#the title comes from the note i immediately wrote to myself beneath the final line in my notebook

[creatediana]

"Wow, bitch. Who tf are you?" - a free verse poem written 12/22/2023

[gypsydanger01]

THE STORM - Part fifteen

Fandom: The Boys (Amazon prime tv series)

Pairing: Black Noir x OC

A/N: SEMI IMPORTANT Hey guys! Just a heads up. When they use sign language, you will be able to understand from the context and signal verbs, as well as the fact that the dialogue is italicized and in quotation marks. 

A general rule for this story: italicized words are thoughts, italicized words with quotation marks are signed.

Hope this doesn’t cause any confusion!!

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Boys, only my OC characters and certain pieces of au plot.

Comments, reviews, constructive criticism, and other requests are always more than welcome!

  Posting new chapters on Wednesday and Friday!

  The Art of Sign Language

On Thursday night, she stayed at home, brimming with anticipation. She felt alight and ready for any possible obstacle. However, one thought kept tugging at the corners of her mind. Noir. She should be thankful he’d lost interest, since this meant she could operate without a watchful gaze following her every move. And yet, it saddened her. She’d been close to learning the truth about the man beneath the mask… now, she was left with her questions and doubts. She gazed at the worn sign language book laying dejectedly on the coffee table in the living room. Oddly, she missed him.

But that Thursday night, right as she came to terms with his absence, and the end of whatever dangerous dance she’d began with him, he proved her wrong.

Hearing a knock at the door, Sarah cautiously raised from her seat and inched towards her entrance. Slipping her dagger into her back pocket, she peered through the peephole and was surprised by the sight. There he was. Noir was there knocking on her door. She hesitated. Had he found out who she was? Was he there to finish her off? He undoubtedly knew she was at home, since she was sure he could hear her heartbeat through the door. She ultimately decided to play dumb. The brunette quickly fixed her hair, pushing her locks down. Glancing into the entrance mirror, she wiped the dumb smile off her face and stood taller, more confident.

She immediately unlocked the multiple locks in place and swung the door open.

She took him in, a slight smirk playing on her lips.

“So, you learned how to use the door,” she playfully questioned with a raised eyebrow.

He nodded and quickly glanced to his sides, which reminded her of how exposed he was under her porchlights. She quickly ushered him inside.

He moved into the space with ease, and Sarah gladly noted how he seemed more comfortable than their initial meetings.

As they moved into the living room, she asked, “So what have you been up to?”

He raised one finger as if to ask for a moment and slipped a phone out of one of his many suit pockets. He tapped away at the screen and finally held it out for her to hold. It was a video on YouTube, and as she watched, she realized it was a commercial.

Her eyed widened. “Oh,” she understood, “you sir, have been busy.”

He scanned the room and saw their usual notebook lying on a counter. He quickly swept it up and wrote. I wanted to stab myself.

She laughed, “I’m sure—,” she watched the video again in amusement. “Man, they put you to work.”

He scribbled Ha Ha.

“I mean look at those shiny knives, and that ninja flip—”

Her playful teasing was cut short as he bent down and picked up the small booklet on the coffee table. He stared at the title before turning it for her to see: Sign Language for beginners.

She could imagine the questioning look twisting his features. He tilted his head in confusion, waiting for an explanation. Noir couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gotten it for him. If she truly wanted to communicate with him. He found that she liked him enough for them to be friends, but did she really enjoy his presence enough to invest her time in learning to communicate with him this way?

She inhaled deeply, thinking of how to explain herself without seeming clingy or overeager. She was afraid of scaring him away.

“Well, I just thought it’d be nice to communicate in a more direct way, y’know—it’d surely be easier, since you wouldn’t have to write and all,” she began, taking quick glances at him to gauge his reaction. “I started learning some, and if you’d like I can teach you what I know… we could make up some signs and it would just be nice, don’t you think?”

He stayed silent, and she attempted to fill in the void. “I wasn’t sure if you were coming back, but I saw the book and I thought of you. It’s alright if you don’t want to.”

He tilted his head the other way, as if he were seeing her in a new and different light. She couldn’t tell if it was a good sign or a bad one. Finally, he moved forward and stopped right in front of her. She focused on breathing, as he placed the palms of his hands on the sides of her head. He lifted her face towards him and gave her a simple kiss on the forehead. Noir gazed at her intently before moving past her and sitting on the couch.

She stood still, just as shocked as she was after he’d shown her affection in the kitchen many nights ago. She moved towards the small couch chair she usually occupied when she heard him clear his throat.

She glanced back at him as he patted the seat beside him. He held her light blue blanket in his hands. She felt warm at the gesture and couldn’t help the blush that was probably flaring across her cheeks. She sat beside him, and he carefully wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She raised her legs onto the couch, sitting crisscrossed in the corner facing him.

“I’ll take that as a yes?”

He nodded and placed the book between them before taking the notebook back into hand.

Teach me.

She smiled and he felt warm under her attention.

“Okay, well they suggest starting out with the alphabet and then moving onto key words or phrases for conversations,” she began explaining.

Noir pulled his gloves and set them aside. She briefly glanced at them, noting the web of scars she hadn’t noticed before, but quickly returned her attention to his mask.

As she taught him the alphabet she found it amazing how focused and committed he was. Maybe it had much to do with his powers, but he was an extremely fast learner and they quickly went through the alphabet, signing yes and no, and simple conversation starters.

At a certain point, her legs began to itch with the need to move. Halfway towards numbness, she uncrossed them to stand and shake them out. She was stopped, however, when Noir scooped her legs up into his lap, running his hands over her calves clad in sweatpants. He massaged them and she sighed in delight.

She tried to sign to him by stringing together some of the words they’d learned, “Feels amazing”

He nodded, and she imagined him smiling at her. A bright white smile, contrasting his toffee brown skin. She withheld the blush creeping up her neck and distracted herself by practicing different signs with him.

He fixated on her face and the content look in her eyes.

“I really like you.”

Sarah raised her eyes to him, caught off-guard.

He took the notebook back into hand, as they hadn’t yet covered the signs he’d need to explain himself. She was his happy place, a radiant sun that kept him warm.

In fact, you’re the only person I really like.

Once she’d read his confession, she laughed. “Well, you’re not much of a people person, are you?”

He shook his head. I’m a people person if you are the person.

Sarah cast her eyes down watching his hands lightly gripping her calves.

She signed in the silence, “I really like you too”

She was falling fast, and she didn’t know what to do. She enjoyed his presence and missed him when he was gone. And if they were in another world, it might have worked out for them. But she was not Sarah Burns, she was Marianna Stacker. She was no regular Vought employee; she was a spy plotting its downfall. Already the night after, she would be infiltrating the building to steal and replace information. Her and Noir were opposing forces, in a precarious balance.

Still, she laughed with him when she made mistakes and practiced their new form of communication, perfecting her signing. He suggested some signs for certain words, and she found it comforting, almost intimate. They had a way of communicating that was truly their own.

Oh, how muddied the lines had become. She felt a connection, an underlying understanding passing through them. What would happen to it when the truth emerged?

  MASTERLIST

Tag list: @ateliefloresdaprimavera @ellejo @dust-bun @coco724  @proximio-5 @damiminator @omegahighendpro @rpgluvr95 @sweetrabbitteamx  @rayray1463​

[junghelioseok]

tryst.

↳ he really doesn’t like it when you go behind his back.

◇ jungkook x reader x hoseok ◇ smut | poly!au | pwp oops ◇ 5k [1/1]

notes: so anyone who’s been following me for a while knows that i’m trash for hoseok, but jeon jungkook has really been testing me these past few weeks and i needed an outlet so! this happened! please note that i wrote this in like three days and edited it in a very crowded starbucks (0/10 would not recommend) so there may be errors. i’m gonna go douse myself in holy water now, goodbye!!!

warnings: purely self indulgent filth!!! poly!relationship, dom/sub themes, dirty talk, oral, mild degradation, spanking, threesome (mfm), etcetera? honest to god this was not something i anticipated writing and sometimes i surprise myself!

If you don’t stop kissing Jeon Jungkook soon, your lungs are going to burst. Already, you can feel your body aching from the lack of oxygen, your mind falling deeper into a delirious haze as his tongue slides against yours. But despite every sign warning you to pause and breathe, despite the damp sheen forming on Jungkook’s chest, he only tightens his grip on your hips and pulls you closer. Time slows to a crawl, as does the beat of your heart. He is all you can feel, all you can taste—and in this moment, the only thing grounding you on Earth.

“Fuck!” you gasp, finally breaking away when it all becomes too much. Jungkook inhales so sharply that he almost chokes, and you can’t even find the words to tease him because you’re faring no better, your head falling against his bare shoulder as your lungs fight to remember their purpose.

