#it’s been nearly a decade of all caps writing so now I have to really concentrate on doing lowercase

[andkisses]

♡ just about anything | jay ♡

late nights, when really, both of you should have been asleep a long time ago, but who knew this game of monopoly would last so long?

♡ jay x gn!reader | wc. 1.5k ♡ genres/tropes: domestic, competitive couple that won’t quit, staying up way too late ♡ mentions of/warnings: pet names, food, lmk if there’s anything else! <3 ♡ a/n: a repost and revamp of one of my very first writings from YEARS ago </3 (from that blog i accidentally deleted <///333) 

♡ masterlist ♡

With the rest of the lights in the apartment off, the lone one above the kitchen table casts a warm glow into the darkness. The light illuminates the board, littered with green houses, red hotels, and Cheez-Its—you ran out of hotels about an hour ago (but who’s to say?) and needed something to represent a double-hotel on the board. There’s a notebook on the table that keeps getting passed back and forth, covered in numbers and tallies in two different handwritings. It’s currently functioning as a paper bank account, since the game has escalated far beyond the cash given  in a standard Monopoly box.

Your eyes are tired, nearly burning with ache; it’s been too long, and it’s very much past your bedtime. But the both of you are stubborn, and horrifically competitive–especially when it’s just the two of you. He seems just as drained, eyes dropping and his head propped up on a closed fist. The loose hoodie slides down his arm, pooling around the elbow, and he uses the sleeve of the other to wipe at his eyes. Just seeing him sleepy makes you sleepy, and your head is bobbing up and down. It would be so much better to be curled up in his arms right now. The game is one of chance at this point, all up to the dice roll. The only safe spots on the board are your own; everything else is meaningless to you. You know you want to land on your properties and not his, for those Cheez-Its are threatening and—

“Did you just eat some of the board?” you ask, the dice still caught between your hands. 

Jay looks up at you and blinks slowly, still chewing on the stolen Cheez-It. He swallows and takes a sip of his nearly empty glass of water before answering. “No.”

You shake your head, tilting it to one side. “No what?”

“No, I didn’t eat the board. I took it from the bowl, like a civilized person.” He points with his free hand lazily at the blue plastic bowl the Cheez-Its had been poured into when the demand for new hotels had arisen. How long ago had that been? Half an hour? An hour? Hours, plural? You couldn’t tell anymore. This game felt decades long yet you know you started it today. Or, was it really yesterday?

You reach forward and draw the bowl towards you, eliciting a tired pout from your boyfriend. “Well, you shouldn’t eat these either. We may need them.”

“And how could we do that, love?" Jay reaches to pick up the notebook and it flaps under its own weight as he lifts it into the air. “We’d need more money to upgrade any house or non-Cheez-It hotels, and we’ve already borrowed from an imaginary bank three times. Inflation is running rampant throughout this town. We’ve ruined the economy. We’re monsters.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jay shrugs, placing the paper bank back on the table before sniffling and wiping at his eyes again, this time with both hands. The ball cap he wears now sits askew on his head, and you, out of habit, reach forward to fix it, leaning against the table to help span the distance. Your fingers brush against the edge of the board, and the more you lean to reach across the table, the more you end up on top of the board. You’re out of your seat now, feet pressing on toes to get the height and length you need to reach to fix the hat.

And before you know it, you’re face to face and practically on the table. Jay leans forward and bumps his nose against yours while you adjust his hat. “We should stop,” he says plainly.

“Why? So you can win?” you mutter, half grumbling. One hand fixes his hat while the other acts as a brace against the table.

“No, so we can stop,” he says again, one hand reaching to rub simple patterns into the top of your hand. “The Cheez-Its will still be there in the morning. If we need it, Jake can bring his copy so we can have more actual cash to use.”

A quick hah escapes your lips. “You just want to win.”

“No, love, I just want to sleep.”

With his hat now fixed, you carefully lean back, peeling yourself off the table and into your seat. You’re silently thankful for the still intact Cheez-Its. Had they been crushed, you’re sure you’d given up, now feeling more tired than you were before your hat-fixing expedition—and that was already fairly tired. You’re about to refute his case, saying that the two of you should stick it out until the end, that surely it can’t be too much longer, when Jay takes his hat off—the one you so painfully just fixed—to run his hand through his hair before putting it back on, slightly crooked.

“Jay... I just... fixed... that.” You bite your lip, too tired to be angry out right but too tired to realize it also doesn’t matter.

“I know you did,” he replies, yawning into his sleeve. He begs again, a hint of desperation growing into his voice. “Can we please stop?”

You lean forward, resting your chin on the edge of the table and staring up at him from across the board. “Does this mean I win?”

“If you want to, love,” he says, scooting away from the table to stand, silently hoping his movement away from the game will pull you away as well. “If it means we can stop.”

A smile graces your lips as he walks around the table to your side. You take the hand he offers to help you up, holding tight. You pull his arm toward you, hugging it as you both shuffle forward into the darkness, the Monopoly board abandoned. “Thank you,” you say, stretching to place a kiss on his cheek.

“If it makes you happy, love,” Jay begins, his voice soft and tired, “I’d do just about anything.”

“Just about?” you tease, crawling up onto the bed and beneath the covers. “Meaning there’s things you wouldn’t do, hm?”

“Yes, just about,” he replies, mimicking your actions. Even half asleep, he still makes sure you’re tucked safely against his side, with his arm curled around your waist and your head resting on his chest. You hear his heartbeat, smooth and steady.  You wrap your arms around his own waist, a soft smile against your lips.

He continues, murmuring sleepily into your hair after a kiss to your temple. “Just about, because if you had asked me to continue playing with you I would have fallen asleep at that table.”

“And what’s so bad about that?” you whisper back, titling your head up to see him. Moonlight streams around the edge of your curtains, providing just enough light to see.

“I really wasn’t looking forward to waking up with Cheez-Its ingrained into my forehead,” he replies with a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t think the look’s for me.”

You laugh, snuggling in closer against his hoodie, and he laughs too. “I think you would have looked great,” you say against his collarbone, eyes finally lulling shut.

“Do you now, love?”

“Yeah, orange is really your color.”

You feel his arm leave your waist and a single finger place itself beneath your chin. You allow Jay to tilt your head up before you open your eyes. He levels you a stare long enough for you to think you’ve done something seriously wrong before a laugh makes its way out, and before you know it, he’s placing happy, smiley kisses across your cheeks, your nose. He stops before your lips. His eyes, even tired, are still starry and glittering. His voice has reverence when he speaks. “You know I love you with every fiber of my being, right?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “I do.”

Jay bumps into your nose, hand playfully squeezing back at your waist. “That’s where you’re supposed to say I love you, too.”

You shake your head, fake-frowning. “But you haven’t kissed me yet?”

“Is that a suggestion or a demand?” he asks.

You shrug. “You choose.”

He leans forward, giving you the slightest, softest peck before pulling back.

You pout, chin tilting down. “You call that a kiss?”

“No,” he laughs, kissing the side of your cheek right beside your lips. “I just love your pout. I love everything about you.”

As he kisses the other cheek, just as close to your lips, you sigh. “I love you, too, Jay.”

And this time, he really does kiss you, although chaste and sleepy, but an honest kiss regardless. He tucks you back under his chin, wraps his arms around you so he knows you're safe. You’re nearly asleep when he finally replies, his own voice laced with sleep, and it’s enough to make you smile. Enough to know that he really would do just about anything for you. It makes you wrap your around him just a little tighter, make you smile just a little wider.

“I love you too.” That’s what you’d said. He says, in the darkness and honesty of your room, “I know.”

[bloodredx]

Day 21: Different Era

Over the long expanses of time, much had been done. An equal amount has not been as well. Playing games that Time has passed over, why not? Should it not be treated with decadence? Enjoy the moment now, for Time will steal it from you. There is little use in dwelling over times gone past, one cannot return. It is pointless. To swim against the streams of the now is to defy the current. In both senses of the word.

Perhaps this form had met thine own once. Perhaps not. Perhaps it was a past life, a past experience. Perhaps a memory remains. Perhaps it is lost. What remains eternal is the everlasting row of the ephemeral nature of all. So please, look forward. What is in thine sight? Do eyes really tell the truth when ears and hearts can speak otherwise? To dwell… is unadvised.

--

Icarus slammed open the door with full force, the heavy mahogany door rattling against the wall and its own silver hinges. A crumpled batch of documents in his hand, fist shaking angrily. His blood was exacerbating the emotions, he knew that, but it was too much for him to fight. He had too many questions and none of them were being answered. Just who the hell was this woman?

The woman in question, Dr. Rosalune, was still seated at her desk, despite the commotion. Eyes not even bothering to look up from the stack of papers she was working on. In fact, it seemed she didn’t even hear his ruckus, simply turning the page she was working on to her dedicated outgoing pile. Icarus gritted his teeth, tricky with his too sharp fangs poking out, but the words flung out in spite of his manners. “Just how old are you?!”

Her pen stopped for a moment, though Icarus was unsure if that was due to him or the actual sentence she was writing. Her pen continued on quickly after that, red painted lips barely parting when she scolded “It is quite rude to ask a Lady her age.”

He questioned the response. Was that a hint of amusement? “I’m serious. Tell me right now.”

“Quite bold to be making demands of me, all things considered.” She turned to a new page. “Though the newfound gumption might be pliable.”

“Answer me. I have these pages.” He slammed them on her desk with a loud clap. “I know you can read this!”

Now she capped her pen. “Making a mess and having a tantrum is a bit beyond you, I believe, Icarus.”  Only now did her eyes drift over the pages he provided. He wasn’t able to decipher what was going on in her mind. But she intentionally wasn’t answering him. “Go close the door.”

Oh no. He swallowed hard as the heat of his rage began to boil off. Clarity was now incoming. What the hell were you thinking? Icarus did as she commanded, returning to the door and shutting it with a much lighter hand, as if that alone would be enough to apologize.

“Good. Now sit down.” A finger gestured to the leather chair before her. He did so, keeping eyes glued to the floor. He couldn’t even stand to look at the papers he himself had brought in.  An uncomfortable pause filled the room, and he braced himself for that silence to shatter. When it did so, her icy tone wasn’t as frozen as he’d expected it to be. “I am not going to begin a conversation on the behavior you’ve just presented. I trust you won’t be tempted to find out the consequences of such buffoonery?”

A shiver ran up his spine, nearly chattering his teeth. “N-no ma’am.”

Dr. Rosalune nodded. “A wise decision.”  She squared away her remaining paperwork, putting it off to one side as she gathered the documents Icarus had brought with him. The ancient writing, her natural tongue was pressed to the page with her own red pen, the neat and precise handwriting she had perfected. Some eraser marks and faint remnants of pencil markings remained in the margins, clearly not her own. She stopped a chuckle from leaving her throat, instead raising a brow to her ward. “A good member of the Church sticking their nose in the past?”

“Like you’d say anything to report it.” He resisted the urge to cross his arms.

“Where did you find these?” The notes themselves were of little to worry about, no one else alive could read it, but the details contained within were of Icarus himself. His own file notes for her records. Things kept tight under lock and key.

“I found it. Seemed to have slipped out of its file.”

You have either increased your poker face, or you are lying. Either way, seems the stones are coming to you. She closed her eyes, contemplating a moment how to proceed. This is a long term commitment. Either way, the risk remains. “What does it mean to you?”

“Huh?” He wasn’t expecting that.

“Why do you care? You’ve written your own notes on this, so clearly it’s taken you.” Serena pursed her lips. “You were a history major, correct? Was this a point of your study?”

“I- yes. I wanted it to be at least. The Church obviously pushed back a great deal when my professor and I proposed it, but…” Icarus searched for the words. “It’s just a shame right? To leave history so unturned? To abandon what made us? I just wanted to know more, I-“ A twinge of hope glimmered in his eye. “If you have these, you must know something. You have to.”

True curiosity and passion. The blood hadn’t stolen them after all. “Icarus, you really aren’t aware of the depth of what you are asking.”

“So you do know it!” He nearly jumped out of his seat. He leaned forward, placing a hand on her desk to catch himself. “That language has been dead for thousands of years! Why-“

Serena raised a hand. “Enough, Icarus. I am well aware of the implications. But you would do well not to pry further into whatever notions you have concocted in that mind of yours.”

“You could solve decades of historic research-“

“And I have created many medical breakthroughs and treatments.” She countered gently. “Do you know how many hold my name? None. We are without time, despite being timeless. You should know these things require sources and recordation. I cannot give anything other than firsthand experience. Which raises its own issues, as I’m sure you’re aware.” He didn’t answer, again turning his attention to the floorboards. The Lady sighed, realizing quickly she wasn’t making any headway. “Well, I must thank you for returning this to me. That deserves… something of a reward.”

“Like you telling me more?” There was much that didn’t make sense to him. Her demeanor was always so alien, but at the same time precise and specific. As if she really did step out of some bygone past. And now knowing the truth of his newly contracted vampirism, and with these documents here, was it possible that she really was all these things? How would one survive that long? “Just who are you, doctor?”

Standing swiftly, she pushed her chair in, coming around to his left side. “Don’t get your hopes that high.” She grabbed a blank paper and two pens and handed one to him. “Right, well, much has changed, but in equivalence to sounds, this is the symbol for ‘th.’” Her hand swiftly drew the symbol. “Note the stroke of the pen, be careful not to cross the center here, lest you miswrite it.”

Icarus’s eyes watched eagerly, trying to soak up all the information. It truly was a spectacle, history coming to life before his eyes. At least one mystery could be solved. His eyes darted up to his mentor. But that left the door open for so many others.

(OC-tober challenge by @oc-tober2022 can be found here.)

[emeren]

speed racer- eren jaeger

pairing: eren jaeger x fem!reader 

word count: 6k

content warnings: nsfw, smut, 18+, smoking, degradation, overstimulation, breeding (w/o baby talk) 

notes: 100% inspired by the official art, like mmm yes please. also i know absolutely nothing about how car racing works, but that’s not important. this is unedited because my brain turned to mush writing it. enjoy!! <3

SUMMARY: eren’s a semi-professional car racer, who has a tumultuous friendship with the reader. after losing a race, eren sets out to win something else in his life, much to the reader’s surprise. 

“took you long enough!” sasha called out, holding her hand above her eyes in an attempt to block out the bright sun. you dished her a smile, weaving your way through the throngs of people in the stands, attempting not to step on anyone. your eyes briefly flitted to the track, the assistants distantly getting their cars ready. they were hardly visible from here; merely faceless figures idling around. you heaved out a sigh as you reached sasha, the brunette gingerly patting the spot next to her. 

“you couldn’t have gotten better seats, sash?” you asked as you sat down, pushing your sunglasses on top of your head. sasha waved her large bag of popcorn in front of your face, an exasperated expression on her features. 

“the line was long, and what’s a race without popcorn?” she grinned, offering you the bag. you rolled your eyes but took a fistful of the bright yellow snack nonetheless. “plus, if you really wanted that good of seats, you would’ve come early yourself.” 

“i did come here early,” you retorted, your voice muffled by the popcorn. sasha raised a questioning brow, her elbow nudging you in the side. 

“getting here early just so you can poke around the racer’s quarters is not the same thing,” she singsonged, a girlish smirk on her face. you scoffed, turning away from her as you felt heat race to your cheeks. “c’mon, everyone knows you and eren are totally into each other. i don’t understand why you guys don’t just go for it.” 

“i wasn’t poking around, and i am not into eren,” you said, shifting uncomfortably as the words left your mouth. it was true, to some degree. the two of you had been friends in high school, back when eren was just some skinny kid with anger issues. now he was a semi-professional racer, and the rivalry between the two of you was palpable, to say the least.

you’d been in the same friend group and for some reason eren just loved to pick on you whenever he got the chance. you suspected it had something to do with his repressed daddy issues or whatever, and he’d known mikasa and armin far too long to be so catty with them. initially they were just playful taunts, but as you got older, they started to become more personal. with age came your own unchecked need to banter and argue with him. 

somewhere along the way the arguments turned to sexual tension. a sexual tension that for the most part, the two of you were happy to ignore. it allowed room for a more sassy friendship, at least. 

“uh huh, suuure,” sasha responded, seemingly unconvinced. she must’ve sensed your discomfort, deciding to change the topic. “who’s who?” 

your eyes traced the track, analyzing each vehicle. “armin’s in yellow, mikasa’s in red, eren’s in white, and i believe levi is in green.” 

“levi’s racing? isn’t he getting a little old for that?” sasha laughed, squinting. you chuckled. 

“it’s just a small fundraiser race, plus he’s a crowd favorite over here,” you explained. sasha nodded as she processed the information. the sun was hot, beating down on your back. “i’m honestly surprised this many people came out.” 

sasha tossed more popcorn in her mouth, halfway done with the bag despite the race still not having started. she offered it to you again. “mhm, this is the same type of crowd that we’d see in the underground.” 

you thought back to your days of attending the illegal races, late at night and under the cover of darkness. though you were just a junior in college, it felt like those nights freshman year had been decades ago. that was before eren showed real promise in the professional circuit. it was also where levi scouted him out to be his successor. 

as if on cue, you could see the figures of the racers emerging from the port, each headed for their respective cars. you couldn’t help the way your gaze immediately followed the tall, brown haired racer adorned in his white racing jacket, checkers on the side. the crowd erupted into cheers at the sight of the all the racers, one from each color of the rainbow. eren walked with a certain confidence, his adamant determination being one of the only things that followed him from high school. 

though you couldn’t clearly see his face from where you sat, you knew he was smiling. eren had always loved the adrenaline rush before a race. 

“alright ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to the annual shiganshina fundraiser race!” the reporter boomed over the intercom. sasha squealed in her seat, excitedly gripping your arm and pointing towards your friends. you felt a mix of excited nervousness waft over you, giggling along with her. “today we’ve got racers from all over the circuit, and each one has volunteered their precious time for the cause. can we get a round of applause?” 

the crowd erupted in yet another ear deafening round of applause as the announcer read off the names of each of the racers. you and sasha made sure to scream your loudest when armin, mikasa, and eren’s names were read off. 

you hoped they knew it was you, your throat scratchy as you sat back down. there was no need to be loud for levi; the entire crowd went absolutely feral at the mention of his name. 

the announcer read off the conditions of the race, as well as the reasoning for the fundraiser itself. you and sasha chatted quietly about the after party while the racers put their helmets on and got in their cars. before too long, the announcer was gearing up for the start. 

“alright everyone, we’re about to start. get yourselves ready.” 

you and sasha stood, hollering and cheering for your friends as the cars all lined up. you knew you’d be happy if any of them crossed the finish line first, but it was undeniable that it would be eren. it wasn’t armin or mikasa’s passion like it was eren’s; they viewed it more as as fun hobby. nevertheless, you dreaded how smug eren would be once he added another win to his already growing list. he really was a bastard sometimes. 

“racers ready your cars. 3... 2... 1... go!” 

they were off, levi’s green car easily settling into first place, cruising past the other cars as he whipped around the first curve. you held your breath, eyes scanning the other cars placements. eren was in fourth, armin in fifth, and mikasa in second. sasha yelled sporadically, reaching out and squeezing your wrist tightly. 

as they rounded the circuit for the second time, eren passed the third place racer, coming up behind mikasa’s red car. you held your breath. “c’mon eren...” 

“shit! he passed her!” sasha screeched, jumping up and down. you smiled as he whipped the corner, nearly cutting the edge of the median. 

“levi is still so far ahead,” you commented, trying to pry sasha’s death grip from your wrist. your eyes glanced to the clock, realizing that the race was near its finish. levi was cutting the third corner and eren was quickly gaining on him. 

“looks like it’s gonna be clo-” sasha’s voice was cut off as a large man tripped over the bleacher behind you, effectively shoving you into her side. “shit, the popcorn!” 

you regained your balance, giving the man behind you a dirty glare as you turned to sasha. she frowned at the popcorn that’d been spilled all over the ground. “what a waste!” 

looking back up at the track, the crowd broke into screams of excitement. you expected to see eren’s face on the big screen to the side as confetti streamed through the air, but were surprised to see levi’s unimpressed stare. 

eren lost? 

“you’ve gotta be shitting me,” sasha gaped, her face slack in shock. you shrugged, shaking the feeling of disappointment from your shoulders. serves him right. 

people started to vacate the stands, shoving their way past you as you turned to sasha. “let’s go find connie and jean, sash.” 

she nodded, still frowning. the two of you climbed down the steps, going against the flow of the crowd as you weaseled your way down onto the spectators path. you could see all of the racers shaking hands, congratulating each other. your mind briefly considered whether or not eren was going to be upset, but you decided not to dwell on it. 

you watched as the racers disappeared into the tunnel, eren’s tall figure no longer in view. just then, connie and jean came walking out from the service booth, both wearing their maintenance coveralls. 

sasha wildly waved her arm, grabbing your hand and pulling you through the remaining stragglers towards your friends. 

“hey guys!” she smiled, the boys jogging to meet you halfway. 

“why were you guys in such shit seats?” connie asked, skipping over a greeting. you let out a small laugh at sasha’s expense. she merely shrugged, turning to jean. 

“we going to your place?” you questioned before she had the chance. jean nodded, adjusting the backwards baseball cap on his head. 

“yeah, just gotta wrap some things up, then we can head out,” he replied. you grew happy at the thought of kicking back with your friends, enjoying a nice night of fun. parties at jean and connie’s place were always the best. 

***************

“some race that was,” connie groaned, leaning back and bringing the beer bottle to his lips. so far it was just you, sasha, connie, jean, and a bunch of random drunk people who’d come from the track. sasha scoffed from her spot on the worn, brown couch. 

“you could say that again,” she grumbled. “we didn’t even get to see levi cross the finish line ‘cause some guy rammed into us.” 

jean looked at you from where he leaned against the wall, a bottle in his hand and his eyebrows raised. “wait, for real?” 

“yeah,” you sighed, drinking whatever bitter liquid sasha had poured into your red solo cup. “didn’t even say sorry.” 

“how many times do i have to tell you guys, just come work maintenance with jean-boy and i,” connie suggested, wrapping his arm around sasha’s shoulder and giving a squeeze. she rolled her eyes and shoved him off. “you guys would get to watch the race from the track itself.” 

“i don’t know the first thing about cars,” sasha laughed, you nodding along with her. 

“and you think we do? i just said that so we could get the best seats in the house,” connie snorted, taking another swig of his drink. you chuckled at his idiocy, unfazed by yet another one of their stupid stunts. “where’re the big racers anyway?” 

“they should be here soon,” you responded, glancing out the window. jean was unironically blasting the fast and the furious soundtrack, something he’d done after every race for as long as you’d known him. by now the songs were ingrained in your brain. 

“who wants to bet jaeger is in a pissy mood?” jean snorted as he moved to sit down on the arm of the chair you were planted in. 

“when isn’t he?” you sneered. connie and sasha hummed in agreement. both you and jean loved nothing more than to push eren’s buttons. you knew jean’s motives stemmed from some boyish fun, whereas yours felt a little more personal. 

the sound of clapping began to compete with the music, your neck craning to look past jean into the hallway. eren, armin, and mikasa came into view, people cheering them on and patting them on the back. they each wore their racing jackets over their street clothes. 

you felt a familiar sensation burn in your stomach at the sight of eren. his dark hair was pulled back per usual, wispies framing his tan face. The white jacket stood out against his black t-shirt and black jeans; key necklace he always wore glinting against his chest. as your gaze travelled up from his body, you were startled to make contact with his teal eyes. you quickly glanced away in embarrassment. 

“well, well, well,” jean cheered, raising his bottle to the trio. “how’d it feel to lose to a short, old man, eh jaeger?”

eren scowled, obviously peeved. “if i had to lose to anyone, i’m glad it was levi.” 

connie snorted at that. “man, professional circuit has you soft.” 

“whatever you say, baldie,” eren smirked mischievously as he came to sit down on the couch. connie defensively rubbed his head. “at least i’m making money in prof.” 

“i still can’t believe you have people that actually want to sponsor you,” you snipped, a playful expression on your face. eren lazily looked towards you, the familiar irritation laced in his eyes. 

“i’m sorry, what was that? i wasn’t listening to you,” eren retorted, looking as unbothered as ever. you glared at his words, but caught armin’s disapproving eye and decided to stay quiet. 

as the night carried on, you watched your friends relax and reminisce about previous races and the days spent in the illegal ring. it seemed crazy that your life was so centered around car races, when you weren’t even a racer yourself. but you supposed you were just happy to be supporting your friends.

at some point you got up out of your chair to refill your cup. the large hoards of people had started to dance; the house feeling hot and humid as you shoved your way to the kitchen. luckily the room was empty, save for armin who was drinking water out of the kitchen tap. 

