#this is average monday for them

[chalc0]

I need to remember how to draw them

[akkivee]

day 4 numbers!!!! chuuoku had the second highest amount of votes on this day!!!!

[call-me-copycat]

Hello everyone! This week and the first few days of next week are going to be particularly hellish for me ( ⌯᷄ ·̫ ⌯᷅ก )

I promise you that after next week, things will slow down once again and I'll be able to message everyone I've been putting off (⁠｡⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠)

[purble-gaymer]

A ON MY FIRST CHEM EXAM….BARELY

[rulesforthedance]

HOKAY as soon as my quads got slightly less sore I immediately made them fully sore again with mile repeats and bulgarian split squats BUT my body is firmly held together with KT tape, ibuprofen, and caffeine and I have shiny new trail shoes and I am ready to go "run" 18-20 miles with 3000-4000 feet of climbing.

[maaarine]

Why are British teenage girls so unhappy? Here’s the answer (Caitlin Moran, The Times, Sep 13 2024)

"The report, by the Children’s Society, found that British 15-year-old girls are the most unhappy in Europe.

British girls aged 10-15 are “significantly less happy” with their life, appearance, family and school than the average boy — and their happiness is still declining.

Boys’ life satisfaction, meanwhile, remains broadly stable. (…)

But I still didn’t have an “aha!” moment about why this so disproportionately affects girls until… I talked to some teenage girls.

It was at a party, and I went to vape with them on the patio. Because I take my nicotine like children do.

“Duh — it’s the boys,” one said when I brought it up, as all the others agreed.

“The boys?” I asked.

My last book, What About Men?, had been all about how much boys struggle these days: their loneliness; their suicide rates. I’d spent the past year feeling very sympathetic towards boys.

“Yeah, well, who do you think they’re taking out their unhappiness on? It’s us,” another girl said.

“One boy at school used to draw a picture every day of how ugly I was,” a third girl said. “Every day for two years.”

“They’ve all got ‘Rate The Girls’ polls on their WhatsApps,” the first said. “They mark you down for weight gain, haircuts, what you say.”

“But then, if you’re hot, it’s just as bad, in a different way, because they’ll be talking about how they want to f*** you.”

The girls discussed coping techniques. Bad news: none of them worked.

“The only way you can stop them is if you become ‘one of the boys’ and hang out with them. But then,” the second girl said with a sigh, “all the other girls call you a slut. Because you’ve gone over to the boys’ side.”

“Surely it’s not all the boys?” I said. “There must be some nice boys?”

“Oh, yeah,” one girl said. “But they keep their heads down. Because… well, look.”

She showed me the Instagram account of her friend. Under every picture she posted of herself — smiling in a new dress; with her dog — dozens of anonymous accounts had replied with the most rank abuse.

“Fat.” “Slut.” “You gonna try and kill yourself again, for attention?”

“They’re all boys from her school,” she said. “And look, this one boy tried to defend her.”

I saw a series of messages from a brave teenage boy, posting things like, “You’re all big men, leaving these replies under anonymous accounts.”

As I could see, this boy immediately became a target too. Mainly accusations that he was “white knighting” this girl: “You wanna f*** her, bro?”

“So,” I asked, “you don’t think it’s social media pressure to be beautiful, or the economy, that’s making girls so sad?”

“Well, yeah, them too,” the first girl said. “But, Monday-Friday, 9-3, I’m not on social media. I’m not… in the economy. I’m just with these boys. And no one talks about how horrible they are.”

I thought about another recent report, showing a 30 per cent ideological gap between Gen Z men, who are increasingly conservative, and Gen Z women, who are increasingly progressive.

I thought about Andrew Tate, who has nine million mostly young male followers — and faces human trafficking charges, which he denies.

And I thought: maybe these girls are on to something. Maybe more people need to vape with teenage girls and ask them for the school gossip."

[fantabulisticity]

Welp. My cold started as a dry throat, morphed into a sore throat, then that went away and I had nose and ear congestion for several days, and yesterday and today I have a little bit of a cough and a chest cold. I had to breathe gently and slowly to keep from dry coughing all day, but I let myself cough a little this evening and cleared up my throat pretty well. Chest and throat feel much clearer now, though dry. Hopefully I'm better by the weekend so I can finally go to Karaoke :(

[cressidagrey]

Lessons in Math (and Humility)

Welcome to Mysterious Mrs Piastri's Mondays. Apparently this is a thing now. (Ever since I hear that interview where Kimi was asked which subjects he's scared off an the answer was Math, I knew I was gonna write this.)

Pairing: Oscar Piastri x Felicity Leong-Piastri (Original Character)

Summary: Kimi Antonelli thought he could handle anything — race cars, pressure, a wet track…but his math homework may destroy him. Enter Bee Piastri. 

(divider thanks to @saradika-graphics )

Kimi Antonelli didn’t ask for help lightly.

Especially not with math.

He was a racing driver, not an idiot. He could handle telemetry, fuel loads, braking calculations, tyre degradation graphs — all of it — without blinking. He’d memorized braking points at Spa, figured out fuel maps on the fly, and survived radio calls with engineers who thought “you’re fine” covered every possible scenario.

He was good at numbers. At racing numbers.

But this assignment?

This nightmare of partial derivatives and matrix transformations?

It stared at him from his tablet like a personal attack, every line of notation a new insult to his intelligence.

After twenty minutes of glaring at it — tapping his pen, checking his notes, checking them again as if they might have magically rewritten themselves — Kimi finally let out a groan of pure, unfiltered despair.

He flopped face-first onto the hospitality couch, tablet slipping from his hands onto the seat beside him.

Without lifting his head, he announced, voice muffled against the cushions: “I’m going to fail math and bring shame to the entire grid.”

The nearest breathing human — unfortunately — was Ollie Bearman, who looked up from where he was very happily slurping a suspiciously neon smoothie.

Ollie raised an eyebrow. “What’s the problem?”

Kimi lifted one arm limply and waved the tablet in the air like a white flag of surrender.

“This. Derivatives. Partial equations. I don’t know. Numbers are evil.”

Ollie blinked once. Then grinned — the kind of grin that meant he was enjoying Kimi’s suffering way too much.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Arthur Leclerc almost failed stats back in F3.”

Kimi turned his head enough to squint at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Like, barely passed.”

Kimi perked up slightly, seizing onto the news like a lifeline. If Arthur — who had a literal racing dynasty backing him — struggled, maybe there was hope for the rest of them.

“How’d he survive?” Kimi asked, sitting up slightly.

Ollie’s grin widened.

“Oscar.”

Kimi stared at him. “Piastri?”

“Yep. Quiet nerd back at Prema. Absolute lifesaver. Helped Arthur cram for finals and everything.”

Kimi narrowed his eyes. He thought about Oscar: quiet, steady, terrifyingly good at everything he touched, like someone had programmed him in a lab.

Of course Oscar would have hidden superpowers. Of course.

Kimi hesitated, pride warring with desperation.

And then sighed dramatically, letting his head thunk back against the couch.

“Fine,” he said. “Find me Piastri. I have no pride left.”

Which was how, ten minutes later, they ended up with Oscar Piastri sitting cross-legged in the McLaren motorhome, frowning deeply at Kimi’s tablet like it had personally offended him.

“Okay,” Oscar muttered, squinting, “it’s not impossible. It’s just badly worded.”

Kimi leaned forward, full of hope — desperate, grasping hope.

Maybe this would be fine. Maybe Oscar Piastri — quiet, unflappable, secret nerd of Prema lore — could fix this disaster.

Five minutes later, that hope was dead.

Oscar exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’m going to be honest with you, mate: I have no idea what they’re asking for.”

Kimi flailed, waving his hands like he could physically summon better news. “But you saved Arthur! You’re the math guy!”

Oscar held up a hand, grimacing. “That was basic stats, Kimi. You know, averages. Standard deviations. This—” he pointed at the tablet like it might bite him, “—this is multivariable calculus meets actual sadism.”

Ollie Bearman, who had been perched nearby pretending not to watch the trainwreck unfold, snorted into his water bottle.

Oscar sighed again, this time reaching for his phone.

“No—” Kimi said, panicked, feeling his dignity slipping further into the abyss. “Don’t call someone. Don’t bother anyone. I’ll just fail and move to a cabin in the woods, it’s fine—”

Oscar was already dialing.

“Relax,” he said, calm as anything. “Felicity’s here. She likes this stuff.”

Five minutes later, Felicity Piastri wandered into the motorhome.

Kimi had seen her around the paddock plenty of times over the last year.

The first two things he’d learned about Oscar’s wife were simple:

1. She was tiny and startlingly pretty — the kind of pretty that could probably kill a man if she wanted to.

2. If Felicity Piastri was somewhere, Bee Piastri, Oscar’s terrifyingly adorable four-year-old daughter, was never far behind.

Today was no exception.

Bee marched in beside her mother, two neat pigtails bouncing with every step, each tied with papaya-colored bobbles (a detail that felt almost aggressively on-brand). A stuffed frog plushie dangled from one hand, like a trusted battle companion.

Both of them — Felicity and Bee — looked unfairly bright and well-rested for how emotionally wounded Kimi felt.

Oscar, completely unbothered by the incoming reinforcements, handed Felicity the tablet without preamble.

She glanced at it. Paused. Then blinked slowly.

“You’re all stumped by this?” she asked, her voice dripping with mild disbelief.

Kimi wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

“It’s the notation!” he blurted defensively. “And the question’s vague! And the examples were misleading!”

Felicity tilted her head, looking at him with the kind of fond pity reserved for particularly slow puppies. “It’s literally just a chain rule application with a matrix shortcut.”

“That’s not helping!” Ollie said, muffled into the crook of his elbow where he was laughing himself into an early grave.

Meanwhile, Bee had clambered neatly onto Oscar’s lap without hesitation, perching herself like a queen surveying her court. Kimi noticed absently how Oscar automatically shifted to make room for her — steadying her with one hand, pressing a soft kiss to her temple like it was muscle memory.

“Mama, is it hard?” Bee asked, peering at the tablet with great seriousness.

Felicity smiled. “Not really. But it’s annoying.”

Bee thought about that for a second. Then squared her tiny shoulders like she was preparing for battle.

“Can I try?” she asked.

Oscar sighed deeply. “Bee, it’s complicated—”

But Bee was already moving, plucking the tablet from his hand like it was no big deal, mumbling to herself under her breath.

“Okay, so you take this one first because it’s inside the brackets... and then you swap the middle bits because that’s the rule from the blue notebook... and then you put it all together and it looks like a frog but it’s actually a plus sign.”

Kimi blinked.

Ollie blinked.

Oscar just shook his head like a man who had accepted the chaos a long time ago.

Three minutes later, Bee beamed, handed the tablet back to her mother, and swung her legs happily.

“There,” she said proudly. “Now it’s not grumpy anymore.”

Felicity leaned over, checked the solution... And grinned.

“She’s right,” she said brightly. “Great job, sweetheart!”

Oscar gave a low, half-proud, half-resigned chuckle. “Welcome to my life.”

Kimi stared at the screen.

A four-year-old. A four-year-old had solved the math problem correctly in under three minutes.

Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He had heard rumors last year — something about Bee spotting an issue with a McLaren suspension load calculation before any of the engineers did.

But seeing it in real time?

Devastating.

Absolutely devastating.

“I— how did you—?” Kimi stuttered, still struggling to comprehend reality.

Bee shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Mama says numbers are friends. You just have to make them sit next to each other nicely.”

Kimi blinked down at the tablet, then at Bee, then back again.

Maybe... maybe racing cars was safer. Maybe he should stick to corners and apexes where the worst that could happen was a spin, not having his soul annihilated by a toddler.

Felicity kissed the top of Bee’s head and said entirely too casually, “There you go. Courtesy of a four-year-old.”

Oscar smiled and held out a hand. “Great job, Bumblebee.”

Bee high-fived her father so hard the smack echoed around the motorhome.

Kimi slumped back into his seat, utterly defeated.

Maybe he had brought shame to the grid after all.

Later, Kimi found himself slumped in the corner of the McLaren motorhome, a half-crushed juice box in his hand — courtesy of Bee, who had handed it over solemnly “for bravery.”

The worst part?

He genuinely needed it.

He sipped the apple juice in silence, staring into the middle distance, quietly reconsidering his entire academic career.

Maybe he could just... never open a math textbook again. Maybe he could live the rest of his life solely calculating apex speeds and brake bias. Maybe if he was fast enough, no one would ever ask him to solve another derivative.

Maybe.

Across the room, Felicity leaned against the table, arms folded, smiling sweetly — the kind of sweet that definitely had shark teeth hiding underneath.

“Bee’s better at recognizing patterns than most adults,” she said casually, like she wasn’t casually shattering the egos of Formula One drivers before lunchtime. “She’s been beating Oscar at card games since she was two.”

Oscar, sitting beside Kimi and munching on a cookie he definitely hadn’t earned, patted Kimi’s shoulder with exaggerated sympathy.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said, trying — and failing — not to laugh. “She inherited her mother’s brain.”

Kimi just groaned into his hands.

It didn’t help that Bee chose that exact moment to skip past them, Button the Frog tucked securely under one arm and a packet of glittery frog-shaped stickers in the other.

She looked so pleased with herself. Completely oblivious to the devastation she had left behind. Or maybe — horrifying thought — not oblivious at all.

Kimi made a note to himself:

Never challenge Bee to anything involving numbers.

Never doubt Felicity’s terrifying brain ever again.

Maybe just stick to driving cars really fast. It was safer for his dignity.

Probably.

Maybe.

[espinosaurusrexex]

Watchful Eyes

CEO!SteveRogers x Female!Maid!Reader AU

read Bucky's story here

summary: When your best friend gets you a new job, cleaning the apartment of the most successful man in New York City, you don't hesitate to accept. The pay is more than good, and the man himself is better than any eye candy you have ever seen. Unbeknownst to you, you've caught his attention just as much. Steve can't keep his mind off you, so much so, that he drives everyone around him insane with his grumpiness when you aren't around. It seems like he has to take matters into his own hands when he realizes, you're too shy to take things further yourself.

a/n: So that just happened... I don't know where it came from, but please enjoy. (Please don’t be discouraged by the word count - I promise you it’s worth it and I kindly ask you to at least try 💛)

word count: 10.8k

warnings: power differences, Steve is pining, watching someone over secret livestream (is this stalking?), women being referred to as objects (not by Steve), just so much fluff, and also angst (there is a happy ending!), smut (masturbation - m, praise kink, oral - f receiving, dirty talk, orgasm control, overstimulation, unprotected p in v, size kink, breeding kink) !MINORS DNI!

ﾟ✫ 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ✶ 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝐀𝐎𝟑 ✧*･ﾟ𝒄.𝒂𝒊 ｡✭･ﾟ

“Can you start Monday?”

“I can start Monday.”

“Perfect.”

Holy fuckidy fuck fuck. 

You had a job. A job that would crinkle some noses but it would pay money. Good money actually. Well, better than other offers in the branch.  

It had been luck, really. Because during one drunken night, which had originally been dedicated to drowning yourself in self-pity over the last job that had let you go due to staff cuts, your friend Natasha had crashed your party with Chinese food and gossip from her workplace. She was an assistant for one of the CEO’s of Shield Protection Services. And during her lunch with Sharon, the other assistant, Sharon had complained about Steve Rogers and how he had fired the third maid this month because they, apparently, were taking pictures of his home or selling some of his things. 

There might have been some talk about how picky and stuck up he could be but the important info was that Sharon was desperate at this point and had asked Nat if she knew anyone with the decency not to breach privacy and willingness to clean the CEO’s home. 

The good thing - or bad thing, you weren’t sure - was, Nat knew you were desperate too. So she gave Sharon your number and before you knew it, you were an employed woman again. 

❁ ❁ ❁

It was too early for you to be roaming the streets of New York, but you had gotten instructions and so you had gotten up at 6 and headed out to the address. And when you arrived, it felt as though it was the first time you blinked since the subway - you were that tired. Definitely not a morning person.  

The building was huge, tall glass fronts stretching into the sky and the ride up to the penthouse took longer than your average elevator rides did. 

The doors opened and revealed a beautiful open floor plan. A whole wall of windows brought natural light into the place and offered a view so breathtaking, it took you a moment to collect yourself. The place was ginormous - a lot to clean up - but seemed tidy enough to at least get started right away. 

You placed your bag on the counter by the kitchen and took more of the place in when suddenly, a voice startled you. 

“Who are you?” You whipped around, big eyes searching for the source until they landed on a tall man standing in what seemed to be a dining area - well, one of them at least. He had broad shoulders, neatly styled hair and one of those toothpaste smiles you only ever saw in magazines. He was wearing office attire, blue dress pants that slightly stretched over his muscled thighs, and when your head wandered back up his body, piercing blue eyes seemed to stare right into your soul. 

Holy Shit. 

Before you stood Steve Rogers, three-time Forbes Magazine cover story, young entrepreneur turned filthy-rich hunk of a man, and CEO of the most successful security firm in this country. And he was talking to you - staring at you... waiting for an answer. 

Talking, you needed to start talking, you reminded yourself.

