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#even though I restarted a couple times
plumdale · 1 year
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cress finally opened up her vet clinic
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waterbearable · 6 months
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god DAMN the underdark is fuckin intense. wink is having a terrible time they don't want to be underground anymore
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dunmertwink · 6 months
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.
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spaghetti-n00dles · 1 year
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if computers weren't so fucking expensive i'd throw mine against a wall more.
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farfromsugafanfic · 4 months
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SKZ Reaction To Being Caught Making Out
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Genre: fluff, suggestiveness (not straight smut but Imma go ahead and say MDNI)
Warnings: curse words, suggestive themes
A/N: Enjoy!
Chan:
When Changbin accidentally walked in on you and Chan mid-make-out in his studio, Chan would have conflicting reactions and emotions. On the one hand, he is definitely surprised and stops kissing you. He may even weirdly try to hide you regardless of whether Changbin knows about your relationship. However, there's also a tiny bit of pride hidden in his chest, but it is superseded by the obvious blush that spreads from his cheeks and up to his ears.
Minho:
Embarrassed, but doesn't show it immediately. When Seungmin walks in, he'll act dramatically and yell at him to leave (though it's obviously not malicious). If Seungmin giggles or smirks at the scene, he'll make some baseless threat, but by the time Seungmin leaves, his ears are bright red. Minho will get up and lock the door quickly. Before continuing where you left off, the two of you will probably laugh and promise to buy Seungmin a meal later.
Changbin:
Binnie might like to put out a "dark" and "hard" era, but this man would be capital E embarrassed. I imagine him trying to act as if it wasn't happening and asking Hyunjin what he needed. He would only get angry if there had been an expectation of full privacy (locked door, etc.) or if things had escalated to the point of removing some clothing. Mostly, he would just want to forget it happened and would probably keep your future make out sessions in private, locked spaces.
Hyunjin:
Surprisingly, normally dramatic Hyunjin isn't too embarrassed. He might be a bit surprised, but he doesn't really get the big deal when Jeongin walks in and catches the two of you making out. Hyunjin is a romantic and kissing is fairly casual to him (think of all his paintings and sketches of couples kissing), and even though you were a bit more hot and heavy, he doesn't really care as long as the two of you were clothed. With that said, he will make sure you and Jeongin are not too embarrassed. But, overall, he's fairly nonplussed which surprises you.
Jisung:
In contrast to Hyunjin, Jisung flips the fuck out. He's not angry, but his face is bright red and he'll even hide himself in your neck when Felix catches the two of you. He probably won't even say anything and Felix will probably end up just apologizing and leaving the room quickly. Poor Jisung will probably be mortified for the rest of the day. Eventually, he will be able to laugh about it, and may even get more used to smaller public displays of affection. Still, it doesn't stop him from leaning down and kissing you again.
Felix:
Felix is also a member who doesn't really see the big deal. I mean, he'd rather not be caught by Changbin, but it doesn't embarrass him really. Sure, Changbin might tease him a bit, but the members all knew that he was head over heels for you, so he basically just shrugged it off. He will make sure you aren't too embarrassed and if you are, he'll privately talk to Changbin later to make sure he doesn't mention it around you. I don't think he would necessarily restart the make out, but instead, just wrap you in his arms and watch a movie.
Seungmin:
This puppy does not get embarrassed easily. But when it comes to you, he, for some reason, blushes even if a member just mentions your name. So, when Minho walks in on you two, Seungmin becomes half protective of you and half embarrassed by wrapping his arms around you, but you can also feel the heat coming off his face. He'll probably be polite and ask Minho to leave, even though anger started to settle in. Still, he keeps a level head but is unable to continue because he doesn't want to get caught again.
Jeongin:
He's not the most embarrassed of the group, but his shy smile and the way he looks down tell you that Chan walking in startled him. But, while embarrassed due to the situation, he's willing to face pretty much anything for you, even negative emotions. Though, his hyungs tease him enough that after a few hours, he's mostly moved on. Still, from that day forward, he's much more careful.
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starkwlkr · 20 days
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Could you do fic for Mark Webber with wife reader? (He's Oscar's manager) And they both acted like dad & mom toward Lando and Oscar, especially. Just them spending time together and worries for the boys whenever something goes wrong. Mark does his best to comfort her. Just something fluff and cute. Maybe a little surprise for Mark at the end. I'll let you decide what it was. Tag me later!! Thanks!! :))
work parents | mark webber
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thanks for the request!! @pear-1206
When you and Mark were dating, you supported him throughout his career in F1. Now that you were married and had a teenage daughter, you were supporting another person in F1, Oscar. He was young, talented and skilled. You were sure that in a couple of years he would be world champion. You tried to attend as many races as you could, mostly during the summer since your and Mark’s daughter was out of school. Your daughter was studying in Harvard at the moment meaning you and Mark haven’t seen her since spring break. She had secretly made plans to surprise you and Mark at the race. Oscar was the one that had gotten her a paddock pass.
It was Oscar’s first home race so you knew you had to attend. It was going to be a special one after all. You got up early to start getting ready while Mark was getting a few extra minutes of sleep.
Mark still asleep shirtless. He looked so peaceful that you didn’t want to bother him considering he arrived home late the night before, but you had a tight schedule to follow. You walked to the bed and gently placed a kiss on his cheek.
“Mark, you have to get up, honey. Oscar might already be waiting for us at the track. It’s race day.”
“Give me five minutes.” He mumbled.
“I’ll let you do anything when we get back—” You couldn’t even finish since Mark had gotten immediately.
“We wouldn’t want to keep Oscar waiting, hurry up, love.” He tried to give you a morning kiss but you stopped him. “What? Don’t act like you care about morning breath now.”
“I already put on lipstick—”
“And you can put it on again. I want to kiss my wife.” You rolled your eyes, but gave in.
As Mark got ready, you made sure you had your paddock passes. Eventually you made it out of the house and now you were on your way to the circuit. Mark had his hand on your thigh while the other was on the steering wheel. When you made it to the paddock entrance, Oscar was waiting with his girlfriend Lily.
“Hi, I hope we didn’t keep you waiting for too long.” You said as you exited the car. “Lily, so great to see you again.” You greeted the girl.
“Hi Mrs. Webber, great to see you too.” Lily replied.
The group of four made their way into paddock, greeting fans and photographers. Mark held your hand making you remember the times when you were still dating and Mark was still racing. You followed Mark and Oscar to the Mclaren garage since Lily had excused herself to go to the Mclaren motorhome. It felt nice to be back.
“Mrs. Webber!” Lando greeted you as soon as he saw you. “Lovely to see you as always.”
“Hi Lando.” You hugged the Brit.
“No mini Webber today?” He asked when he noticed your daughter wasn’t with you.
“No, she’s in Massachusetts. She sends luck to both of you though.” Mark responded.
Oscar wasn’t one to spill secrets, but when he knew something that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, he would act nervous. He absolutely hated it.
“She is? Nice, right? Who would’ve thought that mini Webber would go to Harvard!” Lando and Oscar were both called by Zak so they excused themselves from the couple.
“Okay . . .” You brushed it off as him being nervous about the race. You scooted closer to Mark. “First home race must be getting to him.” You whispered.
“I’ll take care of him, love.”
“Don’t forget about Lando.”
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The 2023 Australian Grand Prix was one big chaotic mess and you were there to witness it. It felt like a rollercoaster of emotions when the race was restarted again. After three red flags and 58 laps, Max had won.
“P8 for Oscar, what a race.” Mark said, sitting beside you. “You can let go of my hand now, honey, race is over.” He gestured to your hand that tightly held his. He couldn’t remember what lap you decided to hold it, but he didn’t mind.
“Thank fuck. I thought I was going to have a heart attack or something.” You let go. “I just wish my baby girl was here.”
“She’ll be home soon. Summer is just around the corner and then we’ll have a moody teen girl with a coffee addiction in our house. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
When Oscar got back to the garage, you and Mark were there to celebrate his points. “You did so well! Good job, Osc!” You hugged the driver.
“Thank you, Mrs. Webber.” Oscar smiled.
“Oh! Where’s Lando? Was it P6 or 7? Who cares? Points for the Mclaren boys!” You cheered as you left to go find Lando. Lando’s race engineer had told you that the driver was in his driver’s room so you walked to the room in search of the Brit.
As you were about to knock on the door, Lando and your daughter came out. Talk about perfect timing. . .
“Mum . . Hi.” Your daughter laughed nervously.
“Listen, I love you to death but what are you doing here? You should be in Boston!” You scolded the girl.
“This sounds like a family matter so I’m just going to go.” Lando tried to leave it you stepped in front of him. “Hi Mrs. Webber.” He innocently said.
“Good job on getting points.” You sighed and gave him a hug. “Now care to explain?”
“It was her idea! I am the true victim here!”
“You jerk!”
“Okay! Stop it.” You raised your voice. “Sweetheart, what’s going on?”
“I wanted to surprise you and dad by coming here and Lando and Oscar were helping me so I hid here. I’m only here for a couple days . . I missed you guys.” She explained.
“Yeah, what she said.” Lando added.
“We missed you too. I am definitely surprised and dad will be too. Come on, we have to celebrate the Mclaren boys scoring points!” You grabbed your daughters hand and walked together to meet up with Mark and Oscar.
Lando stayed behind a bit confused. “You’re not mad at me, right Mrs. Webber?”
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kalims · 1 year
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— MALLEUS DRACONIA | pasilyo
or, sometimes you forget how many decades behind malleus is in slang. in comparison to lilia out of all people, he's like a very clueless innocent individual.
cw. very comical miscommunication (not the bad kind in romantic stuff heh)
wc. 1.4k
note. I can't stop thinking about malleus who really just doesn't get modern slang. this is a small treat ^^
can I get a 'heyy' from my fellow filo babes who know where the title is from
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"no way," you gasp. "shut up!" a large smile encases your face, one that you try to contain with a futile cover of the mouth—malleus however jolts in confusion, his brows furrow in what it seems to be concern. he looks like a very confused, kicked puppy (or dragon?) overall.
out of expression, you slap his arm without a hint of aggression but he seems more bothered by your words than the.. hit that didn't seem to phase him at all.
malleus ponders deeply on what had gone wrong, and what he had said. you are laughing right now but your words sounded like you were upset (well not exactly your tone but your words itself,) he frowns, he feels very lost right now.
plus since you are his very special friend he despises you being upset. more so, him being the reason for it.
your laughing gradually decreases once you realizes that there's no one responding to you but the silence. a flicker of concern flashes in your eyes at malleus' very serious expression. "uh.. is something wrong..?" you ask nervously.
even though you're absolutely sure that he heard you malleus stays silent—tense as though he's being held hostage, looking more uncertain each passing second.
"hello?" you try.
you deflate. what is wrong with this man? where is the restart button? you cross your arms over your chest and raise a brow, at the still not speaking malleus.
at times you don't understand malleus and that's a given since even lilia had to go up to tell you that malleus was trying to impress you with fae customs but it's not like you knew that—and not that malleus knew the difference between culture of human and fae separately.
so yeah. there was no way you were gonna realize that the time malleus was trying to convince you to live in a tower with him was basically akin to a.. marriage of sorts? since married couples usually live in the same area, for fae it's the same.. or.. dragons? minus the ring and ceremony.
also apparently that was more important than an actual wedding ceremony?!
to others it was torture to watch you and malleus go back and forth—you trying to ask him out the normal, human way. and malleus trying to bound you to him eternally in the non-normal, fae way. you've lost count on how many times you heard sebek emit the most manly screech you've ever heard when he just so happens to stumble upon his lord..
doing.. courting rituals..
to you.
"M-MALLEUS-SAMA! HAS THIS HUMAN TRICKED YOU?!"
"WHY ARE YOU SHEATHING YOUR SWORD SEBEK—"
anyone could guess which scream belonged to who.
well whatever! point is tsunotaro seems to be unresponsive to you right now for some odd reason. have you done something wrong? (this is very ironic since malleus is also thinking the same.) all you did was slap his arm—oh my god did he get offended by that?
out of realization your eyes widen as your arms retract and hang by your sides uselessly. you look straight in his eyes and say; "I am so sorry," with furrowed brows and genuinely apologetic eyes malleus is struggling to keep up with your first request.
like that time he legit just stormed the diasomnia fridge, stole some poor student's tub of ice cream and high tailed it to your dorm because you were supposed to eat a cone yourself but was unable to due to the work load crowley had dumped you (honestly, what's new?)
so in a way it made you sad because damn was ice cream good. instead of it melting away your troubles it actually did melt instead.
because of some crow.
all just because he would go around the world for you if you asked.
(some cheesy part of you would imagine him going around you because how nice would it be if he saw you as his world? though if you did that to him instead and call him your world you reckon he'll take a few minutes of explaining before getting it.)
in the end malleus breaks. his will to oblige your request just fades in the back of his mind because he does not know why you're apologizing to him for no reason when clearly, he's the one that upset you! "my child of man.. you aren't the one at fault," he looks at you like he's sorry. "it is i,"
what.
now you're confused. "uh.. wait what?" didn't you just hit him? was he not mad about that even though your little slap probably didn't even make him feel anything? "didn't I just hit you?"
his face contorts into suprise. "oh really?" he mumbles. even though there's not much shock after you can tell he has no idea what you're talking about.
now you're even more confused! if he's not upset with that then what was he being all silent treatment about? malleus shrugs at you. "even so, I don't mind. you can hit me as many times as you'd like, I can take it," he says seriously.
you splutter. WHAT. you were literally just listening to him spill tea a couple minutes ago.. that sounds so wrong on many levels and you don't even wanna consider what he's saying because one, that's just weird! and two, sebek would literally strangle you.
and both you and malleus would not like you being strangled like that.
"what. just stop, please," you raise a hand and he immediately shuts up. "what are you talking about? you didn't do anything wrong." you deadpan.
this time he tilts his head. "you told me to shut up didn't you? so I merely did as you told—" he says casually. which baffles you all the more because this is starting to sound insane! did he actually take it literally.
malleus is so pure sometimes.
so pure that you can't help but stifle a giggle. and it takes you a couple of seconds of just containing your laughs to speak again. "i- pfft.. I was just joking," you manage to say in between laughs.
oh that was a joke? he should consult with lilia to tell him all about the current trendy jokes. "oh,"
you realize he probably didn't know what you were saying so you take it upon yourself to explain. "um.. it's like,, an expression of disbelief and uh.. amazement?" you explain. cringing at your horrible explanation, it just isn't your forte.
malleus still nods attentively. listening to every word you say. "I see, thank you. my child of man, I will make sure to utilize this new knowledge," he smiles at you in a way you just can't resist.
malleus is very endearing but..
that sounds.. kind of concerning.
and take it to play does he.
"malleus-sama, have you heard?" sebek chimes in with a certain glint in his eyes. lilia chuckles at the clear excitement of his dearest sun from the kitchen counter.
someone get him out of the kitchen.
malleus hums thoughtfully, should he get lilia to wrap the dinner for you as well? you must be hungry. "heard what?" he answers a moment later.
"the southern lights will shine upon briar valley this year. shan't we visit soon?!"
sebek is true though. if the southern lights really is going to shine upon briar valley then malleus would like to take you there. just so you could see the beauty of it. (and perhaps, he could spend more time relishing in the beauty of you and your existence.)
seeing it will be an experience for sure. though he's seen countless southern lights malleus looks forward to it this year.
plus.. his heart warms at the thought of his people being able to witness it.
a thought pops into his mind.
"shut up,"
malleus says it so monotonously, without any emotion whatsoever that silence stretches across the room in an uncomfortable fog, and if anyone listens closely they can hear crickets.
a cloud of shame washes over sebek's face as his mouth clamps shut. lilia pauses (saving himself from a deep cut because anyone can tell that he's cutting the carrots way too big.) and raises his brow.
"now malleus—,"
sebek bows repeatedly before bolting out of the room with a trail of stormy clouds following him comically.
"what was that all about? look at what you've done. you've upset sebek,"
that's what he thought with you as well. the things you've taught him is surely working right now, no?
ah yes.. next time you meet he should ask you about more of this strange languange.
note. MY FINGERS ARE SO TIREDD
not proofread
ko-fi
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starlightvld · 1 month
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Up in Smoke
(Also on AO3)
The first time Ghost rips the cigarette from Soap's mouth, drops it on the ground, and stomps on it as he passes by, Soap is too stunned to say anything for a full ten seconds. They've only been working together consistently for a couple of missions, and even as his superior officer, the audacity of the action floors him.
By the time his brain restarts, Ghost is long gone.
--
The second time Ghost steals Soap's cigarette, he bursts out in a string of Scottish curses and tackles Ghost from behind before the wanker can drop it on the ground. An impromptu sparring match ensues, fists and curses flying. 
Afterward, he doesn't feel much like a cigarette anymore — not with the split lip, anyway. Besides, the buzzing under his skin that usually drives him to smoke is just... gone.
Price catches wind of the incident, of course, and calls them into his office a few hours later. By that time Soap has calmed down enough to be... maybe not okay with it, but at least able to see the humor. 
"What's this about you muppets scuffling by the smoking area?"
"Just a little sparring to blow off steam," Soap says.
"Ghost?"
"Nothin' to worry about, Captain."
"No? I've got one soldier who looks like he just got back from a bar fight, and the other..." He squints at Ghost. "He get a hit in on you, too?"
"Yeah," Ghost replies in that deadpan tone of his. "Coupla black eyes."
It's a joke. 
Ghost is telling a joke. And it's objectively not funny. It's not. But Soap bursts into hysterical laughter all the same. 
The corners of Ghost's blacked-out eyes crinkle. 
Price rubs his temples before dropping his hand on his desk. Soap presses his lips together to contain his laughter.
"Sparring happens in the gym. I'm sure you know the place. It's where we have things like mats and gloves. I catch you two bare-knuckle fighting again, and you will regret it."
And it's enough to sober Soap up. He avoids Ghost as he ducks away to catch dinner.
--
The third time... well, no. He supposes that's really the fourth time. 
Because the actual third time, Soap had come back from a shit mission where everything went wrong. Intel was faulty, exfil was delayed, and people under his command died. It didn't happen as often in SAS as it had in the regulars — the soldiers here were well-trained and hard to kill — but that made it all the worse. 
When Ghost tried to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, Soap growled. 
"Back the fuck up, Lt. Or Price is gonna be disappointed in both of us."
Ghost paused, and their eyes met. Slowly, Ghost lowered his hand. 
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Fuck no."
"Thank God."
Soap didn't have it in him to even huff a laugh. He took a long drag and blew the smoke away from Ghost as a peace offering.
To his surprise, Ghost didn't leave. He spun around and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. They stood there together, utterly silent, as Soap let the heat and sting in his lungs soothe the beast inside that wanted to rip the world apart.
When he was done, though, he was surprised to find he didn't want another. Usually after shit missions, he'd stand there and smoke half a pack before his hands would stop shaking.
He finally met Ghost's eyes. The man quirked a barely visible brow.
"S'pose we should take it to the mats this time?"
Ghost pushed off the building and started walking. Soap followed like a lost child looking for a way home. 
--
The fourth time is in Chicago. His hands are shaking not from losing soldiers but from almost losing his own life. The cigarette trembles in his grip as he stands outside the bar, the biting wind turning his fingers and probably his lips blue. He lifts it to his mouth, inhaling deep—
And then it's gone.
The whine that bubbles up from his gut and bursts from his throat is nothing short of humiliating. But God. God. He needs it.
"Not now. Please, Ghost."
"Why?"
Ghost hasn't thrown the cigarette down. Yet. He cocks his head to the side and gives Soap a long look. Soap can only tremble from the cold and a need that goes deeper than a simple hit of nicotine.
"I just... I need it."
The cigarette drops to the ground, but Soap doesn't have time to lament the loss before that same hand is curling around Soap's neck and pulling him into a fucking massive chest. The other arm comes around Soap's shoulders and...
Ghost just stands there, holding him. And Soap can't help melting into the warmth and solidity of the man who saved his life just hours ago. He dares to curl in deeper. To raise his hands and clutch at Ghost's jacket. To let a few, silent tears escape his tight control.
Finally, his muscles relax. Ghost must feel it, because he turns and leads Soap back toward the bar.
"Why do ye even care?" Soap mumbles from his spot tucked into Ghost's side.
"Because those things'll kill ya."
Soap supposes the "I like you alive" is implied at this point.
--
Soap loses count after Chicago. He gets stretches of days when Ghost is on a solo op or out with one of the other operators when he can smoke in peace. So he does.
At first.
He's been hooked since he was a rebellious teen trying to make his mark on the world. He's tried to quit multiple times, but it never seems to stick. The first bad mission or adrenaline-filled near miss and he's back at whatever smoking spot he can find, puffing away.
He finds himself trying to cut back, though, even when Ghost is away.
Any time Ghost is on base, all bets are off. In addition to darting by and making a grab for it or sneaking up behind him and flicking it out of his hands, Ghost has gotten more creative. Sometimes Soap will pull out a cigarette only to find he's "lost" his lighter. Sometimes the cigarettes themselves go missing — he clutches his chest and mourns all that wasted money whenever a whole pack disappears. 
He supposes it's all just going up in smoke anyway, though.
He should be angry. But in truth, it's almost a relief to hand over the reins to Ghost. To let the man help him by annoying the shit out of him until he wants to give up on it entirely.
Which is definitely the point. Ghost has made that perfectly clear.
So, whenever he gets the urge to calm his racing thoughts or overactive mind with a cigarette, he finds Ghost and annoys him instead. They talk, or spar, or simply sit in silence together, doing their own thing. Ghost doesn't often touch him — their moment in Chicago is still the closest Soap's ever gotten to the elusive Ghost — but he also doesn't push Soap away when he slumps into Ghost's side after a hard day or leans over his back when he's sitting at the table in the 141's common area on base.
