#ive been begging for this since 2012

[macleod]

Tumblr just gave me this notification :

For my post that has 1.6 million notes. We are reaching internet explorer levels of delay here.

[just-rogi]

This is such a silly little thing but my bestie is fully a millennial (‘95) and I’m solidly gen z (‘02) and it’s actually really wonderful having someone slightly older in my life to make adulthood less insurmountable (ok actually I have like four millennial girl besties who’s friend group I stumbled into a few years ago and ngl I’m kinda loving this big sister thing they all decided to do)

And occasionally we will have VERY clear generational gaps and it’s so fun because a big one is that SHE knew Taylor Swift back when she was a country artist but intentionally did not listen to a single thing she put out since 2012 when she was going through her teenage “not like other girls” phase, but I was primed to be the perfect age for listening to t swift in my bedroom and hanging posters on my walls.

Well she’s been getting into listening to all her old music since folklore but she FULL STOP refuses to listen to any of her stolen work, she wants to experience it for the first time when the Taylor’s Versions come out. (Even though ive BEGGED her to listen to NYD for three years bc it’s her best song )

So we went to see the eras tour movie last Friday and ngl it healed part of my heart to be unashamedly going to the movies and getting popcorn and laughing and whispering to my friend the whole time because I never got that growing up. And I got to lean over to her and tell her facts about the albums and she’d ask me who each song was about as she sang it, and when 22 started she yelled “oh my god you aren’t even twenty two yet!!”

But when Reputation came on she froze. Like full stop her brain short circuited- she got SO excited and started cheering and asking me if Taylor had a whole pop/rock angry album!! She had literally never known about rep and was STARING at the screen the whole time saying that THIS is her new favorite album, I GET TO LISTEN TO REP FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH MY MILLENNIAL BEST FRIEND WHO MISSED OUT ON TAYLOR THE FIRST TIME AROUND!! I GET TO EXPERIENCE THAT WITH HER!!

[rogue-of-light]

bro i remember getting into mcyt for a friend bc they kept begging me too- and then they told me i couldnt kin one of the characters because their other friend (who i didnt even know) already kinned that one 💀 my dark 2020 past (j) -KPA

LKAJFASJ

ive been into mcyt since like... fuck uhhh...

2013!! Well, okay maybe 2012 but i know 2013 was the latest i got into the fandom!

[moonjxsung]

hi hi angel!!! how are you?

it’s been sorta insane for me in the worst way (things are kinda better rn). long story short, i have two classes with the same professor and we had the final project (that i clutched super insanely and got a 98!! yay we love that) but i don’t have the best grades in the other class. so the thing is that since i don’t have the best grade in that one i obsessively check for her feedback on assignments and to see if there’s new assignments posted. and i randomly check yesterday and there’s two assignments that i had never seen (but she mentioned them at the start of the semester). i click on them and the assignments were overdue by like 2 months and i start having a full blown panic attack in the class. and i wait for it to finish and i ask to talk to her and i literally start bawling bc i thought that i hadn’t sent them. and she’s just like “take a breath, don’t worry, nobody sent them. idk what happened to the platform but it seems that they were never visible to anyone.” so yeah, i had a panic attack for nothing. but i told her about how overwhelmed and anxious ive been and that im back on pills and it’s been super hard too. and, she’s very strict but she was very nice about it and told me that she was always there if i needed to talk. and reassured that i wasn’t failing.

so yeah, i need my emotional support barbie/bratz too!! let’s make them happen. i looooove barbie and bratz movies soooo much but i hadn’t found anywhere to watch them until now :((( but i shall continue this weekend!!

for my mom’s bday we ate mofongo! idk if you’ve ever tried it but it’s soooo yum.

ateez, skz and shinee comebacks are literally insane, neither my wallet or my mental health can process it. i’m so excited!!!

tattoo update: im getting it done on monday!! i’m so excited!! i rlly want a piercing too but i rlly rlly want a skzoo </3

the fact that you’ve been having shinee dreams is sooo slay!! i’ve only had one shinee dream ever and it was literally the day i first saw the ring ding dong video like in 2012. (i beg you my unconscious or wherever dreams come from, give me some minho dreams🙏🏻). and im still soooo traumatized from my hyunjin dream, i will never be able to take a nude without thinking about that </3.

(i almost forgottt!!! i had never read the tv girl felix fic!! i’ve been getting into tv girl lately bc i saw that you really liked them and i love every playlist you’ve done for your fics so i trust ur judgment. anyways, not allowed felix is my new roman empire <3)

i missed u bb! i had two frozen mochas in ur honor with my classmates <3 i hope you’re well! and that ur weekend goes sooo well and that you can give everyone hickeys <3

-🐈‍⬛

Hi baby!!!!!!! I’m so sorry to hear this week has been so stressful :((

I’m so glad your professor was so understanding about it! I looooove when professors take the time to hear you out and give you a second chance at doing an assignment. I had something really similar happen in my freshman year of college where we had these textbook quizzes that were optional, but you had to at least open it to get credit and I didn’t know they had due dates bc they were optional so I realized like halfway through the semester I was missing a good HALF of them and I cried my eyes out so hard when I found out. I talked to my professor and she was super understanding about it because I’d gotten good grades on her tests so far and I never skipped any lectures so she reopened all the assignments for me and let me resubmit them 🥹 like all it takes it some communication!! Thankful for good professors and especially ones who understand when you’re going through a rough time. I hope things get easier and I’m always here for you if you need anything at all bby 🫶💘💓💗

I’m planning on bedrotting all weekend so catch me watching bratz & Barbie movies too LMAO I need to heal my inner child 🧘‍♀️🕯️🕯️🕯️

I have never heard of mofongo but I just looked it up and it looks AMAZINGGGG oh my god I need to try it so bad

PLEASE I need to be saving so badly I am NAWTTTT ready for skz/shinee/Ateez comebacks at all!!!! I want to go to 2 cities for Ateez if I can but the prices are so much higher than I thought they would be so I think I might just try for VIP in my city and hopefully get send-off! I need to be face to face with Yeosang at least once in my life 😔🫶

SOOOOOO EXCITED FOR YOUR TATTOOOOOO BABY AHHHHHH I CANT WAIT TO SEE IT !!

Onew dreams fulfill me so much I swear I wake up with the biggest wave of SADNESSSS bc I’m so sad we’re not married irl 💔💔 he also smells vvvv good I love him so much

PLEASE not allowed Felix fic is making its rounds again since I linked it to that anon and I still hate it just as much as I used to lfmfnkdemdnmsjjfjf it’s coming up on its year anniversary so I won’t shit on it tooooo much since it was the start of this blog (but realistically WTRS was the start) but oh goddd I hate it 😭 still love TV girl tho TV GIRL MY BELOVEDDDD 😔🫶🫶🫶🫶

I missed you so much bby I’m gonna have some good coffee tomorrow in your honor and bring a cute pc!!!! Have the bestest rest of your week I love you so so so much 🫶💓💖💞💘💗💕💓👼

[skysmadness]

Happy Dirk art is a rare blessing; thank you for the hims

you are very very welcome my boy deserves to take a big breath once in a while

[lezarus]

*in the tone of a starved Victorian boy begging for morsels on the street* can i hear your defense of twist and shout please madam

rly quick disclaimer that if the reason u dislike t&s is that ur uncomfortable with like not super sensitive depictions of the aids crisis/ptsd/the vietnam war for personal reasons i think thats like completely fair and im not trying to make anyone feel bad for that

THAT BEING SAID twist and shout is like genuinely the best fic ever written.

first off. if u werent there u dont know. im not trying to gatekeep but genuinely if u werent in the fandom in like 2012-14 its impossible to state the impact that twist and shout had on destiel fans in those years. theres a REASON misha used cant help falling in love with you as the song on his cas pride post bc twist and shout changed the GAME.

it has some of the most memorable lines ive ever read in a fic ‘thats my baby you don’t understand thats my baby’ ‘HES SIN CASTIEL’ ‘throw me on the street ill still let him fuck me’ im not even looking these up i literally just remember them off the top of my head.

but thats like kind of surface level stuff the thing that makes me love this fic so much. the thing that makes me go back to it time and time again is that its achingly, painfully sincere. its REAL. blah blah blah twist and shout is cringe twist and shout is a genuinely touching and emotional story abt the transformative, devotional power of love told without a trace of irony. its the kind of story that can ONLY be written by teenagers abt some guys from a cw show bc only teenagers care abt something with the fierceness and sincerity u get when u fall in love for the first time. i love twist and shout bc i rly feel when i read it like im being taken back to how it felt to be 14 and care abt stuff so intensely u couldnt eat or sleep. its a story that has stayed with me a decade after i read it for the first time and itll stay with me for many more years. twist and shout is GOOD die mad abt it

and look if ur out here in 2022 blogging abt supernatural but u think ur too smart and better than twist and shout then like u need to both learn to reconnect with ur teenage self and also grow up. ur embarrassing

also just as a final note twist and shout had the most kudos on ao3 of ANY destiel fic. and t&s has only been on ao3 since 2014 and i KNOW it was uploaded elsewhere before bc i specifically have a video saved to my phone that i sent to my friends in 2012 of me sobbing after finishing reading it on fanfiction.net. the second fic down has 17,000 less kudos. twist and shout girls stay winning

[taylorswiftstylequestions]

Do you think the lyrics in ATW10 are the actual lyrics she had written when she made the album in 2012 or that she’s rewritten some the newer lyrics for this version? Ive seen some original lyrics from the lover books and those lines are aren’t in the new ATW nor are any of the official 10 minute lyrics teased in the lover books. I wonder if they were real or if she just wrote new ones to make the 10 minute version since she mentioned it once a few years back and ever since everyone begged her for it, especially on red tv.

There are indeed some lyrics revealed from the Lover booklets that still didn't make it to the final (10 Minute Version) on RED (TV). The most notable I think being, "There we are again when you blew the candle out. Took this blazing love, steered it right into the ground."