“I’m the new maid, sir. I’m so sorry I was told to come here at 7 as you leave for work before that.”

Mr. Rogers looked at you with an unintelligible stare. Meanwhile, you were nervously wringing your hands in the doorway, looking down. You hadn’t planned for anyone important to see you today. The worn-down Fleetwood Mac shirt you didn’t mind getting bleach on hanging over some pants you pulled from the back of your closet definitely wasn’t the kind of outfit you expected to greet Steve Rogers in. Great start. This was going awful.

“Well I’m here aren’t I?” His arms folded before his chest as his eyebrow raised, impressive biceps bulging beneath the white button-up, and - damn - it was hard not to stare. 

“Right. Yes. Sorry. I’ll come back later.” You turned to leave again but he stopped you.

“No need. I am on my way out.” The left corner of his mouth twitched into a cheeky grin when he grabbed his bag, left the newspaper discarded on the table, and placed his coffee mug in the sink. Interesting.

“Don’t snoop.” He whispered teasingly as he passed you, a whiff of expensive cologne paralyzing your senses and you weren’t sure if he was making a suggestion or actually warning you. That damn perfume seemed to hypnotize you. 

Your eyes followed his broad shoulders until they disappeared behind the corner and then the elevator doors shut. It seemed to take all the tension from your face. You exhaled long and then began to look around some more.

The place was huge, you’d already established that. But when you found the third bedroom amongst the private office and Pool table room, you knew you had to make a weekly plan to work off. You had to give Mr. Rogers credit, though. There was rarely any clutter lying around - it wasn’t dirty per se - just had the usual dust you’d expect in a place this size with only one person living in it. 

You huffed, resting your hand on your hips once you completed the tour. And then you got started. 

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve peered up from his computer screen when Bucky strolled through the doors of his office. A coffee in hand he had most likely tweaked from his assistant's desk on the way here, he shot a grin to his oldest friend and business partner. 

“What ya doing, punk?” The brunette asked teasingly when he circled the desk and settled on the window sill behind Steve. 

“Just making sure things stay in order.” He leaned back and turned around slightly, just in time to see his friend nod knowingly.

“Heard Nat got you a new maid.” Bucky dipped his chin towards the laptop still open on the desk. “That her?”

His eyes wandered to the screen where a live feed of his apartment streamed you changing his bedsheets. He hummed in agreement. 

“She’s pretty,” Bucky commented before sipping his coffee again and Steve felt an unfamiliar feeling bubble in his stomach. “But I bet you don’t care anyway. You’re all ‘don’t sell my stuff’ and ‘having things stolen from a security firm CEO is embarrassing’. Wouldn’t know a pretty thing like that if it climbed you.”

“Because it is embarrassing. And I highly recommend you monitor your staff to make sure they don’t do the same.” Of course, Steve knew you were ‘pretty’. Exactly his type, to be honest. He had noticed it the second you stepped into his apartment this morning. The way your hands wrung beneath you. And he had shot you a teasing remark in hopes of discovering a sassy fire in those timid doe eyes of yours. But you had stumbled over your words like a fawn.

Bucky clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Nonsense. Peggy is great - and too old to even carry anything valuable out of my place. I trust her with my life and house keys.” And then he pushed off the sill. “I think it’s time for you to get laid again. And that’s why I’m a great friend and organized dinner and drinks with Tony and Sam tonight.”

Steve fell back in his chair, hands over his eyes. “I don’t need your wing-maning me. I’m perfectly fine on my own.” 

“Sure.”

“I’m serious, Buck.”

“You can thank me later.” He stout towards the door. “You know... after you’ve been devoured by the pretty little waitress at the Ironbar.” Bucky winked before his face disappeared again. 

Steve just huffed as his eyes landed back on the weekly report on his desk and then swayed back to his computer screen. 

As unwilling as he was to admit it, it had been some time since his last late-night rendezvous. And as he saw you crawl up on his bed to place the bedsheets properly along his mattress, he felt his pants tighten slightly. 

❁ ❁ ❁

“We’ll get one more round of the good stuff.” 

“Of course Mr. Stark.” Tony winked and patted his waitress’s butt before she stalked away on her high heels and towards the locked glass cabinet behind the bar. 

Steve had designed it himself, a fiberglass shrine-like display for ridiculously expensive liquors, only to be opened by a passcode that got regenerated every week. He watched as Betty - the young and lanky waitress - retrieved a crystal bottle of whiskey and filled four glasses with the golden liquid. 

“God, I love that thing,” Tony sighed next to Steve and watched Betty with a satisfied smile.

“You better be talking about that cabinet, Stark.” Steve shook his head with a frown only to receive a wink from Tony, who was sitting closest to him at the round table. 

“So...” Bucky leaned over to Steve and spoke in a hushed voice. “You see anything you like?” He gestured at the bar where Tony’s carefully picked waitresses passed with filled and emptied glasses and bottles. They were all wearing tight black t-shirts and skirts or shorts that counted just as scandalous. One could foolishly mistake this place for a Hooters if Tony hadn’t made it one of the most pristine bars in all of New York City. 

It was popular amongst the clientele which mainly consisted of bored rich men that came here to get something to look at without being judged for it. But Steve wasn’t feeling the girls today. When Betty shoved her breasts in his field of view, all he could think about was how he had never gotten the idea to get his maids a uniform that catered to his... liking. And when Betty swayed her hips on her way to the bar, his thoughts became clouded by the image of you in a short little skirt, riding up just a little to tease I’m about what was hidden underneath when you kneeled on his bed to get the sheets sorted. 

Steve adjusted his pants at the little flashback, clearing his throat and sitting up straighter in his seat. 

“Oh, apparently you have...” Bucky grinned before his eyes hushed down to Steve’s crotch and back up just as fast. “Well then,” he leaned back with a satisfied grin. “Which one is it? Samatha? Tiffany? Though I think Megan is more your type.” 

“Just shut up, punk.”

“Okay you don’t have to tell me me... either way, my job here is done.” He brushed his hands off fake dust and smiled smugly. “You better be in a good mood tomorrow.” 

Steve just huffed and waited for Betty to come back with ‘the good stuff’ to hopefully drown out his annoying friends for the rest of the night. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them. No, he would do anything for the people he chose to have in his life. The group he found himself in right now had been through thick and thin with him, stayed through his fame and fortune, and was just as supportive before it had all happened to either of them. He was happy having the guys because they built each other up and aimed for greatness - together, they were fucking invincible. 

But sometimes, Steve felt a little out of place amongst Bucky and Tony. It was in situations regarding women most of all because he could never adapt the attitude to talk about them the way they did. And he never had the headspace to juggle as many as they did. He had tried the one-night stands. But he struggled to navigate the superficial pleasure maze New York City provided in masses. Because just as the ever-passing smiles on the streets, it wasn’t fulfilling enough for Steve. At least not in the way it was for his friends. 

He wanted what Sam had. A partner, a family, something constant and beautiful. And that was, why he found himself asking for pictures of Sam’s kids and nephews rather than listen to Tony’s latest bed bunny endeavor whenever the conversations took a turn in that direction. 

“Earth to Rogers,” Sam’s finger snapped in front of Steve’s face. “What this I’m hearing? You got a new maid? What happened to the old one?”

“She sold his stuff on Craigslist.” Bucky snorted and took a sip of the drink that had magically appeared in front of them. 

“You aren’t serious.” 

“I really liked that tie,” Steve grumbled into his cup. 

“Man, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with things like that. You rich people really are a different breed.” 

“You’re rich, too, Sam.” 

Sam just smiled above his crystal glass, having fun with the little joke he liked to pull for ages now. He wasn’t any less successful than any of the other men at their table. But other than them, he had settled in a beautiful neighborhood - despising the concrete jungle each of the other guys lived in. His house felt like home, like a cozy place that had seen love and time and nothing like the polished and sleek man caves the rest of them owned.

“Well, anyways, my amazing assistant organized him a new one, the prettiest thing - really. But he’s refusing to see it.” 

Tony chuckled. “Well, that's Rogers in a nutshell, isn’t it.” 

Sam just pursed his lips and glanced over at Steve with a soft smile, ignoring the comments of the other guys. They never explicitly talked about it, but Sam was a smart man, and it would have surprised Steve, had he not already figured out that he was more of a family man than their friends were as of right now. 

“To new maids that aren’t selling your clothes on the internet then.” He raised his drink and winked at Steve once their glasses clinked. 

And Steve? He visibly exhaled, silently thanking Sam for pulling the tension out of their conversation. 

❁ ❁ ❁

It had been a little over a week. And so far, things had been going great. 

By now, you had cleaned through the entire place once and set up a plan of what to do on which day. You weren’t surprised it actually took a full 6 days to cover every single room in Mr. Rogers’s apartment. You had already figured out which tasks were going to be your favorite and which weren’t. Like his bedroom. You liked doing that. Because even though the sheets were a bitch to get on the ginormous bed, you kind of liked the smell the room had. His pillows smelled of the cologne you couldn’t forget ever since the man had brushed past you on your very first day.

You were pretty sure you would never forget that since your knees literally felt like giving in at that moment.  

Today, it was bedroom day. That and the on-suite. 

With a smile on your face, you entered the apartment on the top floor, each day secretly hoping you’d catch a glimpse of the CEO before he took off to work. But even though you tried to arrive ten minutes earlier (you really couldn’t spare any more sleep for your own good), the first day remained an exception in Mr. Rogers’s daily schedule. 

You placed your bag on the stool at the open kitchen island, changed into some other shoes, and headed for the supply closet. Despite the size of the place, you actually got around pretty easily. Mr. Rogers was a very organized and neat man - you’d noticed that the first and only time you met him. So things were almost always where you’d think they would be. Which made your job just that much easier. But also prevented you from the advised ‘not snooping’ you desperately wanted to do. 

You knew better though. 

People like Steve Rogers probably had cameras installed in this place. And you would certainly not go and rummage through his underwear drawer after he had personally told you not to. Who knows what strings powerful people like him could pull. So, for the sake of not waking up on a cargo ship to Madagascar one day, you restrained yourself as much as possible. 

Of course, you didn’t stop your eyes from wandering whenever you swept the shelves in his walk-in closet or closed the drawers in his office space. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. And this girl had a nosy best friend on her back that wanted to know every little detail of her new job... and was also way too invested in celebrity gossip.

Though, as always, there was nothing out of the ordinary today - there never was. Sure, it was still exciting to see how the filthy rich lived but other than that, no scandalous collection of women’s underwear, or drug lord papers lying around. You started to believe that Steven Grant Rogers was a very boring man. Not that you could properly judge in your position, seeing as you did not really know him, but the whole being in his home seemed a little too intimate not to do so. 

So that day you finished the tasks for the day, packed your stuff, and made your way back home, hoping to see him in the morning or to at least find something more interesting than dust in his home. 

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve greeted the concierge of his building when he entered the marbled entree hall. With a little frown and a look at his watch, the man greeted him back before he resumed his work. 

Yes, Steve was home earlier than usual. He regularly stayed even longer than his original work schedule intended. Today, however, he was home even earlier. But after another banter with Bucky about Steve’s non-existent sex life, he couldn’t imagine making it past five in the same building as his persistent best friend. So, he fled the office and decided to work through the rest of his papers at home. 

Of course, Steve knew that Bucky only wanted the best for him. But the ways he tried to approach the supposed bothersome loneliness Steve had in his bed just weren’t for Steve. Those might have worked on Tony - hell, Tony probably invented setting his friends up with one-night-stands - but not on Steve.

He huffed and swiped some loose hairs from his forehead as the elevator dinged at the top floor. The doors opened to the window front of his penthouse apartment and Steve stepped over the threshold, immediately stopping in his tracks when he took in the scene before him. 

The vacuum was running while you were kneeling on the floor, wiping up some water he only assumed came from the vase missing next to his sofa. He would have found it rather amusing if it weren’t for the way you carried yourself today. Something wasn’t right. 

Steve knew that you weren’t usually this messy - that much he could tell from the livestream that had become a constant in his office by now. Your head hung low, your motions hurried and sloppy. He watched as you swiped the floor, one of your sleeves constantly slipping down your arm again until you angrily pushed it up further than necessary. 

It was worrisome. 

He couldn’t place the feeling he felt in his chest when he sat his briefcase down and approached you from behind. His foot carefully turned off the vacuum and then he stood still, careful not to startle you when you finally looked up at him. 

He could see it in your eyes then. The panic, the uncertainty, and something else he hadn’t seen in them before.

You looked around you as if you were seeing the mess for the first time and when Steve was still watching you with an arched brow after a minute of silence, you suddenly sprung up to your feet. 

“I am so Sorry, Mr. Rogers. I didn’t realize it was this late already.” You turned a full 360 until your eyes landed on his again. “I’ll have this cleaned up in no time and I'll be out of your way. I promise.” 

Steve watched as you scrambled to gather the vacuum cord, struggling with it when it didn’t immediately snap back into the caster. “The subway was stuck in a tunnel for an hour because some guy decided to pull the emergency break for fun. And then this lady passed out next to me and when the fire department finally got us out and the paramedics packed her in the ambulance, I realized that I still had her purse.” You finally got the cord in turning so fast that the wet rag in your hands sprayed some water on Steve. “And do you know how difficult it is to find out which hospital they’re taking people? Because it’s so much more difficult than it looks in the movies. I didn’t know that! And then it was almost 10 a.m. when I got here. I am so sorry. This won’t happen again I promise-“

“Hey,” Steve finally stepped forward and caught your flailing hands with his and it shut you up. “It’s alright.” He spoke softly, guiding your hands down and proceeding to carefully stroke your arms down. “Are you okay? Do you need a day off?” 

Your doe eyes stared up at him, round and shiny as if you couldn’t believe he was actually standing in front of you. And Steve had to admit, besides the concern breezing through his body, your face was capturing up close. He traced your lashes with his gaze, the way your lips were parted slightly, your teeth showing past your upper lip, and the way your eyebrows were raised in shock. 

“No... no, I’m fine.” You finally stammered and it made Steve relax a little. 

“Then take a breath for me, please.” You nodded and Steve watched as your shoulders moved when you inhaled with your eyes closed. It shook Steve out of his trance. He cleared his throat and retreated his hands from your arms, awkwardly standing up a little straighter now that there was no excuse to touch you anymore. 

You were fine - that’s what you had said. But you didn’t quite seem that way. 

He watched as you opened your eyes and gifted him a small smile. Then your gaze dew to the floor and the mess you were standing in. Your smile turned awkward. 

“I’ll clean this up real quick and then I’ll be out of your hair.” 

Steve shook his head with a smile. Maybe this was a nice opportunity to do as Bucky had suggested. It was true, Steve hadn’t been interested enough before. Had he taken more time to know his former maids better, he could have probably prevented his things from being stolen and sold. Maybe it wasn’t exactly what Bucky had meant by ‘interested’, but Save decided it would do for now. “You can do what you need to and you can take as much time as you need to. I’ll be in my office for some time, so please don’t rush. I didn’t mean to freak you out by coming home earlier.” 

His arms reached up to scratch the back of his neck and your eyes landed on his bicep. Those damn doe eyes. “O- okay.”

He nodded, buried his hands in his pockets, gifted you a tight-lipped smile, and then proceeded to grab his briefcase and disappear into his office at the end of the hall. 

After some time, he heard the vacuum pick back up. Steve peaked through his open office door and caught a glimpse of you roaming his living room every now and then. It was relieving to know that you were functioning again. You had him worried for a second there - a feeling the successful CEO hadn’t welcomed in a hot minute. But it was kind of nice, made him feel a little more human than usual. So he didn’t mind having you work while he was home. On the contrary, actually, even though he had a huge stack of papers to go through, having to do them with a little bit of white noise was much more efficient than he had thought. He liked it when the occasional sound of items being set down snook its way to his office just to be interrupted by the vacuum again. And before he knew it, the workload he had taken home with him today, was worked through. 

Steve made his way to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. Though, as he waited for the machine, he found himself leaning against the counter and watching you work in front of him. You were currently bent over the sofa, arranging the cushions after shaking them out, your shirt riding up ever so slightly and exposing a strip of skin on your back. 

The fresh grounding of coffee beans covered the way Steve gulped loudly at the sight of you in front of him. This was definitely different than watching on his laptop screen. He felt his pants tighten ever so slightly as he imagined walking up to you and just taking you from behind. Your face would press into the pillows as he would easily push into you, hearing your drawn-out moans through the cushions. 

He couldn’t help himself, you were just so pretty. 

The smell of coffee drew Steve back to reality. It wasn’t that simple. Because Steve wanted you to want him as well. But you didn’t know him well enough yet. 

You pulled the vacuum around the corner and seconds later the sound of the storage room door closing echoed through the apartment. You walked back into the living room, adjusted the book on his coffee table, and then looked at your work with your hands on your hips. It was kind of cute to watch, Steve had to admit. 

“Well done,” Steve praised and your shoulders jerked in surprise. 

“Woah, didn’t see you there, Sir.” You relaxed again and then moved to change your shoes, before packing the other pair in your bag. You looked like you were about to leave, but Steve didn’t want that. 

“Would you like some coffee?” He offered and turned to grab the mug that was just filled with the steaming hot beverage. 

