#to hurt anyone when he was younger and older he was brainwashed and possessed

[lesetoilesfous]

I can’t decide if I want “sensory overload” or “on a leash” for Fenris and Fenders, so um, whichever sparks your interest please!

Oh my gosh I had too much fun with this. And "on a leash" gives me a bingo, thank you so so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: On A Leash

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Slavery, Brainwashing, Mindwipe, Implied Sexual Abuse, Attempted Prositution, Graphic Depiction of Injury

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders, Isabela, Varric Tethras, Merrill

Additional Tags: Angst with a Bittersweet Ending, Hurt/Comfort (mostly), Evil/Red Hawke, post-canon, what if Hawke sold Fenris back to Danarius and then the gang went and saved him

Anders knew it was going to be bad. He was - had been - blinded by his own ignorance and pain in the past, too busy trying to scream loud enough to get people to stop ignoring the people murdering children to listen to anyone else. He’d been young and single minded and irrational, and then older and bitter and furious with a terrible, poisonous kind of pain that made it hard to see the world around him. But he wasn’t naive. He’d spent ten years nursing criminals and refugees. Before that, he’d spent nearly a decade in the Grey Wardens, with former slaves and blood mages and Dalish hunters and Antivan crows. Anders had not been naive since he’d first drunk from the Joining Chalice.

Still.

It’s almost impossible to see in the placid, polite, half-naked man the proud warrior he’d once known. Fenris’ hair has been shaved close to his head, a fuzz of powdered snow that’s bright as the moon against his brown skin. There’s a thick, silver collar hanging around his neck, and in it the reflections of his lyrium tattoos twist and shine like mercury. His chest is mostly bare, and thin white linen is wrapped in a loose skirt around his waist. His body is sculpted and unmarred and beautiful, and Anders does not for a moment believe that it means he has not suffered pain. His wide, green eyes no longer hold any of the intelligence, or humour, or fury that Anders had once fallen in love with. Instead he stares, docile, into the middle distance. A greatsword is slung on a strap of leather over his back, but like this Fenris looks no more capable of wielding it than a kitten. Again, Anders knows better than to trust in appearances.

Attached to the collar is a long, silver chain that ends in a black loop of leather. There are runes stitched into the leather in silver thread, though Anders cannot see what they are from where he’s sitting. Opposite him, relaxed, fingers hooked in the loop of Fenris’ leash, Danarius studies him with open curiosity.

Anders tries very hard not to vomit.

“So, you’re a Spirit Healer?”

Anders ducks his head, feeling his fingers beginning to shake and fighting hard to resist the urge to fidget. There’s a clocktower visible through the white marble arches of this balcony. He only has to last until the hour. Five minutes. He can do this. He tries very hard not to look at Fenris, or the way Danarius’ thumb is stroking possessively over the handle of his leash.

“I - I am, yes. I showed a talent for it when I was young.” Anders twists his hand in the air, summoning a wisp without catching his breath, and Danarius gives him the same indulgent, condescending schoolteacher kind of smile that Uldred used to offer before he beat you. Anders snaps his fingers, and the wisp returns to the Fade. At the back of his mind, Justice shifts uneasily, trying hard to resist his own urge to set the whole blighted mansion on fire. Anders tries to ignore the heat racing up the back of his neck and into his cheeks, and clears his throat. “I, uh, heard you were looking for apprentices?”

He can’t help the nervous tic that has him looking up, again, at Fenris as the lithe strength of his muscles. Again, he looks into those green eyes, searching for the spark of defiance that had drawn him so close so many years ago, like a moth to a flame worth dying for. “I’ve read your work an anatomical augmentation. It’s...fascinating.” Horrifying, he means. Anders had read the essays, in preparation for this. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop having the nightmares. Not least the ones which superimpose Fenris’ face and body over the all too familiar anatomical sketches of Elven Subject 003.

Danarius twitches his hand with a tinkle of the chain like the ringing of a bell, and to Anders’ horror Fenris folds onto his hands and knees in one fluid motion to kneel beside Danarius’ feet. No emotion passes across Fenris’ face. Danarius runs his fingers over the fuzz of Fenris’ shaved head, and Fenris shuts his eyes in open, simple pleasure and Anders nearly throws up. Danarius runs his fingers down the back of Fenris’ neck, squeezing the back of it posssessively before looking up at Anders’ with a terribly possessive gleam in his clear grey eyes. “You’re a fan of my little wolf, then.”

Anders swallows the bile in his throat and stares at the clocktower. Three minutes. He can do this. Sweat tickles down his spine beneath the loose Tevene linen robe he’d bought for this occasion. He resists the urge to fuss with his hair, braided out of the way of his neck and ears in a fashionable Minrathous style. He forces himself to incline his chin. “Y-yes. Among other p-things. Among other things.”

Danarius chuckles, sitting back with a creak of his wicker chair, the crushed purple silk cushions huffing behind him as he moves. “Why so nervous?” Anders forces himself to huff a self deprecating laugh. “You knew him, didn’t you. In Kirkwall.” Anders’ jagged, insincere smile stiffens on his lips and Danarius laughs, moving forward to press both hands onto Fenris’ bare shoulders. Fenris shudders and looks up at him, eyes wide as a child’s. Danarius caresses the back of his head, and leans down to murmur intimately close to his ear, still loud enough for Anders to hear. “Do you recognise him, little wolf? Do you know who this is?”

For the first time since Anders had arrived at Danarius’ damn mansion, Fenris’ expression shows a flicker of emotion. Confusion flickers across his brow in a brief wrinkle followed by sudden, mute fear that freezes his expression with stiff tension when Danarius slips his fingers beneath Fenris’ collar and shakes him, gently. (Like a dog, Anders thinks, and imagines what setting this man on fire would smell like.) Danarius laughs, polite and performative. “How rude, Fenris! This man has come all the way from Kirkwall just to see you! Go on, thank him.”

Fenris hesitates for a millisecond, and Danarius sets a sandaled foot on his shoulder and kicks him forward hard enough that he chokes, briefly, as the leash goes taut and pulls on the collar around his neck. Anders sits forward without thinking, the muscle memory of ten years spent protecting this man’s life before Garrett Hawke ruined them both taking over any conscious thought of deception. Danarius doesn’t remark on him giving himself away - Anders is well aware that that game is long since given up.

Instead, the magister sits back, adjusting his grip on the handle of Fenris’ leash as Fenris sits up with tears of pain bright in his eyes, his fingers moving to dip beneath the skirt of Anders’ robes as he lowers his head towards Anders’ lap.

Anders has about three seconds to look up at Danarius and see the perverse glee in the old man’s eyes before Fenris' mouth bumps his cock through the fabric of his robes and his smalls, and suddenly Anders is two years younger on his back in The Hanged Man with his hands buried deep in silver hair thinking hopelessly that he’s fallen in love again.

Then he’s touching Fenris - ignoring the lightning bolt of rage that twists Danarius’ face as he does so, and gently pushing him away. Fenris looks up at him with an expression of quickly stifled terror, and Anders’ heart shatters. “No, no, it’s alright, it’s not you.” His fingers squeeze, reflexively, against the warm, smooth skin of Fenris’ biceps. “It’s going to be ok. I promise, love.” Again, a flicker of confusion wrinkles Fenris’ brow.