The urge doesn't go away, of course. And sometimes, when things get really bad, Ghost will just sit or stand with him like he did the third time. Still, he finds himself smoking less and hanging out with Ghost more.
--
The last time Ghost steals a cigarette from Soap, he simply stands beside Soap and holds out his hand. Soap immediately knows something has gone terribly wrong. Still, he's too invested in the game now to not hand the cigarette over.
He nearly keels over when Ghost pulls up his mask and takes a long, hard drag. Soap watches in fascination as his cheeks hollow, his neck muscles strain, his lips curve around the paper. It's erotic in a way he really shouldn't be thinking about in regards to his emotionally unavailable superior officer, but the knowledge hasn't stopped him yet. Since that day in Chicago — probably before if he's honest — he's only ever wanted to be closer.
Ghost coughs a little and hands the cigarette back.
"Fuck. Just as disgusting as I remember."
"Ye used to smoke, then?"
"Before I joined up, yeah. Hated it, though."
"The smell? Or—"
"Everything. The taste, the smell, the heat..." Ghost trails off, his hand rubbing over his bicep in a strangely specific way. He shakes his head and looks back at Soap. "Not your problem, Johnny. Forget about it."
Soap's hand is darting out, fingers curling into Ghost's jacket, before he's properly thought through the action. Ghost pauses before turning back. They stare in silence for a moment until—
Soap stubs out the half-burned cigarette and drops the butt in the trash. He licks his lips. Glances up at Ghost. The mask is still sitting on his nose, and Soap stares at his lips for longer than he should before pulling the pack out of his pocket and throwing it in the trash, too.
"Cannae have ye thinking I stink, can I?"
"Too late."
But Ghost's throat bobs with a hard swallow. Soap wets his lips, takes a step closer, and uncurls his fingers to slide his hand up Ghost's chest until his fingertips are resting on Ghost's shirt collar.
"I dinnae think it is."
Ghost turns and walks away. Soap closes his eyes and drops his hand, internally cursing his impulsive behavior. The scuffing of boots walking away from him is like nails on a chalk board.
Until they stop, and a gruff voice calls out, "You comin'?"
A slow smile slides across Soap's mouth. "No' yet."
A huff — exasperation? laughter? a bit of both? — before, "Better get movin' then."
And Soap has never been more glad to follow an order.
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mintquokka · 5 months
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What's Mine Is Yours || LMH
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Pairing: Lee Minho x GN!Reader
Genre: Idol au, angst, fluff, slow burn, strangers to lovers
Word Count: 14.3k+
Soulmark: Lost items end up in the other’s possession.
Summary: “How many times are they going to lose this same damn thing?”
Warnings: it switches povs a lot in this fic, so be warned, reader lives in Korea but there is no indication of what ethnicity they are, implied sex, language, it's a very slow burn fic with some good angst, but still very fluffy!!, if i missed anything please let me know!
a/n: it's FINALLY here! I'm so sorry for keeping you all waiting. but i really do think it will be worth the wait! I ended up last minute adding a couple scenes to make it flow better, so that's why it took a little longer to post. and even though it's almost 2am, i felt obligated to post it as soon as i was done. so please enjoy the first fic of this series! i hope to get the others done and posted faster than this took lol
main masterlist | fated series masterlist
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“Five minutes 'till show!”
“What song are we doing first?”
“This is our eighth show and you still can’t remember?”
“I need chapstick!”
The rush backstage before a concert starts has always been crazy. Staff are running left and right chasing some of the members down for last minute touches on makeup and hair, while others are helping fix problem areas in new stage looks. They’re antsy to get the groups ready in time. The echoes of the crowd in the full stadium make their way to the green room, sending everyone the much needed rush of energy to finish their tasks. It’s even more hectic when everything is off schedule by a few minutes.
“Lee Know, where’s your in-ears?”
Minho glances up at the manager beside him as he pats down his pockets. He jerks his head towards the table with the extra mic packs and in-ears. An empty spot where he remembers placing them a minute ago.
“I swear I put them right here.”
“We can’t keep doing this.” The manager rubs his palm against his forehead. “It would be a lot easier if you knew who your soulmate was already.”
Minho rolls his eyes, unclipping his mic pack from his pants.
“Don’t I wish,” he grumbles.
A pair of standard in-ears are shoved in his direction. Minho gladly takes them, plugging them into the pack, and clips it back on his pants. Another staff member helps him weave the cord through the back of his shirt. His manager gestures to them, a stern look on his face.
“These come straight back to us.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Minho waves him off. “I know the drill.”
The door to the room opens again as a stage crew member leans his body in, effectively cutting off whatever else his manager was going to say. The screams and chants grow louder with each second that passes by, and Minho’s heart beats increasingly faster with the adrenaline that’s starting to finally kick in.
“Two minutes!”
Chan is by his side the moment the door is closed again. He smiles at Minho, wraps his arm around his waist, and guides him to where the rest of the group stands by the door.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
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Heejin slams her hand on the table, stealing your—and a couple other people sitting around you—attention away from the menu in your hands. She stares wide-eyed at her phone. Her thumb slides along the screen up and down a few times as you watch her with a raised brow, waiting for her to say something.
“Oh my god,” Heejin whispers. She looks up at you, a shocked expression still painted on her face. “Did you hear?”
“What?”
She flips her phone to face you. A single tweet is pulled up, the video on it restarting its loop when you see it. You watch for a moment. Even without the sound, or the best camera angle, you can already tell who it is. And with the way you see him fiddling with his earpiece before deciding to unplug them and toss them to the side of the stage, you know exactly what Heejin is going to say.
“Apparently Lee Know lost his in-ears again!” You knew that already. Especially if the set of specially made ones that showed up on your bed last night has anything to do with it. But you weren’t going to say anything to her. She turns her phone back toward herself, exiting out of the tweet and scrolling through a few more on her feed. “He had to perform with some older ones and they were giving him issues the entire time. There are so many videos! How many is this now?”
Over twenty, you recall. You’ve never actually counted, but you’re sure that with how full the box under your bed is with them—plus all the other random items of his that you can’t put to use—it’s a pretty high number.
“How do you know this?”
“Twitter. Duh,” she scoffs.
“I- nevermind.”
Heejin sets her phone down on the table. She rests her arms against the edge, her focus on you. There is a sense of seriousness to her posture. And the way she stares at you, almost as if she’s looking deep into your soul, has you leaning back as far as you can without accidentally bumping any waiters as they walk past your table.
“What do you think his soulmark is? If it was that lost items one, I’d feel bad for his soulmate.”
Heejin juts out her bottom lip slightly. You clear your throat, raising an eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
“He seems to lose things a lot.” She shrugs, leans back, and picks up her menu without so much as another thought about the topic. “What are you getting?”
Odd.
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The moment he sits down, he knows something is weird. Minho pats his front pocket. With his eyebrows closely knit, he shoves his hand inside, grabbing the object. He sighs once he sees what it is.
“How many times are they going to lose this same damn thing?” he mumbles.
Chan, deciding to plop down beside him as they take a break during dance practice, speaks up.
“What is it now?”
Minho holds the item up, not bothering to give Chan so much as a glance.
“Chapstick. I can’t tell you how many I’ve found over the years.” He takes the lid off, chuckling to himself when he looks inside. “It's always almost gone, too.”
Chan lets out a laugh of his own, bumping Minho’s shoulder with his. When Minho turns to look at the older, Chan lifts his eyebrows teasingly.
“Well, at least you know what their lips will taste like when you kiss them.”
He’s right. Every single one you’ve lost is the same exact kind. He knows exactly what you’ll taste like, and that doesn’t help his daydreaming one bit. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of that since the first one you lost back when he was in middle school.
“Shut up. Don’t you have someone else to bother?” He pushes Chan with his shoulder slightly. Not enough to hurt either of them, but enough to pull a hearty laugh from Chan. 
“Nope.” Chan turns his body to face Minho’s side. Sitting cross-legged, he sets his elbows on his knees, leaning his head into his hands. A teasing smile finds its way to his lips. “What do you think your soulmate is like?”
A little bit like him, he hopes. At least someone who can understand his humor and doesn’t get irritated by his teasing. He can’t say he’s ever thought about how his soulmate looks. Looks weren’t high on his list of things he cares for in a significant other, or even a friend for that matter.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Minho huffs, leaning back against the mirror as much as he can. If only it could swallow him so he wouldn’t have to answer all of these questions. “Oh come on. You have some idea, right?”
“No.”
Chan’s teasing smile falls slightly. He looks at Minho curiously, trying to read the mind of his younger bandmate. Though, all he can see is the way Minho is antsy to get back to practicing with the way he’s playing with his fingers and tugging at his sweatpants.
“Not even an ideal personality?”
“Never thought about it,” Minho hums nonchalantly.
“But what ab—”
“Look. It’s not that I don’t care about my soulmate. I just never put any thought into who they are, what they look like, or whatever. They’re supposed to be like a perfect match for you, right?” Minho turns his head to look at Chan with a raised brow. Chan responds with a quiet ‘well, yeah’. “So then I’m leaving it at that. If I set expectations of my soulmate before I meet them, then I’m setting myself up for disappointment if those expectations aren’t met.”
Chan leans back, rubbing his palms on his pants. A satisfied look crosses his face. It’s one that tells Minho that that’s enough questioning—for now—and he relaxes into the floor a bit more. Chan pushes himself off the floor and reaches out his hand to help Minho up.
“And what if when you meet them, they aren’t that ‘perfect match’ for you?”
Minho shrugs. It’s something he’s thought of before. Something his parents have told him before. ‘Just because you’re soulmates doesn’t mean you need to have a romantic relationship,’ his father would say. Not even his own parents are soulmates, deciding that each of their soulmates weren’t the one for them. Yet, they love each other more than Minho can ever imagine.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.”
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Your bedroom looks like a nightmare. Clothes are tossed on every surface. And yet, you still can’t find the one thing you’ve been looking for since yesterday. You’ve already looked through the rest of your apartment, and still nothing turned up. You only hoped it wasn’t already with your soulmate. You really wanted to wear that today.
Giving up on searching the confines of your room, you walk out to your living room, where your best friend sits on the couch watching a random video on the tv. You keep your eyes glued to the floor in the case that you might have just missed it when looking around yesterday.
“Heejin, have you seen my hoodie?” You ask as you venture off into the kitchen. Of course, you wouldn’t have tucked it away in one of the cupboards, but you look anyway.
“Which one?” She calls out from the couch.
“My favorite one.”
It’s silent on her end for a moment. You’re still opening and closing cabinet doors, the sound of the doors tapping against the edge of the shelves, and the shuffling of your feet, are louder than whatever is happening one room over. Sighing, you give up on looking in the kitchen. Instead, you open one of the cupboards again, pull out a bag of chips, and walk back toward the living room. That’s when Heejin decides to speak up again.
“Do you mean like the one he’s wearing?”
“What do you mean?”
Your eyes meet the tv as you come to stand behind the couch, finally noticing what she was watching. Lee Know, who is currently live and reading through comments, is wearing the exact sweatshirt you’re looking for. Well, at least you can stop your frantic searching now.
“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” you say.She doesn’t need to know that it is in fact yours.
You listen in to the live for a moment, and thankfully, some of the comments Lee Know is reading have the most perfect timing.
“Where did you get your hoodie? I’m not sure. I just found it in my room yesterday.”
He shrugs, not bothering to look at the camera before continuing to scroll through his phone. His thumb pauses for a moment. Even though the camera quality is utterly shit, you can still see the redness creeping up his neck and to his ears. Whatever it was he read, he didn’t say it out loud.
“No, no. I’m sure it was one of the boys. They always seem to lose something and somehow it ends up in my room.”
Heejin scoffs, drawing your attention to her. She, too, is scrolling on her phone, reading through the comments herself. And that’s when you see it too. All the questions about his soulmate or what if it was his soulmate’s sweatshirt.
“There’s no way that that’s a coincidence.” She turns her head to look at you. “Do you know something I don’t?”
You’re still reading the comments in surprise. The expression that took over your face must have given you away as she flips her body around so her knees are digging into the couch cushion. Her hands fly to the top of the couch to stabilize herself as she leans in closer to you, wide eyed and jaw dropped. 
“Wait. No fucking way. How long have you known?”
You don’t bother lying to her again. She was bound to find out at some point, and that some point just so happens to be right now. Walking around the couch to sit beside Heejin, you sigh quietly.
“That it was him? About a year after their debut. But it’s been like this for as long as I can remember.”
“How did you even find out?”
You let out a breathy laugh, dropping your gaze to where your fingers are playing with the hem of your sweatpants.
Shrugging, you tell her, “Well, I’ve been a fan of them since pre-debut—”
“And you didn’t tell me!?”
Her hands land a little too harshly on your leg closest to her. The shocked look on her face never having left from your initial revelation.
“You probably would have freaked out more than you are right now. You��ve been trying to drag me into the k-pop world for the last twelve years.”
SHINee wasn’t just a phase for her. Neither was [group1] or [group2] or even [group3]. You realized that when she started showing you more and more music videos of different groups and soloists just to see your reaction. Little did she know that she got you hooked pretty early on. But you’re never going to give her that little bit of information. You’re sure she’ll hold it over your head for the foreseeable future.
“Whatever,” she huffs, crossing her arms and throwing herself back against the backrest. “We’ll discuss that later. How did you find out it was Lee Know?”
You hold up a finger, push yourself off the couch, and rush to your room. Pushing some of the clothes on your floor out of the way, you pull out the box of his ‘lost’ stuff from under your bed. You bring it back into the living room and set it on your coffee table. Heejin immediately digs through the box. “It’s kinda easy when you find something not yours with a very specific detail that would only point to one person.”
She looks back at you with raised eyebrows. 
“You still have all of this?”
You nod, glancing into the box yourself.
“Yeah. I thought he might want all this stuff back at some point.”
“We have to do something. You need to meet your soulmate!”
Heejin drops the several pairs of in-ears that she took a hold of as she was swimming through the box. She turns back to you, taking your hands in hers, shaking them in excitement.
“And how are you going to make that happen, huh? It’s not like you can make a sign for a concert and he’ll believe it. I’m sure hundreds of people have tried that.”
“Are you kidding me? You don’t think I know that?” She scoffs.
You shrug, leaning back into the backrest of the couch.
“Just saying.”
Heejin thinks for a moment. She hums to herself, meets your eyes, and sends you the most concerning smirk you’ve ever seen on her face.
“I’ll figure out something. Just you wait.”
“Whatever.”
You shake her hands off you and reach for the remote. You need to change what you’re watching before she can get any more ideas.
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“Hyung? Have you seen my phone?”
Another concert day, and another thing lost. How could he have let this happen? He swore he left it sitting on the makeup counter connected to the charger. But the more he looks, the more he hopes what happened didn’t happen.
“Nope.”
Minho turns away from the counter, and stomps up to the four boys sprawled across the two sofas in the green room. He’s only using this as a last resort to keep him from losing his sanity. Hyunjin is the only one that looks up from his own phone at Minho, making direct eye contact with him.
“Alright. Which one of you hooligans took my phone?”
While the question was directed at all four boys, Minho holds eye contact with Hyunjin.
“Why are you looking at me? I didn’t take it!”
“Why do you always think it’s one of us?” Seungmin speaks up, sparing a quick glance up at Minho.
“Why wouldn’t I think it was one of you?”
Felix sighs. He sets his phone in his lap.
“You always ask us, but we all know that once you’ve misplaced it–poof–it’s gone.” His added hand gestures to the ‘poof’ he lets out doesn’t make Minho feel any better about his predicament. “It’s probably with your soulmate by now.”
Felix shrugs and focuses back on his phone, continuing to scroll.
“He’s got a point,” Changbin points out. “When was the last time you saw your phone?”
“A few minutes ago. I had it right here.”
Minho holds up his hand. Obviously he was using it right before he ‘lost’ it. Changbin only sighs, sitting up from his position laying on Hyunjin’s lap.
“And then what did you do?”
“I set it down on the makeup counter and went to the bathroom,” Minho answers confidently.
Changbin peaks around him to look at the counter. It’s a little disorganized with how many makeup and hair supplies are spread across it, he notices. No wonder why Minho can’t find his phone.
“And it wasn’t there when you came back?”
“If it was there when I got back I wouldn't be asking about it, would I?”
“Alright, alright,” Chan intervenes, grabbing a hold of Minho’s shoulders before he can do anything—if he was going to do something. “Maybe one of the managers grabbed it.”
Minho’s shoulders deflate slightly. He glances over to where their managers are seated, absorbed in their own conversations.
“Maybe.”
Chan watches as Minho walks over to them, scratches at the back of his neck, shoulders deflating even more, and drags his feet back over to where Chan is standing. “They didn’t have it?”
Minho shakes his head.
The green room door flies open, startling several of the members and some of the staff.
“Show starts in twenty!”
Once the door closes, everyone begins to get ready. A few of the makeup artists take hold of a couple members to begin their makeup or touch up on what’s already been done. Others head straight for the costuming racks to grab the extra pieces for their looks. Chan, before he can be pulled into one of the chairs at the counter, pats Minho’s shoulder.
“How about we call your phone after the show is over, yeah? If your soulmate has it, maybe they’ll answer?”
Minho sighs, tempted to rub at his face if it weren’t for the makeup he already has on.
“Yeah, I guess.”
He, too, walks over to the racks to grab his jacket.
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You were getting ready to settle into your couch to binge watch your favorite show for the eighth time—after a long day of working it was a much needed rest—when you noticed it. You thought it was yours, thinking you just left it on the coffee table before you wrapped yourself in a blanket, but once you sat down, feeling the one in the pocket of your sweatpants, you knew exactly who’s it was. You grab his phone from the table. The cat stickers on the back have faded completely, only leaving the shapes of the furry animals behind. And while you don’t want to be too nosey, for the sake of his own privacy, you turn on his phone to see his lock screen. That’s one angle of Hyunjin’s face that you’d never think you’d see, you think. No wonder why they blur the photos they take of each other in their SKZ-Talker episodes.
Then, your worst nightmare. It starts ringing. You hadn’t even had a chance to look at the caller ID before you flung it to the other side of the couch in surprise.
“Oh my god. What do I do?”
The ringing eventually stops, letting you relax for a moment. Though, the silence in the room doesn’t last long as not even a minute after does it start ringing again. Reaching out for the device, you finally take a look at who’s calling. You chuckle. Incoming Call from The Wolfman [emoji], it reads. Bang Chan’s face takes over the background of the screen. You take a breath. It’s probably better for you to answer it. You’re sure by now that Lee Know is looking for his phone, especially when you’re not sure how long it’s been sitting on your coffee table. You lift your hand, pressing the screen to answer, and lift it to your ear.
“Hello?”
A quick gasp comes out from the other end of the line. Some shuffling happens before you can hear muffled voices.
“Hyung, we didn’t think this far. What do I even say?”
“Give it to me,” another voice, sounding slightly annoyed you note, answers.
“Hello?” You repeat. Maybe now you can figure out what to do.
“Hi! You must be my friend’s soulmate, yeah?”
You recognise the voice very quickly. There’s something about Bang Chan’s tone that throws you off a little, but you brush that thought aside.
“Considering that this phone just appeared on my coffee table and it isn’t mine, I’d think it’s probably safe to say yes,” you giggle lightly.
Someone laughs loudly, you’re sure it’s Changbin, but you can’t tell for sure.
“We told you!”
“Whatever.”
Bang Chan sighs into the speaker.
“Okay, well, uhm. Due to certain circumstances, we’re going to need his phone back as soon as possible.”
Certain? As in you’re in an idol group who has such a busy life, that’s also about to leave the country in a week? 
“And how do you want me to do that?”
“Oh, uh, can you just lose it again? I mean, that would be the quickest way to do it, right?”
It was your turn to sigh. If it were that easy, you would have done it a long time ago.
“It doesn’t work like that—” “It’s not that easy—”
“Well, we need to figure something out,” Bang Chan grumbles.
He’s stressed and you can tell. Whether it’s about the whole phone situation or a combination of a few different things, you’re not sure of. You think for a moment, but only one possible solution comes to mind. While it may not be the best idea, it’s all you’ve got at the moment.
“Can’t we just meet up and I can give it to you or whoever?” You wonder.
“Ah, well—”
Another shuffle from their end.
“They’re gonna need to know at some point.”
“Even if they’re your soulmate, we still have to be careful.”
You shift your position on the couch. Setting your feet on the floor, you unwrap yourself a little from the cocoon you had created earlier. You rest your elbows on your knees, bringing your free hand up to rub at your face.
“Look,” you sigh out. “If you want to not bring any attention to yourselves, you can just have one of your managers meet with me.” “Managers?”
You physically recoil. Curse you and your stupid mouth. Why couldn’t you think before you said that out loud.
“Shit. Uh—”
“You know who we are?” It’s Lee Know this time. His voice is strangely high, likely from the pure shock from what you said.
You clear your throat. Suddenly the couch doesn’t feel so comfortable anymore.
“Uh, yeah. If it’s making you guys uncomfortable, we can just like—I don’t know—forget I said anything?”
“No!” he yells. It takes him a moment to speak up again, but this time his voice is much softer. Much more quiet. “No, it’s okay. I’m actually glad. Saves us the trouble of explaining anything to you.”
Your shoulders relax. You didn’t even realize they were so tense.
“Oh, okay. Good.”
“So about meeting up…”
“Aren’t you guys on a tour right now?” you ask, knowing that it could be hectic to try to get him phone back.
“Yeah. But we’re back in Korea for a few stops before we leave the country again. Assuming that you’re here too, that is.”