And for whatever reason people in this fandom can never be happy or satisfied, so a topic of discussion has been trying to ascertain the provenance of the new lyrics and questioning if they're "really" from 2012. Instead of being happy we got a 10 minute masterpiece version of a song we'd been begging her for for years.

Truthfully, I think the answer is both. I'm sure a lot of the lyrics we hear in the 10MV were indeed part of the early drafting phases of the song and I'm also sure she probably tweaked or edited them to feel more appropriate or cleaner or to reflect choices she would make now as a songwriter. And as owner and creator of her art, that's her right to do.

We've seen her do this on "That's When" (Taylor's Version) as the original demo lyrics/tenses/subject speaking differs in a few places.

[flameontheotherside]

Erik's Mom

🤔 Hmmm...Never really given her much thought recently until now. I've sent a couple emails to her (she responded) and spoke with her on one of the podcasts. I believe the 7/20/2017 episode. It was kind of weird because the "intuitive" with her didn't say a damn word to me or answer my question about my ex bf's cat. Eriks mom talked to me about it and she turned out to be wrong about the reason he wasn't using the litter box 😂. Completely wrong. Fiber? No lol he had kidney stones. Not sure why the intuitive fell completely silent but I have one theory.

I'm a little torn between being greatful and being judgemental about her. 1) I don't think it's cool to capitalize on his suicide but then 2) If she didn't have her YouTube account I probably wouldn't have met him. It was someone from the Facebook group that urged me to talk to him which long story short started this journey.

It was around the time I started this blog maybe 3 months after I met Erik and he told me I was his twin soul; I was a mix of a scared, excited and curious because I didn't know much about twin souls and for years has no interest. Of course I did my due diligence while talking to him in the beginning and practiced protection rituals...Still do!

I wrote a letter to Erik's Guardian Angels in 2007.

Coincidentally on his birthday Sept 21st. You can find the handwritten letter on the blog through the tags or on my table of contents. I asked that they would help him find me in any way necessary. Now me being intuitive I have been plagued with the anxiety of finding someone I didn't know but knew what he'd look like (roughly) and that he didn't live in the same state.

Frustrated in 2009 I asked a well-known psychic on a podcast show about him. He told me in so many words he would die. I didn't know when but my gut feelings was saying soon. Afterwards I was stunned and cried for hours begging it not be true. Then winter 2009 I just knew he was gone. My health spiralled out of control in grief I didn't understand. I started to feel him, a rose flew off my windowsill next to my bed and landed at my door, I got the sense when I was scared I was cuddling with someone taller than me, and he started to appear in my dreams. I always knew him by his curly blond\brown hair. I met with him often around bodies of water.

Around 2010 or 11 I became interested in channelings.

Bashar mostly. So I tried to get into spiritual stuff because of the paranormal things happening to me. To fend off my troublesome intuition I drank a lot and partied a lot. I didn't want to admit to myself that the psychic was right and this guy I was starting to fall in love with was him.

In the same year I almost bought a motorized bike (I chickend out) and instead bought my first guitar. It wasn't until 2015 that I got my bass and began playing that as my main instrument. I just never felt like I was alone when I played. Learned about 10 songs in one month. I really got into it. Since then I've got 3 basses including a 5 string one.

I let Erik go in 2012

Left the spiritual stuff behind too. Figured there wasn't a point to any of it if he was dead. I wanted to move on with my life and just forget him. It was easy because I had a new job and a new boyfriend. For a few years I thought I was on my way to living a normal life. My intuition wasn't bothering me because I was unmedicated.

Before you get your panties in a twist, for me, in order to concentrate and accept the feelings I get intuitively, I need a clear head. Without my meds I'm in a fog, more anxiety, Tourrets acts up more, and concentration is just impossible. Ive been on several combinations at very varying doses. If the medication is right, I'm able to tune in. Funny, I didn't need meds until Erik died. When I was without meds due to lack of insurance, I could not communicate or feel a thing. So when I let Erik go, I also stopped taking my meds. The dreams still happened though.

Reflecting on the above I have mixed feelings.

I'm going to be a little self-righteous by saying I couldn't even dream of cashing in on my experiences. It's not cool to me. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I was exploiting a dead person like that. All I'm doing here is sharing my story or my side of his story wether people like it or not. I don't give a flying fuck-shit about how people feel about my blog. At least I'm not making money off it.

All I want to do is help people and I have. These people have become my friends and support system. I'm helping the planet by publishing my posts for the whole world to see. It's actually kind of terrifying! I'm a private person and hardly use social media. My anxiety was at it's worst when I began this blog. It's gotten better but it doesn't mean I don't panic when I write something new. I guess that's why writing the book is so difficult.

Again, at the same time...without her, I probably wouldn't have found him.

😘💕 Have a wonderful day!

[lilbot3000]

So ive been here a long time, since 2012 and my art hasnt gotten anymore popular then it has in 2012.

What am I doing wrong

I also hope I dont sound greedy and sound like im begging for likes I just want to know how to make my art better. Any tips?

[spenciebabie]

You are an amazing writer and I enjoy reading your stories so much. I'm sorry I don't often reblog. A little nervous to do so sometimes. I am very interactive with your main account though. Regardless I'm sorry if you feel under appreciated. It was never in anyone's intentions I'm sure.

We love you and are very thankful you write and post as much as you do.. as a matter of fact you are the only blog on tumblr and I've been on here since 2012 or 2013 that I've ever put notifications on for. -🦇

that’s so sweet, and if you are active with my main im sure ive memorized your url 😳

it’s not that ive been feeling under appreciated, i do get lovely messages and i just never seem to get a mean anon ever, you’re all so unbelievably kind and it makes me feel so lucky. im more seeking to understand why the engagement on written work is as low as it is because i see so many posts begging readers to comment and interact more but i wanted to know why people weren’t doing it in the first place!

im also so sorry you’ve got notifications on for me! i feel like i post at such weird times and i post like 40 times in a row and then nothing, your poor phone 🥲

[pamsssssss]

Fuck it, Found Poetry — #Destiel

It’s been a while since our first dashcon, hasn’t it?

Going to pride next year 

?

Gay courtship

should not have been counted

.

Everyday i wake up Its

a big mistake

I’M

Canon homosexual

.

was anybody going to tell me that

Gays go to hell

?

Wait woah hold up

HE’S FALLING THE WRONG WAY

it’s dylan this time

Going on twitter today was a big mistake

.

Let me find these things out normally i am begging you.

wasn’t there also something about an apocalypse that was supposed to wipe us out in 2012…

I’M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND

Got home and had to tell the roomates

you love the colour of the sky

.

There was a very important love confession but

One is 

shocked—receiving this declaration from his best friend

.

Im begging you for an explanation

“no?” on it in sharpie

It wasnt even mutual and

A lesbian wrote a ya novel based on this incident.

You

cant reciprocate

an angel with a shotgun 

crying from the effort it took not to say a slur

Anything else you want me to manifest

When

Ive processed

this

social experiment

?

this might as well happen

“I’m weird I’m a

Gay homophobe

“

I’m sorry

You are the hit

I wake up

For

.

I love you

[perpetuelledaydreaming]

Back to you (Chapter IV)

Summary:  Y/N Stark and Peter Parker are unconditionally in love with each other, being friends for years was just the step before making it official. BUT, just the weekend they became official Thanos and the snap happened, leaving Y/N broken: without friends, avengers family or Peter Parker. So, she has to move on, at least that’s what everyone’s telling her and she really tries to do it and who better to help her than Harry Osborn. But, has she really let Peter go? What if Tony Stark -genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist- knows how to bring Peter back? And what happens when he does? Is Y/N going to avenge again? Who’s going to lead the avengers now? Who is she going to choose? Harry or Peter? and who the hell is mysterio? *He doesn’t even go here*

word count: 8.2k

author’s note: Okay honestly this chapter was so hard to write because I was re-telling endgame from Y/N perspective and obviously, after a long of thought, I wanted to somehow stick to the cannon story although I hate it BUT  I think is easier for the story I want to tell PLUS you don’t know what’s coming.  I’m so sorry this is soooo late but honestly next chapter is going to have more Peter and Harry and ANGST and HARLEY.  I’m sorry I made Y/N cry so much but it was necessary. I’m so happy i got this chapter out of the way so I can let my imagination go wild for the next chapters.  Please let me have your feedback, I love to know what you want to heart and yes. Love, -J. 

series masterlist

                                                __________________

You felt your feet hitting the ground and you bend your knees a bit as you landed on a street full of rubble in New York, well it wasn’t technically your New York, it was 2012 New York. The red and white suit quickly dissipated from your body and left you on the sweats that your dad had created for both of you to be more comfortable whenever you wore your suits, you had to adjust to your size since you hadn’t worn yours for over two years now.

It was extremely strange to wear it again, to wear your necklace with the charm that had your suit but then again, this whole time-traveling thing was outlandish, to say the least. As you were getting used to the commotion surrounding you and New York, Steve began talking.

“Alright, we all have our assignments” Steve commanded, he turned around to face the four of you: Tony, Bruce, Scott, and you. “Two stones uptown and one stone down. Stay low, keep an eye on the clock”

You were about to nod in affirmation but before you could even press the small charm, you saw Hulk, not Bruce, smashing one of the Chitauri soldiers with a car multiple times before another one backed off before Hulk send a wheel towards it and then proceeding to jump over the car with a growl that shook you to the core.

You remember Hulk during this time, how out of touch he was from everything and how when you first saw him come out while training, it scared you. You had only told Nat about this, not even your father or Bruce for that matter because you didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Once you grew comfortable with Hulk as time passed, you felt kind of dumb for feeling that way but seeing him at that exact second, assured you that you didn’t need to feel that dumb.

All of you looked back at Bruce who was hiding his face.

“Maybe smash a few things on the way,” Steve told Bruce, who sighed and began ripping his shirt off before “smashing” if you could even say that it was somehow close to what 2012 Hulk was doing.

You felt someone touching your shoulder, you turned around to see your dad.

