#things that are canon. to ME. this happened. to me.

[duckysprouts]

mikasa and squishy eren post-memory regain

she’s really worried about him but freaking out would make him freak out more, so everyone’s resolved to acting like nothings happening.

mikasa is canonically a cinephile so a lot of their evenings are spent on the couch with eren coming to after one of his depression comas and the worst thing he’s ever seen is on screen with no context

edit: y nobody tell me the title said milan idk who that is

[willowser]

sweet as cherry wine—

bakugou katsuki x f!reader wc: 2.6k+ tags: katsuki pov, tough family conflicts including emotional and physical abuse (non-graphic), toxic relationship dynamics (not with reader), bakugou x f!oc, eventual office romance, canon-typical violence, light smut, slowburn emotional growth, mentioned death of a family member, happy ending, tags subject to change.

once again, very big thank you to @kodzu-ken for giving me the opportunity to pursue this idea !! our office romance is coming.....i promise......i just have to give bakugou several different layers of trauma first akhfkahfa

𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄 ˎˊ˗

title | part two

When Katsuki is 8, his grandmother dies.

There's very little he knows about death then, but he feels it coming in the months before it happens, before any of the grown-ups sit him down. It startles in his brain at her arrival, sudden and instinctive, like the little animal of him has smelled that something is off.

One day Obaachan visits—and then just never leaves, instead installed into Katsuki's playroom: the "office", once a kingdom of color, overrun with swaths of fabric his father brought home in great bundles, spooled out across the floor.

It takes both his parents and his aunt and even his oldest cousin to complete Obaachan's hostile takeover, and once she's settled in, he's entirely barred from the room. Not even allowed to dig through the scraps of red and blue and yellow, to pull satin over his shoulders or to chase tulle down the hallway.

No, after that, Katsuki can only stand at the door with an eye pressed to the crack, breathing in time to the hiss of Obaachan's machines.

Sometimes she watches him in return, catches him in her cloudy, sunken stare from her final resting place on the futon. It scares him in a way he doesn't know how to translate yet, all her protruding bone and thin, transparent skin, the way her mouth folds in on itself when she sees him. It makes something cold coil in his tummy, something that feels far too big for his little body.

There isn't much she says and that makes it worse, somehow. Her voice is as frail as she is, but there's an echo after she speaks, the same sudden silence that follows glass shattering. Most of the time, he's already on his way out of the room, moving much too loud and much too fast to show his respect and to slow down and listen—

But the one time he does, her words splinter something, hard, inside of him.

"He's just like his mother."

It hits him hotter than his mom's palm, shuts his mouth before another word can form. He's yelling about something, because he's eight and still throws ugly tantrums and because the witch matches him beat for beat, feeds his unruly little fire. It's not the first time he's ever heard it, even that young, how much like her he is, but the way Obaachan says it. Like she's peeling something rotten off the sole of her shoe.

When she looks at him, really looks at Katsuki, it's like she's seen something. Caught him, somehow, doing something he should be ashamed of, even though he's only eight and doesn't know any other way to be.

That night, he lies in bed and tells himself he doesn't care. That she's old and mean and wrong. That his mother is a hag and his grandmother's even worse and he doesn't care, he just doesn't give a crap.

And he remembers it all anyway.

Obaachan's machines go quiet in the spring.

The office becomes an office again, all her things are packed and put away; his mother scrubs it all down herself, and his old man sews late, late into the night for a couple of weeks. Katsuki avoids that room for a while, walks past the door too fast, hears phantom hissing where he knows there is none.

He doesn't cry through the incense and sutras, and he never says that he misses her, doesn't even think it, and yet still—sometimes her voice rises up right behind his mother's, just as sharp.

Time drifts forward in slow, heavy pulses, with days folding into months and months folding into years. By sixteen, Katsuki's more of a weapon than a young man and he fights like violence is the only language he knows. Anger lives in him full-time, pressed tight behind his ribs, radiating out through every word, every action. There are moments it's so strong and he doesn't know how or why, almost like it's not even his but something that was passed down, written in his blood. Like a birthright, or a curse.

He sparks off his mother like dry wood under a match.

It doesn't take much, just a glance, a shift in tone, a scrape of chopsticks a little too hard against her bowl. At this point in his life, they don't even try to talk very much, because when they do, it never ends very well.

And tonight is a perfect example.

Katsuki's halfway through with dinner, voice sharp with frustration and a mouth full of rice, "—busted my ass on the field and still lost points just 'cause I didn't kiss the ground Eraser walks on." He doesn't stop to breathe, doesn't notice how his mother's stopped chewing across the table, only continues when Masaru nods sympathetically. "And class rankings are a joke, anyway. What's the point of top scores if they're just gonna kiss up to who they like better? If they're gonna act like I'm the problem for pointin' it out?"

There's a pause as he stops to swallow, as he glances up at his dad for—something, validation or anything. Since he was a kid, his old man has let him talk himself in circles, cry over the same damn things over and over again, and sometimes Katsuki needs that space and sometimes he just wants—

"You know," Mitsuki suddenly murmurs, as casually as a blade slipped between ribs. "For someone that's supposed to be so smart, you sure run your mouth like an idiot."

The air stiffens, between all of them. Katsuki goes still, jaw tight around the bite he hasn't swallowed, because he wasn't expecting it when he should have been. From her, he always should be expecting it.

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

The old witch hates when he swears, but she doesn't jump on him for it, doesn't yell, only shrugs like she isn't tearing him right open at the dinner table. "You come home whining about how everyone's out to get you, how the system's broken when it's really just your big mouth that's getting in your way, Katsuki."

"I'm top three in my year," he grinds out. "Ain't nothin' in my way."

"Top three," she repeats, "not top."

Katsuki flushes, immediately. It stings because it's true, because it's the same thing he's been telling himself over and over again every night. Only now is he realizing just how familiar that voice inside his head is.

"All your talk, all your pride," she shrugs again, lazy and offhand. "Not worth a damn if you have nothing to show for it."

The scar on his shoulder is still pink, under his clothes, just like the one near his hip; they're the softest parts of him, a tenderness that had to be torn out and stitched back together.

Some nights he wakes up choking, breath caught sideways in his throat, gagging like he's trying to spit up sludge that isn't there. Some nights he closes his eyes and all he can see is what's left of All Might, brittle and burned out—and it's his fault. Katsuki is the shadow. Katsuki is the reason the light doesn't reach.

"I do have something to show—"

"Then show it." Finally, she looks up at him, lip curled in—annoyance, like this is the stupidest conversation she's ever had, like this is all shit he should know by now. "Quit walking around with your head up your ass, acting like being the loudest in the room makes you the winner." She snorts, one cruel sound. "That's not being the best, that's just your big, fat ego."

Katsuki scoffs, to scratch the itch in his throat. "Yeah, you'd know, huh?"

"Don't get smart with me, kid."

"I wouldn't have to if you knew a goddamn thing!"

"And there it is, Mr. Know-It-All!"

There are so many things he wants to say and doesn't know how to, none of them fit in his mouth. They feel small and tiny and weak, and he never learned how to be that way.

He settles on: "What the hell is your problem?"

That bites. Not deep, but enough to scar, and she blinks, like it's hit something she thought she fortified. Her mouth twitches like she's biting something back and just for a second, he sees it: the edge of guilt, or fear, or some soft thing she won't let live. And then it's gone just as fast, buried like everything else.

"You're my son," Mitsuki says, final and flat, "and I'm not gonna let you turn into some loser just because you don't know when to shut your mouth and listen."

And that—that's what guts him.

Some loser.

It's not the first time he’s heard it, even that young, but the way she says it. Like she means it, like it's already true. Katsuki stares at her and he doesn't know what his face is doing, but it burns—in his throat, behind his eyes, down to the fists he has in his lap.

When he shoves back from the table, the whole thing rattles, even the legs. Plates clink and cups slosh, chopsticks jump. Whatever, he growls—maybe, he doesn't know and doesn't care—and he stalks away with a fury so hot that it takes his breath away, and it's rooted in him, that fire.

Inherited. Thrumming inside his chest like a second heart. Less of something he feels and more of something he just is.

Her voice bites at his heels, trails him down the hallway and past the genkan and framed photos of their family, hung like ornaments, and Katsuki hits the garage door open so hard it splinters all the cracks in the wall even further.

Masaru finds him thirty minutes later.

Katsuki's hands are greasy, buried in the guts of an old Toyota Crown they've been picking at for months; some shitty thing Masaru bought half-rusted out of a field in Noto because he liked the bones.

The old man doesn't say anything, just walks around to the passenger side and leans onto the open hood. Katsuki doesn't look up, still breathing too hard from his nose, fucking hands shaking in small, infuriating ways.

Silence stretches between them, thick and oily, until the socket wrench slips for the third goddamn time.

"Fuck!" Katsuki spits, louder than he should. Masaru won't nag him about it, but that bothers him even more, to just have to sit in the quiet judgement and listen to his behavior echo back at him.

He flinches when his dad raises his hand, and so the old man makes a point to soothe the tension in his neck, to pinch at the muscle above his shoulder until it releases.

"Use the 13 mil," he murmurs, and—

It makes Katsuki's jaw tick, because he knows, he knows what the fuck to use. He just didn't want to.

Still, he swaps the wrench and gets the bolt loose with a hard, angry crack, and the sound satisfies something small and mean in his chest.

They work in that silence for a little while, the kind that feels like it's pressing up against his ears. Half-seething, Katsuki hunched over the hood like a dog waiting to be struck, scowl deep enough to scar; Masaru only hums under his breath, passing a rag and the right socket without being asked.

There's a little radio on the shelf, tuned low to some enka station neither of them have ever bothered to change.

"Did I ever tell you how we met?" Masaru gives Katsuki the chance to answer, but he doesn't, so he doesn't push. "We met at the fabric house. She came in red-hot over a shipment, some dyed silk that came out wrong. She lit into the floor manager like it was personal."

Katsuki snorts. A short, cruel sound. "Sounds about right."

"She was wrong about the dye, but she wasn't wrong about the way they were handling it." He smiles, like it's a fond memory and not an admission that the witch has always been psychotic. "Your mother saw through the nonsense faster than anyone else in the room."

Maybe at another time, he would have tried to picture it: his father younger, wide-eyed, caught in the orbit of a woman like Mitsuki, all fire and sharp elbows, raising hell like it was second nature, like it still is—but the thought tugs at some raw, unnamed thing inside of him, so instead he shoves it down as far as it will go and seals the lid.

"I don't know what caught me first," Masaru continues, soft. "That she was loud, or that she cared enough to be."

Katsuki's frown deepens. "You're both insane."

"Maybe," His father laughs, and when Katsuki glances at him, the apples of his cheeks are red, glowing. Still that young man, still enthralled. "But we know what matters, and we look out for each other."

It burns something deep in Katsuki, hearing that, and he doesn't know why. It feels like disgust, but—that's not quite it. More like disbelief. Furious, bone-deep disbelief, to think that someone as gentle and quiet as his father could ever understand the wildfire that is his mother. To think there is some unseen side of her that he's never met, hidden and whole and that knows how to be gentle back.

"How?" Katsuki stands so fast that bolts clatter, that Masaru looks up at him in surprise. "How the hell do you deal with her? She never shuts up, she never backs off, she gets in everyone's face, always has to win—"

"She's not trying to win," Masaru disagrees, quietly.

"The hell she ain't!" Katsuki scoffs, throwing his hands out, because it's right there in front of his father's face and all he does is frown. "You always take her side! Even though she starts everything, and she's always pushin'—pushin' like 'm some little brat that doesn't know squat, that can't do anything right!"

Masaru doesn't flinch, or argue. Only watches him, silent and steady.

It makes his voice rise, crack with all the heat. "You act like she's perfect or somethin', but I'm not you! I can't—jus'—sit there while she tears into me!"

He’s nearly as tall as his father, but the old man kneels anyway, settling down to meet him, gripping both of Katsuki’s forearms; firm, unguarded, showing no hint of threat.

"She's not perfect, son," Masaru murmurs, voice low, "none of us are. She pushes you harder than she should, sometimes, because she sees the strength in you, even when you don't, because she doesn't want you to ever be unprepared—but that doesn't mean it's always right. That doesn't mean you have to be okay with it."

His face pinches tight, and he squeezes his eyes shut and when his father tries to hug him, Katsuki yanks away. Because he doesn't know any other way to be. The wrench in his hand doesn't shake anymore, but on the inside, something is splitting wide open, a slow kind of panic. Creeping, like rust spreading under paint.

His old man talks about love like it's so simple; patience is just something you give, forgiveness is just something that comes—but Katsuki isn't built that way. His mother isn't, either. They burn too hot, too fast, and leave ash in their wake without meaning to. Masaru will never get it, because he's not wired the same way and doesn't carry the same pressure in his chest, the same sharpness in his teeth.

But his father is right about one thing: just because he is stupid enough to endure the shit, doesn't mean Katsuki has to.

[stethosc0pe]

like a stone

frank langdon x goth!reader

wc: 6k

content/warnings: MDNI/18+ NSFW, sub!langdon, canon typical gore, smut, PUSSY EATING PUSSY EATING, GET YOUR MESSY PUSSY EATING HERE, oral (f receiving), masturbating (m), possible seed planted for marking kink, landgon being desperate for that thang, eating it thru the panties, excruciatingly dialogue heavy with smut at the end, fluff, yearning, angst?, early established relationship, divorce, Frank has no kids, rehab, alcohol mention, reader is PGY-5, reader has a Buick LeSabre, reader wears all black, reader has black hair, hopefully no exclusionary language (no mention of hair texture, skin color, weight or height) except that reader has a vagina!

a/n: frank langdon is a smug little man and i feel he needs to be humbled by an intimidating woman! that woman just happens to be you, y/n Harker. named after Mina Harker (nee murray) from dracula. all of my previous fics have been about down bad men. i cannot write a dominant man. i just can’t. that is disgusting. #ToMe . reader in this fic is the boss !!!!! and he loves it !!!!

i am a goth so i made this character a goth cuz there’s not enough goth readers inserts! when u click the link to a y/n’s outfit and its like.. i would never wear that baby blue dress you have projected onto me! and i would never stutter and get flustered in front of a man!

though it is mentioned reader has black hair and a vagina, there is no specific image for her in my mind, like, no mention of size, height, or race. goths come in all different forms! oh, and all of my readers are bisexual even if not explicitly stated in the fic.

i was thinking about making a series of this, like harker x langdon. if you guys have any requests for that maybe….. haha…… idk…. bye

7:45 am

Frank Langdon watches you float through the hallways. Around central. In and out of doorways. You peek in on the cases the still-green doctors have asked you for help on. This time, it’s Whitaker. Langdon can’t hear what you say to him, he can only see the back of you and Whitaker’s perpetual, helpless, orphan-like gaze. When you back out of the room you’re leaning in on, you smile at both the patient and Whitaker reassuringly. And once you turn around and they can’t see your face anymore, your smile relaxes and fades, and the familiar furrow to your brow returns.

You have a resting bitch face. It’s chronic. You don’t frown, per se. Your eyes frown for you, slanting and squinting and making perfunctory eye contact when needed. Your eyebrows come over your eyes like rainy clouds, the left one arching up when you’re listening.

You have a darker disposition. You’ve always been that way. A loner in high school. Harder to get close to. It keeps the creeps away, you learned in your youth, so you leaned into it harder. Headphones in and angry looking. It’s habit now.

But for your patients… for the families, for the bright eyed, scared student doctors… you brighten. It’s kind. It’s conscious.

It’s so fucking… sexy.

Langdon should be helping a sickly individual, but god, he’s been distracted lately. The black hair doesnt help. The clean laundry slash faded perfume smell doesn’t help. The fitted black long-sleeve under your scrubs does not help.

He realized some time ago that he wants, so feverishly, to see that brow unfurl when he makes you laugh. To be the one you like more than anybody else.

It wasn’t romantic then. And then he was sent to rehab. He did a lot of begrudging introspection during his stay. And with your semi-frequent visits, he realized things he’d been refusing. He also got a divorce, so. That made things a little easier in some places, a little more painful in others.

You and Langdon had just gotten together. Just put a label on it. A desperate confession from him, not even six months after his divorce was finalized. He was overly tired and wearing thin. Composure lost to the wind. You took him home. Since then, he hasn’t really left your apartment. It’s been five weeks. He’s obsessed.

And now… he wants to see that brow crease again in focus when he’s got his mouth at your core.

He’s going to let the lease on his own shitty apartment run out.

You head to a computer to type something up. He’s uninterested in what. He follows you, and when you crash down into the chair, he drags another one over to you so he can be level with you. You don’t look at him. He loves it when you don’t look at him. He feels like he has to work for it.

‘I wanna fuck you.’ Frank Langdon whispers to you, front completely facing your profile, basically speaking into your ear as you type. Your head jerks, angles towards him at the abruptly vulgarity in your very sophisticated workplace. But your eyes say on the computer. You recover quickly, and that killer poker face comes back.

‘No.’

‘I want to eat you out.’

‘No.’ You don’t spare him a glance. You barely dignify him with a response. You know he’s a smooth talker, and you’ve fallen into bed at many inopportune times because of it.

He knows you a little too well by this point. He’s been with you nonstop; going from work to your apartment, from the apartment to your Buick LaSabre— which you won’t even let him drive once because you’ve seen him make a turn without slowing down— and back to work.

You were friends before, too.

You started working at Pittsburg Medical Trauma Center five years ago when Frank was still an intern and you were a second year resident transfer from a different hospital. Technically, you were his senior, being a year ahead of him. That made him competitive at first. He’d been in this ER since med school and now you show up, what– with your near perfect success rate with patients and your… arresting energy. Pfft.

Quickly, the insecurity wore off, and he stopped trying to deny that you were magnetic, like nobody else he’d ever met. It took some time to get you to friendship status. But he did. And it really, really stuck.

All there was to learn about you that he didn’t already know was how you looked naked, and how you liked your eggs in the morning.

And now, when you go home together, he follows your lead. When you get up to start getting ready for bed, he falls beside you at the sink, brushing his teeth while you pee. You pull your bedding over both of you and ensure it covers his shoulders because you like it colder in your apartment. You ask him if he’s warm enough. You don’t change the temperature for anyone, but you’ll make warm accommodations just for him.

You wake up to a clean set of scrubs set on the counter for you in the bathroom. When you come out, freshly showered, you find him already ready, pouring you both cereal. Walking up close behind him, you press your front to his back and snake your freezing hands up his scrub shirt. He jumps a little.

Getting up from your chair, you beeline for your next case. And of course, Frank bounds behind you, unable to give up. Ambition, after all, is a virtue in this industry.

‘Honey-!’ He stops in front of you so you can’t advance any further. ‘You’re killin’ me.’

Frank puts his hands out before him, palms up, in a pleading gesture. He knows he’s being unreasonable.

‘What do you want me to do? Tell me. I’ll do it.’

‘We’re at work. Your job.’ You cross your arms over your chest. It doesn’t deter him any.

‘There’s empty rooms. We could go upstairs.’ He follows your eyes with his whole head as you look around to make sure nobody has heard him and wave him a be quiet motion.

