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goldenspecter · 3 years

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Cosmo’s TMNT Masterpost

(Rise, 2003, 2012, and others)

Here’s where you can find pretty much everything I’ve ever made for the TMNT fandom! Fanfics here[haven’t gotten the courage to post fanart here yet], hope you guys enjoy my work. Reblogs are appreciated!

Fanfics

1. Finding my way home(and moving forward)

Out of sheer curiosity, Leonardo and Donatello looked up, and there it was.

A portal.

Had the Universe really taken pity on them? Had it really heard his desperate prayers for one more chance?

It was not like the ones they had seen before, it was an irregular circle made up of several shades of blue, completely different from the perfect and symmetrical pink triangles of the Kraang.

Leonardo and Donatello looked into each other's eyes for a few moments, "Should we go in?" Donatello asked, almost shouting, drawing the attention of the others, who quickly turned to the portal and to see each other, then the two brothers in question.

"It's our best bet, and our only chance," replied Leonardo.

Or rather, with the 2012 kids' home gone, they end up in the Rise verse after a strange portal shows up. Therapy is needed, and start the slow process of healing from their trauma.

(Rise/2012, Work in Progress, written with @keeryd )

2. Strawberry Cookies:

"Mikey here was just about to tell me what we could do to cheer Raph up while he's sick," Donnie says. "Mikey continue?"

Now that Mikey had both of his older brothers attention, he grins. "I was thinking we make strawberry cookies!" He does his jazz hands as he says this and is met with looks of something that he can only put as disapproval. "What?"

"You do know that everytime that we have tried to make it-" Donnie starts.

"We mess it up and Raph has to come in and save our butts from burning the cookies?" Leo finishes, "What would be different this time?"

Mikey huffs, "We are doing this so we can cheer him up and to prove that we can do something on our own!" he says, "That's what got Raph sick in the first place!"

Or rather, Raph gets sick after helping his brothers recover from the poisoned pizza puffs. Mikey, Donnie, and Leo take a shot at baking cookies for Raph while trying not to burn their kitchen down.

(One shot, complete)

3. Chicken Fried Rice:

“I only poured in half a pot of rice,” Donnie complained.

Mikey stared at him, really stared at him before he spoke. “You do realize that rice expands when cooked right?” he said, “You do realize that?”

Donnie was silent, looking away from Mikey.

“Donnie!”

Donnie makes chicken fried rice. Mikey watches over. Shenanigans and brotherly fluff ensue.

one shot in which Donnie is in the kitchen, cooking rice and Mikey, Mikey is positive he should have gotten Donnies braincell.

(One shot, complete)

4. Tea Time with Hortense and Patty:

"Sooo," Raph starts. She's always been weird with awkward silences. "Are these grandma kinning hours?"

"Grandma hours!" Mikey exclaims excitedly. "Grandma time!!!"

"Ah, if it isn't our favorite girl and her little brother!" Hortense tilts her head over in their direction slightly. "Are you going to join us? We were just about done arguing," she says.

---

Today is Tea Time. Two old ladies have a tea party, one of them forgets to bring the food, and they are joined by Mikey and Raph. A good time is still had.

(One Shot, Complete)

5. One of those Days

When Donnie woke up this morning, he woke up with the familiar thrum of anger and irritation running through his body with more intensity than normal. Rubbing the crust out of the corners of his sleep-addled eyes, he jerkily grabbed his phone and turned off the alarm. It's one of Those Days, Donnie noted. Those Days where Donnie isn't capable of handling Mikey's over-enthusiastic optimism or Leon's chaotic trickster nature. His safest bet is to hang out with Raph, his calm and mellow demeanor always helped calm down before Donnie went on a rage fest and say anything he couldn't take back.

Or, Donnie and Raph help each other out, balance each other, and make things a little less difficult.

(One Shot, Complete)

6. Gift Hunting:

“It’s Leo. Tiny Leo,” the voice answers. “I need your help with something.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t say until you say yes first,” Leo says. “It’s really important though.”

Angelo is silent, weighing his options. He could say no, he really could-

“Please, Angelo, you’re the only one who can really help me with this,” Leo pleads.

Rather, Angelo and Leonardo go out in the streets of New York to help the blue banded turtle find gifts for his brothers' sixteenth mutation day. Bonding and fluff ensues.

(One Shot, Complete)

7. Aftermath:

“Raphie bear?” Mikey called out, gently tapping Raph, with relief washing him when Raph turned his head to face him. “What’s the matter teddy bear?”

“Th-thi-this doesn’t feel real.” Raph stuttered out, his voice cracking as a sob broke through. “I’m not really here. Neither are you and everyone else. I’m still alone with Draxum and his minions. No one’s coming to save me because I was stupid enough to get captured and no one wants such a worthless turtle like me.”

In which Raph was kidnapped and tortured by Baron Draxum and his family has to deal with the aftermath of it.

(One Shot, Complete)

8. To Be the Eldest

Donnie, the second youngest in his family, wishes he was the eldest for once. Then one night, Donnie gets his wish granted and now he was three small turtles in his care.

Donnie adjusts to being the eldest, comes to some realizations, and makes a promise to his (now) younger brothers.

(Work In Progress)

9. Wanted: Snaggletooth

Dr. Noel bent down on his knees in front of Raph, a manic smile that showed too many teeth coming about on his face speaking of pain and suffering that has yet to come. He stretched out his hand towards Raph’s face, placing a thumb under his mouth, pressing into his snaggletooth. “Beautiful. Just as I expected,” he crooned, pulling out a syringe and injecting it into Raph’s neck, pushing the contents of the syringe into his system.

Raph’s eyes fluttered as he started losing consciousness, watching through hooded eyes as Dr. Noel's smile grew even wider, with his last thought right as darkness consumed him being that he hoped his family would find him before it was too late.

Post S2 Finale, Dr. Noel remembers Raphael, his snaggletooth, and manages to find and capture the red masked turtle. It doesn't end well for Raphael.

(Work In Progress)

10. Dimensional Differences:

They bow. Not like one of those pretentious bows like she would do at Yokai parties and not like the ones she would do with her brothers when they hosted tea parties. They bowed deeply, heads stopping at her stomach, one hand closing around their fists. This spoke of respect and honor.

And that unnerved her a little bit. Why are they bowing so deeply?

“Thank you,” they said in unison. It’s unnerving to April and she felt the uneasiness coming from her brothers too.

“Why are you thanking me?” She said finally, voice sounding foreign to her.

“You saved my life?” Baby Leo said slowly, voice tinged with confusion. “That was an honorable thing to do?”

April blinked, “It shouldn’t be considered honorable for doing what any big sister would do,” she said. “That’s not honor, that’s just being a good older sibling.”

In which April, Sunita, Casey, and the turtles end up in the 2012 verse after a mishap with Leo's ōdachi and stay with the 2012 turtles until they can go home. They find out a lot of things that don't quite jive with them. Some things are the same, some things are different and they're not quite sure how to handle those differences.

(Rise/2012, Work In Progress)

11. Mind Meld Part Deux:

“Oh thank Galileo that you all are back to normal!”

“What do you mean we’re back to normal?” Raph questioned, pulling back from the hug. Mikey and Leo also pulled back to stare at Donnie. “We’ve-we’ve always been like this?”

Donnie went quiet. He shouldn’t have said that.

“Donnie, what did you do?”

The brothers found out about Donnie’s Mental Intelligence Reprogrammulator. Arguments are had, words are said, words that tear a rift between him and his family, and it’s up to Donnie to earn his brothers’ forgiveness. The only thing is, will he get it?

(Work In Progress)

12. I'm a little kid and so are you(don't you go and grow up before I do):

The 2003 turtles somehow, someway ended up in the Rise verse, with Rise Splinter and his turtle tots, and stay with them while the boys try to figure out their way home. 2003 Raphael got attached to his tiny counterpart the moment he laid eyes on the tot. (Raph centric)

(Rise/2003, Work In Progress)

13. Dimensional Self-Isolation

Post S2 Finale, Raph finds himself trapped in the 2012 universe and has a difficult time coping with all of the differences that this world has in store for him. From new villains, unfamiliar familiar faces, and the way the 2012 boys and Splinter treat each other and him, Raph has a heavy plate on his hands during his long term stay.

(Rise/2012, Work In Progress)

14. A Collection of Turtle Thoughts

A collection of drabbles and ficlets about Turtles I've been writing since October 2020. Ranges from humor to hurt/comfort, I have it all.

Requests are open. SFW only though.

(All Iterations, Work in Progress)

If y’all reblog, read, and share my work, I’d really appreciate that! Anything and everything is appreciated, money or not! Thanks folks 🐢💕

#tmnt #tmnt fanfiction #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2003

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pennylogue · 5 years

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Steven is a Diamond, and that’s okay.

So, Steven’s way too caught up in the fact that he’s a Diamond right now, and therefore a hideous and overpowered monster who can’t hope to be understood by normal humans or normal gems. Let’s talk about that.

For all Steven’s enthusiasm to be a Crystal Gem and to demonstrate his powers, he’s always been weirdly ashamed of how being half-Gem affects his ability to live alongside humans. I don’t think he’s ever really decided how to feel about it. It’s only after seeing Steven growing substantially and changing his hair and getting diamond eyes, now that it’s clear that his physical form is so malleable to how he thinks of himself and what he wants to be, that it really hits me how growing up with Greg and around so many humans has affected his identity. How sort of…quietly unhealthy it was, to go around with his gem covered up all of the time, and his appearance so determinedly human. I mean, think of how upset and ashamed he was when he decided his inhuman aging would screw up his friendship with Connie.

Right now, Steven is a whirlpool of self-loathing mixed into repressed issues and trauma with the Diamonds and hatred for his mother, and because he’s feeling so disconnected from and alienated and misunderstood by both other humans and other gems, because his gem powers are being triggered by his trauma, he’s connected some dots and blamed it all on being a Diamond.

Looking back at that quiet “No,” at the end of “Fragments”, it’s easy to identify it as one of horrified realization. And you know, this is the logical conclusion of Steven’s feelings about his mother in “Mindful Education”, of “Storm in the Room”, of “Volleyball”—but it’s also the sum of a lot of other things:

Peridot: The Diamonds are the Gem matriarchs! ��We live to serve them.

The culmination of Peridot flipping to the Crystal Gems is tied directly into her rejecting the Diamonds. Diamonds are introduced as the symbol of everything wrong with Homeworld.

Garnet: “How dare you fuse with a member of my court? You will be broken for this!”

…

Garnet: Pink Diamond thought for a moment, and then laughed; a wicked, empty sound. “You wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? Ha! Don’t be absurd. Return to your post, and I will forget your insolence.”

Diamonds are shatterers. They hate fusion. They hate Earth and organic life. They hate Garnet. They’re the evil queens in Garnet’s fairy tale.

Garnet: The Earth belonged to Pink Diamond. Destroying her was the only way to save the planet. For Amethyst to be herself, for Pearl to be free, for me to be together. For you to exist.

Free will and the Diamonds are utterly opposed. It might be a tragedy that Pink Diamond was killed, but she was a monster, like the other Diamonds. The ultimate enemies of the Crystal Gems.

We got almost five seasons of the Diamonds being spoken of this way. You see how terrified every Gem is of the Diamonds, whether they worship them or despise them.

And then we found out a) Rose Quartz was one of them. And b) that Steven is one of them.

Hey, quick question–anyone remember what Sapphire said, right in front of Steven, after the reveal?

Sapphire: Of course she was a Diamond. What a long road she took, to torture us all like this...

…Yeah, we never really got his feelings on b, did we?

I think Steven was so overwhelmed by everything else that was going on and everyone’s reactions, and later so eager to jump on the chance that being seen as one of the Diamonds gave him to fix the corrupted gems and help everyone, that we’ve never really seen him process this realization. Steven drew a very clear line in the sand. The Diamonds are the Diamonds, and Steven is Steven. The Diamonds are wrong about everything, so they’re also wrong about him being Pink, the same way everyone else in the series who’s called him another name has been wrong. He’s not Rose Quartz. He’s not Pink Diamond.

Except…that second part isn’t true. Sure, Steven has a human body. Sure, Steven’s not the original Pink Diamond. That doesn’t mean he’s not a Pink Diamond.

But it was easy back then, right? Because Steven was so, so different from them. A Crystal Gem. A defender of fusion. Weak. Small. Human-colored. Harmless. And as Steven says in the finale promo:

I don’t hurt people. I help people.

Yeah, there’s no way that building an incredibly black-and-white mindset with impossibly high standards for himself to create and hold on to a sense of identity was going to backfire.

So yeah, we never really saw Steven process that he was supposed to be one of these terrifying rulers. Except now he’s hurting people. In fact, it seems that all he can do is hurt people. And since he’s only able to see the bad things he can do, the amount of horrible power he has and how isolating it is and how terrifying it is–of course he blames it on what’s always seen as the source of so many horrible things.

No wonder he’s having an identity crisis! He’s always told himself that he’s different than the Diamonds. He’s better than them. He has to be. So if he’s doing everything wrong, if he’s a freak, if he’s a shatterer, than it’s because he’s a Diamond. He’s just like them. He’s just as bad as them. He’s just as much a monster as the Diamonds are.

It’s complicated, what’s going on. Steven’s very, very wrong. But he’s also, strangely, right on target.

The thing is, this isn’t happening because he’s a Diamond, it’s because he’s human. He’s experienced trauma while growing up and is trying to react to it in a very human way. He literally has PTSD and CPTSD, and if you’ll look up the symptoms you’ll see he’s showing all of them. He’s not a monster. He’s part-human, so his symptoms are manifesting in partially inhuman ways. And that means he just happens to have the power to do a lot more damage than other humans when he lashes out in a way that is, once more, very characteristic for humans. But you know, even the best of humans can do a lot of damage, too, especially when they never really get over trauma. After all, Greg sure did a number on Steven.

The flip-side of this is that the hilarious irony of ancient magical rocks trying to treat themselves as perfect and inhuman alien beings has always been that, that in reality, they’re every bit as fucked up and human as humans are. That’s the whole point of the Crystal Gems and the Homeworld Gems. Remember back when Garnet seemed so perfect? Peridot seemed pretty alien and unfeeling at the beginning, right? Jasper, Topaz, Aquamarine, it goes all the way up to the Diamonds.

The whole point of the Diamonds and why the old system was broken was that the Diamonds tried to present themselves as perfect beings without flaw, when in fact they were all just as much a disaster as every other Gem. Remember back when Rose Quartz was a flawless goddess? Yellow and Blue were terrifying when we first saw them, but then we saw them comforting each other at the Zoo. They’re literally just a screwed-up family grieving and dealing with the death of one of their own–White’s first appearance painted her as this terrifying and totally inhuman being above even Yellow and Blue, but in the end, every one of the Diamonds is a normal, flawed person…just vested with the power to do a lot more damage than most.

The thing about White, was that she was so sure she had to be perfect, that she had to make everything better, but in the end, the solution was just to…let go. Accept that she was imperfect, and live with the consequences of it. Let other people help her. Stop trying to fit into being something she’s not, and just let herself be who she is.

Does any of this sound familiar?

All four of the original Diamonds had destructive powers. All four of the original Diamonds experienced a change and made a conscious choice to control themselves and try to stop using their powers to negatively affect others. White Diamond might be stuck being White Diamond, but as “Homeworld Bound” made clear, she’s also the only one who gets to decide what that means.

So you know what?

You can call Steven half-Gem and half-human, but that doesn’t really describe what he is. He’s a human with a Gem. A Gem with a human form. None of that’s good or bad. It is what it is. And as much as it sucks to be different from everyone else, he’s also the only one who gets to decide what being different means to him. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz and he’s not his mom, but just like he’s a human, he’s also Pink Diamond, and that isn’t bad.

And I think that’s what he needs to hear from everyone. The solution at Steven’s birthday party wasn’t to react to the situation they were in and cheer him up the same way you’d cheer up a baby. He wasn’t just a baby, he was Steven stuck in a body that he didn’t know how to control. What he actually needed was to hear from Connie that she wanted to be there for him, no matter how strange he was.

He needs the people he loves to stop telling him he’s “better than” his trauma and his diamond powers, to stop freaking out at how much damage he can do or treat it like a problem to be fixed. To not tell him that they know he’s going through, they’ve been there, too. They haven’t, and that’s not what he needs to hear. He needs to hear that none of what he is is bad. That his loved ones will be there for him and will love him unconditionally.

And I think that’s what will allow him to accept himself; accept that if he’s a Diamond then he’s also a human, if he’s human then he’s also Pink Diamond–and, just like the previous Pink Diamond, he’s the one who gets to decide what that means.

TL; DR I actually really hope diamond eye Steven is permanent for non angsty reasons. This kid needs to stop being ashamed of his identity.

#steven universe #steven universe future #suf #suf meta #steven universe future meta #homeworld bound #homeworld bound spoilers #su spoilers #su future meta #su meta #su future #character analysis #the pennylogue #fun with diamond parallels #kind of

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dreamscapestars · 4 years

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The Ultimate Reylo Fanfic List

* = highly recommend (aka if you’re going to read anything off this list read this)

Canonverse AUs

***All Our Days - E - 221k - "I can listen no longer in silence."The hologram projection of his strangely handsome face is cobalt blue, flickering, and full of static. "I must speak to you, Rey. You… you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late.” He groans, runs his hands through his dark, silver-streaked hair, then refocuses his gaze on the holorecorder. “I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Do not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death."Here the recording of Ben takes a deep breath, and looks down at something outside the holorecorder’s field of view. Perhaps at his hands, Rey manages to think, through the veil of shock and timid, fluttering hope. She wishes she were there with him, so she could take them in her own, and offer him the confidence to carry on.But this is only a hologram, so she must wait. Eventually, when he looks up again, his features have settled. He looks… Fierce. Determined. Self-assured."I have loved none but you," he says. - canonverse jane austen au

trillions of molecules - T - 11k - Fake papers forged, contract signed and a navy blue jumpsuit with his name printed on the chest supplied to him, the man who called himself Solo was hired by the Felucian Transit Corporation as shuttle operator number B414. - tros fix it au

There Shall I Be - N/A - 50k -She remembers the first and only time she saw him smile like this before and how it didn’t touch his eyes at the time and how it broke her heart.Now it fills her heart and gives her life.She shoves him back onto their blanket and climbs on top of him. She pulls off her sweater and takes him inside her again and rides him into the night. - canonverse far from the madding crowd au

*landscape with a blur of conquerors - E - 362k - "While I share your contempt for this situation in which we find ourselves, do not mistake it as apathy," he hissed through gritted teeth, dark eyes burning. "I hardly expect your disposition to sweeten, but I will be damned if I allow my future Empress to behave in a manner that reflects poorly on me and on the First Order!""If you allow?" She wrenched her arm out of his viselike grasp, batting his hand away for good measure. "I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone.""That might have been the case back when you were a scavenger on that pitiful scrap heap of a planet, but now?" His sardonic gaze flickered over her silk robes and the jewels woven through her elaborate braids. "Now you are the Chume'da, and the Chume'da belongs to her people. Their fate is entirely in your hands. Should you cross the line, it is they who will suffer for it. Am I making myself clear?""I hate you," she said bitterly. He sneered at her. "See? Already you are acclimatizing so well to married life." - arranged marriage au

Modern AUs

*the man, the stallion, and the wind - E - 17k - Weary and alone, Rey barrels west on the Trans-Canada Hwy in her old pickup truck. Weary and in need of a lift, Ben Solo stands by the side of the road with his thumb out, in the hopes of hitching a ride.One hell of a winter storm’s about to roll in, leaving them stranded. What ever shall they do? - hitchhiker au

The Mechanic - E - 122k - It's a magical midsummer night, just made for following a persuasive, dangerous-looking lawyer to a hotel across the road from the party. But then reality catches up to Rey. - mafia baby au

*Soul Searching - E - 205k - Sixteen-year-old Rey finds out she’s soulmates with her English teacher -- in front of her entire class. Now the school gossips won’t leave her alone, prying for tidbits that Rey wouldn’t give them even if she had any. And she doesn’t. Because Mr. Solo is too horrified at being soulmates with an underage girl to even talk to her. - soulmate au

Mitan, Midi - E - 83k - After a French notary contacts Rey to inform her she's inherited a house in the Drôme (France), she decides from one day to the next to quit her job and move there. The house is pretty secluded, there's no service, no internet, no way to reach other people aside from the landline in the living-room.Ideal conditions, by her standards, as those theoretically should allow her to be perfectly alone. Theoretically. - french country side au

*A Treehouse Covered in Salt - E - 34k -High school senior Rey Johnson has lived next door to Ben Solo her whole life. The two could not be more different and at school, Rey wouldn't be caught dead in his presence. That doesn't stop her from sneaking out to their treehouse every night. Despite her unwillingness to be friends with Ben in the light of day, he has always been there with her in the darkness. - high school au

Initial - M - 45k - A Soulmate AU in which you are born with the initials of your soulmate marked on the nape of your neck. Easy enough, right? Except for two people who don't use their real names. - soulmate au

Killing Me Softly - M - 32k - Rey clings to the hope that her husband will regain his memories after he survived a car crash that left him with amnesia. During her monthly visits at a medical facility with Ben, who now calls himself Kylo, she struggles to cope as he tries to make her let go of the past, and in turn, him with it. - amnesia au

only child of the universe - E - 98k - The first time Rey meets Ben, they're carefree strangers getting high at the fair, alight and in love for a night. The second time is different. The second time is in therapy— where the asshole won't even acknowledge her. - high school au

a place to go - E - 52k - All Rey Johnson wanted was solitude. A place to go where she could escape from the daily stressors and mayhem of her job. A place where she could enjoy some peace and some quiet. Her mentor Luke Skywalker's small cabin up north seemed like the ideal place to do just that. A week of seclusion was just what she needed.And then Ben Solo arrived. - snowed in au

into the great laughter of mankind - E - 30k - There is something about watching Rey put her mind to task. Ben can't put a name to this something, exactly— all he knows is that it fascinates him like nothing else has in a long, long time."Dr. Solo?" She glances over at him. "What do you think?"I think I'm doomed, he wants to say but doesn't. I think the curse of the pharaohs has nothing on you. I think you are my Egypt. - archaeologist au

(now it’s) Time to Learn - M - 86k - “You’re a teacher?” Ben doesn’t look like a teacher. At least not like any teacher Rey has ever had. - teacher au

For Now - E - 8k - There are plenty of things he could say, but he doesn’t. Buying you muffins makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning. I wish I could go back in time and be the kind of person you could like. I don’t remember my life before you. ---------- When Kylo finds his soulmate, she doesn’t know, and he doesn’t tell her. - soulmate au

Cupcake Wars - E - 36k - Entirely by accident, Rey ends up fucking someone who works for Snoke's Cupcakery. She's just blowing off steam. It doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly won't come back to bite her in the ass. - bakery au

The Food of Love - E - 60k - Rey picked up her first violin at eleven, finding a mentor in conductor and former-violinist Luke Skywalker. With the First Chair up for grabs, Rey is thrust into the spotlight as the youngest violinist to take First Chair in the NY Pops. But Kylo Ren - former violinist, former NY Pops cellist, formerly Ben Solo child prodigy - may take issue with Rey Nobody sitting in his grandfather's chair. - orchestra au

Orion - E - 14k - Rey Niima finds herself in the Saharan desert trying to heal wounds from her life, and Ben Solo is there too, fixing himself along the way. - roadtrip au

Embers - E - 34k - All the myriad things he’d been—someone who made her laugh; the warmth on the other side of the bed; her best friend—those things, Rey had buried. Rey left Ben two years, three months, and sixteen days ago. But who's counting? - getting back together au

Gilded - M - 11k - Everyone had two marks, one for class and another to identify a soulmate. She only had one: green rings on her finger, proof she was part of the laboring class. It made matters lonely, but never unbearable.Until she met him. He had two sets of marks—had a soulmate—and she did not. - soulmate au

flutz - E - 27k - Rey was determined to have no distractions during her first season in Senior Ladies figure skating.She swore that Olympic medalist and figure skating legend Ben Solo was not going to change that, no matter how intent he seemed on proving her wrong. - ice skater au

oh autumn, oh teakettle, oh grace - E - 30k - "So let me get this straight," he says. "You're a dryad.""Quite so," she cheerfully replies."Like an actual—" His hand rises to make a feeble gesture at the towering elms that surround them— "tree-dwelling, speaks-with-animals, has-magical-powers, frolics-through-the-woods-in-orgiastic-pagan-frenzy dryad?"She wrinkles her delicately freckled nose. "Well, I don't know about orgiastic frenzy, that's really more of a maenad type of deal."He looks her up and down, taking in her pretty face and her slender figure in the skimpy white dress."Too bad," he mumbles. - dryad roadtrip au

A Proposal by Any Other Name - E - 188k - Rey and Finn have been A Thing for a long time now. Since she was eighteen, to be exact. When Finn leaves on a trip to Europe for six months for work, Rey finally chases after him to Dublin to do what he seems to be putting off: propose.She wants a family, after all.The universe has different ideas. Her flights are delayed, storms hit, she loses her tickets and everything seems to be going horribly. To top it off, she ends up stranded around a rather irritating man by the name of Kylo Ren. It goes about as well as you'd expect. - leap year au

endless summer afternoon - E - 63k - “My son's room is always made up,” Han had said, hitting a light switch as Rey clung to a dirty backpack in the dark hallway, “he never comes home. Warm bed might as well get some use.”Rey spared Han some of the dignity of his own longing assessment of the space that clearly hadn’t been looked at in a long time. An empty room in a quiet house. As gruff as he was, handing it off to some runaway nobody just because she was helping him rebuild a car was one of the kindest gestures she’d ever experienced, and had a hidden weight that she knew needed a respectful amount of privacy. Mysteries were often about unresolved sadness, and were usually only solved by the people who didn’t feel it.Rey is offered a place to stay: a spare bedroom once belonging to the mysterious Ben Solo. What does she do when she wakes up with him wanting his bed back? - roommates au

Dandelion - E - 45k - Rey's an ex con and orphan, just released from jail after killing Plutt. She follows advice from her former guardian, Maz, and finds a job at Luke's coffee shop. Ben's a lawyer who lost his job and moved back to his hometown. He falls for Rey, unaware of her dark past. - coffee shop au

A Few Small Repairs - E - 69k - Ben Solo is a ruthless property developer, and Rey Johnson is the lone holdout on the block. She does not intend to give up what's hers, not for anything. (Not even for a pair of pretty eyes.) - property developer au

Unbroken - E - 7k - He found her sleeping in the stables, curled up in the stall of his newest, unbroken colt...