The conversation between both of you regarding the time travel had lasted more than you had expected, but one of you being part of the team recovering the stones was longer than any other thing. First, you wanted him to explain to you from beginning to end how could this possibly work out without horribly messing up with the timelines or being trap forever in the quantum realm. In all honesty, you were afraid of the possibility of being solid enough to put a plan in motion, it scared you a bit because hope had run out of you the moment you saw those chocolate brown eyes turning to dust. But as soon as you got it, you knew you had to be part of the team but that was another whole thing with Tony, to put it simply: he didn’t want you to join. See, Tony had seen you not being an avenger and you were happy and living the life that Tony once wished you had before you convinced him to be part of the team; but honestly, he couldn’t expect anything different from your constant affirmations that you were going whether he liked it or not. In the end, it was obvious who had won the argument.

But at the end of the day, neither of you brought Peter up during the time of training, neither of you wanted to do it although you knew he was the reason for it because it still hurt. Your lingering looks could tell it all and you could feel the weight in both your chest.

You wanted it to work.

He sighed, “Okay, you know your plan, be safe. I know you are an adult now bu-“

“Barely”, you interrupted him while you placed an assuring hand on his arm.

“Sure, but you are growing and just…”

“I know dad, I love you too”, you muttered before you pulled him in and he embraced you in his arms.

Tony didn’t have much to say because it was hard to be there again. It had been over two years since he had seen you with your suit since he had seen you fighting. It wasn’t the same, it was never going to be the same and after you left it, he thought it was for the best but at the moment as you had shown him: he needed you, they all needed you, Peter needed you.

But sill he hated taking you out of the life he had wanted for you at some point when you were younger; you had been MIA from Harry a couple of weeks, except for a few phone calls and Tony knew that this was having a toll on you and he didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if this work.

You let go of Tony with a smile as Bruce called you.

“y/n, let’s go”

You nodded. …

You had never tried drugs and you weren’t interested to do so, but you were sure as hell this was even more strong than what you could ever experience with them as you saw your body falling in the ground while you… your… your soul was levitating above it. You wanted to say that panic had rushed through your bloodstream but you were so shocked that it didn’t even pass your mind that you were scared, your brain was too busy trying to explain how you were seeing your body.

The Ancient One was peacefully looking at you, she seemed to have a Monalisa smile but in between her calmness, there was a striking force within her. Her stand was strong and ready to fight if needed too.

“What is….”, you managed to mutter before you felt, felt that Bruce was behind you. His body, Hulk was on the floor next to yours. Both of them seemed to be sleeping.

“Let’s start over”, The Ancient One said calmly as you or Bruce felt unable to close your mouth. “Shall we?”

In between the feeling of lightness in this new form you found yourself, in the whole mess going inside your head about going back in time to save the world or at least try to do it, the even messier state that your heart was in because you had lost all hope of seeing Peter again but now having the chance to actually bring him back made your heart beat faster than it had for the last years but without discounting how you had grown to love Harry…

You didn’t know how your tongue didn’t manage to get twisted while you word vomits the most vulnerable thing you had said ever since you talked with your father after the snap.

“We are from the future, we are here to save you, to save everyone, to save the earth from this horrible future and I’m begging you, I need to get that stone, we need that stone, please help us, I need to get Peter back”

“Who do we need back?” The Ancient One said quietly as you opened your eyes with regret.

Nat had always taught you not to let people see your weaknesses, you knew you couldn’t show your physical or emotional weakness in front of any enemy and at the moment The Ancient One had managed to immobilize both you and Bruce, so it wasn’t like she was an ally but right now you couldn’t help yourself.

Maybe your best chance at the moment with The Ancient One was to be as honest as you could.

“Please, we are here because everyone lost someone, a lot of people lost their lives”, you said as your new form or soul managed to finally settle in the ground again. “We are here to save everyone”

Bruce followed your pace as you got closer to The Ancient One, who was looking sternly at you.

But she turned around and walk off, you closed your eyes trying to manage your exasperation and Bruce panicked, following The Ancient One.

“Please, please”, Bruce begged as he stayed a few moments watching his body.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you with this”, she repeated herself as Bruce chased her through the roof and you watched her with a hunted expression. “If I give up the time stone to help your reality, I’m dooming my own”

“With all due respect, I’m not sure the science really supports that”, Bruce contradicted her.

She stopped for a moment as she watched Bruce intensely and her hand performed a simple swift; from nowhere, a long line of golden light appeared between the two of them. A gasp escaped your lips as you followed the line carefully while trying to get closer to them.

“The infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time, remove one of the stones and this flow splits” The Ancient One explained, she removed the light that appeared as the time stone and a new, dark, line appeared from the action. “Now this may benefit your reality, but my new one not so much. In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world would be overrun. So, tell me, doctor, your science can prevent all that?”

Bruce stayed silent for a second.

“No, but we can erase it because once we are done with the stones, we can return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken. So, chronologically, in that reality it never left” Bruce explained as he took the stone from thin air and placed it back into the golden line, making the darker one disappeared.

The Ancient One remained quiet for a moment before her eyes linked with Bruce’s

“Yes, but you are leaving out the most important part; To return the stones, you have to survive”, she explained and it hit you in the gut her words.

To be completely honest, you didn’t know how quickly you got behind Bruce but the need of getting that stone was overpowering any common sense you had. All you could think about was how you could help the whole world and her, a hero in your eyes, wouldn’t budge.

“We will, I will. I promise”, Bruce affirm and his voice woke you from your trance, he was pleading and it wasn’t new to see Bruce in this light but promising to win this?

Yes, you hoped that all the hours you had actually put into it along with your father and all the team that had survived. All of you were ready to avenge the ones that were lost, you had faith that they wanted to. But after the events of two years ago, they had changed your perspective, it had made it a bit smaller and darker and although you had returned to a good place, you weren’t sure anymore about winning. But then again, you would do anything for Peter Parker and The Ancient One was getting under your skin by denying you the chance.

“I can’t risk this reality on a promise, it’s the duty of The Sorcerer Supreme to protect the time stone”, The Ancient One muttered and gave you her back.

Are you kidding me? you thought to yourself. Maybe it was that it was the start of summer and you felt a little too hot, maybe it was because you had gone back in time eight years, maybe it was simply your outfit but your head began spinning around. Then it all came back to you and hit you like a train: Peter and you on your first mission, Peter and you sleeping, Tony and Peter on the lab, The Avengers movie night, Peter and you training, Peter and you kissing, Peter turning into dust.

“Then, why the hell did Strange give it away?”, you shouted as your eyes screwed shut to stop the memories, to stop your brain from overworking.

The Ancient One turned around, she blinked a moment with a deadpan expression on her face and you saw as if hope had left her eyes as she watched you and Bruce. It was like someone had punched her in the gut as she analyzed your words.

“Willingly?”

“Yes. I saw it with my own eyes”, you answered back, annoyance lingered in your voice, “He gave it to Thanos”.

But the Ancient One wasn’t looking at you, it was as if she was trying to find something as her eyes moved frenetically, her mind processing your words. You watched her carefully and it was as she was as shocked as you were the moment that Strange had decided to give it away, the same perplexity that you felt when he had stopped you from moving.

“Why?”, she asked and you felt something in her voice.

Right then and there you realize that she was afraid too.

“I have no idea, maybe he made a mistake”, you replied honestly because you were sure that if Stranger hadn’t given it away maybe things could’ve been different but it was at the end of the day without you or Tony in the world.

The Ancient One remained quiet as you and Bruce burned her with your gazes.

“Or I did”, she muttered.

Suddenly, she brought both of your bodies and made them crash with your souls, you felt as if all the air on your body had left your lungs as you breathe deeply trying to fill them in, your whole body was buzzing but it seemed like it had affected you more than it had affected Bruce. Soon, The Ancient One opened the necklace -The Eye of Agamotto-, the same one that Strange had been using that fatal day two years ago, the time stoned glowed and you could swear you could hear a metal sound coming from it while she made it levitate.

She placed in your hand the stone.

You held your breath as you watched the stone carefully in your hands that had quickly been covered by your suit to hold it. The energy on the stone was really strong and you felt anxious, but your thoughts went away as soon as The Ancient One place her hands over yours.

“Thank you”, your voice was shaky and you felt like your hands were trembling a bit.

Bruce and you, you completed your mission: you had it.

“I’m counting on you Y/N, we all are”

…

You landed on the platform of the -it was still weird to say it- a time machine that Tony had created. The movement through the quantum realm was a little bit vertiginous while you saw these colors and lights and shapes that your mind couldn’t even begin to construct, it left you lightheaded for a few seconds. As soon as your feet touch the ground, you focused on the metallic twirls that surrounded you, accompanied by the sound of the power going out as you breathe deeply. It was your first time traveling through time and although you had been prepared for a lot of things in your time as an avenger, you didn’t think you could get used to this one.

After a few seconds, the mask of the quantum suits disappeared from your face and as you opened your eyes you linked them with Tony’s. His expression turned blissful as he smiled at you and you felt yours growing, it was as if you could breathe again knowing that he was okay. It was as if the tension had left your body as you ran towards him and he caught you as you wrapped your arms around his waist and he reciprocated with a sigh, holding you strongly as you heard him mutter something about god.

“Are you telling me this actually work?”, you heard Rhodey asking with happiness lingered in his voice.

Maybe it was because of the quantum realm or because you were feeling a little light-headed but you felt your heart beating extremely fast in your body as if something was waking up and as you closed your eyes for a second you could see those chocolate brown eyes that gleamed each time he looked at you and, a little bit in the back you thought about Harry’s smile but there was no denying it was being eclipsed by the thought of Peter Parker.

But then you heard a thud against the metal and you quickly let go of your dad as you turned around to find Clint kneeled with a somber expression drawn on his face.

“Uncle Clint?”

Sometimes your mind could go a thousand miles per hour, but at the moment you wished it didn’t because after two seconds of examining Clint, of seeing the doleful way his lips fell into a line, of seeing how his body lumbered in almost a painful way -like he couldn’t hold himself anymore-, of seeing how dull his eyes were -even more after losing his family- and how vacant they looked; you knew what had happened but you didn’t want to acknowledge it.