‘Don’t you have patients?’ You poke him square in the chest and start walking again. He walks backwards with you.

‘No, I have absolutely no patience when it comes to you. You smell so good.’ He says the last part as you walk past him. You hear him and break a smile he can’t see. He hopes nobody heard that. He scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed once you’re around the corner and he’s thrust back into the sterile white of work again, glancing about and trying to seem busy.

You linger around him. It must be your pheromones. You think you’re ovulating.

But maybe he’s just in love.

-

8:30 am

‘Can you tell your guy to stop moping around like someone took his lunch money? He’s bringing down staff morale.’ Says Dana with a pitying look, peering at you over her glasses. It seems she’s dealt with men like this before.

‘Our staff doesn’t have morale.’ You raise an eyebrow. She chuckles her raspy Dana chuckle. ‘And are you sure that’s not just his face?’

‘Rich comin’ from you, Wednesday.’

-

9:01 am

You stare up at the screen full of patients and ailments, deciding on which one to take. Really you’re just resting a little, leaning against the counter. Frank is next to you, of course, mirroring you, watching the board all the same.

Placing your glasses on top of your head, you rub at your eyes and sigh a little. You’re nursing a migraine, and the hideaway from the fluorescents behind your eyelids is a brief respite.

‘What’s the matter?’ Frank asks from beside you, your arms touching.

‘Just… headache.’

‘I can help with that. I know a remedy for headaches.’

‘Yeah? So do I. You know I’m a doctor too, right?’

‘An orgasm. Multiple, if possible.’ You gawk at him. Your mouth opens in honest shock with the corners of your mouth upturned. You’re thoroughly amused but… he’s getting bold. To be honest, you thought he’d dropped this after the first mention.

‘Relieves migraines, better sleep, helps with cramps, and helps to satiate excited boyfriends, too.’ He goes on… and on…

‘Oh, my god.’ You shake your head in disbelief and huff a single wry laugh.

‘Let’s-’ You cover his mouth with your hand. Well, if there wasn’t enough blood pooling in his dick before…

‘If Dana hears you, I’m never gonna live it down, you caveman.’ He smiles under your hand at the name-calling. You let him go, a little bit of Langdon spit on your palm.

‘I love it when you call me that.’

You point to the board. And he follows your finger.

‘There’s sudden vomiting, diarrhea, and body aches in south sixteen. Why don’t you take that? Could be norovirus. That’s fun!’ You turn to face him and lean on the counter with your hip instead, ‘Have at it, big guy.’ You slap his shoulder with facetious encouragement.

‘It’s gastroenteritis and you know it. Y’know-‘ He huffs, ‘Why are you torturing me? Do you take pleasure in torturing me?’

‘What a stupid question.’ You say as you exhale, ‘Of course I do.’

‘Where’s Harker?’ You hear in the distance, sounding all too similar to a grumpy senior resident you know.

‘You’re a sadist.’ You stand up to leave and press a smooch to his lips right as he finishes talking, barely giving him time to react.

Langdon makes decisions all day.

Where to cut, when to cut.

Dosage. Pressure. Time of death. Second opinion. Hold compressions. Pull, stitch, cauterize.

How to break a less than hopeful diagnosis to the parents of a toddler.

He notices the way you operate. He trusts it. A lot of times, at home, he wants you to make the decisions. He wants to fold like tissue and collapse in your hands. He’s been an unwavering champion of the ER all day, and he wants to know that when he goes home, or is simply in your presence, he can falter, and it’ll be okay. It feels— you feel— like the safety on a pistol that’s loaded. With one in the chamber.

And, of course, you don’t mind. Because… as a woman, the world as you know it is full of men who want you to be pliant and subservient to them. Just a little dumber so they feel a little smarter.

Not him. You are wanted, badly, just as you are. And that’s offputting and ready and jaded and wry and… oftentimes the most capable person in the room.

‘Makes you a masochist, I guess. I gotta go, baby.’

-

11:31 am

‘Doctor Harker?’ Mel King holds the tablet, looking at your patients chart curiously. You’re palpating a gym bro’s dislocated shoulder. Feeling at the knotted and tense muscles and the misplaced joint.

‘It’s Y/N for you, Mel.’ You smile quickly at her and go back to your task, tongue peeking out the right side of your mouth in fixation on the shoulder. She smiles quickly back. She still hasn’t been able to bring herself to call anyone by their first name, although she insists on it herself. Honestly, you find it nice to know someone who defaults to being respectful. You and Mel have become fast friends, but at work she still gets a little formal sometimes.

‘Right… are you aware that Doctor Langdon has been staring at you for…’ She checks her watch. ‘Four minutes?’

‘Relax at the elbow. Good.’ You guide the patient through. You steal a glance to the outside world for a second and scan for Frank. You see him across the way at central in a swivel chair looking like he’s got nothing better to do. His elbow rests on the desk in front of him and he clicks a pen in his hand. When you meet his eyes, he doesn’t falter. You can’t really tell what’s going on in his head. Maybe he’s zoned out on you, thinking of something wildly different. He could feel threatened by the Skarsgard-looking man you’re working on. Maybe he’s ogling you. But no, it doesn’t feel like a lustful gaze at this very moment. Although, knowing him, it could turn at any second.

You think maybe he just looks for you when you’re not there. And when he finds you, he makes your visage his home. It’s comfortable.

You’ve been independent a long time now. And you haven’t been in a relationship for a long time, either. You hope to settle back into this. Being needed. Wanted. Looked for. It feels good for once.

‘Let him. He’s not bothering me.’ You brace both your hands on the guy’s wrist and shoulder. ‘Deep breath in– and… out.’ You rotate the arm up until the ball pops back into place. Your patient grunts as expected, and you’re sweating a little after holding this dude’s buff arm up for so long. Otherwise, another satisfied customer.

Mel starts to wrap up the affected shoulder to stabilize it for a little while. She realizes that this whole time she’s never actually fully fleshed out your relationship with Frank. She’s been busy. And he was at rehab for a long time. ‘Is he…? Are you guys like… enemies?’

‘While I think he’s a little upset at me right now, unfortunately he is my lover.’

You flash back to this morning. You woke up slowly together for once. You snoozed your alarm, but woke again to Frank pulling you against him and smushing his mouth lovingly to your neck and shoulder. He was steady at half-mast, his hand skated across your skin until it danced its way into your underwear and fell between your lips, pressing and circling with the precision of an ER doctor. And then… your second alarm started to buzz, vibrating the bed.

You bounded out of the bed and away from his attentive fingers. You got ready for work with some urgency now, breaking out of your momentary sex trance.

Unfortunately, Frank never left it.

‘Okay, good. Because I was getting nervous.’ Mel utters to you, a glimmer in her eyes, like she’s able to find it funny now, ‘And… unfortunately?’

“Yeah, have you met him?’

-

12:58 pm

Frank finds you again after you've just led a procedure that had been particularly bloody. You're washing you're hands alone, room cleaned up and ready for another case. You’re the last one out, and you seem to have forgotten to take off your viscera-splattered glasses in your absorption.

You sense the tall, warm presence behind you.

‘Sometimes I wonder how you find the time to always be exactly where I am.’ You don't turn around yet.

’Are you mad at me?’

‘Why would I be mad at you, House?’

‘You’re ignoring me.’

‘I’m not. We just can’t have sex at work. And you know that.' Now you're drying your hands off with the noisy, crinkly paper towels. 'You know, when I started working here, they told me you would blow me away with your big doctor brain.’ You chuck the paper towels in the trash.

He notices that you always seem to be doing something when he's bothering you at work. Being productive in some way. And he can't help himself but be temporarily, fully occupied by your company. You two becoming intertwined has been detrimental to his time management.

‘Oh, I’ll blow ya.’ He nods once and impishly smiles like a little-shit kid. You start making your way over to him from the sink. He has your full attention right now. It feels like a rare occurrence here so, he really feels it. Physically.

In reality, it's not a rare occurrence. He's just spoiled.

‘Is this your first time talking to a girl?’

He ignores you, nipping at your heels to get his next verbal chess move in.

‘I just like to check in. You could be the happiest woman alive and we’d never know.’

‘I am happy!’ You mock offense, hands on your hips.

‘Did you tell your face?’

‘No.’ Your hands drop from your hips in forfeit. You stalk even closer to him. You like to get up close with him. See everything. ‘And you’ll be able to detect when I’m angry.’

‘How?’ He pulls the glasses off your face and chucks them in a bin to be washed.

‘Mmm… for one, I’ll start calling you Langdon again. Like the olden days. And someone once told me that when I’m pissed off, thunder booms in the distance.’

‘Oh, yeah? I’m takin’ notes, see?’ He mimes jotting down your tips on his hand (notepad).

-

1:30 pm

It slows down midday, so while you’re not needed, you decide to take lunch in the staff lounge. You set out two very big red apples in front of you.

Frank saunters in, stripping off his gloves and basketball-ing them into the trash can. He slides into the chair next to you.

‘Can you start this for me?’ You gesture with the first apple.

‘Mhm.’ He bites it while it’s still in your hand, making it easier to bite on the new edges for you. You have sensitive teeth. He takes the other apple and bites it for himself, taking a big chunk.

‘I’m guessing… five-hundred IV with Zofran and sent home with Imodium? For south sixteen?’

‘I didn't take south sixteen. I took fifty-three year old acute arrhythmia and lethargy.’

‘Oh… cardioversion?’

‘…Yeah.’

Pulling out your phone, you open the New York Times app and pull your chair closer to him so he can see. You click on Connections. It’s Frank’s favorite. You personally like Strands, but you like doing Connections more if he’s there. You eat your apples together with noisy crunches and mumble ideas for the possible categories to each other.

While you hold the phone, Langdon pokes at the screen with his index, the rest of his fingers holding his apple. He solves the yellow line with ease. Starting off strong.

answer, fix, remedy, solution (ways of solving a problem)

As you think about the puzzle, you chew on the inside of your cheek and… those brows come down. He loves to watch you. You’re his favorite show. There’s something so… animalistic about you. You’re wholly yourself around him. Free of tension for the moment and elbow propped up on your knee– the respective leg of which is propped up on the seat of your chair.

You don’t fake smiles for him. You rest your face. You’re relaxed. Though you’re happy to do it for others, you don’t have to manufacture a grin around him because he’s always liked you and your angry face. And when he makes you smile, he knows it’s real. Because it’s big and toothy and accompanied by other expressions. When you don’t want to laugh at what he said because it’s so stupid, but you do, and your eyebrows draw together and peak up in disbelief as if to say you’re lucky you’re pretty. When he compliments you and the smile rises to your face slowly like you’re fighting it.

He likes making you break a smile. But he likes the rest too. He loves that furrowed brow. That’s what makes this— you, together— so easy.

You solve the blue line: eraser, eyedropper, lasso, magic wand (photoshop tools)

‘D’you… still have a headache?’

Your mouth cracks open into a big laugh, dying down into little giggles after a few seconds, shoulders shaking. It’s funny to you because it feels like a stand-up comedy call back. It feels like he’s been sitting on that one, waiting for the right time. You took a migraine pill hours ago and it’s since been forgotten, but he doesn’t know that. You sigh with a Hmmmm in the afterglow of the laughter. Your eyes crease hard and your cheeks dust pink, raised higher by your grin. You’re leaning into the moment and its warmth. You rest your head in your hand and look at him for what feels like a long time. You pin him with your gaze like you’re thinking hard. He feels paralyzed.

Looking at him is nice. Usually, on busy days, the majority of the times you see each other are blurry shapes you think are Frank. He’s still and steadfast in front of you now. It helps that he’s pretty. You’ve never been one for blue eyes, but… they don’t look empty on him. It helps that without the obvious sex appeal, you really do love being with him. He was a good friend. He’s a good boyfriend. He’s a great doctor.

It helps that there’s nothing sexier in the whole wide world than a funny man.

It helps that you like him more than anyone else.

‘Go…’ He readies himself for another no, and prepares to pout. ‘…find a room. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?’

‘Really?’

‘Go.’

He walks out of the room with his fist held high like Bender at the end of The Breakfast Club.

-

1:38 pm

Coming out of the stairwell, you enter the hospitals empty wing. It’s quiet, you knew it’d be quiet, but it shocks you every time. One or two of the lights in the long hallway flickers. It’s kinda setting the mood for you.

You continue on, trying to figure out where Frank could be, and he appears in the doorway to your right.

‘Well, hello.’ He says, leaning against the doorway with an endearing, faux-debonair voice. He can barely contain his excitement, a big smile peeking out. You approach him with your arms crossed over your chest, all guarded from the neck down, but your eyes are soft and you’re definitely, visibly in love. You take your hair down.

Once you’re within a foot of him he grabs your hands and pulls you backwards into the room with him. He crashes his lips down to yours in a kiss that you would expect mid-make out session. Not the appetizer. But he's already there. He's been there.

‘You’re so annoying. But I really do love you.’ You say, and he's got his hands cradling your face with barely any pressure at all, but enough to tilt your head up a bit to expose your neck and shoulder. He drags his mouth all along your jaw, and you smile and out comes a broken laugh because it's such a wet, tickly kiss. Your hands cover his where he holds you, squeezing.

‘Mm- love you.’ Says he, with his hands under both of your shirts and his voice dampened by your neck. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

‘Couldn’t stop thinking about me or her?’ You pointed straight down to your vagina, weeping a little already at the thought of what’s to come.

‘Yes.’ He rushes out, cupping the her you speak of. He feels the warmth of your core and he can’t believe it’s real, that he convinced you finally to fuck him at work.

Langdon drops down to his knees and his hands slide around to the back of your thighs. He opens his mouth and bites the loose end of the bow of your pants drawstrings. He looks up at you like he's being knighted by a monarch.

‘Jesus Christ, Frank.’

He pulls it apart with his teeth until it gives, and when it does he hooks one finger into each side of your scrub pants and drags them down slowly. He looks at you the whole while, your idle hands becoming ambulatory by carding them through his hair. His eyelashes only flutter then.

‘Call me Langdon.’ He’s stopped his ministrations, looking at you expectantly. You stay silent, smiling down at him, and he thinks you aren’t gonna throw him this bone.

‘Fuck, you’re mean.’

‘Langdon.’ You give in, calling to him adoringly. There’s only so much you can deny to a man like this.

Langdon lets out a Mmh, muffling as he presses his mouth and nose over your panties. Those grey, cotton, brief-cut panties. You have a cutesy black lace pair. He’s seen them in your laundry. And even though you’ve been having sex nearly everyday, you still don’t feel the need to put them on. You know he just wants you like this. Comfortable.

Or maybe you don’t care at all. The panties are going to come off anyways.

He licks you through your briefs, making the grey material darker with his wet tongue. He moves against your pussy like he’s kissing your mouth.

‘Lay down.’ Frank says when he can pull himself away, and you find yourself on the forgotten-about hospital bed that comes with the room. You sit midway on the bed, and he tugs you down to the edge by your thighs, leaving you laying half diagonal across the bed. You let an Oof!

Your legs have nowhere to sit until he’s kneeling and plants himself between your thighs. He puts them on either side of his head. He’s been activated, the moment snapped open, and he’s like a dog off his leash.

He's dragging his tongue and teeth up one thigh and down the other, leaving wet trails. You take the opportunity to sit up a little and pull his shirt up his back until he shrugs it off. When he returns to his ministrations on your thighs, he uses his unoccupied hand that's not holding your thigh to his mouth to thumb your cleft, still clothed, top to bottom.

He's had a smile since you took his shirt off. You admire the long, still red scratches that go all the way down to mid-spine. You really did a number on him last night. The thought is abandoned as he starts dragging your panties down your legs, watching them stick to your wet core. Once they're not touching your center anymore, he pulls them off quickly. They are thrown over his shoulder, discarded somewhere in the dusty room.

You thank your past self for always packing extra underwear everywhere you go.

‘How could you just leave me in bed like that? Don’t you have any idea what you do to me?’ He looks up at you from his station, pupils blown wide with lust, ‘How fucked up I am about you?’

‘M’sorry. Didn’t know it was so bad.’

He licks a wide, deep, pressing stripe up your cunt. You sigh in pleasure, a little sound catching in your vocal chords. He lavishes you freely in this. With others, Frank had been known to be a teasing lover, but with you, he wanted it now. He wanted to do it now.

‘It’s really bad.’ He moans out.

One of your hands is stable at the back of his head, one keeping your shirt up above your navel. He takes the latter and places it on his naked shoulder.

‘Touch me.’ He asks of you. He is so fucking horny, cracked wide open and all apart, unable to hold anything in. You start to move. Hands carding through that hair you love so much. Fingers scraping at all the skin you can reach, letting him know you’re there. You have what he needs, and you’ll give it when he truly, wantonly needs it. And when you deem it right. You let your nails drag along him, but you make sure your fingers fall to their pads when you reach his back, dancing with attentive pressure. He’s hurt there. In a good way. Red lines decorate him. Up and down and diagonal and horizontal. They’re only superficial. You won’t leave any scars.

He’ll heal, and he’ll ask for it again.

But for now, you will relent. You will put your claws away.

‘So pretty… oh, my god.’ You purr in pure admiration, unable to resist telling him. He loves, loves, loves it. Keep talking, his actions say. He gathers a good amount of your slick from the depths of your pussy with his tongue and sends it back down his throat, and he looks up at you through his eyebrows, eyes flitting back and forth, looking at you like you're doing something equally vulgar. And he's got a trail of your slick down his chin. You try not to let your eyes close.

The sight of him, the sight of that…

'You're demented.' You whisper. You love it. You love him more for it.

You tug his hair to pull him up and let your legs fall off his shoulders so you can kiss him stupid. Your hands cradle his face, and he braces himself on the bed. You can taste yourself on him. Skin and sweat and salt and highly recognizable sweet.

He gives a clipped moan at your mouth against his. It feels like a reward. And it is, you’re pulling him away from where you need him most just to show him pure and altruistic affection. His tongue goes into your mouth and your spit is mixing. His mouth tastes like pussy. You’ve eaten pussy before, it’s a specific thing, but you can almost see yourself from his point of view right now.

He really is good to you. Like syrup, sweet and stuck to you.

‘More.’ You lay back down and your fingers wrap into his hair and you place him back where he fits perfectly as you arch your back in anticipation. Your heartbeat thrums warmly. He returns dutifully.

There is no complaint from him, only a Fuck, Y/N and pussy-drunk whimpers. Your thighs go back around his head— to where they belong. He lowers back down and gestures back and forth with his head, burying his face and tongue back in where they were before, like he’s making up for the lost time spent kissing you. He licks and licks and licks you. Mouth going deep and then tending to your clit, sucking and circling and covering it fully with his tongue and then nudging it lovingly with his nose when he’s gone back lower.

It’s almost already over for him, really. He’s been strangely tolerant of the straining fabric over his bulge. For a while now, he’s been humping at the air, desperate for friction from his pants. But he dives deeper into the black, chases you there. One of Frank’s hands leaves your thigh and you let it. Because he’s being so thorough and good.

He touches himself rough and harsh. He fucks his fist over and over again. He tears his tongue out of you just to drop spit and slick on his cock and hand. He goes right back to you.