“thirsty?” you asked, amused. his head snapped up, surprised by your voice. it took one look to tell he was absolutely trashed, face red and eyes half lidded. he smiled goofily and nodded his head before stumbling back out into the crowd of people. 

you quickly filled your cup, following the direction armin had gone. as you stepped out of the kitchen, a body came out of nowhere and smacked into you. 

eren jumped back, trying to avoid the liquid that sloshed out of your cup. “hey, watch it!” he hissed. 

“you watch it, casanova,” you snapped, irritated by the sticky alcohol that dripped down your hand. eren’s eyes narrowed at the nickname, his arms defensively crossing his chest. 

“i told you not to call me that,” he bit back, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. you rolled your eyes, instinctively bringing your hand to your mouth in an attempt to lick the drink off. eren watched you, his gaze clouded with an indiscernible emotion. you knew what you were doing. 

“hm. too bad,” you quipped, dragging your tongue down the side of your hand, popping your pointer finger in your mouth. eren glowered at you as you let out a giggle. “see ya, loser.” 

“whatever, brat,” he huffed, shaking the tension from his pants as you sauntered off into the crowd. he hated the effect you had on him.

you’d already decided not to get shit faced. while the rest of your friends had chosen otherwise, you danced alongside them, your resolve wearing thin much faster than theirs. jean and sasha bounced happily up and down, screaming the lyrics to whatever song it was blasting from the speakers. connie and mikasa were playing beer pong, and you had no clue where armin and eren had gone.

you heaved in a breath as a sharp pain shot through your side, signaling the end of your dancing career for the night. your two dance partners were too far gone to notice, waving goodbye to you as you stepped out of the sweaty crowd. 

slipping your phone out of your pocket, your eyes nearly popped from your head at the time. two thirty?!

only slightly tipsy, you decided to find jean’s room and call it a night. he’d just have to sleep on the couch. with one hand dragging on the wall, you made your way through the house, past armin who was doing body shots with a couple of strangers, up the stairs and down the dark hall. it was quieter up here, but you could still hear the music and knew it’d be awhile till sleep visited you. 

shoving jean’s door open, you were surprised to see none other than eren laid back on the bed, puffs of smoke coming from his mouth. the strong scent of weed hit your nostrils, nose scrunching up in reflex. he propped himself up on one arm upon your entrance, eyeing you. 

“oh, sorry i’ll just- wait a minute,” you paused, narrowing your eyes at him. “you aren’t supposed to be smoking on your sponsorship.” 

eren let out a loud laugh at that, more smoke spilling from his lungs. “thanks, mom. i know.” 

you stood in the doorway, not really sure what to do. “jean’s gonna be mad if his room smells like weed tomorrow.” 

“yeah, why do you think i chose to do it in here?” he leered, bringing the blunt to his lips and deeply inhaling, sharp cheekbones protruding with the action. you sucked in a breath, not wanting to acknowledge just how gorgeous he was. his jacket was off, black shirt tightly gripping his muscular yet slender arms as he propped himself up. he blew the smoke from his nostrils this time, making your face heat. “wanna hit?”  

you sighed, weighing the options. jean’s bed was a lot more comfortable than connie’s. you could just wait till eren was done, and then pass out. “no, but i’ll wait with you till you’re done.” 

“suit yourself, brat,” eren hummed, flopping back down on the bed as you shut the door behind yourself. you came to sit by him, looking down as he heaved in a sober breath. he really is beautiful, you thought. 

your eyes scanned his face. “you really shouldn’t be smoking, you know. you could lose the sponsorship.” 

eren rolled his teal eyes, giving you a side glance. “i’m aware. i’m also aware that you aren’t going to rat on me.” 

“and what makes you so sure?” you asked playfully, your voice low. eren’s gaze shifted to you, placing the blunt between his lips as he sat up, face inches from yours. 

“because. you can act like you hate me all you want,” smoke blew from his lips as he spoke, slowly inching his face closer to yours. you swallowed, eyes struggling to maintain contact with his dark stare. “but i know how badly you want me.” 

you blinked, heart rate accelerating as he glanced at your lips. “speaking from experience?” 

eren’s mouth quirked up in a smirk at your words. “something like that.”

you watched with desire as he brought the bud of the blunt up to his lips, deeply inhaling the toxic smoke. he lifted his free hand, pointer finger gently tracing your jaw as his thumb came up to caress your chin. he tapped softly against your face, as if asking you to open your mouth. 

you weren’t sure what part of you was wanting to submit to his every move. maybe it was the alcohol. or maybe it was the accumulation of sexual tension. something told you it was a deeper itch that needed to be scratched. an itch only eren could reach. 

you parted your lips, eyes fluttering as eren leaned forward and carefully brushed his own against yours, dumping his lungful of smoke into your mouth. you breathed it in, fighting the urge to cough and whine as he pulled away. 

“good girl,” he breathed, leaning away to snuff the bud out on jean’s bedside table. you heaved out as much as you could, shocked by your own willingness. you were mainly surprised by how much you enjoyed whatever that was. 

you stared at him expectantly as he turned back to you, a serious expression on his face. “eren.” 

“yes?” he asked, leaning heavily on his arm, eyes unashamedly focused on your lips. his other hand came up again, lightly ghosting your jawline. you could feel yourself growing wet between your legs; the way eren was fucking you with his eyes sending an unwelcomed throb to your clit. 

acting on impulse, you lurched forward, latching your lips onto eren’s slightly chapped ones. he wasted no time in kissing you back; hungrily pressing himself closer to your body. his lips were warm and tasted like weed and coca cola, his tongue wiggling its way into your mouth where you happily welcomed it. 

you brought your hand up, wanting to run your fingers through his hair, but were stopped when they got caught in the bun. eren grunted, kissing you harder and bringing his own hand up to yank the tie from his locks, letting his soft hair fall to his shoulders. 

your fingers were quick to glide through the brown strands, scratching his scalp in the process. some throaty sound emitted from his chest, the noise making your cunt ache in need. how is he so hot? 

eren’s hands came to your waist, roughly shoving you down onto the bed, so that he hovered above you. your lips continued to meld together, saliva coated mouths wetly intertwined. you removed your hand from his hair, bringing both hands to run down the expanse of his arms that were on either side of your head. you squeezed his biceps, surprised when he suddenly pulled away. 

“is this okay?” he panted, breaths labored. his pupils were dilated, all seriousness behind his gaze. you nodded your head without hesitation, practically begging him to continue. “words.”

“yes, yes. i want this just as much as you do,” you responded. eren smirked from above you, his dark hair swirling around his face as his key dangled in front of your chin. 

“good, because,” he leaned down to your ear, lightly nibbling the lobe as the cold key rested against your throat. “i’m going to punish you for all these years of torture.” 

your eyes widened, the words sending a desirable chill down your spine. “torture?” 

eren’s hot mouth travelled slowly from your ear down the side of your neck, lightly peppering the skin with lustful kisses. his tongue came out as he reached your collarbone, dragging the wet muscle up the front of your throat, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake. a small whimper involuntarily left your mouth as he pulled back, grabbing your chin in his large hand.  

“all of the nicknames,” he pressed a kiss to your lips. “the quips,” and another, your chest tightening. “the stunt you pulled earlier with your hand. oh god. it’s like you were practically begging me to bend you over and teach you a lesson.” 

he pulled back, dark eyes boring into yours. the desire was palpable, your breathing shallow as he stared at you. it was like he was waiting for some silent agreement. 

you held eye contact, tilting your chin back ever so slightly in his grip. “good thing i learn fast.” 

your words flew straight to his cock, throbbing uncomfortably behind his jeans. eren let go of your chin, his lips hungrily reconnecting with yours as his hands pinned your wrists to either side of your head. his tongue was quick to invite itself into your mouth, warm and erotic. 

you wanted to tug on his hair again; wanted to hear his primal groans and feel him vibrate against your mouth, but you were pinned to the bed. desperate to hear eren moan, your teeth grazed his bottom lip, the action making him yank his head back. 

“tsk tsk, none of that,” he growled, wet lips glinting in the low light of the room. “this is your punishment. guess we’re going to have to do something else.” 

you frowned as he let go of your wrists, lifting himself from the bed and standing. you propped yourself up on your elbows, eyes laced with desire as eren swiftly pulled the black shirt over his head, key pendant resting on his newly exposed chest. he was dangerously attractive like this; dark hair disheveled on his shoulders, only adding to the feral stare he was giving you. 

he leaned forward, grabbing your thighs and yanking you to the end of the bed, legs dangling from the side. you watched in awe as he dropped to his knees, fingers coming up to toy with the button of your jean shorts. 

“these little shorts make your ass look so good,” he grumbled, tapping the button. “be good and take them off for me.” 

you wasted no time in lifting your ass off the bed, struggling to yank the denim down your legs without hitting eren in the face. he watched your every movement, licking his lips as you wiggled them off. 

without thinking, your hands gripped the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head to reveal a black bra. eren’s pupils dilated further at the unexpected sight of your breasts. 

he helped pull the shorts from your ankles, tossing them aside as you sat back down, just in your panties and bra. you paused for a moment, unsure of what he was planning to do. 

“watch me,” he demanded, staring at you through his brows. you nodded your head, breath hitching as he placed an open mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh, tongue swiping against the smooth skin. 

his eyelashes fluttered as he licked up your leg; just the way he looked at you being enough to have you creaming in your lace panties. your teeth tugged at your bottom lip, the burning in your face mirroring the way your clit throbbed along with your heart beat. 

eren’s tongue trailed until he reached the edge of your underwear, eyes never failing to stay connected with yours. you swallowed as he lifted his head, placing his tongue flatly against your clothed clit. 

it was a warm, muted feeling, your body all too aware of the beautiful man between your legs. eren brought his fingers up, hooking under the fabric and pushing it to the side. 

“so wet for me already,” he hummed, a smile on his face. you blushed in embarrassment, the feeling of his breath on your glistening pool of moisture making you shiver. “’m gonna eat you so good, little bitch.” 

you gasped as eren rapidly brought his face down, burying his head between your legs. the sensation was like no other; a swirling feeling in your stomach as his tongue hungrily swiped against your clit. your hands flew down to his hair, tugging as his lips wrapped around the bud, suckling softly. 

a moan escaped your lips, the sound causing eren to groan out in reply. the vibration of his vocal cords against your center amplifying the pleasure. 

a distinct feeling began to burn in your chest, the sloppiness of eren’s tongue licking up your slick causing your legs to squirm, tightening around his head. “fuck.”

eren pulled back at the pressure against his skull, a smack sounding through the air as he released his suction on your wet cunt. 

“i told you to be good,” he hissed, lips coated in your sheen. you knew the image of eren’s face between your legs, hair disheveled and mouth swollen, eyes dark and lustrous, would be burned into the back of your brain. 

flustered, you nodded your head, spreading your legs so they weren’t pressing against his face. he nodded in content, arms coming up to wrap around your thighs to keep you steady. 

and he was back; eating your pussy like he hadn’t been fed in years, a primal desperation. he pressed his tongue down harder, the cry ripping from your throat at the sensation only egging him on. you struggled against his grip as he abused your clit with his mouth, sucking and tracing his teeth over it so good. 

his tongue slid down to your entrance, shoving itself in without invitation. the fullness wasn’t like having sex; it was a heated, swirling feeling. the wet muscle circled around your spongey walls, your face beginning to burn and hands growing clammy in eren’s hair. 

you threw your head back as his ministrations sped up, your hips attempting to grind into his face. the warmth in the pit of your stomach building like a loaded gun, ready to release itself. 

all it took was the added pressure of his hand wrapping around your thigh so that his thumb could press against your clit, feverishly rubbing. you came crashing down, your eyes screwing shut as the wave of dopamine stretched to every part of your body, legs jerking against his hold. 

eren pulled his head back again, a smile on his wet face as he licked your release from his lips. “tasted so good, so good for me.” 

you breathed out in reply as he came back up above you, gently taking your chin and bringing his mouth down to yours. 

the kiss was small and simple, your eye lids growing heavy. you could taste your bitter release on him, the unfamiliar flavor not completely unpleasant. 

“sleepy?” eren mumbled against your lips, coming back to look at you. you nodded your head, eyes catching on the key that dangled from his neck. “too bad. we aren’t done with your punishment yet.” 

you frowned, your body suddenly more awake than it was before. “huh?” you asked, sitting up as eren shifted to pull his jeans off. 

you weren’t sure what you expected when he yanked both his jeans and boxers down; you guessed you’d always thought his anger issues were compensation for something. the realization dawned on you that eren had nothing to compensate for as his cock sprung from his pants, the sheer size making your mouth water. 

a smirk crossed his face as he stepped from his jeans. “enjoying the view?” 

“what? no,” you scoffed, averting your gaze. eren crawled back over you, his bare length pressing into your stomach as his hands came up to unclasp your bra. 

“don’t be shy, this is your punishment after all,” he whispered, pulling the cups from your chest. his eyes unashamedly scanned your breasts, a smile tugging his lips as he gave them a generous squeeze. 

you tried to ignore the imprint of him on your stomach; but it was nearly impossible. you could feel the spot between your legs grow wet again, arousal already weaseling its way back into your system.

eren brought his lips to yours once again, the kisses much sloppier and desperate than before. he grunted as you shifted to lay back down, his exposed dick rubbing against your stomach. “can’t wait to be inside of you,” he mumbled against your lips. 

you whimpered at his words, his lips melding with your own while he simultaneously tugged your panties down your legs. he propped himself up with one arm, the other positioning the tip of his cock at the entrance of your already throbbing cunt. 

you took a deep breath as he slowly eased himself into you; the sheer stretch making your eyes lull back in your head. eren moved his hips slowly at first, loosening you up. he was watching your expressions; his eyelids heavy and mouth slightly agape. 

“shit, you’re so tight,” he groaned, hips starting to move faster as he gazed down at you. you swallowed, closing your eyes as he sent one particularly hard thrust, cock nearly ramming your cervix. “you good?” 

“mhm,” you responded, bringing your hands up to grab his hair. “just so big.” 

eren let out a breathy chuckle at that, eyes traveling down to your pelvis where his dick was visibly creating a bump with every thrust. he placed his hand on your stomach, pressing down as he bucked his hips violently forwards. he was so deep. 

you cried out at the feeling of his length sliding in and out of your cunt, your walls clenching around him as your hands clawed at his muscular back. 

he was filling you up so good, a moan leaving his lips as your enhanced arousal unexpectedly brought your second orgasm down, tears pricking your eyes. eren kept abusing your pussy, his thrusts growing senseless before he buried himself deep within you, releasing his load inside of your exhausted center. 

both of your breathing was labored, eren looking up at the ceiling. his face was flushed as he recovered, you laying limply beneath him trying to regain your composure yourself. 

“that felt so good,” you admitted, bringing your hand up from his back to caress his angular face. eren frowned at your words, large hand grabbing your wrist and removing it from his jawline. 

“m’not tired yet,” he said seriously, your eyes widening as he placed a chaste kiss to your lips. your fucked out face beneath him had his dick already hardening again. “m’not gonna be tired till i win.” 

he suddenly pulled up, hooking his hands under your knees and pushing your legs up by your head. the action strained your muscles, the feeling of eren’s cum dripping down your ass filling your head as he readied himself to fuck you senseless. 

he stared at your cunt; at the way his cum was oozing out of it, the abused pussy ready to take him in again. he used his fingers to catch the drip, forcing it back inside of you. the thought of filling you up all nice and pretty sent him over the edge, his hand shamelessly guiding his cock back inside of you.

eren was meaner this time; each thrust was deep and deliberate, hitting your cervix and making you cry out in pleasure. the burning sensation in your clit was overwhelming, your mouth hanging open as eren slowly fucked you stupid. 

“good, pretty girl” eren breathed out, ramming his hips into yours. “took her punishment like such a good girl.” 

you tried to nod your head, but you couldn’t move. the feeling of hot, sticky tears rolled down your face, eren’s cock deep within you almost too much to bear. he grabbed your chin, tongue swiping up your cheek as he savored the salty flavor on his tastebuds. this man and his licking. 

“tell me, did you learn your lesson?” eren grunted in your ear, hand still gripping your chin. you tried to form a sentence, fucked beyond words. “hm, use your words and i’ll let you cum.” 

one more deep thrust and his dick stopped its strokes, pausing within you. “yes... yes.” 

“yes what?” 

your tongue was heavy in your mouth, pussy all too aware of eren’s length within it. “i learned my lesson, you won.” 

he smirked, aggressively bucking his hips into your weak cunt, the action making you cry out as he rammed your cervix. the tears continued to roll down your cheeks as eren’s dick twitched, spurting the his seed into you. your third release followed his, your clit spasming from the overstimulation. 

eren heaved himself out of you, collapsing deftly onto the bed. the two of you sat in a heated silence, your face sticky from the tears. eren glanced to you, eyes trailing down your body. 

“i’ll get a rag,” he mumbled, shoving off the bed and walking into jean’s bathroom. you were beyond exhausted and knew that you’d be sore tomorrow. eren reemerged, quickly cleaning you up and handing you your shirt. 

your eyes lazily watched him as he walked over and locked the door; brain too tired to form a sentence. 

he must’ve noticed your concern. “we can sleep in here tonight; i don’t think you’re in any shape to move.” 

you carefully crawled into the sheets, not even bothering to put your shirt back on. eren followed suit, climbing in behind you. 

“night,” he whispered as he shut the bedside light off. your lids were growing heavy, a smile on your lips as you began to fall asleep. 

“night, casanova.” 

<3 <3 <3 

[welllpthisishappening]

Suggesting that she hated a single piece of wholly ridiculous, vaguely ancient clothing was absolutely insane. Which was never an appropriate description for Regina Mills. Not once, not ever. Insanity suggested chaos and a distinct lack of plan and for as long as Regina could remember, she’d always had a plan. 

One foot in front of the other, one project to the next. Only, well, that wasn’t a great way to skate. It was a good way to fall, actually. And Regina had never been a very big fan of falling. 

Still, that sweater was a thorn and a prick and several other clichés Mrs. Vankald would be proud of. So, it shouldn’t have surprised her that the stupid thing showed up here: at Killian’s number retirement ceremony. 

——— 

Word Count: 3.3k AN: This is almost solely for @eleveneitherway​ who, I cannot overstate, is the absolute sweetest. Truthfully, I adore her. It’s also part of the prompts I got from that list that I am almost finished filling. They’re retiring Killian’s number. People are feeling emotions. I felt emotions while writing this. It’s also the first time I’ve written Outlaw Queen as, like, the focus and the first-ever Regina POV for me. Which was actually surprisingly fun? Let’s all ignore the fact that Matt would still be wearing 20 while he continued playing. I don’t care. I wanted the feelings. Also, in case you forgot (because I also had to look it up) Killian wore the sweater to the Opening Night ritual in the first Blue Line season. 

———

“In my defense, I wanted to do it.”

Biting the inside of her cheek was an antiquated and instinctual response that no longer resulted in any bit of movement on Regina’s face. Which was good, really. Less because she’d managed to turn self-control into a science over the last few decades, but more because there were too many cameras. Pointed at them and this, and it was genuinely incredible that the New York Rangers organization had not evolved at the same rate. To purchase semi-comfortable seats for a ceremony that was growing increasingly impossible to hear over the roar of several thousand jersey-sporting fans. 

“I am sure you did.”

“I did.” “Not a doubt in my mind.”

Laughter in varying volumes and familiar, tell-tale tones came from several different angles in the immediate area. Shaking shoulders bumped Regina’s, a quick glance to her left confirming her equally antiquated and instinctual suspicions. Henry’s lips were barely visible. Tucked behind his teeth as they were. The toddler on Roland’s lap was not all that interested in staying there, clamoring for Lizzie and her hair, tiny hands tugging on strands that induced brand-new sounds of the vaguely pained variety. 

Emma did not try to hide the movement of her hand. When she pinched the bridge of her nose. 

Tugging his wife’s fingers down with practiced ease, Killian didn’t turn around to the Locksley-filled row behind him, mumbling, “Why would I lie to you? Right now? In this moment?” “You ask questions,” Regina said, “when you’re uncomfortable.” The overall volume of Will’s ensuing snicker was likely simulcast into homes and onto phones across the continental United States, its assorted territories, and most of southern Canada. “A three-peat, Cap.” “Does that make sense?” “No,” Emma replied while Will nearly shouted “Yes,” and Belle’s eyes had been closed for an indeterminate amount of time. 

It was all that sweater’s fault. The sweater Regina’s husband was wearing. At the ceremony to retire Killian’s number. With all these cameras. And all these people, and she hadn’t missed the reaction from all those people when Robin stood up and unbuttoned his jacket. 

Regina was going to burn that sweater. 

Or, well, so she’d planned. She wanted to. Desperately. Years ago, really. What was starting to feel like a totally different life the longer she sat there, in these torture-adjacent chairs while her kids and her grandkids and the rest of a family that sort of snuck up on her did its abject best not to embarrass themselves too completely in front of local and national media. She’d wanted to tear that sweater to shreds and toss those shreds into the sort of blaze that would inspire dramatic documentaries on multiple streaming platforms and over-the-top disaster movies based on those same documentaries with some of the facts skewed solely for entertainment purposes.

Every one of the letters seemed to mock her whenever that sweater appeared, far more often than it should have, stretched across an NHL-ready chest and shoulders that made both her and Killian quite a lot of money. 

Mostly because they were capable of twisting at an angle concurrent with his hips that, more often than not, led to the puck finding the back of the net. 

All I Want for Christmas Is Locksley

It didn’t even make sense. No pithy rhyme. Not even a slant-rhyme. Too many syllables to truly be a call back to the original, and Regina hadn’t grown up in a home that was especially fond of pop culture or its assorted references, but that one felt famous enough that it shouldn’t have been tarnished with a sweater that made a negligible amount of sense. 

And, really, that was it. The rub, as they say. Mrs. Vanklad, too. The sweater was a perfect cliché that did not make sense—was covered in letters that, upon further inspection, during a season-opener in a year her memory could no longer quite lockdown, were not perfectly straight, surrounded by candy canes that frayed with alarming regularity despite never seeming to run out of string, and she hated it. In the depths of her very being, even as it became more and more clear that the sweater was there to stay, another bullet point on a list of stupid jokes made by stupid people that she loved more than she thought possible. 

Despising a sweater was impractical. 

Only, well, Regina was possibly a little threatened by the sweater for reasons full of childhood disappointment and adolescent trauma, and far too much early-adult tragedy. 

Life was a line, she had been taught. For as long as she could remember. Point A to the next, a trip through the alphabet that could only deviate upon completion. And then it just progressed to Greek letters, anyway. Carrying on was a lifestyle drilled into her by necessity and what was frequently described as motherly love instead of popular early 2010s trends, and Regina followed instruction. Followed the plans and the lists and ignored the bumps and the disappointment and all that undeniable loss, until—

She sat at a dining room table on Thanksgiving in a downtown Manhattan brownstone that made something in her chest ache as soon as she walked inside, and she recognized the precise look. Of cautious optimism and patented suspicion of anything good in Robin Locksley’s gaze. 

When he looked at her. 

Directly across the dining room table. 

It didn’t make sense, either. Regina was already running out of letters for plans and projects, and she wouldn’t learn any Norwegian letters for another four years, when Liam thought it would be hysterical to teach Roland certain sayings on the ice, and she’d never wanted… this. 

All that motherly love, proclaimed loudly and perpetually as it might have been, had also done a fairly effective job of souring her on the role. But there was this guy. With his eyes and his quiet certainty and equally painful backstory, and, she was only human, so the overall muscle tone of his upper thighs coupled with the precise way his ass looked in dress pants helped, too. 

She liked him. She liked his kid. She liked the general concept of them. 

Loved it, eventually. 

Without reservation, mostly. Old habits and all that. Another Mrs. Vankald-approved cliché, Regina knew. Even if she was also perfectly aware of the exact way Mrs. Vankald would tut her tongue in exasperation over emotional hangups and lingering fears, and Mrs. Vankald was a questionably good mother. 

To all of them, no matter what their last name was or their tendency to get on the ice. 

She’d squeezed Regina’s hand exactly three times before kissing her on the cheek and telling her she looked beautiful on her wedding day. Answered the phone whenever Regina called with questions about whether or not kids noticed vegetables mixed into fruit smoothies and how often she wanted to kick the shins of various four-year-olds for daring to bump into Roland on the ice. She was frequently reminded that they were all four, and none of them could skate that well yet. 

Her kid went pro. 