You let out a small ‘oh’ before nodding.
“I am. I live in Goyang.”
“Okay, perfect. Can I get your number?”
Maybe it’s the previously conceived tension or maybe you’re already feeling comfortable enough to joke around, but your mouth once again has a mind of its own. You giggle, a girlish giggle—one that makes you already want to gag.
“We haven’t even met and you’re already hitting on me?”
It’s quiet for a moment. You’re only met with the sound of two other members laughing in the background.
“Look how red he is!”
“They must have embarrassed him already.”
“Alright, you two. Let’s leave him alone. Out.”
Lee Know clears his throat.
“Sorry about them. They don’t know when to mind their own business.”
“I can tell,” you chuckle.
“But about your number. It’ll just be easier to contact you on your phone rather than mine about when and where to meet.”
“I know,” you hum, settling back into your cocoon of a blanket.
“Thank you…”
“Y/N. My name’s Y/N.”
“Y/N.” You love the way your name rolls off his tongue. And with the way he whispered, not necessarily for you to hear but you did anyways, it sends goosebumps up your arms. “I’ll text you, okay?”
“I’ll be waiting.” It’s Lee Know’s turn to laugh at you. That’s when you notice how flirty you sound all of a sudden. “Not in the weird way though! I mean, that—you know what, never mind. I’m going now.”
Ending the call, not bothering to say your goodbyes, you sink back into the crevices of your couch to hide as much as you can. It was your first conversation with him and you’re already throwing yourself into the grave you dug yourself.
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“Ooo! Where are you going dressed up like that?”
Your eyes threaten to pop out of your skull at the sound of Heejin’s voice. Whipping your head towards the direction it came from, you notice she’s perched up on one of your barstools. A wide smirk is plastered on her face as she looks you up and down. You’re not wearing anything too fancy, but it’s definitely not what you wear on a day-to-day basis, so you can sort of see where she’s coming from.
“When did you get here?”
She shrugs.
“Ten minutes ago.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me?”
The smirk drops to a pout. Another one to add to the list of times she looks like a puppy. You’re sure she was a puppy in her last life, even though she denies it every time you mention it.
“Did we not have plans tonight? I thought we talked about doing a movie marathon.”
“Shit,” you groan. “I totally forgot about that. Can we raincheck?”
Heejin thinks for a moment, tapping her finger against her chin. She eventually drops her hand, and replaces the small pout into the biggest shit-eating grin you’ve ever seen her make.
“Only if you tell me what you’re doing tonight.”
You sigh, nodding. Anything to get you out the door faster.
“You have to promise me you won’t freak out.”
“Just spit it out already,” Heejin whines.
“I’m meeting Lee Know.”
Her jaw is practically through the floor. She slams her hands on your counter in excitement before she jumps off the stool to smack your arms, too.
“NO FUCKING WAY! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”
“Okay, ow.” You pout, rubbing at the spot she hit.
Heejin grabs your hands. She stares directly at your face, leaning in closer with every question she asks.
“Since when was this a plan? How did you even make this happen? Does he already know you’re soulmates? Does he know that you know who he is? Can I—”
“Slow down!” You have to pull your hands out from hers to push her back enough so she doesn’t accidentally kiss you with how close she got. “Long story short, he lost his phone, it ended up with me, we talked and worked it out, and now I’m going to meet him to give it back.”
You speak as fast as you can. If you don’t leave now, she’ll hold you hostage until she can squeeze any and all information about what happened out of you.
“Damn. There goes my plan.” She kisses her teeth.
“You actually made a plan?”
Heejin steps back a little, shrugs, and makes her way back to the barstool.
“Well, not yet. But I was going to! I was just stuck trying to figure out how I was going to get you into the company building without it looking sus.”
You smack your hand against your face. 
“Oh my god. You aren’t serious are you?”
“That was Plan-A,” she notes. “Plan-B was to get backstage passes.”
You shake your head. Walking away from the kitchen, you make your way to your front door. Any minute more and you think you’re going to go insane.
“I’m just gonna leave now. Feel free to raid my kitchen I guess. And please lock the door when you leave.”
You can still see her from where you are. Or at least you can see the hand she’s waving towards you.
“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here and go get your man!”
With a final laugh coming from you, you throw yourself out the door.
The walk to the park you and Lee Know decided on felt like it was taking forever. Is it because of the sudden nervousness you feel? You’re not sure. But you’re only hoping that you aren’t making him wait. There’s nothing that irks you more than having to wait for someone who’s late to events and plans. Luckily, by the time you’re walking up to the swingset, you see a familiar figure approach you from the other side of the playground.
“Y/N?”
You smile. Lee Know stands right in front of you. He’s close enough that you can see him well, but far enough away that you hope he can’t hear the drumming of your heart. You’re a little surprised he isn’t covered head to toe to hide his identity. The only things obscuring his face is the baseball cap and the hood of his hoodie.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
You take the moment of silence to really take in his features. The camera doesn’t do his beauty justice. And you’re sure it’s the same way for the other members, too. From the way he is quiet too, you can tell that he’s doing the same to you. Your knees begin to feel weak when you notice his gaze lingering in the general area of your lips.
“So—” “Do you—”
Thank god it was already dark outside. The heat you feel creeping up your face would probably give your own nervousness away.
“Sorry. You go ahead,” you quickly say.
“No, no. What were you going to say?”
You drop your gaze to the ground. What happened to feeling so confident over the phone with him to now?
“I, uh. Do you want to go grab some food? There’s a spot a few blocks down that I think you’ll like.” You point back towards the direction of your apartment. There’s a local spot that you and Heejin frequent when you feel like you need a late night meal. But you only now think about just how late it is. Surely he would have a pretty early schedule. “That’s if you have time! I understand if you don’t. Your schedule must be crazy as is. You don’t need to—”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
The soft smile that takes over his face instantly melts you. You’re not sure how you’re still standing. If this is how you’re feeling already, you can’t imagine how it will be if you decide to be in a relationship.
Lee Know walks beside you as you guide him down the sidewalk. He’s close enough to you that you can feel his arm brush against yours with every step you take. You just wish it wasn’t the first time you were meeting him. Maybe then you could have held hands like you’re already desperately wanting to. When he brushes his pinky up against yours, that’s when you remember the reason why you met in the first place. It’s definitely not the nerves that you’re currently feeling that sent the electric jolt up your arm when he did. You keep the arm beside him down as you reach for his phone. His knuckles are now touching yours. You have to keep your cool.
“Oh. Here’s your phone by the way.”
Lee Know smiles at you as you hand over the device.
“Thanks.” He tucks it away in his pocket before clearing his throat. “So…”
“So?”
“Is it weird for me to ask how long you’ve known?”
“About what?” you hum.
He looks around for a second, supposedly looking for anyone who might recognize him. Though, you’re not completely sure why. The street is practically dead. There’s only been two cars that have passed by the two of you in the time you started walking.
“Who I am? That we’re soulmates? Anything?”
You let out a quiet ‘ah’. A few breathy laughs leave you before you respond with your own questions.
“Would it be weird for me to answer that I’ve known about you guys since pre-debut? That I knew we were soulmates a year into your career?”
Lee Know pauses in his stride. His head turns to face you, a slightly shocked face gracing his features.
“You’ve known for that long and you’re not freaking out?”
“Oh trust me. My heart is pounding. I just figured you wouldn’t want me to act like some of those crazy fans and sasaengs.”
“Yeah, I appreciate that,” he hums, nodding. He leans over slightly, bumping his arm against yours. He whispers. “Mine is too, if you wanted to know.”
The two of you hold eye contact for a moment before he clears his throat and leans back again. He tilts his head in the direction you’re headed, and you both are walking again. The air between you feels much more comfortable than it did ten minutes ago. It’s only time until you know for sure how you feel about him.
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You shut your door behind you, sighing happily.
“So? How’d it go? I see you didn’t bring him home with you.”
She’s got to stop doing that. Your head whips around to find Heejin getting set up to sleep on your couch.
“Holy hell, Heejin. Why are you still here?”
She shrugs, dropping the blanket she has in her hands on the couch before bounding up to you.
“I was a little too lazy to drive back home. Plus I wanted to know what happened!”
You step back slightly.
“Well, for your information, it was nice. And of course I didn’t bring him home! Are you crazy? I just met him!”
Because of how late it is, and how thin your apartment walls are, you whisper yell as hard as you can. What does she think this is? A movie? And you’re the main character? Don’t you wish sometimes.
“I know that. Obviously.” She rolls her eyes, almost comically. “But, like, you didn’t feel that spark? Did you at least kiss?”
You brush past her to make your way to your bedroom.
“This isn’t like all those romcoms you watch. You don’t magically fall in love with each other the moment you meet.”
Heejin playfully stomps behind you with a whine.
“You’re no fun.”
“Says the one who has yet to meet her own soulmate still.” You turn to look at her pointedly.
“Oh come on! You just met yours!”
With a sarcastic smile and a wink sent in her direction, you step into your bedroom, shutting the door.
“Exactly! I’m going to bed. Good night.”
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Minho is antsy. Or at least that’s what the shaking leg and the constant turning his phone on and off tells Chan. When it happens for the tenth time since he sat down beside Minho, he decides to speak up. When he let him come hang out in his studio until they had to leave for the concert, he didn’t think that this is how things would go.
“Are you going to text them? Or are you just going to stare at your phone all day?”
Minho shoves his phone under his non-shaking leg.
“I wasn’t waiting for a text,” he mumbles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chan can only laugh at the predicament the younger member is finding himself in. The way he’s acting is such a different look on him that Chan almost can’t tell that this is the same member that seems so confident and cocky. Or even the same member who co-wrote Drive with him.
“I didn’t say anything about you waiting for a text.”
“Whatever,” Minho mumbles.
“Have you even messaged them yet?”
Chan doesn’t even have to look at Minho to know what the answer is. 
“Well, yeah.”
“I meant on your own phone.”
“Fuck. No,” he breaths out.
“It’s been how many days since you met up?” He watches as Minho deflates in his seat. He doesn’t spare a single glance towards his leader, opting for silence as a confirmation that it’s been way too long since he’s said anything to you. “We’ve got mic check in a few hours, but maybe we can talk to management to have them come to the show.” Minho seems to perk up at that. Chan sends a quick text to their manager. When he receives an answer, not even a minute later, he flips his screen so Minho can see. ‘Just as long as they don’t cause trouble, I don’t see why not.’ he reads. “You better text them then.”
Just as quick as he shoved it under his leg, Minho pulls his phone back out again. Chan chuckles, standing up to sit at his desk again, leaving Minho to make conversation with you.
M: Hey. It’s Minho. Y: Minho? As in Lee Minho? The love of my life and amazing actor Lee Minho? M: ... Y: I was kidding 😅 M: Goodbye. Y: No! Wait! I’m sorry! M: hmm… i’ll forgive you on one condition Y: and what is that? M: that you come see our show tonight Y: i would love to but M: but? Y: i promised my best friend that we would do our monthly movie marathon tonight… M: oh M: hold on M: you can bring her as well Y: are you sure you want to do that? She can be a little… much… sometimes M: she’s not going to jump us the moment we bring you backstage, right? Y: she does have SOME decency left in her M: the children probably won’t mind Y: 😊 alright. I’m sure she’ll be more excited about this anyway M: i’ll send the information over
If it wasn’t for Chan still being in the room, he would have kicked his legs out of pure excitement. From the sound of Minho’s happy hum, Chan can tell that all went well, yet he still wants to ask.
“Are they coming?”
“Yeah.”
Chan sees the way Minho dreamily stares off into the distance. He hopes that once he finds his own soulmate, he doesn’t act as cheesy as the younger is. Though, he knows that that won’t be possible.
“Just keep it in your pants when you see them, yeah?”
Minho rolls his eyes, sinking further into the sofa.
“Fuck off.”
Chan lets out a hearty laugh, turning back to his soundboard and computer.
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The moment Heejin stepped into your apartment, you took her by the arm. You at least gave her a second to set the bags she brought down on your kitchen table. She is surprised by your sudden ‘attack’, as she calls is, that she doesn’t even have a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Where are we going? I thought we were going to do our marathon? I even brought the good stuff!”
She reaches back towards the table to pull one of the bottles of alcohol she brought. But you’re quick enough to get her away from the table and closer to the front door.
“Don’t you dare touch that bottle.”
“Oh come on,” she whines as she slips her shoes back on. “Why won’t you tell me?”
You shake your head. Grabbing your keys, you open the door and usher her out of your apartment. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Throughout the entire drive, Heejin is asking questions. You are finally able to get her to stop when you turned up the volume on the radio and tuned in to the station you know she likes. Mainly because it’s k-pop everyday, all day.
The second you turn into the parking lot of the arena Stray Kids is performing in tonight, Heejin’s body leeches forward. You glance at her, noticing the starry-eyed look she’s giving the venue, before rolling down your window and showing your staff parking pass to the attendant. They didn’t have to know that you weren’t actually staff. It just so happened to be the better parking as it was much closer to where you are going to go in.
“Isn’t this where— Is this why you told me to look nice?” You give her a curt nod before walking towards the entrance you remember Minho telling you to go through. “How did you manage to get tickets?”
You begin to walk in the opposite direction Heejin starts to head in, thinking that you’ll be joining the growing crowd outside the front entrances. You tug on her arm silently to pull her in the right direction.
“Wait, isn’t the entrance over there?”
“Stop with the questions already. Just be patient,” you mumble. You have to pull your phone out to reread what Minho sent you, scanning the area, and finally finding the right door.
“You know there’s not a single patient bone in my body.”
The bodyguard looks you both up and down, then back at the pass on your phone. He nods once and opens the door for you. Another member of the staff, one of their managers if you remember reading Minho’s text correctly, is already waiting for you inside. He takes a silent lead, guiding you and Heejin to what you believe is their waiting room. You can already hear the excited chatter of fans, through the walls, that have already made their way inside the building. So this is how it feels.
The manager stops in front of a simple metal door. He swings it open, stepping aside to let you and Heejin in first.
“No fucking way.”
Heejin is glued to her spot just inside the room. She watches as I.N and Felix run past the two of you before Felix practically tackles the younger to the ground in a fit of laughter. You huff out a laugh at her reaction. Scanning the room, you look for the one person you came here for.
Tucked away in the farthest corner of the room, Minho sits on a futon, scrolling through his phone. Your heart begins to race as you walk over to where he is. The moment you stop in front of him, he looks up at you. A smile begins to creep up his cheeks at the sight of you.
“Hi,” Minho starts.
“Hi.”
“You made it.”
You send him a soft smile. He pats the spot beside him. Though, he doesn’t realize just how small the seat is until you’re squished beside him.
“Yeah, I did.”
Your arm brushes against his as you try to make yourself comfortable.
“Ooo, look! Lee Know’s getting red again!”
Felix, even from all the way across the room, notices the sudden tension between the two of you.
“Shut it, Goldilocks,” Minho grumbles back at him.
It takes a moment before Minho can speak again. You only hope that the speechlessness from him is a good thing.
“So…”
“So,” you repeat.
The boy beside you sighs.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to text you.”
You shake your head. Tapping his leg with your hand, you smile at him.
“That’s okay. I know you guys are busy, what with your tour and all.”
“Well…”
He can’t even look at you. You playfully gasp.
“Don’t tell me that you were nervous.”
Minho folds his arms in front of his chest. He sits back into the futon, crossing one leg over the other.
“Me? Nervous? Pft. Don’t be silly. I perform for a living. I don’t get nervous.”
“Sure you don’t,” you hum, mirroring the position he’s in.
He shoots you a side-eyed glance, a smirk playing at his lips.
“Want me to prove it?”
“How are you going to do that?”
The last thing you were expecting him to do is lean in so close that his nose almost touches yours. You’re surprised by your own ability to stand your ground, keeping yourself from jumping back at the sudden proximity.
“If I don’t come across as nervous to you on stage tonight, I’ll treat you to dinner after.”
“And if you do?”
The smirk grows.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Cocky, are we?” you laugh.
Minho shrugs, pulling back a little. Not enough to go back to where he was before, but enough to let you have a little more room to breathe. You definitely needed it in order to stop your fluttering heart from bursting out your chest. He then sends you a wink.
“Maybe.”
“Lee Know, I need you in the chair.”
Minho’s smirk sinks into a playful pout. Just when the conversation really gets going does he have to continue his job and make sure he’s ready for the performance. You chuckle quietly, tilting your head to gesture towards the makeup counter.
“Go on. I’ll still be here.”
You are still there, but Minho definitely isn’t. The moment he was finished with makeup, one of the hair stylists started working on his hair, just as he was about to walk back over to you. Then came the wardrobe. You could see the longing gaze in his eyes when he looked over at you as staff were messing around with their outfit. You sent him a soft smile, which he returned. Eventually, he never got a chance to come back and sit with you again as the show was going to start soon. One thing after another kept coming up, and finally, he just gave up.
The moment he walks up to the table with their mics, you can tell something is wrong. His hand and eyes frantically scan the table.
“I swear if you lost your in-ears again,” his manager sighs.
You sit up straight. Minho lost them. You’re his soulmate. You just hope that—perfect. They’re right beside you, under the hand that you had on the cushion. Pushing yourself up, you quickly make your way to stand beside Minho.
“Looking for these?”
Minho turns to look at you. You hold up your hand, presenting his in-ears to both him and his manager. Minho sighs in relief, his shoulders dropping at the sight of them.
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Are you his soulmate?” The manager asks, pointing at you.
Minho smiles, wrapping his arm around you, and pulls you closer to him. So much for your composure.
“Yes they are.”
The manager nods, turning away to focus on the other, more energetic boys.
“About damn time,” he mumbles.
Minho lets go of your shoulder, much to your dismay, to feed the wire under his jacket.
“You just saved my ass.”
“I think your ass needs to be saved from the leather skinny pants they always put you guys in. But that’s a whole ‘nother issue,” you laugh out.
He leans in a little closer. His eyebrows lift playfully as another smirk appears on his face.
“You could solve that problem for me pretty easily.”
“Oh my god,” you scoff. You push him away slightly, noticing the look on the leader’s face behind him. “Just go. Bang Chan looks like he’s about to combust in excitement before he can get the chance to pull you into the group circle.”
Minho nods. Though, he doesn’t walk away just yet. He steps closer to you, leaning in even more. His lips brush against the shell of your ear when he speaks.
“Watch me and only me tonight.”
A shiver runs up your spine at the sound of his deepened voice. You can feel the heat rising to your cheeks, watching as he twists around and joins the rest of his group, as if he hadn’t just made your knees go weak.
A hand suddenly grabs your wrist making you jump slightly. Heejin looks at you with an excited smile.
“You ready?”
You clear your throat, mentally shaking your head to rid your mind of the thoughts that started flowing in.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”
Insane was an understatement. You had been to concerts before, but none of them compared to the crowd’s energy here. It made your heart happy to see how far they have come since their pre-debut days. You knew you were in for a treat the moment the crowd roared into cheers as they started their first song, growing even louder once they appeared on stage. Cameras definitely did not do them justice. You and Heejin were lucky enough to get spots pretty close to the stage. Not right at the barrier, but close enough that if they were to try to spot you in the crowd, they wouldn’t have much trouble.
Minho, for the majority of the concert, favored the side you and Heejin were at. He would throw you flying kisses and winks, interact with stays around you, and show you exactly what you’d be getting yourself into if you are to get into a relationship. And just like he said, he showed no signs of nervousness. It was as if he was made specifically to perform on stage. You can’t wait to get to know your soulmate better.
Minho sends you one last wink before they all exit off the stage for the last time. And as the crowd begins to disperse, several people staying behind hoping to catch one last glimpse of the boys before walking towards the exits themselves. You take Heejin by the arm, hooking hers around yours. You both make your way back to the hallway where you were guided through to get to the main seating area. As soon as you walk back into the green room, Minho is taking you by the hand and pulling you to a more secluded area. Not that there was a more private place in the room. Staff and the rest of his members are walking every which way around the room, hustling to get it packed up and out of the building as soon as possible.
“What’s the verdict?” Minho asks.
You look at him confused. The one thing that Minho wanted you to find out had barely even crossed your mind.
“On what?”
He pulls you in a little closer. His nose barely brushes against yours as he clarifies.
“Did I look nervous to you at all?”
“God, no,” you whisper.
If anything, you looked hot as hell up on that stage, is what you wanted to say. But you can’t will yourself to say it.
“That’s what I thought. Guess you’ll have to have dinner with me tonight.” The smirk on his face says it all. He’s cocky about it, only because he knows he was always going to be right.
You look around, noticing that most everyone has already left the room. A couple staff members, and one of their managers are still here. The manager quietly watches the two of you, making you worried.
“Are you sure that it’s okay for tonight? You don’t have anything else you need to do?”
“Mmhmm,” Minho nods. “Everything is done for the night. Unless you don’t want to?”
You hold up your hands in front of you, waving them slightly.
“No!” You wince from the volume of your voice. Clearing your throat you continue. “No, I’d love to. I just—”
“If I wasn’t free, I wouldn’t have offered.”
You hummed.
“Well, technically you didn’t offer. You made a bet,” you point out.
“Touche,” Minho laughs. He holds out his hand for you to take. “Shall we?”
You grab his hand, smiling at him when he fiddles with your fingers. That’s when you remember you weren’t alone when you got here. You search around for your best friend as you walk out the door.
“Wait. Where’s Heejin?”
“I convinced Channie hyung and our manager to take her home.”
Now that you’re thinking about it, that’s why she had taken your car key before the concert started. You smile at Minho, letting him lead the way out of the building.
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“So then, I walk in, and Hyunjin is up on the counter, broom in his hand, and almost to the point of sobbing. I had to trap it for him and get rid of it before he ever got off the counter.”