This is a wet, disgusting, sex-addled display of together and us and make me feel good, please.

You call to him, Langdon, quiet but loud enough so you know he can hear it over the wet eating of you. Those brows are coming down hard over squeezed shut, dark eyes, and it’s the nail in his coffin.

‘Langdon.’ Your hips start to move of their own accord and you grip his hair, putting him in the exact right place. Over and over. Nose pressing against your clit and his entire mouth covering the rest of you, lapping and vicious.

Holy fuck, yes. Hold me here. Let me die. Wear those cotton underwear to my funeral.

Touch yourself on my grave.

In between blinks and closed eyes, you try to steal glances of him when you can. And it’s almost too much. He’s started fucking you with his tongue so, he’s buried in there. You can only see that hair you love so much, and those eyes.

‘Oh, god.’ You utter to yourself.

And of course, he's been watching you too. More than you have him. It's what he's been asking for this whole time. He hopes and half-knows that he's the only one to ever make you feel this good. Your hair is splayed out on the bed beneath you and it'll be a fuckin' mess when he's done. He reaches out with one hand and paws at your abdomen, the side of your boob, your sternum, the plush of your belly.

‘Yeah… M’yeah, mmph-‘ He croons against your cunt, voice muddled and dripping in you as he's currently fucking you with his tongue. Under your hands, to can feel his jaw contracting and releasing to swallow you whole.

You feel like you’re being swallowed whole.

‘You gonna come?’ He manages to moan out when he feels your cunt start to flutter like rain. Hoping the answer is yes, yes, yes.

‘You’re so smart, baby.’ You poke at him breathlessly as best you can, voice raspy with pleasure. It only spurs him on.

‘Yeah?’

After that, you can’t make out his words anymore. Some seem to be yes’s and fuck’s and some are just guttural sounds, but they’re in the tone and volume that you’re sure he’s about to make a mess of himself.

You think to yourself that this really feels like love. He’s so deep in your most vulnerable, sensitive parts right now. And you’re not even halfway through a twelve hour shift, rings around your eyes from your sleepless profession. Your hair has been up all day until now and it’s been years since you could be bothered to put on makeup. And he’s in there. It feels like love.

Everyone’s greatest fear, at the end of the day, is that they won’t be deemed adequate. And when you get like this, it’s glaringly obvious that you’re both so far beyond adequate to each other.

‘Stay there- right there-‘

Frank Langdon hopes to a god he doesn't believe in that you'll say his name again.

‘Langdon-‘ Frank comes then and there, aligning your cry with a final thrust into his fist. He moans and raves and grunts into you, the vibrations of his voice sending you over the edge. And you can hear him down there enjoying himself thoroughly, loudly. Which only gets you there faster. You rock yourself over his face one last time, and then you’re finally there, sent swimming into the deep dark behind your eyes, twitching and tensing in bodily elation as you always do. As he always brings upon you.

Frank paints his hand and lower abs in come. Aforementioned abs are stuttering and clenching. Your collective sweat and your slick and his come. Just everywhere.

His face stays stationary as you fuck yourself through your own orgasm, but it’s not like he could easily move away with your climax-induced iron grip on his hair. And he’s still got a hold of his cock, barely stroking now but wanting to eke out the last licks of pleasure he can.

You're both panting and wracked with aftershocks. Becoming still after an orgasm tears through you while your heart still pounds hard is a hell of a feeling.

He stays on his knees, not wanting to move yet. He rests the side of his face against your knee, back hunched in relaxation, tension gone and forgotten.

There’s a close, warm moment. Like you’re bound together by a heavy blanket that covers you both. There’s heat from bodies and cool air from the vents. You both feel like you could fall asleep right now. And that makes it all the more intimate, knowing that when you go home, you will fall asleep together.

‘I’ve never had anybody go down on me so much.’ You speak into the quiet, caressing the back of his neck.

‘Anything to say about the quality, or just the quantity?’

‘You’re the Pitt’s leading cunnilinguist.’

‘Thanks.’

-

You straighten yourselves up to go back to work, a little hazy but satisfied. You look over to find him wet from nose to chin.

‘You’ve got pussy all over your face.’ You try to wipe the bottom half of his face off with your hand, fussing over him, and you barely get to his bottom lip.

‘Stop! That’s mine, I earned that!’ He protests, shooing you away.

In your house, I long to be

Room by room, patiently

I'll wait for you there like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone, alone

my requests are open!

[houseofaegon]

ENCHANTRESS ╱ BOB REYNOLDS SERIES

✷ ─── +18 MINORS DNI 𓏲  ◟ ♡ ˖ ࣪ emotional trauma, mentions of death/grief, witchcraft, blood magic, mentions of tony stark and natasha romanoff's deaths supernatural possession, canon-typical violence, discussion of war and loss, found family themese, bucky being a big brother, heavy emotional reunion, psychological instability (enchantress/void dynamic), first contact tension, slight walker slander lol.

✷ ─── AUTHOR'S NOTE. this chapter is the beginning of everything. this is her history, her haunting. arabella means everything to me!! she's my baby and i love her so much, creating her character and her backstory has been both amazing and heartbreaking, especially because of tony and natasha and her grief after losing them. thank you for reading and giving this unhinged little series a chance. love always, bri.

✷ ─── ENCHANTRESS SERIES. chapter one: beauty in tragedy. chapter two: the devil you know. chapter three: the witch. chapter four: moonlit waters. chapter five: divine hunger. chapter six: to burn & be burned. chapter seven: of teeth & tenderness. chapter eight: bound by blood. chapter nine: ashes between us. chapter ten: salt in the wound. chapter eleven: blood moon. chapter twelve: whispers in the dark. chapter thirteen: the witch and the void.

ARABELLA MONTENEGRO never knew her mother. Nor her father 

She never knew the warmth of a mother's voice singing lullabies until she fell asleep, or what it meant to be held in soft arms. Never learned what it felt to be cherished. To be wanted. To be loved. To be a daughter.

Her mother died giving birth to her under a blood moon eclipse in the cold Andean highlands. The air was thin and charged with unspoken energy, the earth wet with rain, and her first cry was followed by a gust of wind so violent it shattered the windowpanes of the midwife's hut.

There was never a father to begin with. The village whispered she had been conceived through a blood ritual the witches performed in desperation—calling upon something old, something nameless, something far more powerful than any of them could control. They said her soul was not entirely her own.

She was raised by witches—her grandmother at the head, the matriarch with weathered hands and eyes that could turn anything into flame. The women in her bloodline had always walked between worlds, but Arabella was different. She didn't channel magic like her sisters. She was magic—uncontrollable, wild, ancient. And at six years old, something inside her opened its eyes.

The Enchantress.

Not a whisper. Not a ghost. A prescence. Always watching. Always waiting. Sometimes Arabella would wake up with her feet dirty and raw, her hair braided with herbs she didn’t remember picking, blood on her palms and a taste like copper on her tongue. The others said she was sleepwalking. But she knew. It was her—and it wasn’t. She saw things—glimpses of herself standing in the woods, barefoot and laughing, darkness blooming from her palms. But it wasn’t her laughter. Not really.

Her grandmother tried to train her, to tether her to the earth with chants, crystals, and sacred prayers. But even she, the oldest and most powerful of all the witches in her village, feared what Arabella was becoming.

They all did.

They never said it out loud. But Arabella saw it in their eyes.

Fear.

Of her hands. Her eyes. Her potential. Her power. Of what lived inside her.

The Enchantress wasn't a passenger. She was a fracture in her mind. A second heartbeat. Arabella felt her stirring in moments of pain, in flashes of rage, in silence too long left untouched. She'd whisper—not in words, but in urges. In hunger. In need.

At sixteen, it happened. A fight. A bad one. Someone touched her—grabbed her wrist, called her a monster. She doesn’t remember screaming. Doesn’t remember the words. Just the fire. The sensation of being split open, of something rising from her spine like smoke and rage and divinity.

It was raining. Pouring rain. Arabella remembers the smell of wet earth, the way the sky seemed to known what was going to happen. Before it all happened. Before it bled. The power erupted out of her like a scream. The Enchantress took over her entire body. She was transformed, became something else. A curse. Her body shifted, her voice fractured. Eyes glowing, mouth open wide—screaming spells older than language itself.

When it ended, the entire village was gone.

Ash.

Smoke.

Blood.

Silence.

Arabella woke in a crater of scorched stone, her hands trembling, her dress shattered, her body painted in blood. She remembered nothing—but in her dreams, she saw it all. Screams. Flames. Her sisters on their knees, begging. Untammed. Unable to control herself. Unable to snap out of it. Dangerous. Feral.

The Enchantress laughed through her.

Arabella had killed them. All of them.

And so she ran

Left the rotting, burning village behind. Left the only people who had ever called her family. Her heart broken inside her chest. She couldn't trust anyone—not even herself.

Because when she loved, when she cared—people died.

She didn't stop.

She ran.

Ran until her feet bleed. Until she couldn't breathe. Until the blood blurred.

And then somehow, she ended up in New York.

Concrete. Neon. Noise. A city too loud for her ghosts.

She slept in alleys. Kept salt and crystals in her pocket. The Enchantress whispered constantly, her presence heavier in the city than ever before. Arabella wore her grief like a second skin and hid her power behind trembling hands.

Until he found her.

Tony Stark.

It was raining—of course it was. New York in one of those late spring storms that felt biblical. The streets washed in rain and car lights and memories. She was half-starved, fingers glowing black under her hoodie. Curled up outside a bodega, eyes half-closed, a protection spell barely bubbling in her throat.

And still—she didn’t cry.

She was too empty for tears.

Then someone stepped through the rain and crouched in front of her. He didn’t step back. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t stare at the light bleeding from her fingertips or the sigils etched into the concrete around her feet.

He just knelt beside her slowly and said, "You look like hell, kid. Let's get you warm."

She blinked up at him, dazed. And that was it. That’s how it started.

He didn’t ask her what she was.

He just held out his hand.

He brought her to the Avengers Compound. Let her shower in hot water until her skin pruned. Let her sleep for two days straight in a room so layered with protection spells, even the ghosts in her blood went silent.

He built her a room lined with vibranium and blessed by both Wanda and Strange. The walls were filled with runed she carved herself, deep and crooked with shaking fingers. Salt lined the windowsills. Crystals in every corner. Every inch a sanctuary just for her.

He called her kid. Said it like it was a nickname, not a burden.

Pepper brought her tea in the mornings. Clean clothes. Soft smiles. She tucked her hair behind her ear like a mother would. Arabella didn’t know how to handle it. She didn’t know how to be held without breaking. But Pepper made it feel like maybe she could be something other than a curse.

Maybe she could be… a daughter.

And Tony? He was the first person to make her laugh. The first person who didn’t treat her like a prophecy, like a monster. He made her feel safe. He taught her how to channel, not contain. He never told her to be less. He never told her to be afraid.

He made her feel like maybe—just maybe—she could be Arabella again, and not the thing the ghosts whispered about. Not the girl born under the blood moon. Not the prophecy in flesh.

Just a girl. Living. Learning

But deep down, The Enchantress never slept. Never faded. She waited.

And Arabella always felt her… watching. Letting her pretend she was normal. Letting her pretend she could be loved.

She became an Avenger at twenty. Not because she believed in saving the world—but because Tony did. Because he looked her in the eyes and said, “You’ve got more heart than most people in this place. Let it beat for something.”

She fought beside them—Steve, Nat, Bucky, Wanda. Bled for them. Protected them. Called them family.

She saved lives. She laughed again. She thought—just for a moment—that maybe she could have a life.

But when Tony died, something inside her broke.

She didn’t scream right away. She just stood there—frozen in the chaos, in the smoke, in the aftershocks of war—and stared. Stared at the arc reactor dimming in his chest. Stared at the blood on his mouth. Stared at the way the sky looked too clear. Too quiet.

He had snapped his fingers. Saved the world.

And it had killed him.

Arabella dropped to her knees beside Peter, who was sobbing. Pepper was whispering, voice cracked and crumbling. Steve stood in silent grief. And Arabella?

Arabella shattered.

The scream ripped through her like a blade. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t even hers.

It was The Enchantress.

Magic exploded from her in violent, pulsing waves—black and poisonous, raw and ruthless, tearing through the rubble like a second earthquake. Spells older than any living tongue poured from her lips like a curse cast by grief itself.

She didn’t know who she was hitting.

Didn’t see Peter until it was too late.

He reached for her—“Bella, stop—please—”

She nearly broke him in half with a single word.

Wanda stepped in, her own power crashing into Arabella’s like a tidal wave of chaos and grief and fury. The ground split beneath them. The sky turned red.

And still, she couldn’t stop.

It was Bucky who pulled her back.

He found her in the aftermath—crumpled against the side of the battlefield, her hands trembling, her body still glowing faintly like a dying star. Blood on her palms. Ash in her mouth.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t raise a hand. He just sat beside her, quiet, solid.

“I know,” he said softly. “I know what it feels like when grief breaks you open.”

She let him pull her into his arms.

Let herself sob until her throat went raw.

She disappeared after Tony's funeral. No goodbyes. No notes. Just gone.

She couldn't bear it—Tony’s lab, untouched and echoing. Natasha’s absence like a ghost in every corner. Steve gone, like a whisper fading in the wind. Everyone trying to move on. Everyone pretending they knew how.

She couldn't pretend.

She couldn't stay in the places where laughter once lived. Couldn't sit at a table set for ghosts.

Thanos was gone. But somehow, she still felt like she had lost.

Like she had failed.

She couldn’t save them.

She wasn’t enough.

Because Arabella Montenegro was never built to bury her dead.

Not when their voices still lived beneath her skin.

Not when the dead still whispered through her veins.

Bucky Barnes hadn’t seen her in years.

Not since the funeral. Not since the battlefield where she nearly broke the earth open with her grief. Not since he found her curled into herself, shaking and bloody, sobbing over Tony Stark’s lifeless body. Not since he held her like a brother who didn’t know how to fix her—only he knew that he had to.

He hadn’t expected to hear from her again.

Not really.

She didn’t owe them anything—not after what she’d lost, not after what she’d given. Arabella had always been something untouchable. A ghost in a pretty dress. A girl with shadows in her lungs and thunder in her fingertips. She was never meant to stay. She was made for disappearing.

But he missed her.

God, he missed her.

Because Arabella Montenegro had done what no one else had.

She got through to him.

When the world still looked like war behind his eyelids and everyone treated him like a loaded weapon, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “I’ve known worse monsters than you. I keep one inside me.”

She never tiptoed around his past. Never judged him. Never tried to fix him.

She just… stayed.

Showed up with tea laced with cinnamon and protection charms she slipped into his leather jacket without telling him. Stitched sigils into his gloves and his suit. Knew when to sit in silence, and when to drag him out of bed at 3am to dance barefoot on the compound roof like two idiots with more power than they wanted.

She made him laugh.

She made him feel like a man, not a weapon.

He used to call her “brat” when she got on his nerves, and she’d roll her eyes and call him “abuelito” for fun. But when things got real, when the Enchantress clawed too close to the surface or her hands shook after missions, she’d whisper, “James,” and he’d come running.

He was her anchor. Her constant. And she? She was his warmth. His moonlight. His reminder that he could be soft without falling apart.

They didn’t need to say it aloud.

She was the little sister he never had.

He was the big brother who never asked for anything but gave everything.

And then New York cracked beneath The Void, when Bob Reynolds began unraveling the fabric of reality one thought at a time, Bucky didn’t know who else to call. There was no Steve. No Natasha. No Tony. So when he dialed her number, voice tight and half-broken, he wasn’t sure she’d even pick up. Left a message she might never listen to.

Just six words.

“If you’re still out there… please.”

Part of him hoped. Prayed.

Because if anyone could help them now…

It was Arabella.

He didn't think she'd come. Not after everything. Not after all the pain and suffering she'd been through.

But she did.

Three days later, the elevator doors opened at the Watchtower, and Arabella Montenegro walked in.

Barefoot, as always. Her black silk dress clung to her like smoke, high-necked and long-sleeved, sheer, embroidered with dark thread in sigil shapes. Obsidian rings adorned her fingers, and a silver charm glinted at her throat—something old, something protective, something hers.

Her hair was longer now. Wilder. Cascading in thick curls down her back like a midnight waterfall, still damp from the rain. It framed her face like a halo of shadows. Haunted in a way that told him the past years had carved her out like a cathedral. Her eyes, rimmed in black, gleamed with something other. The blood-red of her lips looked like the last kiss before a storm. She looked older. More dangerous.

More beautiful than ever.

Bucky stood frozen halfway across the room, breath lodged somewhere in his throat.

She saw him immediately.

Her mouth curved. Soft. Familiar. Just for him. “James,” she said softly.

“…You came,” he whispered, the words barely making it out of his throat.

Arabella tilted her head. “You called.”

And that was all it took.

Bucky moved before he could stop himself—crossing the floor in three long strides. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t wait. Just wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her in like he was afraid she’d disappear if he blinked.

Arabella let out a sharp breath against his chest, the air knocked out of her with the sheer force of his embrace. “James—” She laughed, breathless. “You’re crushing me.”

“I don’t care,” he muttered into her hair, squeezing tighter. “You’re real. You’re here.”

She clung to him just as hard, arms wrapped around his waist, face buried in his shoulder like she was ten seconds from falling apart. He rocked her back and forth without realizing it. His hand came up to cradle the back of her head, thumb brushing through damp curls.

“You smell like rosemary and grave dirt,” he said softly.

“You smell like gunpowder and old guilt,” she shot back, muffled.

His laugh cracked, deep in his chest. “There she is,” he murmured. “My little menace.”

Arabella pulled back, blinking up at him. Her eyes shimmered—just slightly. “You missed me.”

“Of course I did,” he said, brushing her hair back behind her ear like she was still that nineteen-year-old girl Tony brought home. “I’ve missed you every goddamn day.”

“I didn’t think you’d say that out loud,” she teased, her voice trembling with more than amusement.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, still holding her. “Getting soft in my old age.”

“You’ve always been soft for me,” she smirked.

He rolled his eyes. “You hex my coffee once and suddenly I’m emotionally compromised.”

“You are emotionally compromised,” she whispered.

His face sobered. He reached up and cupped her cheek. “You good, Bells?”

She hesitated.

Then she nodded, slowly.

“Getting there,” she said. “But I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Not this time.”

“Well, you’re not alone anymore,” Bucky said, his tone quiet, firm, the way big brothers spoke when they made promises they intended to keep. “Not ever again.”

And Arabella, for the first time in years, believed him.

But then the room shifted.

All eyes were on her now.

Arabella turned, facing them fully for the first time. Her presence hit like a ripple in still water—slow, sudden, undeniable. The kind of entrance that made rooms fall silent, made hearts stall in place.

Her magic followed behind her like a scent: wild roses, burnt sage, candle smoke. It draped over the room, pressed into the walls, settled deep into the floors.

And they felt her. Not just her energy—but the presence curled behind her bones.

The Enchantress.

Yelena didn’t even stand up.

She looked Arabella up and down from her spot on the couch, one leg hooked lazily over the armrest, a protein bar half-eaten in one hand. Her sharp gaze swept over the black silk, the bare feet, the storm that shimmered around Arabella like perfume.

