#raise your hand if you're surprised exile wasn't in there? yeah i'm obsessed whoops

[darsynia]

Find the Word Tag!

Tagged by @residentdormouse and I sure am delighted! My words are: Playful, Energy/Energized, Exhausted, Delight/Delightful, Sorrow, and I'm putting the first one second because it's smutty :) It was HARD to find 'sorrow' in my stories! Edit: and somehow no Steve! Whoops. Tag me again :P

I'd like to tag: @ronearoundblindly @themaradaniels @peyton--warren @baba-fett @sobeautifullyobsessed @bakerstreethound and @deepbatched (spreading around the fandoms/characters hehe! I hereby state that if you don't have many WiPs to use stories you already have published!)

Your words are: Tear/Tearing, False, Blanket, Sweet, Ground (any form)

From 'Joined By the Waters of Time,' Anthony Bridgerton/OC | ENERGY

“I beg pardon, Lady Bridgerton, I did not see you,” Cara said hastily, rushing to stand so she could dip into a greeting curtsey.

“Do not be concerned,” Lady Violet said with a brisk head shake. “I was pleased to see you awake and looking well, but you seemed contemplative, and I did not wish to disturb you.”

“I have bad experiences with thunderstorms,” Cara explained.

“Meanwhile, my brother loves them,” Daphne laughed. “He will probably jest that your dislike of them is part of your ‘involuntary resistance.’”

“What is this?” Lady Violet asked, setting her sewing aside and walking over.

Daphne looked disconcerted. “His remarks were made in frustration, of course, with an eye toward explaining his lack of success, but…” she paused, brows furrowing. Cara imagined she was searching for a diplomatic way to explain their conflict.

“Until recently, I was engaged in a campaign to match your son with my cousin. As such, I exerted my energy in redirecting his attentions away from myself whenever possible.”

She had to congratulate herself on her forthrightness, which would hopefully take any pressure off of Edwina if there was still any question of their match. What she hadn’t expected was Lady Violet’s surprise. It hinted at the idea that their invitation had always been centered around herself, and not a choice between cousins.

“So is there voluntary resistance, as well, then?” Lady Violet’s voice was amused, and she broke out into a wide smile when she saw Cara’s attempt to prevaricate. “Poor Anthony.”

From 'Iron Helix,' Tony Stark/OC | PLAYFUL

“A judicious retreat. People respect a decisive leader, but not one that clings to a losing position. Give in.”

He was definitely moving incrementally nearer. She yearned to close the distance, but his words were weighted. The only thing that would be worse than being rejected, Evie realized, would be to have been rejected after she got to have this. That’s why she followed Tony’s example and grabbed a handful of the blanket on the bed beside her and looked him right in the eyes.

“Which option are you asking for?” she said, feeling like she had a responsibility to signal her certainty that he’d reject her. 

Tony’s nose brushed her cheek, and his breath danced across her lips.  “The one where you trust me,” he whispered, hoarsely. “Yield, Hyacinth. It’s easy, watch--”

--and with that, his lips met hers, one hand tearing away the bunched-up blanket at her hips to drag her underneath him. Tony went from teasing to beguiling, putting all his sensual powers of persuasion to bear on her. 

Evie was on board, raising her bare leg and angling her foot across his backside, locking him in place. He ran the flat of his hand from her hip, across her chest, and along her arm, linking their fingers together and slamming them into the mattress.

She loved kissing, and it was obvious Tony did too. He was really good at it, dominant but not domineering, playful, not afraid to show her he was affected and enjoying himself. And if she’d thought his ability to wreck her without using his hands was heady enough, she was completely seduced by him now. Their combined hands were a proxy of the push and pull of their bodies; Evie rolled her hips in response to the drag of his lips and tongue, and he ground against her, pressing his hardness right where she wanted it.

From 'Trust Fall,' Tony Stark/OC | EXHAUSTED

It’s not long after takeoff when a flight attendant comes over and asks Emory if she’s the person pictured in the article on her phone. She’s already shell-shocked and exhausted after telling her friend and colleague that the organization he’s been risking his life for is infiltrated by literal bad guys. She’d told Clint while still hanging underneath the helicopter, but once they were inside, the atmosphere was too tense to tell anyone else. Agent Rumlow and his team had lost two guys and a few more were wounded. They’d all been furious and demoralized, and that was without knowing the secret about HYDRA’s infiltration.

“Miss?”

“I’m sorry, it was a long day,” Emory says. She feels stretched, like keeping a secret this impactful can multiply in a person’s system until the infection takes them down from within. “Yes, that’s me, but what--”

“You were the one in the cave with Tony Stark?” The young woman’s excitement dampens as she frowns at her phone. “He-- he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No!” Emory says, deeply confused. “What--”

She grabs the phone, and it’s a testament to what she sees written there that the flight attendant doesn’t protest.

From 'Diminished Seventh,' Stephen Strange/OC | DELIGHTED

“Surgeon. You did say that.” Amy let her legs slide down from where she’d drawn them up against her chest. “Why aren’t you anymore? Were you looking for a way to cheat death?”

The question was fraught, but the words had already left her lips. Explaining why she wanted to retract them would be more painful than pushing through.

“No,” Stephen said. The word bore more weight than it ought to, she noticed. “I was injured. My hands.” He didn’t hold them up, instead toying with the tubes of the stethoscope absently. He shrugged, and again, she sensed weight there, a great loss bandaged up in shrugs and sarcasm. “I lost that job, needed another one.” 

His hidden sadness made Amy again yearn to see what he looked like pleased, contented, happy, joyful, delighted. She wanted to collect his emotions, mix and match them, be able to conjure them on demand. The strength of it shook her.

While she was reckoning with that, Stephen leaned over and pressed the stethoscope to her chest. Amy seized up, too vulnerable to want him quite so near, not with those thoughts only a breath away.

“I thought you said you were feeling bet--” He cut himself off, pulling his hand and the medical device away. “You are afraid of me.”

“I don’t know how to feel,” Amy said defensively. It was the honest truth, and as such, felt too revealing by half.

From 'A Solution More Beautiful,' Remus Lupin/OC/Sirius Black | SORROW

“Soup would be a great dinner idea,” Remus said, resting his arm on the back of the couch. “Even though Sirius detests soup. It’s almost as if his mother trained him to be some sort of anti-soup crusader.”

“Which actually means she fed him soup every day while yelling at his technique, more like,” Elodie said, laughing.

Remus looked at her with a curious expression on his face. “Sirius talked to you about his mother?” he asked, clearly very surprised.

Elodie’s heart sank. She’d slipped up with her unnatural knowledge again. She decided to deflect with the truth. “No, he didn’t,” she said. “I just remember the subject of his mother came up, once, and his reaction was so negative I just extrapolated from there.”

Remus made a wry face and looked down at where his hand was playing with a fraying thread from the couch. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up there, but he’s got a lot of baggage from his parents, and it would be a powerful thing if he felt he could unload some of it.” He looked up at her, and she could see the depth of his caring for his friend reflected in the sorrow in his eyes. “He had a warped view of family dynamics even before Azkaban.”

“We’re his family now,” Elodie said. She had tried to say it with firm conviction, but she yawned halfway through. “Damnit. I meant to sound more badass there. Like a final line before a commercial break.”

“The funny thing here is I can’t tell which is a typical Elodieism and which is a product of pain medicine and sleep deprivation,” Remus chuckled.

Trust Fall and Diminished Seventh are here on Tumblr!