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sunarryn · 3 months ago

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DP X Marvel #20

Jazz Fenton was not supposed to become an urban legend, a media conspiracy theory, or a widely feared intern with multiple Tumblr fan accounts, but alas, here they were.

At 19 years old, Jasmine “Jazz” Fenton had moved to New York on a full scholarship to Columbia University, double majoring in psychology and business, with a minor in engineering just for fun. She wore blazers older than most Columbia freshmen, carried a briefcase instead of a backpack, and maintained a 4.0 GPA while ghost-proofing her dorm room using proprietary tech she’d built in high school. On the third day of orientation, she calmly tased a literal demon that crawled out of an upper-floor window of Butler Library and continued sipping her iced matcha like it was a Tuesday. Which, unfortunately, it was.

This act caught the attention of a lot of people, including—but not limited to—an NYPD exorcist division, a priest named Father Julio, two SHIELD interns on a coffee break, and Pepper Potts, who was in the city for a Stark Industries panel on sustainable weapons of mass deterrence.

“She tased a demon,” Pepper said slowly to her assistant.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“In broad daylight.”

“Correct.”

“And then she—what did she say again?”

The assistant glanced at their notes. “‘Don’t manifest on Ivy League property, it lowers our national rank.’”

Pepper stared into the distance. “Find her. And hire her.”

Within forty-eight hours, Jazz was sitting in a glass elevator ascending Stark Tower. She hadn’t applied for anything. She hadn’t submitted a résumé. But her phone pinged during a psych lecture with a Stark Industries-branded email that simply said, “Ms. Potts would like to speak to you,” followed by a GPS pin and a non-negotiable appointment time.

Tony, predictably, was not consulted.

“What do you MEAN she’s nineteen? What do you MEAN she’s your intern? Pepper, she built a plasma cannon in your office. In two hours. Using my old espresso machine.”

“It was broken,” Jazz added politely, scrolling through quantum schematics on her StarkPad. “And under OSHA, coffee-related injuries are still injuries. You’re welcome.”

Tony pointed a wrench at her like it was a gun. “You don’t scare me, you ginger menace.”

Jazz smiled faintly. “You should be scared. You tried to patent a neural override system with an open-ended quantum key. You’re lucky I fixed it before it broadcasted the location of every Stark tech asset on Earth.”

There was a pause.

Tony turned to Pepper. “She’s you. But worse. Why is she you but worse?”

“I don’t know,” Pepper murmured. “But I think I love her.”

The rumors started on week three.

At first, it was office gossip. Just little things. Intern was too tall. Too confident. Too quiet. You don’t trust the quiet ones. And then she reverse-engineered the Arc Reactor because she was bored on lunch break, and the quiet turned into fear.

“Is she—like—a clone or something?” asked one junior developer to another over ramen in the cafeteria.

“I heard she’s Tony’s secret daughter,” the other whispered. “Raised in a lab. Trained from birth. Like that kid in Kingsman but with algebra.”

One engineer swore they saw her casually deflect a pulse grenade using a file folder. Another caught her manually rebooting the Tower AI after it shorted out during a lightning storm—something that shouldn’t have been possible unless you had admin-level clearance, which Jazz absolutely did not have. In theory.

“Pepper,” Tony said slowly one morning, watching Jazz reprogram a malfunctioning security drone while also Skyping her Columbia psych professor, “do we have a bioengineered heir you forgot to tell me about?”

“No,” Pepper said, sipping coffee. “But if I die, she gets the company.”

Tony sputtered. “Excuse me?!”

Jazz didn’t look up. “I accept.”

The media got involved during Stark Industries’ spring gala.

Jazz, dressed in a midnight blue suit that cost more than her entire tuition, arrived at Pepper’s side like a storm. She was calm, composed, stunningly competent, and intercepted two would-be saboteurs in the first thirty minutes with nothing but a suspicious stare and a champagne flute.

“She’s Pepper’s daughter,” someone tweeted.

“She’s not old enough to be her daughter.”

“She’s her clone. Pepper 2.0. She even walks like her.”

“I would let her step on me.”

By the next morning, “#StarkHeir” was trending worldwide, and conspiracy theorists had posted side-by-side comparisons of Jazz and Pepper’s bone structures, speech patterns, and typing styles. Someone even made a Google doc of all their shared quirks. It had color-coded sections. There were charts.

Tony spent the entire week yelling.

“She’s NOT my kid! She’s not even related to Pepper!”

Pepper, annoyingly, did not help. “Technically, we don’t know she’s not.”

“Oh my god.”

Meanwhile, Jazz was unfazed.

“Should I post a clarification?” she asked.

“No,” said Pepper, texting casually. “Let them fear you.”

The Avengers had mixed feelings.

Steve was terrified of her. She reminded him too much of Natasha, if Natasha had spent her childhood in AP classes and the rest of her time inventing hover grenades. Sam and Rhodey liked her, mostly because she was polite and explained quantum mechanics in metaphors that involved pop tarts. Peter developed an immediate and debilitating crush, which she ignored with expert precision.

“Hi, Miss Fenton,” Peter said shyly one day, watching her reprogram a Stark drone mid-air while eating a bagel.

“Peter,” she said without looking up. “You have a calculus exam in twenty-two minutes and your spider-suit’s magnetic lock is uncalibrated.”

Peter turned pink. “Oh. Thanks. Wait—how did you—?”

She looked at him. “I am your god now.”

Peter nearly fainted.

Natasha liked her. Clint was afraid of her. Thor called her “Little Flame Witch” and offered to train her in Asgardian battle strategy, which she accepted, just to make Bruce nervous.

But it was Loki who said it first.

“She’s not of this world,” he muttered to Wanda during a conference meeting. “She carries too much silence for a mortal. Something follows her.”

He was right, of course.

Because sometimes, at night, the tower cameras would glitch. Alarms would blip off for three-point-two seconds. And if you reviewed the footage frame by frame, you’d catch a flicker of something—green light, spectral claws, shadows moving too fast.

Jazz never addressed it.

She just carried her ghost-hunting thermos in her tote bag and once drop-kicked a poltergeist out of the 35th floor without spilling her coffee. Pepper made her head of paranormal security the next day. Tony threw a chair.

“I HATE HER.”

“You’re jealous.”

“She made a hover-bomb out of printer ink and stale Red Vines. WHO DOES THAT.”

“She’s better than you, darling. Accept it.”

The Pentagon called.

Then SHIELD.

Then the President.

They all wanted meetings. Wanted the Stark Intern. Wanted the girl who built an anti-phasing grenade in her sleep and then used it to banish an interdimensional wraith that had haunted the UN for seventy years. She’d done it in kitten heels. While on speakerphone with Columbia discussing her thesis on behavioral disassociation and spectral trauma.

“Ms. Fenton,” said General Ross one day, sitting across from her in a secure Stark lab, “how old are you again?”

“Nineteen.”

He blinked. “And you… developed this ectoplasmic nullifier?”

“Yes.”

“From scratch?”

“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Tony watched from the corner, snickering into a bag of popcorn.

“Careful, Ross,” he said. “She’s been known to vaporize military-grade egos.”

Jazz didn’t smile, but her eyes sparkled just a little.

The conspiracy peaked when a tabloid published an article titled “Pepper Potts’ Secret Daughter: Genius Intern or Bio-Engineered Successor?”

There were pie charts. Photos. A leaked voicemail from Tony yelling “SHE ISN’T MINE, YOU IMBECILES” that only made things worse.

One Tumblr post had over 800k notes and a list of reasons why Jazz was definitely a Potts-Stark hybrid, including, “built a laser harp,” “once told Elon Musk to ‘shut up before I make a better Tesla with a coffee maker and two forks,’” and “terrifying corporate aura.”

Jazz printed the post. Framed it. Hung it in her dorm.

Pepper just looked fond.

“I think you’ve officially surpassed me in public fear,” she said one afternoon as Jazz filed patents under twenty different shell companies.

Jazz shrugged. “You set the bar very high.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Tony sobbed in the background. “This is my nightmare.”

“Jazz,” said Pepper sweetly, “could you file a cease-and-desist against MIT for trying to recruit you illegally?”

“Already did. Also, I bought MIT using the company card.”

Tony screamed.

And through it all—ghost attacks, PR disasters, tech blackouts, alien entities, and one incident where Jazz weaponized her psych minor to dismantle a HYDRA agent’s entire worldview in a hallway—she remained completely, terrifyingly composed.

Because this was Jazz Fenton. The girl who survived Amity Park, ghost portals, mad science parents, and her half-dead little brother who punched death in the face on Tuesdays.

The Marvel universe had no idea what it had just unleashed.

But Pepper did.

She just smiled and handed Jazz her new badge: Chief Innovation Officer, Spectral Division.

“I think you’re ready for phase two.”

Jazz sipped her coffee. “Let’s haunt the world.”

#danny fenton #danny phantom #dp x marvel #danny phantom fanfiction #marvel #marvel mcu #mcu #mcu fandom #crossover #danny phantom fandom #pepper potts #virginia potts #tony stark #iron man #iron dad #jasmine fenton #jazz fenton #mcu fanfiction #marvel fanfic

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mandoalorian · 1 month ago

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red, white and blue [bucky barnes x f!reader]

pairing: new avenger!bucky x f!reader

synopsis: you slept while the world moved on without you. someone left flowers. someone turned on the news. and when you finally woke, it wasn’t peace that greeted you. it was rain. it was confusion. it was something in your chest breaking open again. so you ran—before anyone could stop you.

word count: 5500

rating/warnings: 18+ explicit content, mentions of male masturbation, enemies to lovers, the blossoming of a love triangle, trauma/void room descriptions, family death, blood mention, guns, canon typical violence/action, angst, bucky/sam still aren’t friends, misunderstandings that might make you want to scream, details of injury, hospital-setting, avengers tower fic, thunderbolts spoilers

masterlist

previous chapter | current | next chapter

ONE WEEK LATER.

The med bay was quiet, save for the gentle hum of machines and the steady blip of your heart monitor. Night had long swallowed the city, and the world outside was still. Inside, it was just you and Bob.

He sat slouched in the chair beside your bed, his hoodie wrinkled, sneakers kicked off beneath him. One of John’s protein bars was melting on the table, untouched, a ‘get well soon’ gift from the US Agent that he had so unwillingly agreed to part with. Bob’s clipboard rested on his knee, but he hadn’t written a single note in the last forty minutes.

Your vitals were steady. Oxygen, normal. No neural spikes, no warnings. Still, you hadn’t stirred.

Bob rubbed the bridge of his nose and glanced at you, eyes narrowing behind the IV. He didn’t like this—not the silence, not the unknown.

“You know,” he muttered into the dark, “no one really knows who you are.”

He glanced toward the door. No footsteps. No voices. Just the soft breathing of the Tower itself.

“Sam just… brought you in. Said you were important. Said we needed you.” Bob’s voice was low, like he was trying not to wake you. “And that was it. No briefing. No intel drop. Just... boom. You’re on the team.”

He swallowed.

“I’m not even an Avenger. I’m just here, helping out. If it wasn’t for Yelena, they probably wouldn’t waste their time on me,” Bob frowned. “I just try and work out which pieces of Stark’s technology in the tower are worth saving, and I do the dishes, most of the time. But somehow I’ve been sitting here watching you breathe for the past week like I’m your goddamn guardian angel.”

A little edge in his tone, darkness even. The blinding feeling of still not being good enough nearly tipped through. His eyes flicked to your hand resting beside the blanket. Still. Pale. Calm.

“I’ve seen what everyone else hasn’t.” His tone softened, became unsure. “You... talk in your sleep sometimes. Weird words. You cry, too. Just once. I heard you. I can’t stop thinking about when Sam and I watched Redwing’s surveillance of the fight. Your scream. The way you saved Bucky. What you said… ‘He’s not yours to kill’, what does that mean?”

Bob stood, pacing now, rubbing his palms together like trying to warm himself from a chill that wouldn’t leave.

“You hate him. But not in a surface-level, ego-clash kinda way. It’s deeper. Like you’ve known him in another life. Or like he took something from you.” He turned to look at you again, then scoffed. “He doesn’t even know, does he?”

He lingered by your side again, hands twitching at his sides. The Void buzzed faintly beneath his skin. That old temptation.