Then she said, dryly, “You look like you’ve buried at least three exes and didn’t bother wiping the blood off your mouth.”

Arabella barely blinked. “Only three?”

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Two were accidents. The third had it coming. The fourth is still in the freezer.”

Yelena grinned, slow and wicked. “Do you want to be best friends or enemies who share eyeliner and hide bodies together?”

“Can we be both?” Arabella asked, tilting her head.

Yelena tossed the protein bar aside and stood. “God, yes.”

Bucky groaned audibly. “No. Nope. This is a mistake.”

Arabella and Yelena ignored him, already circling each other like twin wolves. Dangerous. Beautiful. Laughing under their breath like they’d been born for this.

“You ever hex a man so his dick stops working?” Yelena asked casually.

Arabella’s eyes glittered. “Only on Tuesdays.” She leaned in. “And only if he ghosts me.”

Yelena let out a delighted gasp. “Okay. I love you. Teach me your dark arts, my Sith Lord.”

Arabella smirked, one brow arched. “Only if you promise to use your powers for petty and chaotic purposes.”

Arabella and Yelena bonded instantly.

Within five minutes, they were seated on the floor, knees touching, comparing knives and horror stories. By ten, they were whispering chaos into the walls—how to enchant Walker’s shampoo, how many ways you could curse someone’s sex life, whether blood magic could double as birth control.

It was like Arabella was meeting a version of herself—sharper, louder, equally unbothered.

And then Walker came in.

Arabella didn’t even turn when he stepped into the room—she just felt the misplaced authority before he spoke.

“So this is the witch,” he muttered, all folded arms and puffed chest.

Arabella turned her head slowly, almost lazily, and looked him over with the kind of gaze that made men reconsider their entire careers.

“If it isn’t the Dollar Store Captain America,” she said, deadpan.

Yelena barked a laugh. Bucky sighed, trying his best to hide his smirk.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Arabella continued, brushing imaginary dust off her sleeve. “Honestly? I expected more muscles. And less… mall cop energy.”

Walker’s jaw tightened. “You know, you witches are all the same.”

Arabella leaned in. “No, I’m worse.”

He muttered something under his breath and stormed off. The door didn’t close fast enough to muffle Yelena shouting, “Try the clearance aisle next time!”

Then came Alexei.

He strode over like an avalanche in boots, face split into a grin, eyes crinkling with delight.

“You,” he declared in Russian, “are the little shadow witch. I have heard things.”

Arabella raised a brow. “Good things?”

“Terrifying things. My favorite kind.”

She smiled.

“I brought gift!” he announced, pulling something from his jacket. “Very sharp.”

He handed her a vintage combat blade—slightly rusted, beautifully heavy.

Her eyes lit up. “This is better than flowers.”

“You are better than daughters,” he said proudly. “I have too many of those. But you—? You are dangerous. I adopt you now.”

“Do I get a pin?”

“No,” he said. “You get vodka.”

Arabella grinned. “I knew I liked you.”

Ava came last. Quiet, hesitant, but not afraid.

Arabella turned the moment she stepped near, gaze softening.

“You’re beautiful,” she said simply. “Not your just face. Your aura.”

Ava blinked. Said nothing. Arabella reached into the folds of her coat and pulled out a crystal—clear, sharp-edged, humming faintly.

She pressed it into Ava’s palm.

“You ground the noise,” she whispered. “That’s rare. Don’t let anyone take that from you.”

Ava stared at her. Not used to praise. Definitely not like that.

“Thank you,” she said, voice small.

“You’re welcome,” Arabella replied, just as softly.

And then—him.

She hadn’t looked at him yet. Had felt him the moment she stepped into the room—golden, fractured, watching. But now she turned.

And there he was.

Bob Reynolds.

He stood like a storm held in skin. Curls tousled, hands tense at his sides, chest rising and falling too slowly. His eyes were full of something that wasn’t him.

Something dark.

Something waiting.

Arabella met his gaze—and time bent. Her pulse jumped. Her magic reacted.

And inside her chest, The Enchantress inhaled sharply.

“Him,” she whispered, breathless. “He’s—he’s not like the others.”

Arabella felt her limbs go cold and hot all at once. Her fingers trembled. The air between them shimmered like heat off pavement.

Inside Bob, The Void purred.

“She’s like us,” it whispered, reverent and hungry. “I can feel the darkness inside of her. Let me touch her.”

Bob didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Arabella’s mouth parted slightly.

The Enchantress hissed—“Feel that? That pull? He’s not just broken, mi niña. He’s bound. Like you. Like me.”

Arabella swallowed, but the breath barely made it down. The air was too thick. The space between them pulsed with something unspoken, ancient. Not recognition—no, it was deeper than that.

It was kinship.

It was want.

Bob still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t blinked. His fingers twitched once, a tremor that betrayed everything simmering beneath the surface.

Arabella’s voice was barely more than a breath when she finally spoke.

“Hi,” she said softly.

Bob’s lips parted.

Inside his chest, The Void leaned forward, eyes glittering in the dark.

“She knows,” it whispered. “She sees you. And she doesn’t run.”

Arabella didn’t blink.

Neither did he.

And in the space between them, something shifted.

Something began.

𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐅𝐀𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐍 © 2025. DO NOT STEAL, REPOST, OR COPY THIS STORY TO TUMBLR, WATTPAD, AO3, OR ANY OTHER PLATFORM. Moodboards and graphics made by @houseofaegon DO NOT repost or reuse without credit. chain divider by @cursed-carmine

♱ ˖ ࣪ . taglist: @the-a-word-2214 @favestxrboy @uraesthete @abbysbenchpr @sammystarswrite @pey2618 @qardasngan @lunaoieoie @orithyia-eriphyle @amatiswayland @madzzz6958 @all-by-myself98 @dark-silhouette @ghost-ghost-13 @wyvernthekriger @gayfiretruck @watermeezer @lvmxla @novausstuff @mommymilkers0526 @natureartisian @feralgoblinbabe @misaki-evans @uracowboylikemee @sxlsvv @stillinracooncity @deltamel (if you would like to be added to the taglist, please let me know in the comments. love, bri.)

[hellfirebarnes]

Slow-Burns - Part 3

PART 1 PART 2 PART 4

I split this up in several, shorter parts because I know the feeling when you want to read a fic but don't have the time or energy to get through a 10k+ words one. Also if you hate my writing you can just read part 1 and then leave it. Win-win I guess?

Anyway, this is set after Thunderbolts so if you haven't seen it - spoilers I guess? It absolutely does not follow canon, but yeah better to be safe than sorry.

Summary: Bucky has fallen. Hopelessly. And the only thing more hopeless is his team trying to help him get to the end of this slow-burn.

Bucky x fem!SHIELD!reader

1.7K words

Fluff, ''normal'' violence and descriptions of injuries. For sure out of character stuff, but I am who I am. Your appearence is barely desribed what I can remember, I think your hair and a couple types what clothes you're wearing?

You're referred to as ''Agent'' and ''Sunshine'' in a desperate attempt from me to not use Y/N.

Let me know if there's anything else I should warn about.

Otherwise, enjoy :)

Bucky scanned the briefing file. Intel breach. Corporate sabotage. Medium risk, low collateral. High-tech infiltration. One scientist needed extraction. Half the mission screamed you - cyber-forensic work, silent infiltration, backdoor escape route.

He frowned. “She’s not coming?”

Yelena leaned back in her chair, sipping bad coffee from a novelty mug that read ‘Crime, But Make It Cute.’

“She’s not coming.”

Bucky’s heart skipped. “Why?”

“She has the day off,” Ava answered, scrolling through her own tablet.

“But we need someone who can spoof an encrypted relay system on the move,” he said, voice flat but tight. “That’s her.”

“Relax, grandpa,” John muttered. “We’ve got it covered. Ava rewrote a protocol last night, and Bob is flying overwatch.”

Bucky looked back down at the tablet, annoyed. Not at the team. Not at the mission. At the fact that it felt wrong without you. And he hated how that felt.

“She asked for the day off two weeks ago,” Yelena added, tapping through something on her screen. “She deserves it.”

Alexei, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly grinned like he’d been waiting for someone to ask.

“Is big day,” he said, voice full of pride. “I set her up with very nice man. Name is Luka. Banker. Hair like lion. Very symmetrical face.”

Bucky looked up, slowly. “…You what?”

“Date!” Alexei beamed. “They go to brunch. Then art museum. Maybe share pretzel. Classic courtship!”

The silence that followed was deafening. Bucky didn’t move.

“Wait,” John said, looking up from his file. “She’s on a date?”

“Yes!” Alexei slammed a celebratory hand on the table. “I make things happen!”

Yelena blinked. “With Luka? From your bowling team?”

“He does not just bowl! He reads books. Big hands. Gentle eyes.”

Ava smirked. “You sound like you’re in love with him yourself.”

“He is very huggable!”

Bucky barely heard any of it. He was still stuck on date.

Something cold settled under his ribs. He hadn’t known you were seeing someone. He hadn’t even thought to ask. You’d always been here, orbiting close. And now, without warning, you were… elsewhere. With someone. Laughing, maybe. Wearing something soft and light. Smiling the way you always did when you were teasing him - except it wasn’t him.

Alexei’s words filtered back in. “—and if it goes well, they go to second location. Maybe fondue. Is very romantic.”

Bucky pushed back from the table. “I’ll be on the jet,” he muttered.

Yelena watched him go, eyes narrowing. When the door slid shut behind him, she turned to the others. “Okay,” she said. “That man is not okay.”

Bob tilted his head. “Is this the part where he acknowledges his feelings and makes a healthy emotional decision?”

John scoffed. “More like he’ll sit alone in the cargo bay and think about how her laugh sounds.”

Alexei frowned. “But she deserves strong man with good face symmetry. Why is Barnes sad?”

Ava deadpanned, “Because he’s been in denial for months.”

Two hours later Bucky sat strapped in, arms crossed, staring out the window like it had offended him personally. Every passing city below looked like a blur of decisions he hadn’t made. He thought about the last time you had touched his shoulder. How you’d laughed at one of Bob’s ridiculous stories. How you always leaned in just slightly when you talked to him, like what he said mattered more than anyone else’s words.

And now you were giving that attention to someone else. Some Luka.

He didn’t even know what the guy looked like, but his brain was helpfully painting the worst: tall, perfect teeth, probably called you beautiful without tripping over the word like Bucky always did in his head.

He wasn’t mad at you. Not even close. But he was angry with himself.

He’d wasted time. So much time, thinking if he just stayed close, you’d know. That he wouldn’t need to say anything. That maybe feelings could transfer telepathically through awkward silences and missed glances.

You were out there living. And he was up here… sulking.

He hadn’t wanted to make a move. He’d told himself he wasn’t ready. And now it might be too late.

Meanwhile, at a café in Brooklyn, you stirred your coffee absently as Luka droned on about crypto trends and some vacation he’d taken in the Alps with his “boys.” His shirt was tailored, his teeth were indeed perfect, and he had zero opinions on whether or not one should put glitter in combat boots.

You smiled politely. But your mind wandered.

To the Tower.

To the mission briefing you could have been part of.

To a certain grumpy super soldier with eyes like storm clouds and the emotional range of a wounded wolf.

God, you missed him already.

The Tower was quieter than usual that night. Post-mission debriefs were filed. John had gone out. Yelena and Ava were holed up somewhere with wine and a true crime doc. Alexei was in the sauna, probably giving unsolicited dating advice to someone over speakerphone.

And you? You were back.

Bucky noticed the moment you walked in. Not because you announced it - you never did - but because the air shifted.

He was in the common room, nursing a drink and reading the same paragraph of a book for the fourth time when he heard the elevator ding and your familiar footsteps cross the floor.

Then your voice. “Hey.”

He looked up.

You were dressed casually - simple, comfortable, but still carried yourself like you had a secret no one else was allowed to know. Except this time, you looked… tired. Not physically. Just disappointed in a way that sat deep in the shoulders.

Bucky sat up a little straighter. “You’re back.”

You sank onto the opposite end of the couch, kicking your shoes off with a sigh. “Yeah. Just got in.”

He hesitated. Then, carefully: “How was the date?”

You groaned and dropped your head back dramatically. “So bad. So impressively bad.”

Bucky’s heart did something traitorous - thrilled a little too much at the words. He worked hard not to show it.

“He was… polite. I’ll give him that. But every time I tried to steer the conversation toward something fun or personal, he’d redirect it back to himself. Or his investments. Or this stupid vacation he took with a group of guys who all wore matching swim trunks and called themselves the Wolfpack.”

Bucky blinked. “The what?”

“Right?” You said, eyes wide. “It felt like a sitcom where the punchline never came.”

A beat passed. He couldn’t help it—he smiled. Just a little.

You caught it. Your expression softened. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… sounds like hell.”

“It was. But the pretzel was good.”

You shared a quiet moment. Bucky’s chest felt warm and strange. He didn’t speak much, but he listened, and for once, he didn’t feel like he was drowning in his own silence. Maybe it was the soft tone in your voice. Maybe it was the way you’d looked at him when you walked in, like you’d missed him too.

He almost leaned in, just a little, like he was going to say something real for once.

And then Bob practically exploded into the room, arms wide, face beaming like a golden retriever who’d just spotted his favorite human.

Bucky immediately sat back, shoulders going tense.

You blinked, then smiled, bright and open. “Hey, Bob.”

Bob crossed the room in three giant steps and flopped onto the couch between you with a whoomp, knocking Bucky’s knee in the process. “You’re back! I missed you! Did you see the picture of Waffles I texted you?”

“I did,” you said, laughing. “The little hat was a nice touch.”

“He wore it willingly!” Bob looked at you with stars in his eyes. “Did you have a fun day off?”

You paused. “It had its moments.”

Bob turned to Bucky, clueless and radiant. “Didn’t we miss her, Buck? I kept saying we needed her on the mission. She would’ve handled that alarm system in two minutes.”

Bucky blinked slowly. “Yeah. We missed her.”

Your eyes flicked to Bucky, and something quiet passed between you again. But Bob, entirely unaware, continued cheerfully.

“I was thinking maybe we could all go get pancakes tomorrow. Celebrate a mission well done and your return. I know a place. They have whipped cream. And seasonal syrups. And they let you mix them. Which is chaos, but good chaos.”

You laughed again, and Bucky felt the familiar ache settle back into his chest. Because Bob wasn’t competition. He was just kind. Bright and open and honest in a way Bucky hadn’t been in years. Maybe ever. And you looked so comfortable around him. So light.

Bucky couldn’t even be mad. Not at Bob. Not at you. Just at himself, for still sitting there, wanting something and saying nothing.

He stood up quietly, draining the rest of his drink.

“Where you going?” You asked, noticing.

“Gonna turn in,” he said, avoiding your eyes. “Long day.”

“Goodnight,” you said softly.

He paused. Then looked at you - really looked at you. And for just a second, he let something show.

“Glad you’re back.”

And then he walked away.

Behind him, you watched him go. And for the first time since the date, you weren’t thinking about Luka at all.

Valentina slid a sleek folder across her desk. Inside was a badge, a keycard, a stack of onboarding documents, and a post-it with “Val we need a hot tub in the tower—seriously” scribbled in Yelena’s handwriting.

“I want you full-time, Agent. No more coming and going. A room and an official seat at the table. The team already treats you like you’re one of them. Might as well make it real.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Your heart said yes immediately. But your brain, ever cautious, flipped through the mental index of what-ifs and escape routes.

“You sure you want to say no?” Val asked, arms folded, one brow arched.

You blinked. “Did I say no?”

“You hesitated.”

“I blinked.”

“Same thing in spy-speak.”

Then you thought about last night’s mission.

How Yelena had linked arms with you when you walked back into the jet, chattering about snack options. How Alexei had announced proudly that he’d protected “the two best sharpshooters in the world.” How Bob had quietly tucked your coat over your shoulders when you’d dozed off.

And how Bucky had looked at you before you parted ways. Like maybe he didn’t want to see you go.

You smiled softly.

“I’m in.”

[xoxojisu]

hihi i saw ur post abt damianya being like katsuki x reader and what do we think abt a CROSSOVER. like katsuki and u watching them being like "us in another universe"

SO US!

synopsis: watching damian and anya (sxf) reminds you of katsuki and you.

notes: bubbly reader. i dont usually go for crossover/complicated/canon deviation but i mean its damian and anya how could i not

it's after school. you and katsuki are chilling under a tree near the courtyard, the sun dipping low, golden light pooling around you. he’s leaning against the trunk, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded like he’s bored, but he hasn’t stopped watching them for the last ten minutes.

anya is giggling about something. she probably said something weird and is laughing at her own joke again. damian’s face is bright red, eyebrows twitching like he’s trying to hold back a crashout. he flails. he sputters. he calls her stupid. he crosses his arms and looks away as if he doesn't like her.

you sigh dreamily. “they’re so us.”

katsuki grunts. “the hell they are.”

you smirk. “uh huh. you don’t see it? the yelling? the blushing? the emotional constipation?”

“i wasn’t that bad,” he mumbles.

you hum, leaning your head on his shoulder. “you were worse. you said my laugh was annoying the first time you thought you liked it. you told me your homemade white day chocolates were actually hate-chocolates.”

“tch. i was under.. stress.”

you giggle. “sure, sure. stress. same stress damian just tripped over a bench trying to act like he wasn’t trying to sit next to her. and offered her her favorite food saying he just 'happened to have extra.'”

you both watch as anya pokes his cheek with a smile and damian turns scarlet and drops his water bottle, all motor control fleeing from his body.

katsuki exhales through his nose like he's getting war flashbacks. “he’s doomed.”

you smile. “so were you. speaking from experience, kats?”

he grunts in half-acknowledgement before he glances down at you. his expression softens, just barely. “…was worth it.”

your heart does that dumb swoop thing it always does when he gets like this. all quiet affection tucked behind loud attitude. you wrap your arms around his middle, face tucked into his hoodie.

“he’ll figure it out. he’s got good taste, after all.” you smile, referring half to damian but also half to katsuki.

katsuki watches damian fumble his way through giving her a compliment poorly disguised as an insult. watches her tilt her head to try to figure out what he was saying and then beam. watches damian look away like she’s the sun and can't stare too long or else he'll be blinded.

“…yeah,” he mutters. “looks familiar.”

you grin into his chest, silently rooting for the two. you do like the grumpy tsundere x sunshine combo, after all.

masterlist

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Since magishift tournament against RSA seems to be coming up in book 8, I'm lowkey scared because if NRC loses again just like during Harveston event & VDC I'm afraid all hell will break loose and RSA hate will increase tenfold. 💀 I fully understand that people want to cheer for the characters we play this game for, but man… As someone who also likes whatever crumbs we have of RSA so far it feels kinda rough.

I could see it going either way 🤔 Like, the story is currently set up so that NRC cinches the 100th match victory. It would be proof and validation that they did learn to put their differences and pride aside to cooperate with one another, thereby validating their growth and the impact their harrowing experiences had on them. It would all culminate in this “happy ending” that they earned together.

