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marvelouslymarly · 24 days ago

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After Midnight (Bob Reynolds x female superhero!reader)

Pairing: Bob Reynolds/Robert Reynolds/the Sentry/the Void x female superhero!reader

Part two out now!!! Read here

Summary: You're out with the team when some dude starts acting like an ass. Bob helps you get away and takes you home to show you how a lady should be treated...

Rated E for explicit - Minors do not interact!!

CW: physical violence (bar brawl); the void showing up for a second there; some hints at sexual harrassment/assault (no on page rape!); Bob dancing with reader; fluff; half of this is smut (first time reader and Bob sleep together; oral/female and male receiving; fingering, p in v sex (protected); multiple orgasms) [i think i need a pastor]; minor thunderbolts* spoiler warning bc this is set after the film

Word count: 10.6k words (and I thought the last one was a long one, LOL)

Masterlist

[A/N #1: Got the idea for this on the drive home from my parents' place while listening to After Midnight by Chappel Roan, so here you go]

[A/N #2: thank you to @scuttle-buttle for cheering me on and reading through this!!! Dedicating this to you, babes🫰🏻]

The music was blasting over the speakers, and you could feel the beat in every cell of your body. The team had decided to go out that night, needing a break from training and recon-missions and the same old day-in-and-day-out of the last few weeks. While the guys had stayed back at the bar, Ava and Yelena had pulled you into the center of the dance floor, telling you to put yourself out there and have some fun for once. You knew that they were right. It had been a while since you forgot about work and everything that came with first being one of Val's shadow ops and then becoming part of what Val intended to become the new Avengers.

Even after a few months, the title still didn't feel right. It was just too loaded with expectations, with ideas and opinions about who you should be, what you should or shouldn't do. You guys weren't shiny and new. You were rough around the edges, with problems and your own past full of mistakes and regrets. You all had things you'd like to forget or wished to have gone up in flames with every little detail Val put in that vault.

Being called the "new Avengers" felt like stepping into footsteps not only way too big to fill, but also just the wrong shape to begin with. It was like trying to match the tracks of bears with those of lions. You were a different species of heroes - and even calling yourself heroes felt wrong somehow. You were too familiar with being the bad guys, with having your stories twisted, being used for whatever wrong someone wanted done without getting their own hands dirty. But now, you were supposed to be the ones stopping the bad guys, to fight the guys you were made out to be before.

So, this night out felt like the right call for multiple reasons. It was good for forgetting about work, but also for getting to know each other outside of work settings. You'd lived with them for months and knew everything about who preferred what guns, who would do what whenever you were out on missions but whenever you came home, you'd retreat into your own spaces, resting and trying to figure out where you all fit into whatever Val had in mind when she called the press on you and announced her new team of superheroes come to save the world.

~~~

Earlier that evening, while putting on that one dress in the back of your wardrobe, you could hear your mother's voice in the back of your head, telling you not to dress this provocatively. To be a good girl and cover yourself before the Lord's eyes. You felt the anger you'd repressed for so long bubble back up inside of you. Images of the time before you ran away from home came rushing back in.

The front lawns of the neighbourhood peppered with signs with psalms and verses written on them. Crosses in every room of the house you’d grown up in. The metal rods and mosquito nets outside the windows to “keep evil out” but, in all honesty, they were there to keep you from climbing out the windows in the middle of the night. Memories of everything your parents tried to make you believe about the virtues of life and how to be a pious girl and a good servant of the Lord.

You could feel the bile rise, thinking back to the person they had tried to turn you into.Their attempts to marry you off to some boy from the community. Michael Dawson. A good boy, named after the archangel. A god-fearing boy just barely old enough to drive a car. In the year before your parents had told you about their plans, you had barely exchanged two sentences with him. But still, it was blatantly obvious to everyone who looked at him and at the way he looked at Paul for even a second, that this probably wouldn’t have been the happy and sacred marriage your parents had envisioned for you.

When the blip first happened, it felt like you were set free from everything you hated so much. With your family gone, there was nothing holding you back from leaving the community while the rest turned to prayers and service. Just having turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, you’d grabbed the keys to your father’s truck and never looked back.

You caught a look of yourself in the mirror and thought about how far you'd come in the last 8 years. How much distance you'd put between your old life and this new one - regardless of how lost you still felt sometimes. You thought about how you moved to the big city and took up self-defense classes after a close call on your way home from work one night. How powerful you felt once you’d realised you loved to fight and get stronger both physically and mentally. That now, there was very little that you couldn’t get through because you didn’t have to rely on prayers anymore.

You pulled the dress down in the front, revealing more cleavage, and adjusted how your breasts sat in the built-in cups. The thought of your mother’s jaw falling to the floor at the sight of you in this get up, her hands doing quick work to bless herself, sent a smirk to your lips. You smoothed out the dress, letting your hands dance over the sides of your body while you admired yourself. The tightness of the dress, hugging you in just the right places, the skirt just long enough to cover the ass that you trained so hard for. Reapplying the dark red lipstick, you smacked your lips in a playful manner and ran your hand through your locks before leaving your room and joining the others in the common area of your shared apartment.

You could still hear the whistles Walker had sent your way, adding an approving 'looking good, [y/l/n]' after standing up straighter and looking you up and down. You rolled your eyes at him while you put your purse over your shoulder, and then adjusted the leather jacket thrown over your am.

"You clean up nice, too, I guess," you retorted and looked around the group.

Ava and Yelena had put themselves into their best party outfits as well, wearing a knowing smirk while putting up both thumbs, respectively. When your eyes landed on Bob, you could see a faint pink tint to his cheeks, and he quickly averted your gaze, nodding vigorously.

"Yeah, you look really nice... Really... nice, yeah!" He cleared his throat, the blush deepening a few shades. His jaw clenched and you smiled to yourself, having secretly hoped he'd like the way you'd dressed up.

When you'd first met him in the vault those few months ago, in the scrubs that seemed three sizes too big for him, he looked like a helpless puppy, his blue eyes so big and excited at what he'd stumbled into - literally. But then, when you saw what he was capable of, both as the Sentry and the Void and your interest in him grew. He was no longer just the sad, helpless puppy but something more intriguing. Someone with layers that you wanted to uncover one at a time.

After first moving to New York and into the Watchtower with the others, there weren't many chances for you two to interact, to get to know each other better. But when it became more and more obvious that he wasn't ready to be sent out into missions with the rest of the team just yet, you came up with the idea of rotating who would stay at home with him. The rest of the team welcomed the idea of it and so, whenever someone wasn't needed for the mission, they'd try and help Bob figure out how to channel his inner Sentry without also summoning the Void with it. Or they'd bake cakes or make dinner for when the others came back.

You'd stayed back with him two times at that point but every time you asked if he wanted to join you for a gym session or for a swim in the new pool, he'd come up with excuses. Saying he'd sprained his ankle the last time he was working out with Bucky or that he'd just done his daily laps in the morning and was looking forward to reading that one book he didn't have the chance to get to yet. The first time around, you figured he was just a little anti-social and needed some more time to get comfortable but then you heard about how Yelena had gotten him to punch the punching bag so forcefully that it came off the hinges and flew to the other side of the gym and how even Walker could convince him to try some new technique to compartmentalise.

When he declined your invitation to watch a movie the second time you stayed behind, you grew weary, scared that you'd done something wrong or that he just simply didn't like you at all. That the interest you had in him wasn’t reciprocated. But, seeing him blush at the sight of you all dolled up set the tiny bit of hope you still had ablaze once more. On the way to the bar, you caught yourself disengaging from the conversation, coming up with ideas or ways to get him on his own, hoping that he’d be more forthcoming once he had a drink or two in him.

~~~

The feeling of arms slipping around your waist brought you back to the bar and to the song you were mindlessly singing along to. Hands were moving down to your waist, holding onto you as you swayed your hips from side to side. Your eyes travelled down your figure, thinking that maybe it was one of the guys playing a trick on you but then you didn't recognise the tattoos winding up the left forearm and into the rolled up sleeves. Your head turned to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of you had come up behind you but you couldn’t quite make out who it was, an uneasy feeling settling in your stomach.

Looking around for the girls, you saw that Ava and Yelena had gone back over to the bar, probably to get you guys some drinks. Also sitting at the bar, you made out Walker, Bob and Bucky - the latter engaged in a conversation with some girl desperately trying to get his number from the way she pushed her phone into his direction, a bright smile on her lips, despite the restrained expression on his face and him shaking his head repeatedly, pushing her phone back every time it made contact with his chest.

Wildly gesticulating with every fiber of his being, Walker was talking to Bob, who was staring into the glass in front of him. You weren’t sure if he was just lost in thought or if he had one too many was getting overwhelmed by the loud music and people pushing past him in the crowded bar, his face inattentive to what Walker was talking about and his shoulders slumped. His gaze wandered over to you, as if he’d felt your eyes on him, and then to the guy behind you, his jaw clenching tightly. Just as quickly as his eyes had met yours, they were back on the remnants of whatever drink he had been musing before, his knuckles turning white in the dim light.

The arms around your hip pulled you back, bringing your attention back to the dancefloor, and you felt a very clammy shirt press into your shoulders before the smell of cheap alcohol mixed with even cheaper breath mints filled your nostrils. Your whole body tensed, when the guy’s right hand travelled back up your side and stopped just under your breast for a second, before moving to the front and up to your neck.

"Hey, Mama, you alone here," the voice slurred questioning, hot breath hitting your ear and neck, and sending goosebumps down your body. His hand was slowly wrapping around your neck and made you turn your head again. Out the corner of your eye, you could clock the name tag on his shirt, making out ‘Sam’ written in cursive stitches.

Feeling your throat close up from the stinging aroma of the cheap liquor he must've bathed in, you tried to push Sam’s arms off of your body, scratching at his skin. But his grip didn’t budge one bit, only growing tighter, his nails digging in through the fabric of your dress and into your neck.

Your desperate pleas for him to let go of you seemed to be useless, lost to the loud music coming from the speakers in every corner of the dance floor. But you couldn't get anything out above a feeble whisper, tears brimming in your eyes while snippets of the last time you went to a bar raced through your brain.

"Why are you so tense? Let's have some fun, baby," Sam pushed and started to grind into you from behind, his dick getting harder with every move, pressing into your behind.

Again, you looked around for the rest of the team, hoping someone would notice your struggle and come over to help. But Ava and Yelena were nowhere to be seen, and Walker must’ve gone out to get some fresh air with Bucky because they weren’t where you had last seen them either. The only team member you could still make out was Bob, sitting at the bar with his back turned to you, waving down the bartender for another drink.