“Damn,” Jungkook wheezes, his chest still heaving with ragged breaths even as a grin stretches across his face. “Is it bad that I already want to kiss you again?” One of his hands trails up your spine, dancing along each bony ridge before sliding around to cup your cheek.

You respond by tangling your fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, a smile tugging your lips upward as you lean into his touch. “Is it bad that I’d let you?”

His grin widens. “Not at all,” he murmurs, before leaning in to press his mouth to yours once more. Heat curls in the pit of your belly as you settle more comfortably on his lap, grinding down on the growing bulge in his jeans with a smirk. Jungkook groans in response, brown eyes fluttering open in an accusing stare. “Tease.”

You rock against him again, smirk widening. “What are you going to do about it?”

Jungkook’s grin turns positively predatory. “Oh, baby, I’m going to make you regret asking that.” In an instant, you find yourself flat on your back, the mattress bouncing under your combined weight as Jungkook hovers triumphantly over you. Dipping down, he plants a soft, chaste kiss against your mouth.

And then he’s trailing downward, hands molding around your exposed breasts and nipping playfully at your hipbone before disappearing between your thighs. Your skirt is hiked up, two thumbs hooking into the waistband of your panties to pull them off your legs, and a soft gasp escapes you when Jungkook brazenly blows a puff of cool air against your clit.

“Look at you,” he breathes, wickedly reaching up to draw a gentle circle around the sensitive bud with the tip of his index finger. The insubstantial touch has you keening, wriggling your hips in an attempt for more friction but Jungkook stops you with a low chuckle and a warm hand splayed flat against your stomach. “Don’t be so greedy, baby.”

Now immobile, you let out a frustrated huff. “Who’s teasing now?”

He chuckles, shifting so that his arms are wound tightly around your legs—simultaneously ensuring that you are spread open for him while also rendering you helpless in his grasp. Strong fingers curl around your hips, and when you glance down the length of your prone body, all you can see is dark eyes glittering up at you from beneath a mop of equally dark hair, mischief and desire swimming in their depths. Your thighs clench in anticipation, and Jungkook huffs out another chuckle as he draws closer to the place where you need him most. “You’re so wet, baby,” he murmurs. “I bet you could take my cock right now, huh? Bet I’d slide right in, fill you up all nice and pretty.”

There’s a retort sitting on the tip of your tongue—one that matches his words in sinfulness—but it flies out of your head the moment his soft lips wrap around your aching clit, enveloping you in his wet, warm mouth. “Oh, fuck,” you breathe, tensing as he licks a long, slow stripe along your entrance. “Fuck, Jungkook.”

This time when he laughs, it rumbles through his chest and straight to your core, sending electric tingles up your spine. His tongue delves inside you, and Jungkook isn’t shy about shoving his face deeper between your legs, his prominent nose rubbing against your clit and sending another wave of pleasure coursing through your veins. Every lick of his tongue winds you up tighter and tighter, until you are teetering on the very brink.

“Whoa, what the fuck is this?”

The newcomer’s voice shatters any and every thought you have of your impending orgasm. Jungkook pulls away from your dripping core immediately, brown eyes wide as he scrabbles backward and retreats until he’s pressed against the headboard and as far from you as possible.

But the distance isn’t enough. It’s far too late to deny what the two of you had been doing before the interruption, and both you and Jungkook are well aware of the fact.

“Hoseok, we can explain,” you begin as you sit up on the bed, but the older man cuts you off with a single raised finger. Deliberately, he steps inside the room, letting the door fall shut behind him as a deep frown etches across his face.

“I thought I forbid you two from starting anything without me.” Hoseok’s voice is low, each syllable dripping with thinly-veiled danger. “Did you really think you could get away with fucking around behind my back?”

“Hyung,” Jungkook tries, but the older man simply raises a brow at him.

“Well? Did you?”

Jungkook lowers his head silently, all traces of his earlier dominance disappearing under Hoseok’s heavy gaze. “No, I didn’t. U-uh, we didn’t.”

Hoseok sighs and takes a few steps closer, approaching the bed where you and Jungkook are still sprawled. “I didn’t think so,” he says, his voice softer but no less menacing. “What am I going to do with you two?”

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. If the past three years of dating Jung Hoseok have taught you anything, it’s that he already has the perfect punishment for your disobedience in mind. You can scarcely breathe as you watch him pull off his t-shirt, exposing every dip and ridge of his toned torso. Your gaze follows the straight lines of his hipbones all the way down to where they disappear into his waistband, and Hoseok chuckles when he sees where your attentions are focused. Deliberately, he begins to unbuckle his belt, dark eyes locked on yours.

“On your knees, princess,” the older man murmurs. “And face Jungkookie, don’t be shy now.”

Your body is moving into position before your brain can even fully process the command, so accustomed are you to complying with the subservience Hoseok demands. Your knees dig into the plushy mattress, the sheets still rumpled from your earlier tryst with Jungkook, and as you turn to face the younger of your two boyfriends you see that he is staring right back at you with mixed alarm and arousal swimming in his irises.

For a brief moment, you wonder what you must look like. Your skirt is the last piece of clothing shielding you, and in this moment, you are keenly aware of the two pairs of eyes focused ardently on every move you make. It would almost be invigorating knowing that you have this much power over the two men, if it weren’t for the knowledge that Hoseok is the one in control here—and always has been.

The mattress dips behind you, two hands gripping at the soft flesh of your hips. “You’ve been a busy little thing, haven’t you?” Hoseok purrs in your ear, his hot breath washing across your already-flushed cheeks and sending shivers down your spine. “Letting Jungkook fuck you with his tongue, squirming underneath him like that. You were so close to coming when I walked in—I bet you’re still desperate to get off.”

“H-Hoseok,” you warble weakly, wriggling in his tight grip.

One of his hands snakes beneath the hem of your skirt, rubbing along your slick folds. “Just like I thought,” he chuckles, ignoring your gasp at the sudden touch. “You’re still soaked. What a filthy little slut you are.”

Your throat bobs nervously as you fight the urge to meet Jungkook’s eyes again. Instead, you stare down at the crumpled sheets beneath you, ignoring the feeling of his heavy gaze raking across your skin, sparking pinpricks and gooseflesh in its wake.

“Such a filthy slut,” Hoseok repeats softly. “And openly disobeying my orders too. What am I going to do with you, princess?”

“W-whatever you see fit,” you whisper, still staring down at your knees.

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks. Long fingers delve into your hair, his grip tight and unyielding. “What are you supposed to call me?”

Your heartbeat takes off at a sprint, flopping frantically against your ribcage until you feel fit to burst. Unwillingly, you find your gaze darting up towards the younger man still sprawled across the pillows at the head of the bed. Jungkook’s breath is coming in quick pants, his jeans straining to contain the bulging erection caged inside. Already, there is a light sheen of sweat forming on his honeyed skin, a stray droplet dripping down his left temple and into darkened eyes that refuse to leave yours even as your embarrassment reaches a crescendo. You know exactly what Hoseok wants, and from the way Jungkook is beginning to smirk, you have a sneaking suspicion that he does too.

Clenching your teeth, you take a deep breath—and then another, just for good measure. “I-I’m sorry, s-sir.” The title burns hot on your tongue like a glowing ember.

Jungkook’s smirk stretches into a wicked, toothy grin, and your wildly hammering heart splashes right into your stomach when you realize that he will definitely be using this against you later. But you aren’t given any more time to dwell on that thought, for Hoseok is shifting his grip to the nape of your neck and urging you to turn around and look at him. “Very good,” he purrs, lowering himself down until he’s sitting on his heels, his knees crooked beneath him. “I think you know what to do next, princess.”

A heated flush overtakes your entire body, crawling from your toes to your crown. “Sir, please,” you entreaty, hoping that he might be in a merciful mood.

But Hoseok sends any semblance of hope plummeting into the dust with a single quirked brow and a sentence that leaves no room for argument. “Don’t make me bend you over my knee myself.”

You swallow, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as you meet Hoseok’s sharp gaze. Slowly, you lower yourself onto his lap, humiliation flooding through your veins when he bunches your skirt around your waist and leaves your bare ass on full display.

“Look at her, Jungkookie,” Hoseok coos. “Isn’t she pretty like this?” One hand comes up to smooth along the curve of your rear, squeezing gently before sliding down to the apex of your thighs. Teasingly, he rubs a slow circle around your aching clit, a chuckle escaping him when you moan. “Bet you wish she was bent over your lap, huh?”

Jungkook lets out a hoarse groan, clenching his fists as he fights the urge to unbutton his jeans and allow his straining cock to spring free. “God, yes,” he manages to grit out, squirming against the pillows and further rumpling the sheets. “Fuck. Can I touch her?”

Hoseok chortles, sliding a finger inside you and relishing the way you clench around him. “Not a chance,” he replies, a devious smirk curling his lips. “You’re getting punished too, you know.”

