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norrizzandpia · 6 months

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She’s Missed You (OP81)

Summary: In which Nicole and Chris welcome Oscar’s longtime girlfriend to live with them after he leaves, only to not tell him and have to update him when he shows up for a surprise visit.

Warnings: i forgot if there’s language in this, i don’t think so but maybe? Sort of angst, reader really misses him, THE CUTEST LITTLE THINGS WITH OSCAR’S FAMILY (i would write a whole ass imagine about what it would be like if reader was super close to Oscar’s little sisters and took them out on mornings to get coffee and such if y’all would like that lmk)

Note: I KNOW IT’S NOT A REQUEST IM SORRY I WILL GET THROUGH THOSE BUT THERE IS MORE TO COME TN SO HOLD TIGHT

The feverish knocking on the Piastri’s door late at night had Chris clutching a baseball bat in his hands, stepping suspiciously toward the slab of wood. When he reached it, swinging it open and bracing for a manic person to jump out at him, he quickly realized that aggression was not the needed emotion.

Y/n stood with teary eyes, staring back at the man who had become her second father, and asked him quietly, hesitantly if she could come in. The bat was quickly shoved to the corner of the foyer, Chris’s hands coming to usher her in, wrapping around her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. Nicole appeared from the hallway and gave him a quizzical look when she saw the way he was hugging their son’s girlfriend, the way he was consoling her.

Their hearts dropped when they heard her cry, “I miss Oscar.”

—

From that night on, Y/n slept in his room. With him being consistently away with F1, the parents had found out she was drowning in the amount of longing she held for her boyfriend, their son. They were accommodating and gentle to the girl they had known for years, even forcing her to call out of work for the first few days in order to settle in. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been over to their house, spending nights there with Oscar multiple times throughout the year before he had left to travel the world. It was just that she hadn’t been there alone. She hadn’t even shown up at their doorstep seeking a stay in his comforting four walls, but Nicole had insisted when she heard the way Y/n was dealing with the hard transition.

The parents were close to calling Oscar, but just when they decided they would, Y/n made them promise they wouldn’t. She had explained to them that if he knew how much she was struggling with his departure, he would come back and that would ruin his good streak with the season. So, the family kept quiet, dodging questions about her when they finally were able to get ahold of their son. His sisters, Chris, and Nicole were the only ones to hold the knowledge that Y/n was sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed. To be honest, they all secretly found it endearing how she would come back to their home after a long day at work, have dinner with the family, and retreat back to his room to smell him on his sheets and in the sweatshirts she stole from his closet.

The girls, his sisters, absolutely adored her being there, seeing as she would take them to Starbucks whenever she could, allowing for their bond to grow deeper. Their Saturdays were spent holing up in Y/n’s car to eat donuts and slurp down sugar coffee while watching stupid YouTube videos and grilling Y/n on embarrassing Oscar moments.

Nonetheless, as fun as it was, Y/n still felt a hole in her heart when she closed his door and came face to face with his empty bed. All she wanted was to see him, to feel him and his touch, yet she would have to settle for their few and far between FaceTimes.

It was so carefully crafted, the secret the family withheld from Oscar, that they were all so convinced he would never find out.

That was until his surprise visit.

—

Rapid knocking on their door for the second time in six months had Nicole and Chris at a loss for words. The raps being thrown against the entry to their house was powerful and held an urgency that was unmistakable.

“Can you get that, Nicole?” Chris asked her as he washed dishes from the dinner they had had earlier that night.

She nodded, traipsing over to the quickening pounds and opening the door. What met her was her smiling son with a large bouquet of flowers in his hands, a sight so dearly missed she almost fell into a puddle of tears.

“Oscar!” She exclaimed, jumping at her son and tackling him in the arms he had grown to seek comfort in.

At the mention of his son’s name and the sound of his wife's squealing, Chris peaked his head around the corner of their kitchen, catching a glimpse of the infamous brown hair. His smile was unwavering as he dropped the glasses with a loud clunk and ran over to the commotion at the front door.

“What are you doing here?!” He laughed as he wrapped his arms around his wife and son, a picturesque family.

Oscar’s muffled voice responded, “Thought I’d surprise you with the free time I have from the race being pushed back.”

The three of them disbanded, Nicole’s and Chris’s confused faces making him continue.

“Spa’s date was pushed back because of the storm they’re having right now. The race is scheduled for two weeks from now, but that could be pushed back as well because of the repairs they have to do. It hasn’t been publicized yet, that’s why you don’t know.”

At the new information, the story came together and his parents were nodding, bringing him into another hug after having not seen him for so long.

“I’ll be right back down, I’m just going to go drop off my bags in my room.” He murmured in their chests as they squeezed him tightly. The two were so excited to see him, they weren’t thinking about the girl that laid asleep in the very room their son was trying to get to.

He was halfway up the stairs when his mother yelled for him despite the rest of the house being asleep, “Oscar!”

He popped his head over the railing, “What?”

She walked to the end of the stairs, curling her finger at him, “I need you to come back down here.”

His head tilted, but he didn’t argue. His steps prodded at the rug underneath and when he reached his mother, she was ushering him to sit down on their couch.

“I need to tell you something before you go up there.” She eyed him seriously.

“Did you redecorate my room?” He deadpanned, looking at her with faux disappointment.

She shook her head, “No, Osc, baby, it’s about Y/n.”

At the mention of his girlfriend, Oscar’s demeanor changed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, concerned.

She shook her head, Chris coming to join them on the plush cushions, “Nothing’s wrong with her physically. More mentally. She’s really missed you, Oscar.”

He nodded as if it was obvious, “I’ve missed her too. What does this have to do with my room?”

“She’s in there.” Nicole’s words struck him, but she didn’t allow for questions as she continued, “A few months ago, she showed up here and she was… she was just so tired, Oscar. She was crying and telling us how much she missed you, how happy she was that you had fulfilled your dreams, how proud of you she was, but how, at the end of the day, she couldn’t bear not seeing you. There was nothing to do, but try and comfort her which was a hard feat within itself. Understandably so, I came to the conclusion it would be beneficial if she stayed in your room for a while. Get it? She missed you and the only thing I could think would help her was staying in a place that smelled like you, felt like you were there. So, that’s how we ended up here. She’s been living with us for the past few months.”

By the end of it, Oscar was deeply confused for one particular reason, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Chris sighed, seemingly signaling to his wife he would answer, “She didn’t want us to. Trust me, we tried, but she made us promise we wouldn’t. She didn’t want you to hear and then come back here in the middle of the season, jeopardizing how good you’re doing.”

He scoffed, “You still should’ve told me if she was struggling.”

Nicole landed her hand on his knee, rubbing softly, “Oscar, it was better to have her here and watch over her then drive her away by telling you. I would’ve loved to have both, but that wasn’t reality. Reality was that your father and I had to make a judgment call and we decided what was best. That was what was best. She’s gotten better. Sure, she still misses you, but, before, she was living all alone without anyone and I can only imagine how lonely she must’ve been. With her family moving away and everything, she really had no one to come home to when you had usually been there every time. We were able to give her that piece, so we did.”

Oscar’s mind calmed, realizing who he really needed to focus on, and he nodded at his parents.

“I understand, thank you.” He whispered, standing up and walking toward the stairs.

Nicole and Chris didn’t respond, instead watching as their son took two stairs at a time to get to his girlfriend faster.

When he was out of sight, his footsteps looming over them, Nicole whispered to her husband, “I can’t wait until they get married.”

—

His hand smoothed over the cool metal of his bedroom door, taking a moment to calm himself down before opening the door.

What he found was his lovely girlfriend asleep in his childhood bed, a sight that younger Oscar would go crazy for. The Australian shuffled in and closed the door lightly, placing his bags on the floor gently.

When he was ready, he tiptoed over to her side, sitting down and brushing his hand over her arm that stuck out from the comforter.

“My love, wake up.” He said softly, hand caressing up and across her cheekbone.

She stirred, deep in sleep, but settled back down after a few seconds. Oscar smiled warmly, leaning down and kissing her forehead, trailing down to plant a kiss on her cheek, and then meeting her lips lightly.

That seemed to wake her enough for her to realize someone else was in the room with her. Her eyes fluttered open and stared at Oscar for a second. He clocked the way she seemed to hesitate, wondering if it was really him. He wanted her to understand he was really here with her, so he kissed her once more, this time with more intention. His hand smoothed her hair back and when she began to kiss him back, hands falling onto his back, he pulled away.

“Hi, baby.” He said against her lips.

She didn’t say anything, mumbling something incoherent, before her eyes teared up. The shine of the tears falling down the side of her face had his hands coming to pull her up from her laid down position. He pulled their bodies upright, so he could suffocate her in the material of his hoodie and the lengths of his arms.

She cried into his chest, squeezing at his hips when he whispered how much he loved her, how much he missed her.

Oscar was tired from traveling and even though his eyes felt heavy, he still initiated the conversation he needed to have with her, “Why didn’t you tell me you were staying here? Why didn’t you tell me you were struggling?”

Her head stayed glued to the hardness of his body, “Because I’m not going to be the kind of girlfriend that can’t handle her boyfriend going away from time to time.”

“But, baby, it’s not from time to time. It’s every weekend. You’re entitled to struggle, I was struggling just as you were. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t help you and I can’t be the boyfriend I want to be for you.”

She nodded as she sniffled, “I guess, you’re right. I just don’t want you to think that you have to come back here every time you get a break. I want you to be able to travel and see what your job allows you to see. You’ve always loved to travel, I don’t want to be the reason you don’t pursue that to its fullest extent.”

“No, Y/n, I want to come back here every time I get a break. I know I love traveling, but I’m doing it so much now that when I do get time, I don’t want to spend it off somewhere foreign, I want to spend it with you.”

He took her silence as agreement, shifting the two of them in his arms so they could lie back down on his small bed.

In the darkness of the night, he watched her fall back asleep easily, wondering if that had been something she had had trouble with during their time apart like he did.

He was so enthralled with her finally being back in his arms, he didn’t realize how long he had been watching her sleep until the rising of the sun mocked him.

It was only when the commotion of his household began to erupt, Y/n waking up beside him and suggesting they sleep in a little longer, that he allowed himself to fall asleep right next to the girl who had missed him dearly.

The girl he had missed dearly.

#mclaren #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #oscar piasstri #oscar pia #oscar piastri fanfiction #oscar piastri imagines #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri imagine #oscar piastri #oscar piastri fluff #oscar piastri smut #oscar piastri x reader #oscar pastry #op81 #mclaren formula 1

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far-side-skies · 25 days

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Storm Hawks 'Bird' OC Challenge - April 2024 (Late April Fool's. Boop)

*crashes in four days late with half a biscuit and a crushed starbucks up, with numerous paw prints dotted on my body*

Happy April, Sky Knights!! This year the joke was the entire month of March because it kicked my ass!