Realising you were on your own in this one, you tried to turn around, to get some leverage on him and were just able to turn your face away when he leant down and tried to press a kiss to your lips.

“I told you to leave me be,” you repeated forcefully, your flat hand landing on his cheek in a satisfying slap.

An urgent cry left your mouth, then, and the force behind your shove grew stronger, pushing Sam away from you and making him lose his balance. He stumbled back a step or two before he caught himself again, glaring at you.

He pushed up his sleeves again and started to come at you, an evil sneer on his face.

"What's your fucking problem, bitch,” he spat and looked you up and down, stepping closer slowly.

“You dress like that, and then you turn into a prude when -"

He was cut off short when a fist met his jaw and threw him into the people surrounding you, a tooth and a spray of blood flying from his mouth. You looked at who had landed that blow, still unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.

To your right, there stood Bob, his mouth hanging open a bit and his eyes glowing a dangerous golden colour. You hadn't noticed him getting up from the bar and coming over, but you were deeply grateful for him doing so, scared of what would've happened if he hadn't stepped in.

When he realised what he'd done, he shook his head slightly, the blue returning to his eyes once more, and he got ready to fight. With his fists raised in front of his face, he waited for the other guy to get back up again.

“What do you want, you limp noodle of a man, huh? You just got lucky with that one, fella.” The other guy pointed at Bob before spitting blood onto the light-up dance floor and cracking his neck, walking up to Bob. When he was still a few steps from him, Bob threw another punch, this time with even more force behind it and knocking Sam right out. There was a dark air around him, blackness enveloping his fist and travelling up his arm right before your eyes.

“She told you to leave her alone, asshat,” the Void growled, his voice several shades darker than that of Bob.

Looking at the limp figure before him for a split second, the Void went back in, throwing punch after punch, the black hand glistening from what must have been even more blood. Scared of what he’d do to Sam, you tried pulling Bob off of him, whispering into his ear that it was enough and for him to come back to you.

“Bob, please. He’s down already”, you begged and finally got enough strength to drag him away. Cupping his face, you tried to get Bob to focus on you and the black started to recede from his arms, his bloody hand cradling your face in return. It took a moment for the blue to return to his eyes again, for his jaw to unclench and the deep frown to relax a little.

"Are you ok, [y/n]?” Bob’s voice had gotten softer, his eyes searching yours for any sign of lasting harm.

"Yeah, I think I just need some fresh air," you murmured and held onto his shirt, your legs feeling like jell-o all of a sudden.

Bob wrapped a protective arm around your back when he felt you dip against his stature and pulled you closer, his eyes going to somewhere behind you. He gulped loudly and you looked over your shoulder at what he’d seen.

"You two!" The security guard pointed at you and Bob, and then motioned for you to get out of there.

"Congrats, you just earned yourself a no-return ticket out of this bar," the guard added, and Bob started sputtering, trying to argue about how Sam had started it, how he was just trying to protect you and that Sam should be the one getting kicked out of the bar instead. Picking up the bloody mess that the Void had turned Sam into, the security guard started for the door, looking over his shoulder as if waiting for us to follow him.

"Oh, don't worry, he's going with you!" The guard pushed Bob towards the back exit, Bob's shoulders slumping a little before making his way out of the group of onlookers, pulling you with him by the hand. You intertwined your fingers with his, trying not to lose him while pushing through the mass.

"Our friends are still inside," you tried when you got outside, but the security guard wouldn't have any of it, telling you 'life sucks' and 'better luck next time' while propping Sam up against the wall of the back alley. Without another word, he made for the back entrance before the door fell shut on him, and then disappeared into the turmoil inside the bar.

Looking around the dark alleyway, Bob scoffed before turning towards you, an angry look on his face.

"What a dick!"

You just shrugged your shoulders and felt tears well up in your eyes again, the shock of the situation wearing down and the fear taking over once more. When you tugged at his hand, Bob looked down, realising he was holding your hand, fingers intertwined, and let go before scratching the back of his head.

"Sorry, I didn't realise..."

He wiped his hands on his shirt, the blood staining the white shirt he was wearing under the flannel, and apologised again. When the first tears started to roll down your cheeks, a sob left your mouth and pulled his gaze back to you. His eyes widened in shock and his jaw went slack again, his brows knitting together in a regretful frown.

"Oh, no... I didn't mean to... [y/n], please don't cry..." He came up to you and cupped your cheeks, looking into your eyes deeply before wrapping his arms around you tightly. "I'm sorry... I just get really clammy hands whenever I feel... overwhelmed… And well, the blood and all…"

The embrace was warm, his arms feeling like a protective blanket wrapping around you, shielding you from any more harm. You sidled up to him, relishing in the comfort the hug offered against the cold air of night-time New York in early December. You stayed wrapped in his arms for a second, silent tears rolling down your cheeks while you tried to gather yourself, listening to the faint sound of his heart beating rapidly.

When you heard the groggy groans of the figure behind you, you tensed again and looked up at Bob, his face breaking further when he saw your tear-stained cheeks.

"Can you please get me out of here," you begged, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, and he nodded quickly before letting one arm fall down from its place around your frame and cupping your cheek.

"Yeah, sure. Just tell me where to," he affirmed, wiping away the latest tears with the pad of his thumb. When he realised that you were shivering, he shimmied out of his flannel, wrapping it around your shoulders and mumbling ‘here, this should keep you warm’ under his breath.

"Just take me home, please." You pulled the soft fabric around you tighter, the warm scent of cedarwood and vanilla mixed with his own warm smell enveloping your senses.

He nodded again and turned towards the exit of the alleyway, his right arm wrapping around your shoulder again while he led you towards the main street.

~~~

You guys spent the first few minutes of your walk in silence, not sure how to make conversation after what had happened.

That was until you were stood at a red light and Bob turned towards you, his arm having fallen from around you a few blocks ago.

"I'm sorry, I got us kicked out of the bar," he apologised and put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, the uneasy look from earlier making its way back onto his face, knitting his eyebrows together and making him pull his bottom lip between his teeth.

"You really seemed to have a good time until that fucker turned up," Bob went on and you shrugged, the fun from earlier already a distant memory in the racing tornado of thoughts wreaking havoc in your mind.

"It was alright", your voice was low and you kicked at the burger wrapping left behind on the sidewalk, hoping you'd be able to boot the haunting images of past trauma away with it.

"Maybe it's stupid, but I kinda wanted to dance with you up there", Bob admitted, looking off towards the traffic light on the other side of the crossing.

His fingers were mindlessly fidgeting with the brand label at the hem of his shirt, a nervous habit you had observed so often when you were around him. When his gaze met yours, the small smile playing on his lips sent butterflies to your stomach, a warmth you hadn't felt in ages rushing up your arms and down your back.

"You looked really beautiful, you know. In the lights, lost to the music. Like you were somewhere else entirely and you didn't have a care in the world", he added, a chuckle at the end of his sentence, and his eyes sparkled, reflecting the cool light of the headlights lining the street.

"I would have liked that", you admitted, offering him a warm smile in return before turning your attention to the changing traffic light indicating you were allowed to cross the street.

“You wouldn’t have enjoyed that for long though,” he replied, chuckling to himself again, before looking over to where you were walking by his side. “I am a really terrible dancer. Like… I’ve totally got two left feet. Just the thought makes me feel sorry for your toes.”

He struck a pose and wiggled his butt to imaginary music when he reached the sidewalk, looking over his shoulder at you with his bottom lip between his teeth and trying his best to look seductive.

This had you laughing loudly then, holding onto his arm for support and putting your head against his shoulder, your eyes closing in appreciation.

“Thank you! I really needed that right now, Bob,” you got out between laughs and grinned up at him, the butterflies in your stomach making you feel like you were 14 all over again.

“Always at your service, m’lady.” He bowed and winked at you before continuing his way down the street, pulling you with him by the hand.

~~~

“Ok, so, I’m gonna hop in the shower real quick, but how about we put on some music after and have that dance party”, you suggested, walking through the elevator doors and looking over your shoulder at Bob, who had an easy smile on his face, his cheek a healthy shade of pink from all the laughing.

He put his arms out and grabbed a hold of the lapelles of the flannel you were still wearing, pulling you back closer to him before wrapping his arms around your frame in a tight hug. You snuggled up to him, ignoring the bloody streaks on his shirt and buried your head against his chest.

“What’s that for,” you asked, looking up at him from under your lashes and trying to keep yourself from blushing at the softness in his eyes.

“I just felt like hugging you, that’s all,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “You looked so cuddly in the dim light, wrapped up in my flannel.”

The words left his mouth quietly, barely above a whisper and when he realised he’d said it aloud, his eyes grew wide, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in a thick gulp. After trying to find the right words to reply to this and coming up empty, you pushed up on your tiptoes and put a quick kiss on his cheek. Scared you took it too far, you wriggled out of the embrace and turned to the general direction of your bedroom, leaving Bob standing near the elevator, his fingers repeatedly running over the spot that you had just kissed, his eyes glued to where you had just stood and his mouth opening and closing rapidly.