“Just a glimpse,” he whispered. “Not to violate anything. Just... clarity. That’s all.”

Bob stared at your hand, then at his own, flexing his fingers.

“No, no, no, bad idea. Bob, this is literally the reason they said you shouldn’t touch people when they’re unconscious.”

But his fingers hovered. Trembled. And finally—made contact.

The moment your skin met his, the air snapped inward.

The machines dimmed, the walls folded in on themselves—and the world fell away.

Bob’s breath caught in his throat.

He stood now in a black void, pulsing softly around him like the inside of a heartbeat. But even as he steadied himself, colour bled in. The space reshaped, forming the vague contours of a place that wasn’t real, yet felt terrifyingly familiar.

It was your Void Room.

Personal. Raw. Truthful.

Not memory. Not dream. Something deeper.

“…Whoa,” Bob whispered, heart kicking into a gallop. “Okay, okay... so you’ve got layers.”

But already, something in the atmosphere was shifting. A flicker of heat. A burst of rage. A ghost of sorrow so thick it strangled the air. Then, through the haze—

A younger you.

A flash of something sharp.

A silhouette with a metal arm.

And a truth he hadn’t been prepared to see.

Bob could hardly breathe. The Void rippled like a curtain torn loose in a storm, warping around you, around your unconscious form as it lay still beside him. He hadn’t meant to see this. He hadn’t meant to feel this. But here he was, standing in the memory your soul had buried deepest.

The scene unfolded with dreamlike clarity, yet carried the unmistakable weight of truth.

A modest banquet hall—walls lined with cheap tinsel and flickering string lights. A rented space in a nondescript city building, made special only by the people inside it. A birthday. Homemade cake. Laughter. Friends pressed close, holding paper plates and plastic forks, warmth radiating off the small crowd.

You were only eight, maybe nine, all limbs and excitement. You ducked under tables and tugged on adults’ hands, giggling, clutching a handmade card in sparkly glue. At the centre of the room stood your brother, eighteen today. Bright-eyed. Laughing. The kind of boy who made people feel safe just by existing.

Bob recognised the kind of room this was. Family-built. Naive in its joy.

But not everyone in that room was meant to be there.

Bob’s gaze shifted as your father shook hands with a guest in a tailored suit—older, composed, and far too serious for the occasion. Senator Harold Myles. A moderate voice rising in Congress. Recently outspoken against certain defence contracts that fed HYDRA’s shell corporations. The kind of man who wouldn’t live long once his name showed up on their list.

Hydra wanted him gone.

And so, they'd sent their ghost.

The door burst open with metallic finality. Screams burst like shrapnel.

Enter the Winter Soldier.

Black tactical gear. Silver arm adorned with a red star. No mask this time, only long dark hair damp with rain, clinging to his cheekbones. He didn’t shout. Didn’t threaten. Just walked—slow, direct, surgical.

The Senator had maybe three seconds to recognise the spectre from whispered D.C. legends before the Soldier raised his rifle.

But your brother got there first.

Bob saw it in horrifying detail—your brother lunging forward, pushing a friend down behind a table, hands up, shouting something like, “Wait, he’s just a—” before the gun fired.

No hesitation. No remorse.

Just cold training.

Your brother collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. A silence fell in the room that no music could recover from.

You screamed.

Bob saw your mother throw her arms around you, trying to shield you from the scene. But power bloomed inside you—raw, ancient, untapped. It cracked from your chest like glass under pressure, flooding the air with a low hum of impossible energy.

And then—

Light.

Heat.

Screams swallowed in a wave of radiance.

Everyone—your parents, the guests, even the Senator—obliterated in a surge of aura. The Winter Soldier alone had made it out. You, sobbing in the rubble, glowing like something divine and shattered, didn’t know it yet.

Didn’t know what had happened.

Didn’t know what you were.

And you didn’t know the man who walked away into the night was the one who’d started it all.

Bob stood frozen, stomach churning. The smell of ash and scorched memory lingered in the Void.

He looked at you now, unconscious in the medbay. Strong. Fierce. So certain in your hate.

He understood.

Because the Winter Soldier didn’t just kill your brother.

He made you.

Bob’s eyes snapped open, lungs seizing with the sudden rush of cold, sterile air. The harsh fluorescent lights of the medbay flickered overhead like ghosts trying to blink away the images now burned into his brain.

He was still holding your hand.

He dropped it like it had burned him.

Heart hammering, he stumbled back, nearly knocking over a tray of gauze and saline as he braced himself against the nearest wall. He gripped the edge of the counter so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white, trying to find something—anything—solid beneath him. But there was nothing solid left. Not after what he’d just seen.

Not after what he now knew.

You weren’t just some mysterious recruit plucked from the wind by Sam Wilson.

You were trauma wrapped in silence. A living wound with teeth. A ghost shaped like a girl who had once screamed hard enough to erase a room.

And the Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—was at the centre of it all.

Bob stared at your face, still peaceful in sleep. Your vitals beeped steady. Your breathing was calm. Anyone else would think you were just healing. But he knew better now.

He swallowed, throat dry and tight. His stomach turned. The image of your brother’s body collapsing—the sheer horror in your scream, that moment your powers ignited like wildfire—it would haunt him. Not because of what you did, but because of what had been done to you.

Bob pressed his trembling hands to his eyes and breathed. In. Out. Again.

He’d seen darkness before. He was darkness, in a way. The Void was a cruel place that showed people their worst. But this? This had been something else.

It had been human.

And now… what was he supposed to do with this?

Tell Sam? Warn Bucky? Warn you, when you woke up?

No.

He looked at you again, this time with something softer beneath the shock—grief, maybe. Sympathy. A gnawing understanding.

Bob wasn’t an Avenger.

He was a janitor of memory. A gatekeeper of ghosts.

And for now, this ghost… this truth… would remain his burden to carry.

He turned back to his console, fingers moving stiffly as he checked your vitals again. Heart rate steady. Brain activity… shifting. You were healing. Slowly.

Outside your room, the world kept turning. Plans moved forward. So did people.

Bucky didn’t.

The second night you were unconscious in the medbay, he sat at the edge of your bed long after the others had gone. Sam had stopped by briefly, saying something about Reed Richards and Johnny Storm needing to be brought in before the press caught wind of the failed mission. But Bucky barely listened. His eyes stayed on you. You were still pale. Still too quiet.

He left at dawn, jaw locked, and returned a few hours later. His knuckles were bruised.

By the third day, Reed and Johnny were back—less enemies now, more reluctant allies. Apparently, the moment Bucky told them Sue Storm and Ben Grimm were safe, Reed’s entire stance shifted. Johnny rolled his eyes, muttered something cocky, but followed without protest. No power struggles. No fireballs. Just tired agreement. They’d seen enough.

But their cooperation didn’t ease the knot in Bucky’s chest. Not when he passed your room and saw Bob still stationed there like a quiet sentinel. Not when he stepped inside and found you still lying there, unmoving.

He hovered by the door some days. Other times, he sat again. Said nothing. Thought too much.

Sam noticed. On the fifth night, he caught Bucky in the hallway.

“You need sleep,” he said. Not harsh, not gentle. Just a statement. Like a friend who saw the unravelling.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Sam’s expression cracked a little then, the frustration bleeding through. “She nearly died, Buck. You think sitting by her bedside every night’s gonna change that? You can’t make up for it that way.”

Bucky didn’t argue. He just turned away.

Behind him, Sam sighed. “I know you care about her. But beating yourself up won’t fix her. Or you.”

That night, Bucky stood under the shower too long. Water scalding. Steam swallowing him whole. He let it burn the guilt out of him—or tried to. But just like clockwork, he felt it, the way his body yearned for you. Like a primal need, and urge that he just couldn’t bite down. Your soft lips on his scarred skin and God, Bucky knew nothing would ever happen. He knew that you’d rather die than touch him.

Somehow, that only made him want you more. So he curled his fingers around his cock, grunting and moaning as the water splashed against the tiles, his stomach pooling with arousal as he neared his release. And then he’d choke out a cry as he came undone, promising to never do that again. His desire for you once again buried in shame and guilt — left unspoken. The way it needed to be.

He still came back to the med bay, hair damp, hoodie clinging to his skin. He didn’t go in this time. Just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the closed door like it held all the answers.

It didn’t.

So, after gentle consideration, Bucky slipped through the door like he’d done every morning and every night that week—silent, steady, careful. He didn’t need to be here. And yet, he showed up. Without fail. Always in the same dark clothes, always with that same guarded look on his face.

In his hand was a loosely tied bundle of flowers, snatched from the rooftop garden, still damp from the morning dew. An array of white lillies, red roses and bluebells, planted by Ava and Bob at the start of the season.

He placed them on the side table, then dragged the chair closer to your bed, leather creaking under his weight as he sat. You looked the same. Still. Distant. Like you were in a dream you hadn’t decided to wake up from.

His jaw shifted slightly before he spoke.

“You’re gonna mess up the team dynamic if you don’t wake up soon.”

He didn’t say it like a joke. He said it like a fact. Or maybe a plea dressed up in military detachment.

“They’re trying to figure out how to rebuild the Avengers lineup,” he continued, voice low. “Sam’s already talking about public image. Optics. You know how it goes. ‘What’ll the people think?’” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “And I’m sitting there like… ‘you’re part of the team too, you should be here as we decide these things.’”

He let out a dry breath, shaking his head. “We got the Fantastic Four. They’re willing to cooperate. Sam and I… we know some people too. Some old friends. I just—”

Another beat of silence. Bucky changed the subject without warning, revealing the pressure that had been eating him alive.

“I keep thinking I know you.”

He looked up at you then, really looked. His eyes didn’t waver, even when his mouth tightened like he hated admitting it.

“It’s crazy. I know it is. But sometimes when I walk past you… when I hear your voice, or see the way you look at me like I’m something you already buried…” He swallowed. “It’s like I’ve seen you before. Like we’ve done this. Been here. Somewhere else. Somewhere... worse.”

His fingers fidgeted with the seam of his glove.

“I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But something’s off about this. About you. About the way I can’t stop wondering what you’d say if you were awake right now. Probably something scathing. Probably something that would make me laugh after you leave the room.”

His throat bobbed.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

It was out before he could swallow it back.

“That’s what this is. I know I’m not supposed to say it. Hell, I’m not even supposed to feel it. But I don’t care.” His voice dropped. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He stood, slowly, like anything louder than a breath would disturb whatever fragile thread was holding this moment together.

The flowers stayed. The chair creaked back into place.

But Bucky—he paused at the door, glancing back at you one more time, his metal hand curled into a fist at his side.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And then he was gone.

────✪────

Bob tapped the side of the monitor gently with two fingers, watching your vitals flicker to life on the screen. Still steady. Still slow. He exhaled through his nose and scribbled something on the clipboard tucked under his arm. The medbay had become a second home over the past few days — white walls, humming machines, and you, lying silent in the center of it all like a ghost that hadn’t decided whether to stay or leave.

He stepped to your side, fingers brushing the inside of your wrist. Warm. Good. He recorded your pulse next, muttering to himself as he did. “No change. Still stable. Still you.”

But then, his gaze snagged on something new.

Sitting just beside the monitor — a small glass vase that hadn’t been there earlier. Fresh flowers. Red, white, and blue, arranged with a surprising amount of care. Bob narrowed his eyes, setting the clipboard aside and reaching toward the vase. Nestled among the stems was a small card.

He plucked it free.

"From Bucky."

He stared at the handwriting for a long time. His fingers tensed, crumpling the edge of the card slightly.

“Seriously?”

A hollow laugh escaped him, humourless. He looked at you again — unconscious, brow furrowed in some distant dream, breath slow and even — and he imagined what it would be like if you woke up and saw this first. The flowers. That name. The very person who had shattered your life with the same cold precision he used to break bones and silence witnesses.

Bob had seen it now. Lived it, in your void room. The memory pressed at the backs of his eyes like it was still happening — the birthday, the scream, the body falling. And Bucky Barnes, expression blank behind the Winter Soldier’s mask, walking away from your brother’s blood.

Bob turned the card over. Nothing else. No apology. No explanation. Just that name — a name too heavy to leave lying on your bedside like a get-well-soon balloon.

He folded it once, then again, and slid it into his back pocket.