Anyway I'm finally here with April's challenge! I am delaying the March compilation to allow a couple more entries to come in, including my own because burnout sucks. But for now I'd like to show y'all the Honduran White Bat (Ectophylla alba)!!

Aren't these lil stinkers cute? These bats are unique for their entirely white fur, which is only found in six out of 1,300 known bat species. They create 'tents' out of leaves by chewing them until they collapse into a roof-like structure that they huddle under in small groups during the day. They also really like figs.

The approximate deadline this month is Tuesday the 30th of April. I'll see y'all then!

#op #storm hawks #storm hawks oc challenge #oc challenge #storm hawks oc contest #bird oc challenge #storm hawks bird oc challenge #storm hawks oc #honduran white bat

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vaguely-concerned · 2 months

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hey. hey did you just post *69k* of zeblue fic this month. I unfortunately don’t have time to read it right this minute but I just saw them in the tag and I wanted to say I am SO excited to start. I am so fond of them and this is genuinely such an exciting thing to see

Hahaha yeah I guess I did! I have been working on those fics (and a zeblue comic I also finished in february come to think of it. wtf) concurrently for a looooong time now, inch-by-painful-inch style, so I didn’t think of it like that, but I really did show up six-ish years late with starbucks and went ‘anyway here are all my thoughts and feelings’ and dropped all of that off basically in one go huh fhdkfshda

This was such a lovely message to get, though, and I hope you have a good time with the fic when/if you get the time to check it out! I loved these characters so much that my brain wouldn’t shut up about it for a whole year, and it’s nice to know I’m not alone in that out here in the post-canon wilderness :)

#campaign star wars #zeblue #it kind of feels like I've been doing multiple creative endurance runs and then stumbled over three finish lines in one confused tumble lol

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dizzybevvie · 1 year

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Politely asks if you have any OCs, and if you want to show off their designs or ramble about them if so?

Hello anon i am about to present to you some of the most boring motherfuckers youve ever laid your eyes on.

OK SO.

In late january 2 years ago, me and my good friend Raya (@ randomstuffifindinteresting) were makin stupid unfunny jokes about the stereotype of the hypermasculine homophobic dudes with so much internalised homophobia. Thus, Chad, Brad and Jake were born.

I dont draw them seriously very often, its mostly meme redraws, but theyre very basic looking people and dont have a hell of a lot going on with their outfits anyway. you can see a majority of the memes and stuff at (@oh-em-gee-oh-sees) but theyre a little old.

[Chad, Brad, Jake(theres no yellow); and their good friends Vivere and Mori]

So Brad is kind of the favourite because both me and Raya want to smooch him LMAO. Hes 6'1, a lil chubby, got big ol tits and one of them big ol curved noses. Personality wise, he's more reserved than anyone else in the group and likes to listen more than he likes to contribute. He doesn't feel like he has many hobbies or interests because he just moves through life. He likes to be an observer. He is BIG into music though. I guess you could say its his special interest, but he certainly doesn't know that. He particularly likes women's pop music kind of as a comfort thing? Growing up, it was just him and his mom so he finds it calming. He doesn't bring it up very often though. Whenever he's zoned out at the kitchen counters you can imagine he's thinking about it. He also likes baking, but he doesnt do it enough to consider it a hobby.He's also pretty sensitive but struggles to be emotionally available. His love language is acts of service and quality time. He's for sure autistic but I dont know if he knows that lmao. He likes bracelets, especially beaded ones with coloured string inbetween because he likes to pick at them during the day. He has some weird aunts and uncles that pop up time to time, usually with no idea that he cut off the rest of his family for reasons I won't get into. They're all eccentric, but they're all very sweet.

Chad is Brad's husband and possibly the only functioning member of the group. Hes the only one who can carry a conversation outside of them, be it a starbucks employee or their upstairs neighbours. But hes also fuckin angry all of the time. It doesnt take a lot of teasing to piss him off and when he does he gets this very slight southern accent on some of his words, which only insights more teasing. Mostly from Jake. He fucking HATES Jake (affectionate). He is actively working on it though, and he has gotten a better at controlling it. He's banned from the kitchen and has been since about a month after the three dudes moved into their apartment. Safe to say, Brad does most of the cooking. Chad's definitely the strongest of the group, which is absolutely definitely not overcompensation for his height and how inferior it makes him feel. Like, realistically he knows its stupid to be that hung up on it, and no one actually cares, but his parents were VERY strong on gender roles and it stuck with him. If his dad, who would take him outside to chop wood and thats it found out he grew up to be 5'4? Chad doesn't like to think about it. His parents do know though. They're the only ones in contact with any of them, and noone is thrilled about it. Every six months or so, they'll travel up north to see their son and ask him all the typical questions. Do you have a girlfriend, whenre you getting married, etc. Not out of ignorance either, they know he's married and they often do it while his husband is in the room. His dad will often make snide remarks about his physicality disguised as jokes, too. And although Chad gets furious at them every single time, he's the best at not blowing up when its them. He'll squeeze Brad's hand whenever something happens, but thats about it. Until they leave and he has to lay down from how exhausted he is. He only lets them stay because a part of him wants to believe they'll accept him. And they dont even know about Jake. He goes to stay at the girl's apartment while theyre over. Chad's discomfort in femininity certainly doesn't last long, though, because he's the type of person who runs STRAIGHT at what he's afraid of swinging wildly. He started wearing dresses and such, and a few weeks later started doing small-scale performances in restaurants and local theaters, for which Vivere was the ultimate hypeman. He probably wouldn't wear a dress without an occasion, but hes comfortable enough to do so now.

Jake is a fucking. loudmouth. Everythings a game to him. He likes to poke at people (metaphorically and literally) to see where the limit is. Whats frustrating too is that hes good at it. He's good at finding where the limits are, what not to say, what exactly to say thatll push your buttons but not in a way thatll actually upset you. He likes to be annoying as possible. This goes hand in hand with his avid use of sex jokes. All the time. He's a big fan of the kind of comedy where you take a joke thst isnt funny to begin with, and then run it into the ground until its dead and gone. He especially likes to tease Chad because hes the most reactive,and he finds the southern accent fucking hilarious. He's your typical blonde-guy-with-mullet - He likes to drink energy drinks until his chest hurts. He vapes, which everyone else hates (except Brad, who only really has an opinion on it because Chad does). He won't say anything about it until it becomes to much for him and he breaks down, but its partially self sabotage. As is his hypersexuality. He has a weird relationship with sex in that being hypersexual is freeing from his hyperreligious upbringing, but he also uses it as a way to hurt himself. Mentally he's definitely the worse off. He's the smartest too, but chooses not to use it. He slips in and out of polyamory with Brad and Chad - they consider themselves 'dating' but it wont ever go further then that and hes free to do whatever outside of that. Its very casual, and Jake has an intense fear of commitment. Its kind of just him appearing at their door at night and asking if he can sleep in their bed that night. He's a LOT worse than he lets on. He does have anxiety which mostly manifests as him picking at his fingers until they bleed. He'll occasionally have panic attacks and the like, for which he has a psychiatric service dog that Ive only done an hour or so's research on so Ill do that soon. His name is still undecided because he had an original name that was stupid, but now hes a service dog and not just a pet i wanna change it, lmao. Despite all of the redirection and unhealthy coping mechanisms, Jake is a very loving person and his friends love him too <3! He and Brad have been best friends since year 4/3rd grade. They met because Brad was drawing and Jake came over and was like "wow youre good at drawing. can you do the keep out signs for my secret hideout?" and then Brad followed him around like he'd been adopted by an extrovert. They met chad in school about 4 or 5 yearz after they became friends.

Vivere is our resident person who could for sure intervene and fix thing but instead is going to watch it burn down. I wouldn't say shes lazy, she's more just someone who wants entertainment, and shes found an easy source. She can be pretty genuine, but she's always lighthearted. She's on the ace spectrum, but couldn't tell you where. She and Jake are best friends. Shes the bright ideas, hes the execution. They remind me of Team Rocket LMAO. She is an avid cheater of games. She has never not cheated at a board or card game. She brags about cheating but she has a poker face of steel. She'll make monopoly trades with Jake in order to fuck over the other players. Its easy to spot when Jake's cheating because he cant stop grinning, so Viv likes to set him up and encourage it to take the attention off of her ploys. Other than that, she's really into reading. Shes partial to horror, but she'll read just about anything. She also loves animals, But not the typically cutesy ones. She likes reptiles and bugs most. She and Mori have a gecko called Egg and if anything happens to him she'll run away forever /j. She also loves looking into pseudoscience, because she finds it interesting whether or not she believes in them. She is a strong believer in the principles of yes-and and will commit to a bit even if it kils her. She's here for a good time, not a long time.

Mori is tied favourite with Brad, for sure. She's 6'4 and always smiling - not a big one, but its always there. Like what can i say? she loves her friends. She likes kind of old-timey things. She has a pocket watch that never gets used but is there, on of those dial up telephones, etc. She loves collecting too, so she has an EXTENSIVE record collection that she considers her life's work at 22. She loves the sea and pirates and everything that goes with it. Mori also has a few ships in a bottle placed delicately on her windowcill. She's REALLY good with animals and trains dogs for work. She's a dog person for sure. She and Viv eventually want rats, but theres not much space in their apartment for the amount they would need and they have Egg for now. In terms of her dynamic in the group, she serves as the mediator - particularly when playing a game like Uno or Monopoly. (Side note: they had to write colours on the cards for both games because of her colourblindness. Does she know shes ginger? good question, i dont know.) Unlike Jake and Viv who are determined to cheat the rules, Mori is more flexible in the way that she'll change the rules for the group if a compromise is needed. She's the second most social competent after Chad, shes just very charismatic. She also is the Dungeon Master when they play DnD together. She's big on dice collecting. She has them all organised by colour (Vivere helps lmao) in jars and displayed on her drawers. The group is extremely tight-knit and are almost always with atleast one other member of the group, but Mori has never been spotted in just a tshirt and jeans. The pirate outfit stays on during sex /j. What does she wear for pyjamas? No one knows. Vivere refuses to tell.