“Remember, dance party in the living room in ten minutes,” you yelled over your shoulder and vanished in your bedroom.

~~~

You connected your phone to the speakers in the living room, sneaking up to Bob sitting on the couch and wrapped your arms around his neck, a giant grin playing at your lips.

“Ready to dance, Bob,” you whispered in his ear cheekily, drawing out his name and letting your hands run down his chest while your towel dried hair fell around you.

He grabbed your wrists and pulled you over the back of the couch swiftly, making you land with your head in his lap, his hand quickly moving to your hip to keep you from rolling off the couch.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” he joked and pulled you up with him, his arm wrapped around you and letting his hand rest on the small of your back.

“Well, if you dance anything like what you showed me down on that street corner, I’m in for a hell of a time.” You pulled your phone from the pocket of the shorts you had gotten into after the shower and looked through your playlist for a good song to start with.

“Here, I think this will be a good one,” you mumbled, choosing ‘Me because of You’ by the Faim, and wiggled your eyebrows at him playfully, when the song started playing over the speakers.

“Ok, I think I can work with this,” he said, nodding his head and moving the coffee table off to the side to make more room for us to have fun. He stretched his arms and cracked his neck, starting with a simple step-touch and moving his shoulders to the beat of the song.

You studied him for a second, suddenly a little scared of what he might think of you if you just let loose and have fun. He motioned for you to come closer and you followed his request, stepping closer and trying to keep from laughing, when he faked licking his pointer and pinky and smoothing his eyebrows over.

“Come on, you can’t hold back now, [y/n],” he yelled over the music and pulled me closer right when the song said ‘dance with me, feel the beat, follow my lead’. He placed your hands on his shoulders and then put his hands on your waist again, starting to waltz with you for a whole two seconds before both of you burst out laughing.

“You wanted to dance with me. So, dance, love,” he added and moved his body to the beat again.

“I’m nervous,” you confessed, running your hands over the clean shirt he put on while you were in the shower, and looked at him, biting your lip restlessly.

“Close your eyes and just imagine I’m not here. You’re alone in your room where no one can see you. And then do what you do,” he tried, brushing a strand of towel dried hair out of your face.

“If it helps, I can close my eyes, too,” he offered and put his hands over his eyes, peeking through his fingers.

“Fine,” you grumbled and moved away from him a little, turning your back on him but then looking back over your shoulder to make sure he had his eyes covered.

When you saw that he really wasn’t peeking, you started to move and smiled to yourself, feeling the music take over your body and jumping up and down giddily. After a few seconds, you started to sing along and moved freely, turning around and shimmying your shoulders and nodding your head.

“Are you doing it? Are you dancing,” he asked, still covering his eyes but moving his hips to the beat.

You peeled his hands from his eyes and pulled him into the middle of the carpet, making him stumble over his own feet. He opened one eye, looking at your dancing figure, and you tried to hide the smirk playing at your lips. He joined in with dancing and pursed his lips, concentrating on his moves so as not to stumble over his own feet again.

When the chorus started to play for the last time, he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer again, and started swaying with you, his head on top of yours. He intertwined his fingers with yours and then moved away from you, extending his arms before stepping in again. He threw your arms over his shoulders and stepped past you before turning around quickly, to repeat this spiel another time, though instead of simply stepping past you, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders, swaying from side to side.

Bob sang along to the words, his voice in your ear as his head dipped down a little and then he spun you around and caught you in his arms again more masterfully than he had led on to believe before.

“Tonight, I’ve changed, yeah. I’m only me because of you.” He put his cheek against yours and hummed happily, picking you up and twirling you around.

When the song had ended, he held you in place, your forehead resting against his. His gaze was moving back and forth between your eyes and your lips, his breath having grown a little shallow. You could feel his hand travel up your side and then caress your cheek, his face coming closer until you could feel his shallow breath on your lips, the tips of your noses just millimeters away from each other.

Expecting him to close the last bit of distance, you closed your eyes and turned your head upwards a little, your heart beating rapidly inside your chest. The moments until he finally put his lips to yours felt like an eternity, millions of thoughts running through your brain, the anticipation of what it’d feel like to kiss him raising goosebumps across your body. When he finally closed the distance and kissed you, his lips were soft, moving against yours slowly at first and then you deepened the kiss, moving your hand to the back of his head. Your other hand ran up his chest, feeling his pecs flex under your touch.

When your teeth sank into his bottom lip, he let out a soft moan and you slipped your tongue into his mouth, exploring it carefully and moving your tongue in sync with his. His hand grabbed a fistful of your shirt and he moved you back over to the couch, letting you drop into his lap when the couch hit the back of his legs and he sat down.

You straddled him, your left arm wrapping around him to hold onto the backrest to keep you from falling into him, while your right hand ran through the hair at the back of his head, pulling on it softly, when one of his hands moved up the outside of your thigh to your hip.

He pulled away from you for a second, trying to catch his breath, his mouth hanging open a little while he searched your eyes for any sign of regret. When he couldn’t find any but instead realised that your mouth had split into a bright smile, he chuckled cheerfully and kissed you again hungrily.

With the kisses getting more and more heated, you started grinding into him, the aching need for feeling him closer growing in the pit of your stomach. When you rolled your hips a little extra hard, he groaned deeply and the grip of his hand on your hip grew stronger, a pleasant pain running up your spine and making you throw your head back.

His lips went to your neck, peppering hot, open-mouthed kisses on the soft skin and then he started sucking on the pulse point underneath your ear, biting and licking and driving you into overdrive. The fingers buried in his hair pulled on his locks and his growing bulge started to rub up against you just the right way when he bucked his hips in response.

“We… should probably…”, he started in between kisses and you nodded mindlessly, trying to get as much friction from grinding down into him harder.

“Fuck, [y/n], ok, wait…” He stopped you from moving your hips by wrapping his arm around you and pulling you impossibly close, and then made you look him in the eyes before going on: “I can’t do it like this… If I have you, I want all of you.”

You gulped at this, realising he wasn’t joking and felt your jaw go slack.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but I will not let this be how I have you for the first time.” His thumb caressed your cheek and he kissed you softly, his forehead falling to yours, probably fighting the urge to just have you right then and there.

“Then take me to your room, Bob,” you mumbled breathlessly when he pulled away again, nuzzling your face with his in a love-drunken state. You placed soft kisses all over his face, earning a little chuckle from him, when you moved down to his neck, his head falling back to give you more room to work with.

“[y/n], god, you drive me crazy,” he moaned and let his hands slip underneath your shirt, sending shivers down your spine from the tiny sparks his touch left on your skin. Letting out a ��mh-hm’ in response, you ran your thumb over his bottom lip and kissed him again, your tongue slipping into his mouth easily.

His hands went down your back and held onto your ass when he picked you up in one smooth motion, your legs wrapping around his hips to gain more stability. Your arms snaked around his neck and a chuckle escaped your mouth when he stumbled over the couch on his way out of the living room, holding you in space with one arm while he steadied himself.

“How about we stop kissing until we’re actually in your bedroom,” you joked and he nodded, telling you ‘that’s a good idea’ before making his way over to his bedroom, his steps quick and assertive.

“Wait, we still have to turn off the music,” you realised when you were halfway down the hallway and Bob stopped dead in his tracks, sighing heavily. He looked back over his shoulder and you could see the cogs work behind his eyes, trying to decide what to do.

“Ok, you go turn off the music and I’ll get everything ready?”

Setting you down on the floor, he pecked your lips and then slapped your ass, making you jump a little and hurry back to the living room. You made quick work of turning off the music and grabbing your phone, eager to get back to Bob and what you were doing, running back down the hallway to where his bedroom was. Sliding in through the door, you stopped when you saw that Bob was on the phone with someone, holding up a finger to you just as you wanted to ask what was wrong.

“Oh, no, y’all can stay out longer. No… No. [y/n] wasn’t feeling too hot, so I took her home.” He looked at the floor for a second, scratching his head while trying to understand Yelena over the thumping music on the other side of the line. “I think she’s sleeping already. No… I don’t think she’ll mind! Go have fun, you guys,” he added and then ended the call after telling Yelena goodbye.

“Is everything ok,” you enquired, walking up to him and putting your phone on his desk, the screen lighting up and showing you had a couple of missed calls from Yelena and Ava. He matched you and put his phone down next to yours, before turning back to you and searching your face for a second.

“Yeah, they were just worried where we went and because they couldn’t reach us earlier.”

He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer and brushing the hair from the slope of your neck, adding a ‘so, where were we’ before running his fingers over the soft skin under your chin.

“Are they coming back already?” You asked, your head falling back when Bob started to kiss your neck.

“No, there’s this party at another bar they wanna check out.” He bit your neck playfully and then nuzzled the side of your face, telling you that the two of you should be in the clear for the next few hours. He picked you up again and walked over to his bed, dropping you in the middle of the mattress before climbing onto the mattress and kneeling down between your legs.

“Next few hours? What do you have planned,” you asked cheekily, your hands working on taking off his shirt.

“I’m gonna take my time with you, love,” he replied, helping you to get him out of his shirt and kissing you passionately.

Your fingertips ran over his abs and up into his hair again and you pulled him down with you, moaning when his hips settled between yours like puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly.

“God, you sound so good when you moan,” he whined desperately, his hand caressing your cheek and then running through your hair. “You sound so much better than I could ever imagine.”

“You imagined how I’d sound?” Your voice was barely a whisper, too much anticipation and desire clouding your brain already. The building tension in your core was painful at this point and you could feel your arousal gathering between your legs.

“More often than I’d like to admit, yes.” His kisses were growing hungrier with every passing second, his hands running down your sides, pulling at the fabric of your shirt and digging into the bare skin of your legs. He wanted to feel your skin and memorise every inch of it, having wanted to touch you for months now.

“What did you picture,” you asked, flipping you over and straddling his hips again, pulling your shirt over your head and grinding your hips into his rhythmically. His eyes were wandering over your torso, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip before he sat up and wrapped his arms around you to work on undoing your bra. When he’d opened the clasp in the back, he slipped the straps down your shoulders, kissing the freckles that dusted your skin there.

“The way you’d sound… How you’d taste…” He pulled your face closer, his fingers on your chin, and placed his lips on yours again, this time slow and deep. His other hand came up to your right breast and cupped it, running his thumb over your nipple hardening from the relative cold in the room. “How you’d look taking me. The way your face breaks when I make you cum…”