The clocktower strikes twelve. As the bells ring throughout the city, Anders becomes abruptly aware of the street below them: the sound of hawkers and tourists, the shouting of slaves and soft music of minstrels. Danarius is staring at him with a sneer twisting his thin lips blue. Anders gives him a wide, open smile. “Well, since we’ve given up on pretenses.” Then he punches Danarius in the face, harder than he's punched anyone since he escaped Kinloch Hold, relishing the way the man’s nose buckles beneath his fist.

He has a heartbeat to think, Nice job bleeding a Blood Mage, idiot, before Danarius’ blue-veined hand is curling into a rigid claw, and Anders’ body is lifting off the ground, his limbs contorting behind him in an agonising rictus that rips his left arm out of its socket and twists his ankle until it cracks.

Then there’s a thunderous BOOM that rumbles through the building, shaking plaster dust from the painted canopy over their heads, and the balcony on which they’re standing begins to list like a ship at sea. Danarius loses concentration on the spell, and Anders falls to the ground. He doesn’t take the time to breathe through the white hot splinter of pain in his ankle. He grabs the leash and pulls fire into his hands until his fingers are blistering and melts the metal until it breaks. Then he turns to Fenris.

Fenris, who has drawn his greatsword. Anders stares at him, and thinks about sitting with him beside a fireplace, sleepy and soft with wine, and stroking his hair as Fenris admitted that of all the things he feared, one of the ones that terrified him most was killing his friends. The building lists with a grinding rumble like a broken bone beneath a qunari sten, and amphorae and flower pots go flying across the tiled floor, hitting the building across the street in fireworks of soil and clay dust.

Anders’ bad ankle slips on the tiles and he grunts and turns it into a smile, and meets Fenris’ eyes. “No matter what, I want you to know that I forgive you.”

Then he runs forward and tackles Fenris, throwing them both off the side of the balcony. Behind them, Danarius screams, and Anders calls up a shield around them both that materialises a hair’s breadth away from the clinging red vines of Danarius' magic.

It’s only when they’re airborne that Anders registers the blade skewered through his chest.

He breathes, and salt and copper splatter against his lips and tongue. For a moment, in the golden, multicoloured kaleidoscope of sky and street, suspended in the air in a terrible embrace, everything is quiet. Fenris frowns at him, and blinks, and his green eyes flood suddenly with recognition and grief as he looks down at the sword hilt between them, intimate as a lover’s embrace. “Anders.”

Anders grins at him, and thinks he isn’t crying because of the pain, his tears rising behind him as they fall like backwards rain. He cradles Fenris’ head in his hand, and wraps his arms around his shoulders, and chokes as his organs shudder against the blade attempting to split him in two, and he feels Justice’s presence building in his mind like lightning in a thundercloud. “Be right back.”

*

What happens next returns to Anders in snatches of lucidity. Justice takes over, and draws the fade around them like a cloak as they fall through the wall of the building across the street like a comet. Fenris is unharmed and panicking, covered in Anders’ blood, his white linen skirt pink and red with it, the damn collar still locked around his neck. Justice had drawn the sword out of their chest and filled the wound with a magic simulacra of the blood vessels, muscles, organs and nervous system that needed to be there, in the way he had once reconstructed Kristoff’s corpse. (Both of them had quailed, at that comparison, but neither had time to linger on it.)

The building they’d fallen into was, of course, riddled with magisters, but before Justice could exorcise his frustration with a little smiting, all three men and women were dead with a bolt to the back of the head. Isabela appeared from the shadows in a puff of smoke like a mage herself, and Varric waved at them to follow him onto a waiting carriage. Merrill barely waited for them to get on board before she snapped the reins, and they bolted into the panicking crowds, most of whom were running to get away from the collapsing mansion.

In the carriage, consciousness had begun to make its slippery way out of Justice’s hands like a wriggling fish. Both of them had registered Fenris’ wide-eyed panic: the way he’d stared at their old friends with no hint of recognition, and held Anders’ arm so tightly it would bruise. But at that point, the blood loss had overcome them both, and they had passed out to Fenris shouting Tevene interspersed with Anders’ name, and Isabela trying to understand why.

*

Two years after Garrett Hawke sells him back into slavery, Anders, Isabela, Varric and Merrill free Fenris from Danarius’ service. They don’t go back to Kirkwall - all of them are too conscious of the so-called Champion’s stomping grounds to trust those streets. But Isabela has a contact in the Antivan Crows (or formerly of them - it’s complicated), so instead they go to Antiva City. Two days later, Anders wakes up.

Fenris is staring at him, wearing real clothes that seem to sit uncomfortably on his shoulders. His collar is gone, and there’s a small frown on his brow - a lifting of his eyebrows towards the bridge of his nose that he always used to wear when he was puzzling over particularly cramped handwriting (or, later into his studies, when he was attempting to accurately interpret and summarise abstract Qunari poetry). Anders breathes, and his chest sets itself on fire, and he groans and lets his head fall back against the richly perfumed pillow behind his head. It does relatively little to drown out the thick stench of hot leather that is as thick in the air as molasses.

Fenris startles when he moves, and stands, moving to the door. Anders frowns at him, turning his head to one side with all the energy he can muster. “Where’r’you’goin’?”

Fenris hesitates, turning back to him before lowering his gaze to stare at his still bare feet. There are new scars there, Anders registers, sadly, in neat white bands around his ankles. “I thought I’d fetch the mistress.”

Anders snorts, “Have you told her you’re calling her that?” He tries again to force himself to sit up, and Fenris starts forward, hands freezing in the air between them. His fingernails are neatly, perfectly filed and it ruins Anders’ tentatively building appetite.

“You really shouldn’t be moving.”

Anders grins, trying to ignore the sweat running down his temples as pain racks through every muscle in his body. “Why? Worried I’m going to split in two?” Fenris grimaces, and Anders grunts, giving up and collapsing to the bed with a thunderbolt of pain. “OW. Sorry. Bad joke.” There’s a rustle of fabric, and when Anders is able to stop seeing stars, he turns to find Fenris on his knees beside the bed, head lowered, hands palm up in front of him. “What in the name of Andraste’s perfect silky knickers are you doing?” Anders asks as if he doesn’t know. He thinks it’s going to be easier not to take this seriously, at first. At least whilst he recovers from the mortal injury.

Fenris flinches, and Anders regrets his bad attempt at humour, feeling Justice rumbling in the back of his head like a bowel movement. “Sorry, sorry. Look, Fenris, I’m not going to...punish you, or fuck you, or whatever it is you think I’m going to do to you. I actually have a very busy day planned of, uh, staring at that crack on the ceiling and pretending it doesn’t hurt when I breathe. Or speak. Fuck. I talk too much. I need to - ow - work on that.”

For a long moment, Fenris says nothing. Outside, there’s the sound of someone playing violin in the street, and the rich, warm sound of Antivan spoken loudly and with laughter. Now that he’s acclimatising to the leather, Anders thinks he can smell cured meat frying, and he’s beginning to reconsider his aborted appetite. He’s trying so hard to see if he can actually hear the sizzling of street food that he almost doesn’t hear Fenris’ voice when he speaks, barely above a whisper. “Why?”

“Because I love you.” Anders responds, more muscle memory than conscious - hey he doesn’t remember anything about you maybe we should start slowly - thought. Fenris stares at him, eyes wide, though his mouth twists in apprehension before he smooths it back into impassivity.

“Domine - My master loves me.”

Anders sighs, falling back in the bed to stare up at the crack in the ceiling and try to ignore the hot-cold flushes of pain rocking up through his body. “You don’t remember anything about me, so I’m not going to take that personally.”