Uhhhh yeah I think thats basically it, LMAO. Tysm for asking and sorry this took a while to answer. but yeah! Here's the little dudes!!!! TBH i always enjoyed OCs that dont have any magical powers or plot theyre just people livin their lives, lmao. <33

#also in the dnd game Egg is a wyvern and Vivere's familiar lmao #ocs on main #long post #apollo says stuff

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theyoungturks · 2 years

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Buffalo, New York Starbucks union organizer Victoria Conklin was fired from the company after she showed up late 20 minutes late to a morning shift after closing the shop a night before. Since she showed up late for the first time in her five-year stint with the company, it’s hard to think that this isn’t a clear act of retaliation. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://perfectunion.us/starbucks-fires-buffalo-union-leader/ "Less than a week after her store in Buffalo won its union election, Starbucks has fired lead union organizer Victoria Conklin in what she says is a clear case of retaliation. Conklin was fired on June 22nd for being late to work for the first time in her nearly five years at the company. The firing came days after the National Labor Relations Board sought an emergency injunction in federal court to force Starbucks to rehire seven other Buffalo union-leaders that it illegally fired over the past six months. “They fired me because they scheduled me to do a ‘clopening,’ which is when you close the store and open it the next morning, and I overslept and was late by 20 minutes,” Conklin told More Perfect Union. “But the store opened on time, we didn’t lose any customers or anything. The only thing I couldn’t serve when we opened was iced tea, because it takes about five minutes to seep.” Several weeks prior, Conklin was given a first write-up and final warning for the way she locked up the cash register before workers at her store went on strike on May 7th. Workers there went on strike over what they called unfair labor practices and unsafe conditions. A coworker had recently been badly burned on the job but forced to continue working with no time off to heal." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ▶ https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Watchlist with Jayar Jackson ▶ https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 220630__TA05_Starbucks_Fires by The Young Turks

#IFTTT #YouTube

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chronically-tired-ghost · 2 months

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Today i woke up late. that really sucked, cause i typically wake up at 8:00 A.M. and then sit in bed for 15 minutes, but i woke up at 8:30 and had no time to do anything before i had to leave. it’s raining. thank god for that, because the thunder woke me up. it also means the plants are gonna start growing again. excited for that, as long as it doesn’t cause my allergies to kill me. my boyfriends picking me up from therapy today, and that’s nice. he wants to watch 500 days of summer. i’ve never liked the concept of those types of films. it seems like it’s just the manic pixie dream girl stereotype twisted to make the women seem bad, from what ive heard. i don’t like that at all, but then again i also hate stereotypes in general. and most things in general i guess. my friend was supposed to pick me up for lunch today, but i think she forgot. that’s fine, i would forget too, im just hungry. i’m supposed to have dinner with my dad tonight. i’m not sure of two things; A) how he’s able to afford going out to eat with all of his current treatments, and B) why he’s even making an effort to connect with his kids now. or even how he has the energy to make the effort to leave his house at all. i guess dying makes you rethink practically abandoning your kids. I guess my friend did actually forget, because i just asked her again if we were still on for lunch, and she told me she forgot and is just now leaving. at least im getting food. i know there’s a starbucks boycot going on, but i have a gift card from my grandma i plan on spending there because the moneys already gone towards them so it doesn’t matter. i heard a quote from a show last night on tiktok, something along the lines of “it’s like a haunted house, except im the ghost.” and the song Scott Street was in the background. i kinda related to it, but relating to a depressing tiktok audio is gross so no. After school yesterday i biked to see one of my friends. i haven't seen her in six months. we met at a coffee shop, and when i got there she was making conversation with a person with down syndrome. turns out he was siblings with a kid i hate. he was a sweet person, and very funny. we got bubble tea and walked around town. it was 70 degrees, i was in denim cutoffs. we sat on my favorite parking garage, and drew on stickers and talked about life. she just went to a tattoo convention, and got a nice back of the neck tattoo. she just started her apprenticeship. i’m pretty happy for her, i’m excited to get some tattoos from her, and maybe start a piercing apprenticeship at the shop she works at. i have 22 piercings already, all done by me, so it shouldn’t be too hard. i’m really tired right now, and i just got picked up by my friend, so i might take a nap in her car. she’s okay with that, she knows i like to sleep. good night.

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nomettesbizzareadventure · 4 years

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bruno, mista, and fashion :3c (and happy birthday once again!!!)

Mista doesn’t mean to spill the wine on Bruno’s suit; it just happens. There’s the sound of bullets and the squealing of tires, and then Mista is pushing Bruno to the ground and yelling “get down capo!” and well. The suit is ruined even before Bruno zips a man’s head off and gets blood everywhere. Mista feels guilty for all of one day, and then he goes to visit Bruno at his apartment and finds him already looking crisp in a fresh new suit, identical to the old one.

“Do you have a whole closet of those?” Mista asks. “Not that, uh, it’s any of my business. They look good. I thought they were custom.”

“They are,” Bruno says, and then he smiles. “I’ve been meaning to introduce you to the tailor.”

They take Mista’s vespa down to a little district just south of their turf, a quiet area mostly populated by grandmothers and children. Bruno knocks on one of the doors and an old lady answers.

“This is my friend, Guido Mista,” Bruno says, and Mista takes off his hat politely. They go into the house, which Mista quickly realizes is a store, and the old woman gestures for Mista to sit down on a stool and starts measuring him.

“Whoa, you don’t need to do that,” Mista says, slightly alarmed. The old lady ignores him.

“Signora Pazzi does all my suits for me,” Bruno says. “It’s my honor to wear them.”

Signora Pazzi shakes her head.

“The one who is honored is me,” she says. “You’re a good boy. This one is a good boy too, even if he wears street fashion.” She sniffs disdainfully. “After I’m done measuring you, you can look through my pattern book.”

Mista spends the afternoon looking through fabric and listening to his capo and the old woman chat about the neighbors, the government, the weather, the world cup… all the things that old women like to talk about. He commissions a hat and a sweater from the old woman, who scolds him and serves him bad tea and clucks over his fashion choices.

Years afterwards, when both Bruno and Signora Pazzi are dead, Mista’s old clothes will still hang in his closet, a memorial to a kindness that endures through time.

#show up six months late to my own birthday prompts with starbucks #jjba #bruno bucellati #guido mista #this is a loose take on the concept of fashion but u know #jojolightningfingers

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scars-and-scythes · 6 years

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About you wanting jashin bible excerpts: I have no idea if this is any good at all but um, here you go. Here in The Land of Disavowed you writhe, and clamour, and beg for Their mercy. To hast Their care. Their arms be your shelter.. Their face be the sky.. Their body be the earth, food, and drink.. And to throw it down. Sinners! They have not forgotten you, The Land of Disavowed, for They send Their Chosen. You will be reunited.

Ahhhh thank you very much! I might be able to use this, I’ve been taking a bit of a break but I’m definitely still working on the Thing in question!

#I show up six months late with starbucks #But yeah #it's not in the middle of a sacrifice but I could use at least part of it!#Thank you!#autumnleaves--wintertrees

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keyknows · 6 years

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that feeling of goodness that washes over you right after you update, and the feeling of dread that follows you because you gotta write the next chapter

#Diana's life #*shows up six month late with starbucks* sup fam here's the update #man i'm horrible #but i'm trying!!

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catzula · 3 years

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a/n: I just love Suna so much *screams*

honorable mentions: crackfic-like? The handsome-stranger-you-meet-at-the-airport au, swearing, 1.2k

It's a night flight.

Suna always preferred night flights, anyway.

Suna doesn't like flying. Sitting in a cramped seat for hours can't be anyone's favorite hobby, but he hates flying with a passion. For starters- it's unhygienic. The air has a strange smell to itself, as well, and it never fails to give him goosebumps and an urge to stop inhaling altogether.

He hates the tasteless coffee they serve, and the little packets of nuts remind him of the day he had discovered his nut allergy in a flight like this. The leather seats making him feel sticky with sweat, but the air conditioning brings him on the brink of hypothermia.

If there was an injection of sorts he could take that would put him in a coma during the flight, Suna wouldn't think twice before taking it, and based on all this, it's fair to say he can get a little cranky in airports.

As someone with not too much energy to spare, airports are exhausting for him. He already doesn't like running, but Kita is a little too punctual to let him rest or buy a coffee from Starbucks. The twins' fighting about something new every other minute never already driving him mad, but being surrounded by overly stressed people doesn't help, either.

"I will jump out of the window if I have to sit next to Atsumu on the flight." Suna had told the captain months before, the exact moment he had heard he would have to fly with the team.

That was the very reason the middle blockers seat was all the way in the back, located next to the window and a stranger. Suna can't be happier- all he wants is some peace and quiet, anyway, to wear his sleep mask and headphones and cut ties with reality as much as he can.

"You good there?" Suna barely hears Atsumu's irritating voice through his headphones, lips curling in annoyedly as he turns to the boy to send a glare- but to his surprise, the fake blond isn't looking at Suna.

"Oh, I- ah fuck- yeah!" He hears a voice, and it takes him a second to notice you who stands before the seats, arms reaching up for the overhead cabins and successfully blocking Suna from his seat. You must be the stranger he'll have to spend the next eight hours with, he supposes.

The tired gaze looks you up and down, you who is fighting a bag half your size- shouldn't that be under the plane?- and trying to push it into the overhead cabins. It's apparent you're struggling, arms shaking with the heaviness of the bag, biting your lip to muffle the sounds of your wrestling.

Despite your words, anyone who has eyes could tell you are, in fact, not fine.

In desperate need of a pair of longer arms, you peek at the tall brunette standing next to you; he's huge, broad shoulders and a height that makes you wonder if he hit his head on the way here. He looks familiar- if you weren't in as much of a pinch- you might've let out an audible gasp when you realized why he looked so familiar.

He's the stranger you'd seen earlier that day, standing in the line across of you, looking tired and black-painted nails scrolling down his phone. The all-black fit he has only adds to the mysterious aura surrounding him, arms slumped forward nonchalantly. You remember thinking if you'd ever see him or anyone as handsome ever again, making scenarios in your mind as to what kind of a man he is. You never thought you'd ever meet him again, though.

Suna notices the silent cry of help you have in your eyes, even when you avert your gaze away from him and mask your desperation- but he's no fool, he can tell when someone lookshim with an open need of help.

Well.

Suna admits he's no saint, either.

He can help you out, and you both can sit your seats, but he doesn't really care, nor has the energy to help you. All he wants to do is to sit down already -even though it would suffice if he just pushed the bag with his fingertips, but Atsumu beside you smiling at you does look a little more eager to help than he does, anyway. There you go, a prince charming ready to help.

Suna seems unfazed by the glare you send his way -any scenario you've created falling in disappointment, too, really? He wouldn't even offer to help?- as he bends in half to slip through the triangle-shaped gap you've created with your arms, slipping underneath them to get to his seat and-

A shriek outs your lips as you watch the bright blue bag slide from your fingertips, it's almost like slow motion, watching the object fall right on top of the boys' head.

"Ah! What the-" Suna groans in pain right after hearing a loud thump caused by the crash of the luggage and his skull. "What the fuck?"

