#if u prefer to read on ao3 link's in my bio

[blackrainboes]

(im)perfect | erik killmonger/reader

words: 2k even

notes: this idea came to me post watching the movie while trying and failing to fix the straps on my bra and being jealous of the dora milaje's armor, knowing that they're designed for maximum support and comfort. it was supposed to be joking and then it wasn't because thinking of erik gives me mixed emotions that are hard to articulate except maybe in reader insert fic

notes 2f2f: this is a black!reader to be clear, like read it how you want but she’s black

Despite the very warm, hands-on (and they’re all over, all over), distraction flexing beneath you, you stare at the clothes scattered on the carpeted floor. But Erik’s hands keep moving and you keep having to catch your breath, so eventually, your deep consideration gives up the ghost, and you ask, “Do you think Wakanda has perfected the bra?”

“What.”

You finally look at him then - unwilling to have risked it before. His thick brow is scrunched in confusion, but his lips are upturned in faint amusement.

You shrug a shoulder, your whole body following the motion against him so he answers with a soft grunt.

“You know -” You pause a fraction, trying to hold in the anger of this train of thought but failure comes just a little too often. “Do you know how difficult it is even to find a decent bra? You end up having to choose between comfort, coverage, and style because of course all three is too much to ask for - I swear to God they do it purposefully so you have to buy more just to have something that might work for any situation.”

“The fashion industry hates women, I know.”

“And then if you can’t afford anything decent - which is like everyone I know, we’re all broke, and everyone I don’t but I can tell when I’m waiting on the bus, and there’s this lady who’s always pulling at her side, trying to fix the underwire. But she can’t buy another, she’s stuck. You’re stuck in pain and wearing a bra until it’s falling apart. I’ve had some bras since I was sixteen.”

He looks at your chest, and then at you, a smile teasing mischief in his face.

In a huff, you say, “They stopped growing then, thank God.”

Erik lifts a brow, still with that same “But titties!” smile on his face.

You insist between grit teeth, “Thank. God.”

“Praise the Lord. Amen.”

You almost reach forward to smack him - he plays too much, which is why your bra is lying broken on the floor - but his hands leave your waist to skirt up your sides. A shiver rakes up your spine. You press back on him with a gasp, his caresses deepening, more pressure, more pleasure. His hands finally cup your breasts, and you’re unable to keep your eyes open; they flutter shut to the gentle way he runs his thumb on the underside of your breast.

You’re halfway (more than, really) to making a really (really) pathetic sound, when he murmurs something, drawing your eyes open. There’s plain lust in his gaze as he follows the motions of his hands, but he has a serious edge in his teasing words.

“Why do you need the perfect bra when you have these perfect hands?”

He grins but it’s flat behind his eyes - and maybe your question was a little too pointed.

Perfection.

A perfect land, where there is only beauty and none of the pain heard in the angry words hurled beneath the window in the dimly lit street circling the apartment complex and the sharper pain in the long silence that follows, a breath bated, hoping to hold until day, until the argument is just an argument and not agonized cries and an ambulance that comes too late or not at all.

Wakanda - is it quiet in its peace or is it loud, happiness bursting at the seams of the land they keep hidden away?

Wakanda.

You don’t mean the reminder, to be thoughtless of the thought that weighs on him - heavy is the crown, heavy is the crown - but still you wondered, and you asked, and he is smiling beneath you, heavily though.

His smile could be light.

With a quick glance to your torn undergarments, you say, “You’re up to two bras now. One more and I’m taking you shopping.” You try to be aggressive, direct, but failure again as you near smile the words, “Your treat.”

He grins, wide and goofy, acting the child and pouting. He knows what he’s doing - his lips so damn kissable, and he has the puppy eyes that your weak ass always gives in to.

“What about another form of payment?”

“Certified check?”

You try not to smile at your own response, but damn, it was good, especially for you, when Erik can make you stumble over your words just by actually listening to them.

Your bar isn’t that low, to be clear. But he gets you with that one.

He shakes his head, scoffing at you with a smile.

You place your hands metaphorically on your hips as you say, “If you think your no chin having ass is getting out of this -”

Your argument is lost to a gasp, a long moan, and an instinctual roll of your hips as he grinds his erection into the apex of your thighs, where you’re still so sensitive, and pinches the nipple he just spent so long sucking on.

“This is a coordinated a-”

You grab his arm, fingers digging crescents into the lean muscle, but he doesn’t let up, rolling your nipple between his finger and thumb, just the way you like it, the way you hate it, the way he has your words breaking to pieces in your mouth.

“Coordinated assault, Erik!”

“It is,” he confirms.

It isn’t really payback, not at all, more a coordinated motion of you gliding your hand down his chest, over his collarbone and the raised bumps of skin, almost on a third line spiraling down to his bicep. It’s a dance really. In the fire in his brown eyes, a predator bares his sharp teeth, and you ready yourself for the kill - he releases your abused nipple to lift you like you’re nothing, like you’re something he’s so desperate for that he can’t wait to sink his teeth into your skin.

He nips along your collarbone with a whispered, “no chin having ass”, with painful bruises sucked into the delicate skin of your neck, soothing licks of his tongue followed by open-mouthed kisses from your collar to your ear. It’s a dance, all the while, your hips circling and grinding to the pulsing of his blood.

The friction is good, it’s too much, the dance can’t last, was never meant to. You’ve been spinning forth and now he’s reeling you back in.

With both hands you grab his face and draw his head up to yours. It’s a moment for a look, for an emotion, for more than lust. And as a cat allows a mouse a moment to feel terror, Erik allows a smile, a promise in the crinkles of his eyes.

“You don’t need perfect, do you?” he asks.

You don’t look away.

“I want it.”

He’s looking at you, but he’s looking far off, too.

“I want it,” you say again.

He looks the cat then, but not one who’s found a mouse, but another cat, just like him.

There’s a fire in you too, try to ignore it often because it’s usually useless, but now you let it spring free, burn its mark into your words.

Erik echoes it with his eyes of fire.

“I want it, too.”

You pull him to you, but he’s already moving in. Your foreheads touch, his nose brushes yours. Erik breathes into you and you capture that breath in a kiss. You love his kiss, love it enough to feel your heart burst at the pressure, at the insistence and resistance. The taste of him is like pure, sweet water, and a thirst that can never be quenched so long as those waters run free.

You don’t mean to hold him so close that he can’t pull away, but your fingers curl around a loc and tug. He draws back, pecks a kiss to your bottom lip, swollen and inviting more - always inviting. He answers a different invitation, releasing you and falling back against the pillows.

Your hands crawl up the jut of his hip, the sparse dark hair leading to the defined planes of his abdomen to meet his. The foil wrapper passes between your fingers.

You both like to watch as you slide the rubber over him, and watch as you rise above and slowly sink down, taking him in slow - the initial burn gives way to a warmth spreading you, spreading you open and you’re so full, and he’s gripping your waist like he wants to guide you. His eyes ask, “Do you know the way?” and you can only answer by starting an easy rhythm along the path you’ve walked before, will walk again, following behind until he takes your hand, threads your fingers with his, clasping your joined hands tightly to his chest before he tugs you forward so you’re right by his side.

Astride him, chest to chest, you can kiss him, but it isn’t easy to move now so he lifts up, plants his feet to the bed so he can thrust into you, hard and deep while you rock against him.

“Erik,” falls from your lips.

He takes his name back with a hard, swift kiss, and the whisper of a name he keeps closer than the way he’s holding you to him. But maybe he wants your name as well, to hold it close to his own as he groans it, reaching between your bodies to draw circles with his thumb on your swollen clit. He brings you with him into that bliss where you see no color, no white lights, just black. You see Erik, and you reach out for him, blinking the orgasmic haze away to see him as he really is.

His brown eyes smolder.

It isn’t perfect. Nothing so messy, so good at ruining the hair you just spent six hours in a salon getting done, and leaving you in desperate need of water, not the sweet kind but the purified tap in the fridge can be so.

Nothing like this can be perfect, but he reaches up and cups your cheek. You smile at him, leaning into the touch and he has a way of stealing your words, he really does, but what is given cannot be stolen and he gave you that name so you say it, quiet but not like a secret hidden away from those deemed unworthy but like the peace of it that you want to share with him.

You take the hand stroking your face and kiss his scarred knuckles. Erik breathes your name as he’s never said it before, and you both look away at the same time. You aren’t ready. You aren’t.

Neither is he.

But perfect - you both want it, so there’s time enough to become ready.

Before your deflected gaze, you can see your bra again, the poor thing still lying broken on the floor.

“You still owe me two bras.”

When you look at him, his expression is schooled into normal Erik, or maybe he doesn’t wear that Erik and the Erik whose name you’ll hold close isn’t the Erik he truly is. For how can he truly have an identity he wasn’t allowed?

It tears you. You know it tears him.

You try to school yourself into other thoughts, but he replies, “I’m off on another tour Thursday so spend the night. We’ll go tomorrow. You can borrow my ‘bra’ until then.”

Thursday.

You offer him a won over smile, knowing full well he’s just going to give you one of his old Jerseys, cut in half specifically for ease of access when he cuddles up beside you tonight. Tomorrow.

And then Thursday.

“Tomorrow works.”

He grins wide and scrambles to get you off him so he can get himself back from fucked out to decent, something you need to do, too. You don’t move though, just stare at his back. The bumps there are more than you can count through hazy eyes that don’t yet understand.

But you want to, because you want perfect after all.

(You want him.)

[builder051]

hi!! omg i just binge read all of ur fics and they’re so amazing. you’re style of writing is so emotional and you’re honestly so talented. i was wondering if u take requests?

if not, i still want to say that as someone who’s dealt with sort of similar things as natasha in ur fics thank you for spreading awareness and making me feel not so alone🤍

Wow, thanks so much! You’re so kind, and I’m glad you feel connected. I like my stories to be relatable, though I’m sorry trauma and distress have been parts of your life. You’re right, you’re not alone, and please know I support you. You can always feel free to contact me.

Just to make sure you catch all my connections, (NO pressure, and hoping I don’t sound like a salesman, here), my fics are logged in my master fic list (available in the link in my bio here on Tumblr) where they are cataloged by subject (OC and fandom, then by ‘verse w/in each fandom) and in my AO3 (username Builder). I know there are stragglers :(. Doing what I can to catch up. I also have a published book, which you can find out more about @llcupp-author , and that’ll point you to additional ways to read my other works and get in touch.

I DO TAKE REQS. However, I have a lot of “rules” based on triggers/preferences. If you want to send a prompt, feel free to do so, but you might want to poke around on my blog (maybe read the “what kink?” and “Starbucks Sunday” —aptly named so you can tell exactly what I’m talking about, yes, I know— articles, which you may have to pull up on a desktop or on your phone in desktop mode in order to read). Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase. But in short answer, yes. I will read message that hits my inbox. I don’t promise to write it, though. But my “undesirables” are specific and generally easy to edit out, so if you’re familiar with my work, it should work out alright. DM me before you send your ask if you want to workshop it.

Also, I fill prompts for free if you let me edit the prompt to fit my liking, make it as long/short as I want, and take as long as I need (including burying it in the back of my WIP pile and getting it out sometime in the middle of next summer). If you want the controls, I charge $0.01 a word (comes to $10 per 1,000 word story - or more or less as you please). I’ll tell you more if you choose this option. Right now, just letting you know it exists.

One last thing, because I feel like I have to say it, I am an adult, and a lot of the things I write about are, well, adult. If you are under 18, please take care with this relationship and the content you are exploring. I do not create or support the creation and spread of content determined to be illegal/criminal/age-restricted. And also, I would appreciate it if you would kindly continue to assist me in keeping my Tumblr/AO3 content separate from my professionally published (Amazon) content.