Lockjaw - M - 106k - Kylo finds Rey unconscious and near death on the side of a road, surrounded by twitching, wretched things looking to her for their next meal. Ever the altruist, he picks them off and takes her with him, saving her life in the process. It's no wonder that when she wakes she feels she owes him, and agrees to become his travel companion as he crosses the United States in search of safety and a new home. - zombie apoclypse au

Everything to Prove - M - 13k - “The show,” he says. “It’s probably best if they don’t—if we don’t—”And Rey follows his line of thought at once. For all the program is one that doesn’t seem melodramatic—the height of drama in previous seasons came from someone’s cake falling over and that was about it—she does not doubt that the producers and cameramen would leap at the opportunity to make there be something out of nothing in their relationship—especially if there was something out of something.“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, probably. We can pick baking stations that are…” but she doesn’t want to complete the thought. She likes baking next to Ben.“Or we can just be careful?” he suggests, sounding quite as pained by the prospect as Rey feels.“Yeah, careful. I can do careful,” Rey says at once and her lips are on his again and he’s laughing now, and she’s laughing, and she didn’t think laughter would be part of all this. She didn’t think it could be. But here she is, laughing and kissing and holding a man who, at some point, she’s going to want to beat.She does her best not to think of that now.It’s a friendly competition, after all. It’s not life and death. It’s baking. - great british bake off au

*In Bloom - E - 13k - The flowers that bedeck her skin don’t lie—ballet dancer Rey is in love with her partner, Ben. But the years go by and his skin stays resolutely, devastatingly blank.He doesn’t love her. But when his hands are on her body, she can pretend. - ballet soulmates au

By Blood and Flame - E - 10k - Rey can’t go to her professors with this spell. She needs help, though, needs someone to do the spell with her, and she needs the best because it’s tricky. Dangerous.There’s a boy on campus. Powerful. Mysterious. He’s admired and envied, feared and loathed, depending on who’s talking, but for all everyone knows his story, no one seems to really know him. And Rey… Rey has been curious about him for… well, for longer than she wants to admit.She’s not sure if it’s good or bad luck that he’s the perfect person to help cast her spell. - magic college au

count the rings - E - 63k - “Because you’re sitting there all comfy, not looking at all bridal-” “I’ll just fetch the veil out of my backpack, shall I?” “-when you could be, you know, making a move on that fine-ass tree.” In which camping comes with unexpected consequences. - accidental marriage au

(won’t you let me) walk you home from school - E - 129k - Ben, a counselor in the upper school at the legendary Alliance Academy, keeps finding himself interacting with the lower school art teacher, Rey. He definitely doesn’t like it. - teacher au

follow in your form - E - 23k - Ben Solo wakes up paralyzed and angry about it.A story about dealing with change, holding onto hope, and finding love. - quadriplegic ben au

*screwdriver - M -101k - Rey is a bright-eyed intern on her first campaign trail, Ben is an irritated data analyst, and how difficult can it be to get a legacy senator elected president? Apparently fucking impossible. - political au

9 pints - E - 83k - She knew next to nothing, and Google was largely unhelpful. All of her searches (“vampire sex rules” and “vampire dos and don’ts” and one very self-indulgent “average vampire cock size big?”) linked her to dated top ten lists written by anyone other than an actual vampire.Twenty minutes of frustrated scrolling eventually led her to a supernatural dating forum. The website was horribly aged, but still active. Questions were tagged, which meant that it was easy to narrow down her search. Vampire, she clicked, and Sex.--In which Rey gets suckered into shooting porn with one of Poe's pickiest vampire actors. - magical porn stars au

fine young cannibals - E - 27k - Kylo raised his head to the sky as he inhaled, his broad chest expanding even wider. His eyes fluttered shut, savoring the scent like a sumptuous meal. He grinned.“Oh,” he murmured, so softly Rey wasn’t even sure it was meant for her ears. His eyes slid to meet hers, scarlet and violent and hungry. “You brought a snack.”And then all hell broke loose.About three things, Rey is absolutely positive:First, she is totally, completely, and madly in love with her vampire boyfriend, Poe.Second, there is another vampire—an older, evil, definitely-not-hot vampire—that thirsts for her blood and wants nothing more than to kill her.And third, she is maybe not absolutely positive about either of these things. - twilight au

Epithumia - E - 46k- ἐπιθυμία, ας, ἡ: epithumia : desire, passionate longing, lust *** “No extra credit.” He made a noise that might have been a laugh. “You ask that every time.” “Well, I have to try.” Rey said, weakly. “Can you make an exception?” A lone eyebrow ascended his lofty forehead into his hairline. “Try harder, Miss Kenobi.” - college teacher/student au

Historical AUs (ranging from medieval to the early 2000s)

light carries on endlessly - M - 6k - “Traitor,” he told Cerberus gruffly not too much later, using both hands to scratch behind the hound’s many ears. What appeared to be a rat tail lay nearby on a blood-stained bit of stone. “What did I tell you about women with pretty eyes?”One wet tongue lapped at his wrist, and he sighed. “Right. Nothing.” - Hades and Persephone au

The Witch in the Wood - E - 138k - As a knight errant of the kingdom of Alderaan, Kylo Ren has traveled the country, completing quest after perilous quest in search of redemption for the dark deeds of his past. When an evil witch captures the princess of a neighboring kingdom, Kylo reluctantly accepts the burden of rescue with the assumption that it will be a simple task.It is not. For the creature that lives in the woods is not a monster at all.Since her mentor died, Rey has lived in the witch’s tree and uses magic to maintain the balance of the forest. Her life is practical, repetitive, and simple—at least, until a wrathful knight thunders through her door and levels a sword at her throat. Yet something within the knight calls to her, a buzz beneath his skin that she recognizes.Without a doubt, he is not who he appears to be. - medieval witch au

Black Knight, White Queen - E - 53k - Luke Skywalker wrote his sister a letter on his deathbed, revealing that his ward is the orphaned heir of a family long thought extinct - and politically powerful. That letter fell into the wrong hands, and the secret of Rey's heritage is secret no more. The Emperor has managed to unite the Kingdoms, but he is old, and his son is weak. Seeking to ensure his son's claim to his throne, he sends his most trusted captain to bring the girl - willing or not - to be his son's bride. Rey is taken from her far-flung home, and plunged into a world of court intrigue, arranged marriage, political rivals, and would-be assassins - the black knight her constant companion and bodyguard. But even he, her dark shadow and protector, she cannot know whether to trust... - medieval bodyguard au

Days to Remember - E - 42k - A man heads home after years of estrangement. What do you need from me? A woman leaves her world behind, a bird in a gilded cage. When we get to New York, I need help running away. -- I'll bring you to Boston with me. - titanic au

*what if the storm ends - E - 61k - As a child, Rey is evacuated from London to the Yorkshire Dales during the Blitz. She spends the war in the care of the Solos on their farm, wandering the moors with their son looking for a legendary family artifact long lost. When the war is over, she returns to a city she no longer recognizes, and she writes a popular series of children's fantasy books based on her childhood in the Dales. After amassing fame and fortune with her stories, tragedy brings her back to the farm to see Ben Solo, once her greatest inspiration and now a widower. - post WWII au

Take Me - E - 39k - Every night, at 8:30 pm, Rey and Ben get on stage and pretend to be in love with each other. At 9:15, they walk off stage and the actual fireworks begin. - 60s country singers au

I could have been wild, I could have been free (but nature played a trick on me) - M - 61k - “Did you know that I did not even learn your name until yesterday, when I married you?”His face flushed a darker red than it had at breakfast, and he attempted to defend himself with incompetent stammering, “I—I regret that. The situation, of course, would have been,” he wrung his hands together and stared at her feet, “It would have been preferable if we had known one another more. On several occasions, I did attempt to make myself known to you, but you seemed to have other preoccupations.”Rey could feel her face contorting into a sneer to spit out her barbed words, “Perhaps that was your cue not to marry me!” - regency arranged marriage au

Patch - M - 20k - He is nineteen when he first sees her.She comes to the rink alone, laces her skates alone, strokes warm-up circles alone...He looks at her, really looks her in the eye, and he decides he likes what he sees.She may be young, but she is hungry and angry, and for now? That’s enough for him.It’s not like he has a lot of options. - 80 russian ice skaters au

*The Great Big No - E - 165k - Kylo Ren is third generation rock royalty, a reigning brat prince starting to feel the burn of the fame he reached for with both hands. Rey is an aspiring singer on the verge of a big break, provided her A&R guy still has a job by the time she reaches LA. Their paths have crossed briefly, disappointingly, before. What happens when they collide? - 90s rock au

***go I know not whither and fetch I know not what - E - 119k - The year is 1994. The Iron Curtain has come down, the oligarchs have begun their rise to power, and Kyril Ren, a powerful member of the infamous crime syndicate Solntsevskaya Bratva, has been given a job: hunt down an estranged uncle who has been snitching to the FBI.Irena, nicknamed Rey by her adoptive father Luke, is a Krav Maga instructor in New York who has finally been able to obtain her original birth certificate from Russia. Turns out she was born in a little village named Vershinino, but if she wants to know more than that… she’s going to have to go there herself. - 90s russian mafia au

we could plant a house, we could build a tree - E -124k - Ben takes a deep breath. “It’s—it’s a project. Conceptual art. You wouldn’t get it.”Rey presses her lips together to keep from laughing. She plans her next words quickly and carefully, determining what will get her the best reaction. “Really? Looks like you ruined a bedsheet to me.”His reaction does not disappoint. “Get out.” ** Seven-year-old Rey decides it's her duty to annoy the crap out of Ben Solo every single day she's alive. - 90s growing up together artist au

#reylo #reylo fic rec #reylo ao3 #reylo fanfic #fanfic #fic rec #adam driver #daisy ridley #rey #kylo ren #kylo redemption #ben solo #star wars #star wars fanfiction #the grocery list

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Stark Spangled Rebirth

Chapter 4: The Star Spangled Man With A Plan

Summary: As the SSR deals with the aftermath of the attempted theft of the serum by Hydra, Steve finds himself side-lined until he’s offered a golden opportunity to help fight the good fight…but it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as he quickly finds out.

Warnings: Bad Language words.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Word Count: 7.5k

A/N: This series is my contribution of sorts to the CATF 10 Year Anniversary Challenge. As always, some creative liberties taken.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Star Spangled Rebirth Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 3

“Absolutely not!” Katie blazed her hands on her hips “That is NOT what Erskine was going to do.”

“Well Erskine isn’t here is he, in case it had escaped your notice.” Phillips bit back “And neither is the serum after the last vial of it was smashed out on Brooklyn Pier.”

Steve sighed, his head bowing a little.

“Erskine said that post the transformation, Steve was supposed to be monitored for twenty-four hours before he did any major physical activity.” Katie continued, “Given that, and what just happened, you seriously want to take his blood?”

“She has a point.” Howard stepped in. “Personally, I’m not sure it’s wise. Private Rogers should be given the rest of the day at least under observation as was the original plan, where we can run the physical tests Abe had been planning to do.” He took a deep breath and bowed his head slightly.

“We owe it to him to do this right.” Katie spoke again, her voice loaded with emotion as she turned her eyes to the Colonel. Phillips gave a little groan, dragging his hand down his face “We can take the samples tomorrow.”

“Do I get a say in any of this?” Steve spoke, surprising himself with his sudden forthright nature and Katie glanced at him.

“No.” She said simply, turning back to Phillips. Steve’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at Howard who was silently chuckling at his sister’s bossy nature. He gave a little shrug of his shoulders, and then his brown eyes turned back to watch as Katie stood looking at Phillips expectantly.

“You know, I’m beginning to rue the day I ever asked you two to join this team.” The Colonel shot, and Steve watched as Katie turned to Howard, smirking. “And wipe that look off of your face right now, Agent.”

“Sir.” She nodded, and then everyone’s attention was taken by Agent Carter as she walked back into the room.

“We have it.” She nodded, “The HYDRA Sub. It’s in the Tech Lab.”

“You wanna wait until tomorrow to work on that too? Perhaps, give that time to recover as well?” Phillips looked at Howard who snorted.

“You know they say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” He arched an eyebrow as he looked at Phillips, “But I prefer to think of it as a metric for potential. You’ll be a great man someday, Colonel Phillips.”

Katie’s shoulders began to shake and she turned back towards Steve who was watching the scene play out in front of him, utterly perplexed. He still couldn’t get his head round Katie’s blatant disregard for her Commanding Officer’s authority. Howard, well, he could understand that a little more as he wasn’t in the man’s chain of command but Katie was. And she seriously didn’t seem to give a shit.

“Do we have any more intel on Schmidt?” Phillips turned to Peggy who blinked and looked at him.

“No, Sir. Nothing,” she took a deep breath, “but I think after today it’s safe to say that was another thing Dr. Erskine was correct about. Schmidt clearly has ambitions beyond simply being Hitler’s Chief Scientist. I think we should consider the fact that he’s equally, if not more dangerous.”

At that Steve heard Erskine’s words from the previous night as clear and as loud as if the man were speaking them to him in person. Schmidt must become that superior man.

He cleared his throat a little and felt all eyes in the room turn to him. “I think Agent Carter is right, Sir.” Steve took a deep breath “Last night, Dr Erskine was explaining to me about Schmidt. He said that Schmidt is convinced that there is a great power hidden in the Earth, waiting to be found...”

“So he’s bonkers.” Phillips looked at Steve. “Terrific.”

“You know, we have forces out there fighting the Nazis.” Katie pondered for a moment, “Maybe the SSR needs to concentrate on HYDRA.”

Phillips looked at Katie, “You wanna chase HYDRA?”

She shrugged, “it seems logical to me. A lunatic Schmidt might be, but he clearly has a vast amount of followers that buy into the same rhetoric. That makes them dangerous.”

“And let’s not forget, HYDRA is, or was, Hitler’s deep science department. Now, Steve stopped them from getting the vial of Erskine’s completed formula, but who knows what else they have in their grasp.” Peggy added, “I saw a lot of things when I was under, a lot of things that if perfected could be disastrous. We chose to concentrate on Hitler as he had control of HYDRA. But, if Schmidt is going rogue as we suspect, then I’m afraid Sir,that as Agent Stark suggests, he could prove to be far more dangerous.”

“Just what we need,” Howard groaned, “two enemies to be fighting.”

“Oh pur-lease.” Katie looked at him. “Like you’re doing any actual fighting.”

“Shut up.” Howard glared at her, “You know as well as I do that I was plucked out for this instead of going to the front lines, just like you were.”

“The pair of you can take your squabbles outside.” Phillips looked at them, “I’m done. I need to brief Senator Brandt.” With that he turned to Peggy. “Get onto base and tell them they need to get into the President, inform him of our intentions so that he can approve them. You,” he then looked at Howard, “take a look at that sub, see what we’re dealing with from a technology point of view. As for you,” he looked at Katie, then to Steve, then back again. “take Rogers for whatever observations it was Erskine wanted to do. Then I suggest you all get a good night’s sleep. Back here at Zero-Six Hundred.”

With that he swept from the room leaving the four of them behind. Steve turned to Katie, his arms folded.

“You know, I don’t need a load of tests to tell you I’m fine. In fact, I’m more than fine. I feel, well, I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“That maybe, but I’d feel better if you went along with it, please.”

“Oh, she’s serious, Rogers,” Howard smirked, “she said the magic word.”

At that Katie turned to glare at her brother, who held her gaze, his expression not faltering in the slightest. She threw him a positively filthy look before she turned back to Steve and he looked at her as she once more began to speak. “Erskine wanted to make sure that everything was okay, monitor the effects properly at least for twenty-four hours. We have no idea if it’s permanent, what it’s actually doing to you, whether the effects and transformation is still ongoing.”

“Okay, okay.” Steve held his hand up, giving her a nod, “Fine, I’ll submit for monitoring. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Could someone please find me something to eat?” He looked around, his stomach giving a huge growl at the perfect moment to emphasise his point, “I’ve never been this hungry in my life, and believe me, I’m no stranger to living with an empty stomach.”

**** It turns out that Steve’s appetite had increased exponentially too, which was to be expected considering his metabolism was working far faster than it ever had before. He wolfed down a huge helping of Potato and Hot Dog salad, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, an assortment of vegetables and a huge helping of apple pie. He had no idea where Katie had managed to conjure it from, and frankly he didn’t care either. All he knew was that in that one sitting he’d consumed more food than he usually ate in a day.

The rest of the day was taken up with him being poked and prodded and attached to all sorts of strange machines. Howard explained what each of them was for, but he wasn’t paying much attention. His mind was whirring, finally processing what had happened in the last couple of hours. He had been so sure about what was going to happen post getting the serum, that he’d be shipped out to help in the fight and now he didn’t have a clue where he was going to go, especially if they were now going to refocus their efforts on HYDRA. That said, it was all helping the war effort wasn’t it? HYDRA was a huge threat, if he was able to help take them down in any way, shape or form, then he was ok with that.

One of the doctors and Howard started explaining to him what the serum had done and at that point he tuned in to some of it, picking out the odd phrase like ‘super strength’, ‘increased stamina’, ‘enhanced metabolism’, ‘fast healing’, ‘super-sharp senses’, ‘memory expansion’, ‘logical improvement’. Howard looked at him and explained that as far as he could see, the transformation was complete, and was as permanent as they could hope. But Erskine had said that the serum wasn’t infallible, therefore how long the effects would last into the future they didn’t know. Forty, maybe fifty years or so. Steve wasn’t particularly bothered about that though, by the time that happened he would be well into his sixties or seventies and would he really care then?

Katie arrived back just as the Doctor who had been dealing with him had instructed the nurse to remove the heart monitor form his chest.

“Hi.” She smiled and Steve turned to face her, fulling intending on greeting her back, but before he could, the Doctor made a little noise of surprise.

“What is it?” Howard asked and Steve hastily turned towards them, wondering what was wrong.

“His heart rate just spiked.”

Steve gulped and hastily looked away from Katie as Howard turned to face him. His eyes flicked from Steve, to his sister who was stood in the doorway, a bashful smile on her face but to her credit she held her brother’s gaze as the man gave a groan.

“Seriously?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” She mumbled, stepping into the room. “You done treating him like a guinea pig?”

“Hey, you were the one that insisted on the monitoring!” Howard pointed at her.

“Yes, because it was what Abe wanted,” she shrugged, “and I wanted to make sure everything was okay before you guys started stealing his blood like a pack of starving vampires.”

“Well you needn’t panic.” Howard arched an eyebrow. “The transformation seems to be text book. Your Super Soldier is as ready as can be.”

“Fuck you.” Katie shot back, and Howard gave a chuckle as Steve let out a little groan at the man’s teasing.

“That bad an idea huh, dating my sister?” Howard turned to Steve and he flushed immediately.

“That…no, I didn’t say that, I mean, not that we…”

“Ignore him Steve, he’s being a jerk.” Katie rolled her eyes. “And if he knows what’s good for him he’ll shut up before I knock his teeth out.”

“Threat received and understood, Kiddo.” Howard held his hands up as the Doctor bustled around and handed Steve back his t-shirt.

“You can leave now, Captain Rogers, but we would like you to stay here tonight.”

“Why?” Steve frowned as he pulled the SSR logo t-shirt over his head.

“Because I want to monitor your levels at complete rest.” The Doctor smiled. “Humour me, please.”

Steve shrugged as he swung his legs off the bed. “Sure.” It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be.

“Your stuff is being brought over from the barracks.” Katie smiled softly.

“Any idea on where I’ll be going after that?” Steve stood up carefully, taking his time to pull himself up to his new full height.

Katie shrugged. “I suppose it depends on what Colonel Phillips and the President agree. I suspect we’ll head over to London HQ if we’re going after HYDRA in Europe, but we should find out tomorrow morning.”

“So, we have a free evening?” Howard looked at Katie.

“Well, sort of. Unless you want to get a head start on that submarine thing.” She waved her hand at the door.

“I don’t need a head start.” Howard shrugged, somewhat arrogantly, “I’m a genius, I’ll crack it tomorrow.”

Katie rolled her eyes, “You know I really admire your modesty.”

Howard chuckled, “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what I was suggesting was that if we do have a free few hours, how about a drink? I got a bottle of vintage Macallan stashed in my lab.” He paused and Steve watched as his shoulders slumped a little and he took a deep breath before he looked back up at both Steve then to his sister. “Me and Abe had been saving it for tonight."

Katie took a deep breath before she walked over to her brother who wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, gently kissing the top of her head. Steve looked away for a second, not wanting to intrude on the moment as he watched the doctor and nurse leave the room.

“We should have a toast to him,” Katie spoke, her voice cracking a little as she stepped away from Howard. She turned to Steve and smiled, “he’d have been proud this had worked.”

Steve nodded a little side smile pulling at his mouth as he remembered the banter he and Erskine had shared about the schnapps. With a nod he looked at Katie, the smile spreading further across his face. “He owed me a drink.”

*****

It was a strange night.

The three of them had shared a glass each of the smooth whiskey, which Steve had thoroughly enjoyed. It had tasted so smooth yet crisp. And he wasn’t sure if that was down to the fact it was stupidly expensive and high end, or the fact his taste-buds simply worked better. Howard hadn’t raised the issue of him and Katie again, for which Steve was glad. If he had been asked, he couldn’t say how he would have answered because he wasn’t entirely sure what they were. A casual fling? A hook up? He knew what he wanted it to be, but once again he was brought crashing back to reality. They were in the middle of a war. It was impossible.

Despite the myriad of thoughts and emotions running through his mind, Steve slept better than he had ever slept in his life. His chest wasn’t bad, he didn’t struggle for breath when he lay down flat meaning that for the first time he could remember he didn’t need to sleep propped up. Yet, on the other hand, he felt like he was waking up every five or ten minutes. The slightest sound or movement made by the various SSR staff nurses and guards milling around the small medical wing of the lab woke him thanks to his now enhanced, fine tuned senses. The Doctors and Howard had assured Steve that whilst it might take a while but once he was used to the heightening of his senses it would start to feel ‘normal’ to him in a way and he would learn to use them and appreciate them.

With a yawn, he cracked his head side to side as he raised it off the pillow. Whilst he didn’t know what time it was thanks to the lack of any natural light in the room, he knew that this time he wasn’t getting back to sleep. He climbed from his bed, stretched and waited for the usual pain to shoot down his back, but nothing. He then stood up, a little too fast and pitched forward before he steadied himself and drew up to his full new height, squaring his now broad shoulders back as he stood tall in his new posture. Again, Howard had told him he would soon learn to adjust his movements to compensate for the fact that he no longer needed to put as much effort into them. No sooner had he done that, a nurse appeared with his breakfast and she was followed by Agent Carter who wished him a good morning and then handed him a formal Army Uniform in his new size. With a soft smile and a thanks, he took it before laying it down on the bed, admiring the green wool and crisp shirt.

“When you’re ready then we’d like to take the blood samples.” Peggy spoke softly, “but there’s no rush. Take your time.”

“Rather just get it over and done with Ma’am.” Steve said politely and truthfully. The sooner he was done being prodded, poked and stabbed the sooner he could find out what was going on.

With that in mind he ate, washed up, dressed and was ready in half an hour flat. He was led out of the bunk room he’d been sleeping in and down the corridor back to the observation room he’d been in the previous day where he was instructed to roll up his sleeves and lay back as they proceeded to siphon off his blood. When they had one bag full they then hooked him up to another, and then another, the Doctor instructing him to tell them if he felt light headed but Steve had a suspicion that the enhancements to his body would simply enable him to generate more as fast as they took it. That said, by the time the third bag was full he was bored. Peggy seemed to sense it and she turned to the doctor who nodded and instructed everyone that they were done.

“Think you got enough?” Steve asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“Any hope of reproducing the program is locked in your genetic code.” Peggy replied simply, “but without Dr. Erskine, it could take years.”

“He deserved more than this.” Steve replied a little sadly and he meant it. The serum had been Erskine’s life work and now there was nothing to show for it as the last vial of the serum had been smashed on Brooklyn Pier.

“Well, if it could only work once, he’d be proud it was you,” Peggy looked at him.

Steve glanced at her, feeling a little embarrassed at her praise but he didn’t dwell on it and neither did she. Instead, she told him that once he was ready she’d take him down to the main lab were Phillips and Katie were talking to Senator Brandt about the plans for the SSR going forward. Keen to understand, he quickly sorted his shirt out.

He followed Peggy into the lab, his ears picking up the conversation as they entered.

“Speaking modestly, I’m the best mechanical engineer in this country,” Howard shrugged. “But I don’t know what’s inside this thing or how it works.”

“So much for not needing a head start, huh?” Katie teased and Howard glared at her before he turned back to Phillips.

“We’re not even close to this technology.”

“Then who is?” Senator Brandt demanded.

“HYDRA,” Phillips responded simply. “I’m sure you’ve been reading our briefings.”

“I’m on a number of committees, Colonel,” Brandt replied simply, completely unabashed at Phillips tone.

“HYDRA is the Nazi deep science division.” Katie explained

“It’s led by Johann Schmidt,” Peggy picked up, “but he has much bigger ambitions.”

“HYDRA’s practically a cult,” Phillips stated, “they worship Schmidt, they think he’s invincible.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” Brandt asked and at that point Steve took a deep breath, finally he was about to find out what he was going to be doing.

“Spoke to the President this morning. As of today the SSR is being re-tasked.”

Katie and Peggy exchanged excited glances and Peggy looked back at Phillips, seeking clarification as she asked, “Colonel?”

“We are taking the fight to HYDRA,” Phillips looked at the woman. “Pack your bags Agent Carter. You too, Agent Stark,” he turned to Katie, “you’re flying to London tonight.”

Steve hesitated for a second, but when Phillips didn’t turn to speak to him and inform him where he was going, he hurried forward a little.

“Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt, I want in.”

“You’re an experiment,” Phillips shot back. “You’re going to Alamogordo.”

Steve frowned a little, but then pressed some more, he wasn’t letting this go.

“The serum worked,” his voice rose a little.

“I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough.”

Katie wheeled round to look at Phillips, her face angry, “Oh, come on Sir, that’s-”

“I have put up with your insubordination for long enough. I don’t give a shit what you think, Agent Stark.” Philips snarled, “keep pushing me and so help me God, I will have you taken straight outta this unit and you’ll be back home typing up the Letters of Condolence.”

“But-”

“Enough!” Phillips snapped. “Now I suggest you disappear and pack.”

Katie took a deep breath, an angry noise escaping her throat as she turned and stormed away. Steve watched her go before he opened his mouth to argue some more with Phillips, but the man had already moved away.

They wanted to send him to a fucking research plant? Seriously? This was ridiculous.

“With all due respect to the Colonel, I think we may be missing the point,” Senator Brandt spoke to Steve and he turned to face the man. “I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it.” Brandt turned to his aide. “Paper.” His aide obeyed, showing them the paper in his hand. It was today’s copy of the ‘The New York Examiner’ which bore the headline "Nazis in New York - Mystery Man Saves Child" along with a picture of Steve holding the car door in front of him.

“The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands," Brandt smiled at Steve. “You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab.” Steve felt a surge of hope flood his system as the Senator continued. “Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

“Sir, that’s all I want,” Steve replied honestly.

“Then, congratulations,” The Senator held his hand out for Steve to shake. “You just got promoted.”

**** Steve’s hopes were short lived when Brandt explained what he had in mind - using Steve to boost recruitment and bond sales. But he knew he was getting nowhere with Phillips, so he decided to take the role and could only hope that it would lead to something else. Besides, it was important to gather support. The Forces needed all the financial and recruitment help they could get, and he could play a key part in that.

So Brandt said.

“Hey…”

Steve looked up from where he was packing the few items he’d unpacked from his trunk and looked at Katie.

“Oh, hi.” He said, turning back to his packing.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” she continued and Steve took a deep breath, straightening up.

“Who told you?”

“Good news travel fast, Captain.” She stressed the last word and Steve had to actively stop himself from rolling his eyes. “That’s a pretty good promotion considering you’ve been a soldier all of a week.”

“Yeah, well, it was too good an opportunity to turn down. In fact, it was the only opportunity to turn down.” He watched her as she took a deep breath, opened her mouth, before closing it again. And then Steve really did roll his eyes, “if you’ve got something to say, spit it out, Katie.”

“Hey, don’t get pissy with me,” she snapped back.

“I’m not being-”

“Yes, you are,” she folded her arms. “It’s not my fault Phillips won’t let you in on this. I’ve tried, believe me, but for whatever reason he’s not moving.”

“He’s not moving because he doesn’t like me.” Steve replied simply.

“Well, that’s his loss," Katie countered. “And what’s with the sudden display of self-pity?”

“What?”

“This, moping around, acting all deflated.”

“It’s easy for you to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well you’re off, over there. Fighting the fight but me, well, looks like I’m gonna have to play ball with Senators doesn’t it?”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Yes, I do!” Steve’s voice rose and Katie blinked a little, but besides that she showed no signs of having registered his angry tone. “What choice do I have?”

“There’s always a choice, Steve.”

“Oh, yeah?” He snorted. “And my choice here is what? Go to the damned White Sands Proving Ground where they can run more tests on me? Keep me locked up like some kind of lab rat?”

“I didn’t say they were always good choices.”

“Well what do you think I should do huh?”

“That’s not for me to say.” Katie shook her head. “But I can tell you one thing....”

“What?”

“That I have faith in you to do what you feel is right, and continue to be the good man I know you are.” Her words were soft but they hit Steve like a freight train and he swallowed, suddenly aware of how down right shitty he’d been. “And if you’re telling me that it feels right that you go where Brandt wants you to go then…” she shrugged.

“I have to try.” Steve replied.

“Well, in that case, I’ll say what I came to say in the first place," she gave him a soft smile, “good luck.”

Steve took a deep breath and sighed, “Thanks. Look, I’m sorry I snapped. I just, well, truth be told I’m a little jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, all I ever wanted was to be a soldier and to fight on the front lines. Like my dad did, and Bucky.” He sat down on the side of the bed, “And I agreed to this procedure because I thought it was my ticket there, ya know?”

“I get it,” Katie nodded, crossing the room to sit beside him. “And I understand how frustrated you feel, believe me.” He turned to look at her to see her glancing down at her hands before she looked up at a spot on the wall opposite them. “I just can’t say anything to make it better, other than repeat what I said before. I have absolute faith and belief that you’ll do what you think is right. And that’s all any of us can do.”

Steve looked straight in her eyes as they flickered across both of his and he took a deep breath, her words echoing round his mind. Throughout this, she and Erskine had been the two people who had utterly believed he was the best man for the job so to speak. Now Erskine was gone, and he was about to be separated from her as well. And it pained him to think about it, as he realised that he was going to miss her, for more than the simple reason that she’d been a friend to him.

“You know I’m sorry we met the way we did,” his thoughts blurted out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Katie frowned, “what?”

“No, I err…” Steve sighed and then gave a snort. “Guess the serum didn’t enhance my ability to talk to a dame without completely making a total screw up of it.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Katie smiled, “you do a decent job most of the time.” She paused as Steve gave a little huff of laughter before she turned her body a little more towards him, “what’s on your mind, Soldier?”

“I meant, I’m sorry that we met when we did. And, you know, not sooner.” He shrugged, looking down at his hands, “or maybe even later, when all this is over.”

“If it ever is,” Katie sighed and Steve raised his eyes to hers as she licked her lips a little. “Steve, I’m not sad I met you when I did. Quite the opposite actually. It’s been…” she paused for a moment before she smiled “…a little ray of hope in an otherwise very gloomy world.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, “you know, a reminder that no matter how ugly the world seems or how much it changes, it’s still a beautiful place.”

Steve thought on her words for a second, a soft smile spreading across his face.

“What?” She asked as she noted his expression.

“You just remind me of my mom,” he smiled. “She was always a 'look on the bright side' kind of woman. No matter what life threw at us, she was always reminding me there were people far worse off.”

“She sounds like a smart lady.”

“She was,” Steve smiled with a short nod. “kind, compassionate. Just more ways you remind me of her.”

He didn’t miss the faint flush on Katie’s cheeks as she looked down at her hands and then raised her eyes to look at him, “I’m honoured.”

Steve took a deep breath, “I meant what I said the other night before we, you know.” He swallowed thickly, the lump in his throat felt like a tennis ball. “I like you, more than like you in fact.”

“Kinda sucks we’re about to be separated doesn’t it?” Katie looked at him, her eyes sad and he nodded.

“Yeah.”

“But, I’m a firm believer that if it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” Katie shrugged and at that Steve gave a scoff. She turned to him, a playful look on her face. “What, you don’t believe in fate?”

“Nope,” he shook his head, “you make your own luck.”

“Right.” A little side smile broke on her mouth, “you did a good job with that when you happened to be at the Expo the same time Erskine was.”

“Lucky coincidence.”

“And what was me getting accosted by a load of rapscallions in Brooklyn?”

“A not-so-lucky for you coincidence.” Steve shrugged.

“You know what the definition of the word coincidence is?”

“Not word for word, but I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“Sass bag.” Katie nudged him with her elbow and he chuckled, “but you’re right, I am. It’s a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent casual connection.”

“And?”

“Fate is the development of events outside a person’s control.” Katie looked at him, her eyebrow arched, “just as a coincidence is beyond a person’s control. And if fate is what’s gonna happen to you no matter what you do, and coincidence is merely a matter of being in the right place at the right time, then what if you’re in the right place at the right time because it’s simply meant to be.”