The dark promise lacing the older man’s words has Jungkook’s eyes widening like saucers, and you belatedly remember that he has not been subject to Hoseok’s more devilish whims for anywhere near as long as you have. Having only begun dating the two of you a few short months ago, Jungkook still has no idea what lies in store, though from the stunned expression lurking on his handsome face, you suspect he’s beginning to gain an inkling of the possibilities.

“But first, I need to take care of you, princess.” Hoseok retracts his finger from your core—ignoring your groan of protest—and brings it to his mouth, pink tongue darting out for a taste. “Always so sweet,” he hums appreciatively. “But you already know that, don’t you Jungkookie?”

The younger man swallows and rakes a hand through his dark hair, damp from the sweat beading along his forehead. “I, um, y-yeah I guess…” The sentence trails off into flustered silence, and Hoseok simply laughs again as Jungkook fidgets under his amused gaze.

“I want you to watch this very carefully, Jungkookie,” Hoseok says, sliding his palm along the sumptuous curve of your ass. “And don’t you dare touch your cock, or her. You’ll only be making things worse for yourself later.”

You are vaguely aware of Jungkook stuttering out his acquiescence, but you can barely hear it over the blood rushing through your ears. Hoseok gives your rear another squeeze before the weight of his hand disappears, sending an eager shudder down your spine and straight to your core. Heat stirs in your lower belly, molten and ebullient.

You hear the smack before you feel it. Pain radiates outward from where Hoseok’s palm connected with your ass, and he spares a few seconds to smooth over the sting as his lips find the shell of your ear. “That was one, princess. Count out loud for me, okay? We’re going all the way up to ten.”

“Yes, s-ir!” Your voice cracks when he brings his hand down again with no warning, hard enough to knock the air out of your lungs. “T-two.”

You can practically hear the satisfaction in Hoseok’s voice when his palm comes down on your ass twice in quick succession. “Good girl,” he murmurs. “You’re doing a good job so far. How many was that?”

“F-four, sir.”

Hoseok hums, pleased. His free hand comes up to splay between your shoulder blades, pinning you in place as he continues raining down punishment, his palm always coming down on the same spot. But the sharp sting of pain only stokes the fire in your belly, your thighs clenching in a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure in your clit as Hoseok delivers numbers seven and eight.

When he pries your legs apart, you almost mewl with frustration. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re aware that Jungkook is still watching, letting out an occasional soft groan on particularly forceful smacks. But all you can focus on is Hoseok—the strength in the thighs that you are sprawled across, the smooth warmth of his palm against the curve of your ass, the way his entire body tenses just before his hand finds purchase on your bruised flesh once more. “Nine!” you gasp out shakily.

Soft lips find your shoulder, mouthing along the column of your neck. “Good girl,” he rasps, nipping at the delicate skin below your ear.

And then his weight disappears. The sound of skin smacking skin resounds in the bedroom, and you gasp out the last number as the force of Hoseok’s final hit sends you jolting forward in his lap, hardened nipples brushing against the crumpled sheets. “T-ten!”

Immediately, Hoseok slides a warm palm along your tender skin. “You okay, princess?” he asks, gently helping you kneel upright once more. Wrapping an arm around your waist, he tugs until your back is flush against his chest, littering your bare shoulder with sweet kisses.

You melt into his touch, eyes fluttering shut. “Mm, yeah. I’m okay.”

Hoseok brushes a stray strand of hair away from your face and lays another kiss on your cheek. “Good.” The arm around your waist dances down to the apex of your thighs, gently prying them apart and darting between to run along your slick folds. “Fuck, princess, you’re drenched. I think you might have enjoyed your punishment a little too much.”

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” you warble, lowering your head. Hoseok’s hand disappears, leaving you completely unanchored, and when you hear a metallic clack and the sound of a zipper being undone it takes every ounce of discipline you possess to resist the urge to turn around and see what he is doing.

His intentions become clear the moment he curls his fingers around your hips again and tugs your skirt up and out of the way. “Hold this up for me, princess,” he rasps in your ear, hot breath washing across your cheek and raising gooseflesh in its wake. “I want Jungkookie to see everything I’m doing to you.”

Lost in Hoseok’s overwhelming presence, you’d almost forgotten about your audience. Shyly, you look up at the younger man, a gasp tearing from your throat when you meet his obsidian gaze. Jungkook looks positively ravenous, his pupils blown and riveted unwaveringly on you. His fists are clenched tightly on either side of him, denim-clad thighs quivering as he suppresses the urge to defy Hoseok’s orders and lunge forward to take you for himself.

“Jungkook,” you breathe, unable to look away. “Jungko—“

Hoseok cuts you off with two fingers pressed firmly against your lips, digging into the supple flesh. “I don’t want to hear you saying his name, princess,” he orders. “My name should be the only one leaving your pretty little mouth, understand?”

You are acutely aware of Jungkook’s lingering gaze, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips as he hungrily traces every curve of your body. Now completely exposed with your skirt bunched around your waist, you’ve never felt more vulnerable in front of your two boyfriends. But you can’t deny the electric thrill that’s coursing through your veins or the dampness slicking your thighs, and when you finally find your voice again, you can only comply with Hoseok’s command. “Yes, sir. I-I understand.”

The man kneeling behind you lets out a satisfied hum, his hand trailing from your mouth down to your neck. “Such an obedient little slut,” he sighs, tracing along your jugular before sliding down to cup the swell of your left breast, the pad of his thumb flicking across the nipple. “Tell me, princess, how much do you want my cock right now?”

Already, you can feel his hard length sliding along the cleft of your ass, the swollen head mere centimeters from your dripping entrance. “Fuck, Hoseok,” you plead, rocking back against him and throwing all caution to the wind. Jungkook is forgotten once again in your haze of desperation—your eagerness to have Hoseok filling you up to the brim. “Please, sir. I need to have you inside me, please.”

Hoseok’s fingers dance down your sides, finally coming to a rest at your hips as he anchors you in place and begins pressing forward. You exhale shakily as your walls stretch to accommodate his girth, molding around every ridge and vein of his throbbing cock. Inch by inch, he sinks deeper inside, and it’s only once he’s bottomed out that he speaks again, his voice pitching cavernously low. “Fuck, princess, you feel amazing. So wet and tight and…” He trails off, and you crane your head back curiously to see what has stolen away his attention. “Oh, Jungkookie.” Hoseok answers your unasked question in a breathy murmur, each syllable laced with perverse delight. “Look at you.”

Instantly, you whip your head back around to face the young man lounging against the headboard, gasping when you see exactly what had caught Hoseok’s undivided interest. Jungkook is an absolute mess, his dark hair mussed and sticking wetly to his temples. Sweat covers his chest, glistening in the dim light and emphasizing the way his throat bobs harshly when he swallows audibly, his breathing ragged and quick.

But then your gaze flickers below his waistband, your jaw slackening when you see his cock straining against the denim, a rapidly growing damp spot forming on the stretched fabric. He looks painfully hard.

Hoseok seems aware of it, too. “Why don’t you go ahead and take those jeans off?” the older man offers kindly.

Jungkook doesn’t need to be told twice, shucking his jeans and underwear down his thighs in one fumbling motion, kicking them off his feet and groaning at the slight relief. “Oh, fuck.” He sags back against the pillows, fingers twitching toward his engorged dick. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“No touching yourself just yet, Jungkookie,” Hoseok reminds him with a low chuckle, drawing a hoarse groan from the younger man. “I want you to watch me fuck {Name}, watch as I fill up her sweet little pussy with my cock.” And as if to emphasize his point, he rears back before surging forward again, his hips slamming against the fleshy curve of your ass with a resounding slap and a wet squelch that sets your face aflame.

Jungkook lets out a whimper that you echo, your voice pitching higher and bordering on frenetic as Hoseok sets a rapid, unforgiving pace that has you seeing stars. Your toes curl under the sudden onslaught of pleasure, a litany of moans and keens that sound suspiciously like his name leaving your lips as he pounds into you.

“That’s it, princess,” Hoseok grunts, keeping one hand anchored at your hip while the other reaches up to fondle your breast, rolling the ample flesh in his palm before flicking a thumb across the sensitive peak in deliberate circles. “Love when you squeeze my cock like that, fuck. You’re so goddamn tight.”

“G-od, Hoseok!” you whine, reaching back to wrap an arm around his neck and tangling your fingers in his soft hair. The exclamation only serves to spur him on, his hips continuing to roll up into you with a fluidity and grace that only years of dancing could have instilled. “Oh god, fuck!”

“You like that?” Hoseok huffs out a chuckle, his breathing growing labored as he endeavors to put his full weight behind each thrust. The room fills with the obscene sound of skin against skin, backed by your pleading whimpers and Hoseok’s grunts of exertion. Jungkook, oddly, is silent—and when your gaze slides over to him, you see why.

