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harunovella · 3 months

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*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ safety net; t.f.

synopsis: when toji decided to be a good man and rescue two puppies for his son... content: canon divergence (I want a happy story for the fushiguro's!), fem!reader, reader is mamaguro, in this world your last name is fushiguro and toji took it bc f*ck the zenin, megumi is ur son (he's just a baby!), domestic bliss, not beta read (sorry for any errors!) note: seeing how successful my gojo anthology series is going (only two parts but going strong), I wanted to do one for toji bc I've always wanted to write his story with mamaguro (aka you!) and do a bunch of one shots that can be read as stand alones or together! pls lmk if you want more and if u wanna be tagged in the future <3 p.s. the divine dogs are actual dogs that inspired megumi's later manifestation of his shikigami in this au

It was one of those late nights for Toji. A summer evening with a heavy downpour to blur his path before him. The windshields were moving as fast as they could, swiftly clearing his vision with every wipe across the glass. He was quite used to this, running around town in the wee hours of the night, nothing new to him. It just annoyed him how difficult it could be driving in the rain when his windows fogged up and the headlights could only do so much.

He wasn't too far from home, running a quick errand before returning to his abode, wanting nothing more than the warmth of his bed.

A bed... A home...

Toji couldn't help but sigh and lean his head back against the car's headrest. Had this all been a dream? Was it real? Him, Zenin Toji, living a normal life? It had been quite some time now where he left it all behind to be domesticated—as if he were a wild animal. He didn't mind, though, a part of him was begging for a simple kind of life.

Sat at a red light as his pointer finger tapped away against the leather steering wheel, his eyes wandered the environment around him—well, as much as he could see during an evening shower. From building to building, the empty sidewalks and dim storefronts, his eyes suddenly bounced back to a bus stop. Squinting, he leaned in before turning on his blinkers.

This was very unlike him, his curiosity getting the best of him... Maybe it was because he was a changed man. Maybe it was because he had someone to go home to. Someone who made his deflated heart triple in size; someond who made him care about little things that he never did before.

Pulling over and parking his car next to the bus stop, Toji pulled up his hoodie and reached for the small umbrella that sat on the floor of the passenger seat. Rushing out and popping open the coverage, he stood before a small, cardboard box.

It was falling apart, the rain tearing at the flimsy material as the little towel beneath was completely drenched. Hearing the faint whimpers and cries of the tiny creatures that stared up at him, Toji took in a sharp breath and shook his head. He was a good man now. Better than he ever was before. He had a heart. He had a home. He had someone who loved him. These little bodies did not.

Lifting the box, he quickly maneuvered it underneath the umbrella before carefully placing it in the backseat of his car. "I hope she won't mind..." he said before making his way to the front, closing the umbrella and shutting the door after, resuming his route.

The drive home was quicker this time around, zooming to gather the bags and box he had within the car, shutting the doors and locking them behind him before he made his way towards the front door. Taking the steps and fumbling with his keys, he unlocked the door and slipped inside before kicking off his shoes and making his way towards the living room.

Settling the box down before moving towards the kitchen with the bag, he washed his hands and emptied the contents within it. Pulling out the small device, Toji made his way upstairs, ruffling his dark hair as he pressed a few buttons on the gadget. "Babe, this one should be fine," he spoke as he approached one of the two bedrooms.

"Oh, good," the voice responded as he entered the room. You were sitting on your son's rocking chair, holding him close to your chest as you caressed his little back. He was about six months old and the constant change in weather was getting to him, causing a slight cold to disrupt his immunity. It pained both of you to see your boy anything but happy and healthy... but, he was such a little trooper. Both of you weren't sure where he got his calmness from, seeing as you nor Toji were such a way, but you thanked the heavens for blessing you with a child like him.

"How's Megs doin'?" Toji asked as he handed you the new thermometer, squatting and gently caressing his son's head. His hand practically engulfed it, always entertaining him how tiny his boy was. It brought a small smile to his face. "Doesn't seem so fussy."

"A bit better, I got him to fall asleep. You weren't gone for too long, thankfully," you sweetly smiled, settling the small device down before caressing Toji's face. "Raining hard, huh?"

"Yeah," he nodded, only to widen his eyes.

"What is it?" You furrowed your eyebrows.

Scratching the back of his head, Toji stood up. "Got a surprise along the way... hope you don't mind."

"What do you mean?" You tilted your head.

"Let's go downstairs," he nudged his own, waving you to follow him.

Standing up carefully as to not wake your baby boy, you followed your man down the hall and staircase, towards your living room. You were confused at first, unsure as to what surprise he could've gotten you. But then you heard it. The faint cries and rustling coming from a box. The box in front of you. "Toji..."

"You've changed me, y'know?" He said. "I wouldn't have cared back then, would've left them suffer... but, guess it's because I'm a father now and I have you... I couldn't let them die out there..." rubbing the back of his neck as he stood by the box, you curiously peeked over before gasping. "Thought it would be nice to keep 'em... give Megs something to grow with."

"Toji... there's two," you nearly whispered, eyeing the puppies. One in pure white and one in all black, both equally precious. Tiny, scared, cold... you couldn't deny them either, even if you were currently raising your own baby.

"Yeah..." Toji sighed. "I was thinkin' about giving them a quick bath now and take them to the vet early tomorrow. Don't have much to feed them but we can make it work, right?" He said, keeping his eyes on them, a bit afraid of your reaction.

As upset as you should've been, seeing as it was two more mouths to feed, instead, you felt... elated? You weren't sure why, maybe it was because you were seeing more and more sides of Toji you didn't think would exist. Or maybe you loved the idea of giving your son two furry best friends to grow with. It could've also been that you were just happy that your son was okay and getting through his cold that you couldn't be as bothered.

It also didn't help that you may or may not have mentioned a few times (while taking your strolls during your pregnancy) that your little blessing should have some furry friends around. You just didn't think it would happen... this way.

"So?" Toji asked, looking at you with timid eyes. "Can we keep 'em?"

"Toji," you chuckled. "I'm not going to abandon these poor babies. You brought them here, you're gonna have to do a lot of raising. You're now a father of three," you teased as he nodded.

"I'm well aware."

"I'm surprised you're okay with this, let alone, brought them," you pointed out.

Shrugging, he looked back down. "Like I said, it's cause you changed me and I'm a father now. As scary as that is... I dunno... guess I want that normal life and normal people have dogs, right?" Seeing you nod with a small smile, Toji couldn't help but reflect your facial expression. "I wanna give him everything I've never had," he nudged his head in Megumi's direction.

"Such a good dad," you softly spoke, caressing your sons back before stepping closer and kissing Toji's arm. "Then I guess we have two puppies now. What should we name them?"

Eyeing the two, Toji hummed. "Kuro and Shiro."

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beguines · 3 months

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Massacre is a dead metaphor that is eating my friends, eating them without salt. They were poets and have become Reporters With Borders; they were already tired and now they're even more tired. 'They cross the bridge at daybreak fleet of foot' and die with no phone coverage. I see them through night vision goggles and follow the heat of their bodies in the darkness; there they are, fleeing from it even as they run towards it, surrendering to this huge massage. Massacre is their true mother, while genocide is no more than a classical poem written by intellectual pensioned-off generals. Genocide isn't appropriate for my friends, as it's an organised collective action and organised collective actions remind them of the Left that let them down.

Massacre wakes up early, bathes my friends in cold water and blood, washes their underclothes and makes them bread and tea, then teaches them a little about the hunt. Massacre is more compassionate to my friends than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Massacre opened the door to them when other doors were closed, and called them by their names when news reports were looking for numbers. Massacre is the only one to grant them asylum regardless of their backgrounds; their economic circumstances don't bother Massacre, nor does Massacre care whether they are intellectuals or poets, Massacre looks at things from a neutral angle; Massacre has the same dead features as them, the same names as their widowed wives, passes like them through the countryside and the suburbs and appears suddenly like them in breaking news. Massacre resembles my friends, but always arrives before them in faraway villages and children's schools.

Massacre is a dead metaphor that comes out of the television and eats my friends without a single pinch of salt.

Ghayath Almadhoun, "Massacre", Adrenalin, trans. Catherine Cobham

#ghayath almadhoun #adrenalin #poetry

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a-small-writer-in-a-big-world · 3 months

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Dumb idea but what if you were found after being MIA for five years

The task force were confident in their ability to get the intel they needed from their current mission. They had been following this cell for months, knew more about them than the people paying them for information and had slowly chipped away at their defenses without getting their attention.

They were on the cusp of getting the intel they needed.

They had infiltrated the base without issue. Having taken out the guards in the perimeter so efficiently it was as if they had never been there in the first place. With the coverage of nightfall, they were undetected as they came up to the base and soon they were sneaking through the halls.

With every hostile they encountered they took care of them swiftly, leaving the bodies in a pool of their own blood before they even shot at them.

They reached the main room of the base and began their work retrieving all of the information they could from the computers and papers spread about.

Just as they collected enough information, alarms began to sound off in the base and in the distance they could hear gunfire.

Soap quickly looked at the cameras and saw a different group to the hostiles they were stealing from. They didn't look familiar as they gunned down the hostiles with expert skill.

"Who the fuck-"

"Doesn't matter." Price immediately went into action, barely paying attention to the cameras. "We need to get out of here."

In their attempt to get out unscathed and undetected, they ended up in the middle of the firefight. The fight became confusing; it was hard to tell who was shooting at who and where the hostiles were coming from. Many of the hostiles the 141 stole the info from began to die in front of them at an almost frightening speed, leaving the other group to push up.

The task force was close to getting out, if they could get past the threshold and run to a rendezvous point they'd get out without further issue-

A car bomb went off.

The blast sent Price into the ground, mostly unscathed saved for the wind being knocked out of him and temporarily taking his hearing with it.

He struggled to get up the others continued the fight, unable to get to him as they held their ground. They called out to him but he couldn't recover as quickly as he wanted to.

Someone approached him from the dust and he attempted to fire at them before he was kicked in the head. He became even more disorientated, barely able to hold onto consciousness as the person searched through his vest for the USB he had taken.

Price couldn't see their face and as he tried to fight them off, they shoved him back once they got the USB.

They were gone just as quick as they appeared. The gunfire slowly stopped and the group had disappeared, leaving the 141 with barely any ammo left and scraped up, and confused.

The mission went from successful to a complete disaster in mere moments.

Back on their temporary base they were left confused and defeated.

"How did this happen?" Gaz huffed.

"A group that small taking them head on would've died." Ghost said. "They were waiting for us."

"You believe that, sir?" Soap wondered.