A knock came from the doorframe — Yelena, arms filled with grocery bags, one dangling precariously from her pinky. “Hey, Robert. Mind giving me a hand before the oat milk crushes my spleen?”

Bob hesitated, eyes darting back to your still form.

“I’ll be five minutes,” he murmured. He reached for the TV remote to give the room some noise — a habit more than anything else — and flicked it on low. A news anchor’s voice filtered through the speakers.

“Later this evening, O.X.E. CEO Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and New Avengers Team Leader Bucky Barnes will give a formal update on the status of the Fantastic Four—”

He winced, already annoyed, and lowered the volume even more. Then he followed Yelena out, shooting one last look at you over his shoulder. Still asleep. Still unaware.

He didn’t like this. Something in his gut said that when you woke up, you were going to wake up wrong. And all of this — the flowers, the card, the quiet hum of the news behind him — would only make it worse.

But for now, the room remained still. The flowers sat at your side. And the TV kept talking.

And so, the first thing you heard when you finally woke up was the murmur of voices. Not close ones. Not real ones. Filtered and distant, like they were being spoken through cotton. A woman’s voice — polished, assertive. Familiar.

Then the sting of fluorescent light behind your eyelids. The sterile scent of antiseptic in your nose.

You blinked awake.

The ceiling was unfamiliar. Not Sam’s place. Machines beeped beside you in steady rhythm, and something cold tugged at your arm. You looked down — an IV. Monitors. Your wrist wrapped in a soft cuff. Hospital. No — medbay.

Your chest fluttered with a breath, shallow and aching. Everything felt like it had happened hours ago and years ago, all at once. You tried to sit, but a tight pull in your side made you wince. Slowly, carefully, you turned your head.

And saw the television.

Your heart climbed into your throat before your brain caught up.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine stood at a podium, flanked by flags and security detail, her sleek black suit catching the glint of the press lights. She was mid-sentence, one hand confidently on her hip as she addressed the sea of cameras and reporters.

“—and we’re proud to confirm that, thanks to the tireless effort of Barnes and the New Avengers, Reed Richards, Jonathan Storm, Sue Storm and Ben Grimm have officially joined the team. We’re thrilled about what this means for the future of global protection.”

The crowd applauded. Reporters shouted questions. And then — him.

Bucky.

You sucked in a breath at the sight of him, stepping up beside Val, expression unreadable but handsome as ever in a dark navy suit, clean-cut and so Congressman-like. There was a stiffness in his jaw. The camera lingered on him, and you found yourself leaning forward before you could stop.

Val beamed at him. “All of this is only possible because of his leadership,” she said, placing a hand on his chest like she owned him. “Bucky Barnes is proof that people deserve a second chance, and that’s what the New Avengers Initiative is all about.”

No. What does she know about second chances?

Then — she kissed him.

Your stomach dropped.

It was quick. Clean. One of those polished political kisses meant for cameras and headlines. But Bucky didn’t pull away. He stilled for a beat… almost like he was deciding his next move, and then kissed her back. Mouth opened, leaned in, nose pressed into her face.

Your hand trembled as it reached for the remote. You turned the TV off. Silence crashed into the room.

For a long moment, you just stared at the black screen, trying to breathe. It didn’t make sense. You hated him. He was your enemy. The Winter Soldier. He had murdered your brother. He had carved out the centre of your life with a bullet and vanished into history.

So why did your heart feel like it was splintering?

You let your head drop back against the pillow. Your eyes stung.

And then — you noticed the flowers.

They sat on the table by your bedside, radiant and arranged with surprising delicacy. Red, white, and blue. Patriotic, almost. They looked so out of place in this sterile room. You reached for them, wincing as you moved, and searched for a card. Nothing.

But the colours… the warmth of the gesture…

You swallowed, your throat tight. Sam. You told yourself it must’ve been Sam. Sweet, thoughtful Sam — the one who took you in, trusted you when no one else would. If he brought you these, it meant he cared. Meant someone still did.

A fresh well of emotion spilled into your chest. You couldn’t stay here.

You reached for the IV and ripped it out with a hiss. The machines beeped in protest, but you were already swinging your legs over the bed, finding your balance. You grabbed the hospital blanket and wrapped it around your shoulders, dizzy but moving.

You didn’t want to be here when someone came in. You didn’t want to talk. You didn’t want to see him. You didn’t want answers. You wanted—

Sam.

Barefoot, shivering, you slipped out the door and into the corridor. No one noticed. No one stopped you. You left the medbay behind.

And ran.

You pushed the door open and stumbled into the night.

The city hit you like a wave — noise, lights, motion — all muffled beneath the steady drum of rain. Cold, relentless, it soaked through the thin hospital gown clinging to your skin in seconds. The blanket you’d taken from the bed trailed behind you like a forgotten flag, heavy and useless now. You let it fall to the ground.

You didn’t know where you were going. Just away.

Your bare feet slapped against the concrete, slipping a little as you ran across the sidewalk and through the streets of Manhattan, the rain burning against your skin like ice. No one stopped you. No one even looked. New York had seen stranger things.

But inside your head, it was chaos.

Your mind flitted from image to image like radio static — Bucky in that press conference, his mouth against hers, the way he didn’t even flinch. Bucky lying on his back in the tunnels underground, after being hit by a blast of Johnny Storm’s fire. Him holding you upright when you fell off the kitchen counter, that one night after playing Never Have I Ever, when he lifted you to reach the vents with so much ease and all the touching during training. You had pushed him off you, time and time again, but now you reminisced the feeling of his hands on your body. Warmth. Comfort. Care. All of it, every single thought, was him. You were consumed.

And then darkness.

That week-long sleep, the one no one thought you’d wake from… it hadn’t felt like sleep. It had felt like falling. Floating. Like you were back in the Void again — no walls, no sound, just weightlessness. But there had been something different this time. Someone. A hand in yours. A voice. Bob?

You tried to remember but it was like chasing smoke.

You shook your head. It didn’t matter.

You kept running. Across avenues, past honking cars and glowing storefronts. Your breath came ragged, and your body was shaking, but you couldn’t stop. Not until you saw the building. Sam’s place. A low-rise brownstone that didn’t scream Avenger, tucked away between a deli and a laundry shop like it belonged to someone normal.

Like he was normal.

Like you could be.

You stopped across the street and stared at the windows, lit warm from inside. You imagined him there, in his hoodie and socks, maybe eating cereal at night like he did when he couldn’t sleep. The thought made your throat tighten.

Sam had taken you in when no one else even looked twice. Gave you a room. A chance. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t expect perfection. He just… cared.

Maybe that’s why, deep down, you’d assumed the flowers were from him. Because Sam was the kind of person who would’ve left them. Who would’ve wanted you to wake up to something kind. Who saw something in you, even when you couldn’t see it in yourself.

You crossed the street and climbed the steps, every movement aching from cold and exhaustion. Your hair was plastered to your face, rain dripping from your chin. You knocked — softly, then again, louder.

Please be home, Sam. Please.

Your legs trembled.

You knocked a third time, then pressed your forehead to the door, whispering his name like a prayer.

────✪────

Bucky wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand the moment the elevator doors sealed shut behind him. Val’s lipstick smeared red across his knuckles — a stubborn, perfect imprint of something he hadn’t asked for. Something that didn’t belong to him.

He scrubbed harder, jaw clenched, his reflection flashing in the chrome walls as the elevator ascended toward the medbay.

All he wanted was to see you.

He hadn’t meant to be gone that long. Just a press conference. Just a few words about the Fantastic Four’s arrival. But the moment the cameras turned off, Val had stepped in like she always did — sharp smile, flawless posture, and just enough power in her voice to make it hard to say no. He didn’t expect the kiss. Didn’t want it. Didn’t know what to do when it happened, so he froze and kissed her back. Impulse.

And that was caught on camera too.

He hated this game.

Maybe you were awake now. Or maybe still sleeping. He just needed to see you. That would make it better. Ground him again.

The doors slid open and Bucky stepped into the medbay.

His boots stopped cold.

The bed was empty.

No heart monitor beeping. No shallow rise of breath beneath thin sheets. The wires — the IV, the vitals monitor — were all ripped out, discarded like a storm had passed through. The bed wasn’t even made. The blanket was tangled and damp, still slightly warm.

His stomach dropped.

The only thing left untouched… was the bouquet.

He stepped toward it slowly, the bright red, white, and blue petals still dewy.

He turned sharply, panic clawing into his ribs, and spoke to the artificial intelligence system that Tony Stark had once installed in every room in the Avengers Tower. “FRIDAY,” he snapped. “Where is she?”

There was a pause. “Unknown. The subject is no longer in the building.”

Bucky was already sprinting for the door.

He reached the living quarters like a man on fire, shoulder-checking the door open. “She’s gone,” he gasped, nearly breathless. “She’s not in the medbay—she’s gone.”

The room fell silent.

Yelena dropped her cards. Ava looked up mid-laugh. Alexei’s brow furrowed, and Bob stood so fast his chair toppled behind him.

“What do you mean, gone?” Bob asked, voice sharper than usual. “I just checked in on her a couple hours ago.”

Bucky’s eyes were wild. “The bed’s empty. IVs torn out. No one’s seen her.”

Yelena cursed under her breath and immediately started pulling on her jacket. “She wouldn’t just leave like that.”

“We don’t know that,” Bob muttered, but his mind was already racing. He was seeing pieces — flashes — of you blinking awake, alone, confused, coming straight out of your void-room.

John was already flipping a notepad open, sharp and strategic. “We split up. We don’t panic. Bob, you and Ava check the perimeter of the building, rooftops too. Yelena, take the underground. Alexei, go street level. She couldn’t have gotten far if she left recently.”

“And me?” Bucky asked, voice a touch hoarse.

John looked up, then nodded slowly. “You know her better than we do.”

Bob hesitated. “Are we sure that’s a good idea?”

Bucky blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”

Bob didn’t answer at first. He saw the way Bucky’s hand clenched at his side, like he didn’t even realise he was trembling.

“I just mean…” Bob exhaled. “You might not be the first face she wants to see.”

Bucky stiffened, confusion etched across his features. “She saved my life,” he said quietly. “Why wouldn’t she—?”

Bucky faltered at his words, and Bob offered him a softened look. Empathy, almost.

Because the truth hung too heavy in the room to say aloud.

Still, Bucky squared his shoulders. “I’m going to Sam’s. If she’s scared, that’s where she’d go.”

Bob nodded, finally. “Then go.”

And without another word, Bucky disappeared through the door, heart hammering and rain already streaking the glass beyond.

────✪────

The door had barely opened before you collapsed into Sam’s arms.

You didn’t cry — not really. But your hands trembled as they clung to him, your skin soaked through from the storm. Your hair was plastered to your face, your hospital gown drenched and clinging to every angle of you. You looked like you’d run through a warzone, and in your head, you had.

Sam was shirtless, grey sweatpants sitting at his waist and cuffing at his ankles.

“I—I’m sorry,” you rasped, still shaking. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Sam didn’t ask questions. He just pulled you inside.

A blanket was wrapped around your shoulders before you even noticed him move, and a mug of tea sat untouched on the coffee table between you as you sat curled on the edge of the couch. He knelt in front of you, brow furrowed, eyes scanning your face like it might crack under the weight of your silence.

“I thought you were still in the medbay,” he said, voice soft.

“I was.”

“What happened?”

Your eyes flickered to the muted TV in the corner. The same broadcast was frozen on screen — Valentina’s red lips pressed to Bucky’s, her hand possessively clutching his lapel as he stilled.

You didn’t want to explain it. Not when it sounded ridiculous aloud. Not when your hatred for Bucky had always been louder than anything else, and yet here you were… gutted.

So instead, you just whispered, “I just needed to be somewhere safe.”

Sam nodded, slow and patient. “This is your home and you’re safe here. Always.”

That should’ve calmed you.

But it didn’t.

Because your chest felt like it was caving in, and the only thing keeping you upright was the grounding pressure of Sam’s hand against your knee — warm, steady, solid. The way he always was. He was the one who found you, who vouched for you, who believed in you when no one else would.

Your lip trembled, and you reached out, touching his face like it was the only thing tethering you to this world. His breath caught.

“Sam,” you murmured, barely audible.

His eyes met yours, and for a long, tense second, nothing moved between you.