“Oh my god.”
Who knew Hyunjin could be so afraid of a tiny mouse in the dorm. Though, you couldn’t blame him. You’d probably act almost the same way.
As he pulls up to your apartment building, you don’t want the night to end. The two of you really clicked. There are more things in common between you than you ever would have thought, and you only wish to get to know this side of him even more. Minho parks, turns off his car, and tells you to wait before he gets out and rushes over to your side. He holds his hand out to help you out of his car, and you take it, letting him thread his fingers between yours as you guide him to your apartment.
There isn’t any word spoken between the two of you until you make it to your door. You turn to him, hand still in his. You have no intention of letting go any time soon.
“So,” you breathe out, deciding to break the silence.
“So?”
“Thank you for tonight, Minho. I really had a good time.”
He smiles softly. You mirror his expression.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
With a sigh, you slowly let go of his hand. You still have to get your key out, but you try to prolong walking into your apartment to be in his presence for as long as possible.
“Talk to you tomorrow?” you ask.
Minho nods.
“Definitely.”
He watches as you unlock your door. You push it open, taking your key out before you forget—you once left it in the door overnight after a long day of work, and were about to lose your mind the next morning when you couldn’t find it. One step. Two steps. He feels it too, right?
“Y/N, wait,” Minho calls out.
He catches your hand before you can make it fully into your apartment. He carefully steps closer to you, trying to read your reaction. When his nose finally brushes against yours, he looks at you for your approval. A slight nod.
His lips are on yours.
Neither of you move for a moment, trying to bask in the feeling of your closeness. Minho pulls away slowly after a minute or so. Though, you don’t let him get far, pulling him in by his collar for another kiss. His hands fly to your head. One gently holds your cheek while he presses the other against the back of your head to pull you in even closer. His lips dance with yours. Your hands are grabbing at him. You pull him into your apartment as best as you can without stumbling over. Minho kicks the door closed behind him, drops his hands to your waist, and tugs on the waistband of your pants. You waste no time helping him lift yourself up to wrap your legs around his waist. You speak the directions to your bedroom against his lips.
It isn’t until the morning sun peaks through your curtains that you finally wake. The warmth of your comforter makes you snuggle into the sheets more. You pat your hand around the other side of the bed, only to come up empty with your search. Minho isn’t where you thought he was. The sheets are thrown around and the pillow still has the crease where he would have been laying, telling you that last night wasn’t just a dream that you had. You pout, wanting to have woken up beside him, to talk to him about what happens next. A few different thoughts run through your head. You have to physically shake yourself of them. He’s probably just in the bathroom or in the kitchen, you reason. Especially considering that he didn’t leave a note for you.
You roll to the edge of your bed, grabbing your underwear and shirt from off the floor. You put them on, taking your phone from the bedside table, and turn it on. No texts from him either. Shuffling your feet, you walk out of your room. The bathroom door is wide open. The light is turned off. Your eyes drift towards the kitchen. You can’t see much from where you stand, but as you walk closer you can tell that no one is there either. Frowning, you spin around.
“Minho?”
No response.
Oh.
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“Where were you? You’re never up this early.”
Minho jumps at the sound of Seungmin’s voice. He thought he was being quiet enough trying to get back into the dorm.Though, the younger just so happened to be walking out of the kitchen with a steaming cup. Since when did he get up this early?
“I just, uh, went to the gym.”
Seungmin looks him up and down. He stares at Minho quizzically.
“In the clothes you wore yesterday?”
“I was a little too lazy to change after getting home and getting up this morning,” Minho quickly explains.
Such a great lie, Minho. Why don’t you tell him that you’re going to the moon while you’re at it.
“Alright…” Seungmin begins to walk away, but then remembers something, pausing in his stride.  “Well don’t forget that we have our flight to Bangkok tonight.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Minho waves him off.
Why does he have to make things so difficult for himself?
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Heejin plops down enthusiastically on the beanbag beside your desk. She looks at you expectantly.
“So how was your date?”
You shrug, keeping your focus on your laptop.
“It was fine.” “Just fine? The way you were interacting with each other made it seem like there was going to be an afterparty, if you know what I mean.”
Oh you know what she means, alright. And while it’s true, you really don’t want to think of what happened after the ‘afterparty’. You groan, deleting the last paragraph of text you wrote. Stupid work and its stupid deadlines.
“I’m not really in the mood to talk about it,” you mumble.
“Did something happen? You know you can tell me. I’ll beat the shit outta him if he hurt you.”
You huff out a half-assed laugh, glancing over to her.
“And how are you going to do that to someone who’s halfway across the world right now?”
Heejin jumps up from the beanbag. Her eyes are wide.
“They already left?”
You turn back to your laptop. If you’re going to get this report finished in time, you can’t be distracted so easily.
“For someone who’s on stan twitter, I’m a little surprised you didn’t know already.” Your voice is dull. But that doesn’t completely bother her.
“Sometimes it’s hard to keep up as a multistan.” She shrugs nonchalantly. Noting that you’re much more focused on your work duties, Heejin decides to grab your chair and whip it around  to face her. “So tell me what happened.”
You’re about to bite back at her, but the look she gives you tells you to try and see what happens. Your walls come crumbling down. With a sigh, you let it all out.
“I don’t even know. He took me to dinner at this nice western-style pasta place—which he had rented a private room for. We had a really good conversation to get to know each other more and talk about what would probably have to happen if we were to become serious, he took me home, we kissed—”
“YOU KISSED?”
Heejin’s jaw is on the floor. A smirk begins to creep up on her lips.
“Yeah. And one thing lead to another, we ended up in my bed—”
“Damn!” You give her a look that says ‘do you want to know or not, because I’m about to kick you out of my house’. She sends you a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
“When I woke up yesterday, he was gone. No note, no text, no nothing. I texted him, but haven’t heard from him since.”
All she sees is red. Her back is straight and she is staring out the window with a snarl. She quickly turns to head towards your bedroom door.
“When’s the next flight to Bangkok? Imma go slap some sense into him.”
You quickly run after her.
“Heejin, wait.” The grip you have on her arm causes Heejin to face you. Her expression softens at the sight of your own sullen expression. “Maybe I was in over my head about all of this. Maybe I took things too fast.”
Heejin flips things around. Her hands are on your shoulders as she tries to find your gaze. You won’t look at her.
“Hey, woah woah woah. What we’re not going to do is blame ourselves for what’s already happened. You obviously felt something, and he did too. It’s not your fault that he was gone in the morning. Maybe he had a schedule that morning and wasn’t thinking through everything. Who knows. Although, whatever reason he has for not responding to you is fucking stupid.” That earns a quiet laugh from you. “Look. Obviously we don’t know what’s going on in his head. But you’re soulmates. I’m sure he’ll come around and explain what happened. In the meantime, let’s finally get this movie marathon started!”
She doesn’t give you any more room to argue, pulling you to sit on the couch as she runs into the kitchen to grab an armful of snacks and drinks. You’re just lucky that your document is set to auto save. Who knows when you’ll be getting back to that if at all tonight.
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Chan notices it. Though, anyone with eyes could see the giant elephant sitting in the room.
“Okay. What is up with you?”
Minho opens his eyes to meet Chan’s. He just wants to sleep and continue on with the tour. Not talk out his feelings with Chan.
“What do you mean? Nothing’s ‘up’ with me.”
Chan groans. He sits a little taller on his bed in their shared hotel room. There’s nowhere that Minho can escape to to leave this conversation. Even if he were to go to another pair’s room, he’d still be bombarded with questions. Everyone can tell something is going on with him.
“It’s been a week since we left and you’ve been miserable the entire time. It’s starting to show on stage and stays are noticing.” When Minho doesn’t react, Chan rubs at his face. “Look. If you miss Y/N already, I get it. Finding your soulmate during tour would be hard to manage. But if you can’t manage to control your feelings on stage, it’s going to start to affect the rest of us. I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but I’m sure you can see where I’m coming from as the leader.”
For a moment, Chan thinks that he still isn’t getting anywhere with him. Minho’s dropped his gaze from him to the sheets underneath him.
“I fucked up.”
It’s too quiet for Chan to make out, Minho knows that. But he really just hopes that Chan will let it go if he doesn’t give him what he wants to hear.
“What?”
Minho sits up. He can’t do it anymore.
“I fucked up, alright?”
“What do you mean?” Chan asks carefully.
“I may or may not have ghosted them after leaving their place the morning after.”
Silence. Chan can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“You— You left them alone, after what I’m assuming was more than just dinner, and haven’t said anything?” A small nod. “Is that why you lied that morning?”
“I panicked, okay?”
Chan stares at Minho incredulously.
“You panicked?”
“Everything felt so right that night. But when I woke up that morning, I don’t know what happened. One minute I was enjoying the moment, the next, I was out the door, and driving back to the dorms.”
When Minho shyly meets his gaze again, Chan groans. 
“What am I going to do with you?” He mutters to himself. “You need to talk to them. Now.”
Standing up from his bed, Chan takes his phone, laptop, and headphones with him. He walks to the door, not waiting for a response from Minho. He has to get out of the room.
“Wait! What do I even say?”
Just before the door closes, Chan calls out to him.
“You figure it out! This is your mess to deal with!”
Minho sighs. He’s right. This is all his fault and he needs to do something about it. He grabs his phone, shakily pulling up your contact.
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Work only distracted you so much from the mess of a situation you found yourself in. After finally turning in the report you had been working on for days, your supervisor came up to you to only tell you that it still needed more work. Of course. Nothing is actually wrong with the report—you checked it several times before sending it over. You’re just sure he hates you.
Your eyes drift to the time on your computer.
“One more hour,” you whisper to yourself.
The day couldn’t have gone by any faster.
Your phone buzzes on your desk. Thinking that it’s Heejin, wanting to know what your plans are this weekend, you flip it over to check the notifications.
M: Hey. M: I’m sorry. M: I know you probably hate…
Minho. More messages keep spilling into your notifications. The constant buzzing is sending your mind spiraling. Why did he have to message you now, all of a sudden? With an angry huff, you power off your phone completely, too frustrated with him to bother switching your phone to silent or do not disturb.
The rest of the hour is rather quiet. Nothing but the sound of keyboard keys clacking and the printer near you running as one of your coworkers stands beside it ready to collect the paper. You quickly forget about the texts that are inevitably waiting for you once you power your phone back on, and continue to work on your next assignment. The moment the clock strikes the hour, you’re pulling yourself away from your desk, grabbing your belongings, and making your way to the elevator.
“See you tomorrow.,” you call out to the rest of your department.
You wait until you get home to do anything with your phone. Who knows what emotions will run through you when you read what Minho sent. Pressing his contact in your messages, you’re not surprised to see so many texts.
M: Hey. M: I’m sorry. M: I know you probably hate me right now, which is totally understandable. I would hate me too if I were you. M: I just M: I’m sorry M: I don’t know exactly what to say. M: I would like it if I could explain to you on call. But if you don’t want to, I get it. Just please give me a chance to explain myself. M: And then you can decide what happens after that. M: Just let me know.
You take a breath. You can hear Heejin in your head. At least hear him out. You type your answer out and press send.
Y: Fine.
Your phone rings not even a minute after you send the message. Oh so now he has time for you. Wonderful.
“Y/N—”
“Explain.”
You don’t want to hear it. If you let him butter you up before he tells you what happened, you’re not sure if you can hold back on forgiving him. Curse the stupid soulmate bond between you. Minho sighs.
“Please don’t get me wrong. I actually enjoyed that night. And trust me when I say it wasn’t because of anything you did or said. It was because of my own stupidity. My own self-consciousness.”
He’s blabbering. You lean back against the backrest of your couch.
“Get to the point,” you grumble.
“I guess– I was scared. Not because of what happened. Never because of that. But because of how fast it happened and what that means for us. I didn’t want you to think that I was taking advantage of you just because I’m an idol or whatever. Everything just felt so right with you.”
“So then why did you leave? Why did it take you a fucking week to say anything?” You can hear yourself growing in anger with each word he says. If he had even cared to think of how you would have felt after that morning, then maybe things would be better already. Yet, it took him a week. A whole week to even say a single word to you.
“I can’t answer that.”
You scoff.
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
You can hear him shuffle around before he lets out a big sigh.
“I honestly can’t. I don’t even know myself why I left. Why I didn’t answer you.”
You’re at your breaking point. What was the point of having this conversation if he couldn’t even tell you exactly why he did what he did? How can you be sure that he really means that he’s actually sorry?
“This doesn’t explain anything,” you mumble, bringing your face to your hands.
“I know,” he whispers.
“I was really hoping that we could have spent that time before you left to talk about what happened.”
“I know.”
“But now you’re halfway across the world right now and we can’t do anything about it.”
That seems to hit Minho.
“I can book you a flight to our next stop. I can get my own room and we can talk about it all. Or I can—”
“I can’t just pack up and leave, Minho. I have a job that I can’t just take days off that easily. And you can’t just fly back for a day just to talk things through, and leave again for the next few months after that. It’s just not going to work.”
You stand from the couch. You’re getting too worked up about all of this. There’s only one solution that comes to mind.
“So what are you saying?” He asks carefully.
“As much as I don’t want to do this, I think we need to wait until you’re done with the tour. It’ll be easier to talk when you’re not constantly in new countries almost everyday.”
You can practically hear the gears turning in his head. You’re sure this isn’t the response he thought he was going to get, but maybe it’s for the better. For one, you know that you need to cool off after this. Any more talk about this and you’re sure you’ll combust. But now, you both need to think if this is what you really want. Did it all feel right to you because you both were vulnerable in the moment? Is it because you both are supposed soulmates and you’re not thinking straight? You’re not sure, but in the back of your mind you really hope neither are correct. You want to make this work. You want to have that connection with him. But because of the circumstances, you can only take a step back for the moment.
“Okay. That’s what we’ll do. I promise you that the moment I come back, I’m coming to you.”
His words give you the tiniest amount of hope that everything will be okay in the end.
“I’ll be here,” you murmur. You’re careful not to speak anything into existence.
The line is silent between the two of you. Had you not heard the quiet sniffle from his side, you would have thought he already hung up. A thought comes to mind.
“Hey, Minho?”
“Yeah?” His voice is a little scratchy. Almost as if he’s on the verge of crying, or already did cry.
“Promise me one other thing.”
“Anything.”
“Do your best until the tour is over.”
Minho hums.
“Just for you.”
A small smile plays on your lips before you hang up the phone.
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“Are you sure this is what you wanted?”
This is the hundredth time she’s asked you this. The moment you ended your call with Minho yesterday, you texted Heejin to come over. It was the first time in a long while since she saw you as emotional as you were. It’s been another week or so since, and both of your schedules finally lined up to where you had a few days off to spend some time with each other.
“Yes. I’m completely sure.” You reaffirm.
The show on your tv is paused as she keeps talking to you. You really just wanted to stay in  and binge watch the new k-drama she recommended to you.
“Doesn’t seem like it to me. You’re clearly not doing okay.”
“I’m fine! I’ll be fine! I just gotta—”
“Y/N, it’s only been two weeks and you’re already beating yourself up for what happened.”
You look at her like she’s crazy. Can she see the puffiness of your eyes after the cry session you had last night? You tried to bring it down before she arrived, but maybe it was still bad looking.
“Pft. What?”
Heejin gives you a pointed look.
“You’ve been cooped up in your apartment, only leaving for work, barely even talking to me. You have empty containers of ice cream in your garbage, and you’ve been watching the same three soulmate rom-coms on repeat.”
How she knew that last bit of information is beyond you. Today you have finally ventured out with your watching, and she comes and attacks you.
“Okay. So maybe I’m not doing so great. But can you blame me?”
“Maybe a little.” This earns a pout and a little ‘hey’ from you. “But. I can understand where you’re coming from.”
You drop your gaze to where your hands are in your lap as you play with the loose string coming from the hem of your sweatpants.
“What do you think I should do then?”
“Stop overthinking it,” she states matter-of-factly. “You know what you want. You know what he wants. So why put yourself through all this? And if you’re not going to do anything about it right now, then at least make yourself a little more productive.”
You groan, throwing yourself back against the couch armrest.
“You’re right. I guess I just can’t help but think what if it doesn’t work out in the end. I mean he’s a kpop idol for god’s sake. It’s not like all of their fans will take lightly the situation.”
“And that’s something you can talk to him about. Now. Get up and go get ready. I’m gonna take you out.”
You quickly sit up. What is she planning on doing? Your plan was to just have a day in with her today.
“Where?”
“Just dress comfortably but cute.” She winks.
The amusement park. While you’re not fond of every ride here, at least it’ll be able to take your mind off of things for a moment.
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Three weeks later and you’re still dragging yourself home after work. You really need a new job. You’re not sure if you can’t take the unnecessary berating from your ugly ass stupid supervisor. The pay is great, but is it still worth it?
The elevator dings as it reaches your floor. Making sure you still have your key on you, you step out and turn in the direction of your apartment. Though, the figure at your door throws you for a loop.
“Minho?”
He turns to look at you wide-eyed. Almost as if he wasn’t expecting you to show up at that moment.
“Hi.” He sheepishly smiles, waving at you.
Shouldn’t he still be on tour? You thought it didn’t end for another few days. Of course, you’re happy to see him here. Just like he said he would do all those weeks ago. But how is he here right now? You’re even more surprised to see that he remembered where you live.
“I thought you guys weren’t done yet.”
You unlock your door, stepping inside and aside to let him in after you.
“The tour itself is done. Everyone else wanted to stay in the states for a little longer before going home.”
“So why are you here?” you ask.
You don’t mean for it to come off sounding rude. And by the smile that begins to grow on his face, you know he didn’t take your tone of voice to heart. He would understand how you feel right now, right?
You quickly set your things down in order to take your shoes off.
“I couldn’t just have fun like the kids are knowing that there was still something that I needed to take care of.”
Neither of you have stepped farther than just inside the door. You look at Minho to see that he’s already staring at you. The emotion behind his eyes tell you everything you need to know. Yet, you still have to ask.
“And what is that?”
“This.”
Minho wastes no time in connecting his lips with yours. It’s a connection that you’ve been missing, so you let him be for a moment, basking in the rush of adrenaline you feel coursing in your veins. If your heartbeat were any faster, you’re sure it would break from your chest and finish a marathon in record time. But you can’t let this take you where you want it to take you.
“Minho,” you mutter against his lips. “Minho, wait.”
He reluctantly pulls away from you. His nose brushes yours, lips barely touching. You set your hands on his chest, just in case he tries anything again before you can sit down and talk about everything. If you want this to work out, this needs to happen first.
“There’s so much we need to talk about first.”
“Right. Sorry,” he mumbles, stepping away from you.
The loss of his warmth makes your heart sink. If all goes well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore, you think. Still, you take his hand and lead him to your couch.
“I just need to know what you think about us,” you speak after a moment trying to gather your thoughts.
Minho nods. He understands.
“I can’t exactly describe my feelings, but I know that I want to be with you. I want you to be my partner. I want to be able to tell everyone that you’re my soulmate.”
“What about the media? Stays?”
For a brief moment, it’s as if he forgets that that’s a big part of his life. You could easily fall under the limelight if you’re not careful enough. Would he even want to make this part of his life public? Sensing your worries, Minho takes your hands in his. His thumbs rub small circles on the back of your hands.
“That’s something we’ll have to talk to management about. But I want them to know when you feel comfortable. I’m not going to push you to go public with our relationship at any point.”
You think for a moment. That answers at least most of your worries. You can wait to have him answer the rest. Taking a deep breath, you nod.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
You smile at him. He smiles back at you. You lean in, placing a quick peck at the corner of his lips. He returns the sentiment, kissing your temple.
“Oh! I have something for you.”
“You do?”
You nod frantically, pushing yourself up from the couch. You hold up a finger, gesturing for him to wait there. He laughs lightly at your sudden burst of energy. You almost sprint to your room, sliding to the side of your bed. You reach for the box, pull it out, and run back to the living room. Minho is still sitting where you left him, an amused smile playing on his lips. You hand the box over to him as you sit back down, this time much closer to him. Minho gasps as he digs through the box curiously.
“You kept all of this?”
You shrug.
“Thought you might need some of this stuff back eventually.”
“Our manager will be happy to see all of these again.” He laughs as he pulls out the handful of in-ears he’s lost over the years. Turning his head to look at you, his smile widens. “I think you’ll be happy to know that I kept a lot of the stuff you lost, too.”
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“Five minutes til show!”
“I need tissues. I got a bloody nose!”
“Don’t get it on your clothes, Changbin!”
You step back as the said boy runs past you to grab tissues from one of the staff members. You’ve grown accustomed to the way they run—quite literally—behind the scenes of their performances. Especially when it comes to award show season. You can tell everyone is on edge. This is one of the biggest performances of the year for them, and you can tell that they really don’t want to mess it up. Hundreds of thousands of fans are tuning in to watch the kids—and of course the other groups—perform.
“Where did I put them?”
Minho mutters frantically to himself. He pats his pockets up and down several times before you realize what is happening. You chuckle to yourself. Checking your own pockets, you notice the newest addition to your items.
“Lee Know, are you ready?” one of the managers call out.
“I just need to find—”
“Looking for these?”
You dangle his in-ears in front of his face. The look of relief takes over his body. He quickly takes them from you, trying to feed it through his clothes.
“God. What would I do without you?”
You shrug, moving to help him.
“Probably suffer under your manager’s wrath.” You pat his butt when you’re done helping him. “You gotta stop losing these.”
He turns around to smile at you.
“At least I know where I can find them now.”
“Dumbass.”
You roll your eyes.
“You love me,” he sing-songs.