Price hadn't said much since they got back, his arms crossed and a sour look on his face. He didn't like when things turned out like this, when things get taken from him so quickly without anyway to fight back. Usually an ambush never ended up with this much disaster...this had to have been planned.

"I do." He uncrossed his arms and looked to Laswell who was trying desperately to salvage this. "Can you find out who they are?"

"The cameras there recorded the incident but there's no identifiable markings or clothes that they wore." She explained as she sifted through her laptop. "I may have found our culprit."

The boys huddled around the projector, watching as the footage replayed from the security cameras.

The group walked out from the shadows into the cameras vision. They wore all black and all of them had their faces fully covered except for one, who looked at if they were given orders to put the bomb on the car.

Closer to the camera, it was easier to make out some of the features, but nothing looked recognizable until the person turned around.

"Pause it." Price's eyes widened and he felt his chest tighten. "Zoom in."

The others looked confused for a moment before they too felt their stomach drop. The air in the room became thick and every single one of them could only hear their hearts in their ears as it suddenly became hard to fight against their knees buckling.

Half a face they hadn't seen in five years, recognizable eyes that were darker and full of more hatred than they ever imagined to be possible.

The image was fuzzy but there was no mistake.

You were in the footage alive, five years after being confirmed MIA.

#wintersoldier!reader #anyone #idk i had the idea and had to get it out #simon ghost riley x reader #captain john price x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #it's been done before but oh well #here

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tomorrowusa · 5 months

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Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

#paul waldman #liberalism #election 2000 #election 2024 #joe biden #third parties #vote blue no matter who #donald trump #dumpster fire #trumpster fire #fascism vs. democracy #nra republicans #abortion #climate change #lgbtq+ rights #race-baiting #take the political long view #phil hands

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decolonize-the-left · 4 months

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I just found out about Jasmine Sherman and they look really cool. Like, the policies that they say they’re going to do? The fact that they have an audiobook option for people to listen to what the policies say on their platform? (If people don’t have JAWS or screen readers on their devices, JAWS for computers.) I really hope they get far enough in the presidential race.

vid source

It's time to actually put the people in America first. We do that by meeting everyone's basic human needs. This includes guaranteed housing, universal healthcare and education, UBI, and environmental/infrastructure reform. In doing this, we give people a fighting chance to create a more sustainable model for society that ensures the general welfare of people within our borders for generations to come.

1) Housing- Decommodify housing and eliminate rent, mortgages and property taxes 2) Healthcare- 100% coverage including vision and dental 3) Education- universal education up to and including doctorate level studies 4) UBI-a monthly disbursement based on the cost of living in a resident's state 5) Environment/Infrastructure reform- Abating the damage caused by climate change through sustainable development and creating an infrastructure that fosters community

The Jasmine Sherman for President campaign envisions organizing through various strategies. They aim to leverage social media and technological advancements for rapid outreach to a wider audience. Direct action and mutual aid will be prioritized to attract like-minded individuals and build a strong support base. The campaign will also focus on nurturing relationships established through past coalition-building efforts, aiming to strengthen connections and amplify the campaign's impact. By combining these approaches, Jasmine Sherman's campaign aims to effectively engage, mobilize, and expand its reach in pursuit of its organizing goals

Source on ballotpedia

Their campaign site:

MISSION STATEMENT/ Political Views

Jasmine Sherman wants to help the at-risk and vulnerable communities by providing Guaranteed housing, Landback, Universal basic income, Free Education, and Universal healthcare, for all. They also believe in the rights of the child, the rights to gender affirming care, ending the disability restrictions, restorative justice, abolishing the police, abolishing prisons, triple bottom line accountability for corporations, reparations, a progressive tax, an index living wage, immigration policy reform, sustainable energy, decriminalizing all drugs and sex work, age caps and term limits for all elected officials, and rewriting the constitution.

••••

They seem like a very good candidate and I hadn't heard of them before, tysm for bringing them to my attention!

Looks like the Green Party has ballot access in 46 states as well! Additionally, The Green Party will host a primary debate on May 11th. Definitely something to pay attention to!

#asked #answered #jasmine sherman #usa election #2024 election #socialist candidates #presidential elections #presidential candidates #vote #voting #usa #usa politics #us election

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kiatheinsomniac · 5 months

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──── 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 ˊˎ -

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You walk as calmly as you can through the narrow alley, not daring to lift your eyes from where they look straight ahead of you and glance towards the rooftops that cast darkness over you, the silvery moonlight gleaming just ahead as the streight leads to the main road. This place is out of sight of the sparse public that might wander past at this time of night, your vision is limited in the darkness it provides and there’s ample opportunity for an overhead ambush.

All of this puts you at every disadvantage, perhaps, but that’s exactly what you want the man tailing you to think. You keep your eyes straight because Assassins like rooftops. They provide coverage and blindspots, hidden in plain sight as most people simply don’t find themselves looking up with their eyes to the sky as they go about their day and all the tasks that come with it. It’s precisely why you’ll always find an Assassin stalking you from above and never from upon your own level.

In short, you’re baiting the Assassin above you who has gone to so much care to silence his footsteps and conceal his shadow from your sight. But you’re a Templar. You’re trained to know your enemy. You spotted him not long ago, lingering around a crowd outside an inn, trying to blend in. But your purpose for going out at all today has been to bait him, those are your orders.

Your ears are kept vigilant for the sound of something small flying through the air and in a moment's notice, you lunge forward to dodge the rope dart that had been aimed at you. There’s a hissed curse and you draw your sword as the Assassin makes his leap down to you, using a ledge of a windowsill garden to lessen his fall. He stands tall in front of you now, white beaked hood up and hiding his face. His hidden blade shoots out as he parries your offensive blow with his gauntlet.

You’re still not entirely sure what material it is that Assassins make their gauntlets from. Your mentor Haytham has one and he claims that it’s an alloy from a precursor civilization but when your higher-ups start talking like that, you sometimes begin to wonder if you’ve really overstepped your depth as an ex-mercenary and have accidentally joined a cult.

Regardless, the Assassin stands tall before you now. He is Achilles’ new novice, so you’ve been told. The only member of his ranks as your mentor has told you of how a companion of his wiped out the last generation of Assassins here in the colonies, thus giving your Order ample room to plant its roots. Though you have no name nor face to put to this companion of Haytham’s as he is always very quick to change the subject or to remind you to not speak out of line whenever your curiosity gets the better of you and you start to press for details of this mysterious person’s identity if only to create an image in your mind for all of this information that you are given.

His free hand takes out a tomahawk and you’re put on defence. You take a step back but make sure to stay in the alley and out of the public space. The last thing you want is nearby law enforcement or civilians to get involved. But the clashing of metal upon metal rings out in the otherwise quiet night.

He fights cleanly using his sheer strength and towering figure which puts you at a disadvantage. His technique is curated to be quick and efficient but your style often depends on your agility, stamina and tiring out your enemy. You’ve already laid such a foundation by baiting him to follow you from the rooftops – a much more strenuous journey than the one you had taken upon the ground. But there was something to how he was swinging at you with his tomahawk, movements tight to not allow you to get too far, a passion to his every strike and parry.

You know when you’re outmatched and so you’re now put on defence and wondering what could have happened between intel and being given your orders that could have possibly allowed you to go about this mission alone instead of preparing a sort of ambush in order to put an end to this lone Assassin that has been terrorising the Order once and for all.

Had you let the higher-ups flatter you over your skills into thinking you were truly capable of this task they had set upon you? Regardless, you’re in this now and your only priority has suddenly become making it out of here alive. You take a risk and do a rescan of your surroundings, looking for anything that might be of aid to you in order to give you just a slither of an opportunity of getting away. But you remain aware of your enemy’s every move, knowing that even a momentary slip up can be the cause of your untimely demise.

But the Assassin trying to cut you down is just as trained as you are – if not more so – and this subtle scrambling of yours does not go unnoticed by his keen, dark eyes.

“Out of your depth, Templar?” He asks in his smooth and rich tone.

“You wish I were.” You bite back and manage to take swift steps backwards, enough for you to assess that the risk of lowering your sword in exchange for the gun at your hip is worth it in order to try and create a window for escape. You take aim but don’t fire. You should be firing. You should be killing this man.

Why did they send you on this mission alone?

It’s all you can think to yourself as your finger hovers over the trigger. The Assassin knows he’s done for if your finger so much as twitches now and yet he freezes, seeing your hesitation. The two of you are brought to a standstill with you aiming your gun at the Assassin’s head and yet your finger hovers over the trigger, refusing to squeeze. He has no opportunity to strike you down at this moment as in a fraction of a second, hesitation can become a killing blow.

Your eyes narrow slightly as you repeat that question to yourself: why did they send you on this mission alone? This Assassin is clearly far more skilled than you are and even baiting him here after a journey that should have tired you out has not made a dent in his stamina. He’s been cutting down British soldiers and Templars alike, chipping away at the order for reasons not yet known to you other than the simple explanation of ‘we are Templars, he an Assassin’. Why did you believe your higher-ups when they told you that you could handle this solo mission? Have they sent you here as an execution and if so: why?

“Why do they want you to kill me?” You murmur. The question is asked aloud and yet you’re not sure if you’re asking him or yourself. This seems to make even the Assassin pause in puzzlement. If they want you dead then what are they doing now? Are you merely a distraction?

“That’s a good question indeed.” The toweringly tall Assassin raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and you slowly lower your gun but keep a good amount of distance between the two of you, each standing at either side of the narrow alley you had originally lured him into. You tap your toes against the ground as you ponder over questions again: is this a distraction or an execution? Either way you’re clearly expendable and it comes as a surprise to you because you were so sure you were in the Grandmaster’s good books.

So what has changed to make Haytham use you as a sacrificial pawn in whatever game he’s playing here in the colonies? Neither of you are sure what to do now, having both arrived here late at night with intentions to kill the other. But now you see that the true plan behind all of this was for you to die all along. It’s enough to make Ratonhnhaké:ton stand down and wish to spare you. Someone is pulling the strings here and part of their plan includes your death. So what’s to happen when this plan is interrupted.

“I won’t kill you today.” He speaks up after finally making up his mind following a few minutes of thick silence wherein you were both deep in thought, trying with your minds to uncover the obscurity of whatever the bigger picture is here. The best course of action is to disrupt the plans of whoever it is that’s painting it. “But when you fall it will be by my hand, Templar.” You shoot the man a glare where his eyes would be, concealed behind the shadow that the beak of his hood casts over his face in order to hide his identity.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Assassin.” You quip back but you hear him scoff as he puts his tomahawk away when you set your gun back into its holster.

