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cintasfics · 2 months

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A match made in the emergency room (and again in a café)

pairing: Shawn Spencer x oc (platonic), Burton Guster x oc (platonic)

wc: 1.4k

summary: when shawn ends up in the emergency department after being run off the road while investigating the murder of the regional spelling bee spellmaster, he finds a new friend in the nurse that looks after him, even if she doesn’t know it yet

warnings: none

a/n: I had the idea to write a series of ‘first meetings’ between marley and the other characters to show how she kind of comes to fit into the picture and I was a bit iffy on this, racking my brain on how their meeting and subsequent friendship would pan out, but I’m happy with the result so here is her first meeting with Shawn and Gus!

The emergency department is often the last place you want to be at any given moment. If you’re there, that means either you or a loved one are sick or in pain.

‘Hi there, Shawn Spencer?’

The cute nurses are a bonus, however. And even though his head was pounding and his leg felt like it was going to fall off at the knee any second now, he never passed an opportunity to lay on the charm. It was almost pathological.

‘The one and only, and who do I have the pleasure of being under the care of?’

Used to dealing with a wide range of people on a daily basis, the nurse wasn’t fazed by his flirtation and carried on with her task.

‘My name’s Marley and I’ll be the nurse looking after you tonight, now I just need to ask a few questions and grab some vitals off you, is that alright?’

‘For you? Anything,’ he intended for his smile to come across a lot smoother, but the resulting wince from the shot of pain that radiated from his knee as he shifted on the bed tarnished it.

‘Great. Now, can you tell me what brings you here?’

‘I got into an accident on my bike, or more accurately, someone ran me off the road and the real impact happened when I hit the ground.’

‘Oh wow, are the police aware?’ she stopped writing in his chart to ask him, concern clear on her face.

‘It happened during an investigation, I’m a consultant with the Santa Barbara PD so I’m sure it’ll come up when I get back to work.’

‘Right, well if you need to make a call just let me know and I can grab you a phone if you don’t have yours on you.’

The assessment continued, with Marley checking his vitals and performing a neurological assessment. For a guy who had been ran off the road less than an hour earlier, he sure was in high spirits, quickly becoming a highlight of Marley’s shift with his quick wit and humour.

~}i{~

It was almost a week after the spelling bee case had come to a close when Shawn came across Marley again, this time thankfully outside of the hospital. She was sitting alone outside one of the café’s he and Gus frequented, and he couldn’t resist approaching her, feeling inexplicably drawn to the nurse.

‘Hey! Nurse Marley!’ seeing the way she tensed at his shout, he lowered his voice, trying a calmer approach, ‘Shawn Spencer, you took care of me when I came into the ED last week. The guy with the busted knee following the motorcycle accident,’ he added on, watching her mentally shift through her recent patients.

A flash of recognition in her eyes, ‘right, yeah, I remember you. How are you feeling? Did they catch the guy who ran you off the road?’

‘Much better after your attentive care, thank you very much. And yes, we figured out who it was and he’s currently under the much less nicer care of the SBPD,’ came Shawns giddy response, happy that the cute nurse remembered him.

‘I’m glad to hear it, both that you’re doing okay and that they caught him.’

‘Me and my buddy Gus here actually helped bring him in,’ Shawn pulled out a chair, inviting himself to sit with her as he spoke.

‘Hi there, Burton Guster, but everyone calls me Gus. Sorry for interrupting your coffee, Shawn doesn’t always know how to act in public,’ Gus introduced himself with a kind smile, which morphed into a chastising look as he turned to Shawn.

Marley simply waved him off, assuring him it was fine with a small laugh, ‘it’s fine, I always like hearing from previous patients, especially when they’re doing better than when I saw them last. Though physical injuries aside, he seems about the same, if a smidge louder.’

‘Yeah, little seems to keep him down, as much as you wish it would sometimes.’

They shared a laugh, before Marley spoke again, ‘you said you were consultants, right? What kind of stuff do you deal with?’

‘Oh loads of stuff, robberies, theft, missing persons, murder, you name it. I’m psychic so I have a broad area of expertise,’ never one to pass up a moment in the spotlight, Shawn was happy to show off a bit.

‘Oh cool, kind of like Patricia Arquette in that show Medium?’

‘Pretty much, though my visions are based in the past and present rather than the future, and they come to me when I’m awake.’

‘I see.’

Marley noticed Gus rolling his eyes as he pulled out a chair for himself, the man obviously tired of hearing about his friend’s abilities. Marley herself wasn’t sure if she believed him, she had always toed the line between sceptic and believer.

Shawn could see that she wasn’t convinced, and not wanting her to think that they’d failed to flag him as a psych patient when he presented to the hospital last week, he decided to flex his powers of observation.

He gave her a quick once over, taking note of the cat hair on her sleeve and the shopping list she was using as a bookmark in addition to what he had seen at the hospital.

‘Wait, I’m getting something,’ he raised his index and middle fingers to his temples in his classic ‘psychic vision’ move, ‘I’m seeing a small animal, hearing the tinkering of a bell, one you’d find on the collar of a cat, there’s also the smell of something baking, I feel warm and cozy, like I’m at home. Do you have a cat, Marley?’

She took a second to appraise his words before answering, ‘I do, his name is Jasper.’

‘And you have an affinity for baking, spending a lot of time at home with Jasper to keep you company as you don’t go out much. Still adjusting to living in Santa Barbara, I take it?’

‘Huh,’ came her simple reply, but Shawn knew he was right, as always.

‘That’s a neat little trick,’ though she tried to play it off, it was clear she was impressed.

‘You’ve only moved here recently?’ asked Gus, wanting to know more about the woman.

‘Yeah, about 7 months ago. I’m still finding my footing, not many friends outside of work.’

‘Well you’ve just made two more!’

‘That’s sweet of you,’ she laughed kindly at Shawn’s declaration, ‘but it’s cool, I’m a bit of a loner anyway.’

‘Yeah, sorry. That’s not gonna work anymore, Gus and I have decided that we’re you’re new best friends!’

‘Oh you have, have you?’

‘We have?’ this was news to Gus too, but he would be lying if he said that he was unhappy with the idea, she seemed like good people. Shawn’s only slightly less-than-frequent mentions of the nurse he met at the hospital making Gus feel like he knew her already.

‘We have,’ Shawn was resolute, obviously not taking no for an answer as he took a business card out of his wallet, ‘here’s our numbers and the address to our office, it’s a pretty cool space so even when we’re not working on a case we tend to hang out there, so feel free to drop by anytime.’

Normally red flags would be going up in her head by now, if not from a near stranger being so insistent that they become friends, then from the introversion and social anxiety that normally makes her keep to herself. But the flags weren’t there. There were no alarms going off. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a good feeling about the two men who had invited themselves to sit with her.

She had moved overseas in the first place to get outside of her comfort zone, to try new things and experiences, so maybe this was the universe holding out a hand, giving her what she was after.

She took the offered card, an amused smile coming over her face as she saw the name of their firm, ‘your agency is called ‘Psych’?’

Ignoring Gus’ look which said ‘I told you it was a stupid name’, Shawn switched into what Marley would come to call his ‘salesman mode’, ‘It’s simple and to the point, not to mention catchy. It’s the perfect name for an up-and-coming business.’

‘Right, of course,’ she continued to mull it over, fiddling with the card as she did, before asking, ‘it’s down by the pier right? On the waterfront?’

Knowing he had her and feeling like this was the start of something, Shawn gave her one of his award-winning smiles.

#shawn spencer x oc #burton guster x oc #psych x oc #psych fic #marley williams #mine

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omurchumakes · 4 months

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Moto Money Matters

Last week I discussed the saga of Chromie the motorbike and he exhasperated owner, your amicable author. This week I want to get into the details of how much it cost to go from knowing nothing about motorbikes to owning, running and maintaining a motorcycle in Ireland in 2024. This also dovetails nicely into another one of my obsessions…hobbies…(fixations)….nevermind.

Lets. Talk. Spreadsheets. Don’t click away these are useful!

There’s two ways to break down the costs of owning an asset, the capital cost (the buying of the thing) aka, capex, and the running of the thing opex. This includes maintenance and upkeep and any consumables you need for these two buckets of cash. For the motorbike, I’m going to put everything into these two buckets: (I’d put a table here if squarespace wasn’t garbage). I’m also adding in all the training you have to pay for to legally use a bike in Ireland.

CAPEX

RSA Theory book - €19.99

RSA Practice App - €14.99

Theory test - €35.00

Learner permit application fee - €35.00

Initial Basic Training Course - €620.00

A brief note at this point we are € 723.99 laid out and have covered SOME of the legal requirements to ride in Ireland

Driving test application fee - €85.00

Safety gear

Helmet - €300.00

Jacket - €440.00

Hi-viz learner tabard - €30.00

Back Armour - €30.00

Boots - €145.00

Pants - €50.00

Gloves - €0.00 (kindly donated by a mate of mine)

Insurance (Principle) - €996.17

Motorbike itself - €5900.00

Tax - €88.00

Security -

Disk Locks x2 - €143.36

GPS tracker - €31.00

Heavy duty chain - €0.00 (donated)

Armadillo shelter - €261.51

GRAND TOTAL: €9369.04

Training costs: €950.95 that is provided I don’t fuck up the driving test in future). There is also a fee to apply for the full driving licence, probably another €35 so lets call it an even €986. Just to learn to ride and test, and have a licence.

Now if you take the bike itself out you get a total cost of €3469.04, that’s a damned high cost of entry. Now places where I could have saved: in hind sight I could have gotten a cheaper jacket, and also cheaper helmet, however that Shark helmet was discounted over €400 off. Also the back armour is questionable how effective it is, that being said my IBT instructors advised to get it and wear it all the time. I did get second hand trousers and could have gotten most of the clothing that way but I wanted to have some nicer things or at least know the quality was good. Being a total novice I trusted the dudes in the shop, and so far I’ve no complaints at all.

Also a huge shout out to my mate who donated a pile of old gear to me, those gloves and the chain saved me at least €200.

OPEX

I promised spreadsheets and I’ll get there, keep your jets cool. One of the reasons for getting the bike was to save some money on the cost of commuting, namely that motorbikes are much more fuel efficient than cars. Which makes sense Chromie weighs about 210kg and has a 650cc engine, while the car Minty weighs a tonne with a 1200cc engine. So the car is 5 times heavier and only double the engine capacity. (motor nerds don’t @ me this is illustrative only). Basically the bike is hauling a whole lot less weight than the car, thus uses the fuel more efficiently.

We used to measure efficiency in cars/bikes in Miles per Gallon (MPG) but that’s archaic, american/english focused and in my opinion dumb. I will provide it here because its a language petrol heads everywhere understand. The metric version of this metric is Kilometers per Liter, which is an easy conversion however not intuitive at all, and my car efficiency is actually presented (in the dash) in Liters per 100 Kilometers. So I calculate and plot that.

I track essentially four core pieces of information:

Date of filling

Price of fuel

Total cost of the fill

Odometer reading

From this everything else flows. We convert the price and total cost back into litres you put into the tank. From the Odo reading we know how far the last tank fill got us, so now we know km travelled and the liters put into the tank. So you can use those two pieces of intformation to get km/L, or MPG, or L/100km.

So Chomie fuel efficiency average comes out at 27.21 km/L, or 3.74 L/100km or 77.32 MPG. So far. It usually goes up over the lifetime of owning a vehicle as I learn how to drive more efficiently. But wait, what if we graphed it?

Say no more:

But why graph it against distance driven you may ask? Well what if we had data for other vehicles? What if someone was obsessed enough to track every fuel purchase he’s ever made over three different vehicles and then plot them all together? Well, it might, look something like this:

Obviously my efficiency was garbage when I started learning how to drive in Swampy (she leaked like a sieve and was constantly damp), Minty is a newer model of the same car and I have a few years experience driving economically now. But the stand out point is even given the messiness in the data, Chromie is a hell of a lot more fuel efficient. Almost 30% more efficient over the same cumulative distance driven. If Chromie clusters around the 30 km/L mark we should be able to calculate a payback period. Engineer Time: We assume a fixed petrol price (definitely not realistic) of 1.78 €/L, annual kilometerage (mileage) of 12000 km which, coupled with our total investment cost from above:

Ok so dissapointing but anyway, what other interesting tidbits can we glean from my OCD data collecting habits? How about historic fuel prices? Would you data hungry readers care to see that hmmm? Fear not ya boy got you covered:

See up and to the right, that’s good right? Well no that’s very fucking expensive is what it is, notice during the pandemic the price drops then magically as we come out of the pandemic, prices just climb fucking mentally high and just sit there. Also in the most recent data (furthest to the right) is slightly depressed as I have a fuel card which gives me 3c off a liter in Circle K. Hold up, don’t we have data on where and the brand that we put into our tank? We do, and I also aggregate that, because, well I’m good at spreadsheets and equations. (don’t fucking judge me, you’re still here reading, nerd). Anyhow, here’s fuel price by location and brand. Not normalised for the number of fills, I collected my data, I’m not a data scientist goddamnit.

There is very little difference in locations or between brands. There is way more data for Blessington and CircleK, I can declare that much but really there is little in it. If we add the 3c back into the Circle K data it becomes one of the more expensive options, aligning with all the other brands. But for now below is the entire workbook for you to peruse.

#Motorbike #Data #Fuel

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loiswolf · 1 year

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Day 21 June 19 Fort St John - Dawson Creek 75kms

Some of you have probably been thinking I’ve had wifi problems again….nah, I just haven’t really been cycling enough to blog about it.

On Saturday morning I left the Warmshowers family ( I put their photo in the previous blog in case you missed that edit), pedalled into town then back along the Highway to the RV park.

At Toad River I had also made friends with Debbie and Tim who were driving the long stretch (388kms) between Fort Nelson and Fort St John on Saturday .They had agreed to take Shirley and I on board. My other option was to take the bus but it didn’t run until Monday ( today).

We found a place to fit Shirley in the RV and I was in the back seat of the truck with Rhino….the dog. It seemed like such a long way. We went through rain, spotted 3 bears and a moose, saw a helicopter taking water to a fire somewhere and climbed lots of big hills. I didn’t mind being in the truck one little bit and I also had the benefit of being able to talk to Debbie and Tim.

They were really lovely. I’ve met some great people hitching rides! It turns out there actually were places I could possibly have stayed in after around 230kms but they hadn’t shown up on the map. It’s also hard to know which ones are actually open and offering rooms.

About 13kms from Fort St John my lift was turning right to head back west to another town. We took a farewell selfie and unloaded Shirley.

I rolled over to the other side of the road to the servo for a coffee and some chicken wings. Then it was pretty much a downhill run all the way into town.

My motel appeared very quickly. I should have cancelled my booking and headed off to the nice Motel 8 up the road because this place was just awful.

My room stunk of cigarette smoke and the other tenants looked absolutely undesirable. I’m pretty sure there was a prostitute operating out of the room two doors up because every hour , on the hour , a car would drive up and someone would go in. Just before the hour was up they would leave and someone would arrive on the next hour. 😕 A little suspicious. You would have thought with all those customers the occupant would have been able to afford a better car than this rust bucket.

It actually moved a couple of spaces overnight. I can’t believe it was drivable!

My biggest regret was that I had booked two nights at this hideous place!

After a while I became used to the smell and worked out how to reconnect the wifi when it dropped out every hour or so. I woke up at about 4am the first night convinced there were bed bugs ( there wasn’t).

