#Bruce KNOWS that the moment any of these kids crack its the end of the world as they know it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ltwharfy · 24 days

Text

"Bob's Burgers" Season 9 Episode Ranking Rewatch (Long Post)

So, I've been rewatching "Bob's Burgers" from the beginning and ranking the episodes using the spreadsheet that @babsvibes created! If you want to know why I'm doing this or how I view the 1-5 rating scale, you can check out my Season 1 post! If you want to check out any of the other seasons, I've been using the "bob's burgers episode ranking rewatch" tag for all of them.

Now, on to Season 9:

Average (Mean) Score: 4.55

Mode (Most Common) Ranking: 5

Ranking Breakdown: 12 5s 10 4s

Season as a whole thoughts:

"Bob's Burgers" is turning nine and it's feeling *uses inhaler* fine!

Seriously, this is just another really excellent season in my opinion. It joins Season 4 and 8 as one of the seasons to not getting any episodes rated lower than a 4, and it's average score is good enough for 4th place of the currently ranked seasons below 7, 4, and 5. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of Season 7- a great mix of humor and heart along with introducing some new characters and other innovations- it's definitely representative of the series at its best, in my opinion.

Some thoughts on specific episodes (and feel free to ask if you want my thoughts on an episode I didn't comment on):

"Just One of the Boyz 4 Now for Now": It's a tough call, but this might be my favorite season premiere and my favorite "musical episode" (ie: one with more than the typical 1-2 songs). All the songs are absolute classics and great parodies of romantic comedy tropes! it's really a brilliant episode. It's hard to name a favorite song, but I think I might have to go with "Friend Zone" just because "Now let's kiss over this cake/'Cause it's your birthday, I guess" always cracks me up. The baby rat subplot is also really fun, and a great use of Hugo. And this episode gives us another (brief) appearance of Louise's Boo Boo crush, which is one of my favorite running gags! A great way to start the season.

"The Taking of Funtime One Two Three": While we're on the subject of great songs (or we were recently) "let an egg roll, from your egg hole" and "if wooly mammoths had had wheels maybe they'd still be around" are among the "Bob's Burgers" song lyrics that are always living in my head. Sadly, I rarely have an occasion to say either of them in conversation. I do like to say "To what end, people?!" occasionally, so thanks for that, Trip. Anyway, this is another classic "The Belcher Kids and their friends have an adventure episode" with a healthy does of Mr. Fischoeder and some fun moments with Yuli the security guard, one of my favorite minor recurring characters.

"Tweentrepreneurs": I love this episode because it helped inspire one of my favorite future career headcanons for Louise (and an outlined multichapter fic I'll probably never write). While taking over the restaurant or being a film director seem like the most obvious future career for Louise, this episode has the biggest of about three canon moments that inspired my "Louise Belcher, future labor union organizer" headcanon. I worked in the labor movement for several years and I just think would Louise would love it- taking on the rich and powerful, helping other people stand up for themselves, causing good trouble- it's a really good fit for her. And here she is, leading a walkout at age 9! (And, given my fondness for her relationship with Rudy, I have to mention that it's her concern for his health that is the final straw leading to the walkout.)

"Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street": Probably my favorite Halloween episode; definitely has my two favorite Halloween costumes! Rudy and Bob are probably the two characters I relate to the most, and it cracks me up that their costumes in this episode are totally things I would do: "what? It might look like I'm wearing normal clothes, but actually I'm totally Paul Rudd or Bruce Springsteen, can't you tell?!" Also, I don't think I've mentioned before how much I love the guy who's about to throw the candy into the incinerator. He's really one of my favorite one-off characters. Dude just got out of six month coma, doesn't know what day it is, still goes to work...and apparently will just throw anything into the incinerator that anybody tells him to (unless he gets a more compelling reason not to)? I think he might rank second after the "Boyz 4 Now" security guard as my favorite nameless one-off character.

"I Bob Your Pardon": Maybe my third or fourth favorite Thanksgiving episode! I've always had an interested in politics and journalism (I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid) so this hilarious small town Thanksgiving turkey pardoning scandal really hits a lot of the right notes for me. If I had become a journalist, I definitely would've stolen "Well, somebody better call Huey Lewis because I may have found myself some news" as my catchphrase. And the end credits song is a total banger! "Don't you taint my mayor!"

"Better Off Sled": An excellent Christmas episode! Generally speaking, Louise and Logan's dynamic isn't really my jam, but I enjoy them here. The one-upsmanship of the snowball arms race is a lot of fun, and the "stupid Christmas" ending is sweet but not too sweet and feels totally in character for Louise. Also, I can't help but love this exchange: "Then why does it look like your butt could take a sheet of fresh-baked cookies out of the oven?" "Genetics?" (Kristen Schaal's delivery of "genetics?" is one of at least three times on the series when she absolutely kills me with her delivery of a single word). All that being said, I think Teddy is the real comedic MVP of this episode- pretty much everything he says cracks me up! And I love that Rudy is basically the one who saves the day for the Belcher kids! And Knitcracker, I can't believe I didn't mention Knitcracker yet! (That said, it's still not my favorite Christmas episode since it doesn't involve any references to murder mannequins.)

"The Helen Hunt": I feel like this might be one of my least popular shipping opinions but...I like Teddy/Kathleen! Not in the sense that I want to create fic or art for them, but I just think they are kind of sweet together. Like with Roger and Judy from "Aquaticism" they have that "awkward middle-aged people finding each other" vibe that this awkward middle-aged single person finds appealing. And I think her pretty easygoing, laidback nature is a nice contrast to how stressed out/excitable Teddy can be. And I always enjoy people who watch odd sports! Okay, Teddy/Kathleen aside, I also just enjoyed that they did a followup to "Housetrap", and the father and hot son plumbing duo subplot is so cute! "You, you make plumbing fun..."

"Bed, Bob, and Beyond": One of the things I've noticed in this rewatch, is that I really enjoy the three-story episodes (aka vignette episodes aka triptychs aka who knows what else some folks have called them.) I think what I really enjoy is that the reason for them is always different, and therefore it always says something different about the characters and their situations. it's not just the Simpsons having a trio of non-canon Halloween adventures ever year. I think showing Linda and Bob having a stupid fight, and the kids view of it and their efforts to get them to reconcile, was a really clever use of one of these stories. Also, if I am ever asked to do an English accent, I will likely say "I'm watching footie on the telly in the pubby where the beer is". (Which is probably offensive, so please don't ask me to do that!)

"Every Which Way But Goose": Another thing the rewatch has made me appreciate more: Jimmy Jr. and his relationship with Tina. I never hated J-Ju, but I will say that I probably took him and the Tinimmy relationship for granted- it's been there since almost the beginning but I never really thought much about it. But the rewatch has helped me realize how funny of a character J-Ju is (it's just a really funny voice by H. Jon Benjamin) and how the Tinimmy relationship has given us some really funny episodes- most notably this one and "Ex Mach Tina", which are both all-time classics in my book (and, of course, they play a big role in "Bob Actually" as well, but I like that one for other reasons as well.) To me, it's clear from this episode and others that J-Ju does care about Tina...he's just very much a 13 year old boy. So, he's occasionally thoughtful but more often dumb or oblivious. Also, the end credits song to this one is another classic. I wish I could go to a concert of "Bob's Burgers" music just so I could scream out "secret kiss with Bruce the Goose" with thousands of other excited concert goers, because that is what that lyric deserves, dammit!

"The Gene Mile": So, I recently posted about how much I enjoyed some of the Rudy moments in this one. This is another great "Belcher kids and their friends" adventure; and I really wish that Courtney and Alex had more appearances in stories like this- where they and their relationship with Gene isn't really the center of the story- they are just part of the gang! It's always fun to watch different combinations of the kids have fun together. Also, nice for Large Tommy to get his largest role- going back to Season 1 of the rewatch it's funny to think that he was introduced much earlier than some of Louise's more iconic classmates (Rudy, Chloe, Millie, Jessica, Harley, etc.).

"P.T.A. It Ain't So": I feel like this might be the first example in the rewatch of an episode that really grew on me. A lot of the episodes I've given 5s to were ones I remember loving as soon as I saw them. Or they were "sleeper hits" that I had basically forgotten about before rewatching. This episode I remember when I first saw it, and I remember thinking it was fine but nothing great. But on rewatches I just find myself enjoying it more and more. I really love the Kim and Sons hardware store bird subplot- especially the ridiculous flyer the kids make. Also, it's fun watching the kids play with their pipe in the background (such a great kids being kids moment)! But the PTA stuff is great too- I love the fact that Tammy's Dad is Linda's PTA bestie for some reason! And Linda's idea of Colleen being in the shark suit for the dramatic revelation! And the Bleach Boys! Also, as someone who headed a neighborhood political group for a while, Joanne's line "Do you have any idea how many emails I send a week? No, you don't because no one reads them" resonates with me.

Random thoughts (stuff that doesn't affect the ratings):

-More great new characters continue to arrive on the scene! Hi Susmita! Hi Arnold!

-I would totally watch Randy's movie "A Life, Well, Steved". "And I thought to myself, 'I can't take another hurdle. I think I am that baby turtle.'" That's some beautiful, profound stuff there.

See you in the Season 10 post! It could be pretty soon since I've already watched rated it all- just need time to write!

#bob's burgers #bob's burgers season 9 #bob's burgers episode ranking rewatch #long post

12 notes · View notes

sobbingdistantnoises · 10 months

Note

I am a little confused about the ask game buttttt

i just found this and i can’t stop laughing

also do you have any weird stories you’d like to tell?

HELPPHDJSJAKKA, THAT'S AMAZING, hdjsjaj. Don't you just hate when your subconuous mind makes you build shelves? </3

BUT WEIRD STORIES, hm.

OKAY I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING. Basically, context: I've had the same history teacher and class for two years, and said teacher has taught at the school for since it was built. Therefore he was there for its whole history

What's also to note is that my course was a 2 year course with both freshmen and sophomores, and we had about 60 kids in the classroom. Therefore we needed a BIG classroom. The school didn't initially have classrooms big enough, so what they ended up doing was knocking a wall down between two small classrooms to form a big history classroom. However, because there used to be a wall in the middle of the classroom, there still needed to be a pole for integral structural support or whatever. Thus, my classroom had a 1x1 foot pole towards the front of it

Now (time), the teachers have put stuff on it, like Caravaggio paintings, some student's drawing of a theoretical mid evil (<- can't figure out how to spell it) kingdom ensignia (<- I should really use words I can spell) for my teacher, and Raphael's School of Athens. However, what my teacher told us last year is that that wasn't ALWAYS the case. Because several years back, some girl put a picture of some celebrity on it, then someone else did the same, etc etc. Basically, for a few years, it became known as the pole of hotness

However, for some reason, the hot people went away, and no one has added anything else to it.....UNTIL NOW.

You see, this year, I liked and became friends with the 3 people that sat at my table. So we hatched a PLAN ("plan") somewhere in the middle of the year to go and put someone on the pole of hotness "one day". However, then exams happened and we cried and forgot to do this until the second to last Thursday of school. Then forgot to do it until Friday morning, which was the last day of the normal school schedule and our last chance to pull it off

We all basically frantically tried to think of hot people that would be more or less universally known. Through a combination of none of us knowing universally known hot people or not wanting to confess to finding someone attractive, we settled on. Wait for it. Dante Alighieri's hat.

This is Dante ^ He was a mid evil Italian who wrote a long poem about going to hell with his friend Virgil (dead Roman poet) who he may or may not have either fatherzoned or had a celebrity crush on. Not sure if I'm honest. But either way, I don't recall his hat ever being important

STILL I managed to get a fixation on this hat. Let's go through a list of what I have done

Wrote "Dante Alighieri's dumb hat" in response to the question of the day, "what is your pet peeve". My friend drew him underneath, and my teacher pointed it out to the whole class and called it "the most humanities student thing ever" the next day

Wrote 6 pages of crossover crack fanfiction between Dante, his hat (which I named Lauren after the fact that laurel leaves exist and John Laurens (I didn't watch Hamilton by this point but I think I read a few fanfics)), and Paul Revere based on the idea that Lauren could talk for an assignment

(Not hat specific but) wrote about wanting to time travel to the moment Dante finished writing the Divine Comedy in order to appear as a divine being and scare him on my FINAL EXAM ESSAY (the whole essay was slightly unhinged in general but shh)

Added Dante's hat to a slideshow my friend's friends made called "chest hair history" in which they put a lot of shirtless people and shared with the history teachers at the end of the year (MY FULL NAME IS ALSO ON THIS THING. ON THE FIRST SLIDE) (unrelated but this whole slideshow is so dumb, there's Elon Musk, Michelangelo's David, Bruce Dickinson (I LATER FOUND OUT MY TEACHER IS AN IRON MAIDEN FAN, dying), Steven Adler, and one of Genghis Khan's grandchildren, among others)

And now we have come to the point at which a fifth point will be added. But first, my friends and I frantically panicked as we realized that I was afraid to ask my art teacher (who is actually so nice, 10/10 teacher, I just fear things) to use the printer but was the only one with a period where I could effectively do whatever since it was the last days of school

So instead, I spent 40 minutes drawing, and then it was time to go to history, equipped with a colored pencil'd notebook paper drawing of his hat

Putting it on the pole was simultaneously both simpler and more difficult that we assumed (we had no plan). My teacher talked at the start of class, we realized we had no tape, we schemed (panicked) and didn't know what to do. My teacher finished went away to his farther away desk. We decided to go steal some tape from the teacher's table that was ~two meters away from us. (ALSO NOTE. WE WERE NOT SLY. WE SAT AT THE FRONT OF THE ROOM, AND DANTE'S HAT IS BRIGHT RED.)

Tape acquired, we all looked at each other in our seats not knowing when to get up nor who will get up to put the paper on the wall. So impulsively, I took the paper, walked a few meters over to an emptier side of the pole, STUCK IT ON THERE, speedwalked back to my seat. And then the paper fell and I had to tape it again not a full 15 seconds later whilst the teacher had actually TURNED SO THAT I THINK I WAS IN VIEW while I did the deed, hfjsjaka. (And there was also a group of guys sitting right in front of the pole who looked at the new addition so ???ly, FJSJAJA)

And that is. the story of how I indirectly called some old dead guy's hat hot and subtly announced this to my history classroom for hopefully years to come (we shall see whether it's still up next year). I will also now pray that no one irl finds this post (I think at least one of the three friends has tumblr so. Fear.)

#asks #kk #dante alighieri

6 notes · View notes

vln-vibes · 2 years

Text

Fics in the works

Updated 04/2023

Hey I know its been a while since I’ve properly published new fics. Honestly keep coming up with ideas but actually finishing them is the kicker.

Ngl I honestly feel like I need some betas for the works I’ve got going on and if any of these interest you then by all means feel free to message me! And yes some of these are still Maribat

The Winner Takes The Crown (Princess)

Got into DPxDC and decided to take a crack at it. As usual this thing was supposed to be a one-shot but is 18.9k words so far and counting so three-shot is more likely.

Tags: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Kon-El | Conner Kent & Danielle "Dani" Phantom, Danielle "Dani" Phantom/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Danny Fenton/Jason Todd

Summary: When members of the Team get sent out to scout an inconspicuous town in Indonesia with supposed hauntings and missing teens on the night of an eclipse surely nothing could go wrong, right?Meanwhile the Ghost King got tired of every old timey ghost royalty trying to get their hands on his little sister/cousin/clone and got an idea. Why not have them duke it out amongst each other for once. It'd be entertaining at the very least or a disaster waiting to happen at most--- at least that's what his newly appointed Fright Knight thought anyway

Chapters out so far: 1/3 AO3 Part 1

Who The Wayne Are You?!

Why not do a fusion of two crossover fandoms??? (Not sure if I’ll include any romantic ships)

Tags: Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Danny Fenton, Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Bruce Wayne, Danny Fenton & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Tim Drake & Danny Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jason Todd, Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Danny Fenton, Cassandra Cain & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Misunderstandings, Mistaken Identities

Summary: Its just her luck that on her first day in Gotham City, the literally cursed crime capital of the world that she gets kidnapped. To make matters worst her kidnappers must be blind because they think she’s Cass Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s only daughter, who doesn’t even have blue eyes! Fortunately or unfortunately she’s not the only one in this dilemma--- He was sure that the spirit of Gotham had it out for him; the moment his sister left to go on the tour to Gotham U he gets pushed into a white van (cliché much?). On the bright side it wasn’t the Guys In White, down side the idiots can’t seem to agree if he’s Tim Drake, co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises, or Jason Todd, supposedly dead son of Bruce Wayne (he’s not sure if that’s quite true). Well at least he’s got company. “Ugh just my luck that I get kidnapped literally on my first day in Gotham” “Oh samesie”

Chapter count: Unknown

Tales of Ladyluck and Jinx: Twins Extraordinaire (Wrk ttl)

I mean c’mon the potential for bio siblings Tim and Mari is right there.

Tags: Tim Drake & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Tim Drake & Bridgette Dupain-Cheng, Bridgette Dupain-Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Jack Drake & Tim Drake, Jack Drake & Marinette-Dupain-Cheng, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain, Sabine Cheng & Tim Drake, Sabine Cheng & Jack Drake, Jack Drake/Janet Drake, Bad Parents Jack/Janet Drake, Dead Janet Drake, Jack Drake Knows Tim is Robin, Does Not Approve, Surrogate Sabine, Fraternal Twins Tim and Mari, Jack Drake tries to be better, in the end, Bridgette Dupain-Cheng/ Felix Culpa, Quantic Kids

Summary: Tim Drake’s 12 year old, almost but not yet 13, life was falling apart right before his very eyes and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His mother was dead and his father was paralyzed. To make matters worse his father found out about Robin and was vehemently against it; so much so that he was sending Tim away. Turns out Janet Drake wasn’t his biological mother, his parents had used a surrogate. A woman named Sabine Cheng who lived in Paris alongside her husband and daughters. Turns out Tim was a twin; his parents only wanted the son.

As much as he wants to hate this new family he can’t help but crave the affection they provide, the warmth and comfort , that his parents never could. As much as Tim would miss being Robin he had Mari and that was enough. Who knows maybe he’d go back to the Life later on in life?

Chapter count: Unknown

Royal Flush

(Paused)

I’ve been really loving these HBIC Marinette stories and decided to try my own out with a fun Maribat twist!

Tags: Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Chloe Bourgeois & Nathaniel Kutzberg, Damian Wayne & Jon Kent, Jessica Keynes & Aeon Hill

Summary: For this year’s French-American Friendship Day it was the American's turn to visit and what a lucky coincidence and totally not tampered with by any of the Bats that Gotham Academy was chosen with newly re-enrolled Damian Wayne and recent transfers Jonathan Kent, Jessica Keynes and Aeon Hill. Jess was excited to reunite with her fellow Guardian only... things were different with the Parisians? She couldn’t really explain it but it seemed strange that the students were adorned with symbols; Red Hearts, Yellow Diamonds, Green Clovers and Blue Spades. What did this all mean and why were those without them ostracized? Was this also why Marinette seemed to have a whole wardrobe change and was now friends with mean girl Chloe?

Well it was up to Jess and reluctantly Damian to find out what was the root of the problem alongside sunshine duo Jon and Aeon, also known as the Seasonal Court while also trying to figure out how to offer their help with the Hawkmoth situation.

Chapter count; Unknown

Violet Gold (Working Title)

(Still working on it)

Tags: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Luka Couffaine/Tim Drake, Adrien Agreste/Conner Kent, Juleka Couffaine/Stephanie Brown, Bart Allen/Jaime Reyes, Kagami Tsurugi & Cassie Sandsmark, Miraculous Team, Young Justice, Soulmate AU

Summary: After a heartbroken meta akuma unleashes her untapped power on all of Paris the citizens all get scatter across the world--- heroes included! While Tygress finds herself mildly concussed and not so alone in a technologically advanced cave with a shadow like girl who intimidating the ever-loving hell out of her and a beautiful amazon who looked badass and like she could kick her ass, even after her recent heartbreak with Rose she felt her heart skip a beat. That’s when she noticed the glowing red band around both their arms. It turns out her fellow heroes were teleported to the same location, each bonding with different teen heroes; Ladybug and Viperion with a red caped black haired hero she didn’t know. As they’d learn the Akuma took them to their soulmates. Journey as these teen caped and non-caped crusaders learn about their ‘soulmates’ and about themselves. All in the name of Love.

Chapter count: 7 (Chapter 1 partially complete)

War (Working Title)

(Still Working on it)

Tags: Bio dad Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Miraculous Team, Bat Boys, Bat Girls, Marinette stopped taking shit, salt fic

Summary; Not a Dupain. Not Wanted. Those two phrases echoed in Marinette’s head as she robotically made her way up the stairs after having her world turned. Marinette was not Thomas Dupain’s biological daughter, not only that but her parent’s had enough of her ‘problematic’ behavior and were sending her away to live with her actual father, a man who, after looking him up online, turned out to be billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprise. Now she must leave her friends behind and move in with complete strangers while juggling her Guardian duties and hero life. Well one thing was for sure; she was done being a pushover. Done being a perfect example and ready to start anew. Gone was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, here comes Marinette Wayne!

Chapter count; 1 (its gonna be a long one-shot)

C’est la vie

(Paused)

Tags; Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Wally West, Dick Grayson & Kor’iander, Dick Grayson/Kor’iander, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Conner Kent, Conner Kent/Adrien Agreste, Felix Graham de Venily & Adrien Agreste, Bart Allen & Alix Kubdel, Mal Duncan & Alix Kubdel (more to come)

Summary; (Continuation of Staying Whelmed & Erable AU) Its been two years since the cease of the Parisian heroes. Everyone still mourns their loss but its time to move on. At least that’s what Dick keeps telling himself, he’s put off being on the team long enough and missed enough family dinners. Honestly he can’t even remember the last time he properly talked to some of his friends, the kwami doing a well enough job of keeping him from completely going off the deep end. With the help of the recently rescued princess Kor’iander of Tamarand he think he’s getting there. Tim on the other hand notices the imbalance of the world; the way certain creatures’ populations have significantly dwindled down, the way the magic users have been losing power, the increase of natural disasters and sudden reappearance of what they believed to be Trixx’s original temple... He can’t help but hope. Hope to regain his brother and fellow heroes, to bring back hope and restore the world’s balance. After encounters with others in the community he realizes that he’s not the only one that noticed. Now all he needs to do is convince the others that he’s not in denial and isn’t embarking some fruitless endeavor. Well no one said it’d be easy to enter the In-Between

Chapter count: unknown

#Maribat #Maribat au #fics in progress #beta needed #my fics #DPxDC #DPxDC wip #Maribat wip

38 notes · View notes

abbatoirablaze · 2 years

Text

The Avenger's Initiative, Chapter 30

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Unprotected sex. Dark bucky. Mentions of being drugged. Abuse. Light bondage. Overstimulation. Oral (f receiving)

Bucky’s POV

She stared at me as she drank the whiskey. I could see the anger and hate in her eyes. She blinked at me, and I knew that what I had to do was the right answer.

"You're gonna kill me, aren't you?"

I nodded, taking a slow sip from my own glass.

"It's kind of funny," she scoffed, no spat, "you can go and fuck her...but the second I fuck Steve I'm not worth it anymore."

"It doesn't have anything to deal with Miracle or Steve."

"Sure," she spat, finishing what was in her glass. She poured herself another one, "you tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night, Barnes."

"It isn't about what helps you sleep," I muttered, watching her. She looked to the door and back to me, "you can try...might run into some campers if you run fast enough...or you might just run deep enough into the woods where no one will notice."

"You just had to bring me back here."

"Where it begins, it must also end."

"That from a book?"

I shrugged, "does it matter?"

"I guess not," she said slowly, "you know...I cared about you at some point."

"That's gone though."

"I never wanted to end up like this."

"No one ever does," I said slowly, standing up, "but when they do..."

"Did Fury clear it?"

He nodded, "yes. You're a danger. You know it."

"Steve did just as much damage."

"You caused it, Mackenzie."

She backed up and we both watched as her glass crashed to the floor. I looked back up at her. She watched as the amber liquid filled its way through the cracks in the wood floor.

"And there's no going back?"

"No."

Her chest rose as she looked around the room. I launched myself at her. She tried to fight me off, but I'd had her pinned. Grasping her throat, I wrapped the vibranium arm around it first. Pressing hard enough to cut off the air supply I watched her eyes as she tried not to freak out but failed. Her hands tore at me until I pinned them with my knees.

Her face turned red, and I saw the fear in her eyes.

She knew I was going to murder her. She knew her final moments were coming. I didn't want to hear her, so I pressed harder.

"We could have had something beautiful," I muttered to her, "we could have made something beautiful, you and I. I thought you were the one to look past the red...push me away from my ledger...but instead you swallowed it whole."