Steve looked at her, utterly sideswiped at her sentiment. Whilst he wasn’t sure he agreed, the logic was surely there and the fact she’d laid it so bare, been so open with him knocked him for six. He saw her eyes flicker to his mouth again, and in a sudden surge of confidence he gently moved, taking her face in his hands and pulling her to meet him in a soft, gentle kiss that was loaded with meaning.

“Yup,” she sniffed a little as she pulled away and Steve was both surprised and horrified to see the tears in her eyes as she pressed her forehead to his, their noses bumping a little, “this definitely sucks.”

“Write to me,” he whispered, his thumbs swiping away her tears and she smiled, nodding, before she caught his lips again, this time the kiss was deeper, and Steve had to fight back the groan that was bubbling in his throat as he felt her tongue slide against his. They were interrupted by a loud noise outside and Katie pulled away, dropping her gaze a little before she sighed and stood up.

“Stay safe, Soldier,” she smiled, her hand gently cupping his cheek. “I’d hate for you to come back horrifically disfigured.”

At that Steve snorted, “would it put you off?” He teased, “I didn’t think you were that shallow.”

“I’m not,” she smiled as she made her way to the door. “It’d just be a helluva waste, a face like that.”

With that she was gone and Steve felt his smile fade, the warmth in his chest replaced by a hollow feeling which engulfed his entire body, as the realisation spread across him that he had no idea when he would see her again.

If indeed, at all.

****

November 1943.

“I already volunteered, how do you think I got here?”

“Nice boots, Tinkerbell…”

“Hey, Captain! Sign this”

The heckling from the assembled crowd rang through Steve’s mind as he sat dejectedly on the side of the stage, the miserable, cold rain matching his mood. His hand moved absentmindedly, shading in the drawing he’d sketched in his book. A very apt sketch of a Circus Monkey on a Unicycle clutching the damned shield he’d been given as part of his costume. It turns out the “battlefield” that Senator Brandt had been referring to was nothing more than a grotesque road show across the US and various other places on the Allied Map encouraging people to buy war bonds.

“The Senator's got a lot of pull up on the hill. You play ball with us, you’ll be leading your own platoon in no time.”

Yeah, a "platoon" of chorus girls and confetti cannons, complete with ‘Adolph’ himself. Steve had knocked him out countless times, and was still no closer to getting in on the real action.

He’d travelled all over the place during the last four months, the tour had been successful, and there was no denying that it was helping the effort in a way. “Bonds buy bullets, bullets kill Nazi’s bing bang boom.” But this wasn’t what he had signed up for. Nor did he believe for one second that this was what Dr. Erskine had in mind for how his serum would be put into use.

He’d made a few propaganda films, all part of the course according to Brandt who had then had the bright idea to send Captain America on the USO tour, to attempt to lift spirits. So here he was in Italy, five miles from the front line, having finally made it overseas as a soldier, only to be stood on a stage in front of the men he should have been fighting alongside, being pelted by rotten fruit and vegetables instead of bullets.

It didn’t help that he knew the SSR were fast ramping up their efforts on HYDRA, having been reassigned to somewhere in mainland Europe, not unlike himself at that point in time. He’d had a few letters from Katie, but he had no idea where she was. She didn’t go into details, which was to be expected, she couldn’t and her mail always reached him through the usual military channels. He’d tried to remain positive in his letters back to her, focussing on nights where had a particularly good show, meeting and greeting his ‘fans’ afterwards, carefully omitting details about the women that now seemed to be throwing themselves at him. Be it in bars, back stage or simply as he emerged from the venues; there was no shortage of ladies vying for his attention. And had he been that way inclined, he could have taken any number of them dancing and then back to wherever he was staying that night, but the fact was he didn’t want to.

Because no matter how pretty or forthcoming the girls were, his mind and heart remained with a certain green eyed agent.

It was ironic, when he thought about it. The Star Spangled Man with a Plan, the song dubbed him, yet Steve felt as if he had never had less of a plan in his life.

“Hello, Steve," a familiar voice spoke in his ear and Steve jerked his head up in surprise and turned, doing a little double take as he looked up at Katie.

“Hi,” he instantly felt his heart rate pick up dramatically in her presence, like it normally did as his eyes laid upon her. She was dressed in standard Army green wool pants that were tailored for a man with wide legs and long length that she tucked in to her well-worn mid-calf boots which were brown leather with lace protection straps and looked as if they had happily trudged through mud and been beaten until they broke in and needed new soles. Her unit issued jacket was the same colour green as her pants, but the harsh canvas material gave a weighted appearance across her shoulders as it was buttoned and zipped it up. Beneath it, she wore her wool tie and collared shirt, no doubt tucked into her trousers for a crisp clean look.

Steve noted how it was a stark (pun intended) difference to the previous smart pencil skirt and jacketed uniform he had seen her in at the SSR base which Peggy, who stood to her left, was still sporting. But then again, the two women were very different, and knowing Katie as he did, she wasn't one to conform and who knew what she had been up to whilst on the front line.

All it did was serve to make Steve feel even more self-conscious and ridiculous in his own outfit, designed for dancing and prancing around not active combat.

“What are you doin’ here?” He asked, his eyes flicking to Peggy before they returned to Katie again.

“Officially we’re not here at all,” Peggy smiled. “That was quite a performance.”

Great, they’d seen it. His shoulders slumped at little as he turned away.

“Yeah. Uh… I had to improvise a little bit. Crowds I’m used to are usually more uh, twelve.”

“Probably less full of jerks as well,” Katie snorted and Steve looked at her, his mouth curling into a slight smile as Peggy let out a sigh.

“You know what soldiers are like. Present company excepted of course,” Peggy quickly corrected herself as Steve had cocked any eyebrow at her sweeping assumption, before she turned to the other agent. “I warned you-“

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Katie replied with a roll of her eyes.

Peggy took a deep breath, before she turned back to Steve, swiftly changing the subject. “I understand you’re "America’s New Hope"?

“Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit,” Steve chanted off, the words flowing out of him the same way they did whenever he spoke to someone about the Roadshow and he grimaced as he realised just what a damned puppet he had become.

“Is that Senator Brandt I hear?” Katie teased and Steve took a deep breath.

“At least he’s got me doin’ this,” Steve felt a sudden need to defend his decision to take the role in the first place, especially after their conversation before he had left. “Phillips would have had me stuck in a lab.”

“And these are your only two options?” Peggy looked at him, nodding to his sketch book which was still open in his lap. “A lab rat or a dancing monkey?”

“You were meant for more than this, you know?” Katie added gently, and Steve looked at her, hesitating as his sarcastic reply died in his throat. Instead he looked away, a little dejected. She was right, he had been meant for more that was the whole point of him taking the serum. But even after he’d been turned into this Super Soldier, been given such power and capability, he still wasn’t enough.

“What?” Katie pressed gently, having noticed his hesitation.

“You know for the longest time I dreamed about coming overseas and being on the front lines. Serving my country. I finally get everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.”

Before either of the women could respond there was the sound of a horn honking which diverted their attention. Steve turned to watch as an ambulance pulled to a halt outside the medical tent. The back doors were flung open and several injured soldiers were pulled out of the back on stretches, nurses and medical staff rushing to help as they disappeared through the drapes of the tents, the walking wounded being helped down and aided as they limped behind.

“They look like they’ve been through hell,” Steve commented, a deep feeling of sadness at the sight of the injured men flooded his chest.

“These men more than most,” Peggy commented and Steve turned to look at her, a little confused as to what she meant.

“Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano,” Katie explained. “Two hundred men went up against him and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-oh-seventh. The rest were killed or captured.”

Steve felt his chest tighten, as if someone had trapped it in a vice and his head momentarily span as the meaning of her words sank in.

“The one-oh-seventh?” He breathed out, begging it to be wrong. But Katie simply frowned as she gave a nod.

“What?”

Steve swallowed and looked around before he rose to his feet. “That was Bucky’s unit.” He turned to face her, his voice sounded alien as he almost choked on his words. Katie’s face slid into a look of recognition, her mouth falling open.

“Barnes?” She asked and Steve nodded, as he ran a hand down his face, once more glancing round desperately hoping for Bucky to appear and rip into him for his ridiculous outfit. But he knew that if Bucky had been in that audience, he would have already found him. Which meant that he was either amongst the injured soldiers in the tent or…

“Who’s Barnes?” Peggy asked form behind him.

“Steve’s friend from home,” Katie replied gently as Steve turned back to look at the women.

“I need to check if he’s there,” Steve nodded towards the medical tent.

“Not a good idea,” Peggy cut him off. “You saw their reaction to you before. If you go waltzing in you’re going to upset them.”

“I don’t really care,” Steve spluttered

“Well you should,” Peggy looked at him sternly.

“I have to know if he survived!”

“Okay, look…” Katie took a deep breath, and he tore his eyes away from Peggy who was still glaring at him to look instead at the other woman. “Phillips will have the list of the-“ she hesitated, clearly searching for the best word “-casualties. We can ask him.”

“Phillips is here too?” Steve frowned, although he wasn’t sure why that had surprised him. Decision made, he turned and started running across the camp shooting a, “come on,” over his shoulder as the heavy rain pelted down onto them all.

He busted into the tent, “Colonel Phillips,” and the man looked up, a disgruntled expression spread across his face before he took a deep breath and looked back down at the papers on his desk as Steve strode purposefully towards him.

“Well, if it isn’t the Star-Spangled Man with a plan, and what is your plan today?” Phillip’s voice was laced with sarcasm but Steve didn’t care. At the moment he had one thing on his mind, and that was Bucky.

“I need the casualty list from Azzano.”

“You don’t get to give me orders, son.” Phillips snapped, looking up at him once more and Steve ignored his angry tone, his stubbornness showing through as he continued to pres.

“I just need one name. Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th.”

“You two and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy,” Phillips pointed to both Agent Carter and Katie in turn.

“Can’t wait," Katie sassed back and Phillips’ head shot up to look at her as he once more fixed her with a stare that could freeze over hell, but Steve didn’t have time for this.

“Please tell me if he’s alive, Sir. B-A-R…”

“I can spell,” the Colonel stated harshly as he tore his eyes from Katie. He looked at the papers in his hand and with a sigh dropped them to his desk and when he spoke his voice was a little softer. "I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I’m sorry."

Steve swallowed, a feeling of cold washing over his body as the Colonel's words sank in. It might sound familiar but there was a chance it could be another Barnes. It was a common name, after all, and even if it was Bucky’s name on the letter, he could be missing assumed dead, not actually confirmed dead. Peggy and Katie had told him before that there were still men from the unit trapped behind lines.

"What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?" The words tumbled out of his mouth before he’d really had time to consider them properly.

“Yeah! It’s called winning the war.”

Steve frowned, “but if you know where they are, why not at least…?"

Colonel Phillips stood up, the expression on his face belonged to a man who had just lost his final bit of patience. "They're thirty miles behind the lines, through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save." He moved around the desk to stand in front of Steve, his hands falling to his hips as fixed him with a stern and challenging glare. "But I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl."

Steve took a breath, the anger coursing inside him at the dig that Phillips had just made, but before he could say anything, he heard Katie scoff besides him.

“And who’s fault is that?”

Phillips turned to Katie, his face contorted in anger “You are this close…” he held his thumb and forefinger up a fraction of an inch apart.

Katie’s jaw clenched and her chin tipped up defiantly as she glared back at the man. Steve, having had chance to compose himself slightly now the spoke in an attempt to draw the attention back away from her and onto himself.

“I think I understand just fine.”

“Well then understand it somewhere else.” Phillips turned away. “If I read the posters correctly, you got some place to be in thirty minutes”

As he spoke the last words, Steve took note of the map which lay on the table and he noticed a flag marked with an H which caught his attention. And then, he made his decision.

The Star Spangled Man finally had a plan.

“Yes, sir. I do.”

***** Chapter 5

#Stark Spangled Rebirth #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #captain america #CATFA 10th anniversary challenge #mcu #mcu fanfic #fanfic #chris evans #chris evans characters

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sonnetthebard · 3 years

Text

On Losing One’s Head

Or, in other words, my entry to @shipwreckedcomedy‘s fanfiction contest. I have had a really fun time reading the works of Washington Irving to prep for this, and it’s only made me more excited for this series. Even though I know in a modern adaptation it may be changed I’m sticking to a lot of the facts that Irving gives us about the Headless Horseman. Thank you to everyone on here who gave me ideas/ inspiration/ let me rant to you for a bit while I figured this out. It took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but I’m really happy with it. This is probably so far from canon, but I got a prompt from the wonderful ‘S’ anon on here and I had to write it. Enjoy!

Genre: Comedy/ Fluff/ Mystery/ A Pinch of Angst

Words: 4249

TL;DR: Ichabod Crane tries to unravel a bit of the Headless Horseman’s past in order to try and figure out where his head might be.

TW: Minor bullying, Mentions of war, mentions of PTSD, mentions of decapitation

__________________________________________________________

Ichabod Crane navigated the hallways of the school, eyes trained on his feet. He normally wouldn’t allow himself to walk with such a closed posture- it exposed him for how nervous he was (which was, contrary to popular belief, a more recent development in his personality). This town had put him a bit on edge. This town and his roommate, who was as inexplicable as he was persistent, and happened to be the reason he was allowing himself to walk with such a closed posture. He had a series of questions to ask his roommate at the forefront of his mind, and he’d spent a majority of the day figuring out how to word them so that he didn’t sound completely heartless. He didn’t want anything or anyone distracting him, because the talk he was about to have was very important- well, he thought it was anyways. It was important to him. His roommate seemed like a good person, and he really did want to help him (though it seemed like his roommate was doing more ‘helping’ at the moment than Ichabod was).

Ichabod’s roommate was, of course, the infamous Headless Horseman. It had certainly made his life interesting- especially given that he was only just settling into this new town and his new position. He was just navigating his new life, and now on top of that, he was also trying to find his friend’s head. So far, no luck on that front. He hadn’t had a lot of luck on many fronts. It didn’t seem like his colleagues were particularly fond of him- especially not Douffe Martling or Brom Bones and his cronies. He wasn’t quite sure what it was with Martling other than perhaps a naturally uptight attitude, but he could at least venture a guess on why Brom Bones didn’t like him. It seemed they both had their eyes set on the same woman- which was another front on which Ichabod had not been very lucky. Katrina Van Tassel, the woman his heart had decided to set on, did not seem to reciprocate his affections in the slightest. Mind you Ichabod also found her incredibly hard to read. She was confident and smart, and one could interpret nearly everything she did as flirtatious. But you also got the overwhelming sense when interacting with her that she was not flirting in the slightest.

Ichabod needed to stop distracting himself, he thought, as pleasant of a distraction as Kat was. He was on a roll. He was trying to get back to his room in a timely matter because (and I cannot emphasize this enough) this conversation was important. It was also a conversation that his friend would prefer to keep confidential, so he needed to get back to his room and have it before anyone could decide to tag along. He wasn’t the only person in Sleepy Hollow who wanted to help the Headless Horseman find his head. In fact, he had many supporters. But this particular conversation was delicate. Ichabod intended to ask how precisely his new friend had come about losing his head. Ichabod believed that perhaps even though this head wasn’t the Horseman’s original one, it may be able to help with some of his memories- physical memories, that was. It would likely be a hard conversation, Ichabod considered. Losing one’s head seemed like it would be traumatic. Remembering that feeling wouldn’t be pleasant for his friend. He would eventually need to share the necessary details with those who were intent on helping him and his friend, but perhaps the Horseman might feel slightly more comfortable having the initial conversation privately where he could express his emotions without judgement- if, of course, he had any. It was more of a precaution.

Ichabod found himself so consumed in his thoughts that he neglected to notice a foot extended in front of him. He was looking at his feet. He really should have seen it. But he was in a state not uncommon to him where the world within his head had taken precedence over the world outside of it. Ichabod tumbled to the ground with a thud, and it was not long until a roaring chorus of laughter resounded above him. He did not even need to look up to know precisely who he had encountered and what had happened. He did the courtesy of looking up anyways- though it was probably only feeding their egos to see the embarrassment flush on his face. As Ichabod had suspected, the figures of Brom Bones and his three usual companions Tripp, Cal and Blair loomed above him, their bodies racking with every laugh. Ichabod sighed, fixing his glasses and trying not to pay them much mind. The more upset he got with them and their shenanigans, the more satisfied they would be with their results (which meant that they’d be inclined to throw something else his way). He stood, brushing himself off and starting back on his way. Before he could get very far, though, he felt a strong grip on his arm pulling him back. Even once he had stopped walking, it didn’t let go. It seemed Brom wasn’t through terrorizing him yet.

“Where are you going?” The strapping Brom Bones smirked. It was a smirk Ichabod was all too familiar with, and one that he had very much hoped he wouldn’t be seeing. Brom was holding him up intentionally. He knew Ichabod didn’t want to be there. “You look like you’re in a hurry.”

“Well-” Ichabod started before being cut off.

“You going to try to pick up Katrina?” Tripp teased, pouting and cooing mockingly at the mention of the woman Ichabod had taken a liking took. He sighed as all four men found amusement in that and erupting into laughter again.

“What? No!” Ichabod blushed.

“Ichabod and Kat, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-” Cal and Blair cooed before Brom raised a hand to signal for them to stop.

“That’s enough, guys.” Brom told them, trying not to show how much that bothered him. There was only just a hint of jealousy in his tone, but it was enough for the boys to know they’d gone too far. He seemed to size up Ichabod again, before letting go of Ichabod’s arm. Ichabod sighed in relief, thinking that he was finally free... until Brom wrapped an arm around him in a seemingly friendly gesture, putting on his smug smirk again. Ichabod seized up a bit. He was not too fond of physical contact at the best of times, but especially not from Brom Bones. It took everything in him not to scowl. “So if you’re not going to see Kat... what’s the rush getting out of here?”

“I’m going to have a talk with the Horseman.” Ichabod told him plainly, hoping that was enough to get him out of this. Whatever Brom Bones had against Ichabod, the feeling was entirely mutual.

“But don’t you, like, live with him?” Cal pointed out.

“You could literally talk to him any time.” Tripp nodded.

“Yes, but I’ve spent all day planning this conversation.” Ichabod sighed. There were very few people Ichabod knew who would understand his situation, and these men were most certainly not among them. “I have to do it soon before I forget what I was going to say.”

“It’s just a conversation, man!” Tripp laughed.

“It’s not just any conversation.” Ichabod told him, getting an idea. “It’s about his head.”

“You’re still on that, are you?” Brom rolled his eyes, letting him go. He knew he didn’t need to hold Ichabod there anymore. Not only did Blair, Tripp and Cal have him surrounded, but... now Ichabod felt socially obligated to stay. Brom Bones was a lot smarter than he let on (at least socially). Most bullies were.

“Well... yes. I’d like to help him find it.” Ichabod shrugged.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Brom warned him in what Ichabod might almost consider to be a genuine tone. He hand a hand through his hair subconsciously, and Blair reached forward once he was done to fix a strand that had fallen in Brom’s face. Brom gave him a clap on the back as a silent ‘thank you’. Ichabod had always found those four men to be strangely close. “Listen, bud... he’s been missing his head a long time.”

“Since before we were born.” Blair added.

“It’s not like you’re just going to waltz in and find it.” Brom sighed. “This head probably isn’t going to know anything.”

“We don’t know that.” Ichabod countered. “We’ve finally got people taking the search for his head seriously, and I think we’re making good progress!”

“Right... you keep telling yourself that.” Brom rolled his eyes. “Alright, guys, let him go.”

“But you said-” Tripp furrowed his brows.

“He’s doing enough damage himself.” Brom sighed. The boys cleared a path for Ichabod, and he meekly started to walk away. He felt oddly embarrassed, or ashamed, about what he was doing. He tried to shake it off, but Brom had successfully gotten under his skin and he knew it. Brom chuckled, almost gloating. “Have fun, dork!”

“Thank you?” Ichabod tried, unsure as to how he was supposed to respond to that.

Ichabod made his way out of the school (but not without a cold glare from Douffe). Perhaps what Brom Bones had said had some merit. His headless friend had been missing his head for a long time. Did Ichabod really think things were magically going to go better this time around? He wasn’t even dealing with the original head. He couldn’t expect to find anything new. But then again... Ichabod himself had also posed a good point. They did seem to be making progress. And how were they supposed to know if his head could ever be found until they tried? No, Brom was wrong. Brom was wrong a lot of the time, but especially about this. He walked down the streets of the town, head down but significantly more aware of his surroundings. He’d learned his lesson- at least for now. His room was within walking distance from the school. In this town, just about everything was within walking distance. He exchanged nods of acknowledgement with a few people on the street, a smile or two. Luckily, he was running into people who knew better than to bother him when he was like this. People like Judy, Rip Jr., Verla, or Matilda. Verla and Matilda probably didn’t want to talk to him anyway. But Judy had given him a nice smile, and it had raised his spirits. It’s funny how small things could do that.

“Ichabod!” A light voice called out from behind him. Ichabod pivoted, recognizing it instantly. For anyone else, Ichabod would have simply waved, continuing on his way. But this wasn’t anyone. This was Katrina. Ichabod smiled softly upon finding that he was right. It was a dopey sort of grin commonly found in people when they saw the person that brightened their lives. “You’re out early!”

“School ended half an hour ago.” Ichabod furrowed his brows, confused by her implication.

“Oh, I know.” Kat clarified. “You usually stay a bit longer, though.”

“Oh.” Ichabod nodded. And that was when it hit him: he had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. He’d always been a little socially awkward- especially when he was under as much pressure as he was with Kat. He bit his lip, trying to think of what to say next. Luckily, Kat took care of that for him.

“Any particular reason you’re out so soon?” Kat asked, finally catching up with him. She kept walking as if silently asking him to walk with her, or maybe telling him it was okay for him to continue on his way. That she would follow. Either way, it was a great comfort to Ichabod.

“I thought of a few questions to ask the Horseman.” Ichabod told her.

“What kinds of questions?” Kat asked. Ichabod could tell she wasn’t teasing him. She was genuinely interested. But there was also an air of amusement to her that was undeniable, and admittedly rather attractive to Ichabod. It made him feel like she genuinely enjoyed his company. A light blush covered his cheeks.

“Well... I was hoping to ask him about how exactly he lost his head.” Ichabod admitted. “See if maybe his history might be able to help us figure out where to look in the present.”

“That’s a really good idea! Maybe this head will know!” Kat hummed in agreement. “I’ve always wondered about what happened... People say he was a Hessian soldier. You know, during the revolution.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept of Hessian soldiers.” Ichabod hummed. “German regiments for hire, if you will, employed by the British to fight in the Revolutionary War. Do you really think he’s a Hessian?”

“That’s what the lore says.” Kat shrugged, smirking.

“All the more reason for me to talk to him about this alone.” Ichabod decided. He blushed again, not having meant to think aloud like that. “Sorry, I-”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right.” Kat assured him. “He’s probably not going to want a lot of people around if you’re talking about... you know, war. It should be just you and him.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Ichabod sighed softly in relief.

“I don’t like to talk about war anyways.” Kat admitted. “I don’t... I mean...”

“I understand.” Ichabod hummed sympathetically. No one liked talking about war. But on top of that, he knew Kat was very against slaughter of any kind. “Have you thought about how to approach it if he has... you know, PTSD?” Kat asked. “It’s pretty common in soldiers, even if this isn’t his original head.”

“I... haven’t.” Ichabod admitted. “I did work out how to ask the in a way that I think will be the least upsetting or offensive.”

“That’s a good first step.” Kat encouraged him. “Just... respect his boundaries. Give him the space and time he needs to answer- if he can answer. Don’t pressure him if he can’t.”

“Right.” Ichabod nodded, taking mental note of those things. “Thank you, Kat.”

“No problem.” Kat smiled softly. It was smiles like those that made appearances in Ichabod’s dreams as he rested his head. She had, Ichabod thought, the most beautiful smile in the world. It was so kind. They approached the inn, and Kat sighed. “Well, this is your stop.”

“It is...” Ichabod chuckled semi-nervously. He stopped, shifting his weight awkwardly on his feet. She had him so nervous that he couldn’t quite stand still.

“Good luck, Ichabod.” Kat smirked. Ichabod blushed. It seemed that nearly everything Katrina did, intentional or not, made him blush.

“Thank you!” Ichabod called after her, watching for a few moments as she continued down the street.

Ichabod sighed, imagining very briefly what their family would look like. He imagined they would be a very handsome family (though the children would get their looks from their mother- he was of the opinion that he was a bit homely). He snapped himself out of it before he could go too far down that rabbit hole. He wondered for a moment if it was weird that he was already thinking that way about a woman he hadn’t even worked up the nerve to ask out. It likely was. But his heart tended pine after things and his mind did no helping, running wild with even the smallest of fantasies. When he was a child, a teacher once told him that his appetite for the fanciful was unsurpassable. He was now rather more a man of reason than he was then, where he was willing to believe just about everything he heard. But his mind did still run wild with whims about more everyday pleasures. Rational joys, like love, romance, and food. Mostly food, until Katrina came along. For a man his size, he had a surprising appetite...

“Hey, Ichabod!” Someone called. Ichabod snapped his head, looking for where it was coming from. Oh. It was Judy again. He waved. “Do you need me to call Lucretia to get you a new key?”

“What?” Ichabod blinked.

“You’ve been standing there for a while.” Judy pointed out. “Did you lose your key?”

“Oh...” Ichabod blushed. He pulled out his keys, holding them up. “I’m fine!”

“Okay! Just wanted to be sure!” Judy chuckled, going back to her own business.

“Thank you!” Ichabod called after her. It was lovely that she cared. He quickly and carefully opened the door to his room. He saw his friend the horseman busy at work taking a tray of what appeared to be either muffins or cupcakes out of a microwave oven he’d been gifted by the family of one of his students. The room smelled wonderful. “Hello...”

“Oh, hey Ichabod!” The Horseman turned, his- or, rather, her (for now)- hair splaying out behind her in a fan-like motion. She gave him a brief smile before busying herself with her work again. Ichabod liked this head on the Horseman. “I hope you don’t mind, but while you were out I thought you might be hungry when you got home, so... I made some carrot cake muffins.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Ichabod sighed contentedly. So long as she didn’t burn the room down, he had no objections to food.

“We just have to let those sit for a bit.” The Horseman muttered, removing the last of the muffins from the pan. “There! I’ve got a cream cheese icing in the fridge for when they cool if you want.”

“Lovely.” Ichabod chuckled.

“How was your day at school?” The Horseman asked.

“Good.” Ichabod told her, sighing and taking a seat on his bed. The mention of school had reminded him of why he had left school so promptly in the first place. She seemed to be in such a good mood... he hated to ruin it. “Would you... I have a few questions.”

“Oh... sure.” The Horseman shrugged, sitting down on the small chaise in the corner of the room. “What is it?”

“I... know this isn’t your body.” Ichabod bit his lip. “But... do you remember anything about it?”

“I... don’t know. I think, a bit.” The Horseman considered.

“Do you think you might remember how you lost it?” Ichabod asked carefully. Well, that wasn’t what he’d planned on saying. He winced. “Your head, I mean. Do you remember how...”

“I... can try to.” The Horseman offered. "I don't know what I'll be able to get, though... I don't have the eyes, ears or mind of the original body"

“You could still find something.” Ichabod reasoned.

“Just give me a moment.” The Horseman nodded, sighing. She closed her eyes for a moment, head in her hands.

Ichabod gave her space and silence to think. Each new head the Horseman donned seemed to unveil a bit more about his personality. He hadn’t thought to ask about any memories before because it didn’t seem entirely logical to assume that any head other than his own would hold them. But... he’d gotten the idea at school today that maybe the body had a few memories of its own. Like a physical memory. It was silly. And it might lead to nothing. But the chance that it might amount to something was too much for Ichabod to pass us. He was a man of science. And with science comes experimentation. It’s how humanity evolves and grows. This was an experiment that might prove fruitless but was still necessary. Because like many experiments, you can never be certain of what you’re going to find until you conduct it. After a moment, the Horseman raised her head and opened her eyes.

“Anything?” Ichabod asked cautiously.

“Not much.” The Horseman shook her head.

“Not much is better than nothing.” Ichabod blinked, pleasantly surprised. “What did you remember?”

“Well... I don’t have anything visual or auditory... because like I said, those are kind of gone...” The Horseman warned him. “But I can remember... I think the body was fighting. I mean, obviously it was on horseback. That’s how it got its name. But... I think it was holding a gun of some sort. Maybe a musket?”

“Interesting... so perhaps you were a soldier...” Ichabod hypothesized. “Anything else?”

“Well... you’re not gonna like this.” The Horseman chuckled nervously. She clearly didn’t like it either. “I don’t think this body’s head was cut off.”

“What?” Ichabod blinked.

“From what I got, it felt more like the head was ripped off. Or blown off. I’m kinda leaning towards it being blown off...” The Horseman winced.

“With a gun?” Ichabod asked cautiously.

“I’m thinking something a bit bigger than a bullet.” The Horseman shook her head. “I don’t know what, though.”

“Well, a cannonball would be too big...” Ichabod thought aloud.

“You know what, I don’t think it would.” The Horseman snapped her fingers. An almost cartoonish ‘lightbulb moment' look graced her features.

“A cannonball?” Ichabod gulped.

Well... she was right. he didn’t like that. Because if his friend had lost his head to a cannonball, the odds of it being in good shape were slim. He certainly hoped that this Headless Helper, as he’d named her, was wrong. That maybe the head had been cut clean off. Or that if it hadn’t, it was at least in usable shape. Mind you, he realized, his friend was certainly not around by any natural means, and it was wrong to assume that his head would have been preserved by any natural means either. This entire situation was unlike anything Ichabod had ever been through. It was terrifying... and absolutely thrilling. Ichabod had always imagined himself playing hero, and though these circumstances were odd ones, he was finally living that reality in a way. But back to the matter at hand... perhaps he now had more clues to his Headless friend’s identity.

“I’m sorry...” The Horseman winced. “I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear.”

“Actually, it really helps. Very useful information.” Ichabod assured her. “This is the closest we’ve gotten to finding out who the Horseman is. Thank you.”