Like her husband was a pro with all the requisite merch and ridiculous merch, and she’d hated the sweater because it was a reminder of poorly-stitched chaos and a distinct lack of control and it was incredibly, undeniably, ugly as sin. 

A cliché hat trick. 

She wished Mrs. Vankald was there, and she probably, definitely, absolutely should have expected the sweater to show up at some point tonight. 

Old traditions died hard deaths that rarely lasted amongst this group. 

Without reservation, mostly. 

“So, then,” Belle said, pulling Regina back to the present, “you’re saying you knew this was going to happen, Cap.” One of Killian’s shoulders lifted. The kid standing on his thighs wobbled slightly, drawing quick, jerky movements from two sets of arms on his other side. “Deep breaths, the pair of you,” he told both Peggy and Jeremy, who did not look even remotely pacified as their daughter continued to balance, before glancing over that still lifted shoulder, “and I had a general idea.” “Liar, liar,” Emma muttered. Gasps that would fit almost perfectly into the context of Regina’s wholly imagined disaster movie seemed to echo between her ears for their most impressive dramatic effect. 

“Swan.” She kissed his cheek. Several people aww’ed. Not all of them were sitting in the Rangers-provided folding chairs. “Taylor’s had it for years.” “No shi—,” Roland said, before cutting himself off. Wide eyes filled with the same sort of guilt that came after multiple instances of sneaking Matt onto ice he was too young to be on with skates that were too big for his feet met Regina’s. 

She bit her cheek again. Twice. Once more for good measure. 

“But,” Emma added, voice dropping as the cameras moved for yet another seat pan and reaction shot, “Rook said he said he forgot he had it, stuffed it into one of his closets—” “Rich jerk,” Chris grumbled.

Lizzie tugged on the back of his jacket. “Are you not getting ten percent of your brother’s contract?” 

“Twelve,” he and Claire said simultaneously. Matt was sitting on the bench. There was a game after this, and Regina wouldn’t be able to think about that for at least the first fourteen minutes of the first period. Twelve percent was a coup. 

“How many closets do you have, Toph?” Peggy pressed, trying and failing to pull Maddie away from her dad. He winked at her. 

Coughing into a microphone was not particularly subtle.

But neither was the sweater, really. Or deciding who got to speak first at this seemingly endless ceremony by staging a mini skills competition in that same downtown brownstone. Only in the living room, this time. There wasn’t enough room around the table. 

Regina’s current working theory was that it might have been a two-fold competition. 

Lifting her eyebrows at Robin’s bemused expression while he watched them with what could only be described as perpetual fondness, the edges of Regina’s mouth proved too determined. To lift and curve, a smile stretching her mouth and lifting the muscles in her cheeks, and he didn’t wink at her. He didn’t blink, even. Just kept watching—her, specifically. Waiting, that’s what he was doing. What he’d been since the table and the dinner and the family recipe for broccoli casserole that was far better than the bread pudding. 

Waiting for Regina to catch up. To him and this and them, the optimism and the belief, a quiet and steady sort of reassurance that altered the plan with an entirely new list of goals and objectives, winding and twisting, bouncing between up and down and high and low, contract negotiations to wins and parades and could-have-beens, and realizing when it all was enough. 

To know when it was ok to want. Beyond your means or what you’d been told you could want. What she’d been told, specifically. 

Regina was never going to let him give that sweater back. 

To Killian or Emma or Rook’s kid with his admittedly impressive number of closets. Even if she was sort of curious how— “Did he suddenly remember where he stuffed the sweater, then? Save us all with fashion, such as it is, in the nick of ceremony time?” Regina asked, and it would be impossible to believe that Emma’s eyes actually got brighter. Only it was that sort of night. Life, maybe. 

“A girl whose name Rook did not know or would not report found it. Was looking for something to wear after—” More gasps. Hands over mouths. Bugging eyes and arms twisting to grab phones out of pockets without any regard given to the entirely unacceptable timing of that specific reaction. “Well,” Emma shrugged, “you get what I mean. It is not all that serious, or so several sources claim both on and off the record, mostly because the nameless girl who I’m sure is real nice found it, Tay was not cute about her laughing at it—” Everyone within a 15-year age range of Taylor, who was on a business trip that weekend and couldn't sit in one of the boxes upstairs with his parents, mumbled idiot under their breath. 

Emma nodded once. “He said it was an important memento in New York Rangers lore, presumably got even more weird about hockey than any of us normally are, and here we are.” “Here we are,” Regina echoed. “Does Aurora know it’s not serious or has the invitation designer on retainer already been contacted?

Will wasn’t particularly quiet, sing-songing his “Making jokes is a flashing neon sign of all that bottled up emotion, Your Majesty. You getting sentimental on us?”

Fluttering fingers appeared between the seats in front of her, and she didn’t look before she grabbed them. Chris squeezed. Tightly. Three times. 

That was probably a coincidence. 

Timing up perfectly with the undeniable buzz of his phone and one last pointed cough. 

“You guys good?” Robin asked mid-speech, unable to keep the laughter out of the question or the smile off his face. Wide enough to rival whatever was somehow still stuck on Regina’s. “Put your phone on silent, Toph.”

Roland and Henry more or less collapsed. 

“I wanted to wear it,” Killian repeated, “but—” “Mom wouldn’t let him,” Chris whispered, and it wasn’t a whisper when Peggy added, “and it didn’t really fit all that great, either.”

Killian finally handed off his granddaughter. To slump in his chair, just enough to serve as a laughter-inducing response while still avoiding total farce. It was touch and go, though. Will was going to fall on the floor, Belle burying her face in the neck of whichever kid she was now playing chair to because there were too many kids, and that was good and great and the sweater was starting to evolve into some sort of thing in Regina’s mind, a marker and a memory and Robin looked at her first. 

Again. 

When he said, “You’re not guaranteed anything in this game. It’s weird how that works, actually. Infuriating sometimes. You should get what you want, after all of it, right? You work your whole life for the moment to dig your skates into the ice, to hear all those sounds that have been the soundtrack of an entire career, and you hope it’ll work out ok. Plan for every possibility. With coaches and nutritionists, athletic trainers who—” 

He lifted a hand toward the boxes, another flash of smile that left Regina wondering if it was, in fact, possible to float upward solely on the force of all her bottled-up emotion. Like bubbles out of a champagne bottle. 

“Hey, A,” Robin continued, “I still do all those oblique stretches you were always harping about.” Regina could only imagine Ariel’s answering shout of liar was nearly identical to the cry that came from both Will and Killian. She shook her head. In response to Emma’s questioning stare. 

“Could bounce quarters,” she added softly. 

Will scoffed.

Robin’s eye roll could only be noticed by those especially in tune with eye rolls more generally borne from fatherly exasperation and their collective inability to behave in public. As much as carpet-covered ice in Madison Square Garden warranted that description. 

“I’m the only one the sweater fit,” he announced, “and I soundly beat Scarlet at skills because my one-timer is still more impressive.” Definitely not acceptable for public consumption, then. Any of them. The next cough was an obvious attempt to get back on track that only marginally worked. No one in the crowd noticed. “Anyway, the point is, you come into this league with a plan. With objectives and desire and it’s great to try that approach, but it never works. Nothing ever goes according to plan. Sometimes it sucks, and you’re bruised and your oblique exercises feel kinda like torture—sorry, A. And you’re on the road, and you miss your kids, but—”

He still didn’t wink. Didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just kept leaning against that podium with those letters on that sweater stretching across a chest Regina was certain she could describe in minute detail and waited. For her. To lift a finger, rest it below her left collarbone and tap. Three times. 

She scrunched her nose for good measure, too. 

Because plan zeta was simple, straightforward, and a rather massive undertaking: Live happily ever after. 

He grinned. 

“Sometimes, the chaos is worth it. It’s impossible and unpredictable and it’s got the sweetest wrist shot I’ve ever seen. Finding the back of the net, and winning us games, and we kinda won, didn’t we, Cap? In that grand-scheme, lifetime sort of way.” Killian sat up straighter. 

“Cap’s one of the best guy’s I’ve ever known. I’m not even upset my kid modeled his wrister after Cap’s. It’s ridiculous how good it is, that’s why. But I could stand up here in this sweater that,” he raised his voice, “seriously only fit me, and list off everything Cap’s accomplished because it’s also ridiculously good. But we all know the facts and the stats and the records, and the moments. Plus, it’d probably only embarrass him, and it’d scandalize Matt. Hi, Mattie.” Stick taps came from the bench, a quick salute, and ducked head of curls in desperate need of a cut. Emma was crying. Belle was crying. Regina was not. “So, forget Cap’s numbers for a second. Retired or otherwise. Think about what you were doing during those games. Watching on TV or listening to the broadcast, holding your breath just like we were because you can plan and you can hope, but you never really know, and you’re never promised, and that makes it better. To find your way into this. Into everything we’ve all gotten from this team, and these people, and sometimes the plan sucked anyway. So you take what you can, and you skate as fast as you can, and I’ve never seen anyone skate as fast as Cap. I think we both get credit for, like, at least, like, a third of Rol’s career goals, don’t you?”

Killian beamed. 

Roland cursed. Several adults admonished him. For doing it in front of so many children. 

And the tears still didn’t come. Not when Killian had to stand in front of that shaky podium with a voice that matched, ignoring the notecards Regina knew he had to tell Emma, specifically, that he’d never been able to dream this life or this career, or when he put his jersey over his button-up, or even when that same jersey in a monstrously large size lifted into the rafters. 

Because Regina had. Planned for success and victories and far too many closets in a house all her own. 

Except, well—

That house became a home, eventually. 

With mess and mistakes and wonder that she welcomed with wide-open arms. Once she realized it was ok to want it. So, no, Regina didn’t cry. Not during the ceremony or immediately after. But then. There was a game to play and a box to sit in, champagne to drink, and she’d never been much of a runner. 

Obvious exertion was undignified when the plan was steady and laid out at her feet, and she didn’t think. Shoving her bag into Henry’s somehow expectant hands, Regina dodged other kids and grandkids and phone calls to Taylor demanding the name of the girl and the longevity of the relationship, and Robin didn’t stumble. Didn’t even flinch. 

Arms wrapped around her middle instead, barely a huff of an exhale against the crook of her shoulder and the side of her neck, feet just a few inches off the ground. They were older now, that’s why. 

He kissed the tears off her cheeks. 

Kissed her lips, too. The bridge of her nose. The jut of her chin. Back to her lips until Regina tilted her head and opened her mouth, traced her tongue along another decidedly familiar line as her eyes closed and her heart stuttered, not entirely sure if she imagined the happily ever after, baby pressed to her temple. It didn’t matter. It was true all the same. 

She bought a frame a week and a half later. To put the sweater in, hanging it on the wall in her office. 

At home. 

[korijime]

hello! may I request a comfort scenario w Childe where the reader is going through a stressful time and when he asks them if they're fine, they look at him w tears in their eyes and say "I will be, or at least I hope so." thank you for your time!! (btw I really like your writing style!! keep going!!)

—raison d’être

(n.) a reason for existing

tartaglia / childe, genshin impact

angst, hurt/comfort, self-doubts, reader and childe are both hurt, the dialogue might be a bit messy i’m sorry

wc ; two thousand one hundred and sixty seven words

riyuu says ; i..should not have had the amount of fun i did when writing this. i was being the least bit dramatic, but in all honesty this was. so refreshing? so much fun to write? it was a delight, thank you so much for requesting.

my sincerest apologies if this isn’t what you had in mind, i think i made it a little self-indulgent, unintentionally. funny how the human mind works lmao

moreover, i hope you’re alright! stress is a horrible thing, but it’ll be over soon. make sure to take well deserved breaks, and to look after yourself. drink some water and tell yourself that you’ve got this, because you do! :D

once again, thank you to @t-amajiki for proof reading. love u cap <3

lubov is a gender-neutral term of endearment in russian, meaning “my love”! thank u to @lcaita and @tokyoghoose for helping me with that :D

had it been a few days, a week? it could’ve been passed off as being under the weather. the common occurrences of being exhausted, unrested, unable to speak because you’re just not up for it.

but no, it extended far beyond that. four weeks, was it nearly six? it had been a month, maybe more. space is something tartaglia was always eager to provide you with, considering his less than normal workings and hectic lifestyle.

space is something you were grateful for, considering all that you had to deal with on a daily basis. it would always be a few days, and not longer than a week. there would be a small talk if it were to be extended; to wash away any markings of doubts that would creep their way into tartaglia’s mind.

he would look at you, mirth dancing in his eyes, warmth pooling in his irises as he brought his hand up to your faces, warmth dancing across your face as he ghosted his fingers above your cheek.

sleepless nights evident in your eyes, yet your lips still pulled into a smile at his actions.

eyes fluttering close under the moonlight, finding comfort in the way he held your face, finding warmth in the way you held his arm, finding home in the way he leaned in, cradling your face and kissing your forehead.

warmth spread throughout your body rapidly, from your head to your toes and you just found yourself smiling like a fool, letting yourself slump into his arms as he held you.

home is where you were in his arms, “take your time, lubov. i’m here, i’ll always be here,” being the last thing you heard as you passed out from exhaustion.

but those days felt so long ago, decades and centuries blending into one, even though it had only been a few months or a year at best.

now, tartaglia could no longer run his hands across your face, he could no longer hold you in his arms, he could no longer feel your warmth for you had been all but gone to him for the past month, his own infuriating missions getting in the way of any hopes he had of spending time with you.

the chatters and the whispers and subtle glances didn’t go unnoticed, the people of liyue, although submerged in commerce, still cared for their own. the way they spoke of you; what used to be stars shining your eyes with the moon lighting up your skin, warmth radiating off of you as though you were the sun incarnate. what used to be a beautiful soul, the heart and soul of liyue, reduced to quiet mutterings and quick exits and barely looking anyone in the eye, rushing past the very children that considered you a sibling from the manner in which you looked after them.

you had become a ghost of your past self, and tartaglia couldn’t be there to prevent it.

no, he mustn’t. he will have his time for regrets, to sift through his pile of nuances that haunt him to this day. he has enough time, or so he hopes.

even if he doesn’t – even if he doesn’t get to rid himself of those regrets and those shackles, he wanted to at least help rid you of the shackles holding you down. he wanted to rid you of life’s grief and cruelty, if even slightly, to the best of his abilities.

to learn of your current state from one of his subordinates, to find out what had happened when he was gone from the mutterings and gossiping of the daily traffic in the heart of liyue, it was truly shameful.

lead and ash and coal, something akin to magma, close to bursting from his veins. rage and fury and guilt and regret all seeping together, turning his blood to poison, one that he yearns to spread, one he yearns to rid himself of. he could not, not now, not when you were in such a state.

a walking volcano, close to erupting if even a slight whimper against your name was heard. the people knew better than to speak ill of you, someone who had helped liyue vastly in your own way.

no battle nor any war felt more exhausting, more agonising, more painful than the journey to his home, to your home, to you. no battle could wear him down as much as the thought of you shattering into pieces, lonely and isolated in your shared bed, without him to comfort you. it was anguish.

his home was no longer warm.

it was cold, empty. barebones. a shadow of what it used to be.

astonishing, the things a month apart can do.

snezhnaya is a land of no mercy, it knows no warmth and no love despite being ruled by the goddess of love. it knows not the wonders and beauty of spring and the true warmth of the sun.

to be so far away from snezhnaya but to still feel the merciless cold engulfing him as he sunk down onto the bed, life is a truly cruel mistress.

he fell back against the bed, arms splayed out in a show of carelessness, the world didn’t matter in that moment, it would cease to exist until he could see you smile again.

he fell back against the bed, waiting in the cold silence for you to return.

it all came to him in that moment. the sight of you breaking, clutching at yourself and anything you could reach, trying to find support in anything you could touch, trying to get through something that couldn’t be fought alone, not if you wanted to come out unscathed.

the sight of himself in the abyss, taken in and trained, he himself had seen the theft of his innocence, his false naivety an excellent mask for all those who thought he couldn’t recognise the horrifying truth of what was happening.

he had come out broken, bloody and bruised, shattered with all his pieces scattering across the very earth he walked on, trying to find safety.

the world would burn at his hands before he would ever let you experience what he once did.

thoughts of you didn’t leave him as he fell into well-deserved slumber. the exhaustion and the exhilaration and the adrenaline of the last few weeks catching up to him. his eyes, no longer having a hint of life, looked more dead than ever. and yet, he closed them. he needed to rest before talking to you.

and yet you followed him, into his dreams, twisted realities making you into something he knew you weren’t, yet the current circumstances pushed him into a corner, opened his eyes to the harsh reality of what could be if something went wrong. truth and lord melded together as you spat vitriol at him, the space around him closing in with every word, leaving him short of breath, suffocating him with every syllable you uttered, until he was being choked, what remained of his life slipping from his fingers, akin to the water he manipulates on a daily basis.

“—glia? are..you okay?”

another lie, another twisted delusion. he wouldn’t fall for it, he wouldn’t believe it. it was a lie, a false reality, it was fiction. conjured up by the deepest recesses of his mind, in order to plunge him deep into the very abyss he grew up in, he wouldn’t fall for it.

“ajax? are you alright?”

and yet your voice was calming, soothing. concerned, with a hint of panic, he could envision your nervous fiddling, finding escape in the little intricacies of your clothes, messing with your finger or your hair as you looked at him with worry swirling in your star-filled eyes.

“ajax!”

his body jolted, warmth flooding through his blood and veins and his entire body at the sound of your voice. nightmare after nightmare, and yet all it took was a concerned call of his name from your lips, the harsh cold and suffocating isolation dissipated in seconds.

“lubov? it’s you?” he couldn’t quite believe it, being sprung up in a web of lies so long, he had almost started to believe you had left. he looked up at you, your appearance matching the description your acquaintances gave him, needles slicing into his heart once again because he wasn’t here for you, but he could come to terms with those thoughts at a later time.

his eyes were trained on you, a month of not seeing you, a month of pure hell for both of you. anguish and pain and storms and suffocation, they are different, but they go together.

“you’re back..”

relief flooding through your senses, your body relaxed as you leaned against the closet.

“you’re back.”

“i am. you didn’t think i was going to leave, did you?”

you did, and he probably knew that you did, but that didn’t matter. not right now, at the very least.

right now, tartaglia needed to speak with you. to rid your mind of the plaguing doubts that fogged your sense of rationality and self preservation. he couldn’t be there for you when everything was at its worst, he was going to be there to end what continued on for a month.

the turmoil and dull ache of your soul was almost visible to him, as though it had physically manifested in the form of a shield around you.

“i want to say something, lubov, if that’s okay with you.”

eyes searching his face, trying to figure out what exactly he wished to talk about, slowed movements and soft footsteps away from the closet and towards the bed, sinking into the mattress next to him.

“of course, go ahead.”

“tell me this first, lubov; are you okay?”

he’s known you for ages, he knows how you work, he knows the ink in which the chapters of your life are written, he knows you.

he knows you enough to know how quickly your walls were shattered with that one question.

cuts and markings, scrapes and even scars on those walls, but they never came down. you were too good, too powerful, too strong to let them down completely. tartaglia was one of the only lucky ones who you showed yourself to, his gratitude shining brighter than any star in teyvat.

and yet still, he knew you held back. he knew you kept a corker of the walls to yourself, and he accepted it. he sat on the other side of the wall, occasionally leaving gifts, mapping out his adventures and how his day went and carving flowers and names and warmth into the wall, leaving evidence that he had been there and that he would not be leaving.

and now you sat there, trembling lips pulled slightly between your teeth, hands clenching and unclenching and nails digging into your palms as you tried desperately to keep up the remnants of the huge walls you had built up.

but you couldn’t.

you looked into his eyes and the warmth and the worry and the genuine love shining in them, and you couldn’t. you couldn’t keep up your walls as he tentatively reached out, taking off his gloves to rest his hand on yours, effectively halting your fidgeting.

“talk to me, if you so wish to. i have all the time in the world for you, and only for you.”

pure anger, heartbreak, the cruelty and the frustration, everything you had bottled up for so long came pouring out of you as though it were a river. you allowed yourself to feel, to truly feel the pain you had subsided for so long, you allowed yourself to cry and you allowed ajax to wipe away the tears.

you allowed yourself to feel.

“you’re alright, you’re okay. i’ve got you, my love. i’m here, always.”

twists and turns and ups and downs yet you held on, for if you didn’t, your life would have been meaningless.

“you’ve been strong, so strong, i admire you. your strength is deserving of becoming legend.”

for if you didn’t, everything you had worked so hard for would come crashing down, would’ve been in vain.

“i will not leave you, lubov. never in several eternities, no god nor any deity can separate us, i won’t let them.”

for if you didn’t hold on, you wouldn’t have met him, been in his arms, felt the warmth of smile and of his touch.

“i love you so, even a thousand years from now i wish to be known as the man who captured your heart. will you let me?”

if you hadn’t held on, your life would have turned out vastly different than it did.

your life had worth, every day was another where you held onto the hope that you would learn to love life the way the elders said they did.

“always, ajax.”

you held on, for if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have been able to learn what love truly was.

tagged ; @t-amajiki @tokyoghoose @lcaita @tartagliaxx

[cannibal-witchh]

Painting Heisenberg's Nails

Karl Heisenberg x Reader

(The hands belong to the beautiful Mads Mikkelsen 🖤)

Written by cannibal_witchh

Contains: Fluff, A little sexual context, A little explicit language, and definitely cringe

Notes: This is more in regards to my hand fetish, I am highly attracted to hands with rings, nail polish, and veins...so I decided to write a cringey story! It's extremely short but I wanted something a little different then just fucking.

"Seriously, doll?", he let out an exagerrated sigh, walking around his littered study room with his hands behind his head. "Please!", you begged, spinning in his desk chair, fidgeting with a metal trinket he had gifted you. It was a metal flower, it was coarse and rough in texture but you loved it. It was just like him and of course, him making it made it hold a greater importance to you.

"N-O, no! Can you imagine if the other lords saw me?", he shook his head with a grin, walking towards you, placing both his hands flat on your thighs and leaning towards you. You put your face right infront of his, nearly standing up to match his height. "Please, Karl!", you pleaded, pushing out your lower lip to pout. " Real mature. The many decades of being single and the one time I decide to be with anyone, I pick someone younger who whines.", he laughed, giving your thighs a tight squeeze. His glasses began to slide down his bridge, and he brought his hand up to pull them up to the top of his head. You always enjoyed when he did that, his spectacles would grab a few front hairs back and it would show more of his charming face. Anytime he did something with his hair you found it very attractive as a matter of fact.

"But you like it,", you smiled pecking him on the tip of his nose with a kiss. "Yes, yes I do.", he chuckled with a wide toothy grin. " Sooo...please?", you shot your last shot with your request and you witnessed the Lord Heisenberg release another heavy sigh. "Fine. Geez, there, aren't I a nice boyfriend?", he teased rolling his eyes at you.

A few moments had passed and the two of you had sat at his table. It was trashed with crumpled up papers and old scraps of old metal, you were used to the mess at this point so it didn't particularly trigger you. "Let's get this over with, princess.", Heisenberg peeled his gloves off revealing well sculpted aged hands. Veins webbing along his hand, wrists and fingers. Scars decorating all around them, and a large onyx ring and silver ring resting above two of his knuckles. You didn't see his hands often, he was always handling metal and he preferred to miminize as much damage to himself as he could. For a moment you admired his large masculine hands, before looking at him. " Ok, just relax or whatever it is you old guys do.", you winked shaking the nail polish paint bottle. " This old guy stares at his cute little buttercup.", he propped his head up in the palm of one hand, and slipped his other onto your's. He flashed a wink and smiled as his cigar bobbed between his teeth.

You unscrewed the nail polish cap and began painting black onto his nails. He made an obnoxious gagging sound and began fanning the aroma away from his long nose. " Smells like ass!", he complained pulling his cigar away from his lips. " And your cigars don't?", you raised an eyebrow, now moving to paint his ring finger, the finger that had the large onyx ring on it.

"Such a wild buttercup,", he grinned taking in another puff of his cigar. " You really do hang out too much with me. You get more and more fiesty everyday. And a big smart ass.", he exhaled grey clouds as they swirled and danced infront of you. The smell didn't agitate you much, you had been with him long enough that his smoking addiction was a regular everyday thing.

You were now finished with the first coat on his hand and he pulled it close to examine. " Hmm..the things, I seriously do for you.." He teased freeing his other hand to allow you to begin on. " You are such a drama queen.", you darted your eyes at him, dipping the brush back in the bottle for more paint.

" So why black?"

"It's hot."