But you shook your head, raising your hands. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude. I’m sure you’ve got work to do...”

“I wouldn’t have asked if it were an inconvenience.” 

You looked down and nodded, which made Steve smile and hand you the cup. Your hands encased it like it was a cold winter's day, timid looks roaming the room and landing everywhere but him. 

“You seem uncomfortable,” he tried, cautious not to intrude. 

“I’m not. It’s just that... I’m not used to,” you gestured around the kitchen, “all this.” 

“I know it sounds stupid but sometimes I feel the same.” Steve took in the high ceilings and shiny surfaces, the expensive paintings and furniture he had no part in picking out.

You just stared at him again before nodding and averting your eyes once more. It seemed like you were holding back, but Steve didn’t feel like he was in the position to ask. So he just had to do with your fleeting glances and diffident presence. It was fine for now. Though he didn’t know if he could actually stand it for long. 

“You got this job through Bucky’s assistant, right?”

“Natasha, yes. She’s my best friend.” Your eyes lit up and Steve celebrated the little victory in silence. He had finally found something to talk about with you. 

“How long have you known each other?” He took a sip of his own coffee, acting indifferent, though his gaze hung on your lips. 

“We’ve been friends since high school. But then we went to different colleges and for a moment, we lost contact. But when I called her after graduation, we reconnected. We coincidentally both moved to New York. It’s nice to have her back.”

“That does sound nice. I know a thing or two about reconnecting with old friends.” Steve smiled reminiscent. 

“Right, your business partner. Mr. Barnes.” You set your mug down when Steve shot you a surprised look. “Sorry, but it’s hard not to know things about you when every tabloid in the country has covered your story.”

Steve nodded, being reminded once again how different his life was now. Not that he didn’t appreciate it... it just used to be simpler. 

“Yes, Bucky is my oldest friend... we’d lost contact in-between as well. Now we spend so much time together, I sometimes wish it was that way again.”

“You don’t mean that,” you laughed and Steve swore it was the prettiest he’d ever heard. 

“Of course not.” He set his cup down once he noticed that you had finished your coffee and had grabbed your bag from the stool. 

“I should go,” you smiled sadly and Steve just nodded with a similar expression on his face. Then he pushed off the counter and walked you to the elevator. He caught your small wave before the doors closed, leaving his stomach feeling warm and fuzzy. 

This was definitely new.

❁ ❁ ❁

The next week was pure torture. 

Steve couldn’t work from home like he had wanted to. He also couldn’t go to work later to at least catch a ‘good morning’ from you. 

It had only lasted a couple more days. He had managed to trap you for a conversation with coffee two times after the first one and then it all went downhill from there. 

Steve’s work seemed to pile up in unusual amounts of papers on his desk. His e-mails and meetings were longer than ever and his frustrations built with every new message Sharon redirected to his phone.

It wasn’t until Bucky pointed out how unusually grumpy he was, that Steve realized, he missed you. How could that have happened? He barely knew you and talked to you even less than that. But he knew he was missing you. Because as silly as it sounded, the time he spent with you, he was more relaxed than ever before. 

“I’m headed home, now. Do you need anything before I go?” Sharon popped her head through the door of Steve’s office after the knock she placed there. 

Steve just sighed as he closed one of a dozen tabs on his computer. Then he shook his head. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bright and early!” She beamed and Steve just waved her off. 

The door fell shut once again and Steve moved to close a second tab. The one open beneath was the video footage of his home. It was paused because Steve had categorized it as ‘not suited for work’ once he saw you climb on his bed to straighten out the sheets and his dick reminded him just how deprived he really was. 

Looking at the paused video now, his pants tightened again. There you were, on all fours on his bed, tugging the sheet under the headboard side of his mattress - ass up and struggling. Fucking hell. 

His hand instinctively moved to his crotch to relieve some tension and then his eyes fell to his office door. Sharon had gone home. He was likely the only one left. His gaze wandered back to his computer screen and before he knew it, he was rubbing his hard cock through his pants. 

He groaned lowly at the feeling spreading through his body, the image on his screen just intensifying the scenarios he usually imagined when he got himself off. Because now they had your face. And your perfect body. If he squinted at the screen, he could actually see a sliver of your underwear peaking out the top of your pants. 

“Jesus Christ,” He pushed through his teeth when his hands worked to open his belt and pulled his rock-hard length out. He was already leaking from the angry red tip. 

His thumb grazed over his sensitive flesh, spreading the beads of precum and his whole body shivered when he imagined you doing it instead. His knees spread further apart in his office chair as he squeezed the base of his cock, concentrating on his breathing to slow. And then, without thinking, his other hand moved to play the video. 

Steve’s eyes never left the screen as he watched you tug the sheets tight. Your ass bounced up and down with the motion and he began to pump his shaft, imagining pushing into you from behind. Then you crawled back slowly, careful not to pull the sheet off again, but one corner came loose anyway. As you leaned forward, your new position seemed even more obscene - with your arms stretched forward and your ass still slightly lifted off the mattress. 

Steve’s fist pumped harder up and down his cock, he was panting. He could already feel the orgasm building. His balls were on the edge of bursting - but he wanted to hold out a little longer. 

For a second, his gaze jumped to the little speaker icon at the bottom right corner of his screen. His right hand still pumping with a tight grip, the left moved to slightly turn up the volume on the stream. 

Just then, you released a frustrated groan, followed by a throatier, softer noise that could almost be mistaken for a moan and Steve lost it. His fist stroked his thick cock in hard fast motions, the tingle in his body building with every heavy breath you released. His thumb grazed over his tip when you fell forward like a fawn and it was enough to make him burst. 

He closed his eyes and threw his head back on the chair. With a last firm push, he tumbled over the edge, squeezing his flesh as he felt the hot ropes of cum cover his hand. His heart beat in his ears once the ecstasy subsided, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths.  

Steve stared at the ceiling, sighing in defeat. He was in deep now. 

❁ ❁ ❁

“So... how’s it going?” Nat’s voice rang through your speaker and you pressed your phone a little harder to your ear to hear her over the street noises. 

“It’s going really good. I don’t see him that often but he’s not messy at all, so it’s really not that bad.”

“Good, I’m glad!” Nat cheered on the other end of the line and you could hear her computer keys clicking beneath her fingernails. “Anything you wanna tell me?” Her tone was suggestive, and you kind of hated how well she knew you. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, we’re stating the obvious here. He’s hot!”

“Nat!” You gasped appalled. “I’m not going around asking you if you think your boss is hot.”

“Why not? I'm not ashamed to admit it. My boss is hot,” she stated plainly and shorty after a distant ‘You got that right, doll!’ was heard through your speaker. 

“Oh my god,” you muttered, watching around you as if anyone could hear what Nat was saying. 

“So...?”

“Okay, yes he’s super hot and I wish he would just grab me with his big muscled arms and kiss the life out of me every time I see him. Are you happy now?”

“Yes, very.”

You waved at the concierge when you reached Mr. Roger’s apartment building and then stepped into the elevator. “Good. I can’t believe I just made me say that out loud.”

“We both know it’s true. No shame in a little crush.” You could practically hear her grin through the phone and it just annoyed you even more. How could she call you out when she was a mile away?

“Great, now I’m actually imagining kissing him and running my hands down his chest,” You huffed as the elevator door opened and turned the corner just to stop in your tracks. 

“I knew it!”

“Nat, I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, but-“ and then you ended the call as your eyes were glued to the kitchen counter. 

You stepped closer, your eyes never leaving where they had landed upon your arrival. There, on the polished black marble, stood a vase with a beautiful bouquet of pastel flowers. 

Your breath hitched in your throat as your fingers traced the colorful petals, and you leaned in to smell them. This was so sweet! A little giddiness shot through your body at the sight of the flowers. You’d never expected them from Mr. Rogers and it was nice to be appreciated. 

Feeling excitement all over, your fingers reached for the little white card lodged between a eucalyptus branch. But when you turned it over, all of it fell like someone had turned on gravity again. 

Happy one month!

Your mind repeated the words over and over again until they registered.

Happy one month.

You dropped the card and it made a dull clicking noise on the counter. How could you have been so naïve? Nat had put this stupid haze in your brain, getting you all giddy and excited. Of course, he had a fucking girlfriend. How could he not? He was Steve fucking Rogers.

You needed to take a step back and breathe. Those were a few too many emotions to feel in the early morning for you. Now you even felt guilty about wanting to run your fingers down his body. God, you’d even said it out loud - how embarrassing! 

“Okay, girl. Relax. Nobody heard,” you reminded yourself out loud. And then you took a deep breath with your eyes closed. 

“It’s not embarrassing if nobody saw. I’m the only one that can decide the level of awkwardness here.” Maybe stop talking to yourself then. You nodded and carefully placed the card back in the bouquet. 

“This never happened,” you whispered, more so to ensure yourself. “Just move on with your day.” 

Thank god it wasn’t kitchen day - you wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of those flowers any longer.

With your shoulders pulled back and your head held high, you made your way to the supply closet and got to work. 

It’s just another day. You reminded yourself when you pulled your cleaning supplies out and into the office. 

Just like any other day...

❁ ❁ ❁

Boy, had you never been any more wrong. 

Your phone rang at 7.30 that evening. You had already made yourself comfortable on your sofa, ready to binge a whole season of Gilmore Girls, after a successful day of pretending you hadn’t gotten the biggest turn-down of the century this morning. You had finished your cleaning plan, you had gone grocery shopping, bought yourself some own damn flowers, and even showered all before the sun had set. 

But now your phone rang and the caller ID could not mean anything good. 

“Hello?”

“Good evening!” Your name echoed through the speaker of your phone, a - for your taste - way too cheery woman on the other end. “I am very sorry I have to call so late. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“That’s alright, what do you need?” You bit your lip nervously, only dreading the next words of Mr. Rogers’s assistant.

“Well, actually it is not I that needs anything. Mr. Rogers requested for you to see him. Is that possible?”

“What? When?”

“Now would be amazing.” Your eyes widened at her words. Mr Rogers wanted to see you and it couldn’t wait until tomorrow? You must have done something horribly wrong. Oh, god, had he noticed you messed with the flowers? Had he seen you sniff his pillows? All possible scenarios of wrongdoing swarmed your head when you sprung up and bolted for your closet. 

“I can be there in thirty minutes,” you hurried through the speaker just to receive a satisfied hum from the other end. 

“Amazing! Thank you so much.”

She had hung you before you could even answer. It didn’t matter. You looked through your clothes, trying to decide what an appropriate ‘getting fired’ outfit would consist of - probably no sweatpants, so you could find the closest bar and drink your sorrows away in connection to the dreaded talk. 

You pulled out something, you could see yourself crying in and headed for the door.

❁ ❁ ❁

8.00 pm on the dot, the elevator doors opened to reveal a beautiful New York Skyline. Unfortunately, you neither had the headspace, nor the time to appreciate it properly. As soon as you turned the corner you saw Mr. Rogers casually leaning on the kitchen island. 

Instantly, you felt intimidated. He had never done anything to make you feel scared or in danger, but his mere presence was so powerful, you didn’t quite know how to act around him. Especially, because on top of it all, he was the most attractive man you’d ever laid your eyes on. 

“What did I do?” It just sprung out of you, your arms wanted to hug your body but you willed them still. He didn’t need to see how worried you really were. 

To your surprise, however, his face scrunched up in amusement instead. He pushed himself off the counter and gestured towards the flowers still standing proud on that polished marble top. 

“You forgot your flowers.”

“My... my flowers?” He nodded with a small frown, probably confused by your reaction. And to be honest, you were too. 

“Yes... I got you flowers. You’ve officially been working here for a month. That’s a record.” He shook his head with a chuckle and then rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m... very picky.”

His eyes met yours and a whole new wave of uncertainty washed over you. You didn’t miss the hesitation in his tone, the carefully chosen wording for something he didn’t exactly say. 

“So, I’m not fired.” God, why did it take so long for you to register. You just looked so stupid right now. 

“On the contrary.” Mr. Rogers took a step closer, though still keeping a respectable distance. “I think I can trust you. I’m very pleased with your work. You deserve them.”

“I do?” You looked up at him with big eyes when he took another step closer. He was so tall, you had to tilt your head up now that he was so near. 

“Can I trust you?”

His chest would almost touched you, if you were to breathe any heavier. Your breath hitched in your throat when the faint remains of his perfume reached your nose. It was as intoxicating - the way his eyes stared down at you - intense and looming. “Ye- Yes.”

“Good.” His voice was a raw timbre. His gaze drifted to the side, where his hand slowly reached up to lay on your shoulder. You felt warm and tingly from the touch. 

Not knowing what to do exactly, you just held your breath and stared up at his eyes. They were so blue - and up close, they were so much more captivating than any magazine photograph could ever display. 

You wanted to touch him, reach out, and pull him down towards you, but he had just told you he trusted you. Were you really going to risk this perfectly good job for a heated moment?

His other hand came up to graze your cheek with a careful touch and the worry of losing your job suddenly became very small. Mr. Roger’s hands were warm, his fingers almost hot even compared to your heated face. 

So you did it. Your hand reached forward and landed on the top of his chest, one of them traveled down the hard plane of his torso while the other clawed at his shirt collar. His thumb traveled to your lower lip, pulling it down and then stroking over the soft flesh, touching your teeth as well. 

Guided by the heat traveling through our body, your right hand tightened around his shirt and pulled him down and onto your lips. The blonde man jerked forward until his mouth crashed onto yours, immediately moving in perfect sync with yours. 

Your insides were tingling from the kiss when you felt his lips pull into a smile. His big hands roamed your body until they snook around your back, pulling you flush against his body and making you sigh contently. 

Mr. Rogers chuckled and then kissed you deeper. His touch was everywhere, yours too. Your mind was free of anything that wasn’t the tall, built, blonde man in your arms as soon as his tongue traced your bottom lip - asking for you to let him in. And you did just that. When he began to explore your mouth, you melted even further into his embrace. 

No man had ever kissed you like that. Which was why you dreaded the moment you had to pull away for air. 

Your hand landed on his cheek, thumb softly stroking his beard, eyes locked with his. 

“You’re very good at this.”

He just chuckled and pecked your lips once more. “Up.” He demanded, suddenly, he grabbed your thighs and lifted you as if you weighed nothing. 

“What are you doing?”

“I'm gonna show you how good I am at this.” 

Then he set you down on the bed and pushed you back until your head hit the comforter. His scent, the one you’d secretly been craving ever since you started working here, engulfed you like a big blanket. He stood above you, big and broad-shouldered, looming over you like a wild animal. But you weren’t scared.

“You know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” His lips attached to your collarbone, sucking and licking bruises to your skin until you moaned beneath him and your hands clung to his hair. “I’ve been watching you,” he murmured to your neck and a shiver traveled down your spine. 

“I knew it,” you gasped when he reached a spot behind your ears that sparked more pleasure. The thought of him spending his day watching you made you all excited and impatient. 

“The way you stumble about this place when you clean it... How do you navigate the world being this clumsy, Bambi?” A whimper escaped you at the nickname he chose for you. “You need somebody to take care of you, huh.” 

You arched your back to brush up against him. His hard cock was already straining his pants, pressing into your own deliciously. “Ah, yes.”

“Don’t worry, Bambi, I’m right here. I’ll take real good care of you.” His fingers traveled down your body until they reached the hem of your jeans and began to tug on them. 

You pulled him down to your lips once more, guiding his head back to that spot behind your ear that had you squirming on the sheets. “So needy.”

His voice was so low and husky now, you barely noticed he had already worked your pants open and halfway down your legs. You kicked them off the rest of the way and arched yourself back against him just to have him grind down on your core. 

“Feel so good, so big,” you mumbled through the haze you already found yourself in. God, what was it with this man - he was out of this world. 

“You can’t wait any longer, can you, Bambi?” His hands moved beneath your shirt and began to massage your breasts. “But I get it. I don’t wanna wait any longer, either.” 

In a swift motion, he had you flipped on your stomach, his hands traveling to your hips to pull you on all fours in front of him. Then the bed dipped and you felt his fingers press to your soaked underwear. He rubbed the drenched fabric over your entrance, only driving you wild with need when his fingers reached higher to your clit. “So pretty.” 

“I need you,” you whined, “need you so bad.” 

“Believe me, I need you too.” He pulled the black lace over the curve of your ass and you felt the cool bedroom air hit your wet core, only making you shiver once more. 

“You’re so fucking perfect, you know that.” You could only whimper in response when his hand pushed your head into the comforter and his face suddenly pressed into your pussy from behind. 

“Oh, god.” A yelp escaped you as his tongue teased at your entrance, only to be pulled back to lick a long strip from your clit back to it. His hand massaged your cheeks and the constant moaning to your core shook you from the inside out. 

“This isn’t enough, is it, Bambi?” He dragged a strong finger up your spine. “You need me to fill you all the way up, don’t you? Need me to mark you, show everyone you’re mine.”

“Yes, yes, fill me up, give it all to me. Fuck me and make me yours.” You were so desperate at this point. His mouth had you squirming and aching for the promising bulge beneath his pants and you couldn’t wait to feel him raw - you’d let him do anything. 