Fenris is very still. “You do not...like him?”

Anders chuckles, and regrets it when his tattered organs throw a violent protest. “What gave that away.”

“You broke his nose.” Fenris says, solemnly, and Anders does laugh then, so hard he thinks it splits something open, and he finds himself clutching at his side in the sudden fear that his organs are going to fall out. When he can breathe again, he coughs on his dry mouth and shifts his gaze to Fenris, who’s watching him with wide eyes and the curl of a smile at the corner of his lips which Anders doesn’t think he knows he’s doing.

Anders’ gaze falls to a pewter jug of water on the bedside table and a wooden cup beside it. It may as well be in the Nocen sea, for all the nauseating pain running through him.

“Would you please pour me a glass of water?”

Fenris immediately hurries to obey with a soft, stifled sigh of something terribly like relief. He offers Anders the cup, and when Anders’ shaking, sweating fingers slip on the wood his hand comes up to cup the back of Anders’ head whilst the other pours the cup against his lips. The feeling of Fenris’ fingers in his hair, after so many years, holding him like this, is almost too much for Anders to bear. He keeps his eyes shut for a long time after swallowing, and breathes as tears tickle between the seams of his eyelids and run quietly down his cheeks.

Fenris’ thumb gently catches a tear and brushes it away from his skin, and Anders forces himself to open his eyes and stare up at the elf in the sunshine yellow and orange painted room in which he’s been laid to recuperate. Fenris meets his eyes, so briefly Anders thinks perhaps he imagined it, and draws his hand away. “My master said that I knew you. But that I had forgotten.” Fenris hesitates, mouth stiffening into a firm line that is so painfully familiar Anders thinks he’d choose the greatsword again. Then he looks up, “Did I - did we - it seems as if I meant a great deal to you.”

Anders smiles at him, though his lips tremble, and tries to ignore the feeling of his heart breaking. Outside, on the street, an older woman walks past, singing quietly to herself and humming when she forgets the words. “I think we meant a great deal to each other.”

Fenris purses his lips, and looks away, out of the window. Over the street, the silver-green leaves of an olive tree brush the windows of nearby buildings. Elsewhere in the building, Anders can hear the familiar purr of Isabela, and Merrill’s chirping, and the soft old gravel growl of Varric. Occasionally, the floorboards creak when they move across the lower floors. At last, Fenris’ shoulders drop, and he shakes his head. “I don’t remember you.” The words are rich with regret and apology.

Anders blinks against the new tears tickling his cheeks, and shakes his head. “I know.” Then he reaches out, his fingers cold and numb with pins and needles. Stiffly, fumbling, he grabs Fenris’ fingertips in his own like a much older man, and squeezes them. “I just wanted you to be free.”

[winterironholidayexchange]

2018 WI Holiday Exchange: Gift List

A giant THANK YOU to everyone who was a part of the @winterironholidayexchange this year. No matter if you created something, shared our posts to get the word out, or are now leaving comments and kudos on all the wonderful stories and art, this exchange wouldn’t have been possible without each and every one of you.

You rock, you are the best, and we love you.

And now, the thing we know you’ve all been waiting for: the complete gift list.

Enjoy! ⛄

“Welcome! Everything is fine.” by burbear for sara_wolfe

The afterlife was a lot weirder than Tony thought it should be. For one, it’s called the Good Place, and the points system that decides whether a person goes to the Good Place or not definitely had a flaw in it somewhere because, hello, why would he, Tony Stark of all people, be in the Good Place? Also, there’s a ridiculous number of frozen yogurt shops.

Just what the fork is going on here?

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Nightmare Dressed Like a Daydream by DreamcatchersDaughter for glyphsbowtie

Bucky accidentally crashes a blind date and hes not all that sorry about it.

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Mini-Stark by TheMaroonRedWolf for Tahlruil

De-aged Tony fic. My fill for the 2018 WinterIron Holiday Exchange.

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Wicked Game by StarSpangledBucky for OneSmartChicken

Leading a double life was troubling enough for Bucky, one as the superhero ‘The Winter Soldier’, the other as a florist. Now that his newfound friend, Tony Stark (who only knows him as Winter) has met the other side of him, things get complicated. Bucky isn’t prepared for the consequences he might face, as love between himself and Tony starts blossoming…quicker than he ever intended.

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Up, Up, Down, Down… by burbear for monobuu

Tony has just about had it with Loki and magic, seriously. Being transported into a kid’s movie? How is this even a kid’s movie? And no offense, Thor, magic hammers are not that great. Oh, and to top it all off, he’s dressed in ridiculous blue outfit like some kind of retro handyman while his crush gets a badass cyber-suit.

God, he hates magic.

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barren winter with his wrathful nipping cold by sevedra for StarSpangledBucky

Tony had expected to spend this Christmas alone. But he has James now. All is looking up for them until secrets try to tear them apart.

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Undercover by glyphsbowtie for marsmaywander

“It’s absolutely an option.” Bucky unfolds himself from the doorframe, rising to his full, impressive height languidly, like a deadly cat uncurling from a nap. “You’re all too recognisable, right? Nobody is going to recognise me. Stick some nerd glasses on me and I’ll blend right into a tech conference.” The idea of Bucky in glasses does things to Tony, but he clears his throat and looks back down at the laptop, trying to avoid making eye contact with Bucky. “Yeah, except for one obvious problem, old man. You’re a million years old and know absolutely nothing about tech.” - Bucky and Tony work together on a mission, and Bucky reveals he knows about Tony’s secret crush on him.

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The Tsum of Our Parts by Shi_Toyu for Briz

Tony couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t had his soul Tsum. The little thing had appeared as soon as Tony was born, which wasn’t completely unheard of. It just meant that his soulmate was older than him, old enough to have already developed their own Tsum characteristics, so maybe early teenage years. That happened all the time. It wasn’t even particularly scandalous. They’d probably meet later in life, when the age gap didn’t mean quite so much.

What was unusual was how cold his Tsum was.

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Howl At The Night by Eirlyssa for beir

Having escaped from their kidnappers, Bucky and Tony have to find a way to get home. Unfortunately, Tony isn’t doing very well.

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Plums by Morethancupcake for Feelingsinwinter

“Everything hurts for a second, and the Asset fights the nausea, tries to figure out where he is, what he’s supposed to do, and most of all, who decided to taunt him with his words.”

The Asset isn’t supposed to dream, but he does, and soon his world revolves around a smart little boy with brown eyes.

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Journeys End in Lovers Meeting by TheSopherfly for Arboreal

Bucky writes letters to his sweetheart back home during the war. Nobody knows his sweetheart is Anthony Stark, Howard’s younger brother.

~

In which Tony and Bucky meet, part, and meet again.

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Get Your Flirt On (Or: How to Stare Your Way into a Date) by InsaneJuliann for Nantai

Bucky’s come to Hogwarts for his seventh year, and joins the Quidditch team at the persistence of his friends Clint and Steve. Through a Quidditch game he meets Tony - competitive and constantly sending Bucky challenging looks. Bucky has no idea what his deal is - or why everyone he knows thinks Tony’s not as much of a jerk as their little stare-offs would make him seem.

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Tattoos and Tulips by MassiveSpaceWren for Morethancupcake

Silver fox tattoo artist Tony goes on a date with florist Bucky.