He rolled his eyes at you once more and began to levitate a dagger in the air beside him. It spun and flipped all around to keep him entertained. Suddenly, he brought the dagger to trace your inner thigh, sending goosebumps along your leg. " Bad! Wait until this is dry...then we can.", you demanded swatting the knife away from your innermost thigh. " Can't even give me something to entertain myself with. Such a cruel women.", he whined throwing his head back to let out a bored groan. " Seriously Karl, you can get some afterwards.",, you finished his ring finger, delicately stroking any missing spots of black paint.

"Oh, what a wicked princess!", he dramatized continuing his complaints while pulling his cigar back in for a puff. "Almost done...", you muttered focusing heavily on creating smooth paint strokes. Heisenberg continued watching you for a moment then looked at his newly painted nails with an uncertain expression. "Ok, I'm going to do the second coat and then I'll be done.", you lightly smiled at your impatient boyfriend. He didn't seem to say anything, instead now he was occupied with making more knives float. He seriously was a child, it had not been that long and he was acting like this had been hours of sitting.

After a couple of minutes, you completed the second coat and the relief in his eyes was made apparent. " Do you like it, buttercup?", he drummed his finger tips on the table, drawing attention to his freshly colored nails. Although, it was tacky still, you let him have his fun. " Yes, I sure do.", you twisted the cap of the nail polish back on and moved it to the side. " Now, just be careful with you nails....now you can finally get it, old man.", you smiled widely leaning in to kiss him. A couple kisses were exchanged and you could feel he had a large grin on his face.

"HEISENBERG!" a voice rumbled.

The kissing ceased and the two of you drew your heads to the noise. It was Alcina, trying to squeeze through the door. It was not really often she was in Heisenberg's home, so this was a very bizarre occasion. She finally squeezed in and stood as tall as she could stand in his room. She stood out with how flawless and well dressed she was.

She sniffed the air, " Ah, seriously? Having Y/N painting your nails? ", she began to let out a wild chuckle laughing at his dark nails. " And this is who Mother Miranda had at one point entrusted with Y/N Y/L/N. And you are out here playing dress up now.", she continued to bellow.

"Shut your mouth and get out, super sized bitch! We are about to fuck! Now go!", his eyes glanced over at his recliner chair and you shook your head. Alcina noticed too and tried to control another large howl of laughter.

"You really are an old man.", you sighed knowing very well how serious he was about kicking the foot rest up and fucking you on that stupid old recliner chair.

"Oh fine, ta ta! Adleast pick somewhere more tasteful then that. After your pitiful few seconds of fornication...please call, we have matters to discuss.", she addressed coldly exiting the building.

After a few minutes, he looked over at you with his cigar between his teeth and still wearing a smile. " Now get on that chair.", he smiled as you couldn't help but laugh. "Whatever, Lord Heisenberg.", you sarcastically replied as you moved over to this old recliner chair.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Of something beautiful, but annihilating🚬1

Warnings: nonconsensual sex, violence and abuse, mentions of miscarriage, mentions of death [other warning to be added throughout series]

This is dark!fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Reader’s husband brings home an unexpected houseguest.

Note: So i just worked my ass off and retail is always crummy this time of year so I’m gonna escape with some sweet Arvin Russell writing. 

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

The spring air was warm as the breeze swept over the low fence and fluttered the tails of shirts hung across the line. You grabbed two pegs and a swathe of damp fabric and stretched it over the cord, pinning it in place before moving along. Your old machine had taken much of the day to wrangle and had even received a kick. It was decades old, an heirloom inherited with the old country house and much more clunky than the modern machines. Not many in the county had anything more than the old wringing machines.

Roy would be home soon. Your husband hated to hear about how the wringer jammed so easily and the fear that your fingers might again be bruised by the mechanism. Even so, you were certain it wouldn't last for much longer. It's rattles foretold its imminent fate. You'd be back to a bucket and board soon enough.

As you hung the last piece, Roy's oil stained overalls, you heard the putter of the truck. You picked up the woven basket and headed for the gate along the front of the house. You waved as he pulled up, tires loudly mulching the dirt, and you stopped short as he came to a jagged halt. He wasn't alone and you were stillwearing your grimy and wet apron.

Roy pushed his door open so roughly it creaked. He stepped out and gave an exaggerated stretch as he glanced across the roof of the truck and slammed the door.

"Don't forget your bag, boy," he growled at the other man as he felt around the chest pocket of his overall for his smokes. "Looks like you're too late for laundry day."

"Roy?" You unclasped the gate and opened it as Roy stomped across the gravel and lit up a smoke, "How was your day?" 

You peeked over at the other man who climbed out of the truck. He wore similar overall, though they were unbuttoned over a greasy white shirt, and he was shorter and thinner than your husband. He reached back into the truck and grabbed a long military style duffel before he swung the door shut. 

Your husband grumbled and blew out a mouthful of smoke.

"We have a guest?" You asked as you stayed by the gate.

"Arvin Russell," Roy flicked the ash away, "You remember I was talkin' 'bout renting out the attic."

"Um, yes," you blinked as the other man, Arvin, neared meekly. Roy had mentioned the idea once when he noticed the way his truck had started rumbling.  "It'll need a good dusting."

"So you better get on that." Roy coughed. "What's for dinner?"

"Meatloaf," you answered and turned back to smile at the other man as he bowed his head and passed through the gate.

"Hello, missus," he said kindly, "Nice to meet ya. I work with your husband, says you're a fine cook."

"The one thing she can do," Roy muttered as he ambled up the steps of the porch and dropped onto the bench sat by the window. "You go grab us some bottles."

You closed the gate behind Arvin but he waited for you to precede him before going any further. He was surprisingly polite for any man who worked at the shop. 

"Yes, Roy," you hid your disappointment. Those nights when Roy started drinking before dinner rarely ended well.

"Can I just have some water?" Arvin asked as he followed you onto the porch, "Please. I didn't get to my lunch today so I'm not really feeling like drinking."

"Of course," you said, "If you're hungry, I got a box of crackers and some cheese I can bring out."

"Thank you but I'd hate to spoil dinner." Arvin sat on the end of the bench and kept his bag between his feet as Roy threw away his cigarette. "Thank you both for having me."

You nodded and quickly skirted inside. You were a bit confounded by Roy's sudden burst of generosity. He rarely did anything for anyone else. To think he'd offer a room to a coworker was unlike him.

You went to the old fridge, marked with dings and dents, and wiggled the handle until it opened. You remember the day you Pa had broken the handle, he'd always promised to fix it but had only managed to make it worse. You missed him. It was easy to miss him in this old place. His wedding present to you and Roy. It was too tragic he hadn't lived long enough to see you enjoy it.

You grabbed a brown bottle then filled a tall glass from the tap. You went back to the door and opened it with your elbow. You handed Roy his beer as Arvin stood to accept his glass of water.

"Thank you," he chimed but your husband only popped the cap of his beer with his teeth and glared out at the yard.

"Well dinner is in the oven still. I'll just be finishing that before I get started in the attic." You told Roy but he only shrugged and gulped down the beer. "Let me know if you boys need anything." 

"Peace and quiet," Roy snarled. "S'all I need right now."

Arvin gave a sympathetic look and traced his thumb along the side of the glass. You hid your discomfort and retreated inside. That was just Roy. He was always in a mood after work. An hour or two and he would mellow out. The beer would surely help.

🚬

When you finished supper, you called the men in to eat. Roy started his second beer as Arvin remained quiet and awkward at the table. You didn’t say much as you pondered the work still left to be done. You had to tidy the attic before the night ended and collect the laundry from the line. You would also have to clear the table and clean up the mess of your cooking.

You stood before the men finished. You scraped your untouched scraps into the dish of leftovers and placed the glass lid on it. You scoured the loaf pan as you listened to the clink of cutlery on plates and set the pots on the drying rack. You returned to the men to gather their empty dishes and Arvin thank you as Roy belched and stood with a satisfied but gruff rumble.

Arvin watched you as you tried to ignore the pity in his face. You knew your husband wasn’t the most loving or vocal, but he was yours and he worked hard. You turned away and went back to the kitchen. You finished washing the last of the glassware and dried it before stacking it in the cupboards.

As you passed through the dining room, Arvin was gone and you could hear the buzz of the radio from the front room. Roy always liked to listen to the game after he ate. Sometimes you sat with him and crocheted or read but not often.

You tiptoed upstairs and found the footstool hidden in the bottom of the linen closet. You climbed onto the step and reached up to unhook the cord of the attic door. It dangled down and you pulled it carefully as you backed off the stool and kicked it away. The steps unfolded and you barely stepped out of the way of their descent as the heavy wood thumped against the carpet.

It had been a while since you ventured up to the third floor. There was only dust and forgotten memories up there. You slowly made your way up and sneezed as you reached the top. A wall of boxes blocked the window along the front of the house and shrouded furniture sat beneath grimy sheets.

You started with the boxes. You took one and peeked under the flaps. Some old oil lamps hoarded by your father from his own parents. You awkwardly made your way back down to the second floor and placed the box at the bottom. When you had them all down, you’d take them into your father’s old room to store. Perhaps you should sort through them at last and get rid of the unneeded artifacts.

You were six boxes deep when you were startled by a shadow in the open hatch. You exclaimed and nearly dropped your armful as Arvin poked his head through and peered over at you.

“Arvin,” you gasped. “My apologies, this place is a mess.”

“Not so bad,” he climbed up and stood, “You need some help?”

“Don’t be silly, I can manage--”

“You’re right. It’s a mess,” he insisted, “A lot for just one person.”

You stared at him and gave a small smile. He was funny. He neared you and reached out for the box in your arms.

“How about this, I’ll stay on the ladder and you bring the boxes to me and I’ll take ‘em down.” He took the box gently from you, “It’ll be much quicker.”

You looked into his soft brown eyes and let him. He backed away and cautiously made his way down the ladder. You turned and grabbed another box and he reappeared through the hatch. You handed him the box of figurines and he retreated once more. You carried on and soon, the boxes were stacked high on the lower floor.

“Alright,” Arvin climbed up and dusted off his hands, “Already lookin’ better.”

He neared the old sofa against the wall and pulled off the sheet. He coughed as the dust was kicked up and it soon turned into a chuck as he waved away the cloud.

“We can keep this here,” he draped the sheet over his arm and pulled the next from the tall lamp with the glass shade, “Move this into the corner,” he continued on and peeked under a sheet before unveiling the tall shelf, “If you don’t mind, of course?”

“Not at all. We should’ve sold all this years ago.” You teetered on your heels anxiously. Every piece reminded you of your father. “There’s a cot folded up over there,” you pointed behind a hidden end table, “But that wouldn’t be much better than the floor.”

“It’ll do,” he assured you and turned to sit on the sofa. He bounced as he hugged the sheets. “This isn’t too bad.”

“Well, there’s a bed down in my pa’s room. We could try to bring it up tomorrow. If you don’t mind offerin’ a little more help.” You wrung your hands. You were never very good with strangers and Roy’s friends often weren’t much nicer than him. You were tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I think I could do that,” he stood and wiggled his nose as a sneeze threatened. “You got a broom? Maybe a duster?”

“You’ve done enough, I can finish it--”

“Ma’am, I’m a guest in your home. I might be paying for the room but it doesn’t make you my maid,” he intoned, “You’ve already done more than enough. I don’t think I’ve eaten so well since before my momma died.”

“Oh, I’m… sorry,” you uttered. “I--”

“Now, don’t be sorry,” he cooed, “Nothing to be sorry for. I assume you lost your daddy if his bed is free.” 

You nodded dumbly and blinked.

“Well, at least let me take these,” you reached for the sheets and he hesitated before he let you take them. You struggled to keep them balled up and hugged them against your hip as you turned back to the hatch. “I’ll bring you the broom.”

“Thank you,” he said behind you and you looked back at him as you took your first step down the ladder, “You let me know when you bring that washin’ in and I’ll help you fold.”

“You don’t have to--”

“I want to. Makes me feel a little better about stealin’ your attic,” he assured you.

You looked down and slowly descended. As your feet met the carpet, you sighed and looked around at the boxes. You couldn’t remember a time Roy had ever offered to help with anything. If it wasn’t to do with his truck, he couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger.

🚬

You were completely drained by the time you retired to your bedroom. You were still on edge, your exhaustion laced with anxiety as you unbuttoned your blouse. You sat on the side of the bed as you slowly undressed. It was still absurd to you that another person, barely more than a stranger, was living in your home. In your father’s house.

It changed your whole routine. You couldn’t help but go over it in your mind. That meant three plates, not two, for every meal, that meant the laundry basket would fill up quicker, than meant the shoes tracks in the front entrance would need to be mopped up more often. That mean you had to act like your marriage was truly happy.

You pulled on your night gown, the short sleeves tickled your upper arms as you dropped your clothes in the wicker basket on your chest of drawers. A framed photo of your parents’ wedding day sat beside it and on the shelf beside the door, was your own wedding portrait.

Three years wasn’t so long but it felt an eternity. You couldn’t quite recall when Roy had changed. When the beer had started to taint his kisses and his words. When all pretense fell away and only the man remained. The brutish country boy with the churlish demeanour.

Maybe the first day of your marriage. Maybe. You were so nervous on your wedding night that it angered him. You’d mend your dress one day, hopefully when you had a daughter of your own so you had something to promise her. 

Or maybe a week after the wedding, when you broke the vase gifted to you upon your nuptials and it shattered across the floor. Roy’s booming voice and his boulder-like fists.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, a month in when the world went black with his hand on your throat and you awoke alone on the kitchen floor.

Maybe a year when your finger was dislocated by a slammed door. Maybe the next year when you couldn’t sit for the pain in your hips. Maybe the one after when he’d grown impatient for a child only to find your sheets soaked in blood. 

Maybe it had always been there, from the first date, but you’d simply refused to accept it. Not you. Not Roy. You loved him and he loved you, didn’t he?

The door slammed and shook you from your sombre recollections. You looked up as Roy stumbled in. He snickered darkly as your eyes met his and his legs wobbled beneath him drunkenly.

You slid off the bed and turned to plant your elbows on the mattress. A prayer before bed, as your grandmother had taught you. Another sarcastic chuckle aimed in your direction as Roy’s stained white tee missed the basket.

“On your knees for me already,” he sat beside your elbow as he unbuckled his belt.

You couldn’t focus on your inner recitation. You could smell the alcohol on him, the stench of oil and his sweat. You clutched your hands together and cleared your throat.

“Why didn’t you call me?” You asked calmly.

He frowned and stood to shove his pants past his knees. He kicked the jeans away and fell heavily back to the bed.

“Call you?” He sneered.

“To let me know about our guest?” You wondered innocently. “I could’ve readied for him better.”

“Workin’,” he growled. “I don’t got time to be callin’ you with my head under an engine. Fuckin’ Christ.”

“There isn’t a bed in the attic.” You said.

“So. Arv’s small enough. I’ve seen him sleep on a stool.” Roy spat. 

You hid your chagrin behind your hands as you pressed them to your lips.

“Why’d you bring him?”

Roy’s nostrils flared and a fist formed atop his hairy thigh. “I gotta explain to you?” He snapped. “He paid me outright and he been sleepin’ at the motel since he started.”

“Mr. Dace has a room--”

“Mr. Dace lives twice as far as we do. I did the kid a favour. He saved my ass his first day.” Roy stomped his foot. “Woulda burned down the whole garage if he hadn’t caught that leak.”

“Kid? He that young?”

“Couple years younger than you, I s’pose, maybe less,” Roy rubbed his cheeks and shook his head, “What’s it matter to you?”

“Curious,” you said quietly and closed your eyes as you rested your chin on your knuckles.

Roy was quiet. He let out a long, thick breath and the bed jolted beneath your arms.

“You finished bleeding?” He asked gruffly. 

“I’m praying, Roy,” you insisted.

“How long’s it take you? I’m sure God’s heard it all before.”

“Don’t talk like that, R--”

You squeaked as he grabbed your wrist and wrenched your arms away. He rose and lifted you with him. Always a strong man, he moved you like a puppet to his will. He took your other wrist and pulled you against him.

“You know, I don’t even care if you’re bleeding.” He turned you and shoved you onto the bed. You cried out as you bounced so hard you bit your tongue.

“Roy, please, I’m tired,” you stared up at him fearfully as you pushed yourself up on your elbows. You could taste blood.

“You’re my wife. You do your duty.” He pushed his underwear down as his cock twitched. “You got energy to wash all them clothes, you can lay on your back for your husband.”

“Roy--”

“Shut up!” He shouted. “We got company. I don’t need ya keepin’ him up with your whining.”

You closed your eyes as he fell onto you. He crushed you beneath him as he tugged your skirt up harshly. He pushed your legs apart with his knee and you braced yourself for his painful intrusion. Even so long into the marriage, you had never grown used to his touch.

He retracted his hand and began to touch himself. He stroked his cock as he swore under his breath.

“Fuck. Come on.” He moved his hand quicker and rubbed his soft tip against your folds. “Open up.” 

He forced his dick against your entrance and tried to push inside. He was still half-flaccid and struggled to get further than an inch. You balled your hands and sank your head into the mattress as he thrust. He fell out of you, softer than before.

You opened your eyes sat up on his knees and looked down at his limp dick. He gritted his teeth as you watched him.

“You fuckin’ bitch,” he punched your stomach as hard as he could and you wheezed as you folded in on yourself. “Can’t even keep me hard.”

“Roy--” You hissed. “I’m s--”

“One more word and you’ll be real sorry.” He pushed himself from between your legs, making certain to pinch you as he did.

He stood and turned. You barely moved out of the way before he sprawled over his side of the mattress. You held your stomach, a painful pressure lodge there, and rolled to the edge of the bed. You reached over and pulled the chain on the lamp. 

As you laid back, Roy caught the back of your neck and kept you in a painful limbo.

“On the floor,” he jarred your neck as he tried to throw you off the bed. “Like the dog you are.”

You slid off the side and landed sharply on your knees. You stifled a shameful sob and lowered yourself down onto your side. You bent your knees and cushioned your head on one arm. You stared into the void beneath the bed as the frame groaned beneath Roy’s heavy body.

“Goddamn bitch,” he uttered groggily. “Fuckin’--”

His words turned to snores as he finally drowned in his bellyful of beer. You listened to his jagged, drunken breaths as you shivered on the cold wood. You closed your eyes and recalled the first night you’d slept on the floor. You’d been in much poorer shape and it had been the dead of winter.

At least, you didn’t have to sleep next to him.

[mcfiddlestan]

I wasn't technically tagged, but got it from @luninosity. :D

Rules: List all your WIP titles, all meaning even the ones that are vague or nonsensical. Tag as many people as there are WIPs (that might be a lot, so we’ll see!)

I have a lot so I'll separate them by ship, I guess (since I only really write the same ones lol)

FrostIron

- 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge: I've still got 12 days left to do. Day 19 has a... wobbly outline.

- College AU smutty one-shot for a friend: outline/prompt was given to me by said friend. Tony's an exchange student living in London, where he bumps into fresh from Norway student Loki, who needs help getting around. Tony offers to help, things lead to things. Smut.

- Fools Rush In: previously posted six completed chapters, but I hit a bad writer's block and took it down. I hope to someday finish it. it was one of the first long fics I started that was in-universe.

- Real Genius AU: semi-outlined, based on the 1985 movie with Val Kilmer. Chris Knight gives off heavy Tony Stark-vibes.

- Royals AU - outlined, a couple of chapters written. Kind of got the idea from the E! show The Royals. It's an ambitious fic, too. It was the first fic I brought in other characters besides the core Avengers, such as Erik Lehnsherr, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, and tbh if I were to start working on this today, I'd throw in Sam Wilson and maybe other characters.

- The Flame: another, like FRI, that was previously published on AO3. Up to five chapters, lots of scenes written but not strung together yet. Initially looks like ThunderFrost, but it is inevitably FrostIron (no Thor and Loki were not brothers). Idk if I'll ever get back to this one tbh.

- The House Guest: the storyline is all planned out, but I've only written two chapters. It's genderbent -- Antonia Stark and fem Loki Laufeyson. I've even got edits done. I'm hoping to work on it this year.

MaLoki

- Live-action Maleficent/Thor movies crossover: I've had this one in my WIP pile for almost a decade. It was something cooked up with @vikishus around the time the first Maleficent movie came out (I think). I've just never sat down to write anything for it.

Stucky

- Musician!Bucky and Firefighter!Steve, modern day au: has a storyline, and a few pieces/scenes written. (Mixed in is some SamTasha)

- The Greatest Showman-ish AU: some idea jotted down after repeated viewings of the movie lol

- Every Piece Will Find Its Place: post-Winter Soldier prompt given to me anonymously; storyline sketched out, opening written

- 1950s Matinee Idol AU: an idea I sketched from a tumblr post I saw forever ago

ThunderFrost

- Hurricane: sequel to my one ThunderFrost fic, Lead the Way. The plot's kinda there and some bits.

WinterFrost

- The Christmas Date: my perpetual almost-done gift for a good friend. It's literally nearly done. But I can't seem to get it down.

- All I Ask: my artist!Loki and recovering vet!Bucky AU. Been working on it for about five years now. Four chapters are done, with other scenes, and a full plot sketched out.

- Nobody's Hero: a prompt sent to me anonymously that's canon divergent. Bucky and Loki meet and fall in love in the 1940s, then Bucky goes off to war and the first Cap movie ensues. Fast forward to the present day, Loki finds Winter Soldier!Bucky and fights to break through his Hydra brainwashing.

- Second Time Around: like Fools Rush In and The Flame, I removed this from AO3 when I hit a block. Three chaps and a plot 3/4 written. Bucky is more a mix of Bucky and TJ from Political Animals (cuz I started it around the time that was on the air).

- Whatever It Takes: my single Dad AU. Seven chaps completed. The whole plot done. Just gotta write it!

- Snow/Zima RP: my attempt to transform my long ago RP with my ex into a more readable fic-like story. It's not easy lol.

WinterFrostIron

- I have a random OT3 prompt waiting to be written with these three. 🤷🏽‍♀️

WinterIron

- Bodyguard AU: got a plotline and a few scenes. Hoping to work on this soon.

- Alt Prompt 12: I posted a prompt for #12 in the 100 Ways to Say ILY challenge already, but I had another idea I sketched out that was totally different. Still might make a good one-shot.

- @teadrinkingwolfgirl's angst prompt: it's a blank doc staring at me in my Google drive.

Random Ships

- Harley/Bucky: I don't remember who sent this to me. But it's basically a DC/Marvel crossover. Joker's involved with Hydra, Harley is his Asset. She bolts, the Winter Soldier is sent after her.

- Loki/? Xmas prompt: one of those random Xmas prompts that make the rounds every year. Haven't decided who to pair him with yet.

- Fantasy Rom/Com starring Chris Pine and Tom Hiddleston: Okay, so this was taken from a random article online about fantasy romcoms that would be fun. This was one. And I was like, yo, I could write that. So far all I have is the prompt lol.

I don't even know how many I just wrote, so I'll tag a few peeps and if you're reading, feel free to do it!

@teadrinkingwolfgirl, @ishipanarmada, @bouncydragon, @rennemichaels (sorry I can't think of anyone else!)

xoxo

[musette22]

Hi Minnie! Hope you can help me settle an argument my brother and I are having about EG!Steve. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this with shipping goggles off, looking at it purely in terms of characterization, narrative, and good writing. Better hang on though, it's going to be a long ask! (sorry in advance for spamming you!) 1/7

So my brother and I were watching FatWS and once again got into a debate about whether Steve's last actions were a disservice or in line with his characterization and narrative, given that the Russos confirmed (and therefore it's Word of God/canon, even if it did sound reactionary to the immediate backlash after EG) that Steve created an alternate reality when he went back, and didn't just live in hiding in the past of the OG timeline. 2/7

Because of this, my bro argued that: 1) the total character assassination that is the idea of Steve just sitting back and letting all the shit happen happen is no longer a problem - for all we know, the alternate reality oldman!Steve came from might have become utopic already due to his presence and foresight. He played coy when talking to Sam so we don't know for certain he didn't save Bucky, get rid of Hydra, and enact social reform when he had the chance. 3/7

Likewise, 2) the accusation that Steve would rob Peggy of her husband and children is a non-issue as Steve went back to a time before Peggy and Daniel got together - I argued here that it was still wrong for him to do given that he KNEW for a fact that Peggy lived a happy life, whereas it was a gamble if he could give her the same. My bro shot back when you truly loved someone, you want them to be happy and to have what's best for them. 4/7

So if Steve chose to go back to Peggy, he had to have believed that he could give her the best life. That Steve based that decision purely on his own assessment is pretty in character (e.g. pushing to become a soldier because he thought that was how he could do his part, even though at the time, he'd have just been a danger to himself and other soldiers; not signing the Accords because he believed in his team's judgment in crises above gov't oversight that might be influenced by politics). 5/7

And lastly 3) he might have settled into the past and started to move on, but what was wrong with him choosing to be selfish and going to the past when given a chance? Why was it wrong for him to go back to a time he knew, where he was beloved by both Peggy and the public, and when he could also save Bucky early? In terms of character growth, wouldn't it be fair for him to finally learn he could be a bit selfish and choose happiness, after a lifetime of nearly suicidal selflessness? 6/7

Our debate was based on confirmed canon with shipping put aside. So I put forth the sin of leaving a traumatized Bucky, Sam, and world behind, that Steve's actions were surely the result of a man broken by grief again and again, and that choosing the past was him running away - which, I argued, was a horrible way to end his character arc. But my brother asked me why I thought so, because wasn't this the so-called 'soft epilogue' that Steve deserved, one that was most in line with canon? 7/7

***************

Hey love! Very interesting argument you and your brother are having here… I’m sure he’s a great guy but I have to say that I vehemently disagree with him (as you probably already guessed lol). Soooo many people have done an excellent job at explaining why, shipping aside, Steve’s ending in EG was absolute bollocks, and I’m certain I could never argue this case as well as all of them have. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to explain why, in my opinion, your brother is wrong :p I’m going to put my reply under the keep reading tag, because it is long.

