#this woman he barely knows

[pettyprocrastination]

Two Phantoms

Pairing: Simon Riley x Female Reader

Summary: Simon sees a familiar face that doesn’t recognize him back. Kid!fic warning for those who do not enjoy them. 

Warning: nothing explicit but vague descriptions of violence, sex, and PTSD.

Word count: 1.2k

Authors note: This is purely a word vomit i did last night at 2am while thinking about Simon not being recognized by certain members of the 141 since they dont know what he actually looks like (ignoring the MW2 canon where he shows his face to them all) but i hope you enjoy nonetheless!

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     There’s a struggle in the shift. Going from being Lieutenant of the 141 to being a civilian. From hunting down arms dealers through rain forests and balmy deserts while ignoring the pain in his body and ringing in his ears at the gunfire around him to stepping off of a plane at the Manchester airport and hailing a taxi. To go from a masked monster to a man who hails a taxi in the pouring rain and ignores the driver’s attempt at conversation, shoulders curling in so he can fit his bulk into the backseat with his bag on his lap.

     Going from Ghost to what remains of Simon Riley. 

     There’s no reason to wear a mask in public anymore. Nobody knows him. The spot he’s picked an apartment in is empty of those who remember little Simon and his brother Tommy, nor the tragedy that befell the family. They only know the man who doesn’t speak and only stays in his own apartment every few months but offers his neighbors a terse nod each time he catches their gaze in the hall. 

     If anything a mask would draw more attention to him in public. Nobody bats an eye at the tall man with dark eyes in the fruit aisle of the supermarket.

     Which is why when you see your Lieutenant in public you walk right by him without a second glance in his direction while he remains frozen in place. He isn’t sure why it's shocking to him. You get leave just the same as him. You have a home to return to, a life outside of the blood and shit of the missions where you take his orders with ease, where you leave your fatigues to wear a comfortable pair of jeans and a hoodie with a bleach stain on the back.

       Simon hasn’t seen it before. He knows it exists. That you exist outside of the 141, outside of him. A place where you don’t follow his command in the heat of gunfire and slip into his cot the night after when neither of you can sleep to find solace in each others arms and the marks he leaves on you. 

     But now he’s witnessed it with his own two eyes. In the form of two boxes of pancake mix in your shopping trolley and the sleeping baby in your arms as you try to decide between orange juice brands.

     “Quality is going to shit everywhere, isn’t it bubs?” 

     Simon is staring. He knows it but can’t look away. 

     It’s a duality he knows everybody has. He’s aware that Johnny goes home to Glasgow to visit his brother and gaggle of nieces and nephews that no doubt shriek with joy and hang of his arms every time he visits, asking a myriad of questions that the man answers with patience and kindness one only reserves for children. He knows that Gaz goes home to a small apartment and a girl two semesters away from getting her masters in psychology that Simon doesn’t know the name of but can tell from the way he tries to hide his smile that she’s important to him. Price goes back to an office where he goes over reports and budget plans in a chair that makes his back ache and knees pop every time he stands from it before driving to a house that was once filled with the raucous that can only be made by 15 year old boys that have since graduated college and only call him when its Christmas or his birthday. 

     It’s different to see. To set his eyes on the little curls on your child's head (is it your child? Maybe you're babysitting, a godchild perhaps? Nephew? He knows you aren’t married. There’s an absence of a wedding band nor the tan line that would come from the removal of one in all the years he’s known you.) and to witness the same hand he’s seen sink KA-Bar into the chest of an enemy move up and down, up and down on the little ones back while their fingers curled and uncurled into the fabric of your hoodie like a cat kneading a pillow. 

     Logic knocks in the back of his head when he realizes time has passed since he first saw you. And that if you didn’t recognize him then you definitely won’t recognize him when you turn around and realize he’s been staring at you and your baby without moving for a solid seven minutes in the middle of the juice aisle. 

     Just as his foot shifts to turn and pull him away from this peek into your life that he didn't know existed,  the little one in your arm stirs. A soft whine curls in the back of their throat as their chubby face scrunches up and eyes crack open to latch onto the man watching them back. 

     You still haven’t noticed him. You're far too busy swaying from side to side to keep the baby in your arms calm and checking a carton of eggs for cracks to see the man behind you that is now locked into what feels like a staring contest with an infant. 