Fox-like eyes are quick to find you, going between your panic-stricken and slightly amused face and the bag resting before your feet. "I-I'm so sorry!" You exclaim, but your strained voice sounds more like you're holding back a laugh instead of guilty.

Well. Karma is a bitch.

"Here, let me help." Atsumu offers maybe a little too late as he lifts your bag off the ground -Atsumu hopes he managed to hide how much he struggled, too. Honestly? What do you have in there?- and places it in the cupboard. "Thank you." You at least have the decency to look grateful at the blonde, giving him a pretty smile. "I'm so sorry," you repeat, turning your focus back to the brunette, who is rubbing his head in pain. "It just slipped out of my hand!"

To your dismay, Suna doesn't even spare you a glance as he mutters a "Whatever." Frowning and finally plopping himself down on his seat.

You narrow your eyes but stay silent as you do the same, too, settling in the seat, accidentally elbowing him one too many times as you try to get your damn jacket off.

You can feel his dissatisfied glare as the flight attendant brings the man sitting beside you a packet of ice, and you ignore the "tch!" sound he makes as he places the ice on the crown of his head.

"Bye, Suna!" The blonde you've seen earlier waves a goodbye at the stranger sitting next to you- Suna, you think, a pretty name for a man as cross as him.

"Are you okay?" You mutter under your breath, raising your gaze to take a better look at him. His face contorted in pain- he's the type of handsome you only get to meet in an airport. It's unfair how good-looking the man is, his shapely lip rolled between his teeth, deep-brown locks tousled and messy, and he has the prettiest eyes you've ever seen in your life.

Suna doesn't answer your question, but he makes it clear he's heard you with a scoff, eyes rolling in annoyance, averting his gaze to his phone. It makes you feel angry- being ignored as if you're a six-year-old kid.

"I'm not sorry, actually. You had it coming." You huff pettily, lips pursing when he keeps his silence.

"Okay, I'm a little sorry." You mutter after a few awkwardly silent seconds, suddenly feeling guilty. You did drop a heavy ass bag on his head, after all. "But not much."

You turn your eyes away from him when he sighs, annoyance evident in the sound. "And?" He hums, voice monotone and deep. "Which answer I give will make you stop talking to me?"

Suna knows that was unnecessary as hurt and embarrassment flash across your face- he notices that's the first time he even looked at you that night. Well, he can get unreasonable at airports, he agrees.

"That was rude." Suna comments after a few awkward seconds.

"It was." You agree. "But I was rude, as well."

"You kind of were."

To his answer, you can't hold back a lighthearted chuckle, the oddness of the situation dawning on the both of you. "This might be in the top 10 strangest ways I met someone." You chuckle, he does, too, but with a sarcastic quirk of his brow.

He has a pretty smile, plump lips curving just enough to show you a glimpse of his white teeth, enhancing the sharp features of his face. "Only top ten? That's a shame."

You don't speak as Suna closes the sleeping mask over his eyes -it has a cat print on it too, how cute- as a smile still lingers on his lips. "Good thing I have eight hours to at least make it into top five."

#haikyuu x reader #suna x reader #haikyuu x you #hq x reader #suna rintaro scenarios #suna rintaro imagine #suna x you #suna x y/n #suna fluff #haikyuu suna #haikyuu imagines #haikyu x reader #haikyuu!!

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fridayfirefly · 3 years

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A New Start

Read A New Start on AO3

Masterlist

Written for Maribat March Day 15 - New Start

At the age of twenty-three, Dick Grayson was used to being called names. Playboy, asshole, womanizer - people liked to make assumptions about him. The press only ever saw him as a reflection of his Bruce's public persona, another rich airhead who thought of nothing except sex and alcohol.

Dick tried to rise above it all. He graduated from Gotham University School of Business with a 4.0 GPA. He earned his job at Wayne Enterprises instead of letting it simply be given to him. He never went to parties, never went to nightclubs, never got caught doing anything unsavory by the press. Despite every reason that made him entirely unsuitable gossip material, Dick Grayson was still splashed across the front page of every Gotham Gossip Magazine. They created speculation over every little aspect of Dick's life. When he took a week off of school due to the flu, he was actually partying his way through Europe. When he ran to the campus convenience store at 2 am to buy a new phone charger, he was actually buying a pregnancy test for his one-night stand. When he went to his Bruce's Spring Gala alone, it was actually because he was having a secret affair with one of the married models. Dick knew that nothing he did would change the way the press viewed him.

Dick hated the press. He hated being seen as a rich, air-headed playboy who earned none of his success. He hated how so few people saw past the headlines to get to know the real him. It seemed like no one could see the Dick Grayson who made dumb jokes and loved his slightly dysfunctional family and fell in love with his whole heart unguarded. No one could see the Dick Grayson who just wanted to be loved back.

------

Dick was running late. Any other day, he would be perfectly prompt, but that morning, everything went wrong. The subway got delayed. The uber driver tried to take a shortcut down the wrong way of a one-way street, adding another twenty minutes to Dick’s commute. The barista at Starbucks messed up Dick’s americano not once but twice (Dick still tipped her, but he was still resentful about it). When Dick finally got to the office thirty minutes late, he found out that he had a meeting in twenty minutes all the way across town.

Overall, the whole morning seemed to be fated for disaster. Dick caught a taxi outside of Wayne Enterprises, chugging the last of his americano before he got in. On the drive to the Gabriel Fashion building, Dick got himself up to speed on the topic of his upcoming meeting. Ever since the arrest of Gabriel Agreste two years prior on charges of domestic terrorism, Gabriel Fashion had lost more and more money until it was simply impossible for the company to remain afloat. However, despite the catastrophic failure of the parent company, one branch of Gabriel Fashion was still doing incredibly well. Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s line of sustainable, environmentally friendly fashion, named Miraculous Fashion, was widely regarded as the best thing to come out of Gabriel Fashion in the last fifteen years. Wayne Enterprises wanted to use Miraculous Fashion to get into the fashion business. Bruce was willing to offer Adrien Agreste, CEO of Agreste Fashion (though not for much longer, as the company was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy), just about any amount of money Agreste could ask for in order to acquire Miraculous Fashion. However, that meant getting the approval of Ms. Dupain-Cheng first, which was the reason that Dick was meeting with Ms. Dupain-Cheng that morning.

Dick's horrible luck wasn't through with him yet, though. As his taxi pulled up in front of Gabriel Fashion, the vehicle drove through a huge puddle, splashing street water all of a young woman walking past. Dick could hear her surprised shriek even from inside the taxi.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Dick muttered as he shot out of the taxi. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

The woman blinked up at him, wiping the icy water off of her face. "I'm fine. It was an accident."

"It's not fine." Dick's already foul mood even worse after seeing the state of the woman. Her coat (originally cream-colored, as Dick could tell from the dry spots) was now covered in wet, gray stains. "I can pay any dry cleaning expenses."

The woman shook her head. "It's not a big deal."

"I'll pay for your cab ride if you'd like to go home and get changed," Dick offered. He knew better than to throw money at a problem, but he wanted the guilt he felt about ruining the woman's morning to go away.

She shook her head, wet strands of hair sticking to her face. "No, it's fine. I have a change of clothes in my office, and I can get cleaned up in the bathroom."

"Okay. Sorry again Miss..."

"Dupain-Cheng. Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

Dick winced. Of all the disastrous coincidences... "I'm Dick Grayson, your 9:30 meeting."

Marinette stared at him for a moment, before starting to laugh. "What a terrible first encounter we had. Why don't I walk you up to my office? My secretary can show you around while I get changed."

"Sounds great, Ms. Dupain-Cheng."

"Call me Marinette."

"Only if you call me Dick."

Marinette tried and failed to hold back a giggle. "Right this way then, Dick."

------

Dick had the sneaking suspicion that despite the fact that Marinette had lived in Gotham for the past six months, she had yet to encounter any of Gotham's many gossip magazines. When she looked at Dick, there was no judgment in her eyes. Dick was used to the underhanded insults, the subtle ways that people tried to undermine him because they didn't think he was qualified for his job. Marinette never acted like that. She was interested in everything he said, offering both praise and criticism to his ideas as they negotiated the terms for a potential merger.

"I want Miraculous Fashion to continue past the end of Gabriel Fashion, but to be honest I was hoping to be picked up by a company more experienced in the fashion world. Miraculous Fashion has a lot of potential, and I don't want to let that go to waste with a company that - no offense - might not know how to operate a clothing company."

"I understand your concern, but Wayne Enterprises is dedicated to expanding into the fashion world. I swear to you that Wayne Enterprises will do whatever it takes to ensure that Miraculous Fashion prospers. I can't promise that we won't make any mistakes or screw-ups, but I can promise that Miraculous Fashion won't be abandoned when times get tough."

Marinette nodded thoughtfully. "I'll think about it, but there's a pretty good chance that I'll agree to this. I've gotten a few other offers from different fashion companies, but none quite as enthusiastic as Wayne Enterprises."

"I hope to see you again soon," said Dick as he left her office.

Even though it was riddled with disaster, Dick couldn't help but feel good about his morning. His meeting with Marinette felt special. It felt like a new start.

@maribatmarch-2k21

#maribat #dickinette #dick grayson #marinette dupain-cheng #MaribatMarch2021 #miraculous ladybug fic #maridick #my work

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king-finnigan · 4 years

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5 times Geralt tried to propose to Jaskier and 1 time he didn’t

The last part of my 500 followers celebration! Once again, thank you guys so much! Masterlist!

I don’t know if modern AU deserves a content warning. But consider this a CW: Modern AU, I guess.

***

He’s nervous. Really nervous. Wiping-sweaty-palms-on-your-shirt-nervous. Cannot-eat-anything-nervous. About-to-propose-to-your-boyfriend-of-four-years-nervous.

He bought the ring about a month ago, and spent the weeks after that planning this entire thing meticulously. They would go to the park where they had their first date, he would buy Jaskier ice cream, just like he did the first time, and he would propose at the bench next to the lake, where they had their first kiss. It would be perfect.

Of course, Geralt isn’t really one for big proposals and romantic gestures, but he knows Jaskier likes it, so he guesses he can bear doing it this once. And maybe every day after that, as long as it makes his love happy. But of course, first things first – the proposal.

The day goes swimmingly, and he can tell Jaskier’s having a good time. Of course, his love doesn’t really hide his emotions – not in the way Geralt tended to do, before he met Jaskier – so it’s not that hard to tell how happy Jaskier is.

And, when they finally reach the lake, he reaches into his pocket, ready to get down on one knee while Jaskier stares out over the water. This is it, this is the moment he’s been waiting for, the moment he’s been preparing for weeks, the moment he’ll show the entire world how much he loves Jaskier and that he’ll always love him.

His fingers dig into his pocket. And find empty air.