1.      The Russos and Markus & McFeely (the writers) never managed to agree on whether Steve really did go back to an alternate timeline, and if so, how that would have worked, exactly. When they were asked, after EG had been released, about whether Steve would have just sat back and let everything he knew was happening/going to happen in the decades to come, both to Bucky and to the world at large, they came up with this ‘alternate timeline’ solution, but they kept contradicting each other on the logistics and technicalities of it (like how would old man Steve suddenly be able to jump timelines to come back to give Sam the shield in EG? And how did EG Steve attend Peggy’s funeral, like they also suggested, which would technically have been in a different timeline?). Which makes it pretty clear that this wasn’t something they’d considered beforehand or even all agree on afterwards, and therefore it can’t technically allowed to play a role in judging the rightness of Steve’s ending in EG if we’re looking at it from a ‘the creator’s word is law’ perspective. Moreover, there is nothing to indicate in EG itself that Steve knew he’d be able to create alternate timelines, so that would’ve been a crazy gamble on his part. Also, him ‘playing coy’ in that final scene with Sam really isn’t a convincing indication that he was actually, canonically, talking about anything besides marrying Peggy.

2.      Which bring us to point two: Peggy had literally told Steve she’d lived a happy life with her family, and told him in no uncertain terms to move on. If Steve really loved her, he would have accepted her wishes and allowed her the dignity of her choice (something Peggy herself, in CA:TFA, had told Steve was important to do when you care about someone) to move on from him once she believed him dead. Steve deciding that he would be better for Peggy because he believed was a better man than the person she ended up marrying originally would be the most un-like Steve thing to do, ever. Steve has never once shown that he thinks of himself as the hero or better than other people – he simply wants to do the best he can to help make the world a better place. He would never say “Peggy deserves the best and I believe I am the best, therefore she will have me, regardless of what she thinks or wants.” Steve drinks respect women juice, that’s clear from all of his movies, and deciding the course of her entire life for her, taking away her agency, whether in his own timeline or another, would be utterly disrespectful to Peggy.

3.      As for the next point: of course there’s nothing wrong with Steve being selfish for once – Steve is human, and all humans are selfish sometimes, and that’s okay. But, as Chris Evans already explained multiple times prior to Endgame, Steve had already made selfish decisions in the past, namely when it came to getting Bucky back and keeping him safe. Shipping aside, Bucky was presented in all the Cap movies as Steve’s very best friend, and was even called his ‘soulmate’ (platonically or otherwise) by M&M (the writers). So when, in Civil War, Steve was presented with a choice between duty/what was expected of him by the government versus saving Bucky/keeping Bucky safe, Steve was selfish and chose Bucky. That, canonically, made sense. Peggy being presented as the ultimate love of Steve’s life, who he loved and valued more than anyone or anything else in the world (which is what happened in EG), canonically does not make sense. 

In CA:TWS, Peggy told Steve to move on. When Peggy died, Steve buried her and mourned her, and then not long after, he canonically kissed Peggy’s niece. Then, in Infinity War, Steve saw Bucky turn to dust before his very eyes in the “Blip” (a conscious decision on the writers’/directors’ part to show how Steve once again lost what was most important to him while helplessly standing by) – and the next thing we know, Steve is leading a support group for other people who lost loved ones in the Blip, and starts talking about losing… Peggy? Huh. Also, Steve going back to a time which your brother calls “a time when he was beloved the public” doesn’t add up, either: technically, Steve went back to a time where people loved an idea of him, but also believed him to be dead. So either he would have had to have found a way to convincingly stage his own resurrection (meanwhile possibly leaving the other version to vegetate in the ice..? depending on how this timeline malarkey was supposed to work), or he would have lived his whole life hidden behind some fake persona – which does not sound like Steve at all, does it?

4.      Finally, let’s talk about Bucky some more, because I think we need to to be able to assess the situation properly. I understand that your brother may believe that shippers are often delusional and only see what they want to see etc, but there is ample evidence, canonically, of Bucky being the most important person in Steve’s life – the person he would give up the shield for, the person he would give up his other friendships for, the person he would give up his life for. Peggy may have been a recurring character in character in the three Cap movies, but she was never presented as the principal motivator of his actions, or as the love of Steve’s life. You know who was? Bucky. Sure, that love wasn’t canonically romantic in nature, but there can’t be any doubt that Bucky meant more than anything to Steve. Therefore, Steve choosing to have a ‘soft epilogue’ that entails him spending the rest of his life without Bucky – and, more importantly, Bucky to spend the rest of his life without Steve – contradicts everything we’ve learned about their relationship (platonic or otherwise) in the rest of the movies, does it not? 

Also, the Russos have said something to the effect that Bucky and Steve were now both mentally ‘well enough’ to not ‘need’ each other anymore (because as we all know, that’s exactly how friendships work…), but it’s pretty clear from EG that Steve was still traumatized by everything he’d been through, and going back to the 50s would have meant he would never be able to get proper help with that and in fact could only talk about any of it with Peggy and Peggy alone. Moreover, M&M have literally said in interviews that Bucky wasn’t all that well yet, mentally, and TFAWTS also shows convincingly that Bucky was not actually in a good place when Steve left him. So that would have meant that Steve either did not see this (unlikely, given how close they were) or did not care (unlikely, given how close they were). 

It would have meant that for the first time in all these movies, Steve decided “to hell with Bucky’s needs, I’m gonna just be selfish because I’ve earned it and claim my trophy wife because actually I am the best man for her, despite the fact that she’s already lived a happy life that I will be negating against her wishes, but that’s fine because maybe I’ll be able to create a different timeline, and maybe I’ll be able to save Bucky from all his trauma anyway, but then again maybe not, but that brings me back to my first point of to hell with Bucky’s needs” - which does not make a lot of sense to me, personally. Not to mention that, in exchange for his ‘soft epilogue’, Steve would also leave the world to sort out the post-Blip mess without him, and leave all the other friends he still had left and clearly cared about a lot to boot. I would not call that character growth, I would call that character disintegration. If your brother insists on taking the creator’s word as gospel and that we have to accept that Steve really did do what he did at the end of Endgame, and that wasn’t just a case of bad, lazy writing fuelled by greed, then to make a decision like this, Steve would have been either an asshole in disguise all along, or mentally extremely unstable.

There you have it, my two cents! I hope this helps a little in settling the argument with your brother, anon! Lots of love ❤️

[sineala]

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

I wrote this up last week because I did not have access to my usual comics files but I figured I could review something that was just a book. So here is a review of the 1968 Captain America novel Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White, with an introduction by Stan Lee. I really liked it, actually! It was surprisingly good!

This novel features: Cover art of Captain America holding his shield in one hand and a very large gun in the other! A scene where the villains dramatically unmask Captain America and have absolutely no idea who he is! Captain America being extremely, extremely depressed about being in the future! Captain America dropping acid!

(I'm not kidding about the last part. In this novel there is a lot of LSD use. By Captain America. Talk about something the Comics Code wouldn't ever let you put in a comic book. Thank you, 1968.)

Faithful readers may remember that some time ago I posted reviews of Marvel prose novels from the 1970s. There was a line of prose novels featuring everyone's favorite Marvel superheroes, published by Pocket Books in the late 70s; I have reviews of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Avengers entries in the series; I liked the Iron Man one best, and I also have a Doctor Strange one I have not yet read. They're all short and action-packed paperback reads, of varying quality; the only one by anyone you might have heard of is the Avengers one, which was written by David Michelinie, who was actually writing the Avengers run at the time. That one was, um. An experience. 

(Yes, it's "prose novel" because otherwise the assumption is "graphic novel.")

Marvel still publishes prose novels now, of course, also of varying quality; some are new plots and some are straight-up novelizations of comics arcs, which I guess is useful if you want to, say, read Civil War and not look at pictures at the same time. I also have a bunch of those that I could probably review if anyone wants. But, anyway, I personally am particularly intrigued by the older Marvel prose novels, both because the stories are all original and not retellings, and also because I often prefer the characterization found in older comics. And the older prose novels of course use the then-current characterization. So reading a Marvel prose novel from 1979 is like getting to read a brand-new comic from 1979, and that's a whole lot of fun for a nerd like me. Also do you know what's not subject to the Comics Code? Prose novels. So things can happen in these that definitely could not happen in comics of the same era.

This brings me to my current prose novel, which is something else entirely. I mean, okay, not really, it's still a Marvel prose novel. But it's not part of the same line. It's actually a lot older.

Bantam Books actually published Marvel prose novels in the late 60s. Yep, a full decade earlier. They published exactly two, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they were probably not bestsellers. The first one, which I do not own and now sort of want to track down, was an Avengers novel in 1967, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. And then in 1968 they published the novel I am currently holding in my hands, Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White.

(I am still not sure why no one involved in titling this book thought of the word "theft.")

Judging by the back copy, it appears to be about Captain America foiling the villains' dastardly plan to steal gold from the Federal Reserve. Oh boy. Fun.

So this book is from 1968. The modern Marvel universe had kicked off just a few short years ago! Captain America was just getting his own solo book after the end of Tales of Suspense! And here's a novel about him, back when certain elements of his characterization were perhaps a little more flexible than they are today, by which I mean that the cover art -- which the internet informs me was painted by Mitchell Hooks -- is a striking full-body portrait of Captain America, head held high, shield in one hand... and a very large gun in the other. Hell, yeah. Not gonna see that in today's Cap comics, are you? It's amazing and I love it.

(Okay, you might see that in Ults. I'm pretty sure I have seen that in Ults, actually. But this is still cool.)

So the cover art is a definite plus, and apparently it's one of the few reasons anyone has ever heard of this novel. The other reason -- and the reason this is more expensive than the later novels, I assume -- is that Stan Lee's name is slapped on the cover, because he wrote an introduction. (I think I paid about $30 for this. The others were definitely under $20.)

All right. Here we go.

The first page is actually a brief summary of Steve's origin story, but not a version I was familiar with. Steve was born July 9, 1917 (yes, I was surprised too), was orphaned at a young age, and was a student at Columbia University (!) before Rebirth, which in this version is a gradual process that is also extremely body-horror. Steel tubing was inserted into the marrows of his bones. He was fed "high-protein compounds." Then they gave him a chemical that "gave him complete control over every nerve, muscle, and cell in his now-magnificent body." Sweet. Where can I get some of that?

The blurb also confirms his control over his own metabolism as well as his healing factor ("wounds would heal in half the normal time"), which is nice, because sometimes I wonder if canon even remembers the healing factor.

(I don't know why Marvel has this kink for filling people's bones with metal, though. It's not actually empty in there, guys! You need your bone marrow! How else do you want people to make new blood cells?)

The book is dedicated to "Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, without whom there would be no Captain America." Hey, Marvel, Joe Simon would like a word with you. I'm just saying.

The Stan Lee introduction is three paragraphs written in Stan Lee's, um, inimitable, distinctive and extremely florid narrative style -- if you've read any of his work, you know what I mean -- and making the point that Captain America is incredible and you will like him. If you are just discovering him for the first time, you will definitely like him. Okay. Thanks. I guess.

Oddly, the writing style here is substantially different than any of the other Marvel prose novels I've read; it doesn't immediately front-load you with exposition and a cast of colorful superheroes. It opens with a sort of James Bond spy-novel feel, running through a series of unnamed villains and bystanders, and a man who wants nothing more than to talk to Captain America but is killed before he can. Steve comes in halfway through the chapter, and he seems to be written for a reader who doesn't necessarily know who he is, and he isn't introduced as Captain America with his shield flying ahead of him to smite evildoers, or anything like that. He's just a tall, handsome blond guy who is reading a bunch of novels and is unsatisfied by all of them because all he can think of is the past. It's definitely an attitude I would expect from Steve in this era -- he is very much a Man Out Of Time here -- but it's also not how I expected the book to introduce him. You wouldn't even know he was Captain America by the end of the opening chapter, which then ends with a digression about the history of NYC subway tunnels. It's like it wants to appeal to someone who has watched a bunch of Man from UNCLE and just wants to read a cool thriller. Which is not at all what I was expecting.

By the beginning of the second chapter, of course, we discover that Steve is Captain America, as he changes into his uniform. The narration refers to him as Rogers when it's in his POV, if anyone is curious. He apparently keeps the cowl off in the mansion, because the cowl annoys him.

It was not so much that he needed to conceal his identity these days, because for all intents and purposes he had no other identity. Steve Rogers was officially dead, and had been for almost twenty years. Captain America *was* his identity. It was only when he donned the tight-fitting blue uniform with its shield chest-emblem, the red snug-fitting leather boots, and the heavy, yet pressure-sensitive red-leather gauntlets, that he began to feel real -- a complete human being.

Steve? Buddy, are you okay there? You're really not okay, are you, huh?

You see what I mean? They're really hitting the early-canon angst. Hard.

(Also it sounds like his uniform is a few sizes too small.)

We then get an expanded version of the backstory from the beginning excerpt. In this version of canon, Steve actually has an older brother, Alan, who is handsome and athletic and basically amazing, and when they are orphaned they are raised by their aunt and uncle. Steve gets TB twice as a kid, nearly dies from it, and when the stock market crashes, ends up separated from his brother and in an orphanage after his uncle loses everything.

(Honestly if I were writing this book, his brother would be the secret villain. Chekhov's Gun!)

Steve has glasses, gets bullied, is a nerd and an honor student, and studies law at Columbia because he wants to help stop fraudulent business practices and also fight organized crime. Legally, I mean. In a manner relating to law. I guess he's sort of like Daredevil. The lawyer part of Daredevil.

And then he joins Rebirth, and this is the part where I had to put the book down for several minutes, because Erskine's secret chemical, the key to making super-soldiers... is LSD.

Oh my God. You should see my face right now. My expression is, I am sure, indescribable. I'm trying not to wake the dog up laughing.

I just. Holy shit. This book is from 1968 in a way I definitely was not expecting. What the fuck, Marvel?

This project was headed by the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Erskine. His work with the endocrine system, and chemical body control, was well beyond that of his contemporaries. Only he, of all his colleagues, had fathomed the secrets of the Swiss Dr. Hoffman's 1938 discovery -- the mind-controlling LSD-25.

Let's just pause here for a few minutes and contemplate this.

I will point out that Albert Hofmann (yes, the book spelled his name wrong) didn't actually discover that LSD was a hallucinogen until 1943 when he accidentally tried it, but I am positive that 1968 here was a time when Some People were convinced LSD was a wonder drug. I'm still laughing. As far as I can tell, legal manufacturing of it stopped in 1965 so I am pretty sure that the author did not just decide to name a drug that had an ostensible legal therapeutic use, because it wouldn't have still had one by '68.

Anyway, in this version of events, Rebirth is a month-long process that involves a lot of vitamins, physical conditioning and training, and, yes, putting metal in his bones like he's the next Wolverine. They're filling his bones with stainless steel rods to make him stronger. That doesn't seem like a great idea to me, but I am also not sure about dropping acid to gain superpowers. Clearly I am not a genius scientist. Also Erskine knows what DNA is, apparently, because he's just that great. Anyway. Other than the metal, those all seem like relatively normal interventions. So far.

Now Steve has become fairly big and strong (and I guess he still has metal in his bones? this concerns me!) but they need to make him superhuman, so, yes, really, it's time to drop acid. Several pages of this book are devoted to describing Steve's acid trip. His acid trip is amazing and he discovers that he has conscious control of his entire body down to the cellular level. He can control the adrenaline in his bloodstream! He can tighten his muscle fibers! And when he's done tripping he still remembers how to do this, if not exactly on a conscious level, but he can still access the abilities. And that is how you make a super-soldier. It's LSD. Remember, kids, drugs are awesome! Do drugs!

Let's maybe take a few more minutes to think about this.

I just. I have no words. How did anyone at Marvel agree to print this?

I think for the most part superhero origin stories tend not to involve real drugs because people are generally aware that drugs they've heard of won't make you into a superhero. I guess this is what it looks like when you invoke the names of real drugs. They probably wanted something that sounded more realistic but somehow I don't think this was the best way to go. (Radiation, of course, will definitely make you into a superhero but I feel like most people have accepted that as one of the conventions of the genre.)

Anyway, after that Erskine gets killed by Nazis, of course, and Steve goes to war, and for some reason this book contains footnotes by Stan Lee himself listing the comics you can read all of this in. Just like the actual comics do!

We are introduced to Bucky, who for some reason is also from the LES in this version, although not anyone Steve knew before the war, and there is of course a description of Bucky's tragic death and Steve's subsequent icing.

They are really, really stressing the Man Out Of Time thing here:

No other man could have survived so fantastic a voyage through time. And no other man could feel so displaced by time.

He was a man twenty years in his own future. By rights, he should be nearly fifty years old -- nearly twice the age of his fellow Avengers. Yet his mind and his body were not yet thirty.

When the Avengers had brought him back to New York with them and insisted that, as an honored hero of the past, he join them, he felt a sort of melancholy homesickness for his own time and world.

We then get a few paragraphs with the usual being sad that he let Bucky down and got him killed, and also that he misses his family, and that Steve Rogers doesn't exist anymore, and that nobody is alive who remembers him, and that war is hell.

Hey, Steve, maybe the drugs you should do are antidepressants. Just a thought.

Also, this book is 118 pages and we're not out of the origin story flashback until page 34. I think there are some pacing issues here.

Actually, I lied, the flashback keeps going, but now we're up to the Avengers finding him, and I have to say that the list of things Steve finds strange about the future is kind of charming when the future is 1968. Men have long hair! Women have shorter skirts! Everyone is kind of blasé about rocket launches because there have been so many space missions now. (Oh, come on, you haven't even landed on the moon yet, 1968! You're not that blasé.) Color TV! And, excitingly, LPs! You can now listen to 36 minutes of consecutive music. (I actually don't know what previous standard he's describing that is a ten-inch record that holds six minutes a side because I don't think 45s are that big. Yeah, no, I just checked and 45s are seven inches in diameter. Hmm. Oh, never mind. He means 78 rpm, doesn't he? In my defense, the record player my family had when I was a kid didn't play those.)

The description of Steve coming into New York for the first time is definitely written by someone who knows New York, which is fun. There is generally a lot of local flavor to the setting of this book. That’s one of the best parts.

There is a brief summary of Steve's feelings about all the Avengers -- he is most impressed by Thor, which, I mean, fair, he's an actual god -- and Hank telling him all about how he can live in Tony's mansion. With Jarvis. Who Hank says is actually from Flatbush. Apparently Steve spent a lot of time at the NYPL branch at 5th and 42nd trying to catch up on history. And then of course the Avengers ditched him and gave him the Kooky Quartet, and for some reason they're not here right now either so it's just Steve being sad and alone and dealing with this mysterious dead guy. I think probably the book is also done explaining fiat currency now. This is definitely the weirdest Marvel novel I've read.

Anyway, we have now returned to what is ostensibly the actual plot. Steve shows up at the New York Federal Reserve Bank (I guess the theft is happening here and not, like, at Fort Knox) with the gold bullion that the dead guy from the beginning of the book had on him -- I think I got distracted by the LSD bit and forgot to mention that part, but the dead guy was carrying some US government gold -- because the actual plot is that villains are trying to tunnel into the bank vault and steal gold. Steve discovers this after he gets the bank manager to give him a tour. The bank manager tries to refuse, citing security concerns -- Captain America could be anyone under that mask, after all! Steve just smiles and says, "If I removed my mask, would you have any better idea of who I am?" and I guess that's a flawless argument because he gets his tour.

(I'm sorry, all I can think of is that one gif from the JLA cartoon where Lex Luthor bodyswaps with the Flash, announces that now that he's in the Flash's body he's going to discover the Flash's secret identity, then pulls off his own mask, stares at himself in the mirror, and says, "I have no idea who this is.")

Given that the theme of Steve's interior life in this novel is "Steve Rogers died twenty years ago" it seems even more sad that Steve is just walking around basically saying, yeah, well, I'm nobody. And apparently that is being reaffirmed for him by the narrative.

So Steve goes down the tunnels, takes out some of the bad guys, and gets himself knocked out and buried in a collapsing tunnel. Don't worry, he's gonna be fine.

A lot of this book, by the way, is from the POV of random people, like this bank guard who went with Steve into the tunnels:

He had wondered, briefly, if a man like Captain America ever knew the pinch of too many bills, had ever felt desperate over the arrival of yet another mouth to feed. But, of course, Captain America had no family, and would hardly concern himself with such matters. It didn't occur to Thompson to wonder if this in itself might not be something for which to pity Captain America.

Rude. I mean, come on, do we really need random characters telling us Steve is a sad sack whom nobody loves? Steve's already got that covered!  (Also, how does this guy know Captain America has no family?)

Anyway, thanks to the power of LSD, Steve is going into a trance, amping up his metabolism (he loses "several pounds" in a few minutes), and making himself super-strong so he can dig himself out. Hooray. This is definitely how human bodies work. Also LSD. This is definitely how LSD works. Yes.

Steve then finds out that a couple of the guards who were with him in the tunnels died down there and he goes home and eats dinner while stewing in miserable guilt because he was responsible for their deaths. He's really not okay. I'm not sure the book actually understands how not okay they have made him. Then someone from SHIELD is on the phone for him and he is briefly cheered up by the thought that it might be Sharon although I think we should also note that the narrative makes it clear that at this point in canon Steve still doesn't know her name. Remember when that was a thing?

Alas, it is not Sharon; it's just a random SHIELD agent who happens to have information about the plot and asks to meet. Then, as Steve leaves to go to the meeting, we get two pages of exhaustive description about the mansion layout and how it's built relative to the surrounding buildings. It feels like this book was written by a frustrated city planner. But anyway, the meeting is a setup and the villains capture Steve.

They knock Steve out, drug him, take him to their hideout, and tie him to a chair. Except, once again thanks to the power of LSD, the tranquilizer they're using wears off way sooner than they expected and so Steve feigns unconsciousness and listens to them discuss their evil plans.

And then the villains unmask him and I swear it's exactly like that JLA gif:

Rogers heard footsteps scuffing across a thick carpet, and then Sparrow's voice again, almost directly over him. His ears still buzzed, but he fought to catch the elusive familiarity of the man's tone. He wished he dared open his eyes.

"This is a moment which I, personally, have long awaited," Sparrow said, his voice rising in triumph. "*The unmasking of Captain America!*"

Then, his nails scraping along Rogers' face, Sparrow dug his fingers under his cowl, and ripped it back. Rogers felt air strike his exposed cheeks and forehead. Then fingers clutched his blond hair and pulled his head back. "Behold!" Sparrow said.

Raven was first to speak. "Well, I dunno about you, Sparrow, but it rings no bells with me. I never seen him before."

Starling agreed. "His face means nothing to me."

"He could be anybody," said Robin. "What good does this do?"

Sparrow let Rogers' head fall back to his chest, and his voice when he spoke was defeated. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I always wondered. I felt, if these guys -- these costumed heroes -- wore masks, it must mean something."

"Captain America was missing for twenty years," Starling said. "That could mean the first one died, and this one took his place. He looks awfully young."

"Perhaps. It doesn't really matter. Let's get going."

(Yes, the villains all have bird-themed codenames. I have no idea why.)

This scene just makes my day. I love dramatic unmaskings. I bet they'd have been a lot happier unmasking Iron Man.