She choked and gasped against me.

"I'm grateful," I whispered to her, "I don't feel guilty any more about what I am... And I want to thank you...I'll find her one day. But I know that you aren't her."

Her lips began to change colors and realizing that I'd already held her too long, I snapped her neck, not wanting her to suffer any more.

"I'll find her one day," I whispered as I let her go. Closing her eyes, I kissed her forehead. Walking down the hall, I grabbed a blanket from the living room and wrapped her in it, "come on, Kenz...we got one more thing to do."

6 months later

I sat down in the meeting room with Tony, Bruce, and the kid, "what's going on."

"We're bringing the lake house back."

"What?"

"You three are going to be the first group that goes back in," Tony said slowly, "but we are going to have a lot of different rules in place."

"What?"

"Well kid, after what happened with the last time," Tony began, eyeing me, "we had to stop...you remember that…Right?"

"Yeah," he said simply, "but aren't they all married now?"

"Not all of them," I replied, "Steve still has yet to pop the question."

Bruce laughed, "Cap still hasn't asked her?"

"Can you blame him?" Tony laughed, "ever since Mira became an agent, she's become more terrifying than Nat."

I smiled, thinking of how she'd grown into her role as an agent. Sure, she did most of her missions with Yelena or Clint, but sometimes I still got to work with her. She'd really become an amazing operative.

Deadly even.

"So, what's changed?" Bruce asked, "why are we bringing it back now?"

"Well let's be honest," Tony acknowledged, "the world hasn't been trying to shut itself down lately, and we haven't had much else to do...I think we may be finally entering a time where we can all settle down...and I want to give you guys the opportunity that we've had. Just about all of us have families now. It'll be you three for now, but I already have requests from a few others. So, if you aren't interested, let me know and we'll switch you out."

"As far as what's changed," Mira smiled, coming in, "I've taken some liberties with Tony. We reformatted everything so that we can provide you guys with some more...instruction."

"What?"

"Everything will be tailored to you and the women that you are going for," she said simply, putting some files in front of us, "Tony and I have created a database of women that not only would suit any of you, but we could get without any flags being raised."

"You created a database of women we could kidnap?"

"Well, when you say it like that," she said nervously, "it sounds worse."

"She created a database of single, healthy women that you can choose from," Tony said, patting her shoulder. He handed out three tablets to us, "go through the files the next few days, and if anyone tickles your fancy, get back to us."

Tony dismissed us, and Bruce and Parker picked up their tablets, immediately looking at the girls that were available. As Tony left, I watched Mira. She was collecting some of the papers that Tony had left behind.

"You're staring."

"I know," I replied. She stopped holding her papers and looked at me. I bit my lip to hold onto a smile from appearing, "I wasn't supposed to be at the top of the list when the program reactivated."

"I know," she copied. When I didn't respond she looked away from me and to the door, "you deserve to be happy, James."

"I've been fine, doll."

"I know you've been lonely," she sighed, "you hang out with Steve and I a lot, and while I'm glad the two of you have mended your friendship...sometimes I feel like you still see me the way you used to."

"Sometimes...yes..."

"I don't see you like that, James," she said sadly. Her hand reached out and she touched mine, "I will always have a special place in my heart for you...but I love Steve."

"I know."

"I will however say this," she smiled, removing her hand from mine. She started walking to the door, "There is a particularly feisty girl in there that I marked with a red star...I think you'd definitely have your hands full with her."

Bucky’s Doll POV

1. Always obey your man. He knows what's best for you.

2. Looking perfect for him is a must. Make sure you always look your best and can please him.

3. Taking care of yourself is of the utmost importance. No one wants a no-good Nelly who does nothing. Be active, especially with your man.

I read the three most important rules, and it felt like a chant...like a mantra. My own personal life motto.

I jumped as the alarm went off.

4. Schedules and routines make a woman prioritize their life. Wake up and have breakfast by 6 AM. Lunch at Noon. Dinner at 6 PM. Make sure you have plenty of time to get done the necessary chores around the house so you can take care of your man.

The intercom had some slight static, before giving way to an annoying amount of feedback, "good morning, ladies and Merry Christmas. Breakfast will be delivered momentarily. Please line up facing the wall so that your man can safely deliver it to you."

That was new.

Was it really Christmas?

The calming voice hadn't said that before. Granted I'd only been here since a little before Thanksgiving, but I couldn't recall if the woman's recording had mentioned another holiday.

The echo and feedback of the intercom started again, pulling me from my thoughts, "Room three, please comply. Line up against the wall."

Sighing, I began towards the place I'd become most familiar with. I went to the far wall where my bed was and faced it. Holding my hands out, I let the camera know that I was not a threat.

The door buzzed and I felt a giddiness as it clicked, letting me know he was here. I heard the distinct light footfalls. The smell of his cologne wrapped around me. I wanted to swoon.

But a small voice in the back of my head was yelling at the more submissive one to shut the hell up.

"Hello my little hummingbird."

I felt my core ache as my panties grew damp just from the sound of his voice.

"What, no good morning?"

"Good morning."

But the voice didn't feel like my own. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on something...anything else.

"I missed you," he whispered against the shell of my ear. I felt the coolness of his left arm wrap around my bare midriff, and I gasped as he began peppering light kisses along my neck and shoulders, "did you miss me?"

"Yes."

I felt him smile against my shoulder and he leaned his head to rest there for a second, "it's time for your pills, doll. I brought them here so you could take them...figured we'd use the pill instead. I know you don't like needles...I trust you to take it. Are you going to be a good girl for me?"

"Yes."

I felt his arm slide away from my waist, only to return at level with my vision. As I turned around, he maneuvered the water so that it was in front of my hands. His other hand held a plastic cup with a number of pills. Taking the cup, I took the pills and threw them back with a large gulp of water. When I swallowed, I opened my mouth to show him that I didn't cheek any of them.

"Such a good girl," he smiled, taking the glass of water back. His right hand cupped my cheek as I leaned into it. He softly began to sway us side to side, as if we were dancing to a slow song that only he, himself could hear, "you know what I think, my little hummingbird?"

"Hmm?" I moaned. I allowed myself to pull him closer to me so that our bodies were flush against one another. His hand wrapped around my waist as his right reached for my hand so that we could continue to sway.

"You've been such a good girl, I want to share my room with you," he said sweetly, "what would you think of that?"

I pulled away from him and our dancing ceased. His icy blue eyes seemed sweeter, more delicate, "really?"

"Really," he smiled, it was reaching all the way to those beautiful blue eyes, "I want to take care of you. I want to make you, my wife. Let me take you the way a husband should take his wife. Stay with me in my room."

"Oh gee," I smiled dreamily, "are you sure you want me?"

"Of course," he grinned, "now come on. We'll go upstairs and I can show you."

As he turned away from me to get the door, I faked a yawn and spat the oblong sedative pill into my hand. Dropping it behind me I grabbed my tray.

"What are you doin-"

But before he could finish his question, I flipped the tray and smashed it as hard as I could into his skull. He fell to the ground, stunned, but I didn't wait to figure out how much. The alarm sounded as I made my way through the door, unassisted by anyone.

"Security breach. Room 3," the calming voice said over the speaker, "Room 3. Security breach."

"YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

I felt the coolness of his vibranium arm as he threw me up against the wall by my waist. His stocky body was on me like a lion to its prey, pushing me further against the concrete wall.

"James please-"

"Oh no, doll, only good girls get to call me James," he laughed angrily. I could hear the button on his jean pop. The zipper as it was hastily thrown down. The shuffling of his boxers and jeans being pushed right below the hardened length that was already probing me through my underwear, "I tried to be a gentleman. Tried to be nice to you...but you don't want that...do you?"

He yelled something across the empty hallway and the alarm stopped. He pushed my face into the concrete wall again and I felt the unforgiving uneven wall scratching my cheek and jaw. With a hard pull, I felt my underwear give as he shredded it. The cool air of the hallway smacking my most sensitive parts.

I shivered, feeling his already hard length was dripping precum. He rubbed it up against me making sure to mix our fluids, coating the rest of his head in the slick that had already acquired among my folds.

"You crazy fucking bitches," he growled, pulling my arms back and linking them together. He held my arms with one of his as he pulled me from the wall and pushed me into the staircase. I groaned as my hips knocked against it, taking the breath from my body, "always thinking you can get away. You can't get away doll. You belong to me. So just be a good girl for me doll. Let me take care of you."

"Let me go," I pleaded. I looked up the stairs as I heard the door opening. Bucky slammed into me as I saw a younger boy around my age giving me a pitiful look. He started in at a brutalizing pace, giving me no time to adjust, and I hissed at how he stretched me, "help me...please."

"Parker, shut the god damned door," he growled, snapping his hips so deep into me that I felt like I was seeing stars. The kid shut the door and I couldn't stop a moan from leaving my lips as he hit the most sensitive part inside me, "you like that, huh? See how good I can treat you. I can make you forget all your problems doll. Fuck that cunt so good, leave you fucked out and full of my cum. Don't you want that, doll? Your biggest worry to be that you're too full of my cum that you can't move?"

"James-"

"Shut up, you're not a good girl. You're just a slut," he growled, cutting me off between the harsh snaps of his hips, "when you talk to me, you call me Bucky or sir. That understood?"

When I didn't respond he pulled back on my arms, hitting even deeper than I could possibly imagine. I let out another loud moan as I felt his thrusts becoming erratic.

"Is. That. Understood?"

"Fuck," I moaned, feeling him bump up against my cervix again, "yes. Yes. YES SIR!"

"Fuck," he copied as I called him by his new title. I felt my pussy fluttering around his cock as I milked him for everything he was worth. Pulling out, I felt some of his cum dripping out of me already and down my thighs. His hand let go of my arms, and I rested against the stairs as he slowly began fingering the cum back into me, "gonna have you so full of me. Gonna knock you up and keep you popping out kids for years, doll."

"Sir?"

"Mmm," he moaned. I felt him continue to push his cum inside me, eventually he began smearing it around on my pussy, "this belongs to me. This is my pussy. You understand?"

"Yes sir," I whimpered. I felt him leaning over me as he began to kiss the back of my ear. His hands worked their way to my thighs, massaging me. I felt my legs quivering as his lips curved into a smile against my neck, "please."

"Please what?"

"I can't anymore," I pleaded as his hands moved from my thigh back to my clit. He rubbed lazy circles on my already over-sensitized nub, "please...no more."

And in a second his fingers weren't on me. I heard the rustling of his pants, letting me know that he was done with me for now, and instead of more he picked me up bridal style, and carried me back to my room. As he closed the door and dropped me on my bed, I felt grateful.

"Th-thank you sir."

He took my hands and lifted them over my head. His cool blue eyes showed no emotion, and I didn't know whether to be afraid of relieved. His lips found my own, and not wanting to feel his wrath again, I gave in. Our lips worked in unison until I licked his bottom lip.

When he pulled away, I went to sit up, only realizing that I couldn't. Looking up I saw that he had used the cuffs and bound my hands to the headboard.

"Wh-what?"

"You didn't think I'd let you get off that easy, would you doll?" he laughed. His eyes went stormy, and I gasped as he knelt down in front of my legs. With the utmost ease, he placed a hand on either thigh and his tongue licked a thick flat strip along my folds, “you’re going to learn…one way or the other…and since pain hasn’t worked…let’s try the pleasure route…shall we?”

“B-Bucky…please.”

“That’s right, doll,” he grinned, his tongue plunging into me. I moaned, my hands gripping the cuffs hard, “keep begging all you want…but I’m not going to stop until you’re fucked out like my good little wife…just begging to be taken care of.”

Tag List: @krissy25, @lohnes16, @multifandom-world8, @cjand10, @fandom-princess-forevermore

#avengers initiative #avengers #dark avengers #the avengers #marvel #dark marvel #marvel au #bucky barnes #bucky #dark bucky barnes #james barnes #sergeant james barnes #sergeant james buchanan barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #falcon and winter soldier #dark winter soldier #the winter soldier #winter soldier

24 notes · View notes

nicad13 · 1 year

Text

Crossroads: Chapter 2

The Bridge

Summary: Din and Rayne work on fixing the Razor Crest, discuss their philosophies on droids, do a little sword sparring, talk about parenting a Force-sensitive child, and argue about religion.

By the way, Death Watch has prrrrrobably done something horrible to Din.

And he has no idea.

Notes: Posting an older fic in the hopes of getting comments and inspiration to get me to finish the sequel by the end of Season 3. AO3 link in the Source at the bottom!

Warnings: Religious conflict, more as we go.

---

I'm on a long sojourn I'm sitting here shedding my skin Don't know about inside, ugly on the outside They're all messing with me for the shape I'm in I'm looking for a clean slate…

And I'm a long, long way from anywhere real safe

Bruce Hornsby, Resting Place

---

“So what’s your thing against droids, anyway?”

“Had a bad experience.”

Din was holding a landing strut in place while Rayne welded. Now both were masked. He felt more at ease, able now to escape, or at least not notice, the occasional penetrating gazes from below Rayne’s brows while she had the welding shield down. He had to admit that her work was thorough; measurements double-checked, assemblies triple-tested, cuts made with a steady hand. Her reputation was well-earned. Chit-chat had been minimal, limited mostly to describing the causes of various kinds of damage and explaining the bits of Jawa hair that had managed to stick here and there, which also happened to coincide with why the ship had so obviously been stripped bare and re-assembled in the field. Oh, she’d had a good laugh at his expense on that one. At least the ground defense protocols Din and Kuiil installed during the rebuild seemed to meet with her approval.

“Oh yeah?” she responded after he didn’t elaborate. “I had a bad experience with a clone trooper dressed in head-to-toe armor, but I didn’t kick you out of my hangar.

“Droids destroyed my village and murdered my parents when I was a child.”

The words came through the modulator in a voice that did not crack. Did not betray any emotion whatsoever. Whether his tone was meant to protect himself or sting her, Rayne couldn’t tell. She lowered the torch and faced him, paused for a moment, then said “I’m sorry.” It was strange, responding to such a thing in such a way with neither party able to look the other in the eye. When he didn’t respond, she resumed welding. “But, yeah, that’ll do it.” She continued the weld a little further, then paused again, lifting the shield to inspect her work. “Thing about droids is, they reflect their creators. Malicious programming and a military build will get you a monster. Solid programming and a purposeful build will get you a reliable tool. Don’t blame the droid. Blame the programmer.” Those blue eyes met his once more, then went back to examining the hinges above the weld.

Din was quiet, remembering Kuiil’s words to the same effect. Remembering the drastic transformation IG-11 had undergone at the Ugnaught’s hand. Indeed, the droid had been a disturbing mix of its original resiliency and lethal skill with Kuiil’s benevolence. He hated to admit the fact that he owed the droid his life twice over, but there it was. Both Kuiil and the droid he reprogrammed now lay dead or blown to slag on Nevarro, sacrifices to Din’s quest to protect the kid. Blame the sins of the droid on the programmer. But pin the virtues, as well.

Two of the bots working at the top hull of the Razor Crest chose that moment to start bickering in a stream of bleeps and blurbs, requiring Rayne to step out from under the shade of the engine assembly to see what was up. “Hey! What’s going on?” Din listened as they both chortled at the same time, willing himself to not blow his stoic visage with a laugh. Rayne cut them off with a sweep of her hand. “One at a time. Alpha, you first.” Alpha gave its version of events in a stream of low tones, and then Rayne pointed to the other one. “Beta?” Beta’s response was pitched higher, with faster syllables. When it was finished, Rayne crossed her arms for a moment, pondering. “Ok, yeah, I see the problem. That pump will be easier to fix if you take it out and bring it into the shop where all the hydraulic tools are. It should weigh about fifty kilos but it has handles. Can you two manage it or do you need me?” The bots replied in unison with the same tones, in apparent agreement. “Ok, thanks. Get to it.” She returned and picked up the welder. The kid, sitting in the shade under the belly of the ship, giggled and clapped his congratulations to the resolution of the situation.

“Did you just say ‘thanks’ to your droids?” Din’s tone was incredulous. He’d never seen such a thing, even from Kuiil.

“Yes, I did thank them. They’re just like any other tool – they deserve respect. And they’re not droids. They’re just robots.”

“What’s the difference?”

“They’re not fully AI. I didn’t give them autonomy.”

“Why not?”

“Because then they would be slaves, and I’m not a slave owner.”

“Huh.” Din tipped his head to the side. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Anyone who puts a restraining bolt on a droid doesn’t deserve to have the droid working for them.”

“I had a droid for a bounty, once. I stuck a restraining bolt on it. It had eight arms and I didn’t have enough cuffs.”

“The droid wasn’t working for you. I hope they found the developer and reprogrammed it. Did… you didn’t freeze it in carbonite, did you?”

“Nope. I wish I could’ve. Just made it stand in the corner. Damn thing stared at me for two weeks before I could finally unload it.”

“Can you take the helmet off with droids around?”

Goddammit, she knew right where to cut. “Ideally, no.” He wouldn’t lie to her, but he didn’t feel compelled to spill more than he had to, at the moment.

“That’s why you don’t have security cameras on your ship.”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough.” She gave the weld a final look, then turned to watch as the two bots maneuvered the hydraulic pump from the portside engine actuator down the maintenance ladder. Seeing them safely to the ground, she turned back to Din. “Let’s get that fob scrambler installed while they work on the pump. Then we’ll take her up for a spin once we get everything put back together.”

---

Din sat in the starboard jump-seat, an unfamiliar position for him on his own ship, strapped in, arms wrapped around the kid. Rayne flipped through the ignition sequence like she’d owned the ship for years instead of first setting foot in it yesterday. “You specialize in this model?”

“Nope.”

It was not the answer he expected.

She fired the port engine first, standing at the windscreen and watching the thruster flare before it burned clean. Satisfied, she fired the starboard engine, leaning around Din for an unobstructed view. Smiling, she sat in the pilot’s chair… his chair… and strapped herself in. “I’m gonna’ push it good and hard, so hang on.” She turned to face them. “You guys ready?”

“Sure.” His tone was a mixture of eagerness and bemusement.

“Excellent.” She turned back, locked the swivel, and lowered the reflective amber-lensed flight goggles over her face and brought the comm mic down to her lips. She opened the comm and Din heard it crackle over the receiver in his helmet. “Gama, retract the dome.” Din watched as the overhead latticework split down the middle and cracked open, the middle reaching up and out to the sky as the sides swung down on their hinges. She flicked the comm to a different channel. “Halcyon Tower, this is Rollins Hangar requesting clearance for high-speed atmospheric exit with a Class-C gunship. Test vector Z-29-Phi. Weapons are off-line.”

“Copy that Rollins Hangar. You are clear for high-speed atmospheric exit, test vector Z-29-Phi at eight thousand meters bearing eight-one-eight.”

“Eight thousand meters bearing eight-one-eight, copy. Rollins Hangar out.” Din watched as she pushed forward on the lift thrusters, the lever sliding through her long fingers. He waited for it to catch in its usual place and was surprised when it didn’t happen, missing the usual resulting bump at two thousand meters. Her feet worked the pedals and the Razor Crest turned into an easy spin as they rose, then she eased forward on the throttle and the outskirts of the city slid by below them. By the time they reached the edge of civilization, they had gained eight thousand meters of elevation. “Here we go.”

She punched the throttle.

The ship leaped forward, pressing his back into the seat and the kid into his gut. The grav field in the flight deck was tuned down from the steady-state set of the cargo area. She had set it so you could turn the ship upside down and anyone back there wouldn’t know the difference. Up here, you wanted to let the field throw you around a little. Enough so you knew how the ship was moving, but not so much that you brought your lunch back up into your helmet and asphyxiated yourself when the going got rough. With one arm still around the kid, he brought a hand to the instrument panel, confirming the lack of vibration that was usually there while clearing atmosphere.

“Hang on. I’m going to test some vector changes.”

He brought his arm back around the kid just in time as Rayne swung the ship into a hard dive angling to starboard, her head turned just a bit in his direction, everything above the tip of her nose concealed by the goggles, her mouth betraying the beginnings of a smile.

The kid giggled.

She changed vectors again, swinging the ship up and to port, the cords standing out in her neck as she looked over her other shoulder. Maintaining the same vector, she turned the ship into a barrel roll, the weight of the helmet pressing at the top of Din’s head in the G forces of the loops. Leveling out, she found one last cloud in the upper atmosphere and punched the ship into it, enveloping the flight deck in darkness, rain and hail smacking the windscreen with machine-gun-fire percussiveness. Finally, he felt turbulence through the hull, but not nearly what he expected, given the density of the storm system. Lightning flickered and leaped all around them, spanning great canyons in the cloud, and he watched as one bolt struck the starboard engine, envelop the ship as it conducted around the hull, then exited off the port engine, leaving them untouched.

And then they were out into space, black all around, stars above, the gentle curve of the planet below before she turned the ship and put the planet on the port side for orbit.

The kid let out another peal of laughter and clapped.

Rayne sat back and took a deep, satisfied sigh. “That was nice.”

“It was.”

She took a quick glance around, confirming that no other vessels were in the immediate area, then flipped a few switches and consulted the diagnostics on the view screen. She nodded, satisfied with what she saw, then sat back in the chair to look back out at the stars. “Atmospheric and transfer-to-orbit operations check out. We’ll probably wrap up hyperdrive and navigation tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

She ran a finger along the console. “She’s a good ship, Din. Give her a little love every now and then and she’ll stay with you.”

Her words touched him more deeply than he expected. After Mayfeld’s crack about the ‘Crest’s appearance and his bug-faced droid’s comments about the upkeep, which he grudgingly admitted was his own fault, the remark seemed to heal something in him. His ship – his home – was almost whole again. The kid burbled in his lap, and he realized he hadn’t responded. A repeated “Thank you,” was all he could come up with.

“I want to orbit for a couple of laps to test your surface-scan and zero-G grav. It’ll take about half an hour.”

“Sounds fine.” He looked down and saw that the kid was fast asleep. Typical – instant lights-out the minute all the fun stuff stopped. He had to admit that the kid seemed to have calmed down since they’d arrived at Rayne’s hangar. Whether it was simply a change of scenery or a more complicated matter of being near another Force-sensitive person, he couldn’t tell. He turned his head and watched the stars slide by, letting his eyes close for just a little bit, listening as Rayne worked. After an undetermined amount of time, he realized that the flight deck was silent. He opened his eyes and looked in Rayne’s direction without turning his head. She was leaned back, arms folded over her chest, goggles pushed up to the top of her head, looking out of the windscreen at about 2 o’clock. Not quite in his direction, but enough so that he could tell where she was looking. Her eyes seemed to track something in the distance for a few moments before flicking back to something else, tracked that for awhile, then flicked to the next.

After a minute or so, she turned her head just enough to meet his gaze, as if she’d known he was looking at her despite the angle of his visor. “Enjoying the view?”

He resisted the reflex to turn in her direction. “Yes. You?”

She turned back to face forward. “I am. I don’t get out here as often as I’d like. Hangar feels a little confined, sometimes.”

“A spacecraft hangar. Confined.”

Her head dipped to the instrument panel, then back up to the windscreen. “I prefer wide-open spaces.”

Her tone suggested there was more to it than that, but also that she’d rather not discuss it, so he gave her the out. “Fair enough.”

---

Din landed the Razor Crest, perhaps a little chagrined that it didn’t handle quite as smoothly under his hand as it had Rayne’s. She passed it off as having changed so many settings on him that it was merely a matter of him getting used to a properly-running ship again.

She was good at being nice when she wanted to be.

She followed him and the kid down the rear ramp, the kid tonking along on his little legs, the Mandalorian swinging his arms and rolling his shoulders, looking up as the latticework finished closing overhead.

“Feeling restless?”

“Yes.”

“How’s your sword handling?”

He turned to face her when he reached the bottom of the ramp. “Could use some work.”

“Mine too. Let me set the bots to finish up with today’s stuff on your ship and we can spar.”

He titled his head back and heaved a sigh. “Ffffiiiiinnne.”

The kid giggled.

She brought out a long, thin case, placed it on a table by the shop wall, and opened it to reveal two practice sabers. They were simple. Dull edges but nicely balanced. Good for sparing with someone you didn’t know well or when you didn’t want to ding up your good blade. Rayne handed one to Din. “Clean game to start. No other weapons.”

“Agreed,” he responded. “One more thing.” They had placed the kid in his crate on the table so he could watch from safety in the shade. Din stepped in front of him and took a knee so he was eye-level with him. “Rayne and I are going to play a little rough here, but don’t worry. We’re just going to have some fun. It might look bad, but we’re not going to hurt each other, so it’ll be ok. She’s a friend. Got it?” He offered the kid a finger. He smiled, cooed, and wrapped a hand around the glove. Din waved it around a bit before pulling free. “Good.” He hoped that would stave off any Force-choking of the mechanic before the ship was completely fixed.