He frowns, trying again, digging deeper. Huh. He tries his other pocket, which is also empty, save for his phone. Shit. His back pockets are empty, too, and he tries them all again, just to be sure. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshit.

Jaskier looks at him weirdly. “You alright, love? Looking for something?”

He digs into his empty pockets one last time, before limply letting his hands fall by his side. “No, it’s alright. Just thought I’d lost my phone.”

Jaskier smiles, takes his hand softly, and starts pulling Geralt away from the lake. “Come on, let’s go home, it’s getting late.”

And suddenly this perfect day isn’t so perfect anymore.

He finds the ring in the pocket of his leather jacket, at home.

II.

So the first time he tried to propose didn’t end well. That’s alright. It happens. Jaskier is still very unaware of Geralt’s plans, so he still has time to fix his mistake. So, he decides to take Jaskier on a shopping trip – because Jaskier loves shopping – and bring him to the Starbucks Jaskier used to work at as a barista, where they first met. Sure, it’s not exactly the most romantic spot, but he figures that maybe he can get their drinks for them, and slip the ring over the straw or something like that.

And the day goes well. Jaskier has a good time buying some knickknacks for their home and some decorative pillows because all respectable adults have decorative pillows, Geralt, and they’ll make a great Instagram post. When he insists on buying Geralt a forest-green sweater, Geralt rolls his eyes but lets Jaskier, anyways.

He’s nervous again, when they walk to the Starbucks, even though it’s the second time he’s trying to propose, and he’s sure Jaskier will say yes. Of course, his love notices his fidgeting, and asks him what’s wrong. Geralt just shakes his head, the knot in his throat preventing him from speaking.

And then they find out the Starbucks has been replaced with a McDonald’s. Fucking brilliant.

He’s not going to propose in a fastfood restaurant, thank you very much. The idea of it happening in a Starbucks was already pushing it, but no way is he gonna do it in a McDonald’s of all places.

So, they walk back to the car, Jaskier telling him it’s alright, and there’s no need to be disappointed, there are plenty of other Starbucks’ elsewhere, as the ring burns a hole in Geralt’s pocket.

III.

He gives up on romantic gestures. Instead, he buys a bouquet of blue roses on his way home from work – Jaskier loves blue roses, he knows.

But when he opens the door to their apartment, he finds their home empty and dark. He frowns, turning on the light as he walks into the kitchen, seeing a sticky note on the fridge door.

Girls night with Yen. Be back before sunrise, it says, and Geralt lets out a sigh. He had forgotten about the fact that Jaskier and Yen would be going to a party today. And when those two go out together, bad things happen. Not bad bad things, of course, but he’s sure that Jaskier won’t be home before 7, will either still be drunk or already hungover, and will also probably bring back another traffic sign that Geralt will have to dispose of someway, somehow. Probably by taking it straight to the dump, like he did last time Jaskier came home with a stop sign. And the time before that. And the time before that.

Let’s hope he doesn’t come home with another stray cat, though, like he did two years ago. And a year ago. And about six months ago. And last week. Geralt’s tired of bringing animals to the shelter and having to leave them behind. Of course, it doesn’t help that he kept the first cat Jaskier brought home and named it Roach – now his love feels encouraged to take animals with him when he’s drunk.

He sighs, scratching the brown cat between her ears, before he lays the bouquet on the living room table and heads to bed.

Jaskier, in a bizarre move, brings home a goat the next morning, and – still very drunk – refuses to tell Geralt where the fuck he got it from.

IV.

Alright, fine, so there’s no way he can plan it beforehand. So, he decides on a whim, to take the ring out of his pocket when they’re doing the dishes one day, after he’s pulled the plug out of the drain. Except his hands are soapy, and the ring slips out of his fingers, carried into the drain by the last bit of dish water.

He can’t help the loud ‘fuck!’ that falls from his mouth. Jaskier looks at him weirdly. “Everything alright, love? You look a bit pale.”

Geralt blinks, then nods, hurrying to get the tools from the storage closet in the hall. “Yeah, but I think the drain is clogged. Gonna have to open it up.”

Jaskier shrugs, walking into the living room, turning on the tv. “You need any help with that?” he asks, despite already scrolling through Netflix, as Roach settles into his lap.

Geralt shakes his head as he hurries back to the kitchen. “Nope, I can handle this!” he calls out, before slamming the door behind him.

He manages to get the ring from the pipes under the sink, luckily, but gets drenched in dirty water in the process.

Today is the day, he decides, as he makes his way up the stairs to their apartment. Today is the day he proposes. He’s gonna go inside, get down on one knee immediately, and ask Jaskier to marry him. There is no way it can go wrong this time. Today. Is. The. Day.

In his absentmindedness, he doesn’t notice the small puddle of rain water on one of the steps, and slips, hitting his head on the concrete. He curses, manoeuvring himself so he’s sitting down on the steps, clutching his painful forehead.

When he pulls his hand away, there’s blood sticking to his fingers. Well, fuck. He gets up again, making his way up to their apartment, letting himself in. As soon as he steps into the living room, Jaskier is pressing against him, looking at his forehead. “What the hell happened?”

“I slipped on the stairs.”

Jaskier tuts, shirt sleeve wiping away some of the blood that’s dripping down the side of Geralt’s face. “That’s gonna need stitches, love.”

Bloody brilliant.

They spent the rest of their evening in the ER, Jaskier grasping Geralt’s hand in both of his, Geralt pressing an old rag against the cut on his forehead.

+ I

A week later, he can’t say no when Jaskier begs him to take him to that nice restaurant a few blocks away. He decides not to propose, that evening, because firstly, proposing in a fancy restaurant is incredibly cliché, and the last thing he wants is for it to be cliché. A weird proposal? Yes. An unromantic proposal? Sure. But a cliché proposal? Absolutely not.

Secondly, he decides not to propose because there are a million and one things that could go wrong. And, with the way his past attempts have been going, the lower the risk, the better. He’s fairly certain that, by now, if he were to try to propose tonight, the restaurant would likely catch on fire or something.

So, he just has a nice, lovely dinner with Jaskier. And it’s great, it’s a great evening, it’s a great restaurant, and he’s having great fun. Until dessert, when things go wrong.

Because of fucking course things go wrong.

Jaskier orders a moelleux for dessert, and Geralt notes in the back of his mind that the lady at the table next to them orders the same thing, but he pays no mind to it. After a while, the desserts arrive, almost simultaneously, and Jaskier crunches his nose in disgust when he sees a few mint leaves on his moelleux – he hates mint. Geralt laughs at his expression, though it falls when Jaskier takes away the mint leaves, revealing a ring underneath.

Firstly, he notices that the ring isn’t the one he bought for Jaskier, now several months ago. His is silver, with a light blue diamond that matches Jaskier’s eyes. The one on the moelleux is… hideous, in his opinion. It’s gold, with a large disc on it, full of little diamonds that sparkle obnoxiously in the low light of the restaurant, so bright it almost hurts his eyes.

Secondly, he notices that Jaskier’s expression turns from confused, to slightly disappointed, to a fake exhilarated. He can tell his love doesn’t like the ring, either. Which, under any other circumstances, would be a good thing – something to make fun of when they get back home. Except Jaskier understandably thinks this is the ring Geralt bought for him. After all, why else would it be on his dessert?

Thirdly, he notices the clatter of a fork falling on the ground at the table next to them. He looks to his side, and sees the guy staring at the moelleux in horror and confusion, while his girlfriend looks at it with jealousy. Ah. He understands the mix-up, now.

He sighs, plucking the ring – which weighs quite a lot, really – from the moelleux, handing it to the guy next to him. “I believe this is yours.”

The man takes it, mouth slightly agape, before shutting it with a snap, nodding frantically, before turning to his girlfriend. He and Jaskier watch as she takes the ring, practically screams her ‘yes, I will marry you’, and the guy slips the ring on her finger.

Jaskier smiles at him. “For a second there, I thought you were going to propose to me with that ring,” he whispers to Geralt.

Geralt scoffs, rolls his eyes. “Yeah, no, I would never. That was definitely not my ring.”

Jaskier cocks his head, frowns. “That was definitely not your ring?”

Well, shit. He fucked up. Again.

He presses his lips together, fishes the ring with the blue diamond from his pocket, and slides it across the table towards Jaskier.

The whole restaurant stares at them when Jaskier starts laughing like a maniac. Geralt waits until his love is done laughing, until Jaskier has his forehead on the table, hiccupping out small giggles. “What’s so funny?”

He pales when Jaskier takes a ring out of his own pocket, handing it to Geralt. It’s silver, with a yellow diamond in the middle that matches his eyes. Almost an exact copy of the ring he got for Jaskier. He barks out a laugh, as well, laying his forehead against his palm. “God, what a mess.”

“So,” Jaskier whispers to him. “Will you marry me?”

Geralt can’t help but smile. “Will you?”

Jaskier snorts, taking the ring from Geralt again, slipping it on his finger. “I assume that’s a yes. And yes, I will marry you too.”

Geralt, in turn, takes the ring he bought for Jaskier, slipping it on his love’s finger. “Good, cause I’m tired of trying to propose to you.”

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #drabble #modern au #5 + 1 things #500 followers celebration #yes i know rings usually come in boxes #but #geralt is a himbo #bless him

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freudensteins-monster · 3 years

Text

You Say “Mad Scientist” Like It’s A Bad Thing

Based on my own tumblr post: 3am thoughts… Has anyone written Jane Foster as a mad scientist, I mean like a villain?

Chaotic neutral Darcy and Jane featuring modern/human SHIELD Agent Bucky.

Available on AO3.

Content Warnings: Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Memory Suppressing Machine | The Chair (Marvel), Dark, Sort Of, Ambiguous/Open Ending...

In a world full of megalomaniacs, straight up supervillains, and fricking aliens, mad scientists were a dime a dozen. Dr Foster was one such scientist who was quickly moving from mildly irritating to SHIELD’s Most Wanted.

Dr Foster’s gimmick was portals. She first gained international attention when she claimed responsibility (via an untraceable Instagram account, @dr-mthrfckng-foster) for diverting LA’s 405 to a dirt road in rural Australia. Then came a string of impossible robberies – bank vaults and the private collections of the world's richest assholes stripped bare in seconds. Then she created a portal that caused an Indonesian typhoon to bear down on Wall Street, flooding the trading floor. And then she robbed a top secret government black site of some classified technology.

And that’s when Director Nick Fury made finding and stopping Dr Foster SHIELD’s number one priority.

Agent James Barnes had been stuck on suspension for two weeks, with two more to go, and was itching to get back into the field. He had way too much free time on his hands: he’d caught up on his sleep and everything in his Netflix queue. He’d cleaned out his refrigerator, done laundry and enough meal prep to last him until next month. He’d caught up with his family, cleaned his whole goddamn apartment twice, and now he was well and truly bored.