You could’ve sworn that you heard your heart-shattering in your chest as you shook your head and placed a hand over your hand to prevent a sob to come out of your mouth.

“Clint, where’s Nat?”, Bruce asked as if he was hoping for a different answer.

But as the seconds passed and Clint remained silenced, you thought that everyone knew what happened. Tears began spilling without previous notice, Steve looked down in defeat and Bruce fell into the floor. In all honesty, you wanted to contain your tears and your sobs but it was too hard.

Bruce formed a fist with his hand and at the same time that he struck the platform your tears began falling.  

…

Natasha Romanoff was one of the best women you knew, to be honest, she was a close second to Pepper Potts and Pepper only won for a bit because she had helped raise you but Natasha, she was another story. This woman that had entered your life so young, and she had changed your view of what you had expected your life to be. Before her, you didn’t really know if you could ever be like your father as Ironman, you didn’t even know if it was your place but when she came along, she assured you with her example that you could. Natasha Romanoff was an example of survival, not vengeance, she was an example of how you could change your story if you tried hard enough, because she made the hard calls when they needed to be done, because she turned her weakness into strength. She taught you how to be an avenger and although you gave your dad most of the credit of the desire to be one, it was when Nat arrived that you thought it was possible for you too. She was a mother, she was a sister, she was a mentor, she was an example of the women you wanted to become and losing her, it was as if another part of your heart had been taken away without previous notice.

“Do we know if she had a family?”, Tony muttered as your eyes blinked trying to get back into reality.

The sound of the water was the only one you could hear and although it was peaceful, the heaviness in the air felt like it could drown you. After Clint had explained what happened to Nat, you had clung to Tony as if you were five again and needed to hold his hand after a bad dream. Nat’s smile and last words appeared in your head more than you wished they had and the more you thought about it your throat felt like it would close.

“Yes”, Steve answered back and you turned around to face him, “Us”.

And it all came back like a train for you. One of the last conversations with Nat and how she had mentioned that this was it, you were her family and she was yours. The reason for her sacrifice became so obvious the moment you heard Steve’s words that it somehow angered you that you hadn’t realized it before. Her sense of self was found on being an avenger, she was one of the faces of the avengers, she was a founder and a leader and even after half of them were gone she was still trying to be better for all of you. She needed this; she was lost before the possibility of actually making things right. When Nat sacrificed herself, it was because she believed in you, in all of you, she believed.

She had realized that she had clean her ledger, she knew she had become better as you had assured her that night and that’s why he had done it.

“Yes, it was us dad”, you said as you finally stood up, letting Tony go and everyone, except for Bruce, turned around to face you.

Maybe it wasn’t your place, you maybe didn’t know Natasha at the extend of Clint, Steve or Bruce, or even your dad but you knew what she had mean to you and at the moment, you knew you had to speak your mind, to reinforce that she had done this for you.

“Y/N…”, Thor muttered softly as if he was scared that you might break.

He had been out of it for the last month while you built the machine but now it was as if the fog in his brain had dissipated and he was seeing you again, maybe it was because of the actual time travel that he was more awake and finally realized you had grown quite a bit since the last time he saw you but that he still desired to be somehow careful with you like when you were younger.

“She sacrificed herself for us, for everyone, for this family”, you explained as you watched them all intently, they needed to understand. “We have to honor that”

…

The sound of the thud of metal against the ground was the thing that woke you up, making you take a breath as if you hadn’t breathed for months. It felt as if a tsunami had come crashing down on you, on your body, everything was somehow hurting, not a lot but just enough for you to take a minute or two before opening your eyes. All these things were running through your head as your eyes tried to examine the debris that you were surrounded by, it was almost too much for your senses that were still dulled by the impact of… in that second you were reminded of where you were and what had happened, how you had been thrown out from Tony’s lab in the compound to a whole other floor, and how you fell as if the earth had eaten you whole because of the missiles. The last thing you remember was Scott, saying something that you couldn’t make up and after that everything just turned dark when you were thrown. The drops of blood that fell on your silver suit made you realized that maybe the mask hadn’t come on your face as fast as it should, it must have been a cut and you didn’t want to think on any other possible injury that you had sustained because on your mind you could only think about everyone the gauntlet.

“Toes, feet, legs”, you repeated to yourself as you moved each one of them to check if they were actually okay and although it hurt a bit, you stood up.

It was dark, everything was dark and the only thing barely lightening the debris that surrounded you were the sparks of the electricity cables that had been destroyed in the process. It was hard to breathe with all the dust that surrounded you and you felt claustrophobic being under the debris. Suddenly, you could make out from the dust the red and yellow that was so familiar to you, the thud of the metal getting stronger and you felt like if a wave of relief washed over your body when you saw Steve and Tony.

“That’s my girl”, Tony muttered as you walked towards him, as he held your hand and with the other, he promptly took a strand out of your face.

“Thank god”, Steve let out.

“Wha-what happened?”, you replied as you cough a bit while staring at Steve, maybe your eyes were a bit frantic because Steve placed a hand over your shoulder as fast as he could in a reassuring way.

Both of them remained silent for a moment but as you gaze back at your dad, he didn’t have another option to answer.

“We messed with time”, Tony stated firmly and you weren’t sure what he meant but a part of you honestly didn’t want to know just yet. “Come on”

Silently you followed him and Steve, you knew better than to doubt what they decided because they were the leaders, they had always known what to do but for some inexplicable reason, your most basic instinct inside of you screamed for you to grab them and walk the other way. You tried to quiet it down by focusing on your surroundings, recognizing what this new territory looked like, so your eyes were trained in the smoldering fires that surrounded you, the sounds of ominous thunder, the sparks jumping from unexpecting places and the rubble under your feet. Soon, you looked at the grey sky, finally out of the wreckage and you felt the daunting breeze on your hair, you turned around to see Thor, his eyes fixed in something in front of all of you.

Tony and Steve took their places next to him while you walked towards Tony but as he recognized the thud of your metal steps walking to be next to him, he signaled you to stop.

And so, you did but your gaze following his and you felt like vomiting.

The Mad Titan was there, Thanos was sitting down in front of you, with his large sword buried deep in the ground next to him while he seemed like he was waiting.

It hadn’t passed your mind that somehow you could see him again, not anywhere except your nightmares. As a result, the feelings that had persisted after Nat assured you that Thor had decapitated him were based on fear and grieve, because most of those nightmares were based on you trying to hold Peter together as you begged The Mad Titan not to take him.

Therefore, your brain had calculated that you might be frightened or feeling the kind of rage that consumed your body but as he stood before you, you felt the same fire that you had felt during your battle in Titan because it wasn’t about him, it was about doing your part, doing your work. It wasn’t the fire of revenge that flooded your veins or the panic that would throw you to the floor but somehow the peaceful knowledge along with a decent amount of fear and anger, it was time to stop him.

“Y/N, go find Clint, he was close to the gauntlet”, Tony ordered you but you didn’t budge.

In all honesty, you didn’t hear him, it was as if your brain was too busy trying to figure out how you could -as disgusting as it sounded-end him. All the techniques in training came back to you as you thought of ways that could be used to finally get rid of him, you tried to replay as best as you could your fight in Titan, trying to remember what his weaknesses were and how you could stop him.

“Y/N…”, Steve insisted but yet again you didn’t move.

Tony turned around, glowering at you while your eyes were still fixed on Thanos.

“Y/N, it’s an order go and find Clint”, Tony demanded and your eyes quickly connected with his.

But this was your battle too.

“I’m not going anywhere”, you snapped as the three of them looked at you again.

Steve and Tony looked at each other, both had a hunted look while Thor seemed stolid while his eyes were trained in you but he quickly turned around. It was as if Thor had accepted and understood that you were not moving, it didn’t have senses to put you in the back burner again, you had made your choice but it was so difficult for Tony and Steve, although you had your fair share of missions and training, it was different and the fright in your dad’s eyes was obvious as if he had been transported to the time where you stood up against Thanos in front of him, ready to die for him if it was needed. But as each second passed, they knew you were determined to stay there.

“You know it’s a trap, right?”, Thor asked gravely as Tony and Steve moved their gaze towards the Mad Titan.

“Yeah”, Tony said with a sighed as he looked at Thor. “I don’t much care, as long as you stay out of it”, Tony said to you with a glare but you glared right back at him.

Your breath hitched as the wind picked up, whipping your hair as your eyes moved up, the sky becoming light blue as Thor extended his hands and his eyes turned the same color.

“Good”, he muttered, “As long as we are all in agreement”

Steve suddenly turned around, his eyes narrowed and his stand fixed. He was going to give and order, you knew how his body language worked so you looked right back at him.

“Y/N, stay back and only intervene if there’s not another choice” Steve ordered and you simply nodded, while Tony sighed in discontent but there was nothing more to do. “Promise us”

“I promise”

Suddenly, lightning could be heard loudly and the sky moved at an incredible pace, lightning and sparks began surrounding Thor as a lightening quickly struck him and both, Stormbreaker and Mjolnir, came to him. The wind hard while your fist became tighter.

“Let’s kill him properly this time”, Thor added.  

The waiting lasted a hundred years, at least for you. It was as everything was moving in slow motion, every step that Tony, Steve, and Thor gave was so slow that you could barely let a breath out as each one of them surrounded Thanos while he talked.

H.A.P.P.Y asked you if you wanted to hear, but in all honesty, your mind was too busy trying to prepare mentally what was your next move, when were you coming in. The more you thought about your last encounter, the more you realized how much you had changed in a couple of years because you knew if you were thinking like two years ago you wouldn’t even blink at the chance to shoot your repulsors against Thanos, you wouldn’t even blink but now you waited until the right time. But was there honestly ever the right time to fight for the people you loved? No, there wasn’t but you couldn’t be reckless, not now when the whole universe depended on you when the possibility of Peter coming back hanged by a threat when Nat had given up her life for this.

And so, you waited as long as they needed to finally talk but as soon as Thanos stood up and placed his helmet on his head, you felt like your body was going to give up by how tensed it got, the sky began swirling again with Thor’s lightning and there wasn’t much thinking to do after that after his warrior cry.