“I’m just happy I could help.” The Horseman smiled shyly.

“Are you okay?” Ichabod asked carefully.

“I think so.” The Horseman shrugged. “I just... I feel bad for this guy. What he went through sucks.”

“Yes it does.” Ichabod hummed sympathetically.

“I mean, I guess it was a quick death.” The Horseman reasoned. “I just... wow.”

“I’m sorry for-” Ichabod started.

“No. Don’t be. I really want this guy to find his head.” The Horseman cut him off. “I’m fine.”

“As long as you’re sure.” Ichabod nodded, not wanting to push. There was a moment of silence between them. “You know, it’s okay not to be.”

“What?” The Horseman blinked, confused.

“It’s okay not to be fine.” Ichabod told her. “And if you’re not, or you need anything... I’m here.”

“Thank you.” The Horseman sighed. There was another moment of silence. Ichabod didn’t know what else to say. "I think the muffins have probably cooled enough for us to try. Want one?”

“I would love one.” Ichabod nodded getting up, walking to his desk, and pulling out his notebook.

And so Ichabod Crane took some rather detailed notes on his findings, however scarce, and his new hypotheses about where they might find his friend’s head. While he did this, he snacked on one (or two, or three) of the Headless Helper’s muffins- which were exceptional. Especially for the grade of the oven they’d been baked in. This head had a knack for knowing precisely what Ichabod needed and providing it to him. The other heads he’d encountered... not so much. It was a finicky business working with his headless friend because with every new head he changed fairly drastically- almost as if he were an entirely different person. What a mess Ichabod had gotten himself wrapped up in... Truly, he’d only come to Sleepy Hollow to teach science. Teaching was his passion, and he was very much enjoying his job in Sleepy Hollow. But his mind had always wandered towards the inexplicable, and that was a term that more than aptly described his friend the Horseman.

In a sense, Ichabod felt that maybe that had been the true reason he was drawn to this little town. That perhaps a higher purpose did exist in his life than simply to teach. He had always thought teaching was his calling, but perhaps it was simply a step on the journey that was meant to be his life. Or a vessel, he supposed, for it was teaching that had brought him to where he was. Whatever the case may be, Ichabod knew that what he was doing in helping the Horseman felt right. He wasn’t usually a man to trust pure gut instinct, but this was different. This felt like the start of something. Ichabod hoped that it was a good something. He would hate to be on the wrong side of history. The Headless Horseman had been a beloved legend for so long, and Ichabod felt it in his bones that he was now building onto that legend. That was a scary prospect. Because if he made a wrong move, all that he was building could crumble as quickly and as easily as a Jenga tower and leave him buried under the weight of his failure, the villain of a story he had never intended to be written into.

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

Text

Stark Spangled Rebirth

Chapter 4: The Star Spangled Man With A Plan

Warnings: Bad Language words.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: Once again, huge thanks to my beta readers and plugger of mind gaps where I was blocked… @southerngracela and @icanfeelastormbrewing

Any mistakes are my own. I’ll probably spot them once posted but, whatever!

SSR Masterlist // WIYPT Masterlist

“Absolutely not!” Katie blazed her hands on her hips “That is NOT what Erskine was going to do.”

“Well Erskine isn’t here is he, in case it had escaped your notice.” Phillips bit back “And neither is the serum after the last vial of it was smashed out on Brooklyn Pier.”

Steve sighed, his head bowing a little.

“Erskine said that post the transformation he was supposed to be monitored for twenty-four hours before he did any major physical activity.” Katie continued, “Given that, and what just happened, you seriously want to take his blood?”

“She has a point.” Howard stepped in. “Personally I’m not sure it’s wise. Private Rogers should be given the rest of the day at least under observation as was the original plan, where we can run the physical tests Abe had been planning to do.” He took a deep breath and bowed his head slightly.

“We owe it to him to do this right.” Katie spoke again, her voice loaded with emotion as she turned her eyes to the Colonel. He gave a little groan, dragging his hand down his face “We can take the samples tomorrow.”

“Do I get a say in any of this?” Steve spoke, surprising himself with his sudden forthright nature and Katie turned to him.

“You know, I’m beginning to rue the day I ever asked you two to join this team.” The Colonel shot and Steve watched as Katie turned to Howard, smirking. “And wipe that look off of your face right now Agent.”

“Sir.” She nodded, and then everyone’s attention was taken by Agent Carter as she walked back into the room.

“We have it sir.” She nodded, “The Hydra Sub. It’s in the Tech Lab.”

“You wanna wait until tomorrow to work on that too, you know, give that time to recover as well or…”

“You know they say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” Howard arched an eyebrow as he looked at Phillips, “But I prefer to think of it as a metric for potential. You’ll be a great man someday, Colonel Phillips.”

Katie’s shoulders began to shake and she turned back towards Steve who was watching the scene play out in front of him, utterly perplexed. He still couldn’t get his head round her blatant disregard for her Commanding Officer’s authority. Howard, well, he could understand that a little more as he wasn’t in the man’s chain of command but Katie was. And she seriously didn’t seem to give a shit.

“Do we have any more intel on Schmidt?” Phillips turned to Peggy who blinked and looked at him.

“No, Sir. Nothing.” She took a deep breath, “But I think after today it’s safe to say that was another thing Dr. Erskine was correct about. Schmidt clearly has ambitions beyond simply being Hitler’s Chief Scientist. I think we should consider the fact that he’s equally, if not more dangerous.”

At that Steve heard Erskine’s words from the previous night as clear and as loud as if the man were speaking them to him in person. “Schmidt must become that superior man.” He cleared his throat a little and felt all eyes in the room turn to him.

“I think Agent Carter is right, Sir.” Steve took a deep breath “Last night, Dr Erskine was explaining to me about Schmidt. He said that Schmidt is convinced that there is a great power hidden in the Earth, waiting to be found...”

“So he’s bonkers.” Phillips looked at Steve “Terrific.”

“You know, we have forces out there fighting the Nazis.” Katie pondered for a moment, “Maybe the SSR needs to concentrate on Hydra.”

Phillips looked at Katie, “You wanna chase Hydra?”

She shrugged, “It seems logical to me. A lunatic he maybe, but he clearly has a vast amount of followers that buy into the same Rhetoric. That makes them dangerous.”

“And let’s not forget, Hydra is, or was, Hitler’s deep science department. Now, Steve stopped them from getting the vial of Erskine’s completed formula, but who knows what else they have in their grasp.” Peggy added, “I saw a lot of things when I was under, a lot of things that if perfected could be disastrous. We chose to concentrate on Hitler as he had control of Hydra. But, if Schmidt is going rogue as we suspect, then I’m afraid Sir, that as Agent Stark suggests, he could prove to be far more dangerous.”

“Just what we need.” Howard groaned, “Two enemies to be fighting.”

“Oh pur-lease.” Katie looked at him. “Like you’re doing any actual fighting.”

“Shut up.” Howard glared at her, “You know as well as I do that I was plucked out for this instead of going to the front lines, just like you were.”

“The pair of you can take your squabbles outside.” Phillips looked at them, “I’m done. I need to brief Senator Brandt.” With that he turned to Peggy “Get onto base and tell them they need to get into the President, inform him of our intentions so that he can approve them. You…” he then looked at Howard, “Take a look at that sub, see what we’re dealing with from a technology point of view. And you…” he looked at Katie, then to Steve, then back again. “Take Rogers for whatever observations it was Erskine had set up. Then I suggest you all get a good night’s sleep. Back here at Zero-Six Hundred.”

With that he swept from the room leaving the four of them. Steve turned to Katie, his arms folded.

“You know, I don’t need a load of tests to tell you I’m fine.” He looked at her, “In fact, I’m more than fine. I feel…well, I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“That maybe but, well, I’d feel better if you went along with it, please.”

“Oh, she’s serious Rogers.” Howard smirked, “She said the magic word.”

“Okay, okay.” Steve held his hand up, giving her a nod, “Fine, I’ll submit for monitoring. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

It turns out that Steve’s appetite had increased exponentially too, which was to be expected considering his metabolism was working far faster than it ever had before. He wolfed down a huge helping of Potato and Hot Dog salad, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, an assortment of vegetables and a huge helping of apple pie. He had no idea where Katie had managed to conjure it from, and frankly he didn’t care either. All he knew was that in that one sitting he’d consumed more food than he usually ate in a day.

The rest of the day was taken up with him being poked and prodded and attached to all sorts of strange machines. Howard explained what each of them was for, but he wasn’t paying much attention. His mind was whirring, finally processing what had happened in the last couple of hours. He had been so sure about what was going to happen post getting the serum that he’d be shipped out to help in the fight and now he didn’t have a clue where he was going to go, especially if they were now going to refocus their efforts on Hydra. That said, it was all helping the war effort wasn’t it? Hydra was a huge threat, if he was able to help take them down in any way, shape or form, then he was ok with that.

One of the doctors and Howard started explaining to him what the serum had done and at that point he tuned in to some of it, picking out the odd phrase like “super strength”, “increased stamina”, “enhanced metabolism”, “fast healing”, “super-sharp senses”, “memory expansion”, “logical improvement”. Howard looked at him and explained that as far as he could see, the transformation was complete, and was as permanent as they could hope. But Erskine had said that the serum wasn’t infallible, therefore how long the effects would last into the future they didn’t know. Forty, maybe fifty years or so. Steve wasn’t particularly bothered about that though, by the time that happened he would be well into his sixties or seventies and would he really care then?

Katie arrived back just as the Doctor who had been dealing with him had instructed the nurse to remove the heart monitor form his chest.

“Hi.” She smiled and Steve turned to face her, fulling intending on greeting her back, but before he could, the doctor made a little noise of surprise.

“What is it?” Howard asked and Steve hastily turned towards them, wondering what was wrong.

“His heart rate just spiked.”

“Seriously?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” She mumbled, stepping into the room. “You done treating him like a guinea pig?”

“Hey, you were the one that insisted on the monitoring!” Howard pointed at her.

“Yes, because it was what Abe wanted.” She shrugged, “And I wanted to make sure everything was okay before you guys started stealing his blood like a pack of starving vampires.”

“Well you needn’t panic.” Howard arched an eyebrow, “The transformation seems to be text book. Your Super Soldier is as ready as can be.”

“Fuck you.” Katie shot back, and Howard gave a chuckle as Steve let out a little groan at the man’s teasing.

“That bad an idea huh, dating my sister?” Howard turned to Steve and he flushed immediately.

“That…no, I didn’t…say that, I mean, not that we…”

“Ignore him Steve, he’s being a jerk.” Katie rolled her eyes. “And if he knows what’s good for him he’ll shut up before I knock his teeth out.”

“Threat received and understood.” Howard held his hands up as the doctor bustled around and handed Steve back his t-shirt.

“You can leave now, Captain Rogers, but we would like you to stay here tonight.”

“Why?” Steve frowned as he pulled the SSR logo t-shirt over his head.

“Because I want to monitor your levels at complete rest.” The doctor smiled, “Humour me, please.”

Steve shrugged as he swung his legs off the bed. “Sure.” It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be.

“Your stuff is being brought over from the barracks.” Katie smiled softly.

“Any idea on where I’ll be going after that?” Steve stood up carefully, taking his time to pull himself up to his new full height.

“Nope.” She shrugged, “I suppose it depends on what Colonel Phillips and the President agree. I suspect we’ll head over to London HQ if we’re going after Hydra in Europe, but we should find out tomorrow morning.”

“So, we have a free evening?” Howard looked at Katie.

“Well, sort of. Unless you want to get a head start on that Hydra submarine thing.” She waved her hand at the door.

“I don’t need a head start.” Howard shrugged, somewhat arrogantly, “I’m a genius, I’ll crack it tomorrow.”

Katie rolled her eyes, “You know I really admire your modesty.”

“We should have a toast to him,” Katie spoke, her voice cracking a little as she stepped away from Howard. She turned to Steve and smiled, “He’d have been proud this had worked.”

It was a strange night.

The three of them had shared a glass each of the smooth whiskey, which Steve had thoroughly enjoyed. It had tasted so smooth yet crisp. And he wasn’t sure if that was down to the fact it was stupidly expensive and high end, or the fact his taste-buds simply worked better. Howard hadn’t raised the issue of he and Katie again, for which Steve was glad. If he had been asked, he couldn’t say how he would have answered because he wasn’t entirely sure what they were. A casual fling? A hook up? He knew what he wanted it to be, but once again he was brought crashing back to reality. They were in the middle of a war. It was impossible.

Despite the myriad of thoughts and emotions running through his mind, Steve slept better than he had ever slept in his life. His chest wasn’t bad, he didn’t struggle for breath when he lay down flat meaning that for the first time he could remember he didn’t need to sleep propped up. Yet, on the other hand, he felt like he was waking up every five or ten minutes. The slightest sound or movement made by the various SSR staff nurses and guards milling around the small medical wing of the lab woke him thanks to his now enhanced, fine tuned senses. The doctors and Howard had assured Steve that whilst it might take a while but once he was used to the heightening of his senses it would start to feel ‘normal’ to him in a way and he would learn to use them and appreciate them.

“When you’re ready then we’d like to take the blood samples.” Peggy spoke softly, “But there’s no rush. Take your time.”

“Rather just get it over and done with Ma’am.” Steve said politely and truthfully. The sooner he was done being prodded, poked and stabbed the sooner he could find out what was going on.

With that in mind he ate, washed up, dressed and was ready in half an hour flat. He was led out of the bunk room he’d been sleeping in and down the corridor back to the observation room he’d been in the previous day where he was instructed to roll up his sleeves and lay back as they proceeded to siphon off his blood. When they had one bag full they then hooked him up to another, and then another, the doctor instructing him to tell them if he felt light headed but Steve had a suspicion that the enhancements to his body would simply enable him to generate more as fast as they took it. That said, by the time the third bag was full he was bored. Peggy seemed to sense it and she turned to the doctor who nodded and instructed everyone that they were done.

“Think you got enough?” Steve asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“Any hope of reproducing the program is locked in your genetic code.” Peggy replied simply, “But without Dr. Erskine, it could take years.”

“Well, if it could only work once, he’d be proud it was you,” Peggy looked at him.

“Speaking modestly, I’m the best mechanical engineer in this country,” Howard shrugged. “But I don’t know what’s inside this thing or how it works.”

“So much for not needing a head start, huh?” Katie teased and Howard glared at her.

“We’re not even close to this technology,” he finished by means of an explanation.

“Then who is?” Senator Brandt demanded.

“HYDRA,” Phillips responded SIMPLY. “I’m sure you’ve been reading our briefings.”

“I’m on a number of committees, Colonel,” Brandt replied simply, completely unabashed at Phillips tone.

“HYDRA is the Nazi deep science division,” Katie explained

“It’s led by Johann Schmidt,” Peggy picked up. “But he has much bigger ambitions.”

“HYDRA’s practically a cult,” Phillips stated. “They worship Schmidt, they think he’s invincible.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” Brandt asked and at that point Steve took a deep breath, finally he was about to find out what he was going to be doing.

“Spoke to the President this morning. As of today the SSR is being retasked.”

Katie and Peggy exchanged excited glances and Peggy looked back at Phillips, seeking clarification as she asked, “Colonel?”

“We are taking the fight to HYDRA,” Phillips looked at the woman. “Pack your bags Agent Carter. You too, Agent Stark,” he turned to Katie, “you’re flying to London tonight.”

Steve hesitated for a second, but when Phillips didn’t turn to speak to him and inform him where he was going, he hurried forward a little.

“Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt, I want in.”

“You’re an experiment,” Phillips shot back. “You’re going to Alamogordo.”

Steve frowned a little, but then pressed some more, he wasn’t letting this go.

“The serum worked,” his voice rose a little.

“I asked for an army and all I got was you. You...are not enough.”

Katie wheeled round to look at Phillips, her face angry, “Oh, come on Sir, that’s…”

“I have put up with your insubordination for long enough. I don’t give a shit what you think, Agent Stark.” Philips snarled, “Keep pushing me and so help me God, I will have you taken straight outta this unit and you’ll be back home typing up the Letters of Condolence.”

“But…”

“Enough!” Phillips snapped. “Now I suggest you disappear and pack just like Agent Carter did when I told her to.”

Katie took a deep breath, an angry noise escaping her throat before she turned and stormed away. Steve watched her go before he turned back to argue some more with Phillips, but the man had already moved away.

They wanted to send him to a fucking research plant? Seriously? This was ridiculous.

“Sir, that’s all I want,” Steve replied honestly.

“Then, congratulations,” The Senator held his hand out for Steve to shake. “You just got promoted.”

Steve’s hopes were short lived when Brandt explained what he had in mind - using Steve to boost recruitment and bond sales. But he knew he was getting nowhere with Phillips, so he decided to take the role and could only hope that it would lead to something else. Besides, it was important to gather support. The Forces needed all the financial and recruitment help they could get, and he could play a key part in that.

So Brandt said.

“Hey…”

Steve looked up from where he was packing the few items he’d unpacked from his trunk and looked at Katie.

“Oh, hi.” He said, turning back to his packing.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” she continued and Steve took a deep breath, straightening up.

“Who told you?”

“Yeah, well, it was too good an opportunity to turn down. In fact, it was the only opportunity to turn down.” He watched her as she took a deep breath, opened her mouth, before closing it again. And then Steve really did roll his eyes, “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out Katie.”

“Hey, don’t get pissy with me,” she snapped back.

“I’m not being…”

“Yes, you are,” she folded her arms. “It’s not my fault Phillips won’t let you in on this. I’ve tried, believe me, but for whatever reason he’s not moving.”

“He’s not moving because he doesn’t like me,” Steve replied simply.

“Well, that’s his loss," Katie countered. “And what’s with the sudden display of self-pity?”

“What?”

“This, moping around, acting all deflated.”

“It’s easy for you to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well you’re off, over there. Fighting the fight…me, well, looks like I’m gonna have to play ball with Senators doesn’t it?”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Yes, I do!” Steve’s voice rose and Katie blinked a little, but besides that she showed no signs of having registered his angry tone. “What choice do I have?”

“There’s always a choice, Steve.”

“Oh, yeah?” He snorted. “And my choice here is what? Go to the damned White Sands Proving Ground where they can run more tests on me? Keep me locked up like some kind of lab rat?”

“I didn’t say they were always good choices.”

“Well what do you think I should do huh?”

“That’s not for me to say.” Katie shook her head. “But I can tell you one thing....”

“What?”

“I have to try.” Steve replied.

“Well, in that case, I’ll say what I came to say in the first place," she gave him a soft smile, “Good luck.”

Steve took a deep breath and sighed, “Thanks. Look, I’m sorry I snapped. I just, well, truth be told I’m a little jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“I get it,” Katie nodded, crossing the room to sit besides him. “And I can understand how frustrated you feel, believe me I can.” He turned to look at her to see her glancing down at her hands before she looked up at a spot on the wall opposite them. “I just can’t say anything to make it better, other than repeat what I said before. I have absolute faith and belief that you’ll do what you think is right. And that’s all any of us can do.”

“You know I’m sorry we met the way we did,” his thoughts blurted out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Katie frowned, “What?”

“No, I err…” Steve sighed and then gave a snort. “Guess the serum didn’t enhance my ability to talk to a dame without completely making a total screw up of it.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Katie smiled, “you do a decent job most of the time.” She paused as Steve gave a little huff of laughter before she turned her body a little more towards him, “What’s on your mind, Soldier?”

“I mean, I’m sorry that we met when we did. And, you know, not sooner.” He shrugged, looking down at his hands, “Or maybe even later, when all this is over.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah…” she shrugged. “You know, a reminder that no matter how ugly the world seems or how much it changes, it’s still a beautiful place.”

Steve thought on her words for a second, a soft smile spreading across his face.

“What?” She asked as she noted his expression.

“She sounds like a smart lady.”

“She was, ” Steve smiled with a short nod. “Kind, compassionate…just more ways you remind me of her.”

He didn’t miss the faint flush on Katie’s cheeks as she looked down at her hands and then raised her eyes to look at him, “I’m honoured.”

Steve took a deep breath, “I meant what I said you know, the other night before we…you know.” He swallowed thickly, the lump in his throat felt like a tennis ball. “I like you, more than like you in fact.”

“Kinda sucks we’re about to be separated doesn’t it?” Katie looked at him, her eyes sad and he nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Nope,” he shook his head, “you make your own luck.”

“Right.” A little side smile broke on her mouth, “you did a good job with that when you happened to be at the Expo the same time Erskine was.”

“Lucky coincidence.”

“And what was me getting accosted by a load of rapscallions in Brooklyn?”

“A not so lucky for you coincidence.” Steve shrugged.

“You know what the definition of the word coincidence is?”

“Not word for word, but I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“Sass bag.” Katie nudged him with her elbow and he chuckled, “but you’re right, I am. It’s a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent casual connection.”

“And?”

“Fate is the development of events outside a person’s control.” Katie looked at him, her eyebrow arched, “Coincidence is beyond a person’s control. And if fate is what’s meant to be no matter what you do, and coincidence is merely a matter of right place, right time, then what if you’re in the right place at the right time because it’s simply meant to be.”

“Yup…” she sniffed a little as she pulled away and Steve was both surprised and horrified to see the tears in her eyes as she pressed her forehead to his, their noses bumping a little “it definitely sucks.”

“Stay safe soldier,” she smiled, her hand gently cupping his cheek. “I’d hate for you to come back horrifically disfigured.”

At that Steve snorted, “Would it put you off?” He teased, “I didn’t think you were that shallow.”

“I’m not,” she smiled as she made her way to the door. “It’d just be a helluva waste, a face like that.”

With that she was gone and Steve felt the smile fade from his face to be replaced by a hollow feeling which engulfed his entire body, as the realisation spread across him that he had no idea when he would see her again.

If indeed, at all.

November 1943.

“I already volunteered, how do you think I got here?”

“Nice boots, Tinkerbell…”

“Hey, Captain! Sign this”

The heckling from the assembled crowd rang through Steve’s mind as he sat dejectedly on the side of the stage, the miserable and cold rain matching his mood. His hand moved absentmindedly, shading in the drawing he’d sketched in his book. A very apt drawing of a Circus Monkey on a Unicycle clutching the damned shield he’d been given as part of his costume. It turns out the “battlefield” that Senator Brandt had been referring to was nothing more than a grotesque road show across the US and various other places on the Allied Map encouraging people to buy war bonds.

“The Senator's got a lot of pull up on the hill. You play ball with us, you’ll be leading your own platoon in no time.”

Yeah, a "platoon" of chorus girls and confetti cannons, complete with Adolph himself. And he was no closer to getting in on the real action.

He’d made a few propaganda films, all part of the course according to Brandt who had then had the the bright idea to send Captain America on the USO tour, to attempt to lift spirits. So here he was in Italy, five miles from the front line, having finally made it overseas as a soldier only to be stood on a stage in front of the men he should have been fighting alongside, being pelted by rotten fruit and vegetables instead of bullets.

The Star Spangled Man with a Plan, the song had dubbed him, yet Steve felt as if he had never had less of a plan in his life.

“Hello, Steve," a familiar voice spoke in his ear and Steve jerked his head up in surprise and turned, doing a little double take as he looked up at Katie.

“Hi,” he instantly felt his heart rate pick up dramatically in her presence, like it normally did as his eyes laid upon her. She was dressed in standard Army green wool pants that were tailored for a man with wide legs and long length that she tucked in to her well-worn mid-calf boots which were brown leather with lace protection straps and had no doubt been happily trudged through the mud and beaten until they broke in and needed new soles. Her unit issued jacket was the same colour green as her pants, but the harsh canvas material gave a weighted appearance across her shoulders as it was buttoned and zipped it up. Beneath it, she wore her wool tie and collared shirt, no doubt tucked into her trousers for a crisp clean look.

Steve noted how it was a stark (pun intended) difference to the previous smart pencil skirt and jacketed uniform he had seen her in at the SSR base which Peggy, who stood to her left, was still sporting. But then again, the two women were very different, and knowing Katie as he did she wasn't one to conform and who knew what she had been up to whilst on the front line.

All it did was serve to make Steve feel even more self-conscious and ridiculous in his own outfit, designed for dancing and prancing around not active combat.

“What are you doin’ here?” He asked, his eyes flicking to Peggy before they returned to Katie again.

“Officially we’re not here at all,” Peggy smiled. “That was quite a performance.”

Great, they’d seen it. His shoulders slumped at little as he turned away.

“Yeah. Uh… I had to improvise a little bit. Crowds I’m used to are usually more uh… twelve.”

“Probably less full of jerks as well,” Katie snorted and Steve looked at her, his mouth curling into a slight smile as Peggy let out a sigh.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Katie replied with a roll of her eyes.

Peggy took a deep breath, before she turned back to Steve, swiftly changing the subject. “I understand you’re "America’s New Hope"?

“Is that Senator Brandt I hear?” Katie teased and Steve took a deep breath.

“At least he’s got me doin’ this,” Steve felt a sudden need to defend not only the Senator a little but also his decision to take the role in the first place, especially after their conversation before he had left. “Phillips would have had me stuck in a lab.”

“And these are your only two options?” Peggy looked at him, nodding to his sketch book which was still open in his lap. “A lab rat or a dancing monkey?”

“What?” Katie pressed gently, having noticed his hesitation.

“You know for the longest time I dreamed about coming overseas and being on the front lines. Serving my country. I finally get everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.”

“They look like they’ve been through hell,” Steve commented, a deep feeling of sadness at the sight of the injured men flooded his chest.

“These men more than most,” Peggy commented and Steve turned to look at her, a little confused as to what she meant.

Steve felt his chest tighten, as if someone had trapped it in a vice and his head momentarily span as the meaning of her words sank in.

“The one-oh-seventh?” He breathed out, begging it to be wrong. But Katie simply frowned as she gave a nod.

“What?”

“Who’s Barnes?” Peggy asked form behind him.

“Steve’s friend from home,” Katie replied gently as Steve turned back to look at the women.

“I need to check if he’s there,” Steve nodded towards the medical tent.

“Not a good idea,” Peggy cut him off. “You saw their reaction to you before. If you go waltzing in you’re going to upset them.”

“I don’t really care,” Steve spluttered

“Well you should,” Peggy looked at him sternly.

“I have to know if he survived!”

“Well, if it isn’t the Star-Spangled Man With A Plan. And what is your plan today?” Phillip’s voice was laced with sarcasm but Steve didn’t care. At the moment he had one thing on his mind, and that was Bucky.

“I need the casualty list from Azzano.”

“You don’t get to give me orders, son.” Phillips snapped, looking up at him once more and Steve ignored his angry tone, his stubbornness showing through as he continued to pres.

“I just need one name. Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th.”

“You two and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy,” Phillips pointed to both Agent Carter and Katie in turn.

“Can’t wait," Katie sassed back and Phillips’ head shot up to look at her as he once more fixed her with a stare that could freeze over hell, but Steve didn’t have time for this.

“ Please tell me if he’s alive, Sir. B-A-R…”

Steve swallowed, a feeling of cold washing over his body as the Colonel's words sank in. It sounded familiar…so, maybe there was a chance it could be another Barnes, maybe? It was a common name, after all…and even if it was Bucky’s name on the letter, he could be missing assumed dead, not actually confirmed dead. Peggy and Katie had told him before that there were still men from the unit trapped behind lines.

"What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?" The words tumbled out of his mouth before he’d really had time to consider them properly.

“Yeah! It’s called winning the war.”

Steve frowned, “But if you know where they are, why not at least…?"

Colonel Phillips stood up, the expression on his face belonged to a man who had just lost his final bit of patience. "They're thirty miles behind the lines. Through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save." He moved around the desk to stand in front of Steve, his hands falling to his hips as fixed him with a stern and challenging glare. "But I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl."

Steve took a breath, the anger coursing inside him at the dig that Phillips had just made, but before he could say anything, he heard Katie scoff besides him.

“And who’s fault is that?”

Phillips turned to Katie, his face contorted in anger “You are this close…” he held his thumb and forefinger up a fraction of an inch apart.

“I might just be a chorus girl, but I think I understand just fine.”

“Well then understand it somewhere else.” Phillips turned away… “If I read the posters correctly, you got some place to be in thirty minutes”

As he spoke the last words, Steve took note of the map which lay on the table and he noticed a flag marked with an H which caught his attention. And then, he made his decision.

The Star Spangled Man finally had a plan.

“Yes, sir. I do.”

#stark spangled rebirth #steve rogers #captain america #katie stark #stark spangled #chris evans #steve rogers x original female character #chris evans characters

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ptersparkers · 4 years

Text

hell froze over

summary: it’s a thursday afternoon and caliban’s taken you by surprise when he teleports to earth and asks you out on a date. not that you’d ever say no.

warnings: mentions of religion and typos, probably.

a/n: lol i can hear my parents sh*uting so i’m gonna write instead because!! we love distractions!!

add yourself to my taglist!

Sabrina Spellman swore that Hell would have to freeze over the second she saw Caliban get “soft” and care for mortals.

That day was today.

Greendale, being the small town that it was, housed many local favorites which included Dr. Cerberus’ diner, also dubbed as the local hangout of the Fright Club. There wasn’t much to say about the whole situation about who was running Hell with Sabrina’s clone down under and the Sabrina you knew alive and well, talking your ear off about Nick this, Harvey that, and Caliban this and that.

If you were being completely honest, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

So when Caliban teleported back up to Earth’s surface and caught you off guard leaving school grounds, you let out the loudest yell imaginable and dropped all of the books and stray pieces of paper you were carrying.

“Jesus Christ,” you said, clutching your heart. You bent down and started to pick up what you had dropped.

Caliban chuckled. “Not quite. Doubt he’s ever going to come to Earth.”

You didn’t pay much attention to his comment in favor of gathering everything that was on the concrete and Caliban frowned, bending down to help you pick up some notebooks that were closer to him than you. When you finally stood up, you moved strange of hair out from your face and huffed, annoyed.

“If you’re going to scare me, at least do it where people won’t see because I’m pretty sure I’ve embarrassed myself enough for this entire school year.” The corner of Caliban’s mouth lifted into a smirk when he saw you try to reassure your schoolmates and tugged on your backpack strap to get your attention.

“It’s a Thursday afternoon,” he stated.

“Yes?”

“Do you have any plans?”

You were taken off guard.

“What are you planning?” you asked with a raised brow.

“Nothing bad,” he promised. “Since Sabrina number two is down in Hell dealing with things for the weekend, I figured why not come up here and spend the day with my favorite mortal.” You laughed at the sentiment and fixed your backpack to keep the straps from falling.

“Well, I’m headed to the diner to study for a little bit before I head to cheerleading practice,” you explained. “I have about two hours before I have to be there so might as well eat and study. You know, kill two birds with one stone.”

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“You want to watch me study for two hours? It’a gonna be kind of boring,” you explained.

“Think of me as your study-buddy.”

“Where did you even learn that phrase?”

“Sabrina’s rubbing off on me,” Caliban said with a low laugh. He gestured away from you. “Lead the way.”

The diner wasn’t too packed when you arrived and you chose a table big enough to let you put your laptop and notebooks on while having a plate of food beside you. Your water bottle sat proudly in Caliban’s hands as he looked at the various stickers stuck to it.

“This is quite peculiar,” he said.

“It’s a bunch of memories,” you explained. “This one’s from the camp grounds Harvey and I used to go to when we were younger. The orange one is from when Sabrina and I first became friends and that red one is the first sticker I saw with the world ‘Hell’ on it after coming back from, you know, Hell.”

Caliban smiled at that one. “You’re odd.”

You tilted your head and chuckled, not knowing how to respond to such a comment. You turned your attention to the screen in front of you, reading online articles assigned to you for your AP World History class.

“What is ‘AP’?” Caliban asked, looking at the textbook that sat beside your computer.

“It stands for advanced placement. It’s basically a college course for high schoolers so we don’t have to take it when we get to college and it gives us school credit.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is,” you said, clicking out of the article you had finished taking notes on. “I think this while ‘Hell’ ordeal set me back because I haven’t been studying as much as I used to. At the end of the school year, everyone who takes AP classes has the chance to take a test that determines a score, which determines college credit.”

“You humans are so overachieving,” he commented, stealing a fry from your plate. “But I suppose being knowledgable isn’t bad.”

“Sometimes I feel like I put too much pressure on myself,” you confessed, your gaze back on the man sitting in front of you. “Like, does this really matter? Whether I ace or fail my AP tests won’t matter in the long run and it’s not like I can avoid going to Heaven or Hell.”

Caliban quirked an eyebrow, realizing that discovering the secrets of witches, Hell, and Heaven had left you in a turmoil that no one bothered to discuss. Sabrina was a witch and had accepted her fate on her sixteenth birthday. As for the other three mortals, they had some sort of lineage in magic that offered them solace. You did not.

“Going to Hell really messed with you, didn’t it?” You didn’t want to say anything in fear of offending Caliban. When he wasn’t trying to steal the throne from Sabrina, he was a decent person, you thought.

“Um,” you said, pausing, “I think it made me realize some things. I think those things are making me confused about the next step in my life and if what I’m doing is worth finishing.”

Caliban looked at you and the various books, notebooks, and writing utensils sprawled out on the table. He saw your color-coded planner, binders that kept your articles and paperwork in place, and the dark tint underneath your eyes. That was all he needed to know.

“I think you’re on the right path. From the looks of it,” he said, gesturing to the messy table in front of you, “you are so passionate and dedicated about learning and doing something with your life. Not many people can say the same. You have the advantage of knowing Hell exists and the second layer to humanity while others wonder about religion and faith. Use it to your advantage.”

“If I hear this correctly, it seems like you don’t want me to give up.”

“I don’t,” he said, almost too quickly. “Your ambition to do well on your tests resembles my quest to become King of Hell. As I have found out another way to rule Hell alongside Sabrina, I think you’re going to find out what you’re meant to do in life.”

“You’re starting to sound like someone who believes in God.”

He chuckled. “God and angels exist. You know that now. I suppose you’ll have to continue praying to find out what He has in store for you.”

You sat there, dumbfounded. It wasn’t too long ago that Caliban had been in the grand room, cursing angels and Heaven above out of frustration and anger. You and Sabrina had been waiting for him to finish throwing his tantrum before she could engage in business with him, so hearing Caliban talk about having faith in something that even he didn’t believe him gave you a glimmer of motivation.

“I don’t even know what to say,” you said softly, fiddling with a pen.

“Go out with me,” Caliban said. “To that drive in theater across town. You mentioned once that you like to go there when you’re stressed. We could forget about Heaven and Hell for one night.”

“Okay,” you said quietly, earning a gigantic grin from Caliban.

As you were about to pack up your belongings, you heard a “Oh for Satan’s sake” from behind you and turned to see Sabrina rolling her eyes, already dressed in her cheer uniform.

“Caliban, my clone and I are going to beat your ass if you hurt Y/N in any way,” she said in a sickly sweet tone. Caliban nodded, heading the message without much argument. You packed up your belongings and ran to use the restroom, leaving the two mystical beings alone.

“I really like her,” Caliban said after a brief pause. “And I know you don’t agree wholeheartedly but I intend to prove otherwise.”

“Y/N’s smart and won’t take anything from a boy if she’s not comfortable with it,” said Sabrina. “All I’m saying is you should watch you back should you ever hurt her in any way because it’s not just the Fright Club that’s gonna come after you.”

Caliban gulped and watched as you emerged, putting your hair in a low bun before walking outside to go to cheerleading practice.

“How does tomorrow night sound?” Caliban asked before you entered Harvey’s truck.

“Pick me up at six,” you said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “And this time, please don’t teleport and scare me.”

The boy made of clay laughed and promised not to, watching as you climbed into the truck and waved goodbye. He saw Sabrina give him an all-knowing look, but he was determined to befriend your friends if it was the last thing he did.

Hell, he had an entire lifetime to get to know you.

***

BONUS:

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked as Harvey and Sabrina looked at you. The keys were in the engine but Harvey didn’t bother moving, opting to look between you and the spot where Caliban had teleported to Hell.

“I know he’s kind of a good guy now, but are you serious?” Harvey asked.

“What?” you asked, provoking him. “Am I not allowed to be in relationships like you two?”

“I’m just surprised, is all,” said Sabrina. “I mean, you did hate him when we first met him.”

“Absolutely nobody messes with my best friend,” you said. “You two, well, the other you, is ruling with him peacefully.”

“What is he tries to pull a trick?” Harvey asked.

You had to admit, that was a fair concern.

“I don’t think it’ll come to that, but if it does, there’s no way in Hell, literally, I’m choosing a boy over my best friends. Who, by the way, I’ve been friends longer with.”

Harvey seemed to like this answer and started the engine, driving back to the school grounds with you in between him and Sabrina.

“I guess Hell really did freeze over.”

***

taglist:

@princessdolan @ashyramblings-ficrecs.

#caliban x reader #caliban #caos x reader #sam corlett x reader #caliban imagines #sam corlett x you #caos imagines #chilling adventures of sabrina x reader #chilling adventures of sabrina #sabrina spellman #harvey kinkle #my writing #hell froze over

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bi-bard · 4 years

Text

Do You Ever Stop to Think About Me?- Emily Prentiss Imagine (Criminal Minds)

Title: Do You Ever Stop to Think About Me?

Pairing: Emily Prentiss X Reader

Song Drawn: Dorothea

Word Count: 1,687 words

Warning(s): Mentions of feeling abandoned, broken promises

Summary: Memories were strange things. Some feel like they’re forgotten in seconds, others seem to last a lifetime. When the source of (Y/n)’s longest lasting memories rolls back into their small town, how will they react?

Author’s Note: I got halfway through this and realized that I basically wrote some very weird version of the first season of You... oh well. Please consider supporting my Ko-fi account. It would mean a lot to me. If I know there are people interested in it, I’ll get the monthly donation part set up.

Buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/khoward0

If you want to know more about my Taylor Swift writing challenge, click here!

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

“It appears that the FBI has just arrived on the scene of the latest crime-”

I popped my head into the living room when I heard the news. I had been trying to keep up with the latest string of murders in my town. Not only had they been a strange occurrence in a town as small as ours, but they were also incredibly graphic... at least that’s what the news was saying.

My heart felt like it stopped when I saw who got out of the car. Emily Prentiss. I’d be damned. I hadn’t seen her in years. Some of us moved from city to city... or country to country while others stayed in the same town their whole life. She threw a quick “no comment” at the reporter’s question and walked into the house with some of her coworkers.

“Wow,” I mumbled before checking the time. “Oh, shit.”

I had work that day. A librarian in a small town wasn’t the best gig in the world but it paid fine and I got to be surrounded by things I loved.

I was sitting at the front desk, checking on which books were overdue and which ones had just been checked back in.

“Excuse me,” I looked up to see Emily and two men standing there.

“Emily,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows. “Emily Prentiss... I don’t know if you remember me. I’m (Y/n) (Y/l/n).”

“(Y/n),” she repeated, smiling at me. “I remember you, I promise.”

I stood up, walking around the desk and hugging her.

“This is Agent Morgan and Dr. Reid,” she introduced. I shook Morgan’s hand and waved back at Dr. Reid.

“What can I help you guys with,” I asked.

“We were wondering if you’d seen anything odd here recently,” Agent Morgan explained. “Maybe a man coming here a lot suddenly. Maybe you’ve talked to him. Probably close to your age, awkward, most likely white.”

“I can’t think of anything,” I said, biting my lip as I tried to think. “We don’t have many regulars and when we do they tend to stick to themselves.”

“Did you know any of the victims,” Dr. Reid asked.

I shook my head, “Not personally. Some of them would come in here every now and then but I tend to be a bit of a fly on the wall when no one needs my help.”

“Here,” Emily handed me a card with her number on it. “Keep your eyes open, call me- I mean- us if you see anything.”

“Do you have security cameras,” I looked back over at Reid and nodded. “Can we take a look at them?”

I nodded, stepping back behind my desk so I could hand him a key, “This will get you into the room. It’s in the back right corner. Door says ‘Security,’ you can’t miss it. We have backlogs for a week so I don’t know how much you can get off of it.”

“Thank you,” Reid and Morgan walked off.

“Emily,” I said, touching her arm. “Am I in danger?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Emily...”

“The other victims look like you, the library is the center of the hunting ground. Yes, I’m worried about you. Keep your eyes open. Don’t go somewhere private with someone you don’t know. Just... please be safe.”

“I’ll try,” I nodded. Emily was about to walk away. “Hey... I don’t know how long you’re going to be in town after this but... if you’re able... do you want to go out for drinks? Catch up?”

She grinned at me, “That sounds really nice.”

“Okay,” I chuckled awkwardly before grabbing a spare piece of paper, quickly scribbling my number down before handing it to her. “If I can help you guys anymore, let me know.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

I nodded. She walked back towards where her coworkers had gone earlier. I sat down at my desk, trying to stop blushing before going back to work. I spent about twenty more minutes working before I saw Dr. Reid walk out quickly while talking on the phone.

Agent Morgan walked over and handed me the key, “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. Emily waved at me as she and Agent Morgan left.

I had stood up to go put some books on the desks. It was slower today than usual but it gave me more time to get my work done. I only left the desk because the library was empty. I popped my head out from behind a shelf when I heard the door open and close. I saw a man standing by the desk.

“Can I help you,” I asked, walking over to the desk.

“Hey,” he said, waving at me.

“Hi,” I chuckled. “Can I help you?”

I was caught off guard by the man jumping at me and holding a knife to my neck. I stuttered over some words, scared out of my mind.

“Come on,” he pulled me closer. “We have a date tonight.”

--Time Skip--

“Listen, just let me go, and we can talk about this,” I said, trying to not cry in front of him.

“This is the only way,” he replied as he finished tying me to the chair. “This is the only way for us to be together. All those girls. The ones who wanted to take your place.”

“I...I...”

“Don’t you remember,” he asked. “You always were so kind to me. Whenever I came in, Mondays and Fridays-”

“The Fantasy section,” I mumbled.

Agent Morgan said that he would awkward but this man was as casual and confident as a man his age. I saw him each week. I gave him a wave as I did with everyone. How did that turn into him think I loved him?

“I’m so happy that you remember,” he cupped the side of my face. I noticed the knife in his other hand. “I love you.”

I knew very well that it would’ve been very bad for me to reject him. Knives were scary.

“I love you too,” I replied shakily. He smiled, tilting his head at me.

I was terrified. I didn’t know how long I was going to have to do this or if I was going to be able to. I tried to force a smile at him.

I shouted when the door was kicked open. Agent Morgan and Emily walked in with their guns drawn. The man stood behind me, knife by my throat.

“Hey, hey, put the knife,” Emily said. “You love (Y/n), right?”

“Yes and you won’t come between us,” he shouted.

“But killing them would,” she reasoned.

“Please,” I begged quietly. “If you love me, you’ll listen to them.”

“But-but-”

“I’ll never get to see you again if I’m dead,” I continued. “Please. For me.”

I let out a sigh as he moved the knife away from me. Agent Morgan stepped forward, handcuffing him after the knife clattered on the ground. The man watched me with a smile as he was led out. Emily walked over and started untying me.

“So... how about that drink,” I tried to joke.

“You’re being funny,” she asked. “You just had a knife to your throat.”

“I must be trying to avoid it by using humor as a coping mechanism,” I said, rubbing, now untied, wrists. “That’s a thing, right?”

“I don’t know about immediately after,” she replied, finishing untying my ankle. “Can you stand up?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, standing up. Emily supported me even though I was standing. “So... that drink?”

“My god,” she laughed as we walked. “Get cleared by the medics and I’ll go for that drink tonight... if I can clear it with my boss.”

“Deal,” I said.

Emily passed me over to the medics with a grin before walking over to talk to some man in a suit and scowl that looked like it hadn’t moved in years. The medics checked on me quickly. I wasn’t too concerned. I hadn’t actually been hit but I could see why they needed to check on me. Emily walked back over just as they were wrapping up.

“Good news,” she said. “My boss has encouraged me to go. Is (Y/n) going to be alright to go?”

“Should be alright, everything looks normal and they aren’t describing any pain,” the EMT nodded. I stood up and thanked them.

“I know this lovely restaurant,” I started rambling. Emily just smiled and nodded.

--Time Skip--

We both thanked the waitress as we handed back the menus. I looked at her and grinned.

“I should thank you for saving me,” I said, trying to break the awkward silence between us.

“It’s my job,” she shrugged. I raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re welcome.”

I chuckled at her, shaking my head for a moment. Another moment of silence took over the conversation. I looked down at the table.

“Can I ask you something,” I tilted my head at her. She nodded. “Did you ever think about me after you left?”

“Of course I did,” she replied. “You were one of my best friends ever. You made yourself very hard to forget.”

“Oh,” I chuckled. “I never forgot you either... you were... gosh... a little more than a best friend.”

“What?”

“Emily, we made out, you were my first kiss, you took me out on a date,” I said. “You don’t remember?”

“I do but I didn’t think about how much you’d hold onto that... we never really talked about it.”

“I haven’t left this town in years, not much else to think about,” I chuckled. “I guess I was scared that you had gone off, found cooler friends, forgotten about me... and I was just here. Stuck. Waiting for someone to make me feel the same way you did.”

“I didn’t forget about you,” she replied. “You have my number now... maybe we could keep in touch when I leave. I’d love to show you around D.C.”

“I’d like that,” I grinned, blushing a bit.

Emily waltzing back into my life may have been one of the best things to ever happen to me.

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saiilorstars · 4 years

Text

Out of This World

Fandom: Criminal Minds // Spencer Reid x OFC

Summary: It's Valentine season and Aitana finds herself with a secret admirer. He knows her well enough to tailor each gift to her favorite subject: space. But as time goes on, Aitana begins to lose the excitement for each gift when she starts to realize she'd rather be with someone else, someone she knows pretty well. If only she knew the truth behind the admirer.

Pronunciation of the OC's name sounds like "eye-ta-na"

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles @averyhotchner

[If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

[Aitana’s Masterlist]

The first time Aitana saw the flower, she thought it was Penelope being her sweet self like the friend that she was. But when Aitana drew closer to her desk, she saw the peculiar flower had a small ribbon around its stem holding one small card.

My love for you bloomed the first time you smiled.

Yeah, Penelope was sweet as sugar but she would not write something like that. Aitana knew that for sure.

She picked up the flower, smiling at its bright hot pink petals. Golden yellow petals were sprinkled in its center. If Aitana was correct, and she typically was when it came to her favorite subject, the flower was a Zinnia. It was the first flower in history to bloom in outer space.

The zinnia had been chosen specifically for this reason.

It was hard to forget the thoughtful valentine for a few days, Aitana had mentioned it to the women in the BAU and of course they made it harder to forget. As far as they were concerned, Aitana had a secret admirer who'd gotten brave during the Valentine's period.

The next time Aitana received a flower, Penelope was with her.

"Oooh, that's pretty!" The blonde's mouth was in the shape of a little 'o'.

Aitana agreed that the brilliant white flower was quite beautiful. Its trumpet petals made the flower seem taller. "It's a moon flower," she mused.

"A what?" Penelope scrunched her face. "I've never heard of those!"

Aitana smiled when she read the Valentine's card wrapped around the flower's stem. "I love being around you." This time, she couldn't help the small laugh when she gazed at the picture. She turned it around for Penelope to see.

The blonde went into a full blown 'awww'.

The valentines card had the earth at the center with the moon orbiting it, leaving little dashed lines to show its orbit track.

Aitana's heart may have fluttered the more she looked at the card and her flower.

After that, the news of her admirer spread like wild fire amongst the team.

"Serrano's got a boooyfriend," JJ sing-sang each time Aitana came into the room. She always followed it with a smirk.

Aitana rolled her eyes but everyone saw her blush each time.

The third time she had a flower, it was bright and early in the day. Only a few people were in that day and as much as she loved the mystery of who was her admirer, Aitana couldn't help make a quick scope of who was in the bullpen. Hotch and Morgan were in their offices already but Aitana counted them out. She loved Morgan but he could care less about the space theme. Hotch was already dating and she didn't exactly picture him liking her either. A couple more people were in but Aitana just didn't seem like the type to go through this.

"What are you doing?" she heard Emily's voice.

Aitana looked towards the entrance to see Emily and Spencer coming in. "Morning," Aitana greeted the pair with a weak wave.

"You alright?" asked Spencer, eyebrows raising at her apparent sunken mood.

"Yeah," Aitana leaned over the rail. "I just got another valentine's."

"You did?" Emily beamed. "What's it this time?"

Aitana straightened up and headed for her office, intending on coming back with the things only to have Emily rush inside, practically dragging Spencer with her.

"I thank my lucky stars for meeting you."

"Sweet," Emily nodded.

"Yeah, I just don't know what flower this is," Aitana tilted her head at the strange flower in her hand. It was a bright white flower with its petals resembling the shape of a star. At the center were glossy pink colored petals resembling a smaller flower with one white center.

"It's a Star Tulip," she heard Spencer say.

She beamed, snapping her fingers at him. "I can always count on you, Dr. Reid!"

He smiled at her. "It's very pretty."

"Isn't it?" She grinned the more she looked at her flower. She moved around her desk to one of the shelves. She pulled down a vase to sit the new flower along with the previous flowers she'd been getting. "I'm making a bouquet out of them," she explained.

"It's one strange bouquet," remarked Emily as she eyed the flowers that couldn't seem to match any less.

"They're space themed," Aitana said. Her fingers gently grazed her mix of flowers. "My favorite subject."

"They're weird," Emily corrected.

"Of course you wouldn't get it," Aitana playfully rolled her eyes. She cast a smile in Spencer's direction. "But Spencer does. After all, I was the one who gave him a collection of the classical Doctor Who episodes."

Against every fiber of his being, Spencer felt a surge of heat crawl up his neck and face.

It got even warmer when Emily gave him a certain type of look. "Right," she hummed. "I remember that. You two were...inseparable."

"Were we?" Spencer cleared his throat.

"Yeeah," Emily drawled with the answer. Her eyes narrowed on the man until he visibly shifted.

Aitana glanced at the pair with a raised eyebrow. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Emily waved her off. "We'll see you in a bit."

Aitana nodded and went back to her bouquet. She may have to rearrange them. Her hands were already busy when the pair of agents headed out the office.

~ 0 ~

"You are so sneaky," Emily ushered Spencer down the small steps into the bullpen. "I didn't know you had it in you!"

"Had what?" The young doctor moved directly for his desk, carefully avoiding Emily's beedy-eyed stare.

"Don't play dumb with me—you're anything but dumb! It's you, isn't it? You're the one who's been sending Aitana the flowers and the cards."

Spencer's attempt to scoff casually came out in a stammering way. He didn't even know that was possible. "What? No, I'm not!" His voice betrayed him when it decided to go up an octave.

Emily smirked. "Oh, it's so you. Of course it is—why didn't we think of it before? You two are always geeking out about space! Nobody else understands you two!"

"We like the same subject, it's not a big deal. Garcia and I like Doctor Who."

"Yeah but you and Aitana are like this—" Emily crossed her index and middle fingers together, "—and you get all shy around her. She gets giggly around. It's her tell."

"She has a tell?" It was the wrong thing to ask and Spencer realized it as soon as Emily's eyes widened. Her mouth formed an 'o' while her finger raised to point at him. He panicked. He absolutely panicked. "No, wait! It doesn't mean that I—"

"You did send them! It's you! Oh my God! It's you—"

"Shhhhh!" Spencer frantically exclaimed, trying to keep her from shouting. He would absolutely die if Aitana overheard them. "Emily please!"

Emily started laughing. Spencer couldn't decide if this was better or worse. "I would've never figured you had the guts to do that!" Emily needed to put her hand on the desk to support herself before she ended up laughing on the floor. "Morgan and I have a pool going on to see when one of you will get some courage to say something!"

"Please stop laughing before Aitana comes out—what the do you mean there's a pool?"

That got Emily to stop. She cleared her throat, setting one hand on her hip. "Uh, well, you know...Morgan started it!"

"What!?"

"And then Rossi upped the money so I had to—"

"Rossi is in on it?" Spencer was horrified that his love life just a game of bets for everyone. "Nice, very nice. You're all very good friends!" He huffed and sunk down on his chair.

"We're sorry, it's just funny how you and Aitana are so clueless about each other. You do realize that she's hopelessly in love with you, right?"

Spencer frowned. "I don't know. She's never really said anything."

"Because she's waiting for you! What you're doing now is the perfect strategy to tell her the truth."

"Oh no," Spencer shook his head. "I'm not telling her anything. I just wanted to see if she liked the idea. And she does." He smiled to himself. Each time she'd gotten her flowers, she ecstatic. Her entire mood would change and it was honestly the best thing to see. Their jobs were always so grim and bloody. He wanted to see her adorable freckled face smiling all day. But to go ahead and reveal himself?

"Oh c'mon," Emily sat on the edge of his desk. "All you have to do is tell her it's you and she'll finally confess."

"You can't be sure about that." God knew he wasn't sure about it. Aitana always smiled at him, but she also smiled at everyone else. She was a hugger with everyone. Her eyes twinkled to many things, not just for him. What he interpreted as something romantic could very well just be Aitana being her lovely self. He could never take her rejection. A rejection meant the end of their friendship. If he couldn't be sure about her love, he would hold onto their friendship forever.

~ 0 ~

"Let's never put space between us."

Aitana held onto a lavender-colored flower. This time, she couldn't make out the relationship between the flower and the quote. She knew there was definitely a connection but not one that she knew straightaway.

"It's a cosmos," Spencer would explain to her that evening when their case finally allowed them to leave the BAU.

"I will never get over the fact you just happen to know these things," Aitana said, shaking her head with one of her sweet smiles on her face.

"You could pick up a book once in a while," he quipped, earning himself a gasp of offence from her.

"Well!" She crossed her arms. "Somebody came back sassy!"

He couldn't help the grin that came to his own face. "So you don't want the book?"

She pointed at him, eyes narrowing on him. "Watch it, Dr. Reid. I'm not afraid to go to your house and take that Doctor Who collection back from you."

"I dare you to," he challenged, only to have her giggle.

"Don't tempt me!" She wagged her finger in his face then turned around to take the lead towards the elevator.

He remained frozen in his spot. 'She gets giggly. It's her tell.' He suddenly swallowed hard. Emily's words replayed in his head for the rest of the night coupled with the moments that Aitana had giggled at something he said or done around her.

It turned out there were a lot.

~ 0 ~

The next time Aitana saw a present couldn't have come at a better time. She didn't realize how much she'd started depending on the flowers and the cards until tonight. She'd had a hard time today with the case. It left her drained and, honestly, wishing like somebody would just drop a truck over her.

"I'd be in the dark without you."

She gingerly held her valentine's card, her lips tugging into a smile with the picture of the sun and moon looking at each other. The sunflower on her desk was radiant. "Now how could I be somebody's light?" she whispered to herself. Who could want her that much? For the first time, she really wished this person would come into her office and just...give her a hug. Somebody's arms wrapped tightly around hers, telling her everything would be fine. Now that would be nice.

She heard a light knock against her door and soon saw Penelope poking her head inside. She was smiling—of course she was—and talking about something until she noticed the tears in Aitana's eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Aitana tried to say like it should've been obvious that she was fine. Of course she was fine, they didn't have the luxury to feel things about each of their cases.

But Penelope came further inside, her head tilting as she studied her friend's face. "No you're not."

The tears rolled down Aitana's cheeks before she could think about stopping them. "No, I'm not," she agreed with a shake of her head.

"Oh no!" Penelope didn't think twice about hugging her. She was a hugger too.

Aitana appreciated her gesture but there was a part of her that made it very clear she would rather have somebody else hug her. The thought brought more tears to her eyes.

~ 0 ~

Her fluke made it around the team per Penelope's concern that something deeper was going on. Aitana wasn't even upset that Penelope had told the others. She assured them, especially Hotch who was already suggesting she take some time off, that she was perfectly fine. The case had just been a little too much.

But somehow each time she found a new flower and a valentines card on her desk, she was a little more blue rather than elated like the first few times.

"You are so space-cial to me!"

She felt incredibly special, alright, getting these valentines each day now that the holiday was around the corner.

"You are one in a universe!"

Given the size of the universe, it was hard not to feel special and even more so when she thought of the idea of parallel universes.

"It's your fault I believe in them," she told Spencer that same morning. They were preparing their coffees before their meeting would start.

"What?" he laughed. "How is it my fault?" He reached over for the sugar packets.

"Because you started going on about the theories of potential universes!"

"I didn't know you were actually listening to that!"

"I always listen to you," she said earnestly, making him stop when he noticed her long stare. She seemed almost upset that he would think otherwise.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I just thought...I mean it would be no big deal. Everyone does it—"

"Not me," she cut him off with a bit of an edge in her tone. Her eyebrows were knitted together and the more seconds passed by, Spencer felt like things were shifting into something he was not prepared for. Even Aitana was confused with her irritation and yet, she decided the conversation was over. "Gotta go get ready for the meeting," she mumbled and moved around him.

"Aitana?" Spencer called after her but she didn't eve look back at him. Hell, her coffee wasn't even finished yet. He knew for a fact that what she carried in her cup was a pitch black coffee and she loved her sugar as much a he did. What had he done?

~ 0 ~

"Are you mercury? Because you'll always be first to me."

Aitana's smile was a bitter one. She put the card down on her desk and exhaled heavily. Her eyes flickered to the flower. It was white flower with rugged petals and a golden middle. She had no idea what the flower's connection this time and she had no idea to seek the answer either.

"I know that face," JJ's voice startled her. The agent walked in with a couple files in her hands. "You've been making that face for days now."

"Have I?" Aitana sighed as she took the files into her hands. "I didn't notice."

"What's it for?"

Aitana shrugged. "I honestly don't know."

"Well maybe it's time we figured it out because we'd really love to have our old Aitana back, some more than others."

Aitana looked up at the blonde. "What?"

"Nothing," JJ waved it off. Her eyes soon landed on the valentine card and flower. "Oh, got another one?"

"Yeah," Aitana moved the card over for her to see.

JJ 'aawd' much like Penelope had earlier. "This is really sweet. What's the flower this time?"

"I don't know."

"We could ask Spence, he's still in." JJ picked up the flower and made a turn to go do what when Aitana exclaimed a sharp "No!" JJ turned back with confused eyes. "Why not?"

Aitana shifted in her chair, an audible sigh leaving her lips. "I...don't know."

JJ raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't know? What?"

"I don't know!" Aitana almost whined which was very unlike her and immediately pulled JJ back to the desk.

"What's going on?" the blonde planted herself in the chair across. "It's got to do with Spencer, huh? You've been kinda weird with each other."

"I really don't know," Aitana insisted. "We were just talking about the last valentine card I got and then he said something about not believing that I'd actually listened to one of his rants and...I don't know, I got upset."

"That he thought...you didn't listen to him?" JJ asked slowly so as to understand the issue. It sounded a bit ridiculous but there was something Aitana had yet to see.

"He didn't say it explicitly like that," Aitana admitted. "He just said he didn't know I listened to him talking about a theory."

"Why'd you get upset?"

"Because...because I...I always listen!" Aitana exclaimed. Her lips were pulling down into a frown. "I like listening to him. He always has interesting things to say."

"Does he?" JJ made a face that, for a moment, had Aitana smiling. "I love Spencer but sometimes I have to tune him out for my own well being."

"He talks a lot but if you listen, it's always so interesting," Aitana said, a moment later adding softly, "Plus, he always gets excited when he talks about something." The frown returned to her face. "How could he think I wouldn't listen to him!? He thought I was like everyone else! Since when am I like everyone..." She paused when she realized what she was about to say.

JJ's eyebrows raised almost to her hair line. "Sounds like somebody's mad she got clumped with 'everyone else'."

"Am not," Aitana said quickly. She pursed her lips together so hard that for a moment, they went white.

JJ smirked. "Oh yes she is!"

"Am not!"

JJ laughed. "Yes, you are! That's why you won't even go ask him what flower that is!"

"Maybe I just don't care about these valentine gifts anymore! How about that?" Aitana asked, thinking she'd created a good challenge.

"Could be," JJ would only give her a second to claim victory before she added, "Or maybe you just don't care anymore because you're thinking more about Spencer than this admirer."

Aitana's eyes widened in alarm. "Shut up!"

"Something to think about," JJ winked as she got up. "And for the record, it's not that far-fetched between you two."

Aitana said nothing. Her eyes lowered to her desk.

"Hey," she heard JJ call again. She stood by the doorway. "You really don't see it?"

"There's nothing to see," Aitana said quickly.

"Oh, there's plenty to see," JJ promised before leaving.

Aitana remained right where she was. With this type of conversation there was no way in hell she could face Spencer and say something coherent. By the the end of night, she might just end up hating JJ for planting these ideas in her head.

She didn't plant anything that wasn't already there. Aitana swallowed hard. Even the voice in her head was against her on this one? She glanced at her bouquet still standing on her shelf behind her. It'd grown over the weeks with flowers she couldn't even feel the same appreciation for anymore.

~ 0 ~

"If I had a star for every time you brightened my day, I'd have a galaxy in my hand."

The flower was beyond gorgeous. It had to be the best flower out of the entire bouquet she already had. It was a dark purple with contrasting white spots of various sizes. It truly resembled a galaxy.

Aitana sighed deeply. The Valentines card was sweet as well. It should've brought her a warmth or a fluttering in her stomach but...there was nothing. There was an ache but she wasn't sure if it was because she didn't feel anything for the gift or if it was because of the pending talk she still needed to have.

"Aitana?"

Oh God. She subtly took in a breath then turned to meet Spencer. "Hey," she gave a weak wave of her hand. That was stupid! Yes, yes it was.

If Spencer thought so too, he didn't let it show. "Are you busy?"

"Uh, no, not really..."

"Can we talk?"

"Sure." Aitana put her things on the desk. "But, um, I should start by apologizing for that whole thing about listening." God, even saying it made her feel ridiculous. What did he know about the truth behind that moment?

"Why were you upset about that?" Spencer had to ask because no matter how many times he thought about it, he just couldn't figure it out. He replayed the moment at least a hundred times each day to see if he'd said something offensive, or maybe did something that he hadn't thought, but nothing stood out.

"Oh, just forget it Spencer. It's not a big deal," Aitana made a wave of it.

"No, it was," he said, taking a few steps closer to her. "I did something that you clearly didn't like and I want to know what it was so I don't do it anymore."

"It wasn't you, Spencer, honest. I'm just...weird," she settled for. She thought it would be the end when Spencer cracked a smile at her.

"You're not weird—leave that for me. In fact, is that what I did? Something weird?"

Aitana sighed. "Why can't you just leave it?"

"Because it still has you upset," he started to frown. "The fact you won't tell me makes me think that I'll never be able to fix it and I don't want to lose you!" He only realized what he said after he'd said it. For all the smarts he had, he couldn't figure out a way to backtrack from that.

Aitana's eyebrows raised in surprise. "What?"

"Nothing!" He said quickly. "Forget it!" He made a turn to leave but she grabbed his arm.

"Now you're upset," she pointed out. "Why?"

"You go first," he said with a sharp look.

She smirked. "I don't think so."

He rolled his eyes at her. At least she was smirking now. "Worth a try." To help change the subject, he looked past her to the desk. "You got another gift?"

Aitana looked over her shoulder, not even affording the gifts her entire look. "Yeah," she muttered.

"What's the matter?" Spencer frowned. "You...didn't like it?" It actually hurt watching her shake her head. Each flower and card he chose was picked out with care and, frankly, with the idea that it would make her smile or laugh the most. He thought for sure the Galaxy Flower were would be her favorite for its appearance (and even the name). Plus, the quote was pretty sweet and honest. He couldn't count the times when she'd lifted his spirits with just a smile from her.

"I don't know, maybe it's getting old," Aitana shrugged her shoulders. Or maybe she was just realizing what she wanted.

"Really?" Spencer had to take a step back before she noticed the strain on his face. He was using every profiling skill he had not to let the pain be visible. He'd never done something that hard.

"I don't know," Aitana whispered. "Maybe I'm just over the secrets."

"Are you really?"

"Maybe."

"That's a lot of 'maybe's' you're throwing out there..."

"Maybe I'm confused," Aitana admitted, picking her gaze up from the floor to meet his. "You want to know why I was upset?"

"More than anything," Spencer answered fast before she changed her mind.

"You said you wouldn't mind if I didn't listen to you because everyone typically doesn't. And you know what? That hurt. It shouldn't but it does." Aitana ducked her head and hoped to God she wasn't freaking him out. It was too late to go back now.

Spencer was speechless for a minute. His mind wasn't comprehending fast enough and that alone should've been alarming. He learned long ago that when it came to Aitana, he was an outright idiot. "I'm sorry," he apologized. He hadn't even thought about that word being a problem. It'd slipped out. A force of habit, really.

"No, you don't have to apologize," Aitana leaned against her desk. "I know you didn't do it on purpose and, honestly, it's ridiculous. I shouldn't get upset. I'm...I'm part of everyone."

"No you're not," he said swiftly.

She blinked at him. "What—"

"You are not 'everyone'," he said before he could stop himself. Thinking about it more, looking at her downcast self, he didn't want to stop. She was upset because she thought she was just 'everyone'. The irony was just too much for him.

"It's fine, Spencer. You don't have to try and fix things."

"I will because I have to, I need to clarify things. You don't see how special you are to me!"

"What?" She looked up just as he came closer to her, so close that she was locked between him and the desk. She swallowed hard once the nerves started kicking in. Her heart already started picking up its pace.

"I don't go hunting down space-themed flowers throughout the city for just anybody." He actually found the nerve to smirk at her wide-eyed reaction. Sure his heart was currently threatening to burst from his chest but he would never forget this moment. It was all worth it.

"Hunt...flowers...?" Aitana slowly turned her head to see her bouquet on the shelf. "That was...that was you?"

Spencer nodded. "Yes. It was me. It's...me." Aitana stared at him with eyes even more wide. They might as well pop! Even her freckles stretched when her mouth fell open. Spencer braced himself for what was coming next. This was the moment where she would reject him and he had to be prepared for it. He always thought of different scenarios where he would get the courage to tell her how he felt and then she would inevitably reject him. Sometimes it was nice, like the real Aitana would, and then other times it was...bad.

"You...you went hunting for flowers to fit the cards?" Aitana was slow in her question. Her mind was still trying to wrap around the idea of him searching through stores for her.

"Y-yeah," Spencer's one worded answer still was enough time for his voice to crack. Embarrassing.

Aitana, however, giggled.

'She gets giggly around. It's her tell.'

Spencer's eyes widened slightly. "That's...?"

"Incredibly sweet," she finished, her lips pursing together. "You really went through the stores for me? Why?"

"Because it's you," he shrugged. "I thought you'd like it but I guess I got it wrong..."

"No!" she exclaimed. "I mean...I said what I said because I didn't know it was you behind it. I was getting tired of it because of you..."

"Because of me," Spencer repeated, once again growing puzzled even when he thought about her words. Yeah, complete idiot.

Aitana knew she was making no sense to him. "I kept thinking about you when I saw the new gifts. I was more concerned with our relationship than this admirer's affections for me. See...I didn't want to lose you either." Her cheeks blushed pink.

Spencer felt the warmth blossom in his chest that soon spread all around him. He heard right. She said...

"I'm sorry for what I said. Of course I love the gifts," Aitana brought her hands to her chest, her soft smile making a force of fluttering erupt in Spencer's stomach. "They're exactly what I like and only you would know that. You listen to me all the time."

Spencer smiled. "Of course I do." His arms were hesitant when they came around Aitana. He was being brave again and testing the waters of this new territory they were seemingly crossing. She stared into his eyes in those seconds he struggled to decide. She was letting him make the call and boy was she glad when he made the right one. His arms wrapped around her, hands resting on her back. He swallowed hard when her fingers tapped up his chest.

"You know, tomorrow's the day," she said, expression much too innocent.

"The day?" he repeated.

"Valentine's day," she reminded. "I don't mean to sound demanding but...what did you have planned for tomorrow? Any, uh, last flower in that big brain of yours?"

"Ah," Spencer nodded. "There was one...I was going to go to the store today..."

"What if we cut to the chase and you just tell me the valentine's right now?"

"I would...but now I'm not sure I like it."

"What? Why not?"

"There was one quote I liked but I was never going to use it."

"Why?" Aitana could genuinely see the red take over his cheeks. "Dr. Reid, what were you thinking?" She smirked.

"I found it accidentally!"

"Aha."

"I did! I swear! I picked every quote carefully. I wanted to see you smiling and...feeling special."

"I did feel special," Aitana said, tilting her head at him. "But you've made me feel special way before any of this started. If you had just said something...we could've avoided trouble."

"I'm sorry," Spencer lowered his head. "I was always afraid of messing things up. I'd rather be friends with you than be nothing at all."

"Well I think I'd rather be something more," Aitana hummed. "There's just one catch."

Spencer was curious about that. "What is it?"

"You have to tell me what that valentine's quote was, the one you didn't want to say."

Spencer cleared his throat on the spot. "Aitana..." She giggled. God, she sounded so pretty when she giggled. "It's stupid."

"Of course it is, so tell me!" She jumped on him, startling the hell out of him but it quickly passed when he realized she was on him. His arms instinctively held onto her tighter. "Pleeeease?" She pouted at him.

"Not the pout..." He groaned. "Please don't do the pout."

"Tell me the quote!"

He sighed. He straightened them up and stepped back. This could go in two very different directions. "It was, um, 'Kiss me. Let me taste your sweet lips before the asteroids destroys earth'."

Aitana laughed. "Oh my God!"

"I know. You can see why I wasn't going to ever use it."

Aitana reached over him and tugged him close to her until she was leaned against her desk again. She raised her head, showing off a clean smirk. "Well, before the asteroids destroy Earth...kiss me."

Spencer blinked at her. "What?"

"You led me on for like 2 weeks. You better kiss me now or the asteroids will be the least of your problems." She draped her arms over his shoulders.

"Really...?" His doubt was endearing but only a little bit. She was actually getting impatient.

"Yes!" She exclaimed.

He leaned down, pausing midway to make sure it was still what she wanted. At this point, his heart was going to explode at any second. He might as well get a kiss before it (or the asteroids) got him first.

His lips found hers with a little bit of hesitance in the beginning, like maybe she would change her mind at the last minute. But she didn't. She kissed him back and moved with him in a synchronicity that they didn't even know they had. It was as if they'd each been waiting to meet the perfect partner who knew exactly how to correspond with the other.

Aitana's fingers played with his curls even when they parted. The way she smiled at him would never leave his mind. Spencer had the feeling he would be committing to memory a lot more moments like these. The sensations were definitely going in the books.

"Tomorrow..." she barely started when he cut her off.

"Let's go out," he said and flushed immediately afterwards. "I mean..."

"No," she said, her fingers sliding from his hair to his cheek, "You meant that; stick with it. Take me out. Please?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. You want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

"Absolutely," she couldn't say it fast enough. "But...you have to tell me every quote you didn't use in these cards."

His eyebrows rose. "Oh, Aitana, you don't want to hear them. The internet is not a very good thing sometimes."

She laughed. "That's the idea, genius! I want to hear them come out of your usually well educated lips." She tapped his lips with a smirk. "I can't wait!"

"Maybe we can let the asteroids come a little earlier..." He said and let his head fall over her shoulder. He could feel her body shaking as she laughed. She kissed his hair, mumbling a few assumptions of what those quotes were.

Giggly and a tease. That's what she was. And he couldn't wait to finally take her out tomorrow of all nights.

#ocappreciation #criminal minds #spencer reid #fd: criminal minds #cm #spencer reid imagines #criminal minds imagines #cm imagines #spencer reid fics #criminal minds fics #cm fics #oc: aitana dulce serrano

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kathyprior4200 · 4 years

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A Tale of Two Shadow Men

1920s New Orleans was a vibrant place full of jazz, music, and a blending of various cultures. Good food and music were the few things that could bring the rich, the poor and everyone in between together. A few times during the year, like during Mardi Gras, people could forget their ordinary lives and just lose themselves in their minds and in the moment.

Of course, reality would rear its ugly head once again, and the people would go their separate ways. The rich lived in the well-maintained Garden District, surrounded by mansions, ivy, elegant clothing and luxury. In contrast, the poor and working class gave up many hours to earn enough money just to feed their families. That is, if they were even lucky enough to have jobs. Women and non-white individuals had it worse in comparison to the privileged white men.

Within New Orleans, there is an infamous tale that nearly everyone knows. One that, at first glance, seems like a myth to frighten children or to keep troublemakers in line. But this tale is aimed not just at children…and it’s all too real. It serves as a warning to anyone who might easily be swayed down the wrong path.

It is the classic tale of the Shadow Man.

The Shadow Man in question is Francois Keith Facilier, more commonly known as Dr. Facilier. He is noticeable by his dark brown skin, black mustache, slender build and graceful moves. He wears purple and black and carries a cane. His suave personality and silver tongue could convince many people to believe him. Many individuals thought their wishes would come true after seeing the shady businessman, only to find themselves grow old or hairy or have bad luck follow them around. All the while, Dr. Facilier would smirk and count the coins in his hands. His violet eyes are full of greed, reflecting his selfish nature. Dr. Facilier is notorious for scamming people, making deals, and smooth-talking his way out of almost anything.

Born June 4, 1880, in New Orleans, Dr. Facilier grew up in a poor household. Due to his background and the constant racism in his life, Facilier grew to be envious of the rich early on in his life. Ironically enough, his mother, Clementine, had royal blood. Her father (Facilier’s maternal grandfather), Louis was a king of New Orleans, making her a princess. Clementine was also royal in that she was a descendent of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Clementine was a beautiful black woman who worked tirelessly to help with her son’s future. She had fallen in love with David, her dark-skinned husband. Clementine fell from grace before Facilier’s birth when her lovely estate was ransacked and burned by jealous criminals. She was soon forced to start her life from scratch. She eventually met a chef named David, fell in love and got married to him.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Facilier’s maternal grandmother was none other than Mama Odie, the blind Voodoo priestess who was born in 1729! (She’s 197 in 1926, older than Marie Laveau) (Mama Odie knew Marie Laveau during her lifetime and they collaborated on magic rituals!) Her expertise in Voodoo magic and spiritual bond with Marie enabled her to live as long as she did.

Facilier’s parents lived in a poor area near the bayou swamp. Over time, David became alcoholic and distant from his son. He was drafted into World War One and was killed in battle. Single and alone, the innocence that Clementine had was eventually gone. Clementine sought the wealth and luxury she had previously enjoyed. She desired it so much that she went to Mama Odie for guidance. Mama Odie told her that she and Dr. Facilier should enjoy the pleasant modest life they had.

Facilier used to be in love with a woman (who would give birth to his daughters Freddie and Celia), but she then pursued a wealthy man, making him jealous. Facilier used to use magic for good with Mama Odie but turned to the dark side.

But a modest life wasn’t good enough for either of them. Not with the daily struggles and up-turned noses from royalty and the better-off.

Clementine instilled a drive for greed into her son early on. She taught him that life simply was not fair, and that the wealthy whites always got their way. Facilier was upset that those like Prince Naveen and Eli “Big Daddy” La Bouff could enjoy their lives without laborious work or discrimination. Before long, Clementine got so desperate that she went to the dark Loa to seek their aid. They offered her wealth and a chance to start her own business. Soon enough, Clementine was running her own parlor where she read people’s fortunes and offered them their fantasies for money. She even went as far as becoming a mistress to a few of her male clients in exchange for a heap of money and jewelry.

Facilier learned of her tricks at a young age and she taught him the art of acting and manipulation. For a while, Clementine was content on watching other’s lives dwindle away while she could feel the satisfaction of being recognized and respected once again. (She made sure that those who ransacked her house had eternal bad luck). Like his father, Facilier’s mother also became distant from him, even slapping him when he misbehaved. Her son had become nothing more than a business assistant to her.

But her new life and magic powers came with a steep price. It wasn’t long before she fell gravely ill. Her skin got wrinkled like a raisin and her hair straggly like old grass. She had misused her powers and the price to pay was her own life. She soon passed away to Guinee and all that was left of her was her shrunken head, which Facilier kept in his emporium. Now the young man was left to fend for himself, with only the knowledge from his mother and the hungry stares of the evil wooden spirits watching him. Despite his mother being abusive, Dr. Facilier still missed her at times.

Not long after that, Dr. Facilier formed an alliance with the dark Loa, specifically to Baron Samedi and Met Kalfu. The wealthy had insulted him and ruined his life for long enough. He also wanted to continue his mother’s legacy, doing what he did best.

Why work hard when other people could do the work for you?

He started to dress and act like Baron Samedi, hosting musical numbers and parties in his name. Grand-Mama Odie tried to reason with her grandson, warning him that getting involved with the Loa would only bring disaster. She also reminded him of the true nature of Voodoo and Hoodoo; a cultural faith based on ancestor and saint reverence. But Facilier just laughed it off, calling her an “old senile mambo.” Facilier was too far gone after being persuaded by the cunning shadows to make a deal. His own shadow (Reilicaf) took a life of its own, reflecting his true emotions and intentions. Mama Odie found peace and connection to the spirits and her snake pet in the swamp, the place she called home. Mama Odie knew that there was no point in fighting him…unless he intended to cause harm to New Orleans. (She was powerful, but she didn’t want to harm her grandson or cause further harm to others. She decided to let him learn his lesson).

(Possible Twisted Tale book “Almost There” What if Tiana made a deal with Dr. Facilier? by authors Lim, Braswell or Calonita)

(“Disney Chilled: Fiends On The Other Side” book by Vera Strange)

AU: Takes place before Princess and the Frog

Jamal, an African American boy has lived in his twin brother Malik’s shadow all his life. Malik has a fan club, and always gets chosen in science class and gym class. Jamal feels invisible…not even his parents seem to notice him. He doesn’t even enjoy his jambalaya and ice cream. One day, Malik gets a trumpet from his grandmother and Jamal gets a skull necklace with beads and feathers. She leaves him a message that the skull necklace would protect him from the shadows. Jamal misses the bus and hides from Corton and his gang of bullies behind a dumpster. He soon runs into Dr. Facilier who offers him a chance to be popular. The red eyes from the skull glow in warning, but Jamal feels compelled to walk into the emporium. Dr. Facilier presents Jamal with a tarot card showing him proudly holding a trophy. Jamal fails to notice the image of his brother cowering in the shadows. Jamal runs to leave, the voodoo dolls watching him.

Dr. Facilier torments Jamal with tarot cards, nightmares and shadows coming after him, even Jamal’s own shadow. Jamal’s grandmother appears in a dark dream, chiding him of his choice. A tarot card reading “Death” appears by his feet. The shadow man arrives to his house one night and demands the necklace in order for him to get his wish. Jamal considers offering something else valuable. With sinking guilt, Jamal steals his brother’s trumpet and gives it to Dr. Facilier. The villain laughs and vanishes.

The next morning, Jamal finds that his parents don’t remember Malik. He looks and sees pictures of himself being successful at school, instead of his brother. He is class president and has fans asking him to sign yearbooks. He soon finds out that Malik was turned into a shadow, unnoticed by anyone except him and his skater friend Riley. Malik is furious at his brother for stealing his trumpet and being so foolish. Riley says that her grandmother has the same necklace that Jamal has. She leads the group into the bayou swamp where her grandmother lives. But Dr. Facilier sends his dolls and shadows after them. They nearly get eaten by possessed alligators when Riley’s grandmother throws dust to break the spell and save them. In the house, Riley’s grandmother reveals the same necklace that Jamal has. She reveals that Dr. Facilier used to be part of a magical order with her that used magic for good. But then he became fascinated by dark magic and soon tried to stop them. His dark magic killed Jamal’s grandmother, who had hidden under dark veils and wanted to protect her children.

The dolls burst into the room. Riley and her grandmother hold them off with magic as Jamal and Malik flee. A hurricane forms above them. They enter a clearing and soon are face to face with the shadow man. Dr. Facilier’s shadow arrives and strangles the shadowy Malik. Jamal begs him to let him go but Dr. Facilier demands him to hand over the necklace. Jamal realizes, too late, that Riley and Malik had been his true friends all along. Riley’s grandmother warns that Dr. Facilier will be unstoppable if he gets the necklace. Riley steps in to help with her staff but the dolls pin her down.

Jamal realizes that if he breaks the necklace, Dr. Facilier will lose his soul. Dr. Facilier then says that if he dies, then Malik will vanish forever, as he is the only one who can reverse the curse. Malik is about to get eaten by Dr. Facilier’s shadow. Feeling pity for his brother, Jamal gives him the necklace in defeat. Dr. Faciler grins and grows taller in power, eyes red. Jamal then demands that he release Malik…only for him to become a shadow as well. Dr. Facilier laughs, saying that he didn’t promise Jamal that he would save him. A hurricane devastates New Orleans and Dr. Facilier briefly becomes a mayor, doing martial law. He is able to make decisions and plans to take over New Orleans. Jamal and Malik remain unnoticed by their parents who live a life without their children. The brothers begin to fade as Dr. Facilier laughs and says, “Now you know what it’s like to lurk in the shadows…forever!”

Mama Odie eventually breaks the spell and brings down Dr. Facilier’s rule after the city recovers from the hurricane. But Jamal, Malik, Riley and their grandmothers remain dead.

(“Princess And The Frog” by Disney)

1926

The Loa grant the witch doctor Facilier dark magic and he uses it to swindle the citizens of New Orleans for easy money. He “grants” wishes and poses as a shady businessman. Despite his magic powers, Dr. Facilier still struggled financially and wanted to seize the La Bouff fortune. He plots to use Naveen and Charlotte’s union to seize their fortune. However, if Dr. Facilier failed to properly pay the Loa back, he would lose his soul. Still, he was willing to take that risk.

At his parlor, he offers Naveen freedom while offering Lawrence a chance to live the life of a prince. He reads their Tarot cards, and Naveen fails to see the green lily pads in the background. Naveen is turned into a frog and Lawrence becomes a copy of Naveen through a talisman. Dr. Facilier planned to murder Eli “Big Daddy” La Bouff as Charlotte and the disguised Lawrence got married, the two villains would then split the money 60-40. Dr. Facilier wanted to become the most powerful man in the city.

Later on, Dr. Facilier asks for help from his “friends on the other side” after Naveen’s blood runs out from the talisman. Dr. Facilier offers the dark spirits the souls of the citizens as payment, and he soon gains an army of shadow demons to track down the heroes.

Naveen escapes and grabs the talisman, saving Big Daddy. Dr. Facilier kills Ray and creates an illusion of Tiana’s restaurant to try and persuade her. Tiana breaks free and shatters the talisman. The spirits enter the cemetery and drag Dr. Facilier to the Voodoo spirit world (Guinee) to be tormented forever.

(“Murder On The Air” by Kathy Prior 42)

(“Hazbin Hotel” by Vivziepop)

This is where the story of Dr. Facilier should end. He was a man green with envy over the lives of the rich. His desire led him down the path of evil and darkness. He almost had Tiana and New Orleans under his control, but thankfully Tiana, Naveen, Ray, the crocodile and the others saved the day.

But not many people know that Dr. Facilier wasn’t alone. In fact, there was a second Shadow Man that existed in New Orleans. But who was it?

The obvious answer would appear to be Dr. Facilier’s shadow. But that’s not the case, despite it being an actual man of shadow. The man was actually a physical man.

No, it wasn’t the Axeman either, though the other man was a serial killer…perhaps even worse than the Axeman himself.

Not only did this Shadow Man exist…he was also Dr. Facilier’s younger distant cousin.

Dr. Facilier had a father and a royal mother, Clementine. Dr. Facilier’s grandmother was Mama Odie. Mama Odie had a twin black sister named Odette, a woman of Native American descent who revered Yemaya. She was also related to Marie Laveau. Odette didn’t live as long as Odie (She lived long due to magic and genetics) but shared her feisty personality. Odette died long before the 1920s but not before she gave birth to a few children after marrying Mathis, a jazz musician. Her favorite child was a girl named Antoinette Loretta Duvalier. She followed in her footsteps, becoming a well-known Voodoo priestess and doing good deeds for the community.

Antoinette enjoyed her life, but also faced discrimination and a hard job. She was pressured to marry and meet societal expectations. To have a more stable life, she married a white French man, named Armand Louis Moreau, who was equally in love with her. Armand’s parents did not approve of the interracial marriage but Armand pledged his devotion to his wife. The couple then had a French Creole son on January 24, 1896…a boy named Alastor.

Alastor grew up in New Orleans, raised by his father and mother. As a young child, he was exposed to the wonders of the woods and secrets of the swamp. Although his family was far from rich, he was still able to live a fairly comfortable life. He had short brown hair, brown eyes and medium brown skin. He would often wear glasses, bow-ties and suspenders. Although he, too was jealous that the rich lived better off, little Alastor mostly pursued his passion for music and theater early on. He especially enjoyed all the festive holidays like Mardi Gras, All Soul’s Day, St. John’s Day, Christmas and more.

As time went on, Alastor started to be bullied by his peers for his heritage and “feminine” interests. It wasn’t uncommon for boys to throw rocks and mud at him, calling him “Chocolate Boy” or racial slurs. They would pour cold water on him, telling him to “wash off.” Playing musical instruments and doing theater were the only good parts about school. Whenever Alastor would get sad, his mother would tell him, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile.” He learned to appear happy and confident as much as possible, after all, “boys don’t cry.” Alastor and his mother were inseparable. Antoinette taught him how to make jambalaya and Creole meals, how to sew Voodoo dolls, do rituals and play music. They would dance together to the gramophone. In contrast, Armand wanted Alastor to get into more “masculine” interests like sports, hunting and girls. But Alastor wasn’t interested in anyone as he grew up. Alastor got through the days by working hard and smiling like he had no care in the world. Louis Armstrong and his mother were his lifelong role models. He was a happy, go-lucky kid who respected his ancestors and rolled along with life.

But events built up over the years that would led to a traumatic event. Armand grew tiresome of Alastor, even calling him a “mixed bastard of sin.” Armand went to church more and felt more pressure to conform from his parents. He started hitting and beating Alastor whenever he misbehaved. He would chide his wife for not having the house clean enough or for not having dinner ready. Alastor learned hunting and taxidermy from his father, and also how to shoot a gun. But aside from hunting trips in the winter, their relationship was distant and strained.

One fateful night around ten years old, Alastor caught his father hooking up with another woman behind his mother’s back. Furious, Armand stomped into Alastor’s room and proceeded to molest the little boy. Alastor’s mother came in to comfort him and wash him up, but Alastor was adverse to touch ever since. Antoinette couldn’t do anything, as Armand was the head of the household. To the delight of Armand’s parents, Armand declared his divorce to Antoinette, where he would take most of their stuff and leave Antoinette and Alastor in poverty. After beating his son, Armand was about to rape his sleeping wife to “teach that whore one more lesson.” But before he could, Alastor snapped. With shaking hands, he takes a riffle and shoots his father square in the chest. This startles Antoinette awake. Alastor quickly hides the body outside and Antoinette never knows what he did.

Alastor grew up and completed school. As a teen, he collected bugs, swam in the creek, befriended gators, hunted and hiked. He also enjoyed the Picture Show, going to as many shows as he could. He began to smoke and explore more death-related rituals and the dark Loa. His also let his dark brown hair grow long, up to his chin.

In 1912, Alastor witnesses the Titanic sinking in the newspaper. A hurricane arrives in New Orleans, but Alastor and his family rescue other people and recover. Alastor decides to let a cruel policeman drown instead of helping him.

World War One arrives and Alastor is drafted. While there, he witnesses his comrades die next to him. He is part of the team that operates radios for communication. After returning home, his interest in radios increases and he begins crafting his own.

Sadly in 1918, the Spanish Flu occurs, resulting in the death of his beloved mother. No doctors are willing to help. A heartbroken Alastor is left to bury his mother in the cemetery next to his grandmother. In a fit of rage, Alastor kills criminals at night in disguise, earning him the Vigilante title. Alastor was no longer connected to his ancestors, his Voodoo magic turning Petro red. Alastor trailed down the dark path, leading him to practice the stereotypical evil Voodoo portrayed in media. He even began placing curses and hexes on people, wearing alligator teeth on a necklace.

Soon, it was just him and a life of poverty. Alastor nearly commits suicide in 1920, but comes across Dr. Facilier at his emporium. Both of them find out they’re cousins and they pursue music, wine, cooking and dark magic together for several months. Facilier then reads Alastor’s fortune and attempts to steal what was left of his money. Facilier promises him a better life with wealth and less grief. Alastor agrees to his deal.

Met Kalfu, Baron Samedi and Furfur embed Alastor with powerful Eldritch magic to use in the afterlife should he win. (But these Loa weren’t the traditional Papa Legba, Kalfu and the others Alastor had revered in the past. These beings were pure evil.) In order to assure his powers, they tell Alastor to offer human souls to them, which he eventually does. His powers would increase, the more souls he collected. Alastor’s faith and heart breaks as he loses his connection with the genuine Loa and the saints of his youth.

Alastor offers his soul, afterlife powers and money to Dr. Facilier and the Loa if Dr. Facilier is able to achieve his goal of being wealthy and powerful. But if Facilier fails, then Alastor gains Dr. Facilier’s powers and servitude. Both men shake hands, along with their sentient shadows. There was another factor to the deal: The man who dies first would automatically lose. Alastor quickly leaves before Dr. Facilier gets any ideas.

The luck magic, coupled with hard work, enables Alastor to be a bandleader and gain fame for his work. Per agreement, Alastor gives Dr. Facilier some of his money to continue his dark work. The intrigued CBS arrive to interview Alastor about his performances in 1920. They hear of Alastor’s expertise in fixing radios and creating a crystal radio set of his own. Alastor is eventually interviewed and hired as a radio DJ in a low-class position. Playing the same songs soon got boring. Alastor didn’t put the effort into his music only to be stuck with more racism and a lower status. The higher ups were loudmouths standing in the way of his goal.