He was out for his fifth run of the week (and it wasn’t even Wednesday) when his work phone rang.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered before answering.

“Barnes.”

“It’s Hill. How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” Barnes grunted, rotating his metal shoulder irritably. “You got something for me?”

“Are you up for a recon mission?”

Usually he would have protested. He headed tactical units. He was an elite ‘first through the door’ kind of field agent. Not that he couldn’t be stealthy and patient - he’d been a sniper in the army for christ's sake - but going unnoticed in public was kind of a problem for him these days; he’d have to wear jackets and gloves in the middle of August to hide his prosthetic for starters.

On the other hand, his mother had been calling him every second day to feed him carb-heavy meals in exchange for help around the house, all while dropping not-so-subtle hints that he should start dating again. Requests for more grandchildren couldn’t be far behind.

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

Thirty-five minutes later Agent Barnes was back at his desk at SHIELD HQ perusing through the increasingly large file of one Dr Jane Foster.

She had been a brilliant student and had earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Culver University by the age of 25. By all accounts she should have been one of the leading researchers in her field, and if doctoral programs handed out superlatives Dr Foster’s would have been “Most Likely To Win a Nobel Prize By 30”.

Unfortunately for Dr Foster, and the rest of the world, she had been forced from that path by a sexist tenured professor who publicly denounced her theories, and the woman herself, as crazy, discredited her published work, and used his influence to ensure she was denied all of the more lucrative research grants.

When federal agents went to interview him after the 405 incident they found his office looking like a tornado had gone through it and the professor himself was nowhere to be found. A few weeks later he stumbled into a US Embassy in Russia after being found wandering in from the forests outside Vladivostok, half mad and still decrying the evils of allowing women into scientific fields.

He had been placed into witness protection and promptly admitted into a psychiatric facility under his new name, and was being monitored by several undercover agents in case Dr Foster felt like punishing him some more.

Anyone else who had a part in ruining Dr Foster’s legitimate career was also under surveillance, as was her mother in London, a terrified ex-boyfriend in Boston, and a handful of known associates, though Dr Foster hadn’t been in contact with any of them in years.

SHIELD and other federal agencies had tried the usual methods of tracking down a rogue mad scientist. They tried to find out where her base of operations was, firstly by looking for any properties in her name, but Dr Foster had been a broke student with an impressive amount of debt (until the day she decided to wipe it, and the rest of Culver’s student debt, out). So if she had property it would definitely not be in her legal name and all but impossible to trace back to her. Then they tried to look for drains on the powergrid. However she managed to generate her portals - SHIELD scientists still hadn’t figured that out - it surely had to be using huge amounts of electricity. So far they’d found six grow labs and two server rooms running illegal god-knows-what, but no Dr Foster.

Agent Barnes read the file twice, reviewed all the transcripts of the interviews with her known associates, and came to one very important conclusion: she had an accomplice.

As smart as Dr Foster was there was nothing in her academic history to suggest that she had a background in computer science that would account for the notable hacks and the untraceable nature of her activities. To add to that several interviewees had made passing remarks about her not having a cell phone for most of her academic career, and how she had zero interest in social media.

Two days later, after getting the okay for a field trip from Hill, Agent Barnes made his way to Culver University to speak to anyone who had even the vaguest recollection of Dr Foster. And that’s how he learnt about the intern.

He’d started by dropping by one of the physics labs where Dr Foster had spent most of her time, and by pure chance met a doctoral candidate who remembered her, and her intern.

“I think her name was Darlene. Glasses. Always on her phone.”

…which led him to the academic advisor who put the two of them together...

“Darcy. Darcy Lewis. She was actually a PoliSci major but left it too late and Dr Foster’s internship was the only one available. She had only been working with her for a few weeks before… before Dr Foster’s funding was revoked and she was asked to leave.”

...who pointed him to one of Darcy’s former professors…

“Average student. Good debater. Often late, and always had a coffee in her hand.”

...who gave him a few names of some former classmates who might remember her…

“Not the worst person to be stuck with on a group assignment. Pulled her weight. Obsessed with her stupid iPod.”

“I swear she lived off pop tarts and coffee. And not Starbucks either. Some stupid hipster chain.”

“Deja Brew. Serious problem. Went through one of those loyalty punch cards every week. Always complained about having to go home for the holidays and resort to big chain coffee shops.”

...which had him driving out to Darcy Lewis’ hometown, located a few hours south of Roanoke, Virginia, stopping first at the local high school to speak to the school principal…

“She’d always been good with computers but wasn’t allowed to use them at home for some reason so she spent a lot of time at the local library using theirs. We had to suspend her once. One of her classmates accused her of accepting payment from other students to hack the school’s records and alter their grades. Their grades were definitely getting altered, but we couldn’t get any concrete proof it was her.”

...who was able to find a photo of 16 year old Darcy in an old yearbook and told him what bar he could find Darcy’s mother in.

“She knows not to come to me if she’s in the shit, because I would call the cops in a heartbeat. Especially after that stunt she pulled before she went off to college…”

“What stunt was that, Ms Bennett?” Agent Barnes asked patiently, hoping he wouldn’t have to enable her alcoholism to get some useful information.

“I made some mistakes, okay,” she slurred defensively. “I was having an affair with my boss. Don’t know how Darcy knew. She told her stepfather but he didn’t believe her. Then a few weeks later we went out to dinner for my boss’s birthday... all the tv’s in the bar start showing security camera footage of us falling into offices and motel rooms. Took her all of a minute to ruin two marriages and a law firm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied diplomatically. “Is there anyone she could turn to for help? Her father, perhaps.”

“He died when she was about twelve. They were as thick as thieves,” she recalled with a tinge of bitterness.

“Was there any place that was special to them? Someone she might go to ground?”

She shook her head. “He used to rent this old cabin near the Catskills off a buddy of his every other year. Winter or summer, Darcy loved it. But it's long gone. Forest fire, I think, the year before his accident.”

Back in his car Agent Barnes reviewed the data points.

Dr Foster had a base of operations somewhere. Had to be private, and as best SHIELD could guess it must be off the grid and Dr Foster must be generating her own power.

Dr Foster was a space nut at heart, and while an abandoned observatory might be too much to ask for, she’d probably want somewhere with minimal light pollution.

And while they could portal anywhere, neither of them spoke any other languages and had no familiarity with any international locations, so they were most likely still State-side. (Dr Foster’s mother had moved to London when Jane was twenty-three, but she’d never found the time to visit.)

Miss Lewis was familiar with the Catskills area. A base of operations there could be very isolated.

Dr Foster was most likely building and modifying her own own equipment so she had to be able to access materials. Sure, she could portal to her local hardware store, but having Darcy drive into the nearest town for supplies would attract less attention.

Miss Lewis had an addiction to coffee procured from Deja Brew, a small hipster chain with only a handful of locations along on the east coast. While she could have found another way to get her caffeine fix, people were creatures of habit.

Miss Lewis was also known for stocking up on poptarts. In one of the only images of the other side of one of Dr Foster’s portals there was what appeared to be, if one squinted, a box of limited edition pop tarts on a counter.

He plugged it all into SHIELD fancy search engines and got a few results back. The most promising was an abandoned ski chalet turned abandoned research station halfway up a mountain, an hour drive away from an up and coming tourist town, whose main street hosted a Deja Brew cafe. They also had a small mom and pop hardware store, as well as a post office, and a grocery store that had still been selling pumpkin pie pop tarts around the time Dr Foster’s portal had been caught on camera.

Agent Barnes came to with a groan. The flesh of his shoulder where it met his prosthetic felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure he could smell fried wiring.

The research station had come up in SHIELD’s initial search for a potential mad scientist's lair, but had been dismissed for not using any power and for not sending back any heat signature readings. Perhaps they’d found a way to fool the scanners. Or maybe they just weren’t in the day the readings were taken. Whatever the reason, Agent Barnes had a good feeling about it. He filled his tank up at the nearest gas station and got on the highway, forgoing checking in at the Triskelion on his way past in favour of driving all night. He’d call Hill when he had something solid.

** *** **

“Fuck…”

He willed his eyes open and came face to face with Darth Vader.

Barnes reeled back at the sound of the synthesized voice. “Who sent you? Who do you work for?! The Rebellion?”

“What the fuck!”

It took him until his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting to realise that Darth Vader was wearing a grey knit dress and black tights. Darth Vader laughed and ripped off his mask to reveal a smiling bespectacled brunette underneath. The accomplice. Darcy Lewis.

“Sorry, I was just messing with you, dude,” she teased, tossing the mask over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to do that. But seriously, who do you work for? Who knows you’re here?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he lied. “I was just camping in the woods, man. I saw the lights and decided to check it out,” he rambled in a lazy Canadian accent. “How the hell did I get here? Did you electrocute me?”

He used his not-quite fake panic to test the limits of his restraints. He’d been strapped into some sort of junkstore barber chair, with thick metal shackles locked around his wrists, ankles, and chest. His metal arm could probably make quick work of them but the damn thing was not responding. His panic became a little less fake.

“Just camping, huh?” she echoed back with a raised eyebrow, leaning forward to the point where Barnes couldn’t avoid getting a good look down her top and the 15-carat pink diamond (worth about 40mil and reported stolen in one of Dr Foster’s vault heists two months ago) hanging around her neck. “So that wasn’t you poking around town this morning?” she asked pointedly, drawing his attention to the wall of monitors he hadn’t noticed showing various street cameras around the town. “I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, dude. You got into town bright and early in a beat up looking truck with plates that didn’t exist two weeks ago and started flashing my yearbook photo around. So, who do you work for?”

He levelled his best steely-eyed agent stare at her and switched back to his native pissed-off Brooklynite accent. “I ain’t tellin you shit, sweetheart.”

“C’mon now,” she cooed, taking a seat on his lap. “Who do you work for? FBI? Interpol? SHIELD? Crawford County Library Services? Listen, I was totally going to return Eat Pray Love, but we had to skip town in a hurry and it got lost in the move. I will totally pay to replace it.”

Years of training (and regular poker games with the Black Widow) had taught him to school his features, even if that last one threw him for a loop.

“Nothing? You sure you don’t want to talk to me? Fine,” she whined. “Jane!”

It was only then that Barnes switched his focus from his captor to his surroundings and realised that there was another occupant puttering about on the other side of the large telescope that took pride of place on a hydraulic platform underneath the research station's retractable roof. The infamous Dr Foster.

“Jane!”

“What?” came the irritated reply.

“Come over here and practise your monologue. Look! You’ve got a captive audience and everything!” she announced, laughing at her own joke.

“I don’t have time, Darcy,” the disgruntled voice argued.