“Yeah, yeah. Now get your ass over there. Chan’s ready to drag you by your ear if you don’t go now.”
Minho kisses you quickly. He leans in to brush his lips against your ear.
“Watch me and only me.”
That’s one thing you’ll never get used to. You hope he never lets go of the flirty lines he whispers to you before he leaves the room. You push him with a laugh.
“Just go!”
Just like every other performance, they do amazing as always. And this performance is no different. Though, you can tell they’re really putting their all into this one in particular. A big event like this award show calls for an equally big act. You watch from backstage with Heejin as they dance, sing, and rap with all they’ve got. The crowd is feeling their energy. You know that once they come off this stage, they’ll still be feeling that adrenaline for days on end. 
They end with they’re big finish. You greet the dancers with a ‘great job out there’ as they run past you and Heejin to get back to their own green room. Finally, the boys run off, panting and patting each other wherever they can reach. Minho comes straight to you as Felix and Jisung pull Heejin back to the green room with them.
“So. How did I do my lovely soulmate?”
You smile, pretending to think hard about the performance. Minho chuckles, throwing his arm around your waist.
“Hmm… You did start to look nervous right before your trick,” you note.
“Pft. What? Me? Nervous? No way.”
You raise an eyebrow in his direction.
“You don’t have to lie.”
“And what if I happen to be telling the truth?” he questions.
You shrug nonchalantly, sending him a fake pout.
“Then I guess I won’t be taking you home to order take out and binge watch that new anime we’ve been wanting to watch together.”
Minho lets out a deep sigh.
“Oh, good. Cause I was totally lying. No matter how many times I do that trick, it always makes me nervous,” he mutters.
This earns a laugh from you.
“I could tell.”
When you get into the room, the air is buzzing with energy. Minho quickly kisses you on the cheek and runs over to get changed out of his performance outfit and back into his suit. He walks over to the couch to grab his phone. Yet, he couldn’t find it where he had placed it earlier.
“Hey wait. I could have sworn I left my phone here.”
You pull it out from behind your back, knowing that it was in your pocket since they started their performance.
“I thought you knew where to find things now?”
Minho sticks his tongue out at you playfully, taking his phone from you. He grabs your hand, and takes you back out to the idol seating area with the rest of the boys and Heejin, to watch the rest of the show.
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rottiens · 13 days
Text
✮ tags. . suguru getō + gn!reader, pining, mentions of injuries, no smut, comfort, self indulgent. divider creds: cafekitsune.
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"What's wrong?" The rhythm of your breathing stumbles and restarts starting an awkward rhythm that you try to disguise by exhaling deeply. He hasn't even opened his eyes which makes you wonder how he realized you were looking at him —or just that you're not asleep—. You take advantage of the fact that he still hasn't opened his eyes to contemplate the features of his face for a couple of minutes more. His small eyebrows and long eyelashes, his hair pulled back in a bun is slightly disheveled at the nape of his neck. His mouth is set in a line, his lower lip forming an adorable pout that makes you inhale deeply —a mistake because you're flooded with his scent, incense and cinnamon— controlling that flame in the pit of your stomach that begs you to kiss him. "Hm?" he inquires again, opening only one eye, squeezing the other.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Your throat vibrates with affirmation. "If nothing was wrong you'd have been asleep for a while now." Again you wonder how he knew. Suguru blinks in your direction slowly, getting used to the dim lamplight and the little illumination penetrating from outside. He cradles your cheek with a large hand and you let him, resisting the urge to close your eyes at the pleasant touch. "What's wrong?" he asks again, softer and huskier this time.
"You fell asleep while I was telling you something." His brow furrows.
"I did?" you nod your head. "I'm sorry, I was too tired."
"It's okay, I know you've had a lot of missions lately."
"So have you." You let yourself be wrapped in the warmth that tucks you in, the cotton blanket over your legs feels good, gets you to curl up more on top of the mattress and rub against his hand. You weren't going to deny him that, your muscles ached like hell, your feet had calluses and that wound on your forearm still hadn't finished healing. "You were telling me about tomorrow…"
"I don't know, I'm nervous," you admit laughing uncomfortably, trying to downplay it.
"It's okay, we'll be with you."
"I think that's what makes me nervous." You sigh. He starts to stroke your cheek with his thumb and your chest sinks just a little.
"Yeah?"
"You and Satoru… I don't want to be left behind."
"We won't, you're just as strong if not stronger than us." You laugh at the comment, physically forcing yourself not to roll your eyes because you both knew the truth behind that comment. "What? I mean it."
"Stop."
"You called me into your room to study, you ask for my help all the time, I'd like you to recognize your strengths as well as your weaknesses." You're grateful for the absence of light so he doesn't notice how nervous he's made you, your hands ball into fists under the sheets and you have to move your eyes to some spot on his chest to escape his gaze. However he doesn't let you, he doesn't let you run away, he grabs your jaw and forces you to look at him. You hear your heart clear in your ears. "Say it."
"W-wha-"
"That you're just as strong as us, that you don't have to compare yourself to others."
"I am just as strong as you are." You repeat his words, though you don't quite believe them.
"Good." Then the corners of his mouth curve up showing you a tired smile. Suguru leans into your body and you stop breathing, he deposits a kiss on your forehead and pulls away to pull the sheets off his legs and leave your bed.
His uniform shirt wrinkles a little more as he stretches and, without any remorse, you take a look at the flash of skin below his belly button. Suguru groans and then yawns.
"I'll be back before they realize I'm here. But come see me if you can't sleep."
His words steal a warm smile from you, which he mimics.
"Thanks," you say.
"I'll see you tomorrow. Try to get some sleep."
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httpknjoon · 7 months
Text
(re)starting over again | kth; special chapter
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plot | Your four-year relationship with Taehyung was going well and strong. Until he was involved in a car accident, resulting to him losing some memories. By some, it means everything that happened five years ago. Things he remember? His friends, his bakeshop, and his ex girlfriend from the past. With that, you tried to keep up, restarting over again.
words | 1.5k
genres | fluff, angst, amnesia au
pairing | taehyung x reader
warning/s | -
note | the best way to celebrate my birthday is through writing angst lol this is the lastpain for mc and tae for now. see y'all in chapter 11! enjoy reading!
main masterlist | series masterlist
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This is probably the closest you two have ever been after the accident. His hand was on your waist while the other held yours. He looked at your eyes looking back at him too. No words were said under the starlit night sky. But it was strangely comfortable this time. He finds it strange not in a bad way. It was strange because slow dancing with you was just so easy. 
How did you even end up in this situation?
Earlier, Taehyung saw you leaving the reception after talking with the newlywed couple. You hugged both Jisoo and Namjoon before he heard you saying you were going. But a lot of guests were still at the reception event, he probably noticed just a few ones going like Julia and her date. Still, everyone is enjoying the celebration when you walk away with your clutch and bouquet of tulips. He followed after you.
“YN,” he called behind you.
You stopped, turning around, “Yes?”
Then, a familiar soft instrumental played in the background, indicating the newlyweds making their first dance inside the venue. As if he hadn’t learned anything from last night, he said the first thing he could,
“Can we dance?”
“Sorry?” you said with an awkward chuckle.
But Taehyung went on. Based on what you said from the night before, this might be his last chance. Might as well take a risk.
He gulped before answering, “Please? Before you go?”
You blinked before sighing, “Okay… Here?”
Taehyung looked around. Since his invite was unplanned, he pointed to the first space he spotted. The space where the wedding ceremony occurred hours ago. The chairs and the whole set-up were still there. You accepted when Taehyung offered his arm to assist you as you two walked to the spot.
“Okay, you put this here. It’s fine.” 
Feeling lighter now, you chuckled when you noticed him being unsure if he should hold your waist. You see his hand lift but he puts it down. So you took it yourself and put it on your waist and just like a long-lost bracelet you wore on your wrist again, his hand on your waist brought waves of nostalgia in you. And Taehyung felt the same thing. Nostalgia. Even though his earliest memory of you is you in his hospital room. Touching you, looking at you, and slow dancing– everything just felt right with you in it.
And he knew that there was something special with you. But he cannot just really point it out now. But he can say how your eyes spark brighter now than last night or days before this.
But I promise you this
I'll always look out for you
Yeah, that's what I'll do
The lyrics play in your head as your thumb draws circles on Taehyung’s shoulder. His soft gaze can surely make you melt but you knew you needed to be strong. 
Looking at Taehyung in this light reminds you of how much he made you love slow dancing. Before meeting him, you always thought it was too cheesy. But this man would always pull your hand to sway you in a song he played or hummed. He would do it unexpectedly; in the times you didn’t know you needed it. And God knows how much you need it now even though the Taehyung in front of you didn’t know anything about these endless memories you have with him.
“And if I accidentally step on your toe?” you asked randomly when he pulled you in for a slow dance on a random Wednesday night.
He smiled as he shook his head, “Don’t worry, you won’t.”
“I will,” you said, looking down to watch your feet.
“My love,” he calls for you, softly pulling your chin up so you can meet his eyes. “You know me so well and so do I to you.”
“So?” you asked, pursing your lips.
“It means we have this wonderful connection and understanding to one another. You can just look into my eyes to know what my next move is. You’ll feel it.” he rested his forehead on yours before he whispered, “Just follow what you feel.”
Now, slow dancing with Taehyung is a bittersweet reminder for you of old memories you’ve been wanting to have again. You miss slow dancing at the most unanticipated time of your day. You miss his blueberry cheesecake. You miss opening your eyes in the morning, just to be greeted by his puckered lips and small snores. You miss hearing old jazz, coming back home. You miss drinking tea with him late at night while talking about each other’s day. You just miss him.
Although the moon and stars are your only light at the moment, Taehyung can see the glistening in your eyes, along with pain and sadness. You turned your head down while biting your lower lip as tears began slipping down. Gently, Taehyung places his chin above your head, listening to your quiet sobs, as you sway along the soft melody in the background. A crack was beginning to form in his heart, and he felt helpless. He wished that the accident just never happened. He knew you and what you two had was more than special. It’s awful to get you through this hurt.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered the words he knew he should say, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”
He whispered it over and over again, hoping it could make what you feel less heavy, as he planted kisses on your hair. You just listened to his apologies, closing your eyes. Tears continuously slipped down your cheeks. In every sorry he lets out; you nod. It was like your way of telling him that it’s fine. Because he knows that is who you are: patient and understanding. 
“I’m sorry. Let me apologize. I have my faults too from the start.”
You can feel Taehyung’s hand moving from your waist to your back. This time, he’s just hugging you, still swaying.
“I will try harder. Please, please don’t get tired of me yet. I’m sorry.”
This time, you didn’t nod. It took you a few minutes to pull away and look up at him again. Your hands moved from his shoulders down to his arms until you held his hands. It made him feel warm for a second. With tear-stained cheeks, you smiled at him.
“Thank you for this, Taehyung.” you began, softly squeezing his hands. “But I need to go.”
You closed your eyes as Taehyung turned his head down, his heart breaking at the process. You continued,
“I appreciate you trying and giving me a chance to take care of you. But I just really have to go. I need to do this.”
You sniffed, chuckling with a bitter taste in your mouth,  “I really thought I could last months without you saying I love you to me… But how can I do that if you always made me feel loved? I got used to you doing the love part for me that I forgot how to do it myself when you also forgot about me… Now, I needed to learn that on my own.” 
Taehyung is still not meeting your gaze. So you softly lift his chin. Then, you held his cheek with your thumb feeling his cheekbone, comforting him as you told him,
“I’ll go with Julia and Chanyeol tonight since they are driving back home. I’ll make sure I’m gone by the time you get home. Please don’t come after me or contact me. It will be easier for me. We can talk about the house when I get back on my feet again. But for the moment, you can do whatever you want with– Please don’t cry, Tae.” Your voice shakes when tears run down her cheeks. “Please. We need to be apart,”
“A-Am I going to see you again?” he murmured, in a sob.
You pursed your lips before answering, “I don’t know. I honestly hope so. I hope our roads cross sometime, someday.”
Taehyung’s lips formed into a frown and he closed his eyes, tears just streaming freely. When he opens his eyes, he sees you staring at him endearingly with the same sadness in your eyes. With his cheek still in your palm, you stepped closer. Taehyung can feel his heart beating heavier but faster. Everything around him is silent except for the rustling of the leaves nearby and he can only focus on you. He can feel knots being formed in his stomach as your other hand holds his chest. Your touch simply brings warmth and coziness to him. You leaned in slowly and Taehyung closed his eyes. 
Soft and sweet. Those were the first words in his head as he felt your lips on his. He felt a spark of electricity in his system at that moment. It felt right and perfect. He wanted to touch you and pull you closer but you pulled away before he even could. It felt long and short at the same time. Unexpectedly, you two both had tears slipping down your cheeks. His heartbeats were loud, he feared you even heard it. Your lips quivered as you told him with a heavy heart,
“I love you. I love you so much than you could remember, Taehyung.”
With that, you turned your back and walked away.
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taglist rules
RESTARTING OVER AGAIN TAGLIST [🔧🔨 ]
@iamkookiesforyou @aianloveseven @hoodalmighty @taebangtanbabe @kthsmoon @nooojaaam @hiimnothing @hiqhkey @annenakamura @taebangtanbabe @shin-ie @prlan @zzztaegizzz @starlight-night0 @teddybeartaetae @http-fayeradise​ @kiwuki @tannies-luv
PERMANENT TAGLIST
@dunixxd @cixrosie @jksjx @embrace-themagic @buttvi @starbtslove @missseoulite @vanntaesworld @kenqki @imajinthis @stopeatread @seolaquotes @greyrain23 @chimchimmarie @petalsofink @jayhope88 @moonchild1 @laylasbunbunny @nikkiordonez12
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Text
Buck & Eddie: Buck saw their future and Eddie prepared them for it!
(I created GIFs for this post but every time I posted it, Tumblr wouldn’t allow it to show up on the dashboard or in the tags🙄.  I’ve been trying to post this for three weeks but since I couldn’t with the GIFs, I’ve included the video from 2x8 instead.)
In 2x8 "Buck Actually", Buck saw how his and Eddie's future could be when he looked at the pictures of Thomas and Mitchell while they were on the scene of Mitchell's accident. Reminder, he was the only one who looked at the photos Thomas dropped on the ground when he rushed over to help Mitchell after their SUV crushed him in between the vehicle and the fence.  Several photos fell out of the album he was planning to take with them that day. Therefore, Buck saw how his and Eddie's future could be from start to finish.
The top of the photo album's cover read: "Love, Life and Adventures" and it also had a picture of Thomas' and Mitchell's first date on one side and a picture from their wedding day on the other. After he finished his conversation with Thomas, Buck saw their entire life including all the moments they shared together as a couple when he picked up each of the photos. Then he looked over his shoulder at Thomas right before he died.
Eddie and Bobby were both there with Buck while he performed chest compressions on Thomas.
Even though Eddie didn't see the pictures, he did see how distraught Buck was after Thomas died and he saw Thomas holding Mitchell's hand, actually they both saw it and he touched Buck's shoulder to comfort him.  He also heard Buck say, "That's Love!" and after he said it, he looked at Eddie not Bobby!
Not long after Buck saw a glimpse of their future via the photos that he picked up that showed him Thomas' and Mitchell's life together, Eddie started preparing for them to spend forever together in season 3 after he had been trapped in the well in 3x15 "Eddie Begins". Reminder, he changed his will right after he emerged and he named Buck to be Chris' legal guardian.
Also, it happened right before Buck met Red in 3x16 “The One that Got Away” and Red was the one who told Buck not to neglect having a life of his own. This was the same episode that Buck was afraid of being left behind but the narrative showed he wouldn’t be since Eddie had already prepared for their future. Buck was panicking about dying alone and everyone at the 118 leaving him like the people who worked with Red left him behind but Eddie was the ONLY one who said, "Anyway, that won't happen to US!" and Buck said, "It better not!" They were looking right at each other while they were talking and the camera remained on them instead of it being turned back to show the rest of the 118.
Eddie didn't tell Buck about his will until one year later in 4x14 "Survivors" after he had been shot by a sniper.
Here are more instances that illustrate the parallels regarding Buck and Eddie's future to the pictures Buck saw of Thomas and Mitchell.
Buck did chest compressions on Thomas in 2x8 (see above) and he did them again on Lev in 6x2 "Crash and Learn" but in 6x2, Eddie was working on Lev's friends and he wasn't there by Buck's side like he had been in 2x8. Eddie being separated from Buck could signify the fact that Buck had to take his journey alone during season 6 while Eddie waited for him to finally "get it", meaning Buck had to get the fact that Eddie's been waiting for him.
Reminder, right before Lev died, he said "I think I get it now".
A few months later, in 6x10 "In a Flash", Eddie did chest compressions on Buck after he was struck by lightning and HE WAS THE ONE WHO RESTARTED BUCK'S HEART EVEN THOUGH CHIMNEY HAD BEEN DOING COMPRESSIONS ON BUCK FOR MORE THAN THREE MINUTES.
The last 17 seconds was ALL EDDIE and he's the one who brought Buck back to life. He corrected Chief Williams after she said Buck was dead for three minutes when he interjected and replied, "Three minutes and seventeen seconds".
This show is so unhinged it's ridiculous but there are two questions that plague season 7.
Will 9-1-1 continue the original narrative they started in season 2 that has continuously illustrated BUCK'S & EDDIE'S EPIC LOVE STORY in season 7 and make them a CANON COUPLE?
Or will they stay on that redundant BS with Buck and Eddie dating one dimensional women like they did in seasons 4-5?
Only the showrunner(s), writers and producers know the answer to that question but hopefully they'll finally let them be together so they can be happy!
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drifterbruce · 25 days
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Dark Blue
Hello friends! In honor of the two year anniversary of The Batman coming out in theaters, here is a little something I whipped up. (Matt Reeves pls give us some snippets of The Batman Part 2 I'm begging you-)
Anyways, please enjoy and let me know your thoughts! This was requested, I do hope you all enjoy! (I added some angst bc I was in an angsty mood)
summary: mrs. wayne has a part to play. but that doesn't mean she is happy about it.
mr. and mrs. wayne masterlist
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(gif is not mine)
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It all started with a stupid argument. About what–you couldn’t remember, but you were sure that you were right and he was wrong.
And now you found yourself in your apartment (that you made sure to keep a secret from your darling ‘husband’, as he thought you had ended your lease when the two of you got married), sulking over the stupid arrangement you found yourself in. 
If you would’ve known that that was how your arrangement with Bruce was going to be like: with him being distant, avoiding you, treating you coldly–then you would’ve fought tooth and nail. 
You sulked for a good two hours before you decided to start getting ready for the event that you were supposed to be attending with Bruce, pretending to be a couple madly in love with each other. 
You scoffed as you got up from the couch and walked over to your bathroom. Madly in love–what a joke.
As soon as you turned on the shower, you heard the doorbell ring. You frowned, as you weren’t expecting anyone at the moment.
You left the shower running and made your way to the front door, opening it warily. There was a white box in front of the door, and you eyed it suspiciously. You were about to close the door and call the GCPD (you could never be too careful in Gotham), when you noticed the familiar scrawl on the envelope attached. 
You sighed irritably and brought the box in, closing and locking the door behind you. Inside the box was a gorgeous deep blue dress. Your gritted your teeth as you stared at the dress. 
What was he playing at?
You decided to call him, glaring at the dress as if it were him standing in front of you. 
“Just what are you playing at? And how did you know where I was?” You snapped as soon as he answered the phone. 
"I’m not playing at anything. That is the dress I want you to wear. It matches the tie I’m wearing.” He replied indifferently. He didn’t bother replying to your other question.
You scowled, even though he couldn’t see it. You were about to go off on him, when he cut in. 
"I’ll pick you up in two hours. Be ready.” He stated in the cold tone he always used with you before he hung up. You let out a curse and threw your phone on the couch, calling him every name under the sun. It didn't make you feel better, surprisingly.
You knew why he was going to pick you up–it was to avoid any rumors of your marriage to the Prince of Gotham being an unhappy one. The last time Bruce had shown up to an event by himself, the Gotham Gazette had written an article about you two.
Wayne Enterprises ended up releasing a statement that Mr. and Mrs. Wayne were very happy together.
You really didn’t want to go through that again.
So, two hours later, you found yourself clad in the dress that Bruce had sent for you (you hated how perfectly it fit you–damn him), getting into the passenger seat next to Bruce, glaring at him and his stupid suit and his stupid dark blue tie.
Time to play the part of the happily married Mrs. Wayne.
---
Hope you all enjoyed! Please let me know your thoughts!
I also restarted the taglist! If you would like to be tagged, please click here!
taglist: @lilvampirina @1lellykins
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daiseukiis · 1 year
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╰ ⋆ ❝ 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 ❞ ଓ.° ╮
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─꒱ you and itoshi sae break up on your one year anniversary.