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Prank Wars gone wrong by IronEyes for dendrite_blues

Bucky and Tony are roommates and hate each other from the start. It starts to delevop in a prank war that hurts nobody, until Tony takes it too far. Or does he?

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Swipe Right by dendrite_blues for tonystans

hey we hooked up last night and it turns out you are my kid’s teacher.

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You’ve become quite familiar by MassiveSpaceWren for Morethancupcake

Tony recently gained a slighly scruffy crow as a roommate.

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Of instagramers and their followers by eriot for TheVagabondBoy

prompt:  Bucky the Instagram Thot, Tony the thirsty hoe.

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Resilient by nativemossy for gryvon

Anthony “Tony” Carbonell, disinherited son of a billionaire, proud graduate of a community college in nowhere New Jersey, and out-and-proud bisexual is the proprietor of a small coffee shop by the name of Resilient. Now that his life has settled down he’s beginning to suspect that he might have a few problems that are making work much harder than it needs to be.

James “Bucky” Barnes, disabled veteran, hermit, and long-suffering best friend has returned from Afghanistan to a world that he doesn’t quite know how to live in. He wants to contribute more to the world than sitting on his couch and collecting his check every month, but is having a hard time gathering the energy to do much more than tie his shoes.

A coffee shop full of meddling friends might be just the place where both men can find a place to heal and move on, hopefully together.

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Anima by Arboreal for burbear

Bucky had always been able to hear the voices of the things around him.

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Focus by Nantai for eriot

Bucky Barnes, veteran and ex-assassin, is just trying to make some legal money for once. He is reformed after all! Tony Stark, billionaire and mob boss, really needs an escort who can double as security because Steve is a worrywart.

Neither planned for secrets to come out and apologies to be made. And yet, here we are…

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Resting Murder Face by camichats for lordofsoup

Everyone knows that Bucky and Tony love each other.

…Except for Tony and Bucky. After watching them pine uselessly, the Avengers and Company do their best to get them together, even if the oblivious idiots make it more difficult than it needs to be.

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I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight by Sullen for TheMaroonRedWolf

Okay, look, it’s not James’ fault, no matter what the rumors say. The guy was so scrawny he could be blown over by the wind. This is a crowded hallway! If you don’t want to get knocked over, you should keep some meat on your bones, your stance wide, and not run around corners and into him.

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I Will Always Be by blue_pointer for celtic7irish

In a world where people see through the eyes of their soulmates when they sleep, Tony Stark’s dreams send him off the edge.

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You Bring Me Peace by Towaneko for IronEyes

Time has been reversed for Tony Stark and this is when he first meets Bucky Barnes.

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Not Exactly What I Wanted by Tahlruil for phlintandsteel

Tony has always been happy to piss off Alphas who try to control him - especially Howard Stark. Unfortunately he managed to push his father just a little too far… and the man arranged to have him auctioned off to the highest bidder. Now he’s married to a guy he hardly knows, one that is too damn patient and too damn nice. There’s no way that isn’t an act, and Tony is resolved to be a little shit until he finds out the limits of his husband’s fake personality.

Though he’s been back from the war for a while, Bucky has been left scarred by the experience. The most prominent one is the personality that came into being because of Hydra’s torture and brainwashing attempts when he was captured. They were rescued before they became the Winter Soldier, but Winter is still very much sharing space in his head. Winter has never responded to anyone positively… until they met Tony at an auction Bucky had been dragged to by a former commanding officer. They are both captivated by the Omega and buy him despite their better judgement.

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The Warlord’s Tribute by TheSopherfly for MassiveSpaceWren

Warlord Bucky, rumored to be ruthless, ends up in the possession of Tony, who slowly learns that Bucky isn’t so bad.

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Safe (Only In Your Loving Arms) by tonystans for Eirlyssa

“No eating in the lab, that’s poor etiquette.”

“And you’re all about etiquette and rules since when?”

Tony playfully rolled his shoulder and turned his head away from Bucky, acting the part of scandalized. “Since Steve gave me one lecture too many.”

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One More Day (Five Hundred Left To Go) by Rospergs for Estelle

Tony and Bucky go to the same gym. Bucky looks very rough and intimidating. Tony is a single parent and looks small and frail. Then Tony finds out Bucky is the new preschool teacher at his child’s school, and is super kind, and amazing with the kids. Lots of mutual pining happens.

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Love Planted a Rose by Gavilan for iCheat

Bucky wants to show Tony how much he likes him … but how?

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We need to talk about babies by GenericUserHere for sevedra

The classic ‘I’m pregnant but we haven’t discussed having tiny humans yet’ fic Otherwise known as Tony is pregnant and Bucky is accidentally a dick but luckily these idiots have friends who help them work out their shit

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Dust to Dust by lordofsoup for Shi_Toyu

One moment Tony is fighting TaskMaster. The next moment he’s back on Titan.

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ready to comply. by rightsidethru for james

It wasn’t often that Tony himself went to the weapons conventions that those in the business knew about: he’d always been of the opinion that that was what his minions in R&D were for—scoping out the competition, making notes on key elements that they liked, seeing how Stark weapons were assessed by those in attendance. Tony already knew that his designs were top-of-the-line, that the companies who could stand up against the leviathan of his reputation were few and far between—but there were still contenders. Sometimes.

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Don’t Overthink It by Potrix for Gavilan

Now, Jim is about as straight as a person can be—tested a couple of times by drunkenly making out with his best friend, which Tony loves to bring up whenever it’s really inappropriate to do so—but he has no problem admitting that, objectively speaking, Barnes is an attractive guy. He’s got that whole gruff, frowny, bad boy thing a lot of people are into going on, but whenever he actually does smile, it’s devastating.

One time, Jim had seen a girl on the street do a double-take and nearly walk into a magazine stand after Barnes had smiled at one of Tony’s dumb jokes.

Or, alternatively; Rhodey means well, meddles, and actually sort-of-kind-of ends up helping in the end.

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over or under me? by Larissaloki for Sullen

hunger over bucky made a phone call the night before and forgot.

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Under Your Skin by Niki for endof_theline

It’s not often an alpha gets quite as deep under an omega’s skin…

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mythos by beir for Towaneko

The lights flickered back on. There, standing behind Barnes, was the Merchant of Death.

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Project Relationship by iCheat for blue_pointer

Peter and Harley are best friends and they have a project to do. After some debate they decide to get their Dads together. Scientifically. It does not go as they planned.

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Love Tap by Feelingsinwinter for DreamcatchersDaughter

When Bucky started dating Tony, a kindergarten teacher, he was expecting the usual trouble. Some issues with Bucky’s life as a mob boss to begin with, a bit of screaming, a bit of swearing maybe. Some fight, possibly, after all Tony looked ready to fuck shit up if need be. He wasn’t expecting Tony to accept it with open arms and start to gift him with bags of rifles but Bucky could roll with it.

Probably could’ve done without the troubles that came with that, however.

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Stay in my arms if you dare (or must I imagine you there) by Estelle for Chef_Geekier

Bucky doesn’t exactly think that being a bodyguard is his dream job, but after leaving the military, it was a good way to make money without having to go through a lot of education and training. When he gets hired by Howard Stark to protect his son, he thinks that that will be easy enough. Turns out that it isn’t, especially not once feelings are involved.

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Happy Together by TheVagabondBoy for Potrix

The tattoos might have been one of the first things of Bucky’s that Tony had fallen in love with.

