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wrathandgreed · 4 years

Note

(I hope requests are still open) So ive been thinking. How about the brothers reaction to MC taking a large step away from them when ever one of them raises their hand up. It could be as simple as a high five. MC used to be in a abusive relationship and is paranoid about getting hit

Note: (For the record, I don’t know if you sent me this on purpose - I’ve never done requests; I’ve literally just put out my very first OM headcanons. But I figured I could try. I’ve never been in an abusive relationship, but a number of my friends have. I really hope I can do this one respect - if anything about this is not on the level, please let me know! Also, if I missed a trigger warning in the tags, or tagged this wrong, let me know. Also, for the record, I tend to like soft!Brothers and I really wanted them to try and be better - not put the onus on MC to “get over it” or anything.)

Second note: After writing this, I’m not sure that most of these guys would be a good choice for an abuse survivor!

Third note: I am NOT good at keeping things short and, as usual, I went overboard with Asmodeus. Like, it should be its own fic at this point. But write what you want to read, right?

Warnings: references to domestic abuse, both physical and verbal. References to suicide baiting. Uncensored swearing.

~5K words

Lucifer

A strange choice; his perfectionism and exacting behavior sometimes make you remember how it was back in the human world; everything had to be JUST SO….or else.

And he’s threatened to kill you. Twice.

But there’s something inherently decent about him - and you live for the rare moments he laughs.

His perfectionism usually isn’t even about you, so you just kind of….ignore it.

You’re doing some of your RAD homework in Lucifer’s study.

It’s quiet there.

And, while he won’t do the work for you, he’ll definitely help when you’re stuck.

Also you can give him tea and soothing when he (inevitably) gets upset at his paperwork - Mammon’s bills, Asmo’s bills, Satan’s bills (hey, dark magic books are expensive).

You start hearing the shifting and muttering that herald the beginning of the rant.

You gather the tea and walk towards his desk.

“Devil’s sake!” Lucifer suddenly snaps out, slamming hand on his desk as he reads yet another ridiculous piece of paper.

It’s not at you, the anger isn’t at you, you KNOW it’s not at you, but you freeze anyway.

Slammed hands on desks, punched holes in walls, hands on you, always hands -

The cup of tea hits the floor and you’re out of the room before Lucifer can even look up.

He’s seen it all in your paperwork - the police reports, the restraining order, the lists of injuries - so he puts it all together before his study door closes behind you.

He knows better than to go after you immediately. You’ll want some solitude, some quiet on your own, to steady yourself a little.

If he goes after you now, it might frighten you more. Looks like hunting.

You need to know he’s calm, that he’s not acting or reacting out of emotion.

He takes his time cleaning up the spilled tea, straightening his papers.

When he shows up at your room, he has a mug of hot chocolate.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out before he can say anything. You made a mess in his study, and he’s such a stickler for everything being neat. He was angry before, but he’ll be even more angry now.

“No, I’m sorry,” he returns, and offers you the chocolate.

(You blink once. Has the Avatar of Pride ever apologized before? If so, it was never in your hearing.)

The two of you talk quietly for a time. He insists that you don’t need to apologize - ever. He insists that, while he appreciates the tea-and-break routine, it’s 100% not your responsibility to control his anger. It’s his. He says that his anger isn’t good for him anyway (just look at Satan) and he needs to take a break when that hot feeling starts.

Maybe he should start scheduling breaks; setting timers on his D.D.D. so that he no longer works long enough at once to let it all get to him.

He doesn’t want you afraid of him.

Mammon

Mammon is pretty much the only demon who HASN’T threatened your life. He often sounds irritated, but he’s never even sounded angry at you.

If anything, he’s a mush and an abuse victim himself. So he gets where you’re coming from, and tries really hard.

So you shouldn’t be afraid of him.

But….he moves too quickly. He’s constantly jumping from one idea to another, one topic to another, one emotion to another. And that’s just emotionally.

You can’t trust where his hands will be. Ever. And that’s not a sex thing.

Sometimes, his protection of you makes you feel safe. If anyone hurts you, Mammon will hurt them a thousand times worse.

He’s funny, and his hands on you are gentle, and once you tell him about your past, he tries really hard not to go back to his “stupid human” habit, because it hurts your feelings.

But sometimes, his protection feels like obsession. Why were you talking to that guy? C’mere, you’re MY human.

Then, inevitably, the tug on your hand or arm or waist, pulling you closer.

It starts simply enough.

You’re playing video games in his room. He’s not as much of a gamer as Levi, but he enjoys them.

Especially ones where you can be competitive or drive cars really fast.

He’s been getting more and more excited, coiled like a spring. And it’s from enjoyment, not anger, but that level of energy, in your experience, explodes at some point.

You get quieter, but that only makes him more boisterous. He wants you to join in the fun! C’mon MC, did you see that?! It was awesome!

After a really impressive win, he shouts in triumph and suddenly his hand is in front of your face for a high-five.

You recoil and hit the floor, crab-crawling backwards before you can stop yourself.

His look of complete confusion, in different circumstances, might be funny. He actually looks at his hand like he doesn’t recognize it.

He drops to the floor too, “Babe? What’s wrong? Y’okay?” And he reaches out a hand towards you.

When you flinch, he gets it.

He sits on the floor, stuttering out apologies, not even finishing one sentence before starting another. He makes sure he’s cross-legged, leaning back on his hands - non threatening, leaning away, hands not hidden, but not prominent, and in a position it would take him time to move from.

When you start crying, he can’t maintain that pose and crawls towards you, pulling you into a hug.

If you resist, you know he’ll let you go. And that’s why you just curl into him instead, crying out on his shoulder while he holds you close - but not tightly.

“I jus’ need ya to talk to me….let me know if I’m gettin’ to be too much. I know I’m loud. Just….. jus’ remind me, I’ll never be mad.”

Leviathan

Boy already has anger problems.

Envy’s kind of prone to it, you know?

On the one hand, he literally attacked you over a piece of TSL memorabilia.

On the other, he’s generally harmless the rest of the time.

He’s meek and shy and terrified of touching you - so, 95% of the time, you feel super safe with him.

When you wake with a nightmare, when something jump-starts your fear response, he talks you through it, easily abandoning whatever game or anime he’s involved in.

He’ll only touch you when you ask, or when you reach for him first.

But then there’s the MMOs.

You know you should leave when he starts getting mad. Not in a victim-blame sense, but for your own mental health it’s probably not a good idea to be around him when he raids.

He ALWAYS gets mad.

You’re sitting in his room, so involved in your handheld that you forget it’s his raiding night.

(Usually you make study plans with Satan, or shopping plans with Asmo on his raiding nights. You don’t want him to give them up; he enjoys them, but it’s not good for you to be around.)

After finally completing a tough level, you pop your headphones off just in time to hear Levi swear loudly.

You go still as a string of swear-filled trash talk fills the room. Things you’d never expect shy, needy Levi to say.

You know it really is just trash-talk - the threats of violence are just too absurd. Rip off their arms and use their own fingers to bowl their skull like a bowling ball? Really?

Also this is LEVI. Levi? The demon who needed you to taunt Mammon about his credit card because he couldn’t do it himself? He might be Admiral of Hell’s Navy and all, but he’s not exactly threatening.

You get to your feet, a little shaken but ready to just walk out of the room. It’s raid night, and this is why you don’t hang out on raid nights. You’re not comfortable around other people’s anger.

You’re halfway across the room when Levi suddenly shouts in frustration and throws his controller on the floor.

And you’re out the door.

Levi just glimpses you as he’s reaching to pick up his miraculously-unshattered controller from the floor.

“Henry?” He calls out, just a second too late.

With only one moment of hesitation, he logs out of his raid and goes to follow you.

You had less than ten seconds head start, but it takes him almost twenty minutes to find you, sitting out in the garden, gazing at nothing.

“MC?” He calls quietly. He doesn’t want to sneak up on you.

A single blink, and the tiniest flash of fear - he left his game to follow you.

Calculation: extreme concern - or extreme anger.

Conclusion: Undetermined.

So you wait.

“Are you ok?”

Okay, so not mad. “Aren’t you raiding?” You ask, instead of answering. You’re not ok, but you’re also not in the mood to talk about it.

“I, uh, h-had a, uh, power outage?” Even he doesn’t sound convinced, and you snort. Levi only has three modes: simple, stuttering, and verbose. Thankfully he goes with simple. “You ran out. I was worried.”

You debate brushing his concern off, but he deserves better than that.

“I’m not good with anger. Even if it’s not directed at me.”

“Oh.” Levi pauses as he considers. He knows the basics of what’s happened. “I - I mean, I could, you know, NOT - “

“No,” you say quickly and lean in to kiss his cheek. “You don’t have to change anything. Do your raids, make stupid threats to stupid players. Just….warn me to leave first?”

Levi nods, but he skips the rest of his raid to stargaze with you in the garden, arms wrapped around you from behind as he points out different Devildom stars and constellations to you. You get a lecture on how Devildom stars are used in Devildom sailing. It’s actually kind of interesting.

Satan

Okay, seriously? The Avatar of Wrath? Author speaking here, I literally can’t picture a worse combination than an MC who’s still recovering from domestic abuse to date the AVATAR OF WRATH.

Like, yeah, he has good control over himself, but he also loses his temper in a moment’s notice.

He has CANONICALLY tortured people for calling him strange.

He flips out with no warning and destroys parts of the house and his brothers just let him do it because he’s too powerful to control when he rages.

I can absolutely see MC falling for the quiet intelligence, the consideration, and so forth, but witnessing one (1) single rage should be enough to tell them that this relationship won’t be good for their mental health.

Let’s not even talk about the (again, canonical) desire for domination, power play, pet play, etc, that kind of defines our boy.

I mean, I love Satan. Out of all the bros, he’s the only one I could imagine legit dating in real life.

But I’m a little ball of rage myself, and I have no problem with anger, mine or anyone else’s.

And the fandom (including me) can totally play cute and love on their “soft little angy boi” all they want, and he definitely has soft, sensitive sides, and I may actively choose to ignore the whole domination/power play/etc when I fic or headcanon because I really love soft!Satan….. but he’s not.

I can’t even make a headcanon, because I cannot picture a situation in which this is actually GOOD for MC.

Because no matter how hard he’ll try and control it, and how much his rage probably won’t be directed at them, I just keep picturing “It won’t happen again” except it will, and it’ll just wind up being flashbacks to the number of times “It won’t happen again” ended in black eyes or an ER visit back in the human world.

And MC walking on eggshells for eternity to avoid setting him off, and how is that healthy?

Asmodeus

Another decent choice for MC, at least on the surface.

King of consent over here, at least how I picture him. Especially for someone he cares about.

Always accepts “no” about literally anything. Don’t want sex? We’ll cuddle. Cuddling a little confining? Holding hands is cool. Really don’t want to be touched at all right now? Gossip and tea!

You were coming to really care about the Avatar of Lust, and you believed what Simeon said about him - how much he desperately needed love and affection. You got it; you needed some, too.

I mean, even if he’d been a bit of a jerk, he’d warmed up significantly since the pact, so new that it still burned on your skin, was formed.

But even Asmodeus wasn’t without faults. However much he focuses on love, he can sometimes, really be….mean.

You’re standing on a balcony in Diavolo’s castle, having escaped for a few moments.

He’d always been catty, gossipy, filled with drama, but the genuine affection and likability of him sometimes made you ignore it.

His constant mocking of Luke you could put down to the whole angel/demon conflict.

His occasional snapping or poking at his brothers you could put down to being stuck in the same house with the same people for literal eons.

The only thing that might make up for your awful existence is if you just ended it.

The words haunt you as you stand looking up at Devildom’s endless nighttime.

How many times did you hear similar words yourself? How useless you were, how much of a burden, no way you’d survive on your own without him, and he didn’t even want you that much. Why didn’t you just go kill yourself?

Dammit, you think to yourself as Asmo steps out on to the balcony.

“Darling! Why are you out here all alone? Or are you waiting for some company?”

When he goes to put his arms around you, you just say “no.” Simply, quietly, emotionlessly.

Asmo circles around to look at you. “Something wrong, sweetness?”

You take a breath. Another. You consider swallowing it, again, don’t want to start a fight. Back down, put on a smile, ignore it.

But realize you can’t. You spent years dealing with this crap, and you’re not going to do it again.

“You’re mean, Azzy.” Your voice is quieter than you expected. You look up into the demon’s eyes. To his credit, he looks deeply confused and, as you take a step away from him, hurt. Before he can open his mouth, you continue, “How could you say that to Mammon?”

“Are you defending MAMMON?” He asks, torn between incredulity and anger.

“Right now? Yes. But also Luke, Lucifer, and everyone else you talk shit to. Or about. He’s your brother. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to hear that out of someone you love?”

Dismissively, “Oh, if it actually bothered him, he’d - “

“What? Beat you up? That’s not like him. So he takes it. And takes it, and takes it, until, because it’s all he hears, he believes it. And then why fight back? Why defend yourself, if you’re such a piece of shit? You deserve it, after all, right?”

You don’t even realize it, but you’re crying by this point. And you’re mad. All the mad you couldn’t fling at your abuser before is filling you now. You don’t even know if you’re talking about Mammon or yourself anymore. Maybe both of you.

“And even though he’s beaten down, you keep going. When he won’t respond to the usual anymore, when that doesn’t seem to hurt him, rile him up, you go worse. You told your brother, who you claim to love, to kill himself. We’re barely even friends. So what happens when I annoy you? Should I just go die now, save you the trouble of telling me to do it later?”

You step right up to him, into his personal space, almost nose to nose, and stare directly into his red-yellow eyes. “Is this who you are, Asmodeus?”

Asmo has gone from defensive; incredulous and angry, to baffled, hurt and worried in just a few minutes. But at your last, pointed question, he jerks his head back as though you slapped him. Not knowing what to say or do, he reaches for you again, but you dodge his hand and brush past him back into the castle.

You get Solomon, the only one who won’t ask questions, to switch rooms with you. (Luke is thrilled; teaching him to play gin rummy actually cheers you up a little.)

For a few weeks, you and Asmodeus pass each other in the House without speaking. Then, one evening, there’s a knock on your door and Asmo slides into your room.

He looks….well, not awful; he could never look awful. But the glow is gone from his skin and, unless you’re mistaken, he hasn’t bothered doing his hair. He looks like he’s missed some sleep.

You look up from your homework and watch him. Silently. It’s not your job to fill the silence anymore.

More than most of them, Asmo despises being vulnerable. But it’s fix this or not, and the pact is pushing him to be on good terms. At least, he blames the pact. It’s easier than acknowledging how much the weeks of silence have worn on him. How awful it was watching you walk to class with Mammon instead of him.

And no matter what, he values honesty in his relationships, no matter what kind of relationship. So he would be honest.

“I don’t know,” he says quietly.

Lean back in your chair, hands folded. Waiting.

“I don’t know….if that’s who I am. Maybe it is.”

“Why are you here, Asmo? What do you want?”

“I want you to stop ignoring me!”

Steady face. “I spent too many years having someone talk to me the way you spoke to your brother. The rest of it - the gossip, the side comments, the cattiness…. it’s not your best side. In fact, it’s pretty unattractive when it’s mean, but I could handle it. But I can’t handle cruelty. I don’t want to be around it anymore.”

A pause. “What is my best side then?”

Disgusted, you chuck a pen in his direction. “Fuck’s sake, Asmo. Get out.”

“No! Not, not that. If that’s my bad side, the **unattractive** part, then what’s the other half?”

You search his face, but he doesn’t seem to be fishing for compliments. If anything, he looks….lost. Confused. And you wonder if anyone’s ever said anything to him, good or bad, about who he was; not what he looked like or how he fucked.

It’s not your responsibility to psychoanalyze a demon, you think to yourself. But you’re not someone to walk away. You wonder how it’s possible for someone to be thousands of years old, and know less about themselves than you know about yourself in just a few decades. And you have nothing to lose by being kind.

“You can be wonderfully kind, Asmo, and generous. You want to see the beauty in everyone and everything. As nasty as you can be with it, I’ll give you points for honesty. You connect with people, and the times you’re actually genuinely interested in them is….charming.”

He’s silent for a few minutes. Then he nods, as if he’s made a decision. “Okay. Tomorrow, after RAD, do you want to go for bubble tea?” At your confusion, he just smiles and continues, “It’s like skin care, isn’t it? Attractiveness requires effort, darling, until it becomes habit. If I want to be attractive inside as well as out, I’ll have to practice the good things, so they outweigh the bad. I can’t do that alone. I need a practice partner who won’t tolerate failure, right? At least until it’s habit.”

You feel your entire brain have to reboot before you can give a coherent response.

“Tomorrow. One hour. I have papers due.” You wait until he leaves your room before you smile.

Beelzebub

Probably the best choice for this MC.

The most emotionally intelligent of his brothers.

Also the most sincerely kind and gentle.

But also, like Satan, prone to sudden outbursts and rages. They’re all food-related (or, rather, lack-of-food-related), but they’re there.

A smart MC always carries snacks while dating Beel. Phone, wallet, keys, fried bat wings.

Strangely, though, the food-induced rages don’t really bother you. It’s not anger, really, and it’s never once been directed at you. And, unlike back in the human world, there’s a concrete way to help: feed him.

Today you have a whole backpack full of snacks.

You’re with Belphie, watching one of Beel’s games at RAD.

(You’re not sure Belphie wants to be there, but you’re not allowed out alone, and Belphie decided to take you - keep you safe and support his brother. Two birds, one Belphie.)

Belphie tends to nap against your shoulder any time the ref goes to make a call, but he’s somehow always awake to clap for his brother.

(You stand on your chair and cheer, but that’s you.)

The game is a close one; double overtime. Even Belphie is too tense to sleep towards the end.

And at the end of double overtime, Beel manages the single extra goal that results in victory.

You cheer yourself hoarse for your demon boyfriend.

The whole stadium is crazy, so you hang back and wait. Belphie hates crowds and you’re not keen on them yourself. It’s going to take awhile for Beel to make it through the crowd to you anyway.

You’re standing in the aisle, scrolling through your phone, when suddenly there’s a loud shout and arms wrap around you from behind and lift you up.

You gasp, and your scream strangles in your throat so what comes out of you is nothing more than a squeak. Your phone goes flying.

You’re frozen for a moment as panic surges. You want to fight and you’re fighting your own brain to push the panic into your limbs so you can fight for yourself.

You vaguely feel a tugging and you hear someone - Belphie? - insisting that you be put down and then your feet are on the ground but there’s no such thing as your legs and you start to fall before the same arms help you gently sit. The ground is gross, but you’ll only care about the damage to your skirt later.

Everything is fuzzy and confusing; you’re not even sure of what you’re looking at until your vision is filled with blue and violet.

You know that swirl of color. That’s a SAFE color, and you start feeling your poor brain start to work again.

You blink into your boyfriend’s blue-violet eyes; you realize he’s cupping your face with his hands and the weird underwater noises start to sound like his voice. You realize, very belatedly, that what probably happened was Beel lifting you up in a victory hug.

“M’okay,” you say, but it sounds robotic. It takes a few more seconds - you don’t know how many - for all of your senses and brain to actually begin working in sync again. You start hearing the sounds of the crowd departing the stadium, and you hear Beel continuing to say your name and trying to get you to answer questions. You almost smile; but smiling wouldn’t make any sense.

“I’m okay,” you say, and you must sound a little more convincing this time because Beel looks relieved. He shoots a few more questions at you, and you realize they’re the kinds of questions people get asked when someone thinks they have a concussion or head trauma.

Your answers satisfy him, so Beel helps you to your feet.

“What was that?” He asks. “Low blood sugar? Are you hungry?”

You have to smile at his very-typical diagnosis. A little sugar wouldn’t hurt, though. For some reason, eating grounds you after something like this. You dig a chocolate bar out of your Backpack of Snacks (Snackpack?) and hand the rest to him.

He impatiently takes a bag of chips out of it but doesn’t open it. He looks at you expectantly and you realize he won’t eat until you do. So you take a bite of the chocolate and he looks more relieved.

“So what the fuck WAS that?” Belphie asks as the three of you move towards the exit.

“Later.” You haven’t yet found a reason to really tell Beel (and, by extension, Belphegor) about everything. You do later that night.

Beel swears he’ll never surprise you like that again. He’s a lot more cautious about touching you for a few days, but eventually things go back to normal between you.

Belphegor

Author note: Dude fucking murdered you, deliberately, in cold blood, and taunted you for your gentleness and desire to help as you died. But let’s say you can get past that - or try to. Probably the second-worst choice, after Satan, for this reason.

You started dating Belphie for the strangest reason: you could trash-talk the shit out of him.

He kept trying to be around you after you made the pact (which, let’s face it, you made so you could MAKE SURE he never hurt you again). Until, after politely dodging him wasn’t working, you told him to take his emo-boy routine and fuck off somewhere else.

You flinched, waiting for retaliation, but he just blinked at you and told you to stop being a brat.

And he was smiling.

But it wasn’t a mean smile - it was a smile that shared the joke.

Your lips quivered into a returning smile, and you threw another insult at him.

He topped it, and hurled one back.

Before you knew it, the two of you were screaming obscenities at each other in the middle of the common room and laughing like hyenas.

For some reason, Belphie calling you a dumb bitch wasn’t an insult. It was a mark of endearment. And it didn’t hurt your feelings or make you afraid.

It was empowering to call him a dickhead if he did something you didn’t like and have him simply laugh and amend his behavior. Nothing bothered him.

He didn’t move quickly; in fact he didn’t move at all if he could help it.

But you would remember, sometimes, the way his hands felt on your throat, or how cold his eyes had been. And you couldn’t say it was a momentary madness, because he’d planned it. He’d been imprisoned because he wanted to kill humanity.

You put it out of your mind. It was something you were good at, after all.

Until the two of you sat down to watch a movie one evening. A simple plot hole sparked a discussion that wound up being….not an argument, but definitely a difference of opinion.

As usual, insults were flying fast and furious when suddenly Belphie laughed and smacked you with his pillow.

It wasn’t an angry move, and it wasn’t hard enough to hurt. It wasn’t a hard blow at all! But the surprise had you falling back on the couch. And the fear had you curling into a ball, arms wrapped around your head protectively, legs curled up to guard your middle.

There is dead silence.

“Hey, Brat?” Belphie asks. When you don’t answer, he calls your name instead.

You slowly, very slowly, begin to uncurl yourself from your position. It takes time for the residual fear to leave, but enough is gone to leave room for embarrassment.

“Sorry,” you mutter.

“I get it,” is the answer.

Cue awkward silence.

“I figured you were still afraid of me.”

“I’m not!” When he just stares blandly at you, you sigh. “Okay, a little. If you wanted to hurt me - again - you’ve had a ton of opportunities. So I don’t think you want to. But…..”

“It’s a hard thing to get over.”

“Yeah. And not just you.” Hesitantly, you start to tell him. You want to just give him the basics, but once you start talking, you can’t seem to stop. He doesn’t interrupt, barely seems to blink, just watches you. A blank vessel to help you empty the poison that fills you sometimes.

You see his jaw tighten as you go on, but you know the anger isn’t at you.

When you finish, he’s silent for a few moments. Then he gathers you up to him. “I’ll never hurt you,” he says.

You look up at him with the same bland look he gave you a moment ago.

“Again,” he amends. “I’ll never hurt you again.”

You let out a watery laugh and he hugs you a bit tighter.

“You’re still a brat, though.”

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trini-trin-trin · 3 years

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Sharing this from a FB group that I am in. I was very moved by the article and felt affinity with the experiences shared. A really sweet read.

Here is the article if you don't want to click on the link (I know it is a little long, but well worth your time to read!):

The letter I received ten years ago was unsigned and bore no return address. Clearly its author did not expect, much less want, a reply. A message in a bottle, from no one to no one, that letter still remains the most bizarre form of communication. It asks nothing but to be read, promises nothing but to share a few facts and feelings, and, seeing that it must have been dashed off on a lined yellow sheet that seemed hastily torn out of a pad of paper, the author would not be surprised if, after skimming through it, the recipient decided to crumple and lob it into the closest dust bin.

The letter is one page long. One page is enough. The handwriting is uneven, perhaps because the author had lost the habit of writing in longhand and preferred the keyboard. But his grammar is perfect. The man knew what he was doing. I assume he was writing the note by hand because he didn’t want traces of it on his laptop, or because he knew he was never going to send it as an email and risk a reply. Now that I think of it, he probably didn’t care if it even reached its recipient, a local Bay Area reporter who had mentioned my novel about two young men who fall in love one summer in Italy in the mid-1980s. The reporter eventually forwarded it to me, minus its envelope with the postmark. It took no time to see that all the author of the letter was looking for was a chance to blurt out the words he couldn’t dare breathe elsewhere.

My book had spoken to him. His letter spoke to me.

So here it is: dated April 16, 2008.

I came upon Mr. Aciman’s book while on a business trip back East. Not the type of book I am normally able to read, so I bought a copy for the flight home. I think I’m glad I did.

You see, I was Elio. I was 18 and my Oliver was 22. Though the time and place were different, the feelings were remarkably the same. From believing that you are the only person who has these feelings, to the whole “he loves me – he loves me not” scenario, Mr. Aciman got it right. I was particularly impressed with the attention he gave to the morning after Elio’s and Oliver’s first encounter. The guilt, the loathing, the fear. I felt it too much. I had to put the book down for a while.

But in the end I was able to finish the book before we landed at SFO. Which was good, because I couldn’t take the book home. Unlike Elio it was I who married and had children. My Oliver died from AIDS in 1995. I’m still living a parallel life. My name is not important. His name was Dwight.

Instead, I kept the letter. I kept it for ten years.

What moved me was not just its sobering matter-of-factness or its hint of downplayed sorrow, but the associations it provoked in my mind. It reminded me of those short, clipped messages to loved ones, written by people about to be shipped off to the death camps who knew they’d never be heard from again. There is a chilling immediacy about their hurriedly scribbled notes that say everything there is to say in the fewest possible words — there wasn’t enough time for more, no smarmy pieties, no hand-wringing, no treacly hugs and kisses before the tragic end. It also made me think of the moving phone messages left by those who finally realized they were not going to make it out alive from the Twin Towers and that only their family’s answering machine was going to take their call.

“My name is not important,” he writes, almost as an apology for remaining anonymous; yet the author drops quite a number of hints about himself — hints he likely knows will stir his reader’s wistful curiosity to know what made him write the letter in the first place, what he hoped to accomplish, and if writing did indeed help. The letter itself allows us to see that he travels for business. We also sense that he probably lives in the Bay Area and that he travels not infrequently to the East Coast, since, as he writes, he is “back” in the East. And we know one thing more: that he simply needed to come out and tell someone that a man called Dwight had been his lover when the two were young. The rest is a cloud. We’ll never know more. Writing has served its purpose. We write, it seems, to reach out to others. Whether we know them or not doesn’t matter. We write to put out into the real world something extremely private within us, to make real what often feels unreal and ever so elusive about ourselves. We write to give a shape to what would otherwise remain amorphous. This is as true about authors as about those who want to correspond with them. Over the years, many have written to me either after reading or seeing Call Me by Your Name. Some tried to meet me; others confided things they’d never told anyone; and some even managed to call me at the office and, on speaking about my novel, would eventually apologize before bursting out crying. Some were in jail; some were barely adolescents, others old enough to look back at loves seven decades past; and some were priests locked in silence and secrecy. Many were closeted, others totally out; some were widows who felt a resurgence of hope if only by reading about the loves of two young men called Elio and Oliver in Italy; some were very young girls eager to meet their long-awaited Oliver; and some recalled former gay lovers whom they’d occasionally bump into years later but who’d never acknowledge what they’d once shared and done together when both were schoolmates and neither was married. All were keenly aware of living a parallel life. In that parallel life things are as they perhaps should be. Elio and Oliver still live together. And no one has secrets there.

Unlike Dwight’s lover, everyone who took the time to write to me did not withhold their names, but all had, at one point or another, withheld something very primal. They withheld it from themselves, from a relative, from a friend, a classmate, or colleague, or from a beloved who would never have guessed what troubled longings seethed below their averted gaze whenever they crossed paths.

Some readers wrote to tell me they felt that my novel had changed them, and given them new insights into themselves; some felt it was urging them finally to turn a new leaf in their lives. But some couldn’t go so far and, despite their perfect command of language, confessed lacking the words to explain why they were so moved by my novel or why they felt an unresolved longing for things they’d never considered or desired before. They were experiencing an upwell of emotions and of ungraspable might-have-beens that were asking to be reckoned with because they seemed more real than life itself, a sense of themselves that beckoned from an opposite bank they’d never known was there and whose potential loss now was a source of inconsolable grief. Hence their tears, their regrets, and the overpowering sense of being lost in their own lives.

And yet, they said, theirs were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of recognition, as though the novel itself were a mirror for readers to watch their own emotions laid bare before them. These responses made me aware that Call Me by Your Name does not call attention to anything readers didn’t already know, nor does it bring new truths or revelations; all it does is shed new light on things that were long familiar but that they never took the time to consider. It would be so tempting to say that they are reminded of their forgotten first loves; the truth is that all loves, even those that occur late in life, are first loves. There is always fear, shame, reluctance, and not a tiny dose of spite. Desire is agony.

Everyone who’s read Call Me by Your Name understands not only the struggle both to speak and hold back their truth but also the shame that comes whenever we want something from someone. Desire is always cagey, always secretive — we’ll tell everyone we know about the person we crave to hold naked in our arms, but the very last one to know this will be the person we crave. Same-sex desire is even more guarded and watchful, especially in those who are just discovering their sexuality. Awkwardness and desire are strange bedfellows at a young age, but shame and inexperience are just as paralyzing as fear when we watch them tussling with the urge to be bold. You’re torn between the raw horniness that makes you dream scenes you hope to forget as soon as you’re up and the scenes you pray you’ll dream again and again — if dreams are all you’ll have. Silence and solitude exact a cost that leaves us emotionally wrecked. At some point we need to speak.

So “is it better to speak or die?” asks Elio, the narrator of Call Me by Your Name, quoting words penned by the sixteenth-century Marguerite de Navarre in her collection of tales known as The Heptameron. Marguerite was the sister of King Francis I and the grandmother of Henry IV, himself the grandfather of Louis XIV, hence she was plenty familiar with court intrigue, gossip, and the risks of opening up to someone who may not welcome what’s in our heart and could easily make us pay for it. Not everyone who has written to me has dared to speak their hearts to those they loved. Some have sought silence — slow, lingering droplets of quiet desperation taken every night before bedtime until they realize they’ve been dead and didn’t even know it. Many have written to me with the feeling of having missed their chance when someone tethered his rowboat to their jetty and simply asked them to jump in. “Some sentence or thought on almost every page,” writes a reader, “triggers tears and knots my throat and chest. Tears well up in my eyes on the subway, at my computer at work, walking down the street. Perhaps I am weeping in part because I know that at my age there is virtually no possibility of experiencing anything remotely comparable to what Elio experiences with Oliver.” Someone else writes, “Reading Call Me by Your Name made me feel a love I never had.” A happily married 50-plus colleague took me aside and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this much in love in my whole life.” “I'm 23,” tweeted someone else, “and have never felt such love, until I read Call Me by Your Name. I feel like I lived it.” “Elio and I are essentially the same age,” writes a teenage girl. “I have never really experienced his environment of the Italian summer…My experiences have only taken place halfway between nature and smog, however I have felt the same tension, fear, guilt and overwhelming love that you express perfectly through both Elio and Oliver…Finding myself in Elio was something I never expected and I’m positive that I won’t experience anything quite like it ever again. The first girl I ever loved remains…the only girl I have ever loved and though everything she and I shared…lives now as a secret between two friends.” “I finished reading Call Me by Your Name a couple of days ago,” writes someone else, “and wanted to let you know how much it affected me. It felt like a narration of my thoughts that I had systematically buried long ago.” And finally this from a 72-year-old: “I was fascinated by the idea of parallel lives where would I have been if I had gone with him, where would I be if I traveled alone? Maybe the point is just what do I do with the gift you have given me during the remainder of my life.”

There are at least 500 more such letters and emails.

Some find themselves weeping at the end of the film or the novel, not for what happened long ago or for what did not and might never happen in their own lives but for what has yet to happen, for the terrifying moment when they too will soon have to decide whether to speak or die. This from an 18-year-old: “[Your novel] gives me hope that one day I will meet someone whom I desire so badly that I’ll actually find it in me to make a move, the way Oliver is that someone for Elio. Maybe my Oliver will also turn out to be someone that I realize I love as well as desire.” She was crying for a week, as was this 15-year-old young man: “I stopped reading…because I didn’t want [the book] to end, didn’t want the wounds that you caused me to close, I didn’t want to overcome, for some reason that I have yet to find out. I wanted to stay a wreck, emotionally and mentally fragile….My mother handed me tissues because she had never seen me cry like this. I had finished your book and ‘moved’ is too weak a word to express what your book had done to me. Here a week later and it is literally all I can think about, not my midterms coming up, but…Elio and Oliver and if it is better to speak or die. You answered questions I didn’t even think I had.”

Indeed, the whole novel seems to enable the outing of all manner of feelings, feelings from Elio’s relentless inward journey and obsessive self-examination that readers are invited to identify with. Through Elio’s unfettered introspection they too feel exposed and sliced open like a crustacean without a slough, now forced to look at itself in the mirror. No wonder they are moved. The mask that is torn off their faces is not just the mask that conceals same-sex desires from themselves and from others. Rather, it is the realization, through Elio’s voice, of what they truly feel, who they truly are, what they fear, what bears their signature, and what coy little shenanigans they go through to read others and hope to reach them. Some identified with some effusive sentences in my novel so much that they had them tattooed on their bodies. They even attach photos of these tattoos. People have also tattooed peaches on themselves!

But what moves most people — and this is as true now as it was when the novel first came out — is the father’s speech. Here he not only tells his son to nurse the flame and “don’t snuff it out” after his son’s lover has left Italy, but that he too, the father, envies his son’s relationship with a male lover. This speech tears away the last vestige of a veil between reader and truth and is a moving tribute to the irreducible honesty between father and son.

Most readers have written to me about the scene because the father’s speech rekindles the very difficult moment when they decided to come out to their parents — or, as is often the case with people 60, or 70 or older, it reminds them of the conversation they wished they’d had but never did have with their parents. This is the loss no one forgets and from which no one recovers after seeing Call Me by Your Name. It bears the very essence of that precious and life-defining might-have-been moment that never happened and never will.

Here is the speech:

“Look…[y]ou had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!...

“… {L]et me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.”

I received the anonymous letter sometime in early May 2008. At the time, I was staying at my parents’, because my father was suffering from throat and mouth cancer and was already in hospice care. He had refused radiation and chemotherapy, so I knew his days were numbered; though morphine was clouding his mind, he was still lucid enough to bandy a few quips about a host of subjects. He had stopped eating and drinking water because swallowing had become very painful. One afternoon while I was stealing a nap, the phone rang. A reporter I’d met in California had just received a letter, which she wanted to share with me. I told her to read it over the phone. After she’d read it I asked if she felt she could mail it to me. I wanted to show it to my father, I said, and explained he was dying. She felt for me. We talked about my father for a while. I told her I was trying to make it up to him these days, and that he too had been exceptionally easy to be with. How was it growing up with him? she asked. Tense, I replied. Always is, she added. Then the conversation ended, and she promised to mail the letter soon.

After hanging up, I got out of bed and went in to see him. Over the past few days, I had made a point of reading to him, which he liked a great deal, especially now that he was having difficulty focusing. But rather than read to him the memoirs of Chateaubriand, one of his favorite authors, and feeling buoyed by the letter I’d been read on the phone, I asked if he’d like me to read from the French translation of Call Me by Your Name, the galleys of which I had just received from Paris that very morning. Why not, since you wrote it, he said. He was proud of me. So I began to read from the very beginning, and soon enough I knew I was opening up a subject neither he nor I had ever broached before. But I knew he knew what I was reading and why I was reading it to him. This made me happy. Perhaps it made him happy as well. I’ll never know.

That evening, after the rest of us had dinner, he asked if I could continue reading from my novel. I was nervous about arriving at the father’s speech because I didn’t know how he’d react to it, though he was the kind of father who would have given that very same speech himself. But the speech was two hundred pages away still, and that would have taken many, many days. Perhaps I should skip some parts, I thought. But no, I wanted to read him the whole book. My father didn’t last long enough to hear the father’s speech. And when the letter finally arrived from California, he was already gone. His name was Henri, he was 93 years old, and he inspired everything I’ve written.

#andre aciman #CMBYK Book #call me by your name #cmbyn #elio x oliver

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anntoldst0ries · 3 years

Text

Everything else is just the weather

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count: ~5.3k (I sinned!) Summary: Ethan takes Elle out on their “first” date. Category: Fluff Warnings: None

A/N: It has literally taken me ages to finish this fic. To the point that I couldn’t look at it anymore, but here it is. I had it in mind for a really long time and now that OH is back, I feel like I’m ready to show it to the world. As always thank you for your support and I hope you like it!

This fic is part 2 of birthday present for my friend, part 1 is the fan art which you can see here. Once you read the fic, the fan art makes more sense :)

This is my submission for CFWC Silly Love Stories, Day 12: Date night.

Loud knocks resonated throughout the room.

"Come in!"

"Good morning, Mrs. Peterson.”

“Good morning, Dr Valentine. I think you are the only doctor in this hospital with some sort of manners, everyone else just waltzes in here as if it was a damn barn!”

“Hospital or no hospital, everyone has their right to privacy.”

“Thank you, child. Once again, please call me Faye."

"Alright Faye, but only if you call me Elle.” She smiled sweetly, and the whole room seemed to be suddenly lit by a thousand suns.

“How are you feeling? Are the meds making a difference?"

"They are. I am ready to be discharged today.”

"Not so fast. I am not ready to say goodbye to you yet."

“Why would you possibly like to be lumbered with an old nuisance like me for even a second longer than necessary?”

Elle just laughed and shook her head. The ‘nuisance’, as the elderly lady so lovingly put it, was exactly what she loved about her job. She loved spending time with her patients, she loved their stories and their worldly wisdom. It made her sad to see how many of them thought they didn’t matter or considered themselves and their lives boring. To her, they were anything but.

Many of Edenbrook’s staff members kept asking themselves: what is it about her? She was a great doctor, no two ways about it, and she was a genuinely nice person. But what was the source of power she had over people? If she woke up one day and decided to start a rebellion, patients would have most certainly followed her, even if it meant they’d be leaving the premises of the hospital with naked butts or trailing their IVs behind them. Doctors, nurses, administration, cleaners and security would follow shortly. She only had to say a word.

And how on Earth was she capable of turning Dr Ramsey, the grizzly bear of Edenbrook, into a benign teddy bear with as little as one look? It was beyond everyone’s apprehension.

Had they spent more time actually observing her, rather than gossiping in the corners, the answer would have unveiled in front of them within minutes.

It was very simple.

Noelle was truly curious about people. She genuinely liked them and was determined to get to know their story, for it helped her diagnose them faster and also satiated the young doctor’s hunger for knowledge.

Patients never felt like “curious cases” or “numbers” in her presence. They were… themselves - people with hopes, dreams, fears, pet peeves and odd habits. They were human.

So little and yet so much.

Those never touched by serious illnesses often failed to understand that sickness strips you of your dignity and becomes your identity. Your true self becomes covered by this weird, annoying sticker that wouldn’t come off no matter how hard you tried to remove it.

But this young woman, despite the nature of her profession, somehow managed to notice what was hiding beneath this misleading layer.

Had all these gossipers spoken to her patients, that’s exactly what they would have heard.

"What's happening today?" The older lady asked with a flick of curiosity in her wrinkle-haloed eyes.

"What do you mean, Faye?" The young doctor sounded genuinely baffled by the out-of-the-blue question.

"Well, I am no diagnostician, but I believe I am rather observant and you radiate with happiness. Something special is happening today, am I right?"

"Yeah, you are right." Elle blushed like a teenager caught in a lie. "My boyfriend is taking me on a surprise date today, but he won’t say a word about it, so I'm super excited to find out what he planned for us. He usually isn't one for romantic gestures, so the secrecy is killing me."

"Do you think he's gonna pop the big question?" Faye’s eyes lit up with excitement.

"No, we're not there...yet." Elle faked a smile, but a tone of doubt and sadness coloured her voice. They probably never will be, those things weren’t in the cards for Ethan, as he already stressed once.

But once was enough and she didn’t dare mention the subject again.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he's got some big guns in store, I would if I had a lady like you." - a male patient lying in the bed adjacent to Elle’s patient added smiling flirtatiously.

"Jerry, you were supposed to focus on getting better, not stealing my girlfriend." They all jumped when a deep baritone echoed throughout the room, hitting present company like a wrecking ball. She must have left the door ajar or Ethan could penetrate the walls soundlessly, because no one heard him coming.

Exactly how long has he been standing there for and how much did he hear?

"Dr. Ramsey, flirting makes your blood flow faster. Isn't it the very definition of life itself?” Jerry’s tone was brisk and lively.

"Well, it definitely isn't the definition of recovery after a heart attack." Ethan used his authoritative doctor’s voice but knew this wasn't a battle he was going to win. Jerry had something he didn't: a couple more decades of life experience under his belt and even the best medical school in the country couldn’t compete with this.

"Besides, Dr. Ramsey, I don't think that the beautiful Dr. Valentine here fancies old farts like me."

"That's where you are wrong, Jerry, looks like this is exactly the type I fancy." The two women laughed, however Ethan was far from amused. "Dr. Ramsey is 10 years older than me."

"10 years? What is 10 years in these times? Nothing. When I was getting married 40 years ago, it was something. But today? Look at all them playboys with girls younger than my granddaughter. 10 years is actually a very healthy difference. Men are immature and slower with growing up emotionally. So I'd say you've caught up, Dr. Ramsey, and the two of you are emotional peers now.”

“Thank you for the fascinating lesson in human psychology, Jerry. To think I’ve wasted all this time and money on medical school and no one taught me this.”

“Dr. Ramsey, it’s because schools and useful knowledge are mutually exclusive.”

Elle and Faye were on the verge of bursting out in laughter, but managed to keep their composure and used the non-verbal communication of exchanging glances instead.

Once they made sure their patients had everything they need, Ethan and Elle wished them a good day and promised to stop by in 2 days, as the following day was their day off.

The moment the door closed behind them, Ethan crossed his arms on his chest.

"I lose you from my sight for one second and this happens. 5 more minutes with Jerry and I'd be single again."

"At least no one wants to poke your eyes out for being with me."

"And someone wants to poke yours?"

"Where do I start... nurses, who had a crush on you long before I even set foot in Edenbrook? Female interns? Anyone, who has a pair of functioning eyes and ever looked at you?"

She was adorable when she was doing this, her whole body overtaken by excitement and her hands waving. When she was talking about something really important to her she wasn't just conversing with her mouth, she was doing it with her whole body.

Suddenly, his pager painfully reminded Ethan that this was neither the place nor the time to lose himself in adoration.

"I need to go, I'm completely swamped today and I have my favourite cherry-on-top board meeting. In case I don't see you for the rest of your shift - I’ll pick you up at 7."

He was gone before she was able to form a response. Was it just her or was Dr Ramsey weirdly… nervous?

* * * * * * * *

At 7pm sharp, Ethan Ramsey curled his palm in a fist and gently knocked. The door opened in an instant, as if someone knew he'd been standing there for the past few minutes.

"Ethan! I mean Dr. Ramsey...please come in!" Sienna squeaked with nervous excitement as she let him in.

"Outside of Edenbrook Ethan is just fine, Sienna. If you don't mind me calling you by your first name, of course."

"Mm..mme? No, yes, I mean... Elle is on the balcony." She tried to hide her embarrassment and motioned towards the tall windows surrounding the living room. Some time ago, he would have been oddly proud to have such an intimidating effect on people - nowadays, more than anything, he was amused. Has he really changed so much?

The answer to his question was leaning against the railing, glass of wine in her hand. Gauzy, flowery dress enveloped her frame and tanned skin.

For Ethan, it was as clear as crystal: summer had the face and scent of Noelle Valentine.

Long before she started leaving her toothbrush in his apartment and sleeping in his old JH t-shirts, Ethan noticed that whenever he laid eyes on her, his whole body started acting in a very irrational way. His doctor’s instincts prompted him to think of all types of biological causes and chemical reactions in the brain. Then, when he sort of admitted to himself it’s not just pure science, Ethan leaned towards the forbidden fruit theory - the more he couldn’t have his drug, the more he was craving it.

But the feeling never disappeared. Whenever he wouldn’t see her for a while - be that an hour, a day, or just when she went to take a shower or make a coffee - the very moment her face came into his view again, he felt his stomach somersaulting.

Every. Single. Time.

It wasn’t any different now.

"Drinking without me?"

She almost dropped the glass when his voice stopped the train of thought in her head. But then she saw his face, the way too seldom relaxed muscles and a barely-there smile.

A perfectly tailored shirt clung to his torso marvellously. If not in medicine, he surely would have made a name for himself in the fashion industry. Fortunately for her, the idea never crossed his mind.

The warm wind blew in her face, carrying the scent of expensive cologne which overwhelmed her nostrils. She didn’t know this one, so it must have been new. But she did know that smelling it for the whole evening while staring at his handsome face will be a pure torture.

Simply put, she was a goner.

"I don't know why, but I was quite nervous. Had to summon the courage somehow.”

“As you should be. After all, it's not every day that one goes on their first date."

She looked at him as if she’d just been told that a UFO landed on the roof.

“On a what?”

"Well, I was thinking a lot lately about how we never had a first date. Nothing was ever...typical with us. I promised myself I will do my best to fix things that caused you pain or deprived you of the things you deserved. Maybe I cannot fix some immediately, but this one I can, so I will."

Her eyes, overbrimming with affection struck him like thousand lightnings. Thank god a comfortable silence fell between them - had she asked him a question, it would have been clear that right now he is nothing but a simpering moron.

With this in mind, he took his hands from behind his back, holding a small bouquet of pink gerberas.

"These are my favourites." Her face instantly illuminated at the well known sight and smell. "How did you know?”

"I had some amazing helpers."

Elle instantly turned her head left and looked inside, where grinning, Sienna was showing her the thumbs up.

"Wow, now I actually wish I'd downed the whole bottle."

"I'm glad you didn't. I want to go on a date with a woman, not her lifeless body, even though the body itself is very appealing. Shall we?”

“King of compliments…”

* * * * * * * *

"You actually look like you are having a good time, Dr Ramsey.”

"Why wouldn't I? There is alcohol, sitting under the sky definitely has its charm and the company is acceptable." She playfully swatted his arm, the gesture a quick reminder of how comfortable they felt with each other, something he constantly remembered to never take for granted.

“Although I love this, I still don’t understand why you dragged me all the way outside Boston, I’m pretty sure the rooftop bars are pretty acceptable there, too. A bit more crowded though, that’s for sure.”

“Are you complaining about the fact that we have this entire place to ourselves? I know the owner and he was indebted to me.”

“Of course he was.” Looks like the whole town is indebted to Ethan freakin’ Ramsey.

“With regards to why I brought you here… you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Gosh. She couldn’t decide whether the mysterious side of Ethan Ramsey was hot as hell or annoying as hell. But she didn’t really have time to contemplate, because her companion asked her a question.

“Why did you become a doctor?” The ocean eyes pierced her to the core and she had a feeling that even if she was the best actress in the world, there was no way she’d be able to hide something from this man.

“That’s a terrible change of subject. Also, I must have told you like a million times already.”

“No, you never told me.”

When she looked at him and really, really thought about it… she suddenly realised Ethan was right. Elle told the story so many times she sort of… assumed she told Ethan, too.

“Are you sure you want to hear it today? It’s a pretty sad story, a mood killer I’d say.”

“It’s what makes you you, so yes, I want to hear all about it - the good, the bad and the indifferent.”

“I’ll tell you, but I need to ask something first. Why now? We’ve known each other for a while and you just… I just sort of assumed this isn’t the type of conversation you’d like to hold.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head.” Ethan’s expression was gentle, not a hint of irony in his voice. “I’ve known you for a while now, but there are still so many things about you that I don’t know. At first, I didn’t want to ask, because asking these questions meant admitting that there is something more between us. What a fail would that be, after I’ve mastered the art of denial.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a bitter or a nervous laugh, it was a genuine banter between them, as the British half of her soul liked to call it. “But you made me want to dig deeper.”

Was it the heat that made her catch her breath, or did it have nothing to do with the temperature?

“Plus, this is sort of what first dates are for, right? I’m sorry for skipping right to the more complex questions. It’s not that I don’t want to know what you were afraid of as a child, I want to know all the details… but it feels like the atmosphere calls for something…bigger.”

So she told him all about her friend, how she fell ill, how she couldn’t be saved and how the experience wreaked havoc on her whole life, tears glistening in her eyes at the mere memory of the events that shaped who she was today.

Ethan listened, his whole body tense and eyes transfixed. She was giving him one of the most fragile parts of her and he had to make sure his hands were there to catch, carry and care for this treasure.

“And that’s when I realised that if I focused on becoming the best doctor I could be, then maybe one day, I’d be that person who has an answer, who can solve a mystery and save a relationship that means the world to someone. Sometimes, people don’t realise that when a person dies, it’s not only them that’s gone. The part of someone who stays, who has to deal with the whole ‘me after you’ - that part is gone, too. So for me, in a way, this meant saving more than one life.”

For a couple of seconds he didn’t move. Then, without saying a single word and with an unreadable expression he got up and offered her a hand, which she silently accepted. He led her to the railing, where the sun was slowly sinking into the boundless waters of Quincy Bay.

His lips found the all too well known way to her forehead, placing a loving kiss on her delicate skin.

“I am so proud of you.” There was something so mesmerising in his whisper, sending a shiver down her spine.

“As a mentor or as a boyfriend?”

“Both. I want you to know that your dedication to people who rely on you is astounding and hardly present in doctors your age. Or any age, for that matter.”

“Wow, Dr Ramsey, smooth. Trying to hit on me with a recycled pick-up line used on a national TV? No wonder you didn’t have too many girlfriends.”

“No, I didn’t. But I believe everyone has a limit of luck they can get per life. And looking at you, I got a couple of lifetimes worth of luck.”

This was enough to render her speechless. She smiled and at this very moment he knew he would do anything to make her smile like this. She wrapped him around her pinky finger and suddenly his whole existence revolved around finding ways of seeing her curve these breathtaking lips as often as possible and making sure he is the reason she smiles… not crying her eyes out.

Although the other didn’t know, because none of them said it out loud, they both thought the same thing.

This feels so right.

There isn’t a hint of awkwardness in the fact that they can go from being serious or emotionally vulnerable to funny and teasing in seconds.

In one effortless movement, Ethan spun her and pressed her back against his chest. Then, he started placing a series of tender kisses along her jawline and the crook of her neck, slowly moving towards her shoulder.

Come on, just say it Ramsey. It doesn’t get any better than this.

He wrapped her palm in his and pointed them towards the sky.

“There they are - the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper.” Their intertwined fingers were jumping from one tiny flashing point to the other, as if they were playing connect the dots. “And that’s Orion’s Belt.”

“I really don’t get why at this point I’m still surprised that you’re good at everything.”

Elle was drunk on his every word, as this annoying trait of Ethan Ramsey being the know-it-all was actually one of her favourite things about him.

As for Ethan, he couldn’t help but think that life wasn’t perfect and was never going to be. But this - this moment - it was in fact perfect. Why take chances of ruining it, when so many things can go wrong?

What if she doesn't say it back?

What if she's just gonna laugh at him or tell him he had it all wrong.

What if he misinterpreted everything and she never thought about him this way?

He was terrified of being this exposed. The last person he loved so much left him without batting an eyelid and disappeared for 25 fucking years.

Maybe it was better to live in a perfect illusion than a reality in which there was even a 0.01% chance she doesn't love him back.

So they both drowned in the moment, drifted in the sea of rapture, lost in the illusion that it can all last forever.

It was her who broke the silence.

“I’m getting a bit cold, is it ok if we call it a night?”

“Right, of course.”

“Thank you for the first date, I loved it.”

Handing her his jacket (her favourite, the dark green leather one) Ethan was furious at himself.

Maybe he was broken. Maybe he will remain broken forever. Maybe that’s the way it must be.

“Do you want to spend the night at mine?” The question slipped his tongue before he was able to fully reflect on it.

“At yours? Unless you have some secret place I don’t know about, just a quick reminder - I live there too.”

“Since this was our first date, I thought it was a gentlemanly thing to ask.”

“In that case… I am afraid I have the ‘after the 3rd date’ sleepover rule, Dr Ramsey.”

* * * * * * * *

The morning came all too soon and the hot, ruthless rays of the rising sun announced that Ethan is now way past his regular wake up and get up time. He barely slept, tossing and turning, replaying every second of the evening in his head.

His hand mindlessly reached for what he hoped to be the familiar curves and softness of the body he adored so much.

But his palm hit the mattress with a loud thud. The bed was empty.

The all-too-well known feeling of hopelessness slipped into the doctor's mind with ease. What did he expect? He was acting weird the previous day. First date, what a stupid idea. She must have realised something is wrong with him and finally left.

But before he was able to fully wallow in the mud of pity, the feeling was soon replaced by an old friend Ethan haven’t heard from for a long time.

Panic.

Where was she? Is she ok? What if something happened to her and he was just sleeping like a log instead of being there to protect her. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her… again. Something grabbed his chest in a tight grip and wouldn’t let go.

Scenes flashed before his eyes, vivid and bright. Their hands touching through the glass wall. Her hand cupping his cheek through the layer of hazmat suit.

He got out of bed at the speed of sound and started running around the apartment, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, he noticed.

The balcony door was opened wide.

Shit.

Heart in his mouth, Ethan crossed the distance between his kitchen island and the balcony door in the blink of an eye.

Elle was just serving pancakes outside. The goddamn pancakes. The only thing he couldn’t cook. The one thing she kept teasing him about and he rolled his eyes every time she did.

God, he promised himself he will never learn how to make them, if it meant she would just tease him forever.

She was smiling as widely as ever, putting the sun and everything else in the world to shame. Ethan was still a bit shaken and his uneven breathing gave him away. Elle finally noticed his presence.

“Good morning, I was just about to—“

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They both froze.

The tension in the silence that had just set in was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

But the silence didn’t last long. As one man, with eyes full of disbelief, they both murmured simultaneously:

“What did you just say?”

This time, he felt obliged to break the silence.

"I...I...I mean, I…"

Damn it, get it together, idiot.

"I didn't mean to…”

Great, Ramsey, keep digging an even deeper hole for yourself, then crawl in and stay there forever.

"You didn't mean to say it?”

"Yes. No. I mean, damn it, I am making things worse, aren't I?”

She didn’t set him straight.

"The thing is, I wanted to say it yesterday. I had it all planned, I took you for a first date and I wanted to say it for the first time yesterday.”

"Why did it have to be yesterday?”

“Give me a minute.”

She just rolled her eyes, but Ethan didn’t have a chance to notice before disappearing inside. A few moments later he re-emerged, his face and torso covered by a neatly wrapped, rectangle-shaped object.

"What's this?"

"Something you should have unpacked yesterday, but then... life happened."

Elle sat down on cold tiles, her hands trembling with a mix of fear and excitement. And just like he did months ago, he took her hand in his, only this time he cupped his own cheek with her palm and placed the most tender kiss on the inside of her hand.

It was her favourite medicine, a remedy for all things wrong.

He sat beside her and nodded at the mysterious package. With impatience growing inside of her, Elle has torn the paper up.

Inside was a dark blue, framed print - the colour of it an instant reminder of her favourite set of irises.

She studied everything with intent. A circle must have been representing the earth and the irregular dots and lines must have been the stars and constellations.

"A map of the sky? That's beautiful, Ethan."

He knew immediately that although her delight was sincere, she had absolutely no clue what she was looking at and why she was looking at it.

“It's not just any map of the sky.” Ethan explained gently, hints of pride colouring his voice. “It's a map of the Boston sky from exactly a year ago. Well, a year and a day.” He smiled faintly, now a shade of sorrow in his enchanting voice.

Silence. Was she supposed to know what that meant?

“Aren’t you full of mysteries today? Ok, you need to throw me a lifebelt here. What's so special about the sky from a year and a day ago?”

“For the world? Probably not too much. For me? Everything.”

At this stage of their relationship, she knew a lot about Ethan’s behaviours, triggers, his body language. And not just a relationship as a couple, but also everything that came before Ethan became someone she was running through life with (the life of two doctors in one of the busiest and most prestigious hospitals was certainly not a walk in the park).

But it still fascinated her how his demeanour changed whenever the subject was serious, whenever he was talking about something that truly mattered to him. It was as if he’d stripped down of all the layers and let her look into his bare soul. These rare moments of vulnerable intimacy meant more to her than any night of passion they ever shared.

Her eyes turned to him in pledge, because as much as she wanted to, Dr Valentine still couldn’t fully comprehend the scene unraveling in front of her.

“Read the description below the map.”

Dear God, did she actually hear shyness in his voice?

She skimmed through the image again, and there it was, right at the bottom. Elle was so focused on trying to decipher the meaning of the image that she didn’t notice the words below.

The words which explained everything.

I WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY

THAT MADE ME REALISE

YOU ARE THE SKY

EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST THE WEATHER

Her emerald eyes brimmed with hot tears as the meaning dawned upon her. Words were very unnecessary, but now that he summoned the courage to speak, there was still a lot he wanted to put into words. He gently took the frame from her hands and leaned it securely against the wall.

Taking her palms into his, he placed delicate kisses on her knuckles, his lips tracing the shape of these two tiny hands, which held all of him. Everything he had, everything he was and was going to be, he placed in those two fragile palms, with an unspoken hope that they will hold him and catch him if he falls.

“Look at me.” The words were pulsing with care and affection, even though his voice coloured them in serious and desperate shades.

“One year ago… and a day from today…” He smiled and she felt the warmth spilling inside of her. The power he had over her was beyond the limits of understanding.

Little did she know that the object of her affection was lost in the same thought.

“I was standing exactly where we stand right now. It was dark and the view wasn’t that spectacular.” He freed one of his hands, but only to make contact with her cheek to caress it slowly. In this moment, he had to touch her any way that he could. With his hands. With his eyes. With his soul.

“But I always found comfort in staring at the sky. When I was at med school, I had countless moments of doubt, I wanted to quit more times than I can count. So I used to go to a secluded place at night and stare at the sky. It made me realise how, in one respect, I am just a grain of sand in the universe and how little my problems are. Funnily enough, this thought actually brought me a sense of comfort. If I am as little as I think I am, then what is the harm in being brave and taking chances? A wise man once said… There are some things that are worth any risk.”

She giggled through the tears, the sweet sound soothing his shattered nerves.

“I was standing right here and I never felt more miserable in my life. And I couldn’t understand why, for God’s sake. I was thriving at work. I had everything figured out and planned. I was pushing you to be the best you could be and I watched you turn into someone who would one day be far greater than me. But you looked so sad, so… broken. You already know I can’t just gloss over you feeling down. The sadder you were, the more miserable I felt. One evening, I was having a glass of scotch and I remembered some tiny exchange we’ve had earlier in the day, literally a chit chat. No idea what it was about. But I remembered your smile and your laugh. Every tiniest move of your muscles, your eyes, how your hair set around your face. It made me happy. Even if it was just for 5 minutes, knowing that you are happy in that very moment filled my chest with lightness. That’s when I realised I want to be the person who makes you feel this way.”

She blinked the first time in a while, as if she was afraid to make the tiniest movement, afraid it will all disappear and turn out to be a dream. Giant teardrops rolled down her angelic face, trailing the path of joy.

“Noelle Sky Valentine, I love you. I have loved you for a long time but I was too stubborn to let myself give in. And that, as you already know, will always be one of my biggest regrets.”

“Ethan, I don’t… I’m so sorry, I just don’t know what to say.” Her voice was saturated with emotions.

“I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.“

“I love you too, Ethan Jonah Ramsey. You are by far the most complicated and stubborn person I have ever met. You are… everything I never knew I looked for in another human being.”

Once he heard her say it back, he couldn't get enough of it and a lifetime didn't feel like enough to tell her he loves her, as many times as he wished to.

“But I do have to mention this, Dr Ramsey… from the first date to a love confession in less than 24 hours? I’m sorry, I think this is moving too fast.”

“I’ll show you too fast…but I’m afraid we need to get inside, I don’t want the whole world and its wife to see how I teach you a thing or two.”

Ethan scooped her in his arms and carried her inside, despite her mock protests. He smiled and corrected himself.

He wanted for the whole world to see.

Because the whole world was right there.

In his arms.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you’ve gotten this far, I need you to know you are absolutely amazing 💗

Tag 🏷 list: @jamespotterthefirst @romewritingshop @romereadingshop @genevievemd @starrystarrytrouble @terrm9 @mrs-ramsey @maurine07 @gryffindordaughterofathena @mercury84choices @lovingramsey @qrkowna @openheartfanfics @choicesficwriterscreations @lisha1valecha @oldminniemcg @iemcpbchoices @tsrookie @fayeswiftie @levinsdowneyy @brooks-eden @poudredevie @queencarb @caseyvalentineramsey @lucy-268 @tenaciousdeputydreamfriend @alwaysmychoices-sideblog @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @schnitzelbutterfingers @the-pale-goddess @lem-20 @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @liaromancewriter @ohchoices @archxxronrookie

#ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x mc #dr ethan ramsey #play choices #open heart #open heart fic #cfwc silly love stories #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week #ethan ramsey

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6rookie-writer0110 · 4 years

Text

The end has arrived, let the darkness take over you

Frank Castle x Male Reader

Request - Okay good i wanna request for a male reader being punisher's sidekick his backstory is that he came from a poor family single mother 2 siblings and a deadbeat dad he wanted to become a doctor to make money for his family and then family got killed during a crossfire between 2 gangs while going shopping so now he wants revenge he gets a knife buys a gun and starts tracking them down and along the way he comes across frank who's badly injured and unconscious so he drags him away to somewhere safe

All your life you grew up poor. Your mother did everything to have food for you and your two siblings, she worked odd jobs to make sure she can buy clothes and food for everyone. There were moments, that everyone went to bed without eating anything. But your father is a piece of shit, he used to abuse you, mom, and your siblings verbally and physically. You started to fight back. You threw his stuff out then changed the locks. He hasn't come back around for a long time and you want to keep it like that.

You want to be a doctor to help people and provide for your family. Your mom would take you and your siblings to the library, you would start to read medical books old and modern. She knows you want to be a doctor, she wants to help you achieve your dream.

Later, your mother takes you and your sibling's shopping, to buy clothes.

”Y/N, here you can finish reading it at home,” Your mom said.

She gave you the medical book, the library doesn't allow people to check out.

”Mom, you stole it?” You smiled.

”Shh, it's our secret. I know you will be a good doctor and we will always support you. It will be hard but you are strong men and you will make it” She said.

You hugged your mom and she kissed your head. Your siblings hugged you too and you hugged them back.

While walking with them to the store, suddenly there is a shoot out between two gangs on the streets. Bullets start to fly everywhere, people start to run for cover.

You get hit in your arm with a stray bullet, you fall down and hit your head and you passed out.

-At the hospital--

You wake up and your arm is in pain. The IV is in your arm and you look around, the cop walked in.

”Where is my family? My mom-”

”I’m sorry. But you will have to identify your family at the morgue” She said.

Tears start to form and you are stunned.

”W-what happened,” You said.

”There was a shootout between two gang rivals, six people died now we are trying to identify them,” She said.

Your heart starts to race, that's the only thing you can hear is your heart. Later, they take you to the morgue and you see your family. You broke down and start to cry, you kneed down and kept crying.

----

What happened between the two gangs and six people died, the news kept talking about it non-stop. But the cops are taking too long to arrest anyone.

You want revenge, you collected newspapers, booked marked social media talking about the crime, and Google the videos of the crime. You go back to the crime scene during late hours. You searched for clues. You know about the two gangs and no one got arrested, that made you angry. You want to take the law into your own hand and do something about it.

-The next night-

You want to buy a gun and a knife. You know where you go and you bought the items, without any trouble. You start to stalk the first gang The blue reapers, you look at them, and you are filled with rage. Now, you start to think about how you will lure them and kill them.

You really don't have a plan. You are just going in there with a gun and knife against a gang. You are standing across the street watching them. Before you left, you heard a huge sound towards the dumpster. You walked towards the dumpster and you see a guy badly beaten up. He is conscious, you did try to wake up him but it didn't work, you tried to pick him up. You take him back to your place and you start to clean his wounds.

✯ ✫ ✯ ✫

-Next Day-

Frank wakes up and his body is feeling sore. He did struggle to get out of bed, he walked out of the room and he sees you.

”Who are you?” Frank asked.

”I found you unconscious in the alley. I took you here, to stitch you up and you don't need major surgery. My name is Y/N” You said.

”Thank you,” Frank said.

”Don’t worry your gear is fine. It's in the living room... I know who you are” You said.

”You know who I am?” Frank asked.

You nod.

”Help me. Train me, I need to get revenge for those who killed my family. Please train me-”

”I won't train you,” Frank said.

”Why not? I want those two gangs to fall apart. If we don't stop them they will kill winning and kill more people” You said.

”You don't want this lifestyle. The answer is no” Frank said.

”Just give me a chance. I saw you do it before you fight them then kill-”

”I said no!” Frank yelled.

Frank puts back on his gear and left. You sighed and start to think about what to do.

---

A couple of days has passed by, Frank hasbeen thinking about what you said. Frank started to keep an eye on you, but you didn't notice him following you. Later, you found out the first gang’s hideout. You are being reckless, you only have one gun, and there are more than ten people inside the bar.

Frank can see what you are doing. He sighed and called you a dumbass in his mind. Frank moved rapidly, grabbed you by your hoodie, and slammed you hard against the brick wall in the alley.

”What the fuck is wrong with you!?!” Frank growled.

He doesn't let go of you.

”I want them to pay!” You yelled.

”With one gun!? Once you pull out your gun the next you have a bullet in your fucking skull!” Frank growled again.

You and Frank glared at each other.

”Help me stop them. You have the skills and you can be my mentor” You said.

”Go home, before I break your kneecap,” Frank said cold.

He let's go of you and you really want him to train you.

”I work alone,” Frank said.

Frank made sure you walked away. You did go home but the landlord kicked you out because you haven't paid your rent in months. You grabbed your clothes and a family picture and left. You didn't want to go to the homeless shelter so you slept in the park.

---

Frank knows what you're going through and he changed his mind. It wasn't hard for Frank to find you. He did take you to his small apartment which you're grateful. You do sleep on the floor on air a mattress.

Every day Frank showed you how to properly clean a gun, take it apart then put it back together and how to hold a gun. Next Frank would teach you how to pickpocket and it's not easy for you. Because you have to be silent like the wind but you keep messing up. But Frank starts to teach you how to fight but he is not a nice mentor. He hits you hard and he doesn't take it easy.

”Do you think they will go easy on you? Remember, on their mind, they want to kill you either you kill them first or they will kill you” Frank said.

”I won't forget that” You said.

Frank starts to punch you and you start to block his blows. You punched him in the jaw, he almost fell and he is bleeding.

”Not bad, Y/N. Let's keep going” Frank said.

You couldn't help to smirk.

✯ ✫ ✯ ✫

Weeks went by you have been killing gang members one by one from both sides. Frank does go along with you for backup, you didn't feel bad for killing them. They killed your family and they must pay. You finished killing two people on your own, you are covered in blood.

”Sloppy but remember don't leave any evidence that belongs to you on the crime scene. Let's go” Frank said.

You and Frank leave the dive bar. Across the street, there are security cameras and it caught you leaving the bar bloody.

The cops found out that you and Frank have been killing gang members. They want to arrest you and Frank, but they can't find your location. Frank has taught you how to live off the grid.

You are ready to kill them. You and Frank did set up a trap to have both gangs in one place at the warehouse. They want revenge because you killed their friends.

”Who the fuck are you?” He asked.

”You don't care about my name. But I’m here to kill all of you” You said.

They just laughed at you and you are glaring at them. You take out your gun and shot one of the guys in the head. His body dropped now everyone stopped laughing.

”You fucking asshole!” He yelled.

Everyone took out their guns but Frank is on the rail, he is using his sniper rifle. Now everyone is starting to shoot, you run and hide behind a shipping crate. You hid your weapon and you take out the Submachine gun.

You come out and you start to kill them. You were going to load but the guy hit you and you dropped the gun. You take out the brass knuckles and put it on. Now you start to fight and you punch him in the face. He killed your family, you got on top of him and you snapped. All the rage you locked inside came out, he is bleeding out fast but you broke his face.

You grabbed your gun and the bullets, you loaded your gun. You start to shoot and more bodies start to drop. Frank run towards you

” Let's go now,” Frank said.

You followed him outside and locked the doors. You and Frank blocked every exit earlier and left bombs inside. You and Frank get away from the warehouse, he gave you the remote.

”When you are ready,” Frank said.

You didn't say anything and you pressed the button. You and Frank watched the warehouse explode.

✯ ✫ ✯ ✫

You and Frank go to a small diner to eat. You did burn your clothes because it had blood and put on different clothes. You and Frank don't say anything and just kept eating.

”What is your next move, Y/N,” Frank said.

He takes a huge bite from his burger.

”I have nothing else left for me here. We are wanted so I thought maybe I can tag along” You said.

He starts to think and he drinks his soda and you started to eat again.

”Okay, you can come with me to Canada. I have a friend who can help us” Frank said.

You nod.

You met Logan, he has been friends with Frank for years. They trust each other now you're friends with Logan. You told him what happened to your family and he understands the pain and he didn't judge you. Logan told you and Frank that the cops is after you two. But you didn't care, now you want to figure out what you will do with your life.

#frank castle imagine #Frank Castle x male reader #Frank Castle x reader #marvel imagine #x male reader

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neutron-stars-collision · 3 years

Text

The Art of Inversion

Neil x Reader

Chapter 18 - Holy Ghost

Masterlist; Chapter 17

Summary: First few days in Tallinn are like a calm before the storm, while you and Neil are getting used your new dynamic. It proves to be rather surprising...

Warnings: 18+ (yep, she did it again because these two wanted to); swearing.

Author’s Notes: So ummm... I’m not sure what happened here and you’ll be the judges of that. All I can say is that I’ve been inspired by the skewed tie and that Tallinn will take at least two more chapters because they keep getting distracted. Hope you’ll enjoy! Feedback is always welcome as I’m not sure what I’m doing...🙈

The lovely edit has been provided by my amazing and talented friend @sh3tani (thanks for putting up with my bs 💕)

Despite technically being a Tenet agent for a while, the dramatic changes of pace in your life never failed to amaze you. After that careless morning in London, mere hours later you got the text from TP, sending you and the Cavalry to Tallinn. Minutes afterwards, Neil burst into your room saying that the younger TP called, giving him directions to run a few lab tests and then to meet him in the capital of Estonia, as well. Neither of you had any clues as to why but then that was rather expected.

That is how you found yourself in a safe house in the suburbs of Tallinn. For security and convenience, you have joined Ives’s squad there while Neil booked a hotel room nearby to keep up the appearances before TP. For the first few days, the boss has not yet arrived in the city, and therefore, as Neil put it, there was much more room to maneuver. Whatever that meant.

Estonian safe house was a relatively vast apartment on the ground floor of an old brick house. It had six bedrooms furnished with simple Ikea beds, bedside tables, and a small wardrobe. There was also one bathroom (hell of an inconvenience for nine people occupying the place) and a kitchen opening into a living room with sofas and tv. The space was nearly barren save for the objects needed to survive for however long you were bound to stay there. On the day of your arrival, Ives sent you and Wheeler to the shop for the supplies, reasoning being that apparently you two had most brain cells in the whole team. You enjoyed the possibility to charge your introvert batteries before days spent with eight people, of which only two you actually knew. With close to no information concerning the point of the mission, the days have been spent idly chatting, playing games, and watching television. In Estonian, naturally. For you, a crucial part of the survival became continuous reception and the ability to reach out to Neil when needed. Which was often and soon became a passing joke among the rest of the company. Once Henrik tried to steal your phone and ended up with a bread knife pressed against his neck, the innocent fun ended. That was on day two.

Luckily you got your own room, while the others were forced to share. This you owed to the fact that you were not part of the squad and hence had the right to privacy. It proved rather useful the day when unexpected company came. You were busy trying not to burn the scrambled eggs on a scratched-up pan, half humming a song you heard on the radio. Despite the early hour, everyone was up and either moving about or outside on a run. If there was anything you have learned from the experience so far, it was that Tenet soldiers started the day early and were shit at cooking. Eggs, instant noodles, and oven pizzas were the menu staples. Sighing, you picked up the only clean plate left when you heard a commotion in the hallway. Not long after, a voice called out:

“Y/N? You’ve got a visitor” you did not like the amused undertone in that information.

“Yeah…?” hesitantly, you stepped into the hallway.

The cheeky grin was quite the sight at 9 am.

“Good morning, sunshine” you resisted the urge to break the plate on Neil’s head.

At least he brought coffee.

“Hey,” warily you looked at Michael, who was loitering next to you, interested in the situation “Should we…?” looking at the door to your room, you met Neil’s gaze.

“Naturally” he smiled and followed you in.

Only once you closed the door behind you both, blocking out the curious stares, you breathed out the air you did not know you were holding. You set the plate on the bedside table and grinned as Neil carelessly threw himself onto your bed.

“Thought I’ll get a kiss or something for all that awkwardness out there” you commented, eyeing the man sprawled on your mattress.

Briefly, you marvelled at how you have managed to become this comfortable with each other. But then almost having sex was bound to count for something. Supposedly.

“You will if you come here” Neil raised his head and extended a hand in an invitation.

Mournfully you glanced at your abandoned breakfast and crossed the space, intertwining your fingers with his. You were not surprised when Neil pulled you down onto the bed, only just managing not to lie on him. Feigning disappointment, he huffed and leaned in, kissing you slowly. Deepening the kiss, you tangled your fingers in his hair, bringing him closer. With legs interlocked, half-lying on the narrow bed, it was all too real. In moments like this, it was easy to believe that maybe it was meant to be. Breaking up the kiss, you opened your eyes to stare at Neil. In the soft light coming through the opened shutters, you could clearly see the darker rims around his blue irises. In the morning, his eyes resembled the colour of an ocean. The long eyelashes framing the eyes and the eyebrows, furrowed in concentration, gazing back at you. Your eyes then landed on his parted mouth, the corners turned down slightly, and the shape of his lips. You wondered how someone this beautiful could choose you among all the people in the universe.

“Your breakfast and the coffee are getting cold” he murmured, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Do you want me to get up?” running your fingertips over his temple, you reveled in the intimacy of the moment.

Neil smiled and raised your joined hands to kiss your knuckles.

“Not really. I like having you this close so I can stare” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

“Same, actually,” you mirrored his expression, dragging fingers through the golden hair.

It seemed like your London evening full of important conversations gave you more confidence. Suddenly it was not that scary to share your thoughts and feelings with him because there was a chance he will understand. Or at least not ridicule you. As though Neil was reading your mind, he asked:

“What are you thinking about?” you could tell he was genuinely interested.

That was enough to make you feel a surge of feelings towards him. Maybe it won’t hurt to say something… Taking a deep breath, you warned:

“Just don’t laugh,”

“I’ll do my best” Neil bopped your nose quickly, making your brain short-circuit for a second.

What even. Focusing all your attention on him, your eyes wandered over his face. Resting on all the features that made him the man you loved.

“Sometimes I just can’t get over how beautiful you are… like a bloody masterpiece” you cupped his cheek “And I’ve no clue why you’re so fixed on me” sighing dejectedly, you awaited a response.

If the slightly widened eyes were any clue, he was surprised by your admission.

“That was probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten” Neil stumbled over the sentence.

So, it was worth saying. For another time, you left the discussion on how that could even be true.

“Have you seen yourself though? How could I not be fixed on you?” it was Neil’s turn to cup your cheek, making you blush.

The pure confidence in his eyes was too much to bear at the moment. Sitting up, you kicked him lightly, enjoying the affronted look.

“Now you’re being ridiculous” you moved to stand up, but Neil took hold of your waist, sitting up as well.

You were too close again, noses brushing. It was easy to lean in and kiss him. Only when you did, a knock resounded in the room. Fucking hell.

“Can I come in?” the cockney accent was a giveaway “I bloody hope you two aren’t getting up to stuff”

Despite yourself, you giggled with your lips still brushing over Neil’s, making him sigh. For a millisecond, he tightened his grip over your waist and then let go and moved an inch away. You looked at him for permission before calling out:

“Be our guest”

In an attempt to look as casual as it was possible, you grabbed the plate with your cold eggs and passed Neil his coffee. Sitting back down on the bed, you pasted a neutral smile onto your face. As if that would divert anyone’s attention from your tangled hair and Neil’s flushed cheeks. Ives opened the door and scrutinized you both quickly, not missing how you frowned upon the first bite of your breakfast. Then he gave Neil a quick pat on the back:

“Good to see you, mate” he perched on the windowsill for the lack of any other furniture “I was hoping you’d at least come to say hi” he gave you both a knowing glance.

Cursing your own inability to say no to Neil, you grudgingly finished the eggs and took another sip of the lukewarm coffee. Next time, food first, then kissing. No matter how irresistible the bastard might be.

“I was planning to, only…” the bastard in question shrugged before glancing at you shortly.

“Oh, I know. Priorities and all that” Ives smirked upon your deepening blush “I get it, believe me. Plus, seeing how often Y/N is glued to her phone, I reckon you two are doing good” he winked.

Sensing Neil’s growing discomfort, you shot back:

“Don’t talk about me as though I wasn’t here” it was hard to look threatening when staring at someone like Ives, but you did your best.

“Or?” he arched his eyebrow amusedly.

“I’ll shoot you”

The sudden tense silence got interrupted by Neil breaking into a laugh, collapsing against you. So much for pretending you could keep away from each other. Once he calmed down, he rested his head on your shoulder and said:

“And that’s why I like you”

You did not know it was possible to blush even more. And yet. Even though what he said was hardly a surprise, he never mentioned anything like that with others present. Before you could come up with any response, Ives commented:

“Aren’t you two cute, eh?”

Lord give me strength…

“Ives” you warned, reaching for the gun you always kept in the drawer by the bed.

He laughed and raised his hands in defence.

“Okay, I’ll stop now” he glanced at Neil, who was comfortable enough, still leaning on you “Has he given you any more clues?”

You relaxed once the conversation steered onto more professional tracks.

“Not really. I ran the analysis on the gold bar he sent, and well, there’s literally nothing concrete there” Neil shrugged, “But I think it has something to do with the plutonium piece that went missing back in Kiev” he added.

“Is that part of the Algorithm?” you asked.

The topic has not really come up since your first conversation with TP in Boston, but from the information you got from Neil and others in the organisation, it seemed like the pieces were set in motion. In the Kiev Opera, another part of the compound has been lost. Maybe its purpose was to resurface in Tallinn so that you could take over.

“Yeah” Neil confirmed your suspicions with a curt nod.

“How… how do you know about this?” it was Ives’ turn to be confused, looking at you with palpable shock in his eyes.

Right… Sometimes it was hard to keep track of who knew what and why. And that was one of such moments. Straightening your back, you explained:

“TP told me. Apparently, I’ll have a role to play hence why I’m being dragged into this” glancing at Neil, who all of sudden looked rather sombre, you added, “Not only because of this idiot” giving in to the temptation, you ruffled his hair.

“…thanks” pouting, Neil moved away.

“Welcome”

*** You have left the apartment and quickly checked the maps again. Neil set your meeting for a rather obscure park square in the downtown area of the city since that was where he was supposed to meet TP later. At first, you wanted to refuse, to tell him that it was risky to go for a walk with the boss nearby. But then, you knew there was not much point in saying no to something that tempting. It was enough that you might not be able to spend time together at all the next few days.

Just when you were sure you have gotten lost in the greyness of the apartment blocks and identical streets, you spotted him waiting on the bench. The icy wind was ruffling his hair as Neil stared at the pavement, unaware of your attention. You smiled at the sight of his brown and green outfit and those strange shoes; you have seen the brogues before in Oslo. Now that was something worth a call out later. Ending the scrutiny, you approached him and, as a means of greeting, brushed the hair away from his forehead. That worked, as it always did. The blue eyes snapped up to meet yours:

“Hello” you offered him a small smile.

“Tere, kallis” the grin combined with the strange words he uttered made you frown.

“I hope that was something appropriate”

He took your hand in his and pulled you down onto his lap. The happy sparks in his eyes were almost enough to make you ignore the cold and the embarrassment of the situation.

“I thought you said we’re going for a walk” forcing a stern tone was difficult with how Neil gently cupped your flushed cheek.

“That we are. But first, I wanted to get you up close and personal” he brushed his nose against yours tenderly.

“I see…” with the corner of your eye you could see an older woman observing you from the nearby bench.

With a start, you realised how very much alike a couple you must look to any passerby. Sitting on Neil’s lap, with his arm securing you around the waist and your faces inches away, there were no questions about the nature of your relationship. But, somehow, that was okay. A stronger gust of wind made you shiver, which he noticed straight away and pulled you even closer, your lips nearly touching. The blue of his irises and the depth of focus in them made you gasp. It was always like this with him, as though you were the only person in the universe that mattered.

“We’ll get going now, only…” Neil met your gaze with a silent question.

You nodded. He could do anything he wanted anyway. He met your lips in a slow kiss, relishing in the feeling for at least half a minute. You placed your hand on the back of his neck to bring him a little closer, suddenly grateful for the position he put you in. Then, just as the kiss threatened to get more heated, Neil broke the contact and leaned back, taking in your dazed expression. He always knew how to get to you.

“Now we can go” he smirked, and you had no choice but to slide off his lap.

As soon as you were both standing, Neil grabbed your hand again and intertwined your fingers. As usual. It did seem like neither of you wanted to pretend today, and instead letting yourselves explore the ‘not-quite relationship’ you got into. For once, the voices in your head were silent, seemingly agreeing to the new developments. You did wonder how long that was bound to last.

“Ives says hi, by the way,” you broke the silence, looking around the cityscape.

This part of Tallinn certainly was not as picturesque as the city centre, but it had to do. After all, your sole focus was Neil. Not much else mattered when you were together. If that did not confirm your feelings, then god knows what did. Sighing, you turned to look at the man in question.

“You told him we’re meeting up?” he asked with a slight crease between his eyebrows.

Confusion, then.

“No. I just said that I’m going out for a walk, and he told me to say hi to you” laughing at the idiocy of the moment you brushed your thumb over his knuckles.

In response, you got the signature Neil grin that was the beginning of your downfall all those months previously. Despite the absolute horror you felt during the initial conversation with Ives, now it was somehow less terrifying.

“Ah, I see” his tongue clicked thoughtfully, only making you laugh harder.

It was difficult to get the next sentence out.

“He also added that he’s surprised he’s not yet caught you sneaking out of my room at night”

The small snorting sound Neil let out made you want to kiss him right there, in the middle of the busy street.

“Why do I feel like he wants it to happen” he glanced at you quickly with an amused expression.

“Maybe it’s his thing” you retorted, savoring the laugh it prompted from your companion.

After that first morning in the safehouse, you have both decided to try and keep away from any rash actions or decisions while in Estonia. You certainly had enough of interruptions, and with the team sharing the space, it was all too precarious. Hence you have been meeting up outside, for strolls or lunch, talking about everything and nothing. Only now, that TP was around, it was bound to change, and you expected that this might be the last of those stolen moments.

“I’m sorry that we had to meet around here today” Neil interrupted your slightly melancholic thoughts “I wanted to take you out somewhere again, but he called, and I think it will be on soon” he lowered his voice to a slightly conspicuous tone, making you smile.

“It’s okay, at least that means I’ll know why the fuck am I even here” shrugging, you looked around at the shops you have passed by.

“For me?” Neil batted his eyelashes innocently while tightening his hold over your hand.

“Apart from that” this time you allowed him honesty “Don’t you ever get tired though? Of me?” the self-sabotaging voice contributed a question.

It was too late to take it back. But the way Neil looked at you then, with disbelief and fondness, was enough to excuse the moment on insecurity.

He stopped walking, making you freeze despite the streams of people going in both directions. You were like an island amidst a fast-flowing river. Neil forced you to meet his gaze by tilting your chin upwards. There was nothing playful in his eyes, just sincerity and love. And determination.

“Do you need me to remind you why that’s impossible?” you did not know when did his voice become so husky.

“Maybe” biting your lip, you searched his face, fascinated and curious.

Neil glanced at the teeth nibbling on your lower lip, and his tongue darted out, seemingly on reflex. Oh. When his eyes met yours again, you could see a hint of a new emotion there. He was hesitating for approximately 10 seconds before he started leading you again with purpose. Before you could ask a single question, he turned sharply into a non-descript alley between two crumbling buildings. It was empty save for a few pieces of trash lying around and a rusted door at the other end, with a metal padlock and a heavy chain. But your quick scan of the environment got interrupted by Neil wrapping his arm around your waist and pushing you at one of the walls. Just before your head could hit the bricks, he cradled the back of it, providing a safeguard. Ever so thoughtful. Wide-eyed, you glanced up at him to gauge the intention. The darkness and resolve you found were enough of an indicator.

“The walk will have to wait” he spoke before crashing his lips against yours.

The instinct kicked in instantaneously, making you respond by bringing him closer with your hand taking hold of his tie. Kissing Neil was like a fix for an addiction you did not want to fight against. No matter how urgent it was, you could always find a tempo that suited you both, neither fighting for dominance. It was like a dance where both were willing to lead and follow. Neil bit into your lower lip, drawing blood, tinting the kiss with that coppery taste. Fuck. You gasped into his mouth, shivering when his tongue ran along the split, licking off the droplets. It was enough to make you want more. As a payback, you caught his upper lip with your teeth, tugging at it lightly to remind him of the potential. But only when you pulled on his tie sharply, making Neil almost collapse against you, he broke the kiss with a groan. His eyes were hazed with lust, making you lightheaded the more you kept on gazing. The bloody shade of red on his lips made your pulse quicken. You still kept the hold on his patterned tie, making sure he was within your reach. His tongue darted out and licked off the remains of blood. That was a good cue to sober up. You released his tie and placed your hand over his heart, relishing in the way he was looking at you, as though you were a sight he could never have enough of.

“Huh…” you broke the silence and glanced at the entryway to the alley.

Thankfully no spectators.

“Is this all you’re going to say?” Neil’s perplexed facial expression made you laugh.

Sometimes it was fascinating to see him that disoriented after a kiss. Because it was a clear sign that not only you were affected by everything that transpired. Another reason to believe that maybe the feeling was mutual. Calming down, you started toying with his shirt collar. Even though heated kisses in dirty alleys were never your kind of thing, with Neil that too was exciting. And something you wanted to repeat.

“I mean… this is rather nice” you met his confused gaze and added, “Being with you like this”

Coherence for more complex sentences was nowhere to be found.

“I’m glad because I wanted that last hour of normalcy before we go back to the usual” Neil staggered over the sentence as well, making your heart stumble with fondness.

Pouring the feeling into your gaze, you grinned at him, running your hands over his shirt and lapels. You knew exactly what he meant. But still, with tongue poking out, you noticed:

“That sentence didn’t make sense, and yet I agree” the way his eyes darted onto your lips was enough to cause a resurgence amidst the butterflies.

Neil leaned in again, eager for another kiss. But you had other ideas, struck with the courage to tease him a little. You dropped your head and kicked him in the foot lightly. Just enough to bring his attention onto the subject of your scrutiny.

“The hell are those shoes though” you smirked upon his utterly lost gaze.

“What? You don’t like them?” the slight pout only made your grin wider.

With the hair in disarray, reddened cheeks, and pink lips, he was more than a sight to behold. And all that because of you. Wow.

“They look a little like you wanted to channel Pennywise or something” you laughed at his blank stare “Remind me to go through your wardrobe one day because you’re selling yourself short with those fashion choices” to emphasize the point you tugged on his tie again and frowned.

But it seemed like Neil managed to recover enough. He placed both of his hands on the wall, blocking your way out. The well-known smirk came back too. You had a feeling that you were about to lose this one battle.

“And yet here you are” he practically purred with a hungry look in his eyes.

You swallowed. Whenever he got like this, showing how much he wanted you, it was hard to think. Raking your head for a response, you settled on honesty again.

“That’s because I admire your soul” eyeing him intently, you added “And hair”

You tugged on the golden strands, making him whine in frustration. Good.

“And eyes” he met your gaze purposefully, a hint of a knowing smile on his face.

Of course, he’d know.

“Yeah” you raised your head.

A challenge he took without hesitation. Neil reached for the scarf wrapped around your neck and loosened it just enough to have access. Before you could do as much as exhale, his lips were on your neck and throat, attacking all the spots that were bound to make you gasp and search for something to hold on to. Cursing, you closed your eyes, letting yourself block everything that was not Neil and his touch. Soon his hands joined in with the exploration, brushing over your body, slipping inside the opened coat and underneath your blouse. Any resistance you might have had was slowly breaking. Blindly, you found his tie again and started to work on undoing the knot with shaking hands. Once you loosened it and undid the first three buttons, you slipped your hand underneath his shirt. You did not even know what you wanted to do. He was there, yours and in reach. That was enough to cause urgency. But any intent you might have had disappeared when Neil finished his study with a harsh bite over your collarbone.

“Jesus Christ…” you huffed and pulled him closer with a finger around his belt loop.

As his hips met yours, he raised his head and met your gaze shamelessly. Nothing but want and adoration. A sudden commotion on the street helped you remember the surroundings. Sighing, you pieced together a sentence:

“This is rather risky, don’t you think?” if anything, the unconscious way in which you bumped your hips against his again was a contradiction to the statement.

Your head was a mess. On one hand, wanting nothing but Neil, right here and now. On the other, doing anything like this in an alley spoke against the last bits of the reason you tried to preserve.

“Yes, but I quite enjoy the thrill” Neil brushed his hand over your stomach and smiled devilishly.

If your experience was anything to go by, and the way it felt when his crotch brushed over your hip, he too was rather invested. That thought gave you some needed courage to respond.

“You like being caught? Then I’m surprised you were so unsatisfied in Oslo” the cheeky smile and a quick touch of your hand over the front of his pants did it.

Neil swallowed hard and took additional few seconds to find words.

“More than being caught I like you. And everything we do... or could do” experimentally, he traced his finger along the line of your belt.

The goosebumps and rising tension within your core were good enough clues towards your feelings on the matter.

“Like what?” the breathlessness of your voice made you frown.

“Like this” in one swift motion, Neil undid the buckle.

Shit. That was enough to raise concern. You wanted him, urgently, but…

“Neil... do you seriously think fucking in an alley is a good idea?” you did know where that word came from, but it was pretty spot on.

“First of all, we’re not fucking. This isn’t that primal” for some reason the way he pronounced it only made matters worse, as did that smirk “Unless one day you feel like it and-” oh hell.

You placed one hand over his mouth, shutting him up, the other ventured into the pocket of your coat, where you always had the small hunting knife hidden.

“I’m going to stab you. Here they won’t find you for days” aiming for a threatening tone, you raised the hand from his mouth.

But not before he somehow managed to kiss your fingers. His eyes were dark, determined to make you break any internal rules you could have.

“Wow, you really have it bad for me” Neil whispered, getting ever closer, ignoring your threats.

Too lost in the strange conversation you have not even realised when he managed to unzip your jeans. Only once you felt his hand slipping between your thighs, you huffed with frustration. Thinking on reasons against letting him do it was getting increasingly harder.

“Neil” was the only warning you could manage.

All thoughts disappeared when he palmed you through the underwear. Searching for support, you put your hands on his shoulders.

“I just want to check if you’re still interested... still so eager,” the satisfied grin told you that it felt just as bad as you expected.

Like this, with him having direct access to check what was working for you, there was nowhere to hide. Once again, he managed to bring you to such a state with worrying ease. His whole body was pressing against yours, with one hand teasing you through the thin layer of clothing. The other has somehow managed to wrap around your throat. Not strong enough to apply pressure, but at the same time making you face him. And increasing the need you felt.

“You’re a bastard” the insult got muddled by the longing you could not hide from your gaze.

Neil caught it, grinning mischievously. The game was on.

“Well... it takes two and all that” he feigned nonchalance, arching an eyebrow.

You knew full well what he was implying. You could practically feel how drenched with arousal you were. Your underwear was wet to touch, thighs clenching around Neil’s hand. That was his cue to keep your legs parted by inserting his knee between them. Here we go again. You wanted him to do something. Anything. But he was resolved to keep you waiting, thinking about all the different ways to make the situation even more unbearable for you. To make you beg for whatever he was willing to give. Your futile attempt to grind on his thigh got stopped with a stronger grip around your throat and a glimpse of something darker in his eyes. You had enough.

“Why are you doing this?” the hoarse tone of your voice was rather shameful.

“Because I know that you actually enjoy it” Neil shrugged and met your gaze with playful sparks in the blue eyes.

You did not want to know how obvious it must have been for him. Then, he slowly stroked you there, earning a muffled curse.

“I would if you finished it for once” you breathed, letting the frustration take over.

The ache between your legs was nearly driving you over the edge now. It was too much. Neil was too close, and yet not close enough.

“I’m giving you food for thought, so to speak” he murmured.

His hand moved; thumb tentatively hooked around the hem of your panties. An offer to take it a step further any second now.

“That you are” you met his gaze defiantly.

If he was so determined to make you suffer, you might as well give him what he wanted.

“Have you been... dreaming about this?” Neil glanced down at where his fingers were getting closer to where you needed him most.

As though he needed to ask. Of course, you have thought about this scenario before. And many others too. After all, you had to somehow deal with those countless times when his pure existence frustrated you in every meaning of the word.

“Mhmm” you hummed, hoping that will be enough of a response.

The smirk was a reward.

“Good”

Unable to withstand the tension any longer, you kissed him hungrily, taking everything you could have. Soon enough, you were both gasping for breath, yet you did not want to let go. Biting, sucking, and nibbling on every part of his mouth available, he was your drug. With his hand still in a loose chokehold and the other so close to your pulsating core, Neil became the sole reason for your existence. Your knees buckled when he sharply tugged at your panties and touched you without the barrier of the undergarment. You broke the kiss and met his wild gaze, both shocked by the sheer pull between you. Only once he drew a finger between your folds, collecting some of the wetness, the moment got interrupted by Neil’s raspy chuckle.

“It’s quite flattering to see you like this and all because of me” you were not sure if you wanted to slap him or kiss him.

But then that was a usual thing with Neil.

“Just don’t get cocky…” it was hard to put together a string of words.

“Or?” his thumb touched your clit, and you hissed sharply “I already know how I’m making you feel”

To prove a point, he drew another gasp from you by starting a circular stimulation of the sensitive nub. You whimpered, suddenly aware of what a sight you must be for him. Utterly ruined because of kisses, touches, and words. You hated being at anyone’s mercy like this.

“Neil…” a weak plea made him meet your gaze “Please just…” helplessly, you tried to convey everything through the expression in your eyes.

He searched your face before letting go of your throat and instead cupping your cheek tenderly. The juxtaposition was enough to make your head spin.

“What do you want?” it was that question again.

Simple and yet not at all. Awaiting the response, Neil stopped all the movement, increasing your frustration and need. You knew that there was no way you could ever walk away from this as though nothing happened. You might as well have some relief.

“Help me before I lose my fucking mind” you breathed out, expecting the smug smile.

Instead, you got the most sickening grin you have ever seen on his face. But combined with the adoration in his eyes, you knew it was exactly what he wanted to hear from you.

“With pleasure” the words rolled off his tongue, and before you could prepare, he went back to stimulating your clit.

Your head almost slammed onto the wall behind when he picked up the pace. Even though you both knew that you hardly needed any additional preparation, Neil took his time, never taking his gaze off you. At the edges of your consciousness, you could feel the rising shame that was bound to consume you later. After all, this was the second time that you have asked him to help you like this. Surely, he would soon get tired of having to deal with your issues and never getting anything in return. But before you could follow that train of thought, Neil inserted a finger, and an unwanted cry rose in your throat.

“Jesus…” to stop yourself from being too vocal, you bit down harshly on your lip, bursting the barely sealed cut.

But Neil tilted your chin, meeting your gaze again.

“No need for that” he caught your lips in a short kiss “Don’t hold back”

Readjusting your hold on one of his shoulders, with the other hand you tugged on the tie you have messed up earlier. He took that as a cue to insert another digit. Too much.

“Christ, Neil” the breathless tone was a revelation even to you “You’re…” unable to finish the sentence, you moaned quietly.

Neil had no issues finding the perfect spot again, making you squirm and roll your hips, grinding down on that conveniently placed thigh. He thought of everything, it seemed. You did wonder how many times before he brought people to their downfall with those hands alone. But then, you would be lying if you would not admit that he had rather nice hands. And that you have not thought about this before Oslo.

“Glad it’s working, love” he commented upon a louder gasp from you.

For some reason, the nickname acted like a trigger. Feeling a surge of frustration, you bucked your hips against his, needing more.

“Don’t call me that” you spit the words out, relishing in the look of surprise in his eyes.

But he only needed a moment to shake it off before picking up the pace and curling his fingers inside you. Now it was close.

“What then?” Neil searched your eyes intently as though he was doing anything else but taking you apart with his two fingers and a thumb.

In response, you could only shudder, feeling your muscles tense in the anticipation of the near end.

“My love?” the proposition broke through the haze overwhelming your mind.

My god. Only with him, those two simple words could cause such an onslaught of feelings. There was something so achingly tender in his gaze that no matter the situation, your heart was set ablaze. He looked as though he was relieved to finally use those words. Suddenly, it was not just Neil lending you a helping hand in an hour of need. It was an act of love, further cementing your status as lovers. You were not sure whether it was that realization or what Neil has been doing to you that made the world explode before your eyes. Perhaps it was both. You only managed to breathe out a warning in the form of his name, but he understood.

“Look at me. I want to see what I did to you” he angled your chin again so you were forced to meet his gaze “So that I can remember this later” the husky whisper was the ultimate push over the edge.

Oh christ. You gripped his shoulder tightly and undid the tie, making it fall to the ground. Neil did not even notice, staring at you mesmerized. With the last bits of sanity, you took hold of his neck, bringing him close. The wave of pleasure made you tense up like a bowstring before you came with a shudder and a cry.

“Neil…” you got struck by the hope you saw in his eyes.

This time nothing was stopping you. No lips on yours to take over the words that were slowly choking you. The high he gave you took away all the inhibitions and worries. Neil was there, with you, a solid presence beneath your fingertips and an anchor to keep you from getting lost in your head. And that was enough.

“I love you” the three words were easy to utter for something you struggled to keep inside that long.

In response, Neil smiled and pressed his forehead against yours tenderly. The darkness in his eyes made way for pure happiness and conviction. Maybe this time it wasn’t a mistake.

“I know” he whispered and covered your lips in a sweet kiss.

Now that you were not holding back anything kissing Neil felt like absolution. You were never particularly religious, but he could be your eternal salvation, for the body and the soul. The only person you ever needed that much.

Breaking the kiss with a sigh, Neil took a step back and retracted the hand that was still stroking your navel. You watched with a slight surprise as he glanced at a watch.

“Are you in a rush?” with cheeks burning, you took out a tissue and passed it to him.

He took it with a curt nod and cleaned his hand. As you observed him like that, with messed up hair, unbuttoned collar, and slightly flushed cheeks, the reality of the situation started dawning on you. Not only have you allowed Neil to finger you in a dirty alley, but also you have confessed your feelings in the heat of the moment. And yet, he was still there…

“Unfortunately, yes, the meeting is in ten, and I still have to get there” Neil picked up the tie from the ground and brushed off the dirt “Trust me, I’d love to continue with this…” carelessly he tied the knot and took a step closer again “But we should leave something for the future too” with playful sparks in his eyes he brushed the hair away from your eyes.

Oh my god.

“Can’t you for once… not do this” sighing heavily, you focused on readjusting the underwear and zipping up your pants.

Everything was better than looking into those blue eyes.

“Where would be the fun in that” Neil buckled your belt, just as quickly as he undid it previously “I must admit that after this, I’m curious to see how you’ll react once I do it properly one day… with my mouth and then…” he trailed off, fingers brushing over your stomach once again.

“Neil… don’t” using your own power, you brushed your hips over his “Or you won’t make it to that meeting” you glanced at his crotch knowingly.

“As tempting as that is… I’d rather not disappoint TP” with a final caress of your side, he took a step back again “Don’t worry about me though. I’ll deal with this later” he adjusted the trousers slightly “I’m used to it” the hint of a smile was enough to help you understand.

You gaped. It was hard to think straight again. Surely…not? Right?

“You- what? Because of me?” you stuttered, bewildered and perplexed.

“Yes, absolutely” Neil shrugged and attempted to smooth his hair “Pretty often, but then you’re quite the inspiration, my love” he winked, enjoying your sudden paralysis.

Now that sort of image was bound to keep you up at night. For some reason, you never thought that he would think about you like that, always assuming there were better fantasies to use in need. But maybe… maybe he had it just as bad as you did.

“I have to run” Neil kissed you on the cheek, bringing your mind back to the present moment.

“Does this… change anything?” you met his gaze, hoping he will catch on to the meaning.

“No, not at all” the soft smile contrasted the recent conversation tone “I’ll text you later”

“You better” you mirrored his smile, watching him disappear in the crowd.

Wow… Now that was an interesting walk. Sighing, you rested your head against the brick wall for a few minutes longer, trying to level your breathing.

*** You were not given much break from Neil that day. To clear your head, you went for a walk around the city centre, visiting curious shops, and spending time in a cosy café. Just anything that did not have to do with the blonde bastard was good enough to shut up your rebelling brain. After all, now he knew everything, and that was a dangerous situation. You did your best to ignore your phone for most of the day however when it buzzed on your way back to the apartment it was hard to resist checking. He did text just as promised:

“Did you miss me?” and then “I’ll have some news for you all later”

Maybe things, in fact, have not changed…

“Maybe a little” smiling, you keyed in the code to the door.

Inside, you quickly settled on the sofa with some indulgent crisps, about to tune into the team’s favourite Estonian soap ‘Õnne 13’, which you all watched every evening. It was terribly boring (especially when one did not understand a single word), and yet after a few days, you wanted nothing but to know what Alma will have for dinner that night. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The latest dose of drama from the shithole called Morna got interrupted by your phone ringing. Neil, of course. Ignoring the offended stares from the other eight people in the room, you picked up the phone:

“Hey”

“Evening, my love” you could hear how happy he was to use those words.

Your heart summersaulted, making you exhale.

“I like the sound of that” grinning you walked out into the corridor to hide from the curious looks.

“Me too. Is everyone there with you?” jumping straight into the business was probably good for you both.

“Yeah. You’ve interrupted our shitty soap” at your adjective, a choir of outraged voices rose in the living room.

“My bad. Can you put me on the speaker? I could give you a run over the plan”

“Of course,” you motioned for everyone to gather around the table and put your phone in the middle “You’re on”

“Okay, so basically TP wants to take over the plutonium piece that is being transported through Tallinn in three days on its way to a nuclear depot in Italy. The point is not to let it get into Sator’s hands who thinks we’re cooperating with him”

“How will it be transported?” Ives propped his chin on his hand, listening intently.

“Reinforced truck with police escort front and back. Tracked via GPS” leaning back in the chair, you listened to Neil’s voice “Any unplanned stop or different turn and in come the reinforcements”

“What’s his plan then?”

“I believe he wants to take it out on the move with the use of a fire truck. Among others”

The hint of a smile in that sentence made you comment:

“So, you’re not the only crazy one around” earning a few amused grins from the people around, you briefly felt victorious.

Briefly.

“Something tells me you’re into that. Judging by what you let me do to you in that alley”

Fuck. A sharp gasp you let out made everyone turn to look at you. Gripping the edge of the table, you wanted nothing but to disappear. Or die. All the blood drained from your face as you stammered.

“Neil- you-” there was not enough air in the room “I-”

Wheeler shot you a worried look after you let out a small choking sound and spoke:

“Anyway… why are we needed?” the professional tone made everyone turn their attention back to the mission.

You had to thank her later for saving your dignity. And life.

“To be on hand if things get dirty. I’ll send you the brief now it lists the details of his plan” Neil resumed the topic as though nothing happened “Tomorrow, I’ll call to let you know what exactly I need. That’s it for tonight, enjoy your evening”

Before anyone could make a move, you snatched your phone from the table and muttered:

“You’re dead”

You ended the call and stormed off to your room, slamming the doors. You could not believe his audacity to say something like that with everyone on the receiving end. The bastard ought to pay for that. Unable to calm down, with hands shaking violently and your head in absolute disarray, you grabbed the coat and made beeline for the exit out of the flat. It was pretty late for a solitary walk, but you hardly had anything to lose. Before you could make a swift exit, Ives’ stopped you with a hand on the arm. You met his gaze with impatience:

“So… how was the alley?” while he kept his face straight, the amused tone was there.

Bloody men.

“Fuck off” you shook off his hand and opened the door “I’m going out, and hopefully I’ll get killed. Don’t wait up”

Before you slammed the door in his face, you heard the parting words:

“Have fun”

The cold Estonian breeze was a welcomed sensation for your tired and thoroughly pissed off mind. You put up the hood of your coat and wandered off into the night.

*** Unfortunately, no one was willing to kill you. Around 1 am, you grudgingly made your way back to the apartment, relieved when no one was around to corner you. Once you were safe in your locked bedroom, you took out the phone for the first time in three hours. Unsurprisingly there were two missed calls and three texts from Neil, plus one message from Wheeler. She was checking whether you were still alive, which was a rather touching gesture, and so you replied to her first. Then, sighing heavily, you went through the texts from Neil:

“I’m sorry” then “But I wasn’t entirely wrong, was I?” and finally, “Are you alright?”

That son of a bitch…

“You’re so going to pay for this” you typed back and lied down on the bed. He was quick to reply, which meant he stayed up. Potentially waiting for you to reach out. Talking about confusing signals…

“I was hoping you’d say that” you groaned.

“After that disaster of a meeting, I went for a walk. Found a perfect spot for murder in cold-blood. You won’t even know what hit you”

Maybe that will do the job.

“You did. Only a lot earlier than you think”

It didn’t. Sighing, you cursed your inability to leave him on read.

“I’ve had enough of you today, g’night”

“I seriously doubt that, but good night, darling” and then “I hope your dreams will be as good as our little moment”

That surge of frustration was only made worse when you found a stray short blonde hair on your blouse while changing for bed. The idiot not only had your heart, but everything else too, it seemed.

#tenet #neil tenet #neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #neil tenet imagine #neil tenet fanfic #tenet fanfic #robert pattinson #the art of inversion

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sunspot-illustrations · 3 years

Note

Favorite villain? I have to go with the OG Tigerstar, he reminds me so much of Shere Khan from the Jungle Book, and I’ve always imagined him with the voice of Tony Jay, or second choice of George Sanders. The way Tigerstar died was a shocker too. Also, what character do you think should be in the Dark Forest? It’s Rainflower, Sandgorse, Raggedstar and Clear Sky for me. Rainflower abused Crookedstar just for this looks, Sandgorse abused Tallstar just because he didn’t want to be a tunneler, and Raggedstar was abusive to Yellowfang. I haven’t read that much of Clear Sky, I’ve only just read Moth Flight’s Vision, but in that book he ordered another cat to go after Micah who was killed because of it, and then literally did nothing afterwards. I’ve heard he’s done other bad stuff too! Thoughts ?

Some of my favorite villains are Scourge, Sol, Mapleshade and Dark Tail!

Scourge is just,,,such an interesting yet very simple villain? Like, he just wants revenge and just like Tigerclaw, his greed is ultimately what gets him killed. The first of many who have fact relieved about them after the fact and kts never addressed in canon (him and Firestar being half brothers, honestly I kind Scourge and Tigerclaw being half brothers would've been more interesting)

Sol is just pretty and dumb and i like that in a villain. He is also simultaneously the smartest cause he survived tricking Blackstar (he lived only cause of his looks...and probably cause he literally just d i p p e d) and he survived both of his encounters with the clans in general. Hope he's fat and happy wherever he is.