─꒱ FEAT. ⠀⠀⠀⠀ itoshi sae
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⠀⠀⠀⠀he hated the thought more than he wanted it to. one of the things itoshi sae hated the most was having you on his mind in the middle of his game.
the swing of his foot pounding the football towards the goal in tremendous speed was how fast his mind continues to wander as the clock ticks rapidly. the cheers of the crowd is easily falling onto his deaf ears, breathe of air escaping his lips as he turns to run back to restart. though his attic hues catch on towards a figure that stood by the bleachers, close to the exit of the football stadium.
the look of defeat and sorrow on your face pains sae; you felt betrayed. he said ‘i love you’ to you once and that itself was enough for you, you wanted to believe that it was enough to hear words of assurance every time he would have to leave you. you wanted to believe that even if sae was distant and out of touch— you continued to believe that it was just his way of showing how he feels because maybe that was his love language?
the arguments the both of you shared, the warmth that you two emitted towards the other at every single embrace, every kiss and every ‘i love you’ kept you together. even if the world were to tear you apart you knew that sae would be there for you, looking for you even if you got lost.
but what you didn’t know was that all you did was continue to lie to yourself— even till now.
the date that marks your one year anniversary was today, and unfortunate for you sae had a game to play. though the fight you and him prior about this game just made it hard to watch, in fact, you didn’t even want to come to this game because you had to stop lying to yourself at some point, right?
words continued to be exchanged back and forth and your tears to even fell down you cheeks— this was the first time you ever cried in front of him during an argument. it was bad.
sae had forgotten that today was your couple’s anniversary, and to say the least it was the last.
as you lock eyes with him on the field, you couldn’t help but let the sea escape from your eyes. your heart aches for sae— despite knowing that you still came to see him one last time. the football player watches as your lips move, as if the world slowed down around him and your words were as clear as the summer sky like the one the two of you had met your figure had disappeared towards the exit.
his teal orbs couldn’t believe such a fleeting sight; it was like a dream that you had ran away from him. as much as you wanted to look behind you to see if sae even cared knowing the answer already, but love is painful, isn’t it?
itoshi sae may have won his game, but he lost you.
the love the two of you shared was that of a flower; the lycoris radiata, blooming the beauty of it’s petals only for a moment.
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REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED !
all rights reserved.
do not repost 、 modify 、 claim work or layout as yours.
© MGUQIIS 、 2023
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httpsuniverse · 9 months
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LIPS OF AN ANGEL | MM19
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PAIRING: mason mount x wolff!reader ; a bit of george russell x wolff!reader
DETAILS & WARNINGS: profanities, mentions cheating/infidelity, mason's anger is totally understandable, y/n's a bit of a bitch(? idk towards the end tho), rushed ending bc i really wanted to end this hahahah, also not proofread and tons of dialogues ahhahah
WC: 4k
A/N: i apologize for uploading this soo late 😭 i had writers block for a long while :< anyway, enjoy reading!
TAGGED: @i83andrew @pleasantducktimetravel
this work is purely fictional. names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. © newuniverse, 2023. do not steal, repost in other platforms, translate and/or claim this work as your own.
now, four months have passed since you’ve broken up with mason (or at least that was what your letter stated). in those months, mason finds himself longing for you. the man often finds himself up most nights, sleeping so late and waking up so early to head to training and other prior schedules he has every day.
mason would not deny it; that if someone were to ask if he had tried contacting you, your dad and even your stepmum. the couple would always say that they don’t know your whereabouts, but deep inside, he knows they know and knowing you, you were probably the one who asked them not to tell him. the first month was the hardest, he tried calling you every night and every chance he got while on his schedule. he was waiting for your voicemail greeting to play just to hear your voice and after that, he’d record what he wanted to say. a mixture of i love you’s, i miss you’s and please come back. 
it wasn’t easy with you as well. you missed mason and you missed the days where it was just the two of you in your own little world. if you could only go back in time, you’d never leave the house during the night of your fight and maybe this never would’ve happened. you missed seeing mason on the other side of the bed; you weren’t a morning person but whenever there’s a chance that you wake up before him, you’d watch him sleep and listen to his gentle snores while you lightly trace his beard with the tip of your finger. you missed snuggling to him during cold mornings, you missed the lazy make-outs because he couldn’t get his hands off of you, you missed him whispering sweet nothings in your ear after you wake up. you missed mornings with mason, too bad you can no longer relive those moments.
though you can’t help that every time you wake up, you have that thought that you could go back to london, you could return his calls, you could return back to mason and restart your relationship. but every time you do think of doing those things, you’re reminded of what you did. all those lies you’ve told him, and those days where you were away and sleeping with another man. 
going back to the man you’ve hurt seems such a foolish thing to do, and you know the people around mason wouldn’t allow such a thing. though you may think that mason would have the same thinking as the others, he sometimes does not. he wanted to risk it all again with you, he wanted to try and fix it with you. all he wanted is you and you alone.
going back to mason is something that you want to do but wouldn’t do. and on the fourth month, 5 day mark, mason had revealed his month long relationship with a model, lia mendes.
honey, why you calling me so late?
it’s kinda hard to talk right now. 
honey, why you crying, is everything okay?
i gotta whisper cause i can’t be too loud.
you stood in your living room filled with moving boxes, susie and toto were outside while jack was napping inside your bedroom. all you could do was sigh. it felt so weird moving into a new apartment–let alone moving to the southeast corner of france. monaco was a lovely place to live in, knowing that your father lives here (though he travels most of the time), the fact that you live nearby brings you some sort of relief, safety and comfort. though, as many people have said, you disappeared off the face of the earth for a few months, you’ve lived your life quietly with your mum for a while as you wait for the situation with mason to die down.
you were in a rush when you left london the night you told mason you were just going to the store. you left without even taking a second look, not even an ounce of thought. sure, it was a wrong move—a dumb decision as well, but you wanted to run away from all the mistakes you’ve made. you wanted to escape. leave everything you have to the place you once loved—now a place you dread the most. it was not the easiest decision either, but it was the only solution that you could think of.
the night you left mason, you didn’t go to the store. instead, you met george. again, a clandestine meeting. you messaged george when you were a few blocks away from his place, which is why you met a furious brit.
“have you lost your mind, kid?” he says, god you hated that nickname. it was the nickname that toto knew george gave you and became the hint that you and the driver are close. “she could’ve caught me! she could’ve seen your bloody message! why did you want to see me—”
“i told him, george. he–he probably saw the letter by now because i left a few hours ago.”
the driver’s eyes widened, definitely not the sentence he was not expecting to hear from you. suddenly, he didn’t know what to do or say. george tried to pull you in his arms, but you were quick to push him away. “this… george! this is exactly why we need to stop what’s between us!” you said, “i can’t believe i’m saying this but i regret everything that happened between us. i regret taking advantage of mason and carmen. i hate how i know that dad will be so disappointed in me. so please, let’s stop this… we can’t keep hurting and breaking the trusts of the people around us.” 
your voice cracks by the end of the last sentence, you could feel george staring at you but you kept your gaze on your feet. no strength to look at his eyes because you know that this man would do anything just to make you stay. 
“but baby—”
from calling you kid to baby—you hated it. you felt disgusted. you needed to end it.
“no, george. no buts.” you cut off, “i have to go. i… i wish you all the best.”
you walk back to your car, locking the doors in case george runs after you. again, without looking back, you drive away. leaving the confused brit in the empty street.
and even though you ended things with george that night, he hadn’t stopped calling and texting you—afraid that you might say anything about your relationship to others, even with friends and family. all he ever cared about was his reputation, he was scared. after all, he was doing great with mercedes the past season and a scandal with his boss’ daughter would put him through hell. 
now, you were left alone in this apartment overlooking the beauty of monaco. you sat on your balcony with a glass of wine sitting on the table, feeling the breeze of the mediterranean sea. oh you missed mason. you haven’t heard anything from him since you two broke up. 
and maybe it was the number of wine in your system that you ended up dialing his number, the one you’ve deleted yet can’t seem to forget as you knew it by heart. no matter how hard you try to forget about it. it kept on ringing and ringing, and you tried to re-dial once it ended due to the exceeding minute. 
on the fifth try, you finally heard his voice. 
“hello?”
you know that feeling when you’ve spoken to your high school crush for the very first time, your heart drops and your stomach is filled with butterflies to the point where you don’t know what to say? that is exactly what you felt when you heard mason’s voice after months.
“hello?” he repeats, “is this a prank call? ‘cause this is the fifth time you called and i might need to block your number–”
“masey.”
you heard sounds of bed rustling followed by a door closing, you assumed that he was already in bed and was fast asleep. after all, it was already midnight. “y/n?” and that’s when the tears started to roll in, god how you missed that voice. “are you crying? is everything alright?” his voice was quiet.
“y-yeah, just…” you sniffed, “just missing you and i think it has something to do with this stupid wine.”
“sorry, i’ve got to whisper. m-my girlfriend’s asleep,”
“oh.” you wiped your tears, you only found out that mason was dating someone now. “i’m sorry, i should’ve known. god, i’ll hang up–”
“no!”
well, my girl’s in the next room
sometimes i wish she was you
i guess we never really moved on
it’s really good to hear your voice saying my name
it sounds so sweet
“she’s in the other room anyway, we can continue talking.” he continued, “h-how have you been? i’ve seen photos of jack on susie’s instagram, may have had a glimpse of you spending time with them in her stories. have you gone karting with jack recently?”
you chuckle, chugging the remaining wine on your glass before responding. “i-i stayed with them for a month, i stayed with my mum as well, after our… well, you know. i’ve accompanied jack while dad and susie are busy. you know, the season has already started and susie is busy with the f1 academy. i was vacant for a month, but i’ve started working again–i’m talking too much, you should really hang up, mason.”
“you know, it’s really good to hear your voice saying my name, y/n.” mason said, “it-it really sounds so sweet.”
“we should really stop, mason.”
you heard him scoff on the other end of the line, “it’s so funny that you’re the one saying that, i’m not the one who called in the first place, y/n.”
“i know, and i only found out that you were dating someone tonight. y-you should be with her, you shouldn’t be talking to your ex who… who cheated on you tonight. she deserves better.”
“i guess we never really moved on, y/n.” he replied, “i–”
“goodbye, mason. good night.”
coming from the lips of an angel
hearing those words, it makes me weak
and i never wanna say goodbye
but, girl, you make it hard to be faithful
with the lips of an angel
mason couldn’t sleep that night and had trouble waking up, which was the reason why lia, so early in the morning, was mad as her boyfriend was sleeping so deep and no matter how hard she tried to wake him up, she just couldn’t. lia was running late for a schedule that mason had promised to come with her as their break for the season had begun. 
“masey, i’m running super late. my manager is about to burst, can’t you please move much faster?” she said, in a mixture of annoyed and calm voice. “didn’t we go to bed at the same time last night? why do you look like you haven’t at all?”
“because i haven’t slept,” he answered directly.
“why?”
“just… nothing. let’s go.”
the couple exited mason’s house, lia practically sprinted to mason’s car and sat on the front seat. masey, that was the nickname most people call him but now, he only wanted to hear your voice call him that and nobody else. when you say his name, it sounded like it came from the lips of an angel. it made him weak most of the time. 
lia had arrived a half an hour late, her manager was already glaring at mason and immediately separated the couple. while lia was doing her photoshoot, leaving mason alone, he realised that he never wanted to break up with you, even if you admitted what had happened between you and george, or maybe he was just thinking about it as you’ve spoken last night. maybe he just missed you. he did miss you. 
what’s fucked up is that he thought he finally moved on from you, that he was ready to commit to a new relationship. he knew that when he and lia were testing the waters, a month before they officially dated. he has told himself several times that he was over you, yet here he is. reminiscing all the memories you’ve shared the past years you two were together after that phone call. you were making it hard for him to be faithful.
as he was waiting, mason was on his phone when he received a notification of an invite to attend another f1 race with red bull. this time, it was in barcelona. he remembered the last time you and he went to monaco, a weekend to remember indeed. 
“we’re going to be separated for almost the whole day, baby” you laugh, putting on your dress as mason shoves his phone into his pocket. “it’s going to be so weird because you’ll be at the red bull garage, and i’ll be at mercedes!”
“hey, i can still go there, you know? plus we’ll see each other around the paddock.” he replied, walking behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “besides, your dad loooves me. i’m sure he’ll understand that this is for work and publicity.”
you smiled, zipping your dress up and turned to face him. mason pursed his lips, signifying that he was asking for a kiss. you giggled, and eventually leaned in to connect your lips together. when you pulled away, you put your hand on his face and ran the pads of your thumb on his beard–the one you loved doing after you two kissed every time.
“you, sir… look so handsome with your outfit.” you compliment, he was wearing his chequered rhude shirt over some white shirt. you leaned in again for another kiss, deepening it–only pulling away when you heard your phone ring. “okay, before things escalate, i have to go. dad’s calling.”
“your dad’s such a cockblocker.” he teased, earning a slap on the arm from you. “i’m just kidding! i’ll see you when i see you at the paddock.”
mason remembered how he stole a kiss every time you crossed paths at the paddock or at the pit lane during his walk. a lot of people saw and took pictures and videos of it, posting it on social media. that video was trending in the world of f1 and football for a few days before dying down. he remembered seeing tweets and posts on instagram, saying they were jealous of your relationship. he remembered the two of you having dinner at toto and susie’s place, how he was teased by you and jack (toto eventually joined) throughout dinner as he went as red bull’s guest and not mercedes. he remembered lying with you on the deck of a rented yacht, under the sun, enjoying the monte-carlo air.
on the other side of europe, you are woken up by the sound of your phone ringing. you were taking your afternoon siesta before returning back to your home office to continue working, and whoever was calling you in the middle of your nap, may they stub their toe on some furniture. tired, you reached out for your phone and answered the call without looking at the screen.
“hello?” you groggily said, “whoever you are, you’ve interrupted my siesta and i may hate you for that.”
“well, hello to you, my daughter.” your father’s voice rang through your ears. “and i’m sorry if i interrupted your nap, but would you be so kind and open your front door please?”
“what?”
“open the door, i’ve been out here for almost fifteen minutes.”
and off you went to your front door, toto was greeted by a grumpy daughter whose eyebrows were furrowed. you looked at your father, “what are you doing here, dad?”
“no ‘hallo, vater’? no ‘how are you doing, dad?’. none?” he joked, entering your place as you made way for him and closed the door. “okay, i will be quick. come with us to barcelona this weekend.”
your eyes widened, “what? i have work, i can’t just leave.”
“your brother told me that you have a flexible work schedule, that you’re allowed to bring your work everywhere you go.” your dad replied.
“theodore wolff, that little bitch.” you cursed under your breath, you couldn’t help but facepalm with what your brother just did. “dad–”
“i know that tone, y/n wolff.” toto stopped you from continuing your sentence, “come on, it’ll be just like the old days! except your brother isn’t here because his finals week aligned with the weekend in barcelona.”
you bit your lip, making a decision as your father can be impatient. if you go to the race, the possibility of running to george is high–no matter how much effort you exert on avoiding the man, you simply can’t as he is, of course, a driver for mercedes. but, it’ll be good for you as well! you haven’t gone to spain for years, a change of environment and working outside of your home office may be good for you as well. you work only on weekdays, and you’ll be free for the rest of the weekend so you wouldn’t think of work that much in case.
“okay fine, i’ll go with you. when’s the flight?” 
“tonight.”
“TONIGHT?! dad, a little heads up would’ve been nice!”
“i’m sorry, pack your bags and we’ll pick you up by 8.” toto said, planting a kiss on your head. “i’ll go now, we’ll see you later!”
on saturday morning, arriving at the paddock with your father, a lot of people approached you by the entrance. some asked for pictures, some for autographs (which you didn’t quite understand), and some were nice enough to greet you. to say that you’re nervous is an understatement. you were returning to the paddock, you’re about to see george, his fiancée–the people you've been avoiding for months were in barcelona with you. you opted to stay in your hotel since your arrival in spain, finishing all the work you have left before proceeding with your weekend. as you walk to the paddock with toto, you could feel your palm sweat and your stomach turn the more you get closer to mercedes’ garage. 
“word is, footballers are in red bull’s garage.” you overheard one of the mechanics upon entering the garage. the word football made you even more nervous than you already were.
“oh come on, mate. i think i’ve seen a few yesterday! that’s old news!”
“i haven’t seen any yesterday but so far, i’ve seen james, felix, chilwell–” please don’t tell me mason is here. “–and mount. just last year they were in monaco, weren’t they?”
the other mechanic nodded his head. mason is here. breathing the same air as you, probably a few metres away from you even. i knew this was a bad idea. you thought to yourself.
“you look like you saw a ghost.” said your father after speaking to the engineers.
you shook your head, “well, i think i’m about to see one today.” you joked, “i-uh, i’ll go out to find something to drink.”
toto raised an eyebrow, a bit unsure of your change of behaviour but you gave him a smile and reassured that you’ll be back. “alright, just…be back before quali, alright?”
you nodded your head and exited the garage. walking around the paddock like you were a normal guest, someone who just wants to enjoy the weekend. but it’s hard when people recognize you as toto wolff’s daughter, and as much as you try to stay away from the crowd, people still approached you. little did you know, someone has spotted you.
“oi, mason!” ben called his teammate, walking towards the man who’re talking with the other players. “guess who i saw walking around the paddock?”
“who?”
ben took a step closer to the younger, whispering your name. mason felt his heart skip a beat, realising the same thing you’ve thought about just a few minutes ago: you were here, breathing the same air as him.
it's funny that you're calling me tonight
and, yes, i've dreamt of you too
and does he know you're talking to me?
will it start a fight?
no, i don't think she has a clue.
needless to say, you were good at hiding. mason had presented the pirelli pole position award to max, he wanted to know if you were there to see him next to the driver. but as he scanned the sea of crowd, you were nowhere to be found. after the qualifying, you returned back to your hotel–reasoning that you were exhausted and had a headache. as soon as you were back, you changed clothes and plopped yourself on the bed. but it wasn’t so soon when your phone started ringing, a number you once called.
“hello?”
“a little birdie told me that you were in the paddock today.”
you sighed, closing your eyes but held the phone close to your earshot. “was it ben?”
“you know it. he’s always liked you–in a platonic way, i mean.”
silence followed right after he had mentioned ben, you were exhausted to even reply. 
“y/n–”
“it’s so funny that you’re calling me tonight, mason.” you said, “i assumed the night i called you, you would’ve blocked my number.”
“you know i would never do that. we’ve been together for a long time, y/n.”
“i must be living in your head, mason.”
mason scoffed on the other end of the line, “well, i wasn’t thinking of you until the night you called.” he replied, “and yes, i’ve dreamt of you too.”
you jolted up from the bed when you heard a knock on the door, with the phone on the other hand you made your way to the door. you didn’t even bother looking through the peephole to see who was knocking on your door late in the night, you just assumed it was your dad. promptly, you opened the door–lo and behold, mason mount was standing in front of you. unable to speak, you still held your phone by your ear and stared at him, him and his stupid smile. mason was the one who ended the call and shoved his phone into his pocket.
“hi,” he said, “it’s been a few months, y/n.”
“how did you–what are you–i’m so confused right now.” you expressed, about to shut the door but mason was quick enough to stop you. “what do you want, mason?”
“does he know you’re talking to me? will it start a fight?” he asked, completely ignoring your question and welcomed himself inside your room, shutting the door close. “george. does george know?”
“i called it off with him the night i left a letter for you, mason. i went to his place and i ended things with you both at the same time.”
mason scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “wow,” he exclaimed, “george had the in-person “break-up” and all i got is a stupid fucking letter?”
“mason–”
“that is bullshit, y/n. pure bullshit.” mason barked, “all this time, george got the closure that i should’ve had. me–y/n, i was the one you dated for a long time and all i fucking got is a lousy letter about the truth of your affair with george?”
“i was supposed to, mason!” you yell back, “i was supposed to tell you, but the timing just wasn’t right.”
“and you thought lying straight to my face when i asked you about it, was okay?” you were about to answer, but mason was already rushing to the door. when he was about to exit, he said: “i went here thinking i could finally get the closure i needed, but fuck, was i wrong about this.”
you scoff, “that’s on you, then. you come running to the girl who cheated on you.” you said, “does lia know that you’re still hung up on your past? because i don’t think she has a clue.”
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ynwolff
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liked by susie_wolff, mercedesamgf1, lewishamilton and others
ynwolff so many familiar faces here in spain 🇪🇸 here’s a little dump of my weekend here 🤓
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yourbffsig oh i know who those familiar faces were 😉
ynwolff 😂 stop
yourbffsig we’re going to a party tonight after what happened, we need to get wasted!!
ynwolff as long as i make it back home on time and alive, let’s gooo
mercedesamgf1 glad to have you back in the garage, y/n! 🐺
ynwolff glad to see the team secure a double podium, thank you for having me! 🖤
mercedesamgf1 a great weekend indeed!
yourmomsig missing you so much, sweetheart! hope you enjoyed x
ynwolff miss you too mum ❤️
theowolff what about me 😓
ynwolff miss you too dumbass 🙄 you’re the reason why i went so you should’ve been with me, i could’ve avoided an unexpected circumstance hahahah
theowolff if only school let me 💀 but hey, at least you ‘enjoyed’
ynwolff i’m blocking you!!
user1 OMG SHES IN THE PADDOCK WHAT IF SHE SAW OR TALKED TI MASE IM DELULU (ALSO TOTO ON THE LAST SLIDE? LMAO)
user2 stop with these assumptions I BEG YALL
user3 people should learn how to stfu im being fr rn
user4 that’s toto’s reaction when he read your comment
user2 also the cryptic messages HELLO ?? i dont think they saw each other or if they did, it probably didn’t go so well
user3 you’re onto something babes 👀
masonmount
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liked by declanrice, benchilwell, redbullracing and others
masonmount thank you redbullracing and jodieporter8 for everything!
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liamendes meu belo homem 😩🫶 i love you!
— ❤️ by masonmount
redbullracing THANK YOU!! 🫶
user5 when i tell yall this man is so FINE 🤌🏻
user6 this man is scrump-DILLY-tious
user7 yall CALM DOWN
user8 mason did something happen between u and y/n bc her posts have some sort of cryptic hints and i kinda wanna know whats going on tnx (jk hahaha love u both)
user9 HELPPP me too 😓 like what does her bff mean when she said “whag happened” and y/n saying “unexpected circumstance” LIKE GIVE ME SOMETHING??? A TEA PERHAPS???
user10 currently dying to know what the fucj happened in barcelona
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ironspiderfics · 2 months
Text
this is supposed to be a vacation
for @meilz
by @iron--spider
~
Tony loves this kid.