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The Long Con (Don’t Kid Yourself) by phlintandsteel for camichats

When Tony finds out that Howard is thinking about changing the terms of Tony’s trust fund, he embarks on a not-so-elaborate scheme to prove that he’s totally settling down and not in continued need of Howard’s “guidance” until 25 instead of 21. Step 1: Get a fiance Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit (Finally be free of Howard)

Unfortunately, Tony Stark is the worst con-artist ever, and may only be kidding himself…

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In Your Hands by james for its_inherited

Sometimes Bucky needs help to relax.  Tony loves to provide.

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The Price of Forgiveness by celtic7irish for Cheerydandan

Tony fell in love once.  And then his lover left without so much as a good-bye, and Tony moved on with his life.  Now, Bucky Barnes is back, hired to be Tony’s personal assistant and hoping to pick up where they left off.  Can Tony learn to forgive him?  Will he risk opening his heart once more?

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While You’re Busy Making Other Plans by marsmaywander for TheSopherfly

Bucky was cold, tired, and his bum shoulder was killing him. Being stuck in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina with a busted bike was not how he envisioned spending the last few weeks of his leave. Thankfully, there’s a sleep-deprived, big-hearted mechanic there to help Bucky out.

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Forward-Facing by Eirlyssa for Larissaloki

Bucky is doing fine, he really is. But Steve wants him to be more than just fine, which is why he asks his friend to join a yoga class in the park.

Which is where he first sees Tony.

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answering a salty siren call by OneSmartChicken for GenericUserHere

Yeah only an idiot wouldn’t have at least a little crush on Bucky, and Tony really wasn’t an idiot.

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Three times Tony brought Bucky out of a zone by Briz for InsaneJuliann

And one time he didn’t.

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Nothing Changes (Except You) by ezazahaz for badgerling

Between teammates bickering over breakfast cereal, a boring Stark Industries meeting Pepper wants him to attend, and rampaging trees in Central Park, Tony isn’t having the best day.

The fact that it keeps repeating only makes it worse.

But then it turns out he isn’t alone–Bucky Barnes remembers the repeating day as well. They’ll need to work together to find a way to escape the mysterious loop… and maybe become a little closer in the process.

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Ready to Comply by monobuu for Rospergs

For the prompt: “What if Tony had been captured by Hydra.”

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Let This Be Called a Word Unpronounceable by badgerling for rightsidethru

Tony was fine serving the detention he had earned. He was not okay with serving detention with Bucky Barnes. And he definitely not okay with running for his life from a manticore. An apparent manticore. Because there shouldn’t be manticores in the Forbidden Forest.

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The lesser of two evils by Briz for ezazahaz

Bucky has trouble sleeping when Tony ends up hurt by his hand during a mission

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Grown With Love by endof_theline for nativemossy

Tony Stark, college student, single father, and wingless? Tony meets a stranger at the gym that helps him in a way that he had deemed impossible, it’s just a bonus that the single father status might change to father along the way.

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Better For You by gryvon for malome78

Tony stares at the extensive array of baked goods. There are shelves full of different flavors of cupcakes, trays of cookies, a variety of scones and muffins and things that look good but he has no idea what they are. There are almost too many options. He’s getting diabetes just from looking at all of it.  

“What’s the occasion?” Hot barista asks.

“Business meeting. What says ‘Sorry for showing up an hour late?’”

Hot barista comes to a stop across the counter from Tony, arches an eyebrow, and says, deadpan, “Being on time.” 

[bigskydreaming]

Whats Nightwing and Deathstroke's dynamic? Why does it make you wince? Im not very familiar with it.

Nightwing and Slade actually have a really interesting and compelling dynamic in a lot of ways, that can be really good when written well and really terrible when not. My biggest issue is it is that its not sexual in the comics (Slade is a good thirty years older than him) or in other adaptations that have a version of it, like the Teen Titans cartoon. But fandom being fandom, Dick/Slade is a bigger ship than like, half his actual canon ships, so any new take on it always comes with a big sigh at all the new Dick/Slade shipping that’s gonna crop up or have a resurgence cuz of it. And I’m annoyed enough with YJ right now that I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll do anything new or interesting with it that’s worth having to wade through pages of new Dick/Slade noncon in the months afterwards. Its a ship that generates a lot of non-con fic in particular, or at least my old favorite, ‘dubcon’, with the dubious part of the consent referring to the fact that it usually involves mind control or brainwashing, both tropes that show up a lot in their interactions anyway. (Not that there’s anything dubious about this NOT allowing for consensual anything, just that people love to call it dubcon because….fuck if I know).

But anyway….in the comics, Deathstroke is a mercenary who’s one of the Titans’ earliest and most iconic enemies. Though at various times and depending on who’s writing him, he’s sometimes an antihero and even a semi-trusted ally of the Titans (usually with Dick specifically), other times a villain but with his own personal code of honor that means he won’t help the Titans or other heroes but he’ll refuse to take jobs that would pit him against them, and other times he’s full on remorseless and sadistic villain who hates them all and wants them all dead.

He also had three kids, his son Grant (the first Ravager), his younger son Joseph (Jericho) and his youngest, their half-sister Rose (the second Ravager). Basically, the first time he interacted with the Titans was when the supervillain group HIVE put out a contract to have the Titans all killed. Slade turned them down cuz of his personal honor code and how young the Titans were, but his son Grant accepted the contract in exchange for HIVE giving him superpowers to help him fulfill it. The process didn’t work right though, and when fighting the Titans, Grant’s powers overloaded and killed him.

Slade blamed the Titans for this, and vowed to finish the contract and kill them as some twisted way of honoring Grant. He doesn’t do Logic so good, well no, its more like he doesn’t really do parenting so good, as in he tends to have fuck all to do with his kids 364 days of the year, but then something bad happens to one of them and suddenly he thinks he’s Dad of the Year and going 0 to Homicidal in six seconds flat is the way to make up for all the times he’s let them down or screwed them over, instead of just…not Doing That.

So Slade recruited a young meta named Tara Markov (yup, that one) and trained her as his apprentice specifically to help him get revenge on the Titans. At his prompting, she joined the Titans as a spy for him, feeding him intel and plotting against them in one of the best known comicbook storylines of all time, The Judas Contract. It was up there with some of the X-Men’s best known stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. (In the 80s actually, the Titans comic book was almost as popular as Uncanny X-Men at the time. Like way more than the Justice League. They were DC’s big hitters, popularity wise - specifically the lineup that for the most part was centered around Dick, Donna, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Raven, with other members like the original Titans and later ones like Pantha and Wildebeest coming and going at various points in the 80s too).

Ultimately, Tara made her move and betrayed the Titans, enabling Slade to kidnap each of them one by one and turn them over to the HIVE….all except for Dick. In the meanwhile, he was approached by Slade’s ex-wife Adeline Kane - who has an equally all over the place dynamic with Slade, like sometimes she’s his worst enemy and other times she’s manipulating events behind the scenes to help him without him knowing, because she still loves him…it basically just depends on who’s writing her, same as with Slade. Also, Kane is Adeline’s maiden name, she’s distantly related to Kate Kane aka Batwoman in some extremely complicated manner I can never remember, but that’s mostly just trivia. I can’t remember a time its ever been relevant to a story, and it has nothing to do with Slade’s interactions with Dick.