At the same time, I could see Twst falling back on the “villains always lose to heroes” thing Disney is known for and having the first main story arc conclude on a silly note in order to lighten the mood and perhaps to suggest a prolonging of the story into a second main story arc. Like maybe Yuu tries to say, “The real victory was the friends we made along the way” and the NRC students proceed to get upset and act all petty about not absolutely dominating their opponents 💀 (You also have to admit that even if NRC does cooperate now, they’re brand new to this and may not always get it perfect right away, which could contribute to their loss.)

I’m personally for the former over the latter. It’s not that I think one is more likely to happen than the other (I don’t trust Twst’s writing to consistently deliver satisfactory payoff), but rather because the former would be the objectively more meaningful way to cap off our first year at NRC.

dbjwbwkw Maybe it’s just me but?? I don’t see the reason for RSA hate. Is that just Twst fans mirroring the disdain the NRC boys have for their rival school students?? Even so, it’s fictional characters with (quite honestly) mostly cardboard cutout personalities 😭 It’s not worth that level of vitriol (though, of course, you’re free to feel however you want about the characters; just don’t hurt or harm yourself or others because of it). And honestly?? It’s not RSA’s fault at all. It has been made clear time and time again that NRC often loses to RSA because NRC students fight amongst each other whereas RSA students know how to cooperate. I know we love our NRC boys and want to support them and see them succeed, but the truth is that they ARE shitty, and that shittiness is (canonically) the factor that’s holding them back.

[frownyalfred]

when i write something about batman with another bat there i always wonder if i write their hypercompetence and fighting abilities right. this is gonna get a little bit in the power level discussion so bear with me. obviously the character i want to win or find the solution IS gonna do exactly that... but what about Barbie? Aka Mary Sue aka Batman? In other character's comics HE'S the one they call to figure out this month's Mega Evil Planet Destroyer problem and. He does. Often. Almost every time. Superman needs a working strategy in less than five seconds? Batman's got it. Survive impossible odds daily? You know it. Find cures for incurble diseases? Why not?

So you got this guy. Who can do all that. And you have to find a way to put him into situations where the silly goose Riddler is giving him problems. And 16 year old Robin, fresh member of the Teen Titans, 3-4 years of in-field experience, comes crashing in to save the day.

I know i'm basically asking "How can you fit 80+ years of stories, at LEAST 30 of those years spent on making Batman God, into a coneivably convincing story?"

What's your approach to the nightmare that's DC's inconsistency? How do you make Batman capable and hypercompetent and keep the batfam on a believably similar level while still having a big enough gap between everyone due to experience, age, skills, etc and not throw your own story's consistency out the metaphorical window?

It’s very hard! I’m not always certain I do a good job either. But I try to find things that are realistic enough to scale down power without making him ooc. For example in borderline - Bruce is skilled enough to hunt down and find Dick when the Court of Owls took him. But even he can’t split his attention between two people at the same time. So when Damian was taken by the LoA, Bruce was in a difficult choice where he has to choose who to go after. Because even he couldn’t be in two places at once, focusing on two separate cases before sunrise.

Specialization is another thing. There are some things Bruce trained to do, and some areas he has self admitted blind spots in canon. He doesn’t like magic, for example. Most canon iterations have him training for strength instead of acrobatic ability, so while he can still flip and bend, he’s probably not bounding around like Nightwing often.

Kids vs adults - Bruce is a large man. There are situations where having Robin crawl in/etc is much more effective. Robin can be bait in a trap, etc. he can hide in things. He might have slightly better hearing due to are. There’s lots of things to use there.

Experience is another one. Sometimes it’s a double edged sword. Bruce has seen everything at least once, so sometimes he’s very (rightfully) jaded. A kid’s hope or belief might defy that experience and still be right.

When it comes to truly scaling Bruce vs the Batfamily, I always try to remember that they learned from him directly and want to be like him. Which means they’re a lot like him in every way except 1) Bruce is a better teacher than his own mentors and 2) they are limited by time/age/experience. But there will come a day where they’re at or nearly at the same level as Bruce in many respects. It just hasn’t happened yet. And that’s okay! Because by that time Bruce will be off the field.

[garpen]

A TimBerKon marriage would be absolute CHAOS

First, you have to understand Tim would not let the “only two of them can marry” law thing happen. So obviously he’s bribing Oracle to hack into the government and influence the change of law via threats.

Second, while I see the trio being more inclined to have a private ceremony by themselves, the idea of a “normal” wedding with them is so much funnier.

You have the Superfamily & the batfamily (plus friends like YJ). Them alone is complicated considering all the dynamics but adding Bernard’s CIVILIAN family makes it so much more complicated

Cue like 60 people (the super & bat families are BIG not to mention all of kon & Tim’s superhero friends) having to hide their powers from one small group of Bernard’s’s family and friends

And it being DC of course at least one villain has to crash Timothy Drake’s wedding. So then you have some C-list villain and Bernard’s family wondering why the fuck did like 30 random heroes that are mainly seen in completely different places around the world show up at something that only needed 1 or 2 heroes for.

And not to let my Cass favouritism show but it’s canon that if lives are in even slight danger she does not give a shit about secret identities. So she wouldn’t even bother sneaking away to get into costume like everyone else.

So now you have Bernard’s family wondering why there are so many heroes and why Tim Drake’s sister suddenly knows how to roundhouse kick someone while choking someone else. Also Bernard is definitely pulling out his phone to record what might be THE COOLEST day of his life

Sorry for the wall of text but you did ask for my thoughts on the timberkon wedding

❤️ from Wedding Anon

I have learned I am their god and I can make up their laws, so in my AU, yes polyamory marriage is indeed perfectly legal

The idea of every hero trying to hide their identities from Bernard's civilian family is actually absolutely hilarious to me.

I do imagine them having a small intimate wedding, immediate family and close friends only. But with Tim that's already like 30 people. Maybe an addition 15 from Kon. And like 75% of them will definitely be heroes/vigilantes.

Then there's just Bernard's fully civilian family. They think Tim and Kon's family is very... eclectic, but so long as Bern loves them, all is good.

And then this C-list villain crashes, 75% of the guests disappear, and then a shit ton of vigilantes/heroes take their place. Actually even some villains! Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman?? Why are Gotham's Rogues fighting off this random villain at Bernard's wedding?? Are those assassins??

And now all the heroes/vigilantes/rogues are just standing around awkwardly as they watch Cass roundhouse kick this C-list villain.

I love your mind, wedding anon

[utilitycaster]

I am treading quite carefully here for reasons that will be immediately apparent, but: I am well aware I have a lot of followers within the CR fandom. I am also aware that mutuals with a fraction of that following have been called "BNFs" for simply making occasional popular posts with a cohesive argument. (I wouldn't be surprised if non-mutuals have as well; I just haven't talked to them)

I can also say, with a fairly high degree of confidence, that most people who have gotten the "evil BNF" moniker dating back to Campaign 2 era (when it was more frequently for liking the canon ships and end of the story) and especially people who have been called that for not liking Campaign 3 are pretty much all women; unsurprising given that the Tumblr population skews heavily towards women and nb people. It's also increasingly, in recent months, come with accusations of being either too confident (the "stating ones opinion as objective fact" complaint) or too emotional, even to the point of pathologizing and concern trolling. And especially in the past couple of months, the posts that compare and contrast other works to Campaign 3 have been on the whole calm and measured; one would be hard-pressed to call them emotional at all let alone a cause for worry or a sign of unwellness.

While I can't say for certain this is coming from a place of misogyny, at least not consciously, I can say that as a woman in a male-dominated field in real life it follows extremely familiar patterns: if you're too calm and confident, you're coming on too strong and need to tone it down, but then when you tone it down, you're too emotional and crazy and not smart enough. It has also not escaped me that several of the people making these claims about women - and most recently about a nonwhite woman - have been white men. Which is also a familiar pattern.

I do not, in fact, expect nor demand a fandom where everyone agrees with me, and I think one can look at fandom trends and see that no one controls overall opinion, so I think my advice here is to internalize and accept that and decide if you're okay with being in a fandom where people might be saying things you don't like for a very long time. It's fine if you're not; it's obviously not misogynistic to merely disagree with people who happen to be women; but it's your responsibility to either curate a space within that or find a new one if said disagreement is upsetting you or leading you to make these accusations, and I'd appreciate it if, now that I've brought it to your attention, you cut the misogyny, for which I'll grant benefit of the doubt that it was, until now, unintentional.

[shifttoksucks]

tim drake is not a yearner.

i can't keep going on like this. i can't keep staying silent and pretending to agree when the majority of the fanmedia i consume does not align with my headcanons. it is not my truth, and i must live my truth.

(disclaimer: i fucking love a good yearner!tim fic/hc/drabble/fanart. i'm a yearner and i like to project onto my blorbos. yearner!tim is a niche i greatly enjoy. i simply cannot truly see him this way. if you purposefully misinterpret this as me hating on yearner!tim headcanoners, i will bite your ass.)

this is my headcanoning, fanfic-authoring, canon-hating truth:

tim drake is not a yearner.

he's a fucking idiot.

that man is not a yearner. he is an intellectualizer. he will run fucking laps around himself to justify his feelings as coincidental and circumstantial and not even realize he's doing it. he doesn't sit around sighing and wondering if someone likes him back because he doesn't even fucking know he likes them in the first place. he doesn't have a single clue when he has a crush until they ask him out or kiss him, at which point he goes "oh shit. this is a thing that's happening."

after being asked out/kissed and realizing his feelings? if those events somehow don't lead to him becoming involved with the person, then sure. he yearns a little. but he shuts it out and pretends it's not happening. he doesn't let it consume him. he has shit to do that doesn't involve dramatically staring out a window and daydreaming about his crush.

all this to say, he is a grade-a idiot. a truly cringefail dumbass. he is completely oblivious to any emotion happening inside him until someone smacks him across the face and forces him to acknowledge that he has feelings. and even then? he might just keep denying it.

this is me speaking out. this is me speaking my truth. i cannot stay silent any longer. i must be true to myself.

[godricgryffinsnore]

So......tadaaaa, just when you thought you have striked off another request from the list, you have another.

(because I need some good Harry Potte/reader stuff, even if it takes weeks)

He was in a pretty bad mood, he had been stood up on a first date. He slumped on his way back when a girl came and sat beside him on the train, crying.

[slow burn please. Like the slowest slow burn. I am looking for a long slow burn...And Sirius is alive.]

All the Quiet Things ♡ : A Harry Potter Fan Fiction.

pairing : Harry Potter x fem!reader

summary : When a chance meeting on a train changes the course of two very different lives, what begins as quiet companionship turns into something deeper—something far more difficult to ignore. Amid shared silences, buried feelings, and a few missteps along the way, two souls learn what it means to heal, to choose, and to love without fear.

warnings : Emotional distress, crying, and healing, Jealousy, arguments, and dramatic love confession, Strong language and romantic angst, Explicit sexual content (18+): oral (both), unprotected sex, praise/dirty talk, slow to rough progression, Embarrassing moment (others overhear them), Canon divergence (Sirius, Remus & Cedric alive), Comfort, fluff, and aftercare. Please let me know if I missed any.

author's note : English is not my first language, so please forgive me for any grammatical errors or spelling errors. Re-blogging is completely fine with me, but please don't copy my work. I love you all. Enjoy <3. THIS IS AN 18+ FAN FICTION. PLEASE DO NOT ENTER IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE OR IF YOU ARE A MINOR!!!

della's note : Ya, so it happened... I don't know how, where or when I got the urge to write a smut scene, but I did. But don't worry, if you want this fic in a free-smut type of way, you can read it without the smut too. Smut is at the very end of the fan fic... and I will let you know when it starts. I REALLY HOPE YOU LIKE IT <333

word count : 4.8k

main master list <3

banners : @uzmacchiato and @cafekitsune

He had never liked dates.

He didn't know why he’d even said yes. Lavender had cornered him with her glittering eyes and her sugar-slick voice, and something about the way Ron had elbowed him had made Harry nod before his brain could catch up.

Now, it was raining. Of course it was raining.

The coffee shop had smelled too sweet, and the date never showed. Harry had sat at the window, watching the clouds gather like an omen. He didn’t even like coffee. He’d stared at his reflection in the glass—scar, glasses, eyes too tired for eighteen—and had wondered what he looked like to the rest of the world.

The train back to Grimmauld Place was nearly empty. The wet streets had scared the tourists off, and he was grateful for the silence.

He slumped into the seat by the window, coat damp, hair clinging to his forehead. His jaw was tight. The overhead lights buzzed.

Then—

A soft sound. A sniffle.

He turned, and there she was.

A girl. His age. Book pressed tight to her chest, sleeves too long, eyes swollen and red.

She sat across from him, not noticing him at all, crumpling into the corner like she was trying to disappear.

Harry should have looked away.

But she was crying. Not loud, not the kind of crying that begged attention—no. This was the silent kind. The lonely kind.

The kind he knew well.

“Are you alright?” he asked before he could stop himself.

She startled, blinking up at him like she'd only just realized he was there. Her lashes were soaked, and there was a smudge of ink on her cheek.

“I’m fine,” she whispered. It was the automatic kind of lie.

He didn’t believe her.

But he didn’t press.

The train groaned into motion, and the city lights outside blurred into gold.

She turned her face to the window, but not before he saw it—that broken sort of look, the kind people wore when they’d held on too tightly to something that slipped right through their fingers.

He wanted to ask. Who hurt you? Why are you crying? What book is that?

But instead, he sat in silence. Watching the rain. Listening to her breathe.

They didn’t speak again that night.

When the train stopped, she stood and disappeared into the dark, and he didn’t even know her name.

── .✦

They saw each other again.

Weeks later, in the library at Grimmauld Place.

It was Sirius who called her in. “Harry! This is the one I told you about—she’s working with the new historical records team from the Ministry. She’s got the brains of a Ravenclaw and the patience of a saint.”

Harry turned, and there she was.

She didn’t look surprised to see him. But she did smile—a small, knowing thing that twisted something deep in his chest.

“You’re the girl from the train,” he said, before he could stop himself.

Her eyes flickered. “And you’re the boy who stared at me like I was made of glass.”

Sirius looked between them, brows raised.

Neither of them explained.

── .✦

Weeks became months.

She started showing up more.

She was clever. Quiet. Laughed softly at Sirius’s ridiculous stories, asked sharp questions during Order meetings, and always smelled faintly like old parchment and stormy nights.

Harry liked talking to her. He liked the way her mind worked—how she made him feel like he wasn’t just the Boy Who Lived but a person with questions and dreams and wounds that didn’t need to be hidden.

But it wasn’t easy. Nothing ever was.

There were arguments. Disagreements. He didn’t like how she looked at Malfoy when he visited to give intel, didn’t like how she smiled when she spoke to Cedric Diggory at the Ministry.

She didn’t like how he shut down when he was hurting. How he’d go quiet and cold and pretend like nothing ever touched him.

“Harry,” she said one night, voice sharp with something unnameable, “You don't get to decide who I talk to.”

“I’m not deciding,” he snapped. “I’m just saying—Diggory? Really?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

And that’s when it began.

The bitterness. The bite. The awkward silences at meetings. The thunder in his chest when she smiled at someone else. The way she flinched when he ignored her in front of Ron and Hermione.

They became enemies in the way only people who used to care could be.

But oh—he still watched her.

He knew how she took her tea. Knew she cried when she read tragic poetry. Knew she kept a picture of her little sister in her notebook and touched it when she thought no one was looking.

She knew him too.

She knew how he clenched his fist when he lied. Knew when his nightmares came back, even when he didn’t say a word.

But they were silent. Too prideful. Too afraid.

Until the night everything broke.

── .✦

It was a storm.

It always had to be a storm.

Grimmauld Place, the attic, papers flying, windows rattling. The Order had had a terrible night, and Sirius had been nearly killed, and Harry found her pacing, wild-eyed, her hands shaking.

“You could’ve died!” she shouted at him. “You just ran in! No plan—no—nothing! What if—what if I never saw you again, you bloody stupid boy?!”

“I didn’t need a plan!” he yelled back. “I needed to save him!”

“You’re reckless! Arrogant! Self-sacrificing and completely idiotic—!”

“And you’re impossible!” he roared. “You smile at Cedric like I don’t exist, then act like you care—!”

“Because I do care, you great big idiot! I always did!”

Silence.

Breathing.

The storm howled outside, but inside—utter stillness.

“I always did,” she whispered again. “From the moment you asked if I was okay on that train.”

Harry stared.

She looked like everything he’d ever wanted and been too scared to ask for.

“I love you,” he said, voice hoarse, cracking. “I love you and it’s miserable. You make me feel like I’m worth something and I hate it because I’m terrified of losing you.”

And then—

They kissed.

Like a war ending. Like peace being signed on trembling lips. Like two storms learning how to hold hands without turning to thunder.

── .✦

They didn’t speak about the kiss.

Not the next day. Not the day after that.

She went back to the library. Harry helped Molly with dinner. They exchanged glances like secret letters—quiet, cautious, trembling with things unsaid.

Sirius noticed, of course.

“Why are you walking like you’re being haunted by your own hormones?” he muttered to Harry in the hallway, raising a brow. “Did something happen or not?”

Harry flushed so deeply he might’ve been hexed.

But no answer came.

Because the truth was this: kissing her had felt like magic, real magic—the kind Hogwarts never taught. And now, he was afraid that if he said it aloud, it would vanish into smoke.

── .✦

A week later, she packed her bag.

The Ministry needed her in Bulgaria for a temporary assignment. Three months. Maybe four. She didn’t tell Harry until the morning she was leaving.

“I didn’t think you’d care,” she said quietly, her fingers knotting in the strap of her satchel.

Harry stared at her.

“I care too much,” he replied. “That’s the whole problem.”

She smiled sadly. “You’re not the problem, Harry. You never were.”

And before he could say something—anything—she was gone.

── .✦

He wrote to her.

Every week.

He never sent them.

They were scrawled on napkins, the corners of maps, the back of old Order memos. He’d fold them, unfold them. Sometimes burn them in the fireplace, watching the words curl into ash.

I miss the way you whisper when you read aloud. I miss your damn tea order. I miss your stupid bookmark collection and the way you smell like lavender and rain. I miss you like a wound. Like air.

She wrote too.

But never to him.

She wrote poetry. Scribbled it between research notes. Tiny verses that felt like bleeding.

He looks at me like I’m holy and runs from me like I’m fire.

── .✦

When she came back, it was snowing.

December wrapped London in white lace, and the streets were muffled with softness. She arrived at Grimmauld Place with wind-blushed cheeks and frozen fingers.

Harry didn’t know she was coming.

He opened the door and nearly dropped his wand.

She looked... different. Softer, maybe. A little older. But the second their eyes met, something in his chest cracked wide open.

“You’re back,” he said dumbly.

“Apparently,” she whispered.

And then—

He stepped aside, and she walked back into the house. Into his world. Into the place that always felt like it had been waiting for her.

── .✦

It wasn’t easy.

They were awkward. Stilted. She would laugh too loud around others, and he would grow quiet again, like a tide retreating. He was still jealous. She still didn’t explain the way she’d touched Cedric’s arm at the last Order meeting. The tension curled between them like smoke—every conversation a slow unravelling.

