashed potatoes.

"You gonna see what she said?" He asks and you close your eyes.You place down your fork and hide your hands under the table before you lose control of your tremors. Silence hangs in the air until he speaks again, "Would you like me to see what she said?"

You think about his offer for a moment before you slowly let out a breath, "No. I'll do it." You look at your phone, almost wishing it would disappear, then you pick it up.

"Do you still have my address? Let me know if you don't, I'd like you to come here."

You say nothing and show Simon the text. "Do you still have her address?" You nod. "When do you want to go?" You shrug and keep your head down. You wish she hadn't been so vague? Is she going to yell at you? Tell you she doesn't believe you?

Simon rushes over to you when he sees your breathing start to pick up. He kneels next to you, "Can I hold you?" He whispers and you nodded frantically. He takes your hand in his and rubs his thumb over your knuckles as tears begin to drip down your cheeks.

"What if she hates me?" You asked and Simon shakes her head.

"She gave you her phone number, I'm sure she knew something about the relationship between you and Johnny."

You pick up your phone with shaky hands and send a single text.

"Tomorrow?"

She responds with a thumbs up emoji and you set the phone down, looking down at Simon who nods his head at you.

"Don't worry. I'll be with you the whole way." He reassures you and slowly lets go of your hand.

You laid in bed, limbs too heavy to move as you stared at the ceiling. It was odd to no longer have Soap visiting you at night just to share a bed for a few hours. You know he's in the morgue, cold and lifeless, yet you still wait to hear that knock on your door.

You blinked. "He's not going to knock." You said to yourself in the dark, eyelids heavy with exhaustion. Yet you waited and waited until your closed your eyes too long. The grief counselor was unimpressed by your late showing and seemingly even less impressed by your clear lies that you were fine and handling the passing well.

Didn't help that you couldn't even look him in the eyes.

That night you stood in front of his barracks doors just staring at the door. I could go in. No one is here, it hasn't been reassigned yet. I could go in. For a moment, you thought you wouldn't. You took a step back but quickly moved forward and opened the door.

His shirts still hung in the closet, his bed still made to military standard. His desk was covered in a mixture of paperwork and doodles on stray pieces of paper. His second pair of boots sat next to the door. You slowly walked over to his closet and pressed a shirt to your nose.

It still smelt like him. Gunpowder and fresh rain with just a hint of his musk that told you he hadn't washed this shirt quiet yet. He is so weird. You thought to yourself. Why is his dirty shirt hung up?

You walked over to his bed and slowly laid down on it before you turned your head to inhale whatever smell was still on his pillow. It smelt like a generic mans brand you would buy at a dollar store but it was his smell nonetheless.

Your chest began to ache the longer you stayed in his room. The relief you sought here was nowhere to be found, it just felt like each second you stayed hollowed out your chest further. Still, you laid in his bed for hours.

[thefreakandthehair]

@eddiemonth prompt, oct 14th: Roomates | Come As You Are - Nirvana | Impulsive a/n: oops, this got smutty. (lex writing smut without 50k words first? what?!) steddie, bathtubs, handjobs, getting together, they're so in love it makes me sick <333 read on ao3 | link to masterpost on ao3

Eddie’s body aches. 

Not just today, not just because it’s rainy and damp. He hasn’t hurt himself recently, and he’s not recovering from a stage-diving related injury. His body aches because some days, it just does. 

No one leaves the Upside Down unscathed, least of all Eddie. Months of beeping machines and hourly checks in the intensive care unit turned into less frequent interruptions in the main floor. Slowly, this turned into home care at Wayne’s new trailer and, eventually, moving into a small apartment with quite possibly the most consistent surprise since that week from Hell began: Steve Harrington. 

It’s been strange, having Steve around so much. They work as roommates, knowing one another as well as they do. They’re never in the other’s way, maybe because they’re rarely ever apart when they’re in the apartment anyways. Besides, Eddie’s never hated the guy, just what he once stood for and maybe some of the company he’d kept but they’d never been friends either. Eddie’s not even sure if they’re friends now, truthfully. Most of his friendships have come about based on shared interests, not trauma or monsters. 

And definitely not shared baths. 

Eddie’s body aches, so Steve does what he’s done since he started helping Wayne care for Eddie in the earliest days of his recovery. He draws him a bath, and sits with him in lavender-scented warm water. Eddie hisses as his skin adjusts to the water, some wounds and scars still sensitive to temperature, as he sits in the space that’s been carved out for him over the past year between Steve’s legs, his back against Steve’s chest and his legs straight out in front of them. 

As his body acclimates and his muscles begin to relax, his head tips back to rest against Steve’s shoulder. It’d all started innocently enough, with Steve helping Eddie bathe in the earliest days of his recovery. But day by day, bath by bath, Eddie loses another layer of clothing, and then another layer of shame, until all that’s left is raw vulnerability in the comfort of Steve’s embrace. 

He’s not sure if they’re friends because as Steve carefully shampoos and rinses his hair, pours warm water over his shoulders, and massages the tightness in his neck, Eddie thinks they could be more. After all, he can count on one hand the number of friends whose cocks have been this close to his ass. On one finger, really. It’s just Steve. 