It was fast, how you blasted towards them while Tony and Steve were already on it once you arrived, each one taking turns on fighting Thanos while he deflected each and every one of the attacks towards him. Quickly, six’s small rockets exited your back and flew towards The Mad Titan but as they went off near him, there was no actual effect because as the smoke dissipated, he was still there with a few scratches on his purple rough skin. He looked right back at you and smirked, he didn’t know who you were and you were sure of it but somehow it seemed as if he was going to enjoy killing you.

Before he was ready to give any steps towards you, Steve threw his shield towards the Mad Titan, stopping him mid-walk while you flew backward, unbalancing him and just enough for him to get his shield back and giving you the time to use your super-jet boot configuration to punch Thanos in the stomach and making him fall on his back for a second while he tried to block Tony’s repulsors with his sword.

It was chaotic but somehow there was an order and a rhythm as each one of you took turns to give your best shot, but as the minutes passed you start seeing how he was blocking and throwing punches that were hitting you. Thor kicked in the stomach against the debris that was next to you, Steve covering himself with the shield but flying away as Thanos strike it with his sword, your dad shot his repulsors as best as he could so he could finally hit him and you tried to do the same while engaging into hand to hand combat when you got too close. It was a dangerous option and it seemed like only Steve was actually doing it but you had learned from Nat to be as sleek as you possibly could.

But in all honesty, you knew you were struggling.

Two kicks in his jaw. Fly away. Thor’s throwing Stormbreaker, help him get more energy, blast repulsors, you though every and each one of the movements.

Until he caught you.

“Fuck!”, you shouted as you felt the strength of his grip on you.

“Got you”, Thanos growled with a dark sneer.

It brought you right at the exact moment in Titan where he had done the same, your right leg was stuck in his hands as he smirked, he suddenly tore the nanobots from your leg and you screamed because as he moved it was more than probable that you had sprained your ankle. You quickly saw how his hand wanted to grab you again but you gained some time while the suit recovered and re-formed your right leg and Steve stopped him as he kicked him on his face simultaneously with a twirl that you knew only he could perform as easily and you felt like you could breathe.

“H.A.P.P.Y, I need some juice on the left leg”, you yelled to your AI.

“As you say, Mrs. Stark”

Quickly, it became a cannon that drove you away, fast, from Thanos as you tried to keep it together while Thor sent Mjolnir towards Steve’s shield, sending a shock wave towards Thanos. Making him fall forwards, giving your dad the chance to pushed him down even more with his repulsors, but still being propelled by Thanos. He was powerful, he was too powerful and it dawned on your mind how on earth were you going to defeat him. He still threw Thor down for a second time and Steve was throwing punches but getting them right back.

“Y/N, you okay kid?”, Tony asked through the com and you could see him flying above Thanos, blasting his repulsors but far enough for him to take the time to ask you.

“’M fine dad”, you winced, feeling a sharp ache on your right ankle but at the moment you couldn’t care less, you needed him down for more time to get him. “Get him”

Tony simply nodded as he blasted towards the ground in front of Thanos and his back opened with solar modules and raised his hands towards Thanos.

“Hit me, Thor and Y/N”, Tony yelled and you followed suit.

The beams of light were more potent than ever as the energy traveled, all the angled energy pushing Thanos as best as it could but as soon as the beams were trying to hit him, he swerved them with his sword. Tony didn’t move as you pushed your suit for more and more energy while Thor was still redirecting the lightening’s was still striking the modules but as Thanos started walking towards your dad, your body shaking as your eyes glazed from your dad to Thanos.

He was getting close, dangerously close.

It was in a blink of an eye, how you went right up to Tony and pushed him away before Thanos could actually snatch him and he instead grabbed you by the neck. The tight grip wasn’t letting you breathe and you could see how H.A.P.P.Y was putting all the screen in red as you felt the nanobots getting dangerously tight around your neck. You tried to fight with your hands to get his paws off you but it was barely impossible to move, you began coughing as the pressure on your neck increased.

“Not our kid”, your father yelled, with was left from you not to pass out you gazed back at Tony that had Steve and Thor behind him.

It was the last thing you heard before Thanos threw you to the ground with all the force that he had. Everything then turned black, your body went limp and your last thoughts were Peter, Morgan, Tony, Pepper, and Harry.

…

It was barely a whisper; it was feeble and weak but it made your eyes fluttered open and you saw Tony with a smirk. He had been crying, you could see the tears waddling on his eyes as his mask quickly dissipated from his head but the smirk was so Tony that it made you smile too as your helmet dissolute as well. You were tired, so tired. Maybe it was how much you had cried or the actual fighting you did, but you felt your body -especially your ankle- screaming.

His hands were shaky and you could see he had gone through it, the cut on his eyebrow was still streaming a bit of blood and you could see a dark eye starting to form, “Thank god”, he let out with a breathe as he helped you stood up.

Maybe they had won, they had done it, with an inexplicable reason they had managed to defeat the Mad Titan with a swift set of punches after you blacked out but as you turned around and faced the enormous spaceship, your stomach drop as you saw the army of outrides, growling at you. It was way worse than you had imagined, than what it could cross your mind as Thanos glared at Steve.

Steve.

He was alone, facing him, facing the entire army. It didn’t catch you by surprise, you knew your uncle, you knew that if you could hear his thoughts it would’ve been, I can do this all day, even with such overwhelming odds, he got to his feet.

But now as you faced hundreds or thousands of outrides, it actually crossed your mind that you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Try and lost again, and now the consequences were death for everyone.

Tony held you back as he stood in front of you as if he wanted to protect you but you shook your head as you walked beside him. Ready to face the threat but as the seconds passed, you heard something on your com, a muffled voice.

“On your left”

Suddenly, a portal like the ones that you had seen Doctor Strange perform on Titan appeared on Steve’s left. It was a radiant golden light and it could blind you if you stare at it for too long, you hold your breath as Sam soared over the field. You followed him with your eyes and as he turned you could see more portals were forming.

“What’s happening?”

It was T’Challa, Shuri, M’Baku, Bucky, all the army from Wakanda walking through it, standing next to you in this fight and you wanted to cry as you hold Tony’s hand with hope.

Then Pepper on her rescue armor landed in front of you with a set look on her eyes as she smiled to Tony and he walked towards her and pressed his forehead against his.

Maybe it hadn’t registered what was happened, if it was you could’ve been prepare for it but you were too busy gazing at the sky that when another large portal opened behind you, you felt a bit blinded for a second. From it, Doctor Strange was levitating with Peter Quill, Drax and Mantis before him walking towards the battlefield, standing in front of Thanos army ready to fight and you were sure that you looked slack-jaw because it was never how you dream about seeing them again, at least for the last month. 

But then you heard the familiar thiwp! that you hadn’t heard in two years and you felt your heart on your mouth.

With a swirl, he landed on the rubble and his mask went off from his face.

It was as if you were seeing him for the first time, it was overwhelming how many emotions were going through your mind that you could hardly process them. Maybe it was the light of the portals but his curls look like gold caramel the more you looked at them as they fell on his forehead, that coy smile that he always carried so gracefully was there, that smile lighted up your face every day was there and those damn chocolate eyes with gold specks that you had dreamed about seeing for two years were finally there in front of you. You were too in awe to realize how he was getting maybe too close while he ran towards you. He jumped through the crowd of heroes that were appearing left and right but you only had eyes for the boy.

He quickly lopped his arm and pulled you in without previous notice.

The way his lips rolled against yours, capturing your upper lip to then open your mouth made you want to melt into him right at the moment. It was such a fervent kiss but not lust-filled and you couldn’t help but to whimper as you placed your hands on his shoulders. You knew you had the suit but at the moment it was as if you were burning by the tenderness of his touch and then his hand slid up to your face, cupping your cheeks.

It was soft and timeless and slow.

But as the seconds passed, your mind began screaming because you knew it was not the time and that damn smirk that Harry gave you appeared, making you pull back.

“Hey”, he muttered and you smiled, those chocolate eyes with golden specks were piercing you, the way no one had looked at you.

“Hey”, you replied as you felt the blush creeping up your cheeks turning around to see almost everyone looking at you but especially Pepper tilting her head and Tony frowning at the scene.

You had a boyfriend and you were kissing Peter Parker.

Sam was giving you a blinking look as he landed next to you and you grimaced because of the embarrassment, “I don’t if you’ve been on a fight before, but there’s usually not this much kissing”, he declared while your mask covered your face to stop anyone to see that blush and just in time before Steve spoke.

“Avengers…”, he shouted as everyone waiting for his sign and you felt Peter next to you like in old times and the feeling of comfort washed over you, “…assemble”

…

Maybe if your suit had more capacity if you had waited longer to fight you might have been able to help, maybe if you weren’t so tired for the crying or stressed of the time travel or the fighting you would’ve been so awake, maybe if you hadn’t been too busy carrying the gauntlet and, in consequence, being blown by the lasers that were fired by Thanos ship before Carol arrived, maybe if you hadn’t tried to help Hope and Scott get the mini-time machine for Carol to enter and then subsequently, being blown by Thanos, just maybe you could avoid Tony taking the gauntlet, effectively sacrificing himself for the universe.

All the maybes and what-ifs were eating you alive as you saw Tony, fall back against an upturned root of a tree, armor smoking and arm withered and blackened as half of his face were. It felt like your whole body gave up as you fall to your knees in front of him because you knew it, you knew it right away as your eyes connected and the tears began streaming down your eyes, your father was dying and there was nothing you could do.

“Dad?”, you asked, finally stepping forward and taking his hand. It didn’t even register that that was your voice, watery and unsteady as you shakily reached towards his arch reactor and you knew it was too late. “I love you”

He smiled but there was no real answer, his eyes were glazy and he exhaled, almost as he let go.

A hand rested on your shoulder and you turned around to see Rhodey but with one look, Rhodey shook his head knowing that it was too late and you whimpered, your body spasming as you cried with too many emotions for your body to be held, they were too big and it felt the same way when you saw Peter turning to dust but as you watched your dad and held him, it felt so final and it was crushing.