“Hey! I spent two days writing up that monologue, the least you can do is spend twenty-five minutes reading it out loud so I can make sure it doesn’t make you sound too much like a cartoon villain.”

“Twenty-five minutes?! Are you kidding me?” Dr Foster stormed out from behind the telescope to wave a wrench at her assistant. She looked less put together than her ID photo, appearing to be long overdue for both a shower and a nap. “I’m in the middle of something. I’ve almost figured the problem with the mobile portal generator, and… Darcy, why is there a man tied to a chair in my lab?”

“This man?” Darcy snorted, taking Barnes’s chin in her hands and wiggling it about. “This is the intruder. You remember the intruder alert, like fifteen minutes ago? Lots of flashing lights and alarms? Well, I found this guy passed out on the lawn. For most people, hitting my force field would be like getting lightly tased, but this bad boy,” she continued, tapping a fingernail against his dead metal arm, “meant you ended up getting the full 50,000 volts to your heart. Thanks for letting me practice my CPR by the way,” she added with a wink.

“It’s not a force field, Darcy. It’s a glorified invisible pet fence, upsized and modified so it reacts to the electrical impulses in the human body.”

“It keeps people out; I’m calling it a force field.”

This was definitely the weirdest interrogation he had endured by a large margin, Barnes mused as he followed their bickering like a pingpong game.

“Who is he, Darcy?” Jane sighed wearily. “What is he doing here?”

“Fiiiine. Janey, meet Agent James Barnes of SHIELD.”

“What?! SHIELD?!!”Jane screeched. “Why did you bring him here?”

“He found us, Jane. What was I supposed to do?”

“Something other than bringing him inside our secret hideout.”

“I am not killing him and burying him in the woods; I just did my nails.”

Jane scowled, turning the full force of her overtired fury on James. “Why can’t you SHIELD issue jackbooted thugs just leave me alone? Can’t you understand how important my work is? I am challenging the very foundations of modern science - of the laws of the universe! I am on the verge of a breakthrough! And if you or Nick Fury think you can stop me, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Before his mouth could betray him and ask how the hell they knew his boss Darcy spoke up.

“A little off script, but I like the energy, Jane. Very much the mad scientist vibe we’re going for. But next time, try not to make it so personal – we’ve got to hide the target of our frustrations, remember? Instead of saying “SHIELD” say “government”, instead of saying “Nick Fury” say “president”.”

“Right, right,” Jane nodded absently, tapping the side of her head with the wrench she had just been waving around like a weapon.

“Now, go back to work. I’ll handle this.”

“Okay, thanks Darce. Oh, have you seen my soldering iron around?”

“It’s in the locked cabinet because you’re not allowed to use it unsupervised, you know that. Gimme ten minutes, I’ll bring it to you.”

Jane wandered back to her side of the observatory, muttering under her breath, leaving Barnes at Darcy’s mercy.

“She’s not the criminal mastermind here, is she?” he wondered, his eyes roaming over the strange cupcake of a woman in his lap.

“Not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “I mean, it’s not like she set out to be a mad scientist. I kind of rebranded her after that little freeway incident.”

“Rebranded?”

“Yeah. She was in a bad way after New Mexico and then when the first live test of her portal engine went a little sideways I didn’t want dudebros on the internet coming after her, so I changed the narrative. Instead of ‘girl scientist makes mistake, should stick to making sandwiches’ I changed it to ‘Dr Foster, genius astrophysicist, causes chaos, totally on purpose.’”

“And all those robberies?”

“I may have encouraged that. I’m all for sticking it to the one percenters, and Jane needed to fund her experiments somehow,” she added with a shrug.

“So Jane’s the absent-minded professor and you’re the brains behind this operation, huh?”

Darcy laughed and slid out of his lap causing a distracting amount of friction. “I’m really not. So you, Coulson, and Fury should be really, really scared.”

“How do you know those names?” he had to know, cover be damned.

“You don’t know? Of course you don’t,” she huffed. “Fury and his clearance levels. I’d tell you to ask him about New Mexico sometime, but you’re not going to be able to.”

“Why not? What are you going to do to me?” Barnes fretted, unable to ignore the sinking feeling that he was in big trouble; she wouldn’t have told him anything if she intended on letting him walk out of here.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just gonna scramble your brain a little.”

She circled his chair, flipping switches as she went, and something behind him started humming ominously.

“So, admittedly I didn’t major in hard sciences. I had an ex who did, but he also fancied himself something of a cat burglar, so when he went to jail I liberated all his college textbooks and gave myself a crash course in electrical engineering. And it helped that those HYDRA designs were really easy to follow.”

“HYDRA?” Barnes cursed.

HYDRA had been the scientific branch of the Nazi regime and believed that discovery required (human) experimentation. They were supposedly eradicated at the end of WWII but Project Paperclip saved some of HYDRA’s greatest minds, giving them immunity in exchange for their genius. If Foster or, more worryingly, Darcy had aligned themselves with some surviving HYDRA faction the results could be catastrophic.

“Yeah, I found them in that SHIELD warehouse when we recovered Jane’s stolen research.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They just call it ‘The Chair’, which is totally not creepy at all,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And this is the Halo,” she added, drawing Barnes’s attention to the whirring circle of metal that was lowering itself over his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, renewing his efforts to break free of his restraints. “Get that piece of scrap metal the fuck away from me!”

��Hey! Don’t mock my work. It may look like I raided a junkyard for the components - and I did - but my welding game is on point. It’s totally safe. Mostly safe. It’s just going to send focused electrical pulses to your…” she paused to consult some smudged writing on her hand, “hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.”

The Halo stopped moving and two metal plates extended, pressing against the sides of his head, holding it like a vice.

“Please… don’t do this,” he begged as she approached him with a rubber mouthguard.

“C’mon, open wide. You don’t want to end up braindead and unable to chew your food,” she jested, waving the thing in front of him. “Oh, just one question before I fry your brain,” she added just when he was about to give in. “How did you find us? I was so careful,” she whined.

Agent Barnes, terrified as he was, still managed to look smug at his small, short lived success. “Deja Brew coffee.”

“Curses!” she wailed theatrically. “Betrayed by my one true love!”

Darcy huffed and quickly returned her attention to the matter at hand.

“Thanks for that,” she said with a smile as she forced him to bite down on the mouthguard. “I’ll know better for next time. Start making my own coffee at home… but it never tastes as good,” she muttered to herself.

She stepped away from him and bent down to pick up a similarly frankensteined industrial remote with long wires snaking back to the chair and a clichéd big red button at its centre. He began struggling anew, screaming around the foul tasting rubber, begging for mercy.

She took great delight in his terrified expression and put on her best supervillain voice, “Give my regards to Nick Fury.”

Nick Fury observed his agent from behind a two way mirror as he sat behind a table in an interrogation room. Barnes had been sitting there for the past hour as still as a statue, except for his unfocused eyes which flitted about the room.

In true horror movie fashion, Agent Barnes’ screams echoed down the mountainside like an avalanche, sending animals fleeing in terror for miles around.

** *** **

Local LEO’s had found him wandering aimlessly down a stretch of highway just outside the ruins of what had previously been Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, and ten minutes after they ran his prints Agent Romanoff had been on a quinjet to collect him. She’d been directed to the nearest hospital and found him sitting up on a bed but not responding or reacting to any of the medical staff as they buzzed around him. Agent Romanoff took a cautious step forward and held her breath as his unfocused eyes settled on her.

“Hello James...”

An excruciating minute later the veil lifted and he attempted a smile.

“Hey Tasha.”

She’d brought him back to base and dragged him to SHIELD’s medical bay for more tests - not that Barnes put up much of a fight, in fact he was terrifyingly compliant. The SHIELD doctors confirmed what the New Mexico doctors suspected: the bruising and electrical burns around his temples and his memory loss were indicative of some back alley version of electroshock therapy. His memories should come back in time - how long was anybody’s guess - but for the moment Agent James Barnes had no memory of the last four weeks.

Fury picked up a tablet with depressingly little information on its screen and stepped into the room, waiting for Barnes eyes to focus on him before taking a seat.

“Agent Barnes.”

“Director.”

“I know you’re probably sick of questions by now, but I have a few more for you, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, sure…”

It rankled Fury to no end how meak and passive Barnes seemed. Heaven help him, he missed the argumentative sonofabitch.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being called into your office.”

“What for?”

“I punched Rumlow.”

“Why?”

“He was bragging about taking advantage of a drunk woman at a club when he was last on leave. He didn’t like me calling out his shitty behaviour. He punched me, I punched him back.”

Fury sighed. He hadn't gotten a straight answer out of Barnes at the time of the incident and he couldn’t feel happy about getting one now.

“Do you remember what happened once I called you into my office?”

His brow creased and his eyes zipped back and forth like the carriage of a printer as his mind searched for the elusive memory.

“You suspended me?”

“I did,” Fury confirmed. “For a whole month. But two weeks into it I pulled you in for a special assignment.”

Barnes tensed, shrinking in on himself. The confusion about his lost time seemed to be the only thing that got under his skin, but only when someone brought it up. Once the moment passed he forgot to be concerned about it.

Fury took pity on him. “For the past two weeks I had you running down leads on the whereabouts of Dr Jane Foster.”

“The scientist with the portals? Did she do this to me?”

“It’s not exactly her MO, but then again no law enforcement agency’s ever managed to have a confrontation with her. Never had the chance. Those portals of hers let her keep at a distance. You might have been the first person to have a face to face with her, but I can’t confirm it because I don’t know where the hell you were when this happened,” he grumbled, letting a little more of his usual exasperated tone filter through. “You missed check in by two days. The last we heard from you, you were at Culver running down leads on what you said was a potential accomplice. We found your car in Tromso, Norway, a day after you were found on the side of a road in New Mexico. You don’t appear on any security footage or speed cameras in the area. There’s no activity on your work or personal credit cards. Your activity logs on our highly secure system for the last two weeks are nonexistent, as are your call logs on your work phone. Even the messages you sent Romanoff from your personal phone complaining about your assignment have since been deleted - from her phone too. She’s real pissed about it. As far as your digital footprint is concerned you disappeared from a gas station outside Roanoke, Virginia, last week - do you know how weird it is to know you were headed out towards a place called Roanoke only to up and vanish?” He sighed at Barnes’ painful silence. “Is there anything you can remember, anything at all about Dr Foster or her accomplice? Anything that will help us catch up to you without talking to everyone on campus to figure out what you discovered?”

Barnes’ brow creased in painful confusion.

“I think… I think I saw Darth Vadar.”

Director Fury blinked. “Right…” He took a deep breath to stop himself from venting his frustrations at Barnes, the sorry bastard looked like a kicked puppy as it was. Instead he got up and tapped the tablet against the metal tabletop harder than strictly necessary. “Well, I’ll just go put out a BOLO out for Darth Vadar then.”