He followed Rayne out to the hangar yard, then took a position opposite of her, taking a few practice swings to loosen his shoulders and test the saber’s balance and weight. He watched as she did the same, her eyes shielded by amber shades as the sun poured down.

They faced each other and stilled. “Ready?” she asked, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“Ready.”

They both leaped to close the distance between each other, swords clashing for a few perfunctory swings before separating, both of them pulling their shots to start.

Then Din attacked. Hard.

Rayne was ready, blocking every swing, smile growing wider. She gave no ground, kept up with his every move, and then caught him on the thigh, her blade sparking off of the beskar. He hopped back and reset. “Lucky shot.”

“We’ll see,” she responded.

He attacked again, and this time she blocked even harder, knocking him back. He was more skilled than she was, with diverse striking combinations and graceful handling. But what she lacked in skill and grace she made up for in speed and power. She was much stronger than he expected for her size. He managed to push her off for a moment. “You’re using the Force. That’s cheating.”

“Only enough to make up for the weight difference. I’ll stop using the Force if you drop the armor.”

He gave a half-shake of the head. “Nope.”

Her smile grew wider, almost feral. “Didn’t think so.” And then she attacked. He was able to block all of her swings. She didn’t have much in the way of combination change-ups, but she came on so fast that he didn’t have time to pull any offensive moves of his own. After what felt like a long time but was probably no more than thirty seconds, he realized she was wearing him down, striking in the same way over and over again, forcing him to use the same muscles to defend himself, while at the same time not showing any signs of tiring, herself. Sweat ran down her arms and her breath came in long pulls, but they were even draws, and each hit was as strong as the last.

Finally, he managed a slip and she missed, spinning out of the way as he caught her just above the knee. The blade was too dull to slice the fabric of her leggings, but the strike would leave a hell of a bruise, and she hopped on the other foot a couple times before re-setting. “Lucky shot,” she said.

He responded with a shrug and tilt of the head.

“Getting hot under all that armor?”

He remained silent, side-stepping away as she circled the yard, trying to recover.

“How much does all that weigh, anyway?”

“Does the Force power your mouth as much as it powers your blade?”

Her smile broke into an outright grin. “Can’t help it. I was born with this.”

“Yeah?” Din thumped the plate on his chest with his fist. “I earned this.”

He attacked once more and she engaged her defenses, meeting each of his strikes with a block, letting him wear himself down. When his strikes began to taper off, she tried to rally him. “Come on, Djarin! Get after it!” It worked for a few more swings, but then he staggered and she swept his feet, bringing him down. He rolled and caught her ankle, bringing her down as well. Only thing was, she rolled and got back up.

He stayed down.

The sun beat down on him, shining into the visor of his helmet. His head pounded. Maybe it hadn’t been such an awesome idea to try this so soon after the concussion blast of a week ago. The sun was blocked by Rayne’s shadow as she stepped into view above him, breathing hard, and brought the tip of her sword to his throat. “Was that fun, or what?”

“Fun. Yeah. Sure.”

She offered him a hand and pulled him back to his feet, but when they walked back to the shade of the overhang, she was the one limping. “I clipped you pretty hard. You gonna’ be ok?”

“Yeah. I think you boy has a Force trick he’s been wanting to try out that might help.”

Din followed as Rayne hobbled to the table, backed herself onto it, and pulled the bottom of her legging up over her knee to expose the bruise that had already formed above it. The kid was looking at her with a wide-eyed stare, mouth open in a small O. She picked him up out of the crate and placed him next to her so he could reach the wound while sitting. Without hesitation, he reached out towards her with his left hand, tiny fingers spread wide, and closed his eyes. She placed a hand at his back to hold him steady, feeling the small body tremble with effort.

He watched as the bruise faded and the swelling receded. After a few moments, all traces of it were gone, and the kid opened his eyes, looking up at Rayne. She smiled and picked him up to cradle him in the crook of her arm. “Good job.”

Din was silent for several more moments before he could finally find his voice, still in awe of how so much power could be housed in such a little body. “He’s done this before. I didn’t teach him. He just seems to know what to do.”

She pulled her gaze from the kid to face the visor. “Healing is an instinct for us. He’s always had it in him. Just needs a chance to use it on simple things to start with.”

“Can you do the same thing?”

“Yeah. I’m only low- to mid-level with the Force, but I’m pretty good with healing.”

“The Force is just another version of armor.”

“In a way, I guess.”

“Only you hide the fact that you have it. I’m up-front about what I’ve got.” He forced himself to place the sword on the table instead of tossing it before he turned and walked back toward the ship.

She let him gain about twenty paces before she turned back to the kid in her arms. “Here comes today’s lesson in diplomacy.”

She found him in the cargo hold, disassembling his rifle, getting ready to clean it. “You’re angry because you think I was toying with you.”

He didn’t answer, continuing his work.

“Am I wrong?”

He placed the barrel of the rifle back on the table. “Not entirely.” He paused, running a finger along the scope, refusing to meet her gaze. “I’m just… I’ve been in over my head since I picked up the kid. I’m not used to that. Just when I thought we were in the clear, I learn that the Imps are still breathing down my neck. I just got my ass handed to me by someone who claims to be on the low end of the Force. You said the kid was stronger than you.”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

She looked down at the sleepy, smiling green face and gave the kid a few bounces. “He’s off the charts.”

Din let out a long, slow sigh. “He’s dangerous.”

Rayne noticed the kid’s ears flatten and the corners of his mouth turn down. She snuggled him closer and gave him a finger for reassurance. “What’s he done so far?”

“Lifted a mudhorn. Held off a flamethrower.” A small click sounded from behind the helmet as he swallowed. “Choked a friend.”

“What provoked him on that last one?”

“We were just arm-wrestling. Wasn’t even that big of a deal.”

“Could you get him to stop?”

“Yes. He broke off as soon as I figured it out and told him to stop. But god… the look on his face…” Din realized his hands were fisted, and he forced them to open.

Rayne kept her gaze on the kid, careful to keep her expression neutral. Now she brought her free hand up to run a finger along the top of his ear. “There’s light and darkness in all of us. With Force-sensitive folks, there’s just… more of it. Life needs a balance of both. With too much light, there’s too much growth and it chokes on itself. Too much darkness leads to unnecessary suffering.”

“Sounds like sorcery and fairy tales.”

“I’m sure it does. Doesn’t make it any less true. Ever hear of the Sith?”

“No.”

“Ever hear of Darth Vader?”

“Some stories.”

“They’re probably true.”

Din shook his head, letting out a sigh. “A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“Now?”

“I’ve seen enough.”

“Then believe me when I say that Vader was an agent of the Sith. He linked the Empire to the Dark Side for thirty years. Everything about the Empire was a reflection of it. All the cruelty, the fascism, the hate, the concentration of wealth and power. After the Purge, without the Jedi to balance it out… well… you saw what happened.”

“Were the Jedi any better?”

She shrugged. “Other side of the coin. The balance to the Force. Follow the light. Virtue. Charity. Honor. Kindness.”

Finally, Din lifted his gaze back to the kid. “How does that help me help him? He’s already seen a lot. He’s… seen me… do a lot.” How many times had the kid watched as he killed other people? Sure, they had all been bad, but… it wasn’t just the dozens he’d mowed down from a distance with high-powered automatic weaponry or sniped from afar with his rifle. It was also the dozens he’d blasted at short range or stabbed or strangled or flamed or dismembered with his own hands. No wonder the kid had Force-choked Cara. Din’s lessons had been clear: when confronted with a threat, kill it. “I’ve… set a poor example.”

Rayne couldn’t help but feel the conflict rolling off of him. He had used the full force of his skill set to protect the kid. And, as typical of the Mandalorians and bounty hunters in particular, his skill set was mostly one of violence, cunning, and death. The kid looked up at her from her arm, large round eyes brimming with tears, fully aware of Din’s turmoil on his behalf. The bond between them was solid; the kid clearly trusted him, but she could feel the gaps that still existed between what the kid needed and what Din had so far been able, or had known how, to provide. “You’ve kept him safe.”

“Mostly.” Din’s gaze had fallen back to his rifle.

“Babies need affection. They need to be talked to. They need to be played with.”

“I hold him when I can. I’ve been trying to teach him Mando’a. I give him the ball off the thruster lever when we’re in hyperspace.”

She could hear his voice crack under his realization of how short he had fallen, and felt horrible about what she had to say next. “You’ve had him for almost a year and haven’t even given him a name.”

“I call him ad’ika sometimes.”

She couldn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes. “That’s just Mando’a for kid. You have to give him a name. A real one.”

“You’re right.”

He was silent for a long time, his chest rising and falling in shallow draws.

“Din. Look at me.”

The helmet raised in slow compliance.

“He needs you to be his father. He needs you to love him. Can you do that?”

The image of his own father rose unbidden in his mind. Looking down at him from the hatch, smoke rolling by before closing the blast doors. The concussion of the detonation immediately after. He tried to think back further, to before, but those memories were dull, thin, ephemeral in comparison, escaping his eye. He remembered that he had been happy at one point, knew on some level that his parents had provided that happiness, but couldn’t for the life of him remember what that had entailed. His upbringing by the Mandalorians had been altogether different – warmth and affection had been provided when necessary, but usually only on the conditions of his own successes, his own bravery. He wasn’t sure that was the model he wanted to work with. The only parent he’d ever really known was… of course. Omera. How she had been with Winta. Warm. Firm. Encouraging. Offering an arm of protection when Winta needed it. Letting her run free when it was safe. He didn’t know if he could do half as well with the kid as Omera did with Winta, but at least he had a playbook to follow.

“Din?”

“Yes,” He finally answered. “I think so.”

---

Evening settled over the hangar. The bots wrapped up their work for the day and headed to their charging stations. Rayne put in a call for a dinner delivery and got a small fire started in the yard while Din set up the chairs as they had been the previous evening. When the food arrived, Rayne and the kid gathered by the fire while Din took his up to the flight deck. Helmet off, he leaned against the edge of the port windscreen as he ate, watching as Rayne Force-lifted a chunk of meat off of the kid’s plate, hovered it by the kid’s mouth until he opened wide, and flicked it in. The kid gulped it down and laughed. She pointed at another chunk on his plate then pointed back at him, instructing him to try it himself. Indeed, he reached out a hand, lifted a piece, brought it to his face, then bumped himself in the nose with it. Din could hear both of them laugh as the sound drifted up the open ramp. “Try it again,” she said. “Just a little lower.” This time, the kid got it home, swallowed, and let out a celebratory belch. “Nice one,” Rayne congratulated. Din allowed himself a small laugh and continued his meal, thankful for his perch up on the flight deck allowing him to almost pretend like he was sharing the moment with them.

He joined them shortly, picking up their plates and placing them in the bin, then back to pick up the kid to hold him as he settled his weight into his seat.

“Can I get you a beer and a straw?” Rayne offered.

“Drinking beer out of a straw with a helmet looks ridiculous.”

“Dude, I just cleaned nuna sauce out of your son’s nose. You owe me some ridiculousness in return.”

Another laugh. “I just brushed my teeth.” His headache had also returned, but he felt no reason to elaborate on it.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be right back.” She got up, ducked inside, and came back out with a bottle she opened with an opener bolted to the outside wall. Returning to her seat, she took a pull off of her drink, looking into the fire. “So, do you, like, make exceptions with the helmet rules for going to the dentist or anything?”

“Mandalorians are particular about preventative care.”

“Cavities?”

“We learn how to diagnose and treat them ourselves.”

She turned to face him. “You have to drill and fill your own cavities.”

“Yes.”

She whistled and shook her head, returning her gaze to the fire. “That’s nuts.”

“I’ve only had to do it once. Children get their wisdom teeth pulled before they swear the Creed.”

“Stuff like that makes me glad I didn’t make it to become a Jedi.”

“Oh?”

“Rules that make things unnecessarily difficult rub me the wrong way. Life is hard enough as it is.”

“Restrictive practices are necessary to establish an identity.”

“Banthashit. You want cultural identity? Fine. Make up some rituals. Secret handshake. Rites of passage. I get all that. But giving up your own personhood? Your own identity? Forget it.”

“You would make a horrible soldier.”

She turned to smile at the dryness of his tone. “Thank you. My point still stands. You can’t even share a meal with your own kid.”

“The extremity of what you give up demonstrates the extremity of your dedication.”

This time she turned her chair to face him. “And what, exactly, is the extremity of the benefit for you?”

“The Mandalorians rescued me. They fought off the droid attack on my village. They took me in. They gave me a life.”

Rayne paused, eyes narrowing. “Which faction?”

“Death Watch.”

Oh, shit. The pieces of a horrible puzzle clicked together in the front of her mind. She knew full well that Death Watch had been led by Darth Maul at one point. This guy was clueless about the Sith despite the fact that his own faction had been led by one. He also seemed oblivious of their practice of staging attacks just so they could swoop in and “save the day” to gain favor. Before her sat a zealot of a religious sect that was quite possibly responsible for the death of his own family.

He hadn’t been adopted. He’d been kidnapped.

And he had no idea.

He was also the adoptive father of quite possibly the greatest wielder of the Force since Grand Master Yoda and would raise him as a Mandalorian if he couldn’t find his people.

Oh, great blazing Tatooine, this was all manner of fucked up.

The kid stirred uneasily in Din’s arm and she realized just how carefully she had to tread. She could not bring an existential crisis down on this guy. Not right now, anyway. And, dammit, despite everything, she kinda liked him. He was honestly trying to do the right thing, and had clearly been fighting an uphill battle for a long time in doing so.

She pressed forward, her decision made. “So this is all just payback for your rescue? You’ve paid that debt for how long?”

He shrugged. “Thirty-five years or so.”

“How much longer do you owe them?”

He had no answer for that.

“You understand what cognitive dissonance is, right?”

He said nothing, but betrayed himself with a small tick of his head to the side.

“We don’t like it when our thoughts and our actions don’t line up. When that happens, we either change the thought or the action so they do line up – whichever is easiest. Actions are harder to take back, especially if lots of people saw it, so we usually change the thought instead. Say we want to be part of a group, but the membership fee is super high. You think it’s gotta be worth it, right? No one would pay a bunch of credits for something that wasn’t worth it. They’ve all done it. They all seem fine. They wouldn’t sell you out for nothing, right? So you do it. You cough up a bunch of dough, maybe do a little ceremony, and now you’re part of the club.

“And then a year later, five years, whatever, someone asks you if it’s worth it. And your brain sure as shit isn’t gonna say ‘no’ because that means you’ve made an enormous mistake. You can’t take the action back – they literally toss you out on your ass. So you change the thought. You make yourself believe it’s worth it. Not because it really is, but because the alternative is unthinkable. The more you’ve paid, the more unthinkable it is that you’ve made a mistake.”

Din remained silent. Pondering the price of Mandalorian life. His identity hidden. Showing his face to no one until he decided to hang it all up or someone hung it up for him. Not even being able to go out for a beer or eat in public. What had he gotten in return?

He could defend himself, when most others couldn’t. He had his own ship. He had… and then he realized he was doing exactly what she described.

When he still had no reply, she did her best to smooth things over. “Look, you’re free to practice your religion however you want as long as you’re not violating someone else’s rights. All I’m saying is that maybe you should stop and re-evaluate every now and then. Religions reform themselves all the time.”

Din’s head swam. He was used to dealing with others who had not sworn to any sort of creed or faith. He was not used to someone taking such a casual swing at the foundation of his life and striking a crack in it. Particularly one who was so obviously good at what she did and managed to be successful in a world that was falling apart around her. “How do you do it?” He was surprised by the roughness of his own voice.

“Do what?”

“Live without a creed? Figure out what the right thing is? Have all this…” he lifted his chin, indicating the entirety of the hangar, “without…”

“You mean how do I make an honest living without clan support?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll admit that being Force-sensitive gives me an unfair advantage. Beyond that… I made a decision early on that I would do what I could to make the galaxy a better place. Sometimes that meant breaking rules. Sometimes it meant making up my own. You agreed to a few of those just to park your boat here. I don’t work for Imps. I don’t work for slave traffickers. Anyone gives me a weird vibe, I tell them the schedule’s full and send them on their way.”

“Ever have to kill anyone?”

She had turned back to face the fire. She took a long swallow from the bottle in her hand, took a breath, and let it out in a slow exhale. “Most go away without too much trouble. Some need more of a push.” She brought her fingers to her head and made a flicking motion, something Din took to mean as use of the Force on someone’s mind. “There might be a body or three that got fed to the wolves out in the desert who had their docking records disappear and their ships stripped for parts, but that’s between you, me, and the kid.”

“So if you had found Senator Organa’s head in my ship…”

“I’d have put your Amban through your throat. Then your kid would’ve choked me to death, and we’d be one hell of a mess out here.”

Din had to laugh at the insanity of it all. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Rayne only laughed in return, not bothering to correct him on his use of “we” as he had done to her the evening before.

This just might work.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu

2 notes · View notes

adamwatchesmovies · 4 months

Text

Die Hard (1988)

An off-duty police officer is trapped in an isolated location with the terrorists who have taken everyone else hostage. The proper authorities cannot get inside, meaning the lone wolf is our only hope for a happy ending. It’s a setup you've seen done to death but never as well as it was the first time around, in Die Hard.

New York police detective John McClane (Bruce Willis), is far from his precinct when arrives at his estranged wife’s holiday party in Los Angeles at the soon-to-be-completeld Nakatomi Plaza, a 35-story building with state-of-the-art security. Suddenly, the party is interrupted by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and a group of heavily armed men. They seize control of the tower, cut off communications with the outside and hold everyone hostage. After avoiding capture, it’s up to McClane to take down the bad guys, keep his wife safe and alert the authorities.

Die Hard lasts 132 minutes and not one of its seconds is wasted. Every shot contains essential information. Take, for example, a shot in which Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) looks at a framed picture of her, John and their two kids. Frustrated, she tips the picture forward to avoid seeing it. What does that tell us? That they were once in love, that they aren’t anymore… but that there’s hope. If there weren’t, she’d have thrown the photo away. Later, the photo becomes a ticking time bomb. Hans Gruber sits down at Holly’s desk. The picture’s still face-down so he doesn’t know she and John know each other… but it’s the only frame improperly displayed. If he notices it’s amiss, he might turn it up and then… it’ll be the end of it. That's great direction by John McTiernan.

It’s a movie in which all the characters - at least the main ones - make the right decisions. Outnumbered 12 to 1, John must carefully consider each move he makes. There’s no room for error and even less give when you consider the hostages he wants to protect. It’s a neck-a-neck race and you sense that at any moment, it could be over. You'll be sweating bullets and then, the screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza will have John crack a joke. You get an emotional release but the tension hasn't been completely expunged. Then, things ratchet up again. Unlike many of the action films from the late '80s/early '90s, the hero in this story is vulnerable. He's tough and resourceful, but something as simple as being stuck without shoes becomes an uphill battle that will only get more difficult. To oppose John, we have a terrific villain. Alan Rickman plays Hans Gruber as a slime that's cold and calculating but oddly charismatic. You kind of like him, but he frightens you. The point is, you can't look away and can't wait to see how the final confrontation between him and John will go.

Many people consider Die Hard a Christmas movie. Though I understand why you might, I do not. That doesn’t take away the action’s intensity, how quotable the dialogue is, the amount of tension throughout, how fun it is to watch or the fact that it’s a must-see. Whether it embodies the spirit of the season, whether the Christmas setting could be swapped for another isn't important. The point is, choosing to watch Die Hard during your holiday marathon is a great idea because it's sorta on-theme. It’s the glass of milk you gulp down after the half-dozen cookies. It cuts the sweetness that would otherwise be overwhelming and happens to be one of the best action movies ever made. (On DVD, December 6, 2019)

#Die Hard #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #john mctiernan #jeb stuart #steven e. de souza #bruce willis #alan rickman #alexander godunov #bonnie bedelia #1988 movies #1988 films

1 note · View note

helloalycia · 3 years

Text

my patient’s neighbour [three] // wanda maximoff

summary: your relationship with Wanda gets a little bumpy when her work life crosses over with your personal life.

warning/s: implied kidnapping, mentions of anxiety

author's note: so the ‘i love you’ confession was actually inspired by an incorrect quote on @aquamarinescarlet’s page! i thought it would be cute aha

It was two months into our relationship when I knew I'd fallen in love with Wanda. I can't remember the exact moment when it hit me – I guess it had happened gradually over time – but I remember the embarrassing moment when I told her.

She'd brought me as her date to an Avengers party thrown by Tony Stark. I'd been to one of them before, about a month into dating her, as she'd wanted me to meet her friends from work AKA the freakin' Avengers. They were actually really great and (somewhat) humble people. I didn't expect to become 'friends' with any of them, more just be friendly whenever I saw them through Wanda. To my surprise, I became quite good friends with Natasha Romanoff.

We had the same dark sense of humour, both had an unexplainable obsession with horror films and she was genuinely just really easy to talk to. I wasn't expecting it, but it was nice to gain a new friend in addition to a new girlfriend.

So, I was at my second Avengers party with Wanda by my side, but the party had ended about half an hour ago and I may or may not have been drunk.

We were sat on the couch, conversing with the other Avengers, and I was sat between Wanda and Natasha. The others were involved in their own conversations and I was too dazed to realise what I was doing until it happened.

"Wanda has no idea I'm in love with her," I said (not-so) quietly, leaning over to my left, into Wanda's ear unknowingly.

Wanda, who was playing with my fingers in her hand, paused and glanced to me with bright eyes, a surprised expression on her face.

"You're in love with me?" she asked, lips twitching into a smile.

I blinked, her words settling in, before I licked my lips. "Oh, sorry." Turning to my right, I moved to Natasha's ear, whispering loudly, "Wanda has no idea I'm in love with her."

Natasha glanced to me with a quirked brow, amused smile on her lips. "She doesn't? You sure about that?"

"You're in love with me?" Wanda repeated, sitting forward and earning my attention.

I gasped, wondering how she knew, before slapping Natasha's arm and looking to her with a frown. "You told her?! I trusted you!"

Natasha ignored me, instead looking to Wanda with an encouraging look. "I'll leave this one to you. Good luck."

She stood up, heading over to Thor and Bruce Banner on the other couch, and I booed her as she left.

"Yeah, run away, you secret-give-away'er!" I called after her with a pout, before crossing my arms.

"I think it's time I take you home," Wanda said decidedly, trying not to laugh as she pulled me up off the couch.

"I don't like Natasha anymore," I mumbled, allowing Wanda to take me away.

She bid her goodbyes to her teammates before leading me to the lift. I don't really remember what else happened until we were suddenly at my house – well, my parents house, but they had given it to me as they travelled the world with their retirement money. She was leading me inside and to my bedroom, getting me dressed like the sweet girlfriend she was, before tucking me into bed.

Of course, being the clingy drunk I was, I pulled her on top of me and didn't let go as I wrapped my arms around her.

"Stay," I mumbled into her shoulder, closing my eyes.

She chuckled, trying to pull away. "Y/N, you need to sleep, c'mon."

"I will," I whined, not letting her leave. "If you stay with me."

She paused, before giving in with a sigh. "Fine."

Tiredly, I smiled. "Yesssss." I patted the spot next to me. "Right here, please."

In the light of my bedside lamp, I saw her roll her eyes playfully, before turning off the lamp and jumping under the covers with me. I sighed with relief, cuddling into her side without hesitating.

"I love you," I mumbled, barely thinking about it.

She tightened her embrace and I felt her kiss the top of my head. "You're probably gonna forget you said that in the morning. But I'll remind you. And if you still think it, then I'll reply."

Her words went into one ear and out the other. I hummed in response, not knowing what I was answering to, and let myself get lost in her scent as I drifted into a peaceful slumber.

When I woke up the next morning, I quite liked the idea of sharing bed with Wanda and waking up to her dishevelled hair and our intertwined legs, even though I didn't remember inviting her to stay. Of course, I also had a banging headache and felt like someone had hit me with a train, so I didn't get chance to appreciate it much.

"Fuck," I mumbled, pulling the duvet over my head to block out the sun streaming through the slit in my curtain.

Wanda, who was shuffling beside me, yawned and stretched her arms. Suddenly, I heard quiet laughter, before she spooned me, wrapping her arms around my stomach and pulling me closer. Her leg raised and clung to my waist, and as much as I appreciated the way she fit perfectly against me, I was still in pain.

"Why did you let me drink that much?" I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut.

"I believe that was your own conscience decision, dorogoy (darling)," she said in that know-it-all voice of hers, and it was hard for me to be annoyed at her because she had a raspy, morning voice and her accent was especially thick with fatigue and damn, Wanda Maximoff was pretty sexy in the morning.