It was your worst nightmare since you remember since he became Ironman you always feared the day that Tony might not make it and it came to life.

Then Peter landed next to you, his eyes glazy and full with the injuries as a result of the fight, he was swallowing hard as he stared at the scene, tears began falling from his eyes because he was seeing his mentor, another father figure laying limply and emotionless in front of him.

“Mr. Stark… Tony…it’s okay, it’s okay”, he whimpered and it was so raw and torn as he kneeled next to you. “…Mr. Stark, we won. You did it, sir…”

Tony gazed at him for a second and then past him, Rhodey quickly placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder, guiding him away as Pepper arrived.

Pepper gave you a quick look, her eyes watery but tears yet to fall. It was more than a look because you knew how this was Pepper’s nightmare as well and you shook your head as you felt like your lungs were going to explode because of how you couldn’t stop crying.

Pepper kneeled, heartsick as she sighed, trying so hard to keep it together, “Hey”, she whispered softly as she placed her hand on the arch reactor, next to yours.

Tony’s gaze quickly linked with hers and you backed up a bit so she could say goodbye to him. But as best as you tried, you couldn’t stand up as you kneeled next to them, it was crushing you the guilt and the grieve. It was as if you were broken, not numb, but completely broken as you watched Tony’s eyes glassy as if life was leaving him and at the end of the day it was.

“Pepper”, Tony whispered with a smile and he placed his working hand over hers.

Pepper swallowed hard as she gazed at the arch reactor. “Friday?”

“Life functions critical”

And it was a punch in the gut as you heard it as your hands quickly came to your head as if to protect you, you wanted to scream, you wanted to fly away, you wanted to go back in time but there was no way to avoid this and you knew it. You were going to lose your father, heart-clenching on your chest as you saw it before a sob could escape your lips you felt Peter’s hand wrapping you and, at the moment, it was all you needed as you buried your face on his neck and clung to him like you never had before.

Pepper stared into Tony’s eyes and she knew. Tears threatening to fall from Tony’s eyes as he looked at her, almost as if saying sorry.

“Tony, look a me”, Pepper said seriously, “We’re going to be okay”, tears welling on your father’s eyes as his face fell to the side. “You can rest now”, Pepper muttered as she touched his face.

She smiled before his eyes went past her and you could see how she was holding her sobs in as you finally turned around and watched him.

The light in the arch reactor went out and his hand fell from hers.

There was only silence as the heroes gather around you, the full weight of what was happening dawning on them.

She leaned in to kiss him and as she pulled back the tears and sobs came crashing down as she buried herself on his neck.

And you let out a cry, it was so loud that you felt like it ripped your chest.

Tony Stark was gone.

_______________________________________________________________________

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[mistikfir]

Hugh Dancy Surrenders to Sex and Taboos on Broadway and Big Screens

Backstage (May  2012)

The ashtray turned projectile is what officially made it Hugh Dancy's worst audition. While meeting with a film producer who claimed that Americans make better action movie stars, Dancy recalls the producer saying, "You know, I really should be testing for physical attributes, like coordination. I should just do something like this!" before hurling the ashtray at the Brit.  For the record, Dancy caught it.

Still, even an audition that results in the actor being covered in ash is no match for the audition process Dancy enacts eight times a week on Broadway in "Venus in Fur." In David Ives' Tony Award-nominated two-hander, which moved to Broadway last fall after a 2010 premiere Off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company, Dancy plays playwright-director Thomas, who is desperate to find the female lead for his stage adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's erotic 19th-century novella "Venus in Furs." In walks Vanda (Nina Arianda), an unknown young actor who begs for the chance to read for the role. But over the next 100 minutes, the balance of power shifts and tension mounts as Vanda's audition becomes a fierce yet funny psychosexual struggle for control. When Thomas says, "This is hard. I can't believe I put actors through this," in the middle of a line reading, Vanda tells him, "You're a director. It's your job to torture actors." Not coincidentally, both characters remind the audience that Sacher-Masoch is the source of the word "masochism." So are some auditions really this intense? "I think it's safe to say that nobody has had that experience," Dancy says with a laugh. Replacing original lead Wes Bentley in the Broadway transfer meant that Dancy was the new kid on the block among co-star -- and recent Tony nominee -- Arianda, Ives, and director Walter Bobbie. Having missed the original production (he was appearing in MCC's "The Pride" Off-Broadway at the time), Dancy worried that he would have trouble catching up to the rest of the team. But since the play depends entirely on the interplay of its two leads, Dancy's arrival pushed the reset button for everyone. He credits Ives for creating such a complex relationship between two characters that are using each other to discover themselves. Dancy adds that there is "pleasure" in delivering the playwright's precisely crafted dialogue, which also demands that the actors bounce back and forth between various accents to delineate the intricate plot's hairpin turns. While one takes the upper hand, the other slips into submission. "One of the reasons why it's so fun is because the play is a series of surrenders," Dancy says. "It's like Thomas is ripping off a bunch of Band-Aids and choosing to abandon himself to whatever's next, to the moment, to wherever it's going to take him. And that is really the quintessential experience of doing a good play and performing live -- throwing away whatever's gone on before and discovering something new in the moment. And when it's working well, it's exhilarating, just as it is in this play for Thomas." Though Dancy has been performing in "Venus in Fur" since October, his big-screen work hasn't slowed down. Shortly after previews began, Dancy could be seen on the silver screen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene." Now comes the release of "Hysteria," the Victorian-era romantic comedy in which he stars opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal. The ease with which Dancy navigates between mediums is somewhat ironic, since the actor never expected his career to put him onscreen in the first place. Prepared for Poverty Dancy didn't expect to find work at all as an actor. He seems envious of students who assume that a job will be waiting for them come graduation day, no matter how unlikely the prospect. "I was suffering from the opposite form of delusion, which was the idea of employment being utterly unrealistic," he says with a laugh. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English literature and language, he pursued acting, taking a job as a waiter and introducing himself to agents and casting directors. "It wasn't that kind of Hollywood story," he says, "where you grow up on a farm and you suddenly walk into a diner and somebody says, 'Oh, my god, you're a movie star!' I did come into it thinking of it as a craft. I hate that word, though. I just think it's radically overused." So what does he prefer to call it? "Work." He was eventually introduced to an agent who helped him get cast in plays and small roles in a handful of British television series. "When I met my agent, he said, 'You should maybe think about getting an accountant,' " Dancy says. "And I was nodding, but I thought, 'This guy's crazy. What does he mean, an accountant?' It didn't occur to me that I would ever work in TV or film, actually. I just didn't know about that." But after his turn as the title character in a 2000 TV adaptation of "David Copperfield" attracted the attention of American agents, Dancy began making frequent trips to Los Angeles to audition for movie roles. He now lives in New York -- a move he says was "more the result of my personal life" following his marriage to actor Claire Danes in 2009. "So much of it is about being able to sit in a room and make a connection with somebody," Dancy says of his career, "and then you get to actually demonstrate whether you can do the job or not. But if you can't do the first thing, you won't get to do the second thing." And unless you produce or direct your own projects, Dancy says, "the only power that you have as an actor over your career, in some sense, is to say no. The one thing that I think I have tried to be responsible about is actually being picky." Actors cannot start a career by turning down every opportunity their agent brings forth, however, especially if they hope to have any projects to choose from in the future. And when Dancy was cast as D'Artagnan in the 2001 Musketeers-inspired movie "Young Blades," he learned a valuable lesson during the shoot, even though he almost refused the role. "I thought, 'This is pretty frivolous and pretty silly, really,' " Dancy says. "But my agent said, 'Oh, just do it,' so I did it. And it was frivolous and it was silly, and I had a fantastic time. I learned that you can just enjoy something. I don't think frivolous and silly is necessarily a bad thing. I was in the wrong." Telling the Whole Story Switching between film and theater projects brings with it a singular perspective. "You just aren't afforded the time [during a film shoot] that you get in theater to mine the piece of work and understand what to do with it," Dancy says. "In the theater, the prep work is done in rehearsal, but the real work of understanding it comes when suddenly you're doing it every night, beginning to end, nonstop, in front of an audience. Even if you're lucky enough to get rehearsal for a film or TV, you never get the run-through process. So you never get to the point where you really understand the shape that the story should take and how you can serve it in the shape of your performance. You have to try and do that work on your own [for a film], however you do it." The big-picture understanding that Dancy brings to his work was evident to Tanya Wexler, the director of "Hysteria," in which Dancy stars as a doctor who inadvertently invents the vibrator while working on a cure for a mysterious illness in prudish 19th-century England.  "He's able to do what a lot of actors don't feel comfortable doing," Wexler says, "which is, he can think from within the character but also from the whole script. A lot of actors don't want to think about too much of the context, because they want to be within the character, just like we are within our own lives. The joke in a lot of film schools is that the extra in the background thinks the movie is about the waiter, because if you're living within the part, that is your whole world." Discussing Dancy's work shortly after the film's U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Wexler says the actor was involved in every aspect of the six-week shoot and offered his input in the direction of several scenes. He knew not only his place in each shot but added ideas to incorporate unexpected physical comedy and also maximize the time and talents of everyone else on set when the cameras were rolling. "He's not trying to direct my movie," Wexler adds. "He's trying to help us make something together." Though Dancy says that he has no directorial aspirations, he knows that what he wants from his career is not far out of reach. "There's a shifting goalpost," he says, "because the things that are open to you maybe change, but so do the things you want that are just within your grasp. You have to fight for them still." Outtakes - Dancy has been cast as FBI agent Will Graham in "Hannibal," a new NBC series that provides the origin for the iconic cannibal of "The Silence of the Lambs" and its sequels. - Born and raised in England, he got a glimpse of the U.S. when his father taught briefly at the University of Pittsburgh. "For the 13-year-old me, Pittsburgh was the most multicultural and exotic place I'd ever been," Dancy says. "We were living next to the kind of Hasidic Jewish area, and there was also a Turkish community. It was just America, you know? It was the melting pot." - In the upcoming animated film "Dorothy of Oz," Dancy voices a character named Marshal Mallow. "I was playing a marshmallow, so I had pretty much carte blanche," he says, laughing. "Vocally, you can be bolder than you probably would be under most circumstances."