He bucked his hips, his clothed erection pushing up into your clit and you gasped, running your fingernails over his abs, your head falling forwards to rest on his shoulder. You moved your hips with his, the layered fabric of your shorts and panties rubbing up against your core with every thrust of his hips. It had been a while since you last were intimate with someone, so you could already feel the knot in your lower stomach begin to tighten, your breath hitching when Bob’s tongue licked over your sensitive nipple before taking your breast into his mouth.

Your hand travelled further south and you lifted your hips, dipping your fingers into the waistband of his joggers, realising he wasn’t wearing any boxers underneath when you made contact with his hot skin. Trying to meet his eyes, you lifted your eyebrows in surprise and he shrugged, letting go of your breast with a popping sound.

“Hey, a guy can hope, right,” he tried to defend himself and smirked at you, when you pushed him down onto the mattress, while your other hand slipped into his joggers fully and wrapped around his hard length. He was bigger than you’d imagined, thicker too, and at the thought of having him inside of you, your pussy started to ache deliciously and eager.

You pumped your hand up his length slowly and his eyes rolled up into his head, his jaw hanging open slightly, a string of curses and whines leaving his mouth. Seeing him enjoy your touch this much, sent you into overdrive, and you moved off his legs, pulling down his joggers with you, before throwing them to the other corner of his room. His erection sprang free and you took in the sight before you, Bob leaning on his elbows, completely naked and looking sexier than you ever dreamt up.

Running your hands through your hair, you felt your cheeks heat up and hid your face in your hands, chuckling to yourself for a second.

“What? [y/n], what’s wrong? Did I do something wrong,” he asked, worry evident in his voice while he moved to sit up a little, his hands on your shoulders.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” you started and took a deep breath, letting your hands fall from your face and meeting his eyes. “It’s just been a while and I… Well, I didn’t think I’d ever end up in this situation,” you added, your eyes darting over the smile lines appearing around his eyes and the dimple in his right cheek. “I think, it just hit me that this is happening, you know?”

He nodded, understanding you perfectly well, his thumb caressing your cheek before he kissed you. His arms wrapped around your shoulders and he laid you down gently, settling between your legs. You deepened the kiss, running your left hand through his dark locks while your right hand travelled down his back and settled on his hips. You wrapped one of your legs around his hip and smiled into the kiss, enjoying the feeling of his skin on your own.

“Like I said, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And we can take our time, there’s no rush. Not tonight,” he murmured against your lips, his forehead resting on yours between soft kisses.

“I want you, Bob,” you whispered, searching his eyes, the blue of them having darkened by lust. “I want all of you.”

His face split into a bright grin and he let his head fall to the crook of your neck, hiding his own nervousness by peppering your skin with kisses again. His left hand moved down your side and to the leg wrapped around his hip as he angled his hip a little, his erection brushing up against your core again. You moaned softly and tried to meet him better, your leg snaking around him more tightly.

“If we’re really gonna do this, then we’re gonna do this right,” Bob said, his voice darker than before and sending shivers down your spine.

He pulled away from you, his fingertips moving to the waistband of your shorts and he pulled them down your legs, your panties coming off with them. Bob tossed them over to where his joggers had landed and spread your legs slowly, taking you in and biting on his bottom lip, his eyes sparkling in the dim light from his bedside lamp. He let his fingers dance over the inside of your legs, drawing loose shapes on your skin from your ankles up to your hips and then grabbed one of his pillows from above your head. You lifted your hips and he put the pillow under your ass, settling between your legs and looking at you intently from under his lashes.

“You sure you wanna do this? You can say no or stop me at any time,” he assured you and you nodded, biting down on the knuckle of your index finger in anticipation, butterflies making somersaults in your tummy. He lowered his head and blew on you, earning himself a low whimper from you, the air feeling cold against your wet pussy. He ran a finger up between your folds and chuckled, sending vibrations through your core from how close his mouth was to your center.

“God, you’re already so wet and I haven’t even done anything.”

His finger slipped into your vagina with ease and the squelching sound that was heard by him pulling it out again, made the blush on your cheeks deepen. He pushed his finger back in and then curled it, making you moan his name loudly as he brushed your g-spot. He repeated this a couple of times while his tongue ran along the outside of your folds, slowly making its way inwards. When he finally ran the tip of his tongue up your folds and flicked your clit, your hips bucked, another moan falling from your lips, having him hum in response.

“You taste so good, babe.” He lapped at you and then slowed down again, the tip of his tongue circling your clit and then flicking it with a masterful tab, sending sparks up your spine and making your toes curl. Your fingers buried into his locks again and you pulled on them, pulling him closer in an attempt to get even more friction.

“Mhm, do you like that,” he asked, meeting your gaze and smirking cheekily.

“Yeah, feels good, Bob,” you moaned, your head falling back down and your eyes rolling back when he removed his finger from your hole and circled your pussy with the tip of his tongue. Then, he added another finger up, running them through your folds and back down towards your vagina before thrusting them in, this time a little more forcefully.

You yelped in surprise and pulled on his hair, your legs going a little numb. He waited to move his fingers for a second, looking down at how his fingers had disappeared in you completely and then pulled them back out a bit, curling the same way he did before, brushing over your g-spot again. When he’d found a good rhythm that had you breathing heavily, the knot tightening in your stomach, he put his mouth on you again and pushed you over the edge, your toes curling while your legs tensed around his head. One of your hands left his head to move to the bedsheets, gripping it hard as pleasure rushed over your body like a tidal wave.

“Fuck, Bob, you feel so good.”

You were writhing under him, Bob relentlessly licking up your juices while you clawed at his shoulders and rode the highs of the orgasm coursing through your body. The wet noises of his fingers pumping in and out of you filled your ears and you felt another wave of the orgasm rain down on you when his teeth scraped over your sensitive nub before flicking it again with his tongue. You could feel your walls clamp down around his fingers and then heard him chuckle deeply, before his arm pushed down on your hips, keeping you in place.

He kept at it, fingering you and eating you out, only coming up from between your legs when you started to come down from the high, your breath still rushed and shallow. You ran your hand through your hair, and looked at him, moving up your body, his lips glistening from your arousal and his spit mixed together. He put his fingers into his mouth and sucked your juices off of them, closing his eyes in ecstasy and the corners of his mouth pulling up in a smile, after he pulled his fingers out again.

“God, that was so hot,” he breathed, putting his lips to yours and kissing you hungrily. You nodded, deepening the kiss by slipping your tongue into his mouth and tasting yourself on his tongue. Your hand ran down his torso and wrapped around his length again, your thumb wiping over his tip and feeling the sticky precum leaking out of him. With your brain still hazy from your recent orgasm, you pushed him down onto the mattress and started peppering kisses on his neck, moving down to his clavicle and his chest, the nails of your free hands scratching over his chest, while the other one pumped his length slowly.

When you were on the same level with his dick, you looked up at him and opened your mouth, taking him in as far as you could, your hand still wrapped around the part of him that didn’t fit into your mouth anymore. You started bobbing your head up and down his length and his fingers ran through your hair, his hand cupping the back of your head and aiding you in keeping an enjoyable rhythm, while whines and moans fell from his lips.

“Oh, fuck. You’re better than I ever imagined,” he whined, his hips bucking and his dick hit the back of your throat.

Your eyes travelled back up his figure and you opened your mouth a little further, trying to take more of him. Tears were brimming at the corners of your eyes and your own arousal started running down the inside of your leg, so you moved your free hand to your clit, rubbing yourself while sucking him off.

After a couple more bobs of your head, Bob groaned loudly, his hips tensing and his grip on your hair getting harder. His cum spilled onto your tongue and you swallowed it, humming in enjoyment, while continuing the motion of your hand pumping up and down his length. Feeling another orgasm approaching from your own fingers between your legs, you moaned, some residual cum of his running out the corner of your mouth and dripping on his length.

Biting down on your lips, you looked up at him, his mouth hanging open at the sight of you pleasuring yourself. He motioned for you to come closer, pushing your hand away from between your legs to take over while pulling you into his lap again. You rested your head against his shoulder, while his fingers were drawing circles around your clit, pushing you ever closer to the edge. You could feel that you were getting overstimulated already and whined, wanting to get the release you so desperately needed. Pulling his lips to yours and kissing him hungrily, you moved your hips a little to meet his touch, his fingers slipping into you once more while the pad of thumb brushed up against your clitoris.

“Bob, don’t stop. Please, I’m so close,” you whined, your face falling at the pressure building in your core.

“Come on, baby. Come for me,” he whispered into your ear and nibbled on your earlobe, thrusting his fingers into you deeper and curling them on their way out.

Feeling his tongue lick over your pulse point was enough to make you fall over the edge again, his fingers brushing your g-spot again and again, sparks flying between your bodies. Your nails dug into his back and you rode his fingers, moaning his name at the top of your lungs.

“God, I love it when you moan my name like that.”

He put you back down on the mattress, knowing you’d need the support of the bed beneath you, your legs having turned to jelly and shaking from all of the stimulation. Your chest was rising and falling quickly while you tried to catch your breath, absolutely exhausted from two big orgasms so close together.

“Do you need a little break,” he asked, laying down next to you and running his fingers up and down your sides. You turned your head toward his and the look on his face was so soft, caring and full of love, making your heart ache at being the object of his adoration. You nodded, still unable to form words, the last after waves of your orgasm having your ears ringing and your fingertips feeling numb.

Bob pulled you a little closer, wiping the beads of sweat from your forehead, and placed soft kisses all over your face, telling you how beautiful you were. How lucky he was to be here with you at that moment. How he never thought this would actually happen.

“You know, I thought you didn’t like me,” you told him, your voice still barely a whisper, your fingers starting to draw circles on his chest while his fingertips did the same on your shoulder blade. “That you didn’t want to spend time with me when the others were gone because you secretly hated me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone as much as I like you,” he said softly, his hand cupping your face and making you look at him, before going on: “I’m sorry that I made you feel like I hated you, but it is clearly the very opposite.”

He kissed you then, softly and with all the love he felt for you. Your lips melted against his and a warmth spread in your chest, creeping up the back of your neck and rolling over your legs and into your tiptoes. This kiss was different, it wasn’t hungry or desperate but still intense in its own way. Even after everything the two of you just did, you felt closer to Bob now, his arms wrapping around you tighter and flipping you on your back again, your legs intertwined lazily and his broad chest like a shield keeping you safe.

You stayed like that for a little while then, making out and exploring each other’s body slowly, your touch soft and meaningful, as if you wanted to memorise every inch of the other’s figure. You couldn’t say how long you were just lying there, enjoying each other’s presence and forgetting everything around you. It could’ve been five minutes or it could’ve been an hour but it didn’t matter to you because you were right where you wanted to be. Wrapped in his arms, having his lips on yours and feeling his delicate touch on your body.