I spent my rest day actually resting. I did walk around the shops on the other side of the road covering quite some distance. The shops are all about 400m apart with huge car parks between. I watched bad movies and a had a snooze in the afternoon.

I woke at 4am this morning to get some water to find that the fridge had frozen everything in it. ( it was on the lowest setting). I pulled everything out so it could thaw by the morning and went back to bed.

So……today it was back on the bike!

I wasn’t in a hurry because today was only 75kms. Ok, I took ages getting ready because I couldn’t figure out the Wordle. Finally I solved it, packed up Shirley and headed off for my last day on the Alaskan Highway.

The first 10kms were unremarkable except for quite a lot of traffic. The next 10kms were a long downhill run all the way into the next town, Taylor. It looked like a much nicer town to stay in but it was too late now. The road continued down the hill and over a bridge. I was going too fast to realise I should have gone on the pedestrian pathway. The bridge was a metal grid ( I hate those) and nothing could get by me. I just hung on and tried to keep Shirley in a straight line, rather hard with the wind, and told myself not to look down.

After the bridge was a very long hill, about 6kms. I took this photo a little way up so you can see the scary bridge if you look hard.( it’s blue)

The hill wasn’t too hard even though it was long. This photo is from near the top.

All day it was a long slow hill followed by another lengthy downhill run. At about 50kms there was a town called Farmington which boasted one service station.

I foolishly bought a flavoured coffee to go with my cinnamon scroll. Sitting back outside in the wind ( the only place to sit) I realised it was milky and sweet so I tossed it over the railing and snuck back inside to fill the cup with real coffee.

Only 25kms to go. There were a lot of trucks and fuel tankers but the shoulder was good so I was able to stay out of their way. One last long hill was followed by a 10km run down into Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaskan Highway.

I’m not sure where it started but I’ve been on it for well over 1000kms.

I’d had some serious doubts about the motel I’d booked here. I was going to sneak in and check it out before paying but the lovely owner knew who I was as soon as I walked in. Rats! Turns out I didn’t need to worry. It’s a nice little place

And smells great!

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creamypudding · 2 years

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Getting Fit

I have a few passions in life: plants, animals, making my favourite fictional boys kiss, and exercise.

The last one I’ve had a very on and off relationship with and this post is about my rediscovery of the passion for it.

I was a very typical teenage girl to whom sports was very uncool and I did it only because I had to as part of the school curriculum. I was never very good at anything in particular, except for running. I made it through to a regional cross country race once, though that didn’t eventuate in anything significant. Despite being good at running I didn’t care to pursue it and I didn’t gravitate toward anything else, so once I finished school my relationship with physical activity ended.

In my mid 20′s I connected with it in a big way. I had health issues caused by my weight and I was sick of taking medicine to manage it. I was convinced that losing weight would help me, even though (and I remember this vividly) my health professional scoffed when I told her I was coming off the meds and that I was going to get fit. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to her.

Anyway, back then I was blessed to live in a gorgeous place with ample nature so I went trail running. Though it was mostly walking interspersed with jogging. I did it almost every day for a solid two months during summer break. I reconnected with my enjoyment of running and I had goals to be able to run the full 7km (4.3miles) without stopping. I enjoyed lasting longer, needing to take fewer walking breaks, and cutting down the time it took. I did manage to reach my goal eventually. I also branched out to going to a gym and doing fitness classes which I really enjoyed. I got into a lot of weight training and managed to lose 14kg (30lb) over the course of a year.

I was happy. My body liked me for having shed the weight. I engaged in several obstacle courses over the years, and I wasn’t too fussed with what I ate because I kept up the exercise.

But then life changed. I moved away from my nature track and further away from the gym I liked. I was walking more to and from work but it wasn’t the same. Weight slowly crept up but it wasn’t a concern for me. I was still fit and in the range I deemed acceptable.

Then I got pregnant, which was a very deliberate choice. Inevitably I got heavier but it didn’t bother me because I was still active and I knew that weight wasn’t mine. Birth was the fastest weight loss I ever experienced 😂 and breast feeding helped lose the extra kilos.

Having to look after a small human left me with no time or energy for myself and over the past 5 years I’ve had several weight loss attempts that fell through. I tried going to a gym that was closer to me, but it was still far enough away to be a hassle and I didn’t connect with any of the classes or activities I tried.

I attempted to go running around my local area as there were parks but it was along busy roads and the vibe was never the same as running through nature along a river. COVID also happened, which gave me a bit more time to exercise, but as I started to get into some kind of routine I lost my job, got depressed, and moved house again.

This time it was even further away from a gym, though I now live in a nicer, less busy area, and there are walking and bike tracks. Yet I just haven’t had the courage or fortitude to go out and find a running route yet.

I did purchase a treadmill and started using that, but it was dull and can’t compare to going for runs out in nature.

I knew I needed to exercise though. I have kept an eye on my weight and have been watching it steadily and slowly creep up. I’m now heavier than I ever was and I started becoming deeply uncomfortable with that reality. Not enough to get myself into gear though.

I’ve started being plagued again with health issues and decided to finally see a doctor about it. We tried several things but the issues persisted and then he decided that I was probably due for a blood test to check everything out. Turns out everything is fine, but my cholesterol is elevated. Nothing to be concerned about for my age, but it’s something I need to get on top of because I’m not getting younger.

That’s been the motivation I evidently needed because it’s been the catalyst that’s helped me get back into fitness. I tried running on the treadmill and while it’s been ok I didn’t like it. I still haven’t gone out for a run, as it’s so hot and I feel self-conscious. But I have armed myself with a handful of apps that I can follow along with at home. I have committed to HIIT exercises because I can’t stand the idea of exercising for longer than 20 minutes and, frankly, I don’t have the time for anything longer in the mornings. I know myself well enough to know that if I don’t exercise first thing in the morning there is no way I’ll do it in the evening after work and after having put the spud to bed.

So this is my routine now. Get up before 6am, get my workout clothes on, sweat up a storm between 6 and 6:30, sort out the child, shower, breakfast, go to work.

I’m now on week 3 of this and have been steadily ramping up how many days I’m exercising. The first week I started on Monday. Friday I took off, and I also rested on Sunday. Week 2 Friday came around. I was fully prepared to chillax but a tiny voice inside said ‘fuck it, let’s do it’ and I did and felt great for it, and I basically exercised every day that week, though I did take it easy on Sunday and did stretching and yoga instead of HIIT.

I’m feeling better. Less lethargic, though come the late afternoon I’m ready for a nap 😅 A pair of shorts I had that’s been growing steadily tighter is loose again and requires me to wear a belt.

Mind you, it’s not all exercise. I’ve started counting calories again, which is what I used to do when I first started over a decade ago. I think calorie counting gets a bad rep. It’s been very good for me to see what I’m eating. I’m more mindful of my food choices now. I’ve sought out new recipes to try out and I’m finding that I can tell the difference between genuine hunger and emotional hunger. Once I recognise that I want to eat my feelings or use food to soothe I can work through it with distractions. And if it keeps lingering I remind myself of the end game: my goal weight, reducing the cholesterol levels, being healthy and fitter, having more energy for my child.

That really helps.

I’ll hopefully have reached my goal weight by August and I’ll be 12kg (26lb) lighter. 🤞

I’m really proud of myself for having found something that’s working for me. I had to step out of my perceived comfort zone and challenge what my own expectations of fitness looked like to try something new. I’m really enjoying it and I’m shocked that even when I wake up tired there isn’t this voice inside that says ‘I don’t want to do this’. It just says ‘let’s get this over and done with’. Knowing I only need to spend a maximum 20 minutes on suffering in the morning to get to where I want to be is amazing. Anyway, I just wanted to get these thoughts out. If anyone wants to also get fit and reach their own goals, hit me up. Having a social network to help motivate and be accountable to is important. I’ve been chatting to my BFF who is also wanting to get back into a fitness routine and we’ve been sharing resources. She put me onto the current app I’m using, so I’d love to extend that out to others who want to get fit but lack motivation. I’ve got a discord server, which is empty at present but if people are interested I can invite you and we can use that space.

My Discord handle is Cream Pudding#7945

#personal #fitness

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melbournenewsvine · 2 years

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Googles latest Pixels are on par with Apple but with different goals

Moving on to watches, the new $550 Pixel Watch is exciting mainly because it’s Google’s first effort, although it’s clearly unsuitable for comparison with the much-improved Apple Watch, now in its eighth generation. One of the thinnest Wear OS watches ever, the Pixel Watch slides seamlessly between tiles and apps, features a range of customizable faces with Apple-style complications, proficiently tracks workouts and heart rates and even offers fall detection. You can do just about anything with your Apple Watch here, including stream music directly to your earbuds, tap to make payments and connect to mobile data networks (with the more expensive cellular model). The Pixel Watch can put your messages and calls on your wrist and track your fitness. But Google is tapping into its hourly power, too. The voice assistant and smart home apps are better than Apple’s, and Google Maps step-by-step instructions are great for walking and biking. But the Apple Watch S8 (from $630) is nicer and more capable. Side by side, the Pixel looks sluggish, and its massive black bezels are very noticeable. Apple Fitness Rings are more digestible and track more complete than the Google Fitbit solution, and the Apple Watch battery lasts longer. It’s a similar story with the Pixel Buds Pro ($300) versus the second-generation AirPods Pro ($400). Google is less expensive and offers a product that outperforms most of Android’s contemporaries, but Apple is more experienced in this category. Noise canceling on the AirPods is more complete, and the dial controls are less prone to accidental touch, but both are comfortable and sound good. When you look at ecosystems as a whole, you can see where the big differences are. loading Apple makes small iterations every year, but it’s clear that it’s moving toward where its products are indispensable for real-world as well as virtual world navigation. Introducing an always-on display for iPhone 14 Pro has instantly jumped a long-running Android app with widgets and information that helps keep the phone at the center of your communications, work schedule, smart home, entertainment and fitness. Meanwhile, the watch’s extended compass features — which let you drop virtual markers and guide you to them later — and the decibel-reducing AirPod signal a desire to augment the natural world with technology in a way that would be cumbersome on a phone. In comparison, the Pixel line has long been aimed at Google’s offering of Android software and AI capabilities, and we see this in the latest phones with features like the ability to transcribe voice messages, translate between languages in real time, and output crisp images. Old photos with a lot of motion blur. The move into the smartwatch space is an expansion of that, and it shows how the massive Google Maps, data, and AI capabilities can be put to work on people’s wrists. As with Android on phones, this will likely come not only to more useful Pixel devices in the future, but from other manufacturers that take advantage of (and support) Google’s software as well. Source link Originally published at Melbourne News Vine

#Melbourne News Vine

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sinner-as-saint · 4 years

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Crawling Back To You.

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Run-through: Bucky Barnes had a lot on his plate at the moment. Regrets, fears, nightmares and desperately trying to do the right things to make up for his past as the Winter Soldier. Amongst those things, barely anything made him truly happy, or safe or loved. None did actually - except for you. He met you at a bar once and since then, you’ve been his sanctuary. You both knew he wasn’t quite ready to be in a relationship, yet you were always there with open arms whenever he needed a friend, a shoulder to lean on, or someone to help him take his mind off things. Be it a nightmare, or memories from the past coming to haunt him, or any major or minor inconvenience, the super soldier would find himself turning to you for help.

Themes: angst, fluff, smut

He woke up on the floor, covered in cold sweat.

The flashbacks of the nightmares kept resurfacing until it finally faded again. Faded, not truly gone because he knew they’d be back tomorrow again - his past coming to haunt him. He sighed and squinted at the screen in front of him.

The T.V was on, playing reruns of a show he did not care about. He simply needed the noise to help him fall asleep. The quiet and silence was his own personal hell, so he always needed some sort of background noise to help him out.

Bucky tried getting some sleep again; tossing and turning on the wooden flooring but he couldn’t fall back asleep. His mind was racing, too many thoughts at once. He checked the time, the clock read 1 a.m. He could go on a run, but he didn’t really feel like it. He could go to the gym, but he didn’t feel like working out either.

He needed something. An escape, a friend. You, he needed you.

Bucky reached for his phone, and a few taps later he was calling you. He knew it was late but you somehow always picked up his calls no matter what the time was. The rings later, he heard your voice speak up from the other end.

“Buck?” You sounded sleepy, but not like he had woken you up, you sounded like you were about to fall asleep.

He closed his eyes and sighed at the sound of your voice. He could picture you, all tucked in your comfy bed, surrounded by pillows and your soft blankets. Perhaps you had lost track of time because of a good book, or perhaps you were up late responding to emails for work.

“Hey doll. Did I wake you up?” he asked, leaning back against the wall of his living room, his legs sprawled out on the floor in front of him. Only sometimes did he feel like he was taking advantage of your kindness, but then again he could be selfish when it came to you. You were his, and that’s that.

You let out a little laugh. “Of course not, Bucky. I was just finishing up some work.” He could hear your sheets shuffling, “Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?” you asked, softly.

Bucky told you he did. Then he went on to tell you exactly what he had dreamt of. Sometimes he felt like he was opening up more to you than his shrink. But truth is, you made him feel like he was more than just a broken soldier, or a problem who needed to be remedied or fixed. You made him feel like he was human after all.

“I… I’m trying to fall back asleep but…” his voice trailed off. He didn’t have to say it, you understood perfectly. He knew you did.

Then he heard his favorite words coming from you, “Come over Buck, I’m waiting.”

He wasted no time in getting up from the floor and getting dressed. Dark jeans, shirt, jacket and not to forget his gloves. Sometimes he wondered why he felt so giddy when you asked him to come over, which was almost every night. He wondered what it would be like to come home to you every night instead, had it been a perfect world. He always felt like he was clinging to you too much, for everything. But then you always told him that you didn’t mind. You told him you loved his company.

He grabbed his helmet before stepping out of his apartment. There was a light drizzle outside but he didn’t care, he just needed to be with you. He got down the stairs and then rushed to start his mean bike and then rushed to your apartment building. You lived in a much nicer part of the city than he did, and he often wondered why you were putting up with someone like him when you could have a man who would give you a life you’ve always dreamt of. He often asked you that, but you always just smiled at him, you never answered.

On his way up to your floor, he couldn’t help but feel all warm in the elevator. He counted down the seconds till he could see you. He often slept over at your place, he loved it. Cuddling, making love, followed by lazy mornings, him trying to get you to not go to work and spend the day with him instead. He loved how you made him feel.

He knocked on your door, already taking off his gloves because he needed to feel your skin against his. Your body heat made him feel so much better. He heard you unlocking the door from the other side and not even a second later, he saw your pretty face smiling at him. Dressed in silk PJ shorts and a t-shirt, you looked breathtakingly beautiful even at one thirty in the morning.

“Hello there,” you greeted him, smirking. “That was fast.” You teased, opening the door wider to let him in.

He smiled and stepped inside, closing the door behind him and pulling you in for a hug immediately. You felt his slightly damp and cold jacket press against you but you hugged him back tightly anyways.

“I needed to see you.” He mumbled, pressing his face into your neck.

“I know.”

You and Bucky ended up in your bed, cuddling under the blankets. He loved the dimmed night light you always had on, knowing that he hated being in complete darkness. He loved how cozy your room was, how spacious and airy but also warm and comfortable.

The large window by your bed showed a lovely view of the city lights, which were right now blurred by the foggy glass, thanks to the light drizzle earlier. He could tell that the air was cold outside, but in here with you everything was just right.