Hugh Dancy shrugs at the notion that he tends to share strong chemistry with his female co-stars.

 "I think "chemistry’ is an overused phrase,’ the actor says. ‘It's hard to define, and it usually just involves good writing und good acting. I’ve certainly worked with people that I didn't feel any personal chemistry with what-soever but that worked out very well onscreen. “He adds, laughing, “And there are plenty of stories of people falling in love on movie sets and then producing absolutely abysmal films.” In fact Dancy met his wife, Claire Danes ("Homeland"), in 2006 while filming "Evening." The actors were married in 2009. If onscreen chemistry is mostly the result of hard work, as Dancy claims, then the actor is one of the hardest-working men in show business. Whether working Anne Hathaway in "Ella Enchanted" or Isla Fisher in “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” making the most of supporting roles in female-driven ensemble films such as "Martha Marcy May Marlene" and "Our Idiot Brother,’ or verbally sparring with Laura Linney in the Showtime series “The Big C”., the charming Brit seems to surround himself with strong leading ladies. That trend continues with his two latest roles - as a writer- director who finds himself in an unusual audition with a young actor (played by two-time-Tony nominee Nina Arianda) in "Venus in Fur" on Broadway, and as the inventor of the vibrator (opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Felicity Jones) in the new film "Hysteria." “You're trusting the person that casts you to cast the rest of the roles well.” Dancy says. "In the past, I've gone and done an audition with somebody and not known them and just on the basis of the audition thought, "Wow! That would be great. That would work really well.”  “When asked for an example, he laughs und says, "No, actually they cast two other people!",

[irl-dogboy]

ok gonna. vent and stuff under the cut. im very sorry ive been doing these vent posts so often recently i have just not been having a good time u_u lmk if u read through and need anything tagged. i might make a whole new tag for ppl to block bc ngl i dont think anybody wants to read these lol

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii grew up too fast and i wish that the adults in my life were responsible!!!! yup thats what today’s problem is!!!!!!

i hate that i have to play parent to my parents and aunts and uncles when they get drunk. and ill admit that they dont get drunk often!!! but. when they do its so annoying. and i feel like a dick for saying that (which is a whole other problem) but i can hear uncle harassing my fucking dog right now, shes trying to sleep bcause today has been really stressful for her. but shes being woken up by his annoying aggressive dog and his yelling and annoying shit. and i want to go get my dog and bring her in and make sure shes ok but i cant because im literally terrified of him.

but like i know that my parents have been irresponsible fucks since the very fucking beginning!!!!! i was watching family guy at age 4!!!!!! i was allowed to do whatever the fuck i wanted online when i was like 8!!!!!!!! EIGHT YEARS OLD!!!!!! I MADE A DEVIANTART ACCOUNT IN 2012!!!!! I WAS FUCKING EIGHT OR NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THEY DIDNT CARE!!!!!!!!! i dont do it anymore but i used to do nsfw roleplays when i was 11 fucking years old!!!!! i found pony porn when i was 10!!!!!! they did not fucking care!!! not once did they check, or ask me about what i was doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they dont know to this day!!!!! and i dont know if i can call that any kind of traumatic but its certainly given me a shit ton of problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ive been being the bigger person, the responsible one, since i was 11 years old. im so fucking sick of it. its not like hurried child syndrome, but. i just. hello????? and ive been brainwashed or something to feel bad for thinking that theyre assholes!!! its never their fault, its always “you know we’re shit parents” LIKE SELF AWARENESS FIXES ANYTHING!!!!! good job buddy you acknowledged something ive known for 5 or 6 years. gonna do anything to change? no? rad!!! and its like??? i cant even complain to them because theyve done good things too!!! i have a nintendo switch. i have a 3ds. i have a laptop, and a tablet, and a little portable speaker, so theyve made me think that im spoiled for wanting an ounce of responsibility!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

and the thing that gets me the most, more than anything that theyve ever done to me, is my parents have been putting off taking my dog to the vet. which is fucking insane. because she has a giant fucking tumor and its getting worse and shes acting different and shes old and i want her to live as long and as happily as possible but she cant even curl up into a lil donut to sleep because of the tumor she has. and it just makes me so fucking MAD because ive been begging them to take her to the vet for months in case its something bad and we dont wanna be too late to save her they just keep!!!! putting it off!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its like? am i the only one that fucking cares about her???? im the only one that feeds her and fills up her water and checks on her when shes stressed and i want her to be okay because shes basically the only thing im fucking living for and i want her to be ok. so. fucking. badly

and like. obviously this is some real intense wishful thinking but i wish that like a teacher or a distant relative would appear and just. take me away. idk. i just wish my parents werent my parents and my family wasnt my family LOL

[letstalksymphogear]

Symphogear, EP. 4 (Cont)

The gremlin challenges Tsubasa, a Symphogear, whose entire shtick is to sing to channel power, to sing.

It dawns on her, however, that Tsubasa is part Greninja. Tsubasa used Shadow-Weaving! It’s super effective.

“tell me, you jellyfish looking weirdo...”

“hey- hey, time out. are you gonna do what i think you’re gonna do. this is gonna like, kill you. you know that, right? that you will literally die? you do understand you can just retreat now or- or just take hibiki away, right? i even told you that was the whole point of this... uh... oh shit.”

“ARE YOU READY TO JAM”

“tsubasa please i will literally lend you my remaining brain cell to stop you from this really stupid mistake”

Dad has entered the server.

“oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. o- ryoko. stop breathing on me. this isnt helping my anxiety over my adopted daughter figure literally preparing to kill herself over my commands.”

“sorry babe its just the asthma, forgot my inhaler”

“i cannot FUCKING believe of ALL the opponents i had to fight i had to fight the DUMBEST one on the goddamn block, you idiot, you absolute dunce, RETHINK THIS”

“OH GOD SHE’S DOING IT! SHE’S DOING IT! THE ABSOLUTE MADWOMAN- FUCK- FUCK! GET ME OUT OF HERE! FUCK! FUCK!”

“just used up my last brain cell for this attack, pal. you’re through.”

“NAH, EAT ASS YOU- YOU GODDAMN MANIAC”

“HAHA YEAH, GOT YOU NOW, SLOW WALKING, DRAMA INDUCIN’, PURPLE RAIN CHANN-”

“OH GOD! YOU TELEPORTED! YOU’VE GOT SV_CHEATS SET TO 1, DON’T YOU! NOCLIPPING LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS GET OUT OF MY FACE”

“WHOA WHOA WHOA WHAT THE FUCK WHOA I KNOW I CRACKED SOME JOKES BUT WE LITERALLY JUST MET AND I- I GOTTA KNOW PEOPLE FIRST BEFORE THIS SHIT AND- OH GOD PLEASE STOP”

“OH GOD! THIS... RAW, GAY, REPRESSED ENERGY... IT’S... TOO STRONG...”

The gremlin could not begin to comprehend Tsubasa’s intense love for incredibly well-built redheaded women.

Hibiki can, though.

“SO......... MUCH........... SAUCE...................”

“.................................................”

The gremlin retreats after getting her licks. This scene subtly implied something; the Nehushtan armor she wears regenerates over time, which means no matter how much damage it sustains, it will always return in one piece. The same can’t be said for the user, though.

Hibiki runs to Tsubasa, checking if she’s okay, totally oblivious to the gravity of what just happened.

“i came just as i could and ive brought happy meals for everyone”

Genjuro asks if Tsubasa is okay.

I dunno man, this is a pretty tough judgement call here. I mean, is she okay? Pain is a pretty subjective experience, after all.

“oh my god i get it. i get the joke she implied. she wanted to jam. she’s jammed! cause it- it looks like jam! no, wait, its more like sauce...”

It dawns on Hibiki that people actually do die during this job.

Tsubasa, as it turns out, survived her Swan Song. It makes sense that she would because she was naturally receptive to her relic, Ame-No-Habakiri. Still, the injury comes with great gravity. She’s benched for the next season, and it’s likely she’s gonna miss the playoffs.

Stuck on a respirator on the edge of life, Tsubasa will probably look back at this and go, “Gosh, I was such a wild child. Haha. Almost dying and all.”

Hibiki wraps her single braincell around the idea of death. Most main characters aren’t familiar with the concept of death, you see, because most don’t die. But this is Season One Symphogear. Flirting with death is common.

Ogawa comes in to comfort her.

“dumbass had her opponent bound and the gremlin still escaped anyway”

Ogawa then explains shit we already know. Thanks, Ogawa.

“in summation: i get where you’re coming from, but stop fucking saying ‘im gonna replace kanade’, please, im begging you”

Hibiki FINALLY gets it, and naturally upon realizing, feels really bad for it. A real right and true asshole.

“oh thank god i was worried not even that was going to get to you”

Meanwhile, in Tsubasa’s mind...

“ah fuck me. im trapped in metaphor limbo. see, im falling because i clipped my wing, cause i nearly died, you know, like icarus and shit”

“hold up my gay senses are tingling”

Her senses confirmed. Kanade is in her mind, in probably the most romantic metaphor possible. There is absolutely no way to interpret all of this platonically.

Tsubasa is literally submerged in a sea of her own emotions...

Involving Kanade, and how she strives to be like her and honor her memory.

SHE LITERALLY DROWNS IN THOSE EMOTIONS, SUBMERGING DEEPER INTO THE WATER.

Tsubasa, in her Symphogear Brand Medical Cocoon for the Dumb and Beaten Down, quietly slumbers in her semi-comatose state as she wrestles the water metaphors of her own sexual identity.

The poor thing just misses her girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Hibiki sits and thinks more than usual. In a flashback, Genjuro muses about how The Gremlin wanted to kidnap Hibiki.

“i dunno maybe The Gremlin’s super lonely or shit”

“i mean if thats the case ill just adopt her too”

Since Tsubasa is away, Hibiki has to pick up the quota for teenage angst in the 2nd Division. Unfortunately, she has very big shoes to fill, but Hibiki isn’t one for slacking in the misery department. She blames herself for everything.