The young man is slouched over the pillows with hooded eyes and a glazed expression, his jaw slack even as he stares unwaveringly—ravenously—back at you. His bottom lip is pulled between his teeth, bitten bright red and slick with saliva from what you can only assume have been numerous attempts to moisten it.

However, Jungkook’s mouth isn’t the only part of him that’s glistening wetly. His chest is still covered with a sheen of sweat, and, now that he’s naked you can see his cock standing proud, the head dribbling with copious amounts of arousal. Somehow, he’s managed to refrain from wrapping a hand around his erection, though you can see from the desperation swimming in his eyes just how much relief it would bring him.

Behind you, Hoseok’s pace slows. “Princess,” he murmurs, nipping lightly at the shell of your ear. “Look at how hard Jungkookie is. Why don’t you help him out a bit with that pretty little mouth of yours?” At your nod, he pulls out of you entirely, gently nudging you forward. You crawl forward until you are at Jungkook’s feet, and the younger man spreads his legs immediately so that you can settle comfortably between them.

“Baby,” he murmurs, barely above a whisper.

The mattress dips behind you, signaling that Hoseok has rejoined you. His fingers wrap around your shoulder, gently urging you to bend over the younger man’s lap, and you obediently allow him to maneuver you until your mouth is right above Jungkook’s cock, hot and red and leaking all over his taut stomach.

“Fuck. Please, baby,” the young man whispers, his breathing ragged. “Please.”

Hoseok squeezes your hip encouragingly. “Go on, princess.”

Jungkook lets out a noise somewhere between a whimper and a mewl when you finally close your lips around him, his head lolling back against the pillows. One hand finds its way into your hair, wrapping around the strands with enough force to make your roots scream in protest when he tightens his grip. “Yes, baby,” he breathes, relief surging in his voice. “God, I love your mouth so much.”

It’s hard to return the sentiment regarding your considerable fondness for his dick when it is currently lodged in your mouth, but you make do with a soft, appreciative hum and a long lick along his shaft. You’re rewarded with a visible shudder and a hissed curse, and you immediately repeat the motion with a pleased smile twitching at the corner of your lips. Slowly, you take more of him into your mouth, reaching up to give his balls some attention as well.

Two hands curl around your hips, and that is all the warning you receive before Hoseok slides inside you once again. Instinctively, you push back against him for more friction, and Hoseok only laughs as he starts up a torturously slow rhythm, giving you time to adjust to being pinioned between the two men. Every single one of Hoseok’s thrusts sends Jungkook’s cock just a little farther down your throat, and you take a few careful breaths through your nose before allowing your jaw to slacken.

The groan that leaves Jungkook when your nose brushes against his navel is positively cavernous, rumbling through his chest like a freight train. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, baby, you’re incredible,” he rasps, stroking your hair. You can feel the way his thighs tense as he resists the urge to thrust up into your warm mouth, your heart swelling at his mindful nature.

“Doing okay, princess?” Hoseok asks, trailing a finger along your spine fondly. You hum in affirmation—drawing another groan from Jungkook—and Hoseok chuckles, leaning down to plant a fond kiss on your shoulder. “I think Jungkookie wants to fuck your mouth, princess. Can you handle that?”

Leave it to Hoseok to read your innermost thoughts and desires. Humming again, you reach up with your free hand to clutch Jungkook’s, giving him a reassuring squeeze and smiling when his fingers immediately twine with yours.

“Baby,” he rasps. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”

You squeeze his hand again, about to pull off his dick and give him verbal reassurance, but Hoseok speaks before you can move. “Believe me, she likes it. You’ve always been a bit of a glutton for punishment, haven’t you, princess?” He rolls his hips, reawakening the dormant fire simmering in your tummy, and you moan at the sudden surge of fullness.

Tentatively, Jungkook thrusts upward. You stretch out as much as you are able, opening up more of your body to accommodate his growing boldness, and when he finally settles into a steady rhythm you swallow once more around the head of his cock. “Fu-uck!” Jungkook moans, his voice breaking.

Behind you, Hoseok slowly resumes his movements as well, languidly rolling his hips as one hand dips down between your thighs. You can feel yourself growing wetter by the second, easing the slide of his cock along your walls and soaking his fingers as he rubs hard, insistent circles into your aching clit. The molten heat in the pit of your belly grows and coalesces into what promises to be an explosive orgasm, and as the pressure mounts you find it progressively more difficult to control your breathing as Jungkook continues fucking your mouth.

He is close. You can tell from his increasingly sporadic thrusts and harsh breaths, and if you’re completely honest, you’re surprised he’s managed to last this long. Steeling yourself, you swallow around him once, then twice. And on the third, he grows impossibly in your mouth before bursting, painting the inside of your throat with spurts of creamy warmth. Determinedly, you milk him for all he’s worth, swallowing until he’s cringing from oversensitivity and tugging you back with the hand still nestled in your hair. Pulling out, Jungkook clasps your hand happily in both of his and flops back against the pillows to play with your fingers.

“You’re amazing, baby,” he murmurs fondly, tracing each ridge of your knuckles.

You shoot him an affectionate smile even as Hoseok picks up his pace, surging forward as he chases his own high and drives you closer to yours. His thumb caresses your clit, sliding across the slippery nub in frantic circles and leaving you teetering dangerously close to the brink.

Hoseok shoves you off the edge with a few final, sloppy thrusts. The pressure in your belly snaps, sending a wave of pleasure radiating out from your core and flooding through your entire body, his name escaping your lips in a high-pitched keen as you clench around him in spasms. The tight, wet draw of your body sends him spiraling mere seconds later, and Hoseok groans your name as he floods you with his release.

It takes the two of you a few long moments to recover, but eventually the high recedes back into your veins and leaves in its place warm, satiated contentment. Hoseok’s softening dick slips out of your swollen pussy, and he presses a tender kiss to the middle of your back before collapsing beside you and tugging you into a warm embrace. Jungkook flops down on your other side and snakes an arm around your waist, nosing his way through your hair until he finds the sensitive spot below your ear and plants a kiss there.

“I’m gonna eat you out until you fucking pass out next time,” Jungkook promises lowly, shooting Hoseok a mischievous smirk. “Just you wait.”

You’re certain that the older man has a snappy retort, but sleep is stubbornly pulling at your eyelids and you have neither the willpower nor desire to fight it off. Sighing contentedly, you curl into Jungkook’s body while nestling a little closer to Hoseok, his arms tightening protectively around your smaller frame.

“Love you both,” you mumble tiredly, eyes already shut, and you just manage to hear their reciprocations before drifting off into dreamland. 

[galwednesday]

So back in the summer 2016, I wrote 18k of an immediately post-CA:TWS Shrinkyclinks AU with the working title The Lion and the Mouse, then got distracted and mostly abandoned it. When I was writing Bait and Switch, I stole the concept of how Steve and Bucky met from this WIP, not thinking much about it because I wrote Bait and Switch quickly and didn’t expect to go anywhere with it. Except then people asked for more, and specifically the story of how they met, with Steve saving Bucky from an attempted mugging. Which I, uh, stole. From myself.

I’m doing some writing file clean-out today and when I looked at The Lion and the Mouse I discovered the first 4,000 words are almost entirely complete, up to and including the part where Steve and Bucky meet, so I’m posting it here. This isn’t in the same universe as Bait and Switch, but it’s what I was thinking of when I was writing their character dynamics, and I thought it might interest people who had asked for Bait and Switch’s thwarted-mugging scene.

“Have we met?” Iron Man asked. “Because I gotta say, there’s something familiar about you. But that awesome cyborg arm, which, by the way, you should stop trying to punch me with, I would definitely have remembered, so--” Iron Man failed to dodge the Asset’s grab and was thrown upside-down into the wall of the helicarrier. He stuck there for a moment before falling face-first onto the floor. “Maybe not.”

The Asset scaled the closest ladder in under three seconds. Iron Man was a distraction, not the primary target.

The Asset climbed onto the catwalk and ran towards the Widow. She was ignoring the fight behind her, too busy tampering with something on the control panel.

Targeting system, a dispassionate voice in the Asset’s head supplied. The Asset disregarded the thought as irrelevant. It couldn’t help deducing information based on passive observation, but it had never been encouraged to know more than it was told.

It threw a knife at the Widow’s back. She moved impossibly quickly, turning so the knife passed harmlessly to one side, but that brought her nearly within the Asset’s reach. The Asset lunged forward--

Iron Man lurched over the edge of the catwalk and slammed into the Asset’s side, knocking them both down to the lowest level of the helicarrier, the glass underbelly. The ground drifted past deceptively slowly beneath them. The helicarrier was riding low enough that the Asset could see river water quaking from the repulsor engines’ vibrations.