You turned your head and watched as he unbuckled his belt. Within seconds, his cock sprung free from its restraints and your breath hitched in your throat. He was thick and long, a prominent vein running along his side up to his tip, pink and already decorated by a bead of precum. Of course, Steve Rogers had a pretty cock. What wasn’t perfect about him?

“You’re so wet already, Bambi. So ready for my fat cock, aren’t you? You’ll suck me right in, I just know it.”

“Please! I wanna feel all of you.” Another whimper got swallowed by the mattress when you waited in anticipation for him to finally fuck you. 

His one hand grabbed your ass and the other aligned his cock with your entrance. You could feel his head already breaching, a delicious stretch sending shocks through your body in hot and cold waves of pleasure. 

He groaned lowly and it sent shivers down your spine. “Relax, baby girl. You’re so tight. You’ll be so stuffed with me.”

“I need you de-. I- ah just please!”

He worked himself forward with small rocking motions, each time reaching a little deeper into your core and when you thought he was finally all the way in, he pushed even further until your ass was pressed flush to his thighs. 

You screamed into the covers and reached for something to grasp when he groaned behind you. “Gripping me like a vice, Bambi. Are you gonna be able to take it?” He shivered behind you and you could tell he was struggling to hold still until you answered him. 

“I can take it. Your big cock feels so good inside me. Oh, god, please move.”

“Fuck.” Wet noises filled the room when he drew back almost all the way, just to slam back into you. In this position the curve of his cock stroked your walls perfectly, making it hard to hold back the building orgasm. 

“I’m so close already, sir. I’m-”

“Fucking call me Steve,” he roared and pushed your face further into the covers. “You gonna come? Gonna squeeze my cock with your pretty little pussy already, huh?”

You could only whimper in response, the steady stroke of his body clouded your mind until you felt like you were floating. 

“I-“Another scream ripped through your speech when the pleasure exploded within you. Steve slowed his motions, seemingly unable to move with the way your muscles contracted around him. And when the pulsing pleasure lessened after what felt like minutes, he picked his pace back up again. 

“That was so sexy. You gonna do that again for me? I’m so fucking close.”

His hand reached around you and began to massage your clit in tight little circles and your body lifted off the bed. Steve had pulled you up flush against his chest and watched his hand work on your clit over your shoulder. 

“’S too much! Ah!” You were still pulsing around his cock with every circle he traced on your bundle of nerves, making your legs quiver.

“You’re doing so good, Bambi. You can give me another. Milk my cock dry.” He kissed your neck and bit your skin. “So fucking beautiful, how’d I get so lucky?”

“Steve!” You felt another wave of pleasure approaching, just for his fingers to still on your clit, his hand now pressing into your stomach. 

“I’m almost there, baby. Hold it a little longer.” His face fell into your neck and you could feel his cock twitch inside you while his hot breath licked down your shoulder. “Don’t you fucking cum until I say so.”

“I don’t know if I-“

“Yes, you can!” Steve pushed you until you fell onto all fours again and then guided your hips to meet his hard strokes. His movements became frantic and fast, making you lose your mind. 

“I’m gonna fill you to the brim, Bambi. Make you drip with my cum for days. You’re mine.”

“Steve! Steve!” You couldn’t hold it any longer, it was too much. He was so big, and his movements so fast, there was no way you were lasting any longer. 

“Wait. Almost there.”

“I can’t. I can’t! I’m- Oh my god!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuuck.” With one last hard slam, Steve shot his hot seed in your pussy. Your walls clenched with every lewd sound he pushed through his heavy breaths. “Cumming so much for you, Bambi. All for you. Uhnggghh.” He rutted into you a couple more times and once the intense feeling faded into lazy pulses, he fell forward and pulled you into his chest. 

Still buried deep within you, Steve pulled the covers over your bodies. Every little movement made you squirm and your pussy clench down again, drawing small grunts from the man behind you. 

“You did so good.” His hand stroked over your hair and his face nuzzled into your shoulder. “Now, rest. You deserve it.”

And with that, you let your body fall into its well-needed sleep - warm, content, and without a care for the morning.

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve woke up to the sound of his alarm. He smiled before he opened his eyes, his mind still reminiscing the night before. He felt warm and content at the thought of it. Your kiss was like nothing else.

He felt around his bed blindly after turning off the alarm only to be met by a cold mattress. Opening his eyes, he called out your name and sat up in bed. But when no answer sounded from his apartment, he got up and looked for you. After a few minutes of searching, he was sure you weren’t there. And it worried him. He had planned to order you breakfast. He wanted to talk about last night. He wanted to tell you how much it had meant to him. 

A look at the clock on his wall made him frown. Maybe you’d gone home to change for work. He decided to wait and get to work a little later today. It would all resolve itself, Steve was sure. 

But when seven rolled around, there was no sign of you. And even after another 25 minutes, there was no indication you’d show up soon. Steve really couldn’t push his time anymore. There was a lot of work waiting for him at the office. So he got up and grabbed his briefcase, only to be interrupted by his phone. 

“Good morning, Sharon.” 

“Good morning, Mr. Rogers. I’m just calling to let you know your maid just called in sick.”

“What? Until when?”

“She didn’t say. But she’ll call when she is better.”

“Do you know what she has?”

“I believe that’s private. Mr. Rogers.”

Steve just hummed absentmindedly. His brain already playing all the possibilities in his head. 

“Would you be so kind so send me her number?” He asked almost hesitantly, but still demanding enough for Sharon to agree right away. 

“Of course, one second.” And then his phone pinged with a message from his assistant. 

“Thank you.” Sharon just hummed in response and then she hung up the phone, ever the busy assistant he knew her as. 

Steve didn’t hesitate to call you right away. With every peep. His heart hammered faster in his chest. And when he was about to give up, a familiar rustling rang through his speaker. 

“Hello?”

Steve took a second to breathe and then he said your name - steady but careful. 

“Mr Rogers,” you sounded surprised, and Steve tried to suppress the sting in his heart at the sound of his last name. You had called him Steve just last night. Why’d you stop?

“Yes... I heard you’re sick. Do you need anything?” He cringed the second he said it. You obviously didn’t want anything from him given that you had fled from his apartment before he even woke up this morning. 

“No, no. I’m good thank you.” There was an awkward tension in the static connecting the two of you. But Steve didn’t understand where it came from. Had you not enjoyed last night. Had he only imagined the affection you gifted him then?

“Well... I hope you are able to come back soon.”

You huffed into the phone. “Uh, yes. Okay.”

“Alright, then. I’ll see you.”

“I’ll see you.”

And then the line went dead. And Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that you had sounded a lot colder than before...

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve had taken the next day off. His mind was too occupied to work, anyway. He had caught himself glimpsing at his video feed several times that day, even though he knew you weren’t going to show. He guessed, somehow that you would appear anyway. It didn’t happen of course.

So today, Steve had to learn to do nothing. That included not thinking of you as well. Because as much as the thought of you distracted him from work, not working wasn’t exactly the best move to get rid of his thoughts. 

First, he had tried to stay in bed until 6. That was hard enough. Then, he worked out a bit, read an article, made a smoothie - okay he ordered one - and then he sat on his sofa watching as the clock above his fireplace ticked to 7 a.m. 

It was ridiculous. If every hour would pass this slowly, he’d go insane.

His fingers taped on his thigh as he watched the seconds hand tick. He had to do something, anything. 

The moment this thought passed his mind, he heard the elevator door ‘ding’ at his level. And before he could even turn around, your bag hit the ground with a loud thud. 

Steve stood up straighter, adjusting a tie he was not wearing, but the motion had become a habit. He was excited you’d shown up - visibly well and healthy that was. 

You stared at him for a solid minute and neither of you said a word. Your stare was unintelligible to Steve. He had to admit, that he didn’t know you well enough to read into your silent conversation yet, but he wanted to - he wanted to so badly. 

His hands moved to clasp in front of him and then he cleared his throat, but as he was about to say something, you moved past him, straight to the supply closet, and then disappeared into his guest bedroom. 

He followed you before he could tell his feet to stop, halting in the doorway of the room and watching as you dusted off the tall shelves above the sideboard. 

“What are you doing?” His voice was higher than he anticipated. 

“I’m working,” you answered bluntly, moving to the next object to dust off. 

“Why?” Steve had promised to provide for you just the other night. And, yes, while he might have been hazy from the incredible pleasure you had created, he had meant every word.

You suddenly turned to him with an angry stare. “I’m working because, unlike other people, I can’t just do whatever I want and not deal with the consequences,” you spat and then turned around again. The dusting motion turned a little more aggressive and Steve felt a cold shiver run down his back. Feisty.

Though, Steve couldn’t quite place your anger. Had he said something to offend you? How did the other night play into any consequences and why the hell were you working still? You’d said it yourself, you wanted to be his. And that was all he ever wanted. It just didn’t make sense.

Steve didn’t move. He just stood there like an idiot and watched you work your anger away on the poor dusty decorations of his home. You obviously didn't want to talk to him and he had no idea what to say to you. So he just watched... and watched until at least ten minutes had gone by. 

You were at a completely different corner of the room by now, trying to grab a book to dust off, but couldn’t quite reach. Steve had been standing in the doorway this whole time so he just assumed he was blocking your way to a ladder. But he took it as an opportunity instead. 

In three Long strides, he had walked up to you, reached for the item you stretched toward, and handed it to you. And for a second there, he could see those doe eyes return to your face, staring up at him.

Maybe he had misread the situation after all because your gaze drew him in again. He slowly closed his eyes before he could reach your lips, excitement rising in his veins when he thought back to the feeling of your lips on his–

*smack*

His eyes shot open when your hand collided with his cheek, a fire flickering in your eyes that made him take a step back, holding his heated skin. 

“You don’t have to mock me, okay?! I know it’s embarrassing and it’s stupid what we did, so please don’t make this more difficult.”

“What?” Steve was baffled, hurt. 

It was stupid what we did. Your words echoed in his mind until your voice penetrated the mantra. 

“Just leave me alone. Don’t you have work to do?”

He shook his head with an aching heart. You really had no idea. You thought he had used you, made you a bed bunny like Tony or Bucky would - he’d never do that. “I called in sick. I was so... forget it.”

You resumed cleaning and Steve just stood in your way watching. His chest stung with every second he spent with his eyes glued to you, knowing what you thought of him. He couldn’t stand it. He never wanted to make you uncomfortable, much less convey he’d only use you. 

“Can I ask you a question?” You ignored him, but he could see your movements stagger for a second. “Do you really regret what we did?”

Then you paused, your eyes trained to the surface in front of you. When you finally looked at him, Steve could see the tears shimmering in them. 

“No,” you whispered softly, Steve had almost missed it had his heart not skipped a beat. 

He instinctively stepped closer to you again, though cautious not to scare you away. He’d come this far and didn’t want to mess it all up again. “Then why are you ignoring me?”

“I'm not ignoring you.” It shot out of you like a bullet. You sighed, took another breath, and set the duster down. “We don’t know each other. We live in completely different worlds. There is not one scenario in which we could exist together as anything more than... this. I know that now.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re you and I’m just the maid.” You gestured to Steve and then yourself and Steve hated the way you degraded yourself just because he had a couple dollars more in his bank account. It wasn’t right. 

He shook his head, his hand reaching out to you but dropping just before he could actually touch you, curbing into a soft fist instead. “And what if I told you that you are much more to me than that?” Now he finally dared to lay his hand on your cheek, tilting your head so he could come closer to you and still stare into your eyes. “I like you. And the night– ever since you came into my life, my days seem just so much less dull.” 

He smiled with shiny eyes, afraid your silence would last forever. “Please say something, Bambi.”

“You like me?” There was awe and disbelief in your voice and Steve wanted to kiss it away until every last doubt was erased from your mind. Whoever had made you this insecure about affection would eat his fist. 

Steve bit his lip to hide the chuckle threatening to spill. “I do.”

He slowly got lost in your eyes again. Those beautiful innocent orbs looked at him like he was a different type of special. He loved it so much. 

His gaze dropped to your lips, slightly parted and full, and then back up. And before he could lose himself in them again, your hands latched onto his collar and pulled him down toward you. 

The kiss was all tongue and teeth, need and desperation melting into sighs and tingles - he could feed off of it forever. His hands roamed your body and pressed you deeper into his. Your arms reached around his neck as your noses bumped against each other in eager anticipation. 

Nothing ever felt this right. Steve couldn’t possibly believe you’d doubted the chemistry for a second. Not when it felt like that. But he wouldn’t need to think back on it anymore now... now that he finally had you.

🫵 You cant get enough of this character? Go check out the chatbot I made for him! This way you can explore different endlings, plotlines, or just enjoy his company for a while longer 💕

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[bullet-prooflove]

Noise Cancelling: Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @dizzybee03 @cosmic-psychickitty @puredicks @queenslandlover-93

Companion piece to:

Crisis

ASMR For The Soul

Something To Complain About (NSFW)

It’s at the mailboxes that Stu finally catches up with him. Normally Robby can time it just right, avoiding any interaction with the other man but today there he is waiting for him as Robby inserts the key to retrieve his mail.

“Your girlfriend is too loud.” He says as Robby removes of letters he’s been letting build up to avoid awkward conversations just like this one.

“I don’t think that’s true.” Robby responds as he flicks through the letters because the real problem is the shitty walls between the two apartments.

“I’m serious! You’re keeping me up at night, it’s impacting my REM cycle-”

“Stu.” Robby asserts, clutching the mail so hard the envelopes crease. “I’m not going to stop fucking my girlfriend because you don’t own a pair of soundproof headphones and it’s not all night, it’s like an hour a couple of times a week.”

“It’s two hours actually.” Stu says withdrawing his phone from his back pocket, bringing up the spreadsheet he’s been keeping on his phone. “That’s your average, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because I’m guessing she works late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Robby freezes because you do work late, you usually run an adult swim club until ten pm and end up falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.

“You’ve been keeping track of us?” Robby asks, mildly perturbed.

“It’s evidence.” Stu defends his actions. “I’m collating data to take to the HOA since you aren’t taking my concerns seriously.”

Robby uses his free hand to massage his temples because this is what he doesn’t want. His girlfriend slut shamed for enjoying herself. He can already imagine the whispers and the side eye from the rest of the neighbours. He’ll get the knowing grins for his stamina and prowess and you’ll get branded a whore. It’s the way of a very shitty world.

“Well this has been illuminating and a little creepy if I’m honest Stu.” Robby says, tucking his mail into his backpack. “I’ll take it all into consideration and get back to you.”

“You have a week.” Stu threatens as Robby puts on his sunglasses and strides out the building. “A week before I take it to the HOA.”

It’s later that afternoon that Stu opens his door to find you standing there, a gift wrapped box between your hands with a pretty gold bow.

“I advise you wear them between the hours of 9pm and 11pm tonight.” You tell him as he unwraps the gift to find a pair of state of the art noise cancelling headphones. “I’m planning on wearing something real pretty and you know how he gets.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[covenofagatha]

The Psychology of Love (Part 1)

The First Day

Your first class of Personality Psychology with Professor Agatha Harkness awaits

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: very light smut, slowburn, teacher x student

“Can you believe we’re graduating college in the spring?” your best friend and roommate, Wanda Maximoff, asks when you sit down at the table in the dining hall with a plate of toast and a cup of orange juice. 

You shake your head, brain still foggy with sleep, and silently curse yourself for picking the nine AM class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It’s the first day of your senior fall semester and you already know it’s going to be rough. You really hope this is the kind of class that has optional attendance. 

Wanda is much more of a morning person than you are, with chipper green eyes and a glow to her pale skin. She was more than happy to sign up for all early classes and you wish you had half of her energy. 

“You have Creative Writing at nine and then Gender and Sexuality Studies at ten-fifteen?” you ask. Wanda’s an English major and you sometimes wish you had gone down that route as opposed to Psychology. It’s interesting, of course, but some of the courses you’ve had to take made you want to poke your eyes out with boredom. 

She nods. “What do you have?” 

Shrugging, you pull out your phone to look at your schedule. “Personality Psych at nine,” you say. “Physiological Psych at twelve. I really hope these aren’t bad.” 

“Did you look up the professors? I did—apparently one of mine was fired for making racist comments and then rehired by the university,” Wanda scoffs and your eyes widen. “He apparently sued, it was a whole thing. So I bet that class should be fun.” 

Her sarcasm makes you chuckle and then wince. “No, fuck, I didn’t look,” you say, inwardly kicking yourself. When you had registered for classes, there were only certain times that some of them were offered so you had to work around that. You didn’t get to be picky in your senior year, when you were down to the last few classes you needed to graduate. 

You zoom in on the professor’s name for your first class on the screenshot of your schedule—Agatha Harkness. Typing it into google, you say a silent prayer that she’s an easy-A teacher. 

Clicking on the first website, your face falls when you see that she has a two-point-nine out of five rating, with the average grade being a C. Difficulty level four out of five. Attendance mandatory. You scroll through the reviews and your heart sinks lower with each one. 

Barely any homework, tests are about ninety percent of the grade. 

I made two-hundred flashcards and still failed the final exam. Professor Harkness is a total hardass. 