"Whatever," was all I said, but I placed my hand on hers and joint our fingers together.

"You know," she started, tucking her head comfortably into my neck, "I quite like waking up to you like this. You're very cute, even if you're cranky."

Despite aforementioned crankiness, I cracked a smile. "I like this, too."

It was very domestic, something I didn't get the privilege of experiencing with Wanda because she worked a lot, and it felt good.

After hanging around in bed for a little while longer, I got up and showered whilst Wanda offered to make me some breakfast – "Pancakes are a hangover's cure! Or at least according to Tony". After getting ready, I came downstairs to find a stack of pancakes and maple syrup waiting for me.

"You are a Godsend," I told her, pressing a haste kiss to her lips before sitting at the table with the pancakes. "Thank you."

She chuckled, grabbing her own pancakes and sitting opposite me. "Anything for you."

After I dug in, complimenting her on how delicious they tasted, a comfortable silence fell between us. Well, until Wanda spoke up cautiously.

"So, does anything from last night ring a bell?" she asked, making me look up to see her staring eagerly.

My content expression fell. "Shoot, did I do something embarrassing?" I facepalmed. "God, what was it? Did I fall asleep on somebody?"

She smiled with adoration, eyes twinkling in the morning sun. "No, nothing like that."

I could tell there was something though, judging from her hesitant expression. I scrunched my face with regret.

"What did I do?" I asked, unprepared to hear it. "Did I say something to you?"

She played with her fork, twisting it around in her plate nervously, which was very unlike her. "Yeah, actually, you did."

I waited, feeling like the silence was deafening the longer she stayed quiet.

"You said you were in love with me," she said, voice so soft and quiet that I barely heard it.

I felt my heart drop to my stomach. "I what?"

"I mean, technically you said I had no idea you were in love with me, but I think you were supposed to tell Nat that," she continued, eyes avoiding mine. "Then you told Nat and you got mad at her because you thought she told me."

I facepalmed for the second time that morning. "Oh, God..."

"Then you invited me to stay the night and told me you loved me before you fell asleep," she finished rambling. "I just, er, wanted to check if you meant that..."

I raised my eyebrows with disbelief. "Are you kidding?" I reached over the table to grab her hand. "Wanda, of course I meant that! But I hoped to tell you at a better time than by accident whilst I was drunk."

Blue eyes flickered to mine, excitement creeping onto her face. "You meant it."

I breathed out, realising what exactly I'd just said. "I– yeah. I meant it. I'm in love with you, Wanda."

Her smile widened. "I'm in love with you, too."

My heart fluttered in my chest as I relaxed my shoulders. "You love me."

She giggled, squeezing my hand. "We just did this."

"Right! We did," I said, shaking my head, grin forming on my lips. "Sorry. I'm just so happy right now."

"Me, too," she said in agreement, thumb stroking the top of my hand.

I didn't think things could go wrong from here. I was on top of the world! But of course, the world had a funny way of ruining things.

—

Dating a superhero had its pros and cons, I suppose, but neither really showed themselves to me often as it was as if Wanda's superhero life was separate to the one we shared. When she and I were together, it was just us. And she would leave for work and I wouldn't think about it. Then she would return and it would be us again.

If I took a moment out of my day to stop and really think about where she was, what she could be doing, the danger she could be in... I just couldn't do it. Even when she would show up to our next date with a fresh bruise from training, or a broken bone from a mission gone too far, I'd worry about it for the time being then try to let it go. Those weren't superhero perks, those were reasons to be concerned. And I couldn't handle imagining the time when she'd come back to me in a worse state, or to not even come back at all.

So, her superhero life rarely overlapped with our shared one. And I was happier that way. Until it did.

I was running errands one day, little things that required me to run around the city – dry cleaning, grocery shopping, picking up some DIY stuff for my house. It was a pretty relaxing, fun day. I'd treated myself to lunch, was soaking in the sunshine and planning to unwind with some Netflix on the couch.

"Hold on, I need to unlock the front door," I mumbled into the phone. I was talking to Wanda, catching her up with my day as I returned home.

"Try not to drop your phone this time," she teased from the other end, and I could just imagine the smirk on her face.

"So funny," I said with an eye roll. "Real comedian."

She laughed as I placed my phone in my pocket, not quite hanging up. Pulling my keys from my shopping bag, I fiddled with them, attempting to find the key for my front door.

Suddenly, something metal and cold pressed to my back and I jumped, dropping my keys with surprise.

"Don't draw attention," the person said, and I went rigid, looking up to see a reflection of someone unrecognisable in the glass of my front door. "You're going to leave your things here and come with me."

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to turn around, but the object pressed harder into my back, making me wince.

"Leave your fucking things here and give me your hand," the man ordered, ignoring my question. "Phone included. And don't even think about making a call."

I swallowed hard, panic settling in as I listened to the threatening stranger. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I realised that the stranger had no idea I was already on a call. With an Avenger nonetheless.

"I'll put it down," I narrated my actions, soon coming to realise that the object behind my back was in fact the barrel of a gun.

Hoping Wanda was still listening in and could hear the exchange, I put my phone on the ground and placed my shaking hand in the man's outstretched one. He tucked his gun back into the waistband of his jeans before tugging me down the steps and to a black van parked opposite my house.

Too paralysed with fear at the sight of two more strange men getting out the van, I felt my throat go dry and words get stuck at the bottom. Looking around, I hoped to find a neighbour's eyes or dog-walker's lost gaze, but nobody was here. Whoever these men were had timed their entrance perfectly.

When we reached the van, the back doors were opened and the man spun me around roughly before placing a bag on my head and shoving me inside. Hot tears ran down my face as I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering what the hell was happening and who these people were. But mostly, I hoped Wanda was already on her way.

—

The whole incident was over soon. That's what we were calling it now. The 'incident'. Of course, it could have been called other things... the kidnapping, the abduction, the capture. But we settled with the 'incident'. It was less explicit, as if minimising how utterly terrifying the whole experience was.

I never did find out who those men were. Wanda offered to tell me, feeling a need to explain herself and blame herself and drag herself down in the dirt to make me feel better, to bring me out of my silence and give me something to feel good about. I recalled her mentioning they were after her, getting to her through me – her girlfriend.

She rescued me quite quickly. Being tied up and locked away and left to cry like a child, wondering if I was going to die any minute at the hands of captors whom I had never met nor done anything to in my life, wasn't fun. People always wonder what they would do in those situations; maybe they would square up and put up a fight; maybe they would scream and shout and get everyone's attention; maybe they'd even retort with sarky remarks and go out with a blaze of glory.

I never imagined what that would be like, but I discovered I could do neither of those things. I just let them take me, let them threaten me and point their guns at me and tie me up and lock me away and–

I let myself cry and feel terrified and shake and lose my words and imagine the worst. Some would call that giving in, but this wasn't something you could prepare for. Surely my response was justified? I wasn't sure. I just knew that when Wanda burst onto the scene, taking out the men with ease and taking me out of there, taking me home, I was momentarily safe.

But then as she began to ramble off her explanations and apologies and regrets, I found myself turning in on myself, unable to hear her out. I didn't blame her one bit, but I also couldn't listen to one more second. So, I tuned her out.

I sat on the couch, staring at the way the thread was coming loose on one of my cushions. I thought about how quickly the whole 'incident' had happened. How one minute I was sat in a cell and now I was sat on my couch. How I was then shaking with fear and now I felt nothing.

"...you listening? Hey, are you okay?"

I only tuned back in when she sat on the cushion I was looking at. Her fingers rested on my cheek, guiding my head upwards so I was looking her in the eyes, glassy and red and swollen from crying. I probably looked the same, though I was all out of tears.

"I promise you nobody will be back here," she said with certainty, thumb stroking my cheek. "There's S.H.I.E.L.D. agents posted all along the street. And I'm happy to stay here if you need me to. You're safe now."

I knew I was. And despite my calm exterior, my heart was still racing in my chest, adrenaline still pumping through my body as if expecting to make a sudden break for it.

"What are you thinking?" she muttered, eyes flicking between mine curiously. "Talk to me. Please."

I shook my head, looking away. "I'm okay."

"It's okay not to be," she said quietly, squeezing my hand.

"I know."

So, we kept that bit up for a few more days, maybe a week. Me pretending I was okay, though still distant from Wanda as if she'd caught the plague, and her pretending she knew I was telling the truth.

But I knew she sensed the nightmares I had, waking me up in cold sweats. I knew she saw the way I tensed when a shadow cast along the wall from a moving object. Or the way I never faced the front door when unlocking it to get inside.

I guess she couldn't take it anymore at some point, possibly a week or two later, as when I was mixing my soup in a bowl after heating it up in the microwave, she sighed loudly.

"You okay?" I asked, glancing up at her. She was stood by the counter, seeming tired.

She'd been staying with me since the incident happened, obviously, and it was nice having her around so much, despite the circumstances. But I knew she was worried and had been keeping it in. I just didn't have the energy to acknowledge it.

"I'm fine," she said quickly, though her fingers still drummed on the countertop.

I let it go, shrugging, before paying attention to my soup. Her impatience was obnoxiously loud, filling the house with a discomfort she was dying to express. Eventually, she did.

"I'm not fine," she decided, and I stopped stirring my soup as I looked to her tugging on her sleeves distractedly. "I'm not fine because you're not fine."

"I've told you I am," I said monotonously, eyes boring into hers.

"I know you're not," she said, crossing her arms and hugging herself. "I've noticed you and..."

I quirked a brow. "And?"

She frowned, eyes softening with empathy. "Don't make me say it, Y/N."

I pressed my tongue to the back of my teeth as I looked down to my steaming soup.

"Talk to me," she pleaded, rounding the counter and leaning beside me, searching for my eyes. "I just want to help."

I swallowed hard. "I have nothing to say, Wanda."

"A really scary thing happened," she began hesitantly. "The fact that you don't have anything to say– that you've not said anything, isn't right."

"Well, I guess there's something wrong with me," I said dismissively, before grabbing the pepper grinder before me and using it.

"No, there's not," she reassured, not giving up. "You just need to talk.”

I set the grinder down, turning to face her abruptly. She straightened up with surprise, taking a small step back.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked, voice calm but full of unintentional malice. "Huh? What do you want me to tell you? That I'm terrified somebody is watching my house, waiting for a quiet moment to break in? That I have to follow you into every room you go in because I don't want to be left alone? That I can't fucking sleep because I'm scared that when I close my eyes, I'll be locked in a nightmare I can't escape? Is that what you want me to tell you? Does that make you feel better, Wanda? Because it doesn't make me feel any better. It just reminds me how fucking terrified I am."

I pocketed my shaking hands, blinked away the tears that threatened to fall, swallowed down the lump rising in my throat. She watched me, unsure what to say at first and I didn't blame her. It was an outburst waiting to happen.

"I'm–"

"Don't say you're sorry," I snapped, before flinching at my tone. "I know you're sorry. And I don't blame you for what happened. I just– I don't know what to do anymore."

Her eyes were studying me like green lasers burning holes into my skin and I hated that I couldn't meet them. I hated even more that I couldn't leave the kitchen out of anger or frustration because I was too scared to be left alone without her by my side.

So, I leaned against the counter, turning away from her, and let out a shaky breath, eyes burning and heart thumping in my ears. Her arms suddenly wrapped around me without question, and I let her take me into her chest, squeezing me so tight so I knew she was there.

Closing my eyes, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks, but no sound came out. I struggled to breathe, unable to take in air through my nose as I stuffed my head so hard into her shirt that I couldn't see a thing except darkness. I knew I'd eventually be okay, that I'd eventually get back to some sense of normalcy. But for now, having her here with me was okay. And I found it much better to just be with her then have to go over and talk it out.

She was warm and strong and smelt like home and God, I loved her. I was lucky to have her.

—

It took about a month and a half to get over the incident. And after that, we never brought it up again. It was just easier that way. We continued on like usual, falling back into our old routine of having a separate us and her separate superhero life.

At some point, I thought it would be nice for her to meet my parents. They were back in town for the week, wanting to check in and see how I was. It was nice having them around and I was excited for them to meet Wanda, who I'd mentioned in some of our Skype calls.

"We don't have to make it a thing," I said as I proposed the idea. We were cleaning around Anna's apartment as she napped in her bedroom. "It's not like an 'oh, meet the parents' thing. They just happen to be in town and we're having a dinner, so I thought you might want to come. If you don't, it's not a big deal. I haven't told them to expect you. Not unless you say yes. Which you don't have to."

She chuckled, eyes gleaming with amusement. "Dorogoy (darling), calm down. Breathe."

I neatened the cushions on the couch with a bit too much force. "Am I not breathing? I'm pretty sure I'm breathing."

Her hands slipped into mine as she spun me around to face her. An amused smile on her lips, she said, "You need to relax. If you're like this now, then who knows what you'll be like on the night of the dinner?"

It took me a second to realise what she'd said and when I did, my eyes widened. "Wait, the night of the– does that mean you're going?"

She laughed, tugging me closer to her. "Yes, I'm going. I'd love to meet your parents!"

My shoulders relaxed as her fingers played with mine mindlessly. A smile appeared on my lips as I said, "Thank you. I– it'll be fun. No pressure. Just a dinner."

"Just a dinner," she confirmed, before kissing my forehead gently. "Can't wait."

And so on the day before my parents left for Scotland, yet another trip on their never ending retirement travels, I waited for Wanda to pick me up so we could go to a restaurant to meet my parents, who were already there after spending the day shopping in town.

She arrived at the door with a beautiful smile and bright eyes, looking me up and down.

"Just on time," I teased, tilting my head to the side, before being serious. "You look amazing tonight, Wanda."

"As do you, moya lyubov' (my love)," she said sweetly, leaning forward to kiss my cheek, before stepping inside. "Also, these are for you."

She removed her hand from behind her back as I closed the door, revealing a gorgeous, colourful bouquet of flowers.

"I saw them and thought of you," she began to explain without even realising how cute she was; a smile crept on my lips as she continued, "but then I realised I've never gotten you flowers before which is very dumb of me because a pretty girl deserves pretty flowers, right?"

There was no doubt that my face was heating up from the attention, flustered yet honoured at her words.

"Wanda, I love them," I said, accepting the flowers and meeting her gaze. "And to be fair, nobody has ever gotten me flowers before."

"You're kidding," she said with disbelief, stepping forward and wrapping her arms loosely around my waist. Reading my serious expression, she added, "Not even for your birthday? Or a celebration?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

She gave me a knowing look. "Well, that's very unfortunate. But I'm glad I could be the first."

I held her gaze, amusement dancing in her smile. Mirroring her expression, I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her nose, making her scrunch it up delightfully.

"Me, too," I said, and I meant it.

"Come on, we should get going," she said, squeezing my waist before letting go. "Don't want to be late, do we?"

"We do not," I agreed, before putting the flowers in a vase of water and leaving them by the door.

"You ready?" she asked, holding open the front door.

I intertwined our hands and met her smile with my own. "I'm ready."

Taking the girlfriend to meet the parents. What could go wrong?

#wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff x reader #scarlet witch #elizabeth olsen imagine #elizabeth olsen #marvel imagine #mcu imagine #marvel #mcu

438 notes · View notes

mochegato · 3 years

Text

Even the Losers

Chapter 15

Chapter 1 Chapter 14

Possible trigger warning. I mention that sexual assault and worse has happened during some akuma attacks. I don’t describe anything or say who it happened to (it didn’t happen to anyone we know) but wanted to warn readers that it is brought up.

This room really was a ridiculous room, Marinette decided. The dining table was large enough to seat twenty. Who needed a casual dining table that large? Honestly. Not to mention, a dining table that large meant there was more than enough room for Alfred to join them, but he never did.

And bringing the food out on silver trays. Did they do that just because she was here? She kind of hoped it was because the idea of doing it everyday… She looked over to Adrien to roll her eyes at the opulence, but he just went with it like it was completely expected. Marinette shook her head. Damn rich people. She looked up just in time to catch Duke’s eyes. He looked at the silver trays with a pointed look and rolled his eyes. Marinette giggled and nodded back.

“I forgot to ask the other day,” Dick started with a disarming smile. “How did you two meet and when?”

And there it was again. A perfectly normal question. A very common question. A question they would expect to be asked. But there was something off in the way he asked it. Something that just triggered her senses. She could feel a difference in it, like its very existence disrupted the peace of the dinner.

Adrien looked over at her with a broad smile and nodded to her, letting her know she was supposed to answer it. She plastered on a friendly smile. “We met in school, actually.”

“Oh? Maternelle or older?” Dick smiled again, his face perfectly emulating interest in his sister’s friend. Markov would never be able to tell the difference. But Marinette could. He was fishing. She just didn’t know what he was fishing for.

“Older,” she answered curtly.

Dick seemed to get the message that she was not happy and backed off, metaphorically and literally, leaning away from them in his chair. His smooth smile morphed into a mock frown. “Oh that’s a shame. I was hoping for stories or pictures of baby Marinette.”

“Oh, baby Mari was adorable,” Adrien gushed, with a teasing grin to Marinette.

Tim quirked his head to the side. “I thought you said you two didn’t meet until you were older.”

Adrien’s grin widened. “We didn’t. Not until we were in collège and she yelled at me for something I didn’t do.”

“I didn’t yell at you,” Marinette objected in mock offense, slapping his arm. “I informed you that you were a contemptible dirtbag in a harsh tone.”

Jason barked a laugh. “Right, big difference.”

Marinette whirled on him, her serious expression contradicted by her lips trying to quirk up at the corners at his teasing. “There is! It was a quietly harsh tone. There was no yelling.” She turned back to Adrien. “And I apologized for that.”

“Yeah, like years later and not because you wanted to,” he rolled his eyes.

“Only because I couldn’t really talk to you for, like, ever after that,” she groused playfully. She pushed her food around on her plate with a pout.

“Apologies are hard,” Cass nodded in agreement.

Marinette beamed at her. “Yes. Thank you, Cass. See,” she motioned to Cass so Adrien would look, “Cass has my back. She agrees.”

“With what?” Duke laughed.

“Your input is not needed!” Marinette chastised him, trying hard not to laugh. But when Duke cracked up and started laughing hard enough to have him gasping for breath, so did Marinette.

“Okay but…” Tim started after they’d had enough time to recover.

“Oh, right!” Adrien shook his head. “There was an akuma that de-aged people. A mom sad her son was going off to university, so her power was to turn everyone into toddlers again. Marinette got hit pushing me out of the way of the beam. She turned into the cutest, pudgiest, little toddler you’ve ever seen.”

Marinette batted his hands away when he leaned over to pinch her cheeks. He chuckled at Marinette’s pout. “I hated that one. I felt so helpless,” she moaned.

“I loved it,” Adrien smiled. “I got to see all of you guys as babies. Most of you guys knew each other since childhood so you knew what each other looked like. Alya and I were the odd ones out. Plus, no pain.” He looked back to the rest of the family. “That was rare; an akuma that didn’t cause massive amounts of pain or trauma.”

“Were they that bad?” Duke asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer he was going to get back. He had purposefully not looked too hard into akumas precisely because he was afraid of the answer.

Marinette stared intently at her plate in thought, trying to condense the experience into light, dinner topic worthy descriptions because she desperately did not want to discuss akumas tonight… or ever again. The very thought caused shivers down her spine. “They were… most weren’t… didn’t affect…” Her words got cut off as her body froze with realization. Her face scrunched up in pain and she gasped after not having breathed for the last few seconds. She suddenly pushed away from the table and stood up. “I think… I need to leave.”

Bruce stood up at the same time and reached out for her. “Marinette are you okay?” His concern amped up when Cass stood up as well and frowned with concern.

Adrien got to her quicker, gently laying his hands on her arms. “Hey, we don’t have to talk about it. We can talk about something else. You talked with M. Fox this morning, right? We can talk about that.”

Marinette shook her head. “I can’t…” she couldn’t finish her sentence, her breath was becoming more ragged the longer she stood there.

“Way to go, Timmy,” Jason groused.

“I didn’t do this!” Tim objected motioning toward Marinette and standing up too. He wasn’t exactly sure what standing up was supposed to accomplish. She didn’t know him and definitely wouldn’t be comfortable with him trying to comfort her. It was more of a show of support. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to stay sitting like it was nothing.

She looked toward Bruce, her eyes slightly glazed over. “You… you knew. You knew about what happened when I was fourteen… and fifteen… and sixteen. You said you checked in on me frequently, so there’s no way you didn’t know. You knew and you just… rather than admit I was…” She looked down at the floor, her face scrunching further as she tried to reconcile the new information. She backed away more and shook her head, no longer really hearing anything in the room, including Adrien’s loud gasp of realization. “I… I can’t… be here. I have to… I need time to…”

She turned and rushed through the door before anyone could stop her. She could feel herself shutting down and she needed to stop it. She knew she needed to stop letting herself turn numb. She gritted her teeth as her frustration with herself increased. Why couldn’t she just react normally? Nobody else on her team did this. None of their friends reacted this way anymore. What was wrong with her that she did?

And she had to do it there, in front of everyone. She had to do it in front of him. Why couldn’t she hold it together for one freaking dinner? She’s gone through worse. Why couldn’t she just have DEALT with it, like an adult? Now she probably ruined the start of their relationship. He was probably going to hate her. He didn’t want to know about that stuff. He didn’t want to deal with those kinds of problems. Those were her issues, not his.

He wanted a daughter for the press, not a hot mess of insecurities and anxiety. He wanted a happy, light, cheery child. That’s why he sent her away, so that’s who she would become. That’s probably why Dick was trying to ask all those questions, so they could know just what kind of a broken, messed up, embarrassment of a disaster they were taking on with her. They needed to know what to prepare for when the press started getting involved.

Back in the dining room, Jason had gone from laughing, to confused, to concerned, to fucking pissed in a matter of seconds. “What did she go through?” Jason asked through gritted teeth.

Adrien glared at Bruce waiting for him to answer the question. Bruce looked down dejectedly and Adrien scoffed. He didn’t bother ripping his glare away from Bruce when he answered for him. “She means Hawkmoth. She means M. Wayne knew what Hawkmoth was doing and let her stay there when he could have pulled her out at any time. She means he let her stay and get tormented rather than admit she was his daughter.”

“That is not why I didn’t pull her out of Paris,” Bruce insisted weakly.

“I thought the damage done by Hawkmoth was all reversed,” Duke offered.

“Oh, the physical damage was reversed, but the psychological wasn’t. The memories weren’t. Hawkmoth used people’s negative emotions to turn them into monsters, AS YOU KNOW,” he snarled at Bruce. “For years, if you had a bad day, if you got sad, if you grieved, you could end up killing or torturing or raping someone, maybe someone you cared about, maybe someone you loved, maybe more than one.

“Didn’t even have to be something big it could just be… my best friend got akumatized because my father said he couldn’t throw me a party for my birthday. A kid Marinette babysat got akumatized because her mother took away a toy that wasn’t hers, it was Marinette’s actually, so she felt responsible for getting Manon akumatized. Marinette’s best friends, five of them at once, got akumatized because she didn’t want to tell them something private. Like that didn’t wrack her with guilt for years. It didn’t take much to turn you into a nightmare. In fact, one little kid got akumatized several times because he had a nightmare. All it took was one moment of feeling down. If you were lucky, really lucky, you just… stopped feeling… anything.”

Everyone was silent for a few minutes. Adrien’s glare never wavered the entire time. Finally Dick spoke up softly. “And was Marinette… lucky.”

Adrien sneered at Bruce, “Oh, Marinette was very lucky. She only got tortured a few times… per month. She only lost a few limbs. She only got targeted most of the time. She only died four or five times, that she remembers, the actual number is significantly higher. All despite my father targeting her specifically. You know, nothing worth too much concern. She only watched the people she loved get tortured, screaming for her in agony before they died painful deaths a handful of times. She only sometimes still goes completely numb rather than feel things. Not even just bad things, good things too. If it’s too much, she shuts down so she doesn’t expose herself, so Hawkmoth can’t get her, because we needed her. It’s automatic. It’s subconscious. It’s been five years and she still has to fight the instant reaction.”

Bruce finally spoke up apprehensively. God, he really, really didn’t want to know the answer to his next question, but at the same time, he needed to know. “You mentioned akumas could kill, torture, rape… You said Marinette had been tortured and killed. Was she ever…”

Adrien’s face scrunched up in anger and frustration. “You don’t get to ask that,” he screamed. “You didn’t care then, you don’t get to pretend like you care now. You want an answer to your question, you’ll have to ask her yourself, if you have the balls for it. Personally, I don’t think you do. So use your imagination. I guarantee anything you can imagine, can’t even come close to the things she had to live through.”