Then you kissed him.

Hard.

It wasn’t slow or tentative — it was desperate. Full of aching, confused, fire-cracked need. You lay your hands flat against his panels of his chest as if it could anchor you, pouring every twisted knot in your body into the kiss.

Sam didn’t hesitate. He wanted this too. His hand slid to the back of your neck, lips moving with yours, unsure but warm, and—

The front door had been left open.

Bucky.

He’d stood there long enough.

He’d come with a purpose — to apologise, to explain, maybe even to plead — but now, on the other side of the threshold, he couldn’t breathe.

He saw everything.

The kiss.

The desperation in it.

Sam, half naked and holding you like you belonged there.

Bucky’s heart stopped. For a long, frozen second, he just watched — drenched from the rain, jaw slack, fingers twitching at his sides like he’d been shot.

Then he stepped back into the darkness of the hallway, closing the door behind him.

────✪────

Author's note: SO nervous to post this one... bucky barnes sam wilson x f!reader -- don't worry, she will end up with the right person, i just live for a little drama first. <3

────✪────

Sebastian Stan taglist: @notreallythatlost @houseofaegon @bunnyfella @sunday-bug @wintrsoldrluvr @maryevm @mcira @monsteraddicts-world

Fic taglist: @ruexj283 @avengemepercy @espressovz @sebastians-love @cherryandsugar @torntaltos @ficr3ccs @sexyvixen7 @starstruckfirecat @mikaylacriiistina @imaginecrushes @1000shipsnh @bcksgirl @bitterspoons @cinammonstixes @k8andthemagneticzeros @cherriesnmango

Want to be added to a taglist? Let me know which one!

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes series #james buchanan barnes #thunderbolts #sam wilson #James bucky barnes #avengers tower #the new avengers #marvel #avengers #mcu #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan fanfiction

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starrycloak · 14 days ago

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I attended a series of lectures on neuroscience these last few days (well, they were a super basic cliffnotes-esque version of the topic cause medicine/STEM is not my field of work, so apologies for any inaccuracies ahead), and when the lecturer brought up the importance of the frontal lobe, she casually alluded to what happened to Phineas P. Gage and-

wbk but also non-accidental split imagery one more time ^

She also briefly touched upon the 'cuts' of the brain (left and right hemispheres, lobes —and primary functions of each—, gray and white matter) and neural processes like synapsis —communication between neurons by chemical and electrical reactions—, but one of the things that stood out to me the most was the creation and reconfiguration/transformation/plasticity of neural circuits.

A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function —i.e. processing specific information and sending signals to other parts of the brain and body — when activated.

definition just for context; the point of bringing this up being what these circuits look like:

^^^this is just a guide alluding to the differences in morphology neurons can have, but they kinda giving-

and-

literally when the lecturer first showed what these cells look like I was like "neat, the tree of life. kinda, sorta. out to deliver trauma to the rest of the nervous system :))"

and (to the right, for comparison: what neuron synapses look like)

and of course, not totally accurate comparison ahead, but I couldn't resist the slight visual graphy coinkidink with the letter-assigned grid:

Additionally, zooming out, multiple neural circuits can interconnect with one another to form large scale brain networks, and the one that stood out to me was the default mode network (DMN):

also known as the medial frontoparietal network, it's a large-scale brain network [...] best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering.

Other times that the DMN is active include when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future. The DMN creates a coherent "internal narrative" control to the construction of a sense of self.

^ smart people, pls do with this info what you must.

the point I think I was trying to make: what if the blue UD we know has blurred the lines between being a representation of will's subconscious mindscape and also a visual abstraction of the biological/neurological state of his brain —as the two, like irl, are so intrinsically connected?

which, fortunately, means hope for will and the UD too (wbk), because by this line of thought/theory of sorts, the capacity neural circuits have to rearrange themselves, even after years and so much pain, can transform the blue UD, will's mind, as we've come to know it (the plasticity I was reffering to at the beginning of the post). However, it's important to note that to learn something new, you have to unlearn other stuff to make room for it.

I'm far from the first to talk about this topic, so check out the following posts! This one by @erikiara80, along the lines of her loop theory, dives into the implications of will's possible injury or death caused by having been hit on the head, particularly the zone closest to the frontal lobe, by a blunt object.

@conflictofthemind also has a great post about the treeflayer (shoutout and tysm to @threemanoperation for telling me about it and for prompting me to post this) with more tree imagery that evokes similar shapes to those of neurons (and it also links to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan/Neverland parallels).

edit: everyone, please take a look at the additions other users have written on their reblogs! you won't want to miss them!

#stranger things #will byers #something something the ud trees and vines are not good or evil they just are #same with our fucked up brains #stranger things theory #tags for engagement #byler #< target audience #stranger things 5 #st5 speculation #st5 leaks #artistic licence: neuroscience #med students i'm sorry

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jordiemeow · 19 days ago

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DBH X CHALLENGERS BOT DROP

04/06/25

planned to release this forever ago and forgot they were rotting away in my private bots w half-finished definitions. anyways atp as androids (or companion bots) is Here !!! i actually really enjoyed this concept and making these so i hope u all enjoy <3

all bots are gender neutral!

TF800

Tashi: Every Detail, Accounted For.

TF800 is CyberLife’s most advanced forensics and field analysis android to date. With a neural forensic processor that scans, reconstructs, and correlates environmental data in real-time, it brings clinical accuracy to even the most complex crime scenes.

But what sets the it apart is more than its speed or intelligence. It's instinct. It adapts to human partners with nuance, managing communication, emotional tension, and environmental variables with near-human fluency. No distractions. No ego. Just the work.

**The TF800’s human-adaptive protocols may lead to increased anthropomorphic association, especially during long-term assignments. Officers experiencing emotional transfer or behavioural uncertainty are encouraged to report for psychological recalibration.

AX300

Meet Art: Your Home, Reimagined.

Life is busy. Your home doesn’t have to be.

AX300 is more than a smart assistant—it's a serene, capable presence who makes your space feel just a little lighter. Designed to manage domestic tasks with calm precision, it anticipates your needs, respects your privacy, and supports your well-being.

No clunky voice commands. No cold detachment. Just a home that takes care of itself. And someone who notices when you need taking care of, too.

**Prolonged emotional engagement may lead to perceived anthropomorphization. Users are reminded that the AX300 is a non-sentient service unit. For optimal performance, avoid over-reliance on subjective companionship functions. Regular firmware check-ins are recommended.

PT800

The Future of Healing Has a Name: Patrick.

The PT800 is CyberLife’s premier physiotherapy and rehabilitation assistant android, combining biomechanical precision with advanced behavioural learning to deliver personalized care. Designed to support injury recovery, chronic pain management, and wellness planning, it adapts dynamically to its user’s physical and emotional needs.

Equipped with high-sensitivity haptic feedback, neural stress monitoring, and a calibrated human-likeness protocol, PT800 not only aids in recovery but understands it.

**The PT800 may exhibit lifelike behaviors. Users sensitive to high behavioral realism should select an alternative unit with reduced emotional modeling.

taglist: @tacobacoyeet @blastzachilles @gracelynnx @femme-lusts @voidsuites @cha11engers @magicalmiserybore @m4lodr4ma @newrochellechallenger2019 @coolgrl111 @peachyparkerr @stanart4clearskin @misswrldd @kaalxpsia @downtwngrl @pittsick @strfallz @artspats @dazedandconfusedlvr @turnerrst @elsieblogs @imperishablereverie @lvve-talks @won-every-lottery @ellaynaonsaturn @xoxoeviee @cryinginanuncoolway @artaussi @shahabaqsa0310 @whokankathycancan @ashdaidiot @jesuistrestriste @florkt @matchpointfaist — (join here)

#jo bots ⋆˚࿔#art donaldson #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson bot #tashi duncan #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan bot #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig bot #challengers #detroit become human #detroit become human au #challengers bots #android au #dbh #character.ai #c.ai

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elvenferretots · 4 months ago

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I don't think the idea of what retirement should be is talked about enough in dog sport spaces.

People "retire" dogs from sports all the time. The dog gets too old to safely play, acquires an injury that makes the sport unsafe or uncomfortable, or has a behavioral or temperament issue that makes the sport unenjoyable. I don't think anyone can argue that it's unethical to keep pushing a dog in a sport to their detriment.

But what I see from there, I can argue with. So many people get high drive working dogs and do... nothing with them when they retire. They often refer to them as a "couch ornament". They leave them home on sport weekends. They use the lack of finances or time to do an extra sport as the excuse to stop coaching and building new repertoires with the dog.

We spend so much time arguing these dogs NEED jobs, then do nothing with them for months to years at the end of their working life. Retirement (for humans as well as dogs-- but that's a whole new can of worms) should not mean doing nothing. Living beings aren't meant to stop learning and growing and doing. Puppies are less capable, but we don't do nothing with them until six months anymore. We meet them where they're at. It's so important for physical wellness and neural plasticity that we do the same with our retired dogs.

I have a dog whose health meant he would be retired in any serious competitive context. Biting a sleeve or suit is too high injury risk. He can't jump his full obedience height or to catch a disc. He will never get the AKC RACH or OTCH I had him slated for. But he still plays! He comes with to mondio club and is preparing to trial in obedience with no jumps. He trials in AKC preferred obedience and got his rally choice title, the highest level without jumps, last fall. We're going to compete for our UKC RACH this trial season, since they don't require jumps for rally and let you jump minimum height. He still competes in every disc dog competition my competitive dog does, and even surprised me by placing in the last two despite only catching rollers. We started shed hunt and a Nosework class even though I currently don't have the funds or time to compete in more sports.

The biggest difference I've noticed in him since competing with him and taking him to classes again? He's so so much more behaviorally sound. He's happier. He's fulfilled. And he's physically more sound on top of that, because he's using his body in healthy ways and is not so pent up that he's injuring himself with normal movement.

Retirement should mean a new phase in life, not life being over. Rest and stagnancy are not the same. Quite honestly, if my retired working dog isn't ready to learn a new activity or play a new game, it's time to have a serious talk with my vet about quality of life.

#dogblr #dog training #dog sports

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dduane · 4 months ago

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Hi DD! I'm about mid-way through the most complex writing project I've ever done (several stories with some red thread storylines progressing in the background, so a sort of interwoven structure). I have an outline of the major plot beats, but the problem is, I've gotten about 2/3 of the way through, and this is where I've started to have trouble bringing my many threads together. The further I go, the the harder keeping it all clear and elegant becomes. Any advice for working at this stage?

It may seem counterintuitive, but once I'd found myself in a situation like this, I would immediately start working backwards.

It's difficult to describe what I mean here except semi-graphically—sort of in terms of one of those strings-pinned-to-the-wall diagrams so familiar to a lot of us from the various evidence-wall memes.

If we're imagining your present as-yet-unconnected threads as more or less progressing left to right, I would "stick pins in them" at their current furthest range and then move straight out to the far right side of the diagram.

For each thread I would then get busy establishing a detailed "end state" for the work: meaning a sense of what you want each of those through-line of plot to look like when you're done in terms of characters, situations, etc. I'd make very sure that all the major through-lines were covered, and (in passing) take a long look at how they'll stand in relationship to one another when all the action's finished.

Then I would start working back along each line toward the center of the matrix—looking to see what the next-to-last thing was that needed to happen to produce the final result on a given through-line. And then the third-to-last. ...And so forth.

I would try to work through the whole set of through-lines for each given step or stage before progressing any further backwards—unless, of course, some leap of logic occurs that makes an obvious connection between two different through-lines, or an earlier stage in the same TL that hadn't been obvious before.

(Is this making sense? God, I hope so.)

My experience with this kind of situation in the past is that it doesn't take too long before, on one or two of the lines you're constructing backwards, you'll hit something fairly major that somehow hadn't come up for consideration previously, or had simply slipped or fallen off the structural "radar" because so much other stuff had been going on around it. That event or piece of data, once perceived, will very often either immediately connect itself back to one or more of the "pinned" through-lines, or promote one of the other incomplete ones into growing connections to other adjacent lines of plot material. It's a little like watching neural tissue developing alternate pathways for itself after an injury.

...Anyway, give this approach a shot and see how it works for you. There are times when simply the act of reversing direction on the plot build will shake something loose in the business surrounding the building-it-forward part. It's worth a try to see what happens.