Then one night—it broke.

A Christmas party. Too much firewhisky. A hallway. A sideways glance.

He snapped.

“You still love him, don’t you?” he said, sharp as glass. “You talk to me like I matter, and then you run to him every time he walks into a room.”

She turned slowly. Her eyes were on fire.

“How dare you,” she hissed. “You don’t get to dictate who I speak to, Potter. You don’t even speak to me unless it’s convenient for your bruised ego!”

His breath hitched.

“You kissed me,” he said.

“You kissed me,” she snapped. “And then you disappeared.”

“I was scared!”

“So was I!”

A pause.

A breath.

Her eyes glistened. “You think you’re the only one who’s been broken? You think you’re the only one who’s terrified of being loved just to be left?”

Harry’s hands shook. “I’m not good at this.”

“Neither am I,” she whispered. “But I’m still here. I’m trying.”

And then—softly.

“I love you,” she breathed, voice raw. “I’ve loved you since the train. Since the moment you looked at me like I wasn’t invisible.”

His chest cracked. Splintered.

“I love you,” he said back. “I love you so much it hurts.”

And this time, when they kissed—it wasn’t fireworks.

It was home.

── .✦

“You’re an idiot.”

Harry turned, startled. Sirius was leaning in the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed, an infuriating grin on his face.

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You don’t have to. You’ve got that guilty ‘I kissed her again and now I don’t know if it meant everything or nothing’ look.”

Harry groaned and dropped his head to the table.

Sirius chuckled. “Relax, Prongslet. I’m proud of you. Took you what—two years and a raging argument to finally confess?”

“I hate you.”

“No, you hate how much you care. You hate that she makes you nervous. You hate that you want forever and don’t know if she does.”

Harry looked up. “Do you think she does?”

Sirius tilted his head, suddenly serious. “She looks at you like you hung the stars, Harry. That kind of love doesn’t fade.”

── .✦

Meanwhile, upstairs, she stood in front of the mirror, still trembling from that kiss.

She touched her lips, blinking at herself like she wasn’t sure she was real. There was something quiet blooming in her chest—hope, maybe. Or peace. Or the terrifying beginnings of both.

And then—

“Mistletoe,” Sirius announced, bursting into the room.

She screamed and spun, nearly throwing her hairbrush.

“What the hell—?!”

He grinned. “I need your help with some holiday decorations.”

“Sirius Black, if you ever want to live to see another Christmas—”

“Don’t worry,” he interrupted with a wink. “The mistletoe’s not for me.”

He disappeared before she could hex him.

── .✦

The next few weeks were... soft.

Not perfect. But gentle.

She and Harry spoke more. Laughed more. There were long walks in the snow. Quiet tea in the library. Glances that lingered like poetry.

And the touches—

A hand brushing hers when passing her a quill. A shoulder leaning too close while reading by the fireplace. A pinky that hooked hers under the dinner table.

They didn’t talk about labels. Or plans. Or the future.

They just were.

And it was enough—for now.

── .✦

New Year’s Eve.

The entire house was glowing—candles floating in the air, laughter echoing through the halls, the scent of cinnamon and firewhisky thick in the air.

At 11:59, Sirius shouted, “Make a wish!”

Harry didn’t need to.

He was already standing beside her.

And when the clock struck twelve—

He kissed her. Quietly. Reverently. Like a prayer.

Not because he had to.

But because he could.

Because she was real. And here. And his.

And when she smiled against his lips, he felt like maybe, just maybe, all the quiet things were the most beautiful.

── .✦

It was late January when they went back to Hogwarts.

Not as students, no—not anymore.

McGonagall had invited them to speak to the sixth-years about magical ethics and wartime resilience. (Sirius joked that his own speech would be titled “Don’t Trust the Government, or Your Mother.”)

But really, it was just an excuse. An excuse to go back. To remember. To stand in those halls again and feel, for a moment, seventeen.

They walked through the front doors together, their fingers brushing but not quite intertwining, boots crunching on the snow-slicked stone.

The castle was quiet, blanketed in soft winter. Icicles like crystal daggers hung from the towers. Somewhere, faintly, a choir of enchanted birds sang from the rafters.

She looked up at the ceiling of the Great Hall and whispered, “It still feels like home.”

Harry looked at her.

So do you.

But he didn’t say it.

── .✦

Later that night, she found a small box on her pillow in the guest quarters.

Wrapped in dark green ribbon.

No note.

She opened it carefully—and gasped.

A charm bracelet.

Delicate. Golden. With three tiny charms already affixed.

A lightning bolt.

A teacup.

A moon.

When she touched them, they shimmered with warmth—enchanted.

The lightning bolt whispered, I’ll protect you.

The teacup murmured, I remember.

And the moon breathed, Even when we’re apart, you’re never alone.

She covered her mouth with her hand, eyes burning.

He hadn’t said a word.

But it was the most beautiful confession she’d ever heard.

── .✦

They went into Hogsmeade the next day.

It was bright with winter sunlight, the sky a sheet of silver-blue. They laughed together in the snow, tried butterbeer with cinnamon, got caught in a tangle of enchanted scarves at Gladrags.

And then—

He saw it.

A man. Laughing with her near Honeydukes. Brushing snowflakes from her cheek.

Cedric.

Harry froze.

He knew they were friends. He knew.

But still.

His blood went hot.

Jealousy curled through him like smoke. He stood, fists clenched, eyes locked on the soft, lingering way she looked at Cedric as he handed her a sugar quill.

Later, she found Harry sitting alone by the Shrieking Shack.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t look at her.

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

A pause.

He exhaled sharply. “You smiled at him like I wasn’t even there.”

She blinked. “Harry—”

“You still like him, don’t you?”

Now she was angry.

“Are you serious? Cedric is my friend. He’s been there since before you even looked my way!”

“I’ve always looked at you,” he snapped. “You just never saw me.”

“Oh, I saw you. I saw you when you ignored me. When you let me walk away. When you kissed me and vanished.”

“I was scared!”

“I wasn’t,” she hissed, eyes glistening. “And I still showed up. I still loved you. Even when you gave me nothing.”

His breath caught.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She turned away. “Maybe sorry isn’t enough anymore.”

── .✦

She didn’t speak to him for three days.

Not in the corridors, not in the common areas, not even during the goodbye dinner in the Great Hall.

Harry felt like the walls were closing in.

Everywhere he went, he looked for her. Every empty chair she used to occupy, every ghost of her laugh echoing down the halls—it all clawed at him.

And yet, he said nothing.

Until Sirius—who’d had quite enough—shoved him up the Astronomy Tower steps one evening, locked the door behind him with a muttered, “For Merlin’s sake, fix it,” and vanished.

She was there.

Of course she was.

The stars tangled in her hair, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring out at the frost-glittered grounds below. She didn’t look up when he entered.

“I thought you’d given up,” she said softly.

He stepped closer. “Never. Not on you.”

She still wouldn’t look at him. “Then why did you keep leaving?”

Harry’s voice cracked. “Because I didn’t think I deserved you.”

Her breath caught.

“Because I was terrified that the second I touched something good, it would disappear. Like everything else.”

She turned then. Slowly. Her eyes—shining, tired, beautiful.

“And what changed?”

He stepped forward, close enough to brush her cheek with his breath.

“You didn’t disappear,” he whispered. “You stayed. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I was a coward.”

A beat passed.

Then another.

And then—quietly, trembling—he dropped to his knees before her.

“I love you.”

She stared.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out another charm for the bracelet.

A star.

“Every time I lost my way, I followed you,” he murmured. “You were the light.”

Her lips parted. Her heart pounded.

He took her hand. “Let me try. Let me show you that I can be soft. That I can be better. That I can love you the way you deserve—without fear, without running.”

The silence cracked wide open.

And she kissed him.

Not in a storm of fire—but in a hush of stars. Slow. Gentle. Forgiving.

Her fingers trembled against his jaw.

“I love you,” she breathed back. “I think I always did.”

── .✦

Years later, Harry would still remember that night.

The soft rustle of her laughter, the way her fingers laced through his. The first time he felt like the world had stopped spinning just so they could finally begin.

They’d return to Grimmauld Place, hand in hand.

She’d read to him by the fireplace.

He’d cook (badly) and she’d pretend to love it.

Sirius would roll his eyes and tell Remus that finally, the idiots had figured it out.

And Harry—

Harry would never forget what she said to him one night, curled against his chest beneath a sea of blankets.

“You don’t have to fight for me anymore,” she whispered.

And he’d kiss the top of her head and murmur,

“No. But I’ll love you like I still have to.”

Grimmauld Place, the night they moved in.

The house was quiet. For once. Sirius and Remus had left for an Order errand, something vague and dangerous-sounding that neither Harry nor she had pressed too hard about. The silence that followed their departure was warm—not heavy. Not haunted. Just theirs.

And then Harry walked out of the kitchen with two mugs of tea—shirtless.

Shirtless.

With the waistband of his grey sweatpants slung far too low on his hips, hair still damp from a rushed shower.

She was curled up on the sofa, blanket around her legs and a book balanced lazily in her lap, but when she looked up and saw him standing there, her Harry, in their house—something shifted.

She grinned. “You’re not even trying to be subtle, are you?”

Harry raised a brow and handed her the mug. “Subtle?”

She gestured lazily to his very bare chest. “You’re practically begging to be devoured.”

His smirk curled up devilishly. “You offering?”

She blinked. “Oh, I’m more than offering.”

And just like that—air crackled.

Harry set his mug down slowly. Purposefully. Then crawled onto the couch, straddling her legs with a wicked look in his eye. “You think I planned this? That I came out here thinking, ‘Let’s seduce her tonight’?”

She leaned back, smirking. “Did you?”

“No,” he murmured, mouth brushing her jaw, “but now that we’re here... I’m thinking about a lot of things.”

His lips were hot as they kissed down her neck, teeth grazing just enough to make her gasp. He chuckled against her skin.

“Sensitive, aren’t we?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

So he did.

── .✦

They kissed like the air between them had finally caught fire. Slow at first, teasing, his tongue coaxing hers into a rhythm that made her toes curl under the blanket. His hands found her thighs, pushing the fabric aside, letting his fingers trail up and up until they ghosted over the soft cotton between her legs.

“You’re already wet,” he whispered against her lips, voice low and wrecked. “Is this all for me?”

“All of it,” she breathed. “Always for you.”

He groaned, deep and desperate, and kissed her again before sliding down the couch and settling between her legs.

“Let me taste you.”

She nodded, eyes wide, heart racing.

He tugged her panties off slowly, dragging the damp fabric down her legs like it was a gift he’d been aching to unwrap. And then he licked a stripe up her slit—slow, reverent—before moaning like he’d been starving for her.

“Fuck, sweetheart… you taste so good.”

His tongue was sinful. Deliberate. He licked, sucked, and circled her clit with slow precision, using his fingers to tease her open. She arched, hips rocking toward his mouth, gasping his name.

“Harry—oh, God—”

“That’s it, baby,” he murmured, voice thick, lips wet. “Let me hear you. Let me make you come.”

He slipped a finger inside her. Then another. Curling them just right while his tongue stayed locked on her clit, flicking harder, faster.

She cried out—sharp, broken—and came with a full-body tremble, hand tangled in his hair.

But he wasn’t done.

He kissed his way up her body, letting her feel every inch of his weight as he pressed her into the couch. Her fingers found the waistband of his pants and shoved them down, gasping when his cock sprang free, hot and heavy against her thigh.

She flipped them suddenly, pushing him back onto the cushions.

“My turn.”

He stared up at her, dazed. “Are you—”

But she was already sinking down between his legs, tongue darting out to lick the tip of his cock. He groaned, head tipping back, one hand gripping the couch while the other threaded into her hair.

“Shit—fuck, baby…”

She took him deep, slow at first, letting her tongue swirl as she hollowed her cheeks, moaning around him. He bucked instinctively, hips twitching, then stilled.

“Merlin, you’re gonna ruin me.”

She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, mouth full of him, and smiled.

That did it.

He pulled her up, breathless. “I need to be inside you.”

“Then take me.”

And he did.

── .✦

He lined himself up and pushed in slowly—so slowly—watching her eyes flutter shut, her mouth fall open in a silent moan.

“Fucking hell,” he whispered, burying himself to the hilt. “You feel perfect. So fucking tight, sweetheart…”

She gasped, clinging to his shoulders. “Move, Harry, please—”

He pulled out almost completely, then thrust back in hard. She cried out.

And he talked her through every second.

“Just like that.” “Taking me so well.” “You were made for me, weren’t you?” “Look at me. I want to see your face when you fall apart.”

Their rhythm built—slow and deep, then faster, harder. Their bodies tangled, sweat-slicked and desperate, Harry’s name falling from her lips like a prayer.

He kissed her through her next orgasm—held her as she shook around him, tightening impossibly—and then buried his face in her neck as he followed, moaning into her skin.

They collapsed in a tangle of limbs and breath and love.

── .✦

Later, when the sweat cooled and the stars were peeking through the curtains, he pulled the blanket over them and kissed her temple.

“You okay?”

She smiled sleepily. “I’m perfect.”

He looked down at her, wonder in his eyes.

“We live here now,” he whispered.

“We love here now,” she corrected.

And Harry Potter—her best friend, her storm, her home—held her tighter and said,

“Only you. Always you.”

── .✦

The first morning in their home.

The sunlight spilled in warm and golden. It bathed their skin in honey, lit her collarbones, kissed the curve of her thigh where Harry’s hand had curled all night long.

He was awake before her.

Still naked, hair a disaster, the sheet barely covering his lower half, and his eyes were locked on her. Soft. Mesmerized.

She stirred, blinking against the morning light.

“Harry?” her voice was hoarse, sleep-heavy.

He smiled. “Morning, sweetheart.”

“Mmm… I’m sore.” She winced as she stretched, then gasped when she felt it—the dull ache of being loved properly.

Harry leaned over, kissing her bare shoulder. “Good sore?”

She glanced at him and raised a brow. “Smug much?”

He kissed her again. “You were perfect. You always are.”

Her fingers found his curls and tugged him in. “Then do something perfect again, Potter.”

He smirked—slow, sinful—and slid the sheet down, exposing her breasts to the cool morning air.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

── .✦

It wasn’t fast this time.

It was slow.

He worshipped her.

Kissed his way down her body like every inch of her was sacred. Bit at her hips. Licked at her inner thighs. Suckled her clit with aching tenderness that turned quickly filthy, his tongue moving in perfect circles while his fingers dipped into her soaked heat.

She gasped, cried out, her hand over her mouth to keep quiet—but he pulled it away.

“Don’t,” he whispered, voice dark. “Let them hear. Let the whole bloody house know who you belong to.”

She came with a strangled moan.

But he didn’t stop.

He flipped her over and took her from behind, her chest pressed to their pillows while his hands gripped her hips, fucking her slow and deep.

“You feel that?” he panted, voice rough. “That’s mine. All of this—yours and mine.”

She clawed at the sheets. “Yes, Harry, oh fuck—”

He reached around to rub her clit in fast circles, hips slamming into her harder now, all rhythm lost in raw need.

“Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Come for me again. Let me feel you fall apart.”

And she did. Shaking. Crying his name.

He followed a second later with a broken, “Fuck—yes—”, spilling inside her as he buried himself one last time.

── .✦

Later, when they finally dragged themselves to the bathroom, still shaky-legged and flushed, she tried to brush her teeth.

Tried.

Harry stood behind her in nothing but boxers, arms wrapped around her waist, his face in her neck.

“Stop,” she giggled through a mouth full of toothpaste. “Let me brush.”

“I like watching you,” he said, voice gravelly. “You’re too pretty to ignore.”

“You’re a menace.”

“I’m your menace.”

She spat, wiped her mouth, and turned around to face him—only to find herself lifted onto the sink, Harry between her legs again.

“Again?” she laughed, arms around his neck.

He kissed her, slow and deep. “Always.”

── .✦

Bonus :

Grimmauld Place, still warm from last night’s sins.

The kitchen smelled like toast. And sin. Mostly sin.

She was perched on the counter in one of Harry’s oversized T-shirts, her legs swinging lazily while Harry hovered at the stove, flipping eggs with the focus of a man who was absolutely trying to avoid a conversation.

Not with her.

No, she was grinning like the cat who’d eaten the canary. It was the other two occupants of the house they were both actively ignoring.

Because Sirius and Remus were seated at the kitchen table. And they were smirking.

“Well,” Sirius said, dramatically stirring his tea, “someone had a very active morning.”

Harry’s shoulders tensed. “Do we need to do this?”

Remus tried to keep a straight face. Failed. “You moaned her name like it was your Patronus.”

“Loudly,” Sirius added. “Repeatedly.”

“Honestly, I thought it was a murder.”

“A very sexy murder.”

Harry turned around slowly, face beet red, spatula still in hand. “You two have no boundaries.”

Remus lifted his mug. “We raised you. There’s nothing left to protect.”

Sirius leaned forward, chin in hand. “Though I have to say, I’m deeply offended you didn’t use a Silencing Charm. I live here, Harry. I live here.”

Harry turned to her, horrified. “Why didn’t we use a—”

She just beamed. “Because I like making you moan.”

Sirius choked on his tea. Remus actually blushed.

Harry groaned and buried his face in the kitchen towel. “I’m moving out.”

“You just moved in,” Sirius grinned. “And now you’ve christened the whole damn house.”

Remus chuckled. “Honestly, we’re just happy for you both.”

Sirius grinned, eyes sparkling. “Disgusted. Traumatized. But happy.”

Harry handed her a plate, still scarlet. “You’re evil.”

She kissed his cheek sweetly. “You moaned my name first, Potter.”

Sirius and Remus both groaned.

Harry hid his face in her neck.

The kitchen was filled with laughter, toast, and a love that was far too loud to be ashamed of.