(continues beyond the cut)

“We’re not done, terminator.” Iron Man tried to pin the Asset’s left wrist, but the Asset had already torn off one of his gauntlets and his one-handed grip wasn’t strong enough. The Asset locked its thighs around Iron Man’s waist and threw its body into a twist. Iron Man rolled with the spin and fired his remaining hand repulsor to gain extra momentum, trying to break free of the Asset’s grip.

The repulsor blast must have hit an already damaged support pillar. One moment the Asset was rolling Iron Man onto the floor like a beetle onto its back, and the next the Asset was stunned and gasping, lying face-up and pinned by a metal beam across its abdomen and chest. The beam was too heavy to lift. The Asset was trapped.

“And the Soldier’s finally down. Jesus.” Iron Man pulled his booted foot free of the fallen beam and staggered upright. “Romanoff, you good?”

“Swap made.” The Widow’s voice was light. “We have seven minutes until the fireworks start.”

“Great.” Iron Man shook his foot, the boot repulsor flickering on and off like a dying lightbulb. “I’m down to one and a half repulsors, so if I’m piggybacking you out of here it’s going to get pretty bumpy.”

Their earpieces crackled, a woman’s voice talking about a helicopter en route. The Asset didn’t bother to listen.

Mission failure. Fear washed through the Asset, cryo-cold. Mission failures were unacceptable. It must not fail the mission.

The Asset braced its elbows against the floor. It set its boots flat against the glass below and pushed up with its hips, ignoring the screaming agony spiraling through its abdomen.

“Easy there, tough guy, you’re going to rupture something. Correction, JARVIS tells me you have ruptured several somethings, and now you’re making it worse. Hill, better send paramedics with the chopper if you want the Soldier to live long enough for interrogation.”

Interrogation sent another pulse of terror down the Asset’s spine. It could remain silent despite almost anything, had been given plenty of practice, but interrogation was never easy to endure.

“You know, you really do look familiar.” Iron Man’s head tilted and his faceplate popped up. He narrowed his eyes at the Asset’s face. “JARVIS, run facial recognition on our party crasher.”

The Asset automatically noted that Iron Man was now vulnerable to a throwing knife to the eye, but both its hands were occupied and killing Iron Man wouldn’t salvage the mission. Mission failure mission failure mission failure.

The Widow appeared over the edge of the gangplank. She took in the situation at a glance and gave Iron Man an exasperated look. “For God’s sake, Stark. Keep your faceplate down until the Soldier is disarmed.” For a moment the Asset saw that same face, with the same annoyed line between her eyebrows, but smaller and rounder. A little girl’s pout laid over eyes that were decades too old.

Malfunction, the Asset thought.

Iron Man didn’t seem to hear her. His head snapped back to face the Asset, his eyes widening. “What? JARVIS, repeat that.”

The whine of its arm’s servos increased in pitch as the Asset strained harder. Fire radiated out from its sternum as additional ribs fractured under the pressure. The beam didn’t move.

The panel of glass beneath the Asset did.

The panel separated from one side of its metal housing with a sharp crack. The Asset watched the gap grow wider by inches, slow but inexorable. The seam was going to fail, and the Asset was going to fall.

The Asset stopped pushing against the beam, letting its body go lax against the slowly shifting glass. There was no way to prevent it. And it was fitting, somehow, that the Asset should die by falling.

The Asset didn’t know why. The Asset knew a lot of things without knowing how it knew them.

Iron Man didn’t notice the panel sagging. His eyes, brown and heavy-browed and incomprehensibly familiar, stared at the Asset’s face.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

The glass gave way.

The Asset fell.

Before it hit the water, words formed somewhere in the whirling chaos behind the Asset’s eyes, shaping themselves in accordance with a long-forgotten accent.

Fuckin’ finally.

[[PROBABLY A CHAPTER BREAK]]

The Asset hadn’t expected to survive the fall. The shock of water closing over its head prompted its body to struggle automatically, kicking towards the light in search of oxygen. Once it was breathing and treading water, extraction training kicked in.

The Asset dragged itself to shore and wove a muddy trail through the parks and back alleys of the city, concealing its passage on autopilot. It tore a strip off its undershirt to tie over the bullet wound in its thigh. Pursuers might have sniffer dogs. The Asset must avoid leaving a blood trail.

Iron Man’s parting words played on repeat. Sergeant Barnes? There was something right-but-not-right about Iron Man’s face, about the Widow’s face, something known-but-not-known. Stark, she had called him. His face, his voice, that name, Sergeant Barnes? The Asset’s head buzzed with dissonance.

The Asset didn’t expect to survive the confrontation with its handlers. The Asset had already known it was scheduled for decommissioning. The technicians routinely forgot how acute its hearing was and discussed forbidden topics where the Asset couldn’t help but overhear; it never drew attention to this in case it was punished for listening. The Asset had known before it even reached the helicarrier that this was to be its final mission. Its failure just proved the handlers right. It had grown unstable, erratic, ineffective. The Asset was a tool that had outlived its usefulness.

The Asset reported in because that was how all the its missions ended, and it didn’t know to do anything different in case of mission failure, but it wouldn’t have surprised the Asset to be greeted with a bullet to the brain as soon as it walked into the bank.

Instead, the five technicians in the vault nearly pissed themselves when the Asset appeared, silent as ever even though it couldn’t stand fully upright. Most of the broken ribs were on its right side where the beam had struck. Its abdomen felt worse than the the ribs, or the gunshot wound in its left thigh, but the Asset could feel its body already working to repair the damage. Soft tissue damage healed quickly. It would survive these injuries, if it was allowed to.

“M-mission report,” one of the technicians stammered. That wasn’t proper procedure, handlers were the ones who debriefed the Asset, but there were no handlers present to report to.

The Asset gave its report anyway. Anticipation of punishment was worse than pain, and it didn’t want to wait. It was going to be decommissioned anyway. What was a protocol violation compared to the mission failure it was about to recount?

The Asset’s summary of events made the technicians draw together in a frightened huddle. Two of them kept glancing at the door, either hopeful or worried about who might come through next. Another, the quietest and calmest, snuck two quick looks at the bulletin board the Asset knew concealed a wall safe containing cash and emergency supplies. The other two appeared to be in a state of shock.

“Fuck,” one whispered when the Asset finished. “The news was right. Shit, oh shit.”

“Does that mean Pierce is really dead?”

“The STRIKE teams haven’t checked in. If they were on the helicarriers--”

“They must be dead, too. Or arrested.”

“Christ, look at all these files.” One technician was at a computer, her face frantic as she typed. “They released everything. Everything.”

“What about this address? Is this base burned?”

“Fuck, forget about the base, what about our addresses? Our names?”

“Stop trying to grab the keyboard, look on your own fucking computer!”

The technicians bickered while the Asset stood against the wall. Nobody had told it to do anything else.

The wait gave its ribs time to knit back together. The searing pain in its abdomen lessened, slowly fading into the deep ache of bruising instead of the acute fire of rupture. The Asset was extremely thirsty, but nobody had given it water. The gunshot wound in its thigh reopened as its body worked to expel the embedded bullet. Eventually the bullet dropped down its pant leg, resting on the top of its boot.

Its mind rattled. It hurt, conflicting thoughts grinding against each other, forbidden memories and whistling gaps. The chair would scrape the confusion away, but the chair--

The Asset didn’t like the chair.

The quietest technician wasn’t searching for information like the others. He was sitting at his desk, thinking, watching the other technicians. Watching the Asset. Sweat gathered at his temples and darkened his hair.

The Asset tracked his movements when the quiet technician pulled a pistol from a desk drawer.

The other technicians were facing away, arguing among themselves and distracted by their computers. Easy targets.

The armed technician killed the others. He was fast and fairly professional about it, needing no more than three bullets per target before they stayed down, but it was loud and messy all the same. The shots echoed in the enclosed space despite the vault’s sound-proofing, bleeding into one staccato cacophony.

The Asset watched silently as the technician swallowed hard and readjusted his grip on the pistol. He lowered it to his side.

“Asset,” the technician said. He pulled the bulletin board off the wall. “Open this safe.”

The Asset didn’t know the combination of the safe, but it was an older model and had never been built to stand up to a weapon like the Asset’s arm. One heave on the door handle pulled the entire safe from its wall housing. The movement reopened the Asset’s wounds, sending more acid through its abdomen and a rush of hot blood down its thigh, but the pain wasn’t mission relevant. It could be ignored.

The Asset threw the safe across the room. It smashed corner-first into the reinforced vault door and burst open, spilling its contents onto the floor.

“Jesus Christ! You crazy fucker.” The technician glared at the Asset. “There are grenades in there, fuck.”

The Asset felt a little indignant. The technician should have included this information in the mission briefing if he felt it was relevant. The watching part of the Asset, the part that eavesdropped on handlers and kept its conclusions to itself, thought that the technician was a poor substitute for a handler. He didn’t observe the proper protocols. Probably didn’t know the proper protocols.