I didn’t wear my seatbelt while driving to class in the hopes I’d get into a car crash. 

“Jesus,” you mutter. Some of them are a little better, saying that she’s a wicked genius, and that going to office hours will help. One of them says she has some unorthodox ways of teaching psychology and that she picks favorites—but it’s effective. 

You put your phone away, not even bothering to look up any of your other professors. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. 

Wanda gets up to get some eggs and you bite into your cold toast, but you’ve lost your appetite. It’s your senior year and you can’t let your GPA tank this semester—you refuse to let that happen. If it takes going to office hours every day for the week before an exam, or buttering your professor up, you’ll fucking do it. 

“Nat and I heard about a welcome-back rager that one of the sororities is hosting tonight,” Wanda says when she comes back. Natasha is her girlfriend, one of your other best friends. You take all the credit for them getting together. Both of them had confessed that they liked the other to you so you had made a reservation for dinner for the three of you at a restaurant known for its romantic setting and then you had texted them about three minutes before to let them know that you wouldn’t be able to make it. 

Wanda didn’t come back to the dorm that night and when she had stumbled back in the next morning, her neck was covered in hickeys. 

Your nose wrinkles. “A sorority?” Not that you have anything against them, you just imagine their parties being very guy-infested. 

She laughs and rolls her eyes fondly. “It’s not what you’re thinking. They’re all invite-only and this is a queer sorority.” 

“Oh. Yeah, that sounds fun then.”

“Maybe you can get some action,” Wanda smirks, raising her eyebrows suggestively. 

Snorting, you take a long sip of orange juice to delay answering. Your love life has been complicated to say the least. Your first serious relationship was in freshman year of college, when a girl who had lived across the hall from you asked you out and no one had told you that it was a bad idea to date someone who lives that close to you. She was clingy and immature and you weren’t convinced that she actually cared about you—more just the idea of you. 

And you felt more from just a few compliments from women twice your age than you did the entire time with her. 

Looking back on it now, the whole thing was a bit of a mistake but you had gotten some experience from it and thankfully you had moved dorm buildings and hadn’t seen her again since. 

There had been some hookups in the past two years—drunk calls and makeouts in the bathroom at parties—but no one had caught your eye. 

“Yeah, we’ll see,” you say evasively. It just felt like something was constantly missing. You hadn’t opened up to Wanda or Nat about it, but you secretly longed for what the two of them had with each other. “It’s tonight?” 

Wanda hums. “At nine. So Nat will come over around then and we can pregame and then head over? Can’t be too early.” 

You shake your head at how egregious it would be before laughing. Natasha plops down next to Wanda, out of breath, before kissing her girlfriend on the cheek. They giggle to each other and you push your chair back. 

“I should probably get going. I can only imagine what my professor would do if I’m late,” you say. 

One of your general psych professors taught you that there’s only one type of person who goes out of their way to do a survey or write a review: someone who feels incredibly strongly about it. For each person who wrote a bad review about Professor Harkness, there’s surely five people who did just fine in the class with no complaints. That makes you feel a little better and you smile at your friends before trekking across campus. 

Her classroom is in the Psychology building, which is possibly the furthest one from the dining hall, and by the time you get there and walk up the flight of stairs, your calves are burning and you have to make an effort to control your heavy breathing. 

But you have five minutes to spare and the room is empty, so you lean against the wall next to the door on your phone. You’re already getting notifications of assignments for this week—why do you have five things to do for one class? A ball of stress starts to coil in your stomach. 

“Nervous habit?” someone asks, and it takes you a moment to realize that they’re talking to you. You look up, surprised, and find an older woman, maybe late forties, with curly dark hair that’s tossed over her shoulders, dark blue eyes that pierce into yours, and large, black glasses resting on her nose. She’s wearing a navy dress with a black blazer and smart brown shoes. Her eyebrow is posed expectantly and you realize that you’ve been chewing on your thumb nail. 

You clear your throat and straighten up, a feeling that you can’t quite name growing inside you. “Sorry?” 

Her lips slowly stretch into a smile and you catch a whiff of her perfume—a unique blend of warm vanilla with a dark coffee and something extra that adds a little spice. “Are you here for class?” she asks. 

“Yeah, um, Personality Psych,” you answer, feeling like you’re missing out on something. She looks absolutely delighted and steps to the side of you to open the door to the classroom. The pieces slowly click into place and your mouth drops open. “You—you’re Professor Harkness?”

She smirks. “Not who you were expecting?” 

She is not who you were expecting at all. The reviews made it sound like she was a mean crone deriving pleasure from failing students left and right. Not an attractive older woman.

You swallow roughly. 

Professor Harkness tilts her head to the side and you brush past her into the classroom, muttering a “Not really,” her scent lingering in your nostrils. It’s a small room and you sit at a desk in the second row on the left side, where the lectern is. You’ve found that it’s easier to focus when you’re close to the teacher. 

More students trickle in and sit behind you or to the side of you. No one takes the desk in front of you, though, so when Professor Harkness sweeps through the aisles of chairs and stops at the front, you’re in her direct line of sight. Her eyes twinkle when they land on you and you squirm.

“Welcome to Personality Psychology,” she announces at nine on the dot. “I am Professor Agatha Harkness. I have a PhD in clinical and behavior psychology. I’m sure many of you have heard or read that this class is difficult.” 

Out of your peripheral vision, you see some people nodding and nervously chuckling. 

She slams a hand down on the surface of the lectern, making everyone jump. “They are correct. But, let me tell you something. A lot of the students that take this class think it will be easy. They hear ‘Freud’ and they think ‘Oedipus Complex’. They hear ‘biological approach’ and they think ‘nature versus nurture’. Of course we will cover that—but we will also go very deep into what each theory pertains and includes. People fail because they think there’s too much information so they give up. What’s the solution?Try.” 

You wonder if she saw the review from the person that said they made two-hundred flashcards and still failed. 

Agatha moves to the desk next to the lectern to log into the computer. Quiet chatter fills the room, people introducing themselves to each other, but you dig in your bag and pull out a notepad and a pen. Your psych teacher in high school taught you that writing down information helps your brain retain it better than typing, so you’ve grown accustomed to taking notes by hand. 

She presses a button and the screen at the front of the classroom turns on and projects the syllabus. Agatha quickly goes through it, making note of the three exams and two research presentations that are scattered throughout the semester, and someone raises their hand. 

“So we only have five grades?” he asks, a nervous tremor in his voice. You’re right there with him—it will be very hard to bring your grade back up if you do bad on a test. 

Agatha stares him down. “If you do well on each one, you won’t need more than that.” The boy stammers but she moves on, telling everyone that attendance is indeed mandatory and that she won’t be posting the slides for notes online. You inwardly groan, hoping that your fear of failure will outweigh your lack of motivation. 

When she closes the tab with the syllabus, you hear rustling behind you and you turn slightly to see a girl packing up. A quick check of your watch shows that there’s still thirty minutes left.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Agatha says. “Did I dismiss the class?” 

The girl freezes before slinking back into her seat. “No, sorry, I just thought—” 

Agatha laughs humorlessly and you flinch. “Well, you are dismissed. We’ll see you on Wednesday unless you drop the class first.” The girl’s mouth drops open, eyes glassy, but she holds her head high as she walks out of the door.  

If you were her, you’re not sure you’d be able to come back. 

“Alright, let’s get into it,” Agatha says, clicking on a new tab and opening a slideshow. There’s a quiet ugh among everyone—of course she’s making you take notes on the first day. “What is personality?” 

No one moves an inch, no one says a word. 

She scoffs and stands up, perusing the room. You’re sure everyone is doing the exact same thing as you—looking anywhere but the professor. Raising your hand to your mouth and biting your fingernails, you feel her eyes on you and you reluctantly meet her gaze. 

“It’s the way you think and behave?” you offer and she smiles pleasantly. A feeling of warmth spreads through you at the validation. 

She clicks to the next slide. “Very good. The definition I want you to know is that personality is first and foremost a construct. It’s an idea that we created. It’s a person’s overall, individual pattern of behaviors, emotions and thoughts. There are five basic approaches to how we can look at personality.” 

You furiously scribble that down. You’re one of the only people who’s writing notes and she thankfully waits for you to look up before continuing. 

“We have the Trait approach, the Biological approach, the Psychoanalytical approach, the Phenomenological approach, and the Behavioral approach. I’m sure some of you are familiar with most of these, but over the semester, we’re going to really dive into how each of these approaches views personality and what they think is the basis for it. There are a lot of different ways to assess personality, some a lot more legitimate methods than others.”

Someone raises their hand and Agatha nods at them. “The Trait approach is where we look at the Big Five personality test, right?” 

Agatha sighs and clicks to the next slide. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to in an attempt to appear smart. It doesn’t work.” You stifle a laugh—she sees and winks at you and your cheeks flush. 

She continues talking a bit, giving you a bit of information about each one, before telling everyone to take out a piece of paper. 

“Draw a picture of a house and your family, whatever it looks like to you,” Agatha instructs. She sets a timer for five minutes while she walks around and glances at people’s work. 

When she gets to you, her perfume invades your nostrils as she bends over your shoulder. You can feel her hair brush your back. She hums in your ear and your stomach heats up. 

“This is an example of a projection test. You can tell a lot about a person based on how they drew the things,” she says, sitting back at her desk. “How intricate they draw the house. If it looks like the place they grew up in. Where they put themselves compared to the rest of the family. Who is even included in the family. I’m not going to collect these, but if you do want me to take a look at them so you can judge for yourself how accurate it is, stay after class. If not, then you may go and I’ll see everyone on Wednesday.” 

You’re the only person who doesn’t immediately rush out the door and you slowly make your way up to her, paper in hand. Her eyes flick to yours and she smirks, like she knew she could count on you. 

She holds out her hand and you give her your drawing. The lines on her forehead crease and she nods, analyzing it. You shift and scratch your head and resist the urge to bite your nails because of her comment earlier. 

Agatha puts the paper down on the desk, faced towards you. “The house isn’t detailed—just a square with a door and four windows and a triangle as the roof. Maybe you’re just not an artist, or maybe you never really considered any place home.” 

It feels like all the air gets sucked out of your lungs. 

“There’s space between you and these people,” she points to you and then to your mom, brother, and father, “but there’s also space between your parents. Or that’s who I’m guessing they are.” 

You nod. 

“It seems like you don’t feel very connected to them, or to your home. Maybe their home specifically?” She looks up at you, lips quirked up. “So, projective tests—total nonsense?” 

Chuckling shakily, you meet her eyes. “Total,” you joke. 

Agatha leans back in her chair and studies you. “What made you want to study psychology?” 

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” you say lamely, shifting your weight from one foot to another. “I guess I just like knowing how people think. What about you?” 

There’s a dark glint in her eyes. “Understanding people, the way they think—” she gestures to you in agreement with your answer, “—it gives you power over them. You know how to get inside their head, you know how to get what you want.” 

The air seems to thicken around you two and her perfume makes you dizzy. “What do you want?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper. Her eyebrow twitches up. 

“Right now, I want a coffee,” she asserts, standing up and handing you back your paper. Whatever spell, whether real or imagined on your end, is broken and Agatha smiles. “I’ll see you Wednesday?” 

The unspoken question is if you’re going to drop the class, if you’re scared off by her demeanor. You meet her gaze firmly. “I’ll see you then.” 

“Have a good rest of the day, y/n,” she says, walking past you and out the door, and you stand there, agape, realizing that you never told her your name.  ~~~

“I’m Natasha Romanoff! I’m friends with Stacy,” Nat yells over the pumping music from inside the sorority. The girl at the door nods and moves to the side to let you, Nat, and Wanda into the house. 

The lights are a deep blue and you see people in the corners doing shots and playing beer pong, there’s girls making out in the middle of the floor, guys outside in the pool. You turn to say something to your friends, but they’ve already gone off somewhere else and left you standing there alone. 

So you go and fill a cup up with beer from the keg and take in the scene, perfectly content to just be a wallflower for the night. You’re not even really sure why you came, but you had nothing else to do and now the drinks you had earlier are settling pleasantly in your stomach, making your veins buzz and your head float.

“Hey!” someone says loudly and you look to the side to find a girl with dark hair and blue eyes standing there. “You look lonely.” 

You laugh and take another sip. “My friends left me. They’re probably hooking up in a bedroom right now.” 

She leans in closer and you find yourself mirroring her. “Do you want to go look in the bedrooms and see if we can find them?” 

“What? Why would I—” She raises an eyebrow and it clicks. “Wait, are you hitting on me?” She nods and you down the rest of your drink. You’re about to apologize and walk away when you inhale and smell something. 

Vanilla, coffee, and a hint of something else. 

There’s a flicker of heat in your stomach and you reach out a hand to cup her cheek, bringing her closer to you. 

It’s her. You can’t explain it, but energy thrums under your skin and you pull her mouth to yours. The scent fills your nose and your mouth and you moan. She pushes you against the wall and you don’t even know her name but you don’t care. 

Your tongue licks into her mouth and she whimpers, hands frantically sliding down your body and around your waist. You’ve never done anything like this before, never this reckless, but there’s something about her that is driving you crazy. 

Her fingers fiddle with the button on your jean shorts before sliding in, her smell the only thing you can focus on and it hits you. 

It’s the same perfume as Agatha was wearing in class. 

You should stop because it’s so fucked up but you’re too wet now to just walk away so you wrap your arms around her to bring her closer. 

And when she slides a finger into you, in a hallway in a sorority house amidst fifty other undergraduates, your professor is all you can think about.

Part Two

@lostbutlovely33 @diorrxckstar @whoreforolderfictionalwomen  @katekathry @onemansdreamisanothermansdeath @tayasmellsapples @natashashill @mybraininblood @mysticalmoonlight7  @cactuslover2600 @loveem0mo @readysteddiero-nance @lonelyhalfwitch @lesbiantortilla @crescendoofstars @sol-in-wonderland @ahsfan05 @gbab09 @sasheemo @agathaharness @live-laugh-love-lupone @chiar4anna @fuckedupforkhahn @lowlyjelly @sweetmidnights @n3bula-cats @m1vfs @agathascoven1

[reidsmanuscript]

Seven Seconds

Summary: when Katie Jacob's gets abducted in a Mall, setting the clock for the BAU, who needs a legal favor, and it's been a year since the A.D.A. has know anything about Spencer Reid. Pairing: Spencer Reid x lawyer!reader Genre: pinning, SLOW BURN, maybe right moment?, angst bc i love angst wc: 4.6k! (i know so small comparing to part 1 bear with me) TW: cm canon typical violence, set in 05x3 "Seven seconds" (obviously lol), sexual violence, implied reader's dark past, glimpses of female rage. A/N: my idea for the serie is be taylor jenkins reid and have you question if lawyer reader exists or not (delusional bitch), english is not my first language and let's pretend it's proofread part I - part II - part III - part IV - masterlist

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Spencer sat on the park bench reading a book while playing chess with Ethan, brilliant kid for his age and good opponent, not good enough though because when he cheered “I see checkmate in 5, What do you see?” It took Spencer one glance to calculate all the movements necessary.

“I see it in 3” he answered looking at his book again, the kid turned around the board and moved the pieces

“We've missed you out here” he said, staring at the board amazed.

“Thanks. I, uh, I had to take a little break”

“How come?” His hands froze on the book for a second before closing it.

Spencer had been clean for over a year now, it was 14 months and 2 weeks ago that he had freaked out after noticing his stash of Dialud was gone along with his needle. Where could he find more? Who knew about his addiction? Where was his stash? Who the fuck is Dr. Fitzgerald? Did you report him?

His first instinct was confronting you, given that you were the only person who found out his drugs that he knew, the first days he was a complete paranoid, he jumped every time Hotch called his name, or that Gideon looked at him a little too long.

At the end of the week he was thinking where he could find more, and when that thought scared him, he called the number of the card you had left in the same pocket his drugs used to be.

“Hello this is Dr. Fitzgerald” said a calm voice, it was 10 p.m. so there was a higher chance of going to voicemail, but he got an answer and the tremor of his hands got a little worse. Was it the anxiety or the withdrawal?

“Umm hello.. this is.. Dr.. this is Spencer Reid and someon-""I've been waiting for your call Dr Reid” the other line interrupted, he froze for a second.

“I used to play with a co-worker friend of mine. He's probably the best mind I ever went up against. One day, he just decided that he didn't want to play anymore.”

Fast forward, she helped him get clean and stay clean after Gideon left, getting tested regularly, and gave him the contact of the help group of FBI addicts. He was better, he was alive.

“So you gave up, too?”

“Just the opposite. I attempted to play Through every permutation of moves on a chessboard.”

“That's an infinite number of games.”

“It's not infinite. It's just- it's exponentially large.”

“You couldn't have played through them all.”

“There's an average of 40 moves per chess game, And I'll tell you something– the more I played, The more I realized that every single match every single chess game, Is really just a simple variation on the exact same theme. You know? It's aggressive opening, Patient mid-game, inevitable checkmate, And I realized why my friend quit. He was tired of repeating the same patterns And expecting a different outcome.”

“That's because you haven't come up on Fridays or Mondays in a while” the way his eyebrows went up along his voice tone made him feel like he knew something that he didn't.