     “It’s alright Sam.” Your voice, even when talking to a baby, has a dry clip to it that he knows so well. The same curl in ‘sir’ when he’s pissed you off and the rasp of your laugh at a dingey bar under Soap’s arm. “I’m almost done, okay? Then we can go back home and take a nice long nap.” 

     Sam babbles behind his pacifier and wiggles in your arms. 

     “Yeah, you and me both, little man.” 

     Brown eyes stare into his own from over your shoulder without shame or abandon. 

     He looks like you. 

     But even without your fatigues and your weapon, you’re still a soldier. They all are. 

     You feel it, his eyes on you like a soft tug in the back of your head. Your sister calls it paranoia, her husband says PTSD. 

     You aren’t sure which is better. But when you turn around you see a man standing behind you, an empty basket in his hand and sad eyes sinking into your form. 

     Sam whines. 

     You can feel the thread of recognition between your fingertips as you look at him if only for a moment, a split second of staring into his eyes and grasping for some memory from high school or perhaps a date years passed that never turned into a second because you were overseas, just barely able to feel the fraying strings in your hand before its gone. 

     “Sorry-” 

     Your sister says you get stuck in your own head too much anyways. 

     “-Didn’t mean to block the aisle.” 

     He should say something. Some small reassurance that it’s no problem or he didn’t mind waiting, but he just nods his head once and watches as the woman he’s been through hell with walks away from him without a flicker of realization of who you're talking to. 

     Sam watches him over your shoulder and raises one little hand out toward him, before wiggling it back and forth in goodbye. 

     Simon waves back as you turn into the cleaning aisle and vanish from his line of sight. 

[chaoticallyfluffy]

Ok consider:

A new hero emerges and the Justice League watches him for a while who make sure he’s not a threat. They see this giant clumsy man who moves like he’s not used to his body, smiles goofily every time he saves someone, and is clearly inexperienced with his powers and they’re all just like. Ah. This is a child.

Except they don’t think he’s a ten year old or however old Billy is at the time, no no. Clearly this hero came into existence shortly before his first appearance, just a few months ago. They don’t know how or why but It’s not the weirdest thing they’ve seen so it’s pretty easy to believe.

But they can’t just leave this toddler with the powers of a god to stumble around and potentially hurt someone by accident, nor go down the wrong path and become a villain. So of course they decide to ‘subtly’ guide him without alerting him to the fact they’re onto him.

They introduce themselves but instead of inviting him to the league they pop by every once in a while to ‘subtly’ teach him about responsibility and power, but also about love and humanity. They try to teach him to enjoy life and that he doesn’t have to act like an adult around them, instead encouraging him to enjoy his childhood even if it’s not an ordinary one.

(Too bad the Justice League suck at subtlety.)

Billy is certain they somehow found out he’s a kid before they even met him, probably because of Batman’s freaky know-it-all powers, but he isn’t very worried as they seem nice and don’t treat him like he’s dumb or fragile. They respect him as a hero despite his age so he lets himself act like a kid around them after a while.

When he gets comfortable enough to detransform Billy thinks that’s his identity reveal. The league thinks that he magicked himself a body that’s more of a representation of his true self and fits his developmental age better, possibly as a way to blend in with humans and experience what it’s like to be a normal child. Good for him!

Basically Billy gets a bunch of super powered parents and the Justice League get a newborn man that they think they’re raising from scratch lol

[frnkiebby]

happy fucking monday, look at this beautiful mother fucker~🎃

[cienie-isengardu]

"Shells" from Nickelodeon Avatar The Last Airbender: Team Avatar Tales

[arcaneinsect]

found this image and thought it was something The Cat would say. dear people who hc him as bi this is what i assume you mean by that btw

[chocostrwberry]

Okay, who is Chloé's mom? I wrote a fic where she had a different mom too, and I am curious.

Probably another actress/coworker! Her father and Audrey paid the woman to keep quiet. They even faked Audrey’s pregnancy so the press wouldn’t find out about the affair, but Audrey had despised Chloe ever since, and even had Zoe when she travelled to the United States as revenge towards the mayor.

[tanadrin]

Fell down a rabbit hole reading about what various white supremacist and alt right shitheads have been up to since 2017 or so, and it’s darkly amusing to me how often they imagine their enemies to be the grand communist conspiracy and not. Like. Normie liberals who hate them just as much. Feels a bit like the thing where communists call all their enemies fascists, but even then communists seem considerably more self aware that often the people they are scrapping with probably don’t think of themselves as fascist.