Eddie’s body aches, and for long moments, he sits with the silence that’s become comfortable between them as he thinks. His body aches for more Steve, for his hands to drift into the very few places they’ve yet to explore—

“Steve, at what point does this become uh, not platonic?” 

The words are supposed to stay in his head. The question is supposed to be a hypothetical one to himself that he never gets an answer to because he’ll never ask. His impulsive mouth gets the better of him. 

Steve doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t release the luxurious pressure of his thumbs into the knot he’s discovered between Eddie’s shoulder blades. Instead, Eddie feels his chest rumble with soft laughter before he responds.

“At what point did I say that it was?” 

“Well, we never said it wasn’t. Guess I assumed.” Eddie shivers and tilts his head to the right as Steve sweeps his hair to the left and presses his lips to the side of his exposed neck.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Ed, but I don’t make a habit of sitting dick-out with my friends in bathtubs. That’s just for you.” His lips trail from neck to shoulder to collarbone as his hand glides from where it rests on his stomach lower, lower, lower. 

“Steve…” Eddie whispers, hips moving on their own accord. 

“Can I touch you? I’ve wanted to touch you like this for so long.” 

“Please, yes, please.” Eddie’s nearly embarrassed by the sound that escapes him, something akin to a whimper, something desperate. Nearly. 

He’s too far gone already to actually care because Steve wraps a hand carefully around Eddie’s hardening cock and glides slowly from root to tip, exploratory. Eddie’s surrounded by Steve and water and both make him feel weightless. 

This isn't going to last long, he knows.

Up and down, up and down, as Eddie falls deeper and deeper into a trance, nothing but their quickening breaths and the undulating, sloshing of the water around them. Steve sucks a few small bruises into his skin on top of his shoulder before working up and gently nipping at Eddie’s ear. 

“How’s it feel, baby? Feel good?” Steve whispers, hot and wet right into his ear. 

“So fucking good, should’ve said something so much earlier, Jesus Christ,” Eddie groans, letting one of his arms float up and tangling his fingers in the hair at the nape of Steve’s neck. 

“Mmm, yeah, should’ve. I should’ve made it more obvious too though, how fucking bad I’ve wanted you. So long, Ed, so long.” 

Eddie’s hips roll up and Steve wraps his free arm around Eddie’s torso, holding him close, safe. “I’m close, Steve, God, don’t stop, please.”

Steve's lips graze his ear as he keeps going. “I’ve got you, Eddie. I’ve always got you. Go ahead, come for me, baby. Let me see.” 

There’s something in the way Steve says always that sounds like a promise, an oath, and it knocks Eddie over the edge. He comes with a silent shout, his head dropping back to Steve’s shoulder as he feels rope after rope coat Steve’s hand and be swept away into the water. 

His ears ring and his vision goes white, the only outside stimulus that breaks through is the feeling of Steve's hands on him and Steve's voice. Distantly, Eddie registers Steve praising him, talking him through his orgasm, telling him how beautiful he is. Eventually, his body goes limp and Steve swaps arms, using his clean hand to turn Eddie’s face by the chin. He captures Steve’s lips against his own, an awkward angle for a first kiss, and it’s not lost on Eddie that Steve’s now had his dick in his hand before they’d even kissed. 

They’ve never done anything traditionally anyways. 

“Eddie?” Steve starts, breaking the kiss and looking at him with glassy eyes and a crooked grin. 

“Yeah?” Eddie returns the smile.

Steve pushes a piece of wet, curly hair out of Eddie's face. “I meant it, what I said. I’ve always got you, for as long as you want me to.” 

Eddie’s body aches with a truth that he’s known for at least a year, one that he wants to say aloud. One that he hopes Steve feels, too. 

But tonight’s been a night of confessions already, and Eddie can’t help but feel that tonight is just the beginning, the beginning of many more nights with plenty of opportunities for declarations and commitments. 

“Careful with those promises, Stevie. That might be a really long fucking time.” 

Steve hums and kisses him again, soft and slow, one hand in his hair. 

“Good.”

[piratefishmama]

Forgiven not Forgotten | Part 6

Matchmaking would unfortunately have to wait. As much as the parents wanted to dive right in, meddle a little, be insufferable, it was well overdue after all, there were more pressing concerns. Eddie was awake. He was awake, coherent, sure he’d been initially a little loopy loo on the drugs, but he was able to answer questions, simple questions. Sort of.

“What year is it?”

“I mean, I thought it was 1986 but I seem to be missing a couple of years so, pretty sure it’s 1988 now. So much for graduating.”

“Who’s the president?”

“Man I dunno, how would I know? I just told you I’m missing a couple of years. Reagan? Is it still Reagan?”

“It’s still Reagan, Eds, election isn’t for another few months.”

“Thanks, Stevie.” Eddie turned back to the doctor “Reagan then.”