The villains then leave Steve and go to a power plant, where we switch POVs to one of the plant employees and get two entirely unnecessary paragraphs about his racist and anti-Semitic thoughts about his coworkers before the villains murder him. Great. Thanks.

Anyway, the villains cause a blackout, while meanwhile they've left Steve alone with the girl villain, and Steve is busy trying to persuade her that crime doesn't pay. He's moved from the "do you know what they'll do to you in prison?" theme onto "how exactly are you going to spend a billion dollars in gold bullion when it's illegal for civilians to possess? who are you going to do business with?" and then points out that gold is heavy and hard to transport, which is when she gets out a a knife.

The bad guys are off to steal the gold, and Steve has now successfully turned the girl they left him with, because she frees him. Of course, the first thing he does is put the cowl back on.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked.

"The mask?" He smiled. "It gives people something external to concentrate upon."

"But..."

"Without it, I'm just another ordinary-looking man. With it, I become a symbol. For some people it creates awe; for others, fear. Look at me. I'm different now, aren't I? With the mask on."

"Yes," she nodded. "You look -- bigger, somehow. Stronger. Fierce, implacable. You look a little scary."

"Exactly. You no longer see me as a person, but as a thing -- an Avenger. It can be a potent psychological weapon."

"They were so disappointed, when they took your mask off. As though underneath they'd find a famous person."

"Maybe that goes on TV -- handsome playboys, and all that. But I've been anonymous all my life. Even my real name would be meaningless to you, to them. No, the mask is part of the uniform, a psychological device. That's the whole story.

Now: let's get out of here. You have a good deal more to tell me yet, and we can't waste more time."

Bwahaha. In a few years, Steve's going to be pretty surprised about who superheroes are, I think.

STEVE, now: Superheroes definitely aren't secretly handsome playboys! That would be silly! STEVE, after Molecule Man: fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK I'm such an idiot

I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Also, not that the issue of Steve's psyche actually recurs after this, but he's once again having the narrative vindicate his belief that Steve Rogers is dead and whoever he is under the cowl doesn't matter. Steve, I don't think this is very healthy.

Steve then tracks down the villains stealing the gold, has some geopolitical thoughts about where the gold could be going (he thinks either South Africa or Russia for the best laundering potential) and then hides himself in the villains' trunk while they drive to Staten Island, which is where they're taking the gold out of the country from.

During the final confrontation, Steve finally gets to see the villains, and he discovers that the one in charge is in fact the director of the Federal Reserve Bank who Steve met at the beginning of this book. Gasp. But that's not all! He's also... the Red Skull!

Honestly, I was kind of surprised; I didn't think this was the kind of book where we'd get any known comic villains, but I guess it's always gotta be the Red Skull. I think he's the only one of Steve's big villains who likes to disguise himself; Zemo has obvious disguise issues and I imagine it's also hard to cover up Zola's Teletubby-esque television body.

Steve shoots one of the villains, because I guess that's what he does in this era of canon.

So the plot wraps up in, like, two pages, because for some reason all these early Marvel novels wrap up very fast. Red Skull, of course, attempts to escape and then disappears and his body is never found. The end.

Well.

That was definitely a book. That I read. Believe it or not, I actually think it was the best of these early Marvel prose novels that I've read so far, even if it was also the absolute weirdest; I thought the thriller-style plot was entertaining, I liked Steve and his Extremely Sad characterization, I obviously enjoy all the identity themes, I liked how very detailed the New York setting was, and I do like how they tried to treat it all seriously. I mean, sure, this did lead to LSD in the super-soldier serum in presumably the name of realism, but I felt like the book was trying to present superheroes in a way that didn't feel silly and also didn't really take for granted that the reader would automatically accept superheroes.

It felt like a book that was written hoping that people who weren't superhero fans would read it, if that makes any sense. And I thought that was interesting, because most modern superhero work that I can think of assumes they've got complete audience buy-in and everyone is willing to suspend their disbelief and we all know the genre conventions and are expecting people running around in brightly-colored spandex. Whereas this is more like a James Bond novel if for some reason James Bond were called upon to defend his decision to wear brightly-colored spandex instead of bespoke suits. But I assume no one read it, because Bantam never published a Marvel book after this one.

If you can actually find a copy of this one for a price you're willing to pay. I recommend it. It was delightful and way more solid than I thought it was going to be.

Also, come on, you know you want to read about Captain America's acid trip.

[awanderingdeal]

You were the first

As I mentioned in this ask, I have polished up the fic I wrote live on discord. It's left at a bit of a cliff-hanger so I'll try not to leave it too long to write the second chapter, but I make no promises!

Anyway, have some Logan with his first boy crush.

CW: discovering sexuality and sexuality crisis

Rating: G

If you feel I need to add any content warnings or change the rating, please drop me a message!

Logan and Noelle are original characters from the sweater weather universe created by the wonderful @lumosinlove. All other characters in this fic are mine.

Logan tugged at his t-shirt, an expensive white thing that was more fitted than he was used to, scrutinizing his image in the mirror. He rose up onto the tips of his toes, giving a small sigh as he settled back down. He’d always been confident in his appearance, especially under the Nice sun, his hair a little lighter and his skin bronzing even more than usual, but he wished he was taller.

“Lo! Let’s go! I’m ready,” his sister called, appearing in the doorway to his bedroom a few seconds later. “Are you okay?”

Logan dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand, figuring his ensemble of the white t-shirt and khaki shorts would have to do. “Does this look too prep school?” he asked, pulling on a pair of battered vans that he hoped would soften the outfit before joining Noelle in the hallway.

“Since when did you care about your appearance?” Noelle teased, pulling his cap over his eyes as he fell into step beside her.

I don’t,” Logan grumbled, adjusting the brim, shoving Noelle away from him. He twisted away from her retaliating shove with a chuckle, raising his hands in a truce at the top of the stairs before bounding down them. “Maman! Noelle and I are going out now!”

“Do you have sunscreen? And water?”

“Yes, Maman!” He and Noelle rolled their eyes at each other, waiting around only long enough to hear the affirmative reply from their mother telling them to be safe and back in time for dinner.

“So, what’s going on with you and this Hugo boy then?” Noelle asked as soon as the door shut behind them.

Logan glanced back towards the house anxiously, even though he knew nobody would have heard. He picked up his skateboard, dusting an imaginary piece of dirt from it before tucking it under his arm. “Nothing is going on, he asked me out and I said I wasn’t gay, simple,” Logan mumbled. “Why don’t you concentrate on your own love life?”

“Alright, there’s no need to get defensive,” Noelle clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She strapped her board to her backpack, leaving her hands free to tap against her phone screen. “And my love life is very successful, thank you,” she added with a smirk that was begging for Logan to ask more.

“Oh yeah?” Logan latched onto the opportunity, glad to have the attention off of himself. “Is that who you’ve been texting all the time?” he chuckled, plucking Noelle’s phone from her hand. “What’s his name then?”

Noelle squealed, lunging for her phone, but Logan was too quick, looking at the message before she could grab it. “Oh,” Logan breathed, stumbling over his feet as he shoved the phone back at his sister. “Fuck, Noelle. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t -”

“Logan, it’s fine.” Noelle stopped, grabbing Logan by the shoulder so he halted as well. “Well, it’s not. You’re a little shit, but that’s what little brothers are for, right? Besides, you are so predictable. I was baiting you.”

Logan frowned, his features contorting into a picture of confusion. “What?”

“You’re such a dumbass,” Noelle laughed, shaking her head. “I wanted you to know.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Logan muttered. “So, Natacha, huh? That’s the blonde girl, right?”

Noelle looked at Logan pointedly, “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“Uhh…Congratulations?” Logan shrugged.

Noelle sighed and started to walk again. “Yeah, she’s the blonde one.”

Logan jogged a few paces to catch up with her. He chewed at his lip, glancing over at his sister every few steps. She seemed so confident, like she knew exactly what she wanted. He tried to reassure himself that he was only 14, he wasn’t supposed to know what he wanted yet. That’s what all the websites said. Finally, he couldn’t bear the silence any longer, “Do maman et papa know?”

“Not yet,” Noelle hummed, “I’m not worried, I just -”

“Logan! Noelle!” their friend, Ibrahim, yelled as they entered the skate park. Logan looked towards Noelle, mouthing that they would finish the conversation later. “We were just talking about you.”

Noelle replied, but Logan didn’t hear what she said, his attention pulled by the tall boy standing just to the left of Ibrahim. He had light blonde hair that flopped over his eyes and he was shifting nervously between his feet. Hugo.

“Hello! Earth to Logan,” Noelle clapped her hands in front of his face. “I said we’re going to head over there and practice on the rails. Are you coming?”

Logan looked back to Hugo, wincing internally at the obviousness of the action. “No, I’m going to stay,” he pointed behind him to the small group of teens “here.”

Noelle looked at him, her lips making a funny manoeuvre that Logan had come to learn meant she was suppressing a laugh. “Okay.”

Then Noelle was gone, and Logan didn't know what to do with himself. These were the same friends he'd been hanging out with every summer for nearly a decade, but suddenly he seemed to have forgotten how to interact with them. Or rather, with him, with Hugo. He couldn’t pinpoint why he felt so awkward. Sure, the other boy had asked him out, but Logan was certain that wasn’t the problem. He didn't want to be that person, but he had other male friends who were attracted to guys and it had never been an issue before. Even when one of those friends had admitted to a crush on him, Logan had just told them politely he wasn't interested in them like that, and they'd moved on with their friendship. So why did his stomach feel like it was trying to turn itself inside out, right now? And why did he feel like he wouldn't be able to string an intelligible sentence together?

"Logan! What are you doing?" Ibrahim shouted, pulling Logan from his spiralling panic. He looked up to see the group had moved. "Hugo has finally got that combo he was working on down, and for some reason he can't wait to show you." Logan thought he heard something teasing in his friend's tone, but he squashed the thought. He looked over, meeting Hugo's shy smile and decided he could figure out whatever was going on in his head later. His friend wanted to show him a trick, and Logan wasn't a jerk, so he was going to go and watch.

Logan dug his fingers into the edge of his board, clutching it close to him as he approached his friends, the walk to the edge of the bowl they had gathered on seeming to take an age with all their eyes on him. "You've stopped falling on your ass then?" he grinned at Hugo, by way of greeting, proud that the words came out with the same smooth tone that he usually managed.

"Yeah," Hugo blushed. "I told you, practice makes perfect."

"I stand corrected," Logan huffed out a laugh. A red haired girl that Logan didn't know that well, mumbled something that he didn't quite catch, but carried a tone that he didn’t like. He spun around to ask her to repeat herself when she smiled and mounted her board, dropping over the edge of the bowl. Logan turned back to Hugo, but the boy was now looking towards the bowl, sending a glare after Lydia.

"Okay, let's not build this up too much,” Ibrahim threw his arm around Logan. “We’re going to be expecting some Tony Hawk skills at this point." Logan sent him a grateful smile, receiving a small squeeze in return.

"Lyds, we get it. You are fantastic! Now get out the bowl. I already shot - gunned," Hugo said, laughing as Lydia flipped him off after she had exited the bowl on the opposite side."

“Alright then, Hewie. The floor is yours. Let us see your mating dance," Lydia swept her arms in front of her in a grand gesture.

“Sorry about her,” Hugo cleared his throat, his face getting impossibly redder and scratching at the back of his neck. “I think she thinks she’s funny.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Logan hoped the smile he offered was comforting, even if it did feel somewhat tight. He could feel the stares of the others boring into his back as he inclined his head towards the bowl. "What are you waiting for? Show me what you can do.”

Hugo opened his mouth to respond, but seemed to decide better of it, shrugging his shoulders. A cocky smirk spread across his face before he gave a determined nod and dropped into the bowl. It was easy watching Hugo skate. Years of practise had led to a relaxed form, commanding the board with a simple confidence. Any shyness he'd been exhibiting a few moments ago had melted away. Logan wasn't the best skater, rarely picking his board up outside of the summers, so he was easily impressed by the way other people were able to keep their feet stuck to the deck like glue. However, there was something about the way Hugo's body moved, leaning into each turn and shifting his weight with such subtly, that felt different. Logan found himself holding his breath, knowing that the trick Hugo could never land was approaching. He didn't want to think about why the determined crease of Hugo's brow made the same odd feeling in his stomach from earlier reappear.

Hugo carved his way up the side of the bowl, until only one wheel ground against the coping. Logan leaned forward into the movement, expecting to hear the crash of the board against concrete, but it never came. Hugo glided seamlessly back down to the bottom of the bowl with a proud fist pump. A loud cheer escaped Logan's mouth before he even really registered it, the rest of his friends joining in to create a barrage of noise. Logan felt lighter than he had in weeks. Hugo showed off a few more tricks, before exiting the bowl. His skin had a pink flush to it, and his breath was coming in heavy pants, the heat of the afternoon sun making the exercise that bit more intense.

"Here, drink," Logan ordered, thrusting a bottle of water in Hugo’s direction. He took the bottle, but instead of drinking it like Logan expected, he unscrewed the lid, pouring the contents over his head, sweeping his bangs up off his face. Logan thought he had gotten away with the choked noise pulled from his throat, but Lydia chuckled from behind him. Logan turned on his heel, sending her a steely glare, "Is there a problem?"

Lydia raised an eyebrow, cocking her head as if inspecting something, "I'm just wondering how long it's going to take you to get your act together, Tremblay."

Logan tensed, glancing behind him quickly. He let out a long breath, relieved to see Hugo's attention had been monopolised by Ibrahim and another of their friends congratulating him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he scoffed. "We barely even know each other."

"You may not know me, but Hugo and I have been friends since we were babies, so unfortunately I am aware of the exact shade of green your eyes happen to be," Lydia retorted, shrugging off the plaid shirt she had on over her vest top. Her expression had softened when she looked at Logan again, "Look, maybe I've made a big mistake here and you're really not interested in him like that, but if that's the case you really need to stop leading him on."

"I'm not-" Logan started to protest, a part of him wondering exactly what Hugo had told Lydia about him. "-this is none of your business.” He chewed at his lip, pulling his cap from his head. It felt like the temperature had risen dramatically in the last thirty seconds, Logan very aware of the beads of sweat forming under his t-shirt. He shoved his cap back on, tugging at the curls at the nape of neck. "I'm going to find my sister," he said, grinding the words through his teeth and turning on his heel. Somewhere behind him, he heard Hugo call his name, but he pretended he hadn't heard, continuing his quick strides away. This was all too confusing and he just wanted to see Noelle.

Logan crossed the park, finding Noelle sitting on a set of stairs, her head resting on Natacha’s shoulder, the two of them watching some of their friends work the rails. She seemed content, so Logan hesitated a few feet away, guilt creeping in at the prospect of disturbing her. Eventually, his need for comfort won out. "Nolly?”

Logan rarely used the nickname in public these days, receiving a swift smack to the back of his head whenever he did. Noelle whipped her head up, her glare melding quickly into a look of concern.

"Nolly, huh? Adorable," Natacha teased, nudging Noelle gently.

"Don't even think about it," Noelle deadpanned, her eyes remained locked with Logan's. "Hey Lo, what's up?" She patted the concrete next to her, and Logan took a seat, resting his chin in his hands against his knees. He looked between Noelle and Natacha, chewing at his lip. Natacha had always seemed nice, but he wasn't sure he wanted to bare his soul to her quite yet.

"Do you want me to go? I can always go and show the boys how it’s done, it's not a problem." Natacha smiled softly and instantly, Logan decided he liked her. Besides, he wasn’t sure he had anything to say yet, so it was pointless sending her away.

"No, it’s okay," Logan sighed. "I just needed a break." Noelle looked at him pointedly, and Logan could tell she didn’t believe him. For now, she refrained from an interrogation. Logan had a funny feeling that it was postponed rather than cancelled.

It took a while for the conversation to fall back into a natural rhythm, however once the initial awkwardness faded it flowed well, Natacha dropping into the natural gaps of Noelle and Logan’s conversation like she’d always been there. It was easy over here, away from his friends, and Logan let his mind wander to thoughts of Hugo, trying to reconcile these new feelings with the information he currently had about himself.

Natacha laughed, loud and smooth, pulling Logan back into the conversation. "No, my ex, he -" Logan didn't hear the next few sentences, fixating on the pronoun until he couldn't hold in the question any more.

"Did you say he?"

Natacha furrowed her brow, whilst Noelle's expression turned smug and knowing. Logan had questions about that too, but it'd have to wait. Eventually, Natacha gave a slow nod. "Yes, he...Jacob, my ex-boyfriend."

Logan waved his hand between Noelle and Natacha, "- and now you have a girlfriend."

Something changed in Natacha's expression, but Logan couldn't place it. "Well," she chuckled, "we haven't called it anything yet, but I wouldn't object."

Logan blinked. "You can do that?"

Natacha shrugged, looking between Logan and Noelle with a careful curiosity.

"No." Logan cut her off before she could answer. "I know you can change your mind or whatever. Or not know. But can I just...I guess, I had that crush on Alicia back in grade 7, but now I think - yeah, Hugo makes me feel kind of the same way, so am I gay now or what?" He felt Noelle squeeze his knee as he reached to scratch at the back of his neck. She always told him he'd be awful at poker because he had too many tells.

Natacha looked between him and Noelle again. It was getting a bit annoying, but he figured he had just dumped a whole lot of thoughts on somebody he had only spoken to a handful of times. The silence was beginning to feel heavy when she eventually spoke, "I can't really tell you that. You could be gay, you could be bisexual, I'm fairly sure there's other things too. Just try not to freak out about it, yeah?"

Bisexual. Now that he thought about it, Logan remembered hearing that word before. He'd never really considered what it meant though, it hadn’t been necessary. The only person he'd ever had a crush on before was Alicia. Maybe bisexual fit, but he'd never liked another girl like that either so maybe Alicia was just a fluke and he was just gay. He lay back, shielding his eyes as he looked up at the sun and groaned. "Try not to freak out. How am I not supposed to freak out?! I want to kiss a boy."

"Oh, you want to kiss him do you? You're a baby, you're not allowed to kiss anybody." Noelle teased, poking at his side. Logan threw a furious look at her. Could she not see he was having a crisis here and she was laughing. "Sorry," Noelle apologised, her voice more sincere. "I know it's a lot to think about. It's just difficult not to tease my little brother about his crush."

Logan had to admit something was comforting in the idea that even when his world was in chaos, there was always the constant of his sister's teasing. He'd never tell her that though. "I think I'm just going to pretend this isn't happening," he sighed.

Noelle laughed again, more committed this time. "That would be very fitting," she hummed. "You could also, oh, I don't know...talk to him?"

Logan sat up quickly, "And what if he asks if I'm gay!? I literally told him 3 days ago I wasn't interested.” The long sigh that followed felt like it was pulled from him.

"Erm..." Natacha muttered awkwardly. "I'm gonna leave you two to talk. Good luck, Logan," she added, leaning around Noelle to pat at his arm. Ordinarily he would have found the gesture condescending, but it was oddly comforting.

There was a quiet as they watched her walk away. “I like her,” Logan declared.

"Well, she's my girlfriend so you can't have her," Noelle quipped. Logan rolled his eyes; his sister shared their father's sense of humour and frankly, it was awful. "Can I let you into a secret?" she asked, pulling Logan into her side. There wasn’t time to answer before Noelle continued. "It wasn't easy for me either. But I got there and you will too. Just be honest with Hugo, and if he's an ass about it at least you know he's trash now rather than later."

"Thanks, Nolly," Logan said quietly, leaning his head on his sister's shoulder. "I think I'll talk to him. Or maybe I'll just show him my hockey reel, that's impressive." Noelle flicked her fingers against his leg and Logan scowled, rubbing at the spot.

"Try not falling off that board for once, that'll impress him," Noelle teased, inclining her head towards Logan's abandoned board.

"Or maybe, I'll just fall off and then get him to teach me." Logan retorted with a smirk, looking in the direction of the bowl that he had left earlier. He figured he should probably head back over there soon, he’d left before he could even really congratulate Hugo.

Noelle shook her head, laughing "God, you're such a Tremblay at times."

Logan heaved himself up, grabbing his board as he did. "Hey, you never did tell me what you decided on. You know...with your sexuality," his said, feeling his face heat up a little. Somewhere in the back of his brain, something told him he wasn't supposed to ask that, but the question had left his mouth before he'd really thought about it. "If you don't mind telling me."

Noelle looked up at him with a casual shrug, "I refuse to be defined by labels, I will date who I date and if people don't like it, well fuck them."

"Wow, okay," Logan raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot of anger in such a small person. Go skate it off."

"Alright, Mr 5 foot," Noelle scoffed, her expression softening before she continued. "I am

going to see if I can prise my board from Tasha's grip, but let me know if you want to go, yeah?"

"I just haven't hit my growth spurt yet," Logan reeled off his usual rebuttal to his sister's jibes about his height, but his mind was more focused on the latter words. "I'll be fine, promise," he smiled, even if he wasn't so convinced of the statement himself. He held Noelle's gaze for a beat longer, turning on his heel to head back to his friends

"Logan!" Hugo called loudly as he approached, the blond boy's eyes widening slightly when the loud sound left his mouth. "You're back," he added, at a more reasonable volume.

Logan smiled as he took a seat next to Hugo, "Yeah, sorry about that. Just had to sort some stuff.”

"No problem, just glad to have you back.”

Ibrahim faked a gag, and Logan shot him a glare. His friend mouthed something at him, but Logan couldn’t make out the words against the exaggerated movements of his lips. He turned his attention back to Hugo as he began to speak again. Ibrahim was probably only trying to chirp him anyway. "Hey, how's your Ollie going?"

Logan took a deep breath, trying not to think about his next words too much, "Yeah, I'm still practicing, actually. I was wondering if you could help me again? Somewhere," Logan looked around, "not here. I don't want to keep falling on my ass in front of everybody."

Logan swore he heard a low wolf whistle from one of the group, but when he glanced at them, everybody seemed to be engulfed in their own conversations. Ibrahim and Lydia's heads were close together, whispering conspiratorially in a way that was making Logan nervous.

"Yeah, I can help you," Hugo said, a goofy grin set on his face. "When do you want to do it?"

"Now?" Logan suggested, trying not to get distracted by the increasingly animated conversation beside him. Hugo must have noticed too, but he seemed unfazed.

"Oh? Now. Okay, Sure," Hugo nodded vigorously, brushing his hands through his hair. "We can do it now. I'm totally ready."

"Cool," Logan hummed, trying to appear nonchalant about the whole situation despite the uptick in his heart rate.

"Yeah, cool.”

Logan didn’t want to appear too eager so he waited for Hugo to stand first. Only it appeared Hugo had a similar idea bringing them to an impasse. Logan cringed internally, glad he currently had his back to Ibrahim because he could just imagine the mocking expression. He bolstered himself, letting his breath whistle through his teeth and laughed, hoping the noise sounded lighter than it did in his head. "Come on then," Logan said, rolling to his feet, offering his hand out. Hugo stared at it for so long, Logan was beginning to think perhaps he'd done something wrong. Then, Hugo slapped his own hand clumsily into it, pulling himself upright. Logan curled his fingers around the larger hand, holding onto it a second longer than necessary to help Hugo up. It was warm, slightly sweaty even, but Logan found himself wanting to test whether Hugo would keep their hands intertwined if he didn't let go. Still, a part of him was very aware of their current company, so Logan reluctantly pulled away.

As they walked away from the group, Logan braved a look behind him. Most of his friends quickly made to re-start their conversations, embarrassed to have been caught staring. However, the two he’d most suspected to lock eyes with had their heads down, fingers working furiously against their phone screens. Seconds later, Logan felt his phone vibrate. And then again, and again, and again.

Logan sighed, sending Hugo an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, let me just get this." He tugged his phone from his pocket, huffing when he saw the notification. Ibz created group 'Don't fuck this up Logan. He opened the chat, intending to mute it immediately, but curiosity got the better of him and he read through the messages quickly. Logan didn't have the third participant in his contacts so his phone just displayed the number, but if he wasn't already aware that it would be Lydia, the blunt tone of her messages would have given her away.

Ibz: His favourite colour is red!

Lydia: Why would that be helpful?

Lydia: Also, I think it might be green now ;)

Ibz: Lydia! That is not helpful! Logan, you can talk to him about hockey. He's been studying.

Lydia: That's true! He's kind of obsessed with dinosaurs too so try to work that into the conversation.

Logan worried at his lower lip, noticing that Hugo hadn't been inundated with messages. He could only surmise that Lydia and Ibz thought Logan was the only one of the pair that needed some extra help. He grumbled under his breath, typing out a reply with punishing taps against his screen.

Logan: Guys! Stop! I can handle this. Can you just stop meddling?