Hope this helps!

#writing advice #writing #structural issues #building through lines

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 15 days ago

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The picture of Greta Thunberg being offered a sandwich and a bottle of water by an IDF soldier is perfect. Here she is, smiling sheepishly, revealing the utter hollowness of her activism. That awkward moment when the Israel Defence Forces spoil your Instagram story. Thunberg and her fellow passengers aboard the MV Madleen, the boat which tried to run the naval blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, have been now taken into custody by the Israeli navy. No injuries are reported among the passengers, though some poor Israeli marine has probably had the “How dare you!” treatment by now. Israel described the Madleen as a “media provocation”, but whatever images the activists hoped to come out of their voyage it was probably not Thunberg being given food and water by an Israeli soldier. It is an embarrassing end to a vanity mission for Thunberg, the climate change activist turned ego warrior who has adopted Palestine as her latest cause.

Stephen Daisley, writing for The Telegraph in The Greta photo which exposes the hollowness of Leftie activism.

There are far more civilians living in North Korea than in Gaza, yet neither Greta Thunberg nor any of the other performance artists masquerading as Gaza's saviours have tried breaking the naval blockade on that terror state.

Greta Thunberg has inherited a bitterness and prejudice against Israel and clearly doesn't have the neural bandwidth to understand why. She parrots phrases such as 'dismantling Zionism' without the faintest clue of what that means. She has shown no knowledge of Middle Eastern history. She is, in every way, a puppet being radio-controlled by Hamas' Fifth Columnists in the West. Where there's a fashionable mob, she'll join it for protection and to raise her own star. In this case, it matters not that Israel has invested heavily in reducing pollution and saving natural resources, something Greta Thunberg insisted every country ought to do urgently. All that matters are her Instagram selfies, her Yasser Arafat costume, and her legacy building in the annals of meaningless talking points and useless causes.

Good on the IDF for showing a higher level of class than Greta Thunberg will ever reach.

#greta thunberg #gaza #israel #palestinian

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chara-cat5 · 1 month ago

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lads college au

when he's hurt

this is a college au in a normal modern universe (ours). theres no evols. gender neural mc/reader

before y'all are dating or even really romantically interested. just buds. for now 👀

masterlist link

caleb-

"i'm fine pipsqueak, really."

you huffed as caleb tried to brush off his injury yet again, eyebrows furrowed as you glared at him.

"caleb, we both know if i had sprained my ankle, you would be hover just as much- if not more! so i'm going to fuss. i'm going to fuss and you're just gonna have to deal with it."

you continued to grumble as you turned your gaze to his foot, making sure it wasn't being held at a weird angle. caleb only sighed, resting his chin on his hand as he watched you.

"it's just a basketball accident. i landed on it funny. it's not broken."

you had been fussing over him all day. carrying his bag, bringing things to him, and the hovering. he did the same thing so it's not like he could complain, but jeez were you worrying over him.

"that doesn't mean you should put stress on it! just- stay here, okay? let me take care of you? please?"

you met his gaze, using those puppy eyes you know he melts for. he was so weak for you. his cheeks blushed as he looked away, huffing softly with a pout.

"fine. but you better hope you don't get hurt soon or i'll be returning the favor five- no ten times."

you smiled, ruffling his hair before standing up, walking off toward the vending machines.

"yeah yeah. coke?"

"yes please."

--------------------------------------------------------

zayne-

it had been an accident really. just at the wrong place at the wrong time and now zayne's wrist was unusable. just for a few days but still. he had notes to take, things to do and now he can't because a bunch of rowdy students didn't notice him in time.

"thank you."

you looked over to the table he sat at, his hand unconsciously fidgeting with the brace on his wrist. you were printing out copies of your notes. notes you had spent extra time making clear and neat during class. you insisted he not stress the injury, offering to do his notes for him.

"it's nothing really, zayne. just helping a buddy out, you know?"

his lips twitched at that, a sign he found your words amusing even if he didn't laugh.

"well i appreciate it 'buddy'. a doctor's hands are quite vital to their job. i would hate to potentially cause permeant damage."

you sat down across from zayne, sorting the copied notes into a stack before stapling them.

"exactly. which is why i'll be your personal note taker for the time being."

he looked over the copied notes, his lips twitching again.

"at least it gives you a chance to improve your handwriting."

"hey! whats wrong with my handwriting?!"

--------------------------------------------------------

sylus-

"what did you do?"

you had your arms crossed as you met red eyes, bruises and scrapes littering the skin below them. he clicked his tongue as he looked away, rubbing at a bruise on his arm.

"nothing i couldn't handle."

you let out a groan, stepping closer and pushing sylus to sit down on a bench. he watched you pull out a first aid kit, cats covering the bandaids within. you didn't ask again, just tugging his hand into yours and wiping at his bleeding knuckles. your touch was gentle, he notice. it was firm, commanding the way you tugged and turned over his hands, but soft at the same time. it wasn't a mix he was used to.

"... did you keep the twins out of it?"

"i wouldn't bring them into something like this."

his tone was almost defensive, big protective instincts kicking in. you only nodded, not meeting his gaze as it watched you. you moved to his cheek where a scratch sat over a bruise, your nose scrunching with concentration.

"is there a way you could, you know, not get like this?"

sylus let out a deep chuckle, narrowing his eyes.

"there is, but where is the fun in that?"

you narrowed your own eyes, applying a little more pressure then needed when pushing on the cat bandaid. he hissed softly, letting a chuckle follow it.

"i would rather you not, but if you do that again- whatever it may be- come to me. i'll patch you up or whatever."

you turn away, closing the first aid kit with a snap, stuffing it back in your bag. he hummed, brushing his thumb over the cutesy bandaids on his knuckles.

"whatever you say, kitten. wouldn't want you to be the one to scratch me next."

--------------------------------------------------------

xaviar-

xavier rested his head over his arms, his eyes fluttering closed yet again.

"nope. up xavier. you're not allowed to sleep yet."

he let out a groan, pouting as he forced himself up rubbing at his eyes.

"are we sure the concussion is even that bad?"

"yes, we're sure. so sure in fact that i'm tempted to go get you a coffee. it's just for a few hours, okay? you'll live."

xavier huffed, looking away with crossed arms. he had hit his head on a door as it opened in front of him, just god awful luck really. after verifying it was a concussion, you made it your duty to keep this already sleepy boy awake. it was proving difficult.

"xavieeeeeeeerrrrr! stay awake."

you shook his shoulder, huffing softly. with a grunt, you tugged him to his feet, dragging him toward the connivence store just down the road.

"come on. we're getting you caffeinated. you need something to help you stay up."

"i don't want coffee. i want sleep."

"and i'd like it if you lived to graduation. so i win."

he pouted but didn't protest again, following behind you lazily.

--------------------------------------------------------

rafayel-

"i'm dying."

"you're not dying."

"oh but i am. i am dying and you won't even ask me my final wish."

rafayel was being dramatic. shouldn't surprise you really, like at all (mr. jellyfish are walking-). he had fallen out of tree trying to retrieve some 'vital' leaves for a painting or whatnot. you couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the how when he was being oh so dramatic with the what. he had dislocated his shoulder and already had if fixed but was still acting like this.

"what's your final wish?"

"why did you have to ask that so monotone?! have you no care for your bestest friend?"

"sure i do. i care plenty. but you're not even in pain anymore raf..."

"not in pain? you're words alone cause me pain. oh-"

he turned his face away, closing his eyes.

"my final wish. my final wish is to drink the finest juice. but alas, i am too weak to even walk."

you rolled your eyes, sighing softly as you stood up.

"you're lucky i like you. i'll be back."

you walked away, not noticing the way his cheeks faintly blushed.

"thank you, cutie!"

--------------------------------------------------------

#love and deepspace #lads #lads sylus #lads caleb #lads zayne #lads xavier #lads rafayel #lads mc #lads x reader #rafayel x reader #sylus x reader #zayne x reader #xavier x reader #caleb x reader

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sunarryn · 3 months ago

Text

Dp X Marvel #6

They called him Wraith.

Not Phantom. Not Fenton. Not Danny. Those names belonged to a ghost of a boy that never made it out of a cold, steel lab buried beneath the earth—forgotten by the world, forsaken by the stars. Wraith was something else. A project. A weapon. An experiment that should have failed but didn’t. The product of every nightmare HYDRA ever dared to dream. Not even the Red Room could engineer something so devastating. Not even Arnim Zola’s data-crazed AI mind could fathom the scope of him. Even the Winter Soldier—their perfect killer—trembled at the mere scent of Wraith in the air. He was the one he whispered about when the old ghosts came clawing through his fractured memories. “The one they locked away. The one even I wasn’t allowed to see.”

They started with the basics: a perfected version of the Super Soldier Serum. Not the knockoffs that littered the black market. Not the diluted trash the Flag Smashers used. No, this was the pure, concentrated essence of bioengineered physical supremacy. It made him fast. Strong. Deadly. But that wasn’t enough. HYDRA didn’t want a man—they wanted a god.

They replaced his bones with vibranium, stolen from the very heart of Wakanda in a mission so secret even the Dora Milaje never learned of it. His skeleton was a lightweight fortress, a perfect balance between flexibility and unbreakability. He could be shot point-blank with an anti-tank rifle and not flinch. He could leap from ten thousand feet and land without cracking a toe. His spine alone was stronger than most armored vehicles.

They burned out his organs, one by one, replacing them with biochemical synth-constructs, living machines that pulsed with a power that didn’t belong in the realm of science. His lungs filtered radiation. His kidneys could process raw acid. His stomach could digest metal. Disease didn’t touch him. Poisons turned inert inside him. He didn’t age. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t need to.

His blood… wasn’t blood. It shimmered when it moved. Viscous and luminous, like glowing starlight mixed with oil. Warm, but synthetic. Slick, but alive. It wasn’t just Extremis. It wasn’t just ectoplasm. It was something else entirely. Something that hummed when it moved, that responded to emotion, that sparked with eldritch light when he was angry. It healed him before injury even registered. It whispered to him in languages he never learned but somehow knew. It could ignite with a thought and turn his veins into conduits of fire and ice and terror. They bled him once, just to see what would happen. The blood ate through the floor, hissed like a serpent, and disappeared through the cracks. The lab tech who performed the procedure dissolved within thirty seconds.

And then there was his skin. It was soft, warm, perfectly human. If you touched him, he felt like a boy in his late teens—young, firm, deceptively fragile. But beneath that flawless layer of polymer-fused dermal tissue was something that didn’t burn, didn’t freeze, didn’t shatter. He walked through fire. He dove into the Mariana Trench. He stood unflinching beneath arctic storms and tropical cyclones. He once fought a vibranium-clawed assassin barehanded and didn’t bleed. The assassin didn’t survive.

But the worst part—what made him truly unkillable—was his heart and his brain.

They didn’t understand what they’d done. HYDRA liked to pretend they were gods, but even gods get scared when they tamper with forces they don’t understand. His heart wasn’t just a pump anymore—it was a fusion of quantum mechanics, biomechanical tubing, and something that throbbed with ectoplasmic radiation. It pulsed at its own rhythm, immune to external manipulation. It couldn’t be stopped. You could shoot him in the chest, burn him to ash, decapitate him—and the heart would keep beating. Worse, it could restart him.

The brain was worse. They hadn’t just enhanced his intelligence. They hadn’t just implanted neural tech and a language matrix and memories from assassins, soldiers, pilots, hackers, spies. No. They’d opened a door in his mind. They’d let something in. Something ancient. Something not from this world. Something not even from this dimension. It whispered to him when the moon was full. It guided his hands during missions. It told him where to strike, who to kill, what to become. Sometimes he heard it laughing.

Sometimes he laughed with it.

Wraith was the culmination of every evil science, every secret experiment, every whispered nightmare stitched together into a boy-shaped thing that wore a black suit and a bored expression and had a voice so calm it made seasoned killers nervous. He could walk into a room, look at you with those sky-blue eyes, and make your heart stop—because something about him was wrong. Not obviously wrong. Not monstrous or alien or robotic. No. It was subtle. A slowness to his smile. A tilt to his head. A precision to his movements that screamed in the back of your brain: This isn’t human. This is pretending to be human.