He had stripped down to just his boxers and he laid his head on your chest, his face facing away from yours, while you played with his hair and occasionally ran your hand down his back, scratching his skin lightly. His cold metal arm lazily ran up and down your thighs and he noticed the goosebumps on your skin that he was causing.

He could hear your steady heartbeats and that was his favorite sound in the entire world. It calmed him down.

You looked down, smiling softly at the sight of the muscular soldier using you as a human pillow. You could hear him let out quiet moans as you gently scratched his scalp. You still remembered the first time you two met, at a bar.

It was late on a winter night, and the nearby bar was rather empty; just a few people here and there. And a certain muscular man in a dark leather jacket caught your eye. He was sitting at the counter, and you were in one of the booths. Eventually, you got up and decided to go talk to him.

You recognized him immediately. Ex-Winter Soldier, Captain America’s best friend, James Buchanan Barnes.

Small talks turned into a couple more rounds of beers. He was a little off and awkward at first but he loosened up eventually. He even walked you back to your car, not wanting you to be alone in the dark, foggy and empty parking lot.

That was the first time he kissed you, right before he opened the door of your car for you.

“Will I see you again?” He asked, high off the adrenaline which coursed through his veins ever since you kissed him back.

“Of course you will. Good night, James.” You kissed his cheek before getting into your car and driving off.

A smile formed on your face as you thought of that night. “Do you remember the first time we met?” You asked softly.

Bucky turned his face to you, placing his head back on your chest. He was so close that all you needed to do was to lean in a little to kiss his soft, pink lips.

He smiled. “Yeah, why?”

“No reason, I just wanted you to remember it.”

Bucky chuckled and pressed a gentle kiss on your skin, right above your breasts. “You’ve been awfully quiet. What is it?”

You just smiled at him, “Nothing. You’ve been awfully quiet too.” And judging by the look in his eyes, you could already tell there was something else to his silence. “What is it?”

He was quiet.

Sighing, you flipped the two of you around; straddling his waist while he laid comfortably against your multiple pillows.

“Buck, tell me.” You pressed your palms against his chest to hold yourself up.

“Sam needs my help with something. Another bad guy, another mission, another fight. Same old.” He sounded indifferent.

You couldn’t blame him. He had been fighting for decades, non-stop. He had lost so much while doing so, but he also didn’t know how to deal with the calm, and silence and the quiet. There was so much he needed to figure out about himself still.

“Do you not wanna go?”

He smiled faintly as he lazily rubbed up and down your exposed thighs. “It’s my job, I have to. Innocent people will be hurt if I don’t. I want to help them.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“I’ll have to leave you behind for a little while.” He didn’t want to. He didn’t know how to be away from you anymore because he hadn’t been for months now. The thought of not being able to hold you close at night and having your heartbeats lull him to sleep was scary.

You smiled down at him. “I’ll be here when you come back, Bucky.”

He reached out and cupped your face with his metal hand. “And what if you find someone better while I’m gone?”

You frowned down at him. “Where does that come from?”

He gently stroked your cheek. “I’m just saying. You deserve someone a little more… normal.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Normal is boring, you seem perfectly fine to me.”

He chuckled. “Why do you put up with me, doll?” It was a rhetorical question, he didn’t expect an answer because he had asked you this countless number of times but you never gave him a reply before.

However, you did this time. “Because I’m in love with you, James Buchanan Barnes.” You had been meaning to tell him this for a while now. “You don’t have to say it back, I just needed you to know that no one’s ever gonna replace you. I love you.”

He was a little surprised, his heart raced as he processed everything. How could someone as gentle, kind and beautiful like you fall for someone as broken as him? “Doll… I…”

You leaned down to kiss his forehead. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” You giggled, then pulled away to look at him. “You deserve all the good things in this world, Buck. You deserve to be loved, and cared for. And if you’d let me, I’d love to show you that.”

You carefully pressed your lips to his, kissing him with all the love you had. His metal hand held you at the back of your neck and the other wrapped around your waist. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss; turning your mind into a foggy mess for a little while before he pulled away and stared deep into your eyes.

You reached out and gently caressed his face, Bucky leaned into your touch. “I’m gonna miss you.” He mumbled.

“When do you leave?” You asked.

“Tomorrow, perhaps.”

You leaned in for a kiss again, accidentally brushing your crotch against his erection; making him smirk through the kiss as he pulled you even closer. You purposely moved against him while you kissed him again deeply.

Bucky soon flipped the two of you back around and settled in between your legs, kissing down your neck. “I’m gonna miss making love to you almost every night.” He whispered against your skin. His voice alone sent chills down your back, and made you feel all sorts of warm and tingly feelings inside.

Bucky movements were gentle and slow as he took your clothes off, making sure you were both under the warm covers still; kissing you occasionally as he undressed you, and caressed your body as you squirmed under him.

He kissed his way down your body, until his face was right in between your legs. You moaned as he parted your legs and placed a kiss on your inner thigh, pulling your underwear down your legs and kissing his way back to your wet folds. You threw your head back, and bit your lip; whining when you felt his tongue teasing you gently. The warmth of his mouth was driving you insane.

His tongue gently teased your clit while his fingers slipped inside of you; stroking you gently while you arched your back off the surface of your bed as the pleasure became slightly overwhelming. You whimpered and squirmed under him as his tongue moved perfectly against you.

He had you coming undone all over his tongue and his fingers in no time, and he licked you clean when he was done. Kissing his way up your body again. “I’m gonna miss your taste.” He was shameless enough to whisper it in your ear; making you blush.

His hands roamed around your body, touching you wherever he could, until he finally cupped your core and rubbed the sensitive skin around your swollen clit – making you shudder under him. You whined as he slipped his metal fingers past your entrance yet again. His head dipped into your neck and he licked and bit around your skin until he found your sweet spot. “And I’m gonna miss your warmth.”

“Buck…” You moaned quietly as he replaced his fingers with his cock.

He placed his mouth on top of yours again, to swallow your whimpers and moans as he pushed his cock into you. His breathing got shallow again as he pushed himself fully into you. He lifted his head and watched you grimace in pleasure and pain as his cock stretched you to your maximum. He watched you in awe as your lips parted and you moaned his name once he filled you up nicely.

You whined as he slowly slipped out of you completely, before slamming back into you with a slightly bigger force.

He groaned at the feel of your walls wrapped around him, squeezing and clenching around him. You heard him swear and felt him bite down on your lip as he sped up into you. He tugged on your lips and he started moving his hips; rocking into you slowly, then gradually increasing his speed. Your back arched off the surface of the bed again and your chest pressed to his.

“I’m gonna miss watching you squirm under me…” he whispered, “as I pleasure you like no one ever will.” He moaned into your ear. “You’re mine.”

You were a moaning mess under him in no time. There was something about the way he kissed you, deeply and passionately; as though he was scared you might just get away from him.

He worshipped your body. He mumbled how good you felt in your ear, groaning as you bucked your hips to meet each one of his thrusts as well. He kissed you roughly as he pounded into you; his metal fingers wrapped around your throat. He fucked you raw and relentlessly, watching how your face morphed into frowns of pleasure.

He pressed his forehead on yours; looking down to where your bodies connected so intimately. Then he pulled away to look into your eyes with that animalistic, primal and fiery look in his eyes. His lips parted as he panted while he fucked you like he owned you.

“You’re gonna miss me too aren’t you, doll?”

You nodded, whining in pleasure. He smirked. His hand left your neck and slid in between your connected bodies and furiously rubbed your clit, earning a loud moan out of you. “Say it, baby. Tell me how much you’re gonna miss my cock buried deep inside you…”

You couldn’t talk as the pressure in between your legs became too much to handle, and you craved for release. He noticed and slipped his tongue back into your mouth one last time and took your bottom lip between his teeth again.

“Come on, cum for me… doll,” he swore as he felt you clench around him perfectly. You came hard around him, moaning and whimpering under him as he finished right after you; kissing your swollen lips deeply as he came.

He pushed his face into the crook of your neck as he caught his breath. And you cradled his head; panting as well. Your fingers gently massaged his scalp as he calmed his racing heart. A few moments later, he shifted all his weight right on top of you making you laugh as you tried to scoot out from under him.

He groaned and pulled you closer. “Come here.” He pressed you against his body and wrapped his arms around. “I love you too, doll. So much.”

You buried your face into his chest, inhaling his scent. “I’m gonna miss you. All of you.” You lifted your head up to look at him smiling down at you. “Come back fast.”

He chuckled. “You know I will. No matter where I go, I’ll always come crawling back to you.”

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #tfatws #winter soldier #bucky barnes imagine

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sanguineterrain · 3 years

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Brooklyn Honey - Bucky Barnes x Reader

(Repost!) Hello, this is for the lovely @wkemeup’s 9k writing challenge. I decided to go with the song prompt “Life in the City” by The Lumineers. It really reminded me of 40s Bucky.

Title: Brooklyn Honey

Summary: Life in the city ain’t always so pretty, but you’ve got Bucky and he’s got you.

Pairing: 1940s!Bucky Barnes x female!reader

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: nah

***

“That’s so not how you do it.”

“Sorry, I must’ve missed the day you wrote the manual on how to put up curtains.”

“You sure did, and I can tell you as an expert, the nails aren’t supposed to resemble a mountain range.”

“Smartass. C’mere.”

Bucky’s palm opened and you took a nail, carefully tapping it into the wall.

“Or is it the skyline you’re going for?”

“You’re pretty mouthy for an assistant.”

“I keep it interesting, doll.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“James Barnes, what on earth are you doing in there?!”

Your eyes went wide and you hurried to scramble off the chair you were standing on. Bucky put a hand on your back, shaking his head.

“Buck—”

“I got it, don’t worry. Keep hammering.”

“But—”

“Honey, don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely not.”

More knocking, faster and louder this time.

“Coming, Mrs. Anderson!”

Bucky buttoned up his shirt, smoothing his pomade-slicked hair back, and went to answer.

You stepped down from the chair anyway, daring to peek around the corner.

He had his arms up, trying to fill the entire door frame and hide the obnoxiously yellow curtains you probably weren’t supposed to have. Mrs. Anderson, Steve and Bucky’s busybody next door neighbor, was a small, shriveled, old woman with a perpetually pinched face that looked like it had been stored in a jar of formaldehyde for the last twenty years. She kept trying to look over Bucky’s shoulder but he wouldn’t let her, moving when she did.

“—could’ve sworn I heard hammering coming from this apartment.”

“Oh! You must’ve heard me fixing my bike.”

“You don’t have a bike, James.”

“Did I say my bike? I meant Steve’s.”

“Steve rides a bike?”

“Absolutely. Keeps him fit.”

“I don’t recall seeing him ever—”

“Well, bye, Mrs. Anderson! Always a pleasure to see you, ma’am.”

She gave another stern look before shaking her head, walking away.

You sighed as Bucky shut the door with his foot, a too sly smile on his face.

“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?”

“I think you might be a worse liar than Steve.”

“Well, ouch, doll.”

“First of all, who’s ever heard of needing a hammer to fix a bike?”

“We can be the first.”

“Next time, I’m answering the door.”

You clambered back onto the chair, returning to knocking in the nails.

“I still don’t understand why you wanted curtains in the first place.”

“It adds a homely touch, doll. Aren’t you the one who’s always complaining about how drab this place is?”

“Of course, but it’s not my apartment.”

“It could be, with how often you’re over,” Bucky said sweetly.

“Keep dreaming, Barnes.”

“I will,” he assured with a smile that could melt butter.

You shook your head and returned to focus on the curtains. True, the first one was beyond help in terms of nail placement, but the least you could do was try and make the next one even.

Bucky had offered at least ten times to do it himself but there was no way he was getting his hands on a hammer after what had happened when he’d tried to install some shelves last winter.

Besides, you were better at decorating when it came down to it. At least, that’s what Bucky kept insisting, letting you do essentially anything you wanted to the apartment.

The chair suddenly groaned under additional weight and you startled as you felt the side of a body press against yours.

“How’s it goin’?”

“Bucky, this chair really isn’t meant for two people.”

“You sure? Seems pretty sturdy to me.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Bucky wrapped an arm around your waist and you fixed him with a look.

“What? Don’t want you to fall.”

“How valiant of you.”

“Ain’t it?”

He hopped off before you could scold him further, grinning up at you.

“Beer?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Bucky disappeared and returned a minute later with an open bottle for you, holding it so you could sip safely while still perched on the chair.

Then you kept hammering, eyes narrowed as you focused on not hitting anything other than the nail.

Bucky watched from the floor as you did so, leaning back on his hands.

“What’re you looking at?” you asked after a while, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

He shrugged, a gentle smile on his face.

“The city.”

***

“Honey, I’m home!”

“What did I say about that, Barnes?”

“You said… you’ll love me for all eternity because you’re as sweet as honey?”

“I think it was more along the lines of, ‘don’t call me honey unless you mean it.’”

“I always mean it, Y/N.”

And that was a little more sincerity than you were willing to explore, so you pointed to the bag instead.

“What’s that?”

Bucky grinned, setting a giant paper sack on the counter.

“Lemons.”

“What?”

“Lemons. You know, the little yellow fruits that make you do this?”

Bucky puckered his mouth and smacked his tongue, eyes screwed shut.

“Lemon’s not a fruit.”

“It sure is! Fruit got seeds. Read that in a book about agriculture. We produce a lot of corn, did you know that?“

“Okay, Bucky, the presiding question still remains: why do you have every lemon in the city?”

“There was a good deal at the docks. Dirt cheap for produce. Some guys told me they were takin’ some home for their wives. Didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“I’m not your wife.”

Bucky just grinned. You rolled your eyes.

“I don't know who taught you this, but the way to a girl’s heart is not twenty pounds of lemons.”

“Think of all the lemonade we can make.”

“Unless you’ve also got FDR and his cabinet in those bags, we’re gonna have a lot of leftovers.”

“Look at it this way: no vitamin C deficiency. One less thing to worry ‘bout.”

“Bucky.”

“They’re not all lemons, doll. I got other stuff too. Tomatoes, cabbage, snuck some cucumbers, even bananas.”

You sighed, smiling tiredly. This ration was taking its toll on everyone. You knew Bucky was doing his best, had seen the vegetables and thought of you and how much you missed having cucumber salad and tomato sandwiches like you used to.

“Thank you, Bucky, really. I appreciate you.”

You brushed past him to begin preparing the excess vegetables you three wouldn’t eat this week to pickle. Salt and sugar was going to be hard to gather, but you’d manage. You always did.

“Welcome, doll.”

He beamed, eyes full of warmth as he watched you.

“You gonna stay for dinner?”

“I dunno. Seems like Steve’s gettin’ kinda tired of me,” you laughed.

“Never. ‘Sides, even if he was, doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, really?”

“Nope. ‘Cause you stay for me.”

“And where did you get that idea from?”

He shrugged.

“Seemed kinda obvious, doll. You’re smitten, admit it.”

“Oh dear, you’ve got me all figured out. However did you know?”

“I’m a bright fella.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You ain’t saying no…”

“Really, I have to say no? Can’t you tell I only stick around for the great deals you get on produce?”

“But it’s me that gets the great deals, so really, you’re still staying for me.”

Bucky was against the counter now, shoulder to shoulder with you.

You sighed, hand on your hip as you stared at the table.

“What the hell are we going to do with all these lemons?”

“We’ll figure something out. Always do, don’t we?”

You hummed, leaning your head on his shoulder, aware he was talking about more than the lemons.

“Yeah. We always do.”

***

Steve had been home for a while, wordlessly letting you in when you’d shown up an hour ago. You didn’t have to explain anything to him anymore.

The record player was on, crooning gently. Steve was in the corner, drawing, away from the window after the breeze had whipped his papers around one too many times.

“Can’t believe they’re building another skyscraper down on Lawrence.”

Steve frowned.

“Really? Won’t be able to see the sunset now.”

“Yeah. And Brooklyn’s not exactly known for its scenery to begin with. Saw a rat and a pigeon fighting over a pretzel this morning.”

Steve chuckled from the floor, shaking his head.

“Times are tough. Even for rats and pigeons.”

“Sure are.”

“Nice curtains, by the way. I like the color.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Did Bucky ask—?”

“No,” he answered, smile evident in his voice. “But that’s alright. I know he’s just tryin’ to gauge what you like.”

“What?”

“Yeah, after the war’s over and all, he’s gonna try and buy a nicer place.”

“And he wants my furnishing tips?”

Steve shrugged, gaze soft and knowing.

“Guess so.”

You cleared your throat, pushing a lock of hair behind your ear.

“Want some lemonade?”

“Jesus, there’s more? I thought we’d run out of bushels.”

“You’d think, right? I put ‘em in the icebox so they won’t spoil so fast.”

“Sure, yeah. Thanks, Y/N.”

You were in the middle of stirring the pitcher when Bucky came in.

He didn’t greet you or Steve immediately, like he usually did, instead setting down his keys, then slapping the mail onto the table.

“Well, hey there, mister. Fancy a drink? Today’s special is sour lemonade, your favorite.”

Bucky looked up, startled, and glanced at the pitcher before nodding, attempting a half smile.

“Sure, doll. Thanks.”

“Everything okay, Buck?”

He nodded, slipping away to the bathroom with a sigh.

You turned to Steve, who shrugged.

“Long day at the docks, I guess.”

***

June twelfth. That was when Bucky was being shipped out, somewhere in Europe, too far from you. This entire year you’d been holding your breath, hoping, needing the draft to leave him alone.

Now they were taking him away from you in less than a week.

You were in the apartment, lying on the floor, on Bucky’s second to last day. That’s how he found you upon coming home.

“Trying to count all the cracks in the ceiling, doll? You’ll be here all night.”

You had a glass of lemonade by your head, spiked with a bit of rum. It was already warm, because it was summer and things were supposed to be warm in the summer.

The curtains danced in front of the window, yellow like sunshine and all those goddamn lemons in the freezer. The only respite from an otherwise colorless world.

“This city is so ugly.”

Bucky looked up at the sound of your voice. He walked over, crouching by your arm.

“Think so?”

“Yeah. Can’t find a single pretty thing in the city.”

“I can.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. She’s looking at me right now.”

“That was sappy.”

“Yes it was.”

Bucky lay down, rolling onto his side next to you, taking a sip from your glass.

“But I ain’t mean it any less.”

You hummed, closing your eyes.

“Well, for what it’s worth then, I think you’re handsome.”

“Oh, yeah?”

You could hear his proud smile.

“Don’t make me take it back.”

“No, I’m just surprised to hear it is all.”

“Surprised, huh? I’m certain I ain’t the first one to call you handsome.”

“You’re the only one I wanna hear it from.”

Something fluttered in your chest.

“What d’you say then? You and I, think we can take on a city as ugly as ours?”

He smiled.

“With you, doll?”

“Yeah.”

“With you, of course.”

“Good. I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Bucky propped his head up on his elbow. It was quiet again, with only your occasional sighs and his quiet breaths.

“What’re you looking at?” you breathed, opening your eyes.

“You.”

Bucky flicked a drop of lemonade from the tip of your nose.

You turned, now face to face.

And oh, Bucky’s blues. Those had been your color even before the curtains.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you blurted.

He smiled a little sadly.

“Gonna miss you too, Y/N.”

You pushed your lips together, taking a deep breath.

“You were right, you know.”

“‘Bout what?”

“That day when you brought home all those lemons. You said that I stay for you.”

Bucky’s lips quirked, gaze fond like it always was.

“All those times I stayed for dinner and pretended to know what I was doing putting up those curtains. I stayed for you.”

You wiped your nose quickly, sniffling.

“And I’m gonna keep staying.”

“Yeah? What if the bridge collapses tomorrow?”

“I’ll swim.”

“Even in the winter?”

“I’ll get myself a pair of ice skates.”

“You don’t know how to skate, doll.”

“That’s right. So you better come back safe and teach me.”

Bucky leaned in, nose brushing your cheek. He rolled over and carefully straddled you, holding his weight.

“I’ll be there, honey.”

“Now what did we say about that?”

Bucky’s eyebrows pinched in thought.

“Don’t say it if I don’t mean it?”

You hummed, pulling him closer, arms around his neck. Bucky’s lips were a millimeter from yours, breath fanning over your chin.

“Mm, I think it was something about eternity.”

Bucky was soft, tangy and sweet. His scruff scraped your cheek and your fingers curled into the baby hairs at the nape of his neck.

He slid his hands under your back and turned so you were on top, head on his chest. You lay like that for a while, listening to his heartbeat, arms strong around you.

Yellow fluttered in the breeze, tacked unevenly onto the wall, catching your eye.

Bucky glanced to the side, chuckling.

“Don’t let Anderson take our curtains away.”

“Of course not. I spent a weekend on those. She’ll have to fight me for ‘em.”

“Good God. Now I gotta worry about you brawling with old ladies and Steve getting into alley fights while I’m gone?”

“Nah. Steve’ll help me.”

“Oh, great.”

You reached up, brushing his jaw with your knuckles.

“Call me honey again.”

“Honey, honey, honey.”

You reached up to get just one last kiss, except it definitely wasn’t going to be the last. It couldn’t be.

“They’re not gonna take you away from me.”

Bucky shook his head, kissing you much slower this time, trying to memorize you before time ran out.

“Never. ‘M gonna think of you and I’ll be back ‘fore we know it.”

You nodded, wishing hard, hoping somebody was listening.

“Then, when I come back,” he whispered, promise riding on the summer air.

“We’re gonna make the best damn lemonade you’ve ever had.”

And maybe this city could take away your sunsets, your tea and jams, even your summer.

But if there was anything that was yours and yours only, it was the lemon pulp on Bucky’s lips and the undissolved sugar on your own, as bitter and pretty as home.

#bucky barnes x reader #1940s bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #kas9kwc #repost for those of you who asked <3

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mochegato · 3 years

Text

Even the Losers

Chapter 17

Chapter 1 Chapter 16

Marinette shook her head and tried to hide her giggles. Red Robin had to have thought he was being discrete, right? Unless he was intentionally making himself known as a way to intimidate any more rogues from trying to get to her. He was discrete enough that the average person probably wouldn’t notice him, but anyone paying attention, looking for him, would see him easily.

She waited until he was looking down at her again and waved at him. He smiled and waved back before blushing, shaking his head, and motioning for her to continue. Marinette grinned and looked back at the map on her phone. The restaurant Jason chose was around here somewhere. One of the places he just ended up at a lot, he said. Low key and cozy, exactly the kind of place she needed right now.

After that, he said he was planning on following her around for the rest of the day. He’d said it in a joking tone, but she knew there was nothing joking about his intent. He would be shadowing her for the rest of the day. He couldn’t hide the gravity behind the statement. He couldn’t mask the concerned questions, no matter how casually he tried to play them off. The insistence on seeing her apartment, make sure the view was good enough and the kitchen was stocked enough. The way he casually suggested she teach him how to make a baked good she liked.

Honestly, she was shocked he let her walk there on her own, but he said he’d be have eyes on her anyway. She looked back up at Red Robin with a smile. Clearly, he wasn’t kidding. White lensed eyes. The smile quickly morphed into a frown when she couldn’t see him. He hadn’t been hidden this whole time, so where was he now? She squeaked and whirled around into a fighting stance when she heard someone land behind her. She barely had time to put her hands down before Red Robin was standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder while he looked around, eyes sharp and calculating.

Marinette followed his lead and scanned the crowd. In lieu of knowing what she was looking for, she kept her eye out for anything that seemed out of place. Everything looked normal though. Nothing seemed suspicious. There were a few people throwing them odd looks, but nothing that seemed hostile or calculating, instead it seemed more curious and fearful of what having a vigilante dropping down in the middle of the night meant for them.

Red Robin turned back to face her. “Let’s get you somepl…” his hand went up to his ear. “Shit!”

Marinette’s eyes widened in fear. “What happened? Did someone get hurt?”

Red Robin’s eyes looked around them again and narrowed at one of the buildings. He moved his arm to her back and firmly pushed her toward the building. “Nobody is hurt.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “But…”

“There’s just an issue that needs attention, but nobody has been hurt,” he assured her, looking down briefly to meet her eyes.

Marinette nodded uncertainly, not feeling calmer with his reassurance. She couldn’t see his eyes past the white filters to gauge his sincerity, and it was unsettling. “So my friend and brother, my… the Waynes, they’re… nobody is hurt?”

Red Robin paused almost imperceptibly. If she hadn’t become used to his constant pressure on her back, she wouldn’t have noticed. He looked back down at her as they walked, the tense muscles in his face softened considerably. “They’re all safe. Your friend and brother and family. They’re all safe. I promise. I just need to go assist someone, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. “I can defend myself you know.”

Red Robin gave her a deadpan expression. She’s sure if he didn’t have a mask, he’d have his own eyebrow raised at her. “After last night, you can understand that we and your family are a bit concerned and perhaps a bit overprotective just right now.”

Marinette rolled her eyes with a sigh but didn’t fight him. “So you’re going to, what? Hide me in some abandoned office until everything blows over? That sounds safe.”

Red Robin huffed out a laugh. “Absolutely safe. That is our standard approach. I’m glad you understand how we operate.” He gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher with his mask in the way. “No. I think your family would hunt me down if I did something so reckless with you. They’re quite protective, you know?”

Marinette opened her mouth to say something but shut it quickly. He was a stranger. There was absolutely no reason to get into her family dynamics with him. “No,” he continued, oblivious to her uncertainty. “I’m going to stash you with someone we know we can trust.”

Marinette looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “A babysitter.”

The corners of Red Robin’s mouth quirked up. “Well, if you’re going to whine like a baby…” he teased.

Marinette gasped dramatically. “If you want whining, I can show you whining. I grew up with the most spoiled brat in existence. I can give new meaning to the word.” Red Robin actually laughed as he opened the door to the business. “You know, I’m supposed to meet my… um… br… brother,” she stuttered over the word. “Jason’s going to wonder about me.”

Red Robin cringed slightly. “You should probably text him. It isn’t a good idea for you to go out until this is resolved.” Marinette nodded and shot a text off to Jason letting him know she was okay and Red Robin was putting her somewhere safe for a bit.

They heard movement from the building, finally drawing Marinette’s attention to the business they had gone into. “Can I help… T… Red Robin? Marinette?” Roy asked pushing out from behind a motorcycle with its transmission in his hands.

“Hey, I was hoping you could watch Marinette while I take care of something. You’re a friend with the Waynes right?” Red Robin asked pointedly.

Roy stared at him for a few seconds before realization set in. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re like fam…” he looked over to Marinette, “well, not family family. But, uh, yeah.”

Red Robin cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips. “No, I’m pretty sure you are con…” he was cut off by something in his com. He paused for a moment to listen before turning back to Roy with what Marinette was pretty sure was supposed to be a glare. “I’m trusting you,” he growled. “There’s some madness going on.”

Roy’s face turned serious and he gave him a determined nod. “I’ll protect her. Go.”

Red Robin looked between them for a second then nodded and took off. Roy and Marinette watched him leave for a second before turning back to each other. Marinette gave him a shy smile. “Hi,” she waved sheepishly. “Sorry to just drop in on you like this.”

Roy gave her a welcoming smile and motioned to the garage bay. “Not at all. I guess you’re just visiting sooner than we anticipated. Can’t say I’m upset at all.” He moved some parts off of a stool and motioned toward it for her to sit. “I should say sorry that you have to hunker down here. You definitely look like you were going somewhere a bit nicer.”

Marinette looked down at her outfit analytically, a blood red, long-sleeved blouse, black skinny jeans, and black heeled boots. She’d wanted to wear ladybug colors after the previous night in the Riddler’s facility and the Wayne dining room. Ladybug colors always reminded her of the strongest, most resilient parts of herself. She looked back up at him, her eyes catching on the coat rack behind him. “Excuse you. All I need is that jacked over there and I’d fit right in. In fact, I’d match your baby.”

Roy looked to where she was looking, seeing his black leather jacket hanging up. He blushed slightly at the idea of her wearing his jacket. He could picture it on her, the jacket hanging loosely off of her significantly smaller frame, her clinging to him as they rode on his bike… He looked back at her with a soft look. “And you would still be too classy to be here.”

Marinette pouted at him. “You say that like I don’t fit in.” She didn’t want to say the ‘with you’ that was running through her head. Did he think she wouldn’t fit with him? “I can fit. I can even be helpful.”

Roy shook his head. “No, not at all just…” He motioned to his own clothes, an old tee, stained jeans, and a backwards ball cap that was just as stained with grease as his jeans, and then motioned to her.

Marinette looked between the two of them and grinned. “You underestimate my ability to get dirty. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be as dirty as you.”

Roy’s eyes snapped to the wrench in his hand. Based on the complete lack of amusement or sultriness in her eyes, she did not at all realize what she just said. He took a few seconds, it may have been minutes, to calm his heart and mind. “Okay, how about you prove it?”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. “Prove what?”

“That you can be helpful. Roll up those sleeves and help me with this engine.” He motioned to the transmission on the workbench next to her. “I can also get you some coveralls so your outfit won’t get dirty if you prefer.” He looked back at her with an amused glint in his eyes. “They’ll be a bit big on you…” Marinette narrowed her eyes at him but his eyes danced with even more amusement at her reaction. “Since you’re so litt…”

“You know what…” she cut him off, standing to get in his personal space. She stared up at him, her eyes meeting his for a moment before her cheeks burst into color. She looked away and cleared her throat. After a second to recover, she motioned to the transmission as she rolled up her sleeves. “Just tell me what you’re doing and how I can help.”

Roy grinned and twirled the wrench in his hand. “Yes, ma’am.”

He leaned over the transmission and started loosening one of the nuts holding the piece together. His hand faltered for a fraction of a second when Marinette leaned next to him, close enough for him to feel her breath as she let out a sigh, close enough to feel her body heat. Close enough he could easily wrap his arms around her and pull her against him. He had to tighten his hands to keep them from reaching over.

He took a breath to focus. Now was not the time. She had just been kidnapped and people could take a bit of time to recover from something like that, especially considering the things she had said about having a breakdown. He flicked his eyes over to her trying to assess how she was doing. Her eyes were intently watching his hands as they moved around the transmission. They were sharp and her body seemed to be relaxing the longer she watched him work. If he didn’t know better, he’d never know she had been kidnapped and threatened the night before.

She looked up at him questioningly when his hands stilled as he analyzed her. He gave her a small smile and motioned toward the tool box. “Um… I need… Can you, um, get me the, um… 5/16th wrench, please?” he stuttered.

Marinette jumped up to search through the wrenches in the box. She frowned, her lip jutting out as she searched. “I don’t see it here. Is there somewhere else it could be?”

Roy’s face scrunched as he tried to remember where else he might have used it. He’d been working on the bike almost all day. He looked back at the motorcycle trying to remember what he had done with it. He was broken from his concentration by Marinette’s light giggle. He looked over to her with a raised brow.

Marinette looked away quickly, another blush on her cheeks. She followed where his line of sight had been and searched around the motorcycle, focusing her energy on her search for the wrench instead of the adorable face he made when he was concentrating and the way his nose wrinkled up in thought and his lips quirked to the side. After a minute of looking she shook her head and held her empty hands out for him to see.

“Any other ideas?” she asked as she came back over to her stool.

Roy sighed deeply and scanned the workbench. He had a backup set of wrenches, but he knew he had used that one recently. It couldn’t have gone too far. His attention was brought back to Marinette when she giggled again, her giggles turning into full blown laughter. He gave her a confused look which made her laugh louder. She reached over the workbench, almost climbing onto it to grab the wrench that was behind the transmission. She held the wrench out to him triumphantly with a smug, teasing smile on her lips.

Roy fought choking on air at the sight of her climbing onto his workbench and all the images that immediately flooded into his mind involving that particular scenario, especially in his jacket… and nothing else. He took the wrench, hoping she believed the blush he knew was on his cheek was from embarrassment rather than where his thoughts had gone. “Thanks,” he managed to mutter out.

“Anytime,” she grinned back. “See?” she motioned to herself. “Helpful.”

Roy chuckled and shook his head fondly. “Guess I’ll have to keep you around then.”

Marinette chuckled and let her focus settle back on the part he was working on. She watched his hands move effortlessly and confidently over the pieces. “Flathead screwdriver,” he asked, holding out his hand for her. She quickly grabbed one and slapped it in his hand like he was a surgeon. He looked up at her with a grin. “Thanks, nurse.”

Marinette shook her head and let her gaze pass over the garage bay. She quirked her head to the side when her eyes settled on a bow leaning up against the wall by the door. “What’s with the bow?”

Roy’s head jerked up. His eyes immediately found his bow and quiver. He looked back at her with an almost natural smile. “Oh, I just… like to shoot.”

“It’s yours?” she asked perking up.

“Yeah… I just pulled it out… recently.” His eyes flicked to the cut on her cheek quickly before returning to the transmission.

Marinette looked back at the bow. “That sounds fun. I always wanted to learn. How did you learn?”

Roy’s eyes took on a far off look and a sentimental smile spread on his lips. “My father, my adopted father.”

“Oliver?” Marinette asked, confusion clear in her voice as she tried to reconcile the sentimental smile with his description in the bar.

“Ah, so you know,” Roy said quietly, eyes suddenly in focus and pointed at the transmission.

Marinette gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. Damian… he um… thought I knew,” she stuttered out. She really didn’t want to get into that conversation right now. She was sure Roy would be upset and it was just something she wanted to leave between her and Damian, not someone else. “He just mentioned it yesterday.”

Roy nodded and flicked his eyes up to her for a second, gauging her reaction, waiting for the questions. There were always questions. Questions about Oliver, questions about their relationship, questions about their money. The exact combination might change but they were always there. “Sorry for bringing it up,” she said quietly.

Roy shook his head, with a small smile. “No. It isn’t your fault. No not Oliver. It was before Oliver. My birth father died saving me from a forest fire and a man named Brave Bow adopted me. He raised me. He was a really good man. He taught me how to be a good person and how to shoot… and just about everything else I know.”

The smile on Roy’s face made Marinette smile too. “He sounds like a good father.”

Roy nodded. “He was,” he said quietly. He looked over at her hesitantly before focusing back on the piece he was working on. “How are you feeling?”

Marinette quirked her head to the side. “Feeling? Not as useful as I could be. A burden on you more than a help, if I’m being honest,” she shrugged.

Roy snorted. “Sorry, I’ll try to get you to do more of my work for me.” He sent her a smirk that got an eye roll out of her. “And I would never call you a burden. In fact, I’d fight to keep you nearby,” he added quietly, no longer meeting her eyes. He tried to focus on the transmission but he could feel her eyes on him, making it impossible to think of anything else.

After a few seconds he cleared his throat. “I mean after,” he motioned toward her face, his hand still grasping the gear he had just removed. “How are you handling it? The Riddler’s no joke.”

Marinette scoffed and picked up a wrench. She spun it in her hand as a distraction while she spoke. “He really isn’t. I didn’t find him funny at all.” Roy gave her a flat look and returned to working on the part, letting her decide to continue discussing it or not. “How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“He broadcast it to all Gotham. Everybody knows. Everybody saw you deliver the verbal smack down of the century,” he grinned at her. “It was inspiring. You were amazing.”

“I was pissed is what I was,” she grumbled. She looked away and sighed, running her hand over her face and grimacing when she accidentally touched her cut. “I forgot everyone would see that.”

She stared at the wrench as she twirled it in her hands. She knew the Waynes probably knew she was taken. She’d called Jason to let him know she was fine, but had pretended she had to go talk to the police and cut the call short. She really didn’t want to talk to them after the scene at dinner. She didn’t want to have the conversations she knew they were going to want to have. She just wanted to move on. It didn’t have anything to do with them, especially the kids. It was her past, one they had no way of knowing about and no way of helping with. There was no reason to hash through it all again.

But she hadn’t realized they would get to see the full video. She frowned at the thought. She’d said so much while she was yelling and she couldn’t remember what all she had said. It was a moment of weakness that now the entire city, possibly the world now knew about. Thankfully she was positive she didn’t mention anything about the miraculous so to anyone watching she would have looked like any other normal, non-miraculous wielding person.

And on top of it all, she wasn’t sure if she was grateful or upset that M. Wayne hadn’t reached out to see if she was alright. All of the kids had even Lucius had, but not him… or Alfred. After the way she left, he might not feel like he’s allowed to. But still… he hadn’t bothered to check on her at all.

She looked up with a weak smile. “Guess I’ve truly experienced Gotham now.”

Roy grimaced. “Sorry about that.” He watched her as she seemed to work through her feelings on the matter, going from annoyed to hurt. He returned his attention to the engine part. “I think I need to start calling you Fire Flower.”

Marinette looked up at him curiously. “Fire Flower?”

“Yeah,” he looked up briefly with a spark in his eyes. “It’s like a fire cracker, but cuter. More impressive to look at.” Marinette blushed and looked down, accidentally dropping the wrench she had been playing with. Roy grinned widely at her before focusing back on his work. “You sure you feel safe?” he asked, still focusing on the engine.

Marinette nodded. “I have Adrien and Max. We might not look like we can protect ourselves, but we’re pretty good at it.” Actually incredibly well. She was possibly the best protected person in the world right now, but he didn’t have any way of knowing that.

“I’m actually pretty surprised Adrien isn’t with you right now or Max.” He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.

Marinette nodded. “You’re not wrong. They would be but Max just started work and couldn’t really take a day off immediately and Adrien had a job interview in Metropolis today. And this is the one he’s really excited about. I was supposed to go with him and check out Metropolis, but then I wouldn’t have had anyone with me while he was in the interview and that made them a bit too nervous. Here at least they know I have the bats following me at all times so, they were pretty confident I was safe.”

“The bats are keeping an eye on you, huh?” Roy asked with a secretive grin.

Marinette nodded. “I’m not sure if they’re trying to be subtle, but yeah. I don’t know what kind of relationship they have with the Waynes. They mentioned… the bats certainly act like they talk a lot and know each other well.”

Roy froze for a second. Well, they certainly weren’t being as discrete as they normally are, it would seem. Although after last night, he could imagine they were pretty flustered. He had been and she was just an acquaintance to him. He wanted it to be more but… that wasn’t the point. But at this rate, she was going to figure it out before they told her and he didn’t imagine that going well for them. “So you’ve caught them a few times?”

“Caught is a liberal term for it. Is it catching if they aren’t really hiding? I think Red Robin might have been trying… maybe, but Batman was on our balcony, standing vigil all night last night.”

Roy glanced over for a second. “Batman was watching over your apartment last night?”

Marinette nodded. “Markov said he was there until Red Robin took over some time around breakfast.”

Roy paused for a few seconds then tapped the screwdriver against the workbench. “And… Bruce? Did Bruce check in on you?”

Marinette looked away and licked her lips before pursing them. She twisted the wrench around a few more times, focusing entirely on that, not meeting Roy’s eyes. “No,” she finally said in a falsely calm voice. “I… I didn’t… Dinner didn’t go so well.”

Roy moved closer to her until he was close enough to reach her comfortably but still gave her space so he wasn’t crowding her. He ducked his head to try to meet her eyes. She yielded quickly and met his eyes. “He’s worried about you. I guarantee you he is. He’s just… shit at emotions and reading a room.

“If you guys fought, I promise you he isn’t less worried about you, he’s just afraid that seeing him or hearing from him will upset you more. I promise you he’s finding out everything he can about how you are from anyone that will tell him. He cares. Your fight didn’t push him away. He’s just a fucking idiot. And an asshole, so there’s like a 97% chance if you did fight, it was his fault. And he probably knows that, just not how to make it up to you.”

Marinette huffed out a laugh despite her eyes suddenly turning glassy. “I don’t need him to make it up, just… it’s not even his fault. It was mine really.” She fiddled with the wrench in her hands, testing the strength, trying to bend it, focusing on that as if it was the most interesting thing in the room.

“I doubt it.” He sighed and readjusted his cap as he tried to come up with the right words. “I’ve found that when bad things happen at the manor it’s almost always because Bruce was being a controlling little bitch.” Instead of laughing, she frowned at the wrench. Right, calling her father, she’s trying to connect to a ‘controlling little bitch’ probably isn’t really helping. He sighed and looked back up trying to figure out how to remove the frown. It didn’t look right on her face. She should be smiling. Always. “Do you want a hug?”

Marinette finally looked up from the wrench in surprise. After a second she gave him a weak smile and shook her head, returning her focus to the wrench. “I’m fine.”

Roy lightly placed his hand on the wrench to stop its motion. “That’s not what I asked,” he said gently.

She blinked at him a few times before a smirk quirked her lips up. “I mean… I’m not going to object to a handsome man wrapping his arms around me,” she answered slyly, throwing his words from days earlier back at him. Roy grinned and wrapped his arms around her, gently at first but holding her tighter as the hug went on. His arms were strong and reassuring, giving a sense of warmth and safety and Marinette quickly found herself melting into his embrace. She nuzzled into his chest and dear God, she could feel his muscles moving through his shirt with every minute movement.

She tried to hide her frown when he pulled away after a few minutes. But, it turned into a smile when he stopped after a few inches, just enough to look down at her. Roy smiled softly and rubbed her cheek with his thumb a few times. Marinette leaned into his hand, captivated by the feel of his hand on her face. He started to lean down but jumped away with the sound of clattering right next to them. Roy moved in front of her, caging her in behind him as he looked for the source of the sound.

Marinette grimaced and leaned down to pick up the wrench that had slipped through her fingers when she was looking at Roy. He chuckled awkwardly and moved back to his transmission. He started working on it again a lot slower than he had been before. His hands were shaking slightly. He could still feel the traces of her on his fingers and around his chest, trilling through him. “Can you… um… the. Can you hand me the Phillips head, please?” he stuttered, unable to get his mind settled.

Marinette stared at him for a few seconds, her cheeks still bright red, as her mind tried to kick back into gear. She looked at the tools in the toolbox and back to him. “Is… that’s a tool, not like a horror movie thing, right?”

Roy blinked a few times before breaking out in laughter. Marinette smiled at his laughter, beyond grateful for the change of topic. “The one with the cross for a head,” he said motioning toward the screwdrivers.

“Oh,” Marinette nodded in understanding. “Tournevis cruciform,” she muttered to herself as she searched through the tools for the right screwdriver. “Americans and their naming things.”

Roy grinned at her outrage. “And what do you call it? The cross screwdriver.” he teased.

“That is literally what it translates to,” she deadpanned.

Roy puckered his lips in an attempt at keeping a smile off his lips and make his annoyed wrinkled brow more believable. “Oh, well I bow to your superior naming capabilities,” he snarked with a fake bow.

Marinette nodded graciously and passed the screwdriver to him. “Thank you. That’s all I ask.”

Roy laughed and returned to the transmission, pretending like he could focus on that instead of the kiss they almost had. Marinette watched, almost transfixed as he moved the gears synchronously on the transmission, creating intricate and ever changing patterns. She pulled her sketchbook and pencil out to capture a sudden idea.

“The wrench?” Roy called out, not looking up from the transmission. He held out his hand and waited for a few seconds before adding, “Please?” He waited a little longer before repeating it a bit louder. “Wrench, please?” He finally looked up when she still hadn’t handed it to him. “Marinette?” He looked over to her concerned. His face immediately softened when he saw her.

Marinette’s face was frozen in intense concentration on her sketchbook as she drew confidently and without hesitation. She held the sketchbook out and tilted it slightly. She narrowed her eyes at it and tilted it a different way. Her mouth curved into a satisfied smirk before she added in more details and notes. Her eyes lit up with inspiration, bright and clear. She shook her head to get a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, hands too busy committing her inspiration to paper to waste time with such trivialities. Roy shook his head, mentally berating himself for having backed off before. She had been right there and leaning toward him. Maybe Jason and Dick… and Tim and Damian, were right. He was an idiot.

Before Roy realized what he was doing, he had reached out to tuck it behind her ear, being careful to avoid her cut as his fingers brushed her face. Marinette jumped at the unexpected contact. She looked up at him wide eyed but a sheepish look quickly overtook her expression. She looked down in embarrassment, but that only pressed her face further into Roy’s hand, which made her embarrassed blush deepen but not due to embarrassment this time. “Sorry. Did you need a tool?”

Roy shook his head. He smiled and moved his hand slightly so it was cupping her face this time. “It’s fine. I was enjoying watching you get caught up in inspiration.”

Marinette looked down again and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. It is probably the most embarrassing face.”

Roy smiled softly at her, his eyes shining with sincerity and fondness. “No. It wasn’t. It was cute.” He took a step closer to her and leaned a bit closer, more intimately. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it more.”

“More of my too distracted to pay attention to you face?” she smirked and leaned closer to him.

“Any version of your face you’ll let me see. Although I would prefer to see it with fewer cuts,” he frowned at the cut on her cheek as he rubbed a soothing line just below the bruise that had formed around the cut. He leaned closer to examine the cut until his lips were centimeters from her cheek. He flicked his eyes to her half lidded ones and leaned to close the distance.

“Hey, guys!” Dick boomed as he came into the room. Marinette and Roy jumped apart, or rather Roy jumped away and Marinette straightened up on the stool, grabbing the workbench to keep from falling off. “Sorry I’m late. And sorry I’m here instead of Jason. He got… caught up in the attack. Not personally!” he rushed to assure Marinette when her eyes widened and body stiffened. “I meant he’s dealing with the fallout. Jason is fine. He’d just be really, really late and asked if I could come over here instead. If that’s okay.”

Marinette nodded, but her eyes were still slightly widened. ��Of course. But you’re sure Jason’s okay?”

“Absolutely,” Dick shot her a charming smile. “He’s just going to need a bit of time to deal with things,” he lied smoothly. He looked between Marinette and Roy with narrowed eyes and moved between them as he hugged Marinette. “He really, really wanted to be here with you today. I think he’s planning on attaching himself to you tomorrow though.”

Marinette chuckled lightly. “That’s okay. We’ll have fun doing something.” Her face suddenly sobered. “Oh, no, wait. I have lunch with Duke and Cass tomorrow. I mean… I think I have lunch with them. We had planned it, but that was before…” she trailed off, not wanting to go into detail at all, but especially in front of Roy.

“I’m sure you still do,” Dick assured her. “They’re probably just waiting to get confirmation from you in case the last few days were a bit much and you wanted a break.”

“No!” Marinette exclaimed. “No. I’ll text them. Thanks.”

“But I get you for tonight. How do you feel about a movie marathon?” he grinned widely, already planning a full night’s marathon with her, Adrien, and Max. She had to love Disney movies, right? Who didn’t love Disney movies?

“I like movies,” Roy chirped with a teasing grin.

“No,” he answered sharply. He turned back to Marinette with a mock sympathetic smile. “You must have been so bored here.”

Roy narrowed his eyes back at him but Marinette jumped up to defend Roy. “Not at all. It was interesting watching him working on the bike. I got some good inspiration too.”

Roy raised a pointed eyebrow at him with a smug grin. “Motorcycles remind her of her grandmother.”

Dick looked back at Marinette who was looking back at Roy with a surprised expression. “Good memory.”

“I remember important things,” he shrugged.

Dick glared at him. “Uh huh. But not to check if things are loaded.” He looked back at Marinette. “You’ve got something just there,” he motioned to the cheek Roy had stroked earlier. “You might want to get that grease off.”

“Oh!” Marinette exclaimed grabbing her cheek, almost succeeding in covering the blush that flushed on her cheeks. “Do you have a bathroom I can use?”

Roy nodded and motioned toward the bathroom. “Just right over there.”

As soon as the door closed, Dick punched Roy’s shoulder. Roy frowned at him. “What?”

“What the Hell are you doing?” Dick hissed and motioned toward the bathroom.

“What?” Roy answered rubbing his shoulder. At least it was just Dick. If it was Jason, he’d be rubbing his jaw right now. “Tim dropped her off here. What was I supposed to do? Ignore her?”

“You were supposed to not hit on her,” he grumbled.

“That’s just unreasonable,” Roy rolled his eyes and leaned back against the workbench. He motioned to the bathroom. “Have you met her? She’s smart and sassy and really sweet. She's funny and obviously gorgeous. Who doesn’t want to hit on her?”

“Yeah. I’ve met her. Didn’t hit on her.” Dick let out a long suffering sigh. “Jesus, Roy! I’ve had her as a sister for like a week. I don’t want to lose her because I’m in jail for killing you.”

“You’re her brother, you don’t count in the hitting on her count. And please,” Roy scoffed, “you’re too good to go to jail for it.”

“True. Just…” he narrowed his eyes at him and pointed at him threateningly, “if you mess around and hurt her… I’ll choose her over you. And I won’t forget to load the magazines and Jason will be more than happy to use them.”

“That’s hurtful,” Roy groused. “One time. I forgot to load the magazines one time.”

“Yeah, in the middle of a mission!” Dick whisper hissed.

“You survived,” Roy shrugged. “Stop being such a baby. But I get it. I’d choose her over me too. Or you. But if you were going to kill anyone for hurting her, Riddler wouldn’t still be alive… or Bruce.”

Dick pursed his lips at the reminder of how Bruce had treated Marinette, of everything that had come up the night before. His anger quickly deflating. He looked toward the bathroom, his eyes softening. They really needed to work harder to support her, to assure her they weren’t holding her at arm’s length. Maybe talk to Bruce about telling her the truth. That seemed like the only possible way to salvage this. “How does she seem to be doing?”

Roy shrugged and watched the bathroom door to make sure she wouldn’t walk in on the conversation. “Actually doesn’t seem too bothered by the Riddler incident. She’s more anxious about the family knowing.” He pursed his lips and picked up a transmission piece, pretending to examine it. “Bruce hasn’t said anything or made any attempts as far as she knows.”

Dick sighed and massaged his temples. “That should surprise me more than it does.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Last night… dinner didn’t… some things came out that Bruce didn’t know. Things she had to go through. He’s beating himself up over it. Too ashamed to talk to her.”

Roy sighed and shook his head. Bruce was going to lose her before he even had her at this point. “That have anything to do with why she’s so unaffected by having been taken captive by one of the most dangerous rogues in Gotham?” Dick’s resigned sigh was enough confirmation for him. “Fuck,” he grumbled. “She thinks it’s her fault he doesn’t want to bother with her anymore.”

“Damn it,” Dick grumbled, drawing out the words in frustration. He ran his hand over his face and collapsed on the stool she had been on earlier. “Good to know. Thanks.”

Roy nodded and threw the part back on the workbench. “How’s Jay doing?”

“He’ll be okay. Tim got there in time to stop him from going too far, but he’s going to need a few hours, maybe the night to let the Pit Madness recede. And I think he’s really nervous about showing any part of that to Marinette.”

They both snapped their attention to Marinette when she came back. “My cheek look better?” she turned her cheek for them to see. “I mean obviously not the cut.”

“Yeah, you look beautiful.” Roy assured her and handed her purse to her.

Dick glared at Roy. “Could you stop hitting on my sister for five seconds?” he hissed low enough for Marinette not to hear. He turned to Marinette before Roy could respond. “Ready to go? I don’t know about you but I’m hungry.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

Dick walked ahead of her, pretending like he didn’t notice her lag behind. When he was almost out the door, she turned to Roy and gave him a lingering kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for babysitting me today and for the tour the other day. I’ve had a lot of fun.”

Roy nodded and handed her his phone with a spot for Fire Flower already started in his contacts. “If your plans ever get canceled again or you need to hide out or you need to borrow a jacket so you fit in, give me a call, Fire Flower.”

Marinette put her number in and passed it back to him with a grin. “You have extra you can just loan out?”

Roy grinned back and nodded. “A few jackets, suit coats, shirts, ties, clean pants, even a few pairs of coveralls, none of which would fit you, but if you ever need them… Or even if you don’t need anything, just want to talk or hang out, let me know.”

“Marinette! I thought you were ready to go?” Dick yelled.

Marinette shook her head and sighed. She waved to Roy as she rushed out. “Thanks again!”

Roy watched her leave until he couldn’t see her anymore. He let out a deep sigh and collapsed against the workbench. He looked at his phone and quickly sent a text with a smile.

Tags:

@maribat-bdbwm @jayjayspixiepop @redscarlet95 @alice-hazelwood @deathssilentapproach-blog @unoriginalmess @alyssadeliv @emotionalsupportginger @frieddonutsweets @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @toodaloo-kangaroo @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @iloontjeboontje @wolf-for-life @maribatserver @aespades @prettylittlebutterflie @imarivers8 @ certainmuffinbagelcalzone @ritacrow-blog @unoriginalmess @demonicbusiness @kking13 @lady-bee-fechin @blur-of-colours @kittenmywaythrulife @kashlyn @loysydark

#maribat #bio!dad bruce #bio dad bruce wayne #roynette #Even the Losers #prompt - no miraculous au #this is the last chapter I have written already so updates are going to be more sporadic from here on out #mbdbwm2021

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dakotacrisis · 3 years

Text

Trust Me, Trust Me

Because for some reason the writers will not give the Lukanette shippers what they deserve, we must take matters into our own hands. If you have not seen the latest ML episode this will contain major spoilers! You have been warned!

But other than that please enjoy this quick little fix-it fic for all you Lukanette lovers.

---

If Hawkmoth could get a new hobby that would be great. It really would be. Maybe he can take up bird watching or stamp collecting or origami. You know, just a little something that can take up his time so he isn’t interrupting one of Marinette’s dates for once in her life! She swore, if she had to miss another date because the butterfly man wanted some earrings she was going to hunt him down and skin him alive.

Marinette had made the decision to let go of her crush on Adrien and start dating Luka shortly after their trip to New York. She cared for him, loved him, but he was always just out of reach. Upon coming back to Paris and seeing how happy he was with Kagami, Marinette understood where his heart truly lies. It was the confirmation she needed.

It was hard at first given how long she had been pining after Adrien. He still held a precious place in her heart but every time she was with Luka it blended into platonic love a bit more. Her first step was to get rid of all the pictures of Adrien she had pinned up in her room until all that remained were some catalog snapshots in her inspiration book and a couple friendly group shots on her wall.

She was ready to move forward with Luka. She really was. Now if only she could get through a date without Hawkmoth interrupting it. The man had an uncanny ability to start something the second she was alone with Luka or when they had plans. The movies, ice cream dates, bike rides, concerts, she was missing it all and it tore her apart. She could tell it was starting to wear on Luka too. Not that she blamed him in the least. Marinette left because it was her duty but Luka had to watch her runaway from him dozens of times with little to no explanation.

Lies were becoming as easy to her as breathing and it sickened her. Luka deserved so much better than that. A few times she thought that maybe she should end both their suffering and call things off but then he would smile at her, play her a song, and kiss her forehead and everything would be right again. She couldn’t think of leaving him when he always welcomed her back into his arms with a smile. It was like his faith in her was unshakeable.

At least that’s what Marinette had thought. Luka was very trusting and understanding but everyone has a breaking point. Even someone as patient as Luka. Watching her boyfriend get akumatized because she couldn’t tell him the truth of why she always disappeared broke her heart. Having to fight him hurt even worse. Learning that the father he never knew was actually their favorite singer was jarring. Poor boy woke up in Marinette’s room not remembering anything about his akumatization or what he learned about his family.

That evening after Luka went home Marinette sat in her room debating what to do. The real truth was out of the question. Telling him that she was Ladybug would only put him and everyone she cares about in danger. But she had to tell him something!

She also needed to have a conversation with her friends because apparently, even after dating Luka for weeks, they still think she is madly in love with Adrien. Even if she was, so many people know about it at this point that she hesitates to call it a secret. The only person who never knew was Adrien himself! But that’s a problem for another day.

What she needed to do was talk to Luka. She called him up and they agreed to meet up under the bridge. He smiled when he saw her and it broke her heart all the more, that even after today he could still greet her with that warm smile.

“Hi, thanks for meeting me so late,” Marinette said.

“We did leave things kinda unresolved earlier, didn’t we?” Luka sighed, “A lot happened today and even though I don’t remember any of it I was filled in later. When I went home my mom was waiting for me and asked if I remembered anything from being akumatized. When I said no she told me who my dad is.”

“She did?” Marinette wasn’t surprised, if she didn’t tell him then someone else on the boat surely would have.

“Turns out it’s Jagged Stone.” He shook his head, “ My idol is also my dad. I don’t know how to feel about that. All these years I felt a connection to him but I thought it was just because we were both musicians. Turns it out it runs a lot deeper than that.”

“I can’t imagine what that must be like.” Marinette said, “Do you think you’ll talk to him after this?”

“I feel like I have to. I still have so many questions.” He looked back at Marinette and his smile returned, “Enough about all that though. What did you want to talk about?”

“Well now I don’t know if this is the best conversation to have considering what all you’ve already gone through today.” Marinette suddenly felt like an idiot. She shouldn’t be pushing more onto him when he’s already clearly going through a lot.

“Are you breaking up with me?” He asked, eyes full of careful trepidation.

“What? No! Of course not!” Marinette clasped his hands with hers. “Is that what you want?”

“Never. I just know that you’ve been missing out on a lot of our dates and…” He glanced down at their clasped hands, “I thought it might be because you were unsure about us. I miss you, Marinette.”

“I miss you too.” Marinette squeezed his hands tighter, “I want to tell you the truth so badly, Luka. It would clear up everything and then you’d understand why I do the things I do but I can’t tell you. It’s not because I don’t trust you but because it’s something that I know will only cause problems for you if I do.”

“Does this have anything to do with Adrien?”

“Absolutely not. This is in no way related to Adrien or my feelings or anything like that. It’s a lot more complicated than all that.”

“Can you explain it then? You don’t have to go into details if it is really that precious a secret but you need to give me something here, Marinette. I feel like you’re drifting further and further away from me and I can’t figure out what’s causing it.”

“The truth...the truth is…” Marinette swallowed back all the lies and looked into her boyfriend’s eyes. He had so much faith in her. He trusted her so much, she owed him at least this. “The truth is that I have a certain responsibility that I cannot neglect. I get called to take care of it sporadically and no matter how much I wish that I could take a day off I can’t.”

Tears threatened to spill from her eyes but she willed them back, “It feels like my life has been uprooted because of it but I can’t just back out of it either. I enjoy what I do but it always ends up hurting me and those around me in ways that I didn’t think it would when I took on this responsibility. Is any of what I’m saying making sense?”

“Marinette,” Luke pulled her closer, enveloping her in a warm hug, “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not! Because I can’t control what’s going on and it’s not fair to you and I just wish that we could have normal dates and be together like normal people.” She hiccuped, “I really like you, Luka. I want to be your girlfriend and go out on dates and have fun together but my responsibilities keep getting in the way. Everything is falling apart around me and I don’t know how to fix it. I feel like I’m way in over my head trying to keep everything from crumbling.”

“Hush now,” He rubbed a hand across her back, “It’ll be alright. I don’t know what pressure you must be under but you are doing the best you can. Even if the best you can is struggling that doesn’t mean you are doing nothing. You are doing everything you can at the capacity you are capable of doing it. That is all that can be expected of you so if a few things slip through the cracks it is not your fault. You were not being neglectful of your duties, you tried your very best. If you did nothing then that would be even worse, right?”

“But--”

Luka pulled back, grasping at her shoulders and stared hard into her eyes, “You are doing the best you can! Are you listening to me? You are doing all you can and that is enough! You are doing enough!”

Marinette started sobbing. The tears she had so desperately tried to keep away ran hot and wet down her face. Her throat was making an ugly croaking noise as she wailed and clung tightly onto Luka. She could barely breathe with how hard she started crying. Years of pent up sorrow, anger, and fear was flooding out of her and she couldn’t get it to stop even if her life depended on it.

Luka held her close and let her cry. He didn’t try to say anything to make her feel better. He just held her and hummed a peaceful melody in her ear. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there while she cried but when it was over Luka still did not let her go. Not until her hiccuping sobs quieted down into manageable sniffles.

“Feel better?” He asked, wiping the tears from her eyes. Marinette nodded. “Good. Don’t ever feel like you need to hide your struggles from me, Marinette. If you need to run off and do what you need to do then just tell me. I won’t get angry, I won’t try to stop you, I just want to know that at the end of the day that you’re okay. Dates can be rescheduled easily enough. I’m just happy to spend any time I can with you.”

“I feel like you’re being way nicer to me than I probably deserve.”

“And I think you’ve been denying yourself a lot more than you should. No matter what is going on in your life, Marinette, it doesn’t mean that you need to miss out on everything else. You can be upset and selfish. You should be. Bottling all of that up will only hurt you worse in the end.”

Marinette took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t have any other plans for tonight, did you want to do something?”

Luka smiled and kissed her forehead, “Anything you want, my melody.”

“Is it too late to go back to the boat and have a movie night?”

“Not at all,” He threaded his fingers through hers and they started the walk back to Luka’s house.

They were smiling and laughing the whole walk back. At the ramp to the boathouse though was an unexpected visitor. Luka froze, his grip on Marinette’s hand getting tighter.

“Luka,” Jagged Stone nodded to him.

“Jagged.” Luka said. His expression was unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” Jagged said, “Rock star or not I should have been around for you and your mother and your sister. I guess I felt too inadequate to be a proper father like you deserved. That’s not an excuse but--”

“Hey,” Juleka appeared on the ramp startling everyone. The girl was like a freaking ghost. “Are you my dad too or just Luka?”

“I’m your dad too.” Jagged answered.

“Awesome.” Juleka smiled and returned to inside the ship.

“Wait! Do you not have any questions?” Jagged called after her but Juleka didn’t seem all that concerned with the information. Luka wasn’t surprised. She never worried herself about who her dad was like Luka always had. She figured that she had the family she did and that was that.

“Jagged,” Luka said, “I’m glad I know the truth now and I appreciate you coming out here but it has been a long day. Right now all I want to do is sit down, watch a movie, cuddle with my girlfriend and process what all I’ve learned today. You are more than welcome to come by later this week but I really just need some time to myself to sort through all this first.”

“Yes, of course,” Jagged glanced at Marinette and his face lit up like the Eiffel Tower, “And are you dating Marinette? That is awesome! I knew you must have had great taste in women, just like your old man!”

“Jagged!” Luka’s mom shouted from the boat, “That’s enough out of you tonight! The boy wants to be left alone!”

“It’s alright, mom!” Luka shouted back. “Go back inside, I got this handled.”

Mrs. Couffaine sighed and went back inside, all the while still glaring at Jagged. “She’s right,” Jagged said, “I should be going. Enjoy your evening. And Luka, whenever you’re ready to talk I’ll be here.”

“Thanks,” Luka said, “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

With that Jagged dug his hands deep in his pockets and wandered down the street and out of sight. “You okay?” Marinette asked after he was gone.

“Still taking it all in but I’m fine. Now come here, I promised you a movie night.” Luka pulled her onto the boat. They settled down in the living room area. Marinette picked out a movie while Luka made some popcorn for them to munch on.

The opening credits began to roll and Marinette tucked herself into Luka’s side. One of his hands played idly with the ends of her hair. She sunk into his touch like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Luka,” she whispered, lifting her head up to look at him.

“Hm?” Luka gazed down at her, “Need something?”

“Can I kiss you?” The questioned breathed past her lips.

“Yes you can,” He pulled her up closer. Their eyes drifted shut as his lips brushed against one another in the gentlest of kisses. Marinette’s insides fluttered happily as she met his soft lips again, kissing him deeper. He held her close tilting her head just so, so he could access her mouth better.

She giggled into the kiss. Her happiness unable to contain itself for even a moment. Luka chuckled too at her giggling so it rumbled against her lips. “What’s so funny?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I’m just...happy.” She sighed, “I’m really happy here with you. And that’s the truth.”

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #fix-it fic #ml season 4 #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #lukanette #writing #it's fluffy. it's cheesy. it is mending something in my multi-shipping heart

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classic80sand90smovieloves2 · 4 years

Text

Meeting and Dating Brand Walsh

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

- Pretty much everybody in your town knows each other by name, phone number and house number so either way you would have known of Brand; and him of you, your entire life.

- That being said: you and Brand had been best friends since the two of you were little. You would always be over at the Walsh house and practically attached to Brand by the hip. You’d babysit Mikey with him, take the goonies trick or treating; any free time you had you spent it at their house.

- You were practically a part of the family and with that closeness came the gradual development of your feelings for the sweet boy who always took care of you and knew you better than anyone else.

- It seemed like the natural order of things that the two of you would get together. You’d both been; quite obviously, dancing around your feelings for each other for quite some time.

- Finally, one day after school while you were sitting in front of him; watching mtv while he exercised, he’d suddenly asked what you’d say if he asked you out. Without hesitating, you’d replied that you’d say yes.

“...Then do you want to go out?” He asked and you’d turned to look back at him with a smile, answering with a yes and watching as a grin lit up his face.

- The two of you went to a town fair for your first date which was most likely interrupted by the goonies more than a few times. You spent the afternoon running around playing games, going on rides and sharing food as you smiled and roughhoused a bit.

- You shared your first kiss at the end of the night, right that the gates of the fair. It was short, soft and sweet and you couldn’t have asked for any better. You shared a few more as he walked you home and the two of you said goodnight with as much love and hope in your hearts as possible.

- And just like that, everything in your lives seemed to fall into place.

- There’s a lot of pda in your relationship. He’s a very touchy person in general so of course he’s going to have his hands, arms and lips on you as much as possible.

- His arms are wrapped around you constantly.

- Handholding.

- Forehead kisses.

- Passionate kisses. He likes when you wrap your arms around his neck; or wrapping his arms around your neck.

- Soft kisses. Brand is a gentle, sweet boy under his jerky, older brother act and a lot of his kisses reflect that.

- Tight hugs where he lifts you off the ground.

- Getting slung over his shoulder.

- He can’t help but smile and/or shyly chuckle whenever someone mentions you but he always tries his best to get out a “leave her out of this wimp”.

- Being tugged into his lap.

- Cuddling on his arm chair.

- Brand doesn’t really care how you cuddle as long as you are cuddling. That being said: a lot of the time, you’ll cuddle while hugging each other.

- His mother pays more attention to Mikey most of the time so he’s somewhat starved for attention.

- He’s probably pretended to hurt himself/be hurt so that you’d baby him a little.

“Oh, I must have pulled a muscle or something ow ouch that really hurts-oh y/n, really, you don’t have to help- ow, ow, ouch. I mean really it’s fine, I’ll be fine.”

- Play roughhousing. What’s better than wrestling with your boyfriend?

- The goonies call him out for it, but; half the time, he lets you win whatever it is you’re doing together because he likes seeing your little excited reactions.

- A gentleman when it comes down to it. He’ll help you up/down places, open doors for you, carry you so that you don’t get your shoes wet or hold his jacket over his head, etc.

- Since you’ve been friends for so long, he just isn’t used to calling you pet names so he usually just calls you by your real name. Occasionally, he’ll throw in a sweetheart or babe every now and again.

- Him and Mikey both rush to the door every time it rings to see if it’s for them.

- Getting him to be nicer to the goonies. He isn’t necessarily awful to them but he does act like a jerky older brother so you get him to ease up on that a bit.

- He occasionally gets a little jealous over how cute you find his little brother. Everyone’s always soooo worried about Mikey and paying attention to little Mikey.

- It’s incredibly easy for you to persuade him to do things. All you have to do is give him a little smile and grab his arm/hand and he’s pretty much immediately surrendering to your whims.

- You once convinced him to let you do his makeup; he was folding his arms the whole time and the goonies may or may not have walked in but he let you. It also may or may not have been because he knows Mikey would have probably let you do it to him, and because he’s just a pushover for you.

- Bike rides. He paid a lot of money for his bike so he obviously wants to use it, and it gets you a little privacy; away from the goonies.

- Going on little adventures.

- Beach dates.

- Walking home from school together, or just always going to his house once classes are over.

- Television dates. What do teenagers do besides watch MTV?

- Wandering around town and just doing whatever comes to mind. The two of you rarely have a plan when you go out and usually just wind up finding a place to sit, talk, and makeout without his brother stumbling across you; though he probably still has.

- The goonies crashing your dates. You have a bit of a soft spot for them so you usually feel bad when telling them to leave, which ultimately leads to Brand relenting and letting them stay for a little while.

- Given that Mikey is his brother and his mother is his mother, he has a habit of absentmindedly correcting you when you make a mistake. It’s sort of nice though, since he never treats you like you’re stupid; just says the right thing without and moves on even thinking.

- He thinks everything you do is really cool. He especially thinks it’s cool when you stand up to people and/or act all tough; especially if you’re small.

- His mother obviously loves you. She’s liked you since you were little and probably figured that it was only a matter of time before the two of you got together.

- Driving the two of you places and/or helping him pass his next drivers test.

- Making sure he exercises responsibly.

- Different shows of strength; he really likes impressing you. Why not show off a little when you’re working so hard at something?

- Getting to wear his jacket since he’s protective and used to being an authority figure. He also just finds it cute that it’s so big on you.

- Cute little jokes, sarcasm, and quips. He’ll be able to make you laugh somehow!

- He’s always listening to you, even when it seems like he isn’t paying attention.

- He always notices when you’re upset and just opens his arms so that you can give him a hug. He’s good at and likes being able to comfort you; even if he can act like a jerk sometimes.

- He’s not an incredibly jealous person but he does get a little annoyed at certain people; it’s usually justified though ...unless it’s his brother. He won’t exactly try to hide it either, he’ll make it clear that he doesn’t like someone, he’ll just never give you a straight answer as to why. (His dislike of someone also isn’t helped by Mouth trying to provoke him.)

- He’s obviously very protective of you. He’s perfectly willing to fight someone or jump into danger right after you. Whenever you’re scared, you’ll probably have a habit of clinging to him because of it. He’ll merely pull you close and make sure you’re okay whenever you do.

- There’s a few arguments here and there but you don’t ever really fight very seriously. It’s not too often that he completely loses his temper so things don’t usually escalate beyond him getting the normal amount of annoyed.

- You just leave his house with a pointed “fine!”, spend some time on your own to cool off and then; maybe, return some time later with a willingness to make up. Either that or he’ll call you later that night and give an apology.

- “I love yous” every once in a while. He’s a typical teenager; and one with older brother tendencies at that, so he doesn’t say it too often though it is often enough.

- Well, he isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and his feelings for you certainly wont be either, so you have nothing to worry about in the long run. Might as well start planning the wedding now, honey.

#brand walsh imagine #brand walsh headcanons #brand walsh headcanon #brand walsh imagines #the goonies imagines #the goonies headcanons #the goonies headcanon #the goonies imagine #80s movie imagines #80s movie imagine #80s movie headcanons #80s movie headcanon

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supernatural-fangirl1967 · 3 years

Text

Doctor’s Orders

Pairing: Doctor!Dean x Reader

Warnings: Injury, Fluff

Word Count: 2,129

Square Filled: Ice Cream Date

A/N: This was written for @spnfluffbingo. Please let me know what you think!

“Your mother is going to kill me for this," you sigh as you give your niece a pointed look.

"Sorry," she giggles.

"This isn't funny, Amber," you tell her as you walk over to sit down beside of her on the hospital bed. "Do you know that you could have been seriously injured?”

“Yes, Ma'am," the five year old says as she withers underneath your gaze.

"When I told you to slow the bike down and to put both hands on the handle bars, this is why."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

You sigh and carefully wrap an arm around her little body. "I don't need you to be sorry," you tell her softly. "I need you to be safe and to promise me that you will start listening to me."

"Okay," she frowns.

"I know that I've been the cool aunt so far but you have got to understand that there has to be limits."

"So, how's the little tree hugger doing today?"

You scowl as the doctor walks into the room and he gives you a friendly smile. "Tree hugger?" you ask him. "My niece almost breaks her neck wrecking her bike and you're making jokes about it?"

The doctor chuckles as he walks over towards Amber's bed. "I see that someone is still living the adrenaline high," he smiles. "Now, do I need to make sure that there aren't any pointy objects around when I ask if you'll kindly get off the bed, or do you think that that's a safe question?"

You roll your eyes as you stand up off the bed and walk over to plop down in the chair. You pull your phone out and you type out a reply to one of the hundreds of texts that your sister has sent you in the past two minutes.

"Of course, you just had to go and break your arm while your parents were vacationing out of town," you sigh as you look over at Amber once more.

"I take it that you're the aunt," the doctor says as he smile over at you.

"Guilty as charged," you tell him as you squint a bit to read his nametag. "Doctor Winchester."

"Dean," he smiles.

"Fine. Dean," you say and you stand up off of the chair before walking over towards the hospital bed once more. "Is the wild child going to be okay?"

"Well, we still need to run a head x-ray for good measure," Dean tells you as he softly prods Amber's arm a bit, wincing when she lets out a pitiful whine. "I know, sweetheart," Dean tells her softly before continuing to answer your question. “But right now the big thing is getting this arm in a cast."

"It's broke?" you ask him.

"X-rays showed a break and a small hairline fracture near the wrist," Dean nods. "But don't worry." He turns around to face you and you are starting to get a little bit annoyed by his sunny attitude. "A cast, some good pain medicine, plenty of rest, and some ice cream should make that arm feel as good as new."

"Great," you sigh. "I guess now I know where I have to stop when we leave here."

Dean chuckles before turning to face Amber once more. "We'll get that arm fixed up for you and make sure that there's no more damaged, and then you be sure that your aunt takes you to get some ice cream."

"Okay," she giggles.

Dean looks over at you and you can see a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Or," he smiles. "I might ought to tag along to make sure that your aunt there follows doctor's orders."

Your mouth drops open. "Please tell me that you didn't just ask me out on a date."

"I don't know," Dean shrugs with a smirk on his face. "What did it sound like to you?"

"It sounded like you just went the round about way of asking me out on a date."

"Well," Dean smiles as he stands up straight and crosses his arms over his chest. "I must be smoother than I thought."

You roll your eyes and take a deep breath. "Fine," you sigh. "You can tag along."

Dean smiles before turning to face Amber once more. "I can clock out in an hour. Meet me by the side door to the emergency room once this little gal gets all fixed up."

"Alright," you tell him.

Dean gives Amber a wink before walking over to one of the cabinets and pulling out a sucker. "Here," he smiles as he hands it over to Amber. "You've earned it."

When Dean walks out of the room, you walk over to Amber and take the sucker out of her hand. She pouts up at you but you give her a stern look.

"If you eat the sucker then that means no ice cream."

"Nevermind," Amber smiles.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," you say and you walk over to sit down in the chair once more.

"Well, someone's looking a lot less stressed," Dean says as you carry Amber out of the emergency room and over towards him.

"Yeah," you sigh as you carefully let go of Amber. "Sorry about being so uptight while ago with everything. With my sister and brother-in-law being away on vacation, I'm in charge of Amber and if something happened to her while in my care.."

"I get it," Dean says as he holds a hand up at you to stop your rambling. "Why don't we just go get some ice cream into that girl because if we don't follow doctor's orders, then her arm might not heal properly."

"You're full of it," you laugh as you motion Amber over to your car.

"I can drive us," Dean tells you.

"That's alright," you smile. "Amber's carseat is in my car anyways."

"I have a carseat." You give Dean a look and he laughs. "I have a niece too, so when I told you that I understood, I meant it. Believe me."

"Fine," you smile. "We'll ride with you." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Slow down there, sweetheart," Dean chuckles as Amber takes big bites off her ice cream cone. "There's no cure for brain freeze you know." Amber giggles as she tilts her chair forward so that she's able to reach the napkins on the table.

"Sit down in your chair!" you scold as you reach over to help her. "We don't need you falling and breaking your other arm."

"Someone needs to relax," Dean says, hiding his smile behind his cone when you scowl over at him.

"I will relax once I get that kid wrapped up completely in bubble wrap," you tell him.

"(Y/N), I'm all sticky."

"Go to the bathroom and grab some wet paper towels," you tell her. Amber nods before jumping down out of her chair and running over towards the doors that have the big ice cream cones on them. "And be careful to not get the cast wet."

"Yes, Ma'am," Amber says sweetly before running on inside. Sighing, you glance down at your melting ice cream before looking over at Dean.