Mapleshade is a horrible, terrible woman and i love her. Like, awful person, cool character as far as warrior villains go. She's also the only character i like that ive goten anon hate over so...yeah. Feel like if the erins wanted her to come off as more sympathetic in her backstory they should've leaned into her actually naively thinking her kits could stop thunderclan and riverclan from fighting or making her a toxic positive kind of person instead (like, she cant or wont recognize Appledusk as a not great person or her giving excuses for everyone else so when she finally acknowledges all the bad stuff it hits harder or something) or maybe if we saw more of her life before Appledusk and her kits. Either way, deserves to be in the dark forest, BRUTAL lady, dont know why she wants revenge agaisnt all the clans when she's so obviously has a blood feud that ends with Stormfur and Reedwhisker.

Dark Tail is actually scary. Like, Tigerclaw was sneakily scary, you never knew when he was gonna strike next but with Dark Tail he just felt unstoppable. Stupid backstory, like, I hate it so much, but Dark Tail in general was really cool and the fact he tore shadowclan in two (again...leave my favorite clan alone erins come on) was cool (despite the fact we've seen this before e r i n s). He should've killed Mistystar, he also should've been in the second half of Avos instead of first. Him following Skyclan wouldve made the conflict better and feel like the otber clans distrust and weird hate for skyclan a little founded in logic then just them being dumb cause the plot died with the villain.

Cats who should've gone to the DF -

ASHFUR WE ALL KNOW WHY

Rainflower, ABSOLUTELY should've been in the Dark Forest. We should've seen Rainflower crawling up to Crookedstar begging for forgiveness, playing up an act like she changed but Crookedstar just turns away from her cause he knows she hasn't changed at all.

Sandgorse is...iffy for me? I haven't finished reading Tallstar's revenge but he never came off as abusive to me? I could be wrong cause I have also been under the false impression that Shrewclaw wasn't abusive either so if I am wrong I apologize. He just feels like he more...frustrated than angry at Tallkit/paw and he didn't handle it well. (Which still isnt great, you're allowed to be frustrated but you should never take it out on your kids regardless of the circumstances) So I'll get back to you on this one.

Raggedstar defiantly deserves it, I think Oakstar (TC) should also be in the Dark Forest for kitten endangerment and starting an ultimately pointless war with kittypets. Like. Seriously man.

I haven't finished nor do i think I ever will finish DoTc. But from what i hear Clear Sky sucks so yeah ill agree with that one. If Gray Wing is silverpelt than Clear Sky can be the stubborn bitch keeping everyone in the DF. He is the swampy ground, the grabing, pulling foliage, he is the clear, empty sky above you and he is the reason that you are a l o n e...cause if he had to be alone, then so do you. Also Clear Sky just...sucks so yeah throw him in the naughty kitty pit with the rest of 'em.

#firepaw-cant-count #warrior cats #ask #asked and answered #battle strategy #my opinion #my kind of dumb opinions #tbh #tiger being voiced by same guy who voice shere khan sounds wicked as hell

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snesdudes · 3 years

Text

FIST FIGHTING WITH FIRE

chapter III

Pairing: Mason x f!Detective (Alice Santos)

Warnings: Book 3 demo SPOILERS!!! Cursing, some angst, mentions of sex, a guy being a creep™, I guess. Sorry if there are any mistakes!

Word count: ~1.8k

Summary: A week after that scene on Haley’s Bakery, Mason deals with the aftermath of his words... Or has he been dealing with it since the very moment he said them?

Read on ao3

chapter I ⭐ chapter II ⭐ chapter IV ⭐ chapter V

☾ 一一一一一一一一一 ☽

Outside the bar

"Can we just… not do this?" Alice spoke into the phone, her free hand running through her red hair and messing the waves she had carefully done that evening. A sigh from the other end of the line indicated her mother's reluctance to let it go.

"You seemed to be perfectly integrated with the Unit some days ago, and this week you made up a meeting with the Captain just to avoid coming to the warehouse."

Alice cringed, not her finest moment. "Look, I'm with them now, having a drink together. We're fine. Everything's fine."

"Does this have anything to do with what's been going on with Mason?"

Hearing his name made the detective snap. "Wait, is this you being a mother or being a boss?" She spat, venom on her every word. "Because you've barely gained the right to meddle in my life as either of those things."

The silence was deafening, and Alice's heartbeat kept getting faster and faster. "You weren't there when Bobby broke my heart, you don't have to be here now." Her voice cracked as she finished the sentence and she had to clear her throat.

"Is that what happened? Mason broke your heart?" Tears threatened to spill out of her green eyes at the genuine concern on Rebecca's voice.

"No, he didn't." She answered with a whisper, rebuilding her carefully placed walls.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am. I have to go, they are waiting for me."

"Alice, wait, tell me -"

She finished the call and stared at the phone's screen for a few seconds, taking calming breaths and trying to swallow the tears. The Unit would pick up on any change in her mood so she better calm down fast.

"Detective Santos. That looked intense."

She turned around quickly, finding the bearded man they were discussing inside before her mother called. Alice cleared her throat and offered a wobbling smile. "Kinda. Mr Rogers, wasn't it?"

"Please, call me Owen." He said, a wolfish smile on his lips as he offered his hand to her. Alice couldn't help but think of all the times the smirks Mason threw her way had seemed wolfish to her, and how different the chill she felt going down her spine was to the one she was feeling now.

Still, she was the detective of this town, so she shook his hand as professionally as she could. He took advantage of the situation to pull her slightly towards him, making her stumble on her heels and gaining a frown from her.

"I couldn't exactly walk up to you inside, surrounded by those guys. Popular, aren't you?"

Alice pulled her hand away and took a step backwards, creating some distance. "Those are my friends. And I would carefully think about what you say next if I were you, because so far you're doing a terrible job at flirting with me."

Owen blinked, slightly taken aback by her brashness, but recovering quickly and assuming she was challenging him. He didn't know he had picked the worst moment to annoy the detective, who usually was rather friendly and generous with her smiles. But the night had been a whirlwind of emotions and she was feeling irritated, miserable and ready to either go home and curl into the bed or get back inside and get shit faced drunk. Definitely not in the mood to deal with this man.

"I'm just saying you've probably let some of them get a taste." His grin widened, eyes travelling down her body. "Thought maybe I could be next. I'm sure I could teach you a couple of things… or maybe you could show me what you can do."

She opened her mouth to reply when a low growl interrupted her, making Owen turn around and allowing Alice to see Mason standing there, fists clenched and eyes narrowed, lips curled in a snarl. He looked dangerous, even more so than he usually did, and Alice tried to look at him from a stranger's eyes. Everything in his body and expression was screaming 'predator'. It would be the kind of situation where your body asks you to run even if you aren't sure about why you should be running. You just know you should. But she didn't feel fear, his anger was not directed towards her. She felt a thrill going through her body at his presence, forgetting her bruised heart for a moment.

"What the fuck did you just say to her?" The words were still growled as he stepped forward, and Owen took a step backwards, nearly colliding with the detective, who moved aside and around him. Mason reached out a hand to her, not moving his stormy gaze from the bearded man. Not even thinking, she slipped her hand into his and he gently moved her closer until she was tucked against his side. The detective had expected Mason to push her behind him, not keeping her by his side. She felt both of their bodies relaxing slightly at the touch, as if being close to each other was the only thing they needed in the world.

Owen looked at them with slight fear in his eyes. He could swear he had seen a glimpse of inhumanly big fangs when the long-haired man snarled. Mason's hand rested on her waist and her manicured one grabbed his shirt, his dark hair falling down his face and getting mixed with her red locks, tickling her cheek. He looked at him as if he was about to rip him apart, and the look on the detective's face let him know she would very much allow it… maybe even help him.

"Look," he croaked, "I didn't know she was with you. No harm done, okay?"

But his words didn't have the desired reaction. Another growl, and his snarl widened. It was taking all his self control not to pounce on this guy, but he knew he shouldn't. "So it was okay to be a creep to her when you didn't know? But suddenly a bad idea now you know she's my girl?"

Mason didn't miss the way her heart leaped inside her chest at his words and a pang of satisfaction almost made him shudder. If he hadn't been so fucking angry at the man standing before them he would have probably gotten goosebumps at the way she subtly pressed herself closer before speaking.

"You gotta learn how to treat women like human beings, you fucking dirtbag. If I see you creeping on anyone of this town I'll have you arrested for harassment."

The man nodded enthusiastically as he took another step backwards. Mason rolled his eyes with a huff.

"One of us is gonna kick your ass if you don't get lost. Now."

That was enough, and in a few seconds they were left alone in the street. Mason relished on her closeness, the scent of her honey scented shampoo tickling his nose, the warmth of her body expanding through their clothes and seeming to reach inside him. But she cleared her throat and he lost it all. She took a step away from him and the hand that had been resting on her waist fell limp to his side.

"Thank you. It would have been awkward if the detective of the town punched a newcomer in the dick." She chuckled awkwardly. "So, you know, thank you."

"You already said that."

She met his eyes and his forced grin let her know he was trying to mess with her to lighten the mood.

"Right. We should, uh, go back." She moved to walk past him, but his long fingers curled around her forearm and she spinned around to meet his face, now suddenly serious. He opened his mouth and closed it, his brow furrowed as if what he was about to say was too difficult to say it out loud. His fingers loosened their grip and Alice thought he was going to let her go. Of course he was going to let her go. He wouldn't face the way he hurt her because that would mean he accepted they had something worth saving. Her eyes dropped to his grip, wanting to watch, forcing to accept, he was never going to make her stay.

But his fingers tightened with new force, and her gaze snapped back to his face.

Grey eyes, tempestuous with emotion, stared at her, moving wildly through her features before he finally found the words.

"Don't go."

Her breath caught on her throat at the thought that he wasn't just talking about going inside.

He feels those things, alright. You gotta be patient while he figures them out.

Felix's words echoed inside her mind. The seconds that went by seemed to last an eternity, before she nodded slowly. Mason's shoulders dropped as he exhaled, as if a great weight had been lifted off them.

"Okay, Mason."

Meanwhile, inside the bar

"Maybe one of us should have gone outside to mediate." Nate sighed, staring inside his glass of scotch. "Those two aren't exactly good at sharing how they feel."

"Who knows." Felix shrugged, a grin widening in his face. "Maybe they're already back at Allie's apartment."

"Why would they…? Oh." Nate realised, eyes widening.

"They say the bigger the fight, the best the make up sex gets." Felix wiggled his eyebrows. "If that's true, they're in for a hell of a night."

Nate cringed, very much wishing Felix hadn't put that image of his friends inside his brain. "Ugh. I just hope Mason finds a way to fix whatever he's done without hurting her anymore."

"She knew what she was getting into by getting involved with someone like Mason." Adam said matter of factly. "He doesn't really try to hide his brashness."

Nate nodded, Mason was all sharp edges and bluntness, while the detective was much softer, gentle. It was easy for someone like her to get cut while trying to hold on to someone like him. Maybe it was a matter of how many cuts and wounds she could resist before letting go. But he liked to believe that wouldn't happen - instead, her softness would envelope his sharpness, showing him a side of himself he didn't even know it existed. A small smile bloomed on Nate's face as the thought.

"I think they both have to learn how to be around each other now that their relationship is changing."

Adam shrugged, but Felix let out a dreamy sigh. "You're such a romantic, Natey. Mason would learn so much from you if he didn't get nauseous every time he thinks about love."

Nate chuckled. "You know, maybe that's about to change."

☾ 一一一一一一一一一 ☽

A/N: Let me know if you want to be tagged in the future! Thank you for reading, feedback is appreciated 😍

TAGLIST: @agentnatesewell @gloynporslen @sunchipz @agentmasonjars @msjpuddleduck @utterlyinevitable @kat-tia801 @oxjenayxo

#here it iiiisss #they needed a push ok #me: now kiss #twc #the wayhaven chronicles #twc m #detective alice santos #twc mason #agent m #agent mason #mason x mc #mason x detective #mason x alice #twc detective

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lady-plantagenet · 3 years

Note

What are your top ten novels about the Wars of the Roses? And why?

I think it’s obvious by the length how enthusiastic I was to answer this ask xx thank you for asking me and giving me also an opportunity to make a masterlist of some sorts of all my reviews xx. But you know? I speak like quite the expert but in reality I’ve read very little histfic about TWOTR because I just newly got back into this hobby (about a year ago) and have little time in general so tbh the last three books on this list I do not personally care for but since I’ve read so little novels of this kind they are here nonetheless hhh (so please people, give me no angry asks asking me why I am endorsing PG, I’m not).

1. The Last of the Barons by Lord Edward Lytton-Bulwer

This is quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read in my life. The gap between these books and the rest is a chasm the size of the world and I wpuld genuinely reccomend this book as an actual piece of literature to anyone, not just TWOTR fanatics. It is written in 1840, in quite old timey lingo and it centres around Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, but in the true tradition of a real classic it is more than just a character drama, it astutely showcases the purpose of Warwick and what he did in the context of his wider world and doesn’t just chalk it up to personal greed. There is also this fascinating subplot about courtship, science and such. Hell, you even get this eccentric ‘natural philosopher’ guy called Adam Warner who tries to make something like a steam engine and gets employed as an alchemist by Jacquetta and Edward IV.

From a historical standpoint it is quite biased as the author himself was a politician (and an actual baron) and tbh I don’t completely agree with his interpretation of history and I can see some of the Victorian inluences slip in, but some of his takes are very refreshing and he clearly consulted the primary sources. I am much interested in his philosophy and life outlook though and while I don’t think his Warwick is the Warwick, I think he (Lytton-Bulwer) understood him like no other novelist could. As for the writing style... here’s an excerpt of a good reads review that I agree with and tells you all you need to know:

“Of course, such a style of writing no longer exists. The language used is essentially foreign to us. But the nobility, the pride of this story work their ways into your bones, your heart. You will yearn for honor once you have left it.“

Basically, go type it into google and see what I mean. You don’t even need to purchase this book it’s all online at the first click on Gutenberg.

Nevertheless, I’ve posted excerpts of it here, here and here =)

2. The King’s Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

This book (unlike the latter) has zero actual historical value. Actually, it sort of does in the way that it hilights certain real events that most people are unaware of when it comes to its protagonist: Elizabeth Woodville, eg the whole Cooke tapestry affair and the whole Desmond affair. Both things which I still stand on the fence about (if you don’t know what I’m talking about send em another ask or pm me). But like, it isn’t political, philosophical or such in any way like the first book, yet you still feel like you are *there* in the 15th century - by the time I finished reading it my heart was wrung dry and I kind of fell into a down for a couple of days because I just wanted to feel the magic again. If anyone would ask me I would give this 5 stars because it perfectly achieved what it set out to do (I can’t expect all books to go above and beyond like #1), it made me feel for the characters who were super complex, was accurate historically and even when it wasn’t it made sense, it got very creative with its themes (which I like to see because I am not interested in reading the exact same story over and over again) and the prose was absolutely magical and brought all the depth to this novel. I’ve read classics with less flowing and poignant prose, yes actual classics!

This book also switches POVs quite a lot (basically it headhops because it’s written in omniscient- but whatever, rules are meant to be broken), so you’ll get to see many of your faves in there, Edward IV, Margaret of Anjou and Grace Plantagenet feature quite heavily. One thing that disappointed me is that it wasn’t really Edward IV/Elizabeth Woodville (at the time I bought it for that), she never really likes him and his love for her kind of wanes towards the end. If you’re not too bothered about that then I say go buy it.

3. The Daisy and the Bear by K L Clark

I put this here because we are already going into shakier territory when it comes to this list. This is kind of the last *really* good, truly five star one. It is a long spoof about TWOTR but god it’s smart! Yet, It does not take itself seriously and has Margaret of Anjou/Warwick the Kingmaker as a crackship and centrepiece and had me in stitches the whole time. I’ve written a long detailed review for it here.

4. Death be Pardoner to Me by Dorothy Davies

This is a novel about George Duke of Clarence. Quite possibly the only novel ever written about him in existence and boy is it a trip - the author claims to have channelled him (she’s a medium). I’ve written a detailed review for it here. I read this last spring and my views have unfortunately changed, the thing is, I’ve come to find out through my research that this was quite possibly a hoax as there are some indisputable inaccuracies (Ankarette Twynyho’s age, the details of Isabel’s death - we *know* she did not die from childbirth, Isabel did not reunite with him after Tewksbury 1471, but right before Christmas 1470). It’s also quite Richardian (the author admitted) and she could have *had* me had she not chose to divulge it in the foreword. Nevertheless, I still like this book because it did get to me at certain points and it’s good quality as a novel, I remember shedding a tear at one point even which is extremely rare for me but I think that says more about my sentiment for the subject matter than the book itself.

5. We Speak no Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman (not yet finished, so ranking may vary)

I haven’t finished it yet, so I’ll leave it here for now. This book is a Richardian book about Richard III, but I can’t get enough of this author, I haven’t found anyone to replace her with. The prose is magnificent as usual and I must confess that I’m happy that this book is told through the POVs of three OCs and not Richard, he remains rather elusive and tbf I find the three OCs very interesting and at this point I’m more interested in their stories than anything else. Of course, Richard III is still a fairly prominent part of this novel (even when he doesn’t appear) and it has led to me getting annoyed quite a bit. Given who I am I fumed massively at that one aside that Clarence and Edward have bastards whereas Richard isn’t like that... like are you serious?? At one point the author reassociated the Games and Playes Chesse book to Richard when it was in reality dedicated to Clarence and I got even more annoyed. Leave the poor figure something ma’am? Whatever, as a book about three medieval commoners it’s fantastic and that’s what I pretend it is.

6. Wife to the Kingmaker by Sandra Wilson

Nothing more to add than what I wrote in my (super-long) detailed review on here. This is the case because I read it very recently. This is a novel about Anne Beauchamp 16th Countess of Warwick, it’s ranked higher than Sunne because though it’s less accurate it’s got panache.

7. The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon K Penman

I feel very strongly about this Richard III book and what it represents. I wrote a long detailed review about it on here and a follow-up post on the discussion is here ft my awesome mutual @beardofkamenev ‘s insights also thrown into the mix. Xx

8. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

This is a step higher than the other two because this book pretty much changed my life. The thing is, I read it translated into my own language by an extremely talented translator and I was also only about 11/12 years old so it was all very impressive to me then. This book about Elizabeth Woodville effectively introduced me to the TWOTR; an interest that has never really left me these past ten years (though at one point (ages 14-19) it was quite wane). It’s not a good book by any standard (I was quite shocked when picking it up at a bookstore, I had found that when read in the original language it lost all its magic), but I owe a lot to it and some people who now endlessly discourse about how bad PG is need to recognise their debt of gratitude and be a bit more respectful, I think. That is of course unless you came into this era via different media, but you got to admit that a massive part of us got to this place through TWQ, though we outgrew it.

10. The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Exact same commentary as above, just objectively not good books. Flat characterisation, misunderstanding of the era, historical innacuracies which don’t add anything, lack of nuance in prose which often dances too close to *gasp* YA prose *shudders*. But these are lower because I don’t owe them a debt of gratitude as I do TWQ. Funnily enough, they are still better than the series.

#look at rb for tags

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marveling-chrisevans · 4 years

Text

Quarantine || Chris Evans x Reader

Pairings: Chris Evans x Reader / Chris Evans x You

Warnings: Smut and a little cute fluffy - also could be triggering for current situations.. also kinda long

Words Count: 2045

Summary: Chris quarantine alone so is his neighbor (y/n) too. So they talk all day across the balcony because of the distancing, and the sexual tension becomes to much and Chris jumps the railing and they screw right then

Tag-List: @patzammit @torntaltos @smoothdogsgirl (tag list is also open so if you want to be tagged let me know, you can reply to this or send an ask)

A/N: Sometimes smut is hard to write. So there is that before you read this. I try my best with it, not the actual best writer of smut but ill work on it -- sorry it took a few days to post I had to one finish it and its almost finals so ive been a bit distracted

Living so far from your family during this time was hard when you couldn’t even walk the streets. You knew the man next door to you though passing but you had never actually sat down and talked to him. One week into being alone you saw him sitting outside reading a book, so you open your sliding glass door and walked over to the edge and lean over to read the title “so is it any good?” You wondered with a slight smile on your face looking at him. He closed his book and looked over at you “yeah its pretty good, fancy seeing you out here” he teased back “feeling lonely?” He wondered as he leaned forward in the chair he was sitting “i guess this whole being stuck inside and not being able to do anything is really putting a damper on my social life I'm left talking to you” You teased back “I'm y/n” you introduced yourself incase you never have “Chris, you know we have lived next door to each other for like a year now and never done that..” He smiled back at you. “you should be more friendly”

“Says the guy who always looks like he is running late or the world is going to end” your laugh slightly “seriously every time I see you in the lobby or the hall you are like sprinting out the door, do you need a watch or something?” You wondered with a cocky smirk on your face “If you must know I just like to be perfectly on time.” He snarked back “and its not usually me its the driver they send every morning, he gets here so late and I have to run to him so we can make it on time” he defended himself “oh driver, what do you do for a living, you live in this nice apartment int he middle of the city and have a driver” She wondered as she took a seat herself on her patio furniture

“nothing really special I act in a couple of things, right now I'm staring in a show on broadway called Lobby hero” he said back to her “otherwise I don’t spend much time in the city” “oh so your can actor, no wonder your always late. Have you been in anything I would have seen, note I don’t watch many movies only the ones I'm dragged to” You asked him crossing your legs facing him “uh I'm not sure then I did a few romcoms back in the day, currently I'm playing captain America” he said thinking “have you seen the old school fantastic four?” He asked looking back at you taking a drink of his water “you mean the one with uh Jessica Alba? I mean of course” You replied back “oh my god Jonny storm.. aka human douche” you smirked “thats what my friends called you in that movie”

He couldn’t help but laugh as he clutched his chest with his hand “oh my god thats a good one, he was kinda an asshole in that movie” He smiled. That is how your days went. You two talked, and talked and talked till it got so personal Spending time with each other has been the staple of your day,

Most days you got our coffee and then headed out to the balcony with a book and waited for Chris to get up and get ready. Some days it was about an hour as you had always been an early riser. You most mornings did a home work out, weather it was yoga or like a dance video

Walking out this morning you were just in your yoga pants and a tank-top, thank god the weather had been improving from winter and was actually warmer.