It’s a montage at the beginning of a movie—Tony was crazy about Peter almost immediately, couldn’t accept it, his own damn daddy issues courtesy of Howard Stark, then he had to accept it because the kid kept trying to die, then things settled, they worked together, then they unsettled and the kid dissolved in Tony’s hands, and a year of heavy-drinking and nearly exploding himself in the lab wound up with all the dissolved people undissolved and the kid back and Tony in a hospital bed. Three-week coma. Whole screaming celebration when he woke up loud enough to bust his eardrums and restart his heart.
But Peter was there. Peter was there. 
Time slowed to a crawl, sped up and slowed down again, and Tony tried to recover. He knew Peter and his friends went on that European trip—he encouraged it even though Peter was worried about leaving after everything. May and Happy chaperoned, and then everyone nearly died because Quentin fucking Beck decided to roll out of Tony’s past to try and kill off someone he loves. He failed, because Peter is Peter, and Fury and Happy shut down the false allegations Beck tried to put out there before he was arrested, and everybody came home.
It’s been about two months, since then. And Tony had just gotten back on his feet a week or so before Peter left, and he’s even steadier now. Getting steadier by the day. 
But he loves this kid. More now, than ever. The son he never had. He loves May, he loves the kids that come along with his kid, he loves everything Peter has to say and everything he doesn’t, he loves keeping an eye on his missions, he loves the way he fits so snug into Tony’s little family. 
And he loves him enough to know when he’s crashing. When his eyes are tired and his patrols aren’t as succinct and punchy as they usually are. When he needs a vacation from his recent vacation. As if nearly being killed by some asshole in London is the vacation any of them need. 
So, Tony makes a couple decisions. 
After all the shit they’ve gone through, what the hell could go wrong with a break?
~
Peter knew Tony was planning something, because he isn’t secretive when he’s excited, and he found out what he was planning when Tony asked if Ned and MJ’s families would mind if he took them out of the city for a few days.
And about a week later, they were heading upstate to Mohonk Mountain House.
And Peter hasn’t been complaining, at least not to Tony, but his tiredness has been bone-deep since he got back from London. Since before that, really. Coming back from the dead can do that to someone, and he doesn’t even like to call it dead, and apparently they were all tiny particle souls inside that infinity stone but it doesn’t matter because that’s a whole other can of worms and he gets more tired and more weary every time he even thinks about any of that. 
He swung right into a wall the other day. Slap right into it. He almost broke his nose again. He feels like that might have been the moment Tony decided on this vacation—Peter could tell by the look on his face when he told him that he’d crossed some kind of line. 
They walk inside the main lobby of Mohonk and Peter keeps hearing Ben’s voice in his head. You’re gonna catch flies, Pete. But he can’t stop gaping at everything. Like…he’s been in a Hilton and this is so much better than a Hilton. 
“This place looks straight out of a Hitchcock movie,” May says, and she knocks Tony on the arm.
Tony laughs, and Pepper turns around, raising her eyebrows at May. “Let’s just hope we don’t have any Hitchcock-type events happen while we’re here.”
“What would that mean?” Ned asks, catching up to the group and trying to whisper in Peter’s ear. “You’ve seen Hitchcock movies. I remember you watched that weird apartment one a hundred times.”
“I love that movie,” Peter says. Rear Window. He never wants his leg to be broken. He knows he’d go insane just like that.
“You haven’t seen Psycho?” MJ asks Ned, hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulder.
Ned hums a little bit. “No. I know about it though. No crazy Grandmas for me.”
“That’s not what happens.”
Leather couches and tall ceilings and intricate carpeting and columns and everything somehow looks really rich but really comfortable at the same time—
“No,” Tony says, turning around and pointing at them. “No, no, and no.” He points at May too. “No. No Rear Window, no Psycho, no Vertigo—maybe a little bit North by Northwest—no, you know what, no. Not that either. This is going to be the lamest movie you’ve ever—this isn’t even gonna be a movie, there’s no—there’s no plot, this is just—a family video. A home movie. That’s it.”
Family video feels warm, and Peter grins.
“Of course, Mr. Stark—”
“It’s gonna be fine—”
“Absolutely nothing—”
“Listen, I’m hitting that buffet—”
“I’m just gonna sleep,” Peter says, as they approach the huge front desk. “Just the entire time.”
Tony smiles softly at him, and he winks. “You deserve it,” he says, and Peter can tell that he means it. 
They hear crashing, something that sounds expensive hitting the ground somewhere behind them, and they all turn around and see a bunch of employees running around to try and take care of it. A whole big production and two guys trying to hold up a big bear statue that’s trying to fall over.
“Okay, step to,” Happy’s voice says, and Peter hears him before he sees him, and then he breezes by, striding out in front of them. “Let’s go, come on, follow me, let’s get this in the books—”
“Oh, there he is,” Tony says, patting him on the shoulders. “There he is.”
~
Peter and May could never afford a vacation like this. They could never even afford to imagine something like this. Peter feels like they would have charged him if he’d even looked at photos of this place. A big, historic, mountain resort in upstate New York, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a lake? 
But now they’re here. They’re here with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Peter was able to bring two friends. Happy drove them all in a big plush rental van. They’ve got a line of suites on the sixth floor and they had steak and lobster for dinner on their first night. 
It feels unreal. But things feel unreal a lot. Especially things involving Tony, involving Spider-Man. Any of it. Like he’s having a long, prolonged dream before Ben wakes him up for school.
Peter stands on one of the terrace balconies with Tony while the others are arranging activities for tomorrow, and he stares off at the lake and the way the moon hits it. Light rippling on the water. 
“You really think you’re gonna sleep the whole time?” Tony asks, leaning on the railing. “Because nobody would judge you for it. Kayaks can wait. Ballroom dancing can absolutely wait, as can all of May’s Dirty Dancing comparisons, because I can feel them building up, like an aura around her—”
Peter snorts. “No,” he says. “But I probably will mostly just…relax. Take it easy. Just sleeping, no alarms—”
“You deserve it, like I said,” Tony says. “It’s thrilling to me that you’re even giving yourself a break.”
“Look who’s talking,” Peter says, giving him a look. “You were trying to get down to the workshop when your arm was still holding on by one string of muscle.”
Tony’s entire face contorts. “That is a terrible, disgusting image, Mr. Parker—”
Peter snorts again, choking on his laughter. 
Tony knocks him on the arm. “You’re awful, a menace, making fun of an injured old man—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Peter says, swatting him back, and still laughing. “You’re the one who needs—needs this. Like Happy always says, I’m a ‘spring chicken’, I—I can bounce back.”
“I had enough bedrest for the next ten years,” Tony says, and he’s giving Peter that look again. Concern. Like he’s trying to read his mind. “You—I know you like to act like it all doesn’t affect you, but you were going through hell on the daily before that purple asshole snapped his fingers. Then there was all that, and the right after that, and the coming back from that, and me wasting away in front of you—and then Quentin Beck flaunting his dickheaded tendencies on your school trip—that was supposed to be your relaxing time and it got away from you too and I just—like I said, you deserve your time. You need it. Don’t—you’re not selling yourself short if you say you need some rest. You put everybody first all the time, yourself last—you deserve to relax, that’s all.”
Peter blows out a breath. He doesn’t even really try to deny it in his head anymore. He doesn’t try to compare himself to other people who have it worse. He’s tired. He’s beat. He feels older than he is. 
Tony clicks his tongue and looks out at the lake. “I know this place is kind of old, kind of dated, rooms kind of look a little bit like grandma was head decorator, but—I, uh—I’ve got fond memories here. Mom used to bring me, when Howard was, uh…in some of his dicier moments. And sometimes we’d just relax, too. Recover from…knowing him.”
Peter is just kind of staring at him, because it always takes him off guard when Tony starts talking about Howard. They’re close enough now that he hears stories about his personal life all the time—his growing up, his insane college years with Rhodey, meeting Pepper meeting Happy and everything in between, but Howard is still…something they don’t really talk about, past flippant comments about Tony striving to be a better father figure than he ever was. 
“Then I’m glad you brought us here,” Peter says, his voice cracking a little bit. “I’m glad you brought me here.” And in his head he hears I’m glad you brought me back. Because he thinks about that all the time. 
Everyone’s back because of you, Peter. He never gave up on bringing you back. It was about saving you.
Tony looks like he’s about to say something else when there’s a bunch of rustling in the trees below them, and a loud thump, and more rustling. They both peer over the railing, and Peter can see the trees moving, but not anything else.
They share a wary look.
“Probably just a skunk,” Tony says.
“Oh, great.”
“Or maybe a band of feral cats.”
“Okay that’s better. Hopefully not too feral. Like, I hope they’re receptive to petting.”
They keep staring down at the trees, but it all seems quiet again.
~
Tony and Pepper have one room, Peter, MJ and Ned have the one in the middle, and May and Happy are on the end in a single room together even though Peter is refusing to acknowledge what that means or what might be going on in there. Tony mentioned that the rooms were dated, but they feel more like what a royal castle might look like inside, and for the longest time Peter is worried about wrinkling up the sheets. And then eventually it’s Ned’s snoring keeping him awake.
And then, when he’s finally mostly asleep—
“Peter.”
MJ’s voice. Peter’s in the bed with Ned and she got the other huge bed all to herself, but she sounds like she’s right next to him. He turns over onto his side, towards her voice, and then she’s—
On the ground right next to his face—
He startles a little bit, and she grabs his hand.
“MJ what—”
“There’s someone in the room.”
She’s whispering, and his heart speeds up a little bit. What the hell? There’s no way.
“Are you sure it’s not Happy?” Peter asks, as Ned lets out a rip of a snore. “Sometimes he likes to do perimeter checks—”
“It’s not Happy!” she whisper-yells.
Peter blinks, and she’s already pulling the sheets off him and yanking him out of bed, and he feels like he’d be more paranoid if something was actually happening, like he’d feel it pulsing and burning in his head, and she’s tugging on him and they’re stumbling over to the wall and—
“MJ—MJ—”
She flips on the light—
And Peter only sees him briefly—a man, standing over by the bathroom, and Peter barely gets to see what he looks like before the lights go out again. 
But he wasn’t Happy he wasn’t Tony he wasn’t supposed to be here, and Peter’s heart rockets into his throat and he hears MJ gasp and he hears feet moving and Ned is still snoring, and Peter rushes towards where the man was and tries to catch him tries to fight, but he only meets open air. 
MJ yanks the door open and she’s already running out into the hallway, yelling Tony’s name, yelling for Peter to follow her. And the hall light is streaming into their room now, and Peter looks around, breathing hard, trying to find the guy—
Nothing. Nothing.
Nobody’s here.
Ned is still snoring.
~
Tony stands next to Peter while the manager shows them the video footage. He watches their doors, completely still and closed from the hallway cameras, and then he watches MJ race out, and Tony and Happy run in a few minutes later. Followed by Pepper and May a few minutes after that. And then Ned finally looming out into the hallway, still half asleep.
“As you can see,” the manager says. “No one entered the room.”
Peter can feel Tony’s anger simmering beside him, and he takes it as a compliment that Tony is all-in on believing that they saw someone, even though he didn’t see him himself.
“Can I get the outside view again?” Tony asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Of course, Mr. Stark.”
They switch to the outside view again, which they’ve already seen about three times. The cameras aren’t great out there, and Happy found out they’re in the process of an upgrade. Peter can see their floor from a distance, he sees a little flash of light that they can’t identify, and then nothing else. No one scaling the building. Not in a way they can see, anyway.
“When will the upgrade be complete?” Tony asks, his tone clipped.
“After your stay, sir, unfortunately.”
Tony huffs, and doesn’t say anything else, and he turns and takes Peter’s arm and leads him to the door. They walk out into the hallway, where MJ and Ned quickly back up.
“Don’t need to listen through the wall,” Tony says.
“Uh, we weren’t,” MJ says. “We were just—”
“Looking at the wallpaper,” Ned says. “It’s—so cool.”
“Uh huh,” Tony says. He moves so they’re in a little circle, and he grips Peter’s shoulder. “Do you want to leave?” he asks, looking around at the three of them. “Because we can leave. We can go somewhere else, figure something else out. Or we can move rooms, we can go down to the Grove Lodge so we can all be closer together—we can do whatever we want.”
Ned’s eyes go wide. “I mean, I didn’t see anything, I was sleeping—”
“It’s fine,” MJ says, fast, glancing at Peter. “I feel like we—Peter and I must have been—I mean, we’re—everything that happened, we’re always thinking about it, and Mysterio was about like—making us think we were seeing things that weren’t there or were there but different—it’s fine. Joint hallucination. Or maybe I made him think he saw something because I was saying I saw something.”
That would normally be a Tony joke cue, but he just looks at her intently. “You don’t have to make excuses,” he says. “I don’t want you guys feeling…unsafe. Despite the presence of, uh—enhanced individuals. Unnamed.”
“It’s okay,” MJ says, and she looks at Peter and nods. 
Tony looks at him too. And Peter knows that if he said anything about being worried, Tony would move them in an instant.
What the hell did he see? 
Were they really just tired?
Did he think he saw something because MJ thought she saw something?
“It’s okay,” he says, slowly, because…he isn’t entirely sure. But MJ seems sure and Peter doesn’t want to blow up the trip if they were just in a PTSD-addled nightmare. It is their first real vacation since that shit with Beck happened, it still feels like a knife in his gut sometimes.
“You sure?” Tony asks, and he shakes Peter’s shoulder a little bit.
Peter looks at MJ, and she nods at him. 
“Yeah,” Peter says. “I’m sure.”
~
They go back to bed after that without any more incidents, but Peter mostly stays awake, staring off into the darkness. MJ is awake too, through a lot of the night, and they text because Ned is sleeping and snoring like there’s nothing wrong and there’s never been anything wrong, ever.
I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.
I wouldn’t let anything happen to you either. Nerd :)
Over breakfast, Tony lets them know that Happy is setting up Friday to do sweeps and is doing his own personal perimeter checks.
“I want him to enjoy his break too though,” Peter says, pushing his waffle around on the plate.
“He’s enjoying it,” May says, through a mouthful of eggs.
Peter frowns at her. “I don’t like that. I don’t—I don’t need—”
She shrugs. “Well.”
“Okay, Miss Kiss and Tell,” Tony says, laughing as Pepper sits down next to him. “But it’s good. He’s on it, and I’m on it too.”
“Here,” MJ says, coming back from the buffet and sitting down next to Peter. She puts a cinnamon bun on his plate, smiling at him. “They just brought them out. Ned is trying to barter for more.”
“They can’t deny him,” Pepper says. “It’s all inclusive.”
“Exactly,” Tony says. “And after last night, we should be getting extra—I still think they sent someone in to check on something and didn’t want to admit it. I’m not gonna go all I’d like to speak to the manager on them, even though I did—do that—but either way—”
Peter hasn’t landed anywhere on it yet. He keeps trying to think back on it, trying to remember exactly what he saw. His spider sense, newly minted, is usually pretty bang on if something isn’t right, if he feels like he’s in danger, but he’d just woken up, he’s foggy in the mornings sometimes—
He figures his mind was just playing tricks on him. But MJ too?
She rubs his leg, like she knows he's agonizing over it, and he reaches down and holds her hand.
“Okay,” Ned says, walking back over holding a plate. “They let me take five of them. They’re all really warm and gooey, I feel like this is a promising start to the day.”
~
Peter isn’t exactly a spa guy, so he doesn’t join May and Pepper when they decide to go there, even though he feels like it might help him if he ever figured out how to relax. But going there is supposed to help him relax, so how can he ever relax enough to get to the point of going there—either way, he goes out onto the lake with Tony and Ned and MJ.
MJ and Peter both get their own kayaks, and Ned and Tony are in a canoe.
“He wouldn’t get into one of these,” Tony yells. “Honestly, if Happy’s not still doing security shit, he’s probably golfing. He’s terrible at it and he never likes to do it when anybody he knows is around. I’ll message him in a little bit and make sure but that’s probably where he is. Ned. You have to keep that thing on just in case we turn over.”
Peter snorts, looking back at them, and he sees Tony adjusting Ned’s lifejacket on his shoulders.
“Happy’s just afraid of racing,” Peter yells, cutting his oar through the water. “MJ remember when—”
“Yes,” she says, a little out ahead of him, and she’s already laughing. “I don’t even know why he was trying to chase you in New York traffic. While you were swinging in the air above him. You didn’t have any cars in your way, nothing was stopping you—”
Peter snorts again, bending over and laughing a little bit. “He was so mad. He didn’t talk to me for a week. He made me talk to Friday specifically.”
“I gave him shit for that!” Tony yells. “He shouldn’t have been trying to chase you. The gas leak had nothing to do with you. He’s always tossing blame around willy nilly.”
“Yeah he still blames me for the time those columns collapsed on that old garbage building,” Ned says. “A line of code can’t do that, that building was old I didn’t do anything there was no way he should have yelled at me at all let alone for twenty minutes—”
“He’s just dramatic,” Tony says.
“He just gets worried,” Peter says, glancing over his shoulder at their boat. And Ned makes big eyes at him, because yeah, uh, they’ve seen why he gets worried. They’ve dealt with why he gets worried. And now, after last night, Peter feels like he’s making himself worried. He needs to stop, they’ve already moved past it, they’re still here, it’s all fine.
“Yeah, I imbued him with a worrying virus that will never be cured,” Tony says. “And now the next generation has to deal with it. Here we are.”
Peter shakes his head, smiling. He’s gotta relax. The sun is shining on the lake bright and beautiful, and May is actually getting a massage for the first time in years and everything is fine. It’s fine. 
He hears Tony chastising Ned again about his life jacket, gently, and Peter starts rowing out and around the outside of the lake. They’re the only ones out here right now, and he wonders how long that’s gonna last. He wonders if that’s something the resort set up, because it’s Tony, because of what happened last night, because Happy’s been intimidating people, and Peter simultaneously appreciates it and balks against the special treatment. But he’s with Tony, he should know it’s gonna happen.
He feels like he’s going a little faster than he should be going based on the way he’s rowing, like he’s really moving along. He glances over at MJ and she’s even further away from him, moving in the direction of the hotel.
“We’re not racing yet!” he yells, and he feels like Happy—constantly worried. But he’s worried about her in a different way and actually starting things with her in Europe made the whole thing worth it in a way, and now they’re together and it’s amazing but he’s just so worried all the time.
And now he’s stopped rowing all together, and he should be slowing down, but he’s still moving. Moving….fast. Maybe even getting faster.
Should that be happening? He doesn’t really kayak. He shifts around a little bit and looks down, and feels a little bit tucked in here. 
“Hey!” Tony yells. “You’re moving like you have a motor on you!”
Peter’s brows furrow, because he is, and he’s not rowing, and he should have lost any propulsion at this point, and he looks up and he sees MJ looking back at him, and she’s not moving anymore, and he glances back and both Tony and Ned look concerned—
And he gets the worst feeling in his chest, like an alarm, like his spidey sense but more warped and panicked, and he tries to get up without toppling over, because the kayak is still moving for no reason, speeding along and it’s going faster and faster. He drops his oar, and balances precariously for a few seconds before he leaps into the water.
Bubbles all around him, and muffled calls of his name—
And he’s only submerged for a couple seconds, because of the life jacket pulling him back to the surface, and he comes up just in time to watch the empty kayak lift up into the air, careening into the forest and disappearing into the trees. 
And he floats there, treading water, staring.
“What the fuck?” Ned yells. “Peter? Peter?”
“Peter!” MJ yells.
“Pete, we’re coming!” Tony yells. “Hold on!”
But Peter is just sort of. Staring. Staring off, at where the kayak disappeared. He stares over there. He stares. 
No thoughts, just. Insane.
“Was that supposed to happen?” Peter asks, his voice squeaking. “Is that—MJ you should probably—you shouldn’t be in there if you’re not, uh, prepared to go—flying—did anybody see it explode? Did it explode? Or did it just shatter, uh, well, wooden—wooden kayak, was it wooden? Or plastic? Either way I bet it’s not a full kayak anymore—”
He feels himself being lifted out of the water, and it’s Tony pulling him into the boat. He doesn’t know how they got here so fast but to be honest a kayak just went full fighter jet on him so he can’t be that confused. 
His shock has him gripped and he just sort of lays there like a rag doll as Tony and Ned pull him up, and he sees MJ rowing over to them. Thankfully, she’s still in her kayak, and it’s not—flying through the air.
“Hey, hey,” Tony says, once Peter isn’t in the water anymore. He’s got both arms around him, and Peter is laying against his chest, and Tony is patting his cheek and trying to peer around and meet his eyes. Ned has his hands on Peter’s knees and he’s just staring at him. 
“I just got a defective one,” Peter says, pointing over at the forest. “It’s okay. It was just—a flying one, we didn’t make sure we didn’t get a flying one. I hope MJ doesn’t have a flying one and it’s just not like. On a time delay I don’t know. MJ, just—hurry over here—” He waves her over. He wants her to hurry up. 
“Peter,” Tony says, and he pats Peter’s chest. “Are you alright? Did you twist anything when you jumped out, can you breathe—”
“Are kayaks supposed to do that?” Peter asks, feeling like he can hear his own voice echoing everywhere. “I didn’t think that was, uh, the case—”
“It’s not the case,” Ned says. “No. It’s not. It’s not the case.”
“Peter.”
MJ finally rolls up alongside them—
“I think you should get out of there,” Peter says, pointing at her. “It’s unsafe—”
“Something is going on,” MJ says, and she’s not looking at Peter. She’s looking at Tony.