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 1x11, "detox"

house's first dance with withdrawal, the ducklings' shaken faith, and wilson's devotion.

i will be hilson posting in here but! i swear it's actually rooted in some serious thought & consideration lol.

at the top of the recap, i'll include a question - house was dressed pretty well this episode, and has been thus far, with collared shirts, coats, etc. just no lab coat. do you think this changes over time just due to normal tv wardrobe changes, or can we take this as another example of his canonical decline? i can go either way, myself.

anyways! doesn't he look like that one portrait of mary in the above picture? this episode felt like microdosing 5x23-6x02 (iykyk). after rearing its head pretty strongly in 1x09, house's vicodin takes center stage, and he makes a pretty interesting claim to cuddy in the conversation that precedes their bet: "pills don't make me high. they make me neutral." the question of what neutrality means for house is SO interesting.

repression/suppression is a theme we commonly associate with wilson as the show evolves, but 1x11 is super up front that house is Holding Things Back via his addiction (he won't use that lingo at first), which is yet another tease at what his collective backstory looks like. we also get the first mention of his infarction in this episode, along with a vague timeline; wilson details that it happened "a few years ago."

i always thought the premise of this episode is kinda...cruel, which had me gagged when they revealed that the scheme to get house off vicodin for a week was wilson's idea. but i think the cruelty of the idea helps characterize house as being truly and impossibly difficult. "cuddy" (wilson) would not have concocted such an insane scheme, full of temptation of the highest order, if house would be receptive to a lesser offer.

i was really struck with mapping the patient's experience onto house's this episode, and i think the plotlines coalesce nicer than usual in this episode, with a little quirk at the end. the patient, keith, presents with inexplicable internal bleeding, and a true avalanche of failed diagnoses follows. the team eventually lands on lupus - the first time lupus is condemned as a non-answer for house - which sends house over the edge because it's too simple.

lupus represents the admittance that he's an addict with a problem. it would explain so much about house, yet it would also tie him up as A Man With Problems in a neat little bow, too simple for house to make peace with. it's his lived experience; he knows the complexities of what brought vicodin into his life more than anybody (though someone in particular comes pretty damn close). lupus, or the title of addict, cannot fit. because then it's simple. because then house can't hide from the simple, serendipitous, brilliant diagnosis.

this parallel comes to the fore in a heated debate with the ducklings. house admits to cameron that keith's symptoms make lupus "more likely, BUT," that "but" doing a lot of heavy lifting. it could be lupus, he could be an addict, BUT that can't be all there is to it. so he majorly jeopardizes the patient by insisting they investigate hepatitis E.

this debate is so intense that it causes a definitive split from house, which really takes off with cameron after foreman pokes fun at her unflinching loyalty/kindness toward house (i think foreman holds a very reductive view of her and house, but i digress). she can either evade the truth about the treatment toward keith's father (which chase advocates for), or tell the father the truth (foreman's choice). when the elevator eclipses her, a nice visual representation of her ingesting both her peers' opinions, we're not clear what her solution will be.

that she first lies to the father and then violates house's wishes, admitting that she believes in the lupus diagnosis, is probably the greatest hit to the ducklings' faith in house yet.

i know i'm bouncing around a lot here, but this is a congested episode (in a good way!) and i want to make sure i don't forget anything. intermixed with house's rapid decline (in time with keith's almost exactly) are wilson's attempts at helping/solving house. first he hires a masseuse for house, and while my knee jerk reaction is to declare how misogynistic the resulting scenes are, i really need to understand why wilson looks so excited by All This:

i know this isn't really the time/place (and it's too early in the show), but like. sure. hire a bossy masseuse and make jokes about house not getting any lately + imply that you're not getting any, either, despite being married. okay whatever. to say nothing of the house/cuddy masseuse debacle of season 7 lol.

what is generically important about the masseuse is that wilson already feels guilty. he knows he's putting his friend through a hard time - in his mind, it's for house's own good - but tries to alleviate some of it. cuddy, meanwhile, does no such thing lol because she 1) probably understands the value, both for house himself and the hospital, in house getting clean and 2) doesn't have enabler disease like wilson. more on that later.

the next glimpse of wilson's guilt comes after house breaks his own hand. this one is pretty obvious - even though wilson is intrigued to learn that house's brain prioritizes this immediate physical pain over his chronic pain, wilson is still distantly responsible for this. and of course house md takes care, once again, to show us how gentle is by nature:

but a little deeper than this is a perverse interest/satisfaction. i don't think wilson directly experiences this, per se, so much as the audience is tipped off to another dimension of his knack for Getting To House. his guilt is competing not just with a sense that he's doing house a favor by drawing his addiction into the light, but also a small excitement for being needed (this also comes together with confirmed enabler wilson later). house's relief is - understandably - visualized like a moment of ecstasy, and wilson is directly or indirectly responsible for each.

relief from the masseuse, relief from breaking his hand, and relief from winning the bet that wilson constructed.

the power dynamics of 1x11 are subversive here. house has been the one in charge, even winning over cuddy on most occasions, but wilson, the orchestrator behind the scenes, reduces house to this state, and it's not without some satisfaction. hilson psychoanalysts hopefully get what i'm putting down here lol. this reversal is UNDONE, of course, by the total failure of the bet because house only gets halfway to help, halfway to the intended solution.

in house's mind, by the end of the 7 days of no vicodin, sure. he's an addict. but just like how lupus was too simple for keith, that title alone is too simple for house. he's addicted without the problem. how can neutrality be a problem? how can his functionality, which he sees as unimpeded, be a net-negative just because it's narcotic-inspired?

another departure before circling back to that integral house and wilson conversation about addiction without a problem. another way 1x11 highlights wilson's guilt and the cruelty of the entire bet is when cuddy accuses house of "playing chicken" with the patient's life. this is right after it's revealed that cameron told the truth about the lupus diagnosis, so the father is up in arms. however, when cameron explains that she managed to convince the father to trust house anyways, house counters with: "that's when he caved."

they always cave, especially when they go to the Wilson School of Enabling. wilson and cuddy have been toying with house, and it crosses a line eventually.

thus, wilson surrenders to house after yet another brief yet revelatory conversation: "you are not just a regular guy who's getting older. you've changed. you're miserable, and you're afraid to face yourself."

"of course i've changed!"

"and everything is the leg? nothing's the pills? they haven't done a thing to you?"

"they let me do my job, and they take away the pain."

obviously, this conversation is a failure, as is the bet. house proves his point - he is in less pain on vicodin, and they do let him do his job. it's wilson who's concerned with his quality of life. it's wilson who knew him best pre-infarction. it's wilson who, selfishly, wants him back to how he used to be.

if we weren't dealing with THE james wilson, i think we could write off the episode's conclusion as a sad end to a selfish endeavor on his part. yet he makes a fleeting remark to cuddy at the very end that basically dooms himself. when she asks him, "what are you gonna do?" wilson says, "nothing. i've done enough damage."

oh boy!

as we know, wilson will go on to try to help house curb his addiction in the future but, more than anything, he will indulge the hell out of it. season 3's central conflict rides on that fact. the guilt wins out in the end, not house's brilliance, nor inner strength, nor the ducklings' shaken faith, nor the very premise of the episode/the bet itself. wilson caves just like the patient's father did because this - house's pain, his addiction, is infarction - is a fact of life. and, hey, if house's addiction is problem that's unable to be fully solved, than wilson gets the endless well of neediness he's been masochistically searching for.

what an absolutely insane foundational episode for these 2.

lastly, i have 2 separate notes that i want to make:

after keith's father punches house in the face, nobody helps house up. cuddy attempts to but doesn't really follow through, and what's more important is that the ducklings just leave him collapsed on the floor. even though house ends up being write about the final diagnosis (which is the craziest one yet), something has definitely shifted.

foreman being the one to hand house vicodin so he can get through the case really affected me this go-around, but i can't put my finger on exactly why. please share your thoughts, if you have any!

[houseofaegon]

ENCHANTRESS ╱ BOB REYNOLDS SERIES

✷ ─── +18 MINORS DNI 𓏲  ◟ ♡ ˖ ࣪ emotional trauma, mentions of death/grief, witchcraft, blood magic, violence, necromancy, ritual magic, body horror (mechanical corpses), mental manipulation, emotional intensity and tension, supernatural possession, canon-typical violence, found family themes, bucky being a big brother, psychological instability (enchantress/void dynamic), unspoken desire, sexual tension (non-explicit), battle trauma.

✷ ─── AUTHOR'S NOTE. i cooked served and ate yall!!! damn okay chapter 2 came fassssstttttt im so excited and so inspired to write arabella and bob omg ughhh i love my babies. my soul probably left my body while writing this chapter because wtf just happened!! i'm sick. i want void so bad and i'm so obsessed with the whole enchantress x void dynamic filled with sexual tension and obsession and need. and yet they still haven't even touched each other. i'm crying. i'm pacing. i'm shaking with anticipation and anxiety. all of the above. we're already deep into the spiritual feral monsterfucker territory and i fear it's only gonna get worse from here. void is obsessed with enchantress, and i am obsessed with them both. i'm unwell. grab your tea, your candles, your crystals because it's about to get darker and hungrier. more chapters coming soon!! i love you all smm and thank you for letting me being unhinged and insane and always cheering for what i write. i appreciate you all so so so so damn much. thank you for reading and giving this unhinged little series a chance. love always, bri.

✷ ─── ENCHANTRESS SERIES. chapter one: beauty in tragedy. chapter two: the devil you know. chapter three: the witch. chapter four: moonlit waters. chapter five: divine hunger. chapter six: to burn & be burned. chapter seven: of teeth & tenderness. chapter eight: bound by blood. chapter nine: ashes between us. chapter ten: salt in the wound. chapter eleven: blood moon. chapter twelve: whispers in the dark. chapter thirteen: the witch and the void.

Life in the Watchtower was easy.

Or maybe Arabella just made it look that way.

Two weeks in, and she was already barefoot in the hallways, leaving salt trails behind her like breadcrumbs. Crystals littered every windowsill and shelf. Vinyls spun on her old record player each morning, Fleetwood Mac echoing through the tower as she cooked breakfast barefoot—black silk robe, bedhead curls, and a wooden spoon in her hand like a wand.

The lights stopped flickering when she passed. The air smelled like herbs and something sweeter. The walls stopped groaning. Dead plants came back to life.

It wasn't magic.

Or maybe it was.

She adapted faster than Bucky ever thought she would.

He’d built her a room the day she arrived—no questions, no ceremony. Just like Tony had done years ago. It wasn’t as high-tech, but it was safe. Warded. Quiet. Full of windows and her favorite things. And it felt just the same.

Felt like home.

Arabella had looked at it once, eyes shining just slightly, and said, “You remembered the salt in the corners.”

And Bucky had replied, “Of course I did.”

Because he did remember. All of it.

The way she couldn’t sleep without her crystals arranged just so. The smell of her cleansing incense, like pine and burnt clove. The soft hum of her chants in the dark, the way she muttered in Spanish when she was half-dreaming.

She slipped back into his world like she’d never left.

Yelena adored her.

Of course she did.

From the first day, they were chaos and fire, two halves of the same wicked coin. They sparred in the gym, Arabella casting misdirection charms mid-fight while Yelena laughed and tackled her anyway.

They had a running tally written in chalk on the kitchen wall. Yelena: 6. Arabella: 7. The last win was a draw, after they both ended up hexed, bruised, and breathless with laughter.

At night, they painted each other’s nails in wine-dark colors and gossiped in three languages. They danced barefoot on the roof under the moon, music blasting, hips swaying, Arabella’s dark hair catching the light like smoke.

“You’re my favorite war crime,” Yelena whispered one night, drunk on cheap vodka and found sisterhood.

“Right back at you,” Arabella replied, clinking their glasses together.

Ava was different. Quieter. Sharper. But not distant. She didn’t speak much—but with Arabella, she sat.

They trained together in silence, matched in precision and grace. Arabella stitched protective sigils into Ava’s gloves and never mentioned it. Ava slipped her protein bars and flowers in return and said, once, quietly, “Your presence is... grounding.”

Arabella had smiled, slow and soft. “So is yours.”

Sometimes they sat on the balcony together, watching the sun rise. Neither said a word. Neither needed to.

Alexei was absurd and endearing.

He doted on her like a second daughter—called her "my little shadow witch" and brought her strange, wonderful gifts from his past: pocket knives with history, books with blood-stained corners, a hand-painted flask from the Soviet years.

He taught her how to shoot with antique pistols even though she didn’t need to.

She taught him how to ward his whiskey with a hangover charm.

Once, she asked him why he always brought her things.

“Because daughters should have gifts,” he said with a shrug. “And you? You are special. You are mine now.”

She’d laughed and hugged him, just long enough to make him sniffle and pretend it was allergies.

Walker surprised her.

Not because he was charming. Because, honestly, he wasn't. He was irritating, loud, too rigid, always a little bit out of sync with her energy.

But there was something… earnest beneath it. Something human.

They argued constantly.

She called him Walmart Captain America or Walker-Red-Flag. He called her Witchypoo in retaliation. But there was a rhythm to it. A low hum of mutual tolerance that slowly grew into something more.

She read his tarot one night after he muttered something about not believing in “that bullshit.”

The next morning, he left an extra cup of coffee on the table for her. Black. Just how she liked it.

He still groaned when she walked into a room.

But he always walked in after her.

And then, there was Bob.

Bob Reynolds, who barely spoke above a whisper.

Bob, who watched her like he was trying not to fall apart. Like he already had.

He was quiet. Almost scared of her at first—not in a way that made her bristle, but in a way that made her ache. He looked at her like he knew she could destroy him.

And he kept showing up anyway.

Bob started coming to her room after midnight.

He started sitting with her at night. Quietly. Without words. She’d be pulling her tarot cards under the moonlight, charging her crystals on the sill, Stevie Nicks humming in the background—and Bob would just be there, reading a book in her chair.

Sometimes he fell asleep on her couch. Curled up like he was afraid he’d take up too much space. She never told him to leave. He never asked to stay. They didn’t talk about it.

But he started bringing his own mug for her tea. Started asking her what the cards meant when she shuffled them slow, eyes half-lidded with sleep.

He never touched her. Never tried. But he looked at her like she was something holy. Like she was the only thing in the world that made sense.

And the Enchantress?

She whispered. Not in hunger. Not in warning. But in awe.

“He sees us.”

Arabella didn’t answer. She never did. But she felt it—deep in her bones, under her skin, in the quiet hum of her breath when Bob looked up from his book and met her eyes.

There was no fear there. Not anymore. Just… recognition.

Like they were made of the same broken thing.

And when he fell asleep on her couch, breath even and hands unclenched, she watched the rise and fall of his chest and whispered ancient words beneath her breath—not to keep him out.

But to keep him safe.

One night he broke the quiet.

“What does it mean,” he asked softly, “when—when the uh, cards keeps showing up upside down?”

Arabella didn’t look up. She was lighting a candle. Her fingers moved with purpose.

“It depends on the card,” she murmured. “But usually? It means something’s resisting.”

Bob swallowed.

She glanced up then, sharp and knowing. “Are you resisting, Bob?”

He didn’t answer. But inside his mind, The Void stirred.

“She’s not afraid of you,” it whispered. “She’d let us in.”

Bob’s breath hitched.

Arabella tilted her head. “You okay?”

He nodded once. Too fast.

She smirked. “Liar.”

The Void purred.

“She’s ours,” it whispered slowly. “Let me speak to her. Just once. Let me see how much her darkness glows.”

Bob gritted his teeth. Looked away.

Arabella didn’t press. She just reached out and gently placed a crystal in his palm—warm from her skin.

“For when it gets too loud,” she said.

Bob didn’t let go. Not for a long time.

Three months had already passed, and life seemed easier for Arabella. The kind of ease that came slowly, after years of unrest. The kind that settled in her bones like warm tea and candlelight.

She still walked barefoot through the halls. Still lined doorways with salt. Still played Fleetwood Mac on her record player every morning like it was a ritual—because it was. Still danced under the moonlight like no one was watching, even though Bob always did. She laughed more. Slept better. She was healing, quietly, completely.

But The Enchantress never slept. She whispered, always. A constant thrum beneath Arabella’s skin. Like wind at the back of her neck.

And every time Bob walked into a room—every time his eyes found hers across the kitchen, across the training mat, across the quiet of her candlelit room...

The Enchantress screamed. Not in pain. Not in rage. In want.

“He carries so much darkness and pain in him,” she hissed. “Let me taste it.”

Arabella had kept her buried. Chained beneath crystal grids and ancestral spellwork. But Bob made everything crack open. Bob felt like her. And the Enchantress was starting to see freedom.

Not to destroy him.

To touch him.

To speak to the Void and be spoken to in return.

It was warm in the kitchen. Sunlight spilled across the floor, soft and golden, washing over the table where the team had gathered.

Arabella was humming under her breath, barefoot and wrapped in a black silk robe that fell off one shoulder. Her hair was a halo of curls, her eyes half-lidded with sleep. A record played in the background—Stevie, again.

The table was loud.

Yelena was trying to argue that vodka counted as a breakfast food while simultaneously sneaking bacon off Alexei’s plate.

Walker rolled his eyes. “You people are unhinged.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Ava muttered, sipping her coffee.

Alexei grinned over his mug. “In Russia, we ate meat for breakfast. And sometimes men.”

“Okay, Hannibal,” Yelena shot back.

“Enough,” Bucky said, laughing into his cup. “Let the witch serve the food in peace.”

Arabella smirked as she walked over with a plate of pancakes—perfect, golden, stacked high, topped with warm berries.

Then—she stopped.

Her body went still mid-step.

The plate slipped from her hands. Fell. Shattered against the tile at her feet like a crack in the world. Syrup and fruit and ceramic scattered across the floor.

Silence slammed into the room.

Bucky shot to his feet. “Bells?”

She didn’t answer.

Her eyes glazed—then turned black for the briefest second. A flicker. A flash.

“Arabella.” His voice sharpened. “What’s wrong? Bells, talk to me.”

She blinked slowly. Her voice was barely a breath. “There’s something happening.”

Yelena was on her feet. “Bella—?”

But Arabella was already moving.

She crossed the room like she was sleepwalking—barefoot across shards of porcelain, bleeding but unaware. Her eyes locked on the console in the corner.

The tower’s tech wasn’t hers—but her fingers moved like it was. Smooth. Instinctive. Like the codes were written in her blood.

“Arabella,” Ava said, voice tight. “What are you doing?”

"You're bleeding," Bucky whispered.

She didn’t answer.

Everyone followed—hovering behind her as screens lit up, one by one. Her eyes flickered, scanning feeds, fingers dancing like she wasn’t even thinking.

And then—

The screen froze.

And her heart dropped.

Security footage from an old, sealed-off subway station. Flickering light. Smoke curling from the stone. Runes—her runes—scratched into metal. Twisting. Burning.

And in the far corner—machines.

Half-dead. Half-alive.

Stirring.

Moving.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

Yelena grabbed her arm. “What is that?”

Arabella stepped back, hand pressed to her lips.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream.

But her voice was hollow when she said, “They’re using dark magic. Twisting it.”

Her pulse thudded through the room like a war drum.

Bucky looked at her. “What do we do?”

Arabella turned toward him slowly. Her eyes still rimmed in black. “We stop it,” she said. Her voice was calm.

But the floor beneath her feet had already begun to hum.

The energy was different now. The warmth of the kitchen was gone—snuffed out by what Arabella had seen. What she felt. The shattered plate still lay back on the floor, forgotten. Everyone filed into the briefing room in silence. Even Yelena, usually muttering curses under her breath, said nothing.

Arabella stood at the head of the room now. Not Bucky. Not this time.

The screen behind her glowed—static-edged footage looping in jagged, grainy frames. The subway station. The runes. The machines.

Her runes.

Bucky leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed. His gaze never left her.

“Tell us,” he said.

Arabella’s jaw was tight. Her hands didn’t shake—but her voice was colder than it had been in months.

“There’s an old network of sealed tunnels under Brooklyn,” she began. “The MTA shut them down decades ago. No access. No cameras. But something got in.”

She clicked the screen forward.

Close-up footage. A sigil burned into metal. Corrupted lines of spellwork. Smoke curling in unnatural shapes.

“This isn’t just tech. It’s necrotic magic—dark, ancient, and bound to blood.” She looked up. “My blood.”

The room went still.