He looked down for a moment to try to collect himself. When he looked back up it was an icy, coldness that made Tim collapse back into his chair. “So now you need to stop lying to her that you always loved her, you cared at all.”

Damian growled and lunged forward in his chair. “You can’t tell him what he feels. You don’t get to say how he treats one of his children. You aren’t a part of this family.”

Adrien turned his icy glare to Damian. “And she is? Holding her at arm’s length? Keeping her at a distance? Not letting her get too close? Randomly freezing up around her. Keeping family secrets from her. Clamming up as soon as she’s nearby. Sending each other secret looks over her head when you think she won’t see. She’s not stupid. She sees what you’re doing, what you’re all doing, she’s just too nice to point it out, too hopeful you’ll actually accept her one day.” He turned to look at Damian with disgust. “I might not be a part of this thing you call a family, but I am a part of hers.” Damian only put up a semblance of a fight when Cass pulled him back down into his chair with a disappointed look.

“You kept in contact to make yourself feel better not because you cared. Because if you did? If you did, there’s no way you let her stay in Paris when it would have been so easy for you to do something. There’s no way you let her get hurt and killed over and over again just so you didn’t have to admit you were related to her. Nobody who gives even the slightest fuck about anybody, a stranger let alone family, your child, would willingly let them go through that. Lets them live knowing that crying about a stubbed toe could make them into a killer.

“You could have done something, anything and yet you did nothing. You didn’t even try. She wouldn’t have accepted. She… she was the only reason some of us survived and she knew that. She was our hope. She saved us and protected us. Repeatedly. At her own expense. Without her…” he looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was considerably quieter and colder.

“And she knew it. And she took it all on herself. She didn’t even tell most people, anyone but me and one other friend really, what she went through and not even all of it. There’s still things I know she saw but she won’t tell me about. Her own parents didn’t know because she didn’t want them to become akumas, which they’d done before over minor things. So she dealt with it on her own. My father barely ever let me out so I couldn’t be there for her almost ever. So she had nobody. She made sure she didn’t. Because she didn’t want to be the cause of more suffering.

“So she wouldn’t have taken you up on any offers anyway because she’d never abandon the people she cares about.” He looked back up to level Bruce with an icy glare that made him lose his breath. “Guess she gets that from her mother.”

He started to walk away but turned back to the family as he got to the door. “You know, Marinette and I are a lot alike. You can do anything you want to us and we’ll probably apologize to you for inconveniencing you. But you hurt someone we care about? Not even Hell is far enough away for you to hide in.

“So she’ll forgive you. That’s who she is. She will. Hell, she’ll probably come crawling back in a day or two to apologize to you for the scene she created. For making you feel uncomfortable. But I won’t ever forget what you did, what you didn’t do, what you subjected her to. No matter what else you ever do for her, you will not be forgiven.” He stepped closer to Bruce, the ice in his eyes turning darker. “And if you ever treat her like that again, they’ll never find your body.”

Damian scowled and jumped up. “Are you threatening my father?”

Adrien didn’t look at him when he responded, continuing to glare at Bruce with a dark, warped look that even made Damian raise an eyebrow. “I am.” He didn’t even bother slamming the door as he stormed out. As soon as he passed the threshold, he took off sprinting after Marinette. She didn’t have the car keys so she was walking… in Gotham… while she was a target. He cursed and picked up his speed to get to the car.

“B?” Dick asked cautiously.

“No. No, no, no.” He shook his head violently and looked down, trying to steady his ragged breathing. “I asked her parents. I checked. They said she was fine. They said it was okay.” He looked up at Dick with haunted eyes. “I checked. I made sure.”

“Well you didn’t fucking check well enough did you?” Jason growled. “You never asked her.” He threw his napkin on the table and stalked out after Adrien to help comfort Marinette. Duke looked between them for a moment before sprinting after Jason.

The rest of the family looked down at their plates, except Bruce who wasn’t looking at anything. He pushed away from the table and stumbled back to his room, a sudden wave of nausea slamming into his body. Dick opened his mouth a few times only to snap it shut again mutely. Cass frowned but continued eating slowly. This was new information, but it didn’t change who Marinette was to her. It was the same Marinette from earlier in the day. But now she knew more. Maybe they could bond over childhood trauma like she and Stephanie had.

Damian furrowed his brow and scowled at his food, unable to determine how to interpret the new information and blame Marinette for it. She had done it to herself, clearly. She had allowed herself to stay in that situation. Obviously it was her own fault she suffered through that… like he had. Not knowing who to be mad at, he shoved away from the table and went down to the cave to train.

Tim blankly watched him go. This… this was unsalvageable. This was… they’d let her down in so many ways. Him with the gala. Dick with the questioning Adrien. Damian with the accusing her and insulting Adrien. The entire family with the keeping secrets. And Bruce with the… everything. How were they supposed to bring this back? They were worse than his family, his previous family. The Drakes just ignored him. They were actively destroying her.

He took a deep breath and pushed away from the table too. He would go down to the cave but Damian was already there. He wanted to patrol, to actually protect someone, like he hadn’t protected her. He stood up and made his way to the grandfather clock. Fuck Demon Spawn. Let him try to fight him right now. Tim wasn’t in the mood and wouldn’t hold back. Heaven help any rogues out tonight.

Chapter 16

Tags:

@maribat-bdbwm @jayjayspixiepop @redscarlet95 @alice-hazelwood @deathssilentapproach-blog @unoriginalmess @alyssadeliv @emotionalsupportginger @frieddonutsweets @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @toodaloo-kangaroo @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @iloontjeboontje @wolf-for-life @maribatserver @aespades @prettylittlebutterflie @imarivers8 @ certainmuffinbagelcalzone @ritacrow-blog @unoriginalmess @demonicbusiness @kking13 @lady-bee-fechin @blur-of-colours @kittenmywaythrulife @kashlyn @loysydark

#maribat #bio!dad bruce #bio dad bruce wayne #roynette #Even the Losers #mbdbwm2021 #prompt - deaged #Throws this at you then cowers in fear

157 notes · View notes

rendevousz · 3 years

Text

mum?

mother figure!nat x fem!teen!reader

avengers x reader

req by @teenwonder ; i absolutely love the entire teams adoration for reader skfksngnsf its so cute! could i please request one a little more nat based? maybe r treats and loves nat like a mom but nat hadn’t noticed that before, and the whole team is like listing examples of how and why 🥺🥺🥺

summary: the four times you needed nat and the one time she admits that she needed you too.

warnings: blood, a random attack out of nowhere because i'm not creative, inaccurate writing of medical situations because i have no idea how those things work, also let's just pretend bruce was around during iron man 2 when tony still had palladium in his arc reactor, also inaccurate descriptions of palladium effects bcs i just...don't know much about palladium pls forgive me thanks, and idk any hospitals in new york/manhattan or even the states LMAO so uh bear with this, and last but not least, my inability to write good endings

word count: 5426

notes: that's a long ass warning nevertheless pls do enjoy this fic <3

"i'm going now, bye!" you bid the team who were having breakfast together, walking out of the common area.

"bye, cupcake! don't get into trouble, don't do what i'd do and definitely don't do what i wouldn't do." tony advised and you rolled your eyes because tony says that to you every morning before you leave for school.

"wait, don't forget your lunch!" nat stands up from her seat and grabs your lunch that she had packed, from the kitchen island, bringing it over to you. "thanks, nat!" you grabbed it, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before leaving.

nat smiles at the action, turning around to walk back to her spot on the table, only to find the team staring back at her with knowing looks.

"what?"

"you know, you only need to sign a couple papers and the kid's all yours." tony states matter-of-factly. nat snaps her head towards the man, an incredulous look on her face. "what are you talking about?"

"we all see the longing looks on both your faces. she's dying for you to call her your daughter and you, her mother." clint explains and the others nodded in agreement.

"that's nonsense. she has wanda too," nat reasons, sitting back down. "i'm pretty sure she sees wanda as a sister considering how much she drags wanda with her whenever she's causing trouble around the tower." steve raises his brows at the redhead who was in denial.

"she sees you as her mother, nat. just accept it," wanda tells her, taking a sip from her glass. "really? name me one time she showed it." nat challenges them, not knowing that they've been watching your interactions with her for the longest time.

"you have no idea what you just got yourself into, romanoff," clint chuckles, cracking his neck and knuckles as if preparing for a fight.

"remember new mexico?" he smirks and nat only frowns, trying to remember.

"no!" you screamed, dropping down to the ground. you didn't care that you scraped your knees doing that, the only thing that mattered was the overwhelming feeling of grief engulfing your whole being. tears streamed down your face as you looked at the debris on the ground, the remainder of what used to be standing in front of you; a building. blown up, now in ruins.

clint, bucky and steve watched you break down in front of them, their hearts breaking at the sight in front of them as well as the fact that their teammate had been caught up in the middle of the explosion.

"y/n/n? come on, tony's team called for back up. we gotta go," steve tried to get you to stand up, failing when you kept your ground. you screamed when he tried again and their hearts clenched at the heartbreaking sound.

"we can't just leave her! please, we have to find her," you cried, clinging onto steve's body as he ran his hand up and down your suit-cladded back to soothe you. "y/n/n, we can't. the whole place is in ruins now," he didn't want to say it but he had to. he had to in order to get you to leave. "she's gone."

"she can't be gone! she can't just leave us! we need her! i need her, stevie.." you cried into his chest and he had to control himself so he didn't cry right then and there too.

he looked up to see bucky looking at the two of you guiltily, tapping his wrist to indicate that they were running out of time. steve had no choice but to carry you in his arms, getting you to leave the site against your will. but you were too weak to fight back now. "what am i gonna do without her now, stevie?" you asked quietly.

"we're gonna be okay, y/n/n," he tells you, sitting you down on a chair and settling down next to you as clint flew the jet to your next location. the atmosphere was tense and you could tell everyone, too, was sad about this.

"what if we're not? what if we're not gonna be okay, stevie? i know i won't be." you wiped the tears streaming down your face despite the fact that your face still wasn't drying up any time soon.

"because nat wouldn't want to see us like this. she'll be angry if she sees that we're risking people's lives just because of her." he says truthfully.

"we're landing, guys." clint announces and the team prepared for another round of fighting. steve turns to you, wiping the tears on your face as he made you look up at him. "now let's save some people and make nat proud, yeah?"

you nod at him sadly, preparing your weapons. all of you got out the jet and the second battle of the day begun. boy, were these people unlucky because they were on the receiving end of your fury.

you were busy taking down a group of guards alone when you heard a familiar voice. "y/n, behind you!" and you turned just in time to take down a guard who was aiming at you.

you didn't even have time to register your shock of seeing the redhead because more guards came at you two. you guys fought alongside each other until all the men were taken down.

"nat?" you breathed out. "yes, bub?" she answers as you both carefully walked over the knocked out men. she was taken aback when you slammed into her, hugging her the tightest you ever did since you met her.

"please don't ever do that again." you mumbled into her chest. she was about to ask you what you meant when she heard you sniffling. figuring out it wasn't the appropriate moment to ask, she continued to just hug and comfort you in silence.

"wait, that was why she cried that day? because she thought i was in that building when it blew up?" nat asks after steve finished the story. "i never found out why because she never told me."

"yeah, you should've seen her when the building exploded. completely shattered my heart, dude." clint states, remembering the broken down state you were in that day.

"wait, did you guys not grief over my supposed death then?" nat glares at clint, bucky and steve. "in our defense, they were about to blow up about a hundred people, we didn't have much time to process the whole situation." clint tries to convince his best friend, only to receive a glare again from her.

"alright but just because she cried when she thought i was dead, doesn't mean she sees me as her mum. i'd cry too if any one of you guys died," she states, still in denial.

she did love you like how a mother would love her child. but she didn't want you to feel that she was forcing the title onto you. after all, you had so many other adults around you, who's to say that you saw someone else as a parent figure instead of her? she didn't want to make you uncomfortable.

"woman, are you serious?" sam exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically. "need i remind you that the girl sacrificed her life for you?"

ii.

"nat, watch out!" you stood right behind her where the man was about to attack her. you gave him a harsh kick to the head and that was all it took for the man to go unconscious.

the redhead turned around, not having enough time to comprehend what had happened before you dropped into her arms. you two were lucky the last of the men had already been taken out.

"bub? what's wrong?"

at this point, you were fully leaning against her. she was holding up your whole weight, hands wrapped around your middle to support you. that was when she felt it. the familiar thick substance on her fingers, leaking from the back of your suit.

her eyes widened, pulling one hand away from you to look at it. red. her breathing picked up as one of her hands felt around your back, finally feeling the handle of a knife sticking out from your back.

your eyes were already drooping by now and she lightly shook you awake, careful to not hurt you. she lowered you down and you were both sat on the floor now.

she presses a finger to her ear and you could hear her voice echo in your ear from your own comms. "can someone come please," she paused, exhaling shakily. "y/n's down."

if it had been any other person, she probably would be bringing them to the jet by now but it was you. she didn't know what came over her but when she saw that you were injured, it was like her whole body shut down. her knees felt weak and she couldn't bring herself to move.

"hey, hey, keep your eyes open. can you do that?" she asked gently and you nodded weakly. "bub, why did you do that?" she cried softly, moving your hair away from your face as you leaned sideways against her. the action caused your face to be smudged by your own blood from her hands but she didn't care as she caressed your cheek.

"he–he was gonna hurt you. i–i couldn't..." you paused a while, the pain getting too much for you to bear. "y/n, don't strain yourself. you need to stay awake," she tells you as tears streamed down her face.

"rather me than you," you whispered. nat's eyes widened at this. "don't say that, bub." she scolds gently.

you smiled weakly at her. "i've grown too dependent on you, nat. it's to the point that i," you coughed and nat worried that you were straining yourself but you continued. "that i'd rather die than live without you. you probably can go on with life without me but i can't without you. i need you, nat." your eyes closed and nat panics, shaking your body.

"y/n?! bub?! stay awake, please, they're coming!" nat cries out loud, holding onto your limp body.

"did we not agree to not mention that to me anymore?" nat glares at sam for bringing that up.

the night of that incident had been one of the worst nights for nat. she sat by your bed all night after you had been treated. she had been the first one you saw after you woke up. she had been the one you broke down in front of after you admitted the full reasoning behind your actions. she had been the one who opened her arms for you to make yourself at home in.

"i'm sorry but you must be blind if you can't see how really she sees you for the past years," bucky states. nat turns to him with a glare. "you don't know what you're talking about."

"oh really? who does she call whenever she has a really bad nightmare?" bucky questions rhetorically with his eyebrows raised.

iii.

"no, please, don't!" you begged, asleep and thrashing around in your bed. quiet whimpers turned into heavy breathing as you plead for your life in your nightmare. "please," you whispered, inhaling and exhaling harshly.

FRIDAY, noticing the amount of distress you were in, alerted the closest person to your room, that being bucky who was returning from a late night trip to the kitchen for some water.

he quickly went into your room, only to see you shivering and thrashing around in your bed. "doll?" he approaches slowly, finding you still asleep, though sweating a lot. nightmare, he realised.

"doll? wake up," he gently shakes you and you immediately jolt awake, breathing heavily as you register what was going on. "it's okay, it was just a nightmare," he soothes you, holding you close as one hand rubbed up and down your back while the other held your head to his chest.

none of that helped as you were still in the same state as you were when you woke up. "are you okay?" he asks, worried. "nat... i need nat.. please i need her," you whimpered, shaking in his hold. you were having trouble breathing.

"FRIDAY, get romanoff."

within minutes, nat arrived, looking panicked and disheveled like she had just woken up, which she just did. "what's wrong?" she asks bucky, approaching you two.

"she was having a nightmare and woke up and i think she's having a panic attack. she asked for you," he informs her and immediately moves away when she approaches, so that she could take his place.

"bub? it's me," you look up to meet natasha's pretty green eyes. "you're okay, bub. can you tell me five thing you can see?"

you looked away from her eyes, looking around your room. "i–i see my book on my nightstand, my lamp, my jacket on the chair, my laptop and the painting on the wall." you told her after some difficulties.

"good, that's good. four things you can feel?"

"i feel the socks on my feet, my fluffy blanket, the pillow i'm leaning on and your hands around me."

she smiles softly at you. "three things you can hear?"

"i hear your voice. a–and the faint noise from the ac and i can also hear bucky's breathing." you look up at the man and he smiles sheepishly at you, standing around awkwardly. you gave him a small smile back.

"two things you can smell?"

"i can smell my own shampoo..and my room's air freshener." you told her more calmly now, feeling the panic attack already going away.

"one thing you want to taste?"

"i wanna taste wanda's blueberry pancakes." you pout and the two adults couldn't help but chuckle. "you can have them in the morning. right now you need to sleep so you can have the energy to devour them tomorrow, okay?" you nod at the woman as she tucks you in.

not long after, you fell asleep. she then presses a kiss to your forehead before leaving with a less worried bucky now. and sure enough, the next morning, wanda made you blueberry pancakes.

"okay, so what? we all need someone to help us through panic attacks?" nat rolls her eyes. "did you miss the part where i came in and tried to help but she specifically asked for you? she needed you, nat."

"guys, i... i love her with my whole heart but she has all of us. i don't wanna make her feel like she's restricted to only one of us. you all love her too," nat reasons.

"yes but she doesn't have anyone to call her mum and frankly, i think you'd be perfect for it." wanda encourages the older woman.

"i—" before she could continue, her phone rang loudly and she thanked whoever it was that called her because now she didn't have to make up excuses about her doubt of becoming your official mother.

iv.

she looks down at the caller id, sighing when it was you, meaning the team had more against her now. of course she didn't mind you calling her, you could call her when she'd be asleep after a mission and she'd still pick up with a smile on her face. but it was the fact that the whole team could see how she softened when she realised it was you who called that bothered her. she really didn't want them to let her have hopes that you'd accept her as your mother.

"bub?" she said into the phone and half the team smirked at her while the other half gave her knowing smiles. "aren't you supposed to be on your way to school?"

"yeah but uh are you busy right now? i um, i need you."

nat immediately stands up, worry etched onto her face and the team frowned at this. "what happened? are you okay?"

"you know how i told happy i wanted to walk to school today? yeah, i just remembered why i don't walk to school anymore."

"what do you mean? what happened? are you hurt? did someone hurt you?" she bombards you with questions out of worry. at this point, the team had also stopped their chatter and teasing looks, equally worried for your well-being.

"yeah, i am. wait, maybe not. i mean, i was just being dramatic but uh, i tripped on who-knows-what and now i have a sprained ankle. i can't walk now so i'm standing in an alley right now so i'm not in the way of people. can you come get me?"

nat sighs in relief, thankful that it wasn't anything that she was thinking of. "you are unbelievable, y/n." she chuckles in disbelief at your clumsiness. "can you tell me where you are? i'll come get you now. i'll have the school know you're not coming today." you told her your location and she immediately leaves after telling the team what happened to you.

you were expecting nat to call again, to tell you she was around the corner but instead you heard a whoosh of air beside your head, followed by a crack sound. your head followed the sound, eyes widening when you saw that a dart had struck the wall beside your head. you looked ahead, trying to see where that came from.

if it hadn't been for your fast reflexes being an avenger for the past few years, you probably wouldn't have ducked in time when another dart came flying right for your head. "what the hell?" you grunted, staying low but still looking around for the source. you squinted when you looked up, the sun blazing but you managed to catch a glimpse of a man on a rooftop nearby. he had blonde hair and was dressed in all black, donning a same coloured mask that covered the bottom half of his face.

"you had one job! how could you miss her twice?!" the blonde hears his colleague hiss in his ear through the earpiece. "i'm sorry! i'm no hawkeye, how was i supposed to get her in one try?!" he scolds back.

"you didn't even get her in two!"

"shut up and just let me work! you're distracting me!"

"hurry because i see the redheaded one nearing the alley. boss'll kill us if he finds out we didn't get her in her vulnerable state."

"i'm trying, i'm trying!" the blonde closes one eye, his sight now locked on your crouched state. he saw you move once you saw him and he cursed under his breath, his weapon following your movements. "she's moving!"

"just take the shot and be done with it! you have to go now!"

and shoot he did. after he shot the dart gun, he immediately fled but it wasn't like you were going to be able to chase him down or anything. a scream left your lips as a dart pierced through your skin, right under your shoulder.

you dropped down to the ground, right in the middle of the alleyway. you cried when you felt the burn in your flesh. you had been stabbed multiple times before with much bigger objects so why did this feel different?

"y/n?! is that you?!" you heard nat's voice yell from a small distance away. "i'm here," you croaked out, feeling your body grow weaker at an alarming rate.

"oh my god, bub, why are you on the ground? it's dirty, c'mon let's get you up. which foot did you sprain?" she places both her hands under your arms, pulling you up on your feet before accidentally dropping you back when you let out a shriek, crying out in pain.

"oh my god, did i hit your ankle? are you okay?" nat assumed that your tear-stained face was because of your sprained ankle but then you wheezed, your eyes drooping the longer she stood there.

your right hand slowly reached across your left shoulder, the butt of the dart sticking out of your skin now in between your shaking fingers. nat's eyes followed your hand movement's, a gasp leaving her lips.

"y/n, what happened?!" she panicked but before she could even get an answer from you, you had already blacked out. her eyes widened, knowing it was the dart because why else would you pass out that quick from a simple penetration in the shoulder. you had dealt with much worse than that and she knew your tolerance level.

she took off your bag, careful to not move the dart. she then placed her hands under your knees and behind your back, easily picking your unconscious body up and rushing back to the tower.

when she arrived, she was met with many confused yet concerned looks from the tower staff, seeing the black widow, rushing in with the youngest avenger unconscious in her arms. they had seen you leave the tower for school about half an hour ago so they knew something must've happened on the way.

"get bruce in the hospital wing. tell him it's urgent." she tells the woman working the front desk, hurrying into the elevator and telling FRIDAY to get her to the floor she so desperately wanted to arrive at quicker. black lines appeared on the left side of your neck, slowly spreading to the right side and she assumed it was from that damned dart in your left shoulder.

"natasha! what's wrong? they said it was an emergency," the doctor spoke in a panicked voice when nat entered, immediately going quiet when he saw you in her arms, neck lined with seemingly black veins.

nat laid you down on the surgery table, frown growing when black lines steadily spread to your arms now. though she was too worried to think, she managed to at least tell bruce what was outwardly wrong with you.

"dart. left shoulder." she blurted, incapable of forming proper sentences now that she had seen more of you. the black lining your skin got her speechless and anxious. bruce got ready with medical gloves, removing the dart from your flesh before analysing the pattern of your skin. it looked familiar.

"FRIDAY, get tony down here. it's urgent."

"bruce, please, what's wrong with her?" she cried, tears now freely streaming down her face. she didn't cry much in front of anyone but when it came to you, you always managed to get her to do just that.

"hey, what's going on? FRIDAY said there was an emergency here, who's hurt?" nat heard tony's panicked voice but she didn't make an effort to reply. her gaze was fixed on only you.

tony's jaw dropped, frowning when he saw you on the bed, upper body covered in black lines. "what the hell happened?!"

tony stepped beside bruce, taking a closer look at your skin. his frown deepened. "wait, it looks like.."

"yeah, looks exactly like when you had palladium instead of vibranium in your arc reactor."

"does that mean—"

"palladium's been running through her veins for about twenty minutes now. FRIDAY, how high is her blood toxicity level?" bruce asks, sampling a drop of your blood from when he took out the dart.

"53% and it is still steadily increasing."

"tony, at the rate it's going, if she's not treated in the next fifteen minutes or so, she'll.." bruce pauses, not wanting to say it out loud.

"no, she just needs lithium dioxide. that's how fury and i cured your palladium poisoning, tony." nat finally speaks.