Turns out weird anti-masturbation cults and angry dipshits who give off Most Divorced Man in the Universe energy are not the foundation for political success.

[taegularities]

some men are textbook villains fr

[cryptiduni]

…i just saw this poll and my unevolved brain gel wriggled inside my cranium like a feral fish:

idk how you look at his official art and call him conventionally attractive. my man looks like a wet dog and has eyebags for daysss. face full of pox scars, skin pale af, and those shaggy ass hair & a rugged beard hanging from his flat long face.

he is pretty *to me* but like dude???

—not exactly a heartthrob boy band material is he?

obv I wouldn’t call him “misunderstood baby uwu” if we are talking a little more seriously —but to be fair jean is having possibly the worst week of his life. the car? fucking sunk. case? unsolved. not to mention his close partner (who is also an ass mind you) doesn’t even remember him, already running around with a new one.

yeah he is absolutely foul and aggressive and degrading harry but like i said before (in my tag essay lol) judit also makes ableist comments and i don’t see people hating her because she’s outwardly nice—

and respects harry as her superior. her BOSS.

(also a friend with benefits? /nope, it’s just him harassing judit/ as well but not as a complicated relationship compared jean and harry’s brötherbund. only a few months of acquaintanceship.)

plus it’s highhlyyy likely that harry is not the only one substance abuse. —look at jean’s rudolf-looking-red-ass-nose. a drunkard’s sniffers. probably had few lines with him late at night… when your lifetime partner is an alcoholic it's hard to say no.

about the left for dead thing, they left because harry told them to fuck off. tbh harry is nightmare to work with esp pre-bender. (and am saying as a pathetic little unmedicated neurodivergent woman.)

but when the second time they left revachol was not jean’s fault, and it was judit’s suggestion anyway. the squad probably thought that since harry had someone a little more responsible looking after him. it will be fine when they come back. the tribunal was absolutely unaccounted for.

yet despite all of these things, he will try to come back to make sure he is ok and accommodate harrier to the best of his abilities which is wearing very thin. look at him trying to make up to our harry boy:

anyways am incapable of writing coherent thoughts (even though i want to talk about it for hours) that make sense so go look at sygneth’s jean psychological analysis instead. it is an excellent read. please go read.

[gophergal]

Watched Defenders of the Realm with @cursed--alien today and realized that they gave Sub-Zero hips that do not lie. And the way they draw his costume makes his pants look like thigh high boots. So behold, The Thiccckening

[hadesoftheladies]

hate going for christian weddings sometimes because i always see the prettiest women with the ugliest men, the sermon is always some shit about wives being slaves (but not like bad slavery, mutual slavery except the husband is a benevolent master which makes it okay) and making babies for their husband, the music is always lame, the mc is always weird and obnoxious, and older women keep fucking asking me when it's gonna be my turn and never take no for an answer.

[mishtershpock]

.

[lordofhaterism]

Just was reminded Az fucking. Regifted a necklace he just gave to this woman he has the hots for to a woman he barely knows rn. I need him killed

[altocat]

If he would just--

Sephiroth: "Welcome to JenovaLand, losers. First Stop: Me obliterating this planet."

Vincent: "Your Mother is Lucrecia, you were born of human parents, Jenova is just a dead squid thing that gave you super powers, you are literally living a lie. Stop being edgy and calm tf down."

Sephiroth:

The Planet (epilogue):

Realistically, it probably wouldn't actually do shit, but Vincent could have at least made an attempt, just saying.

[nadiajustbe]

In some 80's AU where there is no magic and no spells, instead of curing rheumatism and giving fields just because the woman he likes wanted to, Howell would remember the smallest details, like Sophie's favorite color on exceptionally dark rainy days, which she mentioned once in the middle of an argument, throwing them out completely randomly as if they were the most common information in the world

Michael: How do you know that?

Howl, shrugging his shoulders: She mentioned it.

[arabella-s-arts]

One of the plots in Ugly Betty season 1 is that there is a beautiful black woman better suited for a job than the white guy who only got it because his dad gave it to him, and she is trying to steal the job away from him. And somehow, in all of this, we are supposed to root for the nepotism baby.