Lydia: If you say so. I am going to kick your ass if you hurt him though.

Ibz: Hey! That's harsh. Logan would never intentionally hurt Hugo.

Logan: Thanks Ibz! For the record, I'm muting this conversation now.

Logan smiled at how quickly Ibrahim had come to his defence, making a mental note to thank him in person later on. After following through with silencing his phone, he shoved the device back in his pocket, looking over at Hugo. He was sitting on his board, chin tucked against the palm on his hands, rocking slowly from side to side. He seemed content, but Logan still felt a little guilty about making him wait. "Sorry," Logan grimaced, "I'm all yours now. How about I show you what I'm doing, and you can correct me?"

[moonlit-imagines]

I Chose Her

Steve Rogers x reader

warnings: angst ig, alcohol mention

a/n: READER IS GN!!! the title is about someone else...insp. since the russos massacred his character why shouldn’t i

prompt: steve will always choose her

“Be safe.” You rested your hands on Steve’s chest before placing a long kiss to his nearly-healed lip. “Hope you don’t miss me too much.” Your words barely affected him, but after everyone just went through? Yeah, you all needed some time to heal. “I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too...” He spoke lowly without looking you in the eyes before pulling Bucky aside to speak. You and Sam stood side by side, patiently waiting to get this show on the road. That’s when your boyfriend stepped up the the platform with the relics taken from time.

“Ready Cap? We’ll meet you back here.” Bruce said, tapping buttons on the control panel. “Going quantum in three, two, one...” And then Steve vanished. “And returning in five, four, three, two, one...” Nothing happened? Nothing happened. Oh, god.

“Bruce, where is he?” You less-than-calmly asked, feeling the panic rise within. This obviously wasn’t good judging by the way he was frantically readjusting controls. “Where the hell is he, Bruce?!” Your breathing began to get heavy, which is when Bucky laid a hand on your shoulder and pointed out to an old man overlooking the water.

“He wants to talk to you.” Bucky told you as everything seemed to click. And I mean everything. The way he’d sleep with that compass right next to him. How he’d disappear on her birthday without so much as a word. He wouldn’t talk about her to you, but he’d stare at her portrait for as long as he could bare. You thought he’d accepted the past, you were dead wrong.

“You knew about this?!” Bucky looked ashamed, but he was also the only person here who saw the way that they looked at each other. That didn’t excuse the way that you had to experience this...this breakup. So you walked over there first, furious yet level-headed.

“Hello, y/n.” His voice was a bit raspy with age. Steve gave you a weak smile just before you figured out what you wanted to say.

“So, you chose her?” You stared at the wedding ring that hadn’t been there before he left, the one he was spinning around his finger as he thought to himself.

“Yeah, I chose her...I’m sorry that I couldn’t be honest with you. It was never my intent to hurt you.” You stood there silently, biting your cheek in an effort to keep it together. “I knew that if I told you, you’d convince me to stay. This was my last chance.”

“How many decades have you been practicing that apology, Steve?” You watched him hang his head while you started to shake. You were already thinking of how you were supposed to explain this to the team, you could see them pitying you already.

“I got to be normal. The man back in his time.” He sounded happy for once. Too bad you couldn’t give that to him yourself.

“Yeah, an 105 year old man returning from the twenty-first century to be with his first love sure is normal.” You were bitter about this whole situation and you had every right to be. “I hope you had a good life, Steve. I really do.” You weren’t going to give him any more of your time. He had his, now you had yours.

“I’m sorry, y/n.” Sam whispered when you walked past each other.

“Don’t talk to me right now.” He understood. Sam was just as shocked as you, but he knew you were hurting more. You needed some space.

“I couldn’t stop him, y/n. I didn’t want to see him leave, either.” Bucky tried to reason with you as you stomped by, you couldn’t even talk at this point though. One word and you’d shatter in front of everyone. There were so many emotions leftover from these past few days, ones that you simply pushed down, but Steve was the final straw on the camel’s back.

You just shook your head and got as far away as you could before you lost it.

He proved to you that you were his second choice. I chose her, he said, I chose her. He left you behind. He left Bucky behind. He left Sam behind. For what?

Good for him, he got everything he wanted. But he caused so much damage in the process. You all had to come to terms with the fact that you’d never have the life you wanted, but Steve went for it anyway.

“Y/N, wait up!” Sam called from behind you, Bucky following suit. This was the last thing you needed, his loved ones trying to get you to see the bright side of things. But that wasn’t why they were here. You turned around to reveal the hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

“What do you want?” You weakly asked through sniffles, lip quivering without an effort to hide it. You were so tired of hiding how you felt.

“This sucks.” Sam’s understatement made you laugh for less than a second. “I mean it. We’re going to the bar, you in?”

“You drink, Bucky?” You asked, wiping tears from your face with your sleeve, but still struggling to breathe steadily.

“I want cheese fries.” He admitted while staring into the distance. Maybe these two could cheer you up after all that just went down. You’d just have to wait and see.

“Yeah...I’m in.”

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedficrecs // @emygirl // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisbisexual // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @thisetaernallove // @ofthedewthesunlight // @canarypoint // @zoeyserpentluck // @randomawesomeperson102 // @spideyandtheboys // @ghost-bich //

[stonylovessteve]

SLS 2021 Creator Reveals

We’ve reached the end of the exchange and that means it’s time to reveal the creators of all our works!

Thank you for putting so much love and effort into Stony Loves Steve 2021, you really made it a great experience. We hope everyone loved it as much as we did!

Giftees, be sure to leave a comment and kudos on your gift if you haven’t already. All our creators worked hard to make this event a success, so show them some love.

You can now post your work publicly outside of the exchange. Tag it as #stonylovessteve2021 on tumblr and we’ll reblog you. @ us @stonylovessteve on twitter and we’ll retweet you.

Below the cut is the final list of all the works produced for the exchange and the creators.

Cold as Ice, Warm my Heart by lil_aussie_girl for parkrstark (MCU, 1.5k)

The cold took away one love already, and his greatest fear is that it will do it again - before he has the chance to say those three important words.

Strength Like The Sea/A Familiar Yet Foreign Face by Lacrimula_Falsa for funkyspacegirlfriend (AU, 3k)

There had to be another explanation for the ugly burning feeling in his chest because this wasn’t a rom-com and he’d known Steve for less than a day.

After years of his father fruitlessly searching for one, Tony finally gets to meet a real-life vampire.

· · ·*‒*‒ ‒ ‒*‒ ·*‒ · ‒ ‒

Anthony.

No, not Anthony, because Anthony had crumbled to dust right before his eyes. But this man looked so eerily similar to him, he could have been Anthony’s twin brother. Only the eyes were different, warm brown instead of cold blue. After being woken nearly a century after he went into stasis because the pain of losing his lover Anthony was too much, Steven meets a man who looks just like him.

I Know There is Comfort Where We Overlap by jellybeanforest for ghosthan (Ults, 10k)

As a relic of a bygone era, Steve struggles with feelings of isolation and severe depression made worse by his recent breakup with Jan Pym. He secretly hooks up with random strangers chasing a sense of connection with someone, anyone. Things are going (not) well when he and fellow Ultimate, Iron Man, are tasked with infiltrating a Thai resort serving as a front for illegal arms dealing. Only catch: They must go undercover as a married couple on their honeymoon.

finding steve rogers by jacobby for geekymoviemom (MCU, 6k)

Steve sighs. “Sorry. I wasn’t a very good tour guide. Ma always told me about the town, but she never got into specifics.”

Tony takes Steve’s hand in his and places it close to his lips. “It’s your first time here too. We understand.”

AKA

After a botched mission with SHIELD, Steve takes a vacation with his family to a town in Ireland.

Things are knot as they seem by BladeoftheNebula for DepressingGreenie (AU, 3k)

Everyone assumes Captain America is an alpha and Steve doesn’t see the harm in not correcting them. After all, Alphas command respect while omegas are still considered far too delicate for leadership.

And sure, it sucks hiding his designation when he’s in love with Tony Stark, the hottest alpha he’s ever seen, but what alpha would want an omega who could lift them with one hand?

So it’s fine. It’s not as if anyone was ever going to find out his secret anyway…

A drop of love by CapAL for Perlmutt (AU, Comic)

After sleeping for 70 years Steve wakes up to a world that he doesn’t understand. As an age-old vampire he’s seen a lot of things in his life, but nothing has ever confused him as much as the bubbly Starbucks barista Tony. They meet by chance and Steve stays. He falls for him, even though he knows he shouldn’t, and together they explore modern New York, while Steve tries to hide his true nature from Tony, afraid that he would send him away if he knew the truth.

The Fake Prince and the Cat  by Neverever for Fluffypanda (AU, 5.5k)

Steve is sent in place of Prince Brock to marry the libertine Tony Stark. It's better than he thought it would be, plus he makes friends with a cat.

father to son by parkrstark for HogwartsToAlexandria (MCU, 2.5k)

Steve had been planning on asking Peter to be his son, officially, for weeks now, but he always chickened out because he didn't thik he was good enough for the boy. Funnily enough, Peter had the same idea, but when he showed the adoption papers to Steve, he didn't have the best of reactions.

The Best Half Of Me by Huntress79 for RoseRose (AU, 1.5k)

An encounter with one of his exes at a charity gala opens Tony’s eyes about how much he really loves Steve - and how much he’s looking forward to their future together.

neither here nor there by ghosthan for  Welcoming_Disaster (616, 18k)

Captain America comes back from Dimension Z changed. He has had over a decade of his life taken from him, as well as the woman he loved. Stoic, secretive, and traumatized, much of what he experienced remains a mystery to SHIELD and the world; Tony is there to help him heal, and uncover the truth about how much Steve has lost.

The Eventide Aspect by geekymoviemom for ishipallthings (MCU, T, 12k)

“Yeah, Cap, about that,” Tony says, looking rather sheepish as he scratches at the back of his neck.

“Yeah?” asks Steve.

“Well… remember those half-baked ideas that I mentioned?  I’m afraid this might be one of ‘em,” says Tony.

“Okay.  Care to explain it to someone who doesn't speak technical?”

“Ahh…” Tony trails off, mumbling under his breath again.  “Yeah.  Um… if my theory is correct, I’m thinking that when we stepped through that window, we might’ve entered another dimension.”

Looking by Robin_tCJ for Vento_Lunar (MCU, E, 4k)

After a raid on a HYDRA base, Steve's body reverts back to the way it was before the serum. Tony still wants him.

You Had Me in the First Half by Corsets_and_Cardigans for Robin_tCj (MCU, E, 2k)

Steve is on his way to meet Bucky for a movie before their football team goes away for a game. Too bad Tony has plans for him! He'll apologize to Bucky for it later.

the rest is history by starksnack for muchmoremajestic (Avengers Academy, G, 2k)

It's Steve's birthday and he usually likes to spend it alone. Of course, Tony has other ideas.

Basically just some soft AvAc fluff.

(Let Me) Love and Be Loved by HeLovedYou for wikketkrikket (MCU, T, 6k)

Steve forgets how to self-sabotage his own happiness.

He also forgets his team, his soulmate and the last three years of his life.

avengers featuring steve’s doppleganger vol 1 (FANCOMIC) by wingheads for jellybeanforrest (616, Art)

tony dates a man who looks a lot like steve. everyone can see it, everyone knows what that means, except tony, who doesn't seem to realize he's dating steve's doppelganger. steve doesn't see the resemblance either and actually comes to like tony's new boyfriend, but then one of the other avengers spills the beans that they look exactly alike to tony, who can't unsee it now and breaks up with the new guy, only for steve to be sad that his baseball-buddy won't be around anymore.

Hart Island by Amber_Skye for lil_aussie_girl (MCU, G, 12k)

Steve is acting out of character, and Tony and the other Avengers can’t work out why.

the soul of dragons by funkyspacegirlfriend for Amber_Skye (MCU, T, 2k)

Steve’s dragon companion is the largest Tony’s ever seen up close. And she captivates Tony from the very first moment.

Just in the Knit of Time by DepressingGreenie for picturecat (Avengers Assemble, T, 2.5k)

Steve only has a week to tell Tony he loves him before his secret is leaked to the world.

Learning Curve by picturecat for Huntress79 (Avengers Academy AU, G, 2k)

Freshly defrosted, Steve Rogers is the newest teacher at the Avengers Academy—an attempt to guide and teach the newest generation of heroes before they have to take on the burdens of their teachers. Steve himself has a lot of learning to do.

First Impression by veryvincible for wingheads (616, M, 7k)

The Avengers find the schematics of a deadly weapon in the hands of an up-and-coming villain. To safely retrieve the data that led to its creation and keep the city safe in the process, they have to take a very subtle approach. The man-- Jack Marshall-- has an eye for hunks and a tendency to get vulnerable with them. The team could use this to their advantage, if they have the right assets.

Enter Steve.

Dandelions and Lilies by Wikketkrikket for CapAL (AU, G, 4k)

Written for CapAL for the StonylovesSteve event 2021.

A summer job in the florists is pretty good, as summer jobs go; and when a handsome guy comes in with some very particular requirements it gets even better.

Or it would, if Steve wasn't lying about the meaning of every bouquet he sold.

Potshot by jellybeanforest for jacobby (AU, T, 2.5k)

In an expansive wasteland infested with hordes of the undead, Steve, leader of a group of ex-military operatives known as the Avengers, searches for survivors and supplies in the ruins of the old world.

That’s all well and good, but Tony would do just about anything for an American cheeseburger.

For Stony Loves Steve 2021. Based on a prompt by jacobby.

Remorse and Rapture by oliverparker for optimusprime13 (AU, E, 6k)

When Steve's mother falls ill, he's forced to move in with the family she works for. He's not thrilled about it.

Shards of Eternities by Perlmutt for starksnack (AU, T, 5k)

Rumor had it that the war would soon be over. It could not end soon enough. Until then, Anthony would wait for Steven. He would wait and protect their child. He would wait and write another thousand letters for his alpha, his mate, his husband, if only he would come home, come for him, come for them.

Two Can Play That Game by JehBeEhh for Becci Barnes (BeccEEE) (MCU, T, 4k)

Tony Stark is many things. Patient isn't always one of them. Especially not when there's a happily ever after at the end of that bout of patience.

Uncovered by mariana_oconnor for Corsets_and_Cardigans (MCU, G, 6k)

Steve didn't think the tip-off was anything more than the usual nonsensical conspiracy theory. He only went to check it out because he was curious. He definitely wasn't expecting it to be a trap.

Build Me Up Buttercup by ishipallthings for BladeoftheNebula (4k, M, MCU)

Tony sees the gold letters spelling “Stark” on the edge of Steve’s hood and his mind grinds to a halt. Steve looks good wearing his name. Too good.

(In which Steve starts experimenting with a new style. Tony does not find this infuriatingly attractive, thank you very much.)

Discovery [Art] by Fluffypanda for captainstars (Art, G, Noir)

Renowned adventurer Tony Stark discovers a carving of a lost civilization's protector.

I left my heart (at home with you) by captainstars for UisceOneLove (2k, G, AU)

It shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did.

The man grinned at him, wide and beautiful. Steve couldn’t help sneaking another glance towards the heavens. They really lost their citizens fairly easily. Steve would like to say this was the first white robed beauty he had come across until now, but he wasn’t.

(OR)

Steve moved to a cabin in the woods hoping to live the life of a hermit werewolf. When Tony Stark decided to become his new neighbor, it threw a bit of a wrench into Steve’s plans.

(OR)

A werewolf and an incubus cuddling in a tree.

Raspberry Beret (I Think I Love Her) by ralsbecket for oliverparker (4k, M, 3490)

When Steve looked at Natasha, he knew in his heart that she was what put his derailed train back on its tracks. For the first time since they met, Steve felt like he had some semblance of a plan for his future. And he wanted Natasha to be a part of it.

Savior Complex by optimusprime13 for HeLovedYou (18.5k, G, AU)

Wealthy businessman Steve Rogers stumbles into barely-getting-by Tony Stark in a cemetery, and they hit it off immediately. Steve is enamored by Tony’s razor-sharp wit, his startling intelligence, and his penchant for building stuff. He has a problem though - he can’t stop wanting to save everybody around him, especially Tony - who is struggling to make ends meet. However, Tony is too proud and stubborn to accept any help from Steve. But when Tony gets kidnapped to act as bait for Steve, how far will Steve go to save Tony when it means sacrificing himself?

Through His Stomach by RoseRose for JehBeeEh (2k, G, MCU)

Steve decides he wants to try to cook with all the new ingredients he has found in this new time, but he needs someone else to taste-test his creations. Tony is holed up in his workshop, so he makes the perfect guinea pig. The two of them grow closer over several meals.

Iron & Sapphire by Becci Barnes (BeccEEE) for Lacrimula_Falsa (AU, 5k)

Steve can always sense him, long before Tony enters his cave. It makes his blue scales tremble and his big wings flutter in excitement. Tony brings light and warmth into this musty hideout he calls home. And food. And while they may be as odd a couple as you can imagine, that won't stop them from bantering and cuddling just like anyone else.

Man On The Moon by Welcoming_Disaster for veryvincible (616, 7k)

Things haven't been the same since Steve has found out about Tony's secret identity. A mission that goes wrong forces both of them to confront why.

I Love You to the Moon and Back by muchmoremajestic for mariana_oconnor (MCU, 3k)

After Steve gets attacked in the woods, certain changes start happening.

Happy Birthday to America's ass by njava97 for ralsbecket (MCU, 2.5k)

It's the night before Steve's birthday and something is very wrong.

Magic's in the Moving Portrait by UisceOneLove for neverever (AU, 9.5k)

Without his ma, Steve's lost his ability to make art. In walks new wizarding student Tony Stark, who also happens to be his new roommate. All hope might not be lost just yet for him and his brush.

Reach The Sky by Vento_Lunar for njava97 (MCU, art)

Non-serum Steve Rogers saves the world. (And Tony saves him)

[recurring-polynya]

Tokusatsu Au where Rukia plays the lead actress in a superhero action show. Renji plays one of the villains and they are The most popular ship in the fandom. Bonus points if Orihime plays the main villain and loves every second of it.

This was the very first prompt I got, and I fell in love. Unfortunately, aside from a brief period of being grotesquely fascinated with Power Rangers as teen, I know almost nothing about tokusatsu. I did as much research as I could and I attempted to watch an episode of Kamen Rider, but my eyes glazed over halfway through. Anyway, please forgive my inaccuracies, I wrote this with my heart.

ao3 | ff.net

🏍    ⚡   🎬

“Uh, looks like we’re almost out of time,” the panel moderator for “High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!: A Sneak Peak at Season 5” declared, “but would you be willing to take just a few audience questions?”

Head Screenwriter Kurosaki Ichigo glanced at Leading Actress Kuchiki Rukia out of the corner of his eye, and she gave a tiny nod.

“Yeah, sure!” he replied.

There was already a young woman waiting at the microphone, practically vibrating with anxiety. She was wearing a t-shirt that had ZabiTo4Ever!! handwritten in marker on it. Rukia knew, deep down in her bones, what the question was going to be.

“Hi, yes, hello, big fan of your work! My question is: are Tomoe and Zabimaru going to kiss this season?”

“No,” Rukia started to say.

“As you probably know,” Ichigo said loudly on top of her, “the show holds close to the core plot points of Kuna-sensei’s manga, although, because of her minimalist style, we do expand a lot of the dialogue and filler scenes. She has said in several interviews that High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! is not a romance manga, so the odds of Tomoe and Zabimaru ever kissing on screen are very, very low.”

The young woman stared at Ichigo grumpily. “Does this also count Zabimaru’s secret college student identity, Satonako Takeru?”

Ichigo stared back at her. “Yes. It does.”

The next question came from a person wearing a full suit of HellKnight’s plasma armor made out of overlapping plates of cardboard. Rukia was kind of impressed by it. She wondered if he could sit down.

“Hi, Kurosaki-sensei, I am a huge fan of your work,” a voice emanated from deep within the cardboard. “I was wondering if you are influenced at all by fanworks, and if Episode 73: Pride is on the Line!: The Bake Sale Must Go On! was based in any way on the classic fanfiction, ‘Tell Me All Your Best Lies’? It’s the top story by kudos in the ZabiTo tag, which I might point out is the most popular shipping category on AO3.”

Ichigo cleared his throat gently. “I am contractually not allowed to read fanfiction, although I do enjoy fanart! There are some incredibly talented artists in the fandom, although for some reason, no one ever wants to draw pictures of Lead Screenwriters.”

“I’ll draw you, sleeping on the set like you always do,” Rukia offered, and that got a pretty big laugh. Rukia’s Tumblr of behind-the-scenes doodle comics was beloved among the fandom.

The next question was from a nonbinary person wearing a big poufy skirt and a hairstyle that would make their make-up and hair guru, Yumichika, sit up and take notice. “Hi, this is a question for Kuchiki-san! If the show is going to roughly keep pace with the manga, as it has done up until now, you should be shooting the storyline where Tomoe and Queen Bloodbuzz switch bodies later this year. I was wondering if you could comment on how you feel about filming that storyline?”

Finally! A good one! “Yes!” Rukia nodded eagerly. “I don’t usually like to speak for my fellow cast members, but Orihime and I are beyond excited about playing each other. We’ve been studying each other’s mannerisms and practicing already! Does anyone want to hear my Queen Bloodbuzz cackle?” She wagged her eyebrows as the audience cheered. “Here goes-- bwaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAAHAAAHAAAAAAAA!”

“Bonechilling,” Ichigo commented dryly as the audience erupted.

“Amazing, Kuchiki-san!” the moderator exclaimed. “I think there is time for one more, but this will be the last question!”

A tall girl in a full set of High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe motorcycle leathers stepped to the microphone. She was holding a notebook. “Hello!” she warbled. “In a 2020 interview with the Psychics and Sidekicks podcast, Abarai Renji was asked about his opinion on ZabiTo as a ship, and he replied,” she consulted her notebook, “‘Tomoe is such a cool lady and talented Battle Clairvoyant, and she always follows her heart and stays true to herself. I think that Zabimaru can’t help but be impressed with her, even though they’re enemies, and I always try to roll that into our on-screen interactions.’ I know that in the past you’ve refused to comment on the ship, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on, y’know, his thoughts?”

“Well, he’s correct, of course, Tomoe is very cool and admirable,” Rukia replied, which drew a few laughs, although it seemed like the audience was leaning forward in anticipation of her answer. “Like I said, I don’t like to speak for other cast members. I’ll be doing a big cast panel with Abarai and Inoue and Matsumoto and Ukitake tomorrow afternoon, and I hope you all can make it! See you then!”

The moderator thanked them enthusiastically, and then Ichigo and Rukia slipped out the back guest entrance.

“Evasive as always, Kuchiki,” Ichigo teased.

“Whatever,” Rukia sniffed. “The higher ups say we’re not supposed to comment on stuff like that, and I was not commenting. By the way, how many secret fanfic accounts are you up to? Four?”

“It’s only three!” Ichigo paused. “I wrote that fanfic the guy brought up.”

“Of course you did,” Rukia sighed. “I do blame you personally for the popularity of the damn ship.”

“Me? Blame Kuna for making up two such sexy, emotionally constipated dumbasses!” Ichigo defended.

“Also, it’s not Ichigo’s fault that you and Abarai have insane chemistry.”

Rukia spun around, grinning. “Orihime!”

Rukia’s two co-stars, Inoue Orihime and Abarai Renji, the portrayers of Tomoe’s demonic archnemeses, stood in the hallway behind them.

“We sat in on your panel!” Orihime beamed. “You two were brilliant!”

“Don’t worry,” Renji added. “We were incognito.”

“Incognito” was relative, Rukia supposed, when you were at Tokyo’s biggest tokusatsu

convention.

Orihime was wearing a Zabimaru outfit so detailed that she probably could have won a prize down at the cosplay hall. She had the gravity-defying ponytail, the eyeliner, the insane widow's peak (complete with forehead tatts), the fangs, the motorcycle boots. The paper mache snake skull helmet was a little lopsided, but it was charming. She had her top zipped a little higher than canon, but that was forgivable, too.

Renji had taken the opposite tack of looking as much like a normal person-- or at least a normal Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe superfan-- as possible. Relaxed fit jeans and an oversized hoodie de-emphasized his ultra-fit physique. He was wearing a t-shirt with a very dramatic rendering of Orihime that said “Queen Bloodbuzz can step on me!” and a ball cap with the logo of Seireitei University, the fictional college Tomoe and Takeru attended.