This morning you were reading the book you met Chris reading, he had finished it and lended it to you. As you enjoyed your cup of coffee as he walked out and looked over at you “so you're enjoying it then?” He wondered as he sat down with his puppy outside You carefully close the book to not lose your page “yes I am sucked in. Its really eye opening and like life changing” you smiled across the balcony at him “good morning dodger, your cutest than your owner did you know that?” You said leaning forward and petting him since he was on the railing

“oh is that what you really think?” Chris wondered walking up next to dodger looking at you locking eye contact, you couldn’t help but just freeze where you were, locking the stare of his piercing blue eyes. “no?” You questioned yourself “i mean you are decent looking” you said biting the inside of your lip as you pull the stare you to hard, which had quite honestly created the most sexual tension the two of you have had yet “so what are you plans today?” You wondered “you know, talking to you, and maybe making some food” he said with a shrug “but here is the thing not go anywhere.” He smirked over at you. He found you attractive. He just looked at you as he leaned against the railing, “what about yourself” “well I was thinking about kidnapping that adorable dog, and reading this book. And I guess talking to you” you teased him slightly as you had nothing else to do ‘and order food because I'm out, lets be honest” you shrugged “i need to venture out one day but for now ill just do take out” Chris shook his head “yeah I wouldn’t they make a thing called this grocery delivery thing.” He said simply. He said taking off his jacket which relived his white t-shirt, which just outlined his muscles completely, you couldn’t help but stare at them. “right yeah right yep I should look into that” You said still looking at him. Chris couldn’t help but watch you look at him. He to be quite honest he found it even more fantasying to you. He took his moment. He opened the door for dodger to go back in as he jumped over the rail, the gap between your two balcony was about a foot, it wasn’t that much that he was going to hurt himself being on a higher floor. He had the urge to actually be connected to her, he couldn’t stand it any longer. You were so confused watching him jump over the railing “what are you doing? Are you crazy you could hurt yourself!” You said as you took a step back so he had room to land as he jumped over “oh my god you just about gave me a heart attack why would you do that!”

Chris didn’t respond he just put his hand on your hip and pulled you closer to him and crashed his lips. You responded by kissing him back and putting your arms around his neck pulling away “what are you?” You tried to ask him before he cut you off with another kiss. You ran your hands down his shirt till it was in hem and started to tug at it, as they long enough to pull his shirt off and then he pulled your shirt off. He picked you up and set you on your patio table. You didn’t question any of it. You took a second with your hands on his abs as you pulled away from a breath “god damn what are you made out of stone” you wondered looking at him. He smiled and looked at her “no just a lot of working out, you wanna do this?” He wondered just to confirm cause concert “I've wanted this the last few weeks, but I'm not daring enough to jump over the rail, though you could have used the door” you teased him again with a smirk “thats it” he said picking you up and took off your pants as he pulled you to the front of the table as you worked on undoing his belt. You stared to push them down to his ankles.

He picked you up again well kissing you very passionately and intently. Bringing you into your apartment, your neighbors didn’t need a show but he didn’t care at that point, He laid you down on the couch kicking off his own pants and grinding himself against you. You couldn’t help but letting a moan escape your lips, into his mouth, you could feel the edges of his lips smile knowing that you enjoyed that. He bite your lip as he pulled off your panties and you his boxers, you ran your hand down his body to meet his member, using your hand getting to run the length, guiding him to the entrance. After making him put on a condom. He could feel the wetness running off your clit as he slide into you. You gasps as he entered you, you knew how big it was, but feeling it inside of you was a whole different story. Being who he was he pulled away from your kiss “are you okay is that okay?” He wondered. You without words nodded as he started to pump his hips into yours. You lifted your legs wrapping them around his waist. Rounding your hips into his.

He cupped your breast giving it a tight squeeze which made another moan escape you're lips “Chris, harder” you said breathless and he obeyed doing exactly what you said.

As you closed your eyes feeling every kind of euphoric sensation you reached up and ran your hands though his He could feel when you were getting close he ran his hand down your lower body as he found your clit and started to play with it. This sent you over the edge, you could feel the pit in the lower part of your stomach tighten, and your walls around his penis. He could tell you were getting close, he shifted and started to thrust into you harder feeling you cum around him. He finished at the same time you did, the two of you road out the high of the climax before he pulled out. He lowered his head breathless as they hung over your breasts, and you shifted so he could lay next to you on the couch. You laughed slightly looking at him “did that really just happen?” You asked out loud as he joined you on the couch. “it did yes, id say it was a long time coming” He smiled and kissed you again “from the first day we met outside” You couldn’t help but smile and bite your lip “I have a question, what does the mean?” You wondered as your finger ran over the tattoo he had on his collarbone, letting it linger on his body “it is Buddhism for When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” He said back to you with a small smile “interesting” you said and kissed him again and got up “I'm hungry now” you said as you grabbed his shirt from outside and slide it over your head and walked into the kitchen.

He got up and slide on his boxers and followed you. “right I haven’t gotten food” you said as you look in the fridge that is basically empty at this point “come on” he said as he handed you your panties and you slide them on. He took you over to his apartment and made you some food. “also if you keep wearing that shirt we might end up in round two sooner than you think” he said back to you “okay then ill keep wearing it” you said after walking into his apartment and walked over to his puppy and sat on the floor next to him “oh your such a good boy dodger, oh okay” you laughed as dodger knocked you over and attacked you with kisses Chris Smiled as he looked over at the both of you knowing that he could see a future between the two of you, and to think if you weren’t locked in the house you two may of never met.

#Chris Evans #Chris Evans smut #chris Evans fluff #Chris Evans x Reader #Chris Evans x you #Chris Evans x y/n #Chris Evans fandom #Chris Evans Story #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fanfiction #Defending Jacob #andy barber #Lobby hero #Captian america #Steve rodgers #ari levinson

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icanttakethemonmyown · 2 years

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I FUCKIN KNEW IT!!!

I was re-reading a few chapters and there was one where you had written something about a box behind a book, and I had just thought that it was the memory box.

Also, for "tax purposes" fair reason to get married. Not at all because he wants to officially introduce Sam as his 'wife' (but we all lowkey know that when Sam talks about Andrew, she does introduce him as her wife. Cannot explain, I just know).

Also, I love how our Tom and Daphne scenarios wormed their way in their. Excellent job, Miss Anje.

Also, I need financial compensation for Daphne having Andrew and Sam at an academic conference because I just know as soon as Daphne raised the camera, Andrew moved out of the way so that it would just be Sam in the picture and she reprimanded him saying she wanted it to be of both of them.

And Andrew only telling Tom because we all know that Daphne has many strengths, but keeping secrets is not one of them.

I am sad that we won't get to see these characters as often, but I know that I can always send you asks and maybe you'll be kind to us occasionally and drop a one-shot without warning.

This also just makes room for the enemies to lovers plot just saying👀👀👀👀👀 (kidding. Please don't feel pressured. Unless you absolutely want to👀👀👀👀👀)

Excellent as always darling!!!

im sorry this ask took me so long to get to but its literally because i want to keep it in my ask box forever! i keep coming back to it and rereading bc it is just such a lovely message start to finish ❤

ill be putting the rest of my answer below the cut bc its gonna be a long one, but that is what you deserve, anon, an entire essay response 🥰

DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE BOX HINT, i was sat here for like days afterwards waiting for someone to ask about it and nobody did but luckily it was there for me to refer back to when i bring up foreshadowing! also the fact that you said you reread chapters 💕💝💖💞💘💗💓 my heart grew a thousand sizes, that is like one of the biggest compliments you could've given me, truly!!

Andrew is literally fooling no one with that tax purposes" cover up, he just wants to make borat jokes at all the fancy functions (and also my headcanon is that the day sam discovers the term "malewife", like the manipulate mansplain malewife thing, is the day her life is changed forever)

and i can't thank you enough for our tom and daphne brainstorm sessions, i literally went back and looked for them while i was writing bc i couldn't remember all of the backstories we came up with hahaha but i hope i did them justice in your eyes! (also andrew stepping out of photos is something i never thought about but honestly SO TRUE ANON, our humble king)

this is an under the cut exclusive, so lean in: i was legitimately thinking of randomly dropping a one-shot one of these days bc i have like a two-thirds written chapter that isn't going to fit into the narrative anymore, but i still wanna share it bc it makes me giggle! its about sam meeting andrews friends for the first time and they have like an impromptu karaoke night and sam serenades andrew, fun times!

bestie, don't think ive forgotten about enemies to lovers sam and andrew 👀👀 oh no no no, how could i!! i don't know when it will be done, but i promise its coming along!!

thank you once again for this lovely, lovely message! you've made my week, anon! i hope you are doing well, i miss hearing from youuuu ❤

#no words can describe what this ask means to me #i love it so much #also i forgot to add in my original answer:#how are we feeling about graduation!!#i have various ideas for it so if anyone sees this #ask me about it!! i want audience input about how i should present it #bc the current idea is to write about each eras graduation #like undergrad - masters - and then modern day with them as professors at their students' graduations #does that make sense??#ANYWAYS #thats enough from me #anon you are the best #i hope you are having an absolutely breathtaking week!#prof!hoz #asks

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madasthesea · 4 years

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should I tear my heart out now? (everything I feel returns to you somehow)

He’s been reborn many times in his life; forged anew in refiner’s fire. A phoenix in the ashes.

The world that Tony steps into when he exits the Milano is still buried, choking in ash, unsure yet of what it will be when it finally licks its wounds clean.

Tony isn’t sure of what he will be, either.

Or: Tony mourns.

read on AO3

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Tony remembers that first step out of the cave in Afghanistan, holding the car battery and squinting in the sunlight, seeing his guns in the hands of his kidnappers and knowing, then, that his life would never be the same. So, too, does he recall the first wobbly flight in the Mark II armor, bolting from his garage with a thrilled whoop of joy sitting in his throat, racing into a world unlike any he’d ever known.

He’s been reborn many times in his life; forged anew in refiner’s fire. A phoenix in the ashes.

The world that Tony steps into when he exits the Milano is still buried, choking in ash, unsure yet of what it will be when it finally licks its wounds clean.

Tony isn’t sure of what he will be, either.

“I lost the kid,” he confesses, then crumples in the face of this new world: this world without Peter.

“Leave me alone, Rhodes.”

Someone has been with him from the moment he gained consciousness and he’s sick of being watched. He looks like the same person—a little gaunter, a little rougher perhaps, but still like Tony Stark—but he isn’t. He’s a doppelganger, a replica. A ghost.

“No.”

“Go away, James.”

If they stop looking at him, he can stop existing. That’s how it works, right? Quantum physics, Schrodinger’s cat, the “wanted: dead and alive” t-shirt Peter used to wear. He’s only alive because they think he is.

“Nope.”

Tony’s patience is as thin as he is right now.

“I want to be alone,” he snaps. His snarl used to be impressive but now he just feels like a kicked dog, barking as it hides.

Rhodey finally closes the book he was pretending to read, sighs heavily as looks up at Tony.

“You’re on suicide watch, Tony,” Rhodey says. Tony freezes, the heart monitor sluggishly picking up its pace.

Rhodes settles back a little bit in his chair, tilting his chin up defensively. “Suicidal tendencies double in bereaved fathers.”

“I’m not going to kill myself,” Tony says numbly, shying away from the very thought. Suicide sounds too violent. He doesn’t want to die, he just wants to... fade. Like Peter had. But he doesn’t know how to explain the difference.

“I'm really glad to hear that, Tones, but—”

“I’m not going to because I don’t have to,” Tony interrupts, his vision blurry but not from tears. He thinks he might pass out. He hasn’t said it out loud before but it’s true, and the words tumble out before he can stop them. “I died when he did. This is—I’m just—” Peter’s English homework is still sitting down in the lab, he thinks. They’d read lines together because Peter wanted to impress that girl he was smitten with, in his nerdy, awkward, adorable way. Out, out brief candle. Life’s but— “—a walking shadow.”

Rhodey purses his lips, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Tony. Losing what—You’re still alive. It might not feel like it right now, but life goes on.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t,” Tony whispers. Then he turns onto his side, thinking that he probably hasn’t made the point he meant to.

The constant guard doesn’t stop and Tony knows he doesn’t need it, but he can’t blame them for not believing him.

Bruce falls asleep the third night in. Tony’s mind feels hazy, thinks they might have laced his nutrient saline with a sedative.

He wants out of this bed. He wants to not be looked at but the entire west wall is glass windows.

He knows how to take out his IV without too much mess, unplugs the heart monitor before he takes that off too. The door is propped open.

He spills forward like a puppet on strings, fast and uncoordinated, every limb numb. His head is swimming like he stood up too fast, but the feeling only intensifies the longer he’s up.

He falls a hall and a half away from the Medbay, but he crawls to the wall and hauls himself up before FRIDAY has even finished asking if he wants her to get anyone.

By the time he reaches Peter’s room, he’s running into the walls, tripping over his own feet, but he has to get there. He has to do this because he can’t do anything but this.

Tony’s hand trembles as he turns the knob. He falls inward as the door opens, barely catches his own weight and then his breath as the sight registers: messily made bed, books piled on his desk. There’s a picture of Peter, May, and Ben on the nightstand.

He clambers drunkenly to the far side of the bed and pulls the covers over himself. The sheets smell like Peter.

His breath stutters. His eyes burn.

The sheets smell like Peter but his mouth tastes like ash.

He closes his eyes and imagines what it feels like; burning, tearing, rending. Ignition, combustion, extinction on an atomic scale, on every level of existence. To be so afraid, and so desperate, and in so much pain.

He thinks it probably feels like this.

He turns his face into Peter’s pillow and weeps.

He wakes up to someone crawling into bed with him and he wonders that he doesn’t think it’s Peter, not even for a delirious, half-asleep second. People talk about forgetting, about turning and expecting them to be there, about denial and acceptance and how it takes time, but Tony doesn’t understand that because the knowledge lives in his chest, gnawing and biting and shredding and no amount of denial will take the pain of it away. He wears it like a funeral shroud, breathes it like toxic fumes. It pounds through his veins like poison.

His eyelashes stick together when he opens his eyes. He can’t remember the last time he’d cried himself to sleep, but the pillow under his cheek is still damp with tears.

It’s Pepper, her hair splayed over Peter’s second pillow, the one he never used but Tony did when he came in to comfort him from a nightmare.

“Thought you’d be in here,” she whispers, reaching across the distance and taking his hand. “You scared us.”

Tony blinks at her, his eyes itching and swollen. He knows he should apologize but it seems so pointless. He can’t find it in him to be sorry, not between the emptiness.

Pepper watches him and he watches her back. The light from the hallway paints a stripe of gold in the dark room, the curtains drawn closed.

He wants her to understand that this is all he will be, now. There is no moving on from this—Peter was the gravitational center that was holding him together and now he’s spinning out of control: the world has lost its shape. Everything is trivial and small. Everything is very, very still.

Tony closes his eyes. Pepper puts her hand on his cheek.

“He was—” Tony whispers.

“Your son,” Pepper finishes. “The one thing you can’t live without.”

Tony aches down to his bones. “One of two,” he assures her, because that’s never changed. If he’d lost both of them, he would have had Danvers chuck him back into space. But without Peter—

“I am—I will always be... half alive.”

Pepper nods, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I can handle that. Half’s better than nothing.”

She pulls him to her, their tears smearing together as she kisses his forehead.

“You deserve better.”

“But I want you.”

It’s the first time Tony’s ventured to the common areas and he regrets it the second he sees Steve. Natasha’s there, too, and Bruce, in the corner with his headphones on, but it’s Steve he doesn’t want to see, and Steve who sees him before he has a chance to escape.

Rhodey’s guiding him along by the elbow and he’s embarrassed and snappish.

“How are you feeling, Tony?” Steve asks politely as Tony leans against the kitchen island while Rhodey reheats some leftovers for their lunch.

“Spectacular,” Tony bites out. Steve gets the hint and doesn’t say anything else for several long minutes, merely eating his sandwich and watching Nat as she starts making tea. She keeps giving Steve a look, like she’s urging him to do something.

“What,” Tony finally demands. “For a spy, Romanoff, you’re not being very subtle.”

Natasha gives him a dangerous smile. “Maybe that was the point. Steve, do you have something you want to say?”

“I think he would take it better if I wasn’t the—”

“Rogers.”

Steve sighs, then looks at Tony.

“We’re planning the memorial for those that... we lost. We wondered if you wanted Peter to be under Peter Parker or Spider-Man.”

Tony thinks he might throw up his lunch.

When they’d told him that May was gone, he’d felt a traitorous, disgusting, despicable stab of relief that he would never have to see her live in a world without Peter. He thought about how, with her gone, he wouldn’t have anyone he would have to be strong for, no one to question if his level of grief was earned. And then the numbness crept back in because it was too much for one person to bear.

He misses her terribly now because she would understand the visceral abhorrence he feels at the thought of Peter’s name of a memorial to the fallen.

“Neither.” He tries to make it sound imperious and unquestionable, but his voice cracks. He stands, shakily, leaning heavily on the counter as he does.

Steve clears his throat. “Alright. For the private funeral, I’m assuming Peter would be best.”

He wonders how no one else is losing their balance when the whole world is tilting off its axis at the mention of Peter’s funeral.

“No,” Tony rasps. “No. We’re not having a funeral.”

“Tony,” Steve sighs, in that way that used to make his hackles raise, but now it doesn’t make him feel anything but tired. “Peter’s gone.”

“No, he isn’t!” Tony snaps, his head jerking up. Steve’s eyes widen and he looks impossibly sadder. Natasha steps forward, dread in her eyes and Tony knows what they’re thinking. “He isn’t gone. He isn’t lost. He’s dead. Just say it. He’s dead. Why do you all keep talking like I don’t know? Like it isn’t all I think about?”

He glances around him, at all the people looking at him in pity and shock, and feels the confession build up in his throat like bile, hot and acrid. “I held him. I watched. I didn’t wash his ashes off my hands for three days because that was all I had—”

Tony breaks off, grinds his teeth together to hold back a sob but the sound leaks out anyway.

“Peter’s dead,” he says breathlessly. “He’s dead. If he was gone, I would bring him back. If he was lost, I would find him. But he’s dead and that is the only thing in the universe I can’t fix.”

He holds Steve’s gaze for a moment, takes a shuddering breath, and then crumples forward just as Rhodey rushes toward him, catching his shoulders.

His friend lowers him to the tile floor, leaning him against the island to steady him.

“Rhodey,” he gasps. “Rhodey, do you remember—do you remember when my parents died?” Tony asks, his voice coming in spurts as his lungs spasm in pain at the thought of taking in oxygen when Peter isn’t. “Rhodes, do you—”

“I remember—”

“And you, you found me, drunk on the floor,” Tony hiccups. Someone thumbs a tear off his cheek, but he doesn’t know who, can barely make out the shapes in front of him. He clutches at Rhodey’s t-shirt, his arms shaking.

“Yeah. You were one shot away from alcohol poisoning,” Rhodes sighs, wrapping one hand around the back of Tony’s neck and supporting his head.

“James,” Tony says, his voice broken. “I’d rather relive that night a thousand times than know what it feels like to lose my kid.”

Rhodes’ face crumples and a tear spills over, clings to his eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Tony’s next sob is muffled against Rhodey’s shoulder as his friend clutches him to his chest, Tony’s tears soaking the fabric of his t-shirt.

It’s only when the cabinet behind him starts shuddering, too, that Tony realizes it isn’t a cabinet at all, but Steve, supporting both of them. Tony turns his head and meets Steve’s red eyes, then glances to his right and sees Natasha, her bottom lip trembling as she once again wipes a tear from his cheek. Bruce is knelt behind Rhodey, his face pinched in concern and pain.

“I can’t bury an empty coffin. I can’t read his eulogy.”

Steve nods, tears shining in his eyes. Tony unclenches one hand from Rhodey’s shirt and holds it out, Steve instantly grabbing it.

“I’m sorry about Sam,” Tony says, and for the first time the loss of everyone else hits him. The whole world is grieving, an entire universe full of fathers who have lost their children and suddenly don’t understand what their purpose is anymore. It aches all the way down to his atoms, to the bits of stardust in his veins that he shared with those people, however many lightyears away. “I’m sorry about Bucky. I’m so sorry.”

Steve bows his head, but it doesn’t hide the tear that falls onto Tony’s arm.

If Thanos had had any mercy, Tony decides as most of what’s left of the Earth’s mightiest heroes sit on the kitchen floor and weep, he would have killed them all.

Tony used to have to fight to escape his own whirling thoughts, but now he lets himself be submerged in them, in the roiling, tumultuous sea that Peter’s absence has created, like a hole punched through the center of the earth.

He lies paralyzed in bed as anxiety tears through him. He isn’t sure what he’s afraid of—he’s already lived his worst nightmare, but not quite because Pepper—

Pepper isn’t in bed next to him.

“Pep?” He asks, too quietly, being yanked back into his own body. He has been so horribly selfish recently—Narcissus staring at his own reflection but not because he loves it; because he loathes it so impossibly much. His own continued existence often seems so detestable, he acts as if he’d died anyway. It is unforgivably cruel to those around him, but he cannot make himself stop.

“Pep?” he asks again, stirring from his resting place.

She appears in the doorway of the bathroom, her jaw set and shoulders squared.

“You ok, honey?”

“Yes,” she says breathlessly. She comes forward, puts a hand around his stomach as she passes and leads him back to the bed. He sits heavily, watching her in dull confusion as she sits cross-legged on the rumpled covers.

“Tony,” she murmurs, curling an arm around her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”

Tony blinks and the bedroom around him disappears, diffusing like a mirage in the desert to show the reality that he lives in.