"SHIELD probably has them but they're all the way in dc. they're not gonna reach here in time," tony states solemnly, reaching over to move your hair out of your face, looking down at you sadly.

but he was immediately pulled aside, nat grabbing his collar and looking him straight in the eyes. "you have your stupid iron suits that can probably travel faster than the speed of sound if you try. you can go down there yourself and get the damn thing. i swear to god, tony, i'm literally going to destroy those stupid suits myself if you don't put them to good use." nat threatens, glaring at the billionaire.

tony's eyes widened, the genius having not thought about nat's idea yet. "yeah, yeah, you're right, i'll go now."

he left immediately and nat approached your bed hesitantly, not wanting to see the black lines making home on the skin on your upper body. "do you think tony'll make it back in time?" she sniffles and bruce's worried frown on his face softened. "of course he will. he won't let anything happen to y/n. we won't let anything happen to y/n." he assured her.

there was nothing they could do now but wait for tony to come back with the lithium dioxide. nat sat beside your bed, hands gingerly grasping one of your own. despite the black staining it, nat held it to her face and her tears rolled past the back of your hand.

bruce decided to give her some privacy, opting to inform the whole team of the situation instead of standing around idly.

nat pulled your hand away from her face, rubbing her thumb over the back of it, crying even more at the sight in front of her. "y/n, please. i've never told you this but i need you." she pauses, breathing in shakily. "i've always needed you and i'll always need you. you can't leave me, please. you said i could go on with life without you but you're so wrong, y/n. you're the reason i'm still here and you're the reason i still want to be here. if you're not here then it's as if i have no reason, no purpose. i need you, y/n. so much more than i'd like to admit. heck, probably much more than you need me. so please, don't leave me. i can't do this without you." nat sobs out, watching the patterns on your skin spreading and growing bolder.

at this point, the whole team had now gathered outside of the room, watching nat cry over you. they wanted so bad to get a closer look at their beloved baby avenger but they respected nat and instead, waited for her to finish talking to you. once she stood up and looked around, bruce knew she was done so he entered, followed by the team.

"status, FRIDAY?" bruce asks, sampling a bit of your blood again. "blood toxicity at 96% now."

the team looked your unconscious body in apprehension, some crying and some worried out of their minds.

"goddamnit! where the hell is stark?!" nat growled. her eyes were now puffy after having spent the last half an hour crying. the team had never seen her lose her cool like this but they figured why.

as if on cue, tony's iron man suit crashed through the windows of the room but he couldn't care less. his main priority was to get to you quickly. in his hand was a silver briefcase that he passed to bruce.

bruce opened the case before wasting no time in plunging the syringe containing lithium dioxide, your supposed cure, into you. immediately, the black patterns on your skin started disappearing. it was slow but noticeable. it started from the tips of your fingers, going up towards your neck.

everyone sighed in relief, and to tony's surprise, nat hugged him tightly. "thank you. you have no idea how much this means to me." she whispers. tony pats her back gently. "hey, i care about her too, okay? of course i'd do this for her. any one of us would."

nat smiles at him when she let him go, turning back to you and almost crying out in joy when your skin had finally turned back to normal. she let the medical assistants set your bed up and handle your sprained ankle before going back to sit by you. the team left her alone with you once again.

it was only about an hour later did you wake up, squinting when bright lights shone down on you. you moved around but you felt hands around your left and you heard a familiar voice.

"and remember when you dragged wanda to pull that prank on me with you and after you did, i grounded you like i was your mum or something?" you hear her chuckle, still not noticing that you've woken up.

"i didn't mind, though. frankly, i don't think i would ever mind if you continued acting like my mother or something," you spoke and she immediately tore her gaze from your hands, looking at you, now wide awake.

"bub!" she hugs you so tightly you didn't think you could breathe. you still returned the hug though, laughing. "i was worried you might still have some palladium in your bloodstream."

"wait, palladium?" you asked her in shock. "yeah, the dart that got you in that alley, it contained palladium. it's highly toxic so we used lithium dioxide to counter it. speaking of the dart, i'm going to find out who did this to you and they're never going to see the light of day for putting us through all of this." nat says, disturbingly calm.

"yeah...you do that," you tell her, slightly scared. "but palladium? in my blood? how cool is that? i had literal metal in my blood! i could've become like tony but like...palladium woman or something." you said excitedly.

"you do know we already have metal in our blood, right bub?" nat questions in amusement. "oh." you say dumbly. "and palladium don't belong in our body and you literally almost died because of it." your mouth opened but no words came out.

"speaking of, can you please not do that again? i really thought i was gonna lose you." she whispers, stroking your hair. "oh yeah, of course. i'll just announce to the whole world to not target the youngest avenger," you joke, smile dropping when nat gave you a stern look.

"nat, being part of the avengers at my age undoubtedly means i'll be a target for the bad people out there, but i don't care because while i get to kick ass, i know all of you have my back when it's my ass that's kicked. and i think that's the best part of being an avenger; the sense of security i get having you amazing people as my teammates." you tell her honestly and she smiles softly.

"oh come here you," she pulls you in for another hug but this time it's better because you could still breathe. you make yourself comfortable, snuggling into her.

"did you mean it?" she asked and you look up at her in confusion. "mean what?"

"when you said you wouldn't mind me acting like your mother."

"of course i do, you're like the mother i never had. i wouldn't even mind you being my actual mother." you say without a second thought, eyes widening when you realised what you had said. you swore under your breath, knowing you've just made it awkward between you two.

"i– really?" despite the teams efforts to make her see the truth, it was much more meaningful when she heard you say it yourself. "y–yeah.." you admit sheepishly.

"then you wouldn't mind if i actually adopted you?" she asks carefully, gauging your reaction. your jaw dropped, eyes going wide once again. "are you serious?!"

"yeah." she smiles at you fondly. "no! of course i won't mind!" you hug her tightly, tears forming in your eyes. you had gone all your life without parents so this was a huge thing for you. not only were you going to finally have a mother, but the most amazing woman you knew was going to be your mother.

"mum?" you tested the title, smiling when she acknowledged it. you were now crying in joy.

"hey, don't cry." she soothes you, running a hand up and down your back. "no, no, i'm just so happy. this is the best day of my life." you tell her. "me too, bub."

you stayed in her arms until you fell back asleep, nat tucking you in before going back to sit down on the chair. she looked down at you fondly.

sure, she was scared of the big step she was about to take with you but she had you with her and she knew that was enough. "i love you, y/n." she whispers, planting a kiss on the side of your head.

taglist <3

@amourtentiaa @rqmanoff @abitofeverythinggg @andreasworlsboring101 @cay-writes-fan-fiction514 @teenwonder @sevenmorningstars @fleurlovesbucky

#marvel x teen!reader #avengers x teen!reader #avengers x reader #bruce banner x teen!reader #bucky barnes x teen!reader #clint barton x teen!reader #natasha romanoff x teen!reader #sam wilson x teen!reader #steve rogers x teen!reader #tony stark x teen!reader #avenger!reader

910 notes · View notes

applerubyy · 3 years

Text

Ciao Adios

Summary: When you find your boyfriend cheating on you yo decide to expose him in the pettiest way you can think of.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (some Loki x Reader if you squint)

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Cheating and cursing (I think that’s it?)

A/N: Hi! So this is my first time writing and posting anything here so if its terrible please tell me nicely :). This is some AU where everyone lives and all is happy ok? Also english is not my first language so I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Anyway, if it turns out that some of you like it I think I’d be willing to do a part 2 if you like. Hope you enjoy it! <3. Btw, the gif is not mine so credit to whoever made it.

Crack. That’s the sound of your heart breaking, ripped to pieces in just a few seconds. And no, you were not exaggerating. Seeing your boyfriend kissing someone else while taking off their clothes would do that to a person. And in his office of all places.

How did you not see that coming? They had a lot in common and they did spend a lot of time together but you were just so naïve thinking that he was the most trust-worthy person ever that you looked the other way and believed him when he told you she was “just a friend”.

Just a friend my ass you thought as you calmly walked to your room. No running, that would draw attention to you and you didn’t need that. No crying either, because once you started you wouldn’t be able to stop. Walking down the hallway and taking the elevator to your floor feels like it takes forever.

Time is funny that way. It has that annoying tendency to slow down or speed up at the worst times. Like when you were in college and the clock seemed to literally stop, you would look at the time and it was 10:20 am and check again after what felt like half an hour for it to be 10:25 am. Or like when you are having fun with your friends at a club and you see it’s 12:30 but when you look again a few minutes later it’s 2:40. Right now it feels like the former, time seems to have slowed down. Maybe Dr. Strange did something to it? No, that’s stupid, he wouldn’t play with time that way.

Finally the elevator pings open and you rush to your room. Well, it’s not only your room anymore. You share it with him and everything is a reminder of what you just saw. The art supplies on the desk by the window, the famous shield leaning against the wall near the door, the messy bed where you sleep together every night …

And every single thing brings tears to your eyes until finally, the dam breaks and you let the tears fall down. You bring your hand to your mouth to muffle a sob that brings you to your knees. Crying is the only thing you can do right now because your brain is stuck on a loop. All you can see is Steve kissing her, unbuttoning her shirt with one hand while the other grabbed her ass. And all you can hear are their moans, Sharon’s whimper when he touched her and his groan as he did so.

And now you are full on crying and choking on air because that scene keeps replaying itself over and over no matter how much you want it to stop. And you do, Gosh you do because there is so much your heart can take and this is too much. It shatters you in more ways than one. It makes you question everything you thought you knew about him, about her, about your relationship and about yourself.

You remember the first time you met him. You were already in college and looking for an internship. Luckily you happened to be the niece of the one and only Pepper Potts. And who wouldn’t want to work near Earth's mightiest heroes? You sure did. You were studying journalism and communications in New York and working with the Avengers was the ultimate dream, one that was about to come true.

Your first day was uneventful, it consisted mainly of coffee runs, delivering files and passing messages along. That was until your third coffee run where you ran straight into a wall, well actually it wasn’t a wall but it felt like it. The coffee spilled everywhere, on your clothes and his, and you were going to fall on your butt if it wasn’t for him grabbing your arms to steady you. Imagine your surprise when you looked up to see Captain America himself.

And that’s the moment your love story started. It seemed like something straight out of a romantic comedy and you loved it. It started with flirting, a date and then another, him asking you to be his girlfriend and finally asking you to move in once you graduated. It felt like a fairytale.

Tony wasn't very happy about you and the Capsicle but he saw how happy you were so he tried to be happy too. Tony was your uncle even if you didn’t share any blood. Growing up you would visit your aunty Pepper in New York and he was always around, you even stayed at his house when Pepper and him had to work. So, you two became really close even before he became Iron Man and started dating your aunt.

The same thing happened with Rhody. Your close relationship with Tony meant you were close to him too, seeing as he was one of the most important people in his life. Rhody treated you like his niece and was the only one he didn’t make fun of which you took as the ultimate compliment.

So those three you knew before you started working at the compound and before Steve. But once you started working there you met the rest of the Avengers. Being Pepper and Tony's niece and Steve's girlfriend meant they all wanted to get to know you.

You met Bruce Banner, the Hulk, and you became really close. But that was thanks to his close relation with Tony and all the time you spent with him working on his social media presence to make sure people saw him as more than just the green monster who smashes things. After a while of working there they promoted you and now you manage the Avengers social media.

Nat and Wanda became your best friends from the moment you met. You just clicked and hung out as much as possible, being the only girls on the team meant they were really happy to have another female added to the mix. As for Vision, he liked you because Wanda did, simple as that.

Bucky and Sam were the funniest people ever, their constant bickering always brought a smile to your face and they welcomed you with open arms. Happy that their friend had finally found someone to be with.

Thor and Clint were like the fun uncles you got to see every once in a while. The God of Thunder was like an excited puppy and would hug you till you couldn’t breath every time he came to Earth and Clint would joke around with you and FaceTime you when he was with his kids because they loved you (“best babysitter ever” that called you).

You met Peter when he started working for your uncle. He was a sweet kid and your love of memes, vines and pop culture made you instant friends. He would ask you for advice on girls and tell you science jokes.

But we all know not all fairytales have a happy ending and this one definitely didn’t. You’re feeling so many things at once. There’s anger, sadness, jealousy and something else you can’t put your finger on. You keep crying and are unable to move from your kneeling position on the floor. Checking the clock you realize you’ve been on the floor crying for an hour so you stand up.

Taking a shower seems like the best thing to do, your head is pounding and your face is all puffy. As you shower it hits you, that other feeling swirling around is inevitability. In a way you always thought he was too good for you, you always thought he would eventually get tired of you and trade you for someone else.

It just hurt too much that it was her, the woman he shared so much with. The niece of Peggy Carter, his first love. An agent of S. H. I. E. L. D. Someone who risked their life for the world like he did. Someone prettier. Someone better than you.

Yeah, you were definitely on a self-pity party. But you needed to be miserable for a while, to cry it all out, to hurt so that you could move on to the next stage of grief: anger. And when that came, there was no stopping you.

You weren’t a mean person, or a petty one. You gave everyone countless opportunities and forgave way too easily so you never really got angry. But when you did, when you said enough is enough, yeah, you better watch out. That could be the meanest bitch you ever met and she had no mercy.

So you got out of the shower, dried yourself and started getting ready. Tony was throwing yet another party about who knows what and you were not missing it. You liked parties, they were the perfect excuse for wearing pretty dresses and putting on make up. And tonight you were going all out.

Your inner bitch was concocting a plan and you were going with it.

You hear the door open and prepare yourself to put on the best acting of your life. You take a deep breath and in the sweetest voice you can muster say: “Steve is that you babe?”

“Yeah doll it’s me” you hear him say. A few second later he pops into the bedroom and gives you a peck on the lips as you continue with your makeup.

“How was your day?” Steve asks as he takes off his clothes, probably to take a shower. “I missed you today, i went by your office but you weren’t there” he says with a small frown between his eyes. You could stare at his blue eyes forever but snap out of it when you remember what he did.

“Oh not much, i left work earlier to get ready for tonight” you answer. Shit your work. You really did leave like that, but after tonight hopefully they’ll understand. “You should start getting ready, the party starts in thirty minutes”.

He smiles at you and tells you he’s going to take a quick shower before getting dressed. He goes to the bathroom and you feel like breaking the mirror but instead take a few deep breaths and remind yourself he’s getting what he deserves later on. With that in mind you finish applying you makeup and smile at yourself, you look good. Moving on to your hair you decide to do some loose waves and that’s it, you really don’t know how to make those complicated updos.

Steve gets out of the shower and starts putting on his suit. Men really do have it easier you think to yourself when you see all the work you had to do and he just showers and that’s it.

You take your dress out of the closet and admire it. It really is beautiful. It has a deep plunging neckline that shows a lot of cleavage and is skin tight with a slit on one side. The fact that it is silver with sequins makes it even better. Pepper helped you pick this dress.

You put on the dress and admire yourself in the mirror. You look good. Behind you, you hear a whistle and turn around to see Steve watching you lust in his eyes. He comes closer and grabs you by the waist, pulling you to him.

“You look stunning” he says as he wets his bottom lip. “I can’t wait to take it off of you when we get back”. Lying cheating bastard.

“Can't wait” you lie as you wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him. This is just a kiss goodbye you tell yourself. One last kiss before he’s out of your life and probably runs to her. Tears threaten to fill your eyes but you hold them down. Not now.

You break the kiss when the need to breathe is too strong. Grabbing his hand you start walking towards the door and say: “Come on, we’re already late”.

——————————————————————————

The party had already started once you walk in and in true Tony fashion it is elegant and extravagant. Everyone is there: S. H. I. E. L. D. agents, the Avengers themselves, politicians and a few famous people.

You and Steve walk to the bar and order drinks. A whiskey for him and a strawberry daiquiri for you, yes you are that basic but hey, it tastes awesome. He offers you his arm and with drinks in your hands you start looking for your friends. A lot of people stop you on the way, nobody wants to miss an opportunity to talk to Captain America.

One thing, or rather on person, catches your attention: Loki. He’s sitting on one of the cushions alone with a drink in his hand. It’s weird to see him there. Sure, he was redeeming himself for what he did in 2012 and Thor said he was doing better but he rarely left Asgard (he “hated mortals”) and when he did come to Earth it wasn’t for a party.

As if he could feel you staring he turns his head and locks his eyes with yours. You weren’t going to lie, he was gorgeous. He was incredibly tall, had those charming green eyes and was actually funny (but you’d never admit that to anyone). But you were in love with Steve and never saw him as anything more than Thor's hot brother. And everyone in the Avengers was hot so that’s not saying much.

You turn away from him and see Nat and Wanda on the dance floor and you tell Steve you’ll see him later and to go find his friends. He’ll need them after tonight you think to yourself. You greet the girls and start dancing with them, for a moment forgetting about what you saw today and putting Loki out of your mind.

The three of you decided to take a break and order some more drinks. Once at the bar Wanda orders for you and when your drinks arrive you go back to the dance floor. You spend the next few hours dancing, talking to your friends and pretending that nothing's wrong. Talking to Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong. Hugging Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong. Kissing Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong.

The fact that Sharon is at the party doesn’t help at all. When you see her talking or touching him you feel like you’re gonna lose it but you remain strong. You remind yourself of your plan and try to keep them out of your mind.

There’s a small stage at the far end of the room and you see your uncle Tony step on it and grab the microphone.

“Hello everyone and thank you for coming to another one of my amazing parties. I hope you are having a good time and taking advantage of the free bar over there” he points to the other side of the room and continues, “Now for what we have all been waiting for: karaoke! And yes, i want everyone to sing something because that’s the whole point of this. I'm looking at you Manchurian Candidate, you’re singing”.

With that he gets off the stage and passes the mic to Sam who decided to sing a Marvin Gaye song. He’s pretty good actually but you can’t fully concentrate on him because your mind is going a thousand miles an hour for what it’s going to happen later.

More people go up and sing their songs and you applaud when they’re done. Nobody is talking much, they're all too busy either laughing at the others performance, drinking or actually listening to the songs. You’re sitting with Steve to your right, Bruce to your left and the rest of the Avengers nearby. You’re your own little group.

It’s finally your turn and as you walk to the stage you can hear your friends whistling and cheering you on. Once you’re up on the stage you choose the song and start singing.

Ask you once, ask you twice now

There's lipstick on your collar

You say she's just a friend now

Then why don't we call her?

So you wanna go home with someone

To do all the things you used to do to me

I swear, I know you do

Used to take me out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when I ring you up

Don't know where you are

'Til I hear her say your name

Used to sing along when you played guitar

That's a distant memory

Hope she treats you better than you treated me, ha

As you continue singing you get more and more confident and take the mic. You walk off the little stage and over to your friends while dancing and you can see them smiling, clapping and having fun. They have no idea how much i mean all of this you think. You look at Steve and he’s completely oblivious. Good, you want to take him by surprise. You arrive at your little circle of friends and start singing the chorus.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her

Kissing and having fun

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

You keep dancing and go back to back with Wanda who’s also singing along. You then turn to Nat and she grabs your hand and makes you do a little spin.

After three, after four times

Why did I bother?

Tell me how many more times

Does it take to get smarter?

Don't need to deny the hurt and the lies

And all of the things you did to me

I swear, I know you did

And now you take her out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when she rings you up

She know where you are

But I know differently

Now she sings along when you play guitar

Making brand new memories

Hope you treat her better than you treated me

You go up to Tony and he starts dancing around you busting out some dad moves. You laugh and keep on singing and dancing.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her

Kissing and having fun

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done (I'm done)

Ciao adios, I'm done (no, no, no, no)

Ciao adios, I'm done

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

And now you take her out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when she rings you up

She know where you are

But I know differently

Now she sings along when you play guitar

Making brand new memories

Hope you treat her better than you treated me

You walk back to the stage as you sing and step up. You put the mic back into place and sing the last part of the song.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her (with her)

Kissing and having fun (and fun)

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done (I'm done)

Ciao adios, I'm done (you get on with your life, I'll get on with my life)

Ciao adios, I'm done

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

When you’re done people are clapping and cheering and you look to your friends to see them all smiling. You look at everyone and make a little mock bow and when you straighten you see Loki sitting on the same couch as before. But this time he’s looking at you and he’s laughing, not smiling and cheering but actually laughing.

You look back at your friends and say “Thank you, thank you” with a smile on your face. You continue , “I wanted to dedicate this song to my boyfriend Steve” you point at him.

“In case it wasn’t clear enough, i wanted to tell you that i saw you with Sharon”. You could hear a pin drop. No one was talking and all eyes were on you. This is what you wanted, to humiliate him as much as he did you. And what better way to do it than publicly? Oh but you weren’t done.

You could see Steve's face going pale and nobody knew where to look, if at you or at him. Tony look ready to murder him as did Rhody, Pepper, Peter and Bruce. Thor, Clint and Vision looked shocked. But Bucky, Sam, Nat and Wanda looked guilty.

Your heart breaks a little more when you realize they knew. You can’t really blame Bucky and Sam for not telling you, they were Steve's friends after all. But you thought the girls were your friends, that they would have told you. Apparently you overestimated that friendship.

You keep on smiling and continue “So… I’m breaking up with you. Hope she was a good fuck and wasn’t uncomfortable with the fact that you were once in love with her aunt”. You do a dramatic pause and make a little disgusted face. “Anyway, if I’m lucky i´ll never see you again. Have a great life!”

And with that, you walk off the stage and make your way to your friends. Steve is rooted to the spot and his face is red with embarrassment. You walk up to him, look him straight in the eye and give him an evil smile. He gulps and opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something and then closes it. He does is two more times and still nothing comes out.

You turn to your group and look at Wand and Nat, who can’t seem to be able to look you in the eye. You sigh and say: “Who want enemies when they can have you as their best friends right?”. They look up then and start talking. Telling you how sorry they are and to please forgive them. You raise your hand to silence them and they do.

You go to your aunt and uncle who look like there should be smoke coming out of their ears and say: “I’m gonna stay in a hotel for the night, can’t stand to be here anymore”. Tony scrunches his eyebrows and look at you like you’re crazy.

“Hell no. You’re staying here. We can find him another room to sleep in but you’re not leaving. If anyone’s leaving is Mr. Star-spangled over there” he practically screams the last part as he points at Steve.

You take a deep breath and hug him. It takes him by surprise but he puts his arms around you. “I appreciate it uncle Tony but i can’t stay at the compound, it just hurts too much” you say as you let go. Turning to your aunt you hug her as well and say: “Thank you for everything but I quit”.

The moment those words leave your mouth everyone starts talking at the same time telling you how crazy you are and to think about it. You just smile at them and tell them you already made up your mind. “I'm gonna go pack a bag and ask Happy to take me to a hotel nearby. Please make sure he doesn’t follow” you say as you point to a still red-faced Captain America.

With that you turn around and leave. The room is silent for a few seconds before you hear your friends all screaming at Steve. You look around for a second and notice that Loki is staring at you with a smirk on his face. When you look him in the eye he raises his glass at you ant takes a sip.

You give him a small smile and walk through the doors towards the elevator.

#steve rogers x reader #captain america x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america imagine #avengers #avengers imagine #loki x reader #loki imagine #tony stark #steve rogers x y/n #captain america x y/n #steve rogers fanfiction

274 notes · View notes

oh-mother-of-darkness · 4 years

Text

“I love to sing,” said Dick.

Bruce turned away from the sink, back towards the eight year old sitting at the kitchen table. He hesitated for a moment before he spoke.

“Oh.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“I… didn’t.”

“Because I don’t sing.”

“I haven’t heard you.”

Dick stared down at his half-finished plate, apparently stricken.

“Maybe I don’t pay attention,” said Bruce hurriedly. “I can listen more.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Maybe there isn’t any music here.” That could be true, Bruce thought. His house was overwhelmingly silent, and Bruce liked it that way, but maybe it wasn’t good for a child. “There’s nothing to sing along to.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dick murmured. “Haly said— Haly used to say he could hear me coming two trailers over. I sing while I walk.”

“Oh,” said Bruce.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Bruce leaned backward against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, unsure where to put his hands or what to say— unsure how to help. As he watched, Dick slumped forward.

“I don’t sing anymore,” Dick repeated.

“Maybe…” Bruce trailed away. He didn’t have any other ideas.

“My—” Dick’s voice cracked, and he began again. “My mom loved my voice, and she said I— like a bird hopping around outside her window, and now I—”

Bruce didn’t know where to look either. What was he supposed to do for a crying child? Pretend not to notice the tears? He didn’t think that was right, but what else was there? Bruce knew Dick was looking at him, to him, waiting for something comforting.

He didn’t have it. He didn’t have anything profound to say or advice to give, and he wondered, for a moment, if he used to sing too.

Bruce couldn’t remember.

Dick was still waiting.

Bruce seized on his first coherent thought. “I loved to play spy,” he said. “My parents did it with me sometimes. They pretended to give me missions, or they warned me about enemy agents tracking my every movement. I gathered information and plotted hidden routes to deliver important items.”

Dick blinked, interested, so Bruce went on.

“I had a secret hideout in my game. That was my favorite part. I drew it all the time, adding on rooms and entries, and I finished the last version right before we went to the theater on the night they died.”

“Oh.”

Bruce shoved away the familiar image of an alleyway by lamplight. “I went home to my eight year old drawing, and I put it away because I knew it was part of the old me, and I was new, and I could never be the same again.” He shifted against the counter, uncomfortable. “I left my whole bedroom frozen in time. It’s still upstairs, and it looks exactly the same as it did the day my parents died. I keep the night light on.”

“Why?”

“I thought I was— I thought it was poetic. Maybe it made things harder instead. I went inside my old room the day I returned to Gotham, and it… hurt. It did. I saw the way I used to be.”