His lips ran over your shoulders, dusting the freckles with love, while your lips grazed his collarbone, your fingers gripping his ass cheeks and earning you a high pitched giggle from him.

“Are you ticklish,” you enquired, a cheeky smirk on your lips and he shook his head vigorously, trying to push your hands off of him.

“No, of course I’m not ticklish. What makes you think that?” He rolled his eyes and tried to put a little distance between you two, his hands swatting at you trying to poke his sides.

“I don’t know. That very manly giggle that just slipped past your lips, maybe,” you teased and his jaw dropped, so threw yourself at him playfully, making him lose his balance and taking you down with him.

“I don’t know what you're talking about. What giggle?” He grinned up at you and cupped your cheek, pulling you down to him and kissing you again passionately.

With your leg thrown over his hip, you could feel him getting hard again and you moved your hips, straddling him once more. You purred softly at his length pressing up against your folds and instinctively grinded down on him, coating the underside of his dick in your arousal. Bob’s hand gripped your hip and he stopped you from moving for a second.

“Wait, I’ve got condoms in the drawer over there,” he murmured, motioning to his bedside table, and his voice broke when you rolled your hips into his again.

“I’m on the pill, so,” you started, kissing him quickly and then added: “I’m good either way.”

He looked at you and for a second, his brows knitted together in a frown. He let his thumb run over your bottom lip and you stopped moving, lifting your hips a little before leaning over to his bedside table.

“I just wanna make sure nothing unexpected happens, you know,” he started to explain and you looked over your shoulder, opening the drawer slowly.

“Bob, hey. It’s ok, really!” Your hand looked for the packet of condoms and took one out when you found it, before turning back to him. “I’m glad you wanna be safe, love.” You cupped his cheek and smiled at him, placing a quick kiss on his lips.

You opened the shiny packaging and took out the condom, turning it over in your fingers to have it the right way around. Pinching the tip of it, you looked at Bob and asked him if he was ready. When he nodded, inching closer to you, you grabbed his length and put the condom on, pushing the rubbery material down his length easily. His hand came up to caress your cheek and he kissed you softly, his fingers burying in the hair at the back of your head while you climbed onto him, straddling his hips again.

With your hand still wrapped around his length, you guided his dick along your folds and then lowered onto it, moaning at the burning sensation of his thickness stretching you slowly. Bob’s jaw dropped and he groaned at slipping into you, his teeth digging into your bottom lip. You stayed there for a second, trying to adjust to the feeling of him filling you up so well and held onto his shoulders before you lifted your hips again slowly. The delicious pain of his size slipping in and out of you made your brain go foggy and you sank down onto him with more ease this time. Picking up the pace, you threw your head back and rode Bob’s dick, his right hand on your breast, kneading the tissue while his tongue worked on the nipple of your other breast. His left hand was on your hip, guiding you as you took him.

“Mhm, you fill me up so well, Bob,” you mused and bounced on him, the pain having turned to pleasure a few thrusts ago. His mouth let go of your breast and he pulled your face down, kissing you hungrily and he bucked his hips into yours and slipping in deeper with the next thrust, bottoming out. You moaned into his mouth loudly and let a giggle fall over your lips as you noticed the familiar feeling of your orgasm nearing.

He stopped moving for a second and turned you around, so you were beneath him and then he grabbed your right leg and moved it from around his hips to have it over his shoulder instead, changing the angle at which he thrusted into you.

Bob groaned against your mouth as he bottomed out again, his balls slapping against your ass with the next thrust and you let out a moan of his name, your nails digging into his back.

“Ugh, you’re so tight, babe. Feel so good,” he slurred and went to town on you, thrusting in and pulling back out, his bed groaning under his movements.

“You gotta tell me if I’m too rough,” he whispered into your ear, enveloping you with his form and leaning on his elbow while his other hand held onto your leg.

“No, it’s good. So good, Bob,” you assured, relishing in the feeling of him filling you up to the brim and stretching you with every thrust. You knew that you were close again, the knot twisting and tightening and you reached between your bodies, your fingers working on your clit while his dick slipped in and out of you at an exquisite pace.

He looked down at where your bodies met and whined, his forehead falling to yours. The sound of skin hitting skin filled the room and you were glad that the rest of the team was still out, fearing just how much they would’ve been able to hear of what you two were doing.

“[y/n], fuck, you feel so good. I don’t know how much longer I can…” The movement of his hips got a little sloppy and you kissed him again, steadying him with a hand on his ass while you tried to meet his thrusts with your hip.

“It’s ok, babe. Come, Bob. I’m right behind you,” you purred into his ear and his hips stuttered, a low groan falling from his lips. You moved your hips, helping him ride out his orgasm and kissed his closed lids, when he suddenly thrusted into you harder again, pushing you closer and over the edge.

You fell with him, your third orgasm of the night sending lighting through your whole body. You clung to his body, biting into his shoulder and scratching your nails over his back, earning a wince from him at the pain that seemed to send him into a flurry. Your walls clenched around him as your orgasm progressed and he put his lips on your neck, riding out your shared orgasm, his breathing quick and shallow.

When he came down from his high, he sighed, an exhausted but gratified look on his face, and laid down next to you. You curled up to him, throwing your arm over his chest and putting your head on his chest, listening to the rapid beating of his heart and his quick breath.

“Did I hurt you?” The question came suddenly and you looked at him, confused at where the concern was coming from.

“Why are you asking?”

“This was my first time since the medical trial,” he started and turned onto his side, wrapping his arm around your hip.

“No, you didn’t hurt me, Bob. Quite the opposite, actually.” You caressed his cheek and kissed him softly, before adding: “I enjoyed it very much, if you couldn’t tell.”

A proud smile pushed up the corners of his mouth and he shook his head, chuckling lightheaded.

“God, you’re an incredible woman, [y/n].”

1K notes · View notes

theconstantsidekick · 1 month ago

Text

Thunderbolts* ft. Static (2) | b.b

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader, Tony Stark x Stark!Reader (siblings)

Genre: angsty as heck

Summary: So Bucky's wife, Y/n is intent on overhearing every single conversation he has during this stupid gala... Naturally that leads to less than ideal conversation between the married couple.

(These scenes incorporate y/n, codenamed—Static, into the pre-existing story as a character without making drastic changes to the plot or mythos. All the major plot points from the MCU remain in place with the addition of the reader as Static, who is not only a Stark but also enhanced. Whatever events from the canon aren’t mentioned, take place without much change.)

Warnings: MINOR SPOILERS FOR THUNDERBOLTS* (nothing you haven't seen in the trailers), Cursing

a/n: TIME SKIP BABYYY

“I know how crazy this is gonna sound—”

Bucky nearly jumps out of his damn skin.

Jesus Christ. He will never get used to how quietly she moves. Like a ghost. A gorgeous, terrifying ghost with excellent timing and no mercy.

She steps out from the corner like she’s materializing from the wall itself—shadow-born and smug about it. Clearly pleased with herself, she keeps going like she didn’t just scare the hell out of him: “But when I saw you talking to Valentina’s assistant?” She glides over to the railing, settling in like she owns the place. “Mel, I think her name is?”

Bucky grits his teeth, trying to rearrange his face into something neutral.

No good. She’s already seen the tell.

She leans casually, falsely, like this is just idle party banter. “The only thing going on in my head was—” she lets out a half-laugh. It’s hollow, theatrical. “This is where the crazy comes in—was that, ‘I hope to God my husband was flirting with that girl.’”

Just the sharp glint of something she won’t name.

And then her smile drops, “Imagine my disappointment when I found out he wasn’t?”

The knife slides in clean.

Bucky doesn’t answer right away. He glances around, mostly for show. No one’s close enough to overhear—he already knew that—but the delay buys him a few seconds.

See, he also already knows that she heard his entire conversation with Congressman Gary about how he’s planning to get Valentina’s assistant to switch sides and hand them some evidence. He also already knows that she knows that Congressman Gary is too much of a shit to try going that route. And now by the looks of it, he also already knows that she eavesdropped his entire conversation with Mel—the aforementioned assistant.

So yeah, he tries to buy time. He tries his best to delay this obviously doomed conversation for a few seconds longer to have a better ground to stand on.

Not enough, apparently. Because what comes out of his mouth is a truly idiotic choice.

“Are you spying on me?” he says, with all the authority of a man asking if his pants are on backwards.

Too casual. Too defensive. Too late.

He’s standing like a guy with something to hide—hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched, eyes doing everything but meeting hers. It’s pathetic. If it were anyone else, maybe the bluff would pass. But not her.

Not Y/n.

Her smile sharpens to something almost affectionate in its cruelty. “Kinda part o’ the job profile, dear,” she says, sweet as venom. “Used to be yours too.”

And there’s the hit.

Direct. No blood, but it lands.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t let himself.

But she knows.

Of course she does.

“What is your problem?” Bucky snaps, voice low but tight.

Y/n doesn’t even blink. She tilts her head, mouth pulling into a sharp, sweet mockery of a smile. “My problem, Congressman,” she says, like the title is a slur, “is that the job of having a secret little rendezvous to sway the big bad villain’s right-hand man usually belongs to a super spy.” Her eyes narrow, glittering. “Not a government official with a hero complex.”

He steps in—closer, just enough that the air between them crackles. “She works with Valentina, day in and day out,” he explains, hands raised slightly in front of him, not pleading, not exactly, but close. “She would definitely have access to something that we can use as evidence to get Valentina impeached.”

Y/n doesn’t budge. Doesn’t twitch. She stands with the kind of stillness that says she’s two seconds from throwing a punch or walking away forever—either’s on the table. Her face stays unreadable as she says, “If you wanna bullshit me, babe, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder.”

He throws his hands down by his sides with a scoff, pacing now, like a dog in a too-small cage. “I’m not bullshitting anyone! The investigation on Valentina was a bust!” He runs a hand through his hair, jaw clenched. “There’s nothing on her. The clock’s ticking—if we don’t find something soon, she stays Director of the CIA. And we both know that’s too much power in the wrong hands.” He turns to face her again, pointing slightly for emphasis. “So we need evidence. Of her illegal operations. At O.X.E. And this—Mel—is the only lead we’ve got.”

Y/n doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften.

“Is that right?” she asks, voice like a challenge tossed across a bar right before a barstool flies.

“Yeah.” He meets it head-on. Chin lifted, shoulders squared.

Then she steps in. Real close. So close he can see the tension in her jaw, the faintest twitch of her left eye—her tell when she’s really mad. And yet, her voice? Smooth. Controlled.

“You know,” she says, almost conversational, “if this actually were just a bit of political sleuthing, I would’ve been real fucking proud.” Her lips curl, a dangerous grin blooming. “Fuck, I might’ve even been a little wet—’cause everyone knows there is nothing hotter than a mid-level government official trying to game the system.”

His heart and brain probably get their signals confused. “Really?” he asks, stupidly, and hates the genuine curiosity that sneaks in.

She stares at him like he just farted in church. “No, Bucky. I’m being sarcastic.”

“Oh.” He tries to recover, straightening, nodding like that somehow smooths over the humiliation.

Let’s move past that, please God. I am begging.

Almost like she reads his mind—because of course she does—she adds, “But I would’ve been proud.”

He freezes.