“You think you’re in disguise,” Rukia pointed out, “but there are thousands of teen girls in this place with entire Tumblrs dedicated to your stupid face when you’re out of costume.”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. “You underestimate me, Rukia. I have bought… new sunglasses.” With a flourish, he whipped out a pair of the dorkiest wayfarers she’d ever seen, and flipped them onto his face. “I’ve disappeared! Who am I? Where am I?”

“You look really great, Orihime,” Ichigo said, his cheeks coloring a little bit. “Did you get Uryuu or Yumichika to help you with that costume?” In his continuing theme of doing things he wasn’t supposed to, Ichigo had finally started dating Orihime on the downlow around the time they finished up filming last season. It had done absolutely nothing for how shy he still got around her. They were, in Rukia’s opinion, cute as hell.

“Oh, no, that would be cheating!” Orihime replied, wagging a finger at him. “Well…maybe I did cheat, just a tiny bit. Renji helped me make the helmet and he held up references for me while I was painting on the tattoos.”

“Only the forehead ones,” Renji quickly added.

“He wouldn’t even offer feedback on my booby tattoos!” Orihime frowned. She leaned forward. “Rukia, how do they look?”

Ichigo turned even redder.

“Perfect, as in all you do!” Rukia replied loftily.

“What’s everyone got coming up next?” Renji asked. “I was thinking of slipping out and trying to pick up some real coffee.”

“I’m judging a villainess-themed cosplay competition,” Orihime chirped. “But I’m dying for a blueberry caramel iced latte. Renji, my henchman, pleeeeease!”

“Of course, my liege,” Renji replied in his Zabimaru voice.

It’s not like it had been a hard decision to accept the role of the motorcycle-riding, badass heroine of one of the most popular manga of the last decade, but it had turned out to be one of the best decisions of Rukia’s life. not just her career. Aside from a few of the money-obsessed executives, she liked nearly everyone in the cast and crew, but the fact that the fact that the ruthless, homicidal, literally Hell-spawned villains of the show were played by the two sweetest marshmallow people she had ever met just took the cake. Renji and Orihime had already known each other from some voicework they had done previously, and their excitement at working together on a live-action project had infected the entire cast from the start. Rukia wasn’t sure, but she strongly suspected that Renji was the one who had hyped Orihime up to ask Ichigo out.

“I have a writers’ workshop I’m moderating this afternoon, and I wanted to review the writing samples people sent in,” Ichigo said, scratching the back of his head. “I’d love to stop by that cosplay contest, though, at least for a few minutes.”

“You’ll be needing caffeine, too, then, eh?” Renji offered. “Hot, black, and in the largest cup they make, as usual?”

“Ugh, you’re the best,” Ichigo groaned. “You wanna power-up this season? Costume update? You know what? Maybe I’ll just have you defeat Tomoe once and for all, no one likes her anyway.”

“C’mon, you know I’m the world’s number one Tomoe simp, don’t do that!” Renji laughed.

Rukia rolled her eyes. “I’m free and I could use some fresh air. Besides, it’s going to take all your dumb muscles just to carry Kurosaki’s vat of coffee back here.”

“Cool!” Renji proclaimed. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Thanks, Renjiiiii!” Orihime waved.

“You need to stop off and put on a disguise?” Renji asked.

“No point in it, I always get recognized,” Rukia sighed, pulling her sunglasses out of her purse anyway.

“Here,” Renji said, plunking his hat on her head. “Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks,” Rukia replied, and then did a double take. “Whaaaaaat is on your head?”

“Shut up!” Renji laughed. He usually shaved his head when they were filming, because it made it easier to deal with the make-up and wigs, but since they were between seasons, he’d grown his hair out into a short, tousled mop of reddish-brown waves. He looked, for the lack of a better word, dreamy. “I shot a movie over the summer, and they wanted me to look softer.”

Rukia looked at him over the top of her sunglasses. “You didn’t tell me you were doing a movie!”

“Oh, it was just a little indy romcom thing. I wasn’t sure it was gonna pan out, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“You were in a romcom? You’re kidding me!” They ducked out of a side door of the convention center into the bright sunshine.

“Yeah, it’s about a guy who goes to the gym to try to get ripped to impress a girl, and makes friends with me, this nice, already ripped dude who gives him lifting tips and encourages him a bunch. By the end of the movie, it turns out we have crushes on each other.”

“Oh, no, that sounds really cute, actually!”

“It was written by a woman who graduated from one of Ichigo’s writing workshops. The script was really snappy and Ichigo thought having someone like me as the gym guy would give it just a bit of campy cachet. You know what a good sense he’s got for stuff like that.”

“That was cool of you to go out on a limb a little,” Rukia replied.

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d been wanting to try something like that for a while, actually.”

Rukia blinked. “You aren’t… you aren’t thinking of leaving the show, are you?”

“Huh? No. No! No, the show means the world to me, I would never. But… it’s not gonna run forever, y’know?”

“I would have guessed you’d want to be a big action star or something!” Rukia said, throwing a few air punches. “That’s my dream!”

Renji stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah, that’s what I thought I wanted when I first got into acting. I’d read the Tomoe manga, and I thought playing Zabimaru would be a good jumping-off point, besides just being a cool character overall.”

“Is that… not true?” Rukia frowned.

“Oh, I mean, I guess so! I didn’t really know about the fandom, though and… to be honest, I’m kinda into the idea that there are all these fans who think I’m complex and redeemable?”

Rukia regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “They just want to fix you.”

“Maybe! Ichigo made me read this one fanfic that was eight thousand words of the reader getting sick and Zabimaru making them soup? And feeding them the soup? I still haven’t decided how I feel about it.”

“How does he have time to find these things? Does he even sleep?”

“Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to be well-rounded and it was fun. I’m still mostly an action guy, but I wouldn’t mind doin’ something with a romantic subplot. A period drama or something like that. I look pretty good in hakama, you know.”

“I bet you do,” Rukia laughed. She squinted at him, but his expression was unreadable behind the shades. Renji didn’t have the classic leading man looks, not like her ridiculously famous older brother, but she could definitely see him as the best friend, the B-plot romance, with his cute, messy hair and that big doofy grin.

“By the way, I’m sorry you had to field that question about me spilling my romantic sensibilities on that podcast.”

Rukia laughed. “You didn’t even answer the question, either! These people are relentless!”

Renji stopped at a street corner and peered down the various possible directions they could go. “Which way feels like it might have a coffee shop?”

“You didn’t have one in mind before we left? I thought you knew where we were going!”

“Nah, I just like to go out and see what there is.”

“I can look up a map,” Rukia said, reaching in her bag for her phone.

“Let’s just go this way,” Renji said, stepping out into the street in the direction that had the WALK light. Rukia sighed and had to scramble to catch up with him.

“So, what do you think about it?”

“Huh?” Rukia asked. “Think about what?”

“Our ship. ZabiTo.”

“I can’t believe you just said that word out loud. And you know we’re not supposed to give our opinion on it!”

“Aw, c’mon, we’re not supposed to give public statements on our opinions. I don’t think there’s any harm in talking between ourselves. We’re in disguise, even.”

“‘Disguise’,” Rukia sniffed.

“You don’t like it, I can tell.”

“He’s a bad guy! Everyone always talks about chemistry, and that may be true, but I just don’t think that Tomoe could ever get over his acts of violence and cruelty.”

“Queen Bloodbuzz is cruel. Zabimaru is not cruel.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but still. He’s kidnapped just about all of Tomoe’s friends and or turned them into monsters at one time or another. He’s always setting Karakura Town on fire or flooding it with magic lizard goo. He ruined the sports festival.”

“Maybe the sports festival deserved to be ruined,” Renji muttered under his breath.

“Okay, you’ve got a point on that one,” Rukia admitted.

“It’s really clear though, that he’s got some agenda beyond just simping for Queen Bloodbuzz--”

“The simping for Queen Bloodbuzz is the most relatable thing about him, to be honest.”

“Granted. But, what if he’s got a good reason for everything he does, actually? What if he’s doing all of this against his own moral code as a means of infiltrating Hell itself and getting himself into a position of trust so that he can bring down the Lords of Hell from the inside?”

Rukia slipped her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Does Kuna give you Zabimaru spoilers?” The reclusive creator High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! was only barely involved with the television show, but she did privately meet with each of the cast members about once a year. Most of Rukia’s meetings consisted of Kuna giving her constructive criticism on her battle poses.

“No, mostly we practice sneering,” Renji replied. “But I gotta play the guy, so I gotta think about this, you know, what motivates him? I mean, you’re probably right, it would never work out. But unlike Tomoe, whose principles would call for her to ignore any attraction she has to him, Zabimaru has the freedom to pine for her, perhaps because his love is futile and he doesn’t think he deserves it anyway.”

“That’s kinda dark, dude,” Rukia frowned.

“Yes, well, that is the kind of character acting that netted me the 2019 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Best Villain Award, Foreign Language Category.”

“That’s literally what’s going through your head when you’re shouting that if I can’t make some sick motorcycle jump, you’ll turn all my friends into stuffed animal versions of themselves?”

“No, of course not! At those times I’m thinking about how much I love my job. OH! and what is that I see!” Renji struck an extremely Zabimaru pose. “A MISTER DONUT!”

“My hero!” Rukia exclaimed, unable to resist an opportunity to shout dramatically. “I’m sorry I doubted you!”

“I think we should get some donuts, too. Orihime loves donuts,” Renji declared.

“Oh, for sure,” Rukia agreed. She was thoughtful for a moment. It would be easy to move on to a different subject, the subject being donuts, but she wasn’t happy with leaving the last conversation hanging. “Look, Renji, just because I don’t like the dumb ship, you know that’s not a reflection on you, right?”

“Huh?” Renji replied. “You mean you don’t mind if I like it?”

“Well… I mean, I don’t, I guess, but what I really meant was, er… we joke a lot, but Tomoe and Zabimaru are just parts, y’know? Just because I don’t think Zabimaru isn’t good boyfriend material doesn’t mean I…” Rukia trailed off, suddenly realizing what she was saying. “Um. What I mean is. You’re very nice and probably one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with and if someone I knew wanted to ask you out, I would definitely encourage them to, A+ guy, I’d say, probably would make a great boyfriend.”

Renji pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead and regarded her for a long moment. “For the record, Kuchiki, I think that both you and Tomoe would make excellent girlfriend material.” While Rukia stood there and gaped like a fish, he turned and pushed open the door to the coffee shop. “Ichigo likes crullers and Orihime always wants the most colorful thing they’ve got. Do you know what you want?”

“I need to think about it,” Rukia squeaked. She wasn’t talking about donuts.

🏍    ⚡   🎬 

Bonus: Here are my notes from when I was making up the show. I hope this wasn’t too confusing!

High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!

based on a manga by reclusive mangaka Kuna Mashiro

Head Screenwriter: Kurosaki Ichigo

🌟 Starring: 🌟

Kuchiki Rukia as Yukimura Tomoe, a spunky college student who can see ghosts and fights demons from Hell! She rides a motorcycle!

Inoue Orihime as Queen Bloodbuzz, a Lady of Hell, who seeks to gather energy from the Living Realm so that she can become the Supreme Ruler of Hell. Very aesthetic. Much bees.

Abarai Renji as Zabimaru, Queen Bloodbuzz’s ruthless henchman. He leads a double life as fierce-looking, but gentle-hearted college student Satonaka Takeru! What is his long game??

[imagine-turtles]

Ggggnhgfjdhdjdjdjd ok new request bro, how about the boys receiving anonymous appreciation letters (like little encouraging or praising words, or just things like "I hope you know how much I appreciate you and everything you do for me" etc) like once a week or something, and they dont know who it's from but one day they recognize its their crush's handwriting? How would they feel about the anonymous letters? Would they want to write back even if they dont know who it's from? Would they be suspicious? And how would they react to discovering who wrote them?

Bayverse ‘cause I make the rules. (KIDDING, let me know if you’re looking for another era.)

Leonardo isn’t clueless about his secret admirer’s identity for long; his family only knows a handful of people, and only a few out of those people know him well enough to target his ego so accurately.

Unfortunately, he starts overthinking the whole thing.  Why are they doing this?  Why not just talk to him directly?  Does he seem unapproachable?  Are they messing with him, knowing it could never work out?  Splinter and April bear the full brunt of Leonardo’s near-obsessive need to deduce their exact intentions, not that April minds--all she does is uhuh and mhm and maybe they just like you, doofus.  She may even tip off the “anonymous” writer to let them know that their super cute idea is inadvertently stressing the recipient out.

Once the situation is put to rest, Leonardo’s thrilled to have his crush’s support, but he’d honestly rather be talking face to face than through notes.  It’s faster, easier, and looking at them when they speak kills most of his anxiety about where he stands.

~~~

Raphael thinks most writing looks pretty much the same--the only exception being April’s tendency to write everything huge, in all caps--so he has no idea who keeps leaving him letters.  Touchy-feely, deadly accurate, borderline romantic letters, that he stashes more carefully than anything else he owns.  He may as well be hiding nuclear launch codes.  Logically, he knows it’d be safer to just read and destroy, but he can’t bear to part with a single one.  Not even the goofy little post-its.

The decision of whether or not to write back plagues Raphael for weeks.  He wants so badly for his crush to be the one leaving him the notes, he’s almost content not knowing instead of considering someone else.  And what if he writes back, but they’re disappointed by what he writes?  What if he never gets another letter?  The rest of the family notes his new moodiness, but he’d sooner relinquish the top bunk than open up to one of them about it.

Even when Raphael realizes who he’s been writing, he doesn’t ever really stop.  Sending letters back and forth becomes a pastime never acknowledged out loud, a way for him to voice exactly what he’s feeling without having to justify himself.  Besides, isn’t it just horribly, decadently romantic?

~~~

Like Leonardo, Donatello would probably identify the handwriting fairly quickly.  This isn’t just due to their limited social circle, either; he verifies his hunch with some forensic handwriting recognition software he “borrowed” from the NYPD to be double sure, and checks the security cams to be triple sure.

(He weakly reasons that it’s not creepy to check the cameras in your own house, and he did tell them that nearly every inch of the lair is recorded.)

Donatello isn’t quite sure if his crush is shy, messing with him, or just thinks he needs cheering up, but he’s willing to play their game and find out.  Rather than leaving them physical notes, he starts sending them little gifts.  Sometimes they’re useful, sometimes they’re just snacks or trinkets, but they’re always accompanied by a brief note.  The exchanges between he and his crush turn into a sort of disjointed conversation between them, occasionally bleeding into their in-person interactions by picking up where they left off.  No one else tries to follow exactly what they’re talking about anymore.

~~~

Michelangelo needs to know who’s sending him gooey notes or he will simply pass away.  Unlike his brothers, he’s not only happy to share, he keeps everyone updated with a running commentary.  Yes, his family is happy for him, but they really, really don’t need a play-by-play analysis every single time he receives so much as a “great job” post-it.  

Mikey makes it his mission to reply to every single one, placing it exactly where he found the previous message in the hopes that his pen pal sees it.  It briefly occurs to him that anyone else could also read the notes, but hey, it’s not like he’s trying to be sneaky.  His brothers have no desire to further involve themselves, and he begs Leonardo to proofread them anyways.  He’d shout his feelings from the tippy-top of the nearest radio tower if it would earn him more mysterious attention.

It honestly doesn’t take Michelangelo too long to figure out his ~secret pen pal~ is the person he was hoping it was.  Which is great!  Better than great!  Now he can start leaving them notes too--but not just notes.  He takes it upon himself to “redecorate” an overpass into a mural for his crush, smack dab in the middle of their usual commute.

[cruciatusforeplay]

Do you know of a comprehensive list of Hawkeye appearances in the comics, with summaries?

So when I first saw this ask I thought "a comprehensive list of Hawkeye? With summaries? That is absolutely madness, who would have done that?"

I had a quick glance at Marvel Unlimited and found there was over 500 issues listed under Hawkeye (and that's not considering his time spent under other names, or alternative universes, or Kate Bishop doing her thing) and confirmed to myself that a comprehensive list would indeed be completely unmanageable. So obviously I decided to give it a go.

I absolutely cannot give you an entire rundown, because ya boy's been busy, but I can try to give you a little bit of an overview. (Head's up, I said "little" but that was a lie. This is a BIG post and I'm hoping it might give you some key points for Clint's comic career and his background which will hopefully be useful for figuring out which comics to read or anyone writing canon-based fanfic)

A not-so-brief history of Hawkeye in Comics (spoilers below the cut)

First appearance: Tales of Suspense #57 (1964)

We run into Clint working at Carson's Carnival, where he is being underappreciated by the audience and very unhappy about it. He's a proactive lad, so he makes himself a new costume and arrows to be utterly unforgettable. He accidentally gets himself implicated in a crime and meets the Black Widow. They become allies and he uses trick arrows and nearly manages to take out Iron Man, but must abandon his plans to save Black Widow from a blast of his own arrow. He kicks off as an enemy to Stark basically. There is also a bunch of Iron Man shenanigans happening here and it's a fun read.

He sticks around as a villain for two more issues in Tales of Suspense #60 and #64 (1964 and 1965).

First appearance as an Avenger: Avengers #16 (1965)

Clint shows up about halfway through and has determined that he'd like to be an Avenger instead now, thanks. He tells them a little about his doomed love with Nat and how she paid the price and they decide they're on board. He is introduced to the press. There's a bunch of other Avenger member swapping around in this issue (and if you want the most of it, you should start with issue 15 because it's a direct follow up story wise)

He's a key member of the Avengers from hereon in and features in most issues. He spends his time shooting arrows and having problems with authority (particularly Cap)

Key background: Avengers #19 (1965)

This issue gives us a bunch of background on Clint. The Swordsman shows up wanting to be an Avenger (because he wants an Avengers ID - yes really). Clint objects and we find out Clint's an orphan and that the Swordsman took him in and trained him at Carson's Carnival. Clint then caught him stealing from the circus and they fight where he leaves Clint for dead. It's a big old betrayal. The Swordsman then spends the rest of comic kidnapping and trying to kill Cap, so all round that's a no on the Avengers ID.

Hawkeye quits the Avengers: Avengers #109 (1973)

Hawkeye doesn't like that Scarlet Witch and Vision are in a relationship, and essentially he plays the jealous jilted lover who throws a tantrum (door slamming included). He quits the Avengers, immediately realises he didn't actually love Wanda after all. He spends his fresh downtime teaching The Champion archery, who then promptly betrays him. The Avengers come to the rescue.

His involvement in the Avengers is spotty over the next decade.

Hawkeye gets Hitched: Hawkeye #1-4 (1983)

This is Clint's first solo run. It's important for two reasons. He meets Mockingbird who he marries by the end of the run, in what can be described as an enemies to lovers speed-run. This is also the series where Clint is originally deafened; he has to make a sacrifice play with one of his own sonic arrows which is how he ends up deafened. There are some other classic Clint moments: he starts the run by getting dumped, he rides on the skycycle/sky-sled and he ends up with his outfit getting mostly ripped off more than once. We also get some background about him and his brother Barney running from the orphanage to join circus, how Barney got him to hospital after the incident with the Swordsman, and we find out that Clint didn't speak to his brother for years and that he's dead now. Honestly this run is great fun and I have a big soft spot for it.

The West Coast Avengers: West Coast Avengers #1-4 (1984)

Clint helps found and then leads the West Coast Avengers with his wife Mockingbird. This is another mini series, but it led to a much longer run starting the following year that ended in 1994. Real talk: I've only skimmed this iteration of WCA but what I've seen is campy fun, the skycycle is back, Clint really settles into being a leader and the sun is always shining. Special shout out to Tigra who is a bad-ass in this mini series. During the longer run, Clint and Bobbi's marriage is put through the ringer amongst other things, and they eventually separate. Truthfully there is a lot of other stuff going on regarding their relationship in that run and onwards. If their marriage is something you want to know more about I recommend checking out the full summary listed at the back of Hawkeye and Mockingbird #1 (2010) - it starts on page 22 of that issue - be aware it contains major spoilers for later stories.

Key background: Solo Avengers #1-5 (1987)

We get to meet Clint's other circus mentor here: Trickshot aka Buck Chisholm. You'll be shocked to hear that Clint gets betrayed. We kick things off with some circus shenanigans where his charity performance/showing off opportunity is interrupted by mercs sent to kill him, by Trickshot wanting to settle a debt. The second issue presents us with a lengthy flashback where we find out Hawkeye's dirty secret: it wasn't actually the Swordsman who taught him archery, but instead an actual archer called Trickshot. We see Clint get trained up only to be immediately pushed into a life of crime where he ends up shooting his own brother. Buck then shoots Clint when Clint wants to take his brother Barney to hospital. Trickshot is shown to have an unsavoury taste for killing for pleasure and promises to kill Clint when he's got something to lose. In addition we also get some flashbacks to Clint's abusive home situation and his time in care before joining the circus. The next two issues cover a side story that honestly doesn't lead anywhere or get resolved by the end of the run. Issue #5 (which is the first of this run available on Marvel Unlimited if that's how you're reading) then brings you into the real action. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Clint spends this entire issue in only his undershorts. There's some fun archer Vs archer antics, before an emotional reveal where Trickshot begs Hawkeye to end his life because he has cancer and doesn't want a slow death. Trick has a cry, Clint refuses to kill him and instead they have a comforting cuddle on a beach under a sunset. It's an unusual run, but Trickshot will show up again later in Clint's arc, and it's got a lot of fun quips and action sequences.

Quick note on the 90s

In my opinion, the 90s weren't real good to Clint. He had a couple of solo runs, but imo nothing with major substance, or character development so I'm skipping them. If you want to know what you're missing check out Hawkeye #1-4 (1994) aka Clint broods in Canada and there are wolves, and Hawkeye: World's Mightiest Marksman #1 (1998) aka Clint is stubborn and goes head to head with Taskmaster.

Key background: Hawkeye #1-6 (2003)

This series, which has Clint travelling on a motorcycle in order to find the best chilli and sporting some 90s boyband hair, also gives us some really great insight into his and Barney's relationship. We get snapshots in amongst the rest of the story of Barney being the moral compass for Clint. We see Barney getting his GED while Clint works on archery, and later we see Buck encouraging Clint into crime and Barney telling him it's wrong. We get another retelling of the Swordsman story, this time with both Buck and Barney coming to rescue Clint. While Clint's broken leg is healing, Barney tells him he's joining the army and Clint should come with. Clint says no, then changes his mind, but ends up missing the bus. We again see Clint on a job with Buck where he shoots a guard only to realise it's Barney, and is subsequently shot by Trickshot for wanting to help Barney. They both make it to hospital. Clint asks what happened and Barney tells him "guess you are what you are." Years later we see Clint at Barney's grave and are informed that he was involved with the mob. Clint is upset, only to then be informed Barney was actually working undercover for the FBI. These snapshots are my favourite part of the entire series. The rest of the series focuses on Clint doing some detective style work and shooting arrows. If this is the first run you've checked out since the WCA or Solo Avengers runs, you'll note this is very different in both art and story style. There was a definite shift in the 90s that brought us closer to the style we have today.

Clint doesn't have any solo runs for a while, but he is involved in a bunch of bigger stories which we'll take look at in part two of this post.

The MCU push and key background

In the lead up to the movie premiere of Avengers Assemble (2012), Marvel produced a lot of content for the Big Six as promo to their preexisting market. Hawkeye and Mockingbird #1-6 (2010), Widow maker #1-4 (2010) and Hawkeye Blindspot #1-4 (2011) follow on directly from one another, though you could read any of them independently and the first two are less about Clint. Avengers Solo #1-5 (2011) also featured during this time. All but Blindspot are simple action comics without any lasting impact for Hawkeye. Blindspot has a pretty comprehensive rundown on Clint's history including his abusive dad, the circus, the Swordsman, Trickshot, his relationship with Cap and the Avengers, him becoming Goliath and some very important information regarding his brother and their relationship, all woven into a well paced plot. Additionally, he's going blind. There is a lot of story in these four issues. It also provides the foundation on which Fraction set his run, so it's a good story for anyone who had any unanswered questions regarding the start point for Hawkeye (2012).

The Fraction/Aja Run: Hawkeye #1-21 (2012)

This is the big one. Either you're here because you've read it and now you love this idiot, or you want to start reading Hawkeye. This is where you start. I'm not gonna summarise this one because everyone deserves to read it without spoilers. But I'll say this: this is Clint when he's not being an Avenger. He's messy and relatable and he loves dogs. This is a character defining run and it is one of my all time favourite comics. There is so much good stuff in here and I could talk for hours about it. Go forth and feast your eyes.

If I've missed anything major, or listed something incorrectly or you just have some Clint related opinions that I need to know about, do hit me up.

I've run out of images, so this post will continue in part 2 which you can read here.