Bruce didn’t go into that room often, but he could picture it easily: blue walls and a sunny skylight over a kid’s chemistry set and bookshelf. A half-finished jigsaw. A sheet of drawings. A desk with all its drawers closed.

“I liked books about science. I liked solving puzzles. I played spy, and I drew underground hideouts,” Bruce said. “Smart evidence says after all these years, I still do.”

“I guess so.”

“I found my drawing of the secret lair, and I pulled it out of the drawer, and I built it under my house. There’s a secret passageway behind my clock, and it’s part eight year old’s game, part grownup’s design. Both of those parts are me.”

Dick nodded.

“In some ways I was right,” Bruce continued. “I’m not the same, and I don’t have to be. Even changed, I am still myself. I’m still the person my parents loved. You will be too. Always. Don’t be afraid of that.”

Dick nodded again.

Bruce nodded back. “Maybe you won’t sing. You don’t have to. Maybe you’ll sing again, and I think you will. You’ll just… sing different songs.”

“Maybe,” said Dick, apparently unconvinced.

“Things are… difficult. Even after all this time. I won’t lie to you about that. I think you would see through me if I did.”

“Yeah.”

“I think I made mistakes, when I was your age, in your place. I didn’t think I could get better. I even thought that I shouldn’t. Wouldn’t that mean I didn’t love them enough to mourn?”

“No,” said Dick.

“Exactly. I was wrong about that and a lot of things. It’s okay to be happy, and I— I will be.” Bruce stumbled a bit over that part. It didn’t help his point. “I hope you’ll be even happier, and soon. I’d like to help with that. Though I realize I’m not being very helpful now,” he added.

“You’re helpful.”

“I’m— It doesn’t matter.” Bruce took the seat across the table and sat. “I didn’t disappear the night they died. Something horrible happened, and I suffered, and it hurt, and it wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t the end. It’s allowed to be a turning point, but it can’t be the end. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’re a decade ahead of me.” Bruce put an elbow on the table and sighed. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Was the dinosaur in the eight year old draft?” Dick asked.

“Ironically, no,” said Bruce, smiling. “It was not.”

---------------------

Anonymous said: A conversation about recovery

#dick grayson #bruce wayne #spent two days writing this in a house where there is not a single quiet second #even now my brother shreds his electric guitar downstairs #when will i know peace #fanfiction #mine

2K notes · View notes

supeson · 3 years

Text

the living is wise

part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine , part ten, part eleven, part twelve, part thirteen, part fourteen , part fifteen, part sixteen, part seventeen

Living alone allots you certain privileges. Coming and going whenever you please, buying whatever food strikes your fancy at the moment. One of those privileges, you thought, was being able to sleep in on your one Saturday off in a month. The trilling of your cell phone tells you another story. You let it ring three times before you grip it tightly, squinting before bringing it up to your face. It’s Bruce. You let out a huff, but swipe to accept the call.

“You have about a minute to buzz us in before three highly trained professionals break into your apartment,” He tells you. You can imagine him on the sidewalk looking up at your apartment, calculating all of the ways he could get in without using your front door.

“Just three?” You yawn into the phone.

“Bruce Wayne would never be caught breaking into some shabby apartment building in the middle of Gotham. My kids on the other hand, I have no control over.”

You groan, but roll off of the bed and onto your feet. Bruce lets out a small laugh, and nods to Dick to open the door as he hears you shuffle around, then hit the buzzer next to your front door. “The elevator’s broken again, by the way. The super has been ‘trying’ to fix it for a week now.”

Tim lets out a moan of despair at seeing the out of order sign, but dutifully pivots to the stairs. Bruce hangs up with a smile, starting the trek up to your third floor apartment.

Your apartment looks unchanged from the many other times he’s been there, aside from the box in the corner filled with cartridge cases and DVDs. Your cats are nowhere to be seen, and there's an open cereal box on the kitchen counter.

"I thought you said you have been packing," Bruce says, pulling off his gloves as he walks around. His kids are doing the same, exploring every nook and cranny (that they hadn't already seen on a computer monitor).

"I have. You can see the box in the corner, can't you? That's all packed up, babe." Bruce narrows his eyes. He doesn't appreciate the sarcastic tone of that babe. You roll your eyes. "Alright, I wasn't expecting you guys to be here at the ass crack of dawn to help me move. I thought you'd be here at like, two o'clock or something. I was gonna get up and start frantically shoving shit into boxes at noon."

“The early bird catches the worm,” Dick chimes from the kitchen, already pulling your dinner plates from a cabinet. You scrunch your nose at him. The other two Wayne kids take that as an invitation to start going through things as well, opening drawers and taking things off of shelves. They find the boxes you bought in the closet and set to work packing.

“There are uh. Boxes in the closet for the figures you’ll come across. Please put them in the corresponding box. I’m gonna go to my room.” You go down the short hallway off of your kitchen and shut yourself in the room at the end of it. You kneel and look under your bed just to make sure, but sure enough, there are Tigger and Little Bit, huddled under your bed, eyes wide. “Yea, I know.”

You spend twenty minutes working up the energy to change into regular clothes, and by the time you’re pulling on some jeans, someone knocks. “Yea, you can have some of my snacks, but don’t touch the Cheez-Its, I’ve been saving those.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a Cheez-It,” Bruce speculates from the other side.

“Oh fuck,” You mutter. You open the door for him, letting him sit on your bed as you continue to get dressed. He looks at you appraisingly while your shirt is off, and you roll your eyes. “Your kids are right outside and I know for a fact these walls are thin. I’ve gotten noise complaints.”

Bruce just smiles knowingly, then wrinkles his nose as he watches you pick up the dirty clothes off of the floor and dump them into a large box, then do the same with the clean clothes hanging up in your closet. “Shouldn’t those be separated and folded?”

“Have you ever done your own laundry, rich boy? No? Trust me, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. I was just gonna wash ‘em when I got to your house anyway. Who cares about wrinkles?” Bruce opens his mouth to respond, but you’re faster. “Yea yea Alfred does, I know. I’ll deal with him later.”

Bruce says nothing, just watching you quickly, albeit messily, pack the rest of your closet. He gets up to help you pack up your various knickknacks around the room, but stops when he sees you hesitate. He can tell what you’re thinking already. “I do want you at the Manor. We’ve already cleared out space for all of your things, believe it or not. Don’t throw away who you are to fit into my life. Please.”

“I just feel so...juvenile, compared to you. You have great artworks and books signed by the authors and expensive vases just hanging around. I have anime figures that are depreciating in value by the day and this old Yu-Gi-Oh! comforter my mom wouldn’t throw away, and now I won’t throw away. It just seems so...out of place for me there. Your house has been featured in maybe a dozen magazines! My apartment has only been featured in my 2AM snapchats to my friends.” You wrap your hand around a small plushie, seemingly testing its weight in your palm. You’re mentally testing its weight in memories. Is it dear enough to you to go with you into this next phase of your life?

He comes up behind you and places a hand on your arm. “My house is a façade. It’s perfectly tailored and manicured to look the way it does, to keep up my billionaire persona. None of those paintings or books or antiques hold any value to me. Most of them were bought at charity auctions or brought into the house by Alfred. These,” He gestures to the things hanging up on your walls and sitting on your shelves, “things mean something to you. They hold special meaning, or memories for you. Your stuff makes you happy, and that’s all it needs to do. It’ll fit into my home just fine, because it’s your home too now. Feel free to fill it with as much stuff as possible. God knows it might actually need some redecorating anyway.”

You’re about to open your mouth to respond when you hear scuffling coming from outside your door. You set your plushie down with a slight downward quirk to your lips and turn towards the door. Dick bursts in just as you hear “Bruce!” and ‘Father!” come from the living room.

“Okay nothing is permanently broken, first of all, but do you think your landlord will still give you back your security deposit if the ceiling fan became a floor fan?”

#bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne/reader #batman #batman x reader #batman/reader

65 notes · View notes

obwjam · 3 years

Note

I don’t know why I didn’t do this before, but if you’re still writing marvel g/t could you do another Scott lang one or Bruce Banner one? Maybe x hurt!tiny? They’re both so underrated and are amazing characters. I love your writing 🙂

i’ll do you one better anon: what if i did scott AND bruce with a tiny? yeah i think i’ll go with that

———-

Bruce Banner’s morning started out normal, which maybe should have been his clue that things were going to go spectacularly off the rails. All was quiet at the Avengers complex upstate -- Tony was at some tech conference, Clint and Nat were doing spy business, Thor was in some other realm, Vision and Wanda were cooped up in their rooms upstairs and Steve, Sam and Bucky were off sparring together in a completely different wing of the building. Bruce was on his way down to the lab, and Scott was upstairs, munching on chips and watching TV.

“Chips at 10 in the morning?” Bruce asked with a laugh.

Scott shrugged, stuffing another handful into his mouth. “There was nothing else!”

Bruce, who was standing in front of an open fridge full of food, raised an eyebrow.

“...Nothing else I wanted,” Scott said, his attention turning immediately back to the TV. “Oh my god. Look at that kitchen! Man, can those property brothers design or what! I wonder if I can get them to do my house.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and grabbed the energy drink he came for. It was going to be a long, restless day of calculations and experiments without Tony around to help.

It was just his luck that he would never even get to start.

You had stayed up all night borrowing. It was rare for the complex to be this deserted, but it was your one chance to stock up on everything you needed in one big trip -- food and water from the kitchen, pieces of soap from the bathroom, and everything else you could ever want from the lab downstairs.

Everything was going great. Nobody had infiltrated the kitchen for a midnight snack. Someone had remembered to replace the soap. And the lab was stocked full of sharp metal for building, flat metal for creating, strings for hooks, and so many screws and nails and bolts. It took over a dozen trips up and down the tables to get everything, and you were just about finished when your greed got the best of you.

You were trying to stuff the most you possibly could inside your bags. They were overflowing. You were on your way down the leg of the table when a few pieces of metal started to slip out your bag.

“No no no no no...” you mumbled. The metal falling out of the bag wasn’t itself a big deal -- it was the noise it would make when it hit the ground that scared you. As you scrambled to stuff the metal back into the bag, your hold on your rope started to slip. You didn’t realize how tired you were until right now, and what turned into you trying to pull yourself up became your muscles giving out and your hand being unable to keep its tight grip.

You tumbled to the ground, which wasn’t that far away, but when you tried to stick the landing, your legs tangled up and you crumpled down. The metal clattered everywhere, making you wince. You waited a moment. No human. Okay. They must not have heard. You sat up, using your arms as support behind you, but when you went to stand, pain shot through your leg and you fell right back down.

Your stomach fell. “No… nononono, this can’t be happening…”

You forced yourself to stand, keeping your right leg completely straight and dragging it along as you shuffled to the table leg for cover. “No, I gotta get out of here. I can’t--”

You froze at the sound of Bruce bounding down the stairs, cracking open his drink and taking a big sip before slamming the can down on the nearest table. He blinked. Did he just... hear a whimper?

His eyes scanned the room. You were moving as fast as you could, but adrenaline could only push you so far. Your leg throbbed in pain and you cried out as you fell back to the ground again. Your shaking hand flew to your mouth. I’m done for.

Okay, he definitely wasn’t hearing things. That sounded like someone yelling. He took cautious steps forward, hoping not to make too much noise so he didn’t startle whatever he was hearing.

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as the giant started walking toward you, clearly looking for something he had heard. He stopped walking almost right on top of you, and you couldn’t help but gawk up at him towering above you like a skyscraper. The mere thought of being discovered by the human was enough to induce tears, which you desperately tried to push away as you got back up and started moving again.

Bruce heard a choppy breath and froze. That sounded close... but he was standing in the middle of the room. Nothing was behind him, in front of him or beside him... so the only option was... below him.

He looked down and gasped. He had no idea what he was looking at, but he suddenly felt sick. “Holy shit…” he whispered, putting his hands on his knees and leaning down. As soon as he uttered those words, you whipped your head up and around to meet his gaze. For a moment, he was surprised. He felt an influx of nerves when the tiny person stared at him, completely shocked. They looked terrified.

“H-hey, little guy--” he tried, but you had already turned around and started limping toward the table. Wait… limping.

Bruce, for his part, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He watched as you ducked behind the cover of the table leg. You knew it wasn’t going to help, but you just needed to get behind something so you could sit down and feel like you were hiding. Bruce felt a pang of pity. Not only was this little thing hurt, they were terrified of him.

“Um...” Bruce couldn’t even begin to formulate words in his head. He bent down, getting on his hands and knees and crawling to the side so he could fully see you. When you locked gazes, Bruce almost looked more nervous than you did. Your whole body was shaking. That’s when he noticed.

“Your leg… it’s bending all the wrong way,” he whispered, almost to himself. You blinked. Even if you wanted to say something, you couldn’t. You knew this giant -- this was one of the scientists who frequented the lab. He didn’t seem as… rough as the other one, but you were pretty sure this was the one who turned into a monster when he got angry. As if he wasn’t big enough already.

He noticed how you flinched at his words. He felt his heart swell at the tiny movements, yet guilt pierced his stomach at seeing the pure terror you exuded.

“No, no, it--it’s okay,” Bruce stammered, holding his hands up. “Who... what are you?”

Your lips were trembling. How were you even supposed to answer that?

“You’re right. Bad question,” Bruce muttered as soon as he saw your facial expression. “You can understand me though, right?”

Meekly, you nodded. Bruce smiled softly. “Good, good. Do you, uh... do you need help? Do you...” he trailed off. He took note at how your eyes seemed to be burning as you stared at him in horror. He tried to speak as slow as possible to not startle you any more than he already had.

“Do you have a name?”

Your words got caught in your throat. Part of you wanted to say, but another part stopped you from saying anything. You didn’t need his help. You’d be fine. As long as you could make it back to base...

Pain shot through your leg and you bit your tongue, trying desperately not to make a sound. Bruce stared as you contorted your face. It was clear you were in pain.

“H-here, let me…” he started, reaching his hand out toward you. On instinct, you yelped and scooted back, hugging the table leg for support. No. You couldn’t let him touch you. He would hurt you even more.

“Sorry, sorry!” He stared at your tiny, trembling form, his mind racing. How could he help you? If he were three inches tall and incapacitated on the ground, he wouldn’t want the help of a nervous giant either.

Maybe he couldn’t help, but someone small enough could.

“I’ll be right back!” he shot up, completely missing the way you winced back at his movement. “Don’t--stay right there!” You watched in confusion and fascination as he ran up the stairs. This was your chance! All you needed to do was get up, get your rope and hobble all… the… way… across the room…

Who were you kidding? You could barely even stand without falling right back down. You were trapped. The giant was obviously going to get a jar to put you in to show you off to all the weirdos who lived here.

This is it, you thought as you began to cry. This is how it ends.

“Scott!”

Scott coughed on his chips and turned around in surprise. “Bruce?” he asked, but it came out sounding like Brrcsh.

“Get your suit.”

“What?”

“Your suit! Your costume. Your… Ant-Man thing.”

“Oh! That suit. What do you need it for?” Scott frowned. “You don’t want to take it apart, do you? Did Tony put you up to this?”

“What-- no! I’ll explain in a minute. Just go get it!”

“Okay, okay!” Scott folded his chip bag and ran upstairs. Bruce was pacing and tapping his finger on the counter when Scott came back down, helmet in hand.

“Wow. You change quick.”

“I’ve been working on it,” Scott grinned. “Now can you tell me what the hell you’re so worked up about?”

“You’re not gonna believe me,” Bruce started, “but down in the lab there’s a tiny person who’s badly hurt but I would hurt them even more if I tried to help and they’re pretty scared of me so I need your help to calm them down.”

Scott blinked, processing what he had just been told. Of all the things in the world that Bruce could have told him, the existence of tiny people wasn’t at all shocking. In fact, Scott had pondered this possibility many times while traversing the world as Ant-Man. Some things were way too conveniently set up for it to be a coincidence. But a tiny person here? In this giant complex full of temperamental superheroes? That was no place for someone so small.

“You really thought I wouldn’t believe you? You know my thing is shrinking, right?”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah, I-- you’re really just going to accept all that?”

“I can grow and shrink at the press of a button and you turn into a giant green rage monster when you stub your toe. Aliens attacked New York once. This is like, a three out of ten on the surprise scale.”

Bruce stared, waiting to see if Scott would say anything else. He didn’t.

“Well, will you help or not?”

“Of course I’ll help! I guess you need me to--”

“--yeah, if you could just--”

“--okay, okay. Here I go.” Scott slipped his helmet on, pushed the magic button and in an instant, he was three inches tall. Bruce laid his hand down and Scott jumped on, using his thumb for support as Bruce bounded back downstairs.

Your breath hitched when you heard booming footsteps coming back down the stairs. You wished so deeply that you could have escaped, but a part of you knew that could never happen. The giant would probably find you again, anyway.

You quivered when the giant re-entered your vision. Why did he leave? Was he going to get help? You didn’t see any help. You didn’t see him carrying a jar, either.

That is, until Bruce took a knee next to you and lowered his hand. You gasped and your eyes went wide when a person wearing very odd clothes and a weird looking helmet hopped off his palm and kneeled down next to you.

“Hello! I’m Scott,” the person -- Scott -- said in a cheery demeanor. You didn’t know what was freaking you out more, the silhouette of the giant in the background or Scott sitting a foot away from you. He certainly looked like a borrower... but if there were other borrowers, you would have known about it. And no way a borrower would be hanging out with a bunch of humans. You couldn’t figure out who, or what, he was.

“It’s okay! Don’t freak out,” he said, scooting a bit closer. He felt a pang of guilt at the terrified expression on your face. “I’m--we’re here to help.” He gestured up at Bruce, who gave a small, awkward wave. “That’s Bruce. He’s gonna help us get off the ground. Can I help you up?”

You stared at him in disbelief. They… really wanted to help you?

“Here.” Scott stuck his hand out. You looked at it for a cautious moment before grabbing it and letting him do the hard work of hoisting you up.

“Ow!” you cried as Scott pulled. It was almost impossible to stand. Your face instantly flushed red when both Bruce and Scott shot you a look of surprise after hearing you speak.

“Hold on,” Scott said calmly. He slid his arm underneath your shoulder, acting as support while you tried the best you could to stay standing. You were leaning heavily on him to keep from falling as he stood up fully.

“You got it?”

You nodded, refusing to make eye contact. Your eyes were locked on your two bags beneath the table, scrap metal scattered everywhere. Scott followed your gaze.

“Is that your stuff?” he asked. You froze. You weren’t going to answer that. Scott took note. “Okay, well, we’re going to try and walk now-- woah!” One step forward and you instantly lost your footing. Your stomach dropped as he turned up to Bruce, who was watching intently. “Think you can give us a lift?”

“Oh--sure,” Bruce stammered. He was reluctant to try and bring his hand close to you again.

“No!” you blurted, instantly regretting it. Scott turned to you.

“No? Why not?”

“B-because…” you tried, but your words failed you when you looked up at Bruce. He was gigantic. One wrong move and he could break you even more than you were already broken. “I…”

“Hey, it’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you. He doesn’t look like it, but he’s really gentle, I promise.”

“Hey!” Bruce protested.

“What? You should see what you look like from down here, man,” Scott shrugged. You were shaking, and Scott could feel it. “You can close your eyes if you want. We just gotta get you off the ground. It’s not safe here.”

You sighed. You knew you had to do this, but it certainly didn’t make it any easier. Following Scott’s advice, you squeezed your eyes tight as you felt the sudden push of a large mass behind you. Knowing this was Bruce’s hand, your arm tightened around Scott’s back as you fell down into his palm, legs dangling as he very slowly stood up. Scott didn’t blink, but even with Bruce going slow, the speed was still dizzying to you.

Bruce was trying his best not to shake. Not only was he holding Scott, but he had this very hurt, very scared tiny stranger at his mercy, too. This is not how he thought he’d be spending his day.

He gently lowered his hand to the table, but you were in no position to merrily jump off. Scott took instant notice.

“Hold on, let me go get something for you,” he said. You blinked in shock as he jumped off the table and… grew… to full size. This human could shrink himself? Or was he a borrower that could grow? You had never seen him here before.

“Scott! Where are you going?” Bruce asked nervously.

“Just going to get his,” he said, grabbing a clean cloth from a nearby table. He folded it neatly next to you and in an instant, he was tiny again. Were you in so much pain that you were hallucinating?

“Sit on this,” he said, gently lifting you from your spot on the edge of Bruce’s hand to the cloth. You flopped down, grateful to have some soft support for your aching body. Scott took a seat next to you, and Bruce pulled up a chair and bent down to get his face to your level. You eyed him nervously.

“I hope after all this, you feel like you can tell us your name,” Scott smiled.

You kept your eyes trained on the ground. “I’m… I’m (Y/n),” you said shyly.

“That’s a nice name,” Bruce said, quietly this time. He frowned when you didn’t even look at him. “What… why are you here? I-in the lab? What happened?”

“I…” you couldn’t believe what was happening. Were you really about to give your whole life story to a giant you met five minutes ago? Well, giants, but one of them was choosing not to be big around you. That had to count for something. And Bruce had gone up to get his help, just to make sure you were okay…

“I-I’m… I live here,” you said so softly, you didn't think Bruce could hear. “In the complex. This is my home. I was… gathering supplies. I--I didn’t want anyone to h-hear me, but… I slipped off my rope going down the table.”

“Oh, man,” Scott muttered. He looked over to where Bruce had spotted the tiny rope contraption. He couldn’t believe he was looking at a shoelace tied to a paper clip.

“This is what you use to get around?” he asked, pinching the paper clip between his fingers and holding it up.

“Yeah,” you said sheepishly. It was almost scary how small your rope looked when he held it.

“That’s incredible,” Bruce breathed. “I--I mean, the ingenuity to create something like this, and-and actually use it to climb up and down? That’s really impressive.”

You blushed. He genuinely sounded impressed. “Th-thanks,” you mumbled.

“What do you need all that scrap metal for?” Scott asked, letting his curiosity get the best of him.

“Uhm… I use it to… build stuff,” you said plainly. “And to like, cut things and… you know.”

“That’s so cool,” Scott said with a smile. “I don’t think I could ever do what you do. You know, climb up tables and sneak around? Well, I mean, I do do that…” he stopped when he saw your confused expression. “I could never do it for a living, is what I mean.”

“How do you… you know, eat? Or bathe?” Bruce asked.

You shrugged. “I, uh, I just take whatever I can find. Stuff you guys won’t notice is gone.”

“That’s… wow.” Bruce was beside himself. This tiny person was living an entire life out under their noses every single day and he was none the wiser. As happy as he was to have made this discovery, he was even happier at the fact that you weren’t nearly as tense and scared as you were before. “I--I have so many questions!”

You knew the human would want to know everything, but the thought of answering a million questions about your secret life still freaked you out. You gave Scott a nervous glance. He instantly understood.

“Well hey, why don’t we try and patch up your leg and bring you upstairs for some breakfast?” Scott turned to Bruce. “Can we do that? Can we give breakfast to tiny strangers?”

Bruce smirked. “We can do whatever we want. As long as (Y/n) is okay with it.”

“I can make my world-famous San Fran-cakes!” Scott said excitedly. “Well, world famous might be a stretch. And I guess they’re just plain ol’ pancakes if I’m in New York--”

“Scott…”

“Right, right. Oh, and we could watch TV. Have you ever watched TV? You gotta see what the property brothers can do to a kitchen!”

You couldn’t help but chuckle. No, you had never watched TV, and you didn’t know what a property brother was, but maybe now would be a good time to find out.

“(Y/n)?” Bruce had laid his palm down flat beside you. “We’ve got some gauze upstairs. I can try and make you a cast while Scott makes breakfast.”

You stared at his hand, and somehow, that crippling sense of fear you felt before was gone. Maybe it was all overwhelming, and you still didn’t feel like this was all real, but Bruce was kind and Scott had willingly made himself tiny just to calm you down. You were very glad it had worked.

Scott helped you up from the cloth and over to Bruce’s hand, where you situated yourselves between his thumb and held on tight for support. Bruce’s heart skipped a beat.

“Hold on, you two,” he said, slowly standing up. Scott was going on about something completely unrelated, and Bruce was smiling as he kept his hand perfectly steady. Bruce grabbed the cloth with his free hand and in an instant, the junkyard of a lab was just a background. You had never seen it from this angle before. It looked massive and uninviting.

You were glad to leave it behind. Whatever San Fran-cakes were, you were more than excited to try them.