His eyebrows furrowed “What do you mean?”

“There's this great player who comes around those days, she even brings the best pastries, and her games is similar to yours, always two or three moves ahead, she always beats everyone here… i think her boyfriend called her Buzz or something like that, like the Toy Story character”

“Buzz?… i don't really remember anyone with that nickname”

“It’s probably not that one but you don't know her because she started coming like 8 months ago.. I'm sure you have a lifetime of chess strategy in your head that you're just sitting on, but when you meet her?” He made a dramatic pause “You'll have to play it.”

He glances at his watch to realize his 15 minute break is coming to an end. “I still use it. I just, uh... I apply it differently. I have to go. It's good seeing you.”

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That evening, the BAU was called in for a local case—a little girl, Katie, had been kidnapped from a busy mall. A week earlier, another girl had been taken from the same location and found dead hours later. Now, they were all racing against the clock.

Katie’s parents were desperate. As any parents would be in this situation, right? But when Hotch asked the father if either of them was having an affair—a routine question in abductions—the man took offense. Deep offense. So much so that he refused to let the FBI search their house.

Now, what kind of parent refuses to help the police find their missing child?

In a small surveillance room, Morgan and Reid sat with Garcia, who was visibly frustrated by the mall’s ancient security system. They were surrounded by screens displaying grainy footage from different angles—well, almost every angle. They had a single glimpse of Katie in one video, and then, seven seconds later, she was gone.

JJ and Prentiss were with the mother, aunt, and uncle, trying to get a read on the family dynamic. Meanwhile, Morgan and Reid had conducted a cognitive interview with Katie’s cousin. It had led nowhere.

“The family has refused permission to search the house,” Hotch announced as he stepped into the room.

“What do you mean they denied?” Morgan’s frustration was evident. “Your only child goes missing, and you refuse to collaborate?”

No one disagreed. They were all thinking the same thing.

“The cousin didn’t say much,” Reid added. “He was too distracted in the game room to notice anything.”

Hotch exhaled sharply. “I’ll speak to the detectives, see if we can get a warrant.” His tone was firm, but they all knew time wasn’t on their side.

Garcia adjusted her glasses. “Sir, I mean this in the best way possible, but it’s almost 8 p.m. I don’t think-”

“I’ll handle it,” Morgan interrupted.

All Reid and Garcia turned to him with identical looks. What do you mean you will handle it?

Hotch’s eyebrows furrowed, but after a moment, he gave a small nod and walked away. Morgan was already pulling out his phone.

“I have a contact,” he explained, dialing.

He put the phone on speaker. It rang once. Twice. On the third ring, a voice answered—sharp, direct, and all business.

“A.D.A. Woodvale.”

Reid went rigid.

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It was late in the office; most people had already gone home, including your assistant Molly. All but Austin, who was still there because he had a lead on one of your cases. You knew he was still hanging around because, over a year ago, when someone had snuck into your office to harm you, you’d become a little paranoid. You’d gotten better, but Austin insisted on keeping you company, especially since your car was in the mechanic’s.

You were reviewing a legal brief, pen in hand, skimming the margins to jot down notes when the desk phone rang. Without looking up, you hit the speaker button with the tip of the pen.

“A.D.A. Woodvale.”

There was a beat of silence before a familiar voice cut in—smooth, direct, urgent.

Morgan called your name “Hey. We need a warrant. Fast.” You blinked, setting the pen down.

Reid and Garcia exchanged glances as Morgan jumped in without hesitation.

“Katie Jacobs. Eight years old. Abducted from a mall earlier tonight,” Morgan started, all business. “Another girl was taken from the same place a week ago—she was found dead hours later. We’re working against the clock.”

You frowned, swirling the pen, going through the multiple scenarios. You had heard about last week’s case, and how slow the police had moved back then.

“We’ve got mall surveillance footage,” Morgan pressed. “At first, we thought she just vanished, but Garcia finally pulled something from one of the side corridors. Katie wasn’t taken by force—she was walking calmly with someone.”

Your fingers tightened slightly around her pen. “Someone she knows.”

“Exactly,” Morgan confirmed. “That narrows it down to family or close acquaintances.” They all shared a silent thought. Family.

We know they’re hiding something,” Morgan corrected. “We just don’t have the probable cause to kick the door down.”

Garcia watched as Morgan paced slightly, his tone firm but urgent.

“That’s thin, Morgan,” Your voice came through the speaker, steady and unyielding.

“We don’t have time for airtight,” Morgan countered.

Your jaw tightened. “You don’t have time for me to get laughed out of a judge’s office, either. Refusing a search isn’t a crime, and suspicion alone doesn’t cut it. I need more.” You understood where the suspicious came from, how are you supposed to help them if they had nothing?

There was a pause. A beat of silence. Then, another voice—one you hadn’t heard in over a year.

“99% of abducted children who are killed due within the first 24 hours” He cleared his throat, willing his voice to stay even. Spencer Reid. “75% within the first 3 hours, and what only law enforcement knows is Jessica Davis joined the 44% of children who are abducted and killed within the first hour. We’re already past the three-hour mark. If we don’t act now, statistically speaking—”

“The likelihood of recovery drops exponentially,” You sighed, already standing up, ignoring how his voice sounded. So different. So… clean.

Your gaze flicked to the clock. 8:06 p.m. Damn it.

You grabbed a blank warrant form from her drawer and reached for a pen. “Send me the address and everything else you have. Give me 20 minutes.”

Click. You didn’t have time for goodbyes.

Austin raised an eyebrow from his seat. “Guess you’re not going home anytime soon.”

You didn’t look up as you started writing. “I never was.”

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The courthouse was mostly deserted at this hour. The fluorescent lights hummed quietly, and the stillness of the evening was only interrupted by the sharp click of your heels on the polished floors followed by Austin’s boots toward the judge’s chambers.

“You sure you don’t want me to take this one? Sweet-talk her maybe?” he teased.

You shot him a look. “You think Judge Holloway is the type to be charmed? Plus, you’re a private investigator, not a lawyer.”  

“She’s not gonna like you showing up this late.”  

You didn’t miss a beat. “If she’s still up, she’ll make time for this.”  

Taking a steadying breath as you stopped in front of the door, you quickly ran through your notes, making sure you had every detail in order. Then, without hesitation, you pushed through the heavy wooden doors of Judge Evelyn Holloway’s chambers.  

Inside, the judge barely glanced up from her paperwork. “You have two minutes, Woodvale.”

Stepping forward, you set the warrant request on the desk. “Your Honor, I apologize for the late hour, but we have a child abduction case we’re working against the clock. A young girl, Katie Jacobs, was taken from a mall over three hours ago. We’ve obtained surveillance footage showing her walking with an individual—someone she likely knows. We believe the family is withholding information, and they’ve refused to allow us to search the residence.”

The judge narrowed his eyes, folding her hands on the desk. “And what do you propose I do about it? What evidence do you have to warrant a search?”

You kept your voice steady. “We have footage of the girl with someone who wasn’t a stranger, Your Honor. The parents are refusing cooperation, and the father was evasive when asked about possible affairs, which raises red flags about his involvement.”

Holloway sighed, leaning back in her chair. “That’s thin.” You were ready for that.

“I have the full footage from the mall security, including a timestamp showing the precise time the girl went missing. She is last seen walking calmly with someone she knows, most likely family.”

There was a brief pause, and for a second, you thought you were about to lose her. So you pulled Reid’s words from memory, adjusting them just enough to make them your own.

“Time is working against us. Statistics show that 99% of abducted children who are murdered lose their lives within the first 24 hours 75% within just the first three. And only law enforcement-”

She cut you off with a raised hand, signaling you to stop.

The judge exhaled through her nose, it was late and you were rambling about statistics and you knew she wanted you out as soon as possible when you started citing numbers. So pushing himself out of her chair with a slight groan. “Fine. Get me the paperwork. I’ll sign it—but you better have your ducks in a row.”

You nodded, her demeanor unflinching. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

As you turned to leave, you couldn’t help but feel the weight of the hours ahead of you. But you were used to this—fighting against the clock.

“Let’s move,” motioning to Austin. He gave you a small nod. “You got it.”

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Exactly 15 minutes after the call, 5 minutes earlier than promised, Morgan’s phone rang. He answered it without even looking. 

"You got your warrant. I'll meet you there," Alex’s voice came through, crisp and businesslike, just as expected.

Morgan exhaled, his relief barely hidden. "Thank you, Woody."

He paused for a moment before adding, "I owe you one," then hung up, turning to Reid.

“Tell Hotch we’re heading to the Jacobs’ house,” he instructed, already moving toward the door.

Spencer had been timing her. It wasn’t the first time he'd gotten caught up in the tense waiting game of law and order, but the pressure of it had a different weight today. The memory of your voice, clear and resolute, echoed in his mind, sharper than before.

For Reid, part of getting clean wasn't just the physical withdrawal—it was the emotional weight of confronting his mistakes. The memory of how he'd lashed out at you a year ago still haunted him. How could he have been so cruel? The hurt in your eyes, the way he dismissed you, the way it all spiraled… it wasn’t just the drugs that had made him say those things. And the fury he saw when you looked at him, Dialuid in hand, how you looked like a timing bomb when he was trying to see if he could talk to you, the tension in your shoulders, the lock in your jaw, the grip on the file. He’d been battling so much more since then, in his mind, you saved his life by doing what he couldn't do.

He’d rather die than relive that moment again, than say those things. And yet, here he was, standing in the middle of another chaotic case, still carrying that guilt with him. He stayed behind Morgan for just a beat before pushing down his feelings and moving quickly. 

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The engine of Austin's bike rumbled to a stop as they pulled up in front of the house, where Morgan and Reid were standing in front of the black SUV. You slid off the back with practiced ease, taking off the helmet and letting your hair fall loose.

Austin followed your lead, taking his helmet off with a groan. “So, what exactly are we looking for?”

You shot him a quick, sidelong glance, handing him the helmet, keeping your expression flat knowing he’s about to be a drama queen. “You’re not coming inside. The warrant’s for FBI and police only. Not P.I.s included”

Austin paused, a mock pout crossing his face. “Excuse me? I just got you here, through all that traffic, risking myself to get a speeding ticket and now I don’t get to search? This is the second time in the night that you P.I. shaming me. Do you hate me?”

“If I hated you I wouldn’t have bailed your ass out of jail… twice” you remark the last part. He had a talent for sticking his foot where he shouldn’t be, maybe that’s what makes him good at his job.

“You act like you wouldn’t do it a third time” he was mocking, but he was right, something you would never admit to him. 

You start walking to the house “Mhm.” you hum rolling your eyes, heading towards where Morgan and Reid were. 

You didn't expect him to be there, or maybe you did, maybe you wanted to see him and know what had happened to him since the last time you saw him. They were looking at you, Morgan with a curious already-profiling-you stare, while Reid expression was more… cautious. He looked so different, his cheekbones were prominent in an attractive way and not sickly, he had put on some healthy weight and was not fidgety. You were not mad anymore, because of course at the moment the hurt had turned into rage like it always does for you, but it was more because of phantoms than anything else. 

“Got your golden ticket” you said, avoiding Reid’s gaze as you pulled the warrant from the inner pocket of your gray coat and swung it toward them.

Morgan nodded “You staying?” He gestured with his head to Austin who was leaving.

“I have to make sure you find something, otherwise the judge will have my head for this,” you said dryly, shrugging as though the threat didn’t bother you, but there was a flicker of seriousness behind your words. You were only talking to him, which felt rude because Reid’s stare was locked in your profile. 

Reid was thinking how pretty you looked, how the black vest suited you, and he couldn’t ignore the fact you had changed your brown bag to a black one that looked nothing like his. Your white shirt and gray coat gave you an older, wiser look, but as Reid analyzed your features, he realized he didn’t even know how old you were. You couldn’t be older than him. Serious, sharp, and young... How was it possible for someone that young to be the A.D.A.?

Reid’s mind couldn’t let go of the numbers. The average age of an Assistant District Attorney in the U.S. is 36. You couldn’t be older than 25, and yet you were already in that position.

You glanced at him for a moment before stepping inside the house, feeling the weight of his stare. The look made him snap out of his trance-like state, and of course, his eidetic memory hated him, because for that brief second, he remembered how you had looked at him a year ago.

Morgan nodded and thanked you again before he and Reid walked into the house. You left the warrant on the hall table with a deliberate touch, your fingers lingering for just a moment—as if to remind yourself that you weren’t entirely done with this.

“Somebody lit a fire last night,” you heard Reid say.

“Well, there are dirty dishes for three in the kitchen, so they eat together as a family.” Morgan’s voice carried from the other room as they moved through the house, taking in the details.

If Katie was in danger, the signs wouldn’t be in plain sight. You had to look where they hid—where children kept their secrets. Their bedrooms.

“Hey, my favorite movie from when I was a kid.” Reid held up a DVD, turning it in his hands before pulling it from the player just as you passed by him, tugging on latex gloves before heading upstairs, you did feel a little guilty for not even looking or talking to him, but it was something you did unconsciously. 

“So they watch movies together, too,” Morgan mused. They were starting to build a picture of the family’s dynamic.

“By a fireplace in a house that’s straight out of a catalog,” Reid added. “Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted this any cozier.”

“That’s what worries me.” There was weight in Morgan’s voice. A tension that sat between them.

Upstairs, you searched through the rooms with careful precision.

When you first became a lawyer, you made a promise—never ignore a sign. Since then, you have gone further. You didn’t just refuse to ignore them; you searched for them. Hollow eyes. Unexplained bruises. Small bloodstains. You looked for them in teenagers, in young adults, in the elderly. But nothing—nothing—was more painful than a child who couldn’t speak up.

Because they were small. Because someone older, someone stronger, was hurting them. There's nothing more hurtful than not being able to speak out, to say something and stand up for yourself. Except when someone did—someone saw the bruises, the fear, the signs—and they looked away deliberately. Because a child’s pain was inconvenient. Because it came with a mountain of paperwork no one wanted to touch.

You had spent your whole life making sure you never looked away.

That’s why you were hunched over the small desk in Katie’s bedroom, flipping through her drawings when Morgan and Reid entered the room. They started searching, their movements efficient and methodical.

“Katie’s been wetting her bed,” Reid said as he lifted the duvet, inspecting the mattress beneath it.

“A lot of six-year-olds do. Could be bad dreams,” Morgan replied, crouching beside you as he sifted through a pile of toys.

You considered that possibility—it was perfectly logical. In a perfect world.

“Some kids won’t get up at night because they’re afraid of the dark,” Reid added, his tone careful. Almost knowing.

“Or it could be a lot more complex than that.”

Morgan had found a doll. Not a Barbie missing a shoe or one that had simply been played with too much. No—this doll was different.

Its hair had been hacked off, jagged strands sticking out unevenly. Red marker smeared across its face like smeared blood. Its clothes were yanked askew, twisted, and wrong.

“Most girls covet their dolls like an extension of themselves.” He took the doll in his hands like it was made of fine glass. 

“Reid, I know these signs-— acting out on her toys, wetting the bed. She's obviously covering up something about that necklace.”

“And her cousin might be holding something back.”

“Well, this looks more like a man than a boy to me,” you said, holding up a drawing of a tall, shadowy figure towering over a small, crying child.

Morgan took it from your hands, his expression hardening as he analyzed the image.

“Psychology says drawing is a child’s way of channeling their inner world. Look at the strokes—how harsh they are,” you pointed to the dark, jagged lines forming the tall figure, then traced your finger over the smaller one. “And this looks like Katie to me. She forgot to draw the hands, which means she feels powerless… helpless.” 

Morgan took his phone out, dialing up “Hotch, we think Katie’s being molested,” Morgan said, his voice clipped. “And we both know the odds.”

A brief silence. Then Hotch’s response, firm and certain. “Most likely by someone under the same roof.”

He hung up, and both men started toward the door, their movements brisk with purpose. But you stayed behind for a moment, rooted in place, taking in the scene. Trying to quiet the distant sirens that echoed in your mind, the same ones always shouting when you were face to face with these situations. A loud pause—maybe out of respect for Katie and her pain, for everything she had been forced to endure.

From the doorway, Spencer glanced back. The dim light from the hallway cast your figure in stark contrast, outlining you in shadow—your form dark against the soft glow of the room. He couldn’t see your expression, couldn’t read your face. He focused on the way your hands curled into fists at your sides, the tight set of your shoulders.

And he wished—just for a second—that he could see more.

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You stood outside, leaning against the wall, arms crossed tightly over your chest. By your side were Morgan, Jeremy, Katie’s cousin, and Reid.

Turns out, Katie’s uncle, Richard, was her abuser. A disgusting son of a bitch who deserved to rot in hell. And you were going to make sure he did. He had destroyed Katie’s childhood, probably more than just hers, shattering an entire family in the process. His own son, standing right next to you, was collateral damage he clearly hadn’t spared a thought for. And then there was his wife. The woman who had chosen to look away. Who had taken Katie and nearly gotten her killed, all for the pathetic, desperate hope that it would somehow stop her husband from creeping into little bedrooms at night. She deserved the same hell he did.