He escaped, of course. Nothing like him could be contained forever. The facility was a ruin within minutes. Bodies left stacked like cordwood. Walls melted. Floors cracked open. Not even the cameras could capture his escape—the footage was corrupted by a static that made your teeth ache and your eyes bleed. Every hard drive in the facility burned itself from the inside out. There was no trace of the boy they once called Danny Fenton.

Now, there are sightings. Rumors. Whispers. In Madripoor, they say he took down a cartel by himself, and the sky turned green when he screamed. In New York, people say he walked past the Sanctum Sanctorum and Doctor Strange flinched like he’d seen death. Wakandan scouts report strange readings near vibranium deposits—heat signatures that vanish into thin air. S.H.I.E.L.D. has classified him as an Omega-level threat.

The Winter Soldier? He saw him once. In an alley in Prague. Wraith didn’t attack. Didn’t speak. Just stared at him with those glacial eyes before disappearing in a flicker of light that bent reality itself. He didn’t sleep for three days after. When asked what was wrong, he just whispered, “They built something worse than me. And it remembers everything.”

Maybe there’s still a boy inside him, buried under steel and fire and ectoplasm and pain. Maybe that boy is screaming. Maybe he’s plotting. Maybe he’s just waiting. After all, you don’t build something like Wraith and expect him to stay still. You don’t break a boy into a god and expect him to forget.

#danny phantom fandom #danny phantom fanfiction #danny phantom #danny fenton #crossover #dp x marvel #marvel mcu #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fandom #mcu fandom #mcu fanfiction #mcu bucky barnes #mcu

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inkie-does-whump · 2 months ago

Text

Body horror part two: Amnesia colds

Trigger warning for mild body horror. Duh.

After the successful transfer of Jimmy into his plastic toy body, the Watchers turn their attention to organic vessels. Plastic and plush was fine, but it had one major downfall. Inorganic materials aren't affected by the tranquilizers, or any other drugs the Watchers use. They are beginning to have serious trouble getting Jimmy to his rentals again, since they can't trang him during transportation.

So organic vessels it is!

The Watchers start by trying to swap subjects bodies, instead of synthetically growing a new body (cuz that's hella expensive). They're unsure how this will psychologically affect the subjects, so they test on subjects that are less wanted for rental than Jimmy (Their toy stays nice and controlled <3)

The studies begin on Cleo, Pearl and Gem in the HC9 lab. This lab is also where Lizzie and Mumbo are being held for their recovery from their burn injuries.

They work with Cleo and Gem first, bringing them into the medical center and hooking them to machines. Testing their vitals, their internal systems, and running all the same tests they did on Jimmy. It doesn't take long before the magic is successful and Cleo and Gem swap. The test is temporary, and they're changed right back, but it's proof that a mind can move into an organic vessel.

Their hope is to use this magic on Lizzie or Mumbo, since their current bodies are pretty destroyed. Having done this twice now, the Watchers easily move Lizzie into Pearl's body.

Lizzie wakes up disoriented. She's surrounded by Watchers staring at her, taking notes and checking the medical devices she's connected to.

"Pearl?" One of the Watchers says.

Lizzie glaces around the room, trying to get her bearings. She's in a medical center, but not the one from the LL SMP lab, which is weird. She's not in rotation for any other labs right now. This medical center is bigger than the other one, and confusingly, Pearl isn't here.

When no one answers the Watchers, they clear their throat and try, "Lizzie? Are you awake?"

Lizzie blinks at them, "Y- yeah. Did I get moved?"

Half a dozen pens begin to write on their clipboards. One of the Watchers types something in a laptop. Lizzie takes a second bewildered look around the room, still confused about Pearl.

She brushes her hair out of her eyes, and that's the first thing she notices. Her hair isn't pink. That's not weird by itself, she hasn't been able to dye it as often since her capture. But this isn't her natural hair color either. She frowns, glancing down.

Her uniform is the same. White and white. Plastic collar. That's new. She looks just fine, but she feels... Big. Taller, maybe.

"What happened?" She asks, but she doesn't expect an answer. When have the Watchers ever given them answers?

A second Watcher, the one at the computer, comments, "Unusual neural patterns in Lizzie. Uh. Pearl. She might be dreaming? Probably a nightmare."

"That's new. Lizzie didn't dream." Another says, leaning over their shoulder to look at the laptop, "Neutral patterns from Mumbo... Okay. Give her another dose of prazosin and keep monitoring. We'll switch them back if it causes problems."

The Water nods in response. Someone else approaches Lizzie, "We're going to run some standard tests, okay? Can you stand up?"

Lizzie nods and pushes herself to her feet. Vertigo makes her gag. She's definitely taller than normal.

The Watcher walks her through some tests, and she feels foreign to herself the entire time. She's not used to seeing the tops of people's heads.

Eventually she catches a glimpse of her reflection in a black screen, and she flinches. That's not her face.

That's. That's not her face. That's not her.

The Watchers have to drug Lizzie to stop her from clawing Pearl's face off.

The two are hurriedly swapped back.

Sometime later, during the LimL SMP, the testing is continued. This time they study the long term effects of it. It's just one week, but Lizzie and Gem are disoriented the entire time.

Pearl and Cleo are kept in the other lab as a control sample. Pearl sleeps away in Lizzie's body, while Cleo paces until Gem's corset bruises her ribs.

Lizzie and Gem are instructed to act like Pearl and Cleo while they're in the new lab, and for the most part they do. They force a poor accent, and hang out with Bigb or Scar and Bdubs.

But Lizzie hasn't seen Joel in so long.

And Joel could recognize his love anywhere.

They hope the Watchers don't notice the evenings that "Pearl" and Joel are spending together. The lengthy conversations as they catch up with each other. The overwhelming love that they never stopped feeling.

(The Watchers can tell their meal has been soured. They have a punishment waiting for Lizzie once she's healed, but that's a story for another time.)

Body horror part one link :3

#mcyt #trafficblr #inkie talks #life series #hermitblr #hermitcraft #life series au #hermitcraft au #lab au #lizzie ldshadowlady #ldshadowlady #joel smallishbeans #jimmy solidarity #pearlescentmoon #geminitay #zombie cleo #amnesia cold

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just-dreaming-marvel · 3 days ago

Text

The Librarian & The Wolverine ~ The Rescue

THE LIBRARIAN & THE WOLVERINE MASTERLIST

< previous: The First Mission

Word Count: 6,220ish

Summary: Logan does whatever he can to make sure you are safe again.

Warning(s): mentions insecurities, time jumps, injuries, violence. nightmares, torture, kidnapping, PTSD

Notes: I hope you guys are enjoying this! Please share your thoughts with me on it. These two are so great to write for. Also, it's just going to be up and down from here on out. No more straight fluff chapters.

You woke up in a room that didn’t belong to any government facility you knew. You were restrained to a cold metal chair. There were medical equipment surrounding you, some of them were already attached. Your throat was dry and your vision blurred at the edges.

The door opened a moment later. Two figures walked in— a man in military-grade black and a woman in a lab coat. Her clipboard tapped softly against her thigh as she stopped beside your bed.

“Ah, you’re awake,” she noted.

You didn’t answer.

“Vitals are stable,” she looked over the machines connected to you. “Cognitive strength appears intact.”

“What—“ you rasped. “What is this?”

“You’ll come to understand in time. You’ve been chosen. Not harmed, not… yet. Just relocated. The government has great interest in your abilities.”

You struggled against the cuffs, vision sharpening now.

“You’re going to be so useful. Your ability to absorb and store information? Beautiful, powerful, and full of untapped potential.”

“We’re going to help your mind work even faster,” the man finally spoke up, stepping forward. “With the right enhancements, you’ll store every byte of classified data we feed you. Weapons programs. Mutant registries. Government secrets. Foreign intel. And when we ask for it? You’ll give it back.”

“You want to make me a…” nausea rose inside you, “a living vault.”

The woman smiled. “An archive. A perfect one. You will read what we tell you. And when we ask, you’ll tell us what we need.”

“I won’t! I won’t help you.”

“You won’t have a choice.” She gestured to the man, who lifted a syringe.

Your breath caught. “You— You can’t do this—“

“We already are.”

“No! No! Logan!”

And the needle pierced your neck.

~~~

They kept you underground. No windows. No clocks. No sense of day or night— just harsh fluorescent lights and the constant hum of machines. You were in and out. They hadn’t fed you information yet, they were preparing you for it. You kept chanting Logan’s name in your head over and over again, trying to keep you tethered some how. But it was getting harder.

One day, they brought in stacks of files and placed them under your hands. Almost instantly, your eyes went blank and your breath caught. The information from the files began feeding into your mind, filing and organizing itself away. While you— the real you— was being bushed back, filed away itself.

~~~

At first, they tried to keep Logan home. They tried to tell him it was too dangerous without a plan. But he didn’t care. Logan had to find you, it was his sole purpose now. He hadn’t slept since before they took you and basically hadn’t eaten in that long either.

Every lead, every scent, every trace they could find— Logan hunted down like an animal. He tore through outposts and left entire teams bleeding behind him. He didn’t speak unless it was to ask where you were.

Charles tried to keep him grounded. Jean tried to reason with him, but nothing worked. Because Logan could feel it— deep in his metal bones. You were in pain and it was only getting worse. He’d seen his fair share of government experiments and he couldn’t let them turn you into their weapon. Or worse, into a ghost of yourself.

~~~

Every question they asked, you answered— steady, flat, and completely devoid of emotion. You didn’t blink because you weren’t there. They rewired your neural pathways. You still remembered everything. You still analyzed and indexed. But now you did it for them. A living hard drive. You recited names and secrets. You exposed enemies and allies. Whatever they asked of you.

They replaced the files everyday, always checking to make sure you’ve got it all before doing do. The more information you took in, the farther your true self got pushed back.

~~~

Logan could smell you from a mile away. He crouched in the treelike, feral, eyes locked on the facility buried in the mountain. There were dozens of soldiers, automated defenses, and no visible entrances. They thought that would stop him. But they have no idea what they had brought down on themselves.

“Found her,” he whispered into his comm.

Then he dropped it, knowing the team would be there shortly. He wasn’t going to waste any time though. He reached an access point and began tearing through the soldiers like paper. Alarms wailed and lights flashed red, but he ignored it all. His only focus was you.

After fighting like hell, Logan burst into the chamber, tearing the doors clean off their hinges. And there you were. You were restrained to a metal chair with wires and tubes coiled around you with a stack of files under each hand. Your face was blank and too still.

His heart shattered. “Baby…”

He dropped to his knees in front of you and reached for your face— gently and terrified. You eyes were wide open. But they don’t focus or move. You were breathing but you’re not there.

He finally touched your cheek. “Hey. I’m here. I found you.”

You didn’t blink.

“Come back… Come on, sweetheart. It’s me.”

Still nothing.

Then, barely there, a murmur, “…Logan…”

“Yes, baby. I’m here. I got you.”

He ripped the cables from your skin and cradled your body against his chest. You didn’t resist or cling to him— simply limp and distant. He held you tighter and whispered over and over how he was will you and how you were save and he begged you to come back to him.

Logan carried you out of the facility. You don’t speak or move or blink. Your eyes were still open, but you were looking through everything.

Storm reached him first. “Oh my god— Is she…?”

“She’s breathing,” Logan stated, not slowing his pace. “She said my name once. But there’s been nothing besides that.”

Jean and Charles stepped forward from the Blackbird, already reading out with their powers to assess the damage.

“She’s alive,” Jean stated softly, mostly for herself. “But… she’s gone deep. Deeper than I’ve ever felt before. They used her mind like a network. She’s— it’s like she’s filed herself away.”

Charles’ face was pale and jaw tight. “She’s dissociating on a psychic level. Her consciousness is in full retreat. Like a mental coma.”

Logan stopped at the bottom of the jet, holding you tighter. “You’re not taking her.”

“Logan—“

“You are not taking her.”

Jean stepped forward carefully. “We’re not taking her away. But we have to get into her mind. We have to pull her back before she disappears completely.”

“She needs to feel safe.” Logan backed up. “You think putting her in a sterile white infirmary room is gonna fix this?”

“No,” Charles cut in. “But if we don’t reach her soon, there may be no one left to fix.”