“You’re right. Your masters seem to be set on beating me to that.” You open your mouth to protest but he’s already making his way up the wall of one of the buildings you’re between and returning to the rooftops. You’re quick to exit the alley and get into the middle of the main street so that he doesn’t have an opportunity to assassinate you from above should he be bluffing or perhaps change his mind and deal with you now before you become a loose thread. But he doesn’t and you’re left standing in the middle of an empty street at night.

Could you even go back to your quarters now? Perhaps they’ll use the failed mission as justification to finish you off themselves. You need somewhere to stay until you’ve figured out what’s going on and whether or not you’ve been betrayed by the Order that you had sworn your own loyalty to. But where to go?

Your eyes rise up to the rooftops that the Assassin had disappeared over. You’ve been set up by the people who this man is set on killing.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend…” You murmur to yourself as you spot a nearby ladder and use it to make your way up onto the same rooftop. It’s a risk you’re taking but it seems that every path available to you now has some degree of risk to it and so you’re left with no choice but to weigh your options and gamble.

Your foot taps anxiously against the cobble beneath you as you consider your plan. If your Order seeks to erase you, it won’t even be safe to go back to your rented room and pack a bag of your belongings. It’s the first place they’ll go to look for you and with the network of spies Haytham has been building across the city, it won’t take long for word to get back to him that you’ve failed your mission. You won’t get far hiding either. All of your tricks, you’ve learned from your mentor and to try and hide would be to put yourself at a disadvantage by playing the game of the man who had so clearly intended to use you as a pawn in whatever grand scheme he’s hatching; not so long ago, you had thought you knew his plans but tonight has changed your course of events entirely.

Into the belly of the best it is.

You decide. Now up on the roof, you look with your second sight. It’s your upper hand and even Haytham has admitted that it was one of his greatest factors in considering you as an advantageous candidate for a Templar. The route he’s taken lights up gold and you begin to follow all the twists and turns he took that would have thrown off anyone else who might have been tiling him. Not you though.

°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ☾　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .•

You find yourself outside a manor upon a homestead. It wasn’t an easy journey by any means and you hadn’t expected him to have covered so much ground either. In the forest, you found yourself wishing you had stopped to hire a horse – you still had some money on you after all. You took a break twice, made a camp once after scouting out the area but you admittedly slept very lightly. You weren’t a wilderness girl and the anxiety of being found by a wolf or bear had kept you from falling into a truly restful sleep.

And so you found yourself feeling both tired from a long way’s travel and a poor night’s rest during the small hours of the morning, all while heading right into the den of your enemy who, currently and ironically enough, seems to be your only possible ally.

The manor standing tall in the clearing above you is built in typical colonial fashion with red bricks and white embellishments. Its large size makes use of the spacious land it is upon and your mind wanders back to the stories Haytham once shared with you about the Brotherhood that once lived and trained here. Looking at the size of the place, it’s easy to imagine so many people living here once upon a time and difficult to imagine that today it only houses the old Mentor and the one and only Assassin who still lives by their Creed here in the colonies.

Though that’s only as much as your Order is aware of. You keep your wits about you, more than aware that you don’t know what you’re walking to, nor do you know how many potential foes reside within those four walls. You may very well be running from one death straight into another.

But your options are slim and you’ve wagered that your odds are better here. Back with the Order, you’re a pawn that should have submissively been sacrificed. Here, you’re either a target to be taken out immediately or a valuable source of information. After all, you’ve been betrayed and they may consider that you have every reason to surrender all of the Order’s secrets that you possess.

These are all just possibilities though and death remains a very likely outcome.

You stand from an awkward distance on the treeline for a while. Surely you can’t just knock on the front door being who you are? Then again, if you take any other route, they might see it as an ambush and you’ll be in combat or even dead before you can open your mouth to explain your intentions. Despite every other instinct within you telling you to turn tail and run to the nearest harbour, to leave the region altogether on whatever boat you can get yourself aboard, you approach the front door.

A shadow falls over you when you raise your fist to knock upon the door. He’s good at what he does, you’ll give him that. Immediately, you feel the warm, sharp edge of a blade resting against your throat. Warm and so it’s the hidden blade that the likes of him keep tucked up their sleeves, a blade like the one your mentor possessed. You’d always found it rather ironic that Haytham always stands so tall beside his principles and yet he fights with the enemy’s weapon.

“Did you come here thinking you could finish the job and go crawling back to your master?” His voice speaks up from behind you. You raise both of your hands in the air in a sign of surrender, keeping them far away from your hips where your weapons are kept around your belt. He doesn’t hesitate in unbuckling it and removing it from your body and moments later, you hear it hit the floor some distance away where he’s thrown it. You’re not unarmed in enemy territory and you begin wondering if this really was the best plan of action after all.

“I actually came with a proposal…” You begin slowly. You’re not entirely sure how to present yourself, your tone. Even you’re unsure if your own plan will work but you need to sound certain or else he may well believe you’re just here to trick him in which case he’ll kill you.

You don’t need to turn around to know that he’s looming over you. You wonder sometimes how a man of his stature can blend into crowds and hide in plain sight the way Assassins are taught to. And yet he does and it’s truly a testament to his skill.

“And what might this proposal be?” You swallow thickly. Your life depends on being able to convince him that you’re being honest, which he has every inclination to doubt considering your current standing as enemies.

“It’s been made clear that I’m seen as expendable, so I’d much rather prove just how essential I was. I have information: contacts, travel routes, locations of higher-ranking Templars. Whatever mission you’re on, I’ll speed it up by months, maybe even years.” You tilt your head back a little more, trying to ease the pressure when the blade presses more insistently at your skin.

“And why should I believe you?”

“Because I came here. Because I’ve got nowhere else to go at the moment and I’m risking you slashing my throat just for a chance to try and get out of this ordeal alive after what happened last night.” The blade leaves your neck but the threat is not removed as you then feel it poke at your back, spurring you forwards at a slow pace, hands still raised.

“Step inside.”

°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ☾　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .•

Months later, you find yourself setting up camp in a familiar cave. These meetings have become familiar to you and nowadays this little cave feels like the safest place in the world. You’ve been working as a double agent for the past few months and being in the Order feels like having death loom over your shoulder all the time now. Being a Templar had once given you such a feeling of purpose and belonging, that you had a key, unshakable place in the world, that you were guiding it in a better direction.

But the more you’ve been reporting back to Connor and the chats you have in between, the more you have to take a step back and ask yourself if you were being told a one-sided story the entire time. You haven’t set foot on Connor’s homestead since you first arrived and he had to send you back with a split lip, gashed jaw and sprained wrist to make it seem like you really had fought him and not conspired with him. That gash now remains as a scar across the lower part of your face. Each time you look in the mirror, it reminds you of your new mission as the Assassin’s spy.

And each time, you pray that you’re doing the right thing.

Your attention is grabbed by the sound of feet on dirt and you look towards the mouth of the cave where he stands tall now, moving to sit on the opposite side of your little fire so that he’s facing you. His gloves come off and he rubs his hands together near the open flames. His hood comes down to reveal a face strikingly like your mentor’s and you can’t believe that this man is now your only ally in the world and you can’t even be entirely sure of his loyalty. All you know is that you need to keep yourself indispensable in order to keep breath in your lungs and a heartbeat in your chest.

He reaches into his bag and takes out a small, wrapped package. Scaled fish. They’re skewered and set over the fire to cook.

“Thank you.” You say stiffly. Interactions like this are still so unusual to you. He nods his head in a silent ‘you’re welcome’.

“What’s new?”

“Lee’s on the move.” His dark eyes quickly flick up to meet yours and you can see the deep interest in them. You haven’t asked why he’s after Lee specifically though it confuses you as you would have been sure he would go after Haytham; to cut the head of the snake, so to speak. But you’ve never asked because this vendetta seems deeply personal and you’re next to certain that he won’t open up to you about it. “They’re making preparations to receive him in Boston so whatever he’s come back with must be important… or they know that you’re after him. I’ve yet to find out which it is because I don’t have direct access to such information and I can’t put myself at risk if this is a red herring and they suspect something. But the moment I find out more I’ll tell you – but take everything with a pinch of salt.”

He nods, deep in thought and you wonder what’s going through his head. You always worry that doubt will creep into his mind and will ultimately drive him to kill you. You can only hope that he’s instead thinking about exacting whatever revenge he has planned for Charles Lee. His thirst for revenge currently is what’s keeping you afloat. Without his vendetta, you’re worthless to him.

“How have you been?” You’re not sure if you’re asking out of politeness or loneliness. Are you trying to keep in his good graces or are you seeking out the warmth of a friend, even if what’s between you isn’t really friendship?

“Busy…” He sighs. “Your Order’s been on the move.”

“I’ve heard about your meetings with Washington.” You bite your lip as you ponder your next question. It’s personal but a chance not taken is an opportunity missed. “You… You’re meeting with all these generals, men of influence and yet you work in the shadows. Do you truly have no wish for the world to remember your name? You really want to just vanish?” You had been drawn to the Templars partially by glory, by the chance of making a place in the world, a change where you and your fellow members of the Order would be revered for centuries to come.

“I do not want to be remembered, no. Our creed states that we work in the dark to serve the light. This war will be lost to memory and I will do my part to make sure that it is the Assassins who bury any record of it.” Your first reaction is to think of him as ridiculous: he’s thrown any chance at a normal life away for a battle he will never be credited for. But it’s selfless. He has nothing to gain but what he believes in: no fame, no power, no glory.

Maybe you really have been misled.

The Templars had always preached peace but with that peace came the Order having ultimate power over humanity, domination over free will. You had once focused so heavily on how that absolute control would stop war, would stop suffering. But at what cost? It must be a great one for this man in front of you to be throwing any semblance of a normal life away for it.

“Tell me more about your Creed.” He turns over the fish and glances up at you once again, meeting your curious eyes. You’re sitting down with your legs curled up to your chest, arms wrapped around them with your hin propped on your knees. This isn’t smalltalk or you digging for information, it’s genuine interest. He hadn’t missed your pondering look before, that glint of unsurety in your eyes.

“Alright…”

°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ☾　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .•

Weeks later and you meet again, having shared many more meetings in the meantime. You understand Ratonhnhaké:ton better now, you understand his creed. He seems different from his mentor that Haytham had told you about, so very different. He doesn’t meddle in the first civilisation that your mentor speaks of so frequently and you wonder if it’s for the best after the stories you had heard of while in the Order. Haytham speaks of them vaguely but you still have a comprehensive enough understanding.