“Don’t help the patient, Mr Harrington.” Steve mouthed a sorry but didn’t actually look sorry. Eddie just smiled at him. A conspiratorial little grin shared between them, like an inside joke they’d never had the moment to create. It continued on like that for a good half an hour, boring step by step questions to ascertain just how much of Eddie’s memory was simply not there.

It turned out, he remembered nothing from after he took his seemingly last breath, to waking up in that room. Or at least that was what he was sticking to. Until the doctors left and everyone decided to leave Steve on his own in that room with him. The Harringtons gently guiding Dustin out as well, offering to get him something from the vending machines as their sandwiches had been distributed already to those sitting in with Max, Will, and Eleven via Robin.

Stinson had already collected the documents and was likely off to do whatever she had to do to fulfil her promises.

“I do remember some stuff.” Eddie finally broke the silence that seemed to fall over them the second everyone left the room. Steve’s eyes shot to him, wide, fearful? Why was he afraid? He held up a hand quickly, then got up out of his chair. Eddie watched in confused silence as Steve rummaged around the room, checking around things, the flowers people had left, the plant in the corner of the room, the TV that hadn’t been turned on, each of the little machines, he even checked the lights, and only when apparently satisfied, his search coming up empty-handed, did he finally turn back to Eddie.

“What do you remember, Eddie?”

“Nothing out here I guess.” He wasn’t going to ask why Steve ransacked the room, it didn’t really matter. “The real world I mean. It was like… a void. This big, dark space. It felt like I was stuck in limbo, but I could like… make stuff appear if I thought about it hard enough.” Steve’s continued silence only prompted him to talk more “like—like my bedroom back at the trailer? I could make that appear, everything in it, crystal clear, I could use stuff in it like my guitar, or my yo-yo! I could make the picnic table behind the school appear, I could even make Red’s living room appear if I thought about it hard enough… it was like… like I was stuck in my own brain or something, it was only places I’d been too. Time didn’t really… move there, y’know? I thought I’d only been gone a few days.”

Steve was looking down at the floor, brows furrowed, eyes flicking as if searching for answers in his own mind, working through theory after theory in silence. “Was it just you in there?”

“Mhm yeah, I mean… sorta. I think so. I mean, the mirror in my room always freaked me out a little bit but… I dunno, it was me just—”

“Not you.”

“Yeah. How’d you—"

“Don’t talk about this. At all, with anyone else. Okay? Nobody else. Not even the kids. This cannot leave this room, alright?” Eddie’s eyes flicked to the door, before he nodded “you stick to your story, you don’t remember anything. Nothing. You got ate, you woke up here. Nothing in between. Not the void. Nothing. That’s the story you stick to. Got it?”

“…Steve… what happened?” Steve sat back down beside his bed.

“Nothing good, nothing good happened these past two years okay? But as long as you don’t remember, and with what we know, I don’t think there’s anything out there that could jog that memory, you’ll be fine.” Eddie let his eyes drop to his lap, fingers fiddling with the blankets, full of nervous, uncertain energy. He was missing something. He was missing a lot of somethings, but Steve was right. It wasn’t like there was a fog in his mind where memories should have been, he remembered dying, the void, and then waking up. Nothing was missing there. He didn’t even feel like he was missing something. “I’m not going to tell you what happened, Eddie so don’t ask. There are things that you don’t need to know, things that you wouldn’t want to know. Just be grateful that you don’t remember them, and that you’re here, alright?”

“…I still don’t know how I’m here.”

“You don’t need to, just… be glad you are. We all are.”

“…All of you?”

“All of us, Munson.”

They fell into silence again, not uncomfortable, Steve seemed content where he was, a little troubled maybe, there were lines on his face that weren’t there before, stress and worry having etched permanent lines into his skin the past two years, but he was content. “Steve I—”

The door bursting open cut off anything Eddie would have said, he wasn’t even sure what he was going to say, he didn't have a plan but Steve was staying so he had to say something even if it would have been dumb... so he was sort of glad it happened.

He was glad Robin burst in and immediately took to reaching for the TV with a “you have to see this shit.” As her explanation as a news channel, the screen split between two women quickly came into view. one in a news studio, one backed by a horrorscape the people in the room unfortunately recognised.

“—he closest we’ve been allowed to get to Hawkins Indiana in the last two years, after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake rocked this quaint town 80 miles outside of Indianapolis. This town, once struck by tragedy, after tragedy, now lays desolate, a wasteland, and although the government remains tight lipped as to the exact cause of the decay which has steadily overcome this town for the last two years, government operatives who have been slowly picking through the wreckage of this disaster looking for more survivors, have assured us that it is a contained and isolated incident.”

“And this decay… I’m sure towns nearby will be worried, it can’t spread further, right?” The anchor prompted.

“No Judy, we have been assured that, while it remains classified, the cause has been located, and destroyed by a combined herculean effort from both civilian, and government forces.”

“Is there any further information on the murders that took place just before this disaster struck? If you recall some were claiming these disasters were tied to satanism and caused by ritualistic sacrifices at work?”