Running scared, the watching part Asset thought. Pierce was dead. The STRIKE teams were dead or captured. Hydra’s files had been released to the world. Low-level Hydra agents would be running scared.

If there was one emotion the Asset could reliably recognize, one pattern of behavior it could predict, it was fear.

Who was authorized to command the Asset, with Pierce and Rumlow out of commission? Who was authorized to punish the Asset for mission failure? Who would issue corrections for disobedience?

The watching part of the Asset unfurled and stretched.

The technician glanced up from where he was kneeling by the safe, scooping bundled papers and bricks of cash into a paper bag. He jerked his chin at the Asset’s thigh, which was still oozing blood. “Can you fight with that?”

It was a stupid question. The Asset’s internal ruptures were far more limiting to mission performance than a mostly-healed flesh wound. But the technician had never ordered the Asset to report its full status, so he was unaware of the extent of the damage. Not a handler, the Asset reminded itself. Its pulse picked up with an emotion it couldn’t identify, something like the feeling of checking weapons before a firefight.

“Functional for moderate combat,” the Asset reported. It added, because the technician was clearly not going to think of it on his own, “Rehydration necessary.”

The technician took a coffee cup from one of the desks, filled it from the water cooler in the corner, and pressed it into the Asset’s hands. The Asset drained it quickly before it could be taken away. The water was cool and pleasantly tasteless, much better than the noxious river water it had swallowed earlier or the nutrient IVs it was usually given. Evidently there were advantages to not having a real handler.

The technician looked at the chair and frowned. The Asset’s grip on the coffee mug tightened, but the technician was a cryo specialist. He didn’t know how to use the chair, and he had just killed the technicians that did.

“Fuck it,” the technician muttered. He grabbed the bags of cash and weapons and jerked his head at the door. “Asset, move out.”

***

The technician waved the Asset into the passenger’s seat of one of the field vans, not the black one that rode heavy with armor plating, but the white one with “RUSTY’S PLUMBING - RESULTS GUARANTEED!” painted on its side in big, looping letters. He put the bags of cash and weapons into the back and tucked his pistol into a holster hidden under his blue windbreaker. He put on a headset and connected it to his phone before he started driving, pulling onto I-95 and heading north.

“Buckle your seat belt,” the technician ordered. The Asset complied. It was good to ride in the front of a vehicle, with a full range of vision for upcoming obstacles or threats. The trees lining the highway were pleasant to look at. The Asset occupied itself by memorizing the license plate of every car they passed.

The technician received a call after 22 minutes of driving.

“What?” the technician demanded. “No, I told you. Get the STRIKE teams out of lockup and meet me at the rendezvous in Trenton. Blow up the building if you have to, just stop them from getting transferred to somewhere more secure.” A pause, then the technician slammed his palm onto the top of the steering wheel. “Fuck your cover! Are you even listening to me? I cleaned out the base in D.C. I have the Asset. Shit, that’s enough to start a new cell right there. Your cover’s blown already. All our covers are blown, once they decode those files.” Another, longer pause. “Do whatever you have to do. Report in three hours.” The technician yanked off his headset and slumped back in his seat. “Fucking moron.”

The technician listened to the radio the entire drive, sometimes swearing or punching the dashboard as news anchors revealed a new piece of information. The Asset sat silently without giving any sign that it registered what was being said.

The radio gave names for Iron Man and the Black Widow: Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff. The names were right-but-wrong just like the faces.

Sergeant Barnes. The news didn’t mention that name. The news didn’t mention the Asset at all, although it had a lot to say about Alexander Pierce and Nick Fury and SHIELD and Hydra and Natasha Romanov and Tony Stark. The Asset rolled the names through its mind, lost in thought. Tony Stark. Sergeant Barnes. Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, Natashenka, Nat…

The Asset couldn’t arrive at the correct name, but Nat recalled a child with red hair and a killer’s eyes. The Black Widow’s face in miniature.

Malfunction, the Asset thought automatically. It hadn’t been wiped in more than nine days, far longer than standard protocol. One of the technicians had complained to a handler about it and had been overruled. The Asset’s initial assassination of Fury, Nicholas J. had spawned unexpected, urgent follow-up missions as Hydra’s maneuvers were countered by SHIELD loyalists, and Rumlow had wanted the Asset to be field-ready at a moment’s notice.

Wipes kept mission-irrelevant memories at bay. The Asset was to report unauthorized memories to its handler at once, so the distractions could be properly removed.

The Asset had no handlers left to report to. The Asset said nothing. The watching part of the Asset approved. It wanted to wait and see what would happen.

The Asset was very good at waiting.

They stopped in Pennsylvania, just shy of the border with New Jersey. The technician left the Asset in the car while he pumped gas. Once the tank was full, the technician hovered by the car for a few moments, then opened the passenger-side door.

“Out,” the technician ordered. “We’re going inside. Stay behind me. Don’t say anything. Got it?”

“Confirm.” Standing up was a mix of pleasurable stretching of cramped muscles and painful pulling on wounds that hadn’t quite healed. The Asset’s abdomen felt hot and tender but essentially sound. Its thigh wound had closed and was forming scar tissue that would fade away within a week. The Asset could fight if it had to; it had pushed through injuries that were much worse.

The gas station was empty apart from a clerk at the desk who glanced up at the technician and the Asset, then went back to reading her magazine. The Asset shadowed the technician’s footsteps, taking a perverse pleasure in hiding in the technician’s blind spot, so the technician was constantly turning his head to catch sight of it. Malfunction, the Asset thought, just a little more smug than wary. The technician wasn’t a handler. The technician could hurt the Asset in the course of regular maintenance, when the Asset’s pain was incidental, but he didn’t have the authority to discipline it.

Whoever the technician was taking the Asset to might have that authority. Sobered by the thought, the Asset dropped back a few more paces. The radio had claimed that Alexander Pierce was dead, but there were others. There were always others.

[[TV playing in the corner shows driver’s license photos of suspected Hydra personnel that includes the technician; he sees the store clerk recognize him]]

“Shit,” the technician hissed, face twisting. He pulled his gun from the small of his back.

The clerk froze in place, her mouth opening in shock.

The Asset moved without knowing it was going to. Its flesh hand snatched the gun from the technician’s grip. The technician’s head snapped back as the Asset’s metal fist collided with its chin. The Asset heard the crack of bone.

The cashier screamed.

The technician was dead before he hit the floor.

The Asset separated the clip from the gun, set both of them on the floor, and left the gas station at a sprint.

[[disables tracker and whatever drug ampoules he can reach, manages to backtrack to Philly before collapsing to ride out the withdrawal]]

The Asset hadn’t expected to survive coming down from whatever drugs Hydra had used to keep it docile and compliant. At the worst stage of the withdrawal, when it was shaking, puking, and hallucinating in the basement of a condemned building, it had wished it was back in cryo, numb and frozen and not hurting. It would even have gone to the chair.

Two days later, it had crawled out of the basement, filthy and exhausted but more clear-headed than it could ever remember being.

The Asset was starting to feel a certain kinship with cockroaches.

The Asset spent more than a month just keeping low, moving only through shadows and sleeping once every three days, curling up on rooftops and in flophouses. Hydra didn’t find it. SHIELD didn’t find it. The Asset wasn’t sure there was any difference between the two, no matter what the radio had said, but either way, it wanted to avoid the interrogation Stark’s words had promised.

The Asset ruminated on Romanoff and Stark. It thought maybe Romanoff had been a fellow asset, and Stark had been a technician. Or maybe Stark was a stranger and Romanov an enemy. The Asset couldn’t decide, couldn’t seem to settle on a conclusion.

Neither of them had been a handler. The Asset was sure of that. Hydra had burned the memories of past missions out of its head, but they had made sure the Asset’s ability to recognize its betters was crystal fucking clear.

The Asset’s head ached constantly. Sometimes the pain was just a mild inconvenience, and sometimes it was incapacitating. It wasn’t clear whether to the Asset whether its brain was healing, or just turning to mush. The Asset had been eating mostly from trash cans. Its memories were incomplete at best, but it was certain people didn’t used to throw away so much food. Bruised fruit, stale bread, half-eaten hamburgers. Finding enough to sustain itself hadn’t been difficult.

The hand’s fingers did not open or close. The Asset had opened the forearm access panel and ripped out whatever it could reach, knowing that one of the components was a tracker and unable to distinguish which one. It had felt like fire burning up through the arm and into the shoulder, radiating agony down its back and up its neck into its skull, before the nervous system feedback had, mercifully, shorted out. The Asset could still raise the arm and rotate it at the elbow and shoulder, but the wrist and hand joints were locked in place.

It took weeks for the Asset to form anything approaching a plan. Taking care of basic needs like thirst and hunger were instinctual enough that the Asset could do them on autopilot, but it was out of the habit of thinking for itself.

[[Heads to Brooklyn like a homing pigeon; has vague memories of safety and belonging there. When he arrives, wanders disconsolately looking for where he used to live (without knowing that’s what he’s looking for), but can’t find it. The closest he can find is an alley, where he tries to sleep.]]

The Asset had been asleep with its head on the backpack. Tactical error. One of the boys must have pulled the backpack out by its straps. Now the backpack was four feet away, at the largest boy’s feet.

The three boys had frozen when the Asset swung upright, but as seconds passed while the Asset did nothing but stand rigidly still, they relaxed.

“Woah, easy there,” one of them said. He took a few steps away and looked at the mouth of the alley, either checking for pursuers or scouting an escape route.

“Relax, he’s just a fucking junkie,” the largest boy said quietly. Then, louder, “What’s in the backpack, man? You gonna share?”

The boy crouched beside the backpack, reaching for the zipper.

The Asset could kill him so easily, even with one malfunctioning hand. The steps were as clear as a roadmap: immobilize shoulder, grasp head, twist, drop. It would take less than a second.

The thought made its stomach churn. The Asset held itself rigid, every muscle locked in place, afraid that moving would lead to another body at its feet.

“Hey!” A new boy, his hair startlingly bright in the gloom of the alley, charged forward from the alley’s other end. He stepped in between the Asset and the threat and puffed up like an angry goose. His baggy coat and overstuffed backpack made him appear larger than his thin legs suggested he was. “Leave him alone!”

“Alex,” the third boy muttered, tugging on the largest boy’s sleeve. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Alex shrugged the hand off. He was half a foot taller than the boy standing challengingly in front of him. “We were just talking. What’s it to you?”

“You need to leave,” the blond boy said, voice hard. “You can’t just take people’s stuff.”

“Fuck you, I’ll go when I want to,” Alex retorted. “And I want to see what’s in the backpack first.”

Alex reached for the backpack’s zipper, but the blond boy slapped his hand away before he could touch it.

Enraged, Alex drew back his fist.

The Asset moved.

Alex’s punch landed full force on the Asset’s metal arm, sending a ringing vibration through its shoulder. Alex howled and pulled his hand back to his chest.

“You fucking--”

“Come on, Alex!” the second boy shouted. The third was already running. Alex let himself be pulled out of the alley, and within seconds the Asset was alone with the blond boy.

On closer inspection, the boy wasn’t a boy at all. He was short, no more than five and a half feet, but his voice was deep and his face had no trace of baby fat. The Asset estimated the man was in his mid-twenties.

“Sorry you had to deal with those guys,” the man said. He took a few steps back, leaving the Asset standing over its backpack. “I know one of them, he’s not so bad, but his cousin is a total dick. Are you all right? That sounded like a pretty hard punch." The man reached out and ran both hands up the Asset's left arm. The Asset didn't allow itself to flinch away.

The man’s hands squeezed gently, paused, squeezed more firmly. "Wow, that's--" His eyes went wide and his hands dropped away from the arm. He held them spread at chest height for a moment, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have grabbed your arm without asking. That was not okay, geez."

The Asset had no idea what was going on, but the man seemed upset, which made it nervous. Things didn’t go well when people around the Asset were upset.

It slowly picked up the backpack. When the man didn't do anything but watch, the Asset settled the backpack straps over its shoulders, feeling more secure.

The man reached his pocket and the Asset tensed. It calculated the hang of the jacket and the size of the pocket bulge automatically; not heavy enough for a gun, but a knife could be small and light, or a taser--

He pulled out a rectangle wrapped in blue foil. "Are you hungry? I have an energy bar. It's, uh." He flipped the bar over and squinted in the dim light. "Blueberry lemon flavored. You want any?"

The man half-unwrapped the bar and handed it to the Asset. The Asset took it and bit, tentatively. It was chalky and sweet. Blueberry lemon, it thought, memorizing the taste.

“Not bad, right?" the man said. "That was my last one, sorry. Are you still hungry?"

The Asset knew better than to admit to a weakness, but the man seemed to know anyway. He just kept talking.

"I know a church near here that has food, usually, and a place to sleep if you don't mind waking up with the bells. We could go there now, if you want."

The Asset thought about this. It had to sleep somewhere, and evidently the alley wasn’t safe. The blond man wasn't a threat. If the church was a trap, the Asset could run.

The Asset nodded, and the man smiled.

"Great! It's a little over a mile, are you okay to walk that? Oh!" He smacked his forehead, making the Asset startle. "I forgot to introduce myself, sorry. My name's Steve."

SO THAT’S WHAT I GOT. I have about 14,000 more words of this story written, so either I’ll finish it and post it as a complete fic or I’ll officially give up and post it somewhere as a morgue file.

[discogs]

a trip through murder rates: crash course in nick cave

here is the playlist, beneath lies the story.

i hope you enjoy. 

1. i have an evident bias to rowland and rowland’s friends, it’s a slight one that is emphasized by an deep spiritual attachment, therefore we must start with rowland s. howard and not our dear nicholas. there were two main melbourne acts, one of which was nick’s just now forming ‘boys next door’ (which he decided to create with friends tracy pew and mick harvey after he was kicked outtuv art school), the other is rowland and ollie olsen’s ‘young charlatans.’ rowland was responsible for the creation of the boys next doors’ biggest song “shivers,” here is a clip of rowland and ollie speaking while with the young charlatans. ( x ) 

2. rowland wrote what i believe to be the perfect song, adaptable to all outlooks, at the age of sixteen as a comment on the over the top nature of teenage love. the song is initially a sarcastic one, yet has been redone so many times over that generally speaking it looses it’s cynical nature. this recording is the one done by the young charlatans, it’s original form with rowland on vocals.

3. this is actually about nick cave, i swear it, and here is where we get into that more so. here is a cover of nancy sinatra’s “these boots are made for walking” done by the boys next door some time in ‘78. i don’t know why nick sings like that, i’m assuming he had no sense of his vocal range at this time, and i wish the young charlatans had gotten a video but unfortunately the band split up fairly quick due to disputes between rowland and ollie.

+ there’s this house party, or maybe it’s a show, there’s mixed stories on this. but the general consensus is that nick, unruly and screwed all up on speed had been eyeing rowland for some time at this event. it was after a testosterone gun show in the bathrooms where nick ripped out a sink, that he found his fist in rowland’s face demanding to know if he was a punk or not. naturally, s a thin boy raised by women rowland was a bit disgusted by nick’s display, however took him up on his offer to meet again the following day when nick apologised. this eventually led to the creation of the birthday party, but before that rowland had managed to get a word in with his bandmates about that one song, y’know the one ..

4. here we see nick, all marionette gestures and heavy eyeliner belting his heart out over lyrics written by the tiny post ‘66 fender wielding raven shown briefly in the video. it’s undeniable that nick seemed to take this a lot more genuinely than rowland did, or at least that’s what he intended to display. this is the more popular version of the song, much glossier and easier to imagine being played at a high school dance than the previous version. this was all fine and dandy, now, but songs that sound like roxy music aren’t cool, man ! besides, every member of this band displays a talent that is remarkably astounding. the song is beautiful, yet tight, and though this is spectacular there’s much more beneath.

5. this is track is one of the birthday party’s first singles, released along with several other birthday party songs on a compilation called hee-haw which mainly consisted of the band’s earlier work. the cover art here is done by nick.

6. this track is off of the birthday party’s second record entitled ‘junkyard,’ released in 1981 and expressing more fluidity within their musical style with a certain wounded animal characteristic to the music jolted by the viciousness of nick’s voice. it is around this time, or perhaps some time before, that the band had found themselves penniless in london and retreated to berlin.

+ tensions have been steadily arising from day one due to rowland and nick’s individual stubbornness over artistic expression, nick is searching for an escape from the birthday party as he despises the route their presentation has taken. as most even vaguely punk sounding bands often realise that their audience doesn’’t so much care for the music but instead the thrill of seeing someone hurtling themselves into the ground repeatedly. no one wanted their name to be engraved in a violent history, and lucky for nick he sound his way out in berlin.

7. for some years now, the west berlin music scene has been a bustling hub of creation and innovation. with acts like abwarts and malaria surrounding, a young and reverse individual finds himself forming what would the band pioneering not only unconventional instruments but the proto-industrial movement. the band was based off a fairly simple concept; destruction as a means of creation, a notion adopted from this (x) marxist era essay as well as the factory-line like gentrification of the surrounding brick paradise. thus einstuzende neubauten was formed, and by the first glance nick felt as though he’d net his match. this rubber clad being of fire and metal was blixa bargeld, who you will see in this particular clip. (x) is a performance that shows off the impulsive and chaotic nature of the band as well as their use of out of the ordinary instruments.

