#this post brought to you by toni’s in the mood for love fic and the film the big sleep which i just watched w my mom .and is incomprehensib

[dictee]

Daniel and louis give such jaded private detective who pulls like crazy despite the bad attitude / mysterious femme fatale who beneath the damsel in distress ingénue act is actually in on the plot but beneath the tough mastermind act is maybe a sweet girl in over her head. energy. to me

[stuckybarton]

Meet The Starks

Summary: Loki Laufeyson was a changed man, many in the team was slowly coming to realize it. Many believe that someone has changed the God of Mischief for the better. But what no one knows was the small little fact that of all the people in the galaxies, Loki finds himself getting involved with Starks secret daughter. Words: 4,684 Warning: Crack!Fic. Chaos. Profanities. Characters: Loki Laufeyson x Stark!Reader. Tony Stark. Pepper Potts-Stark. The Rest of the Avengers.

MASTERLIST || Requests Are Open

"What's gotten Professor Snape in such a good mood?"

On most days, Loki would make his own quips at Tony and his antics, but today wasn't one of those days. Last night he had proposed to the love of his life and they were one step closer to becoming a family. So no, anything Stark would say or do will be left in deaf ears. He was far, as the man said, in a far too good mood to be bothered by anyone.

All throughout another mundane meeting post-mission, Tony had decided to throw another one of his parties for the great success of the mission and everyone, including even Loki, was down for a few drinks. As soon as the meeting was over, he was back up to his feet, phone that you had given him already in his grasp and making his way out of the room.

"Who knew a woman could pull a stick up hid ass." he heard Tony speak the moment he stepped out of the room. Loko wasn't sure what possessed him to linger, but he did. Wanting to know what else they could say about him and his lover.

"Everyone deserves a little bit of happiness, including him." Rogers points out much to Loki's surprise.

"She is good for Loki, I have never seen this side of Loki come out in years. He is the happiest he's ever been." Thor added to which Loki automatically rolls his eyes ay.

"Props to the girl then, having the patience of a saint to deal with his arrogant ass." Tony added to which was cue enough for him to leave not wanting to hear more about their conversation--but happy to realize that you had made such a change to him when no one else could believe he could.

Just in time, he felt his phone vibrate and an incoming call had him turn the constant stern lip upwards into a big smile as soon as he answered.

"My Love, how are you doing?" He inquired satisfied with the mix of moan and groan from the other line.

His feet dragged him through the corridor, ignoring the rest of the world. All that was important was you and you love.

'Sore. Hungry. Still downright horny.' You spoke brazenly knowing your boyfriend will be the only one to hear your conversation.

"Y/N…" Loki warned, but the satisfied smirk played well on his face remembering everything that had happened the night before after he proposed. How he had brought you the brink of pleasure over and over all night long until you had to practically beg him to stop and realize you could barely move your lower half.

'What are you up to right now?' You inquired, Loki could hear the soft rustle of the bed in the background. He was certain your words were true and you were also still in bed to deal with--the damage of last night.

"Training with Thor and the rest of his misfits." He muttered under his breath. "Anything you have planned on doing for tonight?" He inquired.

'I'm actually visiting my step-mother today, let her know about you proposing and the likes. Need someone on our side before I tell my dad.'

Loki's lips formed a frown now. He never knew much about your family, you tried avoiding anything that has to do with your family and with his own past, he chose to understand that you might not have much of a good relationship with them as much as he did. So this little fact that you had a step-mother was news to him more than anything.

"Will I ever meet your parents?" He inquired.

'Definitely.' You spoke far too dodgy for him. He was the God of Lies and he knew it wasn't much of a lie, but there was a truth that you were yet to share with him. For a moment, it brought him to a halt, wondering what exactly was going on and if there was something you were still unprepared for the world to know about him. 'Listen, I really need to crawl to the bathroom to prepare, thanks to you. But will you be having dinner here tonight?' You inquired breaking him out of his trance.

"Actually, there is a party here in the Compound, would you want to come along as my guest?" He initially didn't want anyone of the team to know about you while you both dated, but this was different now. A life changing difference that he knew would have its own share of consequence if he does not make the right decisions. As much of a nuisance as the could be at times, they will ensure your safety if the need would arise.

There was a moment of silence in the other line and he was worried if he overstepped things with you.

'You're okay with that?'

"Yes." He answered immediately. "I would want nothing more." He admits now.

'What time?' You asked.

"I don't have the details yet, but when I get it, I'll send it to you and I'll even tell Stark I'm bringing you along." He snorts already knowing the kind of conversation he needed to endure because of the man.

Another moment of silence that finally has his brows furrowing. What were you hiding?

'That will be great…Listen, I really need to go. I'll see you tonight, Love you, Mischief.' You spoke quickly before finally hanging up the phone of him leaving him to truly wonder what was going on. ~ "Okay, I want you to start from the very beginning." Your step-mother, Pepper, had inquired the moment you had finished with spewing all the word vomit you could give in a span of thirty minutes about your relationship with one Loki Laufeyson, as well as how you had successfully hidden this part of life from her and from your father, the fact that you've hidden your parents from your boyfriend was another thing you had to deal with.

In the middle of the bustling café, just a block away from your law firm and a couple of blocks away from Stark Industries, you felt a moment of comfort in front of your father's former PA that had been like a mother to you throughout you and your father's earlier days of constant bickering. Pepper had been there for you when your own father didn't want anything to do with you and when your mother realized you were more worked that she could handle. Years now passed and Pepper grew to be the mother you never thought you would ever be allowed to have for yourself even with your age not being that much far from each other.

"Loki wants me to go to the party and here I am still thinking of a way to let both my fiancée and my father know about me." You explained in the shortest way possible.

"Maybe this party would actually be a good thing." Pepper assured, cupping your hand hoping to reassure you more. "Now tell me how Loki proposed to you?" She inquired.

For the next few hours, you and Pepper had continued on with your conversation to the romantic night you and Loki had shared last night. How the sudden change happened in your shared apartment, the array of flowers that were spread all around, the single slice of cheesecake on the dinner table, and the small little note with the question you had been hoping he would ask for the past five years was finally asked and the moment you had turned to look for him, he was behind you on his knees with the biggest ring you had ever seen in your life. An emerald stone that he admit to have been from his hidden treasures his brother or anyone else were not made aware of, a stone his mother had given him when he was young hoping he would make good use of it when the time comes and he did. Turning it into a ring to finally propose to you with.

"The first moment I laid eyes on him, I socked him right in the face for what he did to Dad, but I just couldn't help myself from falling in love with him." You told Pepper after telling her the stories. "He is the best thing to have ever happened to me and Loki tells me I am like that to him, but all I ever did was love him and made him see he wasn't a monster the world thinks him to be."

"We know." Pepper points out. "We see the change in him, everyone does. He usually ignores Morgan, but now, it's like those two are best friends. I just make sure your father doesn't see him anywhere near Morgan if he's in the compound."

"He thinks his mission was to pull the youngest away from Loki." You spoke ironically sighing still afraid of what would tonight entail for the both of you once the truth comes out.

You feared more about Loki's reaction than your father's own. Living a life away from his name and anything that has to do with him all throughout your life, his disapproval honestly didn't mean much to you as you once thought it would. You stood all on your own as a Defense Lawyer, without his last name to back your career up. A part of you wondered what your life would have been like had you decided to take your father's last name instead of remaining with your own mother's, you know a target would constantly be placed on your back because of it aside from the constant scrutiny of all your hard work being because of his name.

But Loki, the fear you had was to hurt him. The God of Lies that had his entire life be a constant lie, you did not want to add to the trauma he had to endure in his life. That was the last thing you would actually want to do. Especially now, now that he's made this much change for you and for the fears he had now come to face.

"Everything is gonna be okay, Y/N." Pepper assured pulling you away from your thoughts. "Your father will overreact and try to stop your relationship with Loki, but he's only being protective of you and catching up on the things that he had missed while you grew up."

You nodded, knowing as much. It was a constant battle between the two of you, one put forward and two foot back. His constant need to protect you, Morgan, and Pepper was his number one priority, but it gets mixed in long run and he finds himself pushing you away instead. Pushing everyone away in the hopes of protecting everyone he loves, it failed him far too many times and left a lot of broke heart and words never meant to be spoken. But after what had happened with Thanos, how he had almost lost you and Pepper, he made the change to be better.

But you sometimes felt it was too late, how your energy that was once trying to be part of his life was now focused on your career as well as the fact that you started seeing Loki post-blip. You lived a life that you always hoped to have with your father and your step-mother. It was just a good thing that Morgan came along, it gave your father a missing piece of himself he never gets to play before.

"I don't even know if I'm more scared about Dad's anger or Loki's disappointment." You spoke honestly hoping for the best at this point.

"Just talk to him, I'm sure if he really loves you, he will understand."

"I really hope so." You muttered already thinking of the mess that would come tonight. ~ "Why do you look like your ass is on fire?" Trust Stark to continually be the root of all of Loki's anxieties. "Sure she's real?"

Loki rolled his eyes and stood from the coach at the sight of your text apologizing for being late and you making your way to the compound right now. He had been nervous to say the least, it was the first time he would even be opening up to everyone about this part of his life, let everyone know about you, the woman that had changed his life for the better. He wanted to make sure he made a good impression of you to the rest of the team--not that he needed to knowing you watched the news and been the one championing the need for a stable body to ensure the heroes were always kept in line. You know each and every member of the team down to the very personal lives because of a case you've done against them a few years back.

"She heading here, I hope everyone is on their best behavior, especially you." He was quick to point an accusatory finger at Thor.

"I'll behave." Thor was quick to promise but Loki wasn't so sure if he could trust him.

Another ding on his phone and the smile on his face grew as you announced you were by receptions waiting for him now. Without another word had teleported right to where you were in reception. A smile already playing on his face at the way you jumped out of the blue at his sudden appearance and he was quick to grasp onto your waist before you could stumble. Not waiting to get scolded once again, he pulled you right into him for a kiss. Hands holding on to your dress covered waist as his lips continued to savor your taste.

"I hate you sometimes." You pout the moment he finally pull away.

Loki couldn't help himself in gazing at you and how good you look in his color. The emerald dress accentuated perfectly with your skin. How modest you looked in your office attire but powerful enough in it to make anyone bend to your will, he was close to doing so had it not been for the fact that there were people upstairs waiting for the two of them. A good impression would do everyone good and he knew perfectly well you could give to the team.

"You wouldn't have said yes if you did." He spoke pointedly as they now made their way to the elevator to bring the both of you upstairs to the party. "How was work?" He asked.

"The firm got another DUI and no one wants to take the case so guess who gets to deal with that bullshit now." You muttered arm now wrapped around Loki's own waist. "I know it's a one and done thing but the guy was an idiot." You continued.

"Mortals and their drinks." He chuckled the irony of the party was filled with nothing but alcohol for the past few hours now. "It's the weekends so I believe you deserve a drink." He points out just as soon as the elevator door opened and both of them were welcomed in the chaos of the party still going on. "Come, you need something to drink."

Escorting you, the wandering eyes of many wasn't left unnoticed. You were gorgeous, yes, but the bigger and more intriguing part was the fact that you were with Loki, of all people. The recluse former Megalomaniac hellbent on destroying the world and making it into his own kingdom to rule.

"So she really is real." It was Romanoff that had noticed the both of you as you made your way to the bar.

Loki noticed the realization clicked in the assassin's features knowing who you were during the whole Accords and your whole role in making it into somewhat of a reality once in the past. The smile on her lips fell to a degree but was quick to pull it right back up.

"What can I get the both of you?" She asked pulling up a pair of shot glass right in front of the both of you.

"Tequila would be nice." You answered before Loki could say your usual drink of choice.

Watching Romanoff pour the pair of glasses, you double shot the both of them before finally turning to Loki, bewildered with your antics.

"Are you quite alright?" He questioned never once seeing you act like this before.

"Yep. Definitely." You nodded, wincing at the liquid courage you've consumed simultaneously. "Never been better." You muttered but never once did your eyes meet Loki's own.

"Are you nervous about meeting them after what happened?" He questioned. It was stupid of him to invite you out of the blue knowing your long standing feud with the team while you worked with the Government to put them down in the past. He should have asked you if you were ready to actually be in the presence of the people that you had a hand in once throwing in the raft all those years ago.

"Yeah." You finally admit, eyes returning back to him now. "I know I shouldn't be, but there's something more." You muttered.

"No one is gonna hurt you, I'll dragged them to hell myself if they even think of ever harming a single hair in your head." He vowed, a promise he was more than willing to make now. When it comes to you, he could care less about the trust that was now growing within the team, if it means you are happy he could care less about the repercussions that come with marrying you.

"Promise me, you wouldn't be mad." You asked.

"Why would I ever be mad at you?" He questioned now coming to cup your face into his hands. "I can never stay mad at the woman I will marry, that much I can promise you." He points out kissing you on the forehead and was suddenly thrown to the wall by an Iron Man suit.

Everything was a blur as he found himself being tossed around by Tony Stark himself with you screaming for the man to stop. What his eyes could see was the party a frenzy of people running and trying to make their escape, with you still screaming and ignoring Natasha that was demanding you to step away from the fight.

"Dad! Can you stop beating the shit out of my boyfriend?!" You screamed halting Tony from sending Loki out onto the windows.

Wait, Dad?

"You're dating him?" Tony questioned making his way towards you as you stood your ground, the worry and anger lingering in your features. "Since when have you been sleeping with this guy?"

"Since the bullshit Thanos did." You responded before turning your attention back to Loki as he now was standing, shaken by the information you never once tried to let him know. "This is the exact reason why I didn't want you to know about him, Dad. I knew you'd react this way." You snapped finally having the strength to make your way to him, hesitant lingering on your face, but the worry had overcome everything else.

"I'm sorry." You whispered over and over as you tried to wipe the debris and dirt that still clung to the suit he wore. Your hands were shaking at every movement you've made trying to fix the mess Tony had made out of him. Only as he finally gets a good look at your eyes did he see the unshed tears in your eyes and all the confusion and pain he was feeling all vanished away at his concern over you.

"It's okay. I promised I wouldn't be mad, didn't I?" He pointed out reassuring you, hands coming to cup your cheeks again. "Hey, don't cry. Everything is fine. I'm fine. Stark's attack is nothing, I've dealt with worse, My Love." He points out.

"If you pull a stunt as faking your death again on me, Laufeyson, I swear to God." You snapped lightly punching him on the chest.

He smiled knowing you'll be alright, he finally turned to the watching audience that had now formed. Every single member of the team, looking at him, at you, and even Tony that was close to the brink of a coronary with Pepper coming to hold the anger shaking Tony standing still ready to beat the shit out of him if he wasn't careful with what he says or what he does.

"Why him?" Tony spoke towards you, never once did he look at him and he was fine with it.

"Because I love him, Dad." You snapped at Tony. "And I have never been happier than I am with this idiot."

"I beg your pardon?" Loki questioned. He wasn't an idiot--at least not usually. Okay, he will admit he has his flaws when it comes to the every thing that comes to Midgardian's pop culture. He was trying, reading and watching as much was the past time he spends with you.

"You can't be in a relationship with that--that man. I forbid you from even dating him." Tony continued.

You smirked and only then as you slowly raised your hand, and bad slowly became worst.

"That's too bad, I'm marrying him whether you like it or not."

Loki flexed his body as the sight of Tony ready to tackle him all over again. What was he marrying into? ~ "Let me get this straight, he is your father and your mother is some random fling he had in his teens?" Sam Wilson had inquired the first one to ask question after you explain how you were related to one Tony Stark and eventually associated with Loki Laufeyson.

"Unfortunately." You responded clasping onto your father's thigh, nails digging onto him when he muttered something under his breath. "When I found out I was his kid, I was well on my way to college so I didn't bother with changing my last name. My mother wasn't as present, but she tried--she just hated the fact that I looked a little too much like my father and I wanted to give my mother's family name something to be proud of." You added.

"So all throughout the Accords, you two know each other." It was now Clint Barton that made the question.

"I was just doing my job, whatever my Dad's decision wasn't of my influence." You explained remembering the panic you had to linger on knowing how much this team meant to your father. "I had always expected him to chose you and not the government, but he continues to surprise me."

"But what about him." It was now Bruce Banner that made the questioned.

Your head turned to the man besides you. Everyone thought it would be hilarious to have the two men sit on the same coach with you being in the middle, the only one stopping any of them from killing each other. The only one that wasn't a literal God or equipped with a suit at their will, you were the mediator. great.

"I punched him the first moment I saw him." You spoke honestly, seeing the smile on your boyfriend's face before turning to the rest of the team. "His attack on New York was the reason why I had to work for the Government for a few years while I place my Firm back up."

"So you are the woman that is making my brother happy?" It was now Loki's brother, Thor that inquired. Unlike the rest of the team that had been nothing inquisitive about your identity, the God was simply happy to see you and caring less about all the things you've had to done against the team--among other things.

"I just like to keep him on his toes." You muttered, feeling the warmth now settle on your cheek. You always hope to make Loki happy, having someone actually point that out meant more to you than you would actually believe now. "He does the same to me, keeps me sane whenever I need it the most."

You smiled, feeling his cold hand rest on top of your thighs, giving you a little more strength and reassurance that things weren't as bad as you would have believed it to be, letting him and your own father know about the truth.

"Well then celebrations are in order. My brother and Lady Stark are getting married after all." Thor's booming voice eventually encourage everyone else to get back to the drinks, ignoring the fact that it would just be them now, without the initial guest that was once part of the party.

"Can I talk to him?" Tony asked suddenly making you jerk your head at your father, narrowed eyes seizing him up. "I'm not gonna hurt him--too much."

"Dad--" You warned but was halted by Loki that had now stood ready for whatever your father has dished out.

"It's fine, my Love." He assured, and followed your father away from the open area of the compound and into one of the numerous rooms.

"It's gonna be fine." Pepper was quick to replace Tony from the coach. Hand holding on to your own as the both of you watched the rest of the team in their own conversation, the earlier chaos long forgotten. They were so used to it that it doesn't even bother them anymore at this point.

"I hope so, it's gonna be a nightmare if I visit from time to time." You muttered.

"Visits?" Pepper wondered.

"I've just finishing a few case and I'm gonna take things slow." You admit knowing you were the tail end of cases now. "I'm gonna be planning a wedding and having kids soon." You explained.

"Your father's gonna take a moment to adjust to things, even Loki. But I'm sure it's all gonna work out."

"I hope so." You muttered. "I just hope he's already done with the pent up anger after his antics tonight."

Eventually, finding yourself joining the rest of the team in a round of drinks, your father and your boyfriend had finally return and not more damage could be seen in either of them from the looks of it.

"My kid's getting married and I'm paying for everything and everyone's invited." Tony announced making you jerk your head at your father then turning to Loki that looked exasperated more than anything at this point as he made a beeline towards you.

"Should I even ask what he has in mind?" You inquired.

"He has some conditions that he wanted to have before he could accept us." He explained. "Aside from the wedding that we have not even thought about yet of planning, he want you to stay in the compound on a much more permanent basis--in my apartment."

You blinked, realizing that it wasn't much but to see your father actually trying even much to Loki's expense, meant more to you now than anything. You genuinely thought he would stop this with a fight but to know that he would accept your relationship with Loki was more than you could ever ask from him after everything you've all been through.

"Any other secrets you'd like to tell me?" Loki inquired with a knowing darken look.

The array of drinks that had now rested on your stomach had now brought a much more prominent warmth because of his smoldering eyes.

"Nothing else." You assured your boyfriend with a bigger smile. Arms now wrapping around his neck. "Think you can give me a tour of the apartment?" You inquired knowing a christening would take place.

"Hey, no more PDA!" Tony scolded which ruined the moment and had you and Loki realize the very reason why Tony wanted you in the Compound. A closer eye on the both of you.

"Yes, father." Loki teased knowing in the near future Tony would be his father-in-law and Loki would be his son-in-law.

"I'm gonna kick your ass when I get the chance, Professor Snape."

So this will be your life now.

[captains-simp]

@tomy5girls

Fhskdhwksnsns I accidently posted this before I was done writing it 🤡🤡🤡

I love Wanda so the first part took me ages to write but writing soft Carol made this either the messiest or best fic I've ever written

"Do I mean that little to you?"

"Was it all a lie?"

"I think I'm inlove with you."

Warnings: cheating and me fucking around with the MCU timeline regarding when characters are introduced

6.7k words

[ masterlist ]

Buy me a coffee ☕

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Your relationship with Wanda had always been far from perfect. It was evenings like that difficult one that made you reflect on just how many red flags you had ignored. You had chosen to live your life with her in blissful ignorance, thinking it would work out.

But as time went on there were things that were harder to ignore. Things that hurt you to notice, both about Wanda and yourself. You thought they would go away. They only ever got worse.

That night was the final straw. You couldn't deny the issues that had been growing like weeds in your relationship for a year when you walked into your appartment to see Wanda's head between another girl's legs.

You didn't feel mad. Or upset. You felt empty. Empty at the long awaited realisation that you had committed to the wrong thing.

You didn't say anything, too shocked to know what to say and not knowing if you would even be capable of stringing a sentence together.

The woman's eyes flickered open and met yours and in that brief moment you saw the familiar look of lust before it turned to fear. She roughly pushed Wanda away as she looked anywhere but you and moved away from your soon to be ex girlfriend.

Wanda gave her a questioning look before whipping her head around to see you after following the woman's uncontaminated glances. She stood up instantly and straightened her shirt while the woman on the couch got dressed.

"You're home." Was the first thing Wanda said. Yeah. You were definetly done.

"I am." Your mouth was dryer than sandpaper but you somehow managed to say that.

"I should..." The woman muttered as she awkwardly glanced between you and Wanda before rushing past you and out the door.

Neither you nor Wanda spoke for a while. You were still looking at her, searching for any signs of...anything. She didn't meet your eye. She made no attempt to defend herself. To defend your relationship. It was downright heartbreaking.

You needed to sit down, but there was no way you were sitting where Wanda had just been. Not that knowing what Wanda had done on that couch had bothered you before.

You left the hallway to wander aimlessly towards your bedroom, knowing you weren't the only one Wanda had fucked in that bed, but you had never had to see that.

She followed you into the room, more trailing really. There was no urgency to her pace and she still didn't speak. Did she really not care?

You sat down on the bed and stared at the floor, mot knowing what to feel. Wanda didn't sit next to you. She made no move to comfort you. You didn't need comfort, not from her. You needed an explanation.

"When did it start?" You wanted to ask how many, but you already knew the truth would hurt too much. The ones you knew about were enough.

"I don't know." Wanda huffed. She sounded frustrated, as though you were wasting her time. That finally pissed you off.

"I deserve an explanation, Wanda." You said clearly, keeping your voice surprisingly steady as you looked up at her. She still didn't look back.

"What's done is done." She said simply.

"Do I mean that little to you?" Tears sprung to your eyes as you said that. Wondering for the first time if Wanda had really ever cared about you.

When Wanda finally looked at you you wished she hadn't. Her eyes were full of pity, watching you like a stray puppy in the rain. She moved forward and sat down next to you on the edge of the bed.

"I loved you." You didn't fail to notice the past tense, it cut through you like a knife. "But I wasn't ready." You had started dating so soon after Ultron. At the time you knew Wanda was grieving badly, you had questioned if it was best for her to dive into a relationship the way she had in that state.

Her self-confidence and driven nature always put your mind to rest. There were red flags before the relationship had even started.

"When you realised that...you didn't have to stay." Your voice wavered slightly.

"I know that." God the pitifulness was even in her voice.

"So why did you?" You held your breath waiting for that an answer. Wanda took a few seconds to consider that, like she wasn't quite sure herself.

"I like being around you." She sounded truthful, but you didn't allow yourself to believe her.

"When you weren't around them." You couldn't help the bitter tone that crept into your voice. Wanda didn't like that. Thinking she actually had any right to be mad at you.

"Oh for the- we had fun, didn't we? It's not like it was a complete waste of our time!" She exclaimed, standing up to face you.

"I wasn't dating you for fun, Wanda. It was so much more than that. I wasn't just someone for you to fuck like all of those girls, I was your girlfriend!" You felt proud at what you had said. You were right. About all of it. You were especially right to use the past tense. Something you didn't think you could manage to do. But that pride was short lived.

"You were a distraction!" You froze. Every fibre of your being turning ice cold from her words. You and Wanda stared at each other for felt like an eternity. She didn't take it back. There was an unreadable expression painted on her face. You knew it wasn't regret.

That's all you ever were to her? A distraction? Everything you thought you had...

"Was it all a lie?" You whispered. You hated the question. You would hate the answer. But you had to know.

Wanda's expression faulted and for a second the pitifulness returned. It was quickly pushed to the side when she spoke again, remaining stoic.

"Call it what you want." You bit the inside of your mouth in an attempt to stop your bottom lip trembling as you finally looked away.

"I'd like you to go. We're done." You whispered, turning away from her.

She left without another word. Her boots thudding against the floor as she walked away in the purposeful way she failed to show you that night.

The door to your appartment clicked shut before you broke down into tears.

*

You had gotten a hotel room that night, unable to stay in your own home. You couldn't lay in your bed without wondering how many people had been in it. Wondering how fewer it would have been if you had just confronted Wanda about it when you first knew. But you didn't, and those months of heartbreak were finally coming to the surface.

You arranged for time off of work once you got back to your appartment. Once that was done you flipped over the couch cushions, retrieved your toasted pop tarts and sat down to watch your comfort show under a bundle of blankets.

It worked for a while. The plates (yes plural) full of pop tarts and the hours of TV took the edge off of the numbness you were feeling. That was until a text from Carol brought you back to reality.

Care Bear: you okay?

You smiled a little. Carol was definetly something that would provide you with comfort, living up to her nickname as always. But she worked with Wanda, and the last thing you wanted was to make her life awkward.

Carol was your best friend. She was Wanda's friend too. That was how you had met. After Ultron Carol had introduced you to Wanda at one of Tony's parties. She had even been a wingwoman for Wanda, you pondered over what Carol would do if she knew Wanda had cheated.

The blonde had always been protective of you. It was sweet. Especially the small acts she never even noticed she did. Like standing closer to you when you were in a room full of self righteous jerks. Always being the one to catch you when you tripped over thin air, even if she was preciously on the other side of the room. Knowing when you were uncomfortable in social situations and casually taking you away from them in the most subtle manner that didn't cause a scene. You had never been able to confide in anyone like you could with her. Not even Wanda, although that was probably because she never shared either.

You: 👍 :)

Care Bear: --_--

Care Bear: Wanda's here

You bit your lip as your thumbs danced over the keyboard; evaluating the best response. You were surprised Wanda was even at the Avenger's headquarters. You had assumed she would be spending her nights with random hookups for a while rather than just one night. She finally had the full freedom to do that but she went back to the Avenger's Headquarters instead?

You: she okay?

Care Bear: I haven't seen her since she went to her room, doesn't seem to be in a talkative mood

Care Bear: you guys okay? 👀

Carol never liked to pry into yours and Wanda's relationship. She always let you confide in her. But in the cases where it was obvious something had happened between you, she checked in on you in the least subtle ways. Carol was smooth in a lot of way, but that was not one of them. It had become a joke between you and Carol ended up embracing it.

You: we broke up

Care Bear: CHSKSBSKSBAMZBMZDBAL

Care Bear: I'm on my way!!

Care Bear: or I can give you space to mope?

You couldn't help but smile at Carol's messages. Your reply was instant. You would love to have Carol binge shows and eat trash food with you.

You: come mope with me :(

Carol confirmed she was on her way less than a minute later and you got up to toast the last of your pop tarts and get a drink.

You weren't sure how soon Carol arrived on your balcony. You were sure very few things had made you happier than the sight of your goofy friend proudly holding up a multipack of poptarts while dressed in her sweatpants and goose t-shirt. The shirt was one you had gifted her for Christmas one year and if she wasn't wearing her Captain Marvel uniform, she was most likely wearing that shirt.

You got up to open the sliding door for her as you suppressed a chuckle. Carol appearing on your balcony without warning had stopped scaring you around the ninth time it happened. That was about the time you stopped trying to convince her to just use the stairs like everyone else.

As soon as she was in your appartment she threw the box to the couch and enveloped you in a bear hug. You wrapped your arms around her middle and closed your eyes as you held onto her. You smiled at the familiar smell of vanilla and cat hairs, being so easily comforted by it.

"Are you okay?" She muttered into your shoulder.

"I am." You said truthfully. You hadn't slept well the previous night, even at the hotel. You had cried for a while. But the next day you had felt better, as though a weight had been lifted from.your chest. You were still hurting, but you would be just fine.

Carol pulled away and rested her hands on your shoulders as she studied you, trying to find any evidence of a lie. Upon finding none she nodded and smiled at you kindly. That was something you loved about Carol. She never pitied you, even when the worst happened. She was sympathetic and supportive and never condescending. 

"What are we watching?" Carol asked as she picked up the box on the couch and took it over to your toaster. She knew you wouldn't want to talk about Wanda yet. She would wait for you to bring it up. Until then, she would act as though you were moping because you were sick rather than the reality.

You replied to her with your comfort show that she had grown familiar with and sat back down on the couch with the blanket over you. Carol soon returned with two plates of pop tarts (it wasn't like you had eaten anything else) and two hot chocolates. What you really craved was some alcohol but you decided to leave that till later on.

Your blonde friend sat back down next to you when you lifted the blanket for her. She instantly brought her legs up under her and put her arm around you. You easily leant into her and rested your head on her shoulder before she leant her own head on yours.

Neither of you spoke for a while. Carol occasionally laughed at something on the TV and you found yourself smiling at the sound of her laughter more than the show. It had always been contagious.

Wait. Should you of been smiling that much for someone who had walked in on their girlfriend cheating less than 24 hours prior? Probably not. But then again. You had seen it coming. All the signs prior had softened the blow.

"You alright?" Carol asked again as a whisper as she pretended to keep most of her focus on the show.

You hummed in response and fiddled with the edge of the blanket for a while until you spoke.

"She cheated." You muttered. You could feel Carol freeze. Her whole body tensed up making her as stiff as a plank. Her shoulder wasn't as comfy when that happened. "But it's okay." You assured.

Carol took ahold of both your empty plates and placed them on the table before turning her body towards you so she could see you better.

"That's never something that can just be 'okay', y/n." Carol said in a gentle tone.

"I know but...I already knew before... before I saw." You could hear Carol breathing heavily as you avoided her gaze.

"Christ, y/n." She whispered. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I don't know I just...I guess I thought if I ignored it it would go away." Upon reflection you really weren't sure why you never addressed it.

Carol didn't say anything at that. You glanced up nervously to see her looking deep in thought, trying to understand what you meant. Carol was never one to hope things would go away. Her life as a hero had taught her to comfront every obstacle she faced.

"And you saw her..."

"Yeah, I did. I thought I could handle knowing what she was doing behind my back but actually seeing it...it was hard." Carol breathed out hard as though she had been holding her breath and pulled you into another of her infamous bear hugs. You wrapped your arms around her again and squeezed your eyes shut.

The blonde gently stroked your back in soothing circles until you moved away, not wanting to but knowing Carol wouldn't move away first and Lord knows how long you would have ended up staying like that.

"And you're really feeling okay about it?" Carol asked with a slightly furrowed brow, reading your face for any trace of a lie as you spoke.

"Yeah." You smiled assuringly. You didn't feel like telling Carol the rest. About how you had only ever been a distraction to Wanda. But there was something else you wanted to admit. "It was for the best." You started. Carol could tell something more was coming so she sat up a little straighter to show you you had her full attention. "Even before I figured out I what she was doing things just didn't feel entirely right with Wanda. She was great, but it always felt like something was missing." Carol didn't show any reaction to that. She seemed surprisingly stoic, like she was trying to suppress something. You figured it was probably just that she was thinking about what you had said.

"Enough about all that though." You said when Carol hadn't spoken. "You never got to tell me about your super amazing mission last month." Carol's eyes lit up at the mention of her successful mission.

There were some missions she wasn't allowed to talk about. Some she could. And some she could eventually talk about. Her last one was the latter and once she was clear to tell you about it she did, in great detail and the most animated way. It had been one of her best missions and you were incredibly proud. But you were interrupted by a false alarm at the Headquarters before she could finish.

You loved hearing about Carol's work that she was passionate about. You loved hearing how she could handle herself out there. Recalling some of those missions put your mind to rest when you hadn't heard from her in a long time. And you needed the distraction. Carol knew that.

You listened to Carol intently with a smile but the stress and upset of the previous events had you suddenly feeling very tired. Your eyelids began to feel very heavy and your head became empty as you felt yourself drifting off to sleep.

*

You woke up in your own bed, beyond comfused. You couldn't remember getting into bed or falling asleep. Still in a half asleep state, you tried to recall the events of the night until you remembered Carol. Had she carried you to bed? Had she left?

Your heart ached at the thought that your best friend wasn't there. Refusing to believe it, you wrapped your duvet tightly around you and trudged out of your room.

She was sleeping soundly on your couch with the blanket you had been curled up together under. You smiled at the sight of her looking so peaceful, taking a moment to consider yourself the luckiest person alive to have a friend as caring as Carol.

You came back to your sense when you realised how creepy it felt to be standing over your best friend and staring at her sleep, not to mention how freaked out she would be if she awoke to your duvet covered silhouette. But you didn't want to leave her side.

Carol stirred when she felt you kneeling on the couch. Countless nights of sleeping next to her had taught you she was a fairly light sleeper. You were thankful that she wasn't startled by you kneeling over her as you adjusted your blanket.

"Y/n?" She muttered as she rubbed her eyes to try to see you better.

"Go back to sleep." You murmmered back before laying down on her stomach and holding the duvet over you both.

You felt so at home in her arms. She didn't protest to you and instead wrapped her arms around your back and closed her eyes again with a content smile.

You rested your head in the crook of her neck and soon drifted back to sleep. Carol, on the other hand, struggled to sleep for a while. You had slept in the same bed before, countless times, but you had never been so close together when you did. It had never felt so intimate.

It was making the butterflies that had started arriving years ago whenever you were around dance around happily. As much as Carol tried to ignore them, her feelings for you only ever grew.

*

Over the next few days Carol visited you a lot. You had always been happy to spend time with your friend, but in those days you appreciated her company even more. In fact you were pretty sure you craved it.

She checked in on you often and stayed the night when you asked her to. You tried not to be too clingy with your friend, knowing she had a busy life and a lot of responsibilities to take care of and you didn't want to keep her away from her hero life.

It made the moments you could spend with her even better. You had always had that thought process with Carol, but it was enhanced since the night you slept ontop of her on the couch - something she never commented on.

You mainly spent your time together in your appartment, but on that day Carol had another idea.

"I promise it's safe." Carol grinned at you as you looked over your balcony for the umpteenth time in the last five minutes. You never really realised how high the sixth floor was until your friend was encouraging you to jump off your balcony with her.

"You need to get out of that appartment." Carol insisted.

"I could go on a walk to do that! You know...like a normal person." Carol laughed at your defiance to try what she had offered.

"Just five minutes, you'll love it." Carol said genuinely as she took ahold of your hand. You had never realised how her hands seemed to fit perfectly in your own before. You smiled at the sensation of a slight tingling in your hand upon contact with Carol's.

"Ease off." You giggled, shaking Carol's hand.

"I'm not doing anything." Carol protested earnestly, giving you a comfused look. You gulped and tried not to think about what the feeling was. "If you don't like it I'll bring you right back, you're safe with me - the Strongest Avenger." She said with a cocky grin, she had heard someone say it once and it went straight to her head. You rolled your eyes at her with a smile then paused, biting your lip as you considered the offer properly.

"Okay." You breathed out.

"Okay?" Carol asked with an excited grin.

"What the hell, sure!" You exclaimed. Carol chuckled and went to stand behind you. The material of her suit pressed against your bare arms and made you shiver slightly, you assumed from nerves. Carol had told you you didn't need to wear a jacket or coat, claiming her powers would keep you warm.

She wrapped her arms around your waist to hold you tightly against her and you gripped onto her forearms, not being able to stop yourself smiling.

"You ready?" Carol asked as the yellow swirls started to surround Carol and heat up your back and stomach. Blue and red glimmers occasionally appeared amongst the swirls and you tried not to get too distracted by the beauty of Carol's powers.

The next thing you knew your feet were slowly leaving the ground until the tips of your shoes were an inch away from the floor. You felt weightless and couldn't help but laugh a little at the absurdity that you were floating on thin air.

"Okay?" Carol checked.

"Okay." You confirmed.

As soon as the word left your mouth you felt like you were being catapulted through the air. Wind whipped your hair across your face and everything was a blur. All you could focus on was the whirling colours and Carol's strong grip on your waist.

You were going directly upwards for a few seconds until Carol eased you both forwards slightly, angled so you could finally take in your surroundings.

The speed at which you had been going to get so high in such a short amount of time was insane. It was impossible to know exactly how high up you were, all you knew was the faint clouds in the nighttime sky were closer to you than the ground. A lot closer.

The small gaps amongst the thin layers of clouds gave a glimpse at the stars that shimmered above you. The view below was just as breath-taking.

The city was lit up by the lights emitting from each building, each playing a part in the beautiful display. The lights shimmered and twinkled just as the stars did, the two very different worlds having the same beauty from such a height.

As Carol leveled herself out more you felt your legs drop infront of you and away from Carol. Your grip on the hero tightened in response to the new position.

"Do you trust me?" Carol asked carefully. You nodded, not knowing what your friend was planning but knowing you would go along with whatever she had planned.

One moment Carol had her reassuring grip on your waist, guiding you through the night air, and the next she was gone. You plummeted through the air in an instant, a silent scream escaping your throat. You squeezed your eyes shut tightly, not wanting to see the world spinning as you fell, but as soon as you were falling you were safe again.

You landed on Carol's back surprisingly lightly. You blinked a few times in shock, not understanding what had happened until you realised that Carol was flying horizontally and the position allowed you both to have a much better view and in a better position.

You sighed with a grin as stared down at the city in awe, your eyes occasionally flickering up to the dark sky. You rested your head in the crook of Carol's neck and wrapped your arms around her front, easing into her as easily as you had that night on the couch.

It was the happiest you had felt in such a long time. You felt safe with Carol, even from such a dangerous height and the whole event had you feeling more relaxed and content than you could ever remember.

A warmth spread over your body as the pair of you gently flew over the city. While you wanted to believe it was from Carol's powers, you knew deep down that that wasn't it. Because you had had that warmth for Carol on the coldest nights, you had had it when she was on the other side of the room, it had been there for as long as you could remember. And it was only getting stronger.

*

It didn't take anymore encouragement to get back into your usual way of life without any issues. Thanks to Carol there didn't seem to be much difference. The times that you would have been spending with Wanda you spent with Carol. She knew you were okay and that you didn't need her to mope around with you anymore - not that you had really ended up doing that together much. But you wanted her with you; she seemed to want to be with you too.

While you had slept in the same bed multiple times since you had on the couch, you never cuddled close to her like you did before. You knew that if you did that warmth would return. You knew, deep down, what it meant. However you had no idea if Carol's feelings for you were anything more than platonic, it was a line you weren't willing to cross, so you pushed those feelings to the side as much as you could.

Despite your efforts, those mornings you woke up next to your friend you found that you had your head resting on her shoulder or an arm hooked around her waist or one of your legs tangled with hers. She never seemed to mind, in fact one time you could have sworn you saw her eyes drop when you separated yourself from her. You told yourself you were just seeing things that weren't there.

So one night when Carol casually invited you to an Avenger's party you almost choked on your popcorn. You had always gotten along with the team - ever since the mix up on the mission that had led you to meet them and Carol. You had been to a fair few of those parties in the time you had been friends, but that party would be different.

Carol had assured you that no one else on the team knew exactly what had happened between you and Wanda. Your friend knew you didn't want people knowing and Wanda wasn't about to announce it, all the team knew was that you had broken up.

"You don't have to." Carol said quickly. "Wanda will be there." She informed in unimportant fact kind of way. "I just thought it would be nice for you to see everyone again. They miss you."

"They do?" Even thought you had known the Avengers for years, you still couldn't help but be a insecure before seeing them. You didn't have any powers or training. You always wondered what you could possibly bring to their table. Those worries were always put to rest once you were settled in, the smiles on their faces and laughter they emitted when you saw them was hard to fake. Besides, it wasn't like they had any reason to fake it.

You very quickly stopped being insecure when it came to Carol though. You had spent so much time together and knew each other so well that you never worried what she thought of you. She reminded you often of the traits she loved so much, it had been something you had started.

"I'd love to go." You smiled at Carol then went back to the screen. You never liked to make things awkward with exes. It wasn't like you and Wanda were going to become best buddies any time soon, but you were determined to be civil. You just hoped she would be too.

"Great." Carol concluded after studying you for a bit, wanting to be absolutely sure that it was what you wanted. "I'll pick you up at eight on Saturday."

"It's in two days?" You exclaimed, turning to Carol with a horrified expression.

"It is?" Carol confirmed in a not-too-sure tone, not understanding what the big deal was.

"Jeeze, Carol, give a girl a better warning next time." You huffed as you leant back against the couch. The blonde chucked next to you and muttered an apology.

Carol continued watching the film she had put on while you planned when and where you would get an outfit. You knew the dress code of those parties, that wouldn't be an issue, but part of you wanted to match with Carol.

"What are you going to wear?" You asked casually.

"Haven't decided yet."

Damn. You would just have to wing it.

*

Carol knocked on your door at exactly eight o'clock on the night of the party. You were startled at the sound of it at first, not expecting her to actually use the door for once.

You opened the door with a wide grin on your face but felt as though you had the breath knocked out of you when you saw your friend. She was wearing a tailored dark y/f/c suit with a neat white blouse. Her hair was slightly tossled and hung loose around her shoulders. It all went perfectly with her familiar warm smile. She looked beautiful.

Carol's outfit was strikingly similar to your own y/f/c dress that was a much lighter tone but the similarity was still there.

"H-hey." You stuttered as you continued to take in her outfit.

"Hey yourself." Carol grinned smugly, not oblivious to your stare.

"You look...really...amazing." You couldn't help but say. It was the truth.

"You look really amazing too." Carol said a lot more easily than you did. You giggled and stepped out of your appartment and locked it.

"Milady." Carol said in a terrible English accent as she offered her arm for you to hold.

"Milord." You went along and put your arm easily through hers before you started walking down the hallway, unable to contain your smile at the childish and loveable act.

*

When you arrived at the party you were bombarded with people wanting to talk to Carol. You had grown used to that, but it was still a downer when you wanted to stay by Carol, at least for a while.

Eventually, you were summoned away from your friend by the Avengers who were eager to catch up with you after so long.

"How've you been?" Nat asked with a welcoming hug as she outstretched her arms I'm an open hug.

"I've been pretty great." You replied honestly as you hugged her tightly. There was no one you were closer to than Carol, but Nat was someone you considered a friend without a doubt.

"What about you?" You asked genuinely as you pulled away.

"Same old." Nat smiled in her familiar way she saved for those she knew rather than the strangers in the room she had to play nice with.

You talked to Nat for a while as though nothing had changed. You hadn't seen Wanda and you had no idea where she was and no one mentioned her. You were thankful there wasn't any tension around the group. They all talked to you in the same way they always had with the exception of them asking about Carol more. You kept missing their knowing smiles hidden behind their drinks.

After a while you and Tony had your own convosation and it seemed as though being around the others was the only kind of self control he had when it came to refraining talking about relationships. As soon as you two were left alone he didn't hesitate to start saying what he had been thinking.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, you and Wanda seemed great, but I always thought it would be you and Carol who would end up together." Tony said as though he was voicing a passing thought.

"Me and Carol?" You tried to ask smoothly. Admittedly you had been thinking a lot about what it would be like to date Carol. You couldn't seem to stop your mind wandering at night to imagining scenarios with her in which you were dating. It always made you smile so your cheeks hurt until you reminded yourself it wasn't real. Carol would never see you that way, would she?

"Well I didn't see it until Nat pointed it out. Then we actually all kind of assumed you were dating before you and Wanda became a thing." Tony continued in his casual manner before taking another sip of his drink.

"Really?" You looked over at Nat who was talking to Carol. Nat seemed as though she was trying to convince Carol to do something because the blonde had the conflicked look upon her face that always appeared when she had been thinking long and hard about something.

"You certainly acted like it." Tony snickered as he followed your line of sight. As if on cue, Carol and Nat glanced your way and a heat began to grow along your neck at the feeling of embarrassment at being caught staring.

Nat had a small smirk playing along her lips while Carol mirrored your expression guiltily.

You missed Tony and Nat exchanging knowing smiles. You missed the way Carol's cheeks became tinted pink too.

"Excuse me." Tony said as he put a hand gently below your shoulder before walking off in the direction Nat had also departed too.

You smiled at Carol and wandered towards her place on the balcony, glad that she turned around entirely to face you. Unfortunately the blush on her cheeks had faded by the time you would have been close enough to spot it.

"Enjoying the party?" Carol asked as you stepped out onto the balcony and leant against the railing.

"I am." You said certainly. The blonde turned to copy your position so you could both gaze out at the buildings below you. The view you had gotten with Carol was undefeated, but the Avengers tower provided something special too.

"I told you they missed you." Carol grinned as she nudged your side with her elbow.

"Yeah." You blushed and peered down at the railing.

"I don't know about you but my shoes are killing me and I think I've talked to enough of these guests to bore me to death twice over." Carol sighed with a childish smile. You grinned back and nodded.

"You want to stay at mine tonight?" You asked hopefully.

"I'd love to." Carol's smile grew as you held her arm out for you to link your arm through again.

"Milady." The hero said with the same terrible English accent.

"Milord." You mocked as you put your arm through hers easily.

Maybe Tony was onto something.

*

That night when Carol took the same place she always did in her home that was as much hers as it was yours, you couldn't focus on the movie playing on the screen. You couldn't focus on anything except the blonde beside you.

You had your head resting on her shoulder and everytime you moved to get your drink and turned back to her your eyes instantly strayed to her lips, images of kissing her filling your head.

You remembered the night she moped with you after your breakup and how she had been the best friend you could ask for. Except you didn't want Carol to be just your friend. You wanted her to be more.

Your mind had been racing since since party, considering what Tony had said to you and how true it was. You and Carol really had always acted like a couple. You had never thought anything of it, even when Carol did it considerably less when you were dating someone.

Because you had been in more than just one relationship in the time you been friends with Carol. None of them ever felt right. You always thought there was something missing. Something that the next person would fix. No one ever could though. Because what you had been looking had been right infront of you the whole time.

All those feelings that had come bubbling to the surface the couple of weeks prior, they had been there all along. Christ, you were such an idiot.

"Carol..." You whispered, more afraid of what you were about to say than anything before. You wanted to back out. You didn't want to mess up what you had with Carol, but you had never been so sure of something than you were for your feelings for Carol in your entire life.

"Yeah?" She said softly.

"I think..." You held your breath and you could have sworn Carol did too. "I think I'm inlove with you." The blonde froze for a solid minute. Neither of you spoke. Tears threatened to come to the surface as you realized what you had done.

Eventually, Carol put her bowl of popcorn down and slowly turned towards you. You didn't dare meet her eye, instead playing with the edge of the blanket over you both and hoping it would trigger a sink hole beneath you.

"You do?" She whispered. You nodded and bit your lip in an attempt to hold back your tears. Carol lifted your chin gradually so you were looking at her. She had an unreadable expression.

"I love you too." You half laughed half sighed in relief as a smile spread across your face and the tears finally sprung free.

"Yeah?" You choked out. Carol instantly cupped your face and wiped your tears off of your cheeks as she smiled back at you.

"Yeah!" She giggled. "I've wanted to say that for so long." She admitted in a rush.

"Why didn't you? It could have saved us so much time!" You exclaimed and gently punched her arm.

"I was scared, even with Nat trying to convince me to say something." Carol explained, it was her turn to look away in embarrassment but you quickly pulled her back the way she did.

"That's really sweet, I'm here now." You assured genuinely.

Carol smiled back at you as her eyes glanced down at you lips. You grinned at the obviousness of what she was thinking and bravely closed the gap between you. After that prompt Carol eagerly met you half way and smiled into your long overdue kiss. Her lips were so so soft and moved against like a perfected dance. When you pulled away for air you rested your forehead against hers and breathed heavily with a heart filled smile.

"We have to do that more often." Carol said as her hands landed on your waist.

"We absolutely do." You agreed before pulling her into another kiss, engraving the memory of that night into your mind forever.

[starkerscoop]

A Blessing in Disguise

I am very excited to announce that this fic now has a Russian translation! I posted this in October on my old blog, and in honor of having a translation recently written for it, I’ve decided to repost it onto this one!

ao3  

Russian translation   

content warnings: discussion of abortion, issues with body image and self-esteem, pregnancy, non-graphic birth

-

Two red lines stared back at him, the image burning itself into his brain. A sudden wave of dizziness washed over him and he stumbled to the ground, too dazed to catch himself. He couldn’t believe that this was happening.

He was pregnant.

He was pregnant, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, too disoriented at the moment to really tell. He was in his mid-twenties; in his prime and at the perfect age to start making pups, according to society.

But Peter didn’t think he was ready. Of course, the Omega in him had yearned quietly for pups ever since he started going through puberty, but Peter’s priority had always been to make a name for himself in science. He wanted to get his PhD and go on to make revolutionary discoveries; to pave the way for all Omegas and prove that his secondary gender couldn’t hold him back. For years, he’d been competing with Alphas, constantly trying to prove his worth. He couldn’t let all of that go down the drain for a pup.

There was Tony to think about, too. Peter had no idea if he would want to be a father, and he was too terrified to imagine his reaction to the news. He toyed briefly with the idea of not telling him, but that thought was quickly pushed out of his brain.

Tony deserved to know, and Peter had to tell him soon; soon enough that he could still get an abortion, if that was what he wanted.

A knock on the bathroom door brought him out of his thoughts.

“Baby?” Tony mumbled tiredly, voice laced with the thickness of sleep. “Are you going to bed soon? You’ve been in there for a while.”

Peter stashed the cluster of pregnancy tests in the back of the cabinets below the sink. He would have to remember to get rid of those the next day, before Tony could find them. Another knock had him rushing to stand up and wash his face, clearing it of his silver tear tracks.

“Pete?” Tony called, louder now and with more concern, still waiting for a response. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Peter answered, unlocking the door and stepping out of the bathroom.

Tony hadn’t finished scanning him for signs of harm when his nose picked up on the distress radiating from Peter’s body. It was a bitter scent; one that itched at Tony’s instincts, making him want to replace it with something more cheerful at once.

“What’s wrong?” Tony pulled him into his warm embrace, rubbing his back in small circles that bunched up his shirt.

Peter was tired of living in fear. Even if he’d only known about his pregnancy for all of ten minutes, he didn’t want to keep it from Tony for any longer. They didn’t keep secrets. They worked hard to keep their relationship honest, and Peter wasn’t going to be the one to ruin that.

“I’m pregnant,” Peter blurted out.

Tony’s hands faltered but remained on his back, which Peter took as a good sign. He didn’t dare to look up at his face, keeping his own hidden in the crook of Tony's neck. After a few minutes of mutual silence, the older man’s hands resumed their movements.

“You’re pregnant,” Tony repeated. “Sweetheart, that’s - that’s amazing.”

“You want to keep it?” Peter questioned, voice void of any judgement.

Tony recoiled away from him. “Do you not want to keep it? It’s your choice, of course, I’ll pay for the expenses either way.”

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Peter admitted smally. “I don’t want to give up everything I’ve worked for to stay home and take care of a pup. I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove that Omegas are more than pup-making machines. And now I’m pregnant.”

“You don’t have to give anything up,” Tony said firmly. “You can keep studying for your PhD, and get a job after that. I’ll stay home with the pup.”

Peter finally looked up at him. “You’d be willing to do that? I know it’s not - traditional, for the Alpha to be the one at home.”

“Fuck traditional,” Tony declared. “That’s our whole motto, honey. We don’t have to be traditional. And frankly, being there for my pup is a lot more important to me than what others will think of it.”

Peter beamed and threw himself onto Tony, who caught him and stumbled back a few steps from the force.

They quickly learned that pregnancy was not fun. At all. Peter spent most of the days of his first trimester alternating between clutching a trash can and a toilet seat, heaving up the contents of his stomach. Tony was always by his side, smoothing his hair away from his sweaty forehead and making him meals he could tolerate.

The second trimester was a lot more enjoyable. Peter’s stomach had settled down, for the most part, and started forming into a baby bump. He and Tony had completely opposite reactions to that.

“I’m so fat now,” Peter wailed into his pillow. “My body is ruined. I’m going to look distorted forever.”

Tony was patient with him, though, hiding his own glee until Peter was in a better mood. He thought that pregnancy looked amazing on Peter; he was practically glowing with it.

“You’ll be back in shape in no time, honey,” Tony assured him. “You’re still gorgeous as ever.”

Even more exciting than watching the baby bump grow was finding out the sex of their pup. Peter held Tony’s hand as they waited, shivering at the cool gel slathered on his abdomen. Slower than the couple would’ve liked, the doctor turned the screen to them.

They were having a boy.

Both Tony and Peter cried that day. They invited their friends over to the penthouse and threw a small party, accepting all of the gifts their friends brought with big smiles.

The third trimester, and thus the birth of their pup, arrived a lot faster than they expected. Tony had been at a meeting when Peter’s water broke, the latter of whom was in too much pain to drive himself to the hospital, and hobbled over to the bathtub instead.

“Boss,” FRIDAY interrupted the shareholder speaking unapologetically, “Peter’s water broke and he is now in labor.”

Tony’s face paled in less than two seconds, and he was out of the meeting room in less than one. He instructed FRIDAY to call the doctor and raced into the elevator, urging his AI to take him up to the penthouse faster than was allowed.

He found Peter curled up in the tub with a pained expression, whimpering in between each contraction as it came and went. He crouched next to him and offered him his hand, grimacing at the strength with which he gripped it.

The doctor joined them twenty minutes later with a nurse at her heels, ushering Tony to the side to crouch in between Peter’s open legs.

Tony knew that Peter would pull through. His mate was strong, with a will that matched his own. That didn’t stop him from wincing at every cry that tumbled out of Peter’s lips, or wishing privately that he’d never gotten him pregnant, because that way he wouldn’t be in pain.

Six hours after Peter went into labor, his groans were silenced by the loud cry of his newborn, who had finally come out. He was dirty, looking more like an organ than a human being, but Tony didn’t get to look at him for very long. The nurse whisked the child away while the doctor finished up with Peter.

Tony stayed with Peter, running his fingers gently through his damp curls. “You did it, baby. I’m so proud of you. You did it.”

The nurse returned soon after, the baby now clean and looking considerably more like a human. The baby was handed to Peter, who held him with shaky arms and watched him breathe through bleary eyes.

“Skin on skin contact is important,” the nurse told them, draping a blanket over Peter’s naked chest and the baby.

They moved Peter to the master bedroom, which was where he would spend his recovery. The baby would be there, too, resting in an incubator once he was taken away from Peter.

“What do you want to name him?” Tony wondered, laying on the bed with Peter. He’d insisted on having the incubator placed on his side of the room, so that he could watch over both of the people that owned his heart. Peter hadn’t minded, had just smiled at Tony fondly and nodded.

Tony was glad. If he looked to the left, he saw the love of his life, relaxing after giving birth to the baby boy on Tony’s right. He wanted to keep them close forever.

“Benjamin Anthony Stark,” Peter told him. “After the most important men in my life.”

Tony swallowed harshly. He’d never imagined naming his child after himself, or having someone else want to do so. He didn’t think there was much to live up to. Peter clearly didn’t agree with that, and there was his proof.

“Ben,” Tony whispered to himself, gazing at their little boy.

It sounded perfect.

[nostalgicatsea]

Five favorite works from the past year

Tagged by @firebrands a year and a half ago. :’) Sorry, I just saw it now because Tumblr neglected to notify me that you tagged me! 

The rules of this circulating challenge are as follows: it’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Okay, this is going to function as my end-of-year review. I was about to say that this year was a bad writing year for me because I only published three finished works, but that’s actually an improvement from last year where I posted one 136-word fic and putting aside my Spider Georg 2018 and 2019 years, on par with my average output. It just felt like I didn’t write much because the state of the world fried my creativity and productivity cells. I’m cutting myself some slack because of that and I’m happy about the fics I did manage to write and post!

The Burning of Flowers (1,257 words)

If flowers bloomed, there was only one truth. If none did, there were two: both of you were in love or both of you weren’t.

This is my favorite fic I’ve written this year and one of my all-time favorites for a few reasons:

this is the first time since the pandemic started—perhaps even before then, since I struggled so much with writing after Endgame came out—that I was struck with inspiration to write and excited to write. Writing was easy and fun! Everything came together quickly (for me)! This is what it’s like to love writing! Muse, please return to me.

I’m going to be annoying about myself because after some time passes, I so often dislike things I’ve written or find a lot of things I want to fix. I really love the prose here. I love the tempo; writing this reminded me of how I used to write with rhythm in my early AO3 days, something I miss and feel like I lost (it felt more like writing poetry than prose in that way). I love the mood, the growing rage which went hand in hand with the growing “loudness” and pace as the fic progressed, like Steve couldn’t hold back his feelings anymore. 

it’s my first 616 fic since the first fic I ever posted on AO3 in 2014 

I wanted to write a Hanahaki AU for a while

I love finding a fresh angle on tropes, and I haven’t seen a Hanahaki fic before where the protagonist wants the person they love to get Hanahaki

It was a fic that I didn’t have to write, but I was able to finish anyway

Taking Your Love With Me Wherever I Go (3,468 words)

Being with Sam felt like the sun breaking through. Rhodey knew it was only a temporary reprieve, that it wouldn't fix everything because that wasn’t how grief worked. But for now, all he wanted was for the moment to stretch to infinity, to be at the diner they had always gone to back in the old days, talking over breakfast like they always did.

I’m proud of myself for writing this because I never wrote Rhodey/Sam before and I was able to mourn Steve and Tony’s endings in Endgame. FINALLY. I’ve struggled with the latter for two years, and my document folder is littered with my aborted attempts to write EG fics after I watched it. I couldn’t bear to get inside the mind of any of the characters who loved Steve and Tony—especially Tony—at all. I still struggle to do so. But I did it! I put a lot of myself into this one, and I wanted to give some love to Rhodey and Sam who share so much in common but are often not given the space to show that. You get the sense that they’re aware of that and their closeness in CW and IW (thank you, IW, for giving me that one tender line with Rhodey calling Sam “Sammy” that made me end up shipping them), but I was itching to cover more than what we got. I wanted to give them comforting, quiet, and strong love in the wake of grief because they’re often the carer in their relationships. I wanted the carers to be taken care of; I wanted to have them take care of each other. I also like the dialogue in this one! I think I captured their voices well.

Deep Breath In, Deep Breath Out (2,981 words)

Family dinners were for other people, other times, Sharon thought. Not for people like Natasha and her and not when half the universe was gone. But it felt right being here, strange as it was being in Tony's home.

My first Marvel gen fic! My first time writing Sharon and Nat! My first time writing from Sharon’s POV! Thank you, Jen, for letting me write these two women we both love—three if we include Morgan who was a surprise inclusion. Also another first! I’ve never written Morgan before or any kids, really. This one was hard to write, but I’m also proud of this one. I wandered out of my comfort zone a lot this year with my three fics. I’m not sure how many fics there are that are set in the long five years after the Blip, and I thought this was a good chance to slip into the shoes of someone who, if she hadn’t disappeared, would probably have continued working (I’m basing this on 616 and MCU Sharon. Work comes first for her!). I really like the loneliness and eerie, melancholic silence that we got to see a bit of visually and in Steve and Nat’s conversation about seeing whales in the Hudson in EG. Most of my works cover the theme of hope, and this one is no different. Here, though, I wanted to go into what it’s like to keep marching forward with no end in sight and investigate why it’s important to do so despite insurmountable circumstances. 

I also wrote a few snippets for @lightsonparkave, so to round this up to five works, here are my two favorite pieces:

1. scene from a post-Endgame soulmate WIP

“What do you think would have happened to us after the battle if we hadn’t bonded?”

You’d be dead, Steve thought. But Tony didn’t know that. Wasn’t talking about that.

I wrote something new to add to this WIP that’s been haunting me for years which is both relieving and exciting for me. I got to show Steve’s conflicting feelings, and I like the ending I came up with for this scene which is an echo of Tony’s line in CW. 

2. scene from a WIP about Steve going undercover as a bodyguard for Tony Stark, one of the most influential men in the city, to investigate suspicious murders in 1920s gang-ruled New York

Tony Stark kneeled in front of him, and it crossed Steve’s mind that it would take nothing for him to lean forward and have one of the most powerful men in New York at his mercy. As it were, it was he who was at Tony’s.  

This is my favorite of my 2021 LoPA submissions. I don’t write sensual stuff much, but this flowed so easily. I love how dark and heady it is, the UST in the air, the dance between Steve and Tony, and the bits of religion, power, and strength I peppered in, which I think are fitting for the setting and time period. Plus the prose came out exactly the way I wanted it to. :) This is tied with “The Burning of Flowers” when it comes to my satisfaction with that.

Tagging @sineala, @magicasen, @ishipallthings, @no-gorms, @welcomingdisaster, @sabrecmc​, @kiyaar​, @hundredthousands-art, @unstable-river, @pineapplebread, @muffinshark, @tifftac, @latelierderiot, @cathalinaheart, @mrsgingles, and anyone else who wants to do this! Please feel free to join even if you don’t have five complete works (I didn’t!) or you want to talk about WIPs that aren’t posted yet. Those count and I want you all to be proud of what you’ve managed to make in these very stressful times. Good job, everyone!

[wayward-mikaelson]

I Still Want You, I Still Need You-IV. The Snap

Word Count: 3816

About: A fight is brought to Wakanda leaving you and many others devastated.

Characters: Bucky, Steve, T’Challa, Shuri, Natasha, Bruce, Rhodey, Thor, Thanos, Vision, Wanda, Okoye, and Sam 

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings/Trigger Warnings: Language, Sexual Content (Unprotected-wrap it before you tap it kids and Implied rough sex), Playful Teasing, Fighting, Injuries, Death, Heartbreak

A/N: These last few days I have been having internet trouble but I am back up and running. Also, this ripped my heart as I wrote this so have a tissue or tissue box at hand. I also tried to keep a few of the big IW events in this part.

*This contains content made for 18 and up crowd. Read at your own disrection

**Please do not copy and paste my work anywhere. Reblogs and sharing the link are okay.

***This work is also posted on Wattpad and Archive of our Own. Links can be found in the pinned post on my profile

****Go follow my other accounts. Links can be found in the pinned post on my profile

*****Currently NOT taking request

******Feedback is Welcomed!! 

Forever Tags: @hobby27 @donnaintx @myinconnelly1 @elansaidaris @magssteenkamp @440mxs-wife

Marvel Tags: Open

Story Tags: @cspr-2 @mysticalfestivalkoala @tanyaherondale @lilithknight1111 @lpzallana @snlsamantha @tomisagod @gloriouspersonbanditrascal @buckysgirl101

Bucky/Sebastian Tags: Open

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III. Fresh Air (NSFW)

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The walk wasn’t long and the weather was perfect. It gave your time to think about what you were going to say to Bucky. Steve had called with his monthly check in, it had surprised you due to the hour he called. He knew the time here in Wakanda and he always enjoyed talking to the both of you. So when he called, you had wondered why.

You entered the clearing and got a good view of yours and Bucky’s home. The view of the tree covered mountain always put a smile on your face. No matter what kind of mood you were in. Movement from the corner of your eye caught your attention.

Bucky was playing with two kids from the Border Tribe. You knew these kids pretty well, their parents were hard workers. These boys must have gotten it from their parents because, they would help Bucky with just about anything. Bucky loved it and it made you fall in love all over again with him whenever you saw him with kids.

You continued to walk towards the house with that smile on your face. The days where you saw Bucky messing around and just being himself, God it made you want to give him a child right away. Even you wanted a kid, but in you one year of marriage, it was still you and Bucky. Then again, with how busy the two of you were, you guys never had that conversation.

“Ah, there she is,” Bucky sat up from the ground. “My beautiful and most gorgeous wife.” He stood up and made his way towards you. Soon, you were wrapped in his arm with your lips pressed to his. “I got a lot done today with the twins help,” He mumbled into your lips. “All there’s left is dinner and dessert.” Bucky’s hand slid down from to cup your right ass cheek making you squeal.

“Well,” you pulled back to stare into his blue eyes. The longer he stared at you the darker they got. “Why don’t we send the boys home with some food and we get to work on the rest of the evening.” You motioned the boys to follow you into the house. Soon, they were off with a basket of fruit, bread, cookies and soup.

“Thank you Mister and Missus Barnes!” They called over their shoulders as they walked away. Your cheeks tingled as they called your by Bucky’s last name. You still never got over that people called you Missus Barnes.

You and Bucky had a short ceremony a week after he proposed. Tony would have had a cow if he found out the you weren’t going to have a huge and ravishing wedding. You didn’t care, all that mattered was you and Bucky. Given the circumstances, the ceremony had to be small. T’Challa officiated the wedding, making legal in every binding way. Shuri and Okoye were the witnesses. You had worn a small, simple Wakandan gown while Bucky wore a button up shirt and pants.

While you watched the boys disappear over the hills, Bucky snaked his arm around your waist and pressed his lips to your neck. You closed your eyes, “Steve called earlier,” you said cutting off whatever Bucky was doing.

“Really? Why so early?” He had the same tone of confusion and wonder you had. Bucky had always loved talking with his friend.

You turned in his arm and stared up at him. “He wants us to meet him in Berlin tomorrow evening. He says he may have found a way to clear everyone’s names.”

Bucky took a step back. You immediately knew where his thoughts were going. “He want’s to run it by all off us and we have to let him know in the morning.” You closed the space between the two of you. You reached up to grab the collar of his shirt, “I did tell him that we made Wakanda our home so if his plan works we will be still be living here.”

Bucky smiled. “Good,” he slowly started to back you into the wall. “We can call him tomorrow and tell him we’ll be there. How we skip right to dessert?” Bucky’s chest gently pinned you to the wall and he trailed a slow kiss from the base of your neck to your lips and down again. It sent a shiver down your spine.

“Do you want kids?” You blurted out.

Bucky pulled away, the lust disappearing from his eyes. “Yes, why? Are you…?”

You shook your head. “No. I just see how well you are with the kids that pass by through here. You’re so great with them and I just know that if we have a few of our own, you’ll make the perfect father.”

Bucky cupped your chin with his hand. “Are you wanting to try? Starting tonight?” There was small smile forming on his lips.

A smile plays on the corner of your lips as well.

Moments later, You laying on your back while Bucky hovers over you. You reach between your naked bodies and take hold of Bucky’s hardened cock. A small and almost silent moan slips from Bucky’s mouth. You give his cock two slow pumps before lining him up with your aching entrance.

Bucky slowly pushed into you, causing your eye to close and roll back. “Open those gorgeous eyes, Doll,” Bucky stated to thrust in and out of you at a decent pace. You opened your eyes and see Bucky staring down at you. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

“You tell me everyday, love,” You lifted your hips up to meet Bucky half way. Each time the two of your met, a soft groan escaped your lips. “Do you know how lucky I am to have you?”

Bucky chuckled. “Only when we’re having sex.”

You playfully smack his chest. “I was being serious.”

“I know,” Bucky laughed and dipped down to press his lips to yours. While pushing himself further into you, causing you to moan into his mouth.

“You know what,” you pushed Bucky onto his back and straddled him. “Screw the slow and sensual crap. I’m going to make tonight feel like this is going to be the last time we ever do this.”

Bucky’s eyes darkened. “In that case, Doll, get on all fours.”

***

The next morning you and Bucky are doing some work, when Bucky purposefully bumped into you spilling some water from the bucket he was carrying. You turned to him to see him laughing as he continued to walk away. You shook your head as you thought up your move.

You walked over to where he stood next to the compost pile. As you walked by, you bumped his hips with yours, causing Bucky to lose his balance and fall into the compost. You covered your mouth to fight the laughter.

Bucky sat up in the pile and stared at you. You dropped your hand while the smile was still on your lips. “Next time you’ll think twice about splashing me with water.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Bucky lunged forward. You tried to move away but Bucky managed to his hand on you and pull you back into the compost with him. “Now, I think we’re even,” Bucky’s hand trailed down to your thigh and gave it a small, little squeeze.

“I love you,” you pressed your lips to his before standing up. “I have to go help Shuri and make that call to Steve.”

The moment you stood on your feet and turned around, you wished you hadn’t. There, entering the clearing and walking towards you and Bucky was T’Challa and some of his guards. It wasn’t the guards that followed the King of Wakanda that bothered you, it was the big, narrow case that accompanied them.

You knew that case all too well. If the case was being brought, you knew something was going to happen.

You looked back at your husband, all smiles and playful behavior no longer painted his face. The look of dread and sadness had taken it’s place. It was almost similar to the look he had before going back on ice. It ripped your heart out to see that look on his face.

“I’m sorry to break up such a fun moment,” T’Challa sounded like he was talking to someone of a higher power than him.

He gestured to the guards to bring the case up. You held your breath as they opened it. There sat the black and gold metal arm you helped Shuri design. You watched as Bucky slowly approached the case to get a better look at the arm. You could see that part of him is excited about the arm, for you had told him all about it and what it could do. The other part is that he knows that he will have to put it on. Both of you knew it.

Bucky Barnes may have been tired to fight, but he would fight to protect the world. And you, you were his entire world. The one thing keeping him going and not just flat out giving up. He would do just about anything, even if it meant dying, to make sure you lived to see another day.

“Where’s the fight?” he asked in a hollow voice.

T’Challa looked between the two of you. He hated this just as much as you did. “On it’s way.”

***

You stood looking through the window and watched as your husband got his arm on. It looked painful in your opinion, but Bucky’s face made no indication that it hurt him. He just stared at the ceiling until the procedure was finished.

There wasn’t much said about why you guys were needed. Just that Steve was on his way here and would fill you all in when he arrived. You knew it must have been urgent if Steve wouldn’t give the full story.

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice pulled your back from your thoughts. You turned around and immediately stared at the metal arm on your husband. Suddenly, you were having some very impure thoughts about it. Maybe you should have convinced Bucky to have the arm sooner. All you wanted was to feel those cool, metal fingers on your bare skin. Gripping every part of your body.

“Hi,” you breathed out. You had to shake your head to distract you from the dirty thoughts about that arm.

“How do I look?” Bucky held out both arms and did a small little spin.

You rose an eyebrow with a smile on your face, “Do you want the clean answer or dirty answer to that?” Bucky closed the space between the two of you. His metal hand gripped your hip and pulled your closer to him. He was on to your thoughts.

“That depends,” his voice was right against your ear. It sent instant shivers down your spine. Yep, he was one hundred on to you. “Do you want the clean answer or dirty answer to how you look? Cause this tight outfit you’re wearing is already doing something to me. Where has this been the whole time?” Bucky’s metal hand snaked to your ass and gave it a small squeeze before backing you to a wall.

“Packed away with that arm of yours,” You slowly wrap your arms around his waist.

Bucky nuzzled your neck, sending more shivers down your back. “How come? We could have had loads of fun with this.”

“The last time I wore this, I fell a good story out of a helicopter,” you answered.

Bucky pulled back and stared at you. “What?” his eyebrows furrowed. “How? What were you doing? How come I never heard about that?”

You dropped your arms, “Because it happened while you were still on ice and I was doing something on the side for T’Challa. Gathering information.”

“Were you hurt?”

You took a deep breath. “Yes and Shuri made some upgrades so if I were to fall a good distance, the suit would take most of the impact.” The look on your husbands face tugged at your heart. He looked hurt that he didn’t know about those few months where you went out and did small missions. “Look,” you took his face in your hands. “I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you and I’m sorry I never said anything about it. Let’s talk more about this later.”

Bucky pushed your back against the wall. “Only if you wear this,” he said before pressing his lips firmly to yours. His tongue slipped passed your lips and explored your mouth.

“And only if you keep that arm for a while,” you smile against his lips.

The sound of an air craft was heard, making both you and Bucky pull apart and look out the window. A smile formed on your face when you recognized the air craft. Spinning on your heel you raced out to the front, with Bucky following after you.

You waited impatiently for the Quinjet to land. When the loading hatch opened you watched as not only Steve walk out, but more of your friends. They approached T’Challa and you saw only one of them bow. Idiot, you thought. Then you realized who that idiot was.

“Oh my god, Bruce!” You whispered. You hadn’t seen since Sokovia and a lot of your had long sense thought he had died.

Then you locked eyes with Steve. You and Bucky approached him and he gave the both of you the biggest hug ever. It was two years worth of hugs.

“How are you guys doing?” He asked as he pulled away from Bucky.

“We’re good,” Bucky looked at you and smiled.

“What’s going on?” You asked.

Steve looked around him and then placed his hands on his hips. “Bruce, wanna tell them?”

You looked at Bruce, who walked slowly towards you. There as look on his face that instantly made you worried for some reason. “Someone called Thanos, he’s after what’s called the Infinity Stones. Vision was almost killed for the Mind Stone. We’re seeing if it can be taken off and destroyed without killing him before Thanos get’s it.”

“What does he want with them?” Bucky asked.

“He wants to wipe out half of the worlds population,” Bruce looked towards Bucky. “Who are you?”

“Bucky,” Bucky answered. “Barnes. I’m also Y/Ns husband.”

Bruce looked back at you. “You got married? Does Tony know? Wait speaking of Tony.”

Your heart skipped a beat when Bruce said Tony’s name like it was some sort of taboo thing. Bucky noticed the change in your posture. He took a step towards you and placed his hand in yours. “What about Tony?” Your voice was hard.

***

You stood in the lab as you processed what was said about your brother. You didn’t want to believe it but then again it was Tony. He did just about anything. You were so lost in thought you didn’t know what was being said about Vision or the stone on his head. You walked to the window and looked out into the distance.

“You doing okay?” Natasha was standing beside you.

“As good as I can be,” You looked over to her. She had cute and died her hair blonde. You weren’t going to lie, you liked it a lot. “I just hope he’s okay.”

“We all do,” Natasha rubbed your arm. “Does Tony know you married the man that killed your father?” You shook your head. “You know he might not take it well, when or if he finds out.”

“Tony will just have to suck it up, Bucky’s fixed now and isn’t who he was when he worked with HYDRA.” You were aware of the ear piece in your ear linking you to the rest of the team. Bucky had one too. You knew he heard all that was said and you knew what was going on through his head.

Howard and Maria Stark were the biggest contribution to his nightmares.

“Hey guys,” Sam’s voice rang in your ears. “Um, somethings trying to get in.”

“They won’t be able to,” Okoye said.

“Are you sure about that?” You watch as something hit the barrier that surrounds Wakanda. Then another one and soon you’re able to see the barrier itself.

You turned to see everyone staring out the window. Poor Vision was laying on the table looking helpless. Wanda was hovering over him and staying close to him. You could read her body language well. Wanda loved him.

T’Challa and Steve exchanged a few words and it appeared they agreed on something. “How much time do you need, Shuri?”

“As much as you can give me,” Shuri didn’t looked up from her spot. She was too engrossed with what she saw.

“Y/N,’ Steve was approaching you. “It’s best if you stay up here and protect Vision with Wanda.”

“I agree, Doll,” Bucky’s voice was in your ear. “Whatever’s coming sounds nasty and I want you as far from it as possible.”

“And if the fight comes towards me?”

“Then kick their asses and show them some hell,” Natasha smiled.

***

Hell is what you gave when three creatures broke into the lab. You were quick on your feet but not too quick. One had thrown you off a landing right next to Vision. You got up and did the only thing you thought of.

“Get out of here Vision!” You helped Vision off the table until something crashed into the two of you sending the two of you through the window.

You slid the slanted roof trying to find something to grab onto. You called out for help only to not get a response back. The edge of the roof was quickly approaching and your hand missed the edge by centimeters. You were then falling three stories down to the ground. Even though your suit could take the impact, you weren’t so sure about your head. Then something grabbed you midair before setting your down. You looked up and saw Rhodey flying away back towards the fight. You made a mental note to try and thank him later.

“Guys, we got ourselves a Vision situation,” Sam said.

“Somebody get to Vision,” Steve yelled.

“Already on it,” You replied. You started to weave in and out of the threes looking for Vision. From a distance you heard a clap of thunder and soon saw a flash of lighting and you knew who just entered the fight.

Something crashed into you and sent you flying to a nearby three. Your head smacked against the trunk. You cried out and landed face first into the ground. Whatever threw you, picked you up by gripping a chunk of your hair. They were disgusting looking and part of you felt like that moment was it. You were a goner. Then they dropped you as they fell to their knees.

“You alright, Doll,” Bucky helped you up and looked you over.

“I think so,” you were breathing hard. “Not my finest hour.”

Suddenly there was gust of wind. Something was changing and it raised goosebumps on every part of your body. You looked around to see a cloud of blue burst and a purple looking thing walked out. One hand was covered in a gold glove with gems on it. Thanos, you thought.

“That’s him,” you heard Bruce say.

Then everyone was racing towards him. Anyone who got close to him was thrown back. Bruce was thrown into boulder. Natasha was pinned under earth that rose from the ground. Bucky was thrown into a three. You and Steve were the only ones who got close.

You slid in between Thanos’s legs and jumped onto his shoulders. You pulled the knife from your thigh holster. Before you could stab the knife into him, Thanos pulled on your leg and then gripped your neck with one of his giant hands. With each second it was tightening and you barely able to breath. You clawed at the giant hand but failed. The look on his face has a faint smile. He was taking pleasure in killing you.

“No!” Bucky’s voice was heard from someone.

The grip on your neck loosened some, giving you some breathing air. Thanos looked towards the sound and back at you. He looked you over and then flung you into a tree. You landed on the ground, the wind being knocked out of you.

You rolled over onto you knees to watch what happened next.

It all happened in slow motion. Wanda was holding off Thanos while destroying the stone on Visions head. You saw the heartbroken look on her face. She didn’t want to do it but she knew she needed to. Vision had closed his eyes and you knew that he made peace with what was happening.

Then Vision and the stone were gone.

But that isn’t what surprised you.

Thanos did something on that glove of his hand. All the while, he spoke quietly to Wanda. Green surrounded that area and suddenly, Vision was back. Wanda realized what was going to happen, so she jumped up and was thrown back by Thanos. Then Thanos had Vision by the neck and ripped the stone right off his head.

Vision was gone again.

Everything started to change when you saw and axe fly passed your head. Thor was then attacking Thanos and digging his axe deep into his opponents chest when Thor stopped. His head turned when he saw Thanos raise his hand up and snap the fingers that were in the gloved hand.

Everything, everywhere was silent and it sent chills down your spine. Something happened and you knew that something was bad and going to leave you heart broken.

“What did you do?” Thor yelled but Thanos disappeared leaving the group to stare at one of another.

You walked up to Steve who was a few feet from you and helped him up. He walked over to Wanda who was next to Visions body. The look on her face was pure brokenness.

Little did you know…

“Y/N? Steve?”

You turned and froze. Bucky had been making his way towards you when he started to turn to dust. You quickly ran over to him and right when you got within grabbing range he fell to the ground. Dust at your feet.

“No,” you whispered as your knees gave out beneath you. Your hand ran through what was left of your husband. You felt your entire world grow cold. You felt pressure on your chest as you covered your mouth to suppress the sob that took over your body. The of you were happy and talking about having kids and now, not even twenty four hours later, you were left alone looking at the literal ashes of your husband.

You let out a scream you didn’t know your body or vocal cords were capable of.

[imgoingtocrash]

Made of Iron, Born of Fire: The Fanmix 

by @imgoingtocrash

Listen on Spotify and 8tracks

Read the series on Ao3

AKA: A labor of love for @savvysass’s birthday!!!!

What can I say that hasn’t already been said because we’re both incredibly sappy people in our Author’s Notes? Writing this series with you has brought me so much joy in the last two years, and I never could have hit over 100k words without you. Here’s to whatever we write next in the series...and all of the WIPs we’re working on right now...and only god knows what’s next for us personally and professionally...and most importantly, to you on your Birthday. Thank you for being such a good friend, in both fandom and outside of it. I’m so, so thankful to know you and love you. 🥰

Director’s Cut Below, because we all know I love talking about this series, and yes, that does extend to why I picked these songs. (And also maybe because these song choices only make sense in my brain and hopefully Savannah’s?? Who knows! Feel free to ask questions if you want but let’s be honest this series and fanmix are most importantly for us, because we love the series so dang much.)

My Wildest Dreams by Ron Pope

I spoke in riddles and in rhymes, but my time with you has taught me to simplify, you’re not quite what I pictured you would be, you’re better than my wildest dreams.

We’ve talked about this one before, and I’LL TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN!!!! Ron Pope is so good imo, and this song wowowow the father-child feels, but especially with Tony and newborn Peter a la A Foreign Feeling and A First Time For Everything.

Big & Scared by Raleigh Ritchie

I want to be better for you, let me do that now, you’re my favorite human, so you should be prepared, I’ll help you get through it, when you’re big and scared

We’ve mentioned Tony’s thoughts about legacy multiple times by now, and I think this song really represents Tony looking forward to the person Peter could be become and that “breaking the cycle” mentality of supporting Peter even when he’s not a perfect father.

Legacy of Sadness by Ron Pope

irrational as it may seem I guess I’m sorry, even though I know that none of it’s my fault, it is easier for me to count my blessings, than to cry for every single thing we’ve lost

I have 0 shame putting these two songs by Ron Pope almost back to back because they’re the opening and closing of an album dedicated to his child like...it’s so perfect for Tony and this theme of reflection on who he is and who Peter will become/is becoming and all that entails.

this is me trying by Taylor Swift

They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad, I have a lot of regrets about that

I wrote something...very sad but also soft recently??? and this is for That it’s about pre-CW Pepperony being separated and the road to them trying to come back together including Tony working on himself and I love it!!! It hurts really good!!! This whole song is perfect for it and I can’t wait until people get to read it.

Be Good When I’m Gone by Four Year Strong

I'm sorry I can't stop to listen, but I've got so much to do and I've got some place to be, the house looks like the aftermath of a hurricane, I hope it stays that way

Tony being a busy parent but doing his best to make time for Peter in his life and making that time count has been something super important to illustrate to us, especially the transition from being a CEO to being a superhero and how that changes how Peter sees Tony’s absence over time.

I Won’t Back Down by Johnnyswim, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, and Penny and Sparrow

Tony puts on the original version by Tom Petty in Home Is Where The Heart Is, but I think this cover has a very slow, emotional undertone that’s really great too. The interludes, if you didn’t catch it, have all been featured in a fic previously.

Let It Matter by Johnnyswim

So if it matters let it matter, if your heart's breaking let it ache, catch those pieces as they scatter, know your hurt is not in vain

Pepper in Never Tell Me The Odds ALL DAYYYYY. She’s the emotional rock of that fic (and of our Ironfam TBH) and it’s all because she allows herself to feel her feelings and encourages the Stark boys to do so as well.

Simmer - Acoustic by Hayley Williams

And if my child, needed protection, from a fucker like that man, I’d sooner gut him, cause nothing cuts like a mother

Post-Home Is Where The Heart Is...y’all know Pepper’s not that mad about what happened to Obie. Also just Pepper when someone hurts her family?? I always write it as her sort of putting all of her emotion into something she can control and doing it well, so, this song is all about that.

Tightrope by Nia Hendricks

one step after another, keep holding on to each other, don’t look back, move on and let go, that’s how you walk on a tightrope

Pepperony trying to navigate their relationship and the insanity of superhero stuff and also co-parenting. It’s all excellent, I love them so much, I enjoy writing it so much!!!!

Dancing With Your Ghost by Sasha Sloan

Never got the chance, to say a last goodbye, I gotta move on, but it hurts to try, how do I love, how do I love again?

This song is tilted towards romance, but if you’ll remember, we’re a Pro-Tony Survives Endgame AU series, so it’s not about THAT...but well...Infinity War sure will hit something fierce for certain non-romantic relationships in this series, huh?

The Bones by Maren Morris

Call it dumb luck, but baby, you and I, can't even mess it up, although we both try, no, it don't always go the way we planned it, but the wolves came and went and we're still standing

Post-Endgame Ironfam!!! Tony and Pepper married with their kids, their family and HAPPY...THIS IS WHY WE DO ALL OF THE ANGST...FOR A FAMILY...WE LOVE THEM

Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas

Considered Pepper and Peter’s ‘song’, as it’s referenced multiple times in the series, and was one of the bigger solidifying moments of their mother-son relationship as a whole.

Mundane by Hardcastle

And I’ve been sinking into silence, dwelling on my thoughts, and in these months, I haven’t felt that most conversations have left me anything but blue

Peter’s selective mutism was something very special to us when we originally had the idea, and making sure we talk about it and utilize it in the right way is something we’re still working on, particularly with the Therapy Fic we’re brainstorming atm.

survivin’ (One Eyed Jack’s Session) by Bastille

What can I say? I'm survivin', crawling out these sheets to see another day, what can I say? I'm survivin', and I'm gonna be fine, I'm gonna be fine, I think I'll be fine

Spoiler Alert: Peter’s not fine, like, a decent amount of the time. But he’s sure trying, and we love him for that.

Jacob from the Bible by Jake Wesley Rogers

Mama, don't worry, it took me years, to say I'm sorry, to see your tears, Mama, forgive me, I grew up too fast, but it's not on you, it's in the past

Mostly part of Peter growing up to become a hero and realizing what his parents--particularly Pepper--have gone through for him to become the person he is today, but that sometimes he still doesn’t feel like he’s making them proud enough.

Compassion Is a German Word by To Kill A King

Don't be so arrogant, you ain't no different to anyone I've met, we're all the heroes in our own film, or maybe the villain in someone else's

Spider-Man being an excellent superhero boi!!! Being kind and good!!! We love it!! Also, I put a TKAK song on...a LOT of my playlists, because I think they’re great.

brutal by Olivia Rodrigo

And I'm so sick of seventeen, where's my fucking teenage dream?, if someone tells me one more time, "Enjoy your youth", I'm gonna cry

I mean...this song is such a Teenage Mood...I had to do it...

In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning by Frank Sinatra

So, I had this cute little scene in my head that went with this song for SO LONG but there wasn’t really anything for it to fit into so...yeah that’s part 2 of Savannah’s Birthday Gift, a little soft Baby Peter drabble. Fluffy Goop from top to bottom. That can be read here.

Home by Phillip Phillips

Just know you're not alone, 'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

...I know it’s not original, okay? It’s found family, it’s great, I don’t care!

Comes and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell

And this part was for her, and this part was for her, this part was for her, does she remember?

This song is good family angst in general BUT these specific lyrics made me think of Mary and that they never forget her in their lives despite the other stuff going on (because we refuse to let them).

I Have Made Mistakes by The Oh Hellos

I have made mistakes, I continue to make them, the promises I've made, I continue to break them, and all the doubts I've faced, I continue to face them, but nothing is a waste if you learn from it

No one in the Ironfam is perfect, but they all do their best to try and grow even when they’re scared they’ll never be able to. The ups and downs are all par for the course of this series to us.

Easy Days - Demo by Bastille

Cause I don’t wanna fall back again, back into the easy days, everything was so simple then, little fires burned away

Strife is a part of life, and the family in this fic growing through their loss and struggles and moving ahead as a unit to get to a better place is super central to making the fic what it is...but it’s easy for them to remember the old days before being superheroes and wishing it was simple again.

North by Sleeping At Last

Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind, let our hearts like doors open wide, open wide, settle our bones like wood over time, over time, give us bread, give us salt, give us wine

The way Tony went from feeling so alone to having an entire built family that’s so full of love and everything he never dreamed of...*screams into my pillow* I love this series so much thank you and good night!!!

[openheart12]

Don’t Let Go

A/N: I finally found the courage to post this. It’s literally sat in my drafts for almost 3 months lmaooo but I’ve wanted to write this fic for years (no I’m not exaggerating 😭) I always wondered what it would be like if Michelle and Nina had met so this is my take on it.

Set during day 3

Word Count: 890

After Tony finished interrogating Nina, he left her with the guards who were going to escort her to prison. He met Michelle’s eyes for a brief second, but brushed right beside her to head to his office. They had fought enough for one day and neither of them had any energy left.

He walked up the steps to his office, leaving Michelle and an analyst in the room.

As the guard was escorting Nina out of the door, she was able to break free and grabbed his gun before he could react and the closest person to her was Michelle and she pressed the gun against her head.

It happened so fast that Michelle wasn’t able to react enough and when she felt the cool metal of the gun, she froze. Nina pushed her towards the bullpen where everyone looked up in shock and Michelle’s eyes went to Tony’s office where he was on the phone, still unaware of the situation below.

When Tony got off the phone, he felt the beginning of a headache and wished for the end of this day. He looked down at the bullpen to see Nina holding Michelle at gunpoint. He grabbed his gun and ran down the stairs.

“Put the gun down, Nina,” he said as calmly as he could.

“Where’s the fun in that?” She replied with a smirk, tightening her grip on Michelle’s arm.

“Let her go.”

“What do I get in return?”

“What do you want?”

“Don’t give her anything, Tony,” Michelle said. She wasn’t going to let Nina use her as leverage against her husband.

“Shut up,” Nina said, her grip tight enough to leave a bruise.

“I swear to God if you hurt her.”

“Why is she more important than everyone else in this room?” No response. She remembered his ring and sure enough when she glanced down at her left hand, there was a ring there too. “Ah, I see. This is the lucky woman so I guess you would do anything to keep her safe, I’m assuming?”

“Let. Her. Go,” he repeated through gritted teeth.

“I want immunity.”

“You’re in no position to be making demands.”

“Oh, but I am,” she smirked. On the inside he was panicking and on the outside, he was calm and collected and she could tell he was putting on a front and was going to use it to her advantage.

“You can do whatever you want with her, but you’re not getting out of here,” the words tasted vile coming out of his mouth because he would do anything to protect her and he has proven it before.

Out of the corner of his eye, there was movement and when he saw the blonde hair he knew immediately who it was, but his eyes had lingered for a second too long because Nina had noticed it too. “Get down, Michelle!” He yelled at her while Nina was distracted and she dropped down on her knees while Tony took his shot, hitting her in his shoulder. Missing any major arteries to prevent death.

Jack came over to detain her while Tony went to Michelle. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered over and over while hugging her to his body. He didn’t care if others were watching them. They had never seen the couple so affectionate before, they were always professional at work and it was a shock to see them like this.

After a few minutes, he helped her up to her feet and led her to his office, with him walking behind her. She took a seat on the couch and he sat beside her, neither of them saying anything. The silence was broken with his cries.

Michelle moved him to lay his head on her lap while she ran her fingers through his hair in a show of comfort. She didn’t say anything, giving him time to get his feelings and thoughts together.

“Seeing you like that… I’ve never been so scared and with everything else that’s happened today… I’m so, so sorry, Michelle. I’m sorry.”

“Shh, it’s okay. We’re here now, we’re both fine and that’s what matters. I love you and I know you would do anything to protect me and as much as that thought terrifies me, it also makes me less worried when I’m in danger.”

“I love you.”

“I think after today we deserve a nice dinner,” she smiled down at him.

“As long as you’re not making it,” he earned a soft slap on the head from her.

“Shut up! Our deal is you cook and I’ll go anywhere with you, remember?”

“How could I forget? We wouldn’t have a house if you even as much as picked up a spoon.”

“Tony!” She threw her head back laughing and he joined her. It amazed him how she was able to make him go from crying to laughing, something only she could manage.

“As much as I hate to ruin the mood, we have to get back to work.”

“I know, you’ll be okay?”

He brought her head down to kiss her and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I’m better now, thanks to you.”

“You can repay me with tacos,” he shook his head with a laugh and one more kiss later, they went back downstairs to get back to work.

[ghostinthebau]

Super Fanfic Rec List -- Iron Dad Edition (because I just wanna share the love)

I’ve had such a blast reading fanfic of the IronDad and SpiderSon variety over the last 6 months or so, and I thought I’d just make a rec list of some of my favorite stories.  Most of them are angsty, with whump and hurt/comfort because that’s what I live for.  

This is in no particular order or in any way complete because there’s just way too many amazing fics/authors in the Iron Dad fandom, but it will still be hella long, so....here goes! 

First off, @yellowdistress:

What We Are series - Bio-dad Tony series that goes all the way through Infinity War.  Endgame AU.

Someday I’ll Make it Out of Here series - Adoption AU!  It’s so good.

The Missing 92 Days - A take on HYDRA Peter that destroyed me emotionally.

Reviving Peter Parker - This about killed me.  Peter actually died during his fight with Toomes and SHIELD brings him back a la the TAHITI project like they did with Phil Coulson.  

A Sailor Went to Sea - Gut-wrenching Endgame fix it.  

Double, Double

@losingmymindtonight:

Webcams and Webshooters series

I Never Lived ‘Til I Lived In Your Light series - !!! TISSUE WARNING !!! Peter dies, but there’s another one shot with a happier ending if you need it.

And You’ll Blow Us All Away - Adoption fic!  A lovely one at that.

5 Times Peter’s Mental Illness Made Him Stumble And The 1 Time He Refused To Falter - I really love a well-depicted take on mental illness, and losingmymindtonight delivered 100%.

If You Can’t Catch A Breath (You Can Take The Oxygen Straight Out Of My Own Chest)

Cyanide? In My Shawarma?

@justme--emily:

The Guardian - Adoption AU with a lovely Loki and Peter friendship!

Radioactive - Peter endures the after effects of the spider bite, and scares bio-dad Tony to death.  Lovely, lovely, lovely.

The Good Fight - Peter gets hurt at the airport in Germany instead of Rhodey.  

@iron--spider:

ever in your favor - Hunger Games AU and an epic work of art!  

Lazarus, come forth - The Endgame fix it before Endgame.  Peter will break your heart.

dear mr. fantasy

this isn’t a game - Highly underrated fic based off the PS4 Spider-Man game.  I’ve never even played the game, and I loved this story.

what if there is no tomorrow? - This story actually made me kinda like Justin Hammer, if you can believe it.  

blindness

@tempestaurora:

hydra’s not a home series - HYDRA Peter, and also bio-dad Tony and bio-mom Pepper!

i’ll find you in the drift - Pacific Rim AU, and I have never seen PR, but I adored this so much.

it’s okay, we’re okay [whumpvember 2018] series

@jolinarjackson:

Lights To Guide You Home series - Another adoption AU.  They are my weakness, and this is one of the best out there.  

... and when you can’t crawl ...

Damaged At Best (Like You’ve Already Figured Out)

@blondsak:

No Life But This

come morning light (you and I’ll be safe and sound)

Burying Grounds - Eeeek!  Tony has to choose between saving Peter or Pepper and it hurts.

hold on, hold on

Something the Soul Needs

@madasthesea:

turn back the clock (and I’ll try again in the morning)

when my body won’t hold me anymore (where will I go)

They have so many other lovely looking fics--including an adoption au series (which I, of course, love), but I just haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.  I’m pretty sure anything they write is golden.  :)

@signofuncertainty:

It’s Always the Little Things

I’m sure their other fic, The Third Option, is fantastic and I really, really wanna read it but I’m trying so hard to wait until it’s complete!  It’s really difficult to wait, though, tbh....I may give in soon.  

@upcamethesun:

Twelve Days Of Peter Parker - So cute and fluffy, and then it kills you at the end.

5 Times Peter Made Tony Laugh Out Loud

5 Times Tony Didn’t Need To Worry About Peter

5 Times Peter Pretended To Be Tougher Than He Was

@frostysunflowers:

Between how it is and how it should be - This story made me love a Peter and Bucky friendship.

@kitcat992:

Identity Theft - This was one of the very first Iron Dad fics I read, and it was a doozy.  Full of whump, medical accuracy, and hurt/comfort!  The author is posting a sequel now, too: Identity Crisis.  :D

For Pete’s Sake!

@camelot-queen:

Goner - A perfectly heartbreaking kidnapping fic, but heed the warnings!

Who Saves The Hero

Never Meet Your Heroes

i’m the satellite (and you’re the sky) - Tony is Peter’s bio-dad but Peter doesn’t know it.  I haven’t actually finished this yet, but it’s good.  So, so good.

@peter-stank:

built from scraps - YOU GUYS, this is one of the best fics I’ve read on AO3.  It’s a ‘Tony gets dusted instead of Peter’ AU, and it’s got such an amazing dynamic between Peter, Pepper, and Morgan.  It’ll also make you tear up a few times, at least.

@geekymoviemom:

Sins of the Fathers - So, I’ve only read the first 5 chapters of this epic length (303k words@) adoption AU so far, but I’m LOVING it so I wanted to add it here.  They also have an even longer bio-dad Tony with added Stony bonus series, Pieces of Echoes, that they’re posting the 3rd installment to right now.  I’ll definitely be checking it out!

@too-many-bees:

let’s kick it

like a bridge over troubled water

@jbsforever:

it’ll be over (and I’ll still be asking when)

@tnyystark:

where the memories reside

@whumphoarder:

Quieting the Void series - Peter kinda has an eating disorder due to the spider bite, so take care if you read!

Poison Apple - Loved how medically accurate this was, and Ned’s reaction to Peter’s condition was heartbreaking.

@seek-rest:

It Hurts to Become

Someday We’ll Know - This is a Walk to Remember AU, so there’s MCD.  I’ve gotten about halfway through, but I can only read it when I’m in the right mindset.  But it’s lovely and so well done.  

This author has so many fics that I’m sure are amazing, and they’re on my ‘to read’ list when I’m in the mood for beautiful Spideychelle stories.

@caraminha:

The Primary Reason Tony Stark Would Throw Down With an Anti-Vaxxer in the Street - Hella scary depiction of Peter with tetanus, and it’s SO GOOD.

@tonystarkstan:

it all comes back to this

skeletons series

to build a home series - I love recovery fics, and this was a beautiful story of Peter dealing with the aftermath of being snapped and coming back.

lay your weary head to rest

@foolscapper:

Exploding Head Syndrome - Everyone comes back when the snap is reversed, but Peter is sort of catatonic--stuck between the living world and the soul stone where he’s with Gamora.  It’s such a lovely fic.

@alice-in-ink:

It’s a Little Bit We Do

Danger Pizza

@legalassie:

oh, darling - Peter’s kidnapped and Tony frantically searches for him--one of my favorite things.  Peter uses his smarts to help him get out of the situation, too, which is also one of my favorite things.

don’t think about tomorrow. 

@blackwatchandromeda:

Broken Thoughts (I Remember Everything)

Leave Me to Dream

A Nightmare to Remember

@emma--anacortes: 

Accepting the Tides - Here I am with another adoption AU.  Can you see a pattern yet?  I love them, and this one has danger and whump and comfort as well.  

@ardenskyedarcy221b:

they are standing in the garden - This hurt.  Several times the author had me tearing up and there’s a few lines that will stay with me forever.  It was just immensely lovely to read.

@iamallyetnotatall:

At the Start of the Universe - This was so much better than I was expecting! Peter is an Angel, and he knows Tony from the very beginning of the universe. It’s different, but absolutely gorgeous.

@starktowr:

somewhere outside my life - I don’t wanna say too much, but just read this.  It’ll break you and you’ll love it.

@jessicagoddamnjones: 

too bad (but it’s the life you lead)

@silver-bubbles:

The Fire’s Out (But Still It Burns)  

@day-dreamer176:

Like A Strike of Lightning - I kinda took this as a demonic possession a la Supernatural, but I don’t think it actually was.  Either way, it was fantastic.

fifty-four

five, tops

The World Stopped

@ambivalentmarvel:

Into His Fold series - Where Thanos brings Peter back from the ashes to make him into his new son (a la Nebula and Gamora).

@notaparty-trick:

Doom and Gloom - A ‘Peter doesn’t get dusted’ AU, filled with whump and Iron Dad and an awesome Carol Danvers.  Angst!!!

Dust and Blood - Peter is hurt much worse when Toomes drops the building on him.  More angst!!!!  This author does angst very well.

@ema--vee:

You don’t have to hold your head up high - Peter can’t thermoregulate!  I love that trope.

@forensicleaf:

All the Things We’ve Lost (And All the Things We’ve Gained) - This one gutted me, and then made it better.  But there’s pain to be had before the comfort!

They just posted the first chapter of a new WIP that looks AMAZING, too: Can’t Part the Sea, Can’t Reach the Shore.

@plnkblue:

foolish, fragile spine - Peter’s severely injured in his fight with Adrian Toomes and Tony finds him.  

@helloitisiafellowgay:

god did not craft us as altars, but as dying gods - Okay, guys.  This one is heavy.  It deals with Skip coming back into Peter’s life, and it’s not pretty but it’s handled superbly.  It’s a tough read, but one I definitely recommend if you can handle it.  Take care of yourselves first and foremost, though.  <3

~ ~ ~ I’m not sure if the following authors have a tumblr, so I just linked their AO3 pages ~ ~ ~

eccentric_artist_221b:

Only for a Little While - This is a Titanic AU, and it’s AMAZING.  There’s several scenes that just took my breath away and brought me to tears (not an easy feat). They’re also working on a WWI sequel!!!!

tiaylasglass:

the one who made it out - Short, simple in a gorgeous way, and poignant.  

And finally, I thought I’d humbly add my own little contribution to the fandom.  So far, I’ve only written the one fic, but I hope to write more in the future!

@ghostinthebau:

For Want of a Dad (in need of a son) - There’s a bit of blood, and a very distraught Tony at one point, so warning for angst and injury!

Again, this list is probably severely lacking, and if someone has a rec that’s not on here please please please reblog this and let me know!  I’m always in the mood for more fics.  

And I hope anyone reading this finds something they enjoy!  

I’m sure you will.  

ilu 3,000

:)

[orbitariums]

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟒)

part three

note - i wanna thank everyone for reading once again! i'm currently in the process of writing imagines, those will be posted throughout the week, i don't want to clog up my blog bc i want y'all to see this chapter!

this one switches pov a lil more frequently, so bear with me <3 also not as smutty as other chapters, this is more of an emotionally-charged chapter!!! still a teensy bit smutty thooo. i want to make it clear that while this fic is definitely rooted in smut & sex & sex work, it is not porn without plot & will not ONLY be smut as i put effort and time into plot development / character development! i'm sure y'all know that tho. there will be conflict, there will be plot!!! i feel like that's clear already but there's discourse on smut happening rn and i wanna voice myself! omg anyways luv y'all enjoy the reaaad <3

new taglist!

playlist

word count - 8.3k

warnings - age gap, sex work, smut, vibrator, ANGSTYYY like hella dramatic, dirty talk

That slight shift that you and Steve both felt, that happiness that you realized came from talking to one another, only lasted so long... for you. You could hardly sit in your feelings about your situation with Steve before another thing that occupied all your time came crashing down upon you. Except this time, the thing brought you no such happiness or curiosity.

    You had spent almost your entire senior year working on a special lab project about drought tolerant plants in Southern California where you lived and went to school, and your professor was making completing your project incredibly hard for you. And you felt incredibly stressed out about the entire situation - not only was the project necessary to graduate, but it was your heart and soul for the past year. Now, your professor was basically saying it was "ineligible."

     "Ineligible?" Aaliyah repeated after you, after you told her what your professor had said.

     "Whatever the hell that means," you huffed as you power walked down the street, hand in hand with Aaliyah, your free hand holding a coffee.

     "That's so fucking annoying, holy shit," Aaliyah pressed a hand to her forehead. "He had the whole year to talk to you about changing your topic and...”

     "And he never did," you sighed, frowning. You settled down onto a bench where the two of you sat next to each other, staring out into the busy streets and sipping your iced coffees.

California was a beautiful place, and you were a native, you'd lived there all your life. You knew the ins and outs of your city, knew Southern California like it was your backbone. And you loved it here - loved the sun, the beaches, the way the people were either shady in the best way or incredibly friendly. You'd never really known any other place like you knew this place. You were just glad that if you had to be stressed, you could do so in California.

Aaliyah pouted, feeling for you. She placed her hand on your knee to be comforting,

     "Babe..."

     "It's okay," you sighed. You sucked it up, like always, because you had learned how to fend for yourself ever since you realized that depending on others could only lead to downfall. You would figure this out the same way you figured everything else out... on your own. You figured out your house on your own, your job, your finances.

     "Is it, though?" Aaliyah pursed her lips and squinted at you. Despite how much you tried to fend for yourself, Aaliyah was always there for you. She was one of your biggest supporters.

     "I'll just keep visiting during his office hours and work this out."

Aaliyah rolled her eyes,

     "Men are so annoying, girl. You know what, he probably wants to fuck you. With your fine ass. That's why he's doing all this."

You chuckled, shaking your head and covering your mouth, trilling back in response,

       "Okay girl, don't get too ahead of yourself."

       "I'm serious! Men are evil. Oh, except your fave."

You made a face, nearly choking on your iced coffee. This was news to you,

       "Who are we talking about?"

       "You know," Aaliyah sang slightly, nudging you and leaning against your shoulder. "Mr. Won't Show His Face."

You scoffed, rolling your eyes, but bit down on your straw with a knowing smile, eyes peeking out over the top of your shades. If you were being honest, this idea of Steve, whoever he really was, had been a fun thing to entertain during this period of stress. You'd been talking and engaging with him for two and a half weeks now, and the connection you two had was undeniable.

But you knew better - maybe he wasn't just another customer, because you could really talk to him and felt like he was real - then again, he was strictly a customer. You liked him, a lot, but you couldn't like him any more than you already did. That would be dangerous and silly, and create unrealistic expectations. It wasn't like you could go on dates or anything.

    Still, talking to him (and performing for him) did help to distract you from your stress, at least for a small amount of time. Steve was becoming less shy, less inhibited. He cracked jokes and was starting to keep up with your innate sense of sexuality, starting to navigate you, find you the way a bee might find its nectar, hidden deep inside the curvatures of a flower.

If you were a flower, you'd probably be a sunflower - bright, yellow, almost always in a positive mood, or at least trying to keep yourself in a positive mood. More than that though, sunflowers were tall and looming - you felt like that represented your put togetherness and how hard you worked, how smart you were. Only sometimes it was hard to keep yourself up and tall, but you always did it, time and time again.

But when it came to Aaliyah's comments about Steve, she mostly just made you laugh.

    "Haven't seen him yet, have you?" Aaliyah asked, raising her brows expectantly.

     "No. And I'm fine with that. He's simply another very loyal customer who I happen to like."

     "Hm," Aaliyah hummed, and you could tell her mind was up to something - some very wishful, and mischievous thinking.

     "What are you up to?" you narrowed your eyes at her and glared at her, and she just shook her head with a lazy smile,

     "Nothing. Just thinking that maybe it would be cool if he really was this really hot guy that you actually knew and he wasn't creepy and y'all... you know... started dating. Just to get your mind off a lot of crap. I know, I know, strictly against the rules, blah blah blah. No feelings for customers, it's basic shit. But in a perfect world..."

      "I know," you sighed without thinking, sipping at your drink.

     "You know?" Aaliyah questioned, surprised.

You shrugged,

     "So I've thought about it. Except, you know, in a perfect world, I'd meet a guy like Steve in like, a farmer's market or something. Not on my shady ass cam shows."

Aaliyah snorted laughing, and at the sound of her laughter, you joined in.

You continued,

     "I mean, not Steve exactly, because that would be weird. I just mean, a guy like Steve."

     "You mean a guy who makes you feel the same way he makes you feel," Aaliyah corrected you, and you glared at her again, pushing her gently.

     "Don't push it," you teased, but you meant it - you might have liked Steve, but that was all there was to it - you liked him, he was a distraction. And maybe even that was too much.

✺ ✺ ✺

As for Steve, he thoroughly enjoyed his time with you. He thought constantly about how you made him feel, how much he looked forward to talking to you. How everyday, his worry about your situation becoming more serious dissipated slowly. He could feel himself easing into you, everything that made up this character you created called Moonrose. Conversation seemed casual, like you knew each other in real life, it felt easy, and there was no pressure.

As for your connection, he had finally acknowledged that it was real, and more than either of you had wanted to realize at first. But now, there was no shame, no worry in acknowledging what the two of you had, because you were both smart enough to keep it at this level. It was like a shallow pool. There would be no drowning.

He mostly talked to Bucky about you when it came to the emotional aspect of it. He still feared that if he talked to Tony, it might come across as an issue, and might put a pause on what he had with you. But everyone noticed how different Steve was acting. Even without the phase he had gone through where he was sexually frustrated and angry, he still acted different.

Lighter on his feet, more smiley. And he was always on top of his work. You weren't distracting him from his duty, so that made the fact that he knew you had a unique connection with him more bearable. Because of you, he was learning to worry less. To have a little more fun.

    It was a bright day that week, the sun filtering in through the large windows of the meeting room where everyone was gathered. Steve was engaging in some mindless conversation with Sam and Bucky in which they were debating whether or not pineapple belonged on pizza.

     "No. I'm not sure why everyone keeps trying to put all these twists on pizza. It's pizza," Bucky scoffed, Sam rolling his eyes as a result.

    "You're just closed off. With your old ass," Sam retorted, and Steve made a face. Sam raised his hands up in surrender. "You know what I mean. What about you Steve?"

Honestly, Steve had never even tried pineapple on pizza and he didn't understand why there was such a big fuss about the banal question.

    "I don't really have an opinion," he shrugged, not expecting Sam and Bucky to start clamoring over him and trying to force him to pick a side.

    Before he even got to grasp the situation, he felt Natasha patting his shoulder,

"Hey, mind if I use your laptop? Mine's gone haywire, don't really feel like messing with it right now."

"Yeah," Steve agreed without a second thought, setting his laptop on the table and letting Natasha handle it- she was better with tech stuff than he ever was.

Natasha would use his laptop to showcase some data and start off their morning. It seemed innocent enough —a simple, barely impacting sacrifice. But Steve clearly hadn't thought everything through, because the moment Natasha logged in and hooked up Steve's computer to the holographic projector, more than just data appeared on the screen.

In fact, a whole array of women, all of them engaging in various sexual acts or preparing themselves to, showed up on the screen. And at the top, where the browser was, were the words "girlsonfilm.com."

Steve hadn't noticed all the clamor, too busy thinking (thoughts of you and thoughts of work), until Bucky called it to his attention.

"Steve," he nudged him frantically, his voice a loud whisper.

When Steve looked up at the screen, his face couldn't have gone any redder. He hadn't thought about this at all, and he had clearly forgotten to close out his browser. His heart sunk all the way to his stomach - because it wasn't just Natasha seeing this, it was everybody. And that included Tony, who was glaring pointedly at Steve from the head of the table. Meanwhile, all the others were too busy heckling Natasha and making brash comments about what was appearing onscreen. To Steve's relief, your face didn't show up, but this just might have been worse than only your screen appearing.

     "Woah, Nat, I didn't know you got down like that!" Sam hooted, cupping his mouth with his hands.

Natasha, though she was in shock as well, rolled her eyes,

     "This is Steve's laptop."

Now a hush, then another clamor of confusion and heckling, all directed towards Steve. He couldn't recoil any more, feeling the pangs of embarrassment as his eyes flashed between every one of his teammates. He felt as if there were an asteroid approaching fast, and he was right where it would land, too slow to move out of its way.

     "Steve, what do you know about 'girls on film'?" Sam nearly cackled, reading the name of the site.

Steve sighed deeply, locking eyes with Natasha as he mouthed "turn it off" to her.

     "I am, I am," she ensured him, quickly disconnecting the laptop from the projection, unplugging completely.

A beat passed, everyone staring expectantly at Steve, who was staring down at the table, trying to process his own thoughts. Like for starters, why didn't he log out the last time, and why didn't he remember to log out? And then his mind went to deeper places. He hadn't been intentionally secretive with his actions, but he had been intentionally private. It had to do with his own growth, he was learning how to navigate a world that was new to him and somehow helping him at once. He didn't want to have to share this with everyone, it was nice having this to himself, he had no intentions of revealing what he had been doing in his past time that made him so happy.

One of the reasons he didn't want everyone to know about his situation was because he didn't want to have to be concerned with what everyone else might think. Because to begin with, being on a site for cam shows wasn't exactly everyone's idea of what Captain America might be up to these days.

It was a matter of his image, what values he was supposed to hold. This didn't exactly match, and Steve had just gotten over the idea that he was a bad, sneaky person because of what he chose to indulge in. At least here he knew it was ethical and not causing harm to you as a human being.

He also didn't want to have to deal with the insufferable questioning and teasing his team would put him through, or the judgment he thought they might put him through. He felt embarrassed, exposed, and like he had been ill prepared for a situation like this. He was just grateful they hadn't seen more, because that would've been a disaster. What they had seen was only at the surface level of what he'd been doing.

But his thinking was interrupted by Tony's voice, which broke through all the silence, and made Steve realize again the eyes that were on him.

     "Well, jig's up," Tony sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Care to explain?"

Steve locked eyes with Tony, as if hopeful that he wouldn't have to, but he knew it was best for him to just spit it out. Tony shrugged apologetically, and Steve took in a deep sigh, looking around at everyone at the table.

     "What was that?" Scott whimpered, probably the most distraught by what they had all seen.

Steve nodded solemnly and began to explain himself. He would tell the truth, but that didn't mean he had to tell them everything. You would be left out of this, if anything. He'd just explain to them that sometimes, duty calls - and sometimes, it's not at all work-related.

✺ ✺ ✺

It was just hours before your cam show when another disaster struck, the first one being the fact that your professor was giving you shit about your project. You were in the bathroom, getting ready for your show, fixing your hair up and doing your makeup, laying out an outfit, doing all the things you did to feel pretty before a show.

    Your phone lay beside you on the bathroom table, pinging with messages every now and then. You ignored it, leaning closer into the mirror to get a look at your lipstick, dabbing your fingers into the pigment on your lips.

You smiled, feeling that gratifying sense of achievement. Despite what was going on with your professor, you felt like you were doing well in life. You usually had a positive mindset, enjoyed your work although you sometimes felt as if you were buried deep in all your occupations: student, office worker, cam girl, designer, young woman. Your life was never dull, and you wouldn't trade it for anything. Talking to Steve helped too, but it was more than that.

But that sense of satisfaction all seemed to dissolve when you looked down at your phone, and saw a text from an unsaved number, glaring bright on your glowing lock screen of you hiking with Aaliyah. Still, you recognized it immediately.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

I miss you. Text me back.

✺ ✺ ✺

Steve wasn't exactly keen on joining your live show today, but he did so anyway, because he still had time to himself despite the spiral of events that had happened earlier. There was nothing else to do, and he didn't want to miss out on you after attending almost all of your shows for the past almost three weeks. Didn't want to just leave unexpectedly.

It felt strange that he felt this tug of commitment, but he brushed it off. He was just fulfilling his needs, which should even be expected of him. He was stressed again, after being caught up like he was. And maybe that was all the more reason not to watch your show tonight, but he wouldn't devoid himself of the simple pleasures of life. He'd learned that lesson a while ago, from a special someone called Moonrose.

After everything transpired, he explained himself calmly to his team, slowly to ensure that they'd understand that this wasn't the beginning of a deviant phase, that he wasn't throwing away his work responsibilities to lurk on the NSFW side of the internet. Not that they ever thought that to begin with, they never questioned his abilities or his authority for a minute, not even in the midst of what they'd seen that had shocked them.

This was the product of Steve's own insecurities and his admittedly silly fear that he was somehow letting his team down. He told them that he was on the site, as recommended by Tony, to relieve some "frustration" that he felt he didn't have the time or the means to release in real life. He said that while it had helped him do that, he wasn't throwing away his responsibilities, nor was he dependent on the site or the things on it, or the people on it for that matter.

He knew that if they knew about you, all those private sessions, all those conversations you'd had, the connection you had built between the two of you, it might be a different story. But because they didn't, they appreciated his honesty. They were confused, it didn't seem like the kind of thing Steve would be into, and he ensured them that it was a shock to him as well.

But they didn't mind on the whole, it was just a shock to everyone at first. They didn't think it called for a meeting, thought it was almost humorous how serious Steve was being about such a trivial situation. Wanda had joked about how we've all been there, Thor denied ever having to do such a thing because: "I have all the romantic partners anyone could ask for. I could introduce you Steve, but these Asgardian women are fiery, far beyond anything I believe you could handle." In the end, Steve was relieved, felt like it didn't have the disastrous outcome he'd been expected.

But he could feel his guard slowly coming back up. That was a close call, and it was a little too close for comfort. He didn't want to disregard you, but he couldn't afford to sink further in, and get his team involved. He just didn't want to face the consequences he could imagine if they knew how much he decided to stick with you, how much you talked, how it was teetering off the range of normal customer to cam girl interaction.

It wasn't like he was careless when it came to his interactions with you, but he also didn't want his team to know about his business when it came to you. He didn't want them thinking he was engaging too much, didn't want it to get to the point where he was worrying again or felt like he needed to deny himself such wonderful feelings.

All these things were on his mind while he waited for your live show to start. When it did, and he saw your face, he felt a little bit alleviated. Just for now, he could have this fantasy to himself. If they knew about the site, so be it. At least he had you to himself.

      "Hey guys," you mustered a smile, waving to the camera.

Unbeknownst to your viewers, you had spent the past few hours off camera panicking, on the verge of tears, calling Aaliyah frantically so she could help calm you down. That text from that mysterious unknown number had been from your ex's number. The same ex who made you fall into dependency patterns that you worked so hard to get out of, the one who made you feel like you had to work for his love. Like it wasn't something you deserved, just like anyone else.

You had worked so hard to finally wring out all the effects of him, all the bad habits you had fallen into because of him. That was part of the reason why you worked so hard. Not because you were actively avoiding him specifically, but because you were actively bettering yourself. You weren't looking for a relationship. But you knew that if you were in one now, the same things would never happen to you.

When you got that text, it triggered a flood of memories. Feelings you had to work to suppress and actually get over for months so you wouldn't fall back into the same desperate, needy patterns when it came to your relationships with people. All over a simple text from someone you hadn't heard from in almost a year. It hurt you how easy it was to get you to crack, even if you didn't spill out all the way. But on top of the added stress because of school, you were damn close.

You would do the show tonight, anyway. It helped you to escape, although Moonrose was a part of you, it didn't one hundred translate into real life. So in a way, this helped you escape real life. Just for a while. Just like Steve.

You grinned when you saw concerned comments from your watchers:

johnGuy182

Are you okay, moonrose? You seem a little sad.

zenongirl

Girl r u ok? i missed seeing your face!!!

     "Guys, I'm okay," you grinned. And you actually felt better seeing comments from your supporters. It reminded you to cheer up - they were looking for a good show, not a sob story. You leaned back, revealing your stomach in the sheer, sparkly fringed bra you chose to wear (another piece you had designed by yourself). "It's been a looong day."

Steve watched silently, observing your behavior. He didn't notice drastic changes, but you did appear less chipper. Then again, he brushed it off. He didn't expect you to be smiley all the time, you were human too, and this was your work.

"But I'm okay," you reassured, giving that signature grin, genuine and charming and alluring. You were trying to gently distract yourself, get into your act. "I hope you're all just as lovely as I am. I have a special game for you today."

You directed your viewers to your spinning wheel, which you had been working on crafting that week for a game. You grinned as you spinned it. Each act on the wheel cost a certain amount of tokens, and by the end of the game you would garner a bunch of funds. The show went by relatively quickly as you played the game, eventually ending up completely naked.

As ordered by the spinning wheel, you were to use a vibrator. You held it against your clit at the highest setting as you watched the numbers of viewers and the tokens jump up, Steve watching as he stroked himself leisurely. Your legs shook as you restrained yourself from your orgasm so as to increase the length of your showtime, garner more coins to encourage you to come.

     "Mm," you moaned, massaging the vibrator against your clit, getting wetter and slicker by the minute, sliding the toy between your folds. You laughed, breathless. "Fuck, this thing is so powerful. Someone make me come, please make me come. Just a few more tokens for me to come for you."

Steve was hesitant, but he decided to go ahead and give you the amount of tokens you needed. And when you heard the chime of the tokens being added to your account, and saw the name it was attached to, it was like a blast of euphoria. When your legs started to shake, when you started to moan and your stomach started to rise up and down, it was genuine. It was like you were back in a private room with him, although you weren't.

Your orgasm was blood-curdling in the best way, and you felt like you were releasing part of the stress of the past day, the past week. It didn't get any realer than this, once again you felt like he was really there to satisfy you.

      "Oh!" you exclaimed, your mouth dropping open and your blood flowing, moaning. "Yes, Steve, I'm coming for you. Thank you for making me come, Steve!"

Steve had been stroking himself along with you as he watched, and only let himself come now that you had come, his cheeks heating up as he heard you moan his name, something he hadn't been expected. Something about you saying his name like that where everyone could hear, even though he enjoyed the intimacy of private rooms, felt victorious. It felt lewd, salacious, but he couldn't help but enjoy that aspect of it. He moaned through grit teeth while he came, stroking himself to completion.

You came down, thanking everyone for attending and ending the show. But it wasn't long after that you had requested Steve for a private chat. He accepted, because he had gotten used to you doing this a little more frequently. It didn't scare him any more, he just thought of it as making conversation, taking advantage of this connection you had with each other. So when you requested, who was he to say no.

When the chat log opened, you put on your best happy face for Steve, trying to conceal how fatigued this week, today in particular, had made you. But your tired, bleak voice gave it all away, buried deep beneath your smile,

    "Hey, Steve."

Steve was surprised at the sound of your voice. Again, while he understood that you wouldn't be a happy go lucky fairy like personality all the time, he wasn't expecting this. You were smiling, but the weariness in your eyes was hard to miss. And your voice, which usually told light hearted tales, sounded worn down as if from tragedy. He was concerned, his eyebrows furrowed gently,

     "Hi. How are you?"

     "I'm good!" you exclaimed, trying your hardest to really sound "good."

But you were just tired. Tired and sad, and scared - scared of what the future had to hold. You were already dealing with school stress, and the text from your ex-boyfriend was like a bad omen, an anxiety-provoking assurance that things actually would not get better and they would in fact get progressively worse. You weren't even sure why you thought you should be talking to Steve if you were tired and just wanted to sleep off the weight of the week. It would be a weekend tomorrow, and one of your very rare days off.

Maybe you figured that you wanted to talk to him despite your fatigue, because conversation with Steve was a nice distraction. You had let yourself forget that this was still your job, and that you were too tired for anything sexual — you knew he liked talking to you, but you hadn't put into consideration the fact that he might request a sexual act from you. You would be burnt out if he did. The fact that you didn't think about that should've been telling, but your brain was too scattered to think straight.

Anyway, Steve called your bluff, and laughed quietly, his voice inquiring and pressing,

      "How are you really?"

That was all it took to get a deep sigh to come from out of you, all it took to allow yourself to show your true feelings, at least the surface of them, what you felt comfortable showing a customer. You felt a sense of relief and gratefulness for Steve, like he was letting you breathe. And if anything, he especially wasn't enlisted to listen to your problems. But he wanted to, and for that you felt foolishly grateful.

    Steve noted the deep sigh that came from out of you, and he frowned slightly. He could tell you had been holding this in for a while, and some part of him felt remorse for the fact that even though you clearly weren't in the right mindset, you went on and did your show anyway. He felt some guilt for being a part of the reason why you did your show.

    You answered, allowing your voice to be as honest as possible.

    "Honestly?" you chuckled a little, albeit bitterly. "I don't know if you really want to hear me rant to you."

Steve shook his head.

    "Don't be silly," he grinned. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to."

You felt a warm rush in your chest from the reassurance, and the corner of your lip quirked up in a small smile, before you decided to dive in. You'd spare the emotional details, spare your private life. But it would be nice to talk to someone, just about the general things, right?

    "Well, it's been a pretty stressful week, honestly. I mean, school's been the main source of my stress. My professor's such an asshole, he's basically been telling me my entire senior project, which I need to complete to graduate, needs to be redone? And I can't even fathom how I would have enough time to do that with like, two and a half months left of my senior year. I mean, he said I can keep most details, but I'd have to rework it, whatever that means."

    You kept your emotions at bay, sighing in annoyance just at the story you told, because it really was irritating you. But then you felt deeper things, even more went into why you really were upset.

    Steve nodded, just listening. He was prepared to offer advice, but in your situation, he thought that maybe just letting you rant would be best.

    "That's gotta be annoying," he shook his head understandingly. "Whatever your project is, I'm sure it's wonderful. He shouldn't be forcing you to rework it or make any last minute changes."

    "I know!" you nearly jumped up, feeling amped up now. "And it's just so fucking annoying because I work so hard and I'm really passionate about this project and it just feels like..."

    It felt like you were about to overflow, like a pot of water that had been left on for too long. You were ranting almost uncontrollably now, maybe because of the fact that it was more than this that was tugging at you. Because you'd been carrying the weight of your life on your shoulders all the time, like Atlas carrying the sky, and it felt like that weight was finally starting to mean something.

    Steve could see you were unraveling and he let you, he let you take the time you needed to feel everything you had been holding. If your connection was strong, it was at its strongest here. Sure, you and Steve chatted about a little bit of everything, even had deeper conversations here and there as the weeks went by. But you had yet to genuinely complain to him, because every time you spoke with him, you were happy go lucky Moonrose, with nothing to complain about to begin with. But now, you needed a release by any means, and you were just glad Steve was there for you, even if he wasn't really there. How unlike you to unfold in front of strangers.

   Your breath stuttered as you took in a deep breath in a failed attempt to calm down, only further driving yourself into your rambling. You felt yourself tear up, your voice becoming watery as you continued,

    "It just feels like all my work is turning to shit, and it's so fucking frustrating because I work so hard all the time, I do so much and I manage so much all the time."

     The "hard work" you were talking about wasn't just school and work-related, it pertained to your journey, and how hard you had worked to be a better person. To support yourself. The emotions pent up inside of you, they were more than just being upset over a school project. The idea of someone toxic trying to re-enter your life, someone who had forced you to rework the entirety of your life, made you feel like you were on the verge of crashing. You knew better, but you didn't want to return to those dark days, where the light at the end of the winding tunnel that was your relationship seemed so far away. It was why you were so weary of relationships today. It was crazy how one person could change your life so easily.

     Now you were crying, before you even noticed that you were crying. Tears just seemed to leak out of your eyes, sloshing wet and sudden against your cheeks and underneath your lashes. You wiped them away quickly with the back of your hand, frazzled at the fact that you were crying in front of a customer right now. Steve said he'd listen to you, he didn't say he'd watch you cry and be your therapist. You instantly regretted it, although you couldn't stop yourself, tears threatening to emerge again. If you were cracked before, you were spilling now.

    Steve was surprised too, at the fact that you were crying. You appeared so put together to him, it was almost something he didn't expect from you. He was in shock at first, so much so that professionalism was not on his mind - it was an afterthought. Right now, instead of wondering if this was appropriate, he was occupied with you.

    "I'm sorry," you murmured, but you still hadn't stopped, tears falling out as you blinked. Composure was nothing now, you were sobbing, your shoulders slumped and your head hung as you sniffled. Still you enforced control, wiping away every tear that fell with the back of your hand. "I'm really sorry, I don't mean to cry to you over this, that's so-"

Steve cut you off, shaking his head slowly,

    "It's okay to cry, doll. We all have those days. I know better than anyone that we all have those days."

    You mustered a smile, feeling cared for, feeling accounted for by someone who wasn't even obligated to have to see you like this. Still you shook your head, sniffling,

    "I know. But it's-it's stupid, I shouldn't be crying in front of you."

    "I'm not judging you," Steve said, so nonchalantly and firmly, so genuine that it almost scared you.

You blinked. He should've cared, and he should've judged you. To cry in front of Steve, a customer, was to imply he had some duty to comfort you when he probably just wanted a show. You knew that you didn't have to do anything you didn't want to, but even you had rules when it came to what your customers got to see, and to you, that meant they didn't have to deal with your blues.

     "Really?"

     "Really," he reassured you with a nod.

    Was Steve scared that by giving you this reassurance, this entire situation could become deeper than either of you could handle? Yes. But did he let himself shut down because of those pervasive thoughts that he might get himself into trouble? No. He didn't see you as a liability right now. Right now, even though the situation was certainly questionable (and this was something he had no doubt about. When emotions get into the mix, things could get tricky- he knew this), he saw you as someone who desperately needed someone to talk to. Maybe it wasn't smart of you to make him that someone, but regardless, he was, and who was Steve Rogers not to listen to a person in need?

    You blinked away the last of your tears and swallowed hard. You were making this choice consciously, to tell Steve what had really gotten you to your breaking point. And maybe telling him meant you had trust in him, maybe too much trust for someone who, while great, was still a customer. But you felt like there was nothing you could lose from telling him. Maybe you'd even feel better after the fact.

    You looked down, picking at the body glitter on your arm that you had applied before the show. Your voice was considerably quieter now perhaps because you were looking back on the moment with a clear mind for the first time since it happened. You hadn't been thinking straight ever since you received the text just hours ago. Now your brain was a little quieter with the help of your tears and Steve's reassurance.

       "I think that the stress of this school project is making me resent how hard I work for everything, just to be met with this kind of result, you know? And it's even worse when... things seem to be going backwards. You know, like when you make so much progress, moving on from things that don't serve you, and you've finally done it and you get to flourish in it and then, it just gets taken away from you. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but that's just how this feels."

     Steve nodded, his jaw ticking as he let your words settle in. Somehow, although your situation was so different from his, he felt like your words perfectly described how he felt with the world sometimes. It was even part of the reason he'd held off on talking to you like this, held off on getting too involved. He too had made so much progress in this world, which took so much getting adjusted to in a way that absolutely nobody else could relate to.

    It was a world that he didn't even know, a world that he had never been properly introduced to. He'd had to fend for himself. He did his healing on his own, just like you had. And yet sometimes it felt like he had no control, like the universe was going the opposite way of all his plans. Then he felt stupid for even having plans to begin with, because in life, making plans was like comedy for the gods.

    There was a weird feeling in his chest and stomach, like he'd been stabbed with a gutting realization, and the knife was just turning inside of him, churning his insides. He began to feel a sense of unease, because this deep conversation was beginning to feel incredibly personal. Even though you were talking about your own situation, he couldn't help but think about how much he resonated, and the fact that he felt like he could relate to you on such a deep level scared him. This was more than the conversations you'd had before, more than the simple similarities you and Steve shared. This felt like a conversation that might be too telling for his good and your own.

     He swallowed his words as he listened to you continue. You chose your words carefully, but you had shed yourself of your inhibitions when it came to being truthful.

     "Earlier... I heard from someone I hadn't heard from in a long time. And it kind of pushed me over the edge," out of your mouth stumbled a laugh. You were calmer now, and looked up at the camera, Steve swallowing hard when you did so. It was all so real, just like it was when you touched yourself and moaned Steve's name. "I think it just made me feel all those things I just explained. Because I feel like I worked so hard to rid myself of this person and them trying to come back just feels like all the things I worked so hard on are going to unravel. Even though I know they aren't, it feels like a setback. And that was like, the icing on the cake to this already terrible day, I guess."

      You let out a breathy laugh and smiled gently, shaking your head slowly.

     "I normally wouldn't be telling this to a customer. But here we are. Again, I'm sorry... I feel like I shouldn't have said anything? Should I... have said anything?"

In the brief silence that followed your question,  both you and Steve were thinking the same thing - were you going to regret this? Intimacy both physically and emotionally was good when you capped it at what you both knew to be appropriate. When it came to the physical aspects, you each let your fantasies unwind.

    And on the emotional aspect, though you had both grown closer and more open, some things just didn't get touched upon. But now you had just cried over the screen, and spoke from the depths of your heart. It was scary to open up in such an uncertain situation where your own privacy was an aspect that got involved. There was no doubt that it was too much. It was just a question of whether the result would be negative.

     Steve sighed deeply, a crease forming in his forehead as he furrowed his brows together, folding his arms over his chest.

     "I don't know..." he trailed off, took a breath, a leap, his body practically lurching forward. "But... it can't be a bad thing that you feel comfortable talking to me about this, can it?"

      And there it was, that glint of hope he was trying his hardest to conceal. That feeling he got when he got off that call with you, the one where you both started giving into those unspoken thoughts. That this couldn't be so bad, that you could enjoy each other's company without worrying.  

     You smiled gently,

    "I guess. It does feel weird though, it's not something I normally do. It feels like something I shouldn't be doing."

    You could hear Steve breathing in deeply, and for a moment, you imagined what he might look like, envisioning the outline of a troubled face, eyebrows knit together. You snapped back to reality and made a face, confused by your abrupt thoughts. You had long gotten over the very brief desire to see Steve's face- why was it coming back again?

    "I'll be honest, same here," Steve agreed with your sentiments.

    "Do you always feel like you have to restrain what you say when you talk to people? Or is it just with me?" you added that last part in a quiet voice, biting your lip.

Steve chuckled briefly,

      "Are you asking me if I have trust issues? Because I'd tell you, but I'd have to trust you to do that."

You shook your head and laughed at Steve's stupid joke, and shrugged.

     "I could say the same thing, I think. This person I heard from earlier is... I developed those trust issues because of them. Or, my already existent trust issues became worse. But what's funny about it is that this person was once someone that I loved," even as the words were coming out you questioned why you were letting them, why you were allowing yourself to be so truthful in a situation like this at a time when you were so vulnerable.

      Steve didn't reply, again feeling that sick feeling in his stomach that stemmed from his fear. The fear that this conversation were too serious, fear surrounding the fact that he was able to relate so much to such a personal situation of yours.

    You spoke again, daring to ask the question that felt like a final blow to Steve's stomach,

    "Have you ever been in love, Steve?"

Now Steve knew he was in uncharted territory. Not because he feared you might try to exploit him, but because he was so struck by the fact that he had allowed himself to feel so safe with you and get so close to you. He was surprised at himself for letting you feel safe enough to have these kinds of conversations with him. It all felt like a mistake now. He wanted a way out, any way out. He knew if he even attempted to answer that question, he would be making a big mistake. He had shared some of his most intimate moments with you, but always keeping in mind a very sharp line he didn't want to be crossed.

And in his mind, he thought of the one love he'd had, the one love that hadn't been fulfilled because of the situation he had been thrown into, one he had never signed up for. He thought of how the things he cared most for in life had been discarded, how, like you, he felt like it had gone to shit. How sometimes, though he tried his best to be grateful and had taken that journey of self-healing just like you, it all felt like some sick joke.

Could he even call it love? He wasn't sure. And he wasn't going to answer. He wasn't going to answer at all, because he wouldn't be talking to you again. There would be no chance for this dilemma to resurface, not with you, not on this site. He made the decision with haste and a heavy heart - he was done here.

      The discomfort was well evident in his voice, answering loud and clear, though his voice was morose and a bit closed off. You sensed the shift immediately.

     "I... I can't talk about that right now. Listen, I have to go."

    You felt a pang in your chest at the sudden switch in his demeanor, straightening up and trying not to frown. All this time you had been letting the words spill out, telling yourself not to worry so much, reassuring yourself it was okay to make your feelings known. Now it felt like you should've never said anything at all. You started to stammer.

      "Oh, I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, I was just... I feel like I got a little overwhelmed." You laughed nervously. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Steve felt his throat ran dry as he blinked, feeling emotions come up to surface that he wasn't quite familiar with. Maybe he was grieving in advance, regretting the decision he was making to no longer speak with you, regretting the fact that he was letting fear get in the way of what he wanted so badly to be a good thing.

    "No, I'm sorry. I feel like I let things go too far," Steve apologized, but the apology felt more like an insult.

Was he implying that whatever this was, you couldn't handle it, and that it was his fault for somehow leading you on? You had both made the connection with each other, it was an equal effort. And why was he acting like the two of you communicating at all was somehow below him, somehow a risk? If anything, you were the one risking it just by talking to him the way you did. You were opening up to him. 

     You almost felt betrayed - you had convinced yourself that he wouldn't want to listen to your problems and you told yourself it wasn't his responsibility to listen. And then he listened anyway, told you that he wanted to hear it, and you cried to him. You felt like you had made so many unusual accommodations just for him to scare off like this. He was just another person you had expressed your feelings to, only to regret it in the end.

    "Too far?" you questioned, furrowing your brows.

Steve swallowed. In your voice he could hear a hint of frustration, but even worse- hurt. It pained him more than he cared for you to know.

    "I don't think we should talk anymore," he said instead.

    "What?" you were taken by surprise. "Steve, I'm... I'm not understanding. I... I don't usually open up to people like this, I mean, I thought maybe it was fine here, because I feel like I know you. But you're still a stranger. I understand you're a customer but I thought we were talking, I thought we broke through that wall-"

    "We did. And we shouldn't have," Steve said, his voice so calm and firm that it was almost cold.

    By now you were just staring into the computer camera, as if you were looking at him and waiting for him to come to his senses. But as you did that, you slowly came to your own. Because you weren't looking at him. You were looking at a black screen with his voice behind it. You realized you hadn't known Steve, not enough to talk about these things. And just like him, you too were full of regret. You kept all those walls up for the sake of customer relations, only to put them down and be met with this disastrous result.

    Steve almost couldn't bare to look at your face anymore. You were confused, hurt. He could tell you regretted the fact that you had opened up. He was hurt too, but he wouldn't show it, or let it overcome him to the point where your methods of communication with each other became something neither of you could control. Still, yes, he was hurt.

    But he had been through plenty of hardships in life. What was one more, even if it shouldn't have come to this point anyway?

    "I'm sorry, Moonrose. We can't. Goodbye."

Chat over.

[sdottkrames]

I Was Aiming For the Sky (I know, I Know)

@comfortember prompt 10: Crying

Summary: Peter can’t save everyone. MJ picks up the pieces.

Inspired by this post. I literally cried when I saw this and was so inspired I decided to write a fic on it. So, thanks for the inspiration!

Trigger Warnings: Fire. A little girl loses her dad in said fire, so minor character death. Be safe, lovelies!

Read on AO3: here

Peter was a procrastinator. His aunt has been getting on him for months about being better at finding gifts, and he’d been trying to listen to her. Holidays had a way of sneaking up on him. He always debated on gifts, going back and forth, never feeling like anything was good enough. And then it was too late.

So, Peter had been paying attention. He’d been watching his aunt for months to get some ideas on what to get her for Christmas, and he noticed that she always sighed dreamily whenever she saw Pandora jewelry. He saved up enough to get his aunt something from the overly expensive store, and walked in on a mission. He’d even left his suit at home to keep it from tempting him to patrol. Getting his aunt a gift was the sole purpose of his visit that day.

He looked around at the various necklaces and bracelets, the bright lights under the counter giving him a headache.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” A kind woman asked from behind the counter. She was around his age, and Peter was pretty sure every single piece of jewelry she was wearing was from the store. He wondered if the store loaned them to her or if she really made that much money to spend it all on jewelry. Or maybe they had killer employee discounts?

He shook off his train of thought and answered her. “Uh, yeah. I’m looking for a Christmas present for my aunt. She loves the jewelry but-” he stopped himself from saying we couldn’t ever afford it. “She never buys that kind of stuff for herself.”

The lady smiled kindly. “Well, is she a necklace kind of person? Or would you want to look at the bracelets?”

Upon seeing the bracelets and charms were sold separately, too expensive to buy both, he decided to look at the necklaces. A delicate silver chain with a sparkly daisy charm caught his eye. May loved daisies.

“This one! This is perfect,” he said.

The lady rang him up, and Peter headed out the door, the tingle of the bell announcing his departure.

He was feeling so good about the day's adventure, he decided to look for other Christmas presents. Mentally calculating each stop to determine the shortest course, he decided to go to the toy store first. Morgan would love the new LEGO Spider-Man set. 

The LEGO store near Rockefeller Center may have been out of his way, but Peter really liked that particular one. The dragon made of legos that spanned the whole store never ceased to amaze him, even if he was a teenager. He walked in, all wide eyed with wonder, and determined to bring Ned back here. It’d been awhile since they’d gone together. Peter refrained from his desire to buy the entire store (with the credit card Tony had given to him, he probably could), and found the perfect set for Morgan. 

He walked out of that store practically glowing. Something about getting all this done just made him feel great. And he’d gotten all his homework done in homeroom, so he was scotch free to enjoy his day. He decided to get one more present, this one for MJ. It required two stops.

The first one was the Lindt truffle store. There was one close by, one of the only ones that he knew of anywhere, and he nearly moaned when he walked in and was washed over with the sweet, delicious, take-your-worries-away scent of chocolate. He ate the free sample they gave him, then walked around the small, fairly crowded store until he found just the right truffles for MJ (and a few for himself, of course).

He should’ve known the amazing mood wouldn’t last long. After all, Parker luck was practically the story of Peter’s life.

He was walking down Broadway, eating a Hazelnut truffle and savoring every bite, when a scream caught his attention. He cursed his former self for stupidly leaving his suit at home.

It didn’t take long for him to find the source of the commotion. An apartment building was on fire, a young woman screaming for her husband and little girl who were evidently still inside. The firemen were busy getting other people out.

Without really stopping to think (the women reminded him of May and it clouded his thinking), Peter snuck behind the reporters and fire engines. It was distracting enough to let him hide his purchases in a bush and slip into the building’s open back door unnoticed. He wished he’d brought his suit to help with the smoke inhalation and the lack of ability to see, but his super hearing was there, at least. He could hear someone calling for help.

Peter knew it was stupid of him to barge in with no protection. He was superhuman, but still human. However, he didn’t care. He just wanted to help the woman and her family.

Coughing with every step, his lungs burning, he pressed on. The little girl and her dad were counting on him. He just had to get to them.

A board fell down somewhere close by, Peter’s sixth sense helping him flip out of the way just in time. He didn’t need to be a genius to know the building was close to collapsing. He had to get to the people and get out of there quick. 

Hearing the cries for help get louder, Peter moved a little quicker.

He wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes when he could finally see the two.

The little girl was crying, calling for her father who had collapsed on the ground. Peter only heard one heartbeat. 

Forcing back the memories of Ben and Tony (Tony had survived, but him nearly dying had been enough) and tried to focus on the little girl.

“Hey, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here, huh?”

She recoiled at the sight of him. “I want my daddy and my mommy!” She yelled.

Peter spoke as gently as he could, though his heart was pounding and he couldn’t keep all the desperation and urgency out of his voice. “I know. Your mommy’s outside, and I’ll carry your daddy out, okay?” The little girl nodded, and a wave of relief washed over peter. “You’re gonna have to be very brave, okay. Think you can hold onto my shirt and follow me out?” The girl nodded again, and Peter picked up the body of her father as the girl twisted his shirt into a knot.

Peter had nightmares of having to carry Ben’s body back to May. Or Tony’s back to Pepper. They hadn’t been very heavy thanks to his super strength, but they had seemed to weigh a ton. Maybe that had just been the weight in his heart.

This felt like living that nightmare.

Sure, he didn’t know this man or the little girl, but Peter has failed. He’d failed Ben and he’d failed this man. He tried to keep his sobs quiet and kept talking to the little girl, Maya, she told him her name was, as they slowly made their way to the window. 

They were on the second story. It didn’t take much for Peter to break the glass, gulping air greedily and helping Maya get some too. The firefighters quickly jumped into action, using the ladder to reach them. 

Maya went first, Peter insisted, then her dad’s body. Peter waited for his turn, watching the fire carefully as it got closer and closer. He seriously thought about jumping. He wouldn’t get seriously hurt, but it would definitely expose his superhero identity.

Suddenly, a shock went down his spine, and then the world exploded. 

Peter was thrown backwards by the force of the blast. His shoulder seared with pain as he hit the side of the wall, which was quickly joined by the pain in his side as it scraped against the broken glass of the window. And then he was falling. He tried to use his webs to catch his fall, forget about secret identity, but there wasn’t anything there. He closed his eyes and braces to hit the concrete.

Instead, his stomach jolted as he landed on a well-placed trampoline and bounced once, then twice before coming to a stop.

Gulping in breaths, trying to reconcile the last 15 minutes that had seemed like 15 lifetimes, Peter sat there. He was numb, unable to move or think or do anything but answer quietly when emergency responders asked him his name and other basic questions as they bandaged his arm, side, face.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Once he’d been patched up and determined to have no concussion, he was left alone in favor of other more pressing matters, his only company the images of Maya’s dead Father, whose face morphed back and forth between his own and Ben’s and Tony’s.

Suddenly, a voice caught his attention and broke through the macabre thoughts.

“Peter!”

It was MJ. Her eyes were wide as she approached him. She slowly, carefully wrapped her arms around Peter, seeming to understand without words what he needed.

And that was all it took for the dam to break.

MJ didn’t shy away from his tears. She held him as he sobbed, broken words breaking through.

“Fire...little girl...couldn’t save...widow...Ben, Tony...failed.”

MJ just tightened her hold, patient and unmoving as stone, and moved her hand from its tight, grounding grip on his back to his curls to rub his soothing circles into his scalp. 

“I was trying...and I couldn’t-“

“I know, I know,” she soothed, her heart aching for him. “I came because I saw an alert on my phone about the fire, and I just knew that you would be brave and stupid enough to run in. Even though you told me you didn’t have your suit today.”

Peter gave a small, watery chuckle that tickled her shoulder. 

“You are not responsible to save everyone, Peter. It is not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up for this.”

Peter nodded, and MJ kissed his forehead.

“I’ll be back,” she whispered. She walked over to the fire fighters. “Listen, I'm going to take him to his doctor. He has some...specific medical needs that he needs to see a specialist for. Is he free to go?” They reluctantly agreed, and MJ thanked them before pulling out her phone and making a call. “Happy? Yeah, code red. Can you come get us?” 

She’d made Peter give her the driver’s phone number after her boyfriend had showed up covered in blood and freaked her out. He’d called Happy, and she’d gotten his number in case anything like that happened again. 

MJ held him all the way to the compound after they retrieved his stuff, all the way to the medbay and through getting checked up by Dr. Cho (with Tony hovering like a worried mother hen), and the entire time as they watched a movie, cuddled together in a pile of love and support with Tony and May. 

She knew the emotional scars took longer to heal than the physical ones, and there would be rough times as they dealt with those. But she was happy to hold him through it all; she wasn’t letting go any time soon.

[justsomeoneunordinary]

Top 5 of 2020

Tagged by @iam93percentstardust <3

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

1. Infinity Moments (Gen, Avengers) ­— This collection of 1k-ish One-Shots only exists in German and there’s no translated version of it. I started that one directly after Infinity War came out and my usual go-to when canon fucks with my emotions, is to write gen fics, either missing scenes or canon scenes with character POV. The latter is what I did with this collection. I never actually finished all the One-Shots I wanted to do though, so I picked it up at the beginning of this year again, to finish at least the 5 most important POV’s of all the many more I had planned, regardless that Endgame had already happened. The reason why it’s my favorite is because of this OS. It’s Nat’s POV and I am very proud how well I managed to nail her character down. Everyone who knows me, knows I love this woman to pieces, and writing her with such a good grasp on her character was absolutely exhilarating. I am incredibly proud of that one single short 1k I wrote in her POV. As well as Tony in the last chapter. (And Bruce and Stephen, but I wrote those back in 2018 already.) Her OS is the reason I sometimes think about translating this collection into English too, but since Endgame came out long ago and certain things turned out to be different than I thought, not to mention that the mood just doesn’t fit anymore, since it’s post-IW, it will stay on FF.de only.

2. Le cirque des mirages (T, IronHawk) — This Shot happened in a rush of sudden motivation I didn’t have for a long while. I wrote the whole 3k in both languages in only 3 days (with normal sleeping schedule!), which is incredibly fast for a slow writer like me. And sure, while there are some paragraphs I’m not 100% happy with, I’m generally proud of how I wrote Tony and Clint and their dynamic together. I love the kind of mellow, sad-ish yet ‘young love’ mood I set here and how I put everything together. It’s a lovely short but emotional story and I’m really proud of it.

3. In Another Time (T, WinterIron) — I wrote that one just recently for the start of the WinterIron week and it was the story that kicked me out of my writer’s block and finally motivated me to write again. (Here a special shout-out to Sesil, thanks to her I only actually managed to start on t!) It was only my second time I tried myself on a moodboard and while I struggled real hard with putting one together (another thank you at Sesil <3), the end result turned out very pretty. The board absolutely fits the mood of the fic and I really love how both turned out. It didn’t get nearly as much reaction as I expected it to and yes, while I’m a little disappointed in that, it doesn’t change the fact that I personally love this story. I love the way I wrote it and the mood I set and the way I told this story, which could be 50k long, in just 1k without missing anything important. And I’m very much proud of all that.

4. Moodboard for On Crossing Paths (M, WinterIron) — Look, I will definitely re-write this story one day, since the fic didn’t turn out as I wanted it to at all. But the moodboard? God, I love that one. It’s a beautiful one and it sets exactly the mood I wanted to have for the fic. This board deserves a better fic and one day it will get one.Not to mention that I still very much love the idea behind the fic.

5. Moodboard for an untitled fic idea (M (probably), WinterIron) — Some months back I had a sudden idea for a BuckyTony fic I didn’t know how to write yet. That idea wouldn’t leave me alone and I annoyed my friends over DM’s endlessly. But I didn’t know how to approach this fic (and still don’t know), so I couldn’t write it yet. Which is why after a suggestion from one of those friends I annoyed (thanks Ana <3) I sat down and tried myself on my first moodboard, to get that idea at least somehow out of my system. Which took me forever and only resulted in me annoying my friends even more (I’m sorry guys, I love you <3). And I managed it finally after a week or so working non-stop on it. Is it my best board? Lol, no. But it’s my first one and it did help me to get that idea out of my system, so it’d stop occupying my thoughts every single day. And it got a lot of positive reactions on top of it, which makes me even prouder for it. :)

+1 Honorary mention to Prince of The Universe, King of Our Hearts (Gen, Iron Fam) — I started that OS forever ago and technically planned it to finish it on Tony’s birthday (lol, I know). It’s still not finished. I don’t know when I’ll finally finish it, but I’ll take all the time I need, so that the end result is exactly perfectly the way I want it to. It’s a canon compliant OS, written entirely in the POV of all the people who love Tony and full with space metaphors, to a point this story is more metaphors than story—which is also the reason why it takes me so long to write on it. It has a beautiful, mellow kind of pace and once it’s finally finished, it will be the best fic I have ever written. I am really, really proud of what I have done with it so far. But it’s a difficult piece of writing—for my standard at least—and it will take time.

Tagging lots of people, since Alle just started this tag game for the MCU fandom and since it’s a beautiful one, it deserves to do it’s rounds all around this fandom: @rabentochter, @anthonyed, @rhodee, @samrhodey, @lovelyirony, @irontinystar, @tifftac (resp. @reactcr), @sibistryingtomakeart (resp. @sibart), @hawkeyeandthewintersoldier, @why-the-face, @jarvisuanddumetoo, @gayspacesprinkles, @27dragons, @seijishunart (resp. @seijishun) and I’m out of ideas who else to tag, so I’m tagging you too if you see this and want to to it! <3

[thosekidswhohuntmonsters]

As Snow Falls 

Summary: There’s nothing like waking up on a cold winter day and watching snow coat the bustling city down below while you’re safe in the arms of the man you love most. that's it. thats the fic. oh yeah, plus, getting caught by the entire team when Loki can’t help himself...

Word Count: 1547

Rating: v spicy, 18+

Warnings: get ready for your heart to melt like snow on a sunny day!

Authors note: gonna be re-posting all the Loki fics I deleted during the ban so get ready! decided I’d just post the christmas/winter ones first to get in the spirit! 

♡if you enjoy this fic you’re welcome to leave a reblog/like/comment! feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged!♡

You rolled over onto your side, hearing the man next to you groan. When you looked out the window you instantly became excited, your eyes widening. His voice was still groggy, “What is it love?”.

You got out of bed, pulling one of his long green tunics over your body. You were in your room in Stark towers, which included huge windows. Walking over to the glass you looked down, watching the snowflakes coat the entire city.

You heard him groan softly, and get out of bed to join you. He stood behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, “You are such a remarkable creature my pet”. You smirked to yourself, “Is that a compliment Loki?”.

Loki laughed lightly as he started to place light kisses down your neck. Smirking he said, “I only mean to say that you find joy in the most innocent and overlooked things, and that is something I have grown to love dearly”.

Your smile only grew, “Oh so you love me dearly now?”. You turned around to face him, finally seeing that devilish smirk of his. Loki bit his lip, “Would I be here admiring the snow with you if I didn’t?”. You rolled your eyes, and Loki laughed.

He kissed up your jaw, and purred into your ear, “Of course I love you (y/n)”. You smiled while wrapping your arms around his neck. You knew how Loki felt about you, but it always felt good to hear him say it.

You knew that expressing his feelings didn’t come easily, but he always made sure you knew just how much you meant to him. Pulling him down you kissed him passionately.

Loki quickly melted into the kiss, letting himself get lost in you. To his surprise you pulled away all too quickly and turned once again to face the window.

He watched as you were nearly pressed against the glass, and he smiled to himself while admiring you. You looked down at the city, watching all of the different people go all their different ways.

Softly you said, “Isn’t it beautiful”. Loki, being the secret hopeless romantic that he was, started to kiss down your neck again. In between kisses he said, “I have to say I’m quite fond of the view in front of me”. Loki was of course talking about you.

His hands slid up your thighs, taking the shirt you were wearing up with them..his shirt. One of his hands moved down, parting your legs. Breathlessly you said, “Loki..we can't.''

Loki tugged lightly on your earlobe, “I can’t help myself love”. His fingers slid up and down your slit, teasing you through your panties. You rested your head in the crook of his neck, melting into his touch.

You looked up to him with hooded eyes, moaning his name. Loki slid your panties to the side, no more barriers between his clit and your fingers. His was grinning wildly, “You look so beautiful my pet”.

The moment was ruined when you heard knocking on the door, and it quickly slid open. Loki turned around, still blocking you. There stood Thor accompanied by Steve and Bucky, “Brother we were going too-”.

There you and Loki both stood, Loki’s bare chest exposed and the majority of your legs showing. Loki rolled his eyes and groaned, “The door was closed for a reason brother-”. You stepped out from behind him, still only wearing his oversized shirt. You watched as their mouths fell open, not expecting you and Loki to be together.

Thor grinned, “Hello lady (y/n)”. You found yourself smiling at how happy for his brother Thor looked. Bucky teased, “So this is where you’ve been sneaking off to huh doll?”. You nodded your head, and took Loki’s hand in yours.

Loki looked somewhat tense, but calmed down the second he felt you touch him. Steve was just as happy but explained, “Sorry to interrupt, we just wanted to invite Loki...you guys to watch some christmas movies with us”.

You beamed with excitement, and Loki found himself smiling as he watched you. Grinning you said, “Let us change and we’ll be right there”. Bucky raised his eyebrows suggestively at you before leaving with the other men.

You walked over to Loki’s closet, going right to the section where your clothes were. Loki had his arms crossed over his chest, “So are we going to talk about what just happened?”.

You were looking for your favorite pair of sweatpants, “What do you mean?”. By now he was leaning against the wall closest to the closet, “That fact that everyone now knows our secret, and I’m not currently in a holding cell”.

You finally found the pair you were looking for, they were perfectly christmas themed. Laughing you walked towards him, “Loki are you kidding me?”. Your mood changed when you saw how serious he looked.

You put the pants on the bed, and then stood in front of him. You uncrossed his arms, taking his hands in yours, “I wish you could realize that you’re no longer a threat to all of them Loki...the entire team has noticed how much you’ve changed”.

Part of the reason you’d kept your relationship with Loki secret was because he was scared. His worst fear was that everyone would disapprove, and he’d be creating this divide in your life.

You brought one of his hands to your mouth and kissed it, “Everyone is starting to see the man that I love...the truth behind this hard exterior you’ve put up Loki”. Loki pretended to be tough, reserved, emotionless, but you all knew those were lies.

His expression softened so you continued, “I love you Loki..more than I thought someone could love ...and the rest of the team is starting to see all of the things that make me so head over heels for you”.

You let go of his hands, and instead cupped his face. Before kissing him softly you said, “You’re safe with us Loki...you’re apart of this family and nothing will ever change that.'' You watched as Loki laughed lightly, a single tear falling from his eyes.

When the kiss was over he’d wrapped his arms around you. Looking down to you he said, “What have I ever done to deserve someone as beautiful and kind as you (y/n)....you are so remarkable”.

You buried your face into his chest, “All you did Loki was open up and let me see the real you”. His grip around you tightened, wanting to hold onto this moment for the rest of his life. You words were like magic to him, taking his worst fears and making them disappear.

Smiling you let go and put the pants on. He smiled, “This is going to be my first Christmas movie love”. Once again you beamed with excitement, taking his hand and leading him towards the living room.

Grinning you said, “the first of many Loki”. Loki laughed, but then stopped walking altogether. He pulled you into him, leaning against the wall of the hallway. Loki tilted your chin up, “Is that a threat?”.

Your lips were inches from him, “It’s a promise..a promise of many years to come”. Loki nodded his head while grinning. He continued walking with you, “Well then I quite like that promise”.

Finally you both entered the living room, and saw the team all scattered around the room. On one couch sat Steve, stuck in between Bucky and Sam. Wanda and vision where sharing one loveseat, while Nat sat on the edge of Clint’s chair.

Thor had his own big chair to him, and Tony was just walking into the room. There was one couch left, only Peter Parker sitting on the end. When Tony saw you and Loki he smirked, “Would you look at that…(y/n)’s tamed reindeer games”.

Looking across the room you couldn’t help but be filled with happiness, all of your friends looked so genuinely excited for you and Loki. You looked at Loki out of the corner of your eye and loved what you saw.

Loki was laughing, while a light blush formed on his cheeks. He answered Tony, “I guess that nickname is quite fitting now”. Tony looked at you and winked before sitting in his own chair.

You pulled Loki to come sit down with you, “So what are we watching you guys?”. You nuzzled into Loki’s side, his arm draped around you as your legs intertwined. Tony smirked once again, “Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, I thought Loki could learn a thing or two”.

Those who understood the joke, basically everyone but Thor and Loki laughed along. You placed a kiss on Loki’s cheek, “I guess we’re all on the island of misfit toys huh?”. The entire room nodded, realizing how true that was.

Tony hummed, “But we wouldn’t have it any other way would we?”. Laughing you shook your head. You intertwined your fingers with Loki's, “No...I wouldn’t have it any other way.''

Loki kissed your forehead before leaning back into the couch getting ready to watch the movie. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding in, and for once in his entire life Loki felt safe.

♡ thank you for taking the time to read this, you’re a babe♡

Forever tags: aka some amazing people: @moonlessnight14 @sexyvixen7 @angieptt​ @painkiller80 @becca-dolan @team-heichou @thatpeachybandgirl​ @allthesesonsobitches @buckybarneshairpullingkink @couldabeenamermaid​ @taeeemin@littleredstarfish @nali67​ @only4wakingup​ @mcenziehughes​

*if there is a line through your name that means that for some reason it won’t allow me to tag you*

*tags list is always open, just comment below or come into my ask box*

[calumcest]

i took a walk with my fame down memory lane (i never did find my way back) - chapter five

[ao3]

cannot believe the malum is going somewhere now this is truly scenes...only 50k into the fic and all...would you believe that i don’t read fics over 8k long because i’m too impatient i’m literally the worlds biggest hypocrite i HATE slow burn look at me. i literally write everything i hate 

@tirednotflirting my lovely basically-co-writer i love you thank you for dealing with this shit i changed like half of it i cannot believe you had to read it in the state it was in...truly vile...also this chapter actually owes its life to @kaleidoscopeminds i wasn’t going to post today bc the laptop i have to use rn is doing my nut and bc i thought nobody cares but meg cares and so this is for her <3 

Noel gets back the next afternoon. 

He’s dishevelled, he’s sleep-deprived, he’s stone-cold sober and in a right fucking mood, but he’s there. Calum sees him at breakfast, sat at a table chatting to Alan - he’s just got off his flight, still hasn’t taken his suitcase back up to his room, looks like he hasn’t got changed in the four days he’s been gone - and when Noel spots him, he just stares for a minute, wavering, like he’s not sure how Calum’s going to react. It makes Calum falter too, because Noel’s always so certain about these things, always scoffs and says c’mon, then, don’t be a dick, all business-like, so it’s an unexpected reaction. It feels almost like a shift, feels like maybe something’s irrevocably changed, now, and he’s not really sure what to make of it, not sure whether the way his stomach flips is because of that or Noel or the comedown he’s currently pushing through. 

He heads to the table, though, because what the fuck else is he supposed to do - skip a free meal? No fucking chance - and Noel’s eyes follow him the whole way, a slight edge of trepidation leaking into the edges as Calum gets closer and closer until he’s hovering at the table. He’s not going to speak first, Calum realises. He’s going to let Calum take the lead, and that’s unusual too, nothing like the Noel that had left all of four days ago. Jesus, what the fuck do they do to the water in San Diego? Whatever it is, he hopes Noel’s brought some back for Liam to drink.

Alan’s watching the two of them, that managerial instinct telling him that something’s not quite right here, like he can see the way Calum’s skin is crawling with this strange, unknown hesitancy around Noel, and Calum doesn’t want to make a scene in front of him, so he just cocks his head and looks down at Noel.

“You’re a prick,” he says. Noel blinks, and for a brief moment Calum’s stomach drops, like maybe even that has changed, now, like maybe that’s not the right way to say I love you, you massive cunt anymore, and then Noel grins tiredly. 

“Aye,” he says simply, and Calum grins back, relief flooding his veins, and sits down opposite Noel.

It goes pretty much the same with Tony and Bonehead, although Bonehead does cuff Noel upside the head a little harder than strictly necessary. Liam doesn’t come down for food, even though he’s always the first up, and when he realises that the waiters are clearing away the chafing dishes without an indignant Mancunian telling them oi, I’ve only had six hash browns, Calum exchanges a look with Bonehead. Liam’s going to make Noel go to him, isn’t going to let them have a chance meeting. He’s going to make Noel go to him, which for Noel is the same as crawling through broken glass on his hands and knees. 

Noel does it, though, swallows his pride and heads up to Liam’s room when everybody else is chatting animatedly, relief powering the conversation. Calum doesn’t even notice he’s gone until he turns to ask Noel to back him up on Help! being better than Rubber Soul, which is probably what Noel wanted. He’d hate to make a big show of it, for everyone to know that the roles are reversed, that Noel’s going to Liam rather than Liam going to Noel. Still, though, Calum thinks, turning back to the rest of the group and launching into his impassioned defence of Help!, it’s not like Noel. Something’s changed, and Calum’s not entirely sure what, and he doesn’t fucking like it. 

The rest of them don’t see Liam and Noel all day, but when Calum passes by Liam’s room he hears two low voices talking calmly, quietly, rationally, and catches what sounds like look, you love me, I love you, so let’s make this work, and ...for mam’s sake, if nowt else. They emerge again at dinner, and don’t speak about it, and nobody dares to ask, not even Calum. It’s not like anyone else would understand, anyway; the two of them live on another fucking planet where the normal rules of brotherhood and family and basic fucking decency don’t apply. 

Once Noel and Liam have made up, though - or, at least, started calling each other cunts a little less venomously - the rest of the American leg of the tour goes off without a hitch. 

They’re there until late October, and despite an edge of tension in the band, a little uncertainty as they all try to find their feet in their new, post-Whiskey-a-Go-Go-disaster relationships, the tour goes well. Noel and Liam don’t escalate past their usual arguments, only ignore each other for a few hours at a time, and all their dates are sold out. On top of all that, the album’s hitting heights none of them had even dreamed of. 

(Well, maybe Liam had dreamed of them. In fact, Liam had laid it out plainly for them on the first day of recording, pointing accusingly first at Noel, then Bonehead, then Calum, then back to Noel, skipping Tony completely: it’s going to be number fucking one, you hear me, and it’s going to go fucking platinum, and whatever the fuck comes after platinum. It’s going to be fucking mega. ) 

Noel had written some songs while he was in San Diego, one candid acoustic ballad that makes Calum and Bonehead share a slightly alarmed glance when they hear it, and Alan insists that they’re masterpieces, so they head to a studio in Texas to record them. Calum stands with Liam behind the thick glass that separates the live room from the control room, watches as Noel blinks down at his acoustic guitar and sings I wanna talk tonight ‘bout how you saved my life and then looks up at either Calum or Liam, Calum can’t tell, and sings you and me see how we are. It sends a shiver down his spine, the sheer fucking openness of it, and for the first time makes him think shit, what was going through Noel’s head when he was gone? He’s been so preoccupied with their side of it, with Bonehead’s drinking and Tony and Maggie’s conversations and Liam shutting himself in his room that he hadn’t stopped to think about what Noel might have been feeling, about just how literally Noel means you saved my life. 

When the rest of them get back into the studio to record the other songs, though, it feels like something slotting back into place. It reminds them all who they are, what they are, and smooths over the discordance, evens out the dissonance. The five of them come out of it grinning, laughing, shaking their heads at some ridiculous tale Liam’s spinning, and it feels good. For the first time in weeks, giddy with nothing but adrenaline and love, Calum feels good. The music’s what makes them, and the music’s what fixes them. It’s an important lesson, that they can go through something like that and stitch up the wounds with a few guitar strings, and it makes them all feel a little more grounded, a little more confident that they’re back on their feet. 

The day of their flight back to the UK, when they’re all still nursing their incredible hangovers from the celebrations of finishing the North American leg of the tour the night before, Calum goes down for breakfast to find Noel and Liam already sat at the table, deep in what looks like a heated conversation. He hesitates for a moment - any conversation with the brothers whispering fiercely like that is likely a conversation he wants no part in - but it’s too late, because Noel’s seen him, and he’s beckoning him over, brows knitted together. 

“What?” Calum says warily, about three feet from the table, far enough away that he can still make a break for it if it devolves into a shouting match. 

“D’you know where we were this morning?” Noel says. Calum shrugs. He doesn’t even know where they are now, let alone where Noel and Liam might have disappeared to before he was awake. 

“We had a radio interview,” Liam says. Calum’s not sure why he’s supposed to care about that. 

“With Blur,” Noel adds, and Calum’s stomach drops. 

What the fuck? 

“What the fuck?” Calum says, trying his best to school his features into something neutral, feeling the two identical sets of blue eyes scrutinising him, watching for a reaction. “Why- what? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“We didn’t know,” Liam says, a little coolly, and takes a sip of his tea, eyes still on Calum to see how he reacts. 

“What happened?” 

“What the fuck was s’posed to happen?” Noel says, raising an eyebrow. “We did the fucking interview.” 

“Without calling them cunts?” 

“‘Course,” Liam says, pulling a cigarette out of the packet lying between himself and Noel on the table. “We’re fucking professionals, we are.” Calum snorts. The most professional thing either of them have done is turn up to a bus call only twenty minutes late. 

“You did call Damon a prick,” Noel says mildly to Liam, who waves the hand that isn’t flicking his lighter dismissively. 

“Cal asked about cunt, though, didn’t he?” he mumbles around his cigarette, and Calum and Noel both roll their eyes, Calum huffing out a laugh and Noel tutting, both edged with fondness. 

“The Sun’s going to have a fucking field day,” Calum says, deciding it’s safe enough to sit down. The two of them don’t seem in too bad of a mood; in fact, they seem a little too calm, both of them looking at Calum with almost blank expressions, heads tilted one way. “What?” Calum adds, a little defensively, and Liam leans forwards, taking the cigarette out of his mouth just so he can speak properly. 

“Mike was there,” he says, like he’s revealing a big secret that he’s been bursting to tell. Calum’s heart skips a beat, but he keeps his face straight, and just blinks at Liam. So that’s what this is about. He should’ve known, really; it would have been too much to ask for the Gallagher brothers to forget about that part of Calum’s sexual history for, like, two fucking minutes. 

“Well, he’s part of Blur, isn’t he?” Calum says. 

“He asked after you,” Noel says, far too nonchalantly, stirring his tea. Calum swallows, feeling the all-too-familiar guilt surge up in his lungs. He shouldn’t be talking to Michael. He shouldn’t have taken Michael’s number, shouldn’t have learnt it off by heart, shouldn’t have sat in Noel’s empty hotel room and turned to Michael on one of the worst days of his life. And he definitely shouldn’t have done all of that without telling Liam or Noel. 

“Oh,” Calum says. “Well.” He’s not sure what else to say, what else the guilt will even let him say. “What did you say?” Liam throws him a slightly indignant look. 

“Told him to fuck off, obviously,” he says, like he’s a little offended Calum’s even asked. “Not telling him fuck all about you, am I?” God. If it were anyone else they were talking about, Calum would feel a pure rush of love for Liam, at the fact he’s so unquestioningly and unnecessarily protective of Calum, but because it’s Michael, a huge surge of guilt washes over the love that rises in him, lapping at his veins before the love can get there. 

“Oh,” Calum says again, and Liam just turns back to his tea, clearly thinking the conversation’s over, that what needed to be said has been said and satisfied with Calum’s response. Noel, though, is still looking at Calum, something too perceptive in his cool blue eyes. 

“Why would he ask?” he says, and there’s an edge to his voice, something cold and challenging. 

“What d’you mean?” Calum says, holding his gaze, trying to push all the panic rising in his chest back before it reaches his eyes. Shit, what the fuck had Michael said? Did he mention anything about the phone call? Does Noel know?

“Seems a bit friendly.” Noel’s eyes are carefully blank, expression guarded, not giving anything away, cards held close to his chest. 

“He’s a friendly guy,” Calum says, relieved at how even his voice comes out. “Just because you two are cunts.” At that, Liam looks up again, frowning. 

“Who’s a cunt?” he says, incensed. Calum almost lets out a sigh of relief - if Liam’s back in the conversation, Noel won’t say anything else. At least, not now, he won’t. Calum’s just buying himself time, really; Noel’s going to stew on it, mull it over on late-night bus calls and midday hangovers, and come back to Calum when he thinks he’s got something infallible to slash at Calum’s defences with.

“You are,” Noel tells Liam. 

“You are too,” Calum reminds him, and Noel shrugs. 

“Could be worse,” he says. “Could be Damon Albarn.” Liam snorts, and even Calum has to roll his eyes and shake his head, reaching over for Noel’s tea and pulling it towards him, wanting something to do with his jittery fingers. Noel lets him, even pushes a packet of sugar in his direction because he knows Calum can’t stand drinking tea unless it’s immediately going to give him diabetes, and Calum smiles, watching as something a little disarmed crosses Noel’s face for a split second before he schools his features back into that half-irritated, half-challenging expression that’s so Noel he might as well patent it. 

Strange, Calum thinks, as he empties the entire packet of sugar into what’s now his tea. Noel doesn’t have chinks in his armour, not really. At least, not when it comes to anyone whose name doesn’t start with an ‘L’ and end with an ‘iam’, and last time Calum checked, he wasn’t a loud-mouthed twat from Manchester that Noel’s been exasperatedly hauling out of trouble for the past two decades. He doesn’t really have time to wonder what it’s about, though, because then Liam’s sighing loudly, raising his hand to catch the nearest waiter’s attention, and saying: “Alright, mate, don’t happen to know where the best place to score coke around here is, do you?” 

“Liam,” Noel says warningly, the well-worn older-brother irritation already lacing his tone, and Liam just shoots him a what? sort of look, as the waiter stares back at them. 

“Coke?” he asks, a little hesitantly, like he’s sure he’s misunderstanding what Liam’s asking. 

“Yeah, mate, y’know, the old Colombian marching powder,” Liam says, nodding his head, like this is a perfectly normal conversation to have with a waiter at ten in the morning. 

“I- uh, sir, I’m not sure-” the waiter starts, a little nervously, and Liam leans forwards. 

“Cocaine, mate,” he says slowly, clearly thinking the waiter’s not caught on, like that’s the only possible explanation for why he’s not immediately gone oh, yeah, ‘course, hang on, let me my local dealer on the line.

“Piss off, Liam,” Noel says, a definite note of annoyance in his voice now, and Liam’s like a shark to blood, turns away from the waiter, all thoughts of getting whatever white powder he can procure up his nose forgotten as he spots a new drug of choice; arguing with Noel. It’s something Calum’s seen a hundred times, the way Liam will find a gap in Noel’s defences and worm his way in, make a home under Noel’s skin just for a few minutes of his attention, and it’s not something he fancies sticking around to watch, knowing it’ll end with fists flying with no regard for who might be caught in the crossfire.

“I’m going back up,” he says, even though he hasn’t eaten yet, but neither Noel or Liam are listening anymore, already caught in a half-hissed, half-yelled conversation about whether it’s inappropriate or street-smart to ask a random local guy for coke plugs at his job, Liam, at his fucking job, and do you know how many fucking hotels we’ve been kicked out of because of you so far this year? Liam’s raising his voice as Calum walks out of the room, shouting something about me? It’s not just me, you prick, you were in fucking Sweden as well, right, and you’re the one who took off to fucking San Diego, what the fuck else was I going to do while we all waited for you to stop being such a pathetic little cunt? , and Calum knows he’s left just in time when he hears the sound of crockery shattering in the distance as he jogs back up the stairs to his room. He doesn’t really mind, though, doesn’t care if they get kicked out of this hotel too, because all he can think, heart pounding, is why the fuck did Michael ask after me, when the last thing he might have heard is me calling him ‘no one’?

He doesn’t even get time to think about that, though, because Bonehead’s on his way down as Calum’s on his way up, and he blocks Calum’s path and insists Calum join him on a walk to the supermarket because the amount of beer he’s going to have to drink to deal with the brothers on an eight hour flight back home needs two people to carry it. Calum thinks shit, he’s right, so they fetch Tony to carry all the alcohol Calum’s going to need to drink too, and then spend the walk to the shop and the entire time traipsing around it arguing about whether or not Tony should get any of the alcohol they’re loading into their arms. Calum weighs in for the first ten minutes, but it becomes clear Bonehead and Tony are just looking to fight about something, so Calum draws back and lets them have at each other, walks next to them and lets the sound of their rowing wash over him as his thoughts turn back to Michael.

Did Michael really want to know? Or was it a power play, him saying something to Liam and Noel knowing it would get back to Calum? No, surely not, Calum thinks, as Tony and Bonehead bicker about whether or not Tony deserves at least one of the six-packs Bonehead’s picked up. Michael wouldn’t do that. He’s not that kind of person. 

Maybe Michael isn’t, a little voice in his head says, but maybe Mike is. You don’t know Mike, do you? 

(Calum thrusts one of his six-packs at Tony, suddenly feeling a little too sick to drink.)

  -------

  They head back to Europe in November, first to the UK to record Whatever, and then straight off to France. Noel even manages to make a joke about the Amsterdam ferry incident as they’re waiting to board in Dover, which is as close to saying I forgive you to Liam for the episode as he’s going to get. 

Calum doesn’t speak to Michael for almost two months. He doesn’t want to call first, after the way the last call ended and still uncertain about the whole Michael-Liam-Noel situation, and Michael doesn’t call him. Calum tries not to dwell on it, to think too hard about the sound of the dial tone and the way he’d called Michael no one, but Blur are fucking everywhere. It seems like they’re playing all the same places as Oasis but a few weeks earlier, because every time Calum walks down a French street he’s accosted by blown up images of Michael’s face, moody and pretty, staring down at him from billboards and bus stops and fucking lampposts. 

It’s one of those posters stuck haphazardly onto a lamppost in Berlin that Calum sees, a few hours before they’re due to play a show, that reminds him, with a jolt, what the date is. 

The twentieth of November. 

Michael’s birthday. 

Calum’s almost taken aback that he remembers. He’d forgotten for the past three or four years - the date had passed him by without so much as a second glance - and the thought makes him feel a little guilty, a little sick, like he’s broken a promise to himself that he never even knew he made. 

There’s a little phone booth next to the lamppost that looks like it might not even be working, and Calum finds himself striding in that direction, fumbling in his pocket for the few German coins he’d been given. It’s nothing, he tells himself, as he starts dialling Michael’s number. It’s just polite to wish someone a happy birthday. It doesn’t mean anything. 

It only takes two rings for someone to pick up, a soft click and a moment of silence at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” It’s not Michael; it’s a woman. Maybe Michael has a house-sitter? Calum’s pretty sure Michael must be loaded now, right, if he’s in Blur? He’s probably not pissing all his royalties away on drink and drugs. They probably have a group accountant to manage everything for them, rather than Noel cuffing them all upside the head and going eeyar, yous need to start buying cheaper coke.  

“Oh,” Calum says. “Uh. I’m looking for Michael?” 

“He’s in Japan at the moment,” the woman says. Her voice is sweet and warm, almost comforting, and oddly familiar. It’s probably just the Australian accent, Calum thinks. Anyone with an Australian accent has sounded familiar to him since he left.

“Oh,” Calum says again. He should’ve guessed, really. Of course Michael’s not at home. He’s in a fucking band. In Blur, no less. Of course he’s on tour. 

“May I ask who’s calling?” the woman says. Calum hesitates. 

“Just a friend,” he says, a little evasively. “Just- uh. Wanted to wish him a happy birthday, is all.” 

“Oh, that’s lovely,” the woman says, and she sounds like she’s smiling. “I can give you the number of his hotel room in Japan, if you’d like.” 

“I-” Calum’s not sure what to say to that. He might be sending a message he’s not entirely sure he wants to send if Michael finds out Calum had called his house first, and then got the number for his hotel in Japan. 

“Or I can pass along a message?” the woman offers. “What’s the name?” Calum bites his lip. It can’t hurt, he thinks. It’s not like Michael will have spoken about Calum to anyone who’s known him in the past few years, if he hadn’t told his own bandmates. 

“Yeah,” Calum says. “Yeah, that’d be good, thanks. It’s Calum.” The woman lets out a little gasp. 

“Calum Hood?” she says, and Calum’s stomach drops. "I should have recognised your voice! You've lost your accent, haven't you?"

“Uh,” he says intelligently, but she’s already started talking again. 

“It’s Karen,” she says. 

Oh, fucking hell. 

“Oh,” Calum says. Fuck. Jesus Christ. Of course it’s Michael’s mum. Of course Michael wouldn’t get a fucking house-sitter, rich and in Blur or not. It’s oddly steadying, though, that in this instance at least Michael’s Michael and not Mike, makes something electric shoot through Calum as he thinks maybe I still know enough of him. “Uh. Hi?” 

“I didn’t know you and Michael were still in contact,” she says, and he can hear the grin in her voice, how happy she sounds about it. It makes his stomach twist in guilt, heavy and leaden. 

“Yeah,” Calum says weakly. “Well. Not really. But- y’know. It’s his birthday.” He cringes at his own words, stilted and uncomfortable, but Karen doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I’m sure he’ll want to hear from you himself,” she says jovially. “I’ll give you his number, hang on a minute.”

“Actually, I-”

“Yes, here it is. Have you got a pen and paper?”

“I don’t-” Calum breaks off, looking wildly around him, and picks up the pen on the top of the telephone keypad, scratching it against the sign that tells him how much of his money he’s pissing away on this phone call. He’s roped into this, now, isn’t he? Karen will tell Michael Calum called, and if Calum doesn’t call Michael after telling Karen he would, it’ll look suspicious. Or it’ll look like he doesn’t care enough, which, with their fragile balance and Calum not knowing where Michael’s head’s at, is the last thing he wants. 

“Okay. It’s oh-one-two,” Karen begins, and Calum nods along as she reels off the number for him, phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder as he forces the last of the ink from the pen onto his hand. “Oh, and the country code is zero-zero-eight-one.” Great. Now he can’t even use that as an excuse. 

“Thanks,” Calum says, hoping it comes out genuine and not sarcastic. “I’ll, uh. I’ll call him, then.” 

“Do,” Karen says, and Calum can tell she’s positively beaming. God, he’s a terrible person. “I’m so happy you called, Calum. I should have known you two would have stayed in contact and not let any of this Blur versus Oasis nonsense get in the way of your friendship.” 

“Yeah,” Calum says feebly, feeling guilt tap insistently at his lungs, waiting to be let in. “Well. It was nice talking to you?” He’s not sure how to end a phone call that isn’t either a polite speak to you soon or an exasperated Liam, you cunt, don’t you fucking hang up on m- 

“Of course!” Karen says brightly. “I’m very proud of you, Calum. Y’know, I remember you getting your first ever guitar, and look at you now. I’m glad you kept your head screwed on straight.” Calum thinks of the three thin white lines Liam had cut for him earlier that are probably still in his bloodstream, and winces. 

“Yeah,” he says, trying for grateful. “I, uh, I try. Thank you.” 

“I’m sure I’ll speak to you soon,” Karen says. “I hope you manage to catch Michael!” 

“Thanks,” Calum says again, and hopes he doesn’t sound like he wants to gouge his own eyes out. Karen doesn’t seem to notice, though, just chirps a happy goodbye! and leaves Calum to stare at the telephone keypad, holding the receiver loosely in his hand, like he can’t really believe what’s just happened. 

Well, fuck. Now he’s got to call fucking Japan. 

Calum sighs and starts dialling the number, sending out prayers that Noel’s got some really big fucking tunes up his sleeve for the next album to pay for this call. It rings three times, and then there’s a click as someone picks up. 

“Hello?” It’s not Michael. Jesus Christ. Why the fuck is wishing someone a happy birthday this much of an ordeal?

“Is Michael there?” he asks. There’s a short pause. 

“Who’s calling?”

“A friend,” Calum says. “Who’s this?”

“Graham.” Which one was that? The one with glasses, right? The other guitarist? 

“Right. Is Michael around?” 

“Depends on who’s calling.” Calum sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. Wishing someone a happy birthday really shouldn’t be this fucking hard.

“It’s Calum,” he mumbles. “From Oasis,” he adds, in case Michael happens to have met a few more Calums in the past couple of years. 

“What the hell are you calling for?” 

“Why the hell d’you think?” Calum knows he sounds hostile, but he doesn’t care, not when the nervousness that had been contained in his stomach is starting to seep out into his bloodstream.

There’s another pause. 

“Alright,” Graham says, but he still sounds suspicious. There’s a rustling sound, and then Calum hears him yell Mike! Calum’s on the phone for you. Yes, Oasis Calum, d’you know any other Calums? Well, okay, yeah, but you haven’t spoken to him since last Chri-

Every second feels like an eternity - although that’s probably at least slightly to do with the fact that he’s spending his entire month’s pay on this call - but eventually there’s more rustling, some fierce muttering that Calum can’t understand beyond - in the bathroom, you dick, and then the sound of a phone being lifted to someone’s ear. 

“Calum?” Michael says, and there are footsteps, like he’s walking as far away from the handset as possible. 

“Happy birthday,” Calum says lamely. All of this for those two words. It feels incredibly anticlimactic. 

“Oh,” Michael says, and he sounds surprised. “I mean. Thanks. I didn’t think you’d remember.” Neither did Calum. 

“Well,” Calum says, because he doesn’t want to say that. “Just wanted to call and- uh, say happy birthday, I guess.” 

“How’d you get this number?” Michael asks, sounding curious. Calum bites his lip. 

“Your mum gave it to me,” he says. 

“You rang my house?” 

“Well, it’s the only number I have for you, isn’t it?” 

“Did you tell her it was you?” 

“Yeah.” Michael exhales heavily. 

“I haven’t told her,” he admits. “That we’re talking again. Or- y’know. I just haven’t mentioned.” 

“I know,” Calum says. “She was surprised that I called.”

“What did she say?” Michael asks. Calum swallows. 

“Just, y’know, nice to hear from me, she’s glad I called, all that,” he says vaguely. Michael hums, like he’s mulling it over, and Calum’s stomach flips. Maybe he shouldn’t have called at all. Maybe Michael wants Calum to be his dirty little secret just as much as Calum wants Michael to be his. After all, Calum’s own mum doesn't know either, does she? It’d be hypocritical of Calum to hold it against Michael if he wanted to keep it under wraps too. 

(It still kind of stings, though.)

“I’m going to get a fucking Spanish Inquisition when I get home,” Michael says eventually, and Calum huffs out a laugh, stomach untangling itself a little from the tight knot it’s been in for the past five minutes. 

“Yeah, probably,” he says, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face as he thinks back to being grilled and reprimanded by Karen any time she got so much as a whiff of a secret from either of them. “D’you remember that time she thought we-”

“Remember when she thought we’d been out smoking weed?” Michael blurts at the same time, and Calum can’t help but smile properly this time, heart somersaulting at the fact that Michael remembers too. 

“She was so angry,” Calum says, through a grin. “Kept saying she could smell it on you.”

“Fucking crazy woman,” Michael says, but Calum can hear that he’s grinning too. “We couldn’t afford weed, what was she on about? We hadn’t even been drinking, just been-” he cuts himself off abruptly, and the smile drops off Calum’s face. 

They’d been fucking, is what they’d been doing.

“Good thing she didn’t smell that on us,” Calum tries, and Michael huffs out a small laugh, but it’s tight and uncomfortable. Neither of them speak again for a moment, the silence awkward and palpable, until Michael sighs. 

“What are we doing?” he mumbles, sounding a little pained. 

“I’m wishing you a happy birthday,” Calum says, because he doesn’t want to follow the road that Michael’s words are beckoning him down.

“You know what I mean,” Michael says. “We need to talk.” Calum’s stomach twists. Those words are never followed by any good conversations. 

“Do we?” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound as apprehensive to Michael as it does to him. He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to have that conversation, to hear Michael say you fucked up, and this is it, doesn’t want to have to go all the way to see him just to hear him say I don’t want you anymore.  

“When are you back in the UK?” 

“December,” Calum says. “Late December. Near Christmas, I think. I’ll have to ask Maggie.” 

“Maggie?”

“Our tour manager.” 

“Oh.” There’s a moment of silence. “Well. Call me when you’re back?” 

“Look,” Calum says, a little desperately, clutching the receiver to his ear. “I- if you want to, like, end whatever this is, not talk to me anymore, I’d rather you just do it now. I don’t want to travel all the way to London for you to tell me you never want to speak to me again.” Michael inhales, and doesn’t exhale. 

“I didn’t say that,” he says carefully, after a minute. “But we need to talk.” Calum blinks at the telephone keypad. He’s not sure what to make of that. 

“Okay,” he says. “I- uh, yeah. Okay. I’ll call you when I’m back home?” 

“Yeah,” Michael says. He pauses, and then adds: “I should go. I locked Graham in the bathroom to take this call.” Calum can’t help the snort that escapes him. 

“I should try that on Liam,” he says. 

“I think it’d take more than a bathroom door to contain Liam Gallagher,” Michael says. He’s got a point. 

“You’ve got a point,” Calum concedes, and he hears Michael huff out a small laugh at the other end of the line, crackled and tinny but genuine and soft. “I should probably go too. I’ve got a show in a few hours.” 

“Where?” 

“Berlin.” Michael hums. 

“We played there a few weeks ago,” he says. 

“I know,” Calum says, without thinking. “Uh. I mean. The posters are all still up.” 

“Surprised Liam and Noel haven’t gone around tearing them all down,” Michael says, and Calum can hear the smile in his voice. 

“I think they’re planning on pasting posters of us over you.” 

“Hope they have a lot of them.” Calum grins, eyeing the three Blur posters he can see in his line of vision. 

“That’ll be my entire share of the royalties gone,” he says, and Michael snorts. 

“I really should go,” he says, sounding a little regretful. “I’ve got to spend at least half an hour convincing Graham not to tell Damon I locked him in a bathroom to talk to you.” 

“Why?” Calum’s not sure why he asks, because he’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Because I don’t want anyone to know we’re talking. Because I want to keep you a secret. Because I’m ashamed of you. It’s even worse because he can’t blame Michael for it.

“If I do anything to Graham, Damon takes it as a personal attack.” Oh. Well. That probably shouldn’t make something warm blossom in Calum’s stomach, the fact that it’s not because of him, but it does. 

“Damon doesn’t seem particularly intimidating,” Calum says. 

“You fucking wait,” Michael says, and there’s a fondness to his tone that makes Calum’s heart ache, because Michael used to talk about him like that. “Call me when you’re back in the UK, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Calum says. “Bye, Michael.” He’s expecting a click, the thin sound of the dial tone, but it doesn’t come. 

“I’m glad you called,” Michael says after a moment, all in a rush, like he’s had to build up the nerve to say it. 

“I’m glad I did, too,” Calum says, and he can’t help the small smile playing at his lips. Michael’s glad he called. 

“I’ll see you soon,” Michael says. 

“Yeah,” Calum says, smile slipping off his face as his stomach flips unpleasantly thinking of the inevitable conversation. “Soon.” 

The dial tone rings loud and harsh, and Calum listens to it for a good few moments before putting the phone down and stepping out of the booth. Three Michaels stare at him from different angles as he heads back for the hotel, declaring something in German that he can’t read, eyes seeming to follow Calum as he turns the corner. They seem almost disapproving, like they know Calum doesn’t want to talk. Or maybe that’s Calum’s guilt-ridden imagination. 

Well, Calum thinks, stomach flipping as his eyes find another picture of Michael plastered to a lamppost. At least they aren’t posters of Noel and Liam, in that case. 

  -------

  December comes far too soon. 

The album goes platinum while they’re in Southampton, or maybe Sheffield, and Calum joins the rest of the band at some grimy nightclub, drunk and high and full of adrenaline because shit, that’s their fucking album. Number one and platinum, fucking hell. It doesn’t feel fucking real.

They film a video for Whatever somewhere in London, and Noel turns up late to the filming, still dressed in his clothes from the night before, so drunk that he can barely play his guitar. Liam’s fucking furious, probably because this is the first time Noel’s ever been drunker than him, and Calum has to spend the rest of the day making sure Liam doesn’t go into the same room as Noel, because they still have a few weeks worth of dates in the UK and they could do with having both the lead guitarist and singer alive for them. 

The UK dates pass so fast in blurs of games of Frustration on the tour bus as green and grey whip past the window that Calum barely notices that it’s their week off until he sees a river that looks suspiciously like the Mersey and asks Noel where they are. 

(“Liverpool,” Noel says, throwing him a strange look. 

“We’re going home tomorrow,” Liam adds.

“Too right you’re fucking going home,” Noel says. “Not fucking kipping at mine again.” Liam scowls, opens his mouth with an indignant expression, and Calum decides now’s a great time to find Alan and ask him about the re-stringing of Calum’s bass he’d said he’d sort out before the gig.) 

He’s so exhausted after their last show, having his first proper comedown in weeks, that he can’t do anything but crash through the front door and stumble to his bed at six in the morning. He sleeps like the fucking dead, and by the time he gets up and showers, feeling a bit more alive than he has done the past few days, it’s nearly dark outside. 

“Good morning,” his mum says pointedly, when he wanders into the kitchen, yawning, and pulls open the fridge. 

“Morning,” Calum says, pulling out a beer and some leftover pasta. “Where’s Dad?” 

“Gone fishing,” his mum says. Calum grunts to let her know he’s acknowledged it, and heads to the microwave. 

“Liam called earlier,” his mum says, as he presses some random buttons - he really should figure out how this microwave works - and then sets it off. 

“Oh?” Calum says. 

“He was asking if you wanted to come round tonight,” his mum says. Calum hums, frowning a little. Liam’s not very good at being on his own, no one to take his endless energy out on now that both Paul and Noel have moved out, but he can usually take at least a day or two. 

“Might do,” he says, because there might be something more to it if Liam’s already itching to see him again after less than twenty-four hours, and then sees the disappointed look on his mum’s face. “After dinner?” Her face clears, and she nods. 

“We’ll be eating around seven,” she says. “Oh, and another bit of wall’s fallen in. Could you take a look?” Calum groans, and tips his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. 

“Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath, drawing out the first syllable. His mum tuts, and the microwave dings. “Yeah, alright.” He opens his eyes and reaches for the microwave. 

“Michael called, too,” his mum says, and Calum swears again as the plate drops out of his hand and crashes to the floor, smashing to pieces and dropping hot, steaming pasta everywhere. His mum jumps out of the way, swears loudly, and says: “Bloody hell, Calum.”

“Sorry,” Calum says, scrambling to his knees to try and pick up as many pieces of plate as he can. “It was hot.” His cheeks are burning, partially from embarrassment and partially from whatever’s making his heart race like it is, and he stares steadfastly at the floor as he shuffles around. 

“What did he want?” Calum asks, as casually as he can, speaking to the floor. 

“He didn’t say,” his mum says. She hesitates, and then adds: “What’s going on with you two?” Fuck if Calum knows. 

“I don’t know,” Calum says, still not looking at her. He doesn’t want to see the inevitable disapproving look on her face, the motherly instinct to stop him doing something that’s probably just going to get him hurt etched on her features.  

“When did you start speaking again?” Calum hesitates, hand hovering over a shard of ceramic. He’s not really sure himself. Would it be the awards show? Or Glastonbury? Or that first phone call a few weeks later? It’d be Glastonbury, he supposes, because Michael hadn’t even acknowledged his existence at the awards show, couldn’t even look Calum in the eye. Glastonbury had been the first time Michael had admitted to the both of them that he still remembered Calum. 

“Glastonbury,” he says, and his mum inhales sharply. 

“Why didn’t you say?” she asks. Calum sits back on his heels, looking up at her, and shrugs. 

“I didn’t know how,” he says, which is sort of the truth. He leaves out the fact that he hadn’t really wanted to tell her, had wanted to squirrel it away, the last little piece of Michael that he could have to himself. 

Her expression softens, and she purses her lips, a little sadly. 

“Be careful with him,” she says, and Calum’s not sure whether she means Calum should protect himself or protect Michael. After all, she’d seen all the unopened letters Michael had sent.

“Yeah,” he says, looking back down at the pasta still spread across the floor. It feels sort of fitting, somehow. “I’ll try.” His mum sighs, and pushes herself off the kitchen counter she’s been leaning against. 

“Go,” she says. “I’ll clean this up.” 

“No, it’s alright, I-”

“Go,” she says, a little more sternly, and Calum gets to his knees, wiping his hands and dusting his knees off. 

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll just-” 

“Call him,” she says. He hates that she knows him so well. 

Calum heads out for the phone in the hallway, not wanting to take the call in the living room or kitchen where his mum might eavesdrop, and dials Michael’s number. He twirls the cord around his finger while it rings three times, until there’s a click and someone picks up.

“Hello?” 

“Hi.”

“Oh,” Michael says. “Hi. Your mum said you were asleep.” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, a little apologetically. “I didn’t get up until, like, half an hour ago. We played our last show for a while yesterday.” 

“Oh,” Michael says again, a note of recognition in his voice. Of course, Calum thinks; Michael’ll know what last shows - particularly home shows - are like. “Well. I just wanted to see if you were home, really.” He doesn’t say why, but they both know. 

“I am ‘til the twenty-seventh,” Calum says. Michael hums. 

“When can you come down?” Calum exhales heavily. He could go down any day, really. Tomorrow, if Michael wanted. He’s not sure whether he should just get it over with, or whether he should make the most of the last few days that he might have with the secret feeling of maybe there’s still hope. It’s been six months; he can probably stand a few more days of anticipation. But then again, it’ll be better to get it out of the way now, to have as long before Christmas as he can to gather himself after whatever Michael will throw his way so that it’s not overshadowing the few days his parents will get with him before he’s off again. 

“Tomorrow?” he offers, a little tentatively. He’s not sure whether it seems a bit too keen. 

“Yeah, tomorrow’s good,” Michael says. 

“I can be in London for twelve?” He winces, thinking about how early he’s going to have to get up for that. 

“Twelve works. Where d’you come in?” 

“Euston.” 

“Can you get to Camden?” Michael asks. “Or d’you want me to pick you up?” 

“No, I can get there,” Calum says, even though he’s not entirely sure he can. 

“Alright. I’ll give you my address, hang on-” there’s scrambling at the other end of the line. 

“D’you not know your own address?” 

“I- well, sort of, but-” Calum can’t help but laugh. “Fuck you,” Michael says, but Calum can hear he’s smiling too. “You got a pen and paper?” 

“Yeah,” Calum says. Michael reels off an address, postcode and all, and Calum dutifully jots it down, only stopping him once to ask whether he’d said D or E. 

“Alright,” Calum says, re-capping the pen and tearing the sheet of paper off the pad next to the phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” 

“See you tomorrow,” Michael echoes, and Calum only hesitates for a moment before hanging up. It feels strange, he thinks, not to hear the dial tone ringing in his ear, one last reminder of Michael even after he’s gone.

(He wonders whether Michael lingered like he always does.) 

  -------

  Liam ends up coming round for dinner, sounding relieved and grateful when Calum calls him and offers, making Calum frown and file the information away to quiz him on later. Calum’s mum rolls her eyes and makes exasperated noises when Calum tells her he’s coming, because now I have to make dinner for four people, Calum, couldn’t you have told me a bit earlier? but Calum knows she doesn’t really mind. Brash and corrosive though Liam can be, he’s got a childlike charm to him that captivates anybody who meets him, Calum’s parents included. They spend dinner laughing at stories Liam tells about tour, exaggerated and carefully skipping over all the drug use, and Calum’s mum even waves them away when they go to help wash up, tells them with a smile to head to the pub, go on, enjoy yourselves, you deserve it. 

“I fucking love your mam,” Liam says, practically skipping as they walk down the dark street to the pub. He’s not even wearing a coat, the fucking madman. Calum huddles further into his own, nosing into the collar of it as the cold wind whips at him. 

“You’re just saying that because she made your favourite pasta,” Calum says, and Liam turns back to him and grins. 

“Didn’t hurt,” he says. “C’mon, it’s cold.” 

“Why the fuck didn’t you bring a coat?” Liam shrugs, hopping from foot to foot. Calum’s not sure whether it’s because he’s cold, or because he’s Liam. 

“Nearly there, anyway,” Liam says, as they round the corner to the street the pub’s on. “Mam gave me a tenner for drinks.” Calum snorts. 

“Why’s your mum giving you money for drinks?” he says. “You’ve got a fucking number one album.” Liam grins. 

“Still the youngest kid, though, aren’t I?” he says, eyes twinkling. He’s got a point. Peggy would never give Noel a tenner for the pub. 

“Y’know, I can see why Noel hates you,” Calum comments, and Liam’s grin widens as he pushes open the door of the pub. 

It’s warm inside, and Calum says he’ll get them a table if Liam gets the drinks, which Liam doesn’t want to do until he sees a pretty girl tending the bar, and then he’s off like a shot. Calum squeezes between a bunch of tipsy men laughing far too loudly into a table in the back corner, wrinkling his nose as he steadies himself on the table and comes into contact with something sticky. Gross. 

Liam, inevitably, takes a good twenty minutes to come back with the drinks and a phone number tucked into his shirt pocket, grinning and eyes twinkling as he sets Calum’s pint down opposite him. 

“Took your fucking time,” Calum says, raising an eyebrow, and lifts the pint to his lips. 

“Did you fucking see her?” Liam says. “‘Course I took my bloody time.” He takes a sip from his own pint, and then nods at Calum’s. “You owe me for that.” 

“No I don’t,” Calum says. Liam scowls at him.

“That’s your fucking Christmas present then,” he says, and Calum rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling into his beer.

They drink in comfortable silence for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts. Calum’s enjoying the warmth of the pub, the familiarity, the way it feels a little like home. He wonders whether Sydney would feel foreign to him now, whether he’d still love the feeling of the warm sand under his feet at Christmas. 

“We used to go to the beach at Christmas,” he says, without thinking. Liam shoots him a strange look, before his face clears. 

“Oh, ‘s all the wrong way round down there, innit?” he says, like he’s just remembered. “Must be weird for you, Christmas being cold.” Calum shrugs. 

“It was at first,” he says. “I’m used to it now.” 

“Oh aye?” Liam sounds genuinely interested, so Calum carries on. 

“Yeah,” he says, with another shrug. “I never saw snow until I moved here.” 

“Did it freak you out?” Liam asks. “Seeing things all white, and that.” Calum blinks at him. 

“What?” 

“Well, if you’d never seen snow, what’d you think all the white stuff was?”

“I knew what snow was, you fucking idiot,” Calum says incredulously. “Fucking hell.” 

“Well, how the fuck am I meant to know that?” Liam says defensively. 

“You ever seen a camel? You think camels don’t exist?” 

“ Yeah, but-”

“You thought I didn’t know what snow was?” 

“How the fuck am I meant to know what they do and don’t teach you in Australia?” Liam demands, and Calum snorts and shakes his head. 

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” Calum says, even though Liam thinking Calum didn’t know what snow was until he moved to the UK is entirely believable. Liam scowls, but it’s good-natured. 

“Fuck you,” he says. “You wait, I’m going to fucking leave you in Australia when we tour there.” 

“You wouldn’t last a minute without me,” Calum says confidently. “Who’ll save you from the bities?” 

“The fucking what? Bikeys?” 

“Or the freshies and salties?” 

“What? Those aren’t words. You’re fucking making this up, you are.” Calum laughs, and Liam folds his arms, resting his elbows on the table.

“Watch it,” Calum says, nodding at his elbows. “Table’s sticky.” Liam looks down, and grimaces, unsticking himself from the table. 

“Couldn’t’ve told me that before, could you, you prick?” he grumbles, dusting off his elbows, like it’s going to get rid of the stale beer. 

“Didn’t know you were going to put your fucking elbows down, did I?” Calum says, and Liam just sticks two fingers up at him as he reaches for his drink again, making Calum grin in response and wink at him over the rim of his own glass. 

They drink in silence for a while, listening to the chatter in the pub as they let the cosy atmosphere and the drinks warm them from the inside out. It’s nice, Calum thinks, downing the last of his pint. He hasn’t been alone with Liam in God knows how long, been stuck on tour buses and in planes with him and at least five other people for far too long, and he realises just how much he’s really missed his one-on-one time with Liam, the easy comfort of a friendship that both of them fall into without even thinking about it, the security of knowing their lives are irrevocably intertwined now. It’s nice that they don’t have to speak, that they can just sit here and drink each other in, just exist alongside each other in quiet peace.

Liam’s not usually this quiet for long, though, usually can’t contain his incessant energy for more than three minute bursts at a time, but Calum knows better than to push. There’s something there, but Liam will say it when he’s ready to say it, and not a moment sooner. Calum’s been burnt one too many times by his own good intentions in that area, so he just sits back, pushes his glass away from himself and waits. It only takes another few minutes of Liam staring down at the bottom of his glass, brows furrowed and deep in thought, until he suddenly says:

“Noel’s moving to London.�� The penny drops. 

Ah. 

“Is he?” Calum says, although really, he’s not that surprised. They’re getting somewhere, and Manchester’s not exactly the place for an up-and-coming musician to be based. It’s been at the back of his own mind, but he’s been pushing it aside, preoccupied with too many other more pressing issues to worry about the logistics of moving that far out. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, still staring at the bottom of his glass. 

“You knew he would,” Calum says, trying to make it as gentle as possible. 

“I know,” Liam says. He doesn’t sound as upset about it as Calum had expected, actually. “He’s going to look at houses tomorrow.” Shit. London’s big, though, isn’t it? What are the odds that he’ll bump into Noel? 

“Did he say where?” Calum asks, hoping it comes out casual. He wishes he had another pint in front of him, wanting something to do with his hands and feeling just how sober he is all of a sudden, so used to either being on a high or a comedown. 

“Yeah, but fuck if I remember,” Liam says, with a shrug. “I’m going with him. Cunt’s making me get up at eight to catch the train.” Oh, fucking brilliant. Two Gallaghers to avoid in London, not just one. Is it too late to call Michael and reschedule? Probably; his mum’ll be listening if he makes a phone call when he gets back from the pub, and he doesn’t want to deal with all those questions. It does explain, though, why Liam doesn’t seem all too torn up about Noel moving so far away; Noel allowing Liam to come and look around with him is a silent acknowledgement that he knows Liam’ll be spending more time there than he will at home, most likely, so it’s got to be a place he likes too. 

“You’re a fucking scrounger,” Calum tells him, knowing Liam will know what he’s talking aout, and the ghost of a smile crosses Liam’s lips, but doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he plays with the rim of his glass. Calum frowns. He’s missing something.

“What?” he asks, and Liam shrugs, a little uncomfortably. He’s feeling something he’s not sure how to articulate, then, something he can’t channel into punches or barbed words. It’s something to do with Noel, because that’s the only topic he never knows how to approach while knowing exactly how to navigate it with his eyes shut and his hands tied behind his back, but it’s not something that Noel’s done, or Calum would be fucking hearing about it, and it’s not something that Liam’s done, or Calum would also be fucking hearing about it, but from Noel. It’s got to be something else, something that Noel doesn’t know about yet, something internal for Liam. Something about him moving to London, maybe, since he’s managed to bring that part up. Something that Liam feels about Noel moving to London, something that’s making him hesitant about accepting that he’s going to be spending a lot of time at Noel’s new place-

Oh. 

“He’s not doing it to get away from you, Liam,” Calum says, and Liam swallows, finger stilling on the rim of his glass for a split second, and Calum watches a little apprehensively as two conflicting emotions flash across Liam’s face; anger, irritated and embarrassed at the fact that Calum’s just called him out on it, and vulnerability, afraid and wanting Calum’s reassurance. Calum knows Liam better than almost anyone, and even he can’t ever tell which way it’s going to go. Luckily for him, though, Liam seems to struggle with himself for a moment before he exhales heavily, and slumps back in his chair.

“You don’t know that,” he says.

“I do,” Calum says. “He’s your brother, Liam.” Liam looks pained at that. 

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “But- y’know. After LA.” He doesn’t say anything else - probably doesn’t know how or what to say - but Calum gets it. Everything had changed after Whiskey-a-Go-Go, shifted a few centimetres to the left, and even though everything’s okay again, it’s a different kind of okay to before. 

“That wasn’t your fault,” Calum says, because it wasn’t. 

“Wasn’t it? I was a right cunt.” 

“You’re always a right cunt,” Calum says, but he doesn’t mean it unkindly, or even teasingly. He means that’s just how you are, and we’re all still here, aren’t we? “And anyway, so was Noel.” Liam has to concede there, tilts his head to indicate yeah, I s’pose.  

“I dunno,” he says, still staring steadfastly at his empty glass. “Maybe he just needs a break from me.” 

“He always needs a break from you,” Calum says. “But he never takes one.” 

“Took one in LA.” 

“Yeah, and then he came back,” Calum says. Liam seems to mull the words over, let them roll around in his mind, see how they feel, but Calum can see from the look on his face that they aren’t quite enough. 

“Maybe you should get your own place in London,” Calum suggests. Liam looks up for the first time, brow furrowed. “Then you could be close, but not too close.” Liam’s brow stays furrowed, but he hums thoughtfully. 

“You think?” he says, sounding a little uncertain. Liam moving out of Manchester is quite a big step, the city etched into his veins like none of the rest of them, but it makes sense. And, Calum thinks, they’ll probably all have to move to London, eventually. It might be better to get it done at the same time as Noel, to have someone who knows how to navigate Liam’s inevitable misplaced temper tantrums at the fucking movers or traffic or furniture shops when he’s really just stressed about the change.

“Yeah,” Calum says. “It’d do you good, anyway, being on your own. Probably do you and Noel a world of good too, not living on top of each other all the time.” Liam scrunches his face up, looking ten years younger than he is, like the annoying little kid that Noel must see him as, and then sighs heavily and nods. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you’re right. Yeah. Might have a look myself tomorrow, then.” Calum swallows. Not in Camden, he thinks as loudly as possible, in case Liam’s psychic. 

“Yeah, do that,” he says out loud. Liam nods again, a little more decisively this time, clearly not listening to Calum’s thoughts, and then grins at Calum, bright and easy, like the past five minutes hadn’t happened at all. 

“You’re getting the next round,” he says, and Calum sighs, all long-suffering, but heaves himself out of his seat, forgetting that the table’s sticky and squawking when he puts his hands down on it to support himself. Liam laughs delightedly, like there’s nothing in the fucking world that brings him more joy than Calum’s misfortune, and Calum scowls good-naturedly and flips him off as he heads in the direction of the bar. 

Well, he thinks, as he jogs down the steps leading up to their seating area and weaves through tables of increasingly tipsy old men laughing far too loudly. At least Liam’s sorted. And London really is big, right? Must be twice the size of Manchester, at least. And he’ll be in Michael’s house, anyway, won’t he? There’s no way he’ll see Noel and Liam there. 

Yeah, he thinks, flagging down the bartender. It’ll be fucking fine. 

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chapter six

[mcfiddlestan]

Last 10 Fics Tag Meme

Rules: Post the first lines of your last ten fics read or written and then tag others to do the same.

No one tagged me, but I saw it in the tags of one of my ships and it looked fun.

1. Untitled WinterFrost Single Dad AU (Bucky/Loki)

The sound of his front door opening and closing pulled Loki from a deep sleep. So deep, it took him a moment to remember where he was and how he knew that was his front door. His eyes opened slowly once, twice, and then again, to nothing but the darkness of what he was sure was his bedroom. Then the pounding started. Incessantly, pulsing around his entire head. Damned migraines. Loki let out a low grain, thought fuck it, and buried his face deeper into his pillow. Moments later, the door to his bedroom pushed open.

“Time to rise, Sunshine.”

Loki grumbled at the familiar voice, and slowly, he turned his body, rolling onto his back. “Why are you always so chipper in the morning? Oh, for Norn’s sake!” He threw a pillow over his face as the curtains were pulled open and let the blinding daylight flood the room. “I’ve got a damn migraine!”

2. Untitled Stucky Modern AU (Steve/Bucky and a healthy side of Sam/Natasha)

Bucky, his mind drawing a blank, was idly strumming his guitar when he heard the hard slam coming from next door. He surmised his neighbor and best friend, Natasha, had returned from her date, and assumed she’d be over in a few minutes to tell him about it. But when he heard a couple more distant slams and one very heavy thump against their shared wall, his curiosity got the better of him. Setting aside his black Fender, and stepping carefully over a dozing Avalanche, his tuxedo cat, Bucky walked barefoot through his apartment, into the hall, and breezed right into Natasha’s apartment.

He didn’t see her, but Bucky heard Natasha swear sharply, followed by something rattling against the hardwood floor. Waiting, he slipped his hands into the pockets of his dark sweatpants. Bucky watched as the top of Natasha’s head, burgundy hair in a stylish messy bun, popped up as she’d bent to pick up what he suspected was the cap to the bottle of vodka in her hand. “Hey, babe.”

Natasha turned dark green eyes on him, a sour expression pinching her usually attractive features, and said nothing, only moving to pour herself a full tumbler glass of the clear liquor. Bucky watched her swallow down most of it then waited silently as she filled it up once again.

He moved to rest his elbows on her pub height dining table. “Bad date?”

“You think?”

3. A Boyfriend for Christmas (Bucky/Loki)

“I need your help.”

Loki stared at the man in his doorway for a good five seconds, his lips in a thin red line, and his perfectly groomed black brows arched in curiosity. The man — his neighbor, Loki knew — was good-looking, Loki thought as he took the time to look him over, lips turning up in a soft grin. “Good evening to you, too, 9B.” The man’s lashes fluttered as they did a quick change from widened panic to a more relaxed gaze. Norns, his eyes were an impossible blue. “I can’t promise to help, but try me,” Loki drawled, taking a casual stance, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door jamb.

“Okay. Believe me, I know how this is gonna sound, and I swear I’ll make it up to you — somehow — but…well…okay. Here goes…” Loki cocked a brow, amused. “I need you to be my boyfriend for one night.”

Surprised, and maybe even surprising his neighbor, too, Loki laughed, a tickled near-giggle, and straightened. “You need me to do what now?”

4. Welcome Home -- working title (Bucky/Loki)

Bucky woke with a start, shooting up in his bed, and opening his eyes to near darkness, but for the faint orange glow of the streetlamps outside his bedroom window. For a moment, he was still in the dream; back in the desert, embedded in dirt, surrounded by heat. And flanked by Steve. On his right. He rubbed at his eyes, harder than necessary, willing the image of his best friend smiling and laughing to fade away again. 

Two years had passed since it all happened. The first year was the hardest. Stuck in the hospital, healing, speaking to no one but nurses and doctors — and the occasional military personnel, looking for the gory details. The minute he was out, Bucky was hounded by government officials wanting him to attend various memorials in the good captain’s name. Wanting him to relive the worst day of his life — which is saying a lot for a kid from Brooklyn who wasn’t far from ground zero on September 11, 2001. Was it any wonder that Bucky chose to up and disappear and go into hiding once it all finally ended?

5. WinterFrost Tumblr PWP Prompt (Bucky/Loki)

Bucky barged into the loft apartment, a dark expression screwing up his face, and paused just as the door slammed closed. His eyes, hidden beneath the black face paint smeared around them, like a burglar’s mask, did a quick scan of the layout of the open space before him. He kicked off his muddy boots, leaving them near the door, knowing his ‘loftmate’ wouldn’t take kindly to him leaving a dirt track through the well-kept place. He made a quick mental note to take care of the boots first thing in the morning. His mouth in a deep pout, Bucky thought to himself that it was times like this when he returned from a mission exhausted and not in the mood for company, that he wondered why he ever decided to move in with Loki, resident God of Mischief.

6. Post-Civil War/Ragnarok Frostiron AU (Tony/Loki)

There was no doubt in Tony’s mind just exactly what -- or rather who -- brought that subtle shift in atmosphere into the lab. He’d been expecting it, at some point, if he was honest with himself. And while a small part of him felt relief, there was, always had been, that slightly narcissistic part of his personality that would resent not being at the top of a certain someone’s to-do list.

Tony felt the faint flutter of air sweep across the back of his neck first, which reminded him he really needed to get a haircut. His nose tickled at the sharp tang the wafting scent of ozone often left in its wake. Realization about what exactly was about to transpire had Tony’s stomach doing a bit of a flip; pride, though, forced him to remain with his back to where he felt someone else’s presence. For a fleeting moment, Tony wondered if he could handle this.

Recalling everything that had happened since he last saw his visitor -- the mess with Ultron, the devastating truth about his parents’ deaths, the ends of friendships he actually mourned, the airport, Rhodey, the kid, the Accords -- all of it was a rollercoaster ride for which Tony had never signed up. But this...this one had hurt. The worst part was having to hide the hurt, the heartbreak, because no one knew. No one; not Pepper, not Happy. Not even Rhodey. Nobody knew the blow it was to the one they called Iron Man. How could they? No one knew that Iron Man had fallen in love with the God of Mischief.

7. Untitled Royals AU (Tony/Loki, with a splash of Bucky/Loki)

“Do you enjoy embarrassing me like this?”

Odin, King of Asgard, aimed a dark look across the conference table at Loki, the younger of his two sons, his anger and frustration growing by the second. The air of arrogance and disinterest emanating from Loki, raven-haired and more handsome than was good for him at an aggravating twenty-four years old, was making Odin curl his weathered hands into tight fists on top of the table. Loki looked at him, a questionable flash of surprise crossing his pale, chiseled features, his mostly-green eyes all but twinkling at him, mocking and laughing. 

“Of course I don’t.”

He was no fool; not Odin Borson. His expression darkened further, as he waited for the next words to come from Prince Loki’s mouth. 

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy embarrassing you. It’s more that it’s…a perk.” He smirked at Odin, like the brat he was, and Odin’s response was interjected by the Queen’s subtle astonishment. 

“Loki.” His eyes moved to her, and her disapproving look, and the smirk vanished. 

Odin slammed the newspaper that he’d been keeping in his lap to the glossy top of the long mahogany table. The headlines of Loki’s chaotic week in the States screamed about alcohol, fast cars, and the general recklessness of a perceived overly-spoiled son of royalty. “This is not a joke, Loki.”

8. Take A Bow (Tony/Loki)

Loki rushed through the narrow hallway, coughing to clear his throat of the makeshift fog that had filled the stage for the final moments of the play. By the time he reached the haven of his dressing room, his necktie was undone and his shirt was half unbuttoned. The hurried shouts and stomps of people working backstage were blissfully drowned out as Darcy, his new young assistant, quickly closed the door behind him.

“Great show tonight, Boss,” Darcy chirped as she took the discarded tie Loki handed over and waited to take his costume jacket and vest. Loki chuckled a thank you as she turned away from him. He urged her several times already to just call him by his name, but she insisted on calling him Boss, like he was a gangster in the 1930s. Darcy returned with a glass of water and Loki smiled his thanks before taking a long drink.

9. The House Guest (genderswapped FrostIron, fem!Toni/fem!Loki)

Loki sat in the front seat of a beat-up red convertible and stared blankly ahead. A mixture of hurt and anger had her brow furrowing, her lips pressed tightly together, and her chin, goddammit, was trembling. As Fandral droned on, giving his pathetic explanation, Loki did her best to focus on the other sounds around her — the birds chirping in the late summer morning; a neighbor’s dog barking in the distance; someone’s car alarm down the street malfunctioning — and fought to keep her eyes, fixated now on the white garage door in front of the car, from filling with tears.

Bullshit. She was hearing noting but utter bullshit. Her high school days behind her, Loki had spent the summer constructing plans for the next few months that didn’t involve going to her father’s alma mater in New York and spending the next four years of her life behind more piles of books. She had no interest in swapping high school jocks for frat boys. What she’d had were plans to go on a road trip across the States — and beyond — with Fandral, making love and making music.

But, apparently, Fandral had other plans. And the shitty reasons he was giving for not staying with Loki weren’t helping her understand any better.

10. WinterIron Bodyguard AU (Bucky/Tony)

“Founder and CEO of Stark International and Columbia professor wife critically injured in car accident.”

“Howard Stark, 69, runs car off-road in upstate New York.”

“Socialite couple Howard and Maria Stark injured in car accident. Condition, for both, critical.”

Tony watched the words all but screaming at him from the two flat-screen televisions mounted side-by-side on his bedroom wall, frozen in the spot where he stood by his bed. The words the news anchors spoke, giving details of the accident, were nothing but white noise in his ears. He’d gone numb. He processed nothing. Except that his parents had been in a horrific car accident — a shot of what was left of father’s silver Cadillac made Tony’s knees give out and he dropped to the foot of his bed.

How could anyone survive that? he thought to himself.

----

Tagging @teadrinkingwolfgirl @incredifishface @maeve-curry-writes @stephrc79 and literally anyone else who wants to/feels like doing it (tagged peeps, don’t feel obligated!)

[imperialstark]

mise en place

a/n: this came to mind one day when i was upset and asked my followers to send me Tony headcanons. It was originally going to be a drabble and of course ended up being full blown fic. thank you @greatkingunderthemountain​ for sending in your headcanon! Enjoy!

summary: mise en place: the act of putting everything in its place. Or, Tony Stark is a human disaster when it comes to most things. Relationships. Taking care of himself. Opening up to people. Cooking isn’t one of them.

ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

rating: aside from some stony smooches, this is pretty gen. 

warning(s): h*ward stark is mentioned but don’t worry he’s dead lol

“How much milk?”

“Stop when you feel like there’s enough,” Jarvis instructs, standing next to the dark haired little boy who can’t be no older than eight.

Inky brown eyes look up at him from beneath a mop of chocolate curls. “You’re not going to tell me what to do?”

“No,” Jarvis says. “My mother always told me to never measure anything. The food tastes better that way.”

The little boy wrinkles his nose. “What if you mess up?”

“Making mistakes is a part of the cooking process, Tony,” Jarvis says, stooping down to look the him in the eyes. “Sometimes those mistakes make for the best meals. Think. How many meals do we have now that were made by mistake?”

Tony’s face lights up and Jarvis can practically see the little wheels in his head turning. Even with all that he had accomplished in his short life so far, Jarvis will perhaps forever be in awe at how fast the boy’s mind goes, Tony often jumping to (usually correct) conclusions in mere seconds when it took grown men hours to put the pieces together. 

“Chocolate chip cookies,” are the first words to leave Tony’s mouth. Jarvis chuckles, shaking his head. The boy’s sweet tooth is notorious in the Stark household, of course the first food that came to his mind would have been a sweet. 

“And what kind of world would we have without chocolate chip cookies?” a familiar voice asks teasingly. One Ana Jarvis makes her way into the kitchen, her heels tap, tap, tapping, against the dark cherry wood floors. 

“An awful one,” Tony says seriously. 

“I’m more of an apple torte girl, myself,” Ana says, tying an apron around her waist. 

Tony’s eyes widen. “What’s that?”

Ana leans down to Tony and whispers conspiratorially, “It’s like apple pie, but better because it has cream cheese.”

Tony’s eyes grow round and pleading, “Ooh, Jarvis can we make that for dessert?” 

Really, how was he supposed to no to that face?

“Of course we can. Dinner first.”

Tony nods and with shaky hands, pours milk into the pot of flour and melted butter. He stops, stands on the very tip of his toes to peer into the saucepan, before pouring a little bit more. With a satisfied nod, Tony put the milk on the counter while Ana whips the mixture with a whisk. 

“Very good, sir,” Jarvis says with soft smile. “You’ll be a master in no time.”

With flour in his hair and sticky palms, Tony launches himself at Jarvis who finds his arms full of dirty, sticky, boy-genius. Jarvis has never been happier.

It’s just Tony, Jarvis, and Ana in the mansion. They dine on macaroni and cheese and do end up having apple torte for dessert. As Jarvis tucks him into his bed, the smell of green apples and cinnamon linger on the air. That night, Tony dreams of hundreds of apple tortes falling from the sky. He thinks they might be just as good as chocolate chip cookies.

***

Ana passes on a beautiful summer day when Tony is fifteen, Jarvis following her soon after. Tony hangs up his apron and doesn’t pick it up again. Not for a while.

***

Being friends with Rhodey, Tony decides, is like lazing around in the sun after a storm. 

It had been a rocky start at first. 

“Are you lost?” Rhodey had asked him.

Tony had been sitting on his bed with his hands in his lap, unsure of what to do with himself. Howard and Maria had left just as quickly as they had arrived, both of their schedules occupied by SI business and charities and they were just oh so sorry that they couldn't stay for long. With Jarvis and Ana gone...Tony had...he had no one.

And that's how Rhodey had found him; a scrawny 15 year old who looked like he was 100 pounds soaking wet, sitting hunched in on himself as if he were trying to make himself smaller.

Tony had crossed his arms and straightened his spine, ignoring the sting of tears that threatened to fall from his eyes. Lifting his chin, he said, "Do I look like I'm lost?"

"You look like you should still be in middle school," Rhodey had said dryly, tossing his dufflebag onto the bed the opposite of Tony's. "What are you, like twelve?"

Tony had bristled, sadness quickly giving way to anger and if he was being honest with himself, embarrassment. "I just turned fifteen," he had said through gritted teeth.

"You're a baby!" Rhodey had said brightly.

"I'm not a baby!" Perhaps crossing his arms petulantly hadn’t helped his case.

Rhodey had nodded putting both hands in the air in surrender. "Alright, you're not a baby. But for real, man, what are you doing here? Where are your parents?"

And just like that Tony's mood had soured even more. He didn't want to be reminded of the fact that both of his parents had left him to fend for himself. A dark cloud had gathered over Tony's head anyway.

Steeling himself, Tony had shrugged. "Don't know, don't care. Howard and mom are always busy."

Rhodey's brows had furrowed as he looked Tony over. Did he...did he not know who Tony was? "Howard..." Rhodey had said before his eyes widened.

"Are you...are you Howard Stark's kid?" Rhodey had asked.

"Unfortunately."

And there it was. The truth was out, not that Tony tried to keep it a secret much anyway. Sooner or later everyone was going to find out the great Howard Stark's son was attending their school and they'd all come oohing and ahhing before the day was over. Tony had closed his eyes and waited for the gasps and the questions and the sucking up-

"Dude, your dad's a dick."

Tony's eyes had shot open and later on Rhodey would tell him that he had looked like a bull frog.

"What did you just say?"

"I mean no offense," Rhodey had begun, sitting down on his bed. "But who leaves their 12 year old kid alone at college?"

"I'm fifteen!"

"Same thing," Rhodey had said with a wave of his hand. "It's a dick move."

Within five minutes of meeting, Rhodey had thought he was lost, called him a baby, and told him his dad was a dick.

"Yeah," Tony had said after a minute. "It was a dick move. It was a huge dick move."

Rhodey had nodded seeming so sure of himself like it was a fact of life. The sky was blue. Humans needed oxygen to live. Howard Stark was a dick.

"Seems like you're stuck with me for a year, boy wonder," Rhodey had said laying down on the bed languidly.

"Or you're stuck with me," Tony had said. "People tend to get tired of me." He meant for it to come out as a joke but the words had sounded hollow to even Tony's ears.

"Aw, I doubt that," Rhodey had said. "I'm tougher than I look."

"We'll see," Tony had said dismissively. Everyone always left eventually.

But judging by the glint that had entered the other man's dark eyes, Rhodey wouldn't back down without a fight.

***

Rhodey stays. Rhodey stays and Tony flourishes under his attention like a long forgotten toy finally being picked up and played with again. He stays when Tony takes too long getting ready in the morning.

"You can't rush perfection, platypus," Tony would say while gelling his hair.

Rhodey stays when Sunset Bain works her deadly magic on Tony and sinks her claw-like nails into his back, taking his dignity and Stark Industries secrets with her.

Rhodey stays when Tony gets drunk for the first time after Howard and Maria blow him off on the first family weekend of the school year. Rhodey, strong, kind Rhodey, shares his parents with Tony the entire weekend. Captain Rhodes and Mrs. Rhodes are just as sweet and kindhearted as their son and accept Tony with open arms. 

Rhodey stays and Tony loves him for it. And for the first time in a long time, Tony wants to cook. 

Their dorm building has a community kitchen that’s only ever used for late night experiments by the Chem majors. Tony swears he’s heard explosions from the kitchen before, but that doesn’t deter him. And he’s so hungry. 

Despite it being a prestigious school, the food at MIT, like all school sanctioned meals, is crappy and inedible. And after the whole debacle with Sunset, Howard had cut Tony off until further notice. If Tony saved up his measly check he got from working in the school’s post office, he could probably have enough money to make an actual honest-to-god home-cooked meal for himself and Rhodey. 

Tony makes up his mind the week before midterms.  He’s killing it in Calculus and Biology couldn’t be easier, but if he has to read one more passage of Hemingway’s bland, uninspiring prose, Tony’s going to rip his hair out.

“Don’t do that,” Rhodey says, voice slightly muffled from the pillow he has resting over his face. “It’s your best feature.”

“One,” Tony says throwing down The Old Man and the Sea with perhaps a little too much force, as his desk rattles when the book lands. “That’s false. My ass is definitely my best feature.”

Even from underneath the pillow, Tony can tell Rhodey is frowning. “Gross,” Rhodey says.

Tony grumbles. His ass was his greatest feature. But he decides to forge on. “That’s hurtful, honey bear,” he says. “Why are you being mean to me? Are you hungry? You’re only mean to me when you’re hungry.” 

Rhodey sits up and the pillow falls from his face and into his lap. “I’m starving, Tones,” he said. “You know what I would die for right now?”

“Me,” Tony says without hesitating.

“Close, but no,” Rhodey says and Tony loves him even more for that. “I want some candied yams. Don’t even need anything else with them.”

“Candied yams?” Tony asks. The name evokes feelings of joy and sugar and well, Tony’s always had sweet tooth. His interest is piqued. 

“My mom brought us some on Family Weekend, remember?"

To be fair, Tony doesn't remember. All he remembers is basking in the fact that Rhodey's parents actually seemed to like him.

"How does she make them?" Tony asks and makes sure he's listening carefully.

"She gets a couple of sweet potatoes and peels them and cuts them into slices. She lets them soak in some water then she throws them in a skillet with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Tones," Rhodey groans and flops back them, his hands clutching at his stomach. “I’m gonna die if I don’t eat real food in the next twenty-four hours.”

Tony can’t help but roll his eyes. And Rhodey calls him dramatic.

“Don’t die on me just yet, honey bear,” Tony says and reluctantly reaches for his copy of The Old Man and the Sea, “if you die, who’s going to suffer through Hemingway with me?”

"The next poor sucker to be your roommate," Rhodey says and gets a pillow to the face by courtesy of Tony.

"Living with me is a blessing!" Tony replies, feigning anger, except he's grinning wide enough that his cheeks are starting to hurt and the effect is ruined.

Rhodey in retaliation throws both his pillow and Tony's at Tony in quick succession. Tony yelps as both pillows make their mark.

Tony narrows his eyes. "Oh this means war, Rhodes."

"Aw, that's cute," Rhodey coos, "I'll be sure to go easy on you, Tones."

All thoughts of Hemingway and Santiago and that fucking Marlin flee Tony’s mind as he stands from his chair and makes a running leap towards Rhodey’s bed. 

Rhodey’s grin quickly melts from his face and is replaced with a look of utter terror as 120 pounds of pure spite land on him with the deftness of jungle cat. 

Rhodey let’s out a yelp before swearing and him and Tony are grappling each other. In their struggle, Tony wriggles the wrong way and both of them are tumbling off of Rhodey’s bed and onto the wooden floors of their dorm.

They hit the floor with a loud thud that surprisingly doesn’t have someone knocking at their door to see if they’re alright.

In that moment, Tony can’t help but think of what Howard would say if he saw them. “Quit being childish,’ he would sneer, his face turning down into a frown Tony was all too familiar with. “This behavior is unfitting of a Stark.”

But as Rhodey’s laughter, ringing brightly like a bell, warms Tony from the inside like the sun, he can hardly bring himself to care.

***

On the day of their last midterm, Tony makes three batches of candied yams. The first batch he made, he didn’t let cook long enough and the sweet potato slices crunch in his mouth and taste vaguely of carrots instead of the cinnamony confection Rhodey had described. His second batch, he overcooks, the potatoes turning to mush in the pan. Right when he’s ready to give up, angry tears welling in the corners of his eyes, Rhodey pokes his head into the kitchen.

The other man’s eyes light up at the bag of bright orange sweet potatoes mocking Tony on the counter. 

Rhodey doesn’t say anything, he just takes out four sweet potatoes and gets to peeling them. His hands are a blur as he makes quick work of the first sweet potato and starts on the second one like its nothing. 

Tony wipes his face, grabs a sweet potato of his own, and gets to work. 

The third batch is perfect, Rhodey tells him, practically moaning after carefully biting into a still steaming slice. Tony taking that as a good sign, digs in himself. His eyes close as the sweet, piquant syrup the sweet potatoes created floods his mouth and he has to agree. Candied yams may just push chocolate chip cookies down a spot on his favorite dessert list. Apple tortes are still first but candied yams, Tony decides, are damn close.

***

On a bitter, cold December’s night, Howard and Maria Stark are killed in a car crash along some deserted back road and something in Tony cracks. 

Rhodey and Obadiah stand beside him as they lower his parents caskets into the fresh upturned earth and shield him from the view of the gaggle of reporters who had somehow made their way into the funeral and buzz around him like incessant flies. 

Tony pokes mindlessly at his food at the repast; the food tastes like ashes in his mouth. 

***

The next time Tony cooks, it’s on a plane halfway to California from Monaco. Pepper sits across from him, regal and golden in the sun’s rays parting through the clouds.

He’s not sure if it’s the knowledge of his forthcoming demise or something else, something more potent than he’s ever felt in his life, but she’s never looked more beautiful and the urge to say or do something has never been stronger.

And so Tony cooks. His head spins the entire time and his hands tremble as he flips the omelette and everything down to his marrow is screaming.

The omelette comes out blackened and burnt on one side and undercooked on the other and in that moment Tony hates the arc reactor with a ferocious intensity, wants to rip it from his chest, consequences be damned. 

Even though it saved his life and gave him Iron Man, he detests it for taking this away from him. 

Tony swallows his pride and sets the dish down in front of Pepper anyway and tries not to fall apart when she asks him what it is.

***

It isn’t until Natasha points out that he’s shivering when Steve realizes he’s still cold. They had fished him out of the Atlantic not even three months ago and yet the chill of the ice follows him around like a ghost. For a moment, he thought the serum had malfunctioned, but SHIELD’s medics had reassured him that his body temperature was normal.

“Perfect, even,” the medic had said with what Steve supposed was a comforting smile.

Perfect. Just like the rest of him.

The future—the present, he thinks, chiding himself—is just as strange, just as foreign as the feeling of warmth.

The food is strange and the people are stranger and he just wants to go back home. He never thought something as trivial as food would upset him; Steve was a child of the Depression. They were lucky if they had something other than boiled potatoes for dinner any time of the week. 

He remembers the nights when their rations ran low and his mother would scrape whatever was left from their pantry and seemingly make a meal out of thin air. He remembers the hotdog-and-potato plates, and the creamed chip beef, and the thick sliminess unique only to egg drop soup. Sometimes when they craved something sweet, his mother would make fresh soda bread with dried currants and caraway seeds. 

Sometimes the food didn’t taste great, he’ll admit that. But it didn’t taste terrible either. It tasted familiar. It tasted like home. 

***

After living together for several months and bearing witness to many of the man’s brave (and stupid) exploits, Tony, Steve decides, is an enigma. He’s a contradiction, a logic puzzle that sits at the back of Steve’s mind and in his idle moments, he wants nothing more than to piece him together and make sense of the puzzle. 

Some days, when Tony smiles at him (one of his real smiles that lights him up from the inside out), Steve figures that he’s close to figuring him out. 

He’s still arrogant, especially on the battlefield, but whenever he watches Tony topple firewalls and HYDRA agents alike (often at the same time), he thinks that maybe Tony deserves to be a little arrogant.

There’s a sadness to Tony too. It’s one Steve recognizes because he can feel it in himself. It feels like the Atlantic Ocean flooding his mouth and sapping the strength from his bones. He sees it in Tony when he thinks no one’s looking. He sees it when someone brings up his past, the drinking, the parties, the carelessness and a rotten taste fills Steve’s mouth when he remembers what he said on the Helicarrier. 

“Stop pretending to be a hero,” he had spat like a snake shooting its venom.

And part of him shatters like glass when he remembers what Tony had said; “Everything special about you came out of a bottle.” 

Steve doesn’t try to block that day from his mind. It would be doing a disservice to both him and Tony. They had gotten off on the wrong foot in the beginning, practically itching for a fight. And now...Steve doesn’t know what to call them now. All he knows is that Tony drives the cold away. With his blinding grin and his near manic energy and his big brown eyes, whenever Tony directs his full attention at him, it’s like he’s laying out in the sun. 

***

Tony still confuses him, even with his warmth. Steve is especially confused when Tony asks him out on a date, beating Steve to the punch, and he’s even more so when Tony tells him to come up to his penthouse suite.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting when the elevators door open and he steps out, but it sure as hell isn’t Tony Stark in the kitchen. He knows a few details about Tony’s life, he’s solved a bit of the puzzle; he knew Tony had butlers and maids growing up, but not once did he think Tony knew his way around a kitchen. But he does. 

Tony’s a whirlwind, flitting from one pot to the other putting Steve in the mind of a little hummingbird flying from flower to flower in search of nectar. 

Steve stalks into the kitchen and is immediately hit with the scents of his childhood. Mutton and onions and potatoes and carrots and underneath the savory mix, he can smell currants and caraway seeds. 

Tony yelps and nearly drops the fresh loaf of soda bread he pulled from the oven when he sees Steve standing in the kitchen. 

“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” the genius says and sets the baking pan down on the counter-top. Tony had decided to dress down. He’s wearing black jeans and a ratty AC/DC t-shirt that shows off forearms (not that Steve is looking, he’s a gentleman, after all) and his hair is product free. Steve feels slightly overdressed in the dark blue button-down Natasha said matched his eyes and black slacks.

“Who said you could come early,” Tony says, but he’s all smiles. Steve can’t help but smile back as he shakes away his shock, his nerves and steps closer to the genius. 

“Would you believe me if I said I just couldn’t stay away?” he asks, sliding his hands into his pockets. 

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Rogers,” Tony says and plants a kiss on Steve’s cheek. His skin burns where Tony’s lip touched him. He wants to feel that burn all over his body. “But this was supposed to be a surprise.” 

Now Tony’s pouting and look, Steve prides himself on being a gentleman and considerate, but he can’t help but lean forward and kiss the pout from Tony’s lips. It’s only fair after Tony kissed his cheek. Tony’s lips are soft and warm, and Steve finds himself kissing him a bit harder, chasing that warmth, needing it like he needs air.

Tony kisses him back, parts his lips and presses his small, lithe body against Steve’s. His arms wind around Steve’s neck and Steve’s settles his hands on Tony’s waist.

Eventually the need for air wins out and Tony’s pulling away from him. Steve wants to chase his lips but he settles for leaving his hands on Tony’s waist. They feel like they belong there. Likewise, Tony leaves his arms wrapped around Steve’s neck. 

Tony looks up at him with fondness and lust his eyes. His lips are swollen and pink and his chest heaves slightly. A very large, very horny part of Steve practically purrs in satisfaction that he was the one to do that to the great Tony Stark. 

“As much as I enjoyed that soldier, I’ve got a heart condition. You can’t just kiss me breathless like that,” Tony jokes.

“But it was so fun,” Steve replies, playing along. 

“We also need to eat,” Tony says. “I spent all evening working on this meal and I’ll be damned if it goes to waste, Rogers.”

Steve knows when he’s beaten; “Fair enough, genius. I know that’s soda bread,” he says, gesturing to the loaf sitting on the counter. “But what else did you cook?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise but someone had to show up early and ruin everything.” 

“My punctuality is part of my charm.”

Tony arches a fine, dark brow, “You? Punctual? The man who slept in the ocean for nearly seventy years?”

It’s weird, being able to joke about what happened to him now. But with Tony it feels fine, like it’s all in the past. What matters is now; this place and the people who go with it. He misses Peggy and Bucky and his Howlies but Stark Tower, the other Avengers, Tony, he wouldn’t give them up even if he had the chance.

“Okay, I may not have the best track record. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I made Irish stew, soda bread and for dessert I was thinking of shortbread and Irish coffee?” Tony bites his lip and his eyes are impossibly wide as he looks up at Steve. “Is that okay?”

It’s probably, no definitely, too soon, but in that moment, Steve Rogers thinks he could be in love with Tony Stark.

“That’s fine. More than fine, actually,” he says and he means it. 

Tony gives him that blinding grin and Steve wants to kiss him again.

***

The lamb meat falls off the bone. Steve dips his soda bread into the broth, lets it soak up the flavor. The sweetness of the currants and the savoriness of the stew are like a symphony of sensation in his mouth. 

Later on, he does the same with his shortbread, dipping the sweet buttery biscuit into his coffee. Tony takes a sip from his coffee, barely suppressing the grin of satisfaction that hasn’t left his face since Steve took his first bite. The taste of the whiskey melds sweetly with the butter of the shortbread and lights a fire inside of him in the best way.

Tony gets whipped cream on his nose and his lips and Steve kisses it away. Tony tastes like chocolate and coffee and cream. He’s never tasted anything sweeter in his life. 

They stay like that standing out on Tony’s balcony kissing and touching each other and simply being. 

“There’s this French saying,” Tony says, when he pulls away. His eyes shine in the dark of the night. “Mise en place.”

Steve knows a little French from his war days, his long, hilarious conversations with Jacques coming to mind. “Everything in its place?”

“Yeah,” Tony answers. “It’s mainly used for cooking. Have all your ingredients and utensils lined up from the beginning. Makes it easier in the long run.”

“Mise en place,” Steve repeats. The words flow off his tongue. “Works for a lot of things.”

“Like us?”

“Like us,” Steve agrees and Tony kisses him again. Everything in its place indeed, Steve thinks.