“Unfortunately the losses sustained in this catastrophe include the majority of the police force investigating this heinous crime, however our sources have revealed the true identity of the perpetrator, to be none other than a Mr Henry Creel, brought to justice by the very man he framed for the murders of Chrissy Cunningham, Patrick McKinney, Fredrick Benson, and the attempted murder of Maxine Mayfield. Eyewitnesses have come forward to reveal Edward Munson was seen alongside several other civilians who will remain nameless, heroically subduing the man in his attempt to flee a second thankfully unsuccessful attempt on miss Mayfields life. His reign of terror over this small town, finally ended by the very people he tormented.”

“I have here that Henry Creel was presumed deceased several years ago, is that correct?”

It was so scripted, everything about it, nothing felt real but… they were at least pinning it on the actual guilty party.

Creel’s human face revealed on screen in between the two video feeds, a blurry ID photo with no discernible origin used as the picture. It disappeared again shortly after, the two feeds growing larger once more to fill the split screen.

“Yes. Perhaps that is what gave him the freedom to enact this terrible crime without suspicion. He was being held in a private psychiatric facility which cares for mentally traumatised youths, pronounced deceased to protect him from association with his father, Victor Creel. He escaped spring of '86 under the name Peter Ballard, and immediately took to live up to his fathers’ terrible legacy.”

“And what can you tell us about the survivors of this catastrophe?”

“Once a population of just under 15,000, survivors have been spread across just four hospitals in Roane County. The death toll…” the reporter appeared to breathe, she looked down for a moment, clearly emotional “unfathomable. This will surely go down in history as one of the worst natural disasters The United States has ever experienced.”

“Thank you, Harriet.” The second feed was cut, the anchor taking up the entirety of the screen once more. “Government officials have stated that the names and current locations of identified survivors will be made available at this free to call automated line.” A number flashed up on the screen. It stayed there for just long enough to write it down “it will be shown over the course of the following weeks until all survivors are claimed by family or friends.”

The camera switched to another anchor, a man. “In lighter news, Washin—” Robin turned off the TV. Screw lighter news.

Steve stared at the now blank screen, mouth hanging open, “Did they just—”

“Pin the blame on the actual guy who did it while giving Eddie the credit for taking his ass down? Haha, yeah. Stinson didn’t fuck around.”

“Holy shit. That was like, an hour. Maximum.”

“Stinson, didn’t fuck around. Also your parents have been calling estate agents in Bloomington.”

“Huh?”

Eddie needed a nap.

Part 8

[certifiedlovergirlsstuff]

Hiii I have a request!! Ok it’s kinda long cause it’s all a dream I had

Jake sully x reader

Ok let’s say reader and jake were married before everything (when he was still human) and she got knocked up by him and lates say like in the movie jake falls for neytiri and reader finds out and during the war reader gets injured and they take her to eywa, eywa saves her baby but it’s transformed to a Navi baby (let’s say it’s neteyam) while reader is stuck still being human so yk Jake and neytiri takes care of the kid it’s angsty especially with neteyams death

hey bestie, so i saw that you sent this same exact request to another writer(same exact wording as well). was thinking about not posting it now, but i wrote this at work and finished it so you’re getting two versions. but not very happy about this IMO, not very nice to go to different writers so you can get more/different versions of your request

pairing: jake sully x human fem!reader wc: maybe almost 1k warnings: blood, infidelity, mentions of pregnancy

masterlist / jake sully

this trip to pandora was pretty much your's and jake's honeymoon. away from home and family, now living on a foreign planet surrounded by scientists and the military. dream destination spot.

"this place is marvelous. a true beauty." in awe while the helicopter flew your small group over the pandorian forest. the lush green of the thriving trees mixed with the spectrum of colors was outstanding. only used to the muted palette of your dying earth.

jake sat beside you with his hand in yours, being oddly quiet for the chatter-mouth he normally is. "everything okay. handsome?" leaning into his space even though you have radios to hear each other.

jake looked away from the jungle and peered at you with shallow eyes. "yeah. yeah, all good."

-

two days after the ride they set jake up to test his avatar. he went into a pod structure and then about an hour later you saw him as a nine-foot blue-striped alien with feline features. his human features still showed through, your jake staying present.

when he came back to your shared quarters the both of you got handsy and frisky, acting like a pair of teenagers. the next morning both were naked and awoken by a loud pounding on your door.

"let's go jarhead! don't have all day!"

groans from jake and light giggles from you. he rolls over to press multiple kisses scattered over your face until he leaves a deep and final kiss upon your lips.

"i love you." his sparkling blues looked over your face. he steals an encore kiss, "I'll see you later." and he grabs his clothes from the floor before getting into his wheelchair.

"i love you too. be safe." called to him before the door shut closed.

-

"you're pregnant." jaw dropped involuntarily. "are- are you serious? i- I mean, are you sure?" your heart pitched up in speed on the machine.

max nodded while keeping a neutral expression. "I'm sure. three months along."

your hands cupped over your mouth as your vision blurred with tears, "holy shit."

"is... is that a good holy shit? or a bad holy shit?" max stepped forward while clinging to his clipboard.

a nod of your head, "a good holy shit. a very good holy shit."

later that night when jake returned from his training you broke the wonderful news.

"you serious?" and he sounded the farthest from happy. you faltered for a second before bouncing back. "yeah, max said I'm three months along. isn't this exciting! we can start a family on a thriving planet-"

"and start one on an alien world where everything is deadly. everything is dangerous here. the plants, animals, the locals! the natives hate us and they are barely warming up to me with these hours of training. a kid is not safe here!" jake's voice rose to a sharp yell causing you to flinch in both shock and fear.

"well, we'd- we'd keep them in hell's gate until then. wait until their of age." trying to get jake to warm up to the concept just a little. "aren't- aren't you at least a- a little happy? you're gonna be a father!"

you wrapped your arms around your elbows, protecting yourself from any harsh words to be thrown. jake scoffed while shaking his head.

"no. i'm not. my father was shitty, treating my brother with his respect while I was just dirt. now I'm gonna end up repeating that cycle!" rubbing his hands over his face in stress.

you jumped quickly to his defense. "no you're not. you'll be a great father, gentle and caring. i know it, they'll love you." setting slow steps toward jake, stretching a hand out to comfort him.

-

four months have passed. you were showing more each week and even found out it was a boy. jake was still training with the omatikaya clan to gain their trust. having two separate lives, exploring the world of pandora as one of the people, and at night he's back in his human body that’s getting weaker each day. it's caused the two of you to hit a rocky patch in your new marriage.

jake barely spoke to you when he came to bed, still giving his touches but those have been lessening each night. he can’t keep eye contact with you now, you miss gazing into his clear eyes as you get lost in dreams. he would avoid any of your questions about his day, especially ones that involved her.

that gut feeling told you he didn't love you anymore. ever since the pregnancy announcement he's been completely different. it caused tears to sting your eyes when you think about the possibility he fell in love with her, dreams about her while he’s beside you.

"jake?" calling his name before he could slip away from the day. he stopped just before the door, keeping his back to you.

"do- do you still love me? cause if you don't just- just tell me. it's breaking my heart to just take this silent treatment, having you slowly retreat from me. just tell me you don't love me, that you love her now. just tell the truth." cracked voice and hiccuping breathes. you thought you were on the verge of passing out with your ragged inhales.

he still didn't bother looking at you. if he did you would see how his eyes are screwed shut and his mouth twisted in a grimce. small tears staining his skin as he replied in a cool and collected voice.

"i don't love you anymore and i'm sorry." jake left before you could say anything, leaving you to sob alone and hold your bump in a cradle.

-

a week later all hell broke loose for every species on pandora. a war between the greedy corporations and the locals of the planet. you, max, and trudy helped free grace, norm, and jake from their cell. it was a race against time, too much happening at once to process the damage taken.

both you and grace were shot, losing blood and slowly dying. jake said he was gonna take the both of you to the spirit tree to have mo'at save the three of you.

"it's gonna be okay, baby. everything is gonna be okay." jake's voice broke as his hands caressed your paling face. tear rolling in drops to his cheeks. you tried smiling for him, showing you were fine.

"it's okay, handsome. just save the baby. be his father." jake sobbed, "i- I can't do- do this without you."

you shushed him while running a heavy hand over his head, "yes you can. you have people around you and- and you have neytiri. someone who loves you." jake scrunched his face, 'i'm sorry, baby. so so sorry." giving a rock to your body.

your skin was feeling colder and you could feel your heart slowing. "jake... can i- can I have a- a kiss? for goodbye?"

"you're not leaving. you'll be okay." his thumb smoothing over your skin. eyes dimming in shine. "of course,' words getting breathy, "I still want a kiss, handsome." sleepy eyes taking in all of your husband's details. for the final time.

jake stared into your shrinking pupils before leaning down so his lively lips connected with your bloody ones. "I'll always love you, jake sully." whispered to his lips with your last breath.

-

almost a month after the fire had settled, most of the humans were taken back to earth, and the clans began rebuilding. jake is now the lead for the people of the omatikaya clan. toruk makto gone until he is needed again.

jake was out by a stream collecting fish for the communal meal later that night. the quiet always helped him at times and allowed him to reminisce on the past. flashes of your face or smile, small bites of your laughter ringing within his ears. thinking of how he should’ve treated you better, wishing he could have a second chance at human life with you.

jake knew he didn't deserve your final words, but he held them close in his heart.

"ma jake." neytiri's soothing voice filled the silent air. he turned on his heel and smiled as she came closer. "yawne," holding a hand out for her to grab. he pressed three kisses upon her knuckles.

neytiri's lips parted in a smile. "i have blessed news, ma jake." he waited for her to continue, eyes taking in her glowing face.

"i am with child."

and instead of that gut-wrenching feeling he was expecting to feel the first time this news dropped, it was only solemn. a sad happiness crashing over him in waves.

but he didn't need to force a smile, it came with ease was he whispered, "that's- that's wonderful news."

-

a/n: i fridged the reader i know! (if you don't know where fridging a female character came from look it up)

jake sully taglist: @singular-itae / @websterss

[piratekane]

7! Ava telling Bea that🫠🫠

seven: look at me. just breathe.

Ava looks small. She always has, despite feeling larger than life. But in a wide hospital bed with wires running from her body to the various beeping machines, she looks smaller than she did before she slipped through the Arc.

Before you sent her through it.

Beatrice stands at the edge of the doorway, wringing her hands as Jillian flutters around Ava with purposeful hands. Ava looks tired, but impossibly cheerful as Jillian puts another electrode pad on her exposed skin. She keeps stealing glances at the doorway, keeps ducking her head to meet Beatrice’s eyes, and always frowning a little when Beatrice gives nothing away. 

She’s afraid to step forward, afraid to meet Ava’s eyes. What if this is a dream? What if she’s fallen asleep and woken up in a dream world where everything has magically fallen into place? Ava escaping Reya’s realm the moment Beatrice crosses the threshold of Cat’s Cradle? It’s too… perfect. It slots together too neatly. 

She can’t cross the threshold because she might wake up in a hotel room somewhere - Cinque Terre, Faro, Lisbon - and this has all been a trick of the mind, a quiet torturous place her mind has found.

“Beatrice?”

Jillian touches her arm gently, trying not to startle her. Beatrice holds onto herself, a sharp inhale the only thing that gives her surprise away. But either Jillian doesn’t hear or she’s too kind to bring attention to it. She simply gives Beatrice a kind smile and slight tilt of her head. A quiet, she’s asking for you.

Beatrice searches for the part of her that’s always stood tall in the face of adversity. It wasn’t always there, grown out of a necessity, but it activates now as she takes that first step into the room on feet that feel steadier than her heart does. The live wire edge in her chest fizzles a little when she sees the way Ava’s face lights up as she moves closer and her hesitation simply vanishes.

Ava smiles wider. “Hi.”

Hi feels too small. Hey feels too informal. I’ve been thinking of you every minute of every day for the last nine months and you’re a ghost haunting all of my waking moments and sleeping ones too and I think I’ve been waiting for you my whole life feels too big.

She settles for a quiet, “Hello.”

Ava’s nose wrinkles. “Hello,” she echoes, pitching her voice slightly deeper. A clumsy attempt at mimicking her accent. She blinks up at Beatrice expectantly. “Anything else?” she asks after a moment.

“You’re back.” Everything else she wants to say sticks in her throat.

“I am.” Ava tips her head curiously, keen eyes studying her. Beatrice wonders if she sees the new highlights in her hair, the added years Beatrice sees when she looks at herself in the mirror. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting a party, or anything. Maybe a banner or a cupcake. Though, I get that it was kind of an impromptu arrival and there wasn’t a lot of time to plan. I mean, it’s not like you guys have a ‘Welcome Back to Earth’ banner on hand, right?” She pauses again. “I was expecting more than hello, though.”

Restraint, Beatrice, her mother used to tell her. Show some restraint. When she spoke out of turn, became too excited - it was always whip-sharp eyes in her direction, reminding her to practice some self-discipline. Ava, on the other end of the long spectrum between what is expected and what isn’t, is the least restrained person Beatrice has ever met.

Beatrice, months separated from Ava’s influence, struggles to find a middle ground. 

“Seriously.” Ava laughs. She sounds nervous. “They didn’t, like, replace you with a pod person or anything, did they?” Her eyes widen. “Is this some kind of alternate reality where people are different? Are you really Beatrice? Or are you her evil twin? Is this world run by toads? I had a dream once where there was a toad king who demanded we all speak in ribbits. Or is it croaks? Hey, can you look up the sound toads make? I think I missed that science lesson.”

“Ava,” Beatrice breathes. Fond exasperation is easy to fall into.

Ava grins rakishly. “Ah, there she is.”

Beatrice opens her mouth to scold her, to tell Ava that she’s not as funny as she thinks she is, but she’s horrified when a single sob loosens from somewhere in the back of her throat and explodes into the space between them. 

They both look startled at the sound, but Ava recovers quicker than she does. She curses softly when she tries to move, wires tangling up around her wrists. She starts to try and move them out of her way, her legs swinging over the side of the bed as she starts to inch towards Beatrice. She looks up, forehead pulled together in frustration. “Hold- just hold on.”

Beatrice claps her hand down over her mouth, trying to stop the next horrible sound that comes out of it. She holds out her other hand, trying to tell Ava to stay back. No, no, no. This isn’t how this was supposed to go.

Ava curses again, louder and in Portuguese this time, as another wire comes undone and loops its way around her arm instead. “I swear to fucking God and all her shitty decisions that if this thing doesn’t- Ha!” She wiggles out of one wire, then a second. She smiles triumphantly at Beatrice but that wrinkle in her forehead hasn’t faded away.

Something starts beeping as Ava disconnects the next wire. There’s a moment where they both stand, suspended as they wait for Ava to suddenly collapse onto the floor, that one wire the only thing keeping her up. But nothing comes and Ava must decide that it’s the all-clear; she starts pulling at wires until they disconnect, creating a cacophony of noise that feels like a mis-paced symphony.

“Hold on, hold on,” Ava is muttering as she pulls the last wire free. She’s suddenly in front of Beatrice, hands out in front of her carefully. “Hey, Bea.”

Beatrice’s eyes dart around the room. It’s starting to narrow to a pinprick, the lights spinning around. Ava is the only thing staying still, her focal part as the rest of the room rushes in on her. Another sob starts to build in her throat but it gets stuck there, forming into a hard knot that makes it hard to swallow around.

Breathe, she tells herself. Just take a breath.

“Look at me. Just breathe,” Ava says quietly. She takes a hesitant step forward. “I think- Bea, I think you’re having a panic attack.”

Beatrice tries to shake her head. She tries, but she’s not sure that she does. Her body feels far away, like she’s swimming underwater from one end of an endless pool to the other. The beeping of the machines distorts into a heartbeat, but that might just be the blood rushing in her ears. She tries to inhale and chokes on that knot.

“Okay, just follow my voice.” Ava sounds closer, but Beatrice can’t quite say how close she is. The room is starting to stretch out like a funhouse mirror. “Bea, uh, okay. Okay. I’m going to touch you. I know, you might freak out. But I’m going to put my hands on your hands, okay? Just like… just like this.”

She feels something cool and soft land on the wrist of her outstretched arm. It becomes a focal point. She focuses all of her energy there, all of her remaining senses rush to the spot where Ava’s fingertips curl around her pulse point.

Ava makes a noise that sounds like a hum just under the hot whistle of air in Beatrice’s ears. “Good. Now the other hand.”

Another cool hand touches hers, pulling it away from her mouth. She lets her world dial down to just the feather-light touch of Ava’s hand tangling with hers, lets herself focus in on the soft pads of Ava’s fingers running over the silvery scars on her hands. Each brush against her knuckle breaks down the knot in her throat until she can take in a ragged breath, then another, then one more.

The world begins to expand again - light filtering back in, the beeping stretching out into its asynchronous rhythm, the slightly sterile smell of clean cotton on the hospital bed. She focuses all of her attention on Ava, though. On the soft soothing noises Ava is making, the heat coming off her body as she gets closer, the strange patterns Ava is rubbing into her wrist.

“Hey,” Ava says quietly in the spaces between the beeping. “Hey, there you are.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaks, graceless.

Ava’s eyes are wide, but kind as they come into focus. Beatrice could count the inches between them on two hands. “You don’t need to apologize. I don’t think either of us expected this.”

“I should have.” She inhales again, the exhale a little steadier. “I should have been expecting this.”

“Beatrice, I mean this in the nicest way.” Ava ducks her head just a little, meeting her gaze directly. “This is a compliment, okay? You are not perfect. You cannot anticipate everything. And you shouldn’t be expected to do that. So it’s okay, alright? It’s okay that you didn’t anticipate some scientific marvel spitting me back into reality. I think I can forgive you for that, hmm?”

“Okay,” she whispers, not believing it entirely. But Ava looks so convincing, she lets the idea sit and tries to believe it could be true. “I’m-”

“Don’t apologize,” Ava says quickly. “This is a no-sorry party. Apologies department is closed for… the rest of eternity. No need to leave a message.” She strokes her thumb against the back of Beatrice’s hand before her eyes widen in mock-surprise. “Maybe this is an alternate reality where I’m not funny anymore.”

“Your jokes were always mediocre at best,” she manages.

Ava grins. “She speaks. And she lies.” Ava’s expression softens and she pulls until Beatrice can count the inches on one hand now. They’re nearly nose to nose and Beatrice can see the thin skin over Ava’s collarbone, just a little more pronounced this close up. “You’re okay.”

Beatrice takes in a slow, measured breath. “You’re here,” she exhales.

“All 238 bones of me.” Ava’s mouth falls into a serious line. “I’m including teeth, of course.”

She can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from her unexpectedly. Get control of yourself, her mother’s voice hisses. But Ava is looking at her, pleased. It sends her mother to the back of her head, back behind Ava’s smile.

“You had your wisdom teeth removed,” she reminds Ava gently.

Ava’s mouth falls open slightly. “How did you-” Her eyes narrow, but she’s smiling. “No stone unturned for you people, hmm? I bet Sister Frances kept those teeth, too. You know, Diego and I always thought she had some kind of creepy collection of, like, teeth and hair. She seemed the type.” Her fingers start working over Bea’s hands and up towards her elbows as she carefully starts to guide them around her back.

“Ava,” Beatrice tries.

“I don’t know about you,” Ava says quietly. “I don’t know how long it’s been since-”

“Too long,” Beatrice breathes. Eight months, twenty-three days, and somewhere around three hours, she doesn’t say out loud.

“But it’s been even longer for me,” Ava finishes. “And, I’ll be honest, okay? I really missed Mother Superion and Camila and, yeah, okay, parts of Lilith. But you were the only thing that kept me going. So I’m going to hug you and you’re going to hug me and then I’m going to pass out, if that’s okay with you?”