The more he speaks, the more you doubt your own order who wish to use these artefacts for their plans to shepard humanity towards its best self, the more you wonder if your superiors in the Order are just set on a path to repeat history. You’ve shared with him all the information you have now. You now feel like less of a double agent and more of a spy – having to give away anything about the Assassin you’ve come to secretly think of as a friend feels like a betrayal, even if it’s only for the sake of protecting your ulterior motives for having returned to the Order at all after that night you first encountered Rathonhnhaké:ton for yourself.

He’s been more open with you too. Haytham is his father – something which both made sense, looking at his face, and shocked you, considering he is an Assassin and his father a Templar. Charles Lee, at Haytham’s command, had burned his village to the ground as a child, killing his mother. You empathise with that deeply. You had joined the Order knowing that you had no family of your own to lose should things get messy. It seems that the two of you are in the same boat for that one.

Now, he’s picking out the bones from your fish while you prepare some water to boil over the fire. But time has moved on and winter draws near, bringing a chill into this little cave that feels like it’s become your one and only sanctuary in the world. You hold your open palms near the fire and try to chase away the chill but it does you very little good.

Connor watches you for a moment before he removes his gloves and hands them to you. As he holds them out silently, those well-worn gloves appear like an olive branch to you. This really is for the best, you think. More and more, you’ve come to realise that you were misled by your Order. You were promised to be a harbinger, to be one of the names that would live on forever as a part of the order who had saved humanity. But you were a pawn all along. Even despite your special abilities, Haytham had been more than willing to sacrifice you for whatever gain. You might have a little more value in his eyes now that you’ve ‘proven’ you can take on the Assassin and get away with your life but you’ve seen your old mentor, you’ve heard how he talks of the first civilisation. He’ll stop at nothing and you’re more than sure that should he see another opportunity where your sacrifice and earn great gain for him and his plans, he’ll send you walking straight into the arms of death all over again.

You take the gloves and slide them on over your hands.

“Thank you.” You offer a smile but you hold back just how happy this small gesture makes you. They’re far too big but they’re soft and warm. They’re clearly broken in, the fingertips especially worn down from what you can only assume is all the climbing he does in stalking around with the stealth of his kind. But it’s the fact he’s given them to you at all that touches your heart.

The two of you eat, drink, you share intel and it becomes late enough that you wrap yourself tightly in a thick blanket and curl up on your bedroll beside the campfire. The cave provides enough shelter to keep out the bitter wind but the temperature has still dropped drastically with the change of seasons. You sit up to wrap your blanket around your feet better and you find yourself wishing you had brought another pair of socks or, better yet, a warmer pair. You then lay back down, curled in on yourself to try and gather as much insulation as possible, and close your eyes to try and sleep. But the cold instead bites at your ears and so you pull your blanket up over the back of your head like a hood and shuffle a little closer to the fire so that your nose is warmed by the flame.

You hear shuffling around you and crack an eye open to see that Rathonhnaké:ton has moved. He’s no longer laid on his bedroll on the opposite side of the fire but has instead moved it right next to yours behind where you’re curled up on your side.

“I thought you’d be used to camping by now.” He murmurs and you can hear him lay down beside you, so close that you can feel the heat from his body.

“Not during the winter, I’m not.” You mumble into your blanket which you’ve pulled up by your mouth so that your breath can warm your face. You feel the weight of his arm lay over your waist and he then presses his chest to your back. You can feel the warmth of his breath over your neck, heating the blanket that’s tucked over the back of your head. You stiffen for a moment, surprised by his willingness to be close to you.

You feel your heart flutter in your chest and you lean into his warmth. How long has it been since anyone held you like this? It’s wonderful and overwhelming and suddenly there’s no more winter, nothing outside of this little cave where you’ve been setting up camp to meet for almost a year now.

“Thank you…” You say quietly. Whether for the warmth, or the touch, or for the new path he’s opened to you that you’ve set your life upon now, you’re unsure.

“There’s no need to thank me.” He replies just as quietly. The two of you lay there for a long time and your heart doesn’t slow, beating like a rabbit’s. He’s so close and you hadn’t expected such a thing to be so exhilarating. Rathonhnaké:ton is a toweringly tall man and you’ve always viewed it as an advantage for when he needs to intimidate. But now, you feel safer than you’ve known since that night of your first encounter when your illusion about the Knights Templar was shattered.

After a while, you can’t take it anymore and you turn around just enough to be able to look at him over your shoulder. Your faces are very close and you can feel his breath fan across your lips. When you look to meet his eyes, he does the same as he had previously been looking at your mouth.

“Feeling warmer?” He asks, his voice a rumbling murmur. You give the slightest little nod and your eyes very obviously glance at his pillowy lips again. You don’t try to hide it and nor does he miss it. You’re unsure which of you leans in first – perhaps it had been the both of you, little by little, while you were both preoccupied in imagining how it might be to press your lips to the other’s – but he’s warm and the touch of his lips against yours fills you with a bubbling heat. You turn your body to face him and he pulls you closer by your waist, thumb pressing into you through your clothes and stroking over your body while your lips press and meet again and again. One of your hands goes up to cup his face, feeling his chiselled jaw and cheekbones, then your fingers slide into his silken hair and tangle gently into it when your tongue slides against his.

You pull away for air for a moment but it’s short lived as his teeth pull gently at your bottom lip and his mouth then grazes against your chin and traces the curve of your jaw in kisses. The cold that had previously bothered you is completely forgotten about and he tugs the collar of your layers of clothing aside so that he can kiss against the pulse of your throat. Your hands find his chest and press to try and feel the contours of his body through his clothing but all the buttons and straps get in your way. Your fingers start working to undo buttons before you realise how caught up you’ve got and you pull away for a moment.

“Is this ok?” He gives a small nod and leans in to kiss you again as you remove his clothes. You leave his shirt and jackets open, revealing scarred, bronze skin to you. His body is shaped like an ancient statue of legendary heroes. You can’t help but take the opportunity to rove your palms over each contour and feel him in his beauty.

His large hands slide down to your hips and pull you a little closer. To accommodate him, you move to straddle one of his muscular thighs. He lifts it just enough to press against you and feels a deep stirring below his belt when your teeth sink into your bottom lip and you let out a soft moan.

You had never imagined you would find yourself in this position with Rathonhnaké:ton and yet now that you’re here together, it feels so right. It feels like you really have grown close enough to be like this, like stars in their orbit being pulled to one another. His mouth is on yours again in an instant while he presses his thigh between your legs and he starts to pull at your belt to remove the clothing on your lower half. You help him by tugging off your boots between messy kisses. Once your pants are off and your lower half is bare, you shiver as the chill begins to creep over your bare skin. Connor simply pulls you closer and wraps the blanket firmly around your body while you straddle his lap, taking care to tuck it under your legs in an attempt to keep in as much warmth as possible.

His fingers dance their way down to your mound where he can already feel the intense heat radiating from you.

“Do you want to keep going?” He asks as his mouth moves to press wet kisses beneath your ear, breathing over the sensitive spot and making you shiver as a result. You nod your head and unintentionally let a needy sound slip past your lips.

Ratonhnhaké:ton’s fingers glide through your slick folds and he lets out a little breath of wonder at the feeling of touching you in such an intimate place. Experimentally, he pushes one finger inside of you and watches how your spine arches and your body then bows to lean against him. He pushes it as far as he can go and begins moving it in and out. Letting your bodies take over, allowing words to become of little importance, you begin to grind your hips against his hand so that the heel of his palm catches your clit in a sensation that feels like a delicious burn. He adds another finger and you tug at his pants until his length, thick and heavy in your hand, is freed. You gently squeeze and hear how he sucks in a hiss through his teeth. You then begin to massage up and down, matching the pace of your hips moving to meet his fingers as they draw out soft, wet squelches from your pussy. You swipe over the slit at his tip with your thumb and hear how it makes him groan lowly. You glance down to see a little pool of your arousal gathering in the dip of his palm and decide that enough is enough.

You raise your hips up until his fingers slip out of you entirely. You then remove your hands from him and loop your arms loosely around his neck instead. He understands your intentions clearly and strokes himself a few times, covering his length in the slick from your pussy. You bring your hips back down and he guides himself into you. You’re quick to press your mouth to his in another messy kiss in order to muffle the moan you let out upon feeling the stretch of him pushing into you. You pause shakily along the way, deciding you can take all of him once you’re a little more adjusted, and start to ride.

Connor’s large hands slide beneath your ass to grab at the soft flesh that spills between his fingers and he uses his hold to support you in moving up and down, holding a lot of your weight with his strength. As you continue to move your hips rhythmically, one of his hands leaves your rear in favour of pulling at the buttons and ties that keep your chest hidden. Once it’s revealed, he lets out an appreciative groan of approval and his mouth latches onto one of your breasts as he pulls you closer and you ride him. Your head tips back to the ceiling of the cave and you pant as the wind whistles outside, joining with the crackling of the fire, the shift of the fabric of your clothing and blanket and the slick sounds of his cock filling you up over and over.

Ratonhnhaké:ton is big and consequently manages to hit all the right spots at once as he fills you again and again, your hips angled just right for him to brush against the places that have you curling your cold toes. His mouth slathers your breasts in kisses, pausing to nip or suck at your plush flesh and he works your blood into a feverish heat. The two of you pant for breath, moans and groans echoing off the stone walls.

After a while, his arms wrap around your waist as he lays back, bringing him with you. He kisses you firmly as he brings his knees up and you almost feel the breath get knocked from your lungs when he begins thrusting up into you. You rest your head on his shoulder as he pounds up into your sensitive pussy and your sensitive, teased nipples brush against his chest as your body shakes and wavers with his movements.

A pressure builds in your abdomen, growing tighter and more intense until your whole body is flooded in pleasure, walls squeezing tightly around his cock as though begging him to come with you. And you’re successful in sending him over the edge, hearing him moan, the whimper in his tone as he releases into you and holds you close as the two of you catch your breaths.

But then the cold starts to kick in again. He carefully lifts you so that his softening cock slips out of your messy pussy. You watch as he searches his pockets and takes out a handkerchief which he begins to clean your inner thighs with. He looks to you as if asking if you’re comfortable with him looking after you like this but he finds your head tilted back, eyes closed as your legs twitch at having him touch your sensitive folds to clean you up. He helps you redress and dresses himself before helping you into his coat and throwing some more wood onto the fire, wrapping the blanket around the both of you again.

Once more, you snuggle into his chest for warmth and neither of you are quite sure what to say, hoping the words will just come to you in the morning.

Ratonhnhaké:ton presses a kiss to your forehead and holds you a little tighter as he closes his eyes, listening to his own pounding heart, the crackle of the fire and the whining wind outside.