Just long enough to start letting that warmth creep in.

Then she slices it open. “Except,” she says, stepping just far enough back to twist the knife, “when you gave Mel your card, you weren’t hoping she’d call you with some classified files she stole off Valentina’s desk. No.” Her voice is razor-sharp now. “You were hoping she’d call you with a mission.”

And that? That hits.

Because it may or may not be kinda sorta true.

And it’s not just about the mission.

It’s about what Y/n is really saying.

He misses the game. The danger. The agency.

And maybe—maybe—he misses being the kind of man she would’ve been proud of.

But he can’t say that. Not now.

Motherfucker, he thinks.

Fuck it, he thinks.

If she’s gonna read him like a goddamn paperback, what’s the point in pretending?

So he straightens, pulls his hands out of his pockets like they weigh a thousand pounds. Gathers what little dignity he’s still got left off the floor.

Breathes once.

Twice.

Then swallows.

Audibly.

And says, “And what if I was?” It lands like a grenade tossed under her feet. Her eyes widen, the corner of her mouth twitches—just barely. She wasn’t expecting that. Not from him. “What if I was hoping for her to send me off? What if I was excited about being out on the field?” he shrugs, casual as hell—like it wasn’t a big deal. Who knows? He thinks. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, he thinks as his pulse slams behind his ears.

Her posture shifts—chin tilted, arms still crossed, but the grip of her fingers tightens against her biceps. “Then that would mean you miss it,” she says, and her voice has lost all the venom.

Now it’s just… quiet. Precise.

“And what if I do?” He says it low, but steady. Steady matters. He’s not even sure what they’re talking about anymore. The old job. The old him. Them.

But he’s not backing down. Not this time.

“Would that be so bad?”

A long pause.

Then— “Yeah,” she says. And it lands just as hard. “’Cause then what the fuck was the point of running for Congress?”

He flinches. Not visibly—he hopes—but inside it’s like something cracks just a little. Still, he fights through it. “I might have been powerful, but I had no power,” he says, jaw tight, eyes locked on hers. “Now—I can make meaningful change.”

She exhales. Loud and annoyed. Like he’s being deliberately stupid. “Only once you have the votes to pass a bill—Yes! Then you can.” She shakes her head, frustrated. “Come on, man. You ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. People voted and you won. So do the job your constituents elected you for. Listen to what Congressman Gary just said—read the damn packets!” She uncrosses her arms now, stepping closer, her voice rising—not in rage, but in urgency. “Sponsor bills. Propose legislation. Oversee the executive branch—and get the Director of the CIA impeached for doing illegal shit—”

“That is exactly what I was doing—”

“—with due process!” she snaps, voice cracking from the strain.

She rubs a hand over her face, smoothing her fingers across her brow, like she’s trying to press the tension out of her skull.

He watches her. Watches the exhaustion settle into her shoulders like it lives there.

“You’re supposed to work within the system, Bucky,” she mutters, softer now, but not gentler. Just… tired. “Otherwise, why do it at all?”

That finally tips something in him. Maybe it’s the fatigue. Or the fact that he still hears her voice in his head even when she’s not in the room.

Frustrated, he closes the distance between them, now face-to-face, toe-to-toe. “If I have the means and the ability to take Valentina down, am I just supposed to ignore it because it aligns with my job description?”

“Yes,” she replies instantly. No hesitation. No compromise.

He blinks. “Why?”

That’s when she laughs.

A full-body thing. She throws her head back like he’s just delivered the punchline to a long-running joke only she and the cosmos understand. Her eyes shut. Her jaw clenches. And then—“God,” she mutters under her breath, “Tony was right.” His gut twists. She opens her eyes, and the heat is gone now. Replaced by something far more vulnerable somehow and yet extremely distant. Something he can’t quite name. “I really do have a type.”

The words aren’t meant for him, even though he can clearly hear them—no. They aren’t even meant for herself, honestly. He knows her well enough to know that. No. They are meant for her brother… even if he isn’t around to hear them.

She turns her gaze back to him. Steady. Measured. “Democracy isn’t infallible, Bucky. It’s not perfect or absolute. What it is, is a process. And the only way to fix all its flaws is to keep working at it—not ignore it.” She scoffs then, a short exhale through her nose. “But you can’t see that, obviously.”

His brows knit. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she says, enunciating each word now, “that you fucking hate institutions, Bucky.” She gestures broadly, like she’s pointing to the air around them. “And hey! I don’t blame you. So do I. Which is why you’re not going to see me running for government anytime soon.”

There’s something bitter in his throat now. He swallows it down like poison. “So what you’re basically saying is that I don’t belong here.”

She looks at him then.

She sighs—not harsh, not heavy. Just a breath between sentences.

“At the risk of sounding like the nagging wife,” she says, tilting her head with a dry little smirk, “you did shoot Kennedy, dear.”

Bucky fucking loses it. “That was not me and you know it! That was the Winter Soldier!”

Y/n loses it just as fast. Her face splits into a wicked grin as she throws her hands up. “Which worked in the focus groups!”

He stares at her, open-mouthed.

Did she just—?

A callback and a metaphorical punch to the gut? Oh yeah! Assassinations might be the most well-known skillset in her repertoire, but making you sound like the most profound dumbass is her most polished area of expertise.

No matter what he says after this, he’s gonna sound fucking dumb.

So he says some dumb fucking shit, “That is different, Y/n!”

She cocks her head, arms folding across her chest again. “Really? How?”

“You know how!”

“No, I really don’t,” she replies, flat and smug. “Explain it to me like I’m five.”

He drags a hand down his face, lets out a groan like the words themselves are physically painful. “Jesus Christ.”

The fight that was burning within him just a minute ago is now a singular piss poor flame.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks. Not biting now. Just… tired.

She freezes, just for a second.

They’re at opposite ends of the hallway, two balconies flanking them. Music from the fundraiser below wafts up in muffled bursts, but here it’s quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that used to be filled with the weight of her body pressed into his side.

Now? It's just space.

Which, Bucky thinks, is weird seeing as they aren’t standing all that far away from each other. Really, barely 4 feet between them. But considering that there used to be a time when they were practically stitched together at the ends, this is more than enough.

She looks stunned right now.

She looks…

Had this been a year ago, he would’ve—

What’s the fucking point now?

“Why are you doing this, Y/n?” He asks again. He exhales hard and leans back, shoulder hitting the wall behind him with a soft thud. Hands disappear into his pockets—one of those grounding, practiced stances he’s picked up from her over the years. From watching her lock into her own body before tearing someone else down. He wonders if she notices.

He tilts his head and half-smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “You preach democracy. You practice law. During the Accords, you told Steve you believed in the power of people. You said that even if the System wasn’t flawless, it was put in place after a lot of struggle so it deserved a chance.”

He shrugs like it’s nothing, like this hasn’t been burning a hole through his chest for months. “Well… here I am—giving it a chance. So what the hell is your problem with that?”

Her arms drop from where they were crossed, her posture shifting like something’s dislodged inside her.

And when she finally does answer, her voice is quiet. Not weaponized. Just honest. “Because it’s not an honest one.”

“Says who?” he replies evenly. He doesn’t get riled. Doesn’t flare. Just says the thing anyone would say. “You? Why? ‘Cause I’m using the experience that I have from my previous job? Since when is that illegal?”

She grits her teeth. “Since your previous job wasn’t exactly legal?”

His brow rises, just slightly. Not defensive—bemused. “And yet, everyone knew exactly what the fuck I did before they voted. I didn’t hide it. Fuck! It was in the damn campaign slogan—Rebuild with Barnes—and I still got elected.” The hit lands perfectly. He steps toward her—not looming, just closing the gap. Voice calm. Controlled. “Which brings me back to the original question… Why the fuck are you doing this?”

She hesitates.

Just a second too long.

Then—like something snaps inside her ribcage—

“Because you broke us up to do it!”

The words hang there, raw and terrible and so, so human.

He blinks.

All night, Bucky’s been pretending to lose his cool.

Okay—fine. Maybe not entirely pretending. But most of it? It was performance. A bit of theater. Playing the part of the “Unhappy Husband” in their usual tango. Hit your cues, raise your voice, storm off left. It was familiar. A routine they knew by heart.

But this? This isn’t part of the act.

This cuts straight through the armor.

He’s moving before he even knows it, closing the space between them in a few sharp strides. There’s heat in his chest and fire curling up his throat, and yeah, he’s vibrating—he can feel it. With rage, sure, but underneath it… it’s just hurt. Barely controlled. Barely contained. Like he’s a wire stretched too thin and waiting to snap.

His jaw tightens hard enough to ache. When he speaks, his voice is low. Cracked around the edges. “It might have happened around the time the campaign began, and I might have been the one who said it—who officially broke it off.” He exhales—loud, sharp, like it stings just coming out. “But you do not get to stand there and act like we weren’t already broken long before that.”

He shakes his head, laughing—but it’s not a good laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that’s hollowed out from the inside. The kind you use when you don’t know what else to do with your mouth except let it break.

“And I’m not talking about Marrakesh,” he says, voice rising. “We survived that. Fuck knows how. And fuck knows why, but we did. We clawed our way through it, shoulder to shoulder. You and me against the goddamn world.” He’s losing hold of the reins now. He can hear it in his own voice—can feel it in the way his body shakes like he’s held together by nothing but thread and willpower. “It hurt, Y/n. Fuck, it hurt. But somehow—somehow—we survived it.” His hand flinches like it wants to grab something—her, maybe—but he tucks it back into his side like it’s something dangerous. “Only for you to—”

He stops. Cuts himself off.

“For me to what?” she asks, slowly.

Her voice is soft, but there’s that familiar spark underneath it—defiance, steady and sure. Like she’s not bracing for the answer. Like she already knows it. He exhales hard through his nose, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to scrub the heat out of his skull. Then he steps back, puts some distance between them—not just physically, but so he can collect what little composure he has left. He straightens, squares his shoulders, lifts his chin. When he meets her eyes again, his voice is controlled. Barely.

“Every time you came home from a mission,” he says, “you looked at me like you hated the fact that I was around.” His jaw flexes. “I think you were disgusted with me.”

“Bucky…” Her voice is faint, and her expression says no before the word even forms. But he keeps going. He has to.

“I saw it in your eyes,” he says, cool and certain. He’s not yelling now. Not accusing. Just… laying it down, piece by piece, like a damn autopsy. “I thought maybe it was ‘cause I wasn’t doing enough. Just sitting there, wasting space, moping around the apartment. Every conversation ended with you telling me to get out more. Do something.”

He looks down, shoulders rising and falling in a small shrug. “So I did. I decided to run for Congress.”

When his gaze snaps back up, there’s no hesitation in it. Just memory.

“And when I told you that… you laughed.”

Her grunt is loud and exasperated. “Because I thought you were kidding!”

And damn, that stings more than he expects. Hits right in the ribs.

“Of course you did,” he mutters, the words clipped and quiet through clenched teeth.

Her face falls instantly.

He gives a dry little shake of the head, something between a sigh and a laugh that doesn’t quite land. “How dare I—the Winter Soldier—think I could be anything more, right?” His voice is calm now, deadly calm. “Of course you thought it was a joke.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. He turns on his heel and starts down the stairs, every step punctuated with finality.

But then—

“Did you get a concussion while I was taking a piss?”

Her words are so fucking absurd that Bucky is compelled by some force—resembling God himself—to turn around. Not completely though. No. He turns his head just enough to glance at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, eyes squinting.