“They’re using resurrection rites. The same one's I learned from my grandmother. Something’s trying to merge death magic with..."

She hesitated. Her hands hovered above the console, fingers trembling.

“Merge it with what, Bells?” Bucky asked gently, stepping forward.

She swallowed. And then she clicked one more frame forward. The screen froze.

A metallic body, half-rebuilt, cables woven through bone, its chestplate still glowing with a dull, rust-colored arc reactor.

Stamped in silver, unmistakable:

Stark Industries.

Arabella’s mouth parted. Her eyes filled instantly. A sharp breath caught in her throat, and her knees wobbled slightly. She reached for the table like it might hold her up. She stared.

At the logo.

At what it meant.

At what it was

And what it wasn’t.

“They’re using his work,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Tony’s work. They’re—he’s gone, and they’re using what he built to… to raise the dead.”

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“I spent years learning how to put spirits to rest. How to honor them. And they’re using his code to trap them. Trap the souls of the dead. To force them back into metal and ash like—like it’s a tool. Like it’s not sacred.”

She shook her head.

“It’s not just my magic,” she breathed. “It’s his name. His legacy. They’re twisting everything.”

Bucky moved without hesitation. He reached out, gently rested a hand on her back. Didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

Arabella didn’t cry—not fully. But her shoulders trembled.

And when she finally looked up, her eyes were dark. Not black, not yet.

But close.

“I’m going down there,” she said, voice low. “And I’m burning it to the fucking ground.”

The silence held like breath.

Arabella stood in front of the screen, her shoulders squared, her hands still shaking. Not from fear. But from rage. The kind of fury that lived in bone and had the power to crush them. The kind passed down through the blood of women who had always been told their power was too much.

“We’re going with you,” Bucky said, his voice stern.

Arabella blinked. Her mouth parted. “No,” she said, voice hoarse. “You don’t understand. This magic—it’s not meant for you. It’s old. It’s dark. It’s not made for you.”

She turned to face them all. Her eyes shimmered, rimmed with black. “It wants to hurt. It feeds on what you love. You step into that circle unprotected and it will devour you. I’m the only one who can walk into that circle and survive it. Alone.”

Bucky’s expression didn’t change. His voice didn’t waver.

“You’re not going in alone, Bella.”

She exhaled, sharp. “Bucky—”

“No.” He stepped forward. Firm. Grounded. “We’re a team. A family. And family sticks together.”

Arabella opened her mouth—but Yelena cut in before she could speak.

“You think I’m going to let you crawl into hell without me? Bitch, please.” She crossed her arms. “If you die and I’m not there, I’m going to hex your ghost. Badly.”

Alexei nodded solemnly. “I will bring vodka and blessed grenades.”

Ava’s voice was soft. “I'm in."

Walker looked like he wanted to protest. Arabella raised an eyebrow.

He immediately nodded. “I’ll… drive.”

Arabella almost laughed. Almost.

Then—he stepped forward.

Bob.

He didn’t speak at first. Just moved, slow and deliberate, until he stood beside her—close, but not too close. Not touching. Never touching.

Arabella didn’t turn her head, but she felt him like a second heartbeat. The weight of him. The pull. The thrum of his power bleeding into the air between them, brushing against her skin like smoke.

Too close.

Inside her chest, The Enchantress stirred.

“He’s here,” she purred, velvet-smooth and low. “Let me taste his darkness.”

Arabella’s breath caught. She held herself still, fingers curling tight at her sides. If she reached out, even a fraction of an inch, she knew she wouldn’t stop. She knew the Enchantress would rise with want, not war.

And in the stillness between them, The Void whispered inside Bob’s mind.

“She burns. I want to feel how hot.”

He didn’t move either. Not even a breath out of rhythm. But his jaw clenched, his eyes locked on something distant, her, and his hands flexed once like they ached to lift and couldn’t.

"I'm going with you. You can't do this alone," Bob whispered.

Arabella didn’t answer at first. Couldn’t. The words hung between them like smoke, like a spell half-cast and waiting.

She exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the glowing screen. Her jaw clenched. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “You don’t understand what this kind of magic does, Bob.”

Inside her chest, the Enchantress curled tighter, more awake than ever.

“Let him come,” she whispered. “Let him see what I can do with a god in my hands.”

Arabella blinked hard. Shut her eyes. Shut the voice out.

“I’m still coming with you,” he whispered. The Void stretched just beneath the surface of him like it recognized her.

And Arabella, after a beat, nodded. Just once. She didn’t say thank you. She didn’t say don’t.

She said, “Then stay behind me.”

And prayed to everything she knew that he would.

The tunnels beneath Brooklyn were colder than they sould have been, not the kind of cold you could feel on your skin, but the kind that settled into bone and memory. Haunted. Like a nightmare. The air was thick with rot and cooper, and the deeper they went, the more the city above felt like a distant dream.

Ava and Yelena took point, flashlights flickering across crumbling tile and twisted metal, weapons steady. Bucky and Walker kept a slow, even pace behind them, eyes always moving, always watching. Arabella hung back with Bob, her steps silent. She didn't speak. She couldn't. The walls were already whispering.

They’d passed the third tunnel junction when Bucky turned his head just slightly, enough to glance back, voice low. “You sure you wanna do this?”

Arabella didn’t even blink. “I’m the only one who can.” Her voice carried, calm and sharp, no room for argument.

The further they went, the worse it got. The walls began to hum—not with electricity, but with something else. Something dark. Something old. The kind of hum that lived in ritual circles and the mouths of the dead. Arabella’s fingers twitched at her sides, power prickling just beneath her skin. Her breath shortened as she walked, every step dragging her deeper into the echo of magic that felt too much like her own.

Bob shifted beside her, breath stuttering, his hands flexing open and closed. He didn’t say anything, but she felt it—his power swelling beneath the surface like a wave waiting to crash. And then came the sound. Not footsteps. Not breathing. Scraping.

They didn’t have time to react before the tunnel erupted around them—metal shrieking, bone cracking, a dozen bodies dropping from the shadows like meat puppets sewn together with cable and magic. They moved wrong—jagged, broken—eyes glowing red, limbs clicking as if trying to remember how to be human.

Yelena cursed under her breath, blade already drawn, her voice snapping out like a gunshot.

“Well, shit.” Ava phased just in time to avoid a clawed hand, her body flickering with static as she reappeared behind it, driving a blade into the base of its neck.

"What the fuck—" Walker muttered, firing his gun. It did absolutely nothing.

Bucky barked out orders, trying to pull them back, keep the team together, but they were splitting—forced apart by sheer chaos.

Arabella didn’t move.

She walked into the center of it all, slow, deliberate, untouched by the panic around her. One of the creatures lunged and froze midair, stopped by a sudden, invisible force—its body cracking in place like glass. Her voice was quiet. Almost kind.

“Enchantress.”

It wasn’t just a name. It was a summoning.

Her eyes flicked black, her pupils blown wide, and the transformation rolled through her like a flood. Her body straightened, her hair lifted in a wind that didn’t exist, her lips curled into something that was not a smile but close enough to frighten. Glowing sigils ignited across her skin—runes carved into flesh, ancient and burning.

The Enchantress rose with her breath, her voice shifting into something layered, rich, older than anything alive in that tunnel. She didn’t blink as the corpses charged again.

She lifted her hand and whispered in Spanish, a language soaked in blood and moonlight. “Your magic doesn't belong here. Give it back to the earth were it came from."

The wave of enemies collapsed like dominos, falling with a sound like wet bone and shattering metal. One screamed, high and broken, before bursting into smoke. Another reached for her and disintegrated mid-motion. Enchantress didn’t flinch. She smiled.

Bob staggered back a step, eyes locked on her, chest heaving like he couldn’t quite breathe. Inside his head, the Void surged awake, not angry, not violent—fascinated.

“She’s like us,” it whispered. “No—she’s better. She was born like this.”

His hands sparked with light, gold bleeding to black, his vision dimming at the edges. The storm within him pulsed, and he reached toward it, toward her, even if his hands never left his sides.

Enchantress turned her head, eyes glowing black. She looked at him and smiled.

Enchantress didn’t speak, but Bob heard her anyway.

“I see you. I see what's inside you. The darkness. Let me taste it.”

And inside him, the Void growled in response.

“Take it. I want to see what you’ll become when you touch me.”

The words weren’t said aloud, but Enchantress heard them. Felt them.

Her smile deepened, slow and sharp, and she tilted her head like a cat watching prey twitch.

“Oh,” she purred, voice a syrupy echo only he could hear, “you’re going to beg for it.”

And Bob, shaking from the inside out, didn’t dare say a word.

Bucky moved, boots crunching over scorched stone and broken machines as the smoke settled. His voice was low, careful. “Bells, come back to me.”

But she didn’t move.

She was still standing in the center of the carnage, still Enchantress, still glowing faintly with that ancient, seductive light. Her eyes, black as ink, weren’t on him—they were still locked on Bob. Fixed. Fascinated. Her mouth was curved, wicked and slow. The runes on her skin pulsed like a heartbeat.

“She doesn’t want to come back,” the Enchantress whispered, gaze still locked on the man who hadn’t moved, who looked like he was barely breathing.

Bucky stepped closer, steadier now. He’d done this before—held her through magic comas, pulled her back from the edge more times than he could count—but this was different.

She’d never resisted.

Not like this.

“Arabella,” he said again, firmer this time, closer now. “It’s me. It’s Bucky. Come on, baby witch. Don’t make me beg.”

The Enchantress tilted her head, almost curious, but didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. She was too deep in it, too close to something she hadn’t felt before, and Bucky’s chest twisted.

He took another step. “Bells. Come back.”

And then—Bob moved.

One slow, shaking step forward. Not threatening. Not demanding. His voice was rough and low. “Bring her back.”

Her eyes flickered. Just slightly. The light dimmed.

The Enchantress blinked, and for a moment, there was something soft behind her expression—like a memory. Like regret. She looked at Bob as if she were memorizing him, and then she smiled. It was all teeth and hunger and something ancient and beautiful. Her lips parted, breath curling in the air between them.

“Next time, I’ll let you touch me.”

And then she collapsed.

Bucky was already moving, catching her before she hit the floor. Her body went slack in his arms, her head falling against his chest, her breath shallow but steady. He crouched with her, cradling her like he’d done too many times before.

“Bells,” he whispered, brushing her hair back from her face, “hey, come on—look at me.”

Her eyelids fluttered. A soft groan slipped from her throat. “What… happened?”

“You stopped it,” Bucky murmured, voice rough around the edges. “You brought it down. You did good.” Her lashes trembled, her eyes opening slowly, brown again. Human again. But tired. So tired.

Behind them, Bob stood frozen, hands still trembling at his sides, gold and black flickering faintly beneath his skin. His throat was dry. His pulse too loud. He couldn’t move—not yet. Not when the echo of her magic still clung to the air like perfume and fire, not when her voice—her other voice—still rang like a bell behind his eyes. He could still feel her. Like a storm on the edge of touch.

And then, deep in his mind, the Void stirred.

It didn’t roar. It didn’t rage.

It purred.

“You brought her back. Why?”

A pause. A shiver up his spine.

“I would’ve let her stay. She wanted to stay. She wanted us.”

Bob swallowed, jaw tight.

The Void curled around him like a shadow, low and amused.

“You’re lying to yourself, Robert. You want her too. The way she sees you. The way she smiled.”

Bob clenched his fists. Didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

But he didn’t deny it either.

And the Void laughed—soft and satisfied.

“Next time, you won’t send her away.”

𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐅𝐀𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐍 © 2025. DO NOT STEAL, REPOST, OR COPY THIS STORY TO TUMBLR, WATTPAD, AO3, OR ANY OTHER PLATFORM. Moodboards and graphics made by @houseofaegon DO NOT repost or reuse without credit. chain divider by @cursed-carmine

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[pluckyredhead]

didn’t that ship already sail before Jason died tho? With the diplomats son and really the entire Starlin 🏃‍♂️

So I'm going to answer this, but before I do, I want to note that this is kind of derailing from my original point. I don't meant this to be a gotcha or anything because I know I do it myself all the time, but my argument was that "Jason was a bad kid" stories are boring and narratively stagnant, and in that vein it...kind of doesn't matter what canon does or doesn't say? I think we take refuge in "canon says this" or "canon says that" because we want to be objectively right, whereas "bad kid Jason stories are boring" is an aesthetic assessment and therefore subjective. Maybe someone out there loves "bad kid becomes bad adult" and finds it riveting.

Ultimately, despite being a huge nerd who loves continuity, I think a good story is more important than canon accuracy. Of course, ideally you have both, but also...takes on characters shift over the decades, and I have been trying to catch myself in those moments when I push my little metaphorical glasses up my nose and say "Well actually if you look at this comic from 1987, you'll find that..." So this is me, catching myself!

That said, I am absolutely going to talk about comics from 1987 now. Anyway the short answer is: yes and no.

(God that was an annoying response. I'm so sorry I'm like this. In my defense, I've been thinking about this ask all day.)

Anyway. The thing is, the way DC writes Robin!Jason now, they really only take a very small number of stories into account. Some writers are just looking at A Death in the Family; others might also acknowledge Jason's post-Crisis origin and/or the Felipe Garzonas story. A lot of them seem to be relying solely on distant memories of those stories, or osmosis; they certainly aren't doing a close reading of the text.

There's also a game of telephone that happens: from the instant Tim first showed up, DC started writing Jason as Fundamentally Unfit To Be Robin. See, if Bruce gets a child killed and then immediately enlists another one, he's irredeemable. But if Jason's death was due to some fundamental flaw in his own nature, a flaw that Tim does not possess, then Jason's death isn't Bruce's fault, and we can keep having Robin. It's really fascinating reading early Tim comics and watching this retcon play out in real time. (And particularly interesting because Tim is so specifically designed to be Just Like You, Tween Boy Reading This!) And that idea has really metastasized over the years when it's not super present in Jason's actual appearances.

So in a way, yes, the ship has sailed, because it doesn't actually matter what Jason was really like - it matters what the people writing and editing today's comics think he was like. And this is what they're basing that characterization on.

On the other hand...this is an ongoing universe, so no ship has truly sailed. When I got into comics, the saying was that "no one stays dead in comics except Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes." You see how well that worked out. Things change.

All it takes is one really good writer looking thoughtfully at Jason's time as Robin and realizing that even Starlin didn't write Jason the way people remember him. Like, in Death in the Family? Jason is not benched because he's too violent. Bruce is mad that he's reckless, but in the opening scene he literally thinks that he'll "let Jason work his aggression out" on the guys they're fighting (who, for the record, are child pornographers, so it's not like Jason is beating up relatively harmless muggers). That is not the reaction of someone who thinks Jason is out of control. In Jason's origin, Jason is angry because Two-Face killed his father - again, a very reasonable thing to be angry about! - but even though he's extremely upset and also only 12 years old, he makes the decision not to kill Two-Face. Again, not the actions of someone who is out of control. (And for the record, how many times has Dick nearly killed Tony Zucco?) And the Felipe Garzonas story is supposed to be ambiguous. We don't know that Jason killed him! (I mean, I think he did, but technically we don't know.)

All it takes is one really good writer recognizing that this handful of stories is a very small percentage of Jason's appearances, most of which were not necessarily retconned out by Crisis except for the ones that were directly contradicted by later stories. Yes, Jason's parents being circus acrobats who were eaten by crocodiles is no longer canon, but that doesn't mean Jason wanting to be in the school play or doing extra credit for fun isn't canon.

All it takes is one really good writer recognizing that at the same time that Starlin was writing his reckless, surly Jason in Batman, Mike Barr and Alan Davis had the sweetest little bean of a boy making Batman '66-style puns and ordering milk in bars in Detective Comics.

All it takes is one really good writer recognizing that most 15-year-olds are surly and reckless, and that's not a reason to condemn them.

I don't know if we'll ever get a writer who does any of that, but there's plenty of material for them to draw from if we do. And at least it wouldn't be the same story we keep getting over and over again, which was my original complaint.

So...here's hoping!

[shiongenkai]

A Note on 'Eldest Son' in TKDB

One last note on the wiki. I don't know if this is interesting to nearly anyone else other than me, but this little idea of 'Eldest son implies other siblings' has come up multiple times recently, so I researched a little into the nuances of what Eldest Son (長男) actually means in Japanese. It got a little bit long though, so under the cut it goes.

So... What this is referring to is the breaking news broadcast in reference to Jin, where they refer to him as 長男, AKA Eldest Son.

In English this carries an implication that there are Other Sons, or even Other Daughters, or so on so forth. When you hear someone referred to as Oldest (Something) you automatically assume that there are Younger Ones to compare it to, which is also what route the wiki takes.

However, this isn't the case for Japanese. While 長男 can imply Other Children, and often does in conversational Japanese, this term does not always mean younger brothers exist. What this refers to is a sense of succession, for one, and exists as a general term in order to refer to someone in paperwork, regardless of whether they're an only child or not. If some dude has an older sister and no younger siblings? He's the 長男. If someone doesn't have any siblings? Yep! 長男！It works for both. So can it be that Jin does have younger brothers? Yes, technically, but it's not explicitly implied with this line specifically.

How can I be sure of that, though? Wouldn't it help to have another example, you say? I fully agree! Which is why I have one! Here it is!

Here is Ritsu calling himself the 長男 of the Shinjo family! By this logic, we could technically assume that there are other Shinjo kids too, right? But then in Episode 16 he states Directly that he's an only child.

So in his case, he's both an only child and the eldest son. It sounds weird in English, but it still works naturally in Japanese. Another thing to note is that this line in Japanese has him refer to himself as 'The only Son', which Once Again could open the door for 'But wait!! What if he has siblings!!', but there's also nuance in That Word (一人息子) has less of an emphasis on the 'son' part and more of an emphasis on the 'only' part.

'Only son' in English has an unspoken emphasis on Son. If you hear someone say they're the Only Son of their family, and your first language is English, you'll probably think to yourself 'Oh, they have sisters then,' because that's what that phrase implies. The Japanese phrase, however, seems to emphasize the 'only' part. If you were to hear this phrase, you might think 'Oh, he has sisters,' but you could just as easily think, 'Oh, he's the only child'.

You can think of it as like.... Adding context into the noun. They are an only child, who happens to be a son. The only son. It's the same with 長男. They are the oldest son even if they are the Only Son.

So while it's not explicitly stated in canon that Jin does not have younger siblings (whether thats brothers or sisters), it's also not really truly implied he does. At least in Japanese. And there's really no good equivalent to the whole 'eldest son' thing in English anyway. Successor, I guess, is the closest, nuance wise? I guess? Shrugs.

Anyway, family words in general carry a lot of specifics in them in Japanese. You can't just call someone your Brother unless you're Zenji and using 'Brother' in English. Even Lucas refers to his twin as 'my younger twin brother'. Subaru's sister is his Older Sister, etc, etc. This is another one of those 'baked in specifics' type words that has different implications in JP vs ENG, and which makes it very, very easy to assume things that aren't necessarily true. Context is also important, because if it HAD been a casual conversation then it'd be different, but the broadcasts use very formal Informational Type Language, which renders 長男 neutral in terms of 'Is there more siblings or not'.