ANYWAY. Point being, so Adeline, who blames and hates Slade at this time for their son Grant’s death, along with their other son Joey, seek out Dick and offer their help rescuing the Titans and defeating Slade. Joey is a metahuman as a result of Slade’s altered DNA (he has regenerative powers and is actually immortal, due to experiments the army did on him while he was a soldier). So Joey was born with powers although they didn’t activate until he was a young adult. His codename was Jericho and his power lets him possess peoples’ bodies. He’s also mute, and I’m half expecting him to show up in YJ fairly soon. If not this season then hinted at by the end of it. Also wouldn’t surprise me if they had plans to have him be gay in the YJ universe. He’s a character who was coded as gay practically from his debut. Joey/Dick is actually probably Dick’s oldest and most enduring slash ship, for the record.

So Joey works with Dick to rescue the Titans and defeat Slade, who’s captured and goes on trial for kidnapping the Titans. Joey ends up joining the Titans in the aftermath, and Adeline’s yay good, this was my Sekrit Plan all along, I did all this solely in the hopes that you would end up a superhero and have positive influences and not end up a murdering douchebag of flexible morality like your dad cuz fuck that guy, am I right Titans?

Did Adeline really just do all of that because she wanted her son to have more friends? Like…idk honestly it could go either way. Like….it IS the kind of thing she would do, tbh, so its as likely she was telling the truth as it is she just wanted to screw Slade one last time to avenge Grant and then was like hey if I take credit for my kid ending up a Titan now, I could probably play the “you owe me one” card later if I ever need to. Addy does like handing out “you owe me one” cards, just to be safe. Never know when you might need one.

The thing all this has to do with Dick is like, so it basically ended up being Dick versus Slade in the big finale, while Joey was rescuing the others and helping them face off against Tara. And for whatever reason - with multiple takes on this offered by multiple writers in the decades since - something about Dick just stuck with Slade and he’s had a kinda fascination with him ever since. Like he’s always talking about how much more he could teach Dick than what he already learned from Bruce, trying to convince him he’s got a killer instinct that Bruce just suppressed and its holding him back, blah blah, like saying he’s good, but Slade could make him great, so he surpasses both Bruce and Slade. TBH, he spends WAY more time obsessing about Dick and getting Dick to join him than he bothers paying attention to his own kids. 

It really isn’t inherently sexual though, its a weird kinda pseudo father/son, pseudo mentor/mentee type thing. And its not entirely one-sided, because Dick at various times IS…tempted? Kinda? Like whenever Dick’s having some kind of crisis of conscience, or he’s pissed at Bruce or is questioning the effectiveness of superheroes or why they do the things they do or what does it all matter blah blah blah like omg I love you Dick, I really do, but sometimes you are such a drama queen, my god, blast some My Chemical Romance, experiment with drugs and chill out already, its not that deep. (LOL I kid. Well mostly). But point being, every once in awhile something happens that puts Dick in a funk and makes him second guess himself, and he spends like….a month being convinced he should reinvent himself as the anti-Bruce, that’s the solution, and this usually sends him in search of Slade except he’s always like ‘OH FANCY MEETING YOU HERE, THIS IS TOTALLY RANDOM AND NOT ON PURPOSE’. 

And Slade likes to take any opportunity to try and convince him like BE A BAD GUY DICK, KILL PEOPLE FOR MONEY, ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT. Except inevitably Slade does something that pisses Dick off and Dick snaps out of it and is like NO, IM A HERO AND THIS IS BAD, I REMEMBER NOW AND I’LL NEVER JOIN YOU, YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD I HATE YOU! And then they fight again, but with swords, not words, and then they’re like crap, we’re too well matched, this is going nowhere, you’re a worthy opponent, the only one I can truly respect, blah blah and then they call a breather and Slade’s like hey kid, wanna grab a beer and Dick’s like yeah but only if you promise not to kill anyone. And Slade’s like ugh fine.

And then Slade’s all, look kid, its been fun but its time you went home to your real family and your real life, this isn’t you, you’re a hero, I can’t try and turn you into something you’re not, its Wrong. And Dick’s like….umm yeah, I know, I literally JUST said that, how hard did I hit you? And Slade’s like NO SHHH, DONT TRY AND ARGUE, GO, YOU GO NOW, GO ON, LIVE YOUR LIFE, YOU DONT BELONG HERE IN THE DARK WITH ME, YOU’RE ONE OF THE GOOD ONES, GO BACK TO YOUR OWN KIND.

And Dick’s like no seriously dude, I already called my dad to come pick me up, what are you even on right now, are we having the same conversation?

Slade, sobbing paternally: I HAVE TO LET YOU GO, ALL I EVER DO IS HURT MY KIDS, I’M A TERRIBLE FATHER, ITS NO WONDER JOEY HATES ME.

And then Dick awkwardly slips out while Slade’s mid monologue, with his head thrown back yelling up at the sky and shaking his fists like WHY GOD WHY IS THIS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN WHY - because the thing about Slade is he’s actually even MORE of a drama queen than Dick, he just hides it better. Most of the time. But seriously tho.

Anyway yeah, this is like…a pattern with them basically. And Slade’s like, you’ve inspired me, I see in you the man I could’ve become, maybe even that I can still be, and he like doubles down on his personal honor code and becomes a Mercenary With A Heart for a couple years and even helps out the Titans every now and then (basically just whenever Dick’s in trouble and he goes on a killing spree, like NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO MURDER MY KIDS BUT ME - also by this point in time, Joey had died because Slade literally killed him, I forget why, it was a dumb story, but its okay Joey came back, its not like his name is Uncle Ben. But yeah, killing his kids is kinda a thing with Slade too, and he’s very proprietary about it).

And then he falls off the wagon and is like fuck, I forgot how much I like murder, ugh, you should have never tried to make me change, THIS IS WHO I AM, and Dick’s just like….I literally do not know where you’re getting these conversations from, like am I there when you think we’re having them, am I just blacking out…do I need to see a doctor??? And Slade’s like YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU EVER MET ME, GRAYSON, FROM NOW ON I AM THE TITANS’ MORTAL ENEMY and runs off all dramatically while Dick’s like…..wut, and all the other Titans are like srsly, dude, what is WITH you too, and Dick’s all I DON’T EVEN KNOW, HE’S JUST LIKE THAT.

In all seriousness though, ultimately my take on their dynamic is that for Slade, Dick’s a combination of seeing himself and Grant in Bruce and Dick’s dynamic, and its like….all about his regret and missed opportunities. Like, he tends to be super judgey of Bruce and critical of how he trains (and raises Dick) and passive aggressively like *I* would never do that and Dick just kinda lifts an eyebrow and is all, you’ve literally killed two of your three kids. 

But like, Slade kinda views himself as the anti-Batman and thus Dick is inadvertently cast as Grant, but its like Slade can never decide if he thinks Bruce is actually holding Dick back from his full potential and he wants to push Dick the way he thinks Bruce refuses to, or if like, he blames Bruce for getting Dick involved in this life, the same life that got Grant killed, and wants to protect Dick from Bruce and from the same thing happening to him. So its this weird mix of Slade manipulating Dick sometimes and pushing him way further than even Bruce ever does and saying its for his own good, but also randomly mixed in there are these bouts of extreme protectiveness, and there’s like zero rhyme or reason to which he is on any given day and there’s never any way to predict where Slade will land and so it always fucks with Dick’s head in a big way, he’s like…I’m getting whiplash.