He decides to make sure that the Templars won’t ever have an opportunity to sacrifice your life again.

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puffein · 9 months

Text

i'll be with you, someday

pairings: wanda maximoff x reader summary: even though you and wanda are continually entangled by fate while being in two distinct worlds, life and the challenges of dating a superhero outweighed fate's favors. warnings: fluff, angst word count: 3722 a/n: kaowjwekakak i am so nervous posting this. help, but i hope u enjoy reading this!! my first ficcc post :D

general masterlist

The first time you had met Wanda Maximoff was in the harsh breezy air of Europe, particularly a country located in the central-southeast. A small eastern country called Sokovia, tucked between Slovakia and Czech Republic, despite the country being small, the remnants of the bombings that happened years ago, were big enough to make the country gain attention from different countries especially their loud voices and public outcry in the streets of the country's capital city Novi Grad.

The country was small but it gained the attention of every news network, particularly, yours. As a news reporter, life is not all about being shoved in a studio, making up a firm smile, and reading fast blurry lines on a small monitor. No, it's much more than that, it also means to get yourself shoved in dangerous matters.

You wouldn't call the protests dangerous but as time passed by the cries were getting heated, louder, and the smoke was getting thick.

However, you cannot be phased by this. Not when a camera is steadily situated right in front of your face.

"... organized protests on the streets of Novi Grad, the capital city of the country, Sokovia has been—"

A fast whirring object flies past your shoulders as you flinch hard enough to toss yourself to the side. The object steadily launches itself on the big camera, glasses flying everywhere. Biting your lip to cut off whatever scream is bubbling in your chest, a gasp makes out of your trembling lips as a hand clasp tightly on your wrist.

A girl–no, definitely a woman. The woman walks fast and hurriedly, she shoves you into an alleyway so far away from the crowd, the loud bearing of your chest was indescribable and suffocating.

"Why are Westerners so idiotic." her accented voice made your form straightened.

Your brows furrowed rightfully at hers, "I am not—"

She puts up a hand, her brown hair tightly secured and gathered away from the curves of her face, you can see the sharp arches of her features, the prominent cheekbones sitting right on her cheeks going downwards. She glowers at you, "Get you and your camera away from here. If you want news, do it from a distance."

You didn't know the woman you had met in Sokovia would stick up on your being for so long, but she did save you even after her blatant insults of you being careless and idiotic, which by the way is true.

You didn't know that woman would shake the world with a much bigger coverage.

Years later, you found yourself again in the country of Sokovia. A tip was passed by at your news network that something big will happen in the country and as the ever-loving favorite of your boss. He tossed you again in Europe, not caring if this tip was something like throwing you as a snack in a cage full of hungry wolves or in a simpler thought if it was even real.

But oh boy, you were wrong.

The tip was real.

You would rather have yourself as a snack in a cage full of wolves than see yourself meters away from the ground.

The capital city of Sokovia lifted itself off from the ground, screaming citizens blur the panic settling in your loud beating chest and the microphone you held against your chest trembles as it falls below you. A mistake was made when you looked down, the remaining parts of the city were no longer visible as clouds cleared off any vision of the city from below, the slight shaking of the ground pushed your weakened knees, shoving you face-front in the blue sky.

Your voice reverberates loudly throughout the flying city, before you could fully fall and meet the end of your life, a wisping red smoke wraps itself on your hips pulling you far away from the edge of the city.

The woman huffs out a breath, "You again?"

"I don't —"

And off she goes, running towards the panicking crowds, leaving your heaving chest and the shaking bones of your being in an alleyway.

You thought that was the end of it all.

It was the second time you have met her, and it was the second time you have come to learn her name. The name Wanda Maximoff.

The major event in Sokovia prompted you to shove a resignation letter to your fuming boss. Just a year after the traumatic event you had endured and the abuse you had experienced in your workplace, you are now a diligent owner of a small coffee shop.

Tucked between the nicely scented flower shop and an old apartment, your coffee shop was the only source of income you have. After resigning and possibly giving up the dream of becoming a news anchor, you had hoped this coffee shop would be enough to feed the starving energy of your impossible dream.

"Hello, what can I do—"

Green eyes stared right at your soul, her eyes darted away to read the menu placed at the top of your head, a tinge of red blossoms at her cheeks, "What can you recommend?"

Clearing your throat, you shoved down the squeal bubbling in the depth of your chest, "Our cinnamon coffee has well-received feedbacks."

It's been a year since she saved you for the second time, you badly want to say your gratitude to her. To form coherent thoughts with words full of appreciation for her works and her bravery.

She nods, the dark green cap she's wearing hides half of her face but you see the slight twitch of the corners of her mouth. Her hand full of rings taps lightly on her thighs as she awaits for the coffee to go.

When her coffee arrived, your breathing quickens at the brisk touch of her thumbs over the side of your fingers. She mutters a small thank you and you are faced with the fleeing form of a woman called Wanda Maximoff.

That should be the end, right? Meeting a superhero so frequently as you had met her is not normal.

Not when she frequently buys coffee in your coffee shop, the same order she had brought when she very first set foot on your small premises.

The frequent visit she had made you confused about the blossoming crush you are having with the Sokovian. Your interactions with her are no longer than 30 seconds, it consisted of asking what she wants, you would ask her how she was and she would curtly reply with a one-liner and it made you awkward. You are just doing your job. Why are you being awkward when it comes to her?

When she would come on her fifth visit, you promised yourself to take the courage to finally talk to her for longer than 30 seconds. So, when she comes in the early mornings of New York, wearing a cap over her head, and a coat that works wonders on her overall appearance, your courage wavers slightly.

And it wavers greatly when a redhead trails behind the brown-haired woman.

The black widow flickers her eyes on your gaping form, a slight twitch of a grin plasters on her face as she walks beside Wanda towards you, carrying an aura no one could top off.

"Hello," you cursed yourself for making your voice shake in a very obvious manner. "What can I get for you today?"

The redhead glances at the younger woman beside her, and a smirk beams out of the sharp edges of her face, "Oh, we are not here to order." the widow casually says.

Bumping the back of her hand to the sides of a silent woman beside her, the widow only gives you a smile as she shoves Wanda painfully close to the counter.

Wanda curses, "How are you?" she winces at the word.

You look between the grinning redhead and the woman who has a red face, you give out a confused smile, "I am good, Wanda. How are you?"

"Jesus." the widow curses under her breath, gliding her feet towards Wanda's as she kicks it in passion.

Knees wavering from the sudden kick, Wanda exclaims the words, "Fuc— Can I take you out on a date?"

And that's how you got yourself a superhero girlfriend.

It's been months since Wanda started dating you, you were everything she could have asked for, you bring out the radiant glow of the sun, your love is like a breeze tinged with the smell of the sea, and the touches you had made with her are anchors of her shaking boats. You calm the crashing waves of her life.

She knew what she was bringing to you after she had asked you out on a date. But she wants to have something, she wants to be selfish just this once.

"What are you cooking?" your voice made its way into her ears, a big grin plaster automatically on her face.

Wanda turns her head over her shoulders, lowering herself slightly to catch the height of your lips. She hears the humming of your voice as her tongue darts leisurely on your bottom lip.

You grin, pulling away to wrap your hands around her middle section, "Smells good by the way." you mutter, kissing her shoulder.

Wanda laughs, "I am only heating the food Nat brought last night, is that okay?"

She feels the nod of your head against her shoulder, your cheeks pressed up tightly against it as she sighs at the comforts of your warm body.

"How was the interview?" she finally asks.

You were silent for the first few seconds, "It was fine, I think."

Wanda can hear the doubt in your voice and the loud ringing of your thoughts, she fully turns herself to look at you. Her hands placed tenderly on your cheeks, "I just knew you rocked that interview."

After months of pondering if you should continue the dream you had thrown for the safety of your being, you had concluded that one bad news network is not equal to all of them. So, you prompted yourself in an interview to get the dreams you had let go.

"Rocked.." you ponder on the word, Wanda rolls her eyes with fondness pooling deep in her chest. "Definitely."

"But seriously, you will get this job. I just knew it. You are passionate and hardworking. Any news network would be lucky to have you, baby, you should know that." you beamed at her words, tiptoeing to kiss her properly.

"What would I do without you?" you quietly said between the kisses.

"Probably alone and starving, detka." she grins, biting playfully on your lip as you groan at the stinging pain.

Relationship with Wanda was beautiful, like the scenery out of a postcard. But not everything is beautiful, every relationship passes by a rocky road that will either tumble the couple down or help them grow.

So, when the absence of her presence in your life became more prominent as days passed by into months, you knew something was wrong.

You are clearly informed of her work, of how everything was confidential but that did not stop the constricting pain your heart felt when she would go like a ghost and would come back like nothing had happened. Like she didn't just leave you all alone with no words.

You do not know where you and Wanda are placed.

Are you two being tumbled down? or is this another thing that would help build the bonded relationship you two have?

When you woke up in the middle of the night only to have your eyes focused on a slumped form in the middle of the kitchen, the words came blaring down like an ambulance.

"Jesus, are you okay?" kneeling in front of her, you tuck your hands in her arms to pull her up.

Your hands go limp as she pushes you away, "Hurts, let me be here. It'll pass." she croaks out, eyes closed tightly.

Your eyes scan the heavy movement of her chest, the stained shirt she wore does not make your chest calm. You lean in again, your hands hovering over the blood pooling at the side of her body, she grabs your wrist tightly, "I told you, it will pass."

When she opened her eyes to see the glistening eyes of yours, filled with unshed tears, her heart broke. She forces herself to sit up, biting her tongue hard to keep the scream of pain for herself. "Detka, I promise. I will be fine. I had it checked before coming here, just forgot to change, okay?"

You nod at her words, blinking a few times to calm the beating of your heart.

"But you have to rest on the bed, not here."

"I know, baby. Just give me a few minutes, hm? And I'll be there beside you, go."

When you didn't move after her words, Wanda smiled at you, "I'll be with you, I promise. Please."

And you left her alone with her pain, just like every other night.

Wanda would rather suffer in silence than make you see the pain scattering all over her body. She does not want your eyes to scan her battered body, it will break her to see you sob just because she has been careless on a mission.

It was not worth it.

Her actions shouldn't weigh down on your stability and as every mission piles one after another, it becomes more dangerous, more eye-opening.

She didn't want to admit it but what she has been asking from you was unfair. Asking you to leave her alone after making you see the bruises on her face or the remnants of the mission was unfair to you. She cannot just let you see she's suffering and pushes you away.

But that was the only thing she could do. She would rather be choosing that option over and over again than choosing the choice of completely leaving you. No more sights of bruises, no more her and you.

Wanda lets herself be selfish once more.

When the light rays of the sun push itselves through the windows of your small apartment, you wake up with the soft lips of your significant other.

Peppering your face with soft kisses, Wanda kneels at the side of your bed, leaning down once more to kiss your forehead, "Wake up, detka. I made breakfast."

You stirred in your sleep, hands reaching out to touch the cheeks of Wanda but hovered on top of it, halting your movements.

Wanda frowns.

You opened your eyes, "Is it gonna hurt if I touch it?" you point out a bruise on her cheekbones, Wanda stills at your question. Her heart plummeted at your fragile quiet voice.

She nods slowly, "You can touch anywhere, sweetheart. I am fine now, I visited the med bay while you slept, everything is fine."

You sit up on your bed, shaking off the sleep in your eyes, you stare at her. "Can I kiss you?"

Wanda smiles, leaning in, "You don't have to ask."

Meeting your lips halfway with the warm feeling of the cascading sunlight on her back was something Wanda wants to have for the rest of her life. The soft feeling of your lips against her, the smell of coffee, you. Everything is perfect for her.

And she knows a perfect person like you wouldn't last with a person so imperfect like her.

The bruises on Wanda's face were not halfway cured when she was asked again to go on a mission. It was still purple and swollen when she heard the call from Steve. A mission to infiltrate a newly discovered base of Hydra. It was located somewhere in Europe, it was miles away from New York, miles away from you.

It was just another day of you and Wanda lounging in the walls of your apartment, the chilling icy-cold air of the night felt sharp on your skin, her face was still healing from her past mission when she suddenly excuses herself to answer the taunting ringing of her phone.

She had kissed your forehead before walking away to give herself privacy and the kiss that felt comforting before weighs down indescribably in the depths of your chest.

You watch the frowning of her brows, how she nibbles her bottom lip to how the muscle in her jaw twitches as her head bobs in something that was being discussed on her phone.

You look away, eyeing the show you two have been watching, the voices on it fading out. You knew what was coming and you should be accustomed to it by how frequently she leaves for her job but it did not make it easier for you, it just became harder.

Her presence came like a tidal wave, scooting herself closer to your form as her hand snaked around your waist pulling you flushed on her. She kisses the side of your head slowly, her lips lingering on your warm skin.

You sigh, leaden feelings set heavily on your chest, "You're leaving, again?"

Wanda gulps the remaining bitter taste in her mouth, nudging your cheeks with her nose, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." you snap. You didn't mean to make your voice let out the feelings you have thrust down on your chest. But it did and it's like the small crack of an incoming big wave from a dam that's been left too full.

Wanda grips your waist, resting her forehead on your shoulders, she breathes in the scent you had emitted, "I'll be back before you'll know it, baby."

"You always say that and yet, you always come home months after." you ground your jaw hard and painful as Wanda snapped her mouth shut.

She lets you hear the silence of her essence, the slow breathing from her lungs, the flowery scent she has. She lets you have it, for she knows the truth of your words.

"I'm sorry," she starts, smoothing the skin on your waist. "I'll be back."

"How long do I have to believe that?" your voice wavered, any control you have left for clutching your feelings in your grasp is now gone. The feelings you had been feeling ran out of your mouth fast and heavy.

"I'll always be back, when did I lie, Y/N?" Wanda replies.

"How long till you just finally don't? I have seen you hurt so many times, Wanda. I don't want to see your dead body or– or do I even have the right to see it if it happens or will it be confidential?" you moved away from her, hugging yourself as you felt the heavy material of her sweater, making you feel more miserable.

"Don't think that." Wanda's voice was firm and hardened.

"I always think that! What do you think my thoughts will be after you have walked away to offer yourself in such dangerous missions." your throat closes up instantly, a sob breaking out of your mouth,

"You– you, you can read minds, how come you have never known I was hurting?"

Wanda's green eyes gleamed with sadness at your outburst. Do you have to ask such an obvious question?

Of course, she had known. She had always known how much she was weighing you down, how these frequent absences of hers are taking a toll on you mentally and emotionally. She does not want to acknowledge how she's taking the life out of you, how day by day your eyes have lost their light, just because of her.

She turns a blind eye to all of that. She always did.

She deserves to be a little more selfish, right?

So, she cradles your cheeks tenderly, your eyes burning with grief at a loss that you know will happen.

"It's gonna be fine, I will be back, I promise. Please, stop crying." she wipes your tears gently, the padding of her thumbs gliding smoothly below your eyes. She leans in to kiss it, shuddering at the wetness she felt on her lips.

"I'll be with you, baby. Please, stop. I'll be—" Wanda's lips instantly pressed together as you yank your figure away from her tight grasp.

Pacing away from her, your brows creased in apprehension, "It's either be with me or le— work." the timbres of your voice falters.

"I can't be here, with you. You had lost everything, Wanda. Why do you want to lose yourself? You have saved many, it's okay to stop." your voice pleaded.

Wanda's eyes swam with tears as she finally felt the cracking of the ground, the awareness of the reality that was unfolding before her eyes didn't feel real.

She didn't want it to feel real yet as her eyes settled on your dishevelled state everything came crashing down on her hard and excruciatingly painful.

She took a step forward, and with her shaky hands, she took your cold ones and brought it to her trembling lips. "Everything will be fine, please don't do this," she begged.

"I am so tired of crying myself to sleep. I have forgotten what it's like to have a mind so peaceful, Wanda. But my mind is far from peace if you are away from me," the vision you had before is long gone, replaced by a blurry sight of tears and heartbreak. "I am just asking you to stay. To choose yourself, to choose us and stay."

"Please, don't make me choose."

"Then, leave."

The hands grasped tightly on yours stilled. Wanda froze in front of you, her wide eyes staring directly at yours, she looks for a sign that you're gonna take back the words you have sputtered, that everything is just a mistake on your part but when you remained grounded, and when you let her hear the loudness of your silence, her face contorted in pain at your words.

She felt the walls closing in on her.

"Baby, detka, I have no—"

"You have asked me to not let you choose. That is an answer, Wanda." your voice quivered, and you whisk your hands away from her hold.

"Leave, I'm sure Steve will appreciate your early arrival." you turned your back to the woman you will be mourning, chest leaden with grief-stricken feelings as you grieve for the loss of your love.

And you left her alone with her pain, just like every other night.

general masterlist

#wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda x you #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff x fem!reader #wanda maximoff fluff #wanda maximoff angst #wanda maximoff fanfiction #wanda maximoff x y/n #wanda maximoff oneshot #wanda maximoff fanfic #wanda maximoff x reader #marvel fanfiction #mcu oneshot #wanda maximoff x gender neutral reader #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff x you

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moi5t-fk-fruit · 10 months

Text

.⋆ Tension

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Fem!Reader

𖤐 Summary: Stuck in a beaten up car with your Lieutenant hours away from base. The cold air in the car isn’t the only thing making you tense.

𖤐 Warning: Implied sexual tension and thoughts, swearing, mentions of argument.

𖤐 Genre/Notes: Use of Y/N! Enemies to Lovers Trope? Smut in the next part?!

𖤐 A/N: First time posting but been here for a long time reading! This is just a part of a fanfic I want to start with ur fav Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley ;) Keep in mind that this might be a total bag of shit, however I want to try anyway! Be Kind and Thx for reading <3

Part 1 part 2 Part 3

It had been a successful mission to say the least. The only problem was you disobeying the big guy wearing a skeleton mask. You expected a thank you out of Ghost, but you weren’t surprised when he called you a fucking idiot. The only idiot there was the guy who couldn’t keep his head out of his ass. If he would’ve payed more attention to his surroundings other than downgrading you, he would have seen the target behind him ready to shoot. Course the target is dead now and you both have succeeded with the mission, though now there’s a deafening silence on the drive back to base.

Hours away in a slow beaten up truck Ghost stole along the way. You’ve both realized it didn’t handle the cold winter storm very well either since the heater had stopped an hour ago. You haven’t said a word to him after he went off on you, just nods and grunts when he ordered or said something.

To pass the awkward time in the car you started admiring the storm outside, trying to count as much trees as you can, it was pretty dumb on your part since you both were surrounded by woods. Slowly you drifted to sleepiness, your eyes become heavy and your head started to fall towards the window. The only thing keeping you awake was the freezing air in the car. You’ve been using your “blanket” (or so Price calls it, when in reality it was the thinnest layer of fabric) to try and keep yourself warm but it wasn’t much use.

“Y/n, take mine from my bag. Looks like you’re freezing to death.” The low raspy voice shook you at first but you remembered who you were with. You gave out a quite muffled “no” as a response. His sudden wanting to care was pissing you off.

“Y/n. Don’t be be fuck’n stupid. Take the blanket.” He sounded a lot more firm this time.

“Yes sir.” You left out, looking at him with tired eyes and defeated sigh. You didn’t want to start an argument in the car so you gave up and reached behind your seats to find Ghost duffel bag. It was exhausting with how long you both been on the road, you tried your best to not take long. And after a minute or two you finally found the blanket deep inside the bag. Settling back into the passenger seat you couldn’t help but to notice Ghost eyeing you from the corner of your vision.

“Eyes on the road L.t.” You turned and said to him. It sounded more drowsy and slurred than you had thought it would. He stared into your eyes for a few seconds before darting them back to the road. Carefully layering the blanket Ghost loaned you over your own, you slowly dozed off.

༺♡︎༻

(POV from Ghost)

Ghost couldn’t imagine sleeping in these conditions. Let alone sleep at all. He glanced over at you while you head was tilted towards the window. How could you be so relaxed? Thunder crashed loudly making him focus back on the road but his ears picked up your muffled whine and movement of discomfort. It was strange to him, he wanted to hear it again, at least once more. This whole drive was already taking a hold of him. Having to focus while being around you was intoxicating. He shut you up already with yelling at you but your slurred reply’s only lured his eyes back to yours. He decided to pullover a place surrounded by large trees and coverage from any unwanted followers. Mindlessly waiting for the morning was better than driving off a fucking cliff from the loud heavy storm and unforgettable thoughts running through his mind. He tried to get comfortable with the space he had. Detaching his skull mask which only left him in his black balaclava, using the rear window to wipe up residue from the black paint around his eyes with his hands, and then looking over at you. Your chest rising and lowering with each breath you took.

Ghost stared hard. Going over every feature on your face down to the collar of your shirt, which he saw displayed your collar bones and chest. He would be lying if he wasn’t looking forward to going to the pub once they arrive back at base. He didn’t care if it were to be loud with the 114 group and other aquatints, not to forget the already drunk people that will be there. Ghost. Or more so Simon just want the bourbon to sooth him like he imagined you would. He’s pants were already tight if not more now. He was desperate enough to think of getting out the car and finding a place outside in the freezing cold to jerk off. It was wrong of him to be think of you like this and he knew, what he couldn’t put his mind around was how you couldn’t keep up. One second he hates you and the other he wants to fuck you. Ghost looked at you once more, his head resting on his fist in which his arm was promptly on the cars side door. He turns his head to view the storm happening just outside the window and surprisingly fell asleep.

༺♡︎༻

#call of duty #simon riley #fanfic #ghost x reader #ghost mw2 #task force 141 #cod mw2 #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #simon riley x you

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mugiwara-communications · 2 years

Note

I could get a reaction from ace, luffy, sabo or they ask their s/o to hold their hats and the s/o doesn't move and holds the hat VERY carefully and when an outside person tells them they can leave it there the s/o responds aggressively and tells them that the hat will be dirty if she puts it down! and even if a person gets too close to her, she tells him to move away otherwise he will damage the hat! THAAAAANKS✌️❤️

( idk if the request is open! Sorry if don’t 💁‍♀️)

YES MY REQUESTS ARE ALWAYS OPEN!!! AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REQUESTING!!!!! i loved this one so much <3 I hope you like it too :)

Warning: nothing! #^^# WC: 450-500

Monkey D. "Strawhat" Luffy

A hat- THE hat. The hat that Luffy can and will fight a bitch for if anything happened to it.

Everyone knows just how important it is, and everyone who has been allowed to touch, fix, and wear it knows that if Luffy is letting you hold onto it means something happened or is happening. The trust Luffy has in you to care for his hat out of his vision is insane.

Luffy might not ask if you could hold it for him or if you want to wear it, he’s more likely to drop it on your head and continue whatever he was doing. Nami will look at you with a look in her eyes and a nod, just go with it. If someone takes it off, it makes the Captain sad. No one likes a sad Luffy.

Everyone on the ship, everyone in the alliance, even some other pirates, enemies, and marines knows to respect the strawhat or get your ass kicked. The only people who don’t know are civilians. There’s been the time or two where an outside someone has grabbed it if it fell, but it’s never been treated badly.

When the Strawhat Pirates are due to take a little break from saving nations, they choose the waterpark/resort place the Captain demanded to go to. It’s the standard place; a little giftshop, some waterslides, a lazy river. It was far enough from the Marines that a pirate flag or two didn’t disturb the guest.

Usopp chooses the sunniest area and sets an umbrella up before the boys run into the water. Before running up to the waterslide, Luffy gave you a sloppy kiss and left you his prized hat.

You stood out against Nami and Robin, the two women wearing large, floppy sunhats. But you didn’t need full coverage from the sun, choosing to enjoy what your Captain and dearest left you. But shit happens when a drink Nami was singing about was crashed by a ball and split over you.

You had to choose the next best thing to wear rather than a fruit drink and ended up in the resort gift shop. Inside, the young worker called out to you three, hoping to make a sale. Showing off printed shirts with the logo, mugs, keychains, sunscreen, and those ugly, off-beige, super small, flowered sunhats.

The worker tries to sell you a shirt in every color, a handful of keychains, more inflatables than you need, and a sunhat despite you only asking for a shirt. You would have ignored the insisting and taken the shirt with no issue, but they insult the hat you love and cracked your knuckles.

When the worker doesn’t take the second no for an answer, punch them and run. Some front teeth aren’t needed, and y’all are pirates. No one expected the good time to last a long time. Just warn the crew to ready the ship and get out of there!

When Luffy takes his hat back, give him a lil kiss and thank him for keeping you safe from the sun. It’s the only sunhat you need.

Portgas D. "Fire Fist" Ace

Ace’s hat choice is different. There is no canonical backstory for this hat, but lots of people like to think it was a gift from Luffy, Dadan, and/or Makino. Try to pry that headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

When fighting Jinbe, the hat was resting on his back, but when fighting Whitebeard before officially joining, his hat was magically missing. Let’s say you ended up on the Moby Dick with him.

During that time, he didn’t wear it. Choosing to keep it with you was safer than losing it in the waters, or getting smashed by Pops’s big hands. Actually, he gave it to you to wear after the first time it ripped, or the bead line broke. He stood over you like a child as you fixed it for him.

Ace doesn’t mind if you playfully tack his hat and wear it. Rather he likes the look of something his on you, like a way to keep his siblings away from the fire of his heart. If it’s a hot enough day, he’ll just give you the hat to wear.

Sometime after Ace finally joined the Whitebeard Pirates, the others took it along to initiate their newest crew. After ripping a few pant seams, playing connect the dots with freckles, and a couple bottles of baby powder, Ace looked like a different person.

When Thatch decided the next thing to do was steal the rest of Ace’s pants and dress some of the crew up to look like him, you clutched the hat in your hands and told him if he came close to you to take the hat, you would dull all of his knives and wash the cast iron.

Enough to keep one pirate away from you, it wasn’t enough to keep the rest.

One by one, other Whitebeard pirates tried to take it from you or ask questions. Izou asked why it was orange, Oars attempted to pick it up with his nails and nearly took you with it, and Haruta tried to rush you but was caught by the Spade Pirates telling you to run.

After escaping the crew, you hid on Whitebeard himself, the big man being enough to scare the others away. Happy enough to play the little game with his children, Oyaji asked why you wouldn’t let anyone else touch the hat.

“Because my Captain asked me to keep it safe. And I’ll never let it get hurt for him.”

At the end of the day, Ace would press a small kiss to your temple and thank you for keeping two parts of him safe.

"Revolutionary Chief of Staff" Sabo

Like Ace, Sabo’s hat choice is different. But it’s different for a wildly different reason than the other two brothers.

When Sabo wanted to set sail, he had everything that was his in the boat, but most of it was lost in the explosion. Very few things were salvaged, and even less had his name on them. Sabo could have ended up being ‘Bob’ if it wasn’t for an embroidered handkerchief.

That being said, most of his muscle memories and manors were unconsciously remembered. He might not know why the top hat is his favorite, but it feels right.

The first time he gives you his hat to hold, you really don’t know why. He asked nicely, so you can’t say ‘no’, but it felt weird holding his hat and waiting for him to come back. You just stood in the hallway with Koala and waited for him to return.

She grabs the hat from your hands, placing it on her head, and asked how she looked while striking a stupid pose. The hat itself was well taken care of, not too dirty but well loved. Even the odd goggles he keeps on them are clean, a smudge on the glass maybe, but that’s it. You pull it off of her with a smile and a shake of your head.

Unfortunately, wherever Sabo had walked off to, he didn’t come back in time for you to get back to work, so you had to take the hat too. Just keep it on your lap or something, ignore the way other Revolutionary members look at you, and keep working on the paperwork.

If anyone asks if you need somewhere to put it instead, biting them is acceptable.

After Koala played with it, some other younger members wanted to play with it too. And while Sabe didn’t mind playing dress up with them, you weren’t sure if you could with his had and without his permission.

After one kid steals the hat and another steals his goggles, you spend a good minute chasing them down. You wondered if that is what you signed up for when joining the Revolution. Putting the two back together you told off anyone who got within five feet of you, threatening to bite or worse if they even thought about touching Sabo’s hat.

Wiping off the children's fingerprints on the soft material of the hat and the tiny smudges on the lenses, you hear the sound of paper rubbing against the material. Peaking inside the flat top, you see a picture stuck in a seam. It’s a candid of you spinning one of the young girls on the base and carrying a small boy on your back. Tuck it back in and pretend you don’t see it.

When Sabo finally comes back from who knows where, plop the top hat on his head and remind him he needs to actually finish his paperwork and not sneak off to play with the kids again.

#one piece #one piece x reader #op x reader #one piece fanfiction #mugiwara-communications #one piece headcanons #monkey d luffy #monkey d luffy x reader #portgas d ace #portgas d ace x reader #sabo one piece #sabo x reader

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politijohn · 1 year

Note

US District Judge Reed O'Connor struck down a provision of the ACA that required coverage for preventive care services for cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and vision screenings for children. And this person calls themself pro-life.

Source

Imagine thinking HIV prevention goes against your religion and winning the argument in the court. Welcome to the US

#asks

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justinspoliticalcorner · 4 days

Text

Jonathan Cohn at HuffPost:

“Folks, he’s coming for your health care, and we’re not going to let that happen.” Those are the closing words of a new 30-second ad from the Biden campaign, focusing on the Affordable Care Act and the possibility of repeal if Donald Trump becomes president again. The ad buy is significant: $14 million to run the spot in a half dozen swing states, as my colleague S.V. Dáte reported. And it’s not difficult to understand why.

Trump’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 was highly unpopular. The backlash was almost certainly a big reason Republicans managed to lose both houses of Congress and the presidency over the next two elections. Reminding voters of this history can only help Biden and the Democrats, especially amid polls that show the 2010 health care law to be more popular than ever. And the threat to the law is real. Trump spent his entire presidency trying to tear down the program; when legislation failed, he tried to undermine the law by ― among other things ― taking away funds for advertising and promotion. Last fall, he returned to the subject in a Truth Social post, declaring, “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives.”

Trump followed up with what was supposed to be a clarification, stating, “I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks!!!” But of course, that was just another version of the promises he made before taking office last time ― you may remember vows like “I’m going to take care of everybody” or “We’re going to have insurance for everybody.” He then proceeded to push bills that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would have added more than 20 million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured.

[...] Democratic leaders vowed to address that issue by increasing the subsidies, effectively realizing their original vision for the law. And they did precisely that in 2021. The American Rescue Plan, which Democrats passed and Biden signed, boosted the Affordable Care Act’s financial assistance so that nobody has to pay more than 8.5% of household income on a standard plan.

It was a temporary measure tied to the pandemic, but in 2022, they extended the subsidies through 2025. The impact has been substantial. Roughly 15 million Americans are saving an average of about $800 a year on their insurance, according to calculations by the Department of Health and Human Services. And like all averages, that covers a range of people. The savings amount to only a pittance for some, but it’s literally thousands of dollars a year for others. The enhanced subsidies have also had more subtle effects. Some insurers still sell “non-compliant” plans that resemble the old policies. These plans can be sold more cheaply because they have big coverage gaps that can leave beneficiaries exposed to punishing, catastrophic medical bills. (Loopholes in the law allow this.) However, fewer people are now buying those policies, opting for the more comprehensive plans available than the Affordable Care Act, according to a study from the non-partisan health research organization KFF. That’s because, with the extra subsidies, the more comprehensive plans don’t cost as much as they did before.