#i DO still do marvel g/t dont you worry #i dont forget my roots #also it's my personal hc that scott religiously watches HGTV and talks himself through every show #as in he gets way too invested in house hunters #also welcome back to the reality where scott isnt ant sized because i think that’s too small #sorry if this sucks ive been having some weird ass writers block lately #patiently waiting for it to just go away on its own #marvel g/t #g/t #giant/tiny #obwrites

145 notes · View notes

nincompoopydoo · 3 years

Text

PAIRING, BAGELS, REPEAT

— US AGAINST THE WORLD ; PART 4 / ?

( credits to @animusrox for this gif )

PAIRING: Bruce Wayne x reader

WORD COUNT: 2247 hot diggy dog

SUMMARY: You have a heart-to-heart conversation with one of your students before the play and you're hit with the realization that your love for Bruce may be more than meets the eye. hence, you’re starting to wonder if it was a mistake you can never fix.

A/N: This one’s long and kinda depressing. I’m in an angsty mood now whoops. Nevertheless, thank you for reading this series, the bagels will make its appearance and enjoy this one folks.

WARNINGS: Anxiety, depressing thoughts.

MASTERLIST ; MASTERPOST

The night of the show arrived quicker than you anticipated. The flurry of theatre kids rushing about backstage is quite the sight, feeling the incredible sense of pride of a mother for her children. Yet in prayer, you ask Mrs. Wilson for the gift of strength and ability to manage a bunch of highly-strung teenagers. It’s only Shakespeare after all but you knew that wasn’t the genuine nature behind their stage jitters. With all tickets sold out within a week, it has easily become the biggest event of the year aside from homecoming. It may be a little pretentious for a high school production of an over-performed Shakspeare play to emerge as the highlight of the year, but you know it will help with some of the students’ portfolios for acting school.

The clock ticks—thirty minutes before showtime and panic starts to creep.

Your fingertips dance along the selvage of the extensive drapery of the stage as lighting queues are being run through for the last time. The urge of curiosity lets you crack open the curtain as you peeked at the rest of the theatre. The bustling crowd made up of mostly teenagers with seats rapidly being filled, it’s certainly a sight for sore eyes. Amongst the settling audience, you spot Bruce, seated between Mr. Walken, the principal, and Mr. Huckleberry, the vice-principal, likely being shamelessly asked for donations. He looks engaged, but his posture and the gaze of his eyes tell a very different story—Bruce is barely listening to a word they’re saying.

He then turns in the direction of your hiding spot and despite the distance, he catches your eye, immediately recognizing it’s you spying from behind the curtains. You watch the curve of his lips turn up into more of a smirk, swiftly sending a wink your way. You instantly disappear behind the curtains, cheeks burning.

You sometimes find it hard to believe you’re sleeping with the man with no strings attached because you’re incredibly attracted to him.

Someday, you’ll burst out into an exaggerated love confession, and you know it’s going to be ugly. It’s a reality check and right now, it’s the last thing you want. Running away from your problems is more of a habit than a choice as you would rather live in the world your mind has created, where miracles are made and defects cease to exist. Anyone would trade the cruelties of reality for a perfect one yet getting too caught up in a daydream will eventually evolve into toxicity. Bruce orbits the very core of your problems and daydreams. You want to run away from him and allow yourself to be engulfed by his presence at the same time.

You just need...to breathe. Hence, the second dressing room has a weird stench to it. It’s a mess but it’s empty. Yet, it seems you aren’t the only one in need of space, away from everyone else. Shaniqua is seated at the far corner of the room on a crooked metal chair, dressed in a somewhat modernized version of an Elizabethan era dress. Very elaborate and theatrical. Despite her introverted character, she was constantly bright-eyed and keen during your classes. She had a drive like no other. Hell, she miraculously memorized all her lines in two days.

You’ve never seen a furrow of the girl’s brows, until now, and it worries you. Even her glitter-covered eyes could not conceal the dismay they portray with prominence. Gingerly, you made your way to her as she stared at her fidgeting hands. It was only when you settled on the opposite dusty old chair when she finally noticed your presence.

“Stage fright, huh?” you casually asked, resting your arm on the dressing table. She mirrors your posture, heaving a deep sigh, and shakes her head. “No, it’s just,” A pause, her gaze finds yours. You nod, flashing her a smile. It’s a simple gesture that you’re here to listen. “It’s about Oscar...” You catch a hint of a smile as she trailed off and in an instant, your brow raises with curiosity. Oh? Another beat of silence, her eyes dart around the room. You sit quietly with patience because you knew she had more to say.

“It’s just that doing this play has got me thinking a lot about my feelings. I mean, if Romeo and Juliet could be lovers, despite their feuding families, then it must be easy enough for me to admit that I like Oscar.”

“You have a point.” You chuckle, eyes crinkling with amusement. Sometimes she thinks too much for her own good. She reminds you of Bruce. Shaniqua flashes you a faint smile, lips pressed with doubt. “But why am I finding it so hard to just tell him that?”

You stayed silent for a moment or two, mind deep in thought. The chair creaks as you shift in your seat. “Well, could it be that you aren’t sure if he likes you back?”

A hum in response, shrugging coyly as she mumbled a ‘maybe’. Although it was clear as day to you that Oscar liked her back, you wondered if her doubts emerged due to their differences in character. The familiarity of the situation is beginning to feel a lot like deja vu.

“How do you know that someone is the one?” Her sudden question catches you off guard because, in all honesty, you aren’t confident if you knew the answer. A straightforward question, commonly seen in the pages of teenage magazines, written for innocent eyes. You knew its true nature and it terrifies you. The image of Bruce charges through your thoughts like rushing water, memories of times when the two of you were younger clouding your mind. You forcefully push back your university days, buried back deep into your conscience.

“I don’t exactly know the answer to that but in my opinion, it’s—it’s the feeling of completeness when you love them and know they love you. They may be different from you, but it doesn’t make you love them any less. There’s no conflict or strife; it’s just the two of you against the world.”

Those words were raw and genuine, carefully crafted directly from the heart. You weren’t surprised by your words because you’ve thought about it a lot, especially on nights you slept on Bruce’s bed. Maybe, you do love him, and that's a huge ass problem. It’s amazing how unexpected situations tend to encourage apprehension on large issues you never knew existed in the first place. Perhaps it was your astonishing lack of discernment when it came to matters that could potentially alter your life.

Tonight, a sixteen-year-old girl did just that.

Amid your growing anxiety, you manage to catch sight of the wall clock, hung on the other side of the room. It’s now eight minutes until showtime. Your eyes are now wide as you sprung up from your seat in the sudden realization that everyone should be at their respective positions two minutes ago. “Oh God, we’re running late. Shaniqua, word of advice—don’t end up regretting something you didn’t do,” You shoot her a pointed look, index finger stretching towards her. “Now, you really need to go, or we’ll have to delay and you know Mr. Walken hates waiting.”

It’s a quarter to nine, and the theatre is empty. Outside, the foyer and the hallways are buzzing with the remaining audience, lingering and sharing inane conversations as others wait for a car to take them home. You had only just finished rearranging the costumes in the wardrobe of the dressing room. You tried to sweep the scatter of glitter all over the floor but it deemed a task as impossible; you’ll deal with it next week.

You’re sitting in the seat at the front row, nearest to the aisle with a large box filled with props on your lap. Alone in transcendental silence, feeling as empty as the theatre itself. It was partly the conversation you had with Shaniqua that hit you with the reminder of all the mistakes you made that have led you to this unchanging world of a blur that takes the blame for the wretched feeling in your chest. Yet, as the show progressed, hearing the words of affection from two lovers had sent your mind reeling. You were desperate to head home, crawl into bed and potentially cry yourself to sleep but the growing anxiety forbids it, you don’t even think you could drive home.

So, you stillness of the theatre reminds you of Edward Hopper’s painting, Solitary Figure in a Theater. With eyes shut, you pretend you are the figure in the painting, sheathed in black, sitting alone in the cavernous dark.

You hear the door of the theatre squeak, swinging open followed by the shuffling of feet. You don’t look at first, too tired anyway. You’d assume someone had either forgotten something or it was the janitor that you’re sure is going to be upset over the glitter massacre in the dressing room. It looked like a crime scene, except it was the murder of a literal unicorn. You made a mental note to send an apology sandwich of some sorts next week.

It was the familiarity in the whiff of cologne that made you snap your eyes wide open, looking over your shoulder to meet with the sight of Bruce, ambling down the aisle towards you. He smiles, and you mirror him, shifting in your seat and nearly toppling the box to the ground. “What are you still doing here?” He smiles, and you mirror him, shifting in your seat and nearly toppling the box to the ground. “I could ask you the same question.” He settles in the seat next to you, elbow brushing against yours. Your head tilts, gesturing to the box. Bruce merely hums and nods thoughtfully.

“So, how was the play? Does it get a Wayne seal of approval?” There’s a hint of teasing in the curve of your lips as his eyes drift to the stage. “I liked it. The kids have talent.” Your eyes glint with amusement, your smile growing wider. “I never knew you were a fan of romance.” His laugh comes out more like a huff of air, crinkled eyes meeting yours, and nudges you lightly. “Well, now you know.”

He recognizes the way your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes and the way you’re fussing with the edges of the box on your lap. Something is bothering you and he knows it. He nudges you once more. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You blink once. Then twice, face wincing instinctively. You keep forgetting how well Bruce can read people, especially you. You exhale slowly as he watches you struggle to pick the right words.

“It’s really nothing. It’s just-” you say after a long minute, cutting yourself short. Then, you turn to Bruce. “I’m growing older, and I’ve spent my entire life in a fog with so much fear for reality, I’m afraid it’s too late to fix all my mistakes and regrets.” Your voice dwindles with every word that escaped your lips. You were young, naïve with the notion that time was extensive to make decisions without thinking it through. To know that you could never take back the things you did. Saturn’s rising, it’s a wake-up call now that you’re older and the fear that you would never change creeps onto you with every passing birthday.

Bruce defines the epitome of the sinking feeling in your chest whenever you lay in bed at night and let your mind reel about your existence. Yet, it isn’t as simple as you want it to be. The boy you met at university has grown into a far more complex and entangled mess of the grief of his parents, the responsibility he held over this city and the drive to just...keep moving on. For the longest time, it was him against the world, and a part of you wants to believe that it doesn’t have to be that way. That maybe, you could be enough for him.

He glanced away from you, trying to hide the despondency in his eyes. He holds back a sigh as he speaks, “Do you regret us doing this?” As vague as his question is, you know what he exactly means. He remembers the time the two of you used to exchange senseless conversations and laughter so vividly that it scares him. Juvenile friends, lacking the knowledge to know what love really was. Hence, the agreement—it was just two friends, messing around. Nothing could go wrong. Now, the hole has been dug in too deep, with no way of getting out.

“I don’t,” you reply and with just two simple words, his chest feels like fire. It was the way you had said it, with so much confidence and assurance, despite the intricacy of this relationship. For the first time in a long time, you were extremely sure about an answer. You could never regret Bruce. Never.

It’s almost hesitant in the way his hand finds yours, but it represents his care for you, even if you may not know it. The warmth of his hand feels like fire. Hell, your chest feels like it’s on fire, heart burning for the man beside you. “I’ll drive you home,” he whispers with a squeeze of your hand. You flash him a grateful smile as the two of you drift into a comfortable silence. Silence so eloquent that you don’t feel so empty anymore. No longer a solitary figure trapped in a painting but now two, hand in hand, against the world.

TAGLIST

@raineeace

#bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne #batman #batman x reader #justice league #batman imagine #bruce wayne imagine #pining bagels repeat

81 notes · View notes

deitysnips · 3 years

Text

Regrettably Attached Pt. 1

Stark!Reader x Loki

Word Count: 2958

Authors Note: I wanna thank you guys in advance for reading this. I haven’t written anything in probably 6 years so it might be a little sloppy. I am open to suggestions and any fixes you guys can bring to my attention!

Summary:; You’re Tony Stark’s younger sister and you are somewhat part of the Avengers, but behind the scenes, not necessarily on the front lines unless you’re needed. This is an UA where Loki is living in the compound living under strict supervision and the reader slowly starts falling for the God of Mischief after hating him due to, yaknow, trying to kill her brother and some of her closest friends, but that quickly turns into lovers(obvi)

Growing up as Tony’s sister was and still is kind of terrifying. Tony has always been such a “smarty pants” for lack of a better phrase. Even with him being a child prodigy, you two have always been close and you would want it any other way. You grew up following in his and your fathers footsteps.

Years past and you have graduated with multiple engineering degrees and even though your mother and father weren’t here to see it, Tony always made sure you knew how proud they would be of you. No graduation, presentation or ceremony went unattended by the now Iron Man. So it was no surprise when Tony asked you to join him and the other Avengers at the compound to help with logistics and help Tony and Bruce create safer suits.

“Hey Kid! Get down here, we need your help!”

It’s been 5 years that you’ve been living with Tony and still, nothing surprises you.

“Hold on! I just got out of the shower!” You shouted from your cracked bedroom door. You quickly put on some extremely worn jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt that you MIGHT have stolen from your older brother. You cracked open the door once more and yelled to Tony

“Is this a no shoes project?!” You sat with your head out the door tapping your fingers along the door frame when someone threw what seemed to be a wad of paper at the back of your head. You groaned and sucked air through your teeth. “I swear to the gods, Rogers, if you don’t stop throwing shit, I’m gonna curb stomp you” You said as you turned your head to send a glare towards Steve. To your unpleasant surprise, it was not Steve, but the annoying, somewhat attractive God Of Mischief, Loki

“Oh, my dear, Mr. America isn’t the only one who likes to get under your skin” Loki said very nonchalantly while leaning against his own door frame. “Now if you don’t mind. Stop that obnoxious yelling. Some of us are actually trying to work and not be babied by their dear brother.” Loki glared at you from where he stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

You and the god have never been on good terms, even after the pleading Thor gave you when he brought him back from Asgard after its destruction. You wanted to believe him when he said that his brother had changed and was working towards being a better ‘person’, but it still left an unpleasant taste in your mouth since, you know, he tried to kill your brother.

“Get fucked, Loki.” You stepped out of your room, body completely turned towards the man in front of you. “I have told you multiple times to leave me alone. Tony might be okay with you being here, but I certainly don’t give a shit what happens to you.” You spat at him with venom and malice in your voice. Tony told you time and time again to try to be civil with Loki, but you never listened. You just couldn’t.

You continued to stare at the slimy, yet oddly handsome man-god thing in front of you and if looks could kill, he wouldn’t be breathing.

“Hey, kid, did you not hear the urgency in my voice or do you enjoy giving me a heart attack?” You jumped when you felt your brother out his hand on your shoulder. “I told you that yes, you did need shoes. Bruce and I really need your help on the Mark VII suit- wait, sis, are you alright?” Tony studied your face after turning your shoulder towards him with a worried expression

“Yeah, I’m fine Tony. Let me just grab my shoes and I’ll be down” You pulled away from your brother and ran into your room, slamming the door behind you. You sit with your back against your door and hide your face in your hands, groaning loudly.

“Why can’t he just leave me alone?” You whisper softly to yourself. You’ve been at such a crossroads when it comes to the trickster god. You hate him for what he did to Tony and your friends, but at the same time, you can’t help but have this… attraction to him. The sharpness of his jawline, the softness in his bright blue eyes, or the way his lips curl up into a cheeky little smirk when he does something that riles you up. It’s been a year and a half since Thor brought Loki back, and you still haven’t adjusted.

You let out a long sigh of frustration as you stand up and walk to your closet pulling out a loved pair boots. After you pull your shoes on, you finally find the strength to walk out of your room and start heading towards the workshop to find Tony and Bruce. You make a pitstop to the kitchen to grab some coffee and a small snack

“Hey FRIDAY, can you ask if Tony and Bruce want anything?” You call out into the empty room while making a PB&J sandwich”

“They both say nothing at the moment other than your presence, Miss. Stark. Mr. Stark said it is very urgent and they need you down there quickly”

You groan as you toss the butter knife into the sink and start walking down the stairs to the workshop. Once you enter you see Bruce leaning over one of the tablets with his hands running through his hair.

“Alright, what did I miss?” you say as you take a bite of your sandwich, causing the men to look up at you, seemingly irritated. “Whoa whoa boys, what the hell?” You raise an eyebrow at your brother who’s sitting across from Bruce, impatiently tapping his fingers on the desk. Tony sighs and stands up to walk over to his computer, pulling up the internals of the suit

“For whatever reason, the suit keeps overheating after about 10 minutes and we cannot for the life of us figure out why” Bruce says while Tony is flipping through all the internals for you. You can’t help but smile and giggle a little bit.

“Alright kid, what's so funny? Tony asks, slightly glaring in your direction.

“Oh no, nothing. Nothing at all. But, uh, unrelated, how long have you guys been working on this?”

“A couple h-” Tony goes to speak but is interrupted by the suit powering up, seemingly without issues.

“Big brother, you’re a terrible liar. When I woke up yesterday morning, you both had already been down here working on it. It was a simply missing variable and a loose connection.” Tony and Bruce both keep switching between the suit and their respective computers trying to figure out how they missed such a small thing.

“How the fu-” “LANGUAGE!” Steve yells out as he stares coming down the stairs. Tony rolls his eyes and starts going through the internals again before smacking his palm to his forehead. “Thanks kid”

“No problem old man, now go get some rest.” You say, patting Tony on the back.

“Hey, can I talk to you really quick, Squeak?” You groan loudly at the nickname that the team gave you when you first showed up. You were so nervous about making a good impression, that when you started to speak, all of your words got stuck in your chest and all that came out was a little squeak.

“Yeah Cap, maybe if you stop calling me that god awful nickname, like I've told you to do multiple times!” You both start walking up the stairs and you playfully push Rogers shoulder, knowing it won’t do much.

Once you make it up the stairs, Steve leads you to the living room and sits at the couch across from your favorite chair

“Alright, if this is an intervention, I’m leaving. I get I shouldn’t be smoking bu-” You stop talking when Steve lifts his hand up and just stares at you with a dumbfounded look “This isn’t an intervention, but maybe it should be- yo- what?!” Steve gets a little loud at the end of his sentence, catching the attention of Tony and Thor who are in the kitchen making some lunch

“STEVE SHUT UP” You blush slightly and hide your face in your hands again.

“Conversation for another time, anyways” Steve pulls your hands away from your face and makes you look at him and quietly says your name “What was going on earlier when Tony came up stairs? I was in the bathroom down the hall and I heard you yelling at someone? Was it Loki again?” You avoid eye contact but nod slightly. Steve lets out a small sigh and sits back

“What he did wasn’t even terrible, Cap. He threw a ball of paper at me and basically told me to shut up. I just get so irrationally angry at him for what he tried to do to my family. Tony is all I have left. I know that everyone has told me to make nice and just fake it for the sake of all of us being here almost all the time, but I can’t. I'm just so confused and..” You stop yourself and look up at Steve who is intently listening.

“What are you confused about, doll?” He raises an eyebrow and you start blushing again.

“I- I don’t wanna talk about it..” You whisper softly and glance over to where Tony and Thor are at. As much as Tony begs you to be nice and try to be civil, he would not hesitate to beat your ass if he found out that you were harboring a crush for the trickster. Steve leans in and whispers

“I think I know. I may be from a different time, but I know a crush when I see it.” He pulls back and smiles at you and for whatever reason, this makes you angry.

“WHAT?! You think I have a little schoolgirl crush on that fucking murderer?! HE TRIED TO KILL TONY MULTIPLE TIMES!” You yelled at Steve as you stood up, tears stinging your eyes “I would NEVER mess with the likes of Loki, whether he's a God or a prince of whatever the hell he is!”

“Squeak, now hold on-”

“No, Rogers- Leave me alone!” You storm away from him and go up the stairs leading to your bedroom. Once you get to your door, another wad of paper is thrown in your direction, but this time you catch it. Turning towards where the paper had come from, was he himself.

“Hello, darling. I heard you and Rogers speaking about me” He smirks ever so slightly and starts slowly sauntering over to you. Once he gets close to you, you pull a dagger out of the sheath around your thigh and press the tip to his chest

“I suggest you leave me the hell alone, you psychopath.” You grit your teeth as you finish your sentence and Loki puts his hands up in defeat and takes a few steps back

“My my, little one. I didn’t know you could be so feisty.” He chuckles slightly and crosses his arms over his chest. “I just wanted to have a civil conversation and see if we can come to an understanding about where my loyalties lie and try to get your tiny Midgardian brain to understand that I’m not the same person I was.. Before”

You sheath your dagger and pinch the bridge of your nose hopeful to fight off your frustration.

“Look, Loki. You may not realize the severity of what you did, but that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna accept that you’re some righteous person-god- whatever the hell you are.”

“Oh, good heavens, no. I’m not righteous whatsoever, darling. Never have been, never will be. But” He points a finger at the ceiling and smiles “I can promise you that I do not plan to murder anyone… in this building”

You smirk softly at the humor in the tricksters voice and cross your arms over your chest.

“So how about that conversation?” You gester to him to come in your room but when you look back at his face he has a rather dumbfounded look on his face

“What a minute, 45 seconds ago you had a bloody dagger to my chest, ready to skin me alive, but now you want me to come into your room with you?” Loki walks closer to you slowly still with that dumb look on his face.

You place your hand back on your dagger and laugh “Just because I’m inviting you into my room, doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to stab you if you give me a reason to.” You wink at him and walk into your room, where you kick off your shoes and lounge in the recliner at the far corner of your room.

The rooms at the compound were not small by any means. Each room has a giant California king size bed, a double walk-in closet, its own little mini fridge, plus enough room to have 2 Hulks lay side by side on the floor.

You have yours decorated in your signature color, with white accents on the furniture as well as copious amount of liquor bottles on the top of your bookshelf.

Loki saunters in after a few seconds and takes a seat on your bed, directly in front of you. It seems like he’s… admiring you? He won’t look away and seems to be studying your face, how your wavy hair falls softly from the messy bun on the top of your head, how your eyes sparkle with the sun coming through the windows, how your lips are just a subtle rosy color, indicating that you either suck of chew on them when frustrated.

“Are you gonna say anything or are you just gonna sit here and stare at me all day?” You blush softly and stare right back at him

“My dear, if I may be rather brash, it just seems like something seems of worry to you, my apologies. But, yes, where would you like me to begin?”

You and Loki sat there for 3 or 4 hours talking about what really happened when Loki invaded New York, what happened to his mother and how Asgard was completely destroyed by his and Thor’s elder sister. Half way through the conversation, you had pulled down a rather nice bottle of Whiskey and two rocks glasses, pouring both of you a drink while Loki was reliving what he described to be the most painful part of his life. There you sat with the man you had sworn to hate until your last breath, actually feeling sorry for judging him so harshly. But who can blame you?

“Wow” You said after he had finally finished. You looked down at your glass and it was empty. While Loki was explaining everything to you, you had finished 4 or 5 full glasses of whiskey and were starting to feel a little tipsy

“Loki, I am so indecently sorry. All of the times Thor and I had talked about what happened, he never once told me how hard you took everything.”

Loki scoffed a little and looked at his glass “Well, my story really isn’t for my brother to tell, and he never really understood my feelings on the matter. I never really spoke to him about it. It was really only me on my own.” He shrugged softly and finished what liquor he still had in his glass “I really hope this changes your viewing of my, darling. I truly meant what I said. I have zero intentions of harming anyone in this compound.”

You shook your head a little and pushed the hair that had fallen into your face back “But why tell me all of this? Why tell the one person who probably hates you the most in the tower all of your worries and how at fault you feel?” You looked up from your glass when he chuckled.

“My dear, I know you don’t truly hate me. You hate what I did to your brother and the Avengers.” He leaned forward to be at eye level with you and spoke very softly “Do not forget, little one. I can read minds, you know” He winked at you and sat back in his chair

“I- you what now?!” You sat up straight and your face became very flushed. How could you have been so naive? Thor had mentioned it a couple of times that he believes his brother could read thoughts, but you never took it to heart.

“Miss. Stark, it seems as so Mr. Stark is worried about you. He has no idea where you are and I didn’t think to make him privy of your location.” FRIDAY interjected before you or Loki could say anything regarding the mind reading matter.

“Thanks, FRIDAY, can you tell him I’m up in my room? I don’t think I’ll be able to walk after the amount of alcohol I’ve drank” You chuckled slightly and rubbed your face with your hands.

“Right away Miss. Stark. Oh, it seems as if your brother is coming to see you.”

You internally began slightly panicking because as much as Tony wanted you to be civil, I don’t think he would want you damn near wasted with the God Of Mischief in your room.

“I shall be on my way, darling” Loki stood up and walked over to you. He rests his hands on the back of your chair and soon your face to face.

“Conversation for another time” He quickly places a kiss to your cheek before disappearing in a green cloud.

What the fuck is happening?

#loki imagine #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki fanfic #loki #new writers on tumblr #marvel #alternate universe

40 notes · View notes