And then on Dick’s end, like, the thing about Dick like I’ve mentioned before is he’s a huge people pleaser? Like he’s a very empathetic caretaker type personality who sinks a huge amount of his identity into being everything for everyone, to the extent that he tends to lose sight of himself in the process, sometimes. And he’s also a perfectionist who was raised with the most demanding father of all demanding fathers ever, and has a lot of abandonment issues and insecurities that Bruce’s mutant power is to trip over and set off in the worst possible ways.

And so I think the reason Dick keeps seeking Slade out every now and then is not because he ACTUALLY wants to ever take Slade up on his offer and genuinely become his apprentice or partner and like, turn his back on how he was raised. I think the point of it for Dick is the fact that each and every time he ends up affirming for himself no, wait, this ISN’T actually what I want, I just needed to be reminded of that, to remember that. That he always pulls himself back before going too far. And at the same time, I do think on some level he likes that Slade is this kinda constant in his life, that at the end of the day Slade is like…so fixated on his potential and his achievements and his worth as a fighter and a hero, because like….Dick Grayson is a person who craves validation but will never ask for it ever. 

And he’s one of those people who everyone is just so USED to liking without even thinking about it that it never occurs to them when talking amongst themselves about how great he is, that they forget to say this to his actual face? And so he never hears it? And never asks for it, because gasp, then people might think he’s needy, and that would be bad, so he mostly just goes and sulks in his apartment about how nobody likes him and he’s terribad. Except for Slade. Slade always compliments him on what a good fighter and what a good planner and what a good leader he is, so hmm wonder what he’s doing. He hasn’t committed any crimes in six months and I can’t find any reason to track him down and bring him in? Ugh, that asshole. Okay, ummm, I guess I could tell him I’m thinking of turning evil again, I haven’t done that in a couple years, he’d probably buy it.

And then later Bruce is pacing around the Batcave wrathfully shaking his fist, like “Damn that man and his sick hold over my son, if only I knew how he keeps getting his hooks into you!”

And Dick basically shrugs and plays games on his phone. “He mostly just tells me I’m special, and that’s nice to hear.”

Bruce, still pacing and ranting and fist shaking: “What kind of evil genius is he, how master a manipulator he must be to be able to get inside your head and upend your normal views of right and wrong, to make you entertain these ideas of working with him, learning from him…”

Dick: No its seriously just the saying nice things about me bit. I like that.

Bruce: If only I had a code word or phrase I could use to snap you out of whatever brainwashing he seems to be able to affect you with any time you come near him, perhaps some kind of alien tech….

Dick: You could try “I’m proud of you, son.” I mean if you’re taking suggestions.

Bruce: There’s also the possibility of a magical component to consider, blast, I hate working with magic so of course he WOULD do something like that, ugh I suppose I could ask Zatanna or Jason Blood for help there…

Dick: Cool cool, well this has been a fun and productive chat as always, so you keep doing…all that…and meanwhile I’m gonna go ponder my fixation on father figures who are 100% more committed to obsessing over their failures as a parent than like…actual parenting of their actual kids.

Bruce, ten minutes later: Dick? Where are you? DID SLADE GET TO YOU AGAIN? RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE? CURSE THAT MAN AND HIS UNNATURAL SKILLS, HOW DOES HE DO IT??!?

Anyway, that’s Slade and Dick. There’s also the whole Renegade thing, when Dick asked for Slade’s help in infiltrating the Society of Super Villains in his fake villain identity as Renegade, with you know, lots of Slade trying to corrupt him and also trying to murder any supervillains who looked as his not!son the wrong way. 

And then there was the time Slade brought his daughter Rose to Dick to train and said he couldn’t teach her himself because his track record with training his kids and them not ending up dead is like, not good, and he’s superstitious or something? Idk, I forget his logic, it was probably bad though.

And Slade was like, I only trust you to be a competent teacher for my daughter, I want you to teach her everything you know! Except for like, being a hero. None of that nonsense. I FORBID you from trying to make my daughter into a hero or the deal is off. (The deal being that if Dick did this, Slade would not do crime in Dick’s city for a year).

And Dick was like, you got a deal. I will train Rose but there will be NO trying to make her a hero, I swear. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And Slade was like okay, fine, you got a deal, I will absolutely still do crime and be villainous but only in every place except for Bludhaven specifically. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And then Dick tried to make Rose a hero and then Slade blew up Bludhaven and that was definitely a thing, so…yeah.

In summation, Slade and Dick are weird but also very interesting but also if we get another rehash of the Renegade/apprentice arc aka the Teen Titans cartoon adaptation of that story aka the single most popular Dick Grayson fic trope of all time, like….I swear I will probably get a brain bleed.

[depressiveoptimist]

BNHA Fanfic: I can’t do this anymore - Chapter 1

Hi guys

I tried to put this onto AO3 until i realised i don't have an account and can't be invited to join until the 7th December (boo!) But i wanted to share my first fanfic in the Boku No Hero Academia `fandom, and well- i decided i could finally share some of my writing.. (i’m shy with my writing)

This is quite a TRIGGERY FANFIC, so i’m putting an explicit warning on this just in case!

Category: Explicit Trigger warnings for: Suicide Mention, Graphic Depictions of Suicide, Depiction of Depression, Depression and Deliberate self harm!

Words: 2,189 

                                         Chapter 1: The End for Me:

Midoriya has finally got to breaking point, the nightmares and his past have slowly spurred him down the wrong path mentally. He tries to take his own life.

It was nighttime when it happened, when a doting mother found her child in the tub fully clothed.
 It was nighttime when she noticed the water was red.
 It was at nighttime her son decided to try and take his own life.

Midoriya Izuku was never one of the luckiest people in the world, on the contrary he was quite unlucky with the hand life had dealt him in the world he was born into.
 A world where 80% of the population possess an ability, a quirk if you will.
It could be anything from the ability to use fire, or to just not need sleep at all- even brainwash those around you.
 Midoriya Izuku idolised the handful of those 80% who pursued a career into heroics and was absolutely obsessed, he even analysed every hero he saw throughout his life- countermeasures and interesting points.
It was a hobby, he said.

There was one hero Midoriya wanted to be like the most, All Might.
 A man with such a vague power that the news labelled as a boost of power, or super strength who in his debut saved more people than was thought physically possible.
 The physically impossible became possible with All Might’s influence, he was a symbol of peace- he was Midoriya’s idol. Midoriya was four years old when he was told he had no chance, he had no quirk. He was “quirkless” or known as the 20% of the population that had the unfortunately of not being granted a quirk at all.

He grew up in a neighbourhood alongside other children who got their quirks at this age, especially his friend Katsuki Bakugou.
 Bakugou or Kacchan as Midoriya called him gained an explosion quirk that their kindergarten teachers assured the blonde would be very useful towards pursuing a hero career when he was older.
Before this happened, him and Katsuki were okay friends- Katsuki would tease him for not being good at stuff, but it was never malicious in any way it was more that his friend was teasing in a way to make himself look better. Not that Midoriya had a problem with it, he looked up to his friend and the way his leadership and confidence shined at such a young age and gathered the neighbourhood kids together in a way only Midoriya could hope of doing himself.
 They talked constantly about not being able to wait until they got their quirks, Katsuki boasting he would get an awesome quirk which followed with small little Midoriya Izuku voicing his hope about getting one just as cool as his friends.
The little ones thought times ahead, being heroes together. But quirks changed that.