Beatrice startles a little, their forehead nearly knocking as she grabs Ava tightly and holds her against her body. Ava seems to sigh into the hug, her forehead dropping into the curve of Beatrice’s neck, her hands gripping the back of Beatrice’s shirt tight enough to crease the carefully ironed fabric. She grows heavy nearly instantly and Beatrice almost sways under the sudden weight.

“I’m-”

“Shut up,” Ava murmurs. Beatrice feels the words more than she hears them. “Just, be quiet, okay? I’ve been imagining this for years.”

Years, she thinks. But she goes quiet again, pressing her lips to Ava’s hair. She breathes in something bleach-like, like the ozone burning. She carefully inches forward, Ava’s abandoned bed her destination. She can hear her heart beating against her rib cage, but Ava’s own heart seems to be answering in its own language.

She starts to loosen her grip on Ava, intending to convince her that she should lay back down, let Beatrice reattach all of the wires monitoring her vitals, let Beatrice go and find Jillian to make sure they didn’t mess everything up. But when she goes to loosen her grip, Ava hangs on.

“Don’t,” Ava whispers. “Don’t let go yet.”

Beatrice holds on tighter; doesn’t tell Ava she has no intention of ever letting go again.

[moonshinemagpie]

I forgive you for everything AI I take it all back give me the library of alexandria plsssss

EDIT:

Folks are saying there's a pay wall on the article so basically: There's this villa that's thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, and it has multiple floors of a well-stocked library filled with scrolls that were scorched by the same Mount Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii.

There's no way to safely unroll these scrolls, but since 1999 we've been examining them with infrared, x-rays, CT scans, and other methods that have helped us see the scrolls' ink without unrolling them. And now AI is showing the potential to decipher these scrolls even more.

Also, scholars apparently nickname these scrolls things like 'Banana Boy' and 'Fat Bastard,' even though they're sometimes revealed to be, like, The Odyssey or the Book of Leviticus.

I additionally learned that "papyrologist" is a possible job title to have.

Another thing that touches me is that we first found these scrolls in the 1700s and mostly had the foresight to keep them intact and preserved until we developed the tech to examine them safely.

Excerpt:

The first word to be found, announced on October 12th, was “porphyras”, which means “purple” in ancient Greek.

...

Many fragments turned out to belong to texts written by a Greek philosopher called Philodemus of Gadara. Until then, they had been known only from mentions in other works. (Cicero, though, was a fan of his poetry.)

...

Mr Friedman and Daniel Gross, another entrepreneur, launched the Vesuvius Challenge in March, with a prize fund of $250,000. Other tech-industry donors soon increased that to over $1m. To get the ball rolling, an initial challenge was posted on Kaggle, a website that hosts data-science contests, to improve the ink-detection model developed by Dr Parsons.

More than 1,200 teams entered. Many competed in subsequent challenges to improve the tools for ink detection and “segmentation”, as the process of transforming the 3d scans into 2d images of the scroll’s surface is known. Scrutinising segmented images from Banana Boy, Dr Handmer realised that the crackle pattern signified the presence of ink. Mr Farritor used this finding to fine-tune a machine-learning model to find more crackles, then used those crackles to further optimise his model, until eventually it revealed legible words.

Mr Nader used a different approach, starting with “unsupervised pretraining” on the segmented images, asking a machine-learning system to find whatever patterns it could, with no external hints. He tweaked the resulting model using the winning entries from the Kaggle ink-detection challenge. After seeing Mr Farritor’s early results, he applied this model to the same segment of Banana Boy, and found what appeared to be some letters. He then iterated, repeatedly refining his model using the found letters. Slowly but surely its ability to find more letters increased. All the results were assessed by papyrologists before the prizes were awarded.

No less important than the technology is the way the effort has been organised. It is, in effect, the application of the open-source software-development method, Mr Friedman’s area of expertise, to an archaeological puzzle. “It’s a unique collaboration between tech founders and academics to bring the past into the present using the tools of the future,” he says. Dr Seales reckons the spur of competition means the equivalent of ten years’ worth of research has been done in the past three months.

An active community of volunteers is now applying the new tools to the two scanned scrolls. Mr Friedman thinks there is a 75% chance that someone will claim the grand prize of $700,000, for identifying four separate passages of at least 140 characters, by the end of the year. “It’s a race now,” he says. “We will be reading entire books next year.”

Being able to read Banana Boy would indeed just be the beginning. Only a small fraction of Greek and Roman literature has survived into modern times. But if the hundreds of other scrolls recovered from the villa could be scanned and read using the same tools, it would dramatically expand the number of texts from antiquity. Dr Seales says he hopes the Herculaneum scrolls will contain “a completely new, previously unknown text”. Mr Friedman is hoping for one of the lost Homeric epic poems in particular.

Even more important, all this might in turn revive interest in excavating the villa more fully, says Mr Friedman. The existing scrolls were recovered from a single corner of what scholars believe is a much larger library spread across several floors. If so, it might contain thousands of scrolls in Greek and Latin.'