“…What?”

“I think you can do anything you want to.” She says it like it’s obvious. Like it’s fact. Like gravity or thermodynamics or the Earth being round. Like him being capable was never even in question. As if unlike the fallible nature of democracy, her words are irrefutable.

“What?” he repeats. God, he’s an idiot.

Now he turns fully.

She’s at the top of the staircase. He’s a few steps below, looking up at her like he does at the moon every time he thinks of her—during the sleepless nights which have begun haunting and taunting him now that she isn’t around. Warm gala light halos around her, but even then, she’s brighter. Has always been.

She sighs. “I think you can do anything you want to,” she says again, word for word, not budging an inch on the certainty. Her hands disappear into the pockets of her suit jacket before she continues. “You wanna start a band? I’ve always had a thing for drummers—I’ll buy you a set. You wanna play baseball? I know the guy who coaches the Yankees. I’ll make the call. You wanna discover a new particle? I’ll dig through Tony’s shit, drag out the particle accelerator.” She throws her hands up slightly. “Fuck, Bucky. You can do anything.”

He’s quiet for a beat.

Then climbs two steps—until they’re eye to eye again.

“There’s just one thing I can’t do, right?” he asks. “This. Just not this?”

She doesn’t flinch. “Even this,” she says. “You could be the goddamn President of the United States if you wanted. A good one, too—one I’d actually want to vote for.”

He stares at her.

Completely, utterly lost.

“I don’t under—”

“But you don’t want to,” she cuts him off. Not unkind, just… blunt. Like a truth she’s been holding in her teeth. “You don’t want to be Congressman Barnes.”

Her eyes drop to the floor. Her shoulders lower with her.

“There was a point in our lives,” she continues softly, “where I could say you were my own heart. So I hope you won’t think I’m out of line when I say… I think the reason you’re doing all this,” she gestures vaguely around the room—meaning the suits, the speeches, the job, the gala—“is because you feel like you have something to prove.”

She finally looks at him again.

The moment’s long and slow.

“But it’s been a second, since you’ve been my heart,” she says, gently. “So I don’t know what or who needs this proof.”

He just stares.

What the hell is he even supposed to say to that?

“Y/n—”

“And just so you know?” she says, voice tilting upward into something bitter and brittle and still standing. “I saw the way you looked at me too.” She doesn’t pause. Doesn’t let him cut in. “The resentment. The irritation. The way the sound of my voice grated on you like sandpaper on open skin.” She huffs a laugh. “By the end, I think even my breathing pissed you off.”

His chest aches.

Not in the way that heartbreak cuts clean. In the way that regret festers—slow and ugly.

“Maybe we weren’t meant to survive Marrakesh,” she says, half under her breath. Like the words were waiting for this hallway to finally be spoken.

Then she brushes past him. Her shoulder knocks into his—not harshly, not gently either. Just enough.

And she walks down the stairs without looking back.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t call out. Doesn’t follow.

Can’t.

His fingers twitch at his sides, like they’ve forgotten there’s no hand left to hold.

Like they didn’t get the memo.

A breath. Then another.

God, she’s wrong.

Not all the way. Not completely. Just… where it matters most.

He did have something to prove. Still does, maybe. To the public. To the ghosts. To that version of himself that still wakes up at 3AM choking on gunpowder and guilt.

Of course he wanted to show he could be more than what they made him.

But that wasn’t the whole story.

His jaw tightens as his eyes find the stairwell again, like maybe she’ll reappear. She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t.

What she missed—what maybe she never really let herself see—is that this whole reinvention, this political theater, this slow, painful march into legitimacy… none of it was for them.

It was for her.

Everything Bucky ever does is for her. He’s not entirely sure it’ll ever be otherwise.

Y/n Stark is his axis. The fixed point. The gravity well he’d gladly orbit for the rest of his life.

She might be the moon, but Bucky has never been anything less than enthusiastic about the idea of rewriting the laws of physics to be the one who revolves around her… he still would.

So when things started to shift—when the house got quieter and the silences got longer, when she stopped laughing at his jokes and started sighing like he was another thing to manage—he hadn’t blamed her.

He’d blamed himself.

Because it was his fucking fault.

He hadn’t hated her voice. He missed how it used to sound when she said his name.

He hadn’t resented her presence. He resented how he’d become someone she couldn’t stand to look at.

But he doesn’t say any of that.

More than that maybe, he can't really bring himself to say any of this anymore—not with the distance that they have created now. It would be funny, he thinks—if it weren’t so morbid, because there was a time where it would’ve taken industrial equipment to separate the two of them from each other, like they were glued together—so close that one could hear the other's thoughts. But now the gap between them is so large that Bucky can't even stop her from walking away.

The space between them isn’t measured in feet or stairs or square footage anymore.

It’s measured in the things they didn’t say.

And it stretches out like a whole other life.

Read the next part here. Find the Static Verse Masterlist here.

i am having so much fun with this time skip shit! god I'm an asshole i love it!

@mirandastuckinthe80s @rattyfishrock

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tangleweave · 5 months ago

Text

@morgansmornings (continued from XX)

The mall incident had been jarring, to say the least. Eddie didn't pretend to understand the hoops that Jayden and her higher-ups had to jump through to secure and recover the rest of the team, but it must have been costly for all of them to have been returned unharmed and evidently not even so much as interrogated. Paibok was particularly sour about it, and so was Marko. Cannon hadn't seemed to be affected in the same way, but he was more annoyed about having been swarmed by a trio of well-dressed gentlemen out of nowhere before having the opportunity to whirl up and kept insisting that if he'd had so much as just his helmet, things would have gone down very differently. Elektra, meanwhile, had been her usual ninja self and managed to evade the black-tie spook squad with no explanation given… and simply shown back up at HQ wondering just how long it would take Eddie and Jayden to catch up.

But she’d had no valuable information on the faceless agents that had come in and grabbed the other three. Evidently she’d been a little too busy evading them herself. She hadn’t even managed to score anything on how everyone else’s powers had been shut down.

Whether it was a device or some sort of metahuman ability, the nullification effect they'd all been made to experience had taken its toll. Perhaps here, Elektra had the advantage, since she had no special powers to speak of, but even without Venom's morphological abilities, Eddie was talented at disappearing into crowds and hiding in plain sight. Such skills had served him well in his old career. Hell, they had served him while he'd been on the lam. They were pretty much what had gotten him and Jayden out of the jam without also being swept up.

His intervention had been a sore spot in the debriefing. The question had come up why he would risk himself like that when it had already been demonstrated everyone else’s abilities had been compromised – and he’d given an answer that was honest enough. The disabling of their communications had indicated the team was the target right from the beginning; the bigwigs would want their trained asset back if at all recoverable.

The truth was a little more selfish. What the bigwigs did with Jayden mattered just a little bit less to him than what they would do without her. She was, for all intents and purposes, his sponsor. It didn’t matter that she seemed to be grooming him to be de-facto second-in-command. It didn’t matter if he’d earned the respect of his teammates (Cannon and Elektra were stubborn holdouts and he’d call them out as such whenever he damn well pleased). If something happened to her, Eddie was almost certainly doomed to get sent back into that sonic hellhole.

And he wouldn’t have been terribly surprised to learn that it was a factor the higher-ups were counting on.

Two weeks later and everyone was still nursing their pride… up to and including Jayden, who’d yet to say anything to him since they’d gotten out with their skins still on. A little odd, he thought, since she seemed the most impregnable when it came to ego. Hers was difficult to even bruise. Still, he’d done his best to offer her space, but the others seemed ready to shut that down – a collective effort, apparently, with just how quickly the rest of them had all paired off.

At first, he’d half-expected her to just scoff and walk away, rather than get in the ring with him. The other half of his expectation was what he got instead… her, ready to go, bringing everything she had to bear. And she’d been concise with her directions – at all costs, avoid revealing the symbiote’s presence.

An easy enough instruction, in Their estimation. They already had a fair amount of practice at the covert game. Venom could present as clothing, or He could simply lurk within Eddie’s bones and muscle. But it did mean that He couldn’t provide weaponry in the ways They were accustomed to. Gone were the terrors of a swath of obsidian tentacles, the wicked curve of a reaper blade, or the threatening head of a morningstar… not even lengthened claws to cap Eddie’s fingertips. Any production had to be covert, fluid, and not easily disarmed, otherwise the jig would be up.

Left strictly to pugilism, that meant a whole lot of dodging and weaving for Eddie, trying to get inside her range while she was whirling whips through the air and poofing from one spot to the next. He quickly realized he wasn’t as on his game as he ought to be, though that realization was brought on less by self-assessment and more by Venom noting Eddie would never give quarter to the others like this – not even Elektra.

And so They had leveled up Their game by beginning to produce knives of Venom’s essence into Eddie’s palm. Even a pseudo-whip to match Jayden’s monofilament marvel, though with a touch of Venom’s awareness to reach her – or at least interdict her own weaponry and drag her closer.

But even that strategy had its limits with what she could do to defend herself. Not even just her porting, which at some point Eddie began to think he was getting a handle on, but also her illusory ability, which wasn’t merely disorienting, but something he actually found a bit nauseating. Every time he took a swing he was certain would connect, it was like she’d spun him around in an office chair a hundred times, and his fist would swipe past her somehow. Venom was little help here. Their proprioception wasn’t in error – They were putting body parts precisely where They intended to, it was simply that she never was where she looked like she was.

And quite suddenly, there she was, bullrushing Eddie, from two different sides at the same time, in whatever way that was possible. And all Eddie could really do in the moment was let his body go slack and allow the tackle to happen, so that he could absorb and redistribute the impact of the attack – trying to meet it head-on was an exercise in futility, and bracing in the wrong direction would get him unacceptably hurt in the end.

And maybe, just maybe, this way They might have a handle on just how far away Jayden was from her illusory blinking.

What They didn’t expect was that her hands would grip Eddie’s head on the way down to the floor – nor that she would express abrupt and genuine concern for his well-being.

In that instant of uncertainty between them, Eddie became that much more aware of every sensory input surrounding them both. The heat and weight of the air in the minimal space between them. The scent of their exertion. The grip of her fingers around his head and her knees braced against his ribcage, her calves bracketing his hips.

The pounding of his heart, and the sound of her pulse racing.

The flush of her face and how her eyes were flickering up and down his…

A gravelly whisper resounded in the chambers of Eddie’s mind, and wrinkles vanished from his forehead just to reappear around the corners of his mouth with the crooked grin that took root and began to grow across his face. One hand slid up the center of her back, settling at the junction of her neck and collar…

And then abruptly, an inhuman shove at the center of Eddie’s back, like a coiled spring, catapulted them both to the right. In an instant, Eddie was atop Jayden, her back now pressed into the sparring mat, and what might have initially seemed an innocuous and gentle gesture of his hand at her collar was now a series of black tendrils extending from each of his fingertips, coiled fully and firmly about her neck.

