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jumbojamba47 · 4 years

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Guest Room

A/N: This is my very first fanfic and I really don't know what possessed me to write it. I was listening to this song https://open.spotify.com/track/4RzHA75rhs3mXnoI4aJSMt?si=sSeaV0zAQgGuteRzEOiZJw and the idea just wouldn’t leave me alone and well... desperate times, desperate measures. Taking things into my own hands and all that jazz. I highly recommend giving the song a listen while reading. I hurt my own feelings writing this. I wrote this from a female perspective but it can be read as gender neutral. (image not mine)

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x Reader, Slight Wanda Maximoff x Reader, Stucky

Warnings:18+, Angst, NSFW-ish, Alcohol Consumption, Swearing, Unedited

Word Count: 3680

A sharp gasp fills the air as heated skin meets cold tile. Slender fingers curl and uncurl; tugging at your scalp from above. Your name reverently whispered through kiss-swollen lips as if in prayer. Muffled grunts and moans escape from clenched teeth as though afraid that any louder sound might halt your ministrations. Rivulets of water, long-since gone cold, rush down your bodies, pooling where you knelt in worship of the red-headed angel in front of you. Despite the ache in your limbs and your own needs screaming for attention, you remained steadfast in your determination to push Natasha over the edge as many times as you were able. You knew, these private moments of intimacy were the closest you could ever get to keeping the elusive beauty in your arms tethered to you.

It all started with a mission in Bogotá. The two of you had completed the objective but had to wait for extraction overnight in a safehouse with one master room and a smaller guestroom.

“You can go ahead and have the bigger room (y/n/n). Odin knows you did most of the heavy lifting this time around,” she said with a chuckle as she stepped into the guest room.

“There’s a big enough bed, you could always join me Romanoff,” you joked with a wink.

Later that night you were unwinding in bed when you heard a knock on your door.

“Coming!” You yelled, pulling the door open.

“Need someth-” your eyes widened as you felt soft lips meld against your own.

She pulled away.

“What are you doing?” You asked, bewildered.

“Taking you up on your offer,” she pushes you towards the bed with a cheeky grin.

That was 6 months ago. Since then, you felt a subtle shift in your relationship with Natasha. Whilst around the others her interactions with you drifted towards a platonic aloofness that, while not cold, alluded to nothing of the times you found yourself unceremoniously shoved into a supply closet or pressed into a locked conference room door; always faced with an eager red-head ready to pick up where you last left off. Each time, your hidden trysts end just as quickly as they begin with Natasha immediately straightening her appearance and slipping out the door as soon as she made sure the coast was clear. Each time, you felt your heart crack a little more as you felt the phantom weight of her lithe body in your arms as you stood alone watching her quick movements.

Now you find yourself kneeling on the floor of the assassin’s shower after she dragged you in following a heavy morning training session. Your hands grip the back of toned thighs as the burning in Natasha’s core reaches its crescendo.

Through the open door leading into her bedroom, you hear F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice ring out, “Mr. Stark is requesting your presence to go over tonight’s details in 30 minutes, Ms. Romanoff.”

Breathless, chest heaving, she responds, “I’ll be there.”

Rising from the floor, your arms circle around her to reach for the removable showerhead while steadily supporting the still shuddering woman. You gently maneuver the water to rinse away the last of the soap and lingering fluids from both your bodies. It was only in these quiet moments after a rendezvous in a more private setting that Natasha allowed you to indulge in your more tender proclivities without protest as she settles down from her high. You shut the water off before swiftly stepping out and wrapping a towel around your body. You grab a secondary towel and take more care in drying off Natasha’s body, pressing into her skin ensuring you gently knead her sore muscles with firm hands as you go. Once satisfied, you wrap her body snugly, bring your arms around her back and beneath her legs and carry her into her room, lightly setting her on the edge of her bed before moving to her closet. Turning your head slightly to ask what she’d like to wear, you think you see a flicker of something soft in her eyes, but, just as quickly, it’s gone only to be replaced by a teasing smirk as her eyes trail up and down your towel-clad form.

“Keep treating me like this and I might just have to make you mine,” she husks out.

“I wish you would��,” you mumble under your breath. But the assassin catches it and lets out a sigh. She stands and smoothly pads closer to you laying a hand on your shoulder.

“You know I can’t.”

“I really don’t.”

She steps away from you. Her hand drops to her side as she moves to rummage in her closet. You move to grab your own day clothes from your discarded gym bag. Dropping the towel to pull on a matching set of black lace undergarments, she turns to you. And fuck, it’s not fair of her to stand there underdressed as she is when you want to have a serious conversation with her.

“This?” her finger points between you and her, “is just casual sex. We’re scratching an itch and it can’t be more than that.”

“But why not?” you ask as your pull on your shirt.

“Why are you so afraid to give us a try?”

She slams her drawer shut. “I’m not afraid of anything!” she growls.

“You? Me? We’re nothing. There is nothing to try. You’re a good fuck (y/l/n) but that’s all this can be. If you’re not satisfied with that then tough shit, I’m sorry.”

Jaw clenched; you look her in the eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” you grit out.

You grip your bag tightly and exit the room without looking back. Carelessly, you toss your bag into your room down the hall without breaking your stride. Pausing at the end of the hallway, “Shit,” you exhale under your breath, running a hand down your face.

You make your way into the common room only to find Steve and Bucky staring at the large flat screen in confusion, a cartoon depiction of a sea sponge competing with a starfish, seemingly attempting to win the affections of his grandmother? Or was that an anthropomorphic cookie? With a heavy sigh you plop yourself down on the couch between them, kicking your legs up onto Steve’s lap and laying your head in Bucky’s. Cool metal fingertips softly run along your temples in a soothing massage as both men turn to you in mildly concerned curiosity.

Upon release from Shuri’s custody, Bucky found himself immediately accosted by you and your self-appointment as the one in charge of his rehabilitation into polite society. Refusing to leave his side outside of mandatory missions, Steve, by default, wound up lumped into your “educational excursions” and “lessons in everything a modern person of refined taste-no-fuck-you-Tony-your-opinion-doesn’t-count-you-raised-yourself-on-a-steady-diet-of-debauchery-and-sin would enjoy”. The prolonged exposure to your generally sunny disposition led to both men silently agreeing to adopt you under their wing; and so, your Brooklyn Boys became fiercely protective over you, often drawing comparisons of co-parenting mother hens hovering over their tiny chick from your amused teammates.

“Why the sigh, malen’kiy d’yavol?” grunts Bucky.

You stare blankly at the ceiling as Steve gently rubs circles around your ankle with his thumb. Turning your head to bury your face into the ex-soldier’s warm stomach, a muffled “Am I unlovable?” leaves your mouth in a broken whisper.

Your quiet words are picked up by their enhanced hearing and they share quick perturbed glances. Bucky moves his arm under you, pulling you into his lap, drawing you close, ensuring your head is tucked securely into his neck just below his chin. Steve moves with him so he can maintain a comforting hold on your legs over his.

“Anyone would be lucky to have you doll. If anyone is worthy of love it’s you,” Steve tells you with confidence.

“I’m gonna kill Romanoff,” you hear Bucky grumble under his breath to Steve, thinking you couldn’t hear him.

Your fingers clench around the pocket of Bucky’s sweater. Your boys knew. Of course they did. You couldn’t hide your affection for the Black Widow from them if you tried. While the others might be able to write off your attention to the stunning Venus as simple admiration for a fellow teammate, they knew just how deeply your true feelings ran.

“Then why doesn’t she want me?” Tears gather at the corners of your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall.

Steve exhales slowly and looks back to the screen in front of him.

“No one really knows what’s going on in that head of hers, but your happiness is our priority right now. You deserve the world and if she can’t see that then that’s her loss,” he nudges his boyfriend.

Arms tightening around you, Bucky nods his head in agreement.

“The old man is right. How about the three of us go take your mind off things?” Slowly standing, he pulls you up to your feet.

“You can help me find Steve an outfit for tonight. I’m sure with a little convincing, we can get the Star-spangled Man with a Plan to wear a patriotic tie the whole night.” He winks at you as you let out a small snort.

“Go ahead. Laugh it up. One of these days you’re going to need to know something about war bonds and we’ll see who’s laughing then,” he retorts with a roll of his eyes.

xxxx

Glancing at your reflection in the mirror, you adjusted the sleeveless button-up with detached cuffs, leaving enough buttons undone to reveal a plunging neckline, before tucking it into your high-waisted form-fitting black pants. In a bid to pull yourself out of your funk, you decided to go all out for tonight’s festivities. You slip on a pair of black shoes, give your outfit one final check, nodding to yourself, and make your way out the door.

Tonight, Tony saw fit to throw a good luck party for your first long-term recon mission with you leading your own team before you left the next morning. As you made your way to the large gathering you steeled yourself for the impending emotions that would inevitably hit you as soon as you saw the face that had been plaguing your dreams nearly every night since that fateful mission.

“Eyes up, (y/l/n). You’re made of stronger stuff than this. If she doesn’t want you then don’t waste your time. You’re worth more than this,” you say to yourself as you stride towards the double doors.

You straighten your shoulders, draw yourself up to your full height, and confidently step into the gathering.

“There she is! The hero of the hour! Give it up for our very own (y/hero/n).” Tony struts towards you; your favorite drink already outstretched in his hand.

He claps you in the back and slings an arm over your shoulders leading you towards the crowd as you hear cheers from the party goers in attendance.

“Soak it up buttercup. All this is for you. Feels good doesn’t it?”

Your eyes drift to the side where you see Natasha in a black cocktail dress flirting with another attendee, her eyes glance at you before turning her attention back to her companion. You swallow the sharp sting of pain threatening to rise and mentally give yourself a shake.

“You’ve really outdone yourself this time Tony, let’s party!” you exclaim with more enthusiasm than you can bring yourself to feel.

He gives you his biggest grin, “Now that’s what I like to hear!”

He steers you through the crowd, you both pause to greet various members of the party as you recognize your friends and coworkers before leading you to Steve and Bucky who are seated on a pair of loungers across from Wanda and Rhodey.

“Hey Mama Bear, Papa Bear, here’s little Baby Bear. Make sure you keep an eye on them. I saw more than a few vultures in the crowd who looked ready to steal them away at a moment’s notice.” He sauntered away with a wink.

“Looking good dollface,” Steve grins at you.

Bucky and Rhodey are quick to agree. Across the way you see Wanda raking her eyes up and down your body with hooded lids. Making eye contact, you wink, she blushes at being caught before sending you a shy smile.

As the night goes on and drinks are consumed, you continue to laugh with your friends. You’ve moved to the opposite couch next to Wanda as Rhodey takes up the space in the middle of your group to reenact the night Tony, black out drunk, stumbled into the RA’s room instead of their shared dorm back in college.

Unable to hold yourselves up from laughing so hard, you and Wanda lean into each other for support.

Suddenly the main light dim and colorful strobe lights fill the room. You feel a heavy bass begin the thump through your chest and a drunken Wanda yells, “I LOVE THIS SONG!” She leans into your side and whispers “come dance with me,” into your ear.

Grinning widely, you nod your head and let yourself be pulled up and led to the dance floor amid cheers and wolf whistles from your friends. Immediately spinning around, Wanda presses her backside against your front, slowly dragging her hands up and into your hair. You lean forward, your hands finding a comfortable grip on her hips, pulling her closer, guiding her movements.

Across the room, Natasha watches you grind together, her jaw clenches. She throws back another shot. Behind the bar, Clint shifts his eyes from her angry form to you.

“You know, if you really like them that much you might want to head over there and stake your claim.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tasha. I’d like to think I know you better than most.”

She gives him a quirk of an eyebrow and her best side-eye.

“Okay so I may have been crawling through the vents when I saw you all but crawling up their body like it’s a ladder in Conference Room A,” he huffs out with a roll of his eyes.

She stiffens.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I think it does. Now, I don’t know why you’re trying to pretend like I don’t catch you staring at them whenever you think no one else is looking. But are you going to go over there and get what’s yours or are you just going to sit here and watch them fall into the arms of someone else?”

“They’re not my anything,” she mumbles into her glass, “They’re a big kid. They can decide to screw whoever They want.”

Clint shakes his head but says nothing more. They both watch as Wanda turns in your arms, wrapping her own around your neck, slotting her leg between yours, drawing even closer. Growing bold, she begins to press kisses along your neck leading up to your ear. You tilt your head back giving her further access as you continue to move to the rhythm.

“You know, she’s assigned to go on that mission with (y/n). With an undetermined timeline, who knows how long she’ll have to make (y/n) her-”

With a loud clink, Natasha throws back her last shot and slams it down on the countertop. Without giving Clint a chance to finish his sentence, Natasha finds herself pushing through the crowd towards you and Wanda. She’s a woman on a mission as she wraps her hand around your arm pulling you from Wanda’s grasp and without looking back, she drags you towards her room. She ignores your protests as she kicks her door open before pushing you against the wall and pressing her lips to yours in a heated kiss.

Stunned, your lips move against hers before your alcohol addled brain catches up to what’s happening. Your hands find her shoulders as you gently push her away and make space between the two of you. Confusion clouds your features as she hungrily stares at you while hastily slipping down the straps of her dress.

“Nat? What the fuck?”

“Shut up,” she growls, before attacking your lips again.

“No,” comes out of your mouth in a muffled groan. You push her away harder this time.

“What the hell are you doing?” You stare at her incredulously.

“I’m trying to have a little fun before you take off. What? Are you waiting for a formal invitation?”

You scoff in disbelief. “No. No no no. I’m not doing this with you Natasha.”

“Doing what?” She stares at you with furrowed brows.

“This! This fucked up charade of you claiming you don’t have any feelings for me!”

“I don’t! We’re just friends who like to have a little fun sometimes, (y/n/n).”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I’m stupid or are you just blind?! Friends don’t look at each other the way I look at you! Friends don’t get jealous when they see their “friend” with someone else then proceed to drag them away to stake their claim!” You’re beyond angry. Sick of feeling like a yoyo constantly tugged up and down and thrown away in boredom.

“Well what do you want me to say?”

“TELL ME I MEAN SOMETHING TO YOU! TELL ME THAT EVERY MINUTE I SPEND PRAYING TO ANYONE WHO’LL HEAR ME FOR EVEN AN IOTA OF YOUR AFFECTION ISN’T A WASTE OF BREATH!” Tears are streaming down your face. You bite back a sob as you draw your arms around yourself in a protective hold.

“Tell me you feel the same way I do,” you whisper as your voice cracks.

Tears in her own eyes, “I can’t,” Natasha exhales without making eye contact.

Slowly, you nod.

“Okay.”

Your eyes trace over her face one last time.

You turn and as she hears your footsteps head towards the door, her head snaps up.

“Where are you going?” She rushes out with hesitation coating her voice.

“I’m leaving.”

She reaches out a hand, but you step away.

Undeterred, “No, stay we can still talk things out as friends.” She implores.

Coldly, you make eye contact.

“You made it perfectly clear this morning, Natasha. We’re nothing.”

She chokes on a whimper.

With a stiff nod you exit her room and with a slam of her door, you’re gone.

Unbeknownst to you, Natasha drops to her knees.

xxxx

You head down the hall angrily wiping the tears away from your eyes. You refuse to spare any more of your heart for someone who clearly couldn’t care less whether or not it breaks.

Trying to hold on to Natasha feels like attempting to cup smoke in your bare hands. A fruitless endeavor. You were never one to bet on a losing game.

You swing your door open only to be met with Steve and Bucky grinning and ready to help you pack for your mission and rib on you about your impending time with Wanda.

Their smiles immediately drop when they take in your tear-stained face. Both men rush to your side and draw you into their arms, holding you between them. Your boys could feel their hearts shatter as they listened to your broken stops. If the sound of your cries could hurt them this much, they couldn’t fathom how you yourself were feeling.

“We’re here, Kroshka, what do you need?”

You whimpered and buried yourself further into their hold.

“That’s enough,” you sniffled.

After a moment, you pulled away drawing yourself together.

“I’m done with her,” you state.

They both nod.

“When you’re back, we’ll make sure you never have to be alone with her again,” Steve asserts with a nod of finality.

You send them both a grateful look as they begin to help you gather everything you’ll need to last at least 2 months.

xxxx

It’s early morning when Clint finds Natasha in the gym Sweat drips down from her hairline as she takes out every emotion she refuses to acknowledge on the innocent training dummy.

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be in the hangar sending off your new boo with a kiss?”

“Not my anything,” she grunts, punctuated with a roundhouse kick to the dummy’s jugular.

“You literally pulled a scene from a rom-com out of your ass, dragging (y/l/n) away from their own party AND your rival in love, and they’re STILL not yours?” He levels her with his most disapproving, disappointed dad stare.

“Fuck off Clint, I’m not in the mood.”

“Well a little birdy told me that Wanda is extra excited for this chance to ask (y/n) on a proper date after they’re back”

“Not my problem. If they want to open their legs to the first person that offers, let them.”

“Wow. Harsh. What happened?”

She delivered a sharp jab to the dummy’s solar plexus.

“They said we’re nothing.”

“That couldn’t have come from nowhere.”

She pauses her movements and looks away.

“I told them we’re nothing.”

“Nat…”

“They deserve better, Clint,” her voice wobbles.

“You deserve happiness too Tasha. You deserve them.” He pulls her into a tight hug.

Her eyes clench shut attempting to keep her tears at bay.

“I fucked up… didn’t I?”

“Yeah… you really did,” he looks up at the ceiling and sighs.

“Quinjet leaves in 5. If you hurry you should still be able to catch them.

She immediately takes off and he watches the door swing shut behind her.

“Go get ‘em, kid. We’re rooting for ya.”

xxxx

Almost running past the hangar doors, Natasha skids to a stop and pushes her way into the room.

She ignores the technicians yelling for her to clear the runway as she breaks into a sprint towards where she hears the sound of supplies being loaded onto a quinjet.

With an energy boost fueled by a fear she never knew she could feel, she speeds around the corner, drawing in a breath ready to scream your name.

Only to come to a stop.

She’s too late.

The jet pushes off the ground for takeoff.

She falls to her knees.

A broken whimper escapes her lips.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #black widow x reader #black widow imagine #nr angst

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sunmoonandeddie · 5 years

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feelings are fatal (3/24)

pairing: bucky barnes x reader, past steve rogers x reader

word count: 3,639

summary: After the events of Endgame, you struggle to come to terms with what you’ve lost, though you’re learning that you still have something to gain.

chapter warnings: swearing

masterlist

a/n: I realized that I really enjoy writing Peggy and Bucky interactions. Let me know what you think!

Bucky sighed as he pulled on his t-shirt, moving his head side to side until he felt a satisfying pop. It had been four days since your trip to Central Park, and while he thought you were feeling a little better, sometimes he couldn’t tell. There were moments when you’d be giggling and joking with Wanda and the others, but then sometimes he’d catch you with your eyes glazed over. You would see what was going on around you and react in a somewhat appropriate manner, but it was like you were wading through water.

There was a soft knock on his door and it creaked open to reveal Sam. “You ready?” He asked, leaning against the frame.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said as he looked back at himself in the full length mirror. He looked… relatively normal. His t-shirt, his jeans. The baseball cap on his head. He’d taken to not covering his arm as much, at least when he knew he was only going to be seen by his friends, the people he trusted. He turned towards the door and began to follow Sam out, but he hesitated, asking, “Is she awake yet?”

Sam shook his head with a bit of a smirk, nodding towards your new room that was a few doors ahead. “Nah. She’s still out from what I know.”

And he knew. He knew that Sam would give him shit for it, but Bucky tiptoed down the hall towards your door anyway, tapping into his Winter Soldier training. When he didn’t get a response, he gently opened the door without so much as a creak. A fond smile tugged at his lips as he sees you curled up under a huge comforter, surrounded by an overabundance of pillows. One of your arms was tucked under the pillow as you laid on your stomach, your hair fanning out behind you. You looked so peaceful, so pretty, that he was sure his heart was going to burst. For once you’re not restlessly tossing and turning on the living room couch, you’re not being plagued by nightmares.

He’s just happy that you’re actually getting some sleep.

He carefully shut the door with a soft click, hoping desperately that it won’t wake you up. It was only eight in the morning and you deserved to sleep in, despite the fact that your usual training schedule from before the Snap happened had always started this early. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a need for that for a long time.

Sam shot him a knowing look as they headed for the garage, grabbing a set of keys from the plethora beside the garage door. The two of them never grabbed one pair specifically. They just chose and random and then figured it out when they actually got there. Sam hit the lock button as they stood in front of the row of cars, and he smirks as he hears the telltale beep from further down the line. “Bentley it is.”

“Damn,” Bucky deadpanned. “I was hoping for one of the Audis.”

They didn’t say anything for the first three and a half hours of the four hour drive to Buffalo (it was supposed to be five and a half but Sam didn’t care much about the speed limit). Well, they did a little when they stopped in a drive thru—a McDonald’s, Bucky thinks it’s called—but only saying “Get me whatever” doesn’t really count. They listened to the music softly playing—something from Sam’s phone that’s hooked up to the Bluetooth—and watched the scenery.

“You’re sweet on her,” Sam said out of the blue, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.

And Bucky whipped his head around so fast he’s surprised he didn’t break it. “What? No, I’m not. Why would I—”

“Bucky,” he said, effectively shutting the other man up. “Don’t lie to me. More importantly, don’t lie to yourself.” He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “You’re sweet on her. That’s completely normal.”

“Is it?” He asked with a groan, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him whole.

“Yes.”

He leaned his head back against the headrest. “She’s my best friend’s girlfriend. It’s weird and a little more than creepy.”

“Was. She was your best friend’s girlfriend. That’s an important distinction.” And Sam can’t help but grin, shaking his head. “And how the hell is it creepy?”

“They just broke up, like, a month ago.”

“I’m not saying go after her now,” he said, shaking his head in slight disbelief. “That would be creepy.” He rolled his shoulders back. “But in a few months or so, when she’s not heartbroken anymore... I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with asking a pretty girl out for dinner. Or coffee, if that would make it easier on you.”

Bucky let out a huff of air as he crossed his arms over his chest and pointedly ignored his somewhat best friend. “I’m not asking her out.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam said with a deep sigh. “But I’m telling you, if you let that one go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

And he knew that his sort-of-kind-of best friend meant well. Really. He did. But it still frustrated him to no end that he just had to go poking his nose into matters that didn’t concern him. As far as Bucky was concerned, the matters of his heart didn’t concern anyone that wasn’t himself, and sometimes not even him.

“She’s taking Morgan out for a movie today,” he said, his voice barely audible as he made a point to stare out the window. Anything to avoid Sam’s ever-knowing gaze. That man could read anyone, and he really didn’t want him to see just how nervous he was. It was going to be the first time you’d left the compound since that Final Battle without another Avenger. And while he knew that you could handle yourself, he was still anxious. Just thinking about it made his hands start to shake. The world was still finding its way and there were still people who wanted to pretend as though billions of people hadn’t returned from the dead. They were ransacking and looting, attacking people in broad daylight.

And he felt so stupid because even though you could handle yourself—you were an Avenger, just like the rest of them—he wanted nothing more than to wrap you in his arms and keep you safe from the rest of the world.

“I didn’t know they’d be coming out with new movies so soon,” Sam said, his brows furrowing.

Bucky sighed as he picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “They’re not. The movie theatre in town is just getting up and running again, and they’re playing old movies. I think she said something about The Little Mermaid.” And he doesn’t know what that one is, only that it’s a Disney movie that came out past his time and he’d really like to see it with you, but he promised that he’d visit—

“Here we are,” the other man said as he turned onto the long driveway that led up to the Roger’s household.

And once again, Bucky is absolutely floored by the life that Steve has created here. The driveway is long and winds up through deep trees that are in full bloom. Mostly towering oak trees, though he does see a few sycamores. The two-story house is painted a soft yellow and has a white porch that wraps around the entire thing. The front door was open, letting the summer breeze in through the storm door.

Sam threw the car into park and when the two of them stepped out, the hundred-year-old man could hear the faint sound of jazz coming from the house. An easy smiled tugged at his lips as he saw the familiar woman step out onto the porch, wiping her hands on a rag.

“Bucky! Sam!” Margaret Carter-Rogers shouted as she waved at them enthusiastically.

“Hey, Peg,” Bucky said as he climbed up the porch steps. He can’t say how amazing it feels when the elderly woman pulls him into a hug because one, he’d missed her, and two, he didn’t get many hugs. The metal arm tended to put off a lot of people, but never Peggy. The first time he’d seen her, after Steve had showed up all wrinkly and actually old, she hadn’t hesitated in embracing him. She didn’t shy away from his arm. “How are ya, doll?”

“I’m doing just fine, Buck,” she said as she pulled away before pulling Sam into the same embrace. She patted the other man’s cheek before leading them into the house. “Steve’s in the kitchen.”

And the fact that his best friend loved cooking—and that he was actually really good at it—still surprised him. But sure enough, there he is. He had on one of those aprons with ‘Kiss the Cook’ embroidered on it and that’s just what his wife—his wife of fifty-two years now—does. She stood up on her tiptoes to press a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips, and it’s so intimate that Bucky feels the urge to look away, to give them a bit of privacy.

Steve turned, his blue eyes lighting up as he sees his two best friends. “Hey! There you two are! Lunch is almost done.”

“I’m gonna go and wash my hands,” Bucky said, pointing towards the hallway. It was easy enough to find the bathroom and wash his hands, but as he dried them on the soft blue towel, he caught his own eye in the mirror and just stopped. It’d been a while since he really looked at himself. He ran his fingers through his beard, which had started to get more than a little out of control. I wonder if Y/N likes it, he thought to himself before shaking his head. He really can’t have those thoughts. At least, not when he’s in your ex’s bathroom.

He flicked off the light as he left the bathroom, and though he knew he should head back to the kitchen, he hesitated. The laughs of his friends were floating down the hall as he took in the many different photographs that were hung up on the wall. There were a lot of just Steve and Peggy, but there was even more of their family. Their kids, their grandkids. There’s a huge horde of Rogers and it amazes him.

Bucky jumped almost a foot in the air as he heard the soft feminine voice, and he’s a little ashamed since he was supposed to be the deadliest assassin in the world and that means he doesn’t get snuck up on. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” She asked as she sidled up beside him. “Seeing all of this?”

“You have no idea.”

She grinned, and he gets a flash of the first time he met her, trying not to smile at Steve with her lips painted a perfect shade of red. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life, and I can truly say that my children and grandchildren are my greatest achievement.”

“Really?”

“Let me tell you, Barnes,” she said with a soft laugh. “Running one of the best spy organizations in the entire world is a walk in the park compared to raising children. Especially ones that are half super soldier.”

He can’t help but laugh as he nods towards one of the pictures that has the entire family in it. The look on Steve’s face is one that he rarely saw after breaking free of HYDRA. He’s content, happy, peaceful. “You have no idea how much I wanted him to have this. A good life. A happy one.” His blue eyes rested on the woman beside him. “Thank you for giving him that.”

“I spent years trying to move from him after he went into the ice,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. Her eyes were glistening as she remembered how awful it had been. “I went on quite a few dates, but… None of them were my Steve.”

“You two were always going to be brought back together somehow,” he said, and he truly meant it. “Even back in the forties, we could all see it, even if you two couldn’t.”

“He told me about everything that happened after he came out of the ice. How he came back to me,” she said. Her hands were wringing together anxiously as she turned to look at the pictures on the wall. “He told me about Y/N. How much she meant to him.” She drew her bottom lip in between her teeth, chewing it for a moment. There was a strange tension in the air around them. “How is she doing?”

And he didn’t know how to answer. “Y/N is… She’s surviving. I took her to Central Park the other day to get her mind off of everything and that seemed to help, even though she refused to get on my motorcycle because it reminded her of Steve’s,” he finally sighed, knowing that he had to tell the truth. If he didn’t, Sam would let it out sooner or later and then Peggy would have his ass, regardless of how frail she was. “She keeps pretending as though she didn’t lose anything, like she doesn’t have the right to be upset. She won’t even accept the fact that it’s okay to be upset over losing Natasha, and she was like her older sister.”

Peggy was silent for a long time as they stared at the photographs, at all the smiling faces. There were a lot of candid photos mixed in with all the somewhat formal ones. Ones of their three kids in their pajamas on Christmas morning, of them running around with sparklers in their hands and dirt smeared on their faces. “I’d like to meet her,” she said. “One day, when she’s ready.”

“She’d love to meet you, too.”

“What are you two gossiping about?” Steve asked as he came around the corner. “Lunch is ready.”

The brunette walked over and kissed his cheek, his baby blue eyes fluttering shut as he relished the feeling. “Just about how grateful I am to have you.”

And Steve whispered something in her ear that Bucky couldn’t hear even with the serum, but he knows that it’s something heart wrenchingly sweet. And his heart felt so full as he clapped a hand onto his friend’s shoulder and followed him to the kitchen.

“Auntie Y/N, can we go to more movies?” Morgan asked as the two of you made your way into the compound. Her tiny hand was in yours, her dark eyes looking up at you hopefully.

You grinned down at her, reaching down and picking her up. “Of course, we can.”

As soon as you were on the residential floor, Pepper was greeting you and pulling the little girl from your arms. “Thank you, Y/N,” she said gratefully with a warm smile. “But it’s this little one’s bath time and then bed.” She nuzzled her nose against the little girl’s. “What do you say to Y/N for taking you to the movies?”

“Thank you, Auntie Y/N.”

“You’re welcome, baby girl,” you said, leaning forward and giving her a kiss on the cheek. She was then carried off by her mother, leaving you alone in the communal living area. You stared out of the large windows for a long time, taking in the night sky. You and Morgan had spent all day together until it was time for the movie at seven. By the time you’d gotten home the sun had set and it’d gone dark.

It was a little strange, being in the compound. It was so different from the old one and yet almost exactly the same. You’d lived in an apartment with Steve for five years after the Snap, so lucky none of your things had been destroyed in the Final Battle. It was only after you all realized that your home was destroyed that Pepper revealed that Tony had built a second compound a few hours away, only an hour outside of New York. It was meant to be a backup plan in case anything happened, and it certainly did. You and Steve had only shared your new room for six days after the Final Battle before he finally went to return the stones and never came back.

Getting almost everyone to move into the new, slightly smaller compound was relatively easy. There was this urge to be together again after spending so much time apart. Especially Pepper. You’d been the only one allowed out to the cabin to visit during those five years other than Natasha and you two getting to be close to each other brought back a sense of normalcy, a sense of comfort. It hadn’t mattered that Tony and Steve weren’t on good terms, you were like another adopted kid of the Starks, just like Harley and Peter.

You kicked off your shoes as you made your way to the kitchen, not really caring that you’d left them in the middle of the floor. No one really cared about petty things like that anymore and it wasn’t like you wouldn’t pick them up later.

Right now you just needed a drink.

You were standing on your tiptoes, trying to grab a wine glass, when you felt two someone press against your back and saw another arm reach up and grab it for you.

“There you go, sugar,” Bucky said, his breath tickling your ear as he set it carefully on the counter.

“Thank you,” you said with a weak laugh as you turned your head to look up at him. “You want some wine?”

“Why not?” He asked before reaching up to grab another glass while you pulled out a bottle of chilled white wine from the fridge.

As you worked on getting the cork out, you asked, “When’d you get home? I figured you and Sam would be in Buffalo until tomorrow.”

And to be honest, he was a little surprised to hear you speaking so frankly about them making the trip further upstate. “Just twenty minutes ago. We only stayed for a few hours after lunch.” He watched as you poured two generous glasses before passing him one. Even though he couldn’t get drunk unless he was drinking Thor’s Asgardian mead, he took a long swig of it, loving the sweetness of the Moscato. “How was the movie?”

“The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie, so it was good,” you said with a faint smile. “It was nice getting out of the compound. I think cabin fever was starting to get to me.”

“How can you have cabin fever in a place as big as this?” He laughed, nudging you with his elbow playfully. Ignoring how you mock-glared at him, he then grew serious. “Nobody gave you any trouble though, did they?”

You shook your head, more than a little touched by how concerned he was. You knew that some would be offended by the slight insinuation that you couldn’t take care of yourself, but you knew that wasn’t the case. Bucky knew you could take care of yourself; he just didn’t want you to have to. “No, no one bothered us.”

“You know you can call me at any time, right?” He asked, his pretty blues staring into your eyes. “If you’re outside of the compound and anyone bothers you?”

“Yes.”

Bucky looked at you in shock, raising his eyebrows. “Oh, uh. Okay. Good.”

You grinned against the lip of your wine glass, taking a sip. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

You stared down at the wine in your hand, swirling it as you lost yourself in a train of thought. You weren’t sure if you actually wanted to ask the question on your mind, but at the same time you knew you needed the answer. “Do you remember me?”

And oh. He hadn’t been expecting that. He stood there, a little dumbfounded with his mouth opening and closing.

You peeked up at him nervously through your long eyelashes. “Do you remember me from the Red Room?”

Bucky took in a deep breath before letting it out, long and slow. His heart was pounding against his ribcage. He knew he couldn’t lie to you, couldn’t keep you in the dark. “Yes.” And he’s scared. He’s scared of how you’d react because even it took him a while after meeting you as Steve’s girlfriend, he had realized that he had met you before. He’d been in a different mind then, since he’d been the Winter Soldier, which is why he still thought of it as your first meeting when Steve had brought you along on the run. He’d helped train you for a few years in the Red Room. He could remember how he stood behind you, growling in Russian to do better, be better. Had threatened you if you didn’t. He’d been one of those horrible people that tormented you before you made your separate escapes.

So you could say he’s a little surprised when you simply nod, finishing off the glass of wine in your hand. “Okay.” You then set your glass in the sink before heading for the hallway that led to your room. You reach the doorway and turn, your stunning eyes locking onto his. “Goodnight, Bucky.”

There was a sense of unease in the air as he stared after your retreating form, his heart still racing. He couldn’t understand how you could take it so easy, unless you were hiding how you actually felt and waiting until later to explode on him. In all honesty, there was only one thing he was sure of.

Things just got a little more complicated.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes imagine #endgame spoilers #endgame

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shayde-n-friends · 4 years

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Reaper High - Next Gen: Children of Nomads and Royals

((After getting 2 Commissions of Ajax, and seeing lots of love being given to Jazz, I decided to just up and make a post about the many Next Generation characters that i’ve created over the years.

Ajax - Shayde and Vega’s youngest daughter. She is the only one of the children who was born with Natural Guardian powers, or at the very least, something akin to them. (Perhaps it was her golden chip? No one knows...not even Shayde’s Ghost.) At some point in her life, she acquired Roulette’s old sword; Worldline Zero. With it’s power, combined with her ability to create rifts in space inherited from Vexus, Ajax discovered that she was able to travel through time using the sword. She’s quite the troublemaker when she wants to be, but more often than not her heart is in the right place. When she makes a mistake, it weighs heavy on her, and goes to the greatest lengths to fix what she has broken.

Avior - Shayde and Vega’s only son and Prince of Cluster Prime, Avior dedicated himself at a young age to defending those who could not defend themselves, and giving people something to look up to when things are looking grim. He studied and trained under some of the greatest heroes he could think of: Saint-14, All-Might, Super-Man and Captain America to name a few...Although, despite his knightly philosophy and manners, he styles himself after Lord Saladin and The Iron Lords. Being about 8 feet fall, he sometimes intimidates the other students at Reaper High. That, and the fact that he has Vexus’ eyes, and teeth.

Weiss - The Elder Daughter of the Royals, and seemingly the most low key, all Weiss wants to do is learn the history of her two heritages. When she was young, Weiss was as happy-go-lucky as her mother. Growing up, she began to learn about Vexus’ crimes, and the banishment of her grandfather. Combined a less than positive school experience, this caused Weiss to become far more jaded. Like Roulette, Weiss has little time for bullies, blowhards but is far more likely to shut them up if they don’t have the smarts to do so themselves. She appears to be the most tame of her family, but deep inside, power greater than her sibling, parents and grandparents combine BURNS...

Morrigin - Daughter of Stake and Number 86, Morrigin is as tough as both her parents and then some. Growing up among Ex-Teens Next Door agents and Clones, Morrigin had no shortage of exposure to extended family, her cousins included. Training from both her mother and father have honed her into a disciplined fighter, and a capable leader, if not a little arrogant. Of course, with her parent’s combined strengths, she also shares their weaknesses, such as 86′s temper, and Stake’s crippling lack of fashion sense and dance talent.

Thomas - Against everyone’s expectations, Volker and Brit remained together after the Apocalypse, even more unexpected was the birth of their son, Thomas. His parents raised him to be a cat-burglar from an early age, though Volker did remind him that not everything should be stolen...just the stuff that people who already have a lot don’t use. At some point before attending Reaper High, Thomas acquired the means to train as a Titan Pilot, but didn’t get his hands on one until getting to the school...Stealthy, Agile, and well versed in assassin combat styles and gadgets, Thomas can easily slip away from any trouble he might find himself in.

Kaze - If Brit sticking around to raise her child was a surprise, than Misty raising her child with Dreamer was nothing short of a miracle. After they had amassed a small fortune from their Bounty and Treasure Hunting days, the two found a place to call home, and so the inquisitive Kaze was born. Of the Clones’ Children, she is the most in-tune with her heritage, having powers from her mother, as well as Combat skills passed down to her from both parents. She can speak fluent Mandolorian, and forged her own sword in the vein of Misty’s. Even more curious, is that Kaze appears to be able to use The Force, even though neither of her parents were able to...because of this, Kaze is exposed to dangers that others may not be.

Coyote - Nobody knows where Coyote truly came from. He appears to be a Yautja-Human hybrid, with some elements of what seems to be Crescentian DNA...He is apart of a new tribe of Yautja founded by Marsh after the end of the Apocalypse, protecting the vulnerable Cresentian populace from natural predators and hunters in exchange for bonding with members of the clan as partners on the hunt. Though Coyote has no Partner, he more than makes up for it with his cunning and prowess as a tracker, Capable of wrestling with beasts 3 times his size, and just as able to take them out. He doesn’t speak very often, which is why no one can seem to get a straight answer about his origins out of him...

Samuel - It took Frida a long time to convince Russell to have a child, but the wait was well worth it. Russell made certain to be there during every step of Samuel’s life. As a result, the boy was spared from the parental issues that plauged his father. With his father’s training, and his mother’s inventive ingenuity, Samuel became a prodigy in combat and vigilante justice. Despite his mostly positive upbringing, he never found much reason to speak. As such, he tends to express himself through gestures and actions. He lacks his father’s temper, but has his dexterity and skill with weaponry. Samuel is more in tune with her mother, sharing her mechanical prowess...and her sense of humor.

Helena - Though some miracle of science and biology, Shard and Melody were able to have a child, a perfected techno-organic being known as Helena. Imbued with the powers of both her mother and father, Helena is a powerhouse of speed and power. The only issue being, she is incredibly shy. She has the ability to stop time, materialize armor for herself from thin air, transform into a mechanical beast like her parents, and move just as fast as Shard, if not faster. She’s fiercely loyal to those who she claims only “Tolerate” her as a friend, and doesn’t give herself as much credit as she deserves. The only time she’s been known to come out of her shell completely is when one of her friends are in danger, revealing that sometimes she can be just as cocky as her father. (...And that embarasses her to no end!)

Ragran & Selmaxen - At some point in RH History, Heater began a complex Relationship with a version of Hekapoo from another timeline or dimension. Which one? Nobody knows...what everyone does know is that after the apocalypse, Heater ran off with her for years, and came back with a pair of Twins: Two girls named Ragran and Selmaxen. Ragran shares her father’s vow of silence, while Selmaxen tends to chat up a storm. Both of the twins have the ability to use their mothers scissors, or duplicates from the looks of them, and have power to manipulate, control, and create fire, lava and obsidian thanks to their fathers supernatural exploits in Hell during the apocalypse. They aren’t dependent on one another, but when they team up to do much of anything, their synergy is unmatched.

((This is just too much fun to come up with and write about! Seeing RH Next Gen stuff makes my heart soar, and it saddens me that I fall into ruts so often that I’m starting to lose steam on this sort of thing. But i’ll keep trying to keep my motivation up, and so long as im motivated, i’ll keep writing stuff for RH!))

#Reaper High #Reaper High Next Gen #OCs

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imnotcameraready · 5 years

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If Villains Baked Cookies — Chapter 3

A/N: it’s been a Fuckin While, welcome back to this!!!

Word Count: 3295

Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit y’all, curses, cursing, minor character death (not anyone significant to the storyline), suggested abuse, suggested trauma, swords, knives, panic and panic attack — if i forgot any pls let me know!!!

Pairings: im realizing that this is platonic Moceit and then platonic Analogince, with like. light versions of platonic DLAMP given that they’re a famILY

Characters: Deceit, Patton, Virgil, Logan, Roman, Thomas, AND EMILE PICANI :^) and Percy the Printer™

read on AO3!

Prologue — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2

@rebelrewriter

enjoy!

Sir Virgil Malory wasn’t exactly a knight, per se. He never liked the shining armor and giant swords, both of which would clang together in an incredibly distracting way. No, Virgil prefered the shadows, the quiet, soft leather shoes and a few small daggers hidden in his coat.

He was forced to undergo the knight training, though, as the youngest of four brothers who had all grown to be high ranking knights. His father, before he died, expected all of them to carry on his own legacy of being one of the King’s war advisors.

When he was sixteen, just before the last year of his knightly training, he was pulled aside by one of the King’s aides. Of course, his heart was beating in his neck, he was sweating buckets, what had he done to make the King mad? Why did he need an audience with the King? And the aide didn’t tell him anything until they got to the small war-planning room.

With JUST the King in it.

“Sounds terrible, being locked in a room with a royal,” Roman interrupted, feet kicked up onto the table.

Virgil shot him a glare. “It is pretty terrible when I’m locked in a room with you,” he stuck his tongue out at Roman, who made a sound crossed between a squeak and a gasp in indignation.

“Virgil? Keep going?” Thomas asked, wrapping his own cape around himself as well.

“Fuck, uh, yeah.”

“No more interruptions, Roman,” Logan raised an eyebrow and cast a side glance at him, “And get your feet off of the table. Patton would be furious.”

Deceit rolled his eyes while Roman grumbled quietly, sitting up proper. “Like Patton’s capable of being furious,” he joked, voice soft.

Thomas still didn’t like how his tongue flicked when he spoke.

Virgil cleared his throat, and Roman’s grumbling quieted.

The King had called Virgil into the room not to reprimand him, but to extend an offer. His army had enough knights who fought with swords. He needed more who could fight in the shadows. Who could sneak into an enemy’s tent and slit their throats quietly.

Yeah, it was a weird gig. Seemed to go against all of the knights’ mantra of honor and dealing with things in battle, but the King was serious. He talked a lot about how not everything could be settled out in the open and how not everything could be known to the public. I didn’t like it at all but….I wasn’t really cut out to be a knight, anyway. I said yes.

Training was, well….similar? I don’t know how much y’all wanna hear.

“Just, like….I dunno. Whatever you see fit?” Thomas asked.

He had started slowly slipping off his armor, but kept his dagger and sword strapped to his person. His choice to keep his weapons didn’t escape Deceit’s gaze, he kept noticing the god’s eyes following him. Thomas really, really didn’t like him.

Virgil just watched Thomas a little harder. He seemed to want to retaliate, but a nudge from Roman distracted him. “No more third person?” he cocked an eyebrow, leaning across both of his arms and the table, grinning cheekily up at him.

“Eh, that wasn’t gonna last anyway,” Virgil rolled his eyes with a huff, “I’m not a storyteller.”

I’m gonna skip training. But basically, uh, I learned how to throw knives, make poisons, climb walls, you name it.

My brothers knew I had a special job, but they didn’t know what it was. We lived in the same house, nearby the castle, which was technically my eldest brother’s house since his family lived there. They always asked what I was doing and what the King wanted from me but I never told. The King’d said that….anyone I told would be killed.

My brothers sucked, but I didn’t want them dead.

I was knighted when I was seventeen, and then I started getting sent out on jobs. Never with anyone, never during the day. The royal family always claimed I was a war messenger. That appeased my brothers for the most part, but the oldest one….Percival. Percy. Percy never really trusted that description. He never went after me, though, but I could always see that he just didn’t accept that.

When Patton was first being challenged by the King, I was almost sent, actually. There were only a few of us war messengers, all assassins, and I’d just returned from another job. Because I was fresh home, the King sent someone else. I didn’t know his name or anything but I remember how scared we all were when he didn’t come back.

The King sent someone else to poison Patton’s crops, and they came back. Succeeded.

News traveled fast, though, that the. Well. He was called a murderer then, and everyone was saying that the murderer’d run. Fled into the hills. And everyone was calling for the King to send a party against him.

The pressure went on for only about a year before the King caved. He said he sent a single knight against the murderer to best him in combat. The King sent me. He told me it didn’t matter how I did it, but that I just needed….he wanted me to bring Patton’s dead body back.

Virgil now looked down at the table, brow furrowed, angry at the memory. Thomas glanced up at Logan and Roman, noticing that they seemed surprised. Thomas hadn’t been asked to bring the body back, either. It might have been a custom that died with time.

Even Deceit was looking at his own lap, humming quietly along with the wind chime.

It was a tense, uncomfortable silence.

“Whew!” Thomas’ head snapped up at the sound of the side door opening. Patton walked in, wiping his hands on a towel. “Left was really milkin’ it today!”

Only Deceit chuckled. Virgil lowered his head onto the table, the hood of his cloak falling over his head. Logan groaned.

Patton seemed confused at what he’d walked into. He looked around at them all and opened his arms. “What’s wrong, kiddos? I hope that pun didn’t moove you!”

“We’re just, um….” Thomas looked up at Logan — he seemed to be the task manager.

Logan met his eyes and sighed. Despite only being here for a few hours, Thomas was already getting the hang of being here. Truth be told, he’d already made up his mind. Of course he was staying. But he didn’t want to be just stagnant. Not after all that he’d heard about the king.

“We are listening to Virgil explain how he arrived here. Are you….aware, of why he came?”

Patton grimaced as soon as Logan said “explain.” He stepped to Virgil’s side and gently rubbed his back. “Yeah, I remember when Virge arrived! He, uh….well, he was real determined!” he smiled, a little too cheerily for the topic, “But Deceit wasn’t havin’ any of that.”

“Sorry,” Deceit grumbled, “It was fun.”

Virgil sat up. “Sorry,” he mumbled, wiping his face, “I’ll keep going.”

“Don’t wipe too hard, you’ll smudge your angsty make up,” Roman retorted, voice lacking the bite it’d had earlier, “You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.”

Virgil looked up at him and they seemed to share a moment. Patton kept rubbing Virgil’s back, also watching Roman, then Logan. Scanning around, making sure his children were okay, Thomas reckoned. He was a little surprised when Patton’s eyes landed on him, too. He gave Patton a tiny smile, which Patton returned thrice as large.

“Well, this is a good time to, uh, air out the dirty laundry. I’m gonna cut up the brownies while you kiddos talk?” Patton patted Virgil’s shoulder one last time before walking around the table, towards the kitchen area.

Thomas watched him and Deceit share a look, too, though it was a little different from the other. He couldn’t tell how. Was it an increase in tension? Determination? Seriousness?

It must have communicated something, because Deceit rolled his eyes away and glared at Virgil’s back. “I cannot pick up the story, Virgil, if you would like,” he offered.

Virgil shook his head and faced Deceit. “No, nah, it’s….it’s okay. It’s way in the past anyway! And, ‘sides, I kicked Roman’s ass harder,” the last part was punctuated with Virgil pointing to Roman with his thumb over his shoulder.

Roman, however, snorted. “The only thing you kicked, Angst-fest, was the dirt after our glorious battle!”

“You started crying over your ripped cape, but go off,” Deceit said, checking his fingernails and digging the dirt out from under them.

“You little—”

“Shut it! Alright, so…..”

The whole chosen one thing wasn’t big back then, but everyone kinda knew about me being sent off. I didn’t say bye to my family or anything, either. Those assholes didn’t care.

“Virgil! No swearing!”

“Jeez, sorry Patt.”

The King set me up with everything, rations and money and weapons and all that jazz. It only took about a week to ride here, too, since it was the first time and none of the opportunists’d settled into where they are now.

Like, you know. Logan talked about having to fight a sphinx, when he first came. I’m sure you had to fight some things like that too. Creatures and peddlers and thieves set themselves up along the path, see if they can kill the Chosen One and loot their body. Or they just wanna swindle you out of money and goods.

None of that was there when I went. It was real easy, until I got to the mountain.

I ran into Patton first, while he was building the barn, actually. With like, his hands. I didn’t think he was the warlock but, well, did any of us? I asked what he was doing all the way out here, he said he lived here. He’d just moved. He was kinda jumpy, but like, that’s valid. He asked why I was here and I told him….I told him I was here to meet a warlock. Lied, and said I was here to discuss a truce with the King.

Patton flipped out. Super excited and all.

Here, Virgil gestured to Patton. “I dunno, do you wanna….pick up the story?”

Patton shot him a small smile and brought a plate of brownies to the table. As soon as he set it down, Roman grabbed one and began nibbling on it. Logan thanked him and took one as well, and then Virgil, who was still staring at Patton.

He leaned on the counter besides Deceit, who wrapped an arm around Patton’s shoulders. He took a deep breath.

“I thought it’d be the end of being chased around. Maybe I’d get to farm and-and go back down to the town. I missed having neighbors. But, like….at that point, it’d been a year. A little over a year of working with Deceit’s magic. And, since it’s tied to preservation and honesty, I could….I could hear you lying. It’s weird, but I could hear it, but I wanted to believe it so badly,” Patton shrugged.

“That means it wasn’t a dumbass idea,” Deceit grumbled.

Patton laughed behind a hand. It seemed no one was going to mention that Deceit had sworn. Logan raised a hand, but Virgil grabbed it and lowered it slowly, all waiting for Patton to continue. It only took a few moments before his hand dropped, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Yeah, um. That wasn’t my brightest, I’ll admit,” Patton’s voice was airier, “I let Virgil in. We sat in the kitchen. We….I think I was just rambling at you.”

“You were telling me about the chickens you were raising,” Virgil added, eyes flickering towards Deceit.

“And I didn’t interrupt. You had a knife in your sleeve,” Deceit met Virgil’s gaze.

Virgil looked down at the table and nodded. “Deceit, uh….we had a fight.”

All was quiet, Virgil staring at the table and fidgeting with his sleeves, but Deceit leaned off of the counter behind himself. “Do you not want me to show it?” he offered, sincerity clear in his voice.

Virgil stood up, head snapping up to Deceit. “Don’t,” he leaned forward on the table, nostrils flaring, knuckles tight on the table’s edge.

Roman stood up, too, and — where the fuck did he get that sword? He stuck a sword between the two of them, holding up his off hand towards Virgil’s chest.

On instinct, Thomas stood as well, drawing his own sword and holding it out to mimic Roman. “Woah, woah, calm down, everyone. If that’s—if that’s where the story ends, then that’s fine, right?” Thomas glanced up at Roman for support, who nodded, then at Logan.

Logan….didn’t move. He was just watching Patton, who was standing behind Deceit, seemingly stricken. Thomas watched, too, as Patton blinked a little. He moved slow, like how one would when approaching a scared animal.

“....Dee. Don’t do it,” Patton grabbed Deceit’s arm, tugging him back a little.

Deceit didn’t break eye contact with Virgil. Just watched him quietly, the second eyelid over his snake eye blinking slowly. Virgil was matching his glare and seemed only a few seconds away from ripping Roman’s arm away from himself.

Yet he broke first, looking down and away. The room’s tension dropped, Roman spinning around and sheathing his sword. He held Virgil’s shoulders carefully and asked if he was okay. Patton pulled Deceit backwards into his arms, holding him tight and asking the same. Thomas himself just….watched. Slowly sank back into his seat, leaned backwards. Logan patted his arm and Thomas turned up towards him.

“I hope you can excuse the tension,” Logan’s voice was quiet, probably hoping to not be heard by the others, “They have a lot of history.”

“They. Deceit and Virgil, I’m guessing?” Thomas whispered back.

Logan nodded, fixing his glasses as he glanced back up at Deceit. “Deceit is fairly tame, for a forgotten deity, but he is incredibly protective of Patton. Given that Virgil was assigned to kill him, Deceit….well. I don’t know much of the story myself, but I do know that Virgil was defeated in hand to hand combat. Multiple times. They get along fair enough now but I assume those memories are still difficult to sit with.”

They both looked up at the sound of Roman tugging Virgil toward the door. Thomas couldn’t see much of Virgil, wrapped beneath his thick patchwork cloak, but the one hand he could see was gripping Roman’s white tunic tight enough to turn his hand just as white. A murderer. It was still a little hard to process, this teenager was supposed to be a hardened murderer. Roman held the door open with his foot and carefully ushered Virgil out. He caught Logan and Thomas’ eye as he hurried out and mouthed “We’ll be back,” before letting the door close behind himself.

Now, Logan and Thomas directed their attention to Deceit and Patton. They’d shifted, Deceit sitting on the counter, Patton holding his hands tight.

“He’s very human, all things considered,” Logan murmured just loud enough for Thomas to hear, “If you’d like….I can show you to your room for the night.”

Thomas looked at him. Logan was watching him as well, blue eyes piercing behind those glasses.

He reminded Thomas so much of the librarian, Emile, but with a different level of power. When Thomas had been chosen he went to Emile, only to be held in the tightest hug he’d ever felt. There were rumors in their village, there are always rumors, that Emile had the Gift of Sight and that he’d been able to see what happened to his brother. The same piercing eyes, the same knowing gaze. They held Thomas in his spot so well that he almost forgot he wasn’t standing in the library’s foyer, about to ask Mr. Picani if he’d ever climbed a mountain.

“....I….”

“I know you’ve made your decision, Thomas. Regardless of your desire to announce it or not, there are still a few hours until dinner and you may find it best to rest,” Logan’s face folded into a small fond smile, “Besides, Patton has been arranging your room for the past decade.”

They’d been expecting him. Of course they had, if the Chosen One was a generational tradition lasting over the past hundreds of years.

The thought made Thomas’ blood boil. He’d trained for years to protect Tomasphere but the more he learned about the royal family….

He hoped Logan couldn’t see his anger. Thomas smiled back, more unsure. “Um. Yeah, sure,” he followed Logan as he rose and tucked in his chair.

“Patton,” Patton turned to look over his shoulder at Logan and Thomas, “I’m going to take Thomas to his room. Roman and Virgil are outside.”

“Wait,” Deceit’s hand — Thomas’ fists balled tightly as he saw that there were claws, claws on his scaled left arm, just like the claws that gripped his throat only a few days ago — pulled Patton’s shoulder to the side, “I can tell Virgil totally wants to finish the story, so I shouldn’t step in. Thomas’ isn’t staying, ergo the story shouldn’t be finished.”

Logan frowned at him, opening his mouth to interrupt, then closing his mouth as he tried to decipher the circle speak. Thomas watched him, deferring in a moment of fear, but Logan only shook his head. “I don’t think that will be necessary—”

“Virgil didn’t get his ass handed to him so bad, and it definitely took less than a week for him to fully recover,” Deceit rubbed the back of his neck, “It….I’m completely proud.”

“Dee, it’s okay.”

“I didn’t break his spine. He—Patton, sunlight, he—Patton.”

Deceit’s eyes flicked toward Thomas, whose fists clenched even firmer, and then down to the table. His shaking shoulders were hunched just enough for Patton to pull him back to his chest and for him to rest his head in the crook of Patton’s neck. “Now, Dee, you were different. That was a few centuries ago, and you were different. Things’re better now,” he rubbed the deity’s back, running a hand through his dark brown hair, “Things’re better.”

“I don’t know, Patt,” Deceit’s voice was muffled but held a distinct change in tone.

Thomas wanted to watch, something in him wanted to bear witness to this honest side of Deceit. He hadn’t been sure about Deceit’s sincerity since he’d met him, certain that there were backward statement and some very obvious lies, but, well, Thomas couldn’t exactly tell. The sentiment of his sorrow, though, and the tone. The tone of his voice. Was he being honest?

But Logan’s hand gripped his arm and tugged.

“Thomas. Let’s go,” his voice was firm, and Thomas couldn’t help but obey.

He followed Logan out of the kitchen and left Patton to calm the upset god. He followed Logan into a smaller room, furnished with a fully-made bed, a small desk, a wardrobe, and a candlestick in a lantern already glowing. It seemed quaint, like moving into a new room, but Thomas could already tell that it was meant to be “home.” He dropped his satchel onto the desk and looked up. There were stars drawn onto the ceiling in golden ink, an “R+L” in the corner paying homage to the artists.

If Logan expected some sort of reaction, he was sorely disappointed. Once he saw the bed, Thomas knew he was done for, as the weight of how much he’d gone through during the day finally crashed onto his shoulders. He took a few steps toward the bed, collapsed onto it and, within mere seconds, was asleep.

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xxxtrouvaillexxx · 5 years

Text

Even This Won’t Stop Me

A/N: I’m coming back after a long hiatus strong with another entry to another challenge. This one was being held by @buckysforeverprincess 500 writing challenge, though this entry is very... VERY late. I am so sorry. I entered this challenge when I was still active, haha... ha.. ha. Also! Any words here that are not in English that are wrong, I used Google Translate and I believe we all know how trustworthy that can be. I tried. Also x2! This is really bad, and I am so sorry, it has been ages since I’ve written.

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Summary: You’ve been targeted by Hydra in order for them to get to Bucky. You are unaware, however, that Hydra agents have already infiltrated the Avenger’s Tower until it was too late.

Word Count: +5k

Warning(s): Pre-established relationship, angst, violence, minor character deaths, mentions of torture, self-doubting Bucky, fluff toward the end. It builds up really quickly, not gonna lie. Bad writing.

Prompt(s):

“Every single time you leave, I cry!” @/nearly-witches w/ Bucky

“Are you safe?” “I-I don’t know.”

“This is going to hurt. I’m so sorry.”

“Gah! Why are you so cold? Get off of me you icicle!”

“Even after all of this, after everything that’ll come our way, nothing is going to stop me from being with you.”

It was a rather slow morning for Y/N. Most of the team had been sent off on separate missions. Steve, Tony, and Nat were sent out to help Fury make the teams next tactic plan for an upcoming mission and give him the last mission report. Sam, Thor, and Wanda all went out to collect files from our last ‘outing’, all the while Clint went home to be with his family again. Basically, the only people who were left in the tower still were yourself, Bruce, and Bucky. This left you to a quiet morning in the kitchen, sipping away at a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday paper with soft jazz playing through the speakers. Humming lightly as a pair of arms wrapped around your waist and a head rested on your shoulder, gently placing a chaste kiss on your cheek. “Mornin’ doll,” Bucky whispered before leaving your side to make himself a cup of coffee. “You’re up rather early today, have plans?” He asked, his voice still raspy from sleep. “Not really, just figured I’d get a good start to the day.” You turned in the bar stool and watched him, admiring his form while he walked around the room. “I thought about waking you, but I figured you could use the extra rest. Besides, how could I wake you when you were so peaceful?” You chuckled and closed the paper. “Sure, or you just wanted to brag that you woke up before I did. Just remember doll, that it only happens on a rare occasion. I’ll rub it in your face tomorrow when you sleep into the afternoon.” He teased. Playfully sticking your tongue out at him, you chuckled and nodded. “But you could at least be nice about it. I was kind enough not to bring up the topic of conversation.” “Anything for you, doll. Now, you go and get dressed. But don’t take to long, every single time you leave, I cry! So make it snappy. We’ve basically the entire place to ourselves, might as well enjoy it.” “Day in? Sounds good to me, I’ll be right back James.” You laughed and wandered to your room. Changing from sleepwear into casual day clothes, a simple tank top, and cardigan with some torn blue jeans. You had just been about the leave your room as a voice came through the intercom. It was unfamiliar and cold, foreign, your heart rate picking up incredibly once you recognized it the thick accent. The frigid and unfeeling Russian voice cracked, “At last, we’ve come for you, Soldat. Finally, we are here to bring you home. Just be patient, and we shall come to you. Or perhaps, you should come to meet us? I’m sure Y/N would love for you to be present during her execution.” It said static snapped lowly before all com went dead and the power was in the tower was cut. You were swarmed by the dark as you took a moment to collect your thoughts. Breathing deeply, you ran to your bedside table and grabbed out the handgun you always kept there, making sure it was fully loaded before quietly leaving your room. Creeping through the long halls slowly, carefully taking each step and listening closely to your surroundings, you made your way to the kitchen where you had last seen Buck.

Just before you had turned the corner to the common room, you heard the loading of a gun behind you. Shifting your weight ever so slightly, you cocked your head to the side to see the barrel of it pointing directly at you. “I’d have to advice you from making any further movement, a flick of a finger and you’ll never walk again,” a man said, pushing you forward harshly. “Walk, we have a lot of work to do before Barnes finds us.” Nodding, showing that you understood his warning you walked into a small clearing between the couches and dining room before making your move. You had rotated in his grip, bringing your elbow into his temple harshly and kicking his knee back. Taking your gun, you fired a quick round into his side, using the handle of the gun to hit the back of his head effectively knocking the man unconscious. Before you were even able to think twice, however, several men ran into the room and disarmed you, but not before you were able to take out another three of them. They all had their weapons now pointed at your head and chest, closing in on you until you were eye to eye with the rifle he held. “Walk,” he said menacingly, but you simply stood your ground, smirking you spat in his face. His fist was as quick as your comeback when it met your stomach and face, sending you to your knees for a minute to catch your breath. “I said walk.” Complying with his order, you stood and were directed into the main garage level. Being that it was a weekend, there were few cars lining the parking spaces, a rather stupid move on their part. There was absolutely nowhere to hide once Bucky got here, they don’t stand a chance otherwise. You couldn’t help but think, ‘These poor bastards,’ at least until the shoved you into a chair and tied your hands and feet. “Well, I don’t know about you boys’,” Y/N spoke through the tense silence, tilting her head back to rest on the chair casually, “but I gotta admit, I had thought this would have been a bit more entertaining. You know, some questioning or something.” You drawled in a bored tone. Her eyes meticulously observing each of their movements, years of training kicking in. “I mean, come on. You’ve already made it obvious why you are here, but that is a pointless venture. And I know that I heard something about my execution, which doesn’t exactly sound pleasing, I have to admit.” You babbled on for a while longer, watching as their patience dwindled bit by bit, seeing as each would glance at another with an annoyed look until finally, one snapped and made his way toward you. “Do you ever shut up?” He nearly shouted in exasperation. You smiled and shook your head, “No, not often. But it’s just part of my charm I suppose.” You joked. “I’ve been told that I am ‘Easy to talk to,’ and ‘Quite good company’ so I just assume that I’m a catch. Are you getting irritated? You look a bit irritated,” and with that, he lost it. His fist collided with the side of my cheek an instant later as he spat at you, “You want interesting? Fine, let's get interesting.” Chuckling, you tossed your hair back and glared at him defiantly, “It's your funeral pal.” That was the last snarky comment you were able to get out before two more men came to join him, crackling their knuckles along the way.

Bucky sneaked through the halls silently. It didn’t take him but a second to realize what was happening when the power was cut. Panic had already flooded his system before the cold voice rang through the intercoms, but once he heard it he could hardly breathe.

Only a minute. It was only a few minutes that he was away from her and he could stop thinking how had he allowed this to happen? He had barely made it to Y/N’s room before the voice spoke his final words. “I’m sure Y/N would love for you to be present during her execution.” It repeated over and over in his mind like a mantra as he burst to open her door and quickly scanned the room for any sign of her. It only took him one once over to realize she was no longer there, though he also didn’t fail to see that her nightstand drawer was wide open and missing the firearm that usually was placed inside. He couldn’t help but send a little prayer of thank you to the sky as he turned and continued to creep through the hallways, making a quick stop to the buildings armoury along the way to grab himself a few of his own guns and blades. He knew that he had a few moments to be able to grab the essentials knowing that Y/N, too, was a trained assassin much like himself and Natasha and knowing that they wouldn’t dare actually carry through with their threat of killing her until he was present. However, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t do as much damage as possible until then. Slowly, he made his way out and continued his search, thinking about all the places that they could have possibly been hiding. There were more than several secured places within the tower, on their floor alone there were six rooms that you needed to have yourself in the database to be able to enter, and he doubted that they were hiding far from where he was. The sound of a gun firing rang through the entire building and he could feel his heart still. His head whipped in the direction of the cracking and raced in its direction, imagining the worst as he ran through corridor after corridor, chanting in his head over and over for you to be alright. You spat out blood as you were beaten over and over. You were positive that your face was covered in bruises and cuts, your nose was worse for wear now that is was surely broken and bleeding, you lips cut from the unrelenting punches and dragging your teeth across them so harshly to keep back any shout or whimpers. You weren’t about to let the fact you were in pain defeat your stubborn defiance. Rocking your head side to side, trying to clear your now foggy mind, you looked up to your captives from under your lashes and offered them a crooked smirk. “I thought you said you were gonna make this interesting?” Leaning your head back to rest on your shoulder, you barely held back the wince of pain shooting through your rib cage as you tried to decide if it was bruising or cracked. “Gotta say, I’m not really all too impressed.” The men surrounding you chuckled as one grabbed a fist full of hair and yanked your head back, hard. “Still got such a foul mouth on you, принцесса? Maybe you should start thinking before you speak, don’t you think? It’ll only get worse from here you know. And it still looks like your knight in shining armour isn’t anywhere to be seen,” his voice whispered in your ear. “Well, where would be the fun in that?” You asked sweetly, your voice dripping with false innocence. You met the man's eyes and you could see the very moment of recognition that sparked in them just before you slammed your head back and jammed his jaw in. The entire room could hear the impact and the sound of his teeth gritting on each other and you knew you did some damage when his shout of pain rung out followed by a growl. “сука!” He shouted and again you were met with several of their fists. You took each blow quietly, never showing emotion, though you struggled to breathe each time they came into contact with your stomach. At some point during their assaults, your chair tipped over and fell on its side causing you to hit your head on the hard concrete. Already dealing with the constant beatings to the head, the impact made you lose consciousness for a few moments. It seemed like it was a never-ending stream of men around the tower. Every corner Bucky turned there was another one of them. The more he had to fight the longer it was taking him to get to Y/N and he was frantically trying to get his mind under control and stop thinking about his worry about what they could possibly be doing so that he could reach her faster. The more time he wasted fighting, the more time they had to do as they pleased. He did notice after a few groups of men that the father he went along, the more meant would be grouped together. He figured that meant he was getting closer to Y/N and the bastards that were holding them and it didn’t take him long to figure out where that was. Garage, a numerous amount of entrances, but he knew these people well enough to know that they would all be covered by men. Group after group, he defeated all the men that stood in his way from where he needed to be most. He was a man on a mission and there was nothing that was going to stop him from reaching Y/N. Even still, it took him nearly thirty minutes to reach the parking lot doors. No matter how much his mind was screaming at him to run in there and grab Y/N, he knew he couldn’t just go in without knowing what he was going to do or have some sort of plan.

“Stop!” “Вы дурак, что вы думаете, что делаете? Я сказал вам, что вы не должны возлагать на нее руку, пока он не прибыл!” “Именно она начала все это. Мы делали то, что вы проинструктировали, и она просила об этом.“ Your head was aching and the constant yelling was not helping the situation. It took you a moment to remember what was happening and were careful not to stir and bring attention to yourself while the men argued. They were speaking in a foreign language and you couldn’t quite decipher what it was they were talking about. “Хорошо, если она попросила об этом, тогда все в порядке, не так ли?” You may not have been able to understand what they were saying but even you knew that he was speaking sarcastically. Peaking at the men through squinted eyes you took in the room. There were more men now if she had to guess she’d say a good fifteen or so. One of the men who had been pounding on you earlier had one of the new arrivals up in his face yelling. And he apparently did not catch onto the sarcasm. “действительно?”

“НЕТ! Вