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bokettochild · 3 years

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Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

Angst! My Beloved!

Not a lot of whump here, but I put Wild through the wringer!!! Lots of BotW2 ideas and concepts here, but nothing really cannon.

Also, disclaimer: I think Flora is a wonderful person, a bit harsh and sometimes unkind, but I feel for her a lot. The prompt submitted to me however asked for her as an ass, so that's what's here, for angst reasons. THIS IS NOT HOW I PLAN ON WRITING HER NORMALLY!!!

When Wild left the Chain behind in the woods, it was with a soft smile and a hesitant wave of his right hand. It was with a gentle ‘See y’all later’ that made Warriors shake his head with a sigh while Twilight offered a wobbly grin.

He would join them again, he knew that. After all, Hylia wouldn’t have chosen him to go with them in the first place if he was only supposed to leave before they’d even really started to know what it was that they were meant to be doing.

He’d see them again, and he’d fall back into a routine with all of them, sparring with Warriors and teaching Hyrule to cook and shield surfing with Wind and learning to carve from Sky. He’d go back to sewing with Legend, to exploring with Hyrule, to learning the Ocarina with Time and teasing Twilight about his terrible singing. He could work with Four on the Sheikah Slate and experimenting with different plants he’d gathered. He would see them again, and he’d go back to being busy and smiling nearly every day.

For the time being however, he had to square his shoulders and harden his jaw as he stepped through the swirl of black that had repulsed all the others every time they tried to enter. He had to tame his mind and wild spirit and come to stand before the Princess of Hyrule in all of her stern glory and receive the scolding he was due for wandering off without permission.

He never had time to question what she meant by being gone for ‘two whole weeks’ before she was marching off towards the labs and explaining that there was a new task for them to complete.

Such a task was one that left in his mind no time for thoughts of his brothers save on the lonely nights in the sky when the islands above the clouds were silent save for the birds about him that reminded him of Sky, or when he ran across the forests and was reminded of the wolf that once ran at his side. And, alright, the tiny people in the grass and the fountains reminded him of Four and Hyrule. When the wind sang strong in his ears as he dove towards the earth from the highest places in the sky, he couldn’t help but envision a small hero whose laughter danced like the sea and who’s fingers mastered the currents of wind and sea both.

It was a lonely quest, just like his last before it, but somehow it was more painfully so, now that he knew what it was to have brothers at his side to catch a monster’s blade when he was too slow or to help him patch himself up afterwards. It was quiet when the Princess and he sat around the fires as night, she studying him as he sat still and stonelike as she worked.

The hand that had waved goodbye to his brothers now flickered green and ethereal in the night shades, iron bands clinging to the wisping appendage and acting as a bond to hold its form together. It was nothing like what he’d known or studied in the Sheikah technology, or even what he’d seen from the many worlds he’d traveled with the other, and it earned many a stare and twist of the lips from those he met and traded with during his journey.

The arm was only the first of many changes, it’s power seeping through his body and altering him before he even knew what was happening. He’d hated it at first, disliking how it changed him, made his eyes glow and his hair touch with the same ethereal shades, red bleeding through at the roots and earning him even more wary looks.

Ganon, in all his terrifying power, had been a surprising comfort during the quest, an aid to discovering his new abilities and training them to bend to his own will. The Princess had been wary of their relationship, but had accepted it when she saw what he learned to do, and every evening she would require a report of his newfound skills, as well as the occasional demonstration or examination.

It all came to an end both too soon and not soon enough.

Ganon was gone, as if he’d never been there at all, and the Princess was as cold as ever even after their second adventure at each other's sides. And now there was no use for the abilities that had fused to his soul like the arm had to his flesh. He’d asked Purah if there was something that could be done to restore his body to its normal Hylian state, without the glowing limb that earned his only stares and insults from the village people, but the Princess had overheard it and declared that such a thing should not even be attempted.

“You don’t understand, Link. Don’t be foolish! We have here a scientific marvel ready for our investigation and exploration and you want to get rid of it just because it looks odd?”

He’s shuffled his feet slowly, resisting the impulse to rub at his chest where the Hylian part of him ended and the eldritch horror began. “I can’t live like Hylian anymore.”

“Because you aren’t one!” Her Highness rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Sir Knight, after everything I certainly doubt that Hylian even applies to you anymore! Hylians do not possess the qualities that you now do, and they most certainly do not travel through stone or time or any other such thing at will. Think would you! You’re something else entirely, and I intend to find out what that is!”

Purah had frowned at that, eyes full of sorrow as they met his own with an apologetic sigh. But there was nothing the de-aged scientist could really say against the royal Sovreign of Hyrule, not as a Sheikah sworn to the service of the royal family. The woman/girl had offered him a sympathetic pat on the head later after climbing up to reach high enough to do so, as well as a few dumplings that Paya had sent on her grandmother’s behalf the day before. It was a welcome gesture, but amounted to so little on the grand scale of life. Not when so many others he had once called his friends had so blatantly rejected the mere sight of him.

Bolson and the other carpenters shied away from him with harsh whispers as they spat insults across the distance.

‘Half-blood’.

‘Gerudo Bastard’.

‘Freak’.

‘Demon’.

There were favorite insults spread from stable to stable and up and coming village to up and coming town and slowly all of Hyrule knew of the monster that had once been the hero. Gossip abounded, and he couldn’t even turn to shield his face with his hood without drawing attention to his arm.

It was only the koroks that welcomed him, themselves all too accustomed to the strange and ethereal. Them and the blupees.

Maybe it was the knowledge of how it felt to be shot at for his oddness that allowed him to ease into the graces of the flighty animals. And maybe it was his lonely heart crying for comfort, but when nestled in their midst, it almost reminded him of how it felt to be hugged by the salty veteran, on the rare occasional that the pink-haired hero had let down his guard.

The fairy’s tangled themselves in his hair and the blupees gathered at his feet, koroks dancing around him and flying to his side as if he was some sort of forest god, but the strange rise of his spirits in their presence shattered the instant a traveler caught sight of him.

Arrows and fire, once his favorite of weapons, were turned against him as words in every language of the New Hyrule had burst from the mouths of its people, and like his namesake, he ran before them, darting through the forest and fading in amidst the trees, hiding, incorporeal and translucent within the halls of the forest as those he’d once seen as allies pushed him away.

He’d begged the new Queen for aid, for relief or even just a word to the people that he wasn’t the evil they had come to think he was, but she only waved him aside with a purse of her lips. “You are not meant to be here without first asking.” The Child of Hylia declared, eyes as cold as the Shrine’s waters themself. “And why should I make a declaration on behalf of a man who refuses to even speak to me properly? You come groveling like a worm, yet for years it was I who you ignored. See how it feels, Sir Hero, to be the one left helpless at the hands of the country. Know what it is to be scorned by those who you thought would love you.”

He’d barely made it out of the window before the trainee guards of the newly repaired Hyrule Castle had caught him and Queen Zelda Diana Hyrule had stared after him with eyes colder than Hebra’s tallest peaks.

It was the Father Tree -the Deku Tree as the Queen had called it, but the koroks laughed at him for using the name, so he’d adjusted in kind- who suggested that he hide the changes, and he’d begun to wander Hyrule as much as possible to find the materials he would have needed.

The Queen still required his presence regularly so she could inspect him; her love of science no ways tainted as to stop her from ordering him to appear regularly, as there was now no need or safety in his acting as her guard. The Queen sought her people’s respect, and to employ such a being as himself, not Hylian and not quite mortal, would be to spark fear in the people. Indeed, when he skirted villages, he would wince at word of ‘the queen’s monster’ as gossip was traded. Those who didn’t see him themselves knew him as a beast of feral nature who lived amid the lost woods and destroyed any who came close.

“A specter that glows with the light of the shrines.” They would tell each other over campfires. “It has eyes like a ghost, empty and lost, with no care for humanity or Hylia’s chosen. They say it was once the Hero of this world, but he died ages ago.”

“I heard it’s the body, possessed by a being beyond this realm, a monster escaped from the edges of reality that tried to hide in our midst but corrupted it’s host so that it only scares away others, leaving it roam the earth in a shattered body. If you get too close to it though, it’ll take your instead.”

He’d stayed away from towns after that.

The blupees and koroks had been happy to help him to find what he needed to hide among the Hylians should he wish though, and two in particular guided him; the korok swinging little twigs like they were batons and humming swinging little shanties as it hopped along the path, the blupee snorting softly and nipping at his heels when he wandered too far, unnatural purple eyes staring up at him with something that was fondness and a reprimand all at once, and in their care he’d made his way across the land of Hyrule to find what would be needed to return to his once life.

The fairies and their Great cousins had been welcome help, and in time, he’d been able to walk amid the populace of Hyrule like any other, as long as he kept a long cloak about him and his hair pulled back to hide where the roots would begin showing again in gold and ethereal blue.

Once Hyrule had talked about needing to hide in his world, about the curse that followed him and made the Hylian people afraid. He’d thought it bizarre and ridiculous of the people at the time, but now he understood what it was to live it.

When the portal opened beneath his feet the day that the Queen had reprimanded him for concealing and potentially damaging the strange limb, startling the Skeikah scientists and Queen both, he’d nearly cried tears of relief.

He was going away, somewhere where he wasn’t a science project and where, unless they traveled to his world’s future, no one would know how much he had changed. His copy of the slate had enough hair dye to last him a few months, and he was certain he could make more over time, and as long as he continued wearing the tunics and gloves the fairies had helped him to adjust to hide the glow the others would probably never catch on. Or well, he could extend it anyway.

His brothers greeted him with open arms and teary eyes, and in a strange parallel to his adventure, he found himself thinking of blupees when Legend had curled against him, stiff and cold on the outside, but with fingers that clutched his tunic just a bit too tight to really be reluctant. And Four, Hyrule and Wind’s exuberant hugs and chatter brought to mind tiny forest people and koroks with twigs for batons.

It was good to be home.

It was good to cook for other people again, and they were glad to have him cook for them, even if his fondness for both Gerudo spiced dishes and fae like sweet things had increased exponentially during his newest adventure. It was good to fight at their sides, even if it was strange to once again have to take others into account before he could select a weapon. It was good to sit around a fire and talk with the others too, but that was perhaps the hardest one; it had been ages since he’d had a proper two-way conversation with anything other than a tree or a korok, and neither of those was good at either staying awake or staying focused for very long.

There were some harder things to adjust to though. Fire, for one. Unlike before when he’d have been happy to burn an enemy camp to the ground, now he was wary of using faming weapons or spreading heat further than necessary. The same went for hunting; he couldn’t bring himself to shoot an animal unless it attacked first or they needed the meat it would provide, and even then, he felt a bit bad for doing so. Is this what Twilight had felt like? Is this why the rancher never liked hunting? Because he too knew what it was like to be on the other end of the bow?

But the hardest thing by far to readjust to was his name.

‘Wild’ they had called him again, and after months of ‘the wild one’, ‘wild beast’, ‘monster’ and every other insult, slur or title that had been used on him, it made him flinch ever so slightly at the words. And unlike the other things where his brothers dismissed it as a change caused by his adventure or an increase of maturity, it was something that the others seemed to either not notice or to excuse as situational.

He had adapted though, learned to keep a smile on his face where blankness had once been required in his knightly duties, and the more he wore the mask the easier it was to put on again.

He’d reveled in traveling across time again, in dancing through battles and exploring the world without the Queen reprimanding him in her cold tones to stop wandering off. He’d pushed himself to learn more music in the last adventure, and even if his experience was more with what few instruments Ganon had had time to help him learn, he’d enjoyed sitting down with the others and borrowing one or another instrument to play a tune and sometimes he even got to sing.

He fell to comfortably into his role though, even with the changes, and he hadn’t even noticed when they’d come back to his world. To be fair, it was different in the daytime, and Hyrule had changed so much in the absence of her hero as he hid himself away from the eyes of civilization. Towns and roads had sprung up where there had only been fields before, and the Guardians that had littered the land had all been dug up and hauled to the castle to be either restored or destroyed by the Sheikah, depending on what Queen Zelda decided after she looked at them herself. The world was so different to him, so unlike that which he knew, that he’d failed to keep as alert as he ought to have been when he wandered about an open market with the others, laughing and chattering away with the other younger ones as Time and Legend herded them towards the needed stalls.

It was a traveler that was his downfall, a man who’d seen the Monster Hero and had been among the first to discover the disguise he wore.

No questions were asked when the word spread, and Wild hadn’t caught on to the whispers until a stone had struck his cheek and he was stumbling forwards on the path.

“Wild!” Twilight was at his side in a minute, Time right after him as Legend launched a barrage of insults at the guilty party who’d thrown the thing.

“’m fine.” He was careful to wipe the blood away with his cloak, holding the fabric to the wound to prevent bluish blood seeping down his face and exposing him to his brothers. He wanted to keep them as long as possible and proving himself to be a monster, not even Hylian, would surely have them turning their backs on him.

“Get away from him!” A woman scolded, grabbing ahold of two of the younger heroes while several other shoppers had like ways grabbed Legend and Sky. “Are you dears alright? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Freaking what?” Legend shrieked. “Who’s the injured party here?”

“I’d avoid that thing, son.” A man huffed through a frankly walrus like mustache, eyes hard as they trailed to where Wild stood, cloak still pressed to his cheek as he attempted to wave off a fussing Twilight and Time. “It’s not natural. Sure, it looks like a normal Hylian, but that’s just an effective ruse.”

Another villager nodded. “It’s one of the Calamity’s puppets, a Gerudo-Bastard set on destroying the kingdom!”

“He’s the freaking hero!” Legend shrieked, barely being held back by a steely eyed Sky. “He saved all your freaking asses and all you can do is insult his flipping guts? Who’s the-”

“Enough.” There were few times that Sky’s voice reached levels worse than Twilight’s growls, but the stern command, regal and firm, froze all present as the man stiffened with a cold nod towards the villagers. “I see we are unwelcome here, and with that being the case it would be wise to spend our rupees elsewhere. Legend,” A tug to the boy’s shoulders. “Let’s join the others and be out of their hair. If they cannot be welcoming and kind to our brother than they will not receive our patronage.” And like a swan gathering it’s cygnets, Sky swept down the street, cape fluttering as he ushered the rest of them out of the town and back to the safety of the wilds. The village stared after them with wide eyes, as if they’d just been judged by a breathing god.

The stiffness in Sky’s shoulders faded as they neared the edge of the forest, and instantly the Chosen Hero been tutting over Wild, gently but firmly prying his hand away from his face with a kind smile that almost set Wild at ease. Almost.

“It’s fine, it’s just a scrape.”

“Still.” Sky crooned softly. “I’d rather we clean it up now and make sure it’s nothing worse than let it sit and get infected later.”

And though he’d tried to fight, his single Hylian hand was no match for the firm grip of the Skyloftian, and within minutes his face was exposed to the shocked faces and flickering eyes of his brothers.

“It’s blue...” Wind breathed as Hyrule darted forwards, hands already glowing softly only for them to stutter to a stop over Wild’s skin.

“It’s... Wild, why is your blood- why is-” The healer’s eyes had flickered golden for a moment, wide as they stared up at him. “What happened to you-”

“What the freak!” Legend had startled, blinking in surprise as he stared. “Your eyes are glowing!”

Shit! The healing properties of the arm had already taken affect and it was making everything act up all weird! He shot a glance down at his arm, one hand raising to tangle in the long hair he couldn’t even see at the moment, praying silently beneath his breath that nothing was showing through. It wasn’t, but that didn’t change how Hyrule had come to fixate on his right arm, or how the healer's fingers hovered over it sparking and eyes twinkling as he whispered softly under his breath.

“Wild.” Time had sighed. “I think this one is going to need an explanation.”

All the breath left his lung in instants.

He’d panicked to say the least and Time had eventually shooed the others away to make camp as the eldest hero had sat at his side, waiting silently for him to regulate his breathing. Touch was too much right now, and any attempts from the others to ease him down or help him level out his breathes had only made him panic more. But when at last his blue eyes blinked back to clarity it was to see Time sitting at his side, a gentle tune wafting from the Ocarina at his lips.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, trying his hardest not to startle Time or otherwise make the situation worse. “I should have said something, I know. I just- missed being Wild and I wanted to come back and be normal and I didn’t want to-”

“It’s alright.” Time’s voice rumbled softly, a single blue eye turning to him with a pained look, even as the man offered him a hint of a smile. “None of us talk about our adventures either.”

“Yes, but you’re people.” He sighed, rubbing the fingers of his glove together. “You’re allowed to choose things.”

There was pain in Time’s voice when their leader answered. “And you’re not?”

“I’m not Hylia anymore.” He whispered. “I don’t count.”

“You count to us.”

“That’s because you don’t know.”

Time shifted, turning to face him fully as the ocarina was set firmly in the grass. “That’s because you’re family and we care. Wild, I don’t care if Demise himself named you the king of the dead, you’re still my kid and Nayru knows I’m not going to let you go without a fight. If that means fighting you, alright, but you’d best better believe that no amount of physical or mental changes will break the bonds we all have with you.”

Something, something damaged and crushed and stitched up and torn open again clenched inside of him, tears pricking at his eyes as he stared up at Time’s royal blue gaze. “W-what?”

“You could be granted godhood, made a monster, I don’t care. You’re ours and you’ll have to deal with that.” Time smiled, warm even with the pain in his eyes as he looked down at him. “So how about you start again, maybe with the facts rather than the insults. Or,” Time softened, brows furrowing lightly. “If you want, we can just sit here and you can choose to talk about this later. We do need to know, so we can help you and keep you safe, but you don’t have to tell us right now. You can take some time to figure out what you want to say if you need.”

And, well, shoot him, but Time’s arms had always been a safe place and there was one thing he’d wanted more than anything since he had come back. Wild threw himself into his grand-mentor's arms with a soft sob, clutching tightly to the other, ignoring the armor and its sharp points and awkward shapes as he tried to hold back all the emotions swirling in his chest.

Time’s arms folding around him broke the floodgates though, and when the man’s hand had stroked through his shortened hair, he’d had to bury his face in Tim’s neck to muffle his sobs.

“There, there,” Time hummed softly, rocking slowly as he held the broken wild hero. “Let it out, little one. I have you, I’ve got you and I’m not letting anyone hurt you.”

#whumptober 2021 #linkeduniverse #linked universe #idiot writes angst #idiot writes whump #lu wild #lu time #lu sky #lu legend #sky is scary when he's mad #wild whump #botw2 #botw2 theories #mean flora #flora bashing #zelda botw bashing #I ACUALLY LOVE FLORE PLS DON'T HATE ME!!!!#father time

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dccomicsimagines · 3 years

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Spontaneous Valentine’s Date - Bruce Wayne x Reader

Requested by Anon - can you do an imagine when Bruce and the reader go on a date to a Burger king etc and Bruce start eating the burger like in the comic and the reader be just like wat? #-#!!!!!

Requested by Anon - can you write one where Bruce Wayne changes up date night on Valentine’s Day?!!

***

“Lois and I are taking it easy this year. We’re ordering in and enjoying quiet time together,” Clark said, walking into the meeting room with Barry. He adjusted his cape. Bruce was already seated at the meeting table. He rolled his eyes before focusing back on his paperwork.

Barry chuckled. “That’s nice. I’m planning on taking Iris on a surprise trip to Paris.” He took his seat, spinning in his chair. “I’ll scoop her up and run her there just in time for brunch in front of the Eiffel Tower.”

“Sounds nice.” Clark sat down next to Bruce. “What about you, Bruce? You and (Y/N) have big plans this year?”

Bruce grunted. “Plans for what?” His eyes stayed on his paperwork, but his mind raced to figure out what he missed. It had to be something everyone was celebrating? Did he forget your birthday again? Wait, not everyone would be celebrating that.

“Valentine’s day, B.” Barry spun in his chair, laughing in delight. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“He’s the world’s greatest detective. Of course, he didn’t forget.” Clark shook his head, crossing his arms. “I know what you’re planning, Bruce. You’ll take (Y/N) to that five star restaurant and buy them another piece of jewelry.”

Bruce glared at Clark. “Why does it matter?” He cursed himself for forgetting Valentine’s Day again. Hopefully, Alfred remembered and made the reservations for him.

“You do the same thing every year.” Clark chuckled, sharing a look with Barry. “Anytime you celebrate something, whether it’s a birthday, holiday, or anniversary, you take (Y/N) to the same restaurant and buy them jewelry.”

“What is wrong with that?” Bruce tensed, defensive. “That what (Y/N) likes.”

Barry snorted. “Doubt that.” Bruce turned his glare onto Barry. Barry flinched. “Come on, B. It wouldn’t kill you to change it up once and a while.”

Bruce pursed his lips into a firm line. “Don’t you two have something better to do instead of being in here distracting me?” He looked back at the paperwork with a grunt. Barry and Clark took the hint, leaving the room and taking their conversation with them. Bruce relaxed only slightly. Was he boring you? Did he really always take you to the same restaurant? Throughout the rest of day, it nagged him in the back of his mind.

***

Bruce eyed Dick from the batcomputer chair as Dick flipped around on the uneven bars in the cave. The fourteen year old swung around with the skill of an Olympian. Bruce glanced at the batcomputer before looking back at Dick. Dick somersaulted off the uneven bar to land perfectly on the mat below.

“Tat da!” Dick shouted, smiling brightly when he saw Bruce was watching. “What do you think, Bruce?” He picked up a towel and his water bottle.

“Good, but I don’t see why you need to show off. You don’t need to be that flamboyant in the field.” Bruce turned back to the batcomputer.

Bouncy footsteps echoed throughout the cave as Dick came to Bruce’s side. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun from time to time.” Dick leaned against Bruce’s computer chair. “What’s wrong with you? You realize the computer is off, right?”

Bruce blushed slightly. “Right.” He turned the computer on. “Dick, can I ask you something? Hero to sidekick confidentiality?”

Dick laughed. “Sure. Fire away.” He smirked down at Bruce, clearly enjoying himself.

“Do...” He cleared his throat. “Do you think I’m boring (Y/N)?” Silence followed. Bruce bit his lip, glancing at Dick to find him trying to hold back laughter by pressing his hand over his mouth. “I’m being serious.”

A little snicker escaped Dick. He swallowed it, pulling his hand away from his mouth. “No, I mean you’re just predictable, Bruce, but people like predictability most of the time.”

“Most of the time.” Bruce frowned. “Do you think (Y/N) is one of those people?”

Dick smiled. “(Y/N) loves you, Bruce. I think they’d be happy just spending time with you.” He turned to head upstairs to the manor. “But it wouldn’t hurt to surprise them. Do something unexpected.”

Bruce hummed. He watched Dick go. “Unexpected.” The batcomputer binged with new messages. Bruce frowned, pushing aside his dilemma for work once again.

***

“I’ve made your reservations for tomorrow and Mr. Kato will be coming by your office with a selection of jewelry.” Alfred folded up Bruce’s cape. He wrinkled his nose at the sewer smell that oozed from it. Bruce had just gotten back from patrol. Unfortunately, Bruce had been forced to chase Killer Croc through the sewers all night.

Bruce paused after he peeled off the top of his suit. “Alfred, do you think I’m predictable?”

Alfred clicked his tongue. “Master Bruce, you are as predictable as they come. How do you think I am always able to see to your needs so easily?” He took the top of Bruce’s suit with a sneer of disgust. “Of course, you do surprise me once and a while. This being a prime example.”

“Sorry, Alfred.” Bruce stepped out of his suit pants and went straight into the shower. “Is (Y/N) already in bed?”

“Yes, Mx. (Y/N) retired in order to be well rested for the Wayne Enterprises meeting in the morning. They will be taking your place.” Alfred raised his voice to be heard over the shower. “What makes you ask if you are predictable, sir? You don’t often have such concerns about your character.”

Bruce grunted, washing his hair. “I’ve been told that (Y/N) may not appreciate my predictability.”

“From who? Mx. (Y/N) themselves?” The sink ran. Bruce assumed Alfred started soaking his suit.

“Dick, Clark, Barry.” Bruce blushed, cursing himself for feeling self conscious about their comments. He reasoned it was only because he felt he would never be good enough for you.

Alfred hummed. “Yes, well, Mx. (Y/N) will be happy with whatever you do, Master Bruce. Let me know if you want me to cancel anything.”

Bruce sighed, peeking out of the shower at Alfred who was leaving the room. “Why can’t you just say I should change our plans?” he mumbled. “I know you want me to.” He put his face straight into the spray, deciding he would get one last opinion before he spent time figuring out what to do.

***

He crawled into bed next to you. You mumbled in your sleep. He spooned into you, tucking you against him and burying his nose into the back of your neck.

“How was Gotham?” You turned over to look him in the eye.

“Better now that Killer Croc is back in Arkham.” Bruce sighed, touching his nose to yours. “Sorry, I woke you up.”

“It’s okay. I like to know you’re safe and with me.” You smiled and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “It’s after midnight, so Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Bruce’s face fell slightly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He returned your kiss halfheartedly.

“What’s wrong?” You noticed the change, pulling back to look at him.

“Nothing.” Bruce bit his lip. He studied you, drinking in how accepting and perfect you were. How did you fall in love with him? He’d never figure it out, even if he was the world’s greatest detective. “If we did something different for Valentine’s Day this year, would you mind?”

Your eyes lit up. “Different? What did you have in mind?”

Bruce’s heart sank. Your reaction proved he was in fact boring you. He was a failure as a husband clearly. “It’s a surprise.” He forced a smile on his face. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

You slammed your lips against his passionately. “I’ll be happy with anything, sweetheart.” You pulled him on top of you. Bruce groaned, quickly getting distracted. He’ll have to figure out what to do for you later.

***

Bruce slipped on the leather jacket you had gifted him that morning as he stood in the entry hall of the manor. “Are you seriously wearing jeans?” Dick asked, sliding down the railing of the stairs only to flip off and land in front of Bruce.

“We’re going casual.” Bruce crossed his arms.

“What’s the big plan?” Dick copied Bruce by crossing his arms. He smirked, letting his hair fall into his eyes. Bruce was taken back by how Dick had grown. It was like it was yesterday when he was nine years old and swinging off the chandelier.

“I...I’m making it up as we go.” Bruce glanced up the stairs, looking for you. “So you have Wally West coming here and you two are going to...not go on patrol?” He narrowed his eyes when Dick flashed a charming smile.

“Yeah, we’re going to play video games. Alfred will make sure we don’t burn the manor down. Besides, (Y/N) would kill us.” Dick looked up the stairs when you came around the corner.

“That’s right.” You took Bruce’s breath away. Your clothes were causal, jeans with a nice shirt. “I don’t want you and Wally eating all the Valentines candy I let you buy and staying up all night. In bed by midnight.” You put your hands on Dick’s shoulders, kissing his forehead. “Listen to Alfred.”

“Yes, (Y/N).” Dick blushed, pulling away. “Have fun you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He winked and ran off before Bruce could smack him in the back of the head.

“He’s gotten bad.” Bruce grumbled, turning back to you.

You played with the collar of his leather jacket. “Only learns from example.” Chuckling, you smirked up at Bruce. “I have to say I have good taste. This looks amazing on you.”

“You’re stunning as always.” Bruce kissed you passionately, wrapping his arms around your waist. He loved you so much. His heart threatened to burst.

Alfred cleared his throat from the front doorway. “Mr. and Mx. Wayne, I have the Dodge Charger out front and idling.”

“Yes, thank you.” Bruce pulled away from you, nodding to Alfred. “We’ll be back some time tonight, Alfred. Don’t wait up.”

“Of course, Master Bruce.” Alfred left the room with a satisfied smile on his lips.

“So Mr. Wayne, what is this surprise of yours?” You hooked your arm with his. “I have to say, I’m quite excited about it.”

Bruce forced a smile on his face. “Just wait and see.” He led you out to the car, hoping an idea will come to him on the drive to Gotham.

***

“Ooo, so we’re going to the mall, Bruce?” You looked at him curiously. “Have you even been to a mall?”

Bruce cleared his throat. “I’m sure I took you once.” He pulled into a parking space. “Didn’t you drag me here to buy something for Dick?”

“I dragged you?” You laughed, eyes shining. “Bruce, I usually have to drag you everywhere.” You got out once Bruce turned off the car. “But this is a nice change of pace.”

Bruce stayed in the car, silently sighing in relief. Thank goodness he happened to drive past the mall and decided to take a chance. You peeked back into the car at him. He looked at you with wide eyes. “I’m coming.” He quickly got out of the car, banging his head on the way out. You laughed.

“Now you’re acting like you did on our first date.” You leaned against the car, watching him from over the roof. “We were seventeen. Alfred just dropped us off at...”

“The library. I thought I was being original.” A small smile pulled at his lips. He blinked, flashing an image of you at seventeen when you were the loveliness person he ever saw. You still were. More beautiful if anyone asked him.

“Very original.” You came around the car and kissed his cheek. “You were such a mess. Sweating, dropping books, tripping all over the place.”

Bruce laughed. “Only with you. I’ve loved you then, and I love you now.” He took your hand and kissed the back of your hand. “Come on, let’s go.” He pulled you along toward the mall entrance.

***

You sat at one of the mall food court’s grubby tables. Alfred would have a heart attack and honestly you weren’t one hundred percent thrilled by it, but this was fun. Very fun.

Bruce approached with a tray of burgers and fries. He seemed so out of his element. You enjoyed it. “Did you have trouble, dear?” You asked as he frowned at the table before carefully setting the tray down.

“No.” He sank down onto the chair across from you. His eyebrow raised when he saw the smirk on your face. “What is that for?”

“Bruce, did you really plan to bring me here?” You crossed your arms, resting your elbows on the table.

“Yes.” He took a burger and unwrapped it. “I thought it would surprise you.”

You glanced around the mall. “It certainly surprised me, but what brought this on?”

Bruce unfolded a napkin and laid it on the table to make a barrier between his burger and the table. Your eyes widened as he opened a plastic set of silverware and started to cut his burger and eat it with his fork as if it were the finest steak in town. “I just thought we should do something different this year.”

“Seriously?” He looked up at you in surprise. “Come on, Bruce. You don’t have to do that here.”

“What?” He frowned in confusion.

You rolled your eyes. “Sweetheart, I know you think you need to do that to make Bruce Wayne a spoiled rich kid, but that is just ridiculous. You don’t eat a burger that way at home or when you and Dick do your late night fast food stops.” Just to show him, you unwrapped your own burger and took a big bite.

Bruce stared at you. “Fine.” He dropped the silverware and picked up his own burger with his hands. “But if I spill on the leather coat you just gave me, it’s your fault.”

“Worth it,” you said once you swallowed. “So you never answered my question, Mr. Wayne. What brought on this surprise?”

Bruce cleared his throat, setting down his burger to take a drink. “It was made apparent to me that I was...boring you.”

“Boring me?” You blinked at him. A rare blush came to his cheeks. “Bruce, how could you bore me? You’re the most interesting, handsome man I know.”

“I didn’t realize we always went to the same restaurant and I kept giving you jewelry for every single special occasion.” Bruce shook his head, meeting your eye. “I let you down, (Y/N). You’re more special than just a habit.”

You smiled. Your heart skipped a beat. Why did he have to be so wonderful? You stood up, leaning over the table to kiss his lips. “I love you, Bruce Wayne.”

Bruce didn’t respond at first, surprised before he melted into you. Once you felt your skin burn, your body tingling with need, you pulled away. “Maybe we should head home early?” Bruce’s eyes danced eagerly.

“We’ll have plenty of time when we get home. I want to enjoy your spontaneous Valentine’s Day while I can.” You winked at him before taking another bite of your burger and settling into your seat. “What’s your plan after this?”

Bruce eyed his burger. “Well...” He glanced around. “We could walk around, see what catches our interests. I don’t know what’s here.” He looked back at you. You met his eye, falling more in love with him by the second. How could you fall more in love with the person you already loved? You guessed you were finding out.

***

“Are you sure Dick will want that?” Bruce asked, watching as you picked up a t-shirt in Dick’s size.

“Yes, he’s a teen boy, Bruce.” You held up the shirt to show him. It was a Star Wars shirt with Chewbecca on it. “He loves Star Wars and since we’re here, we might as well.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. Punk rock music echoed in his ears as he and you stood in the crowded Hot Topic store. He couldn’t believe there could be so much crap in one place. “I would have never wore that as a teenager.”

“No, but you were raised by Alfred.” You kissed his cheek. Bruce tensed when you got a playful smirk on your lips. “You know it is buy two get one free.”

“No.” Bruce held up a hand. “Don’t think about it.”

A pout crept onto your lips. Bruce’s heart melted at the sight. “Come on, Mr. Wayne.” You smiled innocently at him, but the sparkle in your eye told him you knew how to get him to bend. “This would be quite different from all the beautiful jewelry you have given me. I love it all really, but if you did want to be spontaneous and different this year...”

Bruce rolled his eyes. You were worse than Alfred. Passive aggressive all the way. “You got me, but nothing embarrassing for me if you want me to wear it.”

“Of course, dear.” You kissed his cheek and turned back to the wall of t-shirts. Bruce’s mouth twitched, almost into a smile. He wished he would have noticed earlier, realized sooner that you would love to do something like this. A woman with several piercings came up to talk to you and you pointed at shirt on the top rack. Bruce shook his head at the sight, knowing he would love whatever you picked for him

***

“Honey, it’s okay if you can’t do it,” you whispered into Bruce’s ear as he lined up his shot. “I’ll be happy as long as you’re happy.”

“Well, I won’t be happy until I win you that bear.” Bruce narrowed his eyes before rolling the skee-ball down the lane. It bounced up and landed in the bull’s eye effortlessly.

You laughed in delight, spurring Bruce on to roll his next three balls into the bull’s eye. The machine beeped, lights flashing and about thirty tickets popped out of it. “I was worried that you broke it.” You took the tickets, winking over at Bruce.

“It’s quite easy really. Once you calculate the amount of force and the speed the ball must go to reach the correct height, it’s simple.” Bruce unzipped his jacket, warm. He smiled when his eye caught caught the red of the AC/DC logo on his t-shirt. You had forced him to put on the t-shirt you bought right away. He had to admit that he liked it.

You headed over to a racing game. “Race me?” You winked at him. Bruce nodded, eyes dropping to the shirt you brought for yourself. It pictured an old cartoon show you watched as a child. Bruce had no idea what it was, but loved how it looked on you.

He took the seat in the neighboring cabinet. A demo game played on the screen. “The physics in this game is concerning.”

“It’s a video game, Bruce. It’s supposed to be exciting.” You scanned your player card into both machines. It turned on the car selection screen. “Ooo, look at this.” Bruce frowned, glancing over at your screen to see you were selecting the strangest version of the batmobile he had ever seen.

“The car has never looked like that.” He blushed, glancing around. “Are those little batears sticking out the back?”

“Yep.” You selected it as your car. Bruce quickly turned back to his screen to chose a red corvette before the timer ended.

The race started immediately. You laughed as you stepped on the gas. Bruce frowned when he saw the hideous batmobile zoom ahead of him. “No, you don’t.” He cut you off on the next turn.

You gasped. “That’s it, Mr. Wayne. Eat my dust.” You somehow activated thrusters on the horrid batmobile, crashing into Bruce to sent him flying through the air with ridiculous speed and height. His jaw dropped as his screen went black, resetting him on the track with you far ahead of him.

“Stupid.” He shook his head, finding the button for his own thrusters.

It was a dead heat, but you crossed the finish line seconds before him. “Yes!” You jumped up from your seat, hopping around in the circle. Bruce sighed, smirking as he watched you. You went to him, sitting in his lap. “Wasn’t that exciting? Maybe you should take some design ideas from this?” You kissed his lips sweetly.

He snorted. “Maybe. Dick would get a kick out of it, that’s for sure.” He kissed you back before you hopped out of his lap to collect the tickets you earned for coming in first place. A rare laugh escaped from him as you grabbed his hand to drag him over to another game.

***

Bruce held the bear under his arm along with a few shopping bags as he went around to open your car door. “Thank you, Mr. Wayne.” You got out of the car, kissing his cheek. “I had a wonderful time.”

“Good. Maybe we’ll have to do this again sometime?” Bruce teased, acting like you both just went on your first date. You played along.

“Oh yes. Call me.” You pursed your lips with a glint in your eye. “Actually, would you mind carry my bags inside? I can maybe open a bottle of wine and slip into something more...comfortable.” You whispered the last word in his ear. You literally watched the shiver go up his spine.

“Yes, love.” He kissed your lips, leading you inside the manor.

Alfred hurried out of the kitchen to meet the two of you in the entry. “Master Bruce, the signal is up.”

Bruce’s shoulders sank. “Of course.” You smiled to hide your disappointment. “I have to go.”

“I know.” You kissed his cheek. “Just know I’ll be waiting for you when you get home.” You took the bags and the bear from him.

Bruce smiled. “Good. Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart.” He sealed a passionate kiss to your lips, dipping you slightly. You buried your fingers in his hair before he righted you and left the room.

You panted, shaking your head with a smile. Alfred just eyed the bear you held. “Are Dick and Wally still awake?”

“Yes, the boys just finished their fourth pizza an hour ago.” Alfred rolled his eyes. “Mr. West certainly eats quite a bit.”

“Well, he has to keep up with his metabolism.” You sighed and dug into one of your bags. “We got you some of the tea you like. There was a tea store at the mall.” You held out the box to him. Alfred’s eyes widened.

“Master Bruce took you to the mall?” He wrinkled his nose. “That was his plan?”

You laughed, delighted by the shock on Alfred’s face. “No, he was being spontaneous and we happened to drive by.” You adjusted the bags and the bear in your arms. “Are the boys still in the den? I think I’ll hang out with them for a bit, keep them from following Bruce into the city.”

“Of course, Mx. (Y/N).” Alfred smiled at the box of tea before following you into the den where you were met with Dick and Wally’s noisy chatter.

***

Bruce felt sick to his stomach as he climbed the stairs. He held back a yawn. The grandfather clock dinged loudly from the study. Four in the morning. Bruce sighed. You were probably asleep already. He hated that he missed the something comfortable you changed into.

The bedroom door was shut. Bruce paused outside, closing his eyes for a moment. He hoped you wouldn’t be upset with him. What was he supposed to do when Gordon told him about bodies disappearing from funeral homes only to reappear with missing limbs? In fact, he still hadn’t solved the case, but he had set up a trap for the body snatcher and it had to wait until tomorrow night.

Opening the door silently, his stomach dropped when he saw lit candles around the room. You were asleep on the bed in a beautiful, skimpy outfit. Your phone laid on your stomach and the blanket that was usually across the foot of the bed covered your waist.

A groan came from deep in Bruce’s gut as he locked the door behind him. He crawled onto the bed, not bothering to undress. Pulling you against his chest, he worship your neck with kisses.

“Bruce?” Your eyes fluttered as you yawned. A hand came around to rest on Bruce’s cheek. “You’re home.”

“Finally, yes.” He moaned against your collarbone as his kisses moved downward. The taste of your skin drove him wild. “I’m sorry it’s so late.”

“Yeah, it’s no longer Valentine’s Day.” You buried a hand in his hair, opening your eyes enough to watch him shower your body with kisses. “But who’s says we can’t let this be Valentine’s Eve?”

Bruce chuckled against your skin. “That would have been the day before yesterday.”

“Same thing.” You wrapped your legs around him when he crawled on top of you. “I love you, Bruce Wayne.” You looked him straight into the eye. Bruce felt the love and passion in your eyes shoot straight down to his abdomen.

“I love you, (Y/N) Wayne.” He kissed your lips and the two of you finished one of the best Valentine’s Days either of you had ever had.

#bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne imagine #dc comics imagines #dc reader insert #batman x reader #batman #batman imagine

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cherryvampiro · 3 years

Photo

Horror move night at Ben’s house with the ms gang! 🍿✨

As promised I’ve written a quick introduction to my Middle School au! All information will be under the read more 😊 :

Main plot (Spoiler warning for Ben 10 (2016) Movie) :

The big plot for this au is there’s a war going on in space. Since the Omnitrix was created fighting against planets emerged all due to Vilgax’s first use of the Omnitrix as a warlord. Though the fighting started off small, it soon escalated and began to grow larger and larger. 2-3 years of nonstop fighting soon formed into one big territorial war. Which is why Argit, Rook, & many other aliens are on earth. Everyone is looking for a safe planet to hide with their families, hoping whatever planet they find themselves in will be spared or undetected.

((I will elaborate more on the space war when I introduce Albedo & Attea))

Basic theme of the au:

The main theme to this au would be “Change” = Change in yourself, your friends, your life, & the universe around you! The reason I picked this specific theme was so each character can have their own arc/growth in this au. It also suits the coming of age themes that many kids go through in that age (their appearance, their morals, who they are,etc.) This au is still very new in my head but below I’d gather enough ideas I have for each of the characters!

((Some of it may change in the future))

Ben Tennyson:

After having the Omnitrix for 2 years, Ben thinks he can handle it all ((but boy is he wrong!)) Ben’s main character arc would revolve around making tough decisions and not being afraid to ask for help.

With beings coming from other planets, he’s gonna face off many new foes! Foes who do not care that he’s a child, beings who are willing to sacrifice a child for their own ideals. He’ll have to make decisions on who to trust and deal with the potential consequences with owning the watch. With bigger threats landing on earth Ben gets the fortunate and unfortunate of meeting new people! (Such as Albedo, Attea, & Julie)

It’s his choice now on who he’s willing to trust, help, and who to fight for. Lucky for him he’s not alone!

Fun Character Fact: Ben wears baggy clothes ((sweaters, hoodies, sweats, cargo pants)) due to a little body insecurity he has! He’s not so much ashamed of his body, just a little embarrassed and would prefer the comfort of his big green hoodie.

Gwen Tennyson:

Gwen goes to a private all ages school and is the top student in all her classes! Gwen’s main character arc would be dealing & learning about her new found powers. Not only that but to learn she doesn’t have to be what others perceive her as.

To elaborate on the second arc: My Gwen has grown into the role of being the Smart Kid™️. By being the top student she’s also pressured to fit a certain expectation by her teachers and peers. She has doubts of herself and wonders what’s deemed as “appropriate” for her intelligence ((like no more kiddy stuff, even if it interests her)).

This would come to fruition when her anodite powers emerge ((in the scariest way possible)) She’d start her daily routine the same only with a slight migraine problem. Migraines soon turn to ache and ache soon turn to her face cracking like a porcelain doll while at school. Afraid to ask any adult she asks help from Ben & Kevin ((Then Rook, Julie, & Argit who end up sneaking through Gwen’s window after they get dragged into hiding Gwen from her parents)). The whole event was scary but with clarification from her grandpa it all became clear.

Fun Character Fact: Ben can’t scan Gwen’s Anodite DNA into his watch due to the Omntrix stating “DNA already attained” since they’re related. He’d have to scan an Anodite not related to him by blood to absorb their DNA.

Kevin Levin:

Kevin in this au no longer wears his Anti-Trix. He took it off the first day of 7th grade and hadn’t put it on since. He’s not sure he’s cut out to be a hero and instead focuses his time on his crafts. Kevin’s main arc is one I have yet to think about fully. I’m not sure whether to have him grow into his osmosian DNA or have him go through a different self discovery. Bashmouth is my favorite alien of Kevin and I’m thinking of having him have his DNA altered like in the OS but with Bashmouth only. It’d make more sense to explain once I introduced Albedo later ((hopefully!))

Fun Character Fact: Kevin has gotten better with his mechanical skills and uses those skills to make the goofiest stuff ((Such as a mobile couch on wheel so he and the homies can ride it to get some smoothies)).

Rook Blonko:

Rook Blonko is a foreign exchange student, as far as anyone knows, who goes to Gwen’s school. Rook's main arc would be choosing to run or fight with the Tennysons.

Rook was originally sent to earth to see whether this planet was safe or not for his family to relocate to. Unbeknownst to him and his family, Rook would be staying with the cousin of the keeper of the Omnitrix. With this discovery Rook should have hopped to another planet to live in but he took the chance to know the user of the watch. Getting to know the Tennysons and the people of earth has changed Rook’s thoughts of his mission. Should he run away and save his own family or should he stay and fight with his new found friends and make sure no one else is forced to abandon their home.

Fun Character Fact: Rook stays with Gwen’s family. He’s introduced to Ben, Kevin, & Argit when Gwn begs them to hang out with Rook ((He’d often stay in his room studying and Gwen wanted him to socialize. She regrets it later when they all come home smelling like garbage)).

Julie Yamamoto:

Julie’s one of Bellwood Junior High’s top tennis players! She takes many AP classes which explains why Ben’s never seen her around school before. Julie doesn’t actually have an arc. She’s one of the characters willing to help no matter what. She’s first induced to alien knowledge when she saves Ben from a DNAlien. Through Ben she learns about the Omntrix, aliens, and what’s going on outside their planet. From then on she’s supported and helped Ben on his mission to save the world and beyond. If she had to give a reason as to why she’s helping she’d have two:

Innocent beings shouldn’t have to flee from their homes.

A 12 yr old shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.

She may be human but she’s willing to do what she can to make a difference in any means possible. ((She maybe reward too with a certain pet from space))

Fun Character Fact: Julie is a trans girl in this au 🏳️‍⚧️ Julie’s also super into horror media!

Argit:

Argit is the kid in the halls you can get anything from. Candy, chips, test answers, phone numbers, you name it! Like Rook, Argit’s main arc would be choosing to run or fight with the Tennysons.

Argit is one of the kids most affected by the war. He no longer has a planet and was forced to flee to another planet. Since his first foot step on earth he’s only looked out for himself. He adapted to his environment and learned to support himself. Argit’s the most afraid of the alien kid bunch to be outed as non-human. He’s already built so much for himself here on earth that he’s afraid of losing it all just for his appearance.

Argit would rather high tail away from any alien fights then stay and help. He doesn’t care much for the Tennysons but he does respect Kevin. But hanging out with Kevin means hanging out with The Tennyson twins. Hopefully their good nature will rub off on him.

Fun Character Fact: Argit is the treasurer of his 8th grade class! His least favorite person is Ben and if he had to pick a favorite between his friends (aside from Kevin) he’d pick Julie.

This au is still new and it may go through some changes later! Please tell me what you think!

#ben 10 #ben tennyson #kevin levin #gwen tennyson #rook blonko #julie yamamoto #Argit #Argit ben 10 #ben 10 omniverse #Ben 10 reboot #CherryVamp's art #Ben 10 MS Au #CherryVamp chatter #kevin 11

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cheeriecherry · 4 years

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Can I get a cup of uhhhhhhhh dating headcanons? For Todo, Baku, and everyone's favourite sleepy dad?

One cup of headcanons, coming right up!

Warnings: Just fluff

Todoroki Shoto

-Actually getting to the dating stage is kind of a wholeass mission. I wholeheartedly believe that Todoroki is the dumbest smart person ever; he’s clever and strong, but he also strikes me as the kind of guy who thinks 1KG of steel is heavier than 1KG of feathers.

-Lol everyone knows you’ve got a crush on him. Everyone except for him. He just doesn’t think that much about dating or romance or anything like that, unless prompted. His whole life, he’s been forced to focus on hero work, so it’ll take some time for him to get out of that mentality.

-He doesn’t clue in to his feelings for you, not for a while at least. He’d start off pretty indifferent towards you like he was with everyone else, but over time he’d begin to notice that he likes having you around. He feels more relaxed around you, and more inclined to converse and be present and friendly.

-I think he’d chalk it up to ‘is this what friendship feels like’ meanwhile he’s out here training extra hard in hopes that you’ll see and be impressed.

-Someone will probably have to say something to get him thinking about his feelings for you. Either that, or he accidentally admits to you that he has a crush on you, but he doesn’t know it’s a crush, and you’re just like ‘oh bby’. You’ll have to spell it out for him.

-He finds you after class one day and asks to take a walk around campus to talk, and you’re like ‘okay sounds cool’.

-It’s a little awkward and quiet at first, and eventually you’re like ‘are you okay, did you need to talk about something?’

-And when he turns towards you his cheeks are flushed and he looks uncharacteristically flustered. Then he goes on to tell you how whenever you’re around, his heart beats faster and he gets warm even though his quirk isn’t active, and how he always wants to impress you even though he doesn’t care what other people think.

-He probably admits some really dumb stuff too, like how he still has the pencil you lent him at the beginning of the year, or how he fell on his ass during training because he was too busy staring at you.

-Pls be kind to him when you tell him about feelings. I think it will surprise him for like 0.5 seconds, but then he’ll be like ‘oh that makes sense’ in his usual way.

-Even after all that, you’re gonna have to be the one to ask him on a date. He’ll definitely say yes to you, but would still struggle with asking for himself.

-Anyways, once you guys have gone on a few dates and decide to make it exclusive, it’s a pretty relaxed relationship. He trusts you, so he’s pretty up front about everything, and if he doesn’t know what he’s feeling he’ll let you help him work through it.

-He’s not always clueless though, and he gets a lot better at expressing himself the more time he spends with you and the rest of the class.

-He’s pretty into casual touches, which he figures out after you sit beside him on the couch in the common room and set your head on his shoulder. He’ll ask you in private if you could do things like that more often, and over time he’ll start reciprocating, and it’ll just be a relationship full of head pats and held hands and forehead kisses.

-Also pls cuddle him when it’s just the two of you. Hold him close and run your fingers through his hair. 8/10 times he’ll fall asleep.

-Will want to train with you, and during class exercises he’ll seek you out as a partner/opponent. He wants to learn how to work with you, in case the need ever arises. But he also just wants to spend time with you, and likes watching you be bad ass.

-If you’re upset with him, or not quite feeling so great, please tell him. Don’t give him the cold shoulder, or be like ‘you know what you did’, because he absolutely will not know what he did. Let him know if you have an issue with something he did, from small things like eating the last of your chocolates, to more serious things like accidentally doubting your skill or flirting with other people. Just. Verbalize how you’re feeling.

-This also goes for when he does something good. Tell him when he’s made you happy, or helped improve your mood, or validated your feelings, or smth. It’ll reassure him that he’s being not only a good friend, but a good boyfriend too.

-Also,okay so he has that thing where he looks cool and aloof at first, but is actually soft and big-hearted right? There’s a whole bunch of other things he doesn’t show at first, which you are the first person to experience.

-He’s hella shy about kissing you. He’s pretty chill about PDA like holding your hand and hugging you and stuff like that, but kisses? It’s just such an intimate thing to him.

-Once he figure out he really wants to kiss you, he’s relentless in trying. Probably tries at the most inopportune times though, like at lunchtime and in the middle of class. Don’t be too mad at him, it’s the only thing his brain cell can concentrate on.

-So much so that he takes a hit during training and falls flat on his back. And you’re like ‘oh shit??’ and rush over to him once he doesn’t get up right away. You kneel over him and ask him if he’s alright, gently touching his cheek to try and calm him.

-And he just stares up at you because you look like an angel. Deadass blurts out ‘I want to kiss you so badly’ without a second thought, and smiles his little smile when you get flustered.

-And that’s how your first kiss happens, in the middle of an arena with your whole class watching. Aizawa probably scolds you.

-All in all, I think he’d be a pretty good boyf. He’d need some patience at first, and a lot of verbal affirmation and open communication, but that’s a good thing to practice in any relationship. He loves you a lot and is devoted and caring and always willing to fight for you.

Bakugou Katsuki

-God, okay, definitely the shoutiest boyfriend. He’d probably be pissed af when he realizes he’s catching feelings for you. He’s definitely not verbal about his feelings, but he’s not stunted like Todoroki is. He knows what he’s feeling, he just doesn’t like it.

-He thinks you’re a distraction to him, and probably takes it out on you. After all, if you hate him then it’ll be easier to let go of you and he won’t have to deal with you being around him.

-Sike tho, either he makes you sad and instantly feels guilty about it (which he hates), or he makes you Big Mad and you serve him his ass on a silver platter. Both ways, he’s not able to make you dislike him, and he only ends up liking you more.

-He’ll calm down after a couple weeks though, and come to terms with the fact that this is his life now and that he’s gonna have to deal with the annoying heart palpitations he gets whenever you’re around.

-Though a bonus I guess is his palms also get sweaty when you’re nearby, which means more explosions. Which we all know is a good thing for boom boy.

-Over time, he begins to slip up, and you begin to notice. His gaze lingering on you during training and during class, his lack of insults towards you, just generally being less unpleasant when he knows you’re around. Some of your classmates have also picked up on it, but none of them have really put two and two together.

-You have, though, and you know he won’t be the one to make a move. So you corner him one evening outside the dorms and confront him about it. He vehemently denies it, but all it takes is for you to look at him and he huffily admits it.

-Nothing is really agreed upon right then and there, but as the days and weeks pass, you pretty much just end up dating. You spend more time together, studying or training or goofing off. Well...he doesn’t really goof off, but he sits nearby while you do. You even convince him to come to game night with the bakusquad and -after much poking and prodding- he even plays a couple rounds of mario kart.

-He either wins or he accuses everyone of cheating. It’s funny to watch.

-He doesn’t really know how relationships work, so be patient with him also while he figures it out. If you’re mad at him, don’t try to act snide about it because it’ll just end up blowing up in your faces. He might grumble if you tell him outright, but overall he’ll try to fix it. He’s a ride or die boyfriend, and however temperamental he is, he hates making you sad.

-Also he’ll never say it out loud, but he loves cuddling you. He’s pretty strict about not showing his softer side in public, so most of your more affectionate gestures are behind closed doors. Sometimes he’ll just show up at your dorm room, slam the door shut, and flop down on your bed. This is his way of saying ‘i feel like shit, come pet my hair’.

-Most of his needs are conveyed nonverbally, so you’ll have to learn how to speak Bakugou.

-The only time he’s ever told you what he wanted out loud is when you guys had your first kiss. He was noticeably tense throughout the day, so after class you pulled him aside and asked him what was up.

-You hadn’t expected him to turn tomato red and mutter that your lot of friends had been teasing him earlier about kissing, and his lack of experience. You asked him if he wanted you to go kick their asses, and he was like ‘no, i want you to kiss me’.

-Cue both of you being flustered. But it lead to a really sweet kiss, soft and surprisingly gentle and thoughtful.

-He’s more open about kissing you publicly, if not for the fact that he’s low key addicted, then definitely because it sort of lays his claim on you without being too mushy. But those kisses will be shorter and cooler than the ones you share behind closed doors.

-When it’s just the two of you though? He’s got you held close while your lips meet, fingertips sliding across your jaw and arm held fast around your waist. Those are the kisses that lead to heated makeouts usually.

-All in all, also a good boyfriend. Abrasive and loud, but loyal and smart and willing to explode everyone if it would make you happy. He calms down over time once he gets used to the relationship, while still maintaining an air of pride. Will never hesitate to brag about you, and will affectionately shout compliments at you whenever he feels like it.

Aizawa Shouta sleepiest dad

-Anyone who knows him knows that he’s got a busy life. Between teaching and being a pro hero, he probably doesn’t have a lot of down time. So you have to be okay with him having so much work.

-He doesn’t mind if you miss him during the days, in fact he would be mildly off put if you didn’t miss him (at least a little), but you can’t be someone who would try and make him change his schedule permanently to give you more attention.

-A day or two off here and there? Sure, the occasional lazy day break is nice and also reasonable, but I don’t think it would work out if you were super clingy.

-It probably gets a little difficult when the dorm system is implemented at the school, since he’s there overnight most of the time now. I think that’s one area where he’d be willing to try and implement a better system, whether it be having you on campus with him during the nights, or allowing him to head back home.

-Because as busy as he is, he’s not a neglectful partner. Even if he’s dead tired when he comes home, he’ll always take the time to greet you and sit with you and ask you about your day and tell you about his. He’ll lay back on the couch with you across his chest, and listen to you tell him about all the dumb shit you’d witnessed throughout the day.

-He’s a little rigid about PDA, mostly because his friends tease him and he doesn’t want to risk any of his students seeing (lest the also tease him), but he’s fine with casual affection. Walking with your arm tucked around his, hugs, chaste kisses, that sort of thing. He’s an adult in a relationship, he’s not gonna deny you any of those things just because he’s shy (though he will never admit that).

-Despite his outward uncaring appearance, he’s actually really intense, and feels a lot. He’s an emotional person, he’s just really good at keeping it on the down low. So you’d have to be pretty good at reading him in order to get him to open up, but also not push him too hard. Let him know that you know he’s stressed about something, but give him the room to make the choice in coming to you.

-He’s a pretty low maintenance boyfriend. He doesn’t need all the bells and whistles and fancy dates. He’s fine making dinner together and then hanging out to watch a movie, or maybe occasionally going out for a drink or a walk. What he cares about most is spending time with you, and just getting to be around you.

-But he is still perpetually tired, so he’ll be most happy on his own couch. Dinner and movie nights often lead to cuddles, which often lead to soft kisses, and then more heated kisses, and then hands touching you everywhere.

-It’s very easy to get carried away when he kisses you. Unless you’re in public, even the smallest kiss could snowball into a good romp, granted you have the time. He’s intense and firm, but his lips are warm and pliant, and he kisses you the way he needs oxygen; desperately and absolutely.

-Arguably the best boyfriend, but maybe i’m biased because he’s my type lol. He doesn’t ask for a lot, but requires your respect on the few things he needs, and in return he’ll be there for you when he can. And when he’s there? His attention is solely on you, all his thoughts and energy. He’s quiet and patient and loving, and behind closed doors he’s pretty affectionate. If he’s dating you, then it isn’t just something casual; he’s already seen that you’re someone worth putting his time and energy into. By the time he asks you out, he’s probably already in love with you.

#aizawa shouta x reader #aizawa x reader #eraserhead x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #Anonymous

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ktheist · 3 years

Text

the prince.

knj / myg / jhs / ksj / pjm / kth / jjk

the first time jung hoseok met the commander’s daughter is on the training ground.

at the age of 9, she’s swinging the wooden sword like she’s meant to dance on the battlefield.

she welcomes him with a different kind of enthusiasm than those noble kids do when the palace arranged for them to meet at tea time.

she grins as she charges at him and she laughs when he trips on air as he’s about to strike her.

“you’re pretty good for a beginner.” she says and he pouts.

“i can’t even hold a sword properly.”

she stands in front of him with her tiny, calloused hands on her hips as if she’s about to fight him, “you’re willing to learn and that’s more than i can say for the other spoilt brats. especially the princes.”

little does she know, he’s one of his father’s princes.

he meets her again and again and again. so much so, he’s memorized her little tricks of looking at the opposite direction she’ll struck him, of her attentive eyes on his facial expressions and of her grin widening as she delivers her finishing blow.

even if he saw it coming, he could never block it.

he ends up sitting on the dirt ground, looking up at her magnificent beauty as the sun casts a halo over her body.

“you improved,” she says and she always says this after the final spar of the day, hand outstretched to help him up.

with his heart thumping inside his chest, he takes her hand knowing that he’ll attribute to the rosy flush on his face to the intense training session they just had.

and he thought he’d go on attending the training and blushing like a complete idiot like this for a long time.

“i’m joining the war,” she announces a bit too casually, “i won’t be as good as my dad but even the higher ups can’t ignore my skills.”

hoseok like to think of himself as a mild tempered person. doesn’t dream too high and always wishes for the best of those around him.

but when he heard that his -

his -

fuck.

he doesn’t even know what they are.

but when he heard that she’s joining the war, he ended saying something he shouldn’t have.

it starts with a “don’t go”.

to which she responds with a ruffle of his hair, “don’t worry, i’ll come back with the enemy’s head for the emperor and you’ll be able to say you’re friends with the war hero. isn’t that something to boast about?”

“how sure are you that you’ll come back?” it’s the first time he’s ever looked straight in her eye when they’re not swinging wooden swords at each other.

she’s an expert who well and able to hold a real sword. the only reason they spar with a wooden one is because of hoseok.

he knows he’s still lacking.

he knows he won’t make the cut even if he tried enlisting.

“...doubt my skills, are you?” she’s saying something but he’s barely listening.

“the war...it isn’t a playground. you could get killed!” he explodes like a ticking time bomb.

the next time he sees her is at the farewell parade, the sun rays trapped in the glint of her silver armor.

all he recalls is her grin down turning and her eyes widening as she locks gaze with him.

her, as a loyal subject and him, as the prince whose country she’s going to war for.

it’s the first time he’s seen tears in her eyes.

hoseok goes on weeks without the news of war but when a messenger arrives, it’s never a news to celebrate about.

“what news of the battlefront?” he struts right into the chancellor’s office like he owns the place.

“your highness, you can’t keep asking me classified information just to make sure your sweetheart is still alive and well.” namjoon sighs.

when doesn’t even deny the reason he’s flushed pink at the word and continue to wait until namjoon relays what he came here for, the latter looks down grimly.

“one of the two youngest lieutenants was reported to suffer a serious blow in the abdomen.”

hoseok thinks his heart drops, words of the letter he received from her last month detailing her excitement for being appointed the youngest lieutenant along with a comrade, burning at the back of his head.

it’s around three weeks ago that he stopped receiving those crumpled up pieces of papers and child’s scribbles.

he goes on like a ghost, drifting through the palace. the wooden sword hangs on the wall of his room. he hasn’t been training for a long time. not since he heard the news of her possible death.

he confines himself to the library where he buries himself in bled scriptures and a world far away from the reality he’s forced to face.

that is, until he receives her first letter in a long while.

she’d been promoted to commander where she was able to fight alongside her father.

‘i didn’t think having a to fight with my father on the battlefield would be this hard. i’m always worrying about him. i think i know now why you were so against me joining the war.’

as she’s doing her best in the war, hoseok, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, finds himself joining hands with the chancellor, advising the emperor of the internal affairs and filtering out the corrupted nobles.

he wants you to come back to an empire you can say you’re proud of fighting for.

the war lasts for five years.

the next time he sees you is when you march in with your commanding army, the head of the enemy’s general presented to the emperor.

“what is your wish? i shall grant you one for ending the war.” seokjin’s delighted voice booms across the throne room.

she doesn’t look up, doesn’t even look at hoseok who’s eyes are pricking with tears as grounds himself.

he can’t be running over and hugging you like he’s seeing a ghost.

“sire, i may appear insolent for asking this.” her voice’s changed.

it lacks the sun that shines brightly overhead.

“ask away!”

“i wish nothing more than to stay by his highness, prince hoseok’s side.”

“hmm. hoseok? not my youngest brother, taehyung, the crown prince?” seokjin rubs at his nonexistent beard.

she denies any other relation with the princes besides hoseok.

the news of the commander and prince hoseok being childhood friends turned the palace upside down. rumors of hoseok aiming for the crown starts to spread with the war hero swearing her loyalty to the third prince.

but the emperor knows of his heart.

and it beats only for her.

for his commander.

“when i said i wanted to stay by your side, i didn’t mean this.” she comments, throwing herself on the silken bed, the pristine white dress taking up all the space.

“i can have the maids prepare another room for me.” hoseok stands a few feet away from the bed as he tries to make small talk with the love of his life whom he’s never talked to for five years besides through letters.

“my prince, i didn’t say i dislike the arrangement,” she grins, beckoning him over.

and he walked straight into her trap.

she pulls him down as she shoots up and traps him underneath her. the white dress wrapped around her body makes her look like a war angel sent to pass judgment onto him.

as she lowers her face to his, he feels his heart thump in his chest.

hoseok thinks he wouldn’t mind being trapped in her prison of embrace for the rest of his life.

(”you’ve gone rusty, husband,” she asserts just as his wooden sword hits the ground.

“y-you see, i’ve been busy attending to other matters,” for the first time, hoseok sees his life flash before his eyes as he tries to appease the flames in his wife’s eyes.

“then, we have a lot of catching up to do.” she grins a grin that has his heart thumping in a different way.

“i don’t suppose you mean to do that over tea, do you?” he dares to ask.

suffice to say, he goes to the palace for work barely able to move his legs properly the next day.

“wives, am i right?” namjoon laughs.)

#bts scenarios #bts fics #bts fanfics #hoseok scenarios #hoseok fics #hoseok fanfics #hoseok fanfiction #bts fanfiction #hoseok x reader #bts x reader #hoseok smut #bts smut #sonder

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shorkbrian · 3 years

Text

Prelude - Idek man I’m a sucker for a lil bondage. Reminder!!! Coercive sex, or any sex where there isn’t any consent, is no-no!!!!! that is rape you guys! this type of behavior where a respected authority figure takes is absolutely not cool under any circumstances. I can’t believe that this is something that I have to make clear, but I don’t condone any of these actions, nor do I support this behavior, or any behavior that’s similar.

Pairing - Aizawa X Reader

Warnings - NSFW (no penetration), noncon, dub con, fingering, abuse of power,

Music - https://open.spotify.com/track/4TQcARE7Fd58akNhr3N7AE?si=ffl2jJviRAyVzK3QtU85Jg

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You’re a hero he’s being forced to work with, even though technically he isn’t supposed to have an agency, and technically, he’s supposed to work alone.

Apparently your superiors decided to ignore those two facts, practically dumping you on top of him the second school lets out.

You’re adorable, all fresh faced and young, full of hope and energy and everything that he’s not. Aizawa tries to get out of it, arguing with your superiors while you just stand there watching, but ultimately, he leaves with you trailing behind him.

Tonight, it would seem he’d be working with you.

The whole way downtown you talk his ear off, chattering just like Hizashi does when he’s extra nervous - except, you don’t seem to be nervous.

No, you’re excited, bragging about your accomplishments, your skills. How many villains you’ve turned in, how many civilians you’ve saved. Aizawa quickly gets irritated by your incessant yapping, how you sit there and boast about how good of a hero you are.

From what he can tell, you haven’t been a hero long.

There aren’t any noticeable scars on your form, and if there were, your flashy, skin-tight outfit would’ve exposed them, just like it’s exposing you. It’s impractical, illogical, leaving your skin open to cuts and burns and any other sort of attack.

Plus, it’s distracting. He figures it’s designed to get better ratings from male viewers, to get the videos of you rescuing civilians or taking down low-ranking villains more views.

You don’t watch your surroundings as intently as Aizawa does - a woman sniffles in an alleyway as the two of you pass by, and Aizawa’s immediately on high alert at the sound, looking for potential traps or incoming enemies. You didn’t even register the sound.

Thankfully, you’re not as loud as Hizashi, and when Aizawa holds his hand up to signal you to shut up, you do, immediately clamping you mouth shut with an audible click. At least you can follow orders.

You have no idea of stealth, footsteps falling heavy as you walk, swinging your arms jauntily and seemingly uncaring of who sees you. It makes Aizawa’s blood boil. You sit there, patting yourself on the back about what a good hero you are, yet you’re barely better than a bad sidekick. A sidekick Aizawa wouldn’t-doesn’t want tagging along.

After the third time of you bumping into him after he’s stopped to listen to the sounds of the city, high on the rooftops, Aizawa wants to give you a pinch, scold you for not being ready for hero work, tell you the truth about your “skills” and how good of a hero you really are.

But he’s a patient man, and he knows how to calm his irritation by taking deep breaths. Lord knows his students test his resolve to resort to corporal punishment, so he should reign himself in from considering using it with you. Still, you’re an annoying, young little thing - excited and prideful, trying to show off to the older hero.

Aizawa can deal with it though, as long as he ignores your blunders.

The way you talk too much, how you don’t pay attention, the way you constantly bump into him because you haven’t realized he’s stopped in his tracks. You’re foolish.

It’s not until you almost push him off the edge of a building with your mindless blundering does Aizawa lose his patience.

The man rounds on you, blood pumping quick and fast in his heart from the adrenaline of teetering over the edge, feeling himself about to fall. He probably could’ve caught himself with his capture weapon, but what if he hadn’t? Your stupid mistake could’ve cost him his life, his career.

It takes him less than a second to have your wrists tangled up in his capture weapon, dragging you towards him so he can tower over you, fisting a hand in your hair.

“You’re a shitty hero.” Is all he says, pushing you to the side. Aizawa knows that will sting more than anything else he could say - it’s obvious that you look up to the older man. He wouldn’t put it past you to be the one who begged your agency to dump you on him for the night, so you could talk to him, learn some trade secrets, gush to your little hero friends how you were “trained” by Eraserhead himself.

He’s expecting you to be indignant, to try and argue your case. What he’s not expecting, is for you to attack him as soon as he retracts his capture weapon back onto his neck.

It’s almost laughable, how bad you are at fighting. He can hear you run at him, anticipates the first swing you take at his back, easily tucks forward and out of your reach. When he turns, you're standing there, chest heaving (Your suit really doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, does it? He wonders if it’s something your agency chose, or if it’s a personal preference) as you stare at him with a fire in your eyes.

“You have no right to say that to me.” You grind out, before running at him again.

Now that Aizawa can see you, it’s even easier to dodge your attack, ducking and blocking each punch or kick with ease. “I wouldn’t even want you for a sidekick. You’re sloppy-”

He jabs his fist into your side, and you let out a pained gasp.

“Poorly trained-”

A quick backhand across your face sends you reeling, and Aizawa sighs. He didn’t even put that much force behind it.

“Dangerously prideful-”

His capture weapon whips around your legs, tangling them and pulling them right out from under you. Aizawa moves to yours side, crouching by your head so he can see your eyes.

“And unfit to be a hero.”

You’re winded, but despite that, you thrash, infuriated by the words. You try to strike out at Aizawa, but you find yourself quickly wrapped up in his capture weapon, immobilized.

“Instead of doing important work, trying to keep this city safe, I have to deal with an arrogant brat.”

Aizawa stands up, using his capture weapon to drag you to your feet as well. He takes less than a moment to stride to the edge of the building, pulling you along with him, making you stumble.

With a flick of his wrist, you’re leaning out over the edge, the only thing stopping you from falling being Aizawa’s capture weapon wrapped around your wrists, lacing over your chest, holding you back.

He hears you squeak in fear, watches you go completely still as he holds you there, lets you feel the fear of being dangled above the edge, flirting with the height.

“You saw how easy it was for me to subdue you, how easily you yielded. How do you even beat villains?” Aizawa clicked his tongue. “I’m worried about the future of this city if you’re what we have to offer in terms of a hero.”

You tensed up, obviously hurt by the words. Aizawa felt no remorse - he truly was disquieted when faced with the knowledge that people like you were the next generation of peace-keepers.

With a jerk jerk, you were yanked away from the edge, landing on your butt, air whooshing out of your lungs in a gasp. Aizawa crouched down behind you, leaning close, letting you feel the heat of his body.

“Do you know what would happen if a villain had you tied up like this?”

You quickly shook your head, silent. Aizawa almost wanted to laugh, how were you this naive?

He let his hands rest on your shoulders, let them slowly slide down to your exposed collarbones, further, down to the tops of your breasts.

“Stop... please...” You whispered, frozen.

Aizawa huffed. “A villain wouldn’t stop. You’d be powerless against one. I doubt the “villains” you’ve been taking down could even be classified as such.”

He let his hands drop even further, until he could feel the weight of your breasts in his hands, thinly covered by your costume.

“Let me guess, they’ve all been petty criminals? Bicycle thieves... pickpockets... People who accidentally let the parking meter run out?” He chuckled.

Aizawa kneaded your tits, the warm flesh pliant, soft, delicious. Your nipples were hardening under his touch, pressing against your suit, peaking into solid shapes against your chest. He let his touch focus on them, rolling and pinching the little buds until you were whining beneath his hands, squirming in discomfort as he played with your tits.

“A real villain would have so much fun with you. You’d be so easy, so effortless to hold down. They could do whatever they wanted to you.” He purred into your ear.

You relaxed when Aizawa pulled his hands away, stood up to circle around to your front. You thought he was done, thought he would let you free from his capture weapon. You thought wrong.

The man sat down in front of you, leaning back easily onto his ankles. You were quickly pulled into his lap, crying out at the way he jerked you closer to him, until your fronts were pressed together, until he was pinching and massaging your plump rear.

“What a shame, loosing an untrained hero to a villain. If you’re really unlucky, they won’t kill you once they’re finished with your body.” Aizawa watched you shiver. “No, they’ll keep you alive, and in the clutches of evil men? that’s much, much worse than death.”

Your suit exposed your legs, had a short, flashy skirt that barely covered your ass. Underneath, a flimsy leotard protected your modesty, easily pulled to the side.

A panicked whine tore from your lungs as you felt Aizawa’s thick finger ghost along your folds, rubbing the delicate flesh, acquainting himself with the feel of a tender young body.

The hand on your ass was still groping, squeezing and pulling you impossibly closer, until you have to turn your face to the side, chin hooking over the man’s shoulder. Aizawa nuzzled your neck, breathing in the subtle scent that covered your body, some type of perfume, a scent he couldn’t place, but pleasant nonetheless.

When he felt wetness slowly beginning to seep from your cunt, Aizawa grinned, rolling his eyes. You would be eaten up by a villain, completely destroyed.

He slipped his pointer finger inside, circling his thumb against your clit as he did so, shushing your frightened noises at the unexpected intrusion.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if a villain targeted you. With a costume like this? Your obvious inexperience? The way you boast and brag about what a big girl you are, how proficient you are at taking down big, bad criminals?”

Another finger slipped inside, stretching you wide. You were so warm, so soft, squeezing his fingers like you were trying to suck him in. It was almost like your pussy was desperate for more, aching for something bigger.

But Aizawa had standards, morals. He just wanted to scare you a bit, not ruin you completely.

With two fingers inside of you, he stroked along your velvety walls, searching for the special little spot he knew would make you squeal. You were trembling, draped against his body like a rag doll, hips twitching ever so slightly when he did something you liked.

He tapped your clit again with his thumb, and you stifled a moan. Aizawa resisted the urge to smile; you were so easy.

As his fingers explored your cunt, probing and stretching and scissoring you open, he let his lips attach onto your neck. He could let himself indulge a little - after all, your agency had insisted you come along, even after he told them no.

With a shrill cry, you bucked into his hand, trying to press your hips down further. Aizawa hooked his fingers again, pressing down on the spot he had just rubbed with his fingers, and you yelped again, rocking down, fucking yourself against his thick digits.

He found it.

Starting slowly, the man began fingerfucking you, making sure to hit the spongy, sensitive spot that had you moaning and crying, shaking in his arms.

He found himself quickly loosing patience, especially with the way you wiggled and fidgeted in his lap, trying to chase the sensation his fingers provided.

With no warning (not that he’d given you one once throughout this experience), Aizawa went from his slow, gentle pace, to one that made his forearm flex, one that made your back arch and your toes curl in those impractical, stupid high heels.

You were quickly reduced to mush, able to do nothing but let Aizawa fuck you to tears with his fingers, driving you closer and closer to the edge. He could feel it, how you were almost there. You clenched down on his fingers, sweat shined across your skin, you were absolutely gushing with your creamy wetness, the liquid sliding down his hand and soaking into his pants.

Messy.

Another few quick, hard flicks of his wrist, and suddenly you were squirting, forcing his fingers out of your pussy, writhing from the stimulation. A stream of wet was forced out of you, spraying all over his pants, his hand, the concrete of the rooftop.

Your legs shook with the force of it, eyes rolling back in your head. Aizawa knew you were lost in pleasure, so far gone you couldn’t do much but moan and gurgle brokenly as you slowly came down from your orgasm.

He let you lean against him for a few moments longer, let you pant into his ear, felt your sweaty skin stick to his own.

But he was tired, and he wanted to finish patrolling, and you were barely more than a nuisance, and he needed to find somewhere to jerk off.

He wasn’t a rapist, after all.

So with gentle hands, Aizawa untied you from his capture weapon, slowly sliding you off his lap and onto the ground. He gave you a few moments to collect yourself, rising to his feet to turn and give you privacy as you righted your costume, smoothed down your frazzled appearance, caught your breath.

He was so hard.

When you finally joined his side, you were meek, quiet, subdued. Aizawa barely glanced at you (If he did, he might do something he’d regret, not that he already hasn’t) before striding forward, moving with purpose towards the next roof top.

Hopefully, you’d learned your lesson, and wouldn’t run your mouth so much.

Hopefully, you’d train harder, try to strengthen your fighting style.

Hopefully, Aizawa found somewhere he could jerk off, before his primal urges coerced him into doing something more befitting of a villain.

If that happened, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like you would tell anyone.

#creepy aizawa #creepy behavior #aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa #aizawa sensei #bnha aizawa #aizawa #my hero academia aizawa #Shouta #yandere aizawa shouta #tw #careful #bad morals #bad Aizawa

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intheticklecloset · 3 years

Text

Get Some Sleep (My Hero Academia)

Primary Universe

@ghostlyshylee It took me a while to figure out how to make this happen, but I think I landed on a pretty solid idea! All Might’s quite the motivator when he needs to be. Hope you enjoy! :D

“Young Midoriya,” All Might said, reaching out a hand to stop Deku in his tracks. They’d happened upon each other while walking through the halls and had greeted each other normally, but something seemed off about the boy today. Now that he was stopped and getting a better look at him, he realized what it was. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

There were dark circles under Deku’s eyes, and he seemed a little more sluggish than usual.

“Yes!” Deku replied. He was just as enthusiastic and sincere as ever; nothing in his tone of voice suggested he was lying.

All Might frowned, unconvinced, but nodded. “Okay. As long as you’re sure.” He stepped back out of the way. “I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing!” With that, Deku hurried past him and on to his destination.

All Might went on his way, too, concerned but ultimately shrugging it off. If the boy says he’s sleeping well enough, I have no reason to doubt him. He seemed mostly normal aside from those circles under his eyes. Maybe I was just imagining things.

But after that day, every time All Might saw his successor it was the same thing, only appearing to get progressively worse. The dark circles and sluggish movements became delayed response time, which became struggling in class, which became staying up late to catch up on his work, and the cycle continued. The retired pro hero knew if he didn’t put a stop to it now, it would only snowball into a mountain the boy simply could not climb at his current skill level.

So one Friday afternoon, he called Deku into the teacher’s lounge for a meeting with him after class.

“Hi, All Might,” his student greeted brightly as he stepped inside, set down his bag, and sat on the couch across from him, as per usual. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” All Might frowned, acting very serious – as serious as if he was about to reveal some new information about the League of Villains. He leaned forward in his seat and looked directly into Deku’s eyes. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

Deku blinked, surprised. He suddenly seemed nervous. “Yes,” he replied, though he didn’t sound sure. He also averted his gaze. “Didn’t you ask me that the other day?”

“Look me in the eye, young Midoriya,” All Might said, “and tell me you’re getting enough sleep.”

Deku looked him in the eye, but that was as far as he got. “I…I’m getting…sleep…”

“How much?”

“I don’t know…” Deku averted his eyes again. “Six or seven hours?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

Again, that was as far as his student got. He held out for five seconds before sighing heavily and admitting, “Okay, more like four or five.”

“Every night?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

Deku’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Two weeks.”

“Midoriya, that is not acceptable.”

“I’m sorry, All Might. It’s just that I’m trying really hard to keep up with the others both in training and academics, and by the time I’m done I don’t have enough hours left to sleep, so I just…work with what I have.”

“This problem,” All Might said, “needs to be fixed. Starting right now. What can we do to help you get the sleep you need? Where are you struggling?”

Deku finally looked at him again. “I’m not really struggling anywhere. It’s just that I don’t have time. Between personal training with you, classes, homework, field work, special classes, internships—”

“You have far too much on your plate, and when it’s all over you just don’t have time left to sleep well.”

“Exactly.”

All Might nodded, considering. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Starting on Monday, we’ll cut our personal training time in half so you can get an extra hour that way. I’ll talk to Aizawa about some of the other things.”

Deku’s eyes widened. “I don’t want to stop training—”

“We’re not going to stop. Just going to take it easy for a while.” All Might’s gaze softened. “Midoriya, you’re an incredible hero in training. But you’re still just a kid. You need to get the right amount of sleep or you’re going to fall behind no matter how hard you work. I know you’re smart enough to understand that.”

Deku sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’ll have the rest of your life to be sleep deprived as a pro hero. But for now, as long as you’re a student – my student – you will get the amount of sleep you need to learn well. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. One more thing.” All Might got to his feet. “For this weekend, we won’t train at all.”

“What?!” Deku exclaimed.

“Do I really have to explain myself again?”

“N-No, but I can still train, even if we don’t do as much of it.”

“Trust me.” The pro hero sat beside his student on the opposite couch, putting an arm around his shoulders. “No alarms tomorrow. Sleep in. Rest. Catch up on your homework during the day and then sleep in again on Sunday. We’ll start our training an hour later on Monday. Okay?”

Part of Deku was upset that he’d allowed his fatigue to take him this far, but on the other hand, he was incredibly grateful to All Might for helping him find a solution. “Yeah. All right.”

“I’m sorry it took me this long to notice something was off about you.” The teacher shook his head. “Two weeks...”

“It’s okay. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t want anyone to worry, so I didn’t say anything. It’s not your fault.”

“Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed in any capacity, tell me.” All Might poked his side. “Understand?”

Deku squeaked. “Y-Yes, I understand.”

All of a sudden, All Might remembered. A while ago the students of Class 1-A had had a rescue mission training day as part of their gym class, during which Midoriya had been on the villains’ side. All Might had wondered how his protégé would handle being a bad guy for once, even if it was only for practice, so he’d watched him carefully throughout the training. At one point Kaminari had found him, and within minutes of their meeting each other on the field, Deku had been completely subdued by the electric hero.

All Might had spoken to Kaminari about it afterward and learned that – apparently – the boy was incredibly ticklish, and the whole class knew it. It wasn’t the most conventional or preferred method to subdue a villain, but it had worked in the moment, so All Might had let it go.

But now…

“Say, Midoriya, why don’t I help you get a head start on tonight’s rest?” he teased, abandoning any kind of subtlety in favor of grabbing onto Deku’s ribs and digging in. He grinned when the boy squealed and began to giggle hysterically, squirming in his strong grip.

“Nohohohohoho, All Mihihihihihihight!” Deku cried, pushing at his teacher’s hands, blushing furiously. “Dohohohohohohon’t!”

“I have it on good authority that you’re used to this kind of treatment from your classmates,” All Might said, chuckling a little. “It certainly seemed to tire you out during your rescue mission training.”

Deku let out a sound that was something between a yelp and a whine. “Yohohohohohou saw thahahahahahat?!”

“Of course. I’m one of your teachers, after all.”

“Agh! Thahahahahaht’s so embahahahaharrassing!”

“Why?” All Might suddenly pulled Deku in for a bear hug, the boy’s back against his chest, and wrapped his arms around him to trap him in place, digging his fingers into his ribs even deeper. “I thought it was rather endearing.”

“Nahahahahahahahahahahaha!” Deku shrieked with unstoppable giggles, squirming and kicking helplessly. “Buhuhuhuhuhuhuhut he complehehehehehetely dohohohohominated me out thehehehere!”

“Perhaps, but he also was creative in his methods of stopping your progress while not physically harming you. The rest of your classmates engaged in actual combat once you were down, but Kaminari knew tickling was the perfect way to subdue you while not actually hurting you. Both of you left the training grounds uninjured that day, if you’ll recall.”

“Buhuhuhuhuhuhut--!”

“No buts,” All Might said firmly. “No more protests, no more analyzing. All I’m trying to do right now is help wear you out a little more so you sleep well tonight.” The pro moved a hand down to squeeze experimentally at a hip, which he recalled having been the spot that got Deku to the ground during that mission in the first place. Deku let out a loud squeal and started thrashing in his arms. All Might laughed. “Besides, we almost never get to have fun together, do we? It’s a nice change of pace.”

“ALL MIHIHIHGHT!!” Deku shrieked, grabbing desperately at his teacher’s hand on his hip. “NOT THEHEHEHEHERE, PLEASE!!” In response, All Might grabbed both of his hips and started tickling, making the boy laugh and flail so hard he toppled off the couch. The pro followed him down. “NONONONO PLEHEHEHEHEASE NOT THEHEHEHEHERE!! ALL MIGHT!!”

All Might was easily able to pin Deku to the floor, his fingers flying across his torso at top speed, tickling every spot he could find until his student was a giggling, squirming, blushing mess on the floor. Surprisingly, as soon as All Might’s focus left his hips, Deku’s begging ceased as well. The hero scribbled in his underarms, spidered over his ribs and sides, and clawed at his stomach, and all the while the boy simply lay there and giggled and let it happen.

Then he moved back to the hips, and all of that changed.

“NOHOHOHOHOHO!!” Deku screamed, tossing his head back and laughing loudly, fighting back for real now. “NOHOHOHOHOHO, PLEHEHEHEHEASE, I CAHAHAHAHAN’T TAHAHAKE IT THEHEHEHEHEHERE!! ALL MIGHT!!”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with me tickling you everywhere else,” All Might observed, grinning at the hysterics he was causing in his young student. “But this must be a bad spot, huh?”

“IT’S THE WOHOHOHOHOHORST!!” Deku cried, his laughter starting to sound hoarse now. “PLEASE, ALL MIHIHIHHIHIHIHIGHT!! DOHOHOHOHOHON’T TIHIHIHIHICKLE ME THEHEHEHEHEHERE!!”

All Might couldn’t help but smirk. “Are you going to let yourself sleep in tomorrow?”

“YEHEHEHEHEHES!!”

“No alarms?”

“NOHOHOHOHO ALARMS!! PLEHEHEHEHEHEASE!!”

“And you’ll do the same on Sunday?”

Deku shrieked. He knew his teacher was just messing with him now, and it made him feel both incredibly flustered and extremely cared for at the same time. He started pounding the floor, trying to tap out. “YEHEHEHEHEHES I’LL GEHEHEHEHET ENOUGH SLEHEHEHEHEHEEP!! I’LL SLEHEHEHEHEHEEP FOR HOHOHOHOHOHOURS!! DAHAHAHAHAHAYS, EVEN!! I PROHOHOHOMISE!! JUST PLEHEHEHEHEASE STAHAHAHAHAHAHAP!!”

Finally, All Might stopped tickling and let Deku catch his breath. He couldn’t help but smile at how red-faced and teary-eyed the boy was now, though his student didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, as soon as he was able to sit up, he beamed at his teacher.

“T-Thanks…All Might…” he said between breaths. “I really…needed that…today…”

“I agree.” All Might reached forward and hugged him. “Take better care of yourself, young Midoriya. Please. I don’t want to have to worry about you more than is standard in our line of work.”

Deku hugged him back. “You’re right. I’ll do better, I promise.”

“Good.” The pro hero pulled away, grinned, and ruffled Deku’s hair. “Sleep well tonight, Izuku.”

Grinning, the hero in training nodded. “I definitely will.”

#fanfiction #tickle fic #boku no hero #my hero academia #bnha #mha #izuku #midoriya #deku #all might #tickling #ticklish #tickle

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kettlequills · 3 years

Text

all that is and has been

"The past is the beginning of the beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn." - H.G Wells. Every winter, Aranea comes down the mountain. Prompt: dawn, for TESFEST. On A03 here.

They get younger every year, Aranea thought, watching the guide from Windhelm picking his way with great concentration up the snowy slope to Azura’s shrine. At the foot of the stone steps, he pumped his arm wildly, and shouted something that was immediately snatched by the wind. Even from this distance, Aranea could picture perfectly the expression of consternation on his face, hidden mostly though it was in the hood of his thick fur parka.

Aranea exhaled a sigh and put some water on to boil. She dusted off and set out her spare stool for visitors. By the time he had puffed and struggled his way up the steps, the water was ready.

“Priestess!” he called, voice bright and eager with the strength of youth.

Wasted on the young, Aranea thought, sprinkling leaves into the cups. She eyed him critically. Pinched red cheeks on either side of a proud nose, eyes hidden smartly under Nordic snow-goggles to protect them from the snowfall. The boy was young, but not too young, she judged, and added a small dram of Cyrodilic brandy. The snow wasn’t too bad for this time of year, but it was the thick, fluffy flakes of endless autumn snow, and cursed cold.

Aranea greeted him, wincing a little at the creakiness of her voice. It had been a slow spring and summer. Only a few visitors, in all that stretch of time, and none the one Azura had told her to look for. She had not spoken for months.

“My name is Tinoryn,” he told her, a few sips into his tea. “I work for Ruvene, at Avalathil Tailoring.” He wiggled the hood of his parka. “I made this,” he added, proudly. “But I’m going to be a mage, anyway. Once I’ve saved up enough for the College.”

Ah, thought Aranea. This one would be pestering her to teach him magic all the way down the mountain. She would not deny him. Being able to afford the College’s fees was a distant dream, no matter if his sewing skills were clearly quite good. Fur was a Nord’s business, and there was not much of a market for traditional Dunmeri silkweaving in Skyrim. But he would serve his community well.

Perhaps Aranea would speak to Ambarys and Ruvene, if this aspiring mageling showed promise. It would not be the College, but Aranea had time enough for teaching, if he could be spared. It had been a while since one of their own had taken to the magic arts, and Aranea could not be there to offer Azura’s blessings and healings all year.

And the road grew ever more treacherous.

She pondered this as she worked, readying the shrine for her long absence. It would, after all, be a death-sentence to attempt to stay on the exposed mountain-top throughout one of Skyrim’s brutal winters. Instead, Aranea did as she had always done, and when the autumn snows began to crown Azura’s head thickly, she awaited a guide from Windhelm who would escort her to stay in the city during the cold months, in exchange for blessings and healings. Once, that route had included Winterhold, but Aranea had watched, brutal in her isolation, the vast majority of Azura’s faithful there along with the rest of the town crumble into the Sea of Ghosts during the Collapse. The outskirts of the town remained, and of the people Aranea had served, only those few that had listened to Aranea’s vision-driven warning and moved to Windhelm.

Tinoryn chattered happily without her input, telling her about the Windhelm’s Dunmer anything he thought relevant that she had missed during the spring and summer. Aranea was not surprised to learn of increasing attacks from the city’s Nord population, nor of the fires that had raged across the docks from mismanagement and unvented angers. It would be a lean winter. It was always a lean winter.

“Shall we go?” Aranea said, halfway into one of Tinoryn’s stories about one Henon Virith valiantly fighting off an improbable number of guards, evidently the troublemaker of the Grey Quarter and Tinoryn’s personal hero. To his credit, Tinoryn barely blinked before shouldering Aranea’s entire pack (she watched, bemused, and wondered what they were feeding tailors these days) over the shoulder that did not carry his own, and bounced off.

He started then on the story of the passage up, and Aranea allowed his voice to fall into a soothing murmur as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She had walked this path many times, but Skyrim was a country of bitter winds, rock and snow, and held little love for those who would stumble on her paths.

They took the carriage from Winterhold, bartering passage crammed in next to a friendly courier and a dour carriage driver, squeezing their legs over locked crates that Aranea suspected contained soulgems from the subtle hum she could feel, grinding its way through her teeth into her skull. Tinoryn distracted himself thoroughly with the courier, to Aranea’s relief; she had already spoken so much in the gaps Tinoryn left in conversation that her throat ached.

It was a weary, travelsore and head-pounding priestess of Azura that made her way, Tinoryn quieting in sight of the guards, over Windhelm’s ice-choked bridge. The city of stone was redolent and packed, but the guards held sharp new weapons, and wore armour so polished that they shone like gems in the snow. There were more horses in the stables, meaty, Rift-bred creatures, and Aranea spotted scaffolding supporting the construction of a new parapet with a flicker of unease. The people they passed were ragged as ever, but there was a strange, martial air flickering in Windhelm’s braziers, carried on lips down from the Palace of Kings.

Unbidden, Aranea thought of a troubling vision she had received, some years ago. A young Greybeard-come-soldier, sweating and afraid with his wrists bound in Altmeri-gold, a voice, syrup-soft, speaking of holy wars and dying traditions. It was not one she liked to think of. Skyrim did not need war, and the young jarl had never cared greatly for his elven population. The tightening of purse strings would choke the Grey Quarter first.

Sometimes, Aranea wondered why Azura sent her the visions of great and terrible things she could no more prevent than catch a single snowflake in a blizzard. She doubted it was intended to be a torment. The Twilight Lady’s mystery was wondrous, but at times, Aranea thought that the grief of mortals was as foreign to her as her thinking was to them.

Still, there was plenty enough grief in the present without needing to borrow trouble from tomorrow.

The streets that led down into the heart of the Grey Quarter were damp with melted snow. Barely had they taken a few steps when a little girl raced up to them, crying out Aranea’s title. Despite her long resolution to the service of Azura, Aranea felt a tug in her heart at the round red eyes that did not quite yet fit in the girl’s skull, long ears too heavy as of yet to lift all the way up, though the little girl was very clearly excited. Her ears were covered with little knitted caps laced to the one jammed firmly on her head, warding off the cold.

“Hi Priestess!” She beamed. “It’s Nepha! You were at my birthday last year! Twelfth of Sun’s Dusk! Will you come again this year?”

Bless the child for her prompting, for Aranea had not recognised her at all and certainly could not have named the date she was born. Though, if it was Sun’s Dusk, she had likely assisted in the delivery. Little Ulyn Andules’ babe, perhaps? She recalled vaguely Tinoryn mentioning he’d found a new wife to mother his little girl, of all the half-sparked reasons to remarry. But, by the Reclamations, Aranea remembered delivering him. Had it been so long?

I love them all, but the years do blur together.

“Azura’s Star, child, you have grown so tall! And I shall certainly hope I get your invitation.” Wincing at the ache in her knees, she bent to squeeze Nepha’s cheeks, making the little girl giggle and twist away.

“We should get you down to the cornerclub, Priestess,” Tinoryn said, looking up at the sky. Shadows were beginning to gather across the long wavering lines of orange and pinks washing the snowy rooftops. “And you, inside, Nepha!”

Nepha stuck her tongue out at Tinoryn. She proffered her arm to Aranea. “Let me help you go! The streets are really slippy here.”

Aranea weighed up the benefits of asserting her independence and ability to walk unaided over the benefit of encouraging the child in her attempt to offer sincere and honest help. Truly, Aranea thought, if she had not lived atop a mountain for the past few months, she might have found the slick streets hard enough to navigate to be grateful for the help. The gutters cut down the sides of the streets were overrunning.

Aranea took Nepha’s arm, and they set off again.

The temperature increased sharply the moment they left the Nord-dominated parts of the city, heading into the close, smoky corridors of the Quarter. Tinoryn relaxed, loosening his fur parka and beginning to smile in earnest now he was home. People hailed them as they passed, but thankfully between Nepha and Tinoryn Aranea did not have to speak at all, only smile at their eagerness to greet her.

Just as well, for the air was unexpectedly sticky and humid from the great braziers that lined every other step of the street, lit by the whispers of fire-magic every Dunmer carried within them and absolutely essential to surviving in a cold land like Skyrim. Aranea added a gift of fire-runes to those she passed, a curious Tinoryn watching, driving the heat from baking to sweltering. The heat was welcome after months at the cold shrine, but she could feel sweat beading at the nape of her neck under her robe.

“The greatest principle of destruction magic,” Aranea told him softly as she dipped her fingers into another clay brazier’s embers, “is that it is no more destructive than a hand. The limit is your will, and the scope of the energy you are willing to give to see that will done.”

She was pleased, though, to see the braziers well-tended even without her help. It was important for Dunmeri children to be raised around fire, important for them still as adults. A cold Dunmer was a dead one. Their ancestors walked their hands through ash to kiss their fingertips in flame. It was their birthright just as much as it was a need. In Morrowind, there had not been braziers of open flame waiting for curious hands to reach and play; there had been little need, the land was warm enough. But the Dunmer of Windhelm had had to grow resourceful, and reliant upon the fire they carried within themselves just as much as the heat of the sun and sear of coals.

Aranea’s pride for her people warmed her spirit just as much as trading the freezing wind of the exposed shrine to Azura for the tight, smelly Grey Quarter warmed her bones.

The New Gnisis Cornerclub was unchanged, and the gladdest sight of all. Aranea quickened her steps, eager to see her old friends again and take the weight off her aching feet. The door creaked as it always had, and the light from beyond that threw upon the gleaming stone was orange and tinted with laughter and clinking bottles.

Aranea sent Nepha off as they went in, cautioning her to go straight to her father. Tinoryn behind her, Aranea turned, and almost immediately walked directly into the arms of Ambarys Rendar. He had come out from round the bar and as he enfolded her into a hug, he called greetings to them both.

He was solid, and Aranea could smell the spicy alcoholic scent of his wares in his smock, the rasp of his stubble across her cheek. She met his eyes, and they crinkled as he smiled at her, deep and unreserved. And if the pleasure she felt bubbling from some secret place was all the sharper for the months since she had seen him last, that was no one’s business but her own.

“How was your journey?” he asked. “No trouble from those braggarts at the gates?”

“Ambarys,” Aranea chided softly, and he only smiled, but this time it did not quite reach his eyes.

“It was good, sera,” said Tinoryn obliviously, “We took a cart from Winterhold, the driver was nice enough to wait! The snow was bad though.”

“Not too bad,” Aranea contradicted. “Still, I’m glad to be in the warm and dry.” She let her eyes slide to the stairs, and Ambarys chuckled, poor humour forgotten.

“Come, let’s get you settled, priestess,” he said. “I’ll take that, boy, go along now and get yourself a drink from Malthyr.”

Tinoryn flustered a bit at this abrupt dismissal, but at Aranea’s nod he surrendered her pack to Ambarys and went.

“He’s a good boy,” Aranea told Ambarys as they went up the stairs, “wants to be a mage.”

Ambarys snorted, not unkindly. “A good heart, but better off keeping his eyes on the road.”

“I was thinking…” Aranea hesitated behind Ambarys as he searched his belt for the door keys.

Ambarys half-turned to look at her, surprised. “Come on, that boy up the mountain? He’d talk your ear off in a week and himself to death in two. Ruvene pays him half as much for keeping the customers busy while she mends as she does his sewing.”

He unlocked the door and gestured her in. Aranea kicked off her boots and went gratefully. The bed was simple and small, but it was a luxury after months of a bedroll on hard stone. She sunk into its embrace gratefully, groaning her relief. She flexed her sore feet and cast a half-hearted Restoration spell.

“Won’t it get busy?” Aranea asked. Audible through the floor was the creak of the door and the hum of voices as those who had spotted her outside filed into the cornerclub, flagging Malthys to bring them drinks and food while they waited.

“Malthys can handle it,” said Ambarys. “They’re just eager to hear you speak. I can send them away though, and leave you to rest …?”

Aranea smiled at him tiredly. “Sit. It’s nice to see you. And let them stay, I’ll go down in a moment.”

Ambarys settled her pack in the corner, then dragged a chair over. He rested his elbows on his knees and smiled down at her stretching over the bed. “And you, priestess.”

“It’s been a while,” Aranea said, mind returning to what they had been discussing. “But if you think Tinoryn’s not suitable…”

“It’s not that,” Ambarys dismissed the idea with a wave. He frowned at Aranea then. “Unless you’re thinking you need the company. I’d – we would love to have you for the rest of the year. You don’t need to live up there alone.”

“Ambarys,” Aranea interrupted him. “I must. I am a priestess of Azura, I must tend her shrine.”

“We could send people up, every month, week, even,” Ambarys argued, “You could just stay here. Just – think about it, is all I ask.” He raised his hands, seeing her exasperated look. “This room is yours for as long as you want it, whenever you want it, you know that.”

“I do.” Aranea could not resist a small smile. It was the same argument they had every year, and he’d yet to convince her. Ambarys deflated.

Closing her eyes, Aranea let the lull in conversation stretch into silence. The headache she had nursed during the carriage ride was increasing until it felt like daedra were knocking in her skull. Her skin was throbbing in complaint at the changing temperatures, and her stomach felt a little queasy from the altitude difference. They had not gone slowly down the mountain, and Aranea’s body, used to the icy, scouring winds and unyielding spine of stone, protested at the soft warmth of the wooden bed, the creaks and sighs of the breathing cornerclub.

Windhelm was a noisy city, even now, Aranea could hear yelling and clanging, even the rapid thumping of drums from somewhere and the stamp of feet, all almost drowned out by patrons shouting for Malthys’ attention and talking amongst themselves. Somewhere, a baby was crying. Smells roiled for her attention, the piss and ale scents worked into the woods, the unwashed bodies cramming into the bar below, the faint musty scent of the blankets.

It was all so much.

And underneath it all, iron and fire, and the invisible threads of gathering zealotry.

“Aranea…” Ambarys’ raspy voice was soft. She heard cloth moving over skin as he shifted, the minute creak of the chair. She hummed in acknowledgement. “Are you… well?”

Sighing, Aranea opened her eyes. She was tired. So tired. Every year seemed to press heavier on her shoulders. Azura demanded much.

But it was a balm to see him there, the wrinkles of his laugh-lines, wearying now under the weight of hard living, his dark eyes, as tender when he looked upon her as they were sharp at any other sight.

“I am,” she said. “But I hear… the winds of war are coming, Ambarys. I fear for the people.”

Ambarys hesitated. Almost nervously, he asked, “Have you seen anything from the goddess?”

Aranea looked away. She had not the strength to confide in him the dark futures she had seen, of the Grey Quarter in flames, grey bodies warped among the red snow, winged, impossible shapes soaring through the sky. “It may happen.”

Ambarys’ face settled into a troubled cast too familiar for Aranea’s comfort. “I don’t know what we will do if Hoag’s boy goes to war again. The Reachfolk massacre was bad enough…”

“What we always do,” Aranea said, taking his hand comfortingly. It was soft and dry in hers. Ambarys looked at her, his grey-red eyes searching. “Survive.”

A slow smile lifted his lips, warm and true. “Until the next dawn, then the next?” he said, repeating their old words, words she had said to him many times over many worries.

“And the one after,” Aranea confirmed, and his smile deepened until her heart ached. “The Mother of the Rose will guide us, as she always has.”

“It is good to have you back, priestess,” Ambarys murmured, tightening his grip on her hand when Aranea made to move away. Aranea left it there in his grasp, and his thumb swiped gently over the back of her hand. Fiery chills raced up her nerves.

“I should go to them,” Aranea said, meaning the people gathered downstairs waiting but unable to look from Ambarys’ eyes. A moment passed when she almost thought that he would refuse to release her, didn’t know how to quantify the feeling that inspired, but then all at once he had let go and stood.

The chair scraping on the floor spelled the end of their reprieve. Still, Aranea smiled at him as she passed, half for his tired eyes, half for the thawing knowledge that she would have all winter to see them again.

A ragged cheer arose as Aranea descended the stairs, blinking in the light. She inhaled, more than a little taken-aback by the solid wall of bodies that greeted her, heaving in through the ajar doors. There were more there that she could see, crowding in the street, pulling the braziers round to stand in a circle of warmth. A hush ran through them as she raised her hand.

Ambarys appeared at her shoulder, a bottle in his hand, wry smile on his lips. He offered Aranea a thick woven cushion in the Hlaalu style, and Aranea sank down on it with relief, right there on the stairs, where all might see her easily. Her old bones thanked her.

She sniffed the bottle. Sujamma.

“Thank you,” she said, and Ambarys gave her a mock-bow.

The crowd gathered round, eager faces shining in the warmth of the fires. Some she recognised, who called for her by name, she greeted with smiles. Aranea was surprised, but pleased, to see a few non-Dunmer faces in the crowd. There were one or two quiet Nords sweating in the heat, a few cloaked Argonians who had smuggled themselves into the city and whose scales gleamed like rubies in the firelight, even an Altmer, stood at the very back but clear towering over the others. It was always good to see more drawn to Azura’s teachings, and Aranea knew that if they had been permitted to know of her arrival, then they were trusted by Ambarys. She made eye contact with one of the Argonians and smiled.

As if sensing her preparation, the crowd settled after a moment, looking at her expectantly. Aranea breathed in, slowly. Teaching was tiring, true, and she would have preferred to rest, but she could not deny those who had such a hunger for what she had to say.

She took a sip of sujamma to wet her throat, and began.

“Lady Azura is the patron of dusk and dawn…”

#tesfest21 #inkwrites #brief torture reference #fantastic racism #slice of life #canon typical behaviour #aranea ienith #ambarys rendar #ambarys/aranea #tinoryn othravel #nepha andules #azura #skyrim #my fic all that is and has been

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thegoldielocks28 · 3 years

Note

45. "Do I even wanna know?" for Tala and Mathilda (because I'm interested in seeing your version of their friendship when she's with or moving towards being with Spencer) Or if that line doesn't work, either of the others will do as long as it has those two :)

Title: Do I even want to know? Pairing: Sergei Petrov and Mathilda Alster romantically, Yuriy Ivanov and Mathilda Alster platonically. Notice: Written from Yuriy´s point of view. Mostly. Also, I haven't yet read the new manga so some of my headcanons for him might be off, aged or not canon. Also, I kept writing and adding to this for ages, and feel it's a bit of a mess. Hopefully, it shows some emotion that I meant for it to show. Not sure if I will post this anywhere else hm...

Yuriy has mastered the art of ignoring others' eyes on him. Easily walking by as if he's clueless of their attention on him. Even if the fact that they were staring was something he noticed before the person themselves knew their eyes were trailing him.

Observant as he is.

During Yuriy´s early childhood, he’d get looks of hatred and disgust as he lived, or barely survived, in the streets. Wearing old and tattered clothes, pale skin almost grey because of malnutrition, and blue eyes desperately searching for help as passerbys continued to choose not to see him. At times, the hatred in strangers´ eyes was better than being ignored. When they pretended not to see the misery Yuriy was in he ended up feeling like he was already dead.

Soon, Yuriy learned of another kind of fear. The fear that came from those who were threatened by his skill in the bey dish, fear because of the harsh fates waiting for them if they lost to him in the days of the Abbey. Once that first child lost terribly to Yuriy, and was never seen again, his peers started to respect him. Respect born from fear.

As Yuriy and his brothers were manipulated and tricked to threaten the safety of the world, he was looked on as both a hero and a monster. A hero who´d give Russia the top spot in Beyblade again.And as something a little less than human, perhaps closer to a cyborg, leading the world towards its demise while being seemingly void of much emotion. Perhaps only rivaled by how power hungry Kai had gotten together with Black Dranzer. Or even by Boris after that match against Rei. Boris had been Balkov´s triumph card. The man is still recovering from the lack of love he got from a young age, and to learn to handle his growing emotions just as his rage.

Today the world knows how all of it ended, and who to thank for their safety and freedom: the Bladebreakers.

After the Demolition Boys´ loss, people started to look at them with yet a new set of eyes. The eyes of those who viewed them as victims of manipulation, of harsh childhoods. Often with pity. It never suited Yuriy. Being a victim. Rather, he aimed for them to be seen as young, free and brave men redeeming themselves and growing into something better. Growing into the people they want to be now when they have a real shot at it.

Survivors.

Today, Yuriy is well trained in observing strangers and deciding whether or not they´re sincere when approaching his team. If they truly want to get to know them, or if they want something from them. Regretfully the Russians often decide it's safer to assume people are out to hurt them than blindly letting strangers into their lives.

It´s a snowy and cold day in Moscow, Russia. The air is crisp, cold and dry. Chilling to the bone. A good winter's day, with a clear blue sky telling of an even colder night ahead. Probably with stars. The streets are busy with people. Families, couples, children playing around. At a corner of a smaller street a coffee shop recently opened, carrying a foreign brand of coffee to Russia.

To the untrained eye Yuriy´s pale face appears indifferent as he thanks the young woman accompanying him for holding the door open. He's carrying some of the things they bought today. Books. Clothes. Some new toys for his pet dog. However, even if he might look like he'd rather be somewhere else, his eyes tell of a new kind of warmth as he looks at his female companion. An attentiveness few earn from him.

Yuriy´s presence has stirred people to life it seems. Staff greets him with almost spooked expressions and “Hi!”s. They must be newly hired, since the shop has just been around for a few weeks. It instantly sours his mood, as he much prefers workers to treat him like any other customer. From that point Yuriy makes sure it seems like he pays little attention to the people around them, but only after he shows his appreciation with a slight nod of his head. There´s this middle ground he has found as of late. Looking strangers in the eye as they gawk at him while fighting nerves. Some are his fans, and they pay a bit of his paycheck through watching his matches. Supporting him and his family. No matter how Yuriy looks at it, his fans matter, they all do in beyblading. Not all of them are stalkers, or want to hurt him or those closest to him. Even if it is hard to remember that sometimes.

The woman with him takes the lead to a small two-seater table at the back corner of the shop. Fairly isolated, yet with a view towards the street outside. She's always considerate like that. Sitting down with his back against the wall and a good view over the coffee shop, Yuriy´s eyes settle at the woman in front of him. The scent of sweet fruits washes over him. Nothing too overpowering. She takes off her coat, observant eyes darting around the place as she too notices the eyes on them. Unlike Yuriy, she can’t hide her discomfort. Yuriy has already deemed the room safe. The usual quick sweep of the eyes he does every time he arrives somewhere, especially somewhere new. Checking where the exits are, if there’s anyone suspicious around. Old habits are hard to break, and this one he won't try to: it has saved him before. Yuriy lets out a soft sigh as he allows himself to relax in his chair. Body grows heavier as he sinks into his seat. Knees falling apart ever so slightly. The only threat in this room seems to be awed struck fans, and those he can handle. At least well enough to make his friend enjoy their short coffee break.

Although Yuriy appears relaxed, his body language erects a barrier between his safe bubble with his friend and the people around them. Nothing about Yuriy is inviting. He leaves no room for strangers to think it's suitable for a quick chat or to ask about a signature: his focus is on his company. The girl in front of him tries to hide the fact that the attention from strangers gets to her, and Yuriy can´t help but imagine what the fans around them think as they see how she squirms in her seat. How they draw the wrong conclusions. The Russian offers her a hint of a smile in an attempt at making her feel more comfortable. If her attention is on him, Yuriy knows she´ll be able to relax and enjoy herself as well.

Ever since his brother started dating her, no one has seemed to want to accept their relationship for what it is. At first, not even Yuriy. The girl in the chair across from Yuriy is called Mathilda Alster. A young woman with a petite frame, big eyes and soft short pink hair. She is still red in the cheeks from the cold outside. Mathilda holds the hot cocoa she ordered tightly in both of her hands as if her fingers would turn into ice if she didn’t. That, or, it´s another sign of her nerves. Yuriy frowns slightly at the sight. Mathilda has been with them in Russia for over a week, and it seems like even the thick clothes he and his brothers helped her get doesn’t keep her warm enough out in the dry cold. It's the major reason why the two of them ended up shopping for clothes together.

Mathilda can't continue to wear her boyfriend´s shirts and hoodies once she gets cold. It works at their home, but not out and about, as most clothes that's supposed to end by the hips reach her mid-thighs or lower. Every borrowed t-shirt ends up a dress.

And Yuriy can't have her get sick.

”...I don’t really go to these kinds of places often, so it’s making them excited.” Yuriy says flatly, talking about the other people who keep stealing glances at them.

The fans are watching from a respectable distance so far, luckily. Yuriy is a very well-known face in Russia but he doesn't doubt people have realized just who is with him. The red haired man crosses a leg over the other and sips at his coffee, adding a bit of milk after a moment as he finds it just a bit too bitter for his liking. Something his teammates surely would judge him for. They always have their coffee black, black as their souls, as Boris says. A part of Yuriy regrets going to a crowded coffee shop during daytime. He loves coffee, but he´d normally have gotten it on the go or brewed it himself at home. However, Mathilda wanted to go for a snack after they were done with what they needed to do in town... so here they are. Not like Yuriy could deny her that when she looked so hopeful, so eager to spend just a little bit of more time together. Without really demanding anything but some of his time and company.

Before they set out this morning Mathilda had told Yuriy she'd keep him company, and that she had something she wanted to tell him. A secret. It made Yuriy curious. Mathilda might be someone who’d never tell someone else´s secret but she wouldn’t be able to hide that she is in fact, hiding something.

”So, you said earlier that there was something on your mind.” Yuriy asks at last.

Usually, the two of them have these kinds of conversations back at home. During Mathilda´s stays with them it has become a habit to gather around the kitchen table, having tea or coffee with something sweet and just talk. Even if she could just lock herself up in his brother's room and spend all the time with him, Mathilda put effort into getting to know all of them better. Never once voicing she thought their lifestyles were odd, but asking if she could help out with meals and chores while she lived with them. After a few days, they realized that all of them had breakfast, lunch and dinner together at the same hours a day. Even if their work, school, or individual practises were scheduled differently. Mathilda had observed, and made a good schedule that´d suit their hectic life-style. Before that, it had mainly been Sergei and Yuriy who were responsible for any home cooked meal. This change resulted in Yuriy and Mathilda growing closer, spending more time together, and learning each other's habits and likes and dislikes.

Today Mathilda was a little bit too eager to help Yuriy with his errands. She seemed almost anxious to get away from the three other men as she spoke with him in a low voice in the hallway. Asking if she could come with. Mathilda would often be content staying back reading when her boyfriend was at his part time job, or hanging out with whoever was at home, but Yuriy didn´t mind that she wanted his company. He has come to enjoy hers, and found the way she seemed to want to rely on him quite endearing.

However, he's certain whatever she's trying so hard to keep a secret has something to do with her boyfriend. It had left him feeling a bit uneasy for a while, as he's concerned it´d be something negative. Yuriy might not be able to admit it yet but he would miss her if Mathilda ever broke up with his friend. His thoughts straying to if it would work staying in touch even if it happened.

Mathilda´s cheeks end up getting a bit redder at Yuriy´s question. Her embarrassment and shyness is always refreshing, especially since it has never stopped her from doing what she wants in the end.

Leaning his chin in the palm of his hand, Yuriy leans forward over the table. Elbow resting just at the edge. ”Do I … really want to know?” Yuriy asks at last, the corner of his lips turning upward in a smirk.

Judging by Mathilda´s expression this won't be about a break up.

Even if Yuriy´d consider Mathilda to be something like an addition to his family by now, it wasn't always that way. It was something that happened gradually over time, until she was included with no questions asked.

Yuriy had learned to be observant from a very young age. It didn’t take long for the captain of the Russian team to notice that someone was getting uncomfortably close to the tight, sturdy and often very solid barrier of safety he had erected around his team. The intruder was that of a young woman, a woman he knew almost nothing about, during a beyblade tournament where their teams were rivals. Every team was the enemy in a sense.

Yuriy´s eyes soon followed Mathilda every time she was around, looking for any signs of ill intent while a small lump of anxiety grew in his chest. That lump grew in size as he realized she had been around for much longer than he had known. Rude as he sometimes can be, he genuinely decided it must have been because of her lack of presence that he at first didn’t take notice of her. She was always in the background, quiet and didn't take up much space. Not an opponent he´d have to worry about in the dish, but if he was going to be fair, his focus had been on other players.

Eventually he was informed about her, and that they had actually been in the same tournament once before. Alongside the fact that her team had too been victims of greedy and manipulative adults.

As Yuriy continued to observe Mathilda, he noted yet again that Mathilda was neither tall nor had a strong build. Her body, and eyes, showed her emotions as if she was an open book for everyone to read. He also realized that Mathilda was always observing too. Always conscious, self-conscious. With a build like that, and emotions so easy to read, Yuriy concluded that Mathilda wouldn´t become a threat to them physically. Whatever she threw at them in the dish or outside of it they'd know ahead of time and be able to counter. Yet, soon, he also realized that she might come too close in a completely different way than he expected.

Mathilda had her eyes set on Sergei.

With a risk to sound egocentric, Yuriy thought of how there have been people in the past who had tried to befriend, for example Sergei or Ian, with hopes of getting let into the Russians´ circle for their own personal gain or to even end up in his or Boris´ bed. Ian has always been the teammate most strangers assumed to be the easiest one to get close to. Often getting played in return as Ian has through bad experiences learned how people wanted to use him. All it took was for the short man to get excited over a friendship only to realize he wasn't the one the person was really there for. Others thought Sergei could be their key in. For some reason, many interpreted his silence for lack of depth, and assumed he´d accept almost any positive attention shown his way. They often realized their mistake when the usually gentle giant showed signs of irritation, and they realized just how intimidating the oldest and tallest member of the team could be.

It took Yuriy a while to realize that Mathilda was having a thing for Sergei. Even if her skin grew red with embarrassment, her voice cracking, she kept on approaching his brother with small conversations. Eyes were bright with delight as Sergei eventually started to return her greetings. Answered her questions, even if he seemed a bit put off balance by the attention and the fact that the girl didn´t stop approaching him.

Yuriy trusted Sergei to shoot her down if he felt she was overstepping, and he forced himself to let it go, only for him to see the two together more often. The lump of anxiety in his chest grew larger. Now, would this tiny girl, who sometimes stuttered out of nerves, be that cunning, to get close to Sergei with a false promise of.... affections... to later hurt him? Hurt their team? Yuriy didn´t want to take any chances. Yuriy knew Sergei had his walls up just like himself. He might seem approachable, at least the most approachable one out of his other teammates, just for the person trying to strike up a conversation feel like they're facing a cold brick wall. However, Yuriy could tell that Sergei´s walls were starting to crack around Mathilda.

Soon Sergei allowed her into his space, closer than any other stranger, and would expect Mathilda to be around. His steel blue eyes searched for her when she wasn't there when he expected her to be. How the quick meetings in the shared kitchen area of their hotel floor turned into longer and longer conversations over tea and coffee.

At one point Yuriy had felt Mathilda´s Captain Miguel´s eyes on him from across the dining area as they had both observed the same thing, and Yuriy felt annoyed. For once not so much over that Sergei and Mathilda were getting closer, but because of how cautious Miguel´s eyes had been. As if he was telling Yuriy to make sure his team behaved.

It didn't take long for Mathilda´s name to leave Sergei´s mouth around his team. It had made them grow quiet, because it had been rare for any of them to have plans with others outside of their small circle. Boris was the first one to break the silence as he made a crude joke about Sergei´s and Mathilda´s difference in size and that Sergei should be careful not to crush her. Boris deserved the death stare Sergei gave him after that.

Yuriy kept fighting his unease, believing that Sergei knew what he was doing, while also getting ready to act if things got out of hand.

The first time Mathilda ate with them she was very nervous, Yuriy could tell, the whole world could tell, but she still sat there with them and tried. Tried to keep up with conversations even if Boris was rude, and spoke mostly in Russian in a childish way to exclude her. Something Yuriy wouldn´t accept, as he instead used the lunch to talk to her. Gently poke her to see if there was any ill intent, testing the waters.

What in the end convinced Yuriy Mathilda was safe and good for his brother was the way she reacted to Sergei getting hurt. It was a minor injury: Sergei had stepped badly during practise and damaged his ankle. Leaving him with a swollen foot and a bad limp he tried to cover as well as he could among strangers. Somehow Mathilda saw through his pretense and realized he was hurt. The usually quiet girl had stopped Sergei as he and Boris were walking past her in the hallway. Voice a bit high-pitched as she asked about Sergei´s limp, and grew almost pushy as Boris told her it was nothing. As he told her to back off.

Mathilda had spent that evening sitting by Sergei’s feet cooling the swelling of his injury with ice and cold water. Yuriy had only realized this when he returned from a meeting with the BBA. The worry he saw on her face wasn’t an act. The challenge in her eyes as she looked at him and his team while staying by Sergei’s side, daring them to ask her to leave, was her true feelings.

Yuriy´s eyes narrow a fraction. He swirls the tablespoon in his now half-empty coffee cup, and tilts his head to the side while taking in Mathilda's sincere expression. Her face tells him that whatever secret she is hiding her nerves is from excitement and not out of anxiety.

“Our one year anniversary is coming up.” Mathilda starts slowly, her cheeks seeming to get even redder as she tries to word her thoughts as she wants them. “And I'm… trying to decide what I can do for him in celebration.”

Yuriy´s expression softens slightly, his concern fading. “...A year already?” He asks, feeling calm again. The thought that something between Sergei and Mathilda had turned bad had made him feel strangely uneasy. The man mentally sighs at himself. Focus returning to the current conversation and not what he dreads of the future. It feels like he met Mathilda just yesterday, at the same time as he feels as if they have known each other for several years already.

Anniversaries. Yuriy hasn´t thought much about it, but have they ever celebrated things like that, him and his family? They do keep track of a few dates, when things changed for the better for them. Boris is usually the one bringing out the alcohol. They always made sure to celebrate each other's birthdays as well. Celebrating they´re still getting older, living. Being free. Sergei was the first of them to get into a serious relationship. This is all new.

“Sergei probably won't expect anything…” Yuriy trails off slightly. “You have a good shot at surprising him, Mathilda.”

Mathilda has been patient and gentle as she guides Sergei through his first relationship. Yuriy thinks Sergei might not be Mathilda´s first love, but her first in many other ways, and they could experience it together at their own pace.

Sergei rarely wants something for himself, or expects others to do things for him. Emotions that Yuriy has seen grow since he started seeing Mathilda, as the man too learned he wanted her attention in different ways. Sergei had gone from only making sure others were alright to having someone, outside of family, who’d get worried sick about him. Who he would fight wars to keep happy and safe.

Mathilda smiles at Yuriy´s answer, and she seems pleased about what he just told her even if it didn't solve her problem of what to get Sergei in the end. Yuriy wonders what she has planned for her boyfriend. Warmth grows in him as he knows that Sergei now has more dates to remember and celebrate. Just like he too has a reason to spoil yet another person, Mathilda, when he wants to.

“I thought of… kidnapping him for a day, taking him to our favorite places, eat his favorite foods… “ Mathilda speaks, excited. “And-- … “ “You want us to be… somewhere else that day?” Yuriy asks with a slight smirk. The smirk is quite natural as he´ s amused imagining how Mathilda would ´kidnap´ Sergei.

“N-no!” Mathilda exclaims, understanding what her friend means. If they want some more privacy, just for them. “Well, it would be nice but--… “

“I'm sure I can get Boris and Ian out of the house for one evening…” Yuriy continues to playfully tease her.

A low buzz in Yuriy´s pocket makes him reach down for his phone, looking at the screen for just a moment.“Sergei´s off work, he's coming to pick us up on the way home.” Yuriy is thankful as he would rather not get on the public transport again today.

Mathilda nods, clearly thinking time must have passed quickly today, as she too checks her phone. Red cheeks slowly return to a normal shade as her embarrassment fades. Mathilda had neglected her phone simply because she was focused on Yuriy today, and there's an unread message from Sergei there waiting for her. The blonde Russian must have texted Yuriy too, due to the lack of reply on Mathilda´s part.

Just like Yuriy calls Mathilda when he can't get a hold of Sergei.

“I'll go and buy something for the others!” Mathilda says, getting her wallet before walking away. Blue eyes watches her as she checks out the display of different treats. Yuriy can already see Ian grinning at the gesture, and Boris not reacting much but whatever Mathilda gets for him will get eaten before next morning. For once, Yuriy isn´t the first one to notice Sergei. Instead his eyes follow how Mathilda rushes over to him, bag of sweets in hand. Taking in how Sergei´s tall and stiff frame softens as he leans down towards her: listening attentively to whatever she's saying. Yuriy gets up from his seat and pulls on his coat slowly, unable to look away at the sight. They look happy. It warms him, from inside out. He gets Mathilda´s things for her before he moves towards the couple. A long exhale through the nose.

Not everyone is out to hurt them.

#fanfic #writing meme #MathildaXSergei #MathildaxSpencer #Zadien #Beyblade #Beyblade fanfiction

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journalxxx · 3 years

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By Hook or by Crook (2)

May 1st, 2270

“Hello, Izuku.” “Hi, dad.” Izuku hadn’t exactly been dreading this conversation, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it either. He’d hoped his mom would do all the talking, having to break the news to his friends had been hard enough. For him. Most of them seemed to have gotten quite the kick out of it. “How are you? Your mother told me you’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” “Mh.” “Still upset over that visit?” “Mh.” “Speak, son. Sulking doesn’t translate well over the phone.” His father chided gently.

Izuku sighed. “The doctor said I’m never going to get a quirk. I’m sorry.” “Whatever for? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. Quirks are innate, surely you know that.” “Yes, I do.” Izuku said, staring at the paused frame of All Might’s debut video on the computer screen. The reflection of his own miserable face was superimposed with the triumphant silhouette of the hero. “But I’m sorry anyway. You have such a cool quirk… and mom’s useful too. I could become a great hero with one of them, but I’m never going to get any.” “Again, that’s none of your fault. And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway.” “Uh?” Izuku gulped, gripping the phone tightly. “Y-you don’t think I’d make a good hero?” “No, that’s not what I mean.” His father chuckled. “I mean that I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. You’re very young, there’s still plenty of time for your quirk to manifest.” “But the doctor said that all quirks appear before one is four years old. And I’m four. And I have the extra toe joint-” “Tsk! Some doctor they assigned you. As if one could unerringly guess the nature and development of something as unpredictable as a quirk with a single test. An x-ray, of all things. Ancient technology.” “The doctor said there was a study...” “I have an extra toe joint too, you know.” Izuku’s father laughed hearing his son’s surprised gasp. “Studies like the one your doctor mentioned draw conclusions based on the analysis of hundreds, thousands of cases. Those conclusions may hold true for the majority of them, but there are always outliers. Having that oh-so-precious joint and a quirk is indeed rare, but not unheard of.” “B-But…” Izuku’s eyes burned with the feeling of impending tears. He hadn’t expected his father’s reaction to be like this. No one had even remotely doubted the validity of the doctor’s opinion. No one. It almost hurt to hope. “I’m also too old…” “My own quirk didn’t show until I was… fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Way older than you are, anyway. Another important point to consider, don’t you think?” Izuku sniffled. Then cried, quietly. His father remained silent as the boy let the tears flow freely, wiping them on his arm now and then. There was a tangled ball of emotions deep in his chest, that he couldn’t quite unravel. After a couple of minutes though, the sobs abated and he felt better. Better than he had been feeling before his mom handed him the phone. “...Do you really think the doctor was wrong?” “You shouldn’t believe everything doctors tell you. My personal physician keeps calling me ‘the peak of biological and anthropological evolution’, but that’s because he’s been fishing for a raise for years. Clearly you’d expect a Darwinian champion to be able to walk under the sun without protection for more than five minutes without turning into a peeling tomato.” “Uh? Does that really happen to you?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that I’m albino? My skin is very sensitive to sunlight, and it burns easily. I have atrocious eyesight too.” “I didn’t know that.” Izuku winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.” “Not nearly as much as you think. I have plenty of skills and tools at my disposal to compensate. It isn’t an inconvenience at all these days, although it did cause me some grief when I was a child.” His father’s tone got softer. “Sometimes it does feel like our bodies are our own worst enemies, doesn’t it?” Izuku hummed in assent, very much agreeing with the sentiment. “I’m happy it doesn’t hurt you any more.” “And I’m glad you didn’t inherit this nuisance from me.” A sudden thought made its unwelcome way in Izuku’s head. “If… If I didn’t inherit your skin and eyes… maybe I won’t inherit your quirk either…” “Izuku.” His father’s tone was kind but firm. There were times when his presence, even just through his voice, felt way more real and solid than that of many people Izuku habitually shared a room with. “Your ability will emerge one day, I’m positive of that. Just give it time and don’t agonize over it.” Izuku nodded, even though he realized that wouldn’t translate well over the phone either. “...Okay.” “Now, what else have you been up to in this past month, other than brooding over a criminally incompetent diagnosis?” Not much, honestly, but Izuku told him anyway. As he kept chatting, his heart grew lighter than it had been in weeks. Mom did always say that his father was a good listener.

July 1st, 2272 “They were talking about it on TV yesterday. It’s an old incident from some years ago, before All Might met Nighteye!” “I see...” “Not many people know about it, because there’s no villain involved, and villains make all the stories more interesting! But it’s a great story nonetheless!” Izuku rattled on enthusiastically, taking advantage of his father’s unresponsive compliance. “Uh-huh...” “So this boy was having some big troubles, I think, and he jumped into a river because he didn’t know what to do about them. But luckily All Might was around! Do you know what he did?” “He offered to cover all the expenses for the years of therapy the boy would need afterwards?” “Uh… They didn’t say that on TV. I don’t know. I think he just rescued him from the river.” “That doesn’t seem to address the underlying problem.” His father commented icily. “Daaad, you’re ruining the story.” Izuku chided him. “Anyway, the funny part is that this boy had a quirk that could turn water into vinegar, and he activated it in a panic while he was drowning.” “Mh. A peculiar quirk...” “So All Might got all drenched in vinegar when he dove in to save him. He made this very silly face in front of the cameras, it was great! And when the boy apologized for causing trouble, guess what All Might told him?” “I’m sorry I’m the living embodiment of this unfair, hypocritical society that has driven you to the brink of despair?” “No. He said,” Izuku continued, breezing past his father’s petty remarks with practiced ease, “It is I who should thank you. My skin’s looking ten years younger now.” “Oh my God…” The man groaned, and a loud thunk-crash noise accompanied his words. “Oh, come on!” Izuku giggled, covering his mouth with his free hand. “It’s so funny!” “Just because they’re called ‘dad jokes’ doesn’t mean I’m legally obligated to laugh at them.” “But it is funny! All Might’s the funniest! Did you know that he just wrote a joke book? It’s called All Might’s Gags and Jokes: A Compendium. It already has amazing reviews! They say it’s warm and relatable and cy.. cyclical…” “He wrote a joke book. A veritable Renaissance man, this one...” His father muttered. Izuku heard something clink in the background. Probably the pieces of whatever his father dropped. “Mom says she’ll buy it for my birthday!” Izuku added, swinging his whole body on his chair in sheer excitement. “That is such a poor use of your remittance. I’ll need to have a couple of words with her…” “It’s for my education!” Izuku enunciated with solemnity, straightening his posture. “There’s a whole chapter of American puns and word plays! It will help me learn English!” “If you want to learn English on your own so soon, please choose a decent source. Start with basic grammar and alphabet books, watch some subtitled shows and movies to get the hang of the correct pronunciation-” “I’m learning a lot from All Might already! The catchphrase he used when he was in college in California was I am here! When he’s surprised, he says Oh my goodness! When he doesn’t believe something, he says Nonsense!” Izuku parroted, taking great care of imitating All Might’s confident, surprised and disbelieving expressions respectively. They would be lost on his father, but he needed to practice them anyway. “If that’s a good American accent, I’m the next Symbol of Peace.” “Dad.” Izuku said, suddenly very serious. He had a very important question to ask, and it had been a long time coming. “Why do you always make fun of him? It’s like… It’s almost like you don’t like him at all.” The words sounded so wrong he almost wasn’t brave enough to say them. Izuku would have been mortified if anyone had moved such an accusation on him. “I suppose he has a sort of… charisma about him.” His father admitted ruefully. “I can’t say it strikes any chords with me though.” “Are you just jealous of him?” Izuku asked shrewdly. “Kacchan also talks a lot of trash about All Might, but it’s obvious he’s just jealous. It’s all right if you are, though, I mean, he’s so-” “I’m this close to hanging up, Izuku.” “But- but how can you not like All Might?! Everyone likes All Might! Boys and girls, children and grown-ups! From age 0 to 100!” “...I guess I just don’t fit the target demographic then.” Izuku huffed. “You’re so boring, dad.” “Says the one who’s been talking my ear off about the same topic for the last forty minutes.” The boy frowned, nibbling at his lip. “...Sorry. Am I annoying you?” “I’ll admit I may have hit my monthly tolerance limit of All Might trivia. Don’t worry about it though.” Izuku did in fact stop worrying, his father’s amusement clearly detectable in his voice. “I think I’ll be able to bear with your unabashed enthusiasm until you hit your mandatory disillusioned teenage phase. Then we’ll see if that obnoxiously cheery act of his will still resonate with you.”

June 2nd, 2274 “His normal body temperature is about two degrees higher than the average. Around 38-39 °C.” “And what can you deduce from that?” Izuku’s father goaded. The boy stared at the scribbles in his notebook in deep thought. “Uhm… that it’s difficult to tell if he has a fever or not?” His father laughed, but not unkindly. “I wouldn’t think so. You just said yourself that that is his normal temperature. Therefore, I wouldn’t call Endeavor’s doctor unless his thermometer read more than 39.5 °C, probably.” “Right.” Izuku nodded. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he understood that on his own? His father didn’t seem to mind his blunder though. “Try again.” “I think…” Izuku’s eyes were just about to bore a hole into his rough sketch of the hero’s costume. He gave up after the silence started to make him uncomfortable though. “...I don’t know. What can I deduce from that?” “Hm… You did bring up an interesting point. Do you know how fever works, Izuku?” “Yeah. Your body temperature rises when you’re sick. If it rises too much, you can get in serious trouble, you could even die. It never really gets that bad though.” “But why does it rise? What does your body accomplish by doing that?” “Uh…” Izuku frowned. He was sure he’d read or heard something about that, but the details escaped him at the moment. “To help you fight off the sickness, right? You feel worse at first, but it actually helps you get better.” “Exactly. Most bacteria and viruses that infect men thrive and multiply optimally at around 37 °C, which is the average person’s normal body temperature. But the growth of these microorganisms is hindered when the environment gets too hot. That is the principle that makes fever useful for humans. As your body gets hotter, it debilitates the invasors, so that your immune system can remove them more easily.” “..Oh.” It was a pity that his father called him only once a month, Izuku could have easily listened to him for hours every day. He always had so many interesting things to say about so many different subjects, and he always exposed them so neatly. “So. Can you deduce anything new now?” “Uh, uhm… He… I guess he...” Izuku snapped out of his reverie. Right, this was a conversation, not a lesson. He went over the new information in his head as quickly as he could. Higher temperature than normal... Fever... Microorganisms... Immune syst- Oh! “He heals quicker than- no, wait! He doesn’t get sick at all! Because he’s always too hot for the microorganisms! They can’t grow in his body!” “Excellent reasoning!” His father’s warm praise made Izuku’s chest swell with pride. “Obviously he isn’t completely immune to any and all infections, there are lots of exceptions to the mechanism I just explained to you. But yes, I do believe it’s safe to assume that our esteemed Flame Hero suffers from the occasional seasonal maladies far less often than the general population, if at all.” “That’s so cool…” Izuku immediately added the new data to his notes, almost breaking the tip of the pencil in his enthusiasm. “Is that what you wanted me to deduce? Or did you explain that just because I brought up the fever thing?” “I was actually thinking of something else. But, on second thought, it may be too technical a topic for an eight-year-old.” “...Can you tell me about it anyway?” “Of course.” Izuku would never not be grateful for the patience his father had, never denying him any clarification on anything. He was just about the only adult who never got tired of his questions. Even his mom sometimes hid her fatigue behind a mildly insincere I don’t know. “High heat isn’t exactly conductive to the activity of human cells either. That’s one of the reasons why you feel exhausted and achy when you have a fever, your body struggles to keep doing what it’s supposed to do above its normal temperature range. But Endeavor not only is at peak condition at 39 °C, he can also withstand open flames with a much higher temperature. This suggests that his cells must be fundamentally different from the average person’s on a biochemical level, that his quirk must provide some particularly efficient cellular mechanism to prevent heat damage. One example might be some dedicated enzymes to protect proteins from denaturation, but now I’m entering mere speculation.” A pause. “Did you follow me?” “...Kind of.” Izuku said, kind of lying but not entirely. He had followed most of that. He scrawled and circled a couple of terms he hadn’t grasped - Biochemical - Enzymes - Denaturation - on the page. He didn’t want to waste his father’s time by asking him to explain the meaning of words he could easily look up later on his own. “The gist of it is that Endeavor’s Hellflame has at least two facets. Not only ‘creating fire’, but also ‘not incinerating himself’. The first trait would be a fatal liability without the second.” “Got it!” Izuku cheered. Now that he had understood completely. “You sure know a lot about quirks, dad! Like, a lot! About anything, really!” “For the sake of intellectual honesty, it must be said that it isn’t difficult to impress a primary schooler.” His father laughed. “I’m just older than you.” “How much older?” Izuku asked, realizing for the first time that no one had ever told him his father’s age. “Oh, by a lot. Centuries.” Izuku cackled. “You can’t be that old. You still go to work. Our neighbors are 80 and they’re already retired.” “I do try to keep a youthful outlook on life. But yes, quirks fascinate me quite a bit. And they make for the perfect topic to distract you from your incessant yapping about All Might.” “Speaking of All Might-” “No, I-” His father sighed theatrically. “I just walked into this one, didn’t I?” “Yep.” Izuku grinned. “What about his quirk? Do you know anything about it? He never gives straight answers when people ask him about it…” “That may be the single sign of intelligence he’s ever displayed. The more your enemies know about your quirk, the easier it is for them to find your weaknesses. I’m surprised the other pro heroes aren’t as reserved.” “I wonder why All Might does that, though. His quirk is… pretty obvious.” Izuku pondered. “It just makes him strong. Very strong. Like, the strongest ever. But that’s it.” “Allegedly, yes. But as you noticed yourself, if raw power was all there was to it, there would be no reason to skirt around the issue in interviews, no?” “So there must be something else… What do you think it might be?” “I think it would be no less than cruel to deprive you of the thrill of carrying out your own research.” Izuku let out a dissatisfied moan, and his father chuckled. “You are already so very proficient at it. Your mother told me you’ve already filled a whole notebook with hero and quirk analyses.” “Oh, ehr… It’s just stuff I read here and there…” “Mh, I’ve heard enough of your ‘stuff’ to know that there’s more than random factoids in that head of yours. In fact…” Izuku felt his cheeks warm for the compliment. “I think you’ve gotten old and judicious enough to be trusted with my emergency number.” “Uh? What emergency number?” “It’s a phone number I’ll always answer to, on any day and at any hour, in case you may find yourself in a bad situation. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but better safe than sorry. Now…” His father’s voice raised slightly, drowning out Izuku’s impending interruption. “Can I rely on the fact that you are aware that desperately wanting to tell me that All Might saved a kitten from a meteor does not qualify as an emergency?” Izuku pouted. “I know what an emergency is, dad.” “Good. Ask your mother to give you the number then. Don’t save it on your phone or write it anywhere. Memorize it, and be responsible with it.”

December 3rd, 2275 Sorry for the long silence. I had an accident on the job and I won’t be able to speak clearly for a while. We can talk with the included devices. Use your ring finger to activate them. Usual days, usual hours. Hisashi That short note held the first words Izuku had received from his father in the last five months. The first month he hadn’t phoned, Izuku had felt slightly disappointed, but understanding. His father was a busy man, surely something very important must have been requiring his full-time attention. It was fine, Izuku was confident he could manage to sweet-talk him into a double-length call the following month to make up for that. The second month, he had started to worry. His mother hadn’t heard from his father either. It was unprecedented not to hear from him for such a long time. Since Izuku could remember, his father had never skipped one of their monthly calls. They often talked on the first day of every month, and he kept trying to contact them exactly once each following day if his calls were missed. He never failed to reach them past the third day. He always called from a hidden number, so trying to get hold of him was not an option. The third month, Izuku’s mother had decided to use the emergency number. She hadn’t been able to get through to her husband, but the polite colleague of his who had picked up had reassured her that he was indisposed but overall fine, and would get in touch with them as soon as possible… which could still take a while. Curiously, the coworker had also instructed them to collect a sample of their fingerprints and send them to a specific address. Izuku had been mystified by the request, but his mother had readily agreed, commenting that it was “not the strangest thing Hisashi’s ever asked for”. The silent wait that followed had been a little uneasy, but not harrowing. Izuku and his mother reread the message a couple of times before opening the box they’d just been delivered. Inside were only the two mentioned devices with their respective chargers, snuggled among waterproof packaging and stuffing. They looked very much like ordinary mobile phones, except they had no buttons or ports on any side. Some quick experimentation proved that they could be turned on simply by pressing the indicated finger on the touchscreen. The display showed a very minimalistic chat interface, with a fixed red dot on the top left corner. No amount of tapping on the screen could bring up the virtual keyboard though, which was puzzling. There was no way to access the rest of the phone’s functions, if it even had any. It was the third day of the month, so technically still within the familiar communication window. Izuku kept poking and prodding at the buttonless phone for the whole afternoon until eventually, shortly after dinner, the red dot at the top of the chat became green. A minute later, a message popped up. Hello, Izuku. Izuku almost dropped his cup of hot chocolate in excitement, which was quickly replaced by frustration because he still couldn’t type anything in any way. How was he supposed to- Speak. I can hear you. “...Oh! Nice!” Izuku exclaimed. “Hi, dad! How are you? What happened?” I’ve been better. I got decked by a hysterical ape. Izuku frowned. “That’s not funny. Mom and I were very worried.” That wasn’t really a joke. What? What even- “...How? Did you break into a zoo or something…?” Sorry, you’re right. Let me rephrase. I had a violent disagreement with a brute. “Oh…” Izuku was about to ask for further explanations but he waited. The three bouncing dots at the bottom of the screen signalled that his father was still writing. We will have to communicate like this for a while. I hope it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you. Judging by how long it took him to type even the shortest messages, Izuku thought it was going to be much more of an inconvenience for his father. He felt sorry for him. “No, not all. Is it… is it really bad? Shouldn’t you come home so we can help you get better? It sounds like you won’t be able to work anyway…” I’ll receive better medical treatment here, and I can still get some work done while I recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll recover fully sooner or later. Izuku picked at the lint of his blanket, choosing his words carefully. “You could… come home anyway. Even if you could work. When you’re feeling a little better. So we could spend some time together.” The three bouncing dots reappeared, but Izuku kept talking. He already knew what his father’s answer was going to be, but he wanted to take advantage of the delay to get a few more words in. “Some of my friends have parents that work far from home too. They’re away a lot, but… they do come back to visit sometimes. Usually for the holidays. At least… At least once.” At least his friends had actually met their fathers once in their whole lives, Izuku completed only in his head. You know how things stand. My job doesn’t afford me this kind of free time. “...What do you even do that won’t let you ever do anything?” Izuku muttered, out of sheer petulance. That was another familiar point of contention, to which his father replied with the same, word-for-word justification he always used. Every detail concerning my activities is classified by the government. We’ve been over this. Don’t be childish. And that was usually the end of it. Any further questioning after the ‘classified’ thing invariably turned Izuku’s father into a slippery wall of smooth deflections. But, considering the current situation, Izuku felt like he could get away with a little more nagging, if he played his cards right. “I know you can’t say anything. But how about…” He physically leaned forwards, trying not to let his tension seep through his voice. “How about I try to deduce something? About your job. Just… for fun.” No new message showed up, not even the typing dots. Izuku decided that it was as much of an approval as he was going to get, so he started to voice his thoughts as they formed. “...Your job is classified by the government. So it’s important, very important, so important that other people can’t know about it.” When he was very young, Izuku had obviously interpreted it as irrefutable proof that his father must be some sort of secret agent. He had exposed his conclusion to Kacchan and his gang once. They had… not-so-respectfully disagreed. Izuku had never brought up the matter with them afterwards. “Your note said that you got hurt on the job. So someone you know from work punched you so hard that, even after five months, you still can’t talk well.” Izuku paused. That was… a scary idea. It dawned on him, for the first time since the beginning of this whole ordeal, that his father may have really dodged a bullet there. What kind of a brute could possibly want to injure someone that much…? Surely a criminal… A villain, maybe…? “Your job is dangerous, and it leaves you almost no free time. It also pays well.” That last item was admittedly a shot in the dark, Izuku didn’t really know much about money handling. But he had noticed that his mother never denied him a gift or a treat on the grounds of its cost (his vast collection of All Might memorabilia was a testament to that), like so many of his friends’ relatives were wont to do. She didn’t need a job herself, and Izuku remembered overhearing a conversation she had with Kacchan’s mom where she had said that they were ‘well provided for’. “You know a lot about a lot of stuff, especially about quirks and heroes. You know a lot of things about quirks and heroes that I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet.” Izuku paused, racking his brain for anything else that stuck out. Before he could come up with more points to make, his father finally wrote back. You sure put some thought into this. I’m impressed. The lack of reprimands was an encouragement in its own right. Now came the hard part. These were all facts that he already knew, now he had to put them together… and no matter how much he tried to come up with different possibilities, there was only one explanation that rang true in Izuku’s mind. “Dad… are you some sort of… undercover hero?” Izuku waited with baited breath for the dancing dots to turn into a complete message. Definitely not. ...Aw, shoot. Although I guess I do happen to deal with heroes quite often in my line of work. Izuku gasped. That was the first real piece of information his father had ever shared with him about his job! And wow, he worked with heroes! And whatever support he lent them had to be pretty vital if he was always so busy and tight-lipped. “So you’re like… a policeman? An informant that tracks down villains for the heroes to catch? Or an engineer bound by trade secret? Or-” Enough, Izuku. I’m supposed to be resting. I don’t think being given the third degree by my own son counts as such. Izuku deflated. So close to the truth, and yet so far… Maybe he could manage to get some other clue out of his father later. But… there was one more thing he simply had to ask. “...Have you ever met All Might?” I’m just going to ignore you after this. Well, it had been worth a try. Izuku finally relented, reasonably satisfied with the result of his investigation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. No more questions. And no All Might stuff. Not that I have much to tell you about him. He hasn’t really been around lately.” Hasn’t he, now? Uh, odd. It wasn’t like his father to miss an opportunity to dodge All Might gossip. Izuku supposed there’d be no harm in taking advantage of this atypical spark of curiosity. “Yeah. It’s been like this for a few months. Rumors say he’s abroad, working on some large scale mission. Something very secret, that’s why there are no articles on him in newspapers from other countries either.” I wasn’t aware of this. That’s very interesting. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone less suited to hushed-up operations. Izuku couldn’t help but snort. In light of the recent revelation, he wondered if his father was so unapologetically critical of All Might because he had worked with him and they hadn’t gotten along… which seemed kind of impossible. How could All Might be the unpleasant type of coworker? Or maybe his father really was just jealous because he couldn’t work with All Might often enough. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. “...Sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about hero stuff now that you’re, uh… on forced vacation.” Actually, I’d love to. I’ve been a little out of the loop lately, I need to catch up with the news anyway. Fire away all the information you have. Izuku smiled. “Even about All Might?” Especially about All Might.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #izuku midoriya #deku #all for one

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vermin-disciple · 3 years

Note

For the random scenes - ask me to stay?

(Random Scenes Ask Meme)

This is one of the backstory scenes I wrote early on for the This Be The Verse universe (although it doesn't really need that context - it's basically an AU take on the final Garak/Bashir scene in the finale). It's one I've just never been that satisfied with. I did end up cannibalizing parts of it for one the Interludes in Tell Me You See Me (with a change in POV), and I may end up using other parts of it in something else (so it will probably end up thoroughly dismembered by the time I'm through). But here is the original version.

***

Julian remembered his last conversation with Palis, and the guilty little bubble of relief swelling in the back of his mind when he’d ended things. He’d always known that he couldn’t stay on Earth sitting behind an oversized desk anticipating the medical needs of visiting dignitaries and treating the occasional bout of indigestion. But there was more to it than that. There were the lies between them, the fact that he wasn’t the man she thought he was, and his certainty that she would never have loved him at all had she known the truth. He never even gave her the option of coming with him. The thought of her accompanying him to some starship or starbase, following him from posting to posting while he calculated just how many accomplishments he could get away with, was too utterly incongruous to contemplate. And she, well—she didn’t suggest it either, did she? Maybe a part of her was just as relieved as he was to end it.

He searched his psyche for that same sense of relief now, and found something else churning just beneath the surface of that bone-deep, hollow despair: anger. Because of course, of course, Garak wouldn’t even contemplate the idea of asking Julian to come with him. When it came right down to it, he hadn’t asked Palis to come with him because he didn’t want her there. On some subconscious level he had known that their feelings for each other were shallow, and the hurt of leaving her could never be more than skin-deep. The relief covered it over like a bandage, and he’d hardly thought of her in those first months on DS9. Until this moment, he hadn’t thought of her in years.

If he thought that Garak’s reasons were the same as his had been seven years ago, then maybe he could just go back to DS9 and let the cycle of sadness and loss run its course, piecing his heart back together so he could present it to someone else, maybe someone less maddening and broken and morally questionable.

But he knew Garak too well to dismiss his feelings as shallow. Garak feared sentiment because he felt it so deeply that it was beyond his ability to control.

It wasn’t even some misguided appreciation for the importance of Julian’s career. He didn’t think that much of Starfleet, or of Julian’s ambitions.

No, he was going to give Julian up without even trying to discuss their options, because in his mind this was some sort of symbolic final sacrifice to the great alter of Cardassia, just like in some depressing Cardassian epic. What kind of dutiful Cardassian hero were you, after all, if you hadn’t sent the love of your life away to prove your devotion to the State? Julian wanted nothing more than to grab him and shake him and shout at him, remind him that his whole goddamn life of self-sacrifice had not saved Cardassia, and force him to admit that rejecting every opportunity of personal happiness wasn’t going to help rebuild her.

Julian had always known that he would never outrank Cardassia in Garak’s heart, but if he could accept that, then frankly, Cardassia was going to have to learn to share.

“You’re going to need doctors.”

Garak froze. After a moment he turned around, examining Julian with narrowed eyes. “Undoubtedly.”

“You’re going to need more doctors than the Cardassian Union has left. You’re going to need to accept aid.”

“True. I’m sure the Federation will be happy to step in. Out of pure altruism and magnanimity, of course.”

“I’m not saying there isn’t any strategy to it. We’ve done very well for ourselves turning enemies into allies. Just look at what happened with the Klingons, after Praxis.”

This show of cynicism had the desired effect. Garak took a few steps closer to him. “You’re right of course, Doctor. In the decades to come, our civilizations may yet be friends. But this situation differs from the Klingons’ unhappy catastrophe in several respects. Cardassia isn’t the only world to suffer devastation. The Federation has also suffered in this war, and they will have to allocate their resources accordingly. They will have to temper their generosity. After all, Betazed is also in need of doctors.”

“Any Federation doctor can work on Betazed. Or Ricktor Prime or Tyra or any other Federation planet. But there’s a limited number of us who have any experience treating Cardassians.”

“Doctor,” said Garak, and there was a warning note in his tone, and a hesitation. “Julian—”

“For god’s sake, Elim! Do you want me to come to Cardassia with you or not?”

“Please think about what you’re doing,” said Garak, in a soft voice, the hint of warning replaced by something else, something that made Julian’s heart ache. “I don’t know if you can truly understand loss on this magnitude. I know that it hasn’t occurred to you that you might add to it, but let me assure you, that is exactly what you are proposing.” He held up a hand to stop Julian’s protest. “Listen to me, my dear Doctor. Back when I used to consider you entirely off-limits, I used to imagine what it would be like to bring you to Cardassia - to tour the museums of Lakarian City, or the Institute of Art, with my arm linked in yours. Take you to a little restaurant in Lakat that I think would make you reconsider your opinion on sem'hal stew. Listen to you scoff at all the monuments to colonial excess in the Imperial Plaza. It was a very idle fantasy, you understand. Or so I told myself, at the time. It was far too intoxicating an idea to take seriously. Being welcomed back to my home with open arms, all my sins forgiven, and you at my side - your body and mind at my disposal. Your love, if I was feeling especially maudlin. Not just for me, but for my world. I would have liked nothing better than for you to see her the way I did. And now…” he sighed. “And now, Doctor, tell me what it is you’re offering, exactly? You will volunteer your considerable skills to help my people. I certainly don’t doubt your intentions - compassion is second nature to you. I know that asking you to turn your back on them is pure selfishness on my part. But I don’t know if I can cope with it. How long would we have? A few months? A year? How long before Starfleet realizes that it has better uses for your talents? And where would that leave me? I know that in the midst of this destruction I will be haunted by memories of the past, visions of things as they used to be, faces of the dead. Don’t ask me to see your face there as well.”

Julian digested all this in silence. “And what if I stayed? Is that what you want?”

“What I want is not, and never has been relevant.”

“I think you actually believe that.”

“I’ve told you before, my dear, that I believe all my lies. But I know better than to believe yours. You are not going to resign from Starfleet, leave all your friends behind, and give up the protections of the Federation so that you can come live in the ruins of an enemy planet. With me. Not even you are that impetuous.”

“I’m not being impetuous,” he said. He paused, trying to form his reverberating, tumultuous thoughts into something that Garak would understand, and accept. “I’m smarter than you, you know. And that’s not arrogance, it’s just a fact. I’m smarter than most people. My parents made sure of that. But you’ve been spinning me around in circles since the day we met. You make me question everything I know and re-examine everything I believe. I can’t just wave my ideals and principles around like a flag, I have to argue for them - they have to hold up to scrutiny. I like the way you provoke me, even if sometimes you push too far. But when I get you to concede a point, I spend the rest of the day glowing. And sometimes, more than anything, I wish that you would let me comfort you, because I think you need it more than you’ll ever admit. You might be the most frustrating person I’ve ever met, and you drive me completely crazy. But I think I would rather be driven crazy by you than stay sane with anyone else. And frankly, you are being selfish - I can do more good here than I can anywhere else, and I think I’m going to, whatever you say. Avoid me, if you can’t bring yourself to trust me - it’s a big planet. I know you think that I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. You’re probably right. When I came to DS9 I was naive enough and insensitive enough to see Bajor’s woes as my grand adventure. But I’m not that person anymore - at least, I hope I’m not. I know this is going to be nothing short of hell. And—” Julian swallowed, and reached out a hand to cup Garak’s cheek. “And how can I say that I love you, and leave you to face that alone?”

Garak exhaled slowly, as if he’d been holding his breath. He leaned into Julian’s hand and covered it with his own. Then he chuckled, almost to himself. “This may surprise you, but I don’t have any idea what to say.”

“That must be very disconcerting for you,” said Julian. “Say that you want me to stay with you. Say that you want me to help you rebuild Cardassia. Say that you love me.”

Garak wrapped an arm around his waist and kissed him. “I want you, in every conceivable way. Stay with me, and help me rebuild my home. I love you more than I have ever allowed myself to love anyone.” His smile shifted into something more mischievous as he leaned in again and lowered his voice, speaking directly into Julian’s ear. “And I would very happily ask you to take me hard against that console, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to stay quiet enough to avoid detection.”

Julian laughed, a little helplessly, wondering at the humanoid capacity for inappropriate humor in the face of tragedy, to reach for love amidst unspeakable horrors, and to find hope when nothing else was left. For a moment, they clung to each other as if the world might fall apart when they let go. But it didn’t, and it wouldn’t, and there were still many things left to do before they could take another step.

#ask meme #my fanfic #this be the verse #vermin rites #garashir

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winter-turtle · 3 years

Text

House Of Wolves - Chapter 4 - Winterturtle - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter 4: Letting Go Of What I Once Believed

There were only a few constants in Peter’s life – dingy rooms where he slept, the shoves that he’d learned were tad too strong to be considered playful, the compliments that weren’t really compliments…

Oddly enough, he’d come to accept the bracelets as another constant in his life. The bracelets that weren’t there anymore. He couldn’t claim that they provided comforting weight since they barely weighted anything, but he felt strangely naked without them.

The next morning, Peter counted exactly two plates on the table when he entered the kitchen. Right. No breakfast waiting for him anymore.

With his professional cooking skills, he made himself a bowl of bland cereal before seating himself at the table. Aside from the crunching of the cereals and the occasional words his parents exchanged when they showed each other something on their tablets, the room was quiet.

They paid their son no mind.

“So… you came for me,” Peter began awkwardly, not really knowing where to begin. He wasn’t in a talking mood after he woke up. Thankfully, he’d been ignored for the rest of the ride and then he used the aftereffects of the sedatives as a reason to retreat into his new room.

The weight of what he’d done kept crashing into him full force.

“Of course we came for you,” Mary said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Do you really think we would’ve left you there to rot? You are out little Spider!”

“Well, you left me there and then didn’t show up for five weeks,” Peter replied in a tone that he hoped sounded nonchalant and kept his face carefully blank, not wanting to appear that he was talking back.

Richard shrugged. “That was all part of the plan.”

“Plan?” Peter repeated.

“Oh, Peter,” Mary laughed “for such a smart boy, you sure can be stupid. Come on, I thought we raised you better than that.”

Peter pressed his lips in thin line, willing himself not to react to the jab. That could end badly for him very quickly.

“We’re not suicidal,” Richard continued, “we know that fighting the whole team of those heroes wouldn’t end well for us. That’s where you came in play.”

“You saved yourselves by leaving me there?”

“Don’t interrupt,” Mary scolded. “We have a client that offered a very nice sum for the plans of the compound. And what’s the best way to get those than to get them from the inside?”

So this was all just a stupid plan to get the blueprints and some inside info? For some reason, the thought of being used without his knowledge as some disposable pawn made the something nasty stir in Peter’s chest. “And you haven’t thought of, I don’t know, letting me in on the plan so I would’ve known what I was getting into and what was expecting of me?”

Dangerous waters. He was entering dangerous waters by talking like this, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Your behavior had to be authentic,” Richard said.

“I could’ve pretended.” Danger. Stupid. Shut up. “And besides, how could you possibly know that they would let me roam the building? They could’ve left me locked in a cell or had me shipped off to Shield.”

“Watch your tone,” Mary shot Peter a warning look, which made Peter grind his teeth in response. “Firstly, you’re not as good actor as you think. Your skills might work on random passerby or security guards, but not on a group that has several spies. And secondly, we knew because, well, look at yourself,” she gestured to Peter’s face. “You don’t exactly look dangerous with that baby face. That’s one of the reasons you wear that mask. All innocent and redeemable.” She gagged. “If you won’t grow out of it soon, we’ll have to do something about it. Maybe a nice scar or something. Maybe on the cheek or over the eye…”

Peter didn’t like that idea at all. If his mother wanted a scar that would stay visible, it would have to be deep and held open until it healed. The thought of the pain made his eye twitch.

“A scar like that will remove our advantage. He’ll look suspicious.”

“We could use make-up.”

“Will you dedicate the time to it? Because I seriously doubt that he’ll be able to cover it properly.”

Mary dragged her hand down her face, letting out weary sigh. “I guess you’re right.”

“They have feelings. They care,” Richard smiled as if they just weren’t discussing the pros and cons of mutilating Peter’s face, “and that’s their weakness. I bet that after they failed to get information on us from you, they thought they could “reeducate” you or change you or some other sappy shit and make you turn on us.”

Peter’s silence was the answer on its own.

“Wait, they really told you all that crap?”

“They did,” Peter admitted. “I knew they wanted something from me when they changed their behavior.” Peter put on displeased scowl. “Do you really think that if I’d believed them, I would be here right now? I played along to get nice things, that was all.”

Liar.

Richard nodded. “Good. And see how nicely it worked out? After we saw you on that roof, we gave it a few more days before coming to pick you up.”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat. Nobody was supposed to know about what happened on the roof except him and Mr. Stark. “You were watching the whole time?”

“We did,” Mary said. “I have to say, it was amusing to watch the Merchant of Death himself give you his hoodie. You had him eating from your hand!” she giggled. “He’s gone soft for some random kid. That’s hilarious.”

“So, where all have you been?” Richard asked.

“The cells, obviously, I almost made it to the exit while I tried to run away, then the living quarters I believe, the communal area, the gym, the roof and Mr. Star- I-I mean Stark’s workshop.”

“Mr. Stark now, huh?”

Shit. Peter didn’t like the glint in his father’s eyes. He shrugged, not letting the desperation to cover up the slip-up show. “Force of habit. Being polite gave me nice things too.”

“Well, you better unlearn that,” he spat back. “It looks like their manipulation tactics was at least somewhat successful if you got used to it.”

“What? That’s not- I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Well, to me it seems like you fell for their sweet words!”

“I didn’t!”

“I bet you believed them when they said that you can be better!”

Yes.

“I didn’t! I swear!”

Liar, liar.

“You are one ungrateful brat, you know?”

“What could they give you anyway?” Mary joined in. “You would be nothing without us. We made you strong.”

I didn’t ask for it.

“Where you would be without us? What you would be without us? Huh? Tell me. You might remember that much.”

Normal.

Peter remembered. It was hard to forget when it was drilled into your head since you could remember. “Nothing,” he said softly. “I would be nothing without you.”

“All that training we put you through—”

“Kid, that’s called abuse.”

“—it was all to make something out of you!”

Peter was tired. He didn’t wan to listen to any of this anymore. He needed some alone time.

There was only one way how to get it.

“You’re right,” he said, his head bowed, “but I wouldn’t be here if I believed them,” he repeated. “I’ll do better. I promise.”

All was quiet for a moment.

Richard sighed harshly and sliding a laptop towards him. “Go make yourself useful and make those plans. You better not become more trouble than you’re worth,” he grumbled, then gave Peter’s chair a kick. “Get out of my sight. And don’t expect any food until those plans are complete, nice and detailed.”

Peter wordlessly stood up and with the laptop under his arm, he headed out of the kitchen.

“Oh, and Peter?” Mary called out after him, making Peter stop in his tracks. “One more question – back on that roof… you had a perfect chance to kill Stark. That would be nice for your first time. Imagine that, killing Iron Man,” she said with a dreamy smile, “way to make a name for yourself. Killing one of the Avengers would get us so much recognition and power, more that we already have. So,” Mary looked at him intently, her happy demeanor gone “why didn’t you go for it?”

Now this was the time where Peter was incredibly glad that nobody could see his every thought on a display like in that book he’d read. “He didn’t have his suit on,” he said, his voice even. “He is just a regular man without it. It would be too easy. I want a challenge.”

Liar, liar, liar.

Mary contemplated the answer before humming, seemingly satisfied with what she heard. “Nobody would have to know that he didn’t have his suit on, but okay. I see your reasoning.”

Peter let out soundless exhale.

“You’ll get your chance soon.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Now scatter,” she waved him off as if he was some annoying bug.

Peter clutched the laptop a little harder. Grateful to be released, he headed to the roof.

Tony had no idea how many times he’s watched the footage. He was pretty sure he’s learned everything there was to know first five times he played it, but what else he could do?

Absolute hopelessness – that’s what he felt. Some part of his mind still refused to believe what had happened.

Where had he gone wrong?

“Tones,” Rhodey softly said.

Tony didn’t turn around. His eyes remained glued to the screen. “Look,” he said as he paused the footage Friday had so diligently searched for since that night on the roof. Tony zoomed on the figure in the middle of the road. “He’s way younger here, but there’s no denying it. It’s him.”

Even if the hood was hiding most of the kid’s head, there was just a split-second frame where a part of the face could be seen.

Rhodey walked closer, leaning over Tony’s shoulder. “There is… a resemblance.”

“That’s not all,” Tony said and let the rest of the footage play out. He did his best to push back the memories that got brough up by the sight of the alien army. “See?” he asked. “The kid could’ve left that couple behind, but he went out of his way to save them.”

“Tony—”

“He said he didn’t save anyone and yet this proves otherwise. He could’ve stayed where he was, he could’ve run, he made himself that opening, but he didn’t!”

“Tones—”

“He had to have a reason for running, right? He couldn’t just up and leave because he felt like it, there has to be something—”

“Tones—"

“I just don’t understand what I did wrong! I though I have—”

“Tony!” Rhodey said, forcefully cutting Tony off. Immediately after that, his face took on a look of sobriety and pity. “Fury is here.”

And with just those three words, Tony deflated. He knew what was coming next.

“Hey.”

Peter glanced up at Richard, then returned his attention back to the screen in front of him. “Hey.”

Richard casually leaned on the wall near Peter, far enough so he couldn’t see the screen. “What a view, huh? I bet you missed it back in that jungle.”

Peter watched the horizon and nodded, because as much as he wanted to deny it, he did miss the city.

“How are the plans going?”

“Good.”

Another long stretch of silence.

“About earlier… I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way. We were just worried. You know we care about you, right?”

Were you? Do you?

“Yeah.”

“Full sentences.”

“I know you were worried,” Peter sighed. Time to use the magic words. “I’m sorry.”

“Great,” Richard said and went to the door. He turned around before he passed the doorway. “Peter?”

Peter wordlessly looked up, locking his gaze with Richard’s.

“You did alright out there. Here,” he said and threw small bar at him. Peter caught it with no real effort. “For you,” Richard finished.

“Thanks.”

When Peter couldn’t hear his father’s footsteps any longer, he opened his hand. A tiny chocolate bar sat innocently on his palm. For a long moment, Peter didn’t do anything. He just stared.

To be fair, he didn’t expect his parents to come to him only an hour later. Usually they took way longer. Every time he got yelled at, one of his parents would show up, say some sweet words, Peter would apologize and the circle was complete.

The routine was back.

But this time, he knew better. He’d learned.

Or did he?

Were they really that bad? They took care of him his whole life. It was thanks to them that he had his powers. But he didn’t want them in the first place. He got hurt more times than he could count with them. The Avengers didn’t hurt him. Well, at least not intentionally.

“Kid, that’s called abuse.”

Was it abuse?

No.

Yes.

They said it was for his own good.

Was it?

Yes.

No.

Maybe?

They said sorry for yelling.

They always said sorry and then did it again.

Peter set the chocolate aside and reached into his sock for the small disc he’d snatched from the workshop. He began to absentmindedly flip it, repeating the action of tossing, watching it spin in the air and catching it.

He glanced at the screen, seeing that the only thing he’d done was a very detailed plan of the roof… pretty much useless unless someone wanted to be a dick and steal every third pole from the railing.

The screen went dark. Peter returned to the tossing and when he looked at the horizon next time, the sun was setting.

Peter let the disc rest on his palm. Why did he take it in the first place? He could’ve snatched anything else – a gun, a bomb, plan to some secret weapon… so why the tracker?

“I don’t know,” he whispered under his breath as he looked at the tracker between his thumb and index finger. “I don’t know.”

Peter slowly increased the pressure. The tracker began to blink.

“Oops,” he said despite the fact that the action was fully intentional.

He didn’t know.

He went back to the flipping.

“All I’m saying is that all of this could have been avoided if you had let us handle the situation from the beginning,” Fury said as he paced the common room where all of the Avengers were gathered, sitting on a sofa with heads down, taking the scolding like a bunch of little kids.

Frankly, Tony was getting tired of it. “Fury—”

“Don’t Fury me,” the director snapped. “You tried to domesticate a villain—”

“He was just a kid that didn’t know any better—”

“—and look how it ended up. You loosened his leash, left him roam the compound and left him in your lab unsupervised where, mind I remind you, is technology that can do much wrong if it fell into wrong hands. Who knows how many information he’d gathered? Or what he stole? Seriously, you didn’t think of checking if something went missing?”

“Friday is looking through the inventory. If something physical is missing, she will notice.”

“Oh, because that will do so much good with him gone,” Fury’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “And need I remind you that he apparently confessed to murder from what I heard?”

“I don’t think he really killed someone,” Sam intervened.

Fury opened his mouth, but before he could let out a single sound, Natasha spoke up. “He didn’t.”

Those two words were said with so much confidence, Tony took them as a fact.

Fury’s head cocked to the side. “Oh? And how would you know that?”

“While we were in the gym, I gave him plenty opportunities to strike. I exposed my back to him since he warned us about that, placed myself in vulnerable position… yet he didn’t attack. Just empty words. Then I made a show of my arms buckling and he caught the bar so it wouldn’t crush my throat. You didn’t see the look in his eyes. He was scared. Plus,” she said, looking off into distance, “he doesn’t have the eyes of a killer.”

All was quiet as the team digested the information. Not even Tony knew the whole story.

“That was pretty reckless,” Clint said, breaking the silence.

Natasha snorted. “Please, do you think that I would place myself into a dangerous situation if I wasn’t sure I could handle it?”

“But he still ran away at the first sight of his parents,” Bucky said lowly, his head bowed. “It was going so well, but if I know something, it’s that two weeks isn’t enough time to get rid of lifetime of conditioning if exposed to...”

“To the abuser,” Steve finished.

Fury sat down, letting out long, tired sigh. “And now all three of them are God knows where.”

“Boss,” Friday spoke up, “I have completed the check.”

“Well?”

“One item missing.”

Tony tensed. “What is it?”

“An emergency tracker, prototype three.”

Tony’s eyebrows knitted together. Prototype three was the kind of tracker that could be activated without an outside power source. On the other hand, it was untraceable unless the person possessing it activated it.

Why would the kid steal that particular thing?

“What would he do with a tracker?” Steve voiced Tony’s inner thought.

“Maybe he didn’t know what it was?” Sam tried.

Tony thought back to their lab sessions. Had he told the kid about the tracker? He didn’t remember. But if he did, then why-

“Tracker activated,” Friday said, making Tony’s heart race.

Tony brought up a holo-screen where a red dot was steadily blinking in abandoned block in Queens. A grin slowly spread across his face, his soul leaping with hope. “I believe it’s time to suit up.”

Peter kept flipping the small disc until the sky turned black. Not a star was in sight.

A shiver run down his spine, but Peter sure as hell wouldn’t go inside to get a jacket or a hoodie. His parents would ask about his progress on the blueprints and he really didn’t need that right now.

His parents…

The hours alone allowed Peter to do something he’d never thought of before in the presence of the two adults. He allowed himself to feel. Memory by memory, Peter carefully catalogued every single emotion that came with it. Bitterness, fear, frustration, worthlessness, anger… those prevailed. The lack of positive feelings only fueled the flames of anger.

Thankfully, he could always fall on the calming repetitive action of flipping the disc before he could get overwhelmed.

The hairs on his arms stood up, but not because of the cold. Peter stood up as well. There was no one coming from the inside, so that meant-

They were here.

That was good, right?

With tiny smile on his face, Peter returned to his previous spot. All he could do was to sit and wait for the shitshow to unfold.

Boom.

Or not.

Against his better judgement, Peter abandoned everything on the roof and followed the source of the small explosion to the lower levels. More crashes and pops that suspiciously sounded like guns going off could be heart, but Peter was persistent and pushed forward.

Peter’s spidey sense flared up, warning him about the bullet approaching his head. He jumped behind the wall in the last second.

“Wait, stop, that was Peter!”

Mr. Barnes. And by the sound of it, there were also-

“Peter, are you—”

Whatever he was about to say next was cut off by an explosion that shook the whole floor. Cracks began to appear under Peter at the same time as he heard the floor under the Avengers fall. Peter didn’t have enough time to get to his feet and run to where the floor was stable. A chunk of concrete under his feet disappeared, and if it wasn’t for Peter’s stickiness, he would’ve fallen.

The concrete kept crumbling, not allowing him to get proper grip to crawl up, to get to safety. He caught a glimpse of what was underneath him and doubled his endeavors. This floor wasn’t the only one that was falling apart. At least four other floors were completely gone as well.

He finally got to stable part of the floor and pulled himself up. Doubled over his knees, he took in his arms that were both covered in deep gashes and superficial scratches.

“Don’t just stand there. Come on!”

Peter didn’t need more prompting. He stood up straight and ran after his mother. “What was that?”

“The defense system,” she said. “What, did you think we left the buildings where we stayed in unprotected?”

“This was everywhere?!”

“God, can you stop asking stupid questions already?” Mary snapped. “Yes!”

No, Peter couldn’t stop asking stupid questions because he didn’t believe this was stupid question! Every single place they were staying at was riddled with bombs and they hadn’t bothered to tell him? What if he’d accidentally set one of them off? He could’ve been blown to bits!

Peter kept glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting to see someone to run after them, but saw no one.

An electric discharge went off somewhere ahead, followed by a loud clang of a suit. No, Peter thought as he rounded the corner. If his lungs haven’t required the extra oxygen, he would’ve let out a sigh of sick relief. That wasn’t Iron Man’s suit lying on the floor, but War Machine’s.

Richard was at their side in an instant, giving Mary a quick peck on the lips. “Don’t dawdle!” he barked at Peter as he turned around and ran.

“Won’t you finish him off?” Mary asked.

“No time. We have to hurry; the whole damn place is surrounded by Shield. Stark’s suit is disabled, Barton is trapped in one room, but Wilson is still circling somewhere outside.”

“Three of them fell through the floor.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He almost fell through the floor too.”

“Idiot.”

They entered a vast room where the weird helicopter thingy was. Peter, silently putting the lid on his bubbling anger, almost didn’t notice when his parents stopped dead in their tracks.

“Looks like this is the end.” Mr. Stark, albeit a bit roughed up and bloody and with a single gauntlet, standing in front of their escape vehicle. “You might want to stop running. I disabled the thing and now we just have to wait for other to get here.” His eyes met Peter’s. “Hey, kid.”

“Hey,” Peter replied quietly.

“Well, looks like your chance came earlier than we thought,” Richard said and gave Peter a slight shove forward. Almost like he was hiding behind him. “One gauntlet will have to make do for you. There is no such thing as honorable fight when it comes to the likes of him. So, go, Spider. Kill him.”

After a brief hesitation, Peter began to advance. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t go against direct orders when his parents were present. But he already went against those. He took a step forward, then another. Mr. Stark wasn’t moving. Instead, he kept looking at him with so much sincerity and softness, it sent Peter’s emotions into overdrive.

Peter stopped within leaping distance. “Please, fight back,” he whispered.

“No,” Mr. Stark replied.

“Please.” He felt his face crumbling.

Mr. Stark’s eyes softened even more. “I won’t fight you, Pete. You deserve better. You are better.”

Was he better? Could Mr. Stark claim that after knowing him so short?

“I don’t know,” he said almost inaudibly.

“This is taking too long,” Richard grumbled. Peter heard a safety going off and he didn’t have to turn around to see the gun aimed right at Mr. Stark’s chest.

Before Peter knew what he was doing, he was moving.

Bang!

The shot echoed in the room and the next thing Peter knew, he was lying on top of Mr. Stark. He heard something rolling on the ground. The tracker. Not feeling any pain, Peter pushed himself up but still stayed in front of Mr. Stark, his eyes searching for the blinking tracker that came to a stop at his mother’s feet.

Deafening silence followed.

Explaining why he saved Mr. Stark was one thing, but he had no idea how he’ll explain this one.

“You,” Mary said lowly before realization her face contorted with fury. “You called them here.”

Another shot went off before Peter had a chance to open his mouth. He cried out as the bullet hit his arm, sending droplets of blood flying.

“Peter!” Mr. Stark was on his knees, the charging gauntlet raised. Richard threw another short-circuiting device to them and the gauntlet shut down. Peter heard Mr. Stark mutter a curse under his breath as Mary advanced.

“You betray us like this? after everything we’ve done for you?”

This was it, wasn’t it? He was hurt and Mr. Stark was out of his suit. They had weapons. But-

Peter was a weapon as well.

And his parents were only humans… unlike him. Peter wanted to laugh. All this time spent in fear of them, only to realize that all this time, he could’ve easily fought back.

“This is your last fuck-up.”

Peter leaped into action. The shock on his mother’s face as he kicked the gun out of her hand was so satisfying, it almost made the pain in his arm disappear. Peter didn’t waste a second. He spun around and kicked Mary right in the chest, sending her flying into the wall. She slumped down, unconscious.

His spidey sense tingled, warning Peter about another oncoming shots. He closed his eyes and let his sense guide him towards his father who was trying and failing to land a single bullet on him.

When he heard the click of empty magazine, he lunged forward. Richard’s arm went back. Peter knew him well enough to know that he was getting ready to punch him. Well, too bad for him. Peter roughly gripped Richard’s wrist with his injured arm, his other hand closing around his throat and pinning him to the wall.

“No more,” he hissed as years of something that was buried deep inside of him came to the surface. He squeezed harder. “No more.”

Richard weakly gripped the hand around her throat, fruitlessly trying to pry it off. Peter’s eyes narrowed. Seriously? He felt respect… no… no respect. Fear. He felt fear for him? It would be so easy to snap his neck right now. Based on the fear in his father’s eyes, he realized it too. Good, Peter thought.

A hand landed lightly on his shoulder. “Peter.”

Peter didn’t turn around.

“Kid, don’t do this.”

He deserved it.

“Pete,” Mr. Stark said softly, “I know you’re not a killer. I know you’re angry for what they did, but if you do this… there will be no coming back for you.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, then released his father and took a step back. His hands were shaking.

“Good, good. You did the right thing.”

Peter couldn’t tear his eyes from Richards’s coughing form. There were footsteps approaching. Too many. Too loud. The arms returned – one on his shoulder, one on his back.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

Peter gladly let himself be steered away.

The place was a mess. The Shield agents were running around coordinating the search, marking the damaged parts and tending to the wounded.

Tony himself had his hands full with a certain spider kid. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” he reassured.

“But are you okay?” Peter asked.

Tony chuckled. “Come on, give me some credit. I can handle myself outside of the suit too.” For good measure, he gave the kid a slight shove.

Peter winced. Ah, that was right. There was still a bullet lodged in his bicep as a courtesy of his mother. “We better take care of that.” Before Tony could get attention of some medic, the kid reached into a nearby first aid kid, pulled out a pair of tweezers, set his jaw, took a deep breath and shoved it into the wound. Small grunts were escaping his throat as he pulled the bullet out.

“What are you doing?!” Tony called out at the same time as the bullet clinked on the ground and new wave of blood rushed down Peter’s arm.

“Had to take the bullet out,” the kid forced out. “More pain if it healed.”

Tony helped to ease him into sitting position before he could fall. He sprayed the wound to numb the area and stop the bleeding. The relief showing on Peter’s face was instant. “You’re so reckless. I swear you’re trying to get me into early grave when you act like this. And nobody would know a thing because it was natural—”

“I’m sorry.”

Tony cut off the lecture, taken aback by the sudden shift in Peter’s mood. Peter gaze was pointed down, not meeting Tony’s eyes. Gently, Tony placed two fingers under Peter’s chin and made tipped his head up. “Hey, I’m just joking. I’m not accusing you of anything. And besides, worse things have tried to put me to grave. They all failed, so I think I can handle one reckless teenager.”

“You’re not mad?

“Nope.”

“I ran away.”

“But you called us.”

“I didn’t have to.”

Tony reached into the kit and pulled out a bandage. “But you did and that’s what matters. Now sit still.” He was aware of the kid’s eyes on him as he worked. When he was done, he gave Peter another onceover. “Nothing else hurts? No other injuries?” Peter made a move to test his arm. “Nope,” Tony said and lowered the injured arm back. “Let that rest. So?”

“No. Nothing else. Just this.”

Sighing in relief, Tony stood up and offered Peter a hand. Peter accepted.

Fury walked over to them, Hill right behind him with a familiar pair of bracelets in her hands.

“What?” was all Tony managed to say. He watched as realization and acceptance flashed across Peter’s face. “Hold on, is this necessary? He helped us catch his parents!”

Peter brushed his uninjured shoulder against him as he approached the two. “I still ran.” He turned his back to Hill and extended his hands behind him, allowing her to place the bracelets on him.

Tony turned to Fury. “He’s not dangerous. He didn’t kill anyone.”

Yet again, Peter didn’t give Fury the chance to respond. “Even if I didn’t kill anyone, I still did a lot of bad things. One good deed won’t erase those, Mr. Stark.” The kid snorted, self-depreciating smile on his face. “God, I either did the best thing in my life or the worst mistake.”

“Kid…”

“It’s okay!” Peter said. The cuffs clicked together, the pull on his arm making him grimace. “I deserve it.”

“You little rat!” came a woman’s screech. Several agents were escorting – or more like dragging – Richard and Mary from the building towards the waiting cars. “You should have died in that experiment!”

“Just you wait!” Richard yelled. “Not even where you’ll end up being locked up won’t protect you from us,” he said once he noticed Peter’s cuffed hands.

“Don’t listen to them,” Tony said softly.

Peter shrugged. “A lot is going on in my head, so I’m kind of numb to everything right now. But… a small advice,” he turned to Fury, “I would keep them separate. It will make planning their escape harder. Plus, if the escape turned out to be impossible, they won’t be able to take the easy way out.”

“Easy way out?” Fury echoed.

“They’ve got something like a kill switch somewhere in their bodies. Theirs are interconnected, so they have to be together to activate it.”

Fury nodded. “Hey!” he shouted at the agents. “Separate them.”

More indistinguishable screaming and cursing and promises of revenge followed. Peter was seemingly unbothered by them.

“Hold on,” Tony said warily, “you said that theirs are interconnected. Does that mean you have one in your body too?” Please don’t say yes. The thought of the kid having a ticking time bomb in his body this whole time, and maybe his whole life, was unsettling. Please don’t say yes…

Peter nodded.

“Where?” Tony choked out.

“In my right ankle. It can be only activated by a set of moves and… well, when you get captured, it’s your hands that get bound. Not many people think about legs.”

“So all this time you could’ve taken the easy way out?” Fury asked. Peter nodded again. “Then why didn’t you?”

Peter contemplated the answer for a moment. “It’s only for situations where death is the only acceptable solution. They said they would come for me. They kept their word and…” he paused, something akin to a resignation setting on his face, “I don’t want to die.”

Maria placed her hand on peter’s shoulder. “We’ll get that out of you as soon as we can.”

Peter nodded for the third time, but this time, Tony caught something like a gratitude in his eyes. No wonder. Tony would have been grateful too if he was in the kid’s situation. He was yet again reminded of how much Peter’s been through in his short life. Just a kid, raised to kill and to kill himself if needed.

Maria began to lead the kid away, but Tony had to do one more thing before that could happen. “Wait.” He wrapped his arm around the kid, giving him gentle squeeze. Just as during their first hug, the kid stiffened under his touch. Tony was about to pull away when he felt something he hasn’t dared to hope for.

Peter melted into the hug.

The kid’s shoulders fell, his forehead resting on Tony’s collarbone. Tony ran one of his hands up and down Peter’s back. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Peter whispered back.

Tony let go and watched as the kid willingly went with Hill to one of the waiting cars.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Fury shook his head in amusement. “You really domesticated him.”

Tony smirked. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

As it turned out, the Shield’s cells weren’t as nice as the Avengers’. They were smaller and the clothes weren’t as soft, but Peter did his best not to complain. He’s lived in worse conditions before.

Two loud knocks made him look up. The slate in the door opened and a tray was shoved inside. “Food.”

Peter jumped off the bed and went to retrieve his lunch. Prison food wasn’t anything extra, but at least he was getting enough.

“Hm?”

There was something on the tray that didn’t belong there. Peter reached for the package and carefully peeled off the brown paper, revealing a book. The Ask and The Answer. A delighted grin spread across his face. He never got to read the other two books in the trilogy since the whole situation went down.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who sent him the package.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he whispered, opened the book and dug into the food.

The interrogations happened every other day. Peter answered every question he could, but he still felt bad that he couldn’t answer all of them. His parents – who were in the facility somewhere too, though he never saw them – kept more things from him than he’d originally thought. The names of their clients, sure, he never knew those, but as it turned out, there were about five other computers and twenty passwords he didn’t know about.

He'd contemplated asking them to let him try to get into those, but in the end decided against it. He could imagine how that would look on him.

And as promised, his kill switch was taken out. Peter let himself truly relax since he didn’t have to worry about the thing randomly malfunctioning anymore.

He wasn’t allowed to see Mr. Stark or any other Avenger. Still, every once in a while, he heard the familiar erratic heartbeat behind the one-way glass in the interrogation room.

The third book arrived the day after he finished the second one, along with the first one to keep the collection complete. With nothing better to do, Peter began to read the whole thing from the beginning.

If Peter counted correctly, today was exactly the month since he got here. More books kept coming, but the room was starting to get to him. He felt like he was going crazy. The interrogations also got more sporadic, so he didn’t get to go out that much.

Oh well. He’ll have to get used to it since this would be his life now.

The door opened.

“Wow, you look like you drank sour milk.”

Peter was on his feet impossibly fast. “Mr. Stark!” He stopped himself before he got too close. He didn’t need to get tackled because he seemed like he was about to attack.

Mr. Stark opened his arms. “The one and only. Now don’t let me wait.”

That was all the invitation Peter needed. He launched himself into the man’s arms, burrowing his face into his chest.

“Missed me?” Mr. Stark asked, amused.

Peter soaked in the warmth. “Eh, just a bit.”

“Lies. Everybody misses me a lot when I’m not around. But fear not, that’s about to change. Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Peter asked, dissatisfied that the disappearance of the hug. He trailed after Mr. Stark, hesitant at first, then jogged to catch up and glued himself to the man’s side.

“To the compound of course!”

Peter’s head tilted to the side. “The compound? But I—”

“Got moved into the brand new rehabilitation program for underage villains. It took quite a lot of paperwork and arrangements to get it done, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Your cooperation and good behavior helped too. Those,” he pointed to Peter’s bracelets, “will have to stay on though. No tampering with them, but we can get you a ladder to your hammock.”

“And my…”

“Lifetime in jail for them.” Mr. Stark ruffled his hair. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore. They won’t be able to touch you from where they’re going.” He wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulder. “So, what do you say. Ready to go home?”

Home. Peter liked the sound of that. He smiled, all of the tension leaving his body.

“Yeah. Let’s go home.”

#marvel fanfiction #tony stark #peter parker #villain peter parker #irondad #spiderson

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faulty-writes · 4 years

Note

Monoma getting a crush on the reader who is in 1-A – he feels like he’s betrayed his own class and himself, but he can’t help it. y/n doesn’t treat him like an annoyance and even thinks all his obnoxiousness over the rivalry between their classes is genuinely funny. Y/n is just sort of like, ‘THIS guy, am I right?’ with one arm wrapped around his shoulders and treats him like a good pal

[ This is my first time writing this character. So let’s hope I did a good job. I think he’s cute but annoying, so. ]

“This is clearly impossible! They must have tricked me! How low will Class 1-A sink yet!?” he declared as he spun on his feet, one hand to his chest and the other raised in the air as if he were an actor on the stage. Most would probably agree, he’d make a better actor than a hero. But he never paid attention to those he considered lesser than him, so their words left him unaffected. So, it was safe to say that wasn't the issue he was going off about at the current moment, oh no.

This had been an ongoing issue with him for a long time and though he tried to deny it. Tried to continuously put the blame on you, thinking it was somehow your fault. The truth was, it was him and he hated it. He had betrayed his dear Class 1-B and for what? You. A hero, a rival in Class 1-A. Why was fate this cruel to him? Or was it that you were just so nice to him? He wasn’t truly sure when his feelings had begun, though he assumed it was because unlike most you didn’t find his rambles to be annoying.

You didn’t find him to be a bother when he went off insulting Class 1-A, in fact, you laughed. You giggled, you smiled. You...you set his heart ablaze in the worst way. “Oh, woe is me!” he cried out before collapsing to his knees in the center of his bedroom. His hands pressed close to his chest as he stared blankly at the wall. Why is it that you meant so much to him? He had feelings for you, yes. He couldn’t call it love yet, but what he did feel was strong. Unexplainable even and it was horrible.

He hated how his heart raced whenever he was in your presence and he loathed the way you’d make his face light up with your slightest touch, the slightest hint of your voice. He didn’t know how to shake himself of this feeling, he didn’t know how to make up for the betrayal, the sheer disregard to his own classmates. “How...how am I a victim of falling for that glassy-eyed beauty from the class I am at war against, that I am meant to despise?!” he took a breath before sighing and letting his head hang low.

His bangs brushing against his face, how would he go about solving this? “Hm…” he hummed, thinking of possible solutions and only one came to surface. “Ah yes! It’s so simple!” he declared as he sprung to his feet, seemingly in and out of emotions. “I shall confess my feelings and surely they shall be rejected! After all, Class 1-A is undeserving of my greatness and given the one who's stolen my heart is but a pebble in the mixture of my hatred. They are still a member of that horrid class, which means I cannot put up with this! Yes, I shall tell them of my feelings and get rejected! Then I shall be free of this dark spell!” he declared as he spun on his feet once more, yes.

Starting tomorrow, he will confess to you. Though he knew he would be rejected if heartbreak was the price he had to pay to end his feelings. So be it, he simply couldn’t allow this to continue. Oh no, he couldn’t let himself fall for a member of Class 1-A. He couldn’t allow his feelings to sway his actions, in fact, he had noticed during training. He often took it easy on you, well that would be no more after he lost his feelings for you. Oh, to be free would be wonderful.

To be himself once more. Though classes often trained at the same time, they were separated. But as of late, the teachers insisted on Class A and Class B train together. To further improve their own tactics, skills, and experience other quirks which both improved strengths and weaknesses. Monoma had a smile on his face as he walked along with his classmates, his teacher Sekijiro Kan was leading them and frankly though he hated to admit it. Monoma was looking forward to seeing Class 1-A, if only for the reason that he’d get to see you.

Before the training started, he’d pull you to the side and confess his feelings and surely you wouldn’t return them. The result of such a thing though it would make him have a battered and bleeding heart, would also allow him to beat you to a pulp when your teams went head to head. He chuckled to himself as the sound of chatter reached his ears and smiled as Class 1-A came into view, though at the same time it made his stomach twist with disgust.

He found himself desperately searching for you within the crowd and he eventually spotted you talking to Kirishima of all people, pff. He wanted to deny it made him feel jealous, seeing you give your attention to someone so undeserving. So naturally, he had to voice his opinion and walked over. “My, my. The sparkling jewel of Class 1-A, I imagine your standards are very low if you talk to those whose quirks are simply unreliable. Useless even, hah.” he chuckled before continuing.

“Meanwhile Class 1-B has various quirks with far greater use than hardening. Tell me why do you bother talking to someone so beneath you? Of course, I suppose I should be asking myself the same thing, for why am I wasting my breath speaking to members of Class 1-A?” he declared, once more he had one hand to his chest and the other waving around. “Do you ever give it a rest man!? Sheesh! My quirk is useful, I don’t give a damn what you say!” Kirishima declared as he grit his teeth and stomped his foot.

Clearly, he wasn’t happy, unlike you who actually started chuckling at Monoma’s display. For some odd reason, you always found him humorous, the sheer rivalry he created was something to be admired because the simple fact was, he got people pumped up. Monoma’s eyes shifted to you and it seemed he was frozen for a moment, damn. He hated how the sound of your voice, nay even your laugh, caused his heart to accelerate and his cheeks to flush.

“This guy is pretty hilarious,” you said as you approached Monoma and wrapped your arm around his shoulders. “Ah!” he cried out, his cheeks dusted a faint red color. Why did he feel so happy to be close to you, to have you touch him? It was unforgivable! A form of witchcraft! “Don’t be too upset Kirishima!” you tried to reason with the angry redhead, who looked at you with a confused expression.

“What do you mean don’t be upset?! This guy is really annoying, how can you laugh at his antics? He’s like the devil of U.A. or something.” you chuckled softly, “I don’t know about that, but he does bring the best out of all of us. Think about it, he isn’t afraid to challenge others. To make each and every one of us bring to the table our best, that’s not a bad thing.” you turned to face Monoma. “Right?” you questioned and he slowly looked at you, his lips parted and an unreadable expression on his face.

He needed to figure out a way out of this, to push himself away from you, the temptress. “Nay!” he declared as he pulled your arm off of him, “My threats are not to be taken lightly Class 1-A, surely you have learned that by now...however.” his eyes settled on you and he smiled. “I would like a word with you, Y/n.” Kirishima dropped his angry expression, your words had confused him but not as much as Monoma’s did. “What do you want to talk to Y/n about? I thought you hated our class and now you want to talk to Y/n alone, what gives man?” he questioned, and Monoma scoffed.

“Come now, I can be nice when I choose to. After all, Y/n did just try to reason with you. However, I understand most of your class is merely too thick-headed to grasp even the simplest of concepts! Oh, how very humiliating.” Kirishima let out a growl and grabbed your shoulder. “Better be careful with him, Y/n. I know the guy is off his rocker and maybe he doesn’t mean any harm. But keep your guard up.” you turned to Kirishima, shrugging.

“I don’t think he’s all that bad, but if you say so. I’ll try to keep my guard up, okay?” he nodded and released your shoulder before you walked up to Monoma, his eyes shifted from Kirishima to you. A pleased smile was on his face, “Well, shall we? Try to keep up, will you?” he said as he turned his back to you and began walking, you looked back to Kirishima before following Monoma. He led you away from the others and you let out a gasp as he suddenly turned and grabbed you.

For a moment, fear ran through your heart and you stumbled over your own two feet before your back hit a brick wall. Your hands immediately reached up, clasping over Monoma’s that were currently wrapping tightly around your shirt collar. “What are you doing!?” you snapped, your jaw clenching and a soft growl rumbling in your throat. Your eyes were narrowed on Monoma who merely chuckled, his head hanging low.

“Do you find it amusing to make a fool out of me? To make me feel such things and become the betrayer of Class 1-B?” your expression dropped. “What are you talking about-” he lifted his head and you gasped when his hand cupped your cheek. “You truly are beautiful, quite the jewel of Class 1-A as I stated before,” he chuckled though you still remained confused by his actions. “The same jewel…” he paused and pressed his body against yours, effectively preventing you from fighting back or attempting to escape.

Not that you were trying, this was certainly a strange situation you had found yourself in. But you highly doubted Monoma would try anything to harm you, especially with the teachers present. Though you wished you had taken Kirishima’s warning a little more seriously, as a hero you should never let your guard down. No matter who you were around, “That has stolen my heart. I like you, Y/n.” Monoma said, his voice a little shaky but somehow he managed to retain a cool attitude while confessing.

“It’s not love. No, but somehow you have stolen my heart all the same. You have made me betray my own class. A tragic Romeo and Juliet situation and it will end the same way, with heartbreak. I have prepared myself for your rejection! But I must do this first!” he declared as he grabbed your chin and tilted your head up. “What are you-mm!” your eyes went wide as Monoma stole your breath, sealing his lips over yours in a passionate kiss.

His remaining hand cupped your other cheek and he hummed contently into the kiss while you remained still, your eyes wide and your thoughts racing. Monoma had feelings for you that he expected you to reject? Was the kiss the final test to see how you truly felt or was he expecting to have his heart broken regardless? It was rather confusing, but you shouldn’t have expected anything less from him. After all, he was a strange but lovable character.

You had grown to like him during your time at U.A. unlike most of your classmates who found him rather annoying and well a pest. You felt a shiver run down your spine and you slid your hands along his back, curling your fingers into the fabric of his shirt. Sure, maybe some of the things he says could be depicted as rude, mean, and even plain unnecessary. But you still stood by your opinion, he was the only person who didn’t seem to be afraid to challenge others.

To say whatever he needed to in order to get them to bring their full power, to prove themselves the best. You admired that, along with his honesty. But did you have a crush on him like he had a crush on you? Honestly, you couldn’t say. But at this moment, all you knew was that your heart was racing and an odd feeling came over you. Your cheeks grew hot and all you were focused on was holding Monoma there and never letting go.

Your eyes slipped closed as you melted into the kiss with ease, giving a happy hum of approval as you deepened the kiss. However, Monoma noticed this and immediately pulled away. His own cheeks were red and he reached up to wipe his mouth. He almost looked angry as he stared down at you, “What...what are you doing?” he questioned and you tilted your head, first, he wanted to kiss you and now he was questioning why you returned the kiss?

Your head was beginning to hurt. “I...was returning the kiss,” you said simply and a growl came from Monoma’s throat before he grabbed your shoulders, roughly applying pressure which made you wince. “Why...you were supposed to reject me!” he exclaimed, completely ignoring the fact that his voice could reach the fellow students. “Shh.” you scolded him before letting out a sigh.

“I...I don’t know why you want me to reject you, are you used to rejection because of your personality? Because that’s not right, if you’re looking to be a hero I respect that. Despite the fact, others may not see it in you and find you to be annoying. I don’t. I genuinely like you, Monoma!” you shouted back and watched as his jaw dropped, he took a step back and clasped his hand over his mouth. His face seemed to twist into an unexplainable emotion, something between confusion, relief, and sadness.

You noticed that his eyes were getting moist, “You...but why…” he questioned, his voice just a whisper and you pouted before shrugging. “I...I can’t explain it. I mean, you’re right. Maybe I don’t like you in the sense of a crush, but I can see it working between us if you wanted to give it a try and I…” before you could say anymore Monoma turned and ran away. “Hey!” you called after him, attempting to give chase but after a few steps, you came to a halt.

Just watching as he pushed past his fellow classmates and continued to run. Many people screamed his name, including the teachers but it seemed like he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon and your heart sunk. Was this your fault or did he need time to process the fact that you implied you returned his feelings? Either way, you knew one thing. You wouldn’t give up and he couldn’t avoid you now.

After all, that was one quality Class 1-A was known for. Not hesitating and refusing to back down. You’d confront him next chance you got, corner him like he cornered you until he understood it was alright to have feelings for you. Even if it felt like he was betraying his own class, eventually he’d learn through you that it was okay. You couldn’t choose who you loved and though you now knew he wasn’t used to affection. You’d take it one step at a time, be his hero and save him.

#monoma x reader #neito x reader #bnha requests #bnha x reader #Anonymous

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reluctant-mandalore · 4 years

Text

Break a Nail (Din Djarin x fem!Reader)

Word Count: 2,061

Warnings: Fluffy fluff. Cursing. There are some sexist undertones towards the reader from a bounty. But it’s mostly just Din and the reader being a cute bounty hunter couple. Grammar and spelling warning, because I’m a dummy who can’t English.

Pairing: Din Djarin x Fem!Reader

a/n: Thank you so much for the request!! Sorry it took so long. It was really fun to write and I really enjoyed it <3 Honestly it was such a fun idea! I enjoy the whole tough in public but soft in private kind of trope that’s going on here.

EDITS: Grammar and spelling. - also another edit to make the fic more inclusive.

The contrast between you on the job and you on the Razor Crest baffled the Mandalorian at times. He didn’t really understand how someone could go from absolutely demolishing men twice their own size, to fretting over their newly painted nails and trying to decide which dress went with what shoes. When out on jobs you dressed and acted like a man, the helmet you wore modulating your voice to sound deeper and more gruff. In public, you were serious and almost stoic. You would radiate confidence in everything you did, whether it be bartering for a better price, shooting a blaster with pinpoint accuracy, or being able to take down men like flies.

The first time he met you he was sure you were a man, there was no doubt in his mind about it. The way you acted, talked, and fought just screamed to him that you were a man. Nothing gave away the fact that you were a woman below those layers of clothes. So, when you first removed your helmet in front of him, he was amazed to see your true self, and was surprised to hear your sweet voice speak to him.

Without the helmet on you instantly changed into another person, your atmosphere turning bubbly and energetic. Gone was the most manly and badass man the Mandalorian had ever met. Instead, a beautiful and kind hearted woman stood in place, looking at him with the biggest smile he’d ever seen. In fairness, both in your get up and out of it, you were still a badass in your own quirky ways. It just so happened that you tended to be more open about your likes and dislikes without your gear on.

He was in love with you within seconds of discovering this about you. Honestly Din couldn’t have fallen in love with you any faster. He fell for you hard and almost instantly. He adored everything about you, both your public and private self. Every aspect of the person you were was spectacular to him, and nothing could change that in his mind.

He loved being around you and would spend most of his time with you. He was happy to see his clan expand with your addition to it. Him, you, and the kid made the perfect little family in his eyes, though he’d never tell you that. Going with you on jobs had turned out to be one of his favourite things. He didn’t know how he had survived doing jobs without you until this point in his life. Every day with you around was interesting and today was no different.

Currently, Din watched as you had dragged the bounty up the Razor Crest ramp, plopping him on the hulls floor before his feet. The asset struggled within his binds, spitting curses and insults in both of your directions. He was surprised at first, at seeing you with the bounty, as you had originally left earlier for the market. Last he checked you were just getting supplies, not dragging a whole man back to the ship.

On another note, the both of you were supposed to be going after him together later that day, after your little supply run. He was mainly surprised because he knew you enjoyed going on jobs with him. You would even refer to the two of you working together on jobs as your ‘couple bonding’ time. So, it was a bit of a shock to see you having ruined your little bounty hunting date by doing the job on your own.

“Fuck you dude.” The man on the ground spat at you in a growl, “You think you’re some sort of hero bringing me in? Huh?”

“No, but I definitely think I’m going to be a hell of a lot richer.” Your reply came, the smirk on your face evident in your voice.

At this point you had pressed your foot into the center of the asset's back, holding him in place, as he pitifully squirmed on the metal floor of the ship. The addition of your weight had stilled him for a moment though, as he glared daggers over his shoulder at you.

Din watched as you removed your helmet, shaking your head while chuckling in the process. It was one of his favourite sights, something he found attractive anytime you did it. He could not explain why seeing you remove your own helmet was so alluring to him, but he chalked it up to the fact that anything you did he saw through rose tinted lenses. There was nothing you could ever do to convince him that you weren’t perfect.

“What the fuck you’re a woman?!” The bounty snarled, his expression wrinkling with anger and confusion. “There’s no way a damn woman captured me.”

Looking down at the man you let out a giggle, “I always love when they realize a woman took them down.” Setting down your helmet, you crouched to level yourself with him, a toothy grin across your cheeks, as you ‘booped’ the man on the nose, beginning to taunt him. This being a normal occurrence that occurred when a bounty was being extra mouthy to you.

“Quit messing with the asset and put him in the carbon freeze.” Din said, putting a stop to your harassment of the man, as funny as it may have been.

At his words, you had turned to look at him with an eyebrow raised. “You want me to put him in the carbon freeze?”

“You brought him back, so yes.”

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, you shook your head and forced a pout in the Mandalorian’s direction, “It’s a shame, but I actually can’t lift him right now, guess you’ll have to do it.” You had said, now standing next to your companion.

The Mandalorian’s head turned to look at you next to him, his eyes narrowing underneath the helmet, “I’ve seen you lift a bounty twice the size of this one.”

“Oh I know. Strength wise I totally can, but I just did my nails earlier you know?” You continued, moving away from him and sitting on one of the crates located in the hull. At this point you had pulled your gloves off to examine your recently done nails, sighing in relief at seeing that they still remained unscathed and painted to perfection.

“You’re kidding.” Din replied, a little more on the irritated side. He was aware that a few hours, before you had left to go into the market, you had decided to redo your nails. So aware in fact, because you had made him help with picking out a colour.

“Kidding? Din what if I chip them? Or worse! What if I break a nail?” You exclaimed to him “It’s already bad enough I had to drag him back here!”

“Is that why it took you so long to get back?”

“Yes!”

He had crossed his arms over his chest at this point, staring down at you intensely. It was the look he’d give to someone when trying to shake them down for information, or for a merchant to lower their prices. To many people, it would strike fear through their bodies and make them quiver in their boots. However, you on the other hand, had grown quite immune to the deadly gaze that your Mandalorian partner possessed. At this point in your time together, not even his most fiercest of looks to throw you off balance.

Seeing that you weren’t letting up under his gaze, he let out a huff and looked back down the bounty. “Why’d you bother painting your nails in the first place?” He asked, titling his head to look down at your coloured nails. “Why do you bother at all honestly?”

You had given him a look of mock shock, a small gasp leaving your lips, “How could I not bother?”

“You can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes.” He muttered with a sigh, as he went to work freezing the bounty, seeing as he knew you wouldn’t be doing it anytime soon. He may have been acting annoyed with the whole thing, but the truth he really didn’t mind. This man would find a way to move a whole galaxy for you if you had asked him to.

At his remark you had stuck your tongue out him, before watching as the bounty did his best to escape from your Mandalorian lover. The man had begged and pleaded with Din, even apologized for all the nasty things he had said to you on your way back to Razor Crest. A scoff left you at that, with your own roll of the eyes. Of course he apologizes to Din for how he treated you, rather than even bothering to say it to you, a typical asshole thing.

The mandalorian had heard the noise you made in regards to the man's pleas and had paused in thought over it. In truth, he hated how many people would disregard your skill and work as a bounty hunter after learning more about your true self. When he first met you, he didn’t understand why you would parade around as a male bounty hunter. However, the more time he spent working with you, he had begun to understand why you put up such a strong exterior in public. People didn’t take a feminine looking and acting hunter seriously. Instead, they would look down on you for it and would disregard your work almost entirely.

Admittedly, he did enjoy seeing the contrast between your badass self in public and bubbly self in private. It was entertaining in a sense and rather endearing. The thought of others treating you poorly for any part of yourself though had boiled his blood. In other words, he could not understand how anyone could ever mistreat you simply over the things you liked, and hated the idea that you may feel like you had to act the way you did to be taken seriously. Whether you actually felt that way, or just thought it was fun to be the way you wanted, was entirely only known to you.

“Listen I didn’t know she was ya gal! I’m sorry alright?” The man continued his plea, thinking the Mandalorian was starting to reconsider his impending doom, “Listen if I knew she was a woman, your woman, I wouldn’t have messed with her in the first place-”

“-She’s more than just my girl or my woman.” Din cut the man off in a low voice and picked the bounty up by the front of his shirt. “She’s one of the best hunters in the galaxy and she’s the one who took you down. Remember that.”

Those were his last words to the bounty before he had shoved him in the carbon freeze.

“Look at you, getting all angry over a rude bounty for me,” You teased him, watching as he finished up with his task. “I’m not even really mad about it, I’ve heard worse, you know?”

He let out a grunt in reply, “Doesn’t matter. People shouldn’t treat you or act like that around you. You’re one of the most skilled bounty hunters I know.”

“More skilled than you?” You playfully said to him, as he had moved closer to you, until the two of you were toe to toe.

“Hmm, I wouldn’t go that far.” He managed to tease back at you, lightly tapping his forehead against yours.

After his little forehead tap, he took one of your hands into his larger ones. He brought your hand close to his helmet and began to examine your nails up close, almost as if he was admiring your work. His gloved thumb had rubbed smoothly across the inside of your palm, sending shivers down your spine and causing for a wave of heat to flow through your form.

“Your nails do look nice.”

“I know!” A cheeky smile had spread across your cheeks once more, the mischief within its depth drawing him into your words, “You should let me paint yours~”

He let out a small chuckle at your teasing remark, a smile etching across his features that you couldn’t see, but knew was there from his posture alone. He let go of your hand so he could remove a glove from his own, holding his bare hand out before you, palm down.

“What colour do you think would suit me best?”

---

Tags:

@ah-callie @readsalot73 @starrywatermelon @karnita-mexicana

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lovelyirony · 4 years

Note

❛ there is no heroism in war — there are simply things that need to be done. ❜ with tony and your choice of second person?

If there’s one thing that Tony learned from his father, it was that everyone will idolize the people in war who go too soon.

Every single Fourth of July, they visited the honorary headstone that was put up for Captain America. Howard waxes poetic about how strong and how brave this man was, and if he gets drunk (which is usually always a given) he talks to Tony about how much he wishes he had a son like good ole’ Steven Grant Rogers.

“Well, you first went wrong by agreeing to let Mama name me Anthony,” he says, because his words can be just like Howard’s.

He gets sent to his room for the remainder of that holiday, and watches fireworks that boom with impressive chemical reactions while overlooking the party that his parents host every single year.

His least favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. He lets people know it, says it in all the fluffy interviews, and he lets everyone think it’s because he can’t make fireworks himself, or that he hates his father’s patriotic legacy, and those are both true.

But not the real reason.

This continues for years. Tony is infamous for never celebrating the Fourth of July, especially after his parents’ deaths.

People speculate. Say it’s “too painful a day.”

Oh, it’s not. It’s far from painful. Tony simply just...doesn’t care about the day. He makes himself a nice drink, sits on his deck, and stares out at the ocean ahead of him. People ride on boats, there are fireworks going off all day, and he treats it like any other day.

And then he’s asked for an interview for a documentary on Captain America.

Everyone and their mother knew about Howard’s obsession; he wasn’t exactly quiet about it.

He says no.

“I don’t talk about him,” Tony says over the phone. “But good luck with your show.”

It makes it to the media. People accuse him of hating America, hating any symbol that represents America, and being a Communist.

“A billionaire being a Communist,” he muses the next time he’s out in public, and everyone’s microphones are shoved in his face. “I like that logic.”

Rhodey says that he is now on a watch-list.

“Aw, a late birthday present for me? You shouldn’t have,” Tony purrs. “How hard did you laugh, honey-pie?”

“For about ten minutes on and off after that meeting,” Rhodey says with a snort. “I’m just surprised they only have you on it now. Haven’t you threatened at least one government official before this?”

“I think my body count is ten as of last week,” Tony says.

“What’d you do last week?”

“Hm, you’ll find out about it soon enough.”

When he’s with Yinsen, he thinks that maybe he’ll be a hero. He’ll probably die and no one will ever find him, and then if he sees his father if there’s an afterlife, he’ll probably be proud of him.

Finally on the same level of Captain America.

But Tony thinks that maybe he’d like to see a Malibu sunset one more time. See Pepper groan as he ignores yet another set of paperwork, but smiles when he gets it done when her back is turned. Sit with Rhodey at a burger place and complain about everything in life.

So goddammit, he’s going to skip the whole hero shtick. Wasn’t his thing then, certainly not his thing now.

Yinsen looks at him with a smile.

“Ready to get out of here?”

“Yes, Tony. I think I am.”

It’s a cruel kind of joke, to be ready to get out of there and mean that your family is somewhere high up, open with open arms.

Tony grieves for a moment, but he only has one moment to spare before everything goes up in flames.

It’s enough of an explosion that Rhodey will know without a doubt it’s him. No one with any sort of military training would make that explosion, although Tony laughs as he soars into the sky and realizes that it looks similar to the unfortunate kitchen fire he started during their third year of college.

He just hopes they make it in time.

He creates Iron Man again. A better version, honestly...

At least, until the icing thing, which he was very stupid for overlooking, but he’s not going to blame himself too badly for it because he just created a suit that was made for flying.

He founds out that the man he viewed as more family than his own should never have been trusted, and he nearly dies on a couch that is honestly not that comfortable to begin with.

He decides people won’t know he’s Iron Man. He doesn’t want to give them that much satisfaction, that much more motivation to kill him.

He knows he’s not a hero. He also knows that if they knew about Iron Man, most people would probably scoff. Wonder how long this little fad for the rich guy would last.

Tony doesn’t want people to know he’s doing it, especially not the board.

When he announced that the weapons manufacturing department was shutting down, he knew that Obadiah wasn’t the only person in power who had the means to subvert things without being caught onto, at least for a few months.

Iron Man--if he wasn’t directly tied to Stark Industries--had a much better chance of destroying old weapon shipments.

He wasn’t expecting to become a hero. He also wasn’t expecting people to catch on, regardless of how much Rhodey and Pepper laughed at this at their Sunday dinners. (New thing that they’re trying out, Tony likes it a bit too much.)

Well, not everyone catches on.

Fortunately for him, SHIELD doesn’t. They want to know who Iron Man is, if they can sway him to work for them. Tony nearly laughs every single time they send a newbie agent to survey the property or have Agent Coulson visit about every month.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Agent says on one of his monthly routine visits. They never say what time he’s coming, which is why Jarvis has been given permission to go wherever he likes in their servers.

Jarvis pretends like he’s not as excited as a kid on a holiday.

“We’re just asking for a little transparency,” Agent asks, on one of his tirades.

“Will that be all, Agent?” Tony asks, entirely over this little interaction. He had really been banking on Fury sending in a new recruit, and Tony would get to scare them with his new loud-speaker he’d been working on...

“Well actually-”

“Tony, you should be on a first-name basis by now,” Pepper says, sweeping gracefully into the room. “Good afternoon Phil, good to see you again.”

“You as well, Ms. Potts. I hope your business dinner went smoothly?”

“It did.”

“I don’t like how friendly you two are,” Tony says, narrowing his eyes. “And Phil? You want me to call him Phil?”

“You could call me Phillip,” Agent suggests.

“Who are you, a member of the royal family?” Tony asks. “I hope not.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Agent says.

“Don’t be,” Tony says. “We’re fine here. Iron Man’s watching you.”

"Mind telling me where?” Phil asks lightly, knowing he will not be getting a serious answer of any sort.

“Well unfortunately, Iron Man signed a very extensive babysitting contract. All hush-hush, you know how NDA’s can be, darling.”

Agent sighs, and then leaves.

Pepper looks after him.

“You know, SHIELD could use someone like you.”

“They could use something,” Rhodey says with a snort. “They want the suit and leverage on top.”

“Exactly,” Tony agrees.

“So? Negotiate,” Pepper says with a shrug. “Make it work for you. You’ve done it before.”

“We’ll see,” Tony says, diving back into the circuits. “We’ll see.”

He does not see.

They tell him that Captain America got defrosted, and there Steve Rogers is in an ice block, at least until they can melt down the ice surrounding his feet.

Agent is, of course, over the moon.

“You could at least pretend to be professional,” Tony mutters, eyes not tearing away from the man in front of them. “Where are you going to put him?”

“Rehabilitation program through SHIELD.”

“And your plan for that?”

“On a need-to-know basis.”

“Oh, so it’ll go terribly. Wonderful.”

“It won’t go terribly,” Agent says. “There may be some hiccups, but that happens with everything. I’m sure Iron Man wasn’t picture-perfect when you found him.”

“Of course not, but he isn’t...he isn’t this,” Tony says, gesturing to the melting block of ice.

Phil turns back to look.

“I think your dad would be over the moon.”

“Best day since the fucking Fourth of July for him,” Tony says bitterly, turning away. “I gotta get going. Let me know if you need anything for him.”

“I think we have it handled, unless you want to send Iron Man over as a bodyguard.”

“Ha ha,” Tony says sarcastically. “How smart of you to offer. He’ll have to decline due to extenuating circumstances.”

Of course SHIELD bungles Steve Rogers. Terribly.

He doesn’t know which history-major-dropout they got to coordinate the room’s details or the details of his life in general, but they did a truly terrible job.

God, Tony only half-paid attention to his dad’s rants about the “good old days” and Rogers’ whole biography of life, and he could’ve done a better job while drunk.

But it’s not his job to fix, and he’s more focused on making sure that Iron Man stays busy, because if he doesn’t then SHIELD tends to think he’s bored. (And he is...don’t get him wrong. But not that bored.)

Aliens.

Fucking aliens.

They bring a man back from oblivion in immortality, and now they have aliens.

It’s one of those things where Tony just says “alright” and goes with it.

They want Iron Man aboard, and Tony asks where he’s wanted.

“Just Iron Man,” Coulson says, an apologetic smile on his face.

Tony shoots him one right back.

“Because I know this wasn’t your decision, Agent, I won’t be mad at you. Also because you’re one of Pep’s favorite people. But it’s like salt-and-pepper shakers; just having one is sad.”

That’s all the explanation SHIELD gets, until they learn to ask Rhodey.

“You have any mechanics that Tony trusts with that suit?” he asks.

"We have a variety of skilled mechanics that would be happy to help,” the man says over the phone.

“No,” Rhodey says, grinning. “I mean, do you have any that Tony knows and trusts?”

The phone is silent after that.

“I thought as much. Well, let Tony know I’m eating his leftovers since he left them in the fridge to help you guys out with the end of the world or whatever.”

Click.

The Avengers is a shit-show.

But Tony is very excited to see one man in particular, and that’s Bruce Banner. Doctor Bruce Banner, if you wanted to get technical. (If you wanted to get even more technical, you could add about six more “doctors” in there.)

They work well together, and Tony gets a tiny view into how Bruce works, in a sense.

They found him playing doctor, and he wasn’t exactly happy to leave.

Tony tells him that he thinks that there’s more to his life.

“So what, Hulk...saved my life?” Bruce asks, and Tony can tell he doesn’t believe it, can tell how he’s avoiding looking through the glass across the way.

(Tony’s broken a window that way, having eye contact with himself.)

“Yes,” Tony says simply. “And I’m glad he did, because I have a lot to ask you about...”

And then, you know.

Life happens.

You make about three too many jokes, and suddenly you and Captain America have this weird tension thing, and then you have to manually turn a fan so the entire ship crew doesn’t die.

It seems to run on some form of electricity!

God, what a nightmare.

Aliens invade.

Tony learns about how to tell the modern telling of Jonah and the Whale, and he also learns that he never wants to learn anything about space again.

Hulk also makes a lovely alarm.

Bruce is the first to move in.

Well, he’s kind of forced to, but not really, because Tony promises that he won’t actively try to get Hulk to come out for things, and Bruce is swayed by the promise of getting bagels for breakfast.

Natasha and Clint trail in next, and Natasha says that she told Steve to come to.

“You didn’t ask me if I was okay with that,” Tony says with a frown. “But I suppose it’s better than whatever accommodations SHIELD pulls.”

Clint snorts.

“You got that right.”

Thor knows he has a place to stay at, should he ever need it. He smiles at Banner on his way up to Asgard to send his brother to alien-jail, or whatever they call it up there.

Tony doesn’t ask about it.

He and Bruce drive home in one of his flashy cars, and Bruce looks a little lost at all the posters hung up around the city, the ones with a green man grinning.

“They like you,” Tony says. “Good job.”

“Not like they hate Iron Man or anything,” Bruce says. “I just...I’m not a hero.”

Tony nods. Doesn’t say anything. He gets the sentiment.

(He knows how this will go.)

Hiding Iron Man is...harder. Admittedly.

Steve keeps wanting to talk to him about battle strategy, and Tony is at work, so it’s not like he can conference call.

(Okay well he can, but Pepper yelled at him for wearing the helmet in his office.)

Natasha and Clint are naturally curious, as they’re supposed to be. The only problem is that both of them have professional training in how to make that curiosity dangerously effective.

Thor doesn’t really mind, although he keeps making hints that he could take Iron Man to get better armor.

“Sorry lightning rod, I’ll pass,” Iron Man says on one mission. “Now, where is my favorite doctor...”

“He’s already back at the Tower,” Clint says. “Said something about wanting to ask Tony a question on his experiment.”

Iron Man pauses.

“...alright. I’ll start jetting home, meet you guys there.”

Iron Man barely makes it into his “section” before Bruce is coming down the stairs, muttering and holding papers.

“Tony?”

“Yes, dear!” Tony calls, scrambling to shed off the armor before Bruce could get too close.

It didn’t work.

He has one of the gloves still on his palm as he faces Bruce.

“...what.”

“Um, just. Trying out the schematics. Of the suit. For Iron Man.”

“You’re...you’re Iron Man?”

“Well, let’s not throw around accusations that can’t be proved.”

“You have literally stated in interviews that the suit is custom-fit to the user,” Bruce says. “I have the magazine that that’s from.”

“Well, I have a...similar body type?”

“Oh my god.” Bruce blinks, readjusting his glasses. “Do the others...Natasha knows, right? She has to know.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony says. “Of course not! Why would she know?”

“Because she’s a spy, Tony! That’s what spies do!”

“Well then she’s a bad one!”

There’s silence for a moment as they stare at each other.

Tony sighs, heading over to the chairs set aside.

“I imagine you’ll have questions, Dr. Banner.”

“Of course I do.”

Tony gestures somewhere, telling Jarvis to put the lab in blackout mode, no one out or in, and to update Pepper on the NDA situation.

“Why’d you hide it?” Bruce asks.

“No one needs to know it’s me. Easier to balance work and home life.”

Bruce looks at him.

“Do not bullshit me.”

Tony looks over at a blue hologram of a project he’s working on.

“In all honesty, I’d like to say that it’s because of that, but I’ve never actually balanced work and home. It’s just...ugh. It’s personal. Can I say it’s personal, and you drop it?”

“I mean, you could,” Bruce says. “But I still know that you’re him and he’s you, and you’ve been hiding that you’re a hero for years.”

“I wouldn’t call it being a hero,” Tony says. “Just tying up loose ends.”

“And saving the world, can’t forget that one,” Bruce says.

“Well if you call me a hero, then I get to do the same thing for you.”

“Hulk is not a hero, he’s a carefully monitored rage monster.”

“Was that what we were doing the whole time we were up against the Chitauri? Monitoring the Hulk while multitasking? I don’t know if you’ve read the scientific news, Bruce, but none of us can multitask as well as we think.”

“Not the point.”

“Yes the point.”

They stare at each other.

“Why don’t you want to be known as a hero?” Bruce asks, finally.

“I’m not the type of person anyone wants for a hero.”

“And am I?” Bruce asks with a smile.

“Are any of us?” Tony responds.

So they sit, and there’s this comfortable familiarity about being the same, looking at things the same, if not for a bit of difference.

Bruce finally speaks up.

“So. Who are we betting to be the last to know? Because I think it’ll be Natasha.”

“Are you crazy? She’s gonna be the next to know.”

“I don’t know, Clint can be pretty perceptive.”

“Oh come on. If anything, it’ll be Thor. He’s almost never here, and he never drops by with a message beforehand.”

“I bet you a smoothie that it’s Nat.”

“You’re on.”

Nat is the last one to figure it out. Bruce just shrugs as Tony looks at him, mouth open.

“How did you...?”

“I know things,” Bruce says.

(Not true: he’s been waging psychological warfare on Nat ever since he made that bet because he wanted a peach-mango smoothie.)

Neither think of themselves as heroes. But sometimes, you don’t think of yourself as a hero even though you are one. (Not that they know that other people’s perceptions hold sway.)

#lovelyirony writes #this was originally going to be in-depth on how different and yet how similar steve and tony are #but then i decided including bruce would be sexy so i did that #bruce banner #tony stark #steve rogers (kind of)

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