Now Eddie’s smirk was in full bloom, the tip of his nose barely brushing against hers as the tendrils – for all intents and purposes, extensions of his own nervous system – reported to him the pace of her pulse and breathing. He could see her pupils dilating, and he knew if he looked hard enough, he might even see the stream of thought scrambling across her retinas like a ribbon crawl on a cable news channel.

Eddie let the moment stretch out into two seconds. Three. Four.

On the fifth second, he released the faintest scoff of a chuckle.

“Thanks for the lesson.”

The braid of tentacles withdrew its grip around her neck, and he sat back on his haunches, then got to his feet and held out a hand to her.

#morgansmornings #jayden specter #muse: eddie brock #muse: venom #verse: thunderbolts are go

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gingermintpepper · 9 months ago

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As usual I read your tags always and so you said Apollo did not ask for resurrection of Asclepius and Hyacinthus so i just wanted to share this. About Asclepius death I read it on theoi.com, that earlier authors don't make him resurrect as a god but that's a later development mentioned only by Roman authors like Cicero, Hyginus and Ovid. But still Apollo has a role in Ovid's version

Ovid, Fasti 6. 735 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : Clymenus [Haides] and Clotho resent the threads of life respun and death's royal rights diminished. Jove [Zeus] feared the precedent and aimed his thunderbolt at the man who employed excessive art. Phoebus [Apollon], you whined. He is a god; smile at your father, who, for your sake, undoes his prohibitions [i.e. when he obtains immortality for Asklepios].

So here it is actually because of Apollo the decision was taken to resurrect him as god. And with Hyacinthus, I don't think I've read about Artemis playing the primary role. I know in Sparta there was a picture of Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite carrying Hyacinthus and his sister to heaven.

This is not on theoi.com but I saw on Tumblr it's from Dionysiaca by Nonnus

Second, my lord Oiagros wove a winding lay, as the father of Orpheus who has the Muse his boon companion. Only a couple of verses he sang, a ditty of Phoibos, clearspoken in few words after some Amyclaian style: Apollo brought to life again his longhaired Hyacinthos: Staphylos will be made to live for aye by Dionysos.

So since he is singing inspired by amyclean stories it probably means in that place it was believed Apollo was the one to bring back his lover to life.

Apollo as god of order was very important so i think it shows how special these people (and admetus too) were to him that he decided to go against the order for them 🥺

ANON!! Shakes you like a bottle of ramune!! BELOVED ANON!!!!! I'm littering your face with kisses, I'm anointing you with olive oil and honey - you absolutely made my night with this because, not only did I get the pure serotonin shot of having someone interact with my tags (yippee, wahoo!!) I also got to have that wonderful feeling of "oh wow, have I misunderstood something that was integral to my understanding of this myth/figure this whole time or is this a case of interpretational differences?" which is imo vital for my aims and interests as someone who enjoys mythological content and literature.

I'll preface my response with this: Hyacinthus is by far the hardest of these to get accounts for because his revival itself, as you very astutely point out, is generally accounted for in painting/ritual format which muddies the waters on who interceded for what. I wasn't actually familiar with that passage from the Argonautica - and certainly didn't remember it so thank you very much for bringing it to my attention!

That said, what I've come to understand, both about Hyacinthus and about Asclepius is that in the accounts of their deaths, Apollo's position is startlingly clear.

For Hyacinthus, it is established time and again that Apollo would have sacrificed everything for him - his status, his power, his very own immortality and divinity. Ovid writes that Apollo would have installed him as a god if only he had the time:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses. Book X. trans. Johnston)

Many other writers too speak of how Apollo abandoned his lyre and his seat at Delphi to spend his days with Hyacinthus, but they also all agree that when it came to his death - he was powerless. Ovid gives that graphic account of Apollo's desperation as he tries all his healing arts to save him to no avail:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book X. Apollo me boy, methinks him dead. trans Johnston)

Bion, in one of his fragments, writes that Apollo was "dumb" upon seeing Hyacinthus' agony:

(Bion, The Bucolic Poets. Fragment XI. trans Edmonds)

Even Nonnus in the Dionysiaca speaks constantly of Apollo's helplessness in the face of Hyacinthus' fate where he writes that the god still shivers if a westward wind blows upon an iris:

and when Zephyros breathed through the flowery garden, Apollo turned a quick eye upon his young darling, his yearning never satisfied; if he saw the plant beaten by the breezes, he remembered the quoit, and trembled for fear the wind, so jealous once about the boy, might hate him even in a leaf...

(Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 3. trans Rouse)

And the point here is just that - Apollo, at least as far as I've read, cannot avert someone's death. He simply can't. Once they're already dead - once Fate has cut their string - all Apollo's power is gone and he can do nothing no matter how much he wants to. And this is, as far as I know, supported with the accounts of Asclepius as well!

Since you specifically brought up Ovid's account, I'll also stick only to Ovid's account but in Metamorphoses when we get Ovid's version of Coronis' demise, he writes that Apollo intensely and immediately regrets slaughtering Coronis. He regrets it so intensely that he, like he does with Hyacinthus, does his best to resuscitate her:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo's regret)

And like Hyacinthus, when it becomes clear that what has happened cannot be undone, Apollo wails:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo wept.)

Unlike his mother, Asclepius in her womb had not yet died and so, with the last of Apollo's strength, he does manage, at least, to save him.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo puts the 'tearing out' in Asclepius.)

But it goes further than even that because Ocyrhoe, Chiron's daughter, a prophetess who unduly gained the ability to directly proclaim the secrets of the Fates, upon seeing the baby Asclepius, immediately prophesies his glory, his inevitable death and then his fated ascension:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book Two. Ocyrhoe's prophecy. trans Johnston)

Before she too succumbs to her hubris and is transformed by the Fates into a horse so she can no longer speak secrets that aren't hers to share.

These things ultimately are important because it establishes two very important things: 1) Apollo can't do anything in the face of the ultimate Fate of mortals, which is, of course, death and 2) even when Apollo is Actively Devastated, regretful, yearning, mournful, guilty or some unholy combination of all of the above, when someone is dead, he accepts that they are gone. Even if he is devastated by it, even if he'll cry all the rest of his days about it - if they're dead? Apollo lets them go. In Fasti, when Zeus brings Asclepius back, he does not say Apollo asked him to - Zeus, or well, in this case Jove, brings Asclepius back because he wants Apollo to stop being mad at him.

(Ovid, Fasti VI. Apollo please come home your father misses you. trans. A.S Kline)

Even Boyle's translation which you used above in your findings hints that Zeus made Asclepius a god because he wanted Apollo to stop grieving. (i.e 'smile at your father', 'for your sake [he] undoes his prohibitions')

And like, Apollo was deeply upset by Asclepius' death - apart from killing the Cyclops in anger, in book 4 of the Argonautica, Apollonius writes that the Celts believe the stream of Eridanus to be the tears Apollo shed over the death of Asclepius when he left for Hyperborea after being chastised by Zeus for killing his Cyclops:

But the Celts have attached this story to them, that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo, that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus.

It all paints a very clear picture to me. Apollo did not ask for either of them to be brought back. Though bringing them back certainly pleased and delighted him, they are actions of other gods who are moved by Apollo's grief and mourning and seek to mollify him. Him not asking doesn't mean he didn't want them back which I think is a very important distinction by the by, but it simply means that Apollo knows the natural order of things and, even if it hurts, he isn't going to press his luck about it.

Which, of course, brings us to Admetus. And I'm really not going to overcomplicate this, Admetus is different because, very vitally, Admetus is not dead. Apollo can't do a thing once Fate has been carried out and Death has claimed a mortal but you know what he absolutely can do? Bargain like hell with the Fates before that point of inevitability. And that's what he does, ultimately for Admetus and Alcestis. He sought to prolong Admetus' life, not revive him from death or absolve him from death altogether and even after getting the Fates drunk, he's still only able to organise a sacrifice - a life for a life - something completely contingent on whether some other mortal would be willing to die in Admetus' place and not at all controllable by Apollo's own power.

All of these things, I think come back to that point you made - that Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore these people are very special to him if it means he's willing to go against that order but, I also wish to challenge that opinion if you'd let me. Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore, I would argue, that it is even more important that it is shown that he does not break the divine order, especially for the people that mean the most to him. The original context of my comments which started this conversation were on this lovely, lovely post by @hyacinthusmemorial which contemplated upon Asclepius from the perspective of an Emergency Medical personnel and included, in their tags, the very poignant lines "there's something about Apollo letting go when Asclepius couldn't that eats my heart away" and "you do what you can, you do your best, but you don't ever reach too far" and I think that's perfectly embodied with the Apollo-Asclepius dichotomy. Apollo grieves. He wails, he cries, he does his best each and every time to save that which is precious to him but he does not curse their nature, he does not resent that they are human and ultimately, he accepts that that which is mortal must inevitably die. There is nothing that so saliently proves that those who uphold rules are also their most staunch followers - if Apollo wants to delight in his place as Fate's mouthpiece, he cannot undo Fate. And, if even the god of healing and order himself cannot undo death, what right does Asclepius, mortal as he is, talented as he is, have to disrespect it?

The beauty of these stories isn't that Apollo loved them enough to bring them back. The beauty is that Apollo loved them enough to let them go.

#this is such a long ass post oh my god #ginger answers asks #This totally got away from me but I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS AAAA #Anon beloved anon I hope you don't take this as me shutting you down or anything because that really isn't what I'm trying to do #I'm definitely going to dig more into the exactness of 'who petitioned for Hyacinthus to be revived actually?"#I always stuck to the belief that it was Artemis because of the depictions of his revival + his procession is usually devoid of Apollo #I know some renaissance paintings have him and Apollo reuniting but that's usually In The Heavens y'know #I genuinely couldn't think of any accounts that have Apollo Asking for anyone to be revived #Apollo does intercede sometimes but that's usually for immortals like Prometheus #Or even when he's left to preside over Zagreus' revival and repair in orphic tradition #Concerning Asclepius there's like a ton to talk about tbh #There's the fact that in some writings (in quite a lot actually) the reason Asclepius was killed wasn't necessarily that he brought someone #back - it was that he accepted money for it #Pindar wrote about it and Plato talks about how if Asclepius really did accept gold for a miracle then he was never a son of Apollo #It's a whole thing really #I think it's very important that it's Asclepius in his mortal folly that tests the boundaries of life and death tbh #The romanticisation of going to any length to bring back a loved one is nice and all #But sometimes the kindest and most lovely thing you can do for someone is to accept it #Just accept that they're gone - accept that there was nothing that could be done and even if the grief is heavy - keep living #Maybe we won't all get our lost loves back #But there are definitely always more people worth loving if you just live long enough to find them #apollo #asclepius #zeus #admetus #greek mythology #ovid #oh my god so much ovid #hyacinthus #coronis

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