"Be honest. How uptight have I been?" you ask him.

"You kidding me?" Dean smiles. "This is technically a first date you know and you've got me scared to make a move."

"Oh, like the fact that there's a five year old sitting across the table from us hasn't stopped you."

"That's never been an issue on any previous dates," Dean smirks at you and you roll your eyes a bit at him.

"I guess that I could probably calm down a little bit," you say and you take a bite of what was once a bowl of ice cream and is now more like soup.

"More than a little bit," Dean mutters and laughs when you scowl at him once more. "Hey, doctor's orders," he tells you softly.

"Yeah, well, I think that I need to find myself a new doctor," you mutter. You try and hide your smile when Dean scoffs at you.

"Well, maybe you just aren't that good of a patient," Dean tells you and you both smile at each other. "See?" he laughs. "You're bring a little bit nicer to me already."

"I was being nice," you tell him.

"Sweetheart, there's a difference between being nice and suppressing the urge to punch something," Dean chuckles. You laugh and playfully roll you eyes a bit at him.

"I wasn't wanting to punch you or anybody else," you tell him.

"I said something. Not someone," Dean chuckles.

"(Y/N)," Amber says as she runs over to you.

"Here," you tell her and you take the paper towels from her before helping her to wipe the sticky mess off of both of her little hands. "Honey, you do know that I wasn't mad at you, right?" you ask her. "I was just scared that you were hurt and it made me grumpy."

"I know," Amber smiles. "You must be scared that I'm going to get hurt all of the time then because you're grumpy a lot." Dean snorts trying to hold in a laugh.

"That will be enough out of you," you say and you turn your head a bit so that you're looking over your shoulder at him.

"Sorry," Dean chuckles. You roll your eyes and pull Amber up into your lap, holding tightly onto her as the both of you talk about anything and everything. "I think that someone's giving out on us," Dean chuckles as he nods down to where Amber is lying limp in your arms.

"I think so," you smile as you go to stand up out of your chair.

"Let me take her, sweetheart," Dean tells you. "Doctor's orders," he smiles when he sees that you're going to protest. You nod and Dean smiles as he bends down to take your niece out of your arms.

"That was sort of fun even if I was uptight most of the time," you tell Dean as he pulls up beside of your car in the hospital parking lot.

"Yeah," Dean smiles as you get out of his car and open up the door to get Amber. Dean hops out and walks around to help you, carefully taking Amber out of your arms and holding tightly onto her. Dean walks over to your car and you stand by as he straps Amber into her seat. Dean shuts the door to your can before turning around to face you once more.

"Thanks," you tell him softly. "I guess that I needed that to calm down."

"No problem," Dean smiles as he shoves his hands into his pockets. "It was doctor's orders." You laugh and you nod your head a bit at Dean. "But we might want to do a follow up just to be sure."

You bite your lip trying to keep yourself from smiling at the dork. "Oh?" you ask him.

"Yeah," Dean smiles. "How about tomorrow? Same time, different place?" "I think that I'm free but I might need a doctor's excuse," you smile. "Where do you want me to meet you at?"

"How about I give you my number and you can text me your address?"

"Oh, you make house calls?" you ask him.

Dean drops his head and you can see shoulders move as he chuckles. Dean brings his head up once more to look at you. "I make exceptions."

"Good," you laugh. "Is there anything other orders that the doctor needs to give me?"

"Nope," Dean grins. "Well, actually, there is one little thing that you might need to hold you over."

"What's that?" you ask him.

Dean just smiles at you as he leans in to take your face between both of his hands. Your breath catches in your throat as Dean leans in to press his lips firmly to yours. Your body practically melts in Dean's hold as his lips move against yours. Dean slowly pulls away with a smile on his face and he looks you in the eyes.

"A goodnight kiss," he breathes out softly. "How are you feeling now?"

"Like I might need a little bit more to hold me over," you say and Dean chuckles as he leans in once more.

"How's that?" he asks.

"Mmm. Maybe one more?"

"Don't want to overdose, sweetheart."

"Dork," you giggle. Dean winks at you before turning to walk away. "Hey, Dean?"

"Hm?" Dean asks as he turns around to face you once more.

"Thanks for taking care of my niece for me today," you tell him.

"No problem, sweetheart," Dean shrugs. "Just doing my job."

You nod and turn to get in your car. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Dean nods and he gives you a wide smile. "See ya tomorrow, sweetheart."

Tags: @polina-93 @campingmonkey @justanotherwinchester @squirrelnotsam @adoptdontshoppets @imaginationisgrowth @deanwanddamons @hobby27 @cookiechipdough @akshi8278 @flamencodiva @torn-and-frayed @thatmotleygirl @screechingartisancashbailiff @lyarr24

#spnfluffbingo #dean x reader #dean x you #dean x y/n #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural #SPN #fanfic

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thr-333 · 4 years

Text

Drastic Measures- Part 5

@daminette-december2019-2020

~Sweater~

Shoves romance to the side and shoves friendship in your face!!!

Ao3

First< Previous > Next

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“Marinette,” Adrien whines as she opens the curtain the second they get back, “Sleep,”

“Just a minute, I want to design Damian something,” Marinette takes up residence at the desk, throwing open her sketchbook, “I will be friends with him!”

“Wasn't he kind of a jerk to you?” Adrien flops onto the bed, Plagg rig after him, "I think we should go back to that point, maybe sleep on it,"

“You were a jerk too~” Marinette sing-songs finishing up a rough sketch of a sweater.

“I was trying to get the gum off your seat!” Adrien slams his hands down.

“Sure you were~”

“Mariiiiiii,” Adrien collapses back into the bed covers, muffling his whining.

“Come on you,” Marinette collects her sketchbook, “Come get material with me,”

“No, it’s time to sleep,”

“It’s midday,”

“Your point?”

"Ok, Plagg 2.0 should I get you some camembert while I'm out too?"

"I'm up!" Adrien sits bolt upright, "Never call me that again,"

Marinette ends up dragging Adrien out of the mansion he pouts as Alfred delivers them into the city she thanks him profusely.

“We were just in the city why didn’t you pick up fabric then?” Adrien walks by her side down the street.

“Because I’m stuck between 2 concepts and I need to see the fabric before going forward,” Marinette bounces along looking through the windows there are quite a few craft shops in the area which suits her just fine.

“Please don’t run off,” Adrien gently holds her sleeve, “Marinette this city…”

“It’s filled with a dark energy,” Marinette agrees, even in this nicer area had something ominous hanging over it, “It’s like it’s seeped into the city’s very bones,”

“And the Akuma aren’t helping things,” A child across the street starts crying and they both instinctively lookout.

“On the plus side at least hawkmoth doesn't send Akuma after every little thing,” Marinette forces herself to relax, moving on as the kids parents comfort them.

“On the downside, he sends them after emotions that are a lot worse,” Adrien follows along into a store as Marinette filters through the shelves.

“Maybe but we can handle this,” Marinette absent-mindedly raises her fist, meeting Adreins, “Do you think I should make something for everyone, you know as a thank you?”

“I haven't gotten them anything,” Adrien takes the armful of fabric Marinette passes him as she brings out her sketchbook to select old designs.

“I’ll handle the making,” Marinette ticks off a vest she thinks with be perfect for Bruce, “And you handle the finances,”

“I stole my father's credit card,” Adrien says with a grin, “He’ll probably find out where I am soon anyway so might as well start using it,”

“In that case,” Marinette pulls out a roll of incredibly expensive fabric, “We also need new phones,”

“And we should go out for lunch,”

“Get our hair done?” Marinette adds, looking at her half hacked off hair “I still need to fix mine from this,”

“I was thinking our room could use a chair?”

“And the bookshelf is looking a bit empty,”

“A nice expensive rug would really liven up the room,”

“Would it be completely inappropriate to get a motorcycle?”

“Yes,” Adrien agrees, “Let's do it,”

They stop to get new phones first, having destroyed their old ones when they ran away. Adrien finds the most expensive restaurant in town, but it's on the far end so they stop to get a motorcycle first.

“I didn’t know you could ride,” Adrien gestures for the waiter in their private room, “Yes can I please have the duck?”

“My Nona taught me,” Marinette sips at the most expensive drink she can legally buy, “I thought you hated duck?”

“Oh I do,” Adrien grins, which drops when his phone starts ringing, “How did he even get this number?”

Marinette looks over his shoulder to see Gabriel trying to call. Adrien purposefully hangs up rolling his eyes.

“We should go do our hair next,” Adrien leans over the table with a manic grin, ”I was thinking of dying it hot pink,”

“Love the concept,” Marinette cringes at the very thought, “But the execution is flawed, you need to dye it a color you actually like not one just to spite your father otherwise he's still just controlling your life, just in a different way,”

“You're right,” Adrien sighs leaning back examining his blonde locks, “What do you think?”

“A nice pastel or cherry blossom pink would look amazing,” Adrien perks up at the suggestion he can still keep the pink, “Actually I might do that too- oh wait! Will that affect our transformation?”

“Not unless you really want to deep down,” Tikki explains, her and Plagg gorging themselves on expensive cheese and treats.

“Well deep down I really don't want to give away our identities like this,”

“It’s a plan then,” Adrien smiles, “Now do you want to order anything else?”

“Thanks but I’m full,”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

---

“Looks great Nette,” Adrien gives her a side hug, the hairdresser shooing him away while he does the final touch-ups.

“Are you talking to me or yourself?” Marinette smiles at the new and improved shock of pink hair.

“Well obviously I look fabulous, but you look great too,” Marinette rolls her eyes at him looking back in the mirror. Instead of evening out her hair, they had made it look like her little episode was actually intentional giving it nice layers and even doing an undercut on the other side. Unlike Adrien, she didn't go all pink, instead the tips being white ombre up to pink and then her natural hair color.

“Thanks, you have to send a picture of your hair to Nino he's more invested in your teenage rebellion than you are, he’s probably also hurt you left him out of the running away part,”

“He has suggested, more than once, running away together,”

“Why what's wrong with Nino's family?”

“Nothing at all,” Adrien quickly covers, “I think he just really wanted me to run away, his mum offered to pack us lunches,”

“Well, maybe we could have used the turtle,” Marinette sighs, “But I could do that to Nino, you already had to leave Kagami behind, have you given her a call yet?”

“Oh um, about that-" Adrien points at her tapping his chin thoughtfully, "Never mention it again,”

“Adrien,” Marinette scowls, “Call your girlfriend,”

“She’ll kill me,” Adrien hides partly behind a seat looking meek, “Also you don't get to lecture me, you haven't called your parents,”

“That's different,” Marinette groans sinking into the seat, only to get told off for moving, “They’ll want me to come home, how am I supposed to explain that I can’t,”

“They’re your parents,” Adrien stresses, “I’m sure they’ll be happy enough to know your ok,”

“Maybe,” Marinette hums, the cloth being removed from her shoulders letting her get up, “I just feel so bad for putting them through this,”

“Maybe one day they’ll understand,” Adrien walks with her to the front to pay.

“Maybe,” Marinette looks down at the bill, “Wow this is a lot more expensive than the usual dye job,”

Made sense because they were in the higher income distinct of the city.

“Why Marinette,” Adrien grins swiping the card, “That's the point,”

Ten minutes later they were laughing as calls kept pouring in one after the other. They are only interrupted when they get the distinct feeling of an Akuma.

“Duty calls,” Adrien sighs putting his phone on silent.

“Seems so, at least we can call out skills multiple times," Marinette walks casually into an alley with him, “What are you up to?”

“About three,” Adrien shrugs transforming, “It takes about double the time for the transformation to drop now,”

“Same, wish I could say that gives us the edge but really it only keeps us from falling off the cliff,” Marinette also transforms, her new costume bringing a smile to her face.

“How eloquent my lady,” Marinette playfully pushes him, Chat catches himself catapulting over the building, she quickly follows behind.

The Akuma is standard, Marinette guesses the akumatized item is the wrist watch. The problem comes with their recurring thorn in her side.

“Ladybug-”

“Get out of the city,” She cuts Batman off, “Yeah, yeah let us handle this first,”

Marinette throws her yoyo out just in time to deflect an attack headed at Chat.

“Do you need any help?” Robin asks, Marinette smiles, partly at the aghast face Batman makes.

“Do you think you could tag-team it with me?” She asks formulating a plan, with the extra help she might not need the lucky charm, “Make your attacks big and draw his attention, grab the wristwatch if you can,”

“On it,” Robin gives her a nod jumping into the fray, Ladybug doesn't give batman a chance to object running after.

Robin does a good job they work in perfect sync falling back when the other moves to make an attack. When the Akuma focuses on them too much Chat swoops in and gets their attention giving them the chance to swipe at the wristwatch. It goes on she sees Robin get thrown back after another failed swipe at the wristwatch. Ladybug takes the chance to move forward grabbing for the wrist, she isn't watching out for the other arm, the impact hitting and sending her flying back.

“I got you,” Her momentum is stopped by a hand bracing at her back, saving her from crashing into the adjacent building.

“Thanks, Robin,” He helps steady her as she finds her footing again, “I’ll move in you follow me up,”

“No need,” He smirks brandishing the watch.

“You did it,” Ladybug beams, taking the watch and smashing it to the ground, “Great job!”

“Ah, thanks,” Ladybug doesn't pay attention to how Robin brushes, focusing on purifying the Akuma and fixing the damage.

“We made a pretty good team,” Ladybug turns to Robin when everything is settled, “Pound it,”

Robin meets her fist with some hesitance, which disappears when she smiles at him again.

“Ladybug!” Batman yells heading their way.

“Ops sorry,” Ladybug cringes, “Sorry! Cant stop gotta go, bye bye!”

They run from the scene faster than Batman can hope to catch them. They end up back at her newly brought bike stacked with fabric and protected by a bit of luck. Marinette races home to make everyone's gifts, knowing just who she wanted to start with.

---

“There you are!” Marinette exclaims, having spent the past half hour searching the manor for him.

“What do you want?” Damian snaps as if he wasn't just playing with the cat on the floor half a second ago.

“Nothing, I made something for you~” He continues to scowl but Marinette doesn't let it discourage her, “Here, I didn’t know your size so I made a baggier style, do you like it?”

Damian takes the sweater holding it up to where she put it on him looking down a little shocked. Marinette almost wants to laugh at the expressions trying to shift back from awe to disinterest, it’s cute. She smiles wondering what his face would look like if she made a matching one for the cat, and maybe Titus too.

“.... It’s well made,” Damian eventually allows, folding it over his arm, Marinette notices how his fingers linger on the soft fabric.

“Good to know,” She smiles, bidding him goodbye before the moment can be ruined. She bounces down the hall humming to herself.

“Someone's happy,” Tikki flies out of her bag.

“He liked it, why wouldn't I be happy?”

“Someones really happy,”

“Stop it Tikki,” Marinette giggles, making the kwami laugh in turn.

“Just like adrien~” Tikki sing songs floating down the hall ahead of her.

“Well then, keep Kagami far away from this one,”

“Don’t turn into a stuttering mess and we have a deal,” Tikki agrees.

“Please Tikki I’m not thirteen anymore,” Marinette brushes her off, ready to go make the others gifts, if she spent the whole time humming to herself Tikki wasn't going to explain why to Adrien.

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Taglist? nope don’t have one, horrible at keeping track of them sorry~

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #ml fic #ML #MLB #Marinette #miraculous marinette #badass marinette #maribat #daminette

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