~
Tony loves this kid, and this is supposed to be a fucking vacation. Tony loves this kid, and he believed him when he thought someone was in his room, even if the hotel was trying to sway them away from the idea. Tony loves this kid, and he just had to watch him abandon his kayak because said kayak was lifting off and destroying itself somewhere on the property. And kayaks don’t just fucking do that.
Tony stands close to Happy, well into his personal space. He’s got his hands on his hips, like a stern stance is gonna bring him any closer to an answer, and Happy sighs.
“I’ve done ten sweeps,” he says. “There’s nothing going on. There’s nobody here that isn’t supposed to be here. We even looked at the remains of the goddamn kayak and I didn’t find anything wrong with it.”
“There was something wrong with it,” Tony says. “It was flying. It was flying, speed wise, without Pete even rowing, and then it was flying, literally, after he had to abandon ship.”
“I know. It was in a million pieces.”
Tony sighs. They moved down to the Grove Lodge after it happened. Nobody told Pepper and May why, because Peter was insisting on not telling May, and he was also insisting on not leaving even though Tony wanted to leave, because if they left then they were leaving danger behind for the poor unassuming Mohonk guests. And if they leave, danger will probably follow them anyway, and Tony doesn’t know what move to make. 
He’s upset, because this was supposed to be a relaxing break for all of them, but especially for Peter, after everything he’s goddamn gone through. He’s upset because this place felt like his place, his haven, a place where he could get away and be secluded and safe, and now something is pursuing them here. Something is trying to hurt them.
“You haven’t found anything?” Tony presses. “Nothing?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Happy says, and he glances back at the front door of the lodge again. “I’m still looking, I’m not giving up, and I think we should be better located down here because we rented out the whole house and I told them not to come in for room service or cleaning or anything. I know we lose the nice high-up view—”
“It’s fine,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s afraid to even be discussing this in public. Anybody could be anywhere listening.
He doesn’t like feeling like he can’t protect these kids. 
“It looks like they’re targeting Peter,” Tony says, as quietly as he can. “And I can’t tell if that’s because of me, that they think—I mean the whole goddamn world thinks he’s my love child at this point, thinks May is my secret mistress or the sister of his secret mother, God knows, I don’t know what the most recent story is. But I can’t tell if they’re targeting him because of me or because of the other thing—”
“And the other thing is worse—the spider thing—”
“I didn’t specify on purpose, Hap,” Tony says, pinching the bridge of his nose. 
“Right, right—the innocuous other thing—”
“We’re lucky we got out of Europe with the other thing intact—”
“Yeah,” Happy says, shaking his head, and Tony wishes he had been there with him, had been there period. He would have torn Beck in half had he laid eyes on him. 
Why do they always target people he loves? Why not him? Blow him up. Kidnap him. But he guesses he’s been there already. He guesses they’ve done all that and it’s old hat to these assholes to go to him directly.
But this could be about Spider-Man too. There could be people that know who he is. People always find out, no matter how hard Tony tries, and Peter has made plenty of his own enemies. His own gallery of rogues looking to take him down.
“Just don’t tell May, if she asks,” Tony says.
“Oh, and don’t tell Pepper either?” Happy asks, in that stupid voice he uses to make fun of Tony. Tony glares, and Happy glares back. “They know by now something’s going on. They’re not dumb. They’re just not saying anything. But May will beat someone to death with anything she can get her hands on and so will Pepper, so maybe we should be sticking close to them.”
Tony sighs. “I just wanted—”
“I know—”
“And now—”
“I know,” Happy says. “We’re on it. We know it’s real, now, even if these people won’t cop to anything. I’m in their walls. Literally. Maybe I’m doing some things I shouldn’t be.”
Tony steps up onto the porch. “Don’t even tell me.”
“I won’t. But maybe I am.”
~
“Ned, why are you in here while I’m in the bathtub?”
“She’s in here!”
“I’m dating her.”
“Wow, that’s great,” Ned says, not making any move to get up from his spot on the gold lounge chair. “That’s great, I see how things are going. I see what direction we’re heading in.”
Peter scoffs. He warmed up a long time ago, and he’s getting really pruny, but he doesn’t want to get out just yet. He feels like something is gonna happen if he gets out. Like it’s all gonna start up again and maybe the house is gonna explode or their fridge is gonna grow arms and start trying to fight them or something. 
And he isn’t lazy. He’s always ready to fight.
Maybe he’s a little lazy. But not usually. He thought Europe was gonna be a Spider-Man free trip and look how that turned out. And he thought this was going to be calm and relaxing but now it’s become suspicious. And worrying. And he’s torn between leaving and staying and telling May and not telling May and he doesn’t know if she’s in danger too and sometimes he feels like everybody would be safer if he lived out in Alaska somewhere and nobody knew him.
Peter sighs, and MJ rubs his shoulder. Ned is still giving him that look and Peter ignores that look. He’s never been in a little claw-foot tub like this before. Tony doesn’t even have these in the compound. And a bubble bath? He hasn’t had a bubble bath since he was a kid and Ben was still alive. It almost distracts him from… whatever the hell is going on here.
“We’ve got two more days,” MJ says. “And we’re sticking it out.”
“We’re sticking it out,” Peter says. “I got my webshooters, I guess I’ll wear them if we go hiking tomorrow.”
“Someone is gonna push you off a cliff,” Ned says, raising his eyebrows. 
“We’re all going together, so nobody is gonna push anybody,” MJ says. She leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of Peter’s mouth. “Okay let’s leave so he can—get out.”
They both get up, and Peter watches as they argue.
“Oh, you’re not gonna help him?” Ned asks.
“Oh, you’re not?” MJ replies, nudging him as they move towards the door. “I thought that was your job, guy in the chair—”
~
They have dinner in the main building, and Peter watches his back. He only jumps once, when someone drops a tray full of plates, and he winces at the shattering and runs over there to help clean it up before they usher him away. They visit the horses in the stables, and Peter checks every nook and cranny to make sure somebody isn’t hiding in there. They watch May and Happy bust into the late jazz class that’s going on in the ballroom and Peter forgets to do anything because he feels like his face is going to catch on fire from all the blushing.
And he remembers to be paranoid when they get back to the Grove Lodge, and he can tell May is suspicious and they’re all watching him like hawks and he gets worried that Tony is the real target of whatever is happening here and he’s just a distraction. 
He can’t let anything happen to Tony. He can’t let anything happen to any of them.
Or maybe nothing is happening. And nobody was in their room. And the kayak was just—Parker luck. Too much strength, or something. 
He wakes up around three in the morning because he can’t stay asleep, and he sits down in the ‘great room’ and stares out into the darkness of the night. 
“Don’t jump,” Tony’s voice says, but Peter jumps anyway, twisting around and seeing him on the stairs. “You jumped! I said don’t jump! You heard me, I said it—”
Peter snorts, shaking his head. “You can’t just tell me not to jump and expect me not to jump—especially if you’re stepping out of the shadows—”
“There’s no shadows,” Tony says, stepping off the landing. “No shadows. I’m fully illuminated—”
Peter sighs. “You can’t sleep either?”
“Nah,” Tony says, walking over quietly. “Sleep and I, we have a very contemptuous relationship.” He shakes his head. “I just feel like shit because you can’t have a normal vacation. Whatever the hell is or isn’t going on here. You just deserve—Jesus, a full day, at the least, without something happening you have to question.” He sits down next to Peter and lets out a sigh.
“It’s not your fault. At all.”
“I mean—it might be. We’ve seen Europe as an example of very much my fault.”
Peter narrows his eyes at him. “That wasn’t your fault either. You know it wasn’t your fault, idiots blaming you for their own stupidity is not your fault—”
A huge crash outside. It sounds like one of those big weird planters falling over and knocking into the other planters and then it sounds like a bunch of feet shuffling and this isn’t Parker luck, this isn’t a hallucination, this isn’t a kayak doing non-kayak like things—
They both leap out of their chairs. The noises don’t stop and Tony is immediately stepping in front of Peter and holding his arm out, as if to shield him.
“Kid, go back upstairs—”
“No,” Peter whisper-shouts, grabbing his arm as the two of them move forward very, very slowly towards the back porch doors. “You almost died recently—you’re wearing pajamas and a house coat—”
“You don’t even know what a house coat is—”
Another crash, more skittering feet, and Peter focuses—he can hear separate heartbeats from the hearts he loves in this house. Two of them.
“Tony I’ve got my webshooters on—”
“That doesn’t matter you’re wearing pajamas too you’re not prepared—”
And when they’re just close enough to open the door, there’s a flash of bright white light. And Peter closes his eyes against it, and he can feel Tony turning around, trying to block him from it, and it must be more than just light because he hears a loud bang and the windows are shattering and it feels like a cataclysmic boom is pushing them through the air. The two of them fly backwards, and hit the far wall, and the last thing Peter hears before his head snaps back too far is 
GOD DAMMIT ALFIE YOU’RE TWO SECONDS TOO EARLY WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS JUMPING THE—
~
Peter gasps awake. His gasp echoes, and he sits up, and looks around, and he’s…nowhere.
He scrambles to his feet. He’s alone, and he’s nowhere, there’s nothing but blackness and his ears are popping like he’s high up and he sees—
He sees—
A kayak? Flying through the darkness? 
He watches it, cascading like a majestic bird, and he stares at it, and then it just—blinks out of existence. Like it was never even there.
Maybe he’s just dreaming. Maybe he never even woke up and went downstairs and talked to Tony. Maybe none of that happened at all. Maybe he’s still asleep and Ned is snoring somewhere and MJ is saying not beets in the salad in her sleep again and maybe—
God dammit, Alfie, I swear. I swear I’m gonna whack you in the head.
Peter spins around, in the complete darkness. He can see himself, his own body and his hands and his pajamas and his webshooters, like he’s got a spotlight on him. “Hello?” he calls. “What the hell is—whoever that is—”
And then the London Bridge appears huge and massive above his head and he starts to duck, nearly collapsing in on himself, and there’s no way this is actually happening this isn’t real and he shoots a web at it and it goes right through it and it hits—somewhere—somewhere in the darkness, it sticks, it—
ALFIE I THINK THEY’RE BOTH—
I KNOW IT I CAN TELL OKAY I’M NOT MORONIC—
It clicks in Peter’s head. This is someone using Beck’s tech. It’s someone using Beck’s tech. That’s what this is. This is some idiots using his tech and not knowing how to use it properly and—
Peter starts yelling. “Whoever you are, you’re—you’re not good at this—this isn’t gonna work out for you—”
The bridge disappears, and Peter starts running. His spidey sense is going berserk, and he can’t tell where the danger is, what direction, how far. He can’t tell what’s underneath his feet, it feels—crunchy, and a little old, maybe? All he knows is he needs to get the hell out of this illusion. It feels unstable.
He starts shooting his webs everywhere, and most of them fly away without hitting anything, and that makes him wonder where the hell he could be with so much space—
STARK IS DOING SOMETHING WITH HIS AI—
Peter’s heart lurches.
“Tony!” Peter yells, still running, and he holds his hands out and tries to find something, anything, and he shoots webs fucking everywhere, and then—
SHIT—
He runs right into someone. And they push him off, and then he gets a brass-knuckled fist to the face before he can get a hit off of his own. He stumbles backwards through the sharp pain, wrestling with the instinct to just fight even though it’s only darkness all around him and he can’t see who the hell he’s fighting with. 
Instead, he spits out a line of blood and keeps running.
Pulsing, face pulsing, beating with ripped skin and metal—
A massive kayak blips into the air briefly, and then it disappears.
Peter narrows his eyes, shaking his head, and what the hell is with the kayak—
He runs smack into something, like a train going accordion against a wall, and he stumbles backwards again, clutching at his crushed nose and trying to stay on his feet. The punch and the goddamn running into whatever that was has him dizzy, has him mangled and seeing stars in this manufactured darkness and then he hears Tony hollering his name at the top of his lungs—
“Peter! Peter!”
He sounds like he’s behind him—
“Tony!” Peter yells, all nasally. “Tony! Hey I’m over here—”
He turns around, changing his trajectory. And the darkness blips, breaking in large pixels, and Peter keeps running towards Tony’s voice and the darkness blips again, turns bright white, and then—
The illusion, or lack of one, breaks all at once, and Peter can see—
He’s on the roof of the main Mohonk building—he can see the lake, and the forest, and the mountains, settled in the calm of the night that feels decidedly not calm for him in particular, and he skids to a halt because he’s nearly running off the roof—
And he feels someone grab his arm and tug him back, and he spins around and it’s Tony, thank God it’s Tony—
“Hey!” Tony yells, and Peter looks at him and grabs his arm and they both look up and—
There are just two guys standing there. Two guys, both on the shorter side, definitely unkempt, and they’re holding a little gray box and they’re both just hitting it and hitting it and hitting it—
Peter aims his webs and just starts shooting. He feels like he shoots the most amount of webs he’s ever shot. The two guys fly backwards and get stuck to one of the upraised red parts of the roof, and they’re both gritting their teeth and trying to get out like they’re Scooby Doo villains.
“They must be associated with Beck,” Peter says, trying to catch his breath. His entire mouth tastes like blood. “They’ve gotta be.”
“I figured, with their shitty illusion attempts,” Tony says, and he sounds angrier than Peter’s ever heard him. He glances at Peter, starts to glance away, but then he looks at him again, fast, his brows furrowing severely. “Jesus Christ, you’re—bleeding everywhere—”
“Yeah, it feels—it doesn’t feel good—they didn’t hit you?” Peter asks.
Tony takes Peter’s chin gently, tilting his head and wincing. “No,” he says. “They didn’t goddamn hit me—”
“Well, the nose was from—running into something—I think that, uh, I think that’s a chimney over there, I think I ran into it—you didn’t run into anything—”
“No, I didn’t—”
“Oh, that’s great—”
Tony looks like he’s about to breathe fire, and he lets go of Peter and starts stomping towards the webbed bad guys.
“Why the hell would you be loyal to a moron like him?” Tony asks. “Beck? He couldn’t even keep a job at Stark Industries—”
“Yeah, buddy, because you stole his idea,” one of them hollers. They’re both still wiggling around, trying to get out.
Tony sneers. “He worked for my company executing an idea I designed and commissioned and decided to weaponize it when it was created to help deal with trauma and mental health—have you never had a job, an occupation—you know what, I don’t care, I don’t care—”
“Well he didn’t say that, he didn’t say any of that exactly,” the other guy says, the one with the longer hair. “He just said—”
“Nothing he says is true,” Peter yells, wincing when he touches his nose. “That guy is a liar, and a freak, and you believed him enough to follow us on vacation and—screw up every attempt you made to kill us—it was one of you guys in my room—”
“No, that was just testin’, that was just—we was just testin’, it was—you guys acted really dramatic—”
Peter scoffs. “Dramatic?”
And the two guys start giving each other nasty looks, even though they’re webbed shoulder to shoulder. “Maybe if you hadn’t dropped that dart gun in the lobby when they first got here—”
“Maybe if you hadn’t fallen out of the tree—”
“Maybe if you had made the goddamn kayak explode instead of fly—”
“Stop!” Tony yells, cutting his hands through the air like an angry teacher. “Stop. Stop. I’ve never wanted to hear Boston accents less. Stop. You’re arrested. We’ve arrested you.”
“You can’t do that, the Avengers aren’t cops,” the shorter one says. He’s got a tattoo on his neck that says GOLDBARES with a Haribo bear icon and Peter squints at it and he feels like his entire face hurts worse just from seeing it.
“You’ve committed several crimes,” Tony says, still pointing at them. “It’s—my personal security already—”
There’s a click. A very loud click. And both guys clam up real quick.
“What was that?” Tony asks.
Peter’s spidey sense is—ratcheting up, clear into his teeth—
“Tony!” he yells, because it feels like something is coming, and, just like in the Grove Lodge, there’s a big boom and they’re blown backwards by a seismic wave—
And they’re launched off the roof, and it feels like they’re moving in slow motion, through the dead dark of the night and the reflection of the lake, and Peter screams like a moron. He just screams, and then he shoots a web right at Tony and pulls him in with it, and then he shoots a web at the building and swings back around with him. 
They don’t land well, because Peter’s brain is on the backburner and there’s nothing on the front, and they roll in a heap, Peter tucking his face into Tony’s shoulder. When they come to a halt Tony pulls back, sitting up and touching Peter’s cheek.
“You in there?”
“I’m in there. Here,” Peter says, and he feels like he’s bleeding worse, somehow. “Did they blow up? Did those guys blow up? It sounded like they blew up.”
“We didn’t blew up we’re still over here but maybe I wish we woulda blew up because—”
And they start shouting at each other, but Peter tries to tune them out.
“Thank God you brought those things,” Tony says, tapping Peter’s wrist. “Thanks, bud.”
Peter blows out a breath, shaking his head and still just. Laying there. “Oh yeah, no problem. All good, just—completely normal.”
Tony sighs, and his eyes cut to the side. “Any other late traps ready to explode?” he yells, over his shoulder.
They stop arguing with each other. There’s a brief silence. 
“Uh. I honestly got no idea. We just brought the whole bag of tricks, I don’t know. There’s shit everywhere.”
Tony looks at Peter, slowly shaking his head.
“Fantastic,” Peter says. “Wonderful.”
~
“So, you weren’t in there watching us when we were getting our nails done in the spa?” Pepper asks. “I thought it was weird. I told May it was weird. That was these guys—”
Tony scoffs, and he feels like he instantly gets a headache, a migraine—
“Of course I wasn’t—of course—you thought I was just standing there? Staring at you in the spa? You didn’t think that was out of the ordinary—”
Pepper gives him a look, and Peter laughs from the hammock behind them.
“Yeah, when I went to get my nails done later you kept walking in and out,” Happy says. “But I thought you were just—I don’t know what I thought. But then you told me about the kayak thing later and I thought—well—I attributed it to that.”
“Happy went and got his nails done,” Ned whispers, somewhere behind Tony, too. “We could do that?”
“Who’s stopping you?” MJ says, quiet.
“Well, the whole—the whole situation stopped me, I guess, but I didn’t really think about it—”
“I’m glad it wasn’t you staring at us,” May says, standing near the railing and peering out into her binoculars. “Pepper said it was normal, but it was concerning me.”
Tony glares at Pepper, but she just bats her eyes at him like the picture of innocence.
“Sometimes Peter does that to me,” May says. “Just stares at me from behind a Lucky Charms box in the kitchen. That’s how I know something’s wrong.”
Tony snorts, and he turns around as soon as Peter starts protesting.
“I do not!” Peter says, shifting around in the hammock. “I do not do that.”
“It sounds like something you’d do,” Ned says.
“You’ve done that to me,” MJ says, clearing her throat.
Peter huffs, and everyone laughs at him, and Tony tries not to laugh too hard, because this started with his own wife acting like she thinks he’s capable of acting like some weirdo who stands around staring at people.
Tony sighs. He turns around, walking over and peering down at Peter. He braces his hand on the tree his hammock is attached to. “How’s the nose?” Tony asks.
“Broken.”
“It’s not broken anymore, we reset it.”
“It knows it was broken. I know too.”
He’s still got the butterfly bandages on the bridge of his nose, and it’s bruised and angry looking. He’s got a burst blood vessel in his eye, and the white part is dipped with red. Tony feels like shit because he got out of the whole ordeal relatively unscathed. Just a few bumps and bruises. Some whiplash. But Peter broke his nose again.
They hiked up to the Sky Top Tower, and the kids wanted to hang out once they got up here. They all thought Peter had earned the hammock. Happy refused to come, and he’s in charge of the security situation, anyway, so he couldn’t exactly abandon it to do a hike he didn’t want to do. 
They had to clear the whole damn resort out to get rid of any remaining traps and illusions. Tony had to bring in a whole team. Rhodey made fun of him on the phone when Tony told him, laughing for a good five minutes.
And sure, it’s stupid. Those guys are stupid and they had no idea what the hell they were doing, they couldn’t even attack properly. But that’s what happens when stupid people follow more powerful stupid people. They hold grudges. They make up shit in their heads. They cause problems.
And it’s never really funny when Peter is bloody at the end of it.
“I feel like I’m sinking,” Peter says, his brows furrowing.
He reaches out his hand, and Tony takes it, and he pulls him out of the hammock as MJ and Ned push on his shoulders. Peter groans like he’s a hundred years old, and Tony claps him on the shoulder.
May looks away from her binoculars. “How you doing, honeybunch?”
“Fine,” Peter says, letting go of Tony’s hand. “Incredible. Amazing.”
“Just a normal day for a hero,” Pepper says. “MJ, you’ll get used to it, May, you’ll never get used to it—”
“And Ned,” Ned says to himself. “You will be there every step of the way.”
Tony looks at Peter, and he wants to apologize. For all of it, for being a hero at all, for the goddamn radioactive spider at Oscorp and everything that came after. For stupid morons like Quentin Beck, who know the quickest way to hurt Tony is to attack this kid he’s nearly adopted as his own.
He doesn’t know what the hell to say, because Peter wouldn’t accept his apologies anyway. He never would. Peter is just appreciative of every moment. Even if the moments aren’t ideal.
“We’ve got the whole place to ourselves,” Tony says. “How about we have a pie bar when we head back down there? I can tip the kitchen staff two hundred percent when I ask. I don’t think anybody would be pissed off.”
He sees May smiling softly at him over Peter’s shoulder. Trust in her eyes, even after all this bullshit.
“Can there be…at least four key limes?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Four or five,” Tony says, ruffling his hair. “Or six or seven. Depending on the number of ovens in the joint.”
Peter grins at him, still bright and lively, despite everything.
Maybe they can salvage this vacation yet.
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