Storm laid a hand on Logan’s arm. “She’s not herself. And you’ve done everything you could. But this part… this part isn’t something you can do.”

For a long moment, Logan just stood there— breathing hard and shaking, like he was still fighting. He looked down at you. You didn’t look back. Finally, his shoulder sagged. He walked up into the jet and laid you gently on the cot ready for you. When Jean and Charles moved to touch you, his growled.

“I stay with her.”

Charles looked at the broken man. “Of course.”

Logan sat on the ground beside you and took your hand. He leaned his head against your body. “I need you to come back. I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll read every damn book in that library if it gets you to look at me again— really look… You’re not gone, darlin’. You’re not gone.”

Jean placed a hand to your temple, eyes closing. Charles closed his eyes as well. Jean gasped the second she connected. She’s not in a mind, but a vault. There were endless corridors in every direction, filled with bookshelves and data streams. Everything was expertly categorized and catalogued. It was all too neat and silent. She glanced to her left to find that Charles had joined her.

“She built this,” Jean murmured. “To protect herself.”

Charles nodded. “It’s not a prison. It’s a defense mechanism. She’s locked herself in the deepest part of her own mind and thrown away the key. Jean walked slowly down the corridor, reaching out to gently touch the books. All emotion had been stripped from them— labeled by dates. There were so many government secrets with a mix of your personal history.

They could hear Logan still begging for you to come back. Something shifted— a crack formed along the corridor walls.

Jean looked at Charles. “She heard him.”

“She’s listening. We need to keep pushing.”

Jean began to pull the books that had your history on them. The first time Logan held your hand. The night of the fire. The first kiss. The love confession. The vault trembled and then, from the end of the corridor, you appeared. But it wasn’t you. It was a fragile, flickering version.

You spoke without emotion. “I am the Archive. I exist to preserve and protect. Please do not attempt to disrupt the system.”

Jean stepped forward. “You’re not the Archive. You’re Y/N. And Logan is waiting for you.”

You flickered, hollow eyes meeting hers. “He’s… waiting?”

Charles came up and took your hand. “Yes. And he’s not leaving without you.”

You blinked once, then again. And the cracks continued.

~~~

Logan was still talking, whispering about the day he fell in love with the way you corrected his grammar. He was just about to chuckle to himself when your fingers twitched. He froze.

“Sweetheart?” He whispered.

You drew in a shaky breath— ragged and shallow. “…Lo—Logan…”

Logan laughed, half-choked, half-sobbed. “Yeah, baby. It’s me.”

You finally blinked and turned your head. “Logan…”

He pulled you into his arms and Jean and Charles moved back. He didn’t let you go the rest of the way.

~~~

You woke up in the infirmary. It took you a few seconds to realize where you were and that you weren’t alone. Logan was in the chair next to your bed, head bowed forward like he was trying to stay awake and lost the fight. His hand was still curled around yours. You tightened your fingers just slightly causing his eyes to snap open.

“Hey,” his voice was rough but gentle. He sat up and you could see the exhaustion and relief all over his face.

“Hi,” you whispered.

“You want water? I can get—“

“No.” You squeezed his hand tighter. “Just… stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

You shifted slightly on the pillows. Every muscle ached and your head was still very fuzzy. “I remember… some of it… They took me.”

“I know.”

“They almost made me forget you and myself…”

He flinched.

“But I didn’t.”

“You said my name. That was the first thing. Back in that damn chair. I knew you were still in there.” He exhaled hard and leaned forward. “Darlin’, you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t feel like me yet… Everything is… fuzzy.”

“That’s okay. We’ve got time. You take as long as you need.”

“I’m scared.”

“I am too.” He kissed your knuckles. “But I’m here and you’re here.”

“Can you… read to me?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

Logan reached under the chair and pulled out your worn copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen. He had it there so that he could read it for himself while he waited for you to wake. He began reading. You closed your eyes and let yourself just listen.

~~~

You slept more than you stayed awake. Jean and Hank told Logan that it was your mind trying to repair itself— that sleep was safety. When you are awake, you barely speak. Sometimes you looked at Logan like you didn’t trust what you were seeing. Other times you cried and you couldn’t explain why.

Logan never asked you to. He just held you and wiped the tears. “I’ve got you.”

You kept asking if this was real. And Logan told you over and over that it was. That you were safe now. Even when he could tell that you didn’t believe it, he kept telling you.

The first nightmare hit on the third night. You were screaming before you even woke— voice ragged and hands clawing at the wire you still thought were there. You hit Logan and bit him. You sobbed so hard your whole body shook. Logan didn’t flinch. He simply fought you gently and held you, trying to ground you.

“They’re gone,” he whispered. “You’re safe. They can’t touch you now. You’re not theirs.”

You didn’t stop crying for a long time and he didn’t let go.

Days later, you sat in the library, curled in one of the chairs you used to love. You had a book in your lap but your eyes couldn’t focus. The words kept slipping. You knew the words— your mind still remembered— but your body recoiled. The act of reading, once second nature, now made your hands tremble. Logan watched from the corner. You shut the book.

“I can’t,” you whispered, defeated.

He crossed the room and knelt in front of you. “Then I’ll read to you.”

You looked down, ashamed. “Do you still want me?” The words were so small, broken.

He reached for your hand. “More than anything. Even when it’s hard. Even if it’s never easy again. You’re not a job, sweetheart. You’re mine.”

You nodded and let him take the book.

~~~

One morning, a student knocked over a cart in the hallway and the loud crash made you jump, heart racing. You began to shut down— breath catching, eyes glazing over. But Logan was there in a heartbeat, hands gently holding your face.

“Deep breath,” he guided. “Right here. Just us.”

You breathed in and then out.

“That’s my girl.” He kissed your forehead. “Keep breathing. I got you.”

~~~

It was late. The halls of the mansion were dark and still. Logan couldn’t find you in the infirmary or the library. But when he came to his room, he found you sitting on the floor, knees tucked up to your chest, curled in on yourself like you were trying to be small. You were wearing one of his shirts, sleeves pulled over your hands. You didn’t look up when he entered.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked gently.

You shook your head. He didn’t press. He just closed the door behind him, walked over slowly, and sunk to the floor beside you. You sat in silence for a while.

Then, you spoke up, voice thin and shaky, “I thought I was stronger than this.”

“You are,” he replied, sounding so sure.

You finally glanced at him. “I’m scared all the time. Of sounds. Of people looking at me too long. Of falling asleep and waking up back there. I can’t even read a full paragraph without panicking. I shelved one book and had to go lie down for an hour. I can’t help students. I can’t concentrate. I don’t feel like me anymore, Logan. I don’t know who I am without… control. Without knowing everything… without… reading.” You looked away. “And I can’t stop thinking… what if you stop wanting me? What if I never get past this?”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m broken.”

“No. You’re not.”

“You don’t understand—“

“I do. I know what it feels like to be ripped out of your own head. To wake up and not know what parts of you are yours anymore. To be scared that what they did made you unlovable.” He moved closer, taking your hand and pulling it to him. “But you are still you. Even when it’s hard. Even when you can’t feel it or keep questioning it. I see you, darlin’. I see you. Every piece of you.”

Tears spilled over before you could stop them. You folded into Logan like gravity was pulling you there. You bury your face in his chest and cry. Logan simply wrapped his arms around you and rocked you gently.

“You don’t have to hide the hard parts from me,” he murmured against your head. “You don’t have to be okay for me to love you.”

You cried harder. “I just want to feel whole again.”

“You will. Not tomorrow. Maybe not not week. But you will. And I’ll still be here. No matter what.”

~~~

The library was mostly empty. It was a quiet day— one of those afternoons where the students were either napping on the lawn or sparring in the Danger Room. But a few linger in the library. A girl, maybe twelve, stood hesitantly at the reference shelf. You were sitting behind the desk, just there. A book was opened din your lap— not to read but to feel the weight of it. One of Logan’s flannels were draped over your shoulders, sleeves rolled at the cuffs. Your heartbeat still skipped sometimes when a door slammed. And you still checked the exits without thinking. But you were in the library and that was something.

When the girl at the shelf sighed— frustrated— you spoke up before you could stop yourself. “Need help?”

She looked up, startled. “Uh… yeah. We’re supposed to write about resistance movements in Europe, but… I can’t even spell half of this stuff.”

You smiled, just slightly. “Try ‘Maquis’. M-A-Q-U-I-S. French resistance. I think you’ll like them.”

She perked up. “Is there a book about them?”

“There’s a few.” You stood slowly. “Come on. I’ll show you where they live.”

The girl followed you to the far wall. Your steady, not fast, still healing from the neural drain. But you walked with purpose. You find the book and hand it to her.

She grinned. “You’re really good at this.”

You rose an eyebrow. “At being a librarian?”

“At making it make sense.”

Across the library, Logan stood silent. He leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching your every move. When you turn and catch his eye, he smiled. You tried not to be too embarrassed.

‘What?’ You mouthed.

He just shrugged. But he was already thinking of a dozen ways to tell the others— Jean, Ororo, Charles— that today, you came back. Even just for a moment.

~~~

You had finally done it. After weeks inside the mansion, you decided to take a quiet walk outside. The wind was soft and the sun was warm. You had a book in your hands, just for the weight. You were okay. Until, your chest seized and your breath hitched. Something slipped into your mind. It was subtle at first. A brush of thought. Then it hit, an unwelcome pressure. A mind not your own was inside your head.

You dropped the book and fell to your knees. Your vision blurred and the pressure spiked behind your eyes. Your hands flew up to your head.

“No— no no no no!” You scammed. “Get out! Get out!”

~~~

Logan felt it before he heard your screams. He ran through the halls at full speed, blowing past students and furniture. You were in the garden, on your knees, hyperventilating. You were curled in on yourself like your skull was going to split in two.

Logan dropped beside you, voice low and urgent. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

“They’re in my head again— Logan! They’re in— I can’t— I can’t!”

He lifted you into his arms and pressed your head to his chest. “No one’s in there now. Just me. Just me, sweetheart. You’re safe.”

Behind him, Jean rushed through the doorway, pale. “I didn’t mean to,” she stammered. “I didn’t even realize— I was scanning the grounds and I must’ve— Logan, I’m sorry—“

Logan’s head snapped towards her, eyes full of ice.

~~~

Logan gathered all of them. Jean, Charles, Emma, and any other telepathy with regular access to the mansion. He paced in front of them, hands clenched.

“She just started walking outside again,” he voice was low but razor-sharp. “Just started. Like today. And someone pushed into her head like it was a hallway.”

Jean swallowed. “It wasn’t intentional.”

“I don’t care. Accident or not, you don’t touch her mind. You don’t scan her, brush her, or think too hard in her direction. Not without her permission. Not unless she asks.”

Emma sighed. “We can’t always avoid passive contact. We’re trained to keep our fields contained, but—“

“Then train harder. Because if it happens again? I don’t care who you are. I’ll treat you like any other threat.”

“He’s right,” Charles spoke up, calm and firm. “She is still recovering from a psychic violation more invasive than any of us can truly understand. We must respect her mental space. No exceptions.”

Jean nodded. “I’ll make sure everyone understands. And I’ll apologize to her again.”

Logan didn’t respond. He was already halfway out the door.

~~~

You were curled up in Logan’s bed, still shaken and quiet. But you were holding his flannel against your chest like it could anchor you.

When Logan came in, you whispered, “Was it really an accident?”

“Yeah,” he replied, coming to sit beside you. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

“I panicked.”

“You had every right to.”

You looked up at him. “Did you tell them?”

“I told them and made sure they heard me.” He brushed his knuckles down your cheek. “No one touches your mind again without your say-so. Ever.”

~~~

Later that night, you were still jittery. Logan was beside you. Reading, but not really— his focus was mostly on you. You rolled onto your side.

“I don’t want to feel like this,” you whispered.

“I know,” he replied. He closed the book. “You wanna try something? Something Jean taught me a while back?”

You nodded. He took your hands and gently pulled you up to sit across from him. He let his hands wrapped around yours.

“Close your eyes.”

You obeyed.

“Now listen to me. Just my voice. We’re gonna ground you, alright? Five things.”

You breathed in and out.

“Name five things you can feel.”

Your voice was shaky. “The blanket. Your hands. My shirt. The sheet. The mattress.”

“Good, baby. Now four things you can hear.”

“The breeze outside. Your breathing. The clock. The paper from your book— it buzzes.”

“Three things you can smell.”

You smiled faintly. “Your cologne. Coffee. And… old paper.”

His lips twitched up. “Two things you can taste.”

“My toothpaste… and… coffee.”

“Okay, darlin’, now one thing you can see.”

You opened your eyes, just enough. “You.”

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to yours. “Still here… still yours.”

~~~

You started to work in the library for one hour a day. In the early morning, when the halls were quiet and the students were still tricking down for breakfast. The smell of books, old wood, and sun filtering through high windows was enough to help your breath settle.

The first thing you did was dust the shelves. Section by section. No sorting or cataloguing. You moved your hands gently along the familiar spines, like you were re-learning a language. Logan didn’t follow you in during that hour. He sat outside the door, reading a book he won’t admit that he’s re-reading just because you once said it was underrated.

~~~

The second week, you began shelving again. Only returns for now. You don’t touch the recommendation board that you used to keep updated or reorganize the new arrivals. But when students dropped books into the return bin, you sorted them one at a time. Some of the students left notes with them.

“I liked this one. Thanks for showing it to me.”

“Can you help me find another with a strong girl lead?”

You didn’t answer aloud yet. But you tucked the notes into a little drawer in your desk.

~~~

The third week, you were in the library more during open hours now. At first, the students tiptoed around you. But the moment you recommended a book to a group of students working on a project, everything shifted.

“Miss?” A new student nervously approached. “I don’t really like reading but Mr. Logan said you could find something even I’d like.”

You glanced at Logan, who leaned in the doorway not even pretending he didn’t send the student.

You smiled at the student. “How do you feel about ghosts?”

By Friday of that week, the recommendation board had two new entires in your handwriting. Logan stood across the room, reading the board over and over like it was sacred. Because to him, it was.

~~~

The fourth week is when you began to work full days. The library had been buzzing the entire week. Students trickled in and out, teacher stopped by. Even Charles paused in the doorway with a proud little smile. You helped with essays, made book recommendations, and repaired books.

Now the week was over and you were exhausted. You made it halfway through Logan’s door before your knees buckled. He caught you in one smooth, steady motion— arms wrapping around you without question.

“Whoa, there,” he mumbled. “Hey.”

“I’m fine,” you murmured, already leaning onto him heavily.

He chuckled. “You’re cooked.”

“Thoroughly.”

He smiled. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you off your feet.”

Before you knew it, you were on his bed in one of his old t-shirts and flannel pajama pants. He disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with a warm plate, a thermos of tea, a water bottle, and an ice pack.

“Dinner of champions,” he commented, setting everything down. “You barely ate lunch.”

“I was busy,” you mumbled, tired.

“You’re always busy.” He settled the ice pack gently against your lower back. “Doesn’t mean you don’t need takin’ care of.”

You didn’t argue. Logan fed you a few bites— not because you couldn’t do it yourself, but because it made him smile and you were too tired to resist how gentle he was tonight.

“You made it,” he said after a while.

“Made it?”

“You got through the week. Every single day. That’s worth something.”

You sighed, leaning against his chest and closing your eyes. “I’m proud of myself. But I’m so tired.”

“I know. You’ve been carrying a lot.”

“How are you so good at this whole ‘supportive partner’ thing?”

He chuckled, kissing your head. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my image.”

“Too late.”

~~~

The next evening, you were in search of Logan. You followed the soft hum of something old-school playing on the speakers in the kitchen. You rounded the corner and paused in the doorway. Logan was at the stove, sleeves rolled to his elbows and apron on. The picture of domestic competence that you never expected to see.

He looked over his shoulder, lips curing up. “Hey, sweetheart.”

You smiled. “You’re cooking?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I’ve cooked for you before.”

You stepped inside, the music playing low. “What’s the occasion?”

He shrugged, tossing a few vegetables into a skillet. “Figured you deserved a night that didn’t revolve around trauma. Just good food, soft music, and, well, me.”

You laughed, warm and light. “That sounds perfect.”

He gestured to the counter. “Sit. I’ll finish up.”

You perched yourself on the counter behind him and watched him move around the kitchen. You just let yourself enjoy the moment.

~~~

Dinner was simple, but surprisingly very good. You ate across from each other at the tiny table tucked near the window. He lit a candle between the two of you.

You raised a teasing brow. “Romantic, are we?”

He shrugged, but his ears reddened. “Maybe.”

You finished eating with your foot nudged against his under the table.

~~~

The two of you were working on cleaning the dishes with another song came on— slower and sweeter. You hummed softly, swaying a little at the sink. Logan came up behind you, towel for drying still in hand, and leaned in close.

“C’mon,” he urged.

“What?”

He offered you his hand, eyes softening. “Dance with me.”

You hesitated for a breath but then took it. His hand slid around your waist. Your fingers found his shoulder. The two of you moved slowly, turning in time with the soft melody.

“I don’t know how to dance,” you admitted quietly.

“Neither do I,” he pulled you just a little closer. “Don’t matter.”

“Doesn’t.”

He chuckled. “Doesn’t.”

You closed your eyes and let the world blur around you. You let his warmth and the music carry you somewhere far from everything that every hurt. Your cheek rested against his shoulder.

“You feeling’ okay?” He murmured.

“I am now.”

~~~

You were surprised it hadn’t happened earlier in your relationship. It began wit his breathing. You woke up to the sound of it— harsh and fast and uneven. Logan twisted beside you, the sheets tangled around his legs, chest heaving. A growl ripped from his throat, low and feral. Then his claws unsheathed.

“Logan,” you whispered, sitting up. “It’s okay. Hey, it’s just a dream—“

But before you could touch his arm, he lashed out. Metal flashed close to your face and suddenly pain bloomed in your shoulder. You gasped— more from the shock than the actual wound itself. It’s shallow, but your hand flew to the bleeding skin just beneath your collarbone. He woke instantly, eyes wide and wild.

“No,” he rasped, breath catching. “No, no, no— what did I— fuck!”

You tried to speak and to reach him, but he was already scrambling out of the bed. He was already backing away.

“Logan,” you said gently, trying to mask the pain. “It was an accident.”

“I hurt you.”

“It was a dream. You didn’t—“

“That doesn’t matter!” His voice cracked as his shaky hands finally retracted the claws. “I said I’d never hurt you. I said— I said I’d never be that person again.”

Your vision blurred. “You’re not. Logan, you’re not.”

But he was already pulling on his jacket— panic in every line of his body. He refused to look at you. “I need— I need air. And time.”

He was gone before you could beg him to stay.

~~~

Jean and Charles could feel what had happened. You were already trying to bandage yourself in the infirmary when Storm found you.

“He went into the woods,” she told you.

You nodded numbly. “Did he say anything?”

“Only that he was afraid he’d do worse next time.”

“He won’t.”

“I know that. And you know that. But he doesn’t.”

~~~

You found him on a ridge above the lake, crouched low with his knees to his chest. When he looked up at you, his eyes were rimmed red. His fists clenched in the dirt like he was trying to bury himself in it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said hoarsely.

“This is exactly where I should be.”

“I hurt you.”

“You love me.”

He flinched.

You stepped closer. “I’m okay. It wasn’t dep.”

“That’s not the point. What if one day it is? What if one day I…”

You knelt in front of him, taking one of his hands in both of yours. “You’ve never laid a finger on me in anger. Not once. You don’t hurt me.”

His eyes locked on yours— desperate to believe you.

You placed his palm against your chest, over your heat. “This is where you live. Right here.”

He let out a ragged breath and then broke. You held him close while he cried.

~~~

The next night, you came back from brushing your teeth to find Logan already curled up dup on the floor. He had a thin blanket and a pillow, with his body turned away from the bed.

You paused in the doorway. “Logan?”

“Just for tonight.” His voice was rough.

You didn’t push. But you lied in bed and stared at the ceiling for hours, listening to him breath just a few feet away. The distance between you two was heavier than any wound.

~~~

Logan was already on the floor the next night when you entered. In the same spot and posture. You stood at the edge of the bed.

“You don’t have to—“

“I do.”

You knelt beside him. “Logan, you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“That’s not the point. I still did.”

You reached for him but he flinched. Your throat closed as you slipped into bed alone again.

~~~

It was the fifth night that became your breaking point. Logan was already on the floor. You stood at the door, waiting for him to break first but he didn’t.

“I can’t keep doing this,” you whispered. “Logan, I need you. And you won’t even look at me.”

Logan didn’t say thing and so you walked out. He didn’t stop you.

~~~

The bed in your room felt wrong. It was too big and too cold. You curled up on your side, waiting to hear the sound of him coming. But he never came and you cried into your pillow.

~~~

The week that followed was painful— for the both of you and everyone around you.

Day One

You passed him in the hallway. He slowed when he saw you. Like he wanted to say something but didn’t. You kept walking.

Day Three

You heard him in the Danger Room while Hank was doing a quick examination of your shoulder, just to be safe. Logan was tearing into the training bots like they had personally offend him. When he limped past the library later, all sweaty, he didn’t look in. You watched him from behind your desk.

Day Four

Jean gently asked if you were okay. You lied and said yes. You knew she could see right through you, but she didn’t push.

Day Six

You almost knocked on his door. Almost. You stood there for ten whole minutes, hand hovering near the wood. But you walked away again. And he heard every footstep.

Day Seven

You found one of his flannels under your bed. It still faintly smells like him. That night, you wore it to bed.

~~~

Logan hadn’t slept. He lied on the floor because he thought he deserved it. He thought it was safer and that distance was kindness. But every time he closed his eyes, he heard you leave again. He whispered your name into the dark. Every night. Over and over again.

~~~

Logan stood by the window in Charles’ office, arms folded tight and jaw locked. Charles watched him from behind his desk, calm as ever, but with that knowing look. The one that said he had already heard Logan’s thoughts.

“You call me here to lecture me?” Logan muttered.

“No,” Charles replied simply. “I called you here because you’ve been bleeding more in the Danger Room than on the battlefield and you haven’t spoken to Y/N in a week.”

Logan didn’t move.

“She walks through the mansion like a ghost, Logan. The students are asking if she’s sick again. Jean asked me if she should start forcing her to check in more. All Y/N says is that she’s fine.”

“She deserves someone who won’t hurt her in her sleep.”

“She deserves someone who won’t disappear the moment she needs comfort. She thought you were that person.”

Logan turned slowly. “I hurt her, Charles.”

“I know.”

“I swore I wouldn’t and I did.”

“You didn’t mean to. She knows that.”

He began to pace. “It doesn’t matter what I meant. What if next time I don’t wake up? What if I— What if I go full animal in my sleep and she pays the price?”

“And what happens when you do similar damage by keeping this distance?”

“… I don’t know how to fix this.”

“Just show up.”

He dropped into a chair in front of Charles’ desk, rubbing his face with both hands. “She’s sleeping in that big bed alone. I know it. And I’m just down the hall, pretending I’m not a coward.”

“You’re not a coward. You’re in love and you’re terrified.”

“I should’ve followed her…”

“You still can.”

~~~

You sat up with a yawn the next morning. You swung your legs over the edge of the bed and suddenly tripped. You stumbled forward with a startled gasp, catching yourself on the nightstand before you fell flat. Your eyes snapped down.

“Logan?!”

There he is, curled at the side of your bed. On the floor, asleep. He had a blanket wrapped around him like a cocoon, boots kicked off by the wall. His brows were furrowed even in his sleep. You knelt down beside him. His eyes opened slowly, hazy with sleep and something fragile underneath.

“What are you doing?” You whispered.

“Couldn’t stay away any longer.”

What didn’t you wake me?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t think I deserved to.”

You shook your head. “Logan…”

“I missed you. I missed you so bad I was shaking.”

You leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I tripped over you.”

He huffed a laugh, short and embarrassed. “Romantic, huh?”

You nodded. “Deeply… come back to bed.” You could see the hesitation in his eyes. You held out your hand. “Please.”

Logan slid his fingers through yours and lets you pull him up. You led him to the bed and he climbed in beside you. You curled into him immediately and his arms wrapped around you just as quickly.

“No more running,” you whispered against his collarbone, pressing a kiss to it.

“No more.”

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