A stretcher rolled past, Katie’s small frame barely visible beneath the blankets as the paramedics guided her into the ambulance. Her mother clutched her tiny hand, whispering something—words meant to soothe, to promise safety.

A young voice cut through the air. “I heard her call my mom’s name. That’s what I remembered before.”

You closed your eyes, your mind already racing ahead. Your attorney brain was piecing it together, sketching out the battle that was coming. If the kid had heard it, that made him a witness to the abduction. His own mother had committed the crime against her niece. And God only knew what else he had seen—what else had been happening in that house—without fully understanding it.

“We get it, kid. That’s your mom,” Morgan said, his voice steady. But you knew the truth: if Jeremy could barely say those words to them, getting him to the stand in front of a jury would be another fight entirely.

The boy shifted on his feet, staring at the ambulance. “What’s gonna happen to me now?”

If God existed, He had already been too cruel. He had let all of this happen. And you knew how these things worked—knew there was a very real chance that Katie’s parents, burdened with their own grief, would resent Jeremy by association. That they wouldn’t take him in. That he would be swallowed by the foster system.

You wouldn’t let that happen.

The sirens blared outside the mall, cutting through the air with urgency, but it was the ones inside your mind that were louder—screaming in the same rhythm, as if they were one and the same. Distant and deafening, they filled every corner of your head, drowning out everything but the grim reality unfolding before you.

“I don’t know, Jeremy,” Reid answered, his voice gentle. “But we’re gonna make sure you’re alright, okay?”

Jeremy didn’t look at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the ambulance. “Is Katie gonna be all right?”

You wished—desperately, violently—that you could tell him yes. That you could say it with certainty and make it true. But how could you give him something you didn’t have?

“She will, eventually,” Morgan said, his voice firm.

You exhaled sharply. The words made your skin crawl.

“Is she?” The question slipped from your lips before you could stop it—low, bitter, nearly spat out under your breath. Just quiet enough that the kid wouldn’t hear. Just loud enough that Morgan did.

Before he could respond, you were already moving.

Your feet carried you toward the police car, toward the sick, selfish bastard they were shoving into the backseat. Your hand shot out, slamming the door closed—harder than necessary, just enough that it cracked against Richard’s face.

Morgan watched. So did Spencer.

And for the first time, he realized just how much of a puzzle you really were.

Partially because, throughout all of this, you hadn’t looked at him once. Not when he entered the room, not when he spoke, not even now, standing just a few feet away.

Partially because your eyes, when he finally caught a glimpse of them, were full of something he rarely saw outside of a case like this. Pure, undiluted rage.

Not just anger. Not just frustration. Something deeper. Something personal.

　　　　 　　　 .˳˳.⋅ॱ˙ ˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙ ˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅.　

part III　 Feedback feeds motivation! Likes, reblogs and comments are all appreciated <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gandersauce

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for<p>placehold://://er </p> my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in AUSTIN on MONDAY (Mar 10). I'm also appearing at SXSW and at many events around town, for Creative Commons and Fediverse House. More tour dates here.

It's true that capitalists by and large hate capitalism – given their druthers, entrepreneurs would like to attain a perch from which they get to set prices and wages and need not fear competitors. A market where everything is up for grabs is great – if you're the one doing the grabbing. Less so if you're the one whose profits, customers and workers are being grabbed at.

But while all capitalists hate all capitalism, a specific subset of capitalists really, really hate a specific kind of capitalism. The capitalists who hate capitalism the most are Big Tech bosses, and the capitalism they hate the most is techno-capitalism. Specifically, the techno-capitalism of the first decade of this century – the move fast/break things capitalism, the beg forgiveness, not permission capitalism, the blitzscaling capitalism.

The capitalism tech bosses hate most of all is disruptive capitalism, where a single technological intervention, often made by low-resourced individuals or small groups, can upend whole industries. That kind of disruption is only fun when you're the disruptor, but it's no fun for the disruptees.

Jeff Bezos's founding mantra for Amazon was "your margin is my opportunity." This is a classic disruption story: I'm willing to take a smaller profit than the established players in the industry. My lower prices will let me poach their customers, so I grow quickly and find more opportunities to cut margins but make it up in volume. Bezos described this as a flywheel that would spin faster and faster, rolling up more and more industries. It worked!

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/10/at-amazon-the-flywheel-effect-drives-innovation/

The point of that flywheel wasn't the low prices, of course. Amazon is a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence, and the paperclip it wants to maximize is profits, and the path to maximum profits is to charge infinity dollars for things that cost you zero dollars. Infinite prices and nonexistent wages are Amazon's twin pole-stars. Amazon warehouse workers don't have to be injured at three times the industry average, but maiming workers is cheaper than keeping them in good health. Once Amazon vanquished its competitors and captured the majority of US consumers, it raised prices, and used its market dominance to force everyone else to raise their prices, too. Call it "bezosflation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

We could disrupt Amazon in lots of ways. We could scrape all of Amazon's "ASIN" identifiers and make browser plugins that let local sellers advertise when they have stock of the things you're about to buy on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

We could hack the apps that monitor Amazon drivers, from their maneuvers to their eyeballs, so drivers had more autonomy and their bosses couldn't punish them for prioritizing their health and economic wellbeing over Amazon's. An Amazon delivery app mod could even let drivers earn extra money by delivering for Amazon's rivals while they're on their routes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

We could sell Amazon customers virtual PVRs that let them record and keep the shows they like, which would make it easier to quit Prime, and would kill Amazon's sleazy trick of making all the Christmas movies into extra-cost upsells from November to January:

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00007nmv9XSAQ/why-arent-all-the-christmas-movies-available-through-prime-its-a-pandemic-we-are-stuck-at-home-please-add-the-oldies-but-goodies-to-prime

Rival audiobook stores could sell jailbreaking kits for Audible subscribers who want to move over to a competing audiobook platform, stripping Amazon's DRM off all their purchases and converting the files to play on a non-Amazon app:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Jeff Bezos's margin could be someone else's opportunity…in theory. But Amazon has cloaked itself – and its apps and offerings – in "digital rights management" wrappers, which cannot be removed or tampered with under pain of huge fines and imprisonment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Amazon loves to disrupt, talking a big game about "free markets and personal liberties" – but let someone attempt to do unto Amazon as Amazon did unto its forebears, and the company will go running to Big Government for a legal bailout, asking the state to enforce its business model:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-trump-market-liberty-97a7d8113d670ec6e643525fdf9f06de

You'll find this cowardice up and down the tech stack, wherever you look. Apple launched the App Store and the iTunes Store with all kinds of rhetoric about how markets – paying for things, rather than getting them free through ads – would correct the "market distortions." Markets, we were told, would produce superior allocations, thanks to price and demand signals being conveyed through the exchange of money for goods and services.

But Apple will not allow itself to be exposed to market forces. They won't even let independent repair shops compete with their centrally planned, monopoly service programs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Much less allow competitors to create rival app stores that compete for users and apps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

They won't even refurbishers re-sell parts from phones and laptops that are beyond repair:

https://www.shacknews.com/article/108049/apple-repair-critic-louis-rossmann-takes-on-us-customs-counterfeit-battery-seizure

And they take the position that if you do manage to acquire a donor part from a dead phone or laptop, that it is a felony – under the same DRM laws that keep Amazon's racket intact – to install them in a busted device:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

"Rip, mix, burn" is great when it's Apple doing the ripping, mixing and burning, but let anyone attempt to return the favor and the company turns crybaby, whining to Customs and Border Patrol and fed cops to protect itself from being done unto as it did.

Should we blame the paperclip-maximizing Slow AI corporations for attempting to escape disruptive capitalism's chaotic vortex? I don't think it matters: I don't deplore this whiny cowardice because it's hypocritical. I hate it because it's a ripoff that screws workers, customers and the environment.

But there is someone I do blame: the governments that pass the IP laws that allow Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants shut down anyone who wants to disrupt them. Those governments are supposed to work for us, and yet they passed laws – like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – that felonize reverse-engineering, modding and tinkering. These laws create an enshittogenic environment, which produces enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Bad enough that the US passed these laws and exposed Americans to the predatory conduct of tech enshittifiers. But then the US Trade Representative went slithering all over the world, insisting that every country the US trades with pass their own versions of the laws, turning their citizens into an all-you-can-steal buffet for US tech gougers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/31/hall-of-famer/#necensuraninadados

This system of global "felony contempt of business-model" statutes came into being because any country that wanted to export to the USA without facing tariffs had to pass a law banning reverse-engineering of tech products in order to get a deal. That's why farmers all over the world can't fix their tractors without paying John Deere hundreds of dollars for each repair the farmer makes to their own tractor:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

But with Trump imposing tariffs on US trading partners, there is now zero reason to keep those laws on the books around the world, and every reason to get rid of them. Every country could have the kind of disruptors who start a business with just a little capital, aimed directly at the highest margins of these stupidly profitable, S&P500-leading US tech giants, treating those margins as opportunities. They could jailbreak HP printers so they take any ink-cartridge; jailbreak iPhones so they can run any app store; jailbreak tractors so farmers can fix them without paying rent to Deere; jailbreak every make and model of every car so that any mechanic can diagnose and fix it, with compatible parts from any manufacturer. These aren't just nice things to do for the people in your country's borders: they are businesses, massive investment opportunities. The first country that perfects the universal car diagnosing tool will sell one to every mechanic in the world – along with subscriptions that keep up with new cars and new manufacturer software updates. That country could have the relationship to car repairs that Finland had to mobile phones for a decade, when Nokia disrupted the markets of every landline carrier in the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

The US companies that could be disrupted thanks to the Trump tariffs are directly implicated in the rise of Trumpism. Take Tesla: the company's insane valuation is a bet by the markets that Tesla will be able to charge monthly fees for subscription features and one-off fees for software upgrades, which will be wiped out when your car changes hands, triggering a fresh set of payments from the next owner.

That business model is entirely dependent on making it a crime to reverse-engineer and mod a Tesla. A move-fast-and-break-things disruptor who offered mechanics a tool that let them charge $50 (or €50!) to unlock every Tesla feature, forever, could treat Musk's margins as their opportunity – and what an opportunity it would be!

That's how you hurt Musk – not by being performatively aghast at his Nazi salutes. You kick that guy right in the dongle:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/#franklinite

The act of unilaterally intervening in a market, product or sector – that is, "moving fast and breaking things" – is not intrinsically amoral. There's plenty of stuff out there that needs breaking. The problem isn't disruption, per se. Don't weep for the collapse of long-distance telephone calls! The problem comes when the disruptor can declare an end to history, declare themselves to be eternal kings, and block anyone from disrupting them.

If Uber had been able to nuke the entire taxi medallion system – which was dominated by speculators who charged outrageous rents to drivers – and then been smashed by driver co-ops who modded gig-work apps to keep the fares for themselves, that would have been amazing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/21/contra-nihilismum/#the-street-finds-its-own-use-for-things

The problem isn't disruption itself, but rather, the establishment of undisruptable, legally protected monopolies whose crybaby billionaire CEOs never have to face the same treatment they meted out to the incumbents who were on the scene when they were starting out.

We need some disruption! Their margins are your opportunity. It's high time we started moving fast and breaking US Big Tech!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

[reiding-writing]

Cold!reader accidentally letting a laugh slip after someone tells a joke (preferably Spencer) and the team is just a little shocked

CHECKMATE [ONESHOT]

/ˈtʃɛkˌmeɪt/

morgan and spencer just cannot agree on whether or not chess is actually a fun game to play, dragging you and emily into their debate in hopes of gaining a majority vote.

WARNINGS: fem!reader, playful arguing, chess slander

s5!spencer x cold!reader fluff 1.1k series masterlist!

a/n: do people actually like chess? personally i think it’s really fun but my brother seems to disagree

main masterlist!!

“You play chess in your spare time Reid, at least my hobbies are interesting,” Morgan rolls his eyes with a laugh, leaning against the back of his chair with a confident smirk on his face.

“Chess is interesting,” Spencer furrows his eyebrows slightly at Morgan’s comment, frowning like it was a direct insult to him and not just the game.

It was nine o’clock in the morning, and Spencer and Morgan were having a debate about goddamn chess. What did you do to deserve such torture first thing on a Monday?

Letting Spencer sit opposite you probably, but sometimes he’d basically do your work for you so you suppose it still had its benefits sometimes.

Sometimes being the key word.

Today was not one of those times.

“Interesting to eighty-year-old scholars maybe,” Morgan scoffs at the mere idea that chess could be a fun and intellectual game at the same time.

You didn’t mind chess per se, you wouldn’t choose it as a way to satiate your boredom, but if someone - that someone being Spencer Reid because he was the only one in the office who actually played chess regularly - asked to play a match with you, you wouldn’t turn it down.

“Actually, the average age for competitive chess players is thirty one in the United States,”

Morgan presses his middle finger against his nose bridge like he’s pushing up an imaginary pair of glasses, pointing the index finger of his other hand upwards. “Actually-”

Spencer serves him with a hard push against his shoulder. “Shut up-”

The movement causes Emily to give a little snicker from her own desk, and Morgan takes it as a sign of his victory, clasping his hands together and bringing them to rest behind his head as he crosses his left ankle over his right knee.

“Alright, chess consensus, ‘fun’ or boring?” Morgan throws his arm out to you and Emily as a gesture for your responses.

“Not for me,” Emily’s answer, whilst definitely leaning in Morgan’s favour, is objective enough so that it doesn’t unintentionally insult Spencer’s entire lineage by suggesting that chess can’t be fun.

“Alright, Ice Queen, final vote’s up to you, you can make or break the final verdict here,” Morgan tilts his head dramatically in your direction with his hands outstretched.

You look up from your desk with an exasperated sigh, looking at him through your eyebrows in a clear indication that you don’t want to be involved in the conversation.

“Awe come on don’t look like that, this is very important stuff here,” Its like every word that leaves Morgan’s mouth is just to poke fun at Spencer’s love for playing chess, and as you glance in his direction you can see his eyes on you.

He wanted the answer too. Great.

With an exaggerated groan you lean back in your chair and shrug your shoulders. “It’s fun depending on who you play it with,”

“Oh come on, what kind of half-assed answer is that?” Morgan shakes his head, crossing his arms. “You gotta pick a side here,”

“I’m entirely right,” You mirror Morgan as you cross your arms over your chest. “If you have a shit opponent then obviously it’s going to be boring,” You enunciate your answer as if it applies directly to Morgan himself.

“I am not a ‘shit opponent’,” Morgan rolls his eyes in feigned indignation. “I just get bored half-way through,”

“Because you’re shit and don’t actually know how to play,”

“Not true-”

Spencer’s nodding calls Morgan’s defences insignificant.

“Hey-” Morgan pushes his hand against Spencer’s shoulder. “Don’t agree with her, I’m not bad at chess I just don’t like chess,”

“People who aren’t good at certain activities have a three times higher chance of disliking said activity,” Spencer doesn’t back down from his stance, shrugging lightly with a nonchalant expression.

“Okay, you’re teaming up on me now I’m calling favouritism,” Morgan waves his hands with a shake of his head. “Prentiss back me up here, she is so only siding with Reid because they’re secretly in love with each other,”

“Oh 100%,”

You scoff at Emily’s answer, rolling your eyes. “You’re just defensive because we’re right,”

“Chess is a very intellectual game, maybe you’re just not smart enough to understand it,” Spencer shrugs again as he shoots Morgan down, and a small snicker leaves your mouth at the combination of Spencer’s burn and the look on Morgan’s face as he computes it.

You cover up the tail end of it with a cough, hiding your mouth behind your hand, but it’s not enough to actually cover it up, and Morgan’s face moves from shock to horror as he blinks in your direction. “Am I tripping balls right now or did I just hear a laugh from the robot herself?”

“What? Am I not allowed to laugh now?” You scoff at Morgan’s apparent shock of you being able to experience positive emotions, immediately falling back into your naturally icy demeanour.

“There you are, you got possessed by a spirit of joy there for a second,”

“Shut your mouth,” You throw a crumpled up piece of paper across the desks to hit him square between his eyes and your three coworkers all burst out into laughing fits of their own.

Spencer’s laughter was much quieter than Morgan and Emily’s but it seemed to dominate your ear canals nonetheless, quashing your frustration for Morgan’s attitude under the waves of his voice and again leaving you, as Morgan had so nicely put it, ‘possessed by a spirit of joy’.

He was in a similar state, a small sense of pride flowing through his veins not only because you’d taken his side in his little debate, but also at the fact that he’d managed to make you laugh.

Him. Spencer Reid had actually managed to make the most emotionally guarded person in the whole office actually laugh.

Score one for Spencer.

[kismetlotts]

Kinktober 🎃 day five: Rape!

cw: rape, obsessive König, coffee shop worker reader, mentions of oral sex, cumming untouched, submissive and dominant play? mentions of breast play, mentions of cumming on breasts, mentions of spitting, name calling e.g. 'whore', underwear obsessed König, mentions of killing, threatening a side character, public sex, sex at workplace, sex in the dark?, König is rough with reader e.g carrying and dragging, König’s ego is big, fingering, König finishing quickly, quick sex, pantie stealing, creampie,

König who gained an obsession with you. He would come in every Monday to Thursday at the local coffee shop you worked at, ordering the same medium cup of black coffee and sitting at the table in the corner. Big, dirtied and muddy fingers tracing the white ceramic cup, tracing over where your fingers touched.

Them gorgeous fingers that gripped onto the handle of the coffee machine, making another pumpkin spiced latte for all the boring, tasteless average women who’d come along. Waiting, paying and leaving- not appreciating the fine art of what you just created.

You’d thought he was weird, sat in the corner all day- no phone, no laptop, not doing a singlar thing other than sitting. Your coworkers had even discussed if they should kick him out from the mask he’d wear, a dark brown hood but you’d heard him speak, heard his manners and pleaded them not to.

He was mysterious of course but he wasnt intimidating in any way, he wasn’t causing chaos, simply just minding his buisness and taking sips off coffee from underneath the fabric. Taking subtle glances at him throughout your shift unaware hed be staring at you the whole time, pupils flicking away quickly before you could catch him.

Your first encounter with him, besides over the counter was when hed accidentally spilt his coffee, flooding the wooden table with the hot, steaming liquid, almost as if he wasnt looking at what he was doing or where his cup was. You quickly darted over. The sway in your hips and confidence radiating off of you as you used your rag to wipe the spillage with a cheerful smile, eyes meeting his own dark blue ones.

"Das ist meine schuld- I apologise!" He rushed to spit out, clearly caught off guard by his own actions as well. his large figure standing up and giving you room to wipe without hitting him but all you did was chuckle and pat the table, shaking your head and noting his accent. Russian? German? You werent very good at identifying accents.

His jeans tightend at the way you looked back at him, sexy body arched over the table as you cleared up the mess he made, what a naughty boy he’d been. Chest caving as he yearned to reach out and grab the back of your neck, rudely and selfishly shoving your face down to his crotch but he resisted, he couldn’t- not in such an open place.

"Its fine! Would you like another one? On me?" But all he could do was nod, face burning with embarrasment as the only thing he was focused on in that sentance was 'On me' and all the things that could mean. Oh you wanted him to cum on you instead of inside? You wanted to feel him paint you white, marking and coating you as his territory, watching as beads of his thick semen splurted onto your tits, your soft, kissable tits.

Or maybe you were talking about spitting- hed spit on you. On your face, on your chest, on your cunt because you were a whore for him and thats what whores get. Hed spit on you for sure. He looked down, seeing how the light reflects off of his black cargos, the small shine where his hard cock was confirming to him that he’d came in his boxers.

As more and more days carried on, you’d become more friendly with him. 'What would you like?' becoming 'Your usual?' and 'I’ll shout your order when its done!' turning into a 'I’ll let you know when its ready, König'. Hearing you say his name, so delicate and pristine: as if you were scared to butcher the pronunciation, was torturous and he’d have to ask you out sometime soon because fuck.

Just entering the store made him stiff, the smell of coffee making him thirsty for you- i mean he’d almost followed you home just to take a peak in your underwear draw but he didnt want to ruin the suprise of discovering what panties you wear- he was saving that for when you finally let him make love to you.

Maybe you wore big, comfy pants that covered you up well and allowed you to relax- no need to impress anyone just being cozy and warm. Or maybe they were small and pink, little bit of frill along the edges with a bow right in the middle, so innocent and sweet; like your appearance, like you’d taste. But no, it was something about the way you strut by him, the way your shoulders sit by your side. You were dripping with independence, a confident girl and maybe a bit of a brat too- a thong wearer, for sure.

Weeks of encouraging himself, days of persuading himself your answer would be yes and an hour of rehearsing what he was going to say, led to him fumbling it infront of you and asking you out for- ironically- a coffee. You’d let out a giggle and König felt pretty hopeful, but the second you lost eye contact something twisted in his stomach, your hand reached to collect his empty coffee cup from the table as you tapped your foot nervously on the floor. Stumbling over your words and coming up with some fucking fake- stupid excuse.

"I really would- but I have alot of drinks to make a serve- it’s October now- weather getting colder- drinks getting hotter and all!" A laugh falling your lips but he wasnt laughing, just staring at you. You were lying- why were you lying? Did he scare you? Was he not your type? Was this all just some friendly banter he misinterpreted this whole time? But he knew exactly what his was.

Laughing back at your words before standing up and heading in the direction of the toilets, shouting a quick and awkward 'I see' before quickly walking by the toilets and through the staff only door. Entering the office and heading for the computer because he wasnt heading to the toilet- or heading back home. He was heading to your home or dare he say, your partners? But before that, he’s got to find the address.

What a fat, lazy slob just reclining on the couch, drink in hand as he watched the television, not even realising it wasn’t you home from work but König there with a gun in his hand. Too focused on whatever show he was watching to actually turn his head and check up from you. Not even a simple, ‘How’s work?’

It wasn’t hard getting the man packed, petrified and silenced in under an hour while waving a gun in his face, brown hood on and towering over him pathetically. You were now König’s, he’d found you and claimed you- any man, no. Any boy, who wishes to go against that will have to deal with the consequences.

He wasnt going to kill him unless he had to, all he wanted, well, needed was for him out the picture. Threatening if he doesnt leave and end things with you over message later that day, that he’d track him down and kill him. And that if he even dares to hint that someone forced him into that decision to anyone, that his mother, father, little siblings and cousins would all be following behind.

He went along with it obviously, the fucking pussy. He stayed silent and left you forever, and it ruined you in the moment. You loved him so much and for so long for him just to abandon you like that? Something just didnt seem right. You slept on it or at least tried to, woke up and got ready for work, already wishing it was your day off. Slipping on a bring orange pumpkin hat because as if your day couldnt get any worse it was Halloween. Halloween where kids would run about, stealing sweeties from one another, Halloween where couples would cuddle up together and watch scary films- wearing homemade costumes with fake blood, masks store brought or made out of hoods- but your own train of thought made you freeze. Hoods?

Your stomach dropped but surely you were overthinking it. König wouldn’t know who you were dating, where to even find him- fucking hell what could he have used against him that would be bad enough to make him leave? You were overthinking big time, probably from your lack of sleep, but intuition told you that it was too big of a coincidence. The same day you reject someone your loving boyfriend leaves you without no explanation? It wasn’t adding up.

And what made it scarier was entering the building to find him already there, arms crossed at his seat with eyes staring into yours. Playful yet dark- sweet with a sprinkle of sinister.

You didnt look at him, you didnt collect his empty cup, you ignored the small laugh he let out at your pumpkin hat because he wasn’t your mysterious, polite, scary yet misunderstood customer whom you’d formed a friendship with. He was a fucking psychopath. A dirty, probably perverted psychopath that made your stomach churn and you wanted nothing more than to boot him out. You should’ve listened to your coworkers when they had a creepy feeling about him. You’d thought about asking them to kick him out now but since he’d come and gone for so many days now, he’d know something has changed with the way you saw him and he’d probably target you more.

Time ticked, people had left and all staff were now gone for the week, leaving you the only staff left and the door swinging as the last person to enter exited. The dark evening night seeping through the windows as the lights turned off, leaving the electric menus above the counter, lights from the machines and lamp posts outside illuminating the darkness of the room.

It was you and him, only you and him and if things weren’t confirmed by his eerie aura earlier, him waiting until you were both alone definitely sold you on the fact he was after you. You ripped the apron off of yourself, pretty much bolting for the pitch black staff room.

Muttering a fast, 'Put your cup on the counter before you leave' despite knowing deep down the staff room was only a room. There was no lock, no keypad- you were in a shitty old coffee shop in the middle of a quiet town, alone and at night. And ‘Before you leave’ meant nothing either. He wasn’t leaving anytime soon- and neither were you.

The squack of the wooden chair being drag out was audiable from the other room you were in, breaking the deafening silence and your loud heavy breathing. Your hands shook and trembled as you rummaged for your stuff, too weak to hurry and too focused on getting out of there to hear the door behind you open and shut.

His warm presence behind your back and pinning you- you shut your eyes tears pricking them before spinning around desperately. Pushing him off of you as he generously took a step back, allowing you to run back into the coffee shop. Past the tables, knocking a chair or two as you rushed and pushed against the door. Pushing and pushing using all your weight until you heard the sound of metal rattling behind you, the silver keys and silver loop swinging around his finger as he held them up. He’d locked the door, and now you were cornered.

"Why so scared?" He spoke softly, coming a step closer, his dark eyes mocking you with fake sympathy. He knew why you were fucking scared, he knew you feared him and you figured it turned him on from the lustful glimmer in his blue irises. Seeing the quiver in your lip, the tears threatening to spill as you swallowed your emotions like a pill you had to take. Thinking that putting on a brave face will trick your mind into believing you are brave- that you can stand up to him. He found it amusing so he gave you time, he wanted to hear your pathetic little attempt. It fed to his sick fascination- his fucking pleasure more.

"What is your problem? What the fuck did you do to my boyfriend?" The little crack in your voice: orgasmic, if he wasnt waiting for you to submit to his dominance and break the holding eye contact he was holding with you, his eyes would be so far back in his head.

It boiled him, fueled him, like spreading butter onto a fresh warm pastry and watching it melt and glide so effortlessly. Would your voice crack like that when he’s balls deep inside you?

"Now, now, why are you pointing fingers, hm? Du bist meim kleiner kurbis, why would I ever do that?" His body was so close to you, you could smell the sweat and grime of his skin and despite the situation it made your stomach heat in arousal, his touch and his manerisms, his accent- it was so fucking disgusting yet you felt yourself dampen. You didn’t even know what he said- and your body gave in slightly. His hand cupped your cheek, the cold metal of the keys hitting your soft skin as his eyes locked onto the pumpkin hat with an amused look.

You could grab the keys now, shove them in the door and sprint, shout for help maybe but would you even get time? His build was muscular and he had to crouch slightly to talk to you due to his height anyway. He would grab you and prevent you from doing anything before you could even turn around, and even if you tried it, his punishment could be worse from what he wants now.

You’d found yourself caught in a dead end with nothing to do but submit and get it over with.

His mask rubbed agaisnt your neck and clothed shoulder but you could still feel the heat of his breath, the smell of coffee making bile rise in your throat. His hands found your waist and gripped on tightly, lifting you slightly as he dragged you to the table he usually sits at, throwing you ontop as it wobbled from your weight.

Tears fell and a sob escaped your throat and he unzipped his jeans, leaning over closer and pulling down your panties from beneath the work uniform he’d spent hours dreaming of, slipping a finger agaist your folds and feeling how effortlessly you coat his fingers with slick and cum. Horny?

"Aww, you want this too?" He asked but regardless of your answer he would do what he wanted, it was his time and he was more than ready. You shook your head, fighting against the pleasure your body was feeling from his touch, he was skilled with his fingers for sure, applying just enough pressure to your clit to make your back arch and you wriggle your hips- away from his finger and subconcously back against it. He let out a groan at how wet his fingers were getting before pulling away from your juicy cunt.

Reaching under your arms to tug you closer to the edge of the table, aligning his cock with your hole and wetting himself up thanks to how damp you were, mentally promising himself he’d taste you one day, maybe next time. He looked back to your face, the frown on your lips as your covered your crying eyes with your small trembling hands, so embarrassed and ashamed you were letting yourself get used like this, get forced into sex- get raped.

"You ready?" He asked and all you did was let out another sob, with a sigh he pushed forward placing his dick against your flaps and stopped, looking down and not entering you, staying completely still as he store at your face. Watching as you continued to cry into your hands before slowly lifting the palms from your face slightly.

Looking into his eyes as he looked back down, a devilish smirk forming on his lips. What a little actress, you were enoying this. You could’ve pushed him away- could’ve kicked and fought but no, you lay still even after he paused.

Thick, hard and fast as he thrusted in harshly, no care for how it may feel for you- no remorse or guilt for if he was burning, stretching or hurting you. He’d been patient for this pussy for weeks, been waiting for it- god it was like he was a virgin again. So excited to bury himself inside he hadn’t realised how close he was already.

Taking a few more slow thrusts before leaking and pouring all his cum into you, your pussy squeezing and milking every last drop out of him. Moaning loudly and squeezing his eyes shut as he pulled out, fuck- fuck that was so good. Your body was shaking, breaths barely coming to your lungs as you trembled and lay there- broken, defeated and useless. Cum dribbling out of your hole and even he felt a little bad at the sight- you didnt even get a chance to feel a little bit good, maybe next time he will fuck you like you want it.

He picked your panties up off of the floor, smooth, white, floral and cotton- it wasnt what he was expecting from you. It wasn’t a thong, it wasn’t black and laced, not like your personality at all but everyone has a secret side to them, a side they keep stashed away and only allow a select few to see.

He fumbled with his jeans, buttoning and zipping them up before turning to you, hands fumbling with the panties, his palm hitting the fabric right where your pussy was and feeling a cold, sticky, dampness. You were wet before he began touching?

"Would you like them bac-" Earning a scream from you, telling him to get the fuck out and take whatever he wants. He’d already taken and destroyed your relationship, your work, and your own body so he might as well take everything else. He could take anything else as long as he leaves and never comes back.

He swallowed, slipping them into his pocket and placing the keys next to your body on the table- if you had the energy you’d get up and slap him, punch him, grab some scissors form behind the counter and cut his fucking dick off but from how disturbing and demented he seems he’d probably enjoy that.

"I’m sorry.” He whispered, voice seeming almost shy and hushed, tone the same as when he’d first spoken to you. Anxious: almost like a whisper.

“Next time, I’ll treat you right. I’ll make you feel so good, I promise, baby." He waited for you to speak but you just lay there now on your side, tears leaking and pouring from your eyes despite your still movement. With a deep breath he began to leave realising maybe it was best he left you alone for now. He couldn’t see what was wrong, or what he did wrong because in his own mind it was going to happen one day. His cock, his needs, how you expect him to live in a constant state of desperation and want. It’s like giving a child a lollipop and saying, just watch- you’re not allowed. Just watch how sweet and delicious it would taste, just watch at how the sugar shimmers in the light- when you get told you can’t have it you need it more.

He walked back into the staff room and out the back door, his hand pulling the door shut and once his footsteps echoes away, you were alone in the dark. He was gone, leaving you an emotional mess with a dirty mess to clean up, and you couldn’t move for a moment. His words haunting you and circling you like a carousel of derision.

Next time, meaning he wasnt done just yet.

[reasonsforhope]

"Millions of Australians just got official permission to ignore their bosses outside of working hours, thanks to a new law enshrining their "right to disconnect."

The law doesn't strictly prohibit employers from calling or messaging their workers after hours. But it does protect employees who "refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable," according to the Fair Work Commission, Australia's workplace relations tribunal.

That includes outreach from their employer, as well as other people "if the contact or attempted contact is work-related."

The law, which passed in February, took effect on Monday [August 26, 2024] for most workers and will apply to small businesses of fewer than 15 people starting in August 2025. It adds Australia to a growing list of countries aiming to protect workers' free time.

"It's really about trying to bring back some work-life balance and make sure that people aren't racking up hours of unpaid overtime for checking emails and responding to things at a time when they're not being paid," said Sen. Murray Watt, Australia's minister for employment and workplace relations.

The law doesn't give employees a complete pass, however...

"If it was an emergency situation, of course people would expect an employee to respond to something like that," Watt said. "But if it's a run-of-the-mill thing … then they should wait till the next work day, so that people can actually enjoy their private lives, enjoy time with their family and their friends, play sport or whatever they want to do after hours, without feeling like they're chained to the desk at a time when they're not actually being paid, because that's just not fair."

Protections aim to address erosion of work-life balance

The law's supporters hope it will help solidify the boundary between the personal and the professional, which has become increasingly blurry with the rise of remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic.

A 2022 survey by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, a public policy think tank, found that seven out of 10 Australians performed work outside of scheduled working hours, with many reporting experiencing physical tiredness, stress and anxiety as a result.

The following year, the institute reported that Australians clocked an average of 281 hours of unpaid overtime in 2023. Valuing that labor at average wage rates, it estimated the average worker is losing the equivalent of nearly $7,500 U.S. dollars each year.

"This is particularly concerning when worker's share of national income remains at a historically low level, wage growth is not keeping up with inflation, and the cost of living is rising," it added.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions hailed the new law as a "cost-of-living win for working people," especially those in industries like teaching, community services and administrative work.

The right to disconnect, it said, will not only cut down on Australians' unpaid work hours but also address the "growing crisis of increasing mental health illness and injuries in modern workplaces."

"More money in your pocket, more time with your loved ones and more freedom to live your life — that's what the right to disconnect is all about," ACTU President Michele O’Neil said in a statement.

The 2022 Australia Institute survey... found broad support for a right to disconnect.

Only 9% of respondents said such a policy would not positively affect their lives. And the rest cited a slew of positive effects, from having more social and family time to improved mental health and job satisfaction. Thirty percent of respondents said it would enable them to be more productive during work hours.

Eurofound, the European Union agency for the improvement of living and working conditions, said in a 2023 study that workers at companies with a right to disconnect policy reported better work-life balance than those without — 92% versus 80%."

-via GoodGoodGood, August 26, 2024