“Okay,” Barnes murmured, and promptly zoned out again.

Agent Romanoff exited the viewing room looking uncharacteristically unsettled.

“I want a full detail on him at all times,” Fury ordered as he stormed off towards the elevators. Hill had just stepped off and was looking even more grim than usual. “Until his memories come back he’s vulnerable, and once they do he’ll be a target.”

“I’ll get a STRIKE team on it. Not Rumlow’s.”

“Get another one along with any assets currently not on assignment. Flood that campus, interrogate everybody. I wanna know who the hell Dr Foster’s accomplice is, and I wanna know yesterday. Understood?”

“I think we might have more pressing concerns, sir,” Hill reported, tapping at her tablet as it beeped erratically. “Coulson’s said there’s an issue with the Tesseract. Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from it fifteen minutes ago.”

“NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase,” he grunted, taking the tablet from Hill.

“He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement.”

“Motherfucker.”

#you say mad scientist like it's a bad thing #freudensteins-fics #mad scientist jane foster #competent assistant darcy lewis #shield agent bucky barnes #torture #aftermath of torture #amnesia #winter soldier memory wipe chair #darcy lewis #jane foster #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #nick fury #maria hill

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years

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Playing games Pairing: dark!Sebastian Stan x Reader Warning: yandere, swearing, some non-con implications towards the end. Words: 2069. P.S. JESUS CHRIST WHAT HAVE I DONE I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON I HOPE NO ONE WHO REALLY MET SEBASTIAN GONNA READ THIS ghjdfyjdfds I’m so sorry guys _____________________________________ “I asked for a vanilla latte with extra milk, not caramel cappuccino.”

You rolled your eyes at his irritated remark. You knew Sebastian wasn’t in his best mood this morning and expected him to make your day nastier just because he felt like it.

“Sorry, but I’m sure it was caramel cappuccino. You asked for some cinnamon on the top, remember?”

“No, I didn’t.” He snarled and looked at you, giving a mocha frappe to Jill, his hair artist. “I asked for a vanilla latte. If you suffer from memory loss, you’d better visit your doctor once we get back to US.”

What an asshole. Mary, who was now applying some makeup on Sebastian’s face with her beauty blenders and brushes, bit down on her lip: she had been watching how he treated you for the last 3 weeks, and it was a living nightmare. It was very odd since Sebastian was on good terms with pretty much everyone around, but you were always an exception. Why? Neither Mary nor Jill could tell. There was nothing revolting in the way you behaved around Mr. Stan, simply doing your job as his assistant. You were getting him coffee every morning, buying some personal stuff for him, managing his meetings… but you were more an errand girl, that’s true. It was surprising for most of the other people surrounding you two, but you didn’t object to your tasks. You were furious because of the way Sebastian treated you.

He was mean, unfair, irritating, and rude. You didn’t deserve it.

“Well, my voice recorder tells I got everything right.” You pulled it from the pocket of your below-knee sheath skirt, ready to press the button.

“What the fuck is that?” The man rose to his feet immediately, almost pushing frozen Mary out of his way and stepping towards you. “How many times do I have to tell you? NO. FUCKING. RECORDERS.”

He was ready to snatch it from your hands, yet you were able dodge him right on time, hiding the recorder in your pocket again.

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry, I’ll put it away!” In a second you were behind Jill’s tall figure as if you were a child hiding from a bad-tempered parent, Sebastian watching you with anger in his cold blue eyes. “I’m not going to use it. But it’s still true, you asked for caramel cappuccino.”

“Guess what? I don’t fucking care.” He growled in a low voice. “You’ll go and get me vanilla latte because it’s your goddamn job. And I want my coffee before Jill’s finished with my hair, understood?”

Watching his with clear disdain on your face, you cursed under your breath. It was freaking hot in Prague where Sebastian was filming now and getting out the second time just to run to Starbucks once more would sure ruin both your makeup and a white blouse you had been wearing. Damn it.

“God, why do you have to be such a bastard most of the time?” You snapped at him, visibly shaking with fury. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you a closet psycho or what?”

“I’m the one who pays you, honey.” He smiled at you the same way he always did it in front of the camera and you felt sick.

You stormed off the room without having a glance back at his perfect white teeth. Sebastian Stan was the worst person you had ever met, and you were working for him, seeing him every day and listening to his orders as if you were his pet. How did it come to this? Why did he look like the most perfect human being to you six months ago? What made him behave like that to you when in reality it was him who offered you a job?

God, it was all messed up. You did not remember when things got so bad you could yell at each other in a full voice. It was actually surprising, someone like you shouting and swearing at one of the world’s most famous actors, but it was something Sebastian let you do. Like he wanted you to scream at him regardless who surrounded you whether it was his makeup artists, agents, cleaning ladies or anyone else. It was like he got off on it.

True, this job payed well, much better than the one you had before. Moreover, in these 6 months you saw more countries than you did in your entire life, travelling with Sebastian everywhere and meeting tons of new people, many of them being great professionals. It was inspiring; it made you dream of all the things you thought were impossible; it made you curious and gave you a chance to practice your networking skills.

But Sebastian was fucking blowing it. After six months of constant everyday battles filled with rage and pure hatred you had gained weight, 10 pounds to be precise. Now you were having problems to sleep, and you knew it wasn’t the jet lag.

Anyway, you spent the whole day running around the city to buy him this or that. In the evening you were so tired you could barely move your legs while Sebastian was clearly pleased seeing you like that. It probably stroked his enormous ego.

Fuck it. You didn’t deserve a minute of it. You were not going to let him ruin you for fun, just because he could it since he payed you. Why did you spend you precious time trying to please him? Sure, you still considered him one of the best actors on the planet, but the things he did to you were not ok. He wasn’t ok. Maybe he really was a psycho or had some disorder he didn’t want to treat, you had no idea. But you knew it couldn’t continue like that. It was too much.

You spent an hour writing an email and asking to be laid off. It was just a few lines, simple and professional, yet you were constantly adding and then erasing new sentences. You shouldn’t make it personal, you thought to yourself. You doubted you could leave on agreeable terms, but you needed to give it a try. Even if your last argument with Mr. Stan might be the worst of them all, it would be your last one. It was worth it.

Sighing, you decided to take a stroll before going to bed. 15 minutes wouldn’t hurt, right? You’d have some fresh air and enjoy the view of Prague’s Powder Gate – you were lucky to stay right in the center of this magnificent old city. You could make some more photos to show your friends once you return back home. It was also nice to just sit on a bench and look at the night sky full of stars.

Maybe then you wouldn’t feel so guilty for leaving Sebastian and your team.

In the end, it took you way more that 15 minutes, but your late-night walk made your thoughts clear and left no regrets about your choice. What was happening between you and Sebastian wasn’t right, and you could do nothing but leave. With so many people wishing to work for him he would get another assistant in a matter of hours, and you would get your life back. Those money you earned would keep you afloat quiet some time even if you wouldn’t be able to get a job right away.

“What is this, Y/N?”

His voice almost made you jump. Sebastian stood up from the chair in the corner of your room once you put on the lights. What the Hell was he doing here so late? How did he open the door? If he needed anything, he could simply give you a call.

Oh. You saw your little black recorder in his hand.

“I told you I won’t use it anymore.” Your jaw clenched.

“I’m not talking about this piece of shit.”

He tossed your recorder on your bed as if he couldn’t care less and moved towards you so fast you had no time to step back.

“What is this pathetic email you wrote?” Sebastian’s handsome face darkened. “Are you not right in the head? You want to leave?”

“Yes, I do. What’s wrong with that?” Your expression hardened. He dared to touch your laptop when you weren’t there. “I thought you’d be glad to know. Today you told me three times I didn’t deserve working for you, correct?”

“You know perfectly well I wasn’t serious.”

“God, I have a hard time telling when you’re serious since all you do is hating me.”

He sent you an icy glare.

“You know I don’t hate you. You just happen to bring the worst in me, dear.”

There he was again. God, were you going to have this argument right now when you were deadly tired? You hoped it could wait till tomorrow, but it was clearly not your luckiest day.

“If you want to blame me again, it’s ok. I’m the worst one. I’m a bad person and a terrible assistant.” You squeezed your eyes shut and sighed again, scratching your forehead. “I get it. What I don’t get is why you aren’t happy I’m leaving.”

“Because I don’t want you to leave. If I really hated you so much, I’d already found another assistant, but I don’t want that.”

“Listen, let’s stop playing our games just for a few minutes.” This conversation made you feel even more exhausted. “We don’t get along. You don’t like me. Why do we torment each other? I don’t even remember the last time we had a regular conversation without shouting and cursing.”

“I’m not playing games with you, dear. You do.” He had already cornered you, his face determined and somewhat unsettling. “What do you want? A raise? More benefits?”

You were ready to yell at him again.

“Did you listen to what I just said? I want to leave. I want to come home and forget about all our horrible fights. I want to have a steady and boring job back in US. Do you understand?”

“NO, I DON’T!” The man screamed at you again, and now you suddenly felt his arms clenching your shoulders painfully and winced from his touch. “I already told you to stop toying with me! After all this shameless flirting and batting your eyes you wanna tell me you’re leaving? Do you think I’m so stupid to believe in this bullshit?”

It took you a few seconds to process his words. What? Flirting? Well, you did consider him handsome and charming, who on Earth didn’t, but you had never pulled anything like that. At first, it was because of your professionalism, and then your relationships escalated so fast you knew that he hated you and you hated him. What Sebastian had been even talking about?

You felt very aware how close he was once you felt his heavy breath on your face. He never did this before.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I want to leave. That’s all.” You tried pushing him back with your hands against his chest. “Please, let me go. I need to… t-to go to the kitchen.”

“You’re going nowhere, dear.” His expression darkened. “Tell me the truth. You don’t want me to treat you like my assistant? I get it, I get it, it’s fine. I can treat you like my girl in front of everyone if that’s what you want.”

“No! I – “

His put his hand on your mouth immediately, leaning in closer.

“It’s ok, I understand. I grew tired of pretending like nothing happens between us, too. You want me to let everyone now? It’s ok. I’ll post our photo on Instagram tomorrow. Is this what you want? Is this what you want?”

You tried to scream, but his grip on you was too strong as if Sebastian was really some kind of super soldier. Desperately trying to wriggle free you only got him to hold you tighter, his soft lips all over your face already wet with tears.

“It’s ok, dear. I got it.” He shushed you, trying to keep your arms together with his hand and pushing his knee in between your legs. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I understand now, so you don’t have to go. You won’t go, will you?”

You couldn’t answer him even if you wanted to.

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan #dark sebastian stan #bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes #winter soldier

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