[senseofenterprise]

hi ok no pressure to answer this at all but I know u do podfics and I was wondering if u have any advice for someone who's considering starting to record podfics?? hope ur having an incredible day, sending you good vibes!

Hi there!

I, in comparison to a lot of other people who podfic, am very new to the game and I’m still figuring out how to do it well. But I do have some advice.

Okay so first of all you have to be completely unafraid to get ridiculous. It’s a very silly thing, and a lot of my outtakes are me laughing at myself because of a voice crack or a funny word catching me off guard. I’m also really critical of the sound of my own voice, and that was a tough hurdle to get over, but literally nobody hears your voice the same way you do and they’ll all be so caught up in your beautiful story-telling that they won’t notice a little stutter or crack. It’s gonna feel absurd at first, which means it’s a lot easier to do it when you’re alone.

Which leads me to my next point: you need a quiet spot. Somewhere where you can sit and relax for a good chunk of time and not be interrupted. You want to minimize as much outside noise as you can. Anyone who listens to my podfics can probably tell this, but I live on the ground floor of an apartment on the Main Street of a city. It’s not exactly conducive to peaceful podfic. So I grab my laptop and microphone, a water bottle, and anything else I might need and I set up shop on the floor of my closet. It’s feels. So silly. Sitting on the floor of my closet talking to myself, but it’s what it takes.

This is a really important one. Always. Get. Consent. From. The. Author. If it isn’t your fic that you’re recording, you HAVE to get the author’s consent. A lot of authors will have blanket permissions in their bios, but if they don’t then you must reach out to them and ask permission. Many will ask you to, but it’s common courtesy to link back to the original fic as well as tag them if you post it on any platform other than AO3.

You’re gonna need a microphone. Now don’t panic, I know that that’s an investment you might not be ready to make until you’re sure if you like it. That’s fine. My first podfic on my AO3 I recorded on my laptop microphone. The sound is terrible, but it was fine while I tested out doing it and figured out whether I enjoyed doing it. And I did. Most podficcers will tell you to buy a $100 microphone. Nah. This is the microphone I purchased. I love it, it was $40, The sound is comparable to a blue yeti, and it’s pink. It’s a win-win-win.

Other things tech-wise, I record in GarageBand just because it came standard on my laptop and I find it really really easy to use. I know other people that like Audacity, which is free to download and use. It really is a matter of personal preference. I’ve played with both and I’m still inclined towards GarageBand.

When it comes to the actual reading, I recommend doing a dry run before you start recording. This will help you keep track of who speaks when, lets you practice your voices, gives you a chance to figure out how you’re going to read certain lines, etc. it’s just nice to practice and hopefully get all your mistakes out before you start recording. Don’t be alarmed if it takes a long time. One of my podfics which ended up being an hour long took five hours to record and another ten to edit. It was insane and I felt like I was going crazy, but I was really pleased with the end result. (Side note: do NOT start your first attempts with long fics. For your first couple tries I suggest capping word count at 5-10k words) I also prefer to read the whole thing in one take. It just helps keep voice, ambient sound, volume, etc. consistent. Makes it sound more like one fluid piece rather than something chopped together, even after editing. Snaps will also be your best friend. This is a tip I wish I had learned sooner, but as you record it you make a mistake or don’t like the way you read a line or get interrupted or anything you want to cut, snap near the microphone. This will make a sharp line in the sound waves of your recording which will make it easier to come back to when you’re editing. Finally, when you’re editing, give the whole thing one full listen before you even think about starting to cut. Get an idea of how it all sounds, figure out where your cuts are, re-record any sections you aren’t thrilled with. Once you’ve listened to the whole thing, then you can start to tear it to shreds.

Here I’ve included a post with tips from someone MUCH more informed and practiced that I am. A lot of the points are ones I’ve shared with you, but there are some really helpful resources. This post was my gospel when I first started.

Sorry this post got away from me a little bit, but I really hope it helps. Godspeed anon, I hope you’ll share your work with me when it’s finished!