So he decides to eliminate them instead.

Alastor would soon be known as the greatest radio host in the city…and the Louisiana Lunatic serial killer. He takes great care to avoid the Axeman, and even writes a similar letter that he made, telling people to play jazz at night.

1920s

The Roaring 20s begins, the peak of Alastor’s life. He basks in wealth and fame, drinking liquor, bitter coffee, and flirting with women. He meets flapper performer Mimzy who quickly becomes his best friend. Mimzy falls in love with Alastor but he doesn’t feel the same way. They nearly have sex but Alastor refuses. Mimzy wants to marry Alastor and go on extravagant tours around the world. But Alastor prefers peace and quiet in the wilderness. Mimzy is saddened at this but they still remain close friends, performing and dancing together.

Mimzy accidentally drinks a poisoned drink set by Alastor that was meant for a womanizer rapist he was watching. He is heartbroken over his friend’s death. He doesn’t want to be tied down and he thinks his sexuality is something that is wrong with him. (The term asexuality didn’t exist and he remembers when his grandparents suggested he be put in an asylum).

During the Roaring Twenties, Alastor begins his killing spree of racist men, rapists, and criminals. He is called the Vigilante and the Louisiana Lunatic and kills his victims in various ways. Guns, knives, axes, traps, and fire were some of the many tools he used. Alastor spares women and children.

Alastor flirts with women and manipulates them because it’s fun to do. People who made deals with him often found their money stolen by him. Many women are charmed by Alastor but Alastor doesn’t get intimate with any of them. He enjoys dancing with women and being on stage. Alastor lavishes in wealth, buying new red suits and top hats, a fancy red car and a microphone cane with golden deer antlers.

On the radio, Alastor tells dad jokes (especially radio-themed ones) and describes the deaths of his victims in detail. No one suspects that he is the killer until much later. Alastor also pulls pranks on people for fun (thumbtacks, kick me signs, soap in drinks, whoopee cushions, plastic doorways). Before the end of every program, he plays his favorite song, “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile.”

1926

(The events of “Princess and the Frog” take place.)

Dr. Facilier’s shadows capture 30 year old Alastor and Dr. Facilier steals some of his stuff. Dr. Facilier mocks him and says that he’ll get to watch all of New Orleans fall. Facilier grins at the thought of being all powerful and watching the Loa steal Alastor’s soul. Alastor is shocked by the betrayal and his cruelty. Before Dr. Facilier can kill his helpless cousin, the shadows arrive with the frog Naveen. Alastor uses the distraction to escape. (Alastor couldn’t bring himself to kill his cousin). Dr. Facilier is dragged into the Voodoo spirit world by the Loa after failing to keep the talisman intact. A victorious Alastor grins as his cousin is dragged away screaming. Alastor is more than happy to announce his death on the radio.

The other Axeman’s letter:

Hell, 1929

Esteemed Mortal of New Orleans: The Louisiana Lunatic

They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the sound waves that surround your earth. I am not a human being, but a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians call the Louisiana Lunatic. Down here, I’m the inevitable Radio Demon.

When I see fit, I shall appear and claim other victims as I see fit. I alone know whom they shall be. No clues will be left behind, save for what you might hear on the next broadcast.

Tell the police and the racist, elite scum of the world to beware. Let them try not to discover who I am, for it’d be better for them not to have been born than to incur the wrath of the Louisiana Lunatic. You’ll have a deer in the headlights look and won’t have any idea what hit you until after it’s too late.

Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a monster and murderer. But if I wanted to hurt anyone else here, I would have done so already. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. I could kill every one of your best and worst citizens, for I am in a close relationship with the Shadows of the Other Side.

At 6:06 pm next Friday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans and then visit those in Hell. I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, electro swing, and jambalaya. I swear by all the Loas and deities that I will spare those who can provide me with some great entertainment when I visit. Word of warning, I can read you people like a book, and see into your very souls. Anyone foolish enough to challenge me will have their corpses consumed and their screams muffled by the lovely sound of jazz bands jamming the night away.

I have been, am, and will be, the worst spirit that ever existed in fact, fantasy, or the realm of Hazbins.

Smile and stay tuned!

1929

The Great Depression comes into effect as well as the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Alastor enjoys reading about the chaos in the newspaper. People frantically sell their stuff and beg for jobs and money. He also enjoys seeing the orphans suffering homeless in the streets as it reminds him of his better off status. He also finds children annoying and undisciplined, a leftover trait from his father.

But soon, things take a downward turn. Alastor begins to lose money and food, his former glory days over. Alastor hoards radios and radio furniture in his house. He grows bony thin and his eyes have bags under them. Alastor grows unhealthy due to lack of food, and (almost!) resorts to cannibalism. He also fears losing his radio audience due to the prospects of TV. He meets Russian born Vincent (Vox), an ABC broadcasting company CEO who taunts him for his race and career. They get into a fight but victorious Vox leaves, saying to him that his days are over.

Alastor becomes depressed, cutting into his skin for rituals or just to taste his own blood…to feel something. His self-inflicted cuts add to the scars on his back and body from his dad and struggling criminals.

1929

Alastor finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster and briefly takes care of her. The Japanese baby is Nerissa Nefuti, also known as Niffty. Niffty is placed in an orphanage where she gets adopted by a picture bride and her husband, who travel to their home in California.

1933

Alastor becomes more careless with his killings, and is soon discovered by police in 1933. The police sends dogs after him, a German Shepard, a Pit Bull, and a hunting Black Lab dog. As he runs, he is bitten by a rabies infected dog in an alley. Alastor races through the snowy woods, experiencing painful headaches, and hallucinations of drowning and his parents being killed as deer. The police dogs bite at his legs but he shakes him off and runs some more.

A deer hunter spots him, thinking he’s a deer at first. He is fearful and disgusted by the madman who rushes at him head on. The hunter is Vox’s friend and Vox smirks. Alastor’s insane eyes beg the hunter to finish him off, as he didn’t want to be arrested. The hunter almost shoots him but finds he can’t do it. Vox then shoots Alastor between the eyes and his body falls. (Video Killed the Radio Star). The dogs bark and maul at Alastor moments before the gunshot. The police arrive and see the hole in his forehead, his glazed eyes, bloodied clothing and frozen smile. Alastor’s body is promptly burned, his belongings destroyed and his radios given away to an antique shop. His death is announced on his own radio station by none other than Vox before it, too, is done for. Many of his fans are saddened but the majority of New Orleans is relieved that the killer is gone. Vox is hailed as a hero before he returns to his job in another state.

Think that’s the end of Alastor’s story? Think again!

(“Hazbin Hotel” by Vivziepop)

Alastor arrives in Hell and becomes a red deer-like demon with sinister red eyes. With his human memories still intact and his new powers granted to him, he soon terrorizes Hell and broadcasts his massacres on the radio. This earned him the title of the Radio Demon. His shadow (Rotsala) had a life of his own, behaving much like Dr. Facilier’s sinister shadow sidekick. Alastor also has a microphone staff that allows him to broadcast anywhere in Hell. Alastor, too has singing friends on the other side.

(Dr. Facilier eventually becomes a snake demon and Alastor’s helpless slave in Hell. The Loa in Guinee decide to further torment him by sending him to Hell’s greatest tormentor, Alastor. Dr. Facilier gets further humiliated when his younger cousin tortures him and reminds him that he now has his powers. Hence how Alastor became a “ripoff” of Dr. Facilier.)

His parents are different as well. His father Armand became Neleus, a cruel black dog demon with large antlers. (Referencing Alastor’s fear of dogs and his father) His mother Antoinette became Poena, a humanoid red doe who can travel between Heaven and Hell.

(The events of the Alastor Prequel Comic and the Hazbin Hotel Pilot Episode take place.)

Alastor strolls around Hell, flirting with Victorian women and indulging in the act of cannibalism, thanks to his mentor Rosie. Alastor protects women from evil men but also doesn’t like strong-willed women who disagree with him or break the old societal standards. He reunites with Mimzy and they share a dance. Vox becomes a ruler over television, becoming Alastor’s powerful rival. While Vox seeks power through evolution, Alastor is content to be stuck in the past. (Alastor hates Vox, not just because of their differences in technology). Vox was also Niffty’s abusive husband.

Alastor makes deals with the cleaning cyclops Niffty and the alcoholic cat demon Husk. Both of them protect Alastor and do tasks for him in exchange for safety and comfort. Everyone runs away at the sight of him, leaving him with no real companions. (He misses his mother dearly, and will do anything to reunite with her). Alastor grows to dislike people in elite authority positions, and finds it hard to express his true feelings to anyone.

Feeling bored and lonely over the decades, Alastor seeks out a new form of entertainment. Alastor knows that Vox could overpower him easily if he doesn’t seek new alliances. Alastor witnesses Charlie, the princess of Hell on TV talk about her plan to redeem sinners by opening up a hotel. It is her hope that demons can become better individuals so they can go up to Heaven and be safe from the yearly exterminations that take place in Hell. Alastor visits said hotel and offers to help. He meets Charlie’s girlfriend Vaggie, and Angel Dust, one of the hotel clients. Alastor fixes up the hotel with his magic and summons Niffty and Husk to his aid. He almost convinces Charlie to make a deal with him. Charlie instead orders him to help her out. The two share a dance before Alastor protects the hotel from another villain. Everyone knows that Alastor is up to no good, but Charlie decides to give him a chance.

So there you have it: the two Shadow Men of New Orleans were once innocent boys who each wanted freedom, love and better lives. Alas, their choices along with their circumstances made them the popular shady showmen they are to this day. Is it unknown if these men can be redeemed or if they even want to at all. The two tales merge into one, with the most disturbing message of all. We all have shadows inside of us, and sometimes it doesn’t take much for a person to turn evil. Whether it be a slimy snake in the shadows or a dancing demonic deer, one can never be too careful when dealing with the darkness.

#alastor #hazbinhotel #drfacilier #disney #voodoo

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saundraswriting · 4 years

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Interior Designer Chapter 5: Dinner

SUMMARY:You join the Avengers for dinner, part because you want to and partly because Tony wouldn't take no for an answer. You meet the others who expected to stay at the compound. Steve and Bucky talk. Your work habits make an appearance.

WARNINGS: Bucky and Steve both deal with intense emotions. Also I allude a bit to the reader's backstory. You have been shunned of sorts from a very wealthy family, you were forced to develop skills to better yourself to be of more value to your parents. so there are some references to a sense of familial detachment, I am not writing it as abuse because the reader is well cared for but her parents are hard to please and distant.

NOTES: This is an everyone lives/no one dies, Living in the compound, Non Civil War compliant, No Sokovian Accords AU.

Previous / Next

"No we haven't. My name is F/N :L/N. I just accepted an offer from Ms. Potts to be an Interior decorator for the compound. I'll work with each one of you to decorate and settle your rooms how you like. Then I'll also be in charge of the other living areas of the compound. My official title is Quartermaster of the Avengers." You spoke to everyone, looking at those who you see.

"I am called Vision. This is Wanda Maximoff and her brother Pietro Maximoff." Vison pointed to the two in front of you.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Vision, Ms. Maximoff and Mr. Maximoff." You smiled at the three of them.

"We are roughly the same age, surely you can use our first names." Wanda told you. You nodded in agreement.

"You can just call me anytime, baby." Sam winked at you from his position to your right. His charming smile shrunk ever so slightly at you lack of response. "Huh? You playing hard to get?" His smile gained strength.

"Nope, just got standards, bird-boy." You teased with a wiggle of your eyebrows. Laughter rang around the table, the hardest coming from your left. Steve and Bucky were laughing outright, making pride grow in your chest. You made the team laugh and smile.

"Oh, how you wound me!" Sam clapped a hand to his chest in mock horror.

"She is good. Keep that sense of humor, making fun of Sam is a sure fired way to get on the good side of some people." Steve said.

"Not that I am conceited or anything but I don't need an introduction." Tony said. He was on Sam's right across from Natasha. You shook your head.

"I think not. I have already met you, Captain Rogers, Sargent Barnes, and Mr. Wilson. I also knew Dr. Banner from university. I went to a science classes for color and light theory things. He is a well-rounded source with his 7 Ph.Ds." You smiled fondly at the man at the head of the table. "I know of Mr. Barton and Ms. Romanov. I was very impressed with your abilities during the Battle of New York. I will admit I didn't follow the news avidly after that until D.C and even then very infrequently."

"Call me Clint please." He told you. You smiled and shook your head. 'Maybe one day, you deserve the respect I can give you. But you can call me Y/N.' You signed to him fluently. His eyes widened in surprise and a twinkle lit up his eyes.

"I know half dozen languages fluently. and several less so; French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindu, Greek, ASL." You told everyone, you wanted full transparency on your part. They were the Avengers, least you could do was help them relax around you, let them drop their guard.

"Well, aren't you just full of surprises." Natasha murmured, leaning her head on her hand. She was peering at you closely, examining you. Your honesty only increased her suspicion.

You shrugged, debating on talking about it on night number one. 'full transparency, be honest.' you thought to yourself. "Many are not by my own doing. I was a member a very haughty family. I was forced to use every opportunity to earn something that could be used to better market myself to the highest bidder. I used everything I was forced to learn to get myself out before I was married off." You spoke to the middle distance, trying to push down the memories of your home life. The emotionlessness of your parents, the words used to make you feel like a burden, the endless hours of schooling, the punishments for being wrong or vocal. You spoke with no emotion, trying not to let through more than what you wanted at the moment. Some things were not meant for dinnertime conversation.

You visibly shook yourself, shifting away from the maudlin thoughts. "I don't mean to be depressing during dinner. I promise, Ms. Romanov, I mean you or your family any harm. I understand your suspicion, it has kept you alive until now." You smiled warmly at the redhead, not bothered by the behavior. She at least had the manners to look sheepishly at you.

Seeing everyone was just about done, there was leftovers. Which was strange to you, you figured they would eat everything. "Why don't you all do your movie thing-team bonding or whatever? I will clean up and make my way to my room. I still have some work I want to work on." You stood up clearing you place setting. Most of the others got up and moved to the living room to discuss options for the nights. You went back to the table, fully intending to clean up but Bucky and Steve both were shaking their heads at you.

"Not happening. Our ma's would be rolling in their graves." Steve said.

"No guest of ours is cleaning up from a meal let alone a dame like you. We got this." Bucky said. They used their immense bulk to block the table from you. Bucky even guiding you past him by the small of your back with his right hand.

You stared at them with narrowed eyes, unsure. "Fine. This is the only time I will tolerate this. I am now an employee, specifically Tony's but by associate yours. I will not accept this forced chivalry laying down. You can't make me." You walked past the table to join the others.

Bucky looked at you with an innocent look on his face, his tired eyes almost ruining it, but you could see his hair was clean and his scruff looked a little better. "Wouldn't dream of it. Now shoo." Bucky nudged you with his flesh hand.

"Good job Bucky. That was well done. Now let's hurry so we can go sit. You handled a full conversation with her exquisitely. Also you initiated touch. That is a lot of progress not just for today but in general." Steve said as they pitched empty cartons.

"I know, I am actually kind of worried. She is able to just make me forget. Like it is just so easy with her to be human. Don't get me wrong, I am tired. She might make it easy but I still have the consequences to deal with. Just since I met her, my thoughts have been racing. I reach out to touch her and forget I killed so many people.. I could hurt her or anyone if I forget a the wrong time." Bucky admitted.

"Yeah, you are human Buck. You need to accept and learn to move on. That is what the therapy is for. You hurt and killed people, yes, but that wasn't you. You aren't the only one here that could hurt her, I could, Sam could, Thor could, especially if we had to work through what you have to. I hate to tell you Bucky, there is no 'I am fixed' moment. You work at it every day all day. Everything takes time. And we all will be here to help you." Steve rested a hand on his friend's shoulder, squeezing when he wasn't shrugged off.

The two men finished cleaning up, packing up the leftovers and labeling them. They cleaned the table and put the dishes in the restaurant grade dishwasher. Once done, Steve stood by the living room Buck looking between the couches and the doorway to his room.

"If you want to duck out, no one will judge." Steve said.

"I think I might. I am tired. It has been a long day. I don't want to push it too far." Bucky was apologetic.

"That is perfectly okay. Knowing your limits is important too." Steve said.

"Then yes, I am turning in. I want to end on a high note, not taint my good day by having a bad night. I haven't had human-to-human contact for days and Y/N's comment about not needed to protect you got me twisted up. I need some time to just be." Bucky rubbed the back of his head, not looking at Steve. He was hesitating. Steve waited patiently.

"I don't resent you. I don't resent you because you got bigger. I don't resent you for me falling or moving on. I resent the assholes that made me into their puppet. I resent them from taking 70 years from me to use me like a plaything. I resent them for taking away the things about me that I knew." Bucky's hands were trembling ever so slightly. Steve felt his heart break all over again. "I know mentally-I understand-that you don't need me mother-henning you till the cows come home, I get that. That doesn't mean that I don't miss it. I also know that you are a dumbass punk who has only survived by being lucky. I am trying to relearn a lot of things. Shuri, Wanda and everyone have been more than helpful in re-wiring my brain. The hardest part sometimes is seeing Stevie and Steve at the same time, seeing you then and you now. I was your family then and you went and built one. I don't resent you or hate you, I am a little jealous sure. Of them. Of you." Bucky's eyes were wet again, breath shuddering in his chest. Steve felt his eyes grow wet, vision swimming from tears. He took a deep, shaky breath. He needed Bucky to hear this, to know this.

"James Buchanan Barnes, no matter what. No. Matter. What. You belong next to me. You are my family. They are my family. And if you want, they are your family. We found each other and built this family with our own hands. It won't happen right away. It will take time. Gods, I needed like five years before I got even slightly used to everything. You aren't alone. You'll never be alone again." Steve pulled Bucky into a tight breath-squeezing hug.

Bucky tucked his head into Steve's shoulder and squeezed back. He and Steve muttering soothing words into each other's ear, trying to not cry to hard. "Thank you Steve. For everything." Bucky pulled away after the lengthy hug. "I am definitely going to bed now. Night, punk." Bucky made his way to the entry way of his hallway calling out good nights to the others. They answered in kind-abet distractedly.

"Good night, Sargent Barnes. Sleep well." Your voice was firm and focused. You wanted him to know you meant it.

Steve came into the living room once Bucky left, you stood up right away.

"Y/N." Steve called. You went over. Steve grabbed your hand. "Thank you. Bucky and I had a heart-to-heart, a really nice one. We haven't really talked about anything of importance because I don't want to upset him and he doesn't wasn't to upset me. You helped him through a lot of things today, without even trying. He had been struggling with some of it for while now. You probably know that recovery isn't a straight line." You could see he had been crying, eyes were red and puffy, voice thick.

"I am glad to help. I don't know much about what happened, I felt you were in the right. I do feel bad though because I overstepped boundaries. Even if it helped him in the end. I also certainly didn't mean to trigger him." You help up a hand to stop Steve from speaking. "Captain Rogers, I very much did trigger him in the kitchen this afternoon. He was frozen and distant and crying. Subconsciously, my comment triggered an issue that had been hounding him for a while. It brought a lot to the conscious mind and he needed time to deal with it.

"I won't argue with you. I will tell you for the first time ever, my best friend gave me a hug. I have been waiting 70 plus years for that. He talked to me, about what he has been feeling. I want to thank you. I got parts of him I thought I would never see again. I know-because of you today-Bucky will be just fine." Steve squeezed your hand.

"Just in the span of today? I knew Sargent Barnes would be fine. With a family like yours, there was no doubt." You squeezed back, grinning. "Now, the kitchen is cleaned and I can go back to work." You pulled away but were stopped by Steve lightly yanking your arm.

"Um, No. It is movie time. Not working time." Clint said.

"I am an official SI employee. With a very important job to do. I have to get a head start on it." You tried to get away again. Steve stopped you once more.

"Nope, you didn't sign anything today. You are just a guess for now. So sit down and watch the movie and then if you want you can work again." Steve pulled you down to sit next to him, closer than socially acceptable. Steve knew that you were now one of his. He would protect you and care for you like the family he sees you as. "I hope you know that you are now unofficially a member of my family and I don't take that lightly." Steve whispered into your hair.

You huffed a laugh and relaxed. You and the others watched the movie and it was far from quietly, everyone making comments and jokes. Once it was over the others scattered, you headed back to the table to get some work done. You usually worked late and got up early, so this was not too far from usually. You had some trends that you wanted to research. A favorite designer of yours was releasing a new line of furniture. Time passed, you were switching from laptop, tablet, and notebook. You were focused but could feel yourself fading.

You were debating on pushing harder or trying to find your room when Sargent Barnes came into the kitchen.

"Y/N, you're still up?" He asked grabbing a bottle of water. His hair was in a very messy bun and clothes were rumpled.

You opened you mouth to answer him but were cut off by your own yawn. "Oh, that's how it is." he chuckled. "Come on, lets get you to bed. I am cutting you off for the night." He very carefully shut your laptop with his metal hand. The low lights glinting attractively off the black and gold vibranium.

"My w'rk." You slurred. Bucky looked up and shook his head.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y saved it. She told me that Tony also moved your room next to mine." Bucky placed his flesh hand on your back guiding you down the hallway and to your room. The door opened upon arrival, you stepped in.

"Cheers, Sargent Banres." You stumbled into you room the door cutting off the sight of you. Bucky shook his head again.

"Good night, doll." Bucky walked next door, getting back into bed with a smile on his face.

Previous / Next

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Okay, last update for a while. My vacation ends soon and I am out of pre-witten stuff. Let me know what you are thinking okay?

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #protective Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes fluff #recovered bucky barnes #bucky barnes in recovery #avengers family #domestic avengers #avengers fanfiction #saundraswriting #saundrasays

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overwatchworks · 4 years

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Not Allowed:

Really late for this but it’s loosely based on the first McGenjiweek prompt “I Love What’s Not Allowed”.

He knew love was supposed to hurt sometimes, but it always made up for that in the good times. At least, that was what everyone said. So he did not really understand why he felt like his was muted. He did not hurt that bad and he did not feel all that good.

There was a lot of things love was supposed to do for people that it did not for Jesse.

Jesse McCree thought he knew what love was. Thought a little bit of charm and a splash of infatuation was all it took to have someone love him back. To feel the same way he thought he did about them.

First it was with the boy down the street of his little house in New Mexico, the one that would come over and play with him outside in the summer sun. They would wrestle and run and share candies and a soda from the gas station in town that shut down soon after that. Jesse would smile at him and laugh, thinking that the grin brighter than the sun that he got in return was love.

Then, he told his Mama, and she yelled at him, forbade the boy from coming back over. Jesse had not understood why at first, but as he grew up, he saw his mother’s nerves when he was with other boys and watched her pray that her son would not disgrace the Lord. Bullshit, was his next thought.

There were many throughout the years, they came and went. He loved his Mama dearly, but it took her some time to come to terms with who he thought he loved. Sometimes, Jesse wondered if she ever really did.

It did not matter after she passed and he was left running to Deadlock for a spot to put his delinquent ass, starting up the gang with another person he thought he loved. Ashe was sharp tongued and an even sharper shot, and Jesse thought the admiration and envy he felt was love. She had money, people who respected her, and power at her fingertips. Jesse liked that, liked the way he felt at her side. Mistook that feeling for it being her doing, and got a punch in the jaw for it. She had been red as her eyes, though, Jesse laughing it off and did not try again after that.

His version of love tended to rise quickly and fade even faster after he was turned down or it was discovered to be lust rather than love, a pattern that repeated itself and got his heart broken more than a few times.

The next time he thought he had been in love was something dangerous. Gabriel Reyes was a hard man, but he was giving towards Jesse. Helped him back to his feet and gave him a good path to follow when he had nothing going for him. A puppy crush, was what they called it after Reyes gave him a hard shake of his head and a firm “No”.

Jesse found his interest faded quickly once more after getting a blunt lecture about it and shrugging it off. Would have been a bad idea anyways, in hindsight. Besides, Reyes had his eye on someone else.

Years passed and Jesse did a lot of growing up in them, the missions in Blackwatch hardening him more than even Deadlock had. He understood why Reyes was so tough after seeing the chaos the world could fall into, when they were tasked with reigning it in and not letting anyone know they were on the brink of global disaster. Sure, the Omnic Crisis was over, but there were still wars waging in its wake and organizations like Talon rising from the ashes.

The inside jobs were the worst, and often left them with less people coming out of them than those that went in. Or, on special occasions, they gained a member. On one occasion.

“Mission Log 3887, Shimada Castle. Time: 02:32. Location: Blackwatch Headquarters, Rome. Commander had me doing scout and recon, the usual since I had been posted in Japan. Then, we got a distress call around 22:58, somethin’ about our inside man needing help. Comms went dead after that, so Reyes sent me in to check it out. Found our man—or what was left of him—in a pool of blood, limbs hangin’ off, lots of him missing. Gruesome stuff I’ll save the gnarly details of for the medical reports on the poor kid.”

Jesse exhaled slowly, rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. Itching for a cigarillo to chew on or some nicotine to calm his nerves.

“Apparently, it was fratricide. I don’t really know the ins and outs of it, but whatever happened was rough. I’m surprised he’s still alive. Anyways, we got him outta there and back to Angie, er, Dr. Ziegler, and he’s gettin’ put back together at the Swiss Headquarters. He’ll be shipped back to us when he’s ready, already signed the deal and all that. Shimada clan business is still on our radar, but until we get this guy back on our side, it’ll be put on hold. Shimada Genji is his name, I think. And other than him, there were no casualties. It was a quiet mission through and through. End report.”

Jesse sighed as he set down the earpiece he had spoken into, reading through the transcription and muttering darkly over the words it had trouble identifying from his accent. He sent it off to Reyes when he was done, leaning back in his bed and staring up at the ceiling. It had been a quiet mission, but seeing Shimada in all that blood was still giving him nightmares.

He wished he could leave out the gruesome details from his mind as well as the report, but as it was, they stayed burned into his memory. Shimada had still been choking on his own blood, the bottom half of his jaw torn from his face, throat constricting, eyes rolled back. Strange scars covered the one arm he still had and laced over his face, like a burn but darker and in his veins. Legs cut from behind, bone twisted and flesh ruptured.

Jesse rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. It was awful, the smell of iron and ozone still stuck in his nose. With another sigh, he set aside his tablet and tried to get some sleep.

The weeks passed and Jesse forgot about Shimada for the most part, too caught up in his own issues and missions keeping him busy to be worried about someone he did not see on a regular basis. But then, he was seen on a regular basis. Genji Shimada showed up to Rome like a shadow, his eyes dark and glowing red. Body an amalgamation of metal and wires and synth skin. Scars where there was flesh, though, he hardly had any of that left. He barely spoke, kept out of sight for the most part, and did his job with ruthless efficiency.

Even with all he did to avoid the people around him, Jesse still managed to find a way to be near him. Sometimes he even impressed himself. Genji was cold towards everyone, and the cowboy was no exception. He did not mind, though. Talking to himself was better conversation than Genji provided, and being in a Talon interrogation chamber had held more welcome than the ninja did. He did not mind that, either.

Having teammates to work around seemed like a chore to Genji, all the mandatory training and mission work something he did alone as best as he could. When he could manage to shake Jesse off his back. The only person who had not been deterred by the rather obvious signs he was putting out.

Jesse knew defense mechanisms when he saw them, and Shimada had been through hell and back before he was shoved down into a new level of it. Anyone would be distrusting and distant after what he had gone through, after signing his life away to an organization that only valued him for his deadly skillsets. Jesse knew the story, he had been there and lived it too. Still did, but at least his chapter was not so binding.

Even with all that Shimada did when he should not have and did not do when he needed to, Jesse still enjoyed hanging around him. He was genuinely interested in learning more about Genji, wanting to gain his trust, if possible.

Training was the easiest way to do that, when the ninja had to show up and pick a partner or work with a team that generally had Jesse in it.

“You’ll be working hand-to-hand today, a lot of you are getting too reliant on having a long-range weapon on you. Partner up with someone in your skillset, and I’ll move you if I see you need to be moved,” Reyes ordered, Jesse looking around to see if Rei was close to him. They were well matched when they sparred occasionally in the gym, and Jesse considered himself one of the more well off of the group of them when it came to hand-to-hand. Training with Shimada forced him to be better at it.

He waved at her when she came into view, and she motioned to a free spot on the sparring mats. And then Shimada was walking up to him, staring up at him with those red eyes expectantly. Jesse paused, glancing at Rei over the ninja’s shoulder.

“Hey, uh...Sorry, partner, but I was already paired up with...” he trailed off, motioning towards Rei, who had her arms crossed over her chest, brows raised. Shimada turned to look at her for a moment, then scoffed, the sound quiet as it was filtered through the metal of his mask, eyes shifting back to Jesse.

“You are better than her and you know it.”

“Aw, I wouldn’t say that.”

“I do. And no one else is a decent match for me,” Genji shrugged one shoulder, the movement striking Jesse as odd since the rest of his body did not quite move with it.

“But I am? C’mon, Genji, you beat my ass into the mats every time.”

“You’ve gotten better.”

“Not good enough, though. You’re outta my league on this one, bud.”

“Do not call me that.”

Jesse raised his hands placidly, smiling a bit.

“Sorry, I forget sometimes. You should train with Reyes, he’ll actually give you a run for your money.”

Shimada’s brows furrowed, Jesse about to reach out to pat his shoulder consolingly before he remembered that it was a very bad idea that had already gotten him into a real fight with the cyborg and a black eye by the end of it.

“We can spar some afterwards if you’re feelin’ up to it, how’s that sound?”

Genji did not answer him, merely sighing and turning on his heel, heading towards the commander. Jesse watched him go, only shaken from it by Rei calling for him.

“Oi! You coming or what? I can’t spar with the air!”

“Yeah, I’m comin’!”

Jesse jogged over and sank into a defensive stance he had learned to relax into from Genji, something with enough distance between him and a metal fist to the gut and room to dance around the ninja’s attacks. Except he was up against Rei, who circled him like Reyes had taught them, light on her feet but firm in her stance. Jesse kept his eyes on her hands, his own held up to his face protectively. Waited for the first move.

Rei struck fast, but Jesse avoided easily. Genji was faster. He ducked beneath the follow up punch, shifting his weight and turning his hips into the hook he caught her side with. Rei stumbled back with a wheeze as Jesse hopped back into his regular stance, still on guard. Pulled back and spun when she overcompensated just slightly on her next punch, landing a kick that pushed her back again. There was a frown on Rei’s face as she finally caught his next strike, shoving it down and away from her shoulder.

“Where’d you learn to kick like that?” She asked between heavy breaths, Jesse shrugging.

“You get hit with them enough, you learn how to do it for yourself.”

“Yeah, well, I think I’m well on my way through that lesson...”

Jesse grinned and motioned for her to come at him again. They went back and forth, trading punches and blocks, Jesse getting wrestled to the ground and managing to twist his way out of a lock. He was back on his feet not a moment later, a blur of red catching his eye over Rei’s shoulder. Shimada sparring with Reyes.

He moved like water, flowing around the commander’s more rigid style with a flurry of attacks that seemed to land every time. Sweat dampening his hair, body folding a bit as he caught the kick Reyes sent his way. Jesse’s eyes followed the way his spine arched, the metal pieces of it moving almost hypnotically. Then, he was punched in the jaw.

“Fuck—!”

“Shit, sorry, Jesse! I thought you were looking at...What were you looking at?” Rei asked as she crouched next to him, glancing over her shoulder. Jesse rubbed his jaw, eyes still not leaving the way Shimada danced around the commander. It truly was like a dance, each step effortless in the way only years of training could make it, his body spinning and twisting around attacks and into his own smoothly. Like he only felt comfortable in his body doing this. Doing what he was made for.

Jesse was caught staring when they took a break in their round, Genji’s eyes flicking over to his. They held his gaze just a beat too long. And then Jesse did what only he did best. Gave a grin and a wink, and probably ruined a whole lot of things.

Genji shook his head and finally looked away, Jesse’s smile growing as Rei made a sound of realization.

“No, don’t do that, Jess. You’re gonna get gutted if you keep that up.”

“Says who?”

“Says the look in his eyes. I wouldn’t go after someone like that. Hell, I wouldn’t go after anyone here at all. It’s not gonna end well.”

“Yeah...You’re probably right.”

“I know I am. Now will you please pay attention so I don’t get my ass roasted by Reyes for punching your face? I’ve already done three hundred push ups today.”

“Fine, fine.”

Genji tore himself apart during missions sometimes. Did not quite avoid a bullet here, stayed in the line of fire to deflect just a little too long there. Wires ripped and sparking when he came limping back, the red light in his eyes flickering. Jesse had a feeling that part was not because of a mechanical malfunction. Muttering darkly to himself in Japanese as he swiped a mix of blood and those strange biotics that kept his cybernetic system running in synchrony with the human parts of him from his hands. Black mixed with crimson, those eyes flicking to Jesse when he came over to survey the damage Genji had done. Both to the Talon forces and himself.

“They didn’t stand much of a chance, huh?”

Genji never answered his tries for small talk, not when he was like this. Now was not something special. Jesse holstered Peacekeeper, sighing as he pressed his comm.

“Jefe, we’ve cleared sector five.”

“Good work. Sending in evac, stand by for Fio’s confirmation.”

“Copy that.”

Genji shifted by his side, gaze cast down as he rolled a Talon agent over gracelessly with his foot. Part of their face could be seen from where Jesse had put a bullet through their helmet.

“I wonder if he thought he was doing the right thing, or if it was not really his choice...” he murmured, tone cold and unfeeling. Something about it was distant, as most things he said were, like he was lost in memory. Jesse barely caught it, frowning a bit as he glanced at the cyborg.

“Probably just doin’ what someone told him. Not sure it’s that deep.”

“Just following orders.”

“Yeah...”

“That was the only thing he could do right,” Genji hummed, straightening once more and gazing out at the city lights in the distance, hair moving slightly in the breeze. The cords on the back of his neck swayed lightly, shoulders rising and falling steadily with his breath.

“I wonder if we are any different.”

Jesse took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, raising his brows with a crooked little grin.

“Can’t say if I’m completely sure we ain’t, partner. Though, I’ve never been particularly good at doin’ everything I’m told, I got a different kinda noose around my neck.”

“And what’s that?”

“Lil’ somethin’ called loyalty. To a fault, some might say. That’s where I think we are different than these guys. They’re just hired guns. Us? We’d take a bullet for our team. I’d die for you guys, almost have. Everyone here would. We got connections, teammates, a family where we never had one before. It’s one of the better things about being pulled into this organization, if you ask me.”

The ninja went quiet again, Jesse looking over at him and putting his hat back on. He was surprised to find Genji’s eyes already on him, something curious behind them. Something hidden further back that Jesse could not place.

“You are rather optimistic,” he muttered, Jesse laughing.

“Maybe I am. I’ll end up payin’ for it when it all comes to an end, but while we’re all still here, that keeps me straight.”

There was another long pause, Genji shifting his weight, fingers flexing.

“I suppose it is not a bad thing until it is.”

“Ain’t all things that way, to some extent? I can’t say I agree with everythin’ we’re up to on these missions, but I do know it keeps people safe in the long run. That we’re keepin’ the peace as best we can while we’re at it. Until somethin’ happens to show us it was wrong this whole time, which will probably end up happening, knowing our luck. But until then, we just do our best and stay alive, just like anyone else would.”

“We are not like ‘anyone else’.”

Jesse grinned, chewing on the end of his cigarillo.

“Nah, I guess not. Philosophical conversations ain’t really my forte, I prefer just takin’ each thing as it comes. Reality is hardly ever what we like to imagine it to be, that’s the only truth I’ve found. And I’ll probably be in the ground next to these guys sooner than finding out anythin’ else.”

Genji stared out at the city skyline again, eyes flickering over it as he thought. Always thinking, always pondering, always lost in it. Always so obvious to read, always impossible to read.

“Perhaps you are right.”

“All we can do is find out.”

“You boys ready for a ride home?” Fio announced over the comms, Jesse jumping slightly at the intrusion, cursing softly before clearing his throat and recovering with a grin.

“You betcha, sweetheart. Thanks for rememberin’ us.”

“How could I forget my favourite cowboy?”

“Aww, darlin’, you’re makin’ me blush!”

Genji rolled his eyes, standing a little stiffer and crossing his arms over his chest. Jesse nudged him good-naturedly with his elbow, getting a glare in return but nothing more. Back to his usual aloof demeanor.

“Stand by for pickup, ETA two minutes.”

“Copy that.”

“Don’t fucking touch me! Just leave me alone, McCree! I don’t want your fucking hovering!” Genji shouted, Jesse backing away with a glare as his hand was slapped away. Upgrades had left the cyborg stiff and uncoordinated, his shoulders shivering slightly with the whir of his machinery. His eyes flickered and he stumbled again, hitting the wall with a thud.

Jesse watched him. Simply watched. Saw his fingers curl and hands go up to clutch at his arms, leaving indentations in the flesh and synth skin, his eyes going wide as he gasped and fumbled at the faceplate, hands shaking. Saw it clatter to the ground and Genji follow it, knees hitting the linoleum hard.

Saw his face, the scars, the metal of his jaw, the raw line where skin met it, the pieces of his face that were missing covered with a sculpted vision of something that was not quite human. His mouth parted—just what the bone would look like, no synth skin or lips yet, like something dead or burned—a static sounding cough leaving him. Sweat dripping down his brow, hair sticking to it, wires hanging around his face. Jesse knelt, and whether Genji did not have the strength to push him away or not, he allowed the grip on the back of his neck.

“You’re panicking. Just breathe.”

“I-I’m not panicking I’m—I can’t breathe I can’t feel anything but it all burns, it burns, Jesse it hurts so much I—”

“Listen to me. Just listen to my voice. Your systems are probably just gettin’ used to the things they’ve done to you, it’s no different than last time. Just breathe, you’re in control.”

“I can’t see, I can’t see you—” Genji cut off with a choked sound and began rambling in Japanese, his hand whipping up to grab Jesse’s forearm. It hurt, his grip tight enough to leave bruises. Jesse would wear them the next day, and neither would say anything about it.

They had done this before, played the game. And they both lost, every time.

Jesse waited it out with Genji, let him tear at his arm and mutter and stare at the floor, lost somewhere in his head while he murmured softly in return to just breathe, Genji, you’ll be fine, I promise. Until he was fine again, or some weak semblance of it.

Until he had his knees pulled to his chest, hiding his face between them and the arm he laced around them, hand sliding down Jesse’s arm to slowly, slowly take his hand. They did not talk about this part either. The calm after the storm. Some days it was worse than others, and all things considered, this was one of the better episodes.

Jesse squeezed his hand lightly, nothing more than an affirmation that he was in the present, that his reality had not been stolen from him again. That was all Genji needed. That was all Genji allowed.

Jesse took a drag off his cigarillo and blew the smoke up into the brilliant blue of the sky in a slow stream. He was sprawled out on the roof behind some crates and watch towers, one arm tucked beneath his head and eyes closed. There were a few empty beer bottles between himself and Genji, the ninja not having any but seeming rather amused at how loose Jesse had gotten in the past hour.

He was not drunk to the point of sloppiness, no where near that, and the beer had been too cheap to do much to him anyways. It was just to take the edge off of what the nicotine could not. To relax for a few hours without that constant nagging train of thought in the back of his mind.

Genji seemed less tense as well, if the way he closed his eyes against the breeze and turned his face up to the sun was any indication. It was nice, seeing him at ease. As if he was forgetting, even just for a few moments, how much things hurt.

Jesse tapped him with his foot, grinning a bit, the alcohol running through his system making his mouth run more than it already did. Genji glanced at him, raised a brow.

“What’cha thinkin’? I know you’re always thinkin’ ‘bout somethin’, and I’m sure it’s interesting.”

Genji tilted his head, then shrugged.

“Not much, at the moment, if I am being honest. Which is a nice change.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. You...You make me feel at peace, in a strange way.”

Much quieter this time, Jesse cracking his eyes open and squinting a bit against the light.

“Well that’s awful nice of you to say.”

“It is simply the truth. You do not judge me, even though you have seen more of what I am now than anyone else besides the doctors,” Genji murmured, his fingertips gracing over the cowboy’s stomach. Featherlight touches, barely there. Jesse’s brow furrowed.

“You talk to me still, you train with me. You make me feel like a part of this team. You make that small part of me that still desperately wants to belong somewhere feel at home.”

There was a long stretch of silence between them as Genji’s hand came to rest over his heart, fingers rubbing the fabric of his shirt. And then he leaned over, pressed his faceplate to Jesse’s lips where his own would be, and ruined a whole lot of things. Jesse froze. Stared at Genji when he pulled away, sitting up and fixing his hat.

“Gen, I ain’t that drunk,” he muttered with a shake of his head. And oh, that was not the right thing to say at all. Jesse knew as soon as it left his mouth. Watched the words hit Genji like a physical thing, his eyes widening slightly, darting away. He stood abruptly.

“Forgive me.”

“No, wait, Genji—Don’t just run away from this, if you’re gonna pull a stunt like that, you can’t just leave now—”

“I should not have done that, I’m sorry, I—I did not think...I was not thinking.”

Jesse reached out, taking Genji’s arm, making him stay. He did not fight it, but he did not look at the cowboy either.

“Genji. You can’t be serious.”

“I-I was not.”

“No?”

“It was my mistake, we can just blame it on the alcohol.”

“You didn’t drink anythin’,” Jesse reminded him slowly, Genji shaking his head.

“I will not do it again, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t—I ain’t mad about it, but I also know it’s...I mean, us? Really? The way we are now, the mess of who we are? It ain’t the best idea, trust me. It’s not that I don’t like you or anythin’—”

“Jesse. You do not have to explain. That was uncalled for on my part, and I understand. You do not have to reciprocate what was my mistake,” Genji murmured, his shoulders stiff and eyes narrowed, glaring at the ground. Tone cold and abrupt.

“You ain’t even gonna listen to me now?”

“What more is there to say? You told me no, I should not have done that, now let me go.”

Jesse did let him go, but he did not immediately run off like he had expected.

“So that’s it then? We’re gonna pretend it didn’t happen without even talkin’ it through?” he asked, arms going out to wave uselessly before slapping back against his thighs. Genji did not reply.

“Alright. Alright, you know what? That’s fine. I’ll let it go like I do for everythin’ else you do that I really shouldn’t let you get away with. It’s alright, Genji. We’ll say it never happened and walk away from it like we always do. If that’s what you really want, so be it.”

“It is.”

Jesse shrugged, nodding and giving a halfhearted lopsided grin. Genji’s fists clenched and unclenched, but he still had not left.

“Okay. See you at trainin’ then, partner. But one last thing, before you go,” he raised a gloved hand, eyes hardening as he pointed, lips pressed in a tight line. “If you are actually serious, lemme remind you that I won’t always be around when you decide to tell me the truth. I only gave caution, not a no.”

An offer. Another way out, should the ninja want it. A choice to make, one Genji could allow the both of them. But Genji turned, walking away without a backwards glance. Jesse stared after him, breathing in deep. He spat out his cigarillo and put it out under his boot, hands on his hips as he looked up at the sky. It finally hurt the way people always said it would. And he had not even known he was falling until he hit the ground.

“Damn you, Genji Shimada...”

#mcgenji #jesse mccree #genji shimada #blackwatch era #WhiskeyWrites #repost since it was not showing up in the tags before!#late mcgenjiweek prompt from February oops #mutual pining #hope you enjoy :)#sorry for those of you who have seen this already

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buckys-forgotten-plum · 5 years

Text

The One Who Came After

Prompt- To normal Terrans, the Tesseract was strange and confusing, no one really understood how powerful it was or what it really did. That was until you came along...

Warning- Endgame Spoilers (Does that even need to be a warning anymore?), cursing, angst, maybe smut at some point idk

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It had only been a minute since the dust had settled, since Tony had taken his last breath and was being tended to by a crowd of medics, since Thanos had taken his and was left alone. No one had the time to sit down and recuperate, to come to the realization that it was actually over. Pepper was still beside her fallen husband, along with Peter and Rhodey. Sam, Steve and Bucky were all together, making a plan to scout out all of the injured. At this point, nothing could surprise any of them, each person's soul, body and mind was drained of all feeling.

So, when a bright blue flash of light erupted a few feet away from the fallen hero, it seemed like some robotic movement to everyone as they turn and point every weapon available at the sudden movement.

“Which one of you mortals...keeps fucking... With. My. Stone,” Your breathing was labored and each word was a desperate, dry wheeze.

It took everything in your entire being to not drop down and pass out. Within a week (your worlds week anyway) the universe your world resided in had been flipped upside down three separate times. It had taken an entire unit from each planet to keep the universe from collapsing on itself, and after the third strike, they sent you out to see what in the ever living fuck was happening.

“Who are you? What do you want?” You turned to see a tall, blonde man walking towards you, a hammer and shield in hand.

“I want to know who the hell keeps trying to turn my universe inside out like it’s some kind of reversible jacket!” you growl out, meeting the strangers gaze and refusing to back down, “Don’t you dipshits know to never mess with another universes stones? W-who are you to decide what ha-happens with my world?”

The exhaustion that racked your body made it hard to focus on the figure that stood directly in front of you, and it didn’t take long for you to fall down to your knees. “You-you have no idea-” your vision blurred and you had to place a hand on the ground to steady yourself.

The man who originally approached you knelt down to your height, forgetting about the threat you might have imposed and making sure that you weren’t about to die, “Okay, okay. We can talk about this a little later, we’re all exhausted and need to deal with...things” The stranger states, glancing around at all of the injured and fallen soldiers.

“What happened here?” you ask quietly, weakly looking up into the man’s bright blue eyes.

You didn’t get to hear his reply before your consciousness slipped into the darkness.

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

“S-so, let me get this straight...” Dr. Banner mutters before looking you in the eyes, “You’re from a different universe? Dimension? Thing? That resides inside the Tesseract, and almost falls apart every time the tesseract is used?”

“Yes, I came here to stop whoever was having the bright idea to activate it every five goddamn minutes,” you mutter out groggily, fisting the burn of sleep from your eyes, “which turned out to be a pack of nimrods that, where I’m from, wouldn’t do any of this shit-“

“How’d you travel here? Get outside of the tesseract?” Steve, asked curiously, eyes squinting in suspicion.

“Some magical shit that this dude-“ you lazily motion toward the man in the red cape, “did, I’m not sure what he called it. It doesn’t matter anyways, what matters is that you stop using that stone or I’ll kill you all,”

“Trust me sweetheart, we just defeated the most powerful being in the universe, you don’t have a chance,” scoffs a man from the corner of the room, stripping himself of his red tinted goggles and placing them on a small table next to him.

“Hey bird boy, we didn’t have to fight him twice in my universe. Oh and your goggles look stupid,” you snap, glaring at the man who now looked at you with shock and anger in his gaze

You didn’t have the energy to deal with this group of random miscreants. You recognized all of them, though. Each one was a part of your world back at home, but none as important there as they are here.

“Your from an alternate dimension where Thanos didn’t win the first time?” Dr. Banner asks from his corner by a lab table.

“Um yeah. My team got to him when we found out he was the cause behind the Loki disaster in Los Angeles. We knew he would be a future threat so we didn’t let it get out of control...unlike you guys who almost let your entire universe get destroyed,” the harsh pain in your head hadn’t subsided and you really wished these bafoons would leave you alone.

“There’s a Loki in your dimension too?” You looked at the...thick...version of Thor before answering.

“Yeah Pillsbury doughboy, he’s alive and well there too. Yours isn’t though, I can tell from the emptiness radiated from your body,” your comment was thoughtless as your powers weren’t a big deal back home. Almost everyone had them, the special few were the ones who were born sterile of all supernatural genes.

The room fell into silence after your words and some of the onlookers left the room, including Thor. You were left to be stared at by Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts and a young boy who you hadn’t recognized.

“I-is Mr. Stark alive in your dimension?” The boy asked, tears falling from his has as his trembling body struggled to keep upright.

You managed the strength to get off the examination table and walk up to the poor boy, “if it makes you feel any better kid, in my universe, Tony Stark retired and is living an ordinary life with his daughter and wife in Tahoe. Has been for the last five years of his life. But let me tell you, your Tony did an immeasurable thing to save an immeasurable amount of lives. Is he still here?” You ask quietly. You felt the piercing hurt from this lost boy and easily found it within you to try and help, forgetting about the pain these people had caused your world.

“Why? What do you want with him?” Steve asked crudely, a hard stare set your way.

“I can help him. I know I might seem like a threat but tell me, what more could I do to this world that hasn’t already been done?” Your statement seemed heavy on the three pairs of eyes that followed your lumbering movements as you clumsily made the short journey to the door, “please let me help you so you can help me,”

Miss Pepper Potts was the one to move first, quickly helping you out of the room and into the quiet corridor where she proceeded to lead you to another medical room. This one was filled with machines and IV poles, all of them hooking up to one, completely broken man.

“He’s brain dead, can’t breath on his own, his heart stopped beating on its own, almost all of his bones are broken, lungs are punctured...h-he isn’t even really living right now,” Pepper choked on her words, a trembling hand covering her mouth to mask the sobs that bubbles up from her throat.

“I can help, just, be ready to catch me when I pass out,” you mumble calmly and walk up to the lifeless body.

You knew this had to be done. It would hurt but these people needed this man.

Though it was normal to have some form of powers in your universe, it wasn’t necessarily normal to have the type of powers you specifically possessed. Sure everyone had some for of mild self healing, but yours was a bit different.

“Tell me what the biggest issues with him are again,”

At this point Steve and the broken boy had entered the room and were watching from the doorway.

“I-I can’t remember it all-“ “it’s okay, just tell me the body parts and I can heal them,”

“Brain, heart, and-and his lungs,” she shot out quickly as you placed your hands on his chest and forehead.

“Okay, y/n, don’t freak out...” you mumble to yourself, “Please don’t touch either of us before it’s done. It could mess up the process,” the warning was short and you left little time after for the others to agree before a bright blue light seeped from your hands and into Tony’s body.

Pain instantly went into your brain, heart and lungs and you had to lean onto the man so you wouldn’t collapse to the floor. “Come on, come on,” you mumble and strengthen the flow of energy from your body to his.

You let out a loud groan of pain as the process finally started to work properly. You could heal anyone, anything you wanted. That’s what made you special, but there were always two sides to ones powers where you were from, and the other side of yours was taking parts of the victims injuries and moving them to your own body. You thankfully had a say of which injuries you would take on but you had to take on a certain amount for your powers to work. At this point in time you chose to take on a few broken bones and a couple of punctures to your lungs. Best to spread out the pain than focus on one area.

“Somebody. Call, Dr. Banner,” you call out the order and put your last efforts into healing the parts of his brain that were damaged the most and suddenly there was a different source of wheezing and coughing in the room.

Tony had woken up.

“Oh my god!” Pepper gasped, a trembling hand shooting out to cover her mouth.

The teenager that had remained quiet for most of your consciousness suddenly broke out into violent sobs and fell to his knees, quickly being comforted by Pepper wrapping her arms around his shaking form.

“Tony can you hear me?” Your eyes found his and it only to a moment before he shook his head, wheezing out a quiet ‘yes’.

“Alright, Alright. You’re gonna be okay, y-your gonna be fine. Stay calm, I know it f-feels weird but you can’t fight it. don’t fight it,” your words began to slur together as your consciousness started to slip away.

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A/N: yeah that’s right, i'm writing another series when I have no time or effort stored away to properly finish this or any of my other series or drafts. Please enjoy and don't forget to like, comment, and reblog!

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impossibleblizzardstudentposts · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2

As disappointed as Sonny was not to have had the time or privacy to put the moves on Larissa the way he would have liked, he didn’t have the opportunity to dwell on it.

His cell phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning after a late night of drinking, just as the sun was coming up and peeking through his bedroom window.

Nikki Staines, an attorney from last night’s party, had been found assaulted outside her building.

Fin and Amanda met at the scene, but Sonny had strict orders from Lieu to get to the office ASAP. There could be no gourmet coffee stop to cure this hangover.

As the detectives sat around theorizing how and why the attack went down, it occurred to Olivia that they could at least canvass potential witnesses from the event who weren’t cops, without raising any red flags internally.

Reviewing the guest list, she said, “Carisi, Fin, you want to head downtown? It looks like a Raul Vasquez from some big law firm bought two tables at this thing. I’ll stay behind and talk to the Chief about the officers we need to talk to.”

“Uh, yeah, you got it, Lieu. I actually met him there last night, I think we have a good rapport.” said Sonny, grabbing his keys and suit jacket.

“This the guy you were talking to with that little blonde?” Fin asked after him, heading to the elevator. “I don’t judge, but some old rich dudes are shameless.”

“Not like that. She was his daughter.” Sonny answered, with a smile.

“Ahhh, ok” Fin said with a knowing smirk. “So you still got a shot then.”

“We’ll see.” Carisi responded, as they exited the building and approached his truck on the street.

The ride downtown was quick and comfortable. Fin and Carisi were so different, but worked well together.

Sonny had considered calling ahead to Mr. Vasquez’s office to give the heads up they were coming. He knew what an important and busy man Raul was, and figured they would be met with resistance showing up without an appointment. In the end, he didn’t want Fin, or anyone else, thinking he was turning soft for offering more than the usual courtesies to a potential witness, so he pulled up to the Wall Street building hoping for the best.

“We should have called ahead. This guy really is a big wig, huh?” said Fin, echoing Sonny’s thoughts after they had to introduce themselves to the third receptionist of the day.

Once they found the right corner office though, they weren’t waiting long before an assistant guided them in with a polite “Mr. Vasquez will see you know.”

“Mr. Carisi” Raul greeted “So soon. This can’t be a social call.”

“Unfortunately not.” said Sonny “This is Sergeant Tutuola.” He said, introducing Fin. “ We’re investigating the assault of an attorney who attended last night’s event.”

“Not someone from my firm, I hope. We made sure everyone had cars home.” Raul began to panic. It was actually reassuring to see someone worry about their employees.

“No, as far as we know, everyone from your office is safe. Her name is Nikki Staines. Do you know her?” said Fin.

“I’m sorry, I don’t.” said Raul

Sonny pulled up a DMV photo on his cell phone of Nikki. “This is her.” he said “Do you recall seeing her with anyone last night?”

“I saw her at the coat check at the start of the night, but she wasn’t with anyone. She was talking on her cell phone, it sounded like maybe to her children.”

“And you didn’t notice anything suspicious about anyone at the event?” asked Sonny.

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry not to be more helpful.”

“Well, if you could, it would be very helpful if you could provide us a list of all the people from your office who attended last night.” said Fin. He and Sonny knew they were approaching a dead end.

“Yes, of course. My assistant must have this together already from arranging the transportation. And you can speak to my daughter, she attended last night.”

“Larissa, right?” confirmed Sonny, attempting to play it cool.

“That’s right.” confirmed Raul with a knowing smile, as he approached the office door to summon his assistant.

“Donna,” he said “Would you provide these detectives with the list of those who attended last night’s event? And Larissa’s contact information, please.”

“Thanks for your time, sir.” said Sonny, as he and Fin followed Donna out.

“I’m sorry to meet again under these circumstances. I hope you have better luck closing this investigation.”

Within a few minutes, Donna, the wonder assistant, had provided printed and digital copies of the list including the names, phone numbers, and addresses of those from the firm who had attended the charity event, along with the names of their guests, and the limo provider that took them all home at the end of the night. It was all they could as for, even if it was unlikely that their perp was on this list.

“Oh!” Donna said to herself absent mindedly from behind her keyboard. “You needed Dr. Vasquez’s information as well. Let’s see, Tuesday afternoon. I believe she’ll be at home.” She jotted down the address and a phone number, handing it over with a smile.

Doctor Vasquez?, Sonny thought to himself as he took the card. “Thanks a lot,” he said.

When they got back to the car, Fin asked: “You wanna take a run at the good doctor on your own? Where’s she live?”

“Upper East Side” said Sonny “And no, you might as well roll with. Liv wouldn’t like it.”

“To the old money!” Fin joked, as they headed uptown.

Jokes aside, when they arrived at the brownstone, it was even more impressive than either man had imagined. They half expected “the help” to answer the door, but in fact no one answered the door at all.

Instead, a woman’s voice came from behind them. “Can I help you?”

Before they could turn to respond, Larissa got closer and her tone changed from slightly accusatory to pleasant, but cautious. “Oh, it’s you. My father called to tell me you might contact me. I wasn’t expecting a house call.” Her eyes never left Sonny’s. Fin might as well have been a fly on the wall.

“Ah, yeah, this is my sergeant, Odafin Tutuola. We’re investigating the assault of an attorney who attended last night’s event. Do you mind if we come in and ask you a few questions?” Sonny said, trying desperately to maintain professionalism. He wanted to forget all about what had happened to Nikki and learn everything there was to know about the woman in front of him.

“Sure” she said, looking down at her key ring to choose the right one, as she awkwardly slid between the two men on her front steps, grazing Sonny’s arm. “I didn’t see anyone get assaulted though.”

“We understand,” said Fin.

“Sometimes the smallest details can actually be very helpful.” Sonny added, pulling up Nikki’s photo on his cell phone as they entered the foyer. “Did you see this woman last night?”

Pulling the phone closer, she concentrated before answering. “Um, yes. I don’t know her name, but we spoke a few times last night. Once at the bar waiting for drinks, just small talk. And then,” she hesitated, not wanting to violate a fellow woman’s privacy, especially to a couple of middle aged men she barely knew. “Um, we met again in the ladies room and she asked if I had a pantiliner.” she blurted out quickly, handing the phone back to Carisi.

“Um, ok, that’s good to know, thank you. Did you see her leave with anyone, or notice anyone giving her unwanted attention?”

“No, I didn’t see her leave.” she hesitated again, wondering if a seemingly meaningless detail was worth sharing, even if it was just a bad vibe. “Um, when we left the bathroom together, there was a man with a beard right outside the door, which seemed strange to me. She knew him, said hello and gave a smile, but for some reason, she seemed relieved not to be alone. She gave me a look. I don’t know how to explain it. Just a woman’s intuition, I guess. We separated right after that.”

Sonny was taking some notes as she was speaking, which made her feel self conscious about how inarticulate she must sound. Ugh, a woman’s intuition? she thought . My guess is they don’t arrest people based on that. This woman was at home in an OR, not an interrogation.

It was actually endearing to Sonny how out of her element Larissa seemed. When they interacted at the coffee shop, she always seemed incredibly confident and sure of herself. Putting together what he was learning about her and her family, he assumed nothing like being questioned by police had happened in her life, even if it was clear she wasn’t in any trouble.

“Thanks a lot for your help. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.” said Fin. His hands remained firmly in his pockets, leaving to door open for young grasshopper Sonny to close the deal.

“Right.” said Sonny, catching the drift, as he fumbled in his jacket pocket for his card. “And if you remember anything else, you can call me. Any time.”

Larissa took the business card, looking down with a small smile as she delicately framed it in her fingers. Stop it, girl. she scolded herself. A woman has been hurt. This is not good for you.

She broke out of her inner monologue and cleared her throat. “Of course, I will.” she said hurriedly, walking the men out the front door. “Good luck cracking the case” she added as a sort of goodbye, cringing and wishing she could take back the awkward statement as soon as it left her lips, as if these guys were playing some kind of Whodunit game. She couldn’t close the door behind them fast enough.

Meanwhile, Sonny was grinning widely as they walked back to his truck. “You think she was a little nervous?” he said.

“I don’t think it was you giving her the butterflies, Romeo.” Fin laughed. “ In this neighborhood, I bet that poor girl never dealt with a cop in her life.”

Little did anyone know at the time how helpful Larissa’s details would prove to be.

#sonny carisi #svu fic #olivia benson

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