8. this meeting of kindred spirits leads to nick definitively deciding to part ways with the birtday party. in an admittedly dick move, nick decided to call he record ‘the bad seeds ep,” presumably hoping to get a better feel for where he was going with his career. rowland and him are hardly speaking and they both have one foot out the door. his song is off of this bad seeds section, where nick begins to show his talent for world building and story telling. 

9. this track’s off the opposite end, the part which belongs more so to the birthday party than it does to the bad seeds. i love this track for all it’s inconsistency, it attacks you from all sides musically and leaves you feeling dazed lyrically for a lack of being able to keep up. to me, this is the best way to bookend the band’s career. it displays maturity in style like no other while also perfecting the sound now heavily associated with not only the birthday party but no wave music in general. 

+ below are bonus videos and music x ( mutiny sessions )  x ( live version of shivers sung by rowland with the boys next door ) x ( another song off of einsturzende’s halber mensch, my favourite ) 

10. admittedly i have neglected nick’s first two records ‘from her to eternity’ and ‘the first born is dead,’ i have a storage complex with my favourite musicians where i won’t listen to their entire discography because if i get stir crazy for new material then i can get familiar with one of the records i haven’t really heard. this track is off of his third record called ‘your funeral, my trial.’ like the previous two this was recorded with the first of the bad seeds lineup comprising of nick cave, mick harvey (of the birthday party), barry adamson (of magazine), blixa bargeld (of einsturzende neubauten), and for a short time hugo race. this track is one of the bad seed’s finest in my opinion, strong on atmosphere and tone with a plot line following a distinct character who’s in a strange bind - a hallmark of nick’s songwriting. this album sound tracked wim wenders film ‘wings of desire,’ with a cameo from nick and rowland in the final act.

11. let’s catch up to rowland for a moment, who is working somewhat parallel to nick as the guitarist for a band called the crime & city solution. rowland only worked with the band for one record, ‘room of lights,’ while in berlin where he was met with his brother, harry, playing bass, mick harvey once more on guitar, and a boy from a band called swell maps on drums named epic soundtracks. this clip is from the aforementioned ‘wings of desire,’ after this rowland and the mentioned members (minus harvey, replaced by rowland’s long-time girlfriend genevive mcguckin) broke off and formed these immortal souls.

12. a lot of musicians have released cover albums, and from what i can tell almost all of kicking against the pricks is except for this track. i wanted to display this song as it shows the broadness of nick’s vocal expression, in that this song makes me want to hang myself.

+ this is a little linear note about rowland’s work after crime, epic soundtrack’s origins, and who the fuck is nikki sudden again ? x ( these immortal souls: marry me (lie ! lie !) ), the project rowland worked on immediately after crime & city x ( swell maps: cake shop girl ), the band that epic soundtracks and brother nikki ‘little johnny thunders’ sudden came from initially, pioneers of what would become noise rock and grunge. x ( the jacobites: for the roses), nikki’s band with friend dave kusworth x ( nikki sudden & rowland s. howard: a quick thing ), a track from an album rowland did with nikki called ‘kiss you kidnapped charabanc’ x ( lydia lunch & rowland s. howard: burning skulls ), a song from the brilliant record cut on a whim based on a sense of familiarity between the two

13. this music video was recorded in the studio the song was recorded in, which is in berlin. this song was inspired by a girlfriend of nick’s and how she made him feel, a very momentous affair it seems to have been,

14. nick continues to make music as the end of the 1980s draws near, the first record of this time period is 'the good son,’ who’s most popular song is undoubtedly 'the weeping song.’ that track is definitely worth a listen as well, it is one of nick’s more popular tracks but it’s a rare full display of blixa’s vocals and a great duet. this song, however, is the title song and has a beautiful choir-sound to it which is present all throughout this album.

15. my favorite nick cave record is tied between this one and one that comes over twenty years after this one, but i’ll be damned if i don’t give this record the utmost appraisal. the album is more definitive in narrative than nick’s previous records, it all seems to be written to fit a particular story line and the sense of momentum in the record is impeccable. this track tells the story of the catholic saint, christina the astonishing, a story that nick was very attached to. as we further our way through his career his interest in catholicism becomes more and more apparent.

16. this song is the slowest on the album 'let love in,’ which is one of his most popular records. the most known track by nick - 'red right hand’ - is also off this album, but in my opinion it’s not the best track off the record. this song is inspired by a story nick read in robert smythe hichens’ “the green carnation,” and the unsettling nature of the story lingers in this song. it’s the counterpart to a song earlier in the album entitled simply 'do you love me?’

17. the huge thing about nick cave is his fascination for murder, something that, the more i learn about and listen to him doesn’t seem to be that huge of a fixation of his. at least not anymore than the bible is. this album, however, murder ballads, is obviously homicide centric. this track features kyle minogue on vocals as eliza day, but she isn’t the only guest vocalist on the album. on another track, henry lee (which is a must hear as well), there is another guest vocalist. pj harvey comes into the maelstrom of nick’s life, and as is displayed in the video, they become seamlessly intertwined in a romance that nick describes as one of the best events of his life. however, in nick’s own words, 'all things move towards their end, i knew before i met her that i would loose her …’

18. after the short lived romance between nick and pj, she leaves him feeling devastated. no one knows for sure why it is they split, but nick sure as hell took it like a landslide. this song is one off of his last album of the 90s, the boatman’s call, which is essentially the pj harvey breakup album. this song has stark similarities to tom waits’ first record, which rings nothing but lovely to my mind.

19. i really. really love rowland s. howard. he means everything to me, this is a song off his first solo album. i don’t know why i chose this one, maybe it’s because the proceeding two songs off it are too difficult for me to hear. he is so talented, he is so beautiful, i don’t know where these impressions of horrendousness come from. rowland is the kindest soul to every walk this earth, but um, here we are with another beautiful display of the sharpness of his guitar playing, and that aching voice of his. he’s my favorite guitarist, and the reason why is that he does not need to sing to tell you how much he is hurting - his guitar does that all on it’s own. we’re about to get heavy. 1999.

+ nick’s doing this shit called grinderman. i’ll be honest with you, i’ve never heard a line of it. and why ? because that mustache is an atrocity to not only to this earth, but to the heavens, hell, and purgatory as well. so there’s a pretty big gap in his discography after boatman’s call.

20. 2009. alright. so. i’m going to tell you this one thing first; rowland s. howard did not deserve to die. he did not deserve death, he did not deserve any of the numerous heartaches and horrendous experiences that he went through. he went his life a genius, and was scarcely ever recognized for his immense talent and uniqueness. rowland died in 2009 due to a liver disease. he wasn’t able to get a transfer in time. and look, rowland was not ready to die. he wanted so much more, he wanted everything of the world that he hadn’t the chance to reach before. he knew he was going to die, but he did not want to. i will tell you this with my heart bared open and bleedin to you - i would give up my life to have rowland back on this earth in a heartbeat. this song is from the last album he ever released, an album which i still find very difficult to listen to. he did not deserve to die. i don’t know where it is he acquired this seemingly immense hatred of himself, and the contempt for whatever actions he committed. he was the kindest, most loving soul to ever walk this earth, and i refuse to accept his passing as anything other than a true strike of hate by god to humanity. he means wonders to me.

21. so um. sorry. but nick comes back, with that record that i told you competes with henry’s dream to me. it’s called “and no more shall we part” and it is a really difficult record to speak of due to the cohesive story line there seems to be within it. this is the final track of the album, and i believe it sums it up pretty well. i think the line in here; “i think of my friends who died of exposure, and i remember other ones who died from the lack of it.” is in relation to rowland in the latter half. this song is sorrowful, without a doubt. this is the last record blixa did with him, stuck through for years. god bless him.

+ nocturama did not do well, neither did abattoir blues. i know nothing about dig lazarus dig, these three records remind me of rickety stairs on the way up to self discovery. in his 2016 movie, 'one more time with feeling,’ he mentions how you have to grow accustomed to being a new person. you have to suss out your new self, if this new you smokes or if this new you gave up smoking years ago, things like that. trying to find his place again. he did, of course, adjust to this new nick. and the product is brilliant.

22. nick outdoes himself time after time, throughout his entire career he has bested himself. please, do not take the initial crudeness of some of the first lyrics as a reason to discard this song, it’s off of his 2013 album push the sky away is without a doubt one of the most beautiful things i have ever heard. this record is one that is vicarious to me, these days i hear it every day to sleep and sometimes constantly throughout the day.

23. nick’s last record, 'skeleton tree’ was already in development before the death of his son, arthur. many of the lyrics in the record echo his last book, 'the sick bag song,’ especially in this track where the girl who dances on the rings of saturn is a reoccurring anomaly in the book. this record took everyone by storm, if that storm is freezing and you’re trapped inside a cold black marble home. this is the end of the nick cave train ride, thank you if listened and read the whole way through. this is essentially my bare bones.

- LM