“im really going to fire the therapist we have around here for being pretty damn useless”

“can i be the therapist?”

“ryoko i am absolutely begging you to filter your bad ideas given the several teenage crises we’re dealing with right now”

Hibiki then yells out, for what is possibly the third time, out of the blue:

“I HAVE PEOPLE I WANT TO PROTECT”

The flashback ends.

And speaking of girlfriends.

“there is no force on this planet stopping me from having some quality fucking time with my girlfriend damnit”

Miku points out Hibiki has been pretty lonely. Says she heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another she was messin’ ‘round.

Unfortunately, Miku is a goddamned chad.

Immediate handholding. Make no mistake. Behind those soft-spoken eyes lies an absolute master.

“o-oh, my hand, you’re holding it, so smoothly”

“hibiki, you’re my sunshine. i want to soak up your rays so hard that every piece of flesh of my body is horribly mutilated from skin cancer.”

“jesus christ miku at least use sunscreen in your metaphors”

“ill use them just for you, hibiki. just for you.”

Their relationship is interesting. When one of them is sad, the other sorta acts as an angst vacuum. You’ll see them flip flop with their points of misery with each other, but when together, those problems always melt away.

Of course, emphasis on being together. Season 1 is the worst with keep them away from each other.

“Just Be Yourself!” Miku Kohinata, Symphogear, 2012.

“fuck me, you’re right. im the protagonist. i cant just eat shit here the whole time. i gotta do protagonist things!”

“was that an invitation?”

“another time. but now... let’s just catch up.”

And so, they laugh together about how the recorded footage of the meteor shower was all black. Truly the greatest couple of all time.

It is this realization of being her own self, coupled with her renewed gay energy, and new perspective on what she must do, that causes everything to go uphill for her from here. Take note.

Here is where a God is truly born.

Tachibana Hibiki.

The end of this episode cuts to a specific dojo.

Genjuro’s dojo.

“i dont fuck around with training, even though i probably should have trained you sooner. you sure about this?”

“dadman either you do this or i will most definitely die next time”

Part of their training involves watching action movies, because Genjuro is so unreal that he should frankly be a fictional character in the very universe he exists in.

Fucking adorable.

“im so conflicted its so clear she’s part of /fit/ now but i cant help but imagine her washboard abs”

Hibiki balls even harder at karaoke now, due to her Symphogear training, and not because she’s secretly Aoi Yuki playing a recolored version of Madoka.

Her significant other is mildly terrified at the superhuman that is slowly unfolding her powers before her eyes.

In the end, things all reach their logical conclusion.

Hibiki becomes a Tekken character, just like Genjuro.

Of course... Miku pushes the fact very subtly that she would never hide anything from Hibiki...

Turmoil brews in the worst way... soon...

[tkwrtrilogy3]

Chapter IV: Darkness and Light (Pt. II)

Later, while I was alone in my chambers working on my heirloom, Mîrwen entered with a smile on her face.

“You spoke to Oropher,” she said as she threw her arms around my shoulders. “Yes,” I said. “This pleases you?”

“I think Nimeithel is a wonderful match for him. So does Valdúmîr.”  

“I do not think it is up to us,” I said. “The heart does what it will.”

“True,” she answered releasing me. “But it can use a little help now and then.”

“Whatever it is,” I began. “Do not tell me. I would rather leave some things to my imagination.”

“Very well,” Mîrwen answered. “But I had nothing to do with it.”

“I find that hard to believe, Mîrwen. The ladies of the court live for such intrigue.”

“We do not.”

I looked up from my work at my beloved. She had longed for this moment since Oropher could speak.

“He has yet to ask us for our blessing,” I added. “Try to contain your joy, if you will.”

“Do you know something,” she asked.

“No more than you.”

“You do know something,” she said sitting beside me. “What do you know, Orothôn?”

“I know he is waiting for the right moment. Let him come when it is time. He will do what is honorable.”

Mîrwen nodded.

“If I must,” she said softly. “He is a good son.”

“That he is,” I agreed. “I could not be more proud.”

“Shall we go to dinner,” she asked. “It is time.”

I put my work down and rose with her. We left our chambers and made our way to the great hall. When we arrived, we noticed more elves than usual. Across the room, I noticed Denethor with Arethuil. Beside them was a handsome young elf with a maiden of enchanting beauty. Denethor saw me and led the two elves toward me.

“Orothôn, these are my children. Gildúr and Annariel.”

They bowed to me.

“It is an honor to meet you,” I said.

“The honor is ours,” Gildúr said. “To meet the father of such a great warrior as Oropher is humbling.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mîrwen said.

“I have seen him myself,” Annariel whispered. “When I can, Your Highness. You must be proud.”

“I am,” Mîrwen said. I could hear the anger growing beneath royal protocol. “Quite proud.”

Before she could say another word, the call to dinner came. We all took our places—including Oropher beside his mother. We waited in uncomfortable silence until King Thingol and Queen Melian entered with their daughter Lúthien. Once they were seated, everyone took their seats. I hoped for Mîrwen’s silence to continue through the end of our evening. Sitting across from us was Galathil and Celeborn—nearly himself unrecognizable as he was growing into manhood. Beside them sat their parents Galadhon and Celebriel. I could tell Galadhon has his eye on his sister.

“Mîrwen,” he whispered. “What bothers you?”

“Not a thing,” she whispered. “I am the proud mother of a great warrior.”

Oropher lowered his head. He looked at me and I shook my head. The silence between us continued until the end. When we rose, the silence was broken.

“If I may,” Oropher began. “I would like to call upon Nimeithel.”

As I nodded, Mîrwen spoke.

“You may not,” she answered.

“Mîrwen, let him go,” I said quietly. “You can speak with him upon his return.”

“I will speak with him now,” she said loudly.

The entire room fell silent. Elmo and Orowen looked toward us concerned.

“Mîrwen,” Galadhon whispered. “Not now I beg you.”

“If not now, when,” she asked. “When my son is a lifeless corpse on the field of battle?”

I wanted to hide. I could see Oropher was thinking the same.

“Mother,” he began. He was begging—something he had never done before. 

“Please do not do this.”

“Daughter,” Elmo began. “Is there something you wish to say?”

I could see his son Galathil take a deep breath as his son Amdir looked on.

“My son is a great warrior,” Mîrwen started. “So I have heard. Why have I learned of this now, Father?”

“Do not be angry with anyone but me, Mother,” Oropher said. “It was at my request.”

“You are a child,” Mîrwen said. “You have no power to request anything.”

“I am no longer a child,” he said sternly. “If I can love, then I can fight. It is my duty to defend this land as my father and grandfather. I do not need your blessing for that nor do I expect it. But as your son, I would do anything to keep your heart from breaking. That is why I dared not say a word.”

I heard the sound of sobbing—several maidens had begun to cry. I looked at Mîrwen; somehow my son had made quite the impression. I could feel the room return to a sense of calm.

“Your son has a way with words,” Galadhon said.

“Yes,” I answered. “I am grateful for it.”

“May I call upon Nimeithel,” Oropher asked once more.

Mîrwen and I nodded together. He kissed his mother’s cheek and left us quickly.

“He is a good son,” I said to her. “You have raised him well.”

“We have raised him well,” she said taking my hand.

I kissed her. I knew she had accepted things to come. We returned to our chambers with some peace of mind.

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

It began with the Marchwardens—King Thingol had ordered more to cover the borders of Doriath. Though things remained quiet, there was little doubt we were preparing for war.

In the days before the first battle, the naugrim were seen more often traveling the road between Nogrod and Doriath as well as within Menegroth. The cache of weapons seemed to swell over time.

There was never a time I was not on guard—every noise would turn my head as my heart would beat a little harder. Mîrwen tried her best to calm me but she was just as frightened.

Once I had finished my heirloom, I marveled at the thought of it being passed on generation to generation. I went to find Oropher. He was inside a keep looking over the land. 

“I knew I would find you here,” I said to him as I approached.

“I was thinking to myself,” he said. “How beautiful Doriath is. I wonder what will become of it?”

“It will stand for as long as it should,” I answered.

He looked at me and smiled.

“I suppose,” he said. “Why were you looking for me?”

“I wished to give you something,” I began. “Perhaps make up for lost time with my only child.”

He gave me a curious look.

“I have spent my entire life with you, Ada. Whatever time was lost in your absence was sacrosanct to the service of the King.”

“I wish it had never been,” I said. “You should have been raised in Eldamar—far from this land we live in.”

“I know no other place as home,” he said. “I was born here as many others. Eldamar to me is nothing more than lore.”

“It does exist,” I said, even though I doubted it myself now. “One day we will see it.”

Oropher nodded. I knew he was doing it for me to change the course of conversation.

“I wanted to give you this,” I said, showing him the medallion I had made. “I have been working on it since the very moment I learned of your conception.”

He took it from me and marveled at it for awhile. 

“Thank you, Ada,” he finally said. “I will cherish it always.”

He embraced me tightly. When he let go, I could see tears in his eyes.

“Why are you sad, Oropher,” I asked.

“Will I return from battle,” he asked.

“I have little doubt that you will return.”

“I have asked Nimeithel for her hand,” he said softly. “I do not want her to become a widow before she becomes a bride.”

I was as happy as I was breathless.

“Are you asking for my blessing?”

“I am,” he answered.

“You do realize your mother will be absolutely delighted.”

“I know,” he said, laughing. “Grandmother said as much. It would seem Mother has been planning for this day since I was born.”

“You are too generous,” I said. “She has been planning this much longer than that.”

We laughed together. I realized how long I had lived. My son had come of age and was about to start a household of his own.

“I suppose it will be up to me to speak with Êlengolas,” I began. “That is far easier than asking the King.”

Oropher nodded. We stood looking out at Doriath. It was a beautiful land. Its future perils were yet unknown to us as we enjoyed the moment together.--TKWRT Book I: The Epic of Eryn Galen by Jaynaé Marie Miller. 2-23-2019

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