[...]

A Familiar Debate, An Uncertain Political Future

The new Biden ad says he wants to make the assistance permanent, consistent with a proposal in his latest budget. That wouldn’t be cheap. CBO pegged the cost at about $25 million a year back in 2022. It’d probably require more money more now. The inability to find enough offsetting cuts or revenue to cover that cost is one reason Biden and the Democrats didn’t make the bigger subsidies permanent last time. That could happen again. But it’s safe to assume that, at the very least, Biden and the Democrats would approve another temporary extension if they are in office and have enough leverage in Congress after 2024. If Democrats don’t have that kind of power come next year, the fate of these increased subsidies will be in the hands of Trump and the Republicans. And while they haven’t had much to say about the issue, it’s hard to imagine they’d be enthusiastic about extending the subsidies given their traditional hostility to government spending on social welfare, to say nothing of their animus towards Obamacare. Conservative intellectuals are already laying the groundwork. Brian Blase, the former Trump administration official now president of the conservative-leaning Paragon Health Institute, has assailed the extra subsidies as regressive because they have made higher-income Americans eligible for assistance.

If Donald Trump wins in 2024, then there could be big consequences for Obamacare… and it won’t be pretty.

#Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act #Obamacare #PPACA #Health Care #American Rescue Plan

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effloradox · 1 year

Text

I'm a Fire and I'll Keep Your Brittle Heart Warm (II)

Aemond Targaryen x Dragonrider!Reader

series masterlist | chapter one | AO3

Aemond isn’t stupid, he’s aware of the rumours of the last remaining wild dragons that roam the coast of Westeros. His siblings and cousins used to mock him with their existence, that these great creatures would rather feed on scraps than be bonded to him. He’s heard the furtive whispers of his mother with the Hand about trying to claim more dragons to give them a better chance in the war against the Blacks and he tries not to take it as a slight against him, that his mother would rather get some wild beasts than rely upon him being able to control Vhagar after the brief lapse of control that led to the start of this fucking war.

He’s also heard quieter whispers between the dragon keepers in the pit that there are dragons that have been tamed by those without Valyrian blood coursing through their veins. Those whispers are spoken in High Valyrian so all the common people who frequent the Red Keep or Dragon Pit can’t spread the word but Aemond’s heard it all. Many doubt the existence of such people but he’s heard one of the dragon keepers describe an encounter with one such rider, on the dragon known as Grey Ghost. The keeper said they only saw the dragon once, off the coast near the Riverlands, but they could distinctly see someone riding the creature. It was initially chalked up as a vision, but with the coming war, no chances can be taken. If there is such a person, they need to be found.

It shouldn't be possible for someone not of Old Valyria to be able to claim a dragon; if that's what's going on. A dragon not immediately incinerating someone doesn't necessarily mean it's been tamed though. Even so, when word gets out and the war begins to brew, Aemond isn't surprised when he's approached and given the task to hunt down these imposter dragon riders. It's made clear that if they will not ally with the Greens then they are to be taken care of lest they run to align themselves with the Blacks who already have the advantage when it comes to the number of dragons in their arsenal.

He's not been to the Riverlands a lot in his life, and the rare times he has been it's not impressed him. It's a place where the sun doesn't seem particularly fond of shining and riding on Vhagar above the cloud coverage, he can't help but wonder why someone who can ride a dragon has chosen to make this their home. Surely the warm ports of Dorne were more suited to someone with enough fire within them to ride a dragon. Even with Aemond's less than favourable view of the scorching summers of King's Landing, the marshlands of the Riverlands are less than ideal. It’s too close to the North and it’s frozen terrain. It makes him want to make this journey as short as possible if only to get away from the fact that the air here seems heavier than back home. More imposing. It's why he had the guards start their journey over a week ago, so they'd already be here when he landed. The last thing he needed was to be here with no backup or way to get the rider and dragon back to King's Landing. He gives the command for Vhagar to land, and within seconds the land below comes into view and they're settling on a beach by the coastline.

Going off the information the dragon keepers have given him, this is one of the places where people have claimed to catch sight of a dragon diving into the sea for food. It's not unheard of for smaller dragons to be seen fishing off the coast of Dragonstone, and it makes sense that the wild dragons would have used their ability to dive to maintain themselves and yet Aemond still jumps back when a dragon seems to dive out the sky from nowhere into the ocean further down the coast from where he's landed. He knows instinctively that this is indeed the Grey Ghost, and it is a beautiful dragon if somewhat larger than he expected it to be. Still nowhere near as large as Vhagar but larger than he was told, which means it’s not a young dragon. Vhagar takes an interest in her, but since it’s clear that it’s not a threatening move, she doesn’t react beyond watching Grey Ghost continue diving in various parts of the sea. For that, Aemond is grateful. The last thing he needs is to return to King’s Landing with the news that his dragon has disobeyed him and killed another dragon once again.

There’s a lull in the diving as it seems the wild dragon has had its fill of sea food and it returns to the sky and disappears into the cloud cover. Aemond didn’t spot a rider on its back, and it seems unsettling that it should leave without its rider if it even has one. A seed of doubt plants itself in the back of his mind that they’ve come all this way for nothing, that there is no Grey Lady, and it’s going to be a difficult task trying to catch and tame this wild dragon, even with the dragon keepers.

It’s only when he hears what can only be described as a commotion coming from the other side of the sand dunes he’s stood near that it seems like maybe this wasn't a complete waste of time. In only a few steps, Aemond had climbed the dunes and finally got to see what the fuck was causing all the noise. Or rather, who was causing all the noise. The guards struggling with the strange woman seem to light up when they realise he’s watching them, and in their moment of distraction one almost takes a flailing fist to the face. The guard lurched back and looked almost comically bewildered by the situation before almost visibly coming to his senses and attempting a half-bow to the watching Prince.

“My Prince! We’ve got her! We found her in the village, think she was trying to leave town.” You’re not what he expected. Maybe it’s the fact everyone’s been referring to you as the Grey Lady that he had some sort of ghostly figure cloaked in flimsy fabric, some pale demure woman who would seem entirely out of place on the back of a dragon. Fighting the grip of his guards with a fierce expression on your face and a downright murderous look in your eyes, it’s clear his image of you couldn’t have been further from the truth. There’s a fire in you, it’s obvious to Aemond from the moment he lays his eye on you.

He lets his eye wander over your figure slowly, taking you in, and he takes a certain level of delight in the snarl you direct his way when you notice his wandering eye. Once he’s done with his initial assessment he returns his gaze to your face and finally makes eye contact with you.

“Udrirzi Valyrio ȳdrā?” A brief look of confusion passes over your expression and it quickly becomes clear that you don’t understand his question and thus, by extension, you do not understand High Valyrian. Curious. “You don’t seem like much of a lady.”

“You don’t seem like much of a Prince.” You hold his stare and it seems even more obvious how you tamed a dragon. Where in the realm have you been hiding all this time? The women of court could learn something from you, it would make things far more interesting in the Red Keep.

"Tell me how you came to be in possession of a dragon."

“I’m not.” The way you roll your eyes at him makes him wonder if you lack basic survival skills. Even out in the Riverlands people know to treat royals with respect if they want to keep their head. You're either recklessly brave or incredibly stupid. Maybe both since you ride a dragon.

“Don’t act numb. You reek of dragon. Anyone who’s spent any time around dragons knows their smell, it permeates your very being.” It's a smell he's grown up with after years in the dragon pit surrounded by both dragons and riders, but out here with all the sea air, it's a wonder that no one's picked up on how the smell of smoke seems to follow wherever you move. Out here it would seem more likely that you spent all your free time rolling around a bonfire to make yourself smell like that than being around a dragon.

"I never denied riding a dragon. I denied owning one. I'm not in possession of a dragon, you can't own a creature like that. To believe otherwise makes you a fool." He stands corrected, you're not brave. You're definitely just missing your basic survival skills.

"I could have your tongue for that, insulting a Prince of the Realm."

"Then take it. I'd still be right and you'd be leaving without what you came for." He narrows his eye at you but you hold his gaze without flinching. It’s rare he meets someone who doesn’t react to his eyepatch, and in any other situation Aemond might have described himself as being impressed by you. At the present, he found your unwillingness to answer his questions frustrating.

"You may not be able to control your dragon, but anyone with Valyrian blood can do so. We need to know how you've not been incinerated by this one." The way you look at him takes him back to the way his mother looked at him when he was a child and said something out of turn. He finds it strange that your glare manages to make him feel small even if it's only for a moment.

"It's not control that you have. You only think that because it's what your family have instilled into you. Dragon's aren't controllable. They don't bend to your will." The steel in your voice when you say that makes him think you're saying it from experience, that (like he assumed) you don't have full control over Grey Ghost. He wonders how many people have been a victim to your dragon's temper and whims for you to speak like that.

"You will tell me how you managed to get a dragon to temporarily do your bidding then."

“I can’t tell you information I do not possess.” Aemond makes to step towards you, but the sound of a dragon approaching makes him pause. Seemingly from nowhere, Grey Ghost begins her descent towards the beach, and with a breath of fire, a group of guards are set alight in front of you. Their pained screams and the smell of burning flesh make you feel nauseous but the guards holding onto you loosened their grip upon seeing their comrades burning alive and the momentary distraction allows you to finally break away from them. Fuck staying here and losing your freedom, you’d take dying in the sky with Grey Ghost at the hand of another dragon over a life out of your control.

“Māzigon!” The result of your shout is instantaneous and Grey Ghost immediately drops to the ground, giving you enough time to clamber onto her before she ascends back into the sky, and you disappear into the clouds without turning back. The last thing you hear is the roar of another dragon overpowering the shouts of the guards that are still alive. If the Prince decided to pursue you on dragonback you'd definitely hear him if he's on that creature but for now you want to get as far away from him and his royal lapdogs as humanly possible.

“My Prince, should we not go after her?” Aemond watches the waves in front of himself for a few moments before slightly shaking his head and making his way towards Vhagar. He mutters a few words softly in High Valyrian to her before climbing onto her back and facing the remaining soldiers.

“No, I think we’ve got all we need from her for now. We’ll return to Kings Landing at dawn. The Queen will want to hear about this."

AN: They finally meet! Sorry this took me so long to post, hope it was worth the wait!

Taglist: @rey26 @yor72

#my writing #fic #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd x reader #house of the dragon x reader #fem!reader

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