He has been huddled in the skeletal remains of a once-great forest since Titan. The fire is out but he’s still waiting to burn and here is Pepper, kneeling in front of him with a sprouting seed in her hands, the green of new life nearly foreign in this bone gray world.

One new tree. She is promising one new life, but the atmosphere is still so choked with toxic air the sunlight can barely reach the earth and one tree is not enough to purify it all.

He reaches a trembling hand forward and stops short of brushing his fingers against Pepper’s knuckles.

Surely, it will die if he touches it. Surely he can’t have this.

Pepper’s face falls. Tony forces himself to take a breath of poisonous, burning air.

“I love you,” he says because even the end of the world cannot change that fact. “I love you.”

He kisses the apple of her cheek, the corner of her jaw. He kneels on his bed in his room and does not let himself think about how quiet the forest is now that all the birds are dead; he kisses her stomach over her baggy t-shirt.

“I love you.”

He doesn’t know how to love a child that isn’t Peter.

Growing up, Tony had always wiggled his loose teeth. He’d push on them with his tongue, pleasure-pain shooting through him, until they finally came out.

He sits on the porch in one of the wicker chairs Pepper had picked out and grinds his teeth—it was a habit he’d kicked in his first year of MIT, changed it out for worse ones—and thinks about holding an infant in his arms and being expected to move on.

The screen door swings open and Rhodey walks out, his leg braces whirring softly. He’s got two glass bottles in one hand and he passes one to Tony, who snorts upon seeing the label for root beer rather than anything with alcohol.

“Pepper told you,” Tony asks blankly.

Rhodey settles into a chair with a sigh, pushing it back on two legs until he’s balanced, like he’s a sixteen-year-old instead of a decorated military man on the far side of fifty.

“Yep. Congrats, man.”

Tony hums. “She can tell I’m not as happy as I should be,” he murmurs. “She thinks I don’t want it.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t imagine why she thinks that then.”

Tony shoots him a sideways glare—he’s not in the mood for levity or being congratulated, he wants to brood. He’s always been a very good brooder, an overthinker. Someone that pushes on a bruise.

Rhodey pops his soda open with a fizz, then reaches over and does Tony’s too. Tony takes a sip, just for something to do.

“Know what I think?” Rhodey asks.

“I get the feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“I think you’re a great dad.”

Tony looks down at his hands, twists the bottle around. “I don’t think I’m a dad anymore. I don’t think I’ve got it in me to do it again.”

“You don’t grow out of being a dad, Tones. That baby will come and suddenly every instinct and emotion you felt with Peter is going to come right back.”

Tony can’t answer, unsure how to say that that might be the thing he’s most afraid of.

“Peter would love having a little sibling, you know that, right? He’d be thrilled.”

Talking about Peter hurts, but not talking about Peter for so long has been like slowly suffocating. He can’t stop the way his mouth twitches up.

“Yeah,” Tony sighs, nodding. “They’d be absolute terrors, the two of them together. My DNA and that kid’s talent for trouble? I’d be doomed.”

It’s like pressing on a bruise, picking at a scab. It hurts. It hurts, but he can’t stop.

“He was so freaking smart, you know? Just brilliant, some of the stuff he came up with...”

Rhodey laughs. “The kid drove you half out of your mind, Tones, what are you talking about?”

Tony snorts, takes a swig of his tepid root beer. “Yeah. Oh, do you remember that time he tried to make me a birthday cake?”

Rhodey chokes on his own mouthful of soda. “Geez, how long did it take you to get the batter off your ceiling?”

“It was still there,” Tony cackles, “when—”

Pleasure-pain, from his teeth to his toes.

“Peter climbed up and tried to scrub it off,” Tony continues, hiccupping over the gap. “But it had fused with the building, I swear. Would take a nuke to get that stain out.”

Pleasure-pain. Exquisite, tender. An open wound weeping blood and affection.

Tony clenches his jaw hard, grinding his teeth together.

“She wants me to go to a support group,” Tony suddenly blurts. “In the city. It’s for dads, all their kids—”

“It might be good for you,” Rhodey says, scratching at the label on the root beer bottle with his thumb.

“It won’t be. Not that. I’ll... read whatever, do a blog, some other self-therapy nonsense. I can’t go.”

“Why not? They’re all in your situation, Tony. It’s for dads like you.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s for dads whose kids died. I killed mine.”

Rhodey nearly tips too far backward in his chair, windmills for a second before crashing back to all four legs.

“What? Tony—”

“I killed theirs, too,” Tony says robotically. “How could I possibly go and meet them all and talk like I’m one of them, all the while knowing that I killed their babies?”

Tony grinds his teeth harder, pressing until it hurts, until a muscle in his jaw seizes. Rhodey stares at him in horror for a moment, then shakes his head with a heartbroken expression on his face.

“You didn’t kill them,” he breathes. “Tones, you didn’t.”

“I didn’t save them.”

“Neither did I,” Rhodey says, lifting his chin and accepting his defeat with a dignity Tony could never fathom possessing. “But I tried. And so did you.”

“Yeah,” Tony whispers. “Yeah.”

“Blogging, huh? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Think I’d be any good?”

“Absolutely not. I can’t wait to read it.”

Tony never sleeps well when it’s hot. The simmering summer air smells like grass and dirt up here, rather than sweat and cigarette smoke, but the heat makes him feel antsy, sick. It makes it hard to breathe.

He wakes up at 4:30 and doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He doesn’t want to get up either; go to the lab until Pepper’s awake, have breakfast with the hot, cloying air only worsened by the heat of the stovetop where Pepper makes scrambled eggs and toasts English muffins.

He wants to be sedated, he thinks. Surely no one would fault him for wanting a little bit of blissful, painless unconsciousness, today of all days.

The air is too hot. Tony kicks off his blankets, pulls off his sweat-soaked shirt.

Cicadas are still chirruping in trees whose leaves are rustling despite no cooling breeze blowing through them. The middle of August has always been—had always been... is Tony’s least favorite time of year.

Tears sting behind his eyes, adding to the heat all around him, the burning inside him.

He can’t stay in bed any longer.

He showers in the guest bathroom, so the sound doesn’t wake Pepper—the water too cold on his skin, so cold it makes his sternum ache, and he’s shivering when he gets out and goes downstairs, not bothering to towel dry his hair.

The light filling the kitchen is gray, already turning white. Early sunrises are another reason he hated summer as a younger man. He didn’t like to be woken up by the light after a long night partying, but he hasn’t slept in for years now. Can’t, most of the time. Didn’t want to, a year ago today. He’d been too excited, as if it had been his own...

It’s Peter’s birthday.

He sits at the kitchen island and stares out the window over the sink and watches the sunrise.

Tony can’t see the lake from where he’s sitting, but he can hear the splashing, the laughter, the shouts of a phantom child running and jumping in, the hot summer sun chasing away any cold that might linger in the water. Peter’s impressive acrobatics make May gasp and his friends cheer. The frosting is melting off the cake as it sits on the porch, half-eaten, the detritus of lunch and presents still at the picnic table.

He can envision it so perfectly. The way Peter glows in the light, in the affection.

The sunlight filters golden and piercing through the trunks of the trees and Tony blinks, and the image is gone.

Sniffing hard, Tony rubs his face, dispassionately unsurprised to feel the tears there.

He can’t be here. In this house that Peter will never set foot in, in this kitchen where he’ll never spin on the bar stools while he waits for Tony to finish cooking dinner. In this life that Peter wouldn’t even recognize.

He can’t be the expecting father and newlywed husband and retired superhero. Not right now. Not today, it’s not—it doesn’t fit. Right now he does not exist outside his grief.

He can’t go back to being the Tony that Peter knew either. He can’t be the longsuffering mentor, the lab partner, the doting surrogate parent.

He grabs the keys to Peter’s favorite car from the hook by the door.

The road is empty, stretching on before him, nothing to measure distance but the white lines darting passed him, and he lets himself imagine, for a moment, that he can drive forever, run from his grief and his responsibilities and his guilt for having kept living when Peter couldn’t.

But he knows he can’t and he knows he doesn’t really want to, despite himself. He wants that cabin by the lake, he wants his amazing, wonderful wife, and he wants his baby. He just wants Peter to be there too. He wants to be able to think about the future without his chest aching.

The greenhouse catches his eye and he slams on the brakes, the car stopping in the middle of empty road. There are so many plants hanging in front that the sign is nearly invisible.

Two weeks before the end of the world, he and Peter had helped plant trees for Earth Day. Well, he and Spider-Man. Service was always Peter’s thing, but he’d talked Tony into it, smiling and reciting facts about oxygen and climate change and Tony had agreed.

“Sometimes it feels like all I do is destroy things,” Peter had murmured as he pushed the dirt over the roots to keep them warm, wiped his palms on the Spider-Man suit as if it was a ratty pair of jeans and not a multi-million dollar piece of tech.

“It feels nice to help something grow for a change.”

Tony does nothing so well as he destroys. He doesn’t think anyone has destroyed as much as him—not in all the annals of history, no conqueror, no tyrant has ever burnt the entire universe to ash like Tony has.

The greenhouse is still closed, because it’s 5:30 in the morning. Tony climbs out of the car, checks the hours on the door, then sits in front of it and waits, because here he is neither husband nor grieving almost-father. He can be a novice gardener: he can help something grow.

A half-rusted pick-up truck pulls into the parking lot some time later. Tony lifts his head and watches with dull eyes as a middle-aged man wearing sturdy work boots caked in mud climbs out.

“Can’t say I’ve ever had anyone waiting for me before,” the man greets casually as he comes forward, a big ring of keys jangling in his hand. Tony watches as he finds the right one with practiced ease, inserting it into the padlock on the door.

Tony doesn’t know what to say so he just mutters a soft, “Sorry.”

“No reason to apologize. What can I help you with?” The gardener swings the doors open and a wave of damp, scented air rushes over Tony’s face.

“I need a tree.”

Tony follows the man into the greenhouse, his muscles aching from his long wait.

“Any particular kind?”

“Um, no. I don’t know. I... I live upstate. By a lake.”

The man continues to walk, leading him through a maze of long low benches overflowing with flowers and trellises with vines climbing all the way to the ceiling. Tony turns his head this way and that, finding it easier to concentrate on the flowers than on the conversation.

He tunes back in as the man shows him a little tree in a pot. “—It’s known for its red and gold fall colors.”

“Red and gold, huh?” Tony asks, smiling faintly. He looks at the tag and sees that it’s called the Autumn Blaze Maple.

Peter loved autumn. He was one of those people that was decked out in sweaters and scarves and drinking cider and cocoa from the first day of September, even when it was still eighty degrees out.

“I’ll take it,” he murmurs, rubbing one of the leaves between his thumb and forefinger.

The greenhouse owner helps him get the tree to his car, balking a little at the expensive sports car that Tony carefully puts the tree in, uncaring about any scratches that might get on the leather seats.

“Thank you, sir,” he says as he prepares to climb into the car.

“Thank you, Iron Man,” the man replies earnestly, his voice low.

Tony’s eyes burn. He clenches his jaw and shakes his head, then ducks into the car, slowly backing out of his spot.

He puts on Peter’s favorite playlist on the way back, the summer air already warm enough for him to roll his window down as the early morning sunlight floods the world in gold.

He hums along to the songs he knows well enough, his voice rough and cracking.

Fifteen miles from the lake house, he pulls onto the shoulder of the road, and rests his head on the steering wheel.

The tears come instantly. Tony has never been a big crier, but for the last four months, any time he’s alone he feels like he’s going to break apart, just cry until he dries up, until he resolves into a dew. Niobe reborn. There’s an endless well of grief inside of him and he fights it, all the time, around Pepper, around any of the team that bother to show up, but it builds and builds until he has to cry it out or he’ll burst.

He sits with his forehead against the steering wheel and listens to the tears dripping onto the leather upholstery and the soft guitar music in the background and breathes.

After a long time—three new songs that Peter loved—Tony sits up and looks out. The breeze that comes through the window smells like dry grass as it ruffles Tony’s hair and the leaves of the sapling. He closes his eyes for another long moment, remembers laying on the tower rooftop in the heat of August with Peter next to him, smelling of sweat and grinning in his Spider-Man suit.

He sniffs, wipes away the tears still clinging to his chin, and puts the car into drive, easing back onto the highway.

He doesn’t check if Pepper is still asleep when he gets home, but she isn’t out on the porch waiting for him like he’d half-expected. It’s only 6:45 and she’s been so tired lately. Tony makes her tired, even if she doesn’t say it. He’s happy to let her sleep.

He’s ridiculously, anxiously, worryingly cautious as he maneuvers Peter’s tree out of the car, making sure not one twig gets bent, not one leaf falls off. A therapist would have a field day, probably, Tony thinks, scoffing, but he isn’t any less careful as he crouches and lifts the base of the thing into his arms.

He doesn’t make it very far. It’s heavier than he expected, and he’s never bothered working on getting the muscle he lost back. He stops after fifteen yards, gently sets the tree back down, then bends over his knees huffing and puffing. Then he stoops and picks it up again. And walks and stops and pants and picks it up. His arms start shaking embarrassingly fast.

There’s a wheelbarrow in the garage. Some carts in his workshop. He could even call a suit, if he wanted to, just fly the tree to its spot on the lake and blast a hole in the ground and stick it in, but it’s Peter’s tree. It’s Peter’s tree and Tony’s going to carry it. He isn’t going to avoid it or find a shortcut or a cheat and he’s absolutely mental because it’s a tree but it’s Peter’s and he’s going to carry it, shaking arms and all, because he couldn’t carry Peter when it counted.

He’s sweating by the time he finally sets the tree down in the right spot, the sun already beating down on him. He goes and finds a shovel in the garage and gets a bucket of water, which he pours a little of into the pot even though the tree’s probably fine.

The first shovel-full of dirt is hard, baked in the heat of late summer. Tony carefully throws it away and gets another one, stamping down on the blade to get it to sink deeper.

He loses himself in the rhythm and sweat and monotony.

The hole expands until Tony can maneuver the clump of roots into it. He does, carefully, making sure it’s sitting level and deep enough. He fills in the hole with the shovel as much as he can, then kneels on the dry grass and pushes the soil up around the trunk as if he were tucking a child in.

The leaves of the sapling provide meager shade against the sun.

He stares down at his hands, covered in dirt. It’s underneath his fingernails, buried in the creases of his palms.

Tony rubs his hands together, smearing Peter’s ashes as his breath quickens, as the golden sunlight darkens until it’s bleeding orange. Every wheezing gasp makes the wound in his side ache with pain, makes his heart long to collapse in on itself because Peter’s gone. Dead and dusted—

Pepper finds him with his forehead pressed against the tree, tears watering the earth.

“Tony, sweetheart,” she whispers.

“It’s Peter’s—”

Peter’s birthday, Peter’s tree, Peter’s ashes. Tony had insisted on not giving him a funeral but had erected a gravestone anyway: here in his own yard, where he can see it from the kitchen window, the inside looking out of a new life that Peter will never get to have.

“I can’t leave him.”

“It isn’t Peter, Tony. It’s a tree.”

“I-I know that.”

“Then come inside,” Pepper coaxes, bending in a way that makes her sundress show off the little bump of her abdomen. “I made all of Peter’s favorites and they’re going cold.”

“Ok,” Tony says, brushing a kiss to his fingertips and then pressing them to a knot in the bark of the tree.

Later that night, lying in bed in the warm dark, Tony cries.

“I’m the only person left in the world that loves him,” he whispers to Pepper as she holds him. “I’m not enough.”

May, Ned, MJ, they’re all gone. Every person who would feel the hole that Peter left in the world like a gaping wound is gone and it feels like all the hurt they would have felt is his, like he needs to grieve for all of them because Peter deserves that much and more.

“I didn’t even do it right. I didn’t—I didn’t tell him.”

“But you loved him,” she says firmly, running her fingers through his hair. “That’s more than you had to do.”

“I loved him,” Tony agrees. “I couldn’t not.”

“That’s enough.”

He isn’t sure about that, but as much as hates it, it doesn’t matter now. He loved Peter when he was alive and didn’t show it. He loves Peter when he is dead and now all there is to do is show it to the world. To live it and breathe it in and suffer through it and let it change him. He doesn’t know how, yet, just like he still isn’t sure how to live in a world without Peter. He’s stumbling blind, but he’s pretty sure he’s moving forward. It’s all he can do.

Tony wakes up to the sound of retching and shakes his head to rid himself of the dream of Peter laughing.

“Babe?” He calls sleepily, making his way to the bathroom.

He finds Pepper there, sitting on the tile floor and wiping tears and sweat from her forehead.

“Let me find your medicine,” Tony says quickly.

“I already took it,” Pepper whispers pathetically, wiping tears off her chin. “I threw it up.”

Tony kneels in front of her, takes her face in his hands and wipes the tears away. “Are you in pain, honey?”

“No,” she says, but her bottom lip trembles. Her nausea has been terrible, but Tony has never seen her quite this upset.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers, and the tone he uses nearly sends him reeling back to days when Peter would come crawling in the window of his penthouse at 2 AM, crying because he couldn’t save the woman being attacked in time, because the robber shot himself before Peter could stop him, because he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

He swallows, forces himself back to the present.

“I just,” Pepper sobs. “I always thought my mom would be here.”

Tony’s heart sinks, his shoulders slump. Pepper’s mom had been one of the ones Snapped. They’d flown out to Illinois for the memorial and Pepper had born it with grace and decorum and steely strength while Tony had still been drowning under his own loss. He hadn’t been there for her like he should have been and if he had been in her position he might have hated her for it.

She never had. She had always understood.

The weight that Tony carries cannot be shoved aside. It cannot be lessened or lightened or shared. He does not know how to live his life with it constantly bearing down on him, pressing him backward down the hill, the stone getting heavier and heavier as he goes.

But his wife is sitting on the bathroom floor, crying because she misses her mom, because she’d always assumed that when she became a mother herself, she’d have her there to support her.

If Tony can’t bear his grief and support the love of his life when she has done nothing but comfort and strengthen him, what is the point of him?

He wanted to die when Peter did. Part of him did die, but it wasn’t the part that loves Pepper Potts. He’s ashamed it took him so long to realize that.

“What do you need, Pep?” he asks.

She whimpers as she holds out her arms and Tony instantly sweeps her into a hug, into his lap, and holds her while she cries.

He can be Sisyphus, rolling his stone uphill in atonement for his failure, and he can hold his wife. It’s progress.

There are gummy bears at the check out line.

After the Snap, the survivors had gone insane trying to prepare for the end of the world that had already happened. Store shelves were emptied a mere hour after being stocked, prices of even the cheapest goods skyrocketed. It took nearly four months for production and consumption to start leveling out and even now you can only find non-perishable items with any regularity, unless you’re willing to pay a lot. Meat and vegetables are hit and miss delicacies.

This is the first time Tony has seen gummy bears since before that alien spaceship had appeared in the sky and he’s grabbing them and putting them on the counter before he even registers what he’s doing because he always used to buy them for Peter to eat while he did homework.

“Wait, one more thing,” Tony says, dashing back into the aisles, searching until he finds a familiar jar of JIF peanut butter. Smooth, not chunky. Peter hated chunky peanut butter.

When he gets home, a grocery bag in each hand, Pepper is in the kitchen, sitting at the island.

“Tony, you didn’t have to,” she says, but she’s smiling a little.

“Mm, it was more of a favor for the cashier actually. She looked bored out of her mind, thought seeing Tony Stark might cheer her up,” Tony says flippantly, unloading his purchases for Pepper to inspect.

“Oh, is that right? ... Did you buy gummy bears?”

Tony puts the frozen burritos in the freezer, then rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah, well, you said you didn’t know what you wanted...”

Tony leans against the counter opposite Pepper, idly spins the package with a finger.

“They were the kid’s favorite,” he blurts after a minute. Pepper hums, her chin in her palm as she looks at him.

“He used to eat them with peanut butter ‘cause—teenage boys—freaking... aliens, I swear, just no taste buds at all.”

Pepper raises an eyebrow, then reaches across the counter for the jar of peanut butter. She opens it, then the gummy bear package, and unceremoniously dunks one head first in the thick spread.

She pops it in her mouth, licking the extra peanut butter off her fingers and chewing steadily. Tony feels stupidly nervous watching her, as if her not liking one of Peter’s favorite snacks will be a personal affront. But after a moment, she smiles, laughs.

“That’s actually really good.”

“Is it?” Tony asks, perking up. She nods again, going for another gummy bear.

“Try it.” Pepper offers the next one to him then prepares another for herself. They chew them together, both laughing a little bit because as bizarre as the combination is, it’s surprisingly good.

Pepper looks up at him and smiles, reaching across the island to take his hand. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Tony smiles back, his own a little dimmer, a little less familiar. He hasn’t smiled without a shadow since coming back from space, but all that matters to her is that he still smiles.

“It was Peter’s idea,” he shrugs.

Pepper nods, stands and rounds the island to the sink. She takes the picture frame off the shelf, the one with Peter and Tony and that stupid certificate that Tony wishes he could find.

“Thanks, Peter,” she says, kissing her fingertips and gently caressing the image of Peter’s face.

Tony exhales a shaky breath, standing behind her and dropping his forehead between her shoulder blades, rubbing his hand along her arm.

Their home is warm and lit and the fire of the world has died down to smoldering ashes. He still chokes on it, sometimes. He still sits by Peter’s tree and hates every breath he takes that isn’t acrid and deadly because his every moment without the boy he loves like a son should be pain.

Peter wouldn’t want him to be in pain: Peter would want him to learn how to love his baby like he learned how to love Peter. He would want Tony to build a swing in the branches of his tree and play with his daughter in its shade. He would want him to eat gummy bears and peanut butter.

“Thanks, Peter.”

#Irondad and Spiderson #Tony Stark #Peter Parker #MCU #brotp: speaking of loyalty #my writing #fic

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