Katsuki slowly stopped being friendly, one he got his quirk and became malicious so much as to point out that the character’s in Midoriya’s first name also spelt “Deku” or well “useless” which stung when he pointed it out.
Still, the smaller younger version of himself stuck around the blonde - was it fear of being lonely in the neighbourhood or was the tiny child a glutton for punishment? did he think he deserved it because of his unfortunately to not be given a quirk? The years continued and slowly the teasing went from malicious jabs to Katsuki Bakugou using his quirk against the quirkiness child which meant day in day out the small child sported bruising and grazes from these events.
He would also laugh it off with his mother and say he was always just “messing about” with the kids from his school and that this is just “what boys do” to which his mother would shake her head and scold him for his recklessness. He started keeping a first aid kit hidden in his room, so for the days his mother was working he would come back home and patch himself up before she got there and saw the higher scale of these wounds.

Middle school came and went, or well to Midoriya it felt like an eternity of torment where Katsuki Bakugou had influenced the whole class and well, their homeroom teacher wasnt exactly the nicest when it came to acceptance of “quirkless students” Midoriya got used to being a fast runner after school ended, hoping to get home without a solid scrape on himself and some days he was lucky.
Sometimes he wasn’t.

It was when his application to Yuuei was voiced by the teacher, the aggression that seeped off Katsuki Bakugou like heat off an oven- it had a similar overbearing urge to close your eyes to the incoming onslaught.
The threats and taunts clung to the young teen like shackles as he walked home that day, it made his feet heavy and well. 
Luck just wasn't on his side was it? 
He was ambushed by a slime villain that day, the same day he was saved by All Might. 
 The same day the man he admired changed before his very eyes to an emicicatd person who Midoriya didn’t even realise at the time was the same person!

After that fateful meeting he had head home with his head low only to notice that the same slime villain had escaped, and it had his childhood friend! Katsuki Bakugou was trapped in the villain’s grasp.
 He had moved without thinking even though without a quirk to hope to fight this villain to save his childhood friend.
 All might had reappeared, and when it was over in a flash he was ambushed by said hero.
He was told he could be granted a quirk.

The next months had zoomed since then, the training his body had to undergo to accept the quirk, his application to Yuuei Academy and the entrance exam came and went where he used the quirk for the first time. 
 And broke his arm. See the quirk All might had given him was called One for All- a sacred torch type quirk passed down from bearer to bearer, but Midoriya couldn’t control it. 
It happened time and time again when he was accepted into the Academy, he would damage his body every time.
Even more during the sports festival when the damage on his arm was excruciating painful and affected him for a long time afterwards. They had been moved into dormitories on campus following an attack on the class during a camping trip.

It all led up to this day, Midoryia had been suffering the past weeks trying to maintain his happy go lucky attitude, between putting his body through hell at hero classes, and not sleeping at night due to the nightmares of all he had been through seeped into his brain over the months he had experienced them.
 Would he ever be as good as All Might?
 Why.. did everyone help him when he was really just some loser who got lucky time and time again since he joined the academy? It hurt so much.
His mind couldn’t get over not having to jump or twitch whenever someone else he shared a class with walked into the same room.
He was having trouble concentrating and his grades were slipping.
 Did he really deserve to be here? Maybe Bakugou was right, maybe he was useless. A useless waste of space that people were entertaining, he slowly started to withdraw from his friends and became a lot quieter- not that anyone worried too much, maybe he was just focusing on something! he had a tendency to mutter and study on something in his interesting.


Days started to blur together for him, the play of being a happy person became to much, too tiring for him with the fact he was getting absolutely NO SLEEP. Although, one day he looked at the page of his hero analysis book one day and it slowly dawned on him… 
This didn’t make him happy anymore, why.. was he doing this?
Why did he bother writing these notes anyway.
That was the day he locked them away and the whole class noticed he stopped his muttering and analysis of peoples fighting and quirk use in classes.
It was creepy when he did, again. no-one minded.

It slowly creeped into him, like a darkness burrowing into his heart from that day, why was he even trying and putting himself through so much physical and mental anguish if nothing was making him happy anymore? If nothing could make him happy, would he ever be happy again- was he so useless that now his emotions were leaving him this empty casket of a person, did his emotions just shut up shop and move out?
 He wouldn't blame his emotions if they did, he wished he could just leave his mind for one second. People started to get concerned for him though, when he couldn’t put on his happy mask he would just sigh and say he was tired from the classes and he was going to go for a nap in his dormitory. It was starting to become hard, how easy it was to distance himself from people because would anyone really care? If they did why didn’t they follow him when he started acting different?
Why weren’t people more concerned? If no-one around him cared, would anyone? If he just…disappeared into thin air?

It was a day when he got back to the dormitory and the whole class was sat around their big television.
 A head whipped around towards his direction


“Hey! Midoriya-kun come watch the movie with us!” Kirishima grinned

“Oh, i.. uh, cant today Kirishima-kun!” He waved his arms fluidly looking to the side



“How come?”



“Oh, I’m visiting home tonight! my..mum hasn’t seen me in a while!”

“Huh? I see then, Family is important so take care on your travel there!” The Redhead grinned


“Tell Midoriya-san i said Hi!” Uraraku piped up happily waving to Midoriya “Ah! Wil do Uraraka-chan!” Midoriya beamed her his best fake smile before he darted up to his dormitory.

The moment the door closed, the weight on his shoulder felt like it dropped.
He had been planning all day, today. 
Today was his last day on earth.
 He loved his mother, he wanted his last day to be with her He also knew he’d be interrupted fast if he tried anything in the dormitories, and well..He wasn't planning to see tomorrow anyway.

He wrote a letter, his eyes burnt as he wrote it and by the time he was done there were small dents in the paper where water had impacted the paper.
Damnit he had cried. 
He didn’t know he could still do that.

After quietly packing his whole room into boxes like he had unpacked them out of months earlier, he left with his yellow backpack in tow. After a quiet journey to his childhood home, he prayed no-one had checked on his room yet since he had left quite quietly as to not disturb the movie.
 When he arrived home his mother greeted him with a hug, and for a split second he wondered.
 Should i do this?
 But the soul crushing weight of the past months reassured him this was the correct choice. He waited and endured his mother’s socialising until she went to bed, taking a notepad from the coffee table he wrote the same letter as he did earlier in the dormitories. He then went quietly into his mothers room with the letter he had folded up and put it by her bedside.

“I’m so sorry Mum..” he whispered as he kissed her forehead.

The slow trickle of water soothed him as he rummaged through his backpack to find what he was after.
It was a pack of blades he had found a couple days ago at the supermarket to put in face razors that men had.
He bought one of those to dismiss any concerns from the shop assistant, but the razor stayed in the bag. This was it.

When the water was at an acceptable level he got in, huffing out a breath at the slight tinge of cold it had.
Not that it mattered, he wasn't here to wash himself.
He opened the pack quietly, before one of the sharp razor blades landed in his grip and stood out against the skin of his hand. 
Shining silver against pale skin. 
It was kind of beautiful in a weird way to his eyes. He breathed out shakily, his hands were shaking aswell as his breath.
 He couldn’t turn back. 
It had to end.

He used the strong upper arm muscle he had to force the blade deep into his skin, rivers of scarlet already appearing beneath the silver glint of the razor, he dug until it felt deep enough, and he forced the blade up his arm vertically almost instantly, gasping out involuntarily from the pain. 
It was no arm break but, it was... Painful. He gained his breath back shortly after, and dig the same to the other arm, dropping the razor on instinct before diving his deeply cut arms into the cold water, he hissed in pain before leaning his head and breathing a sigh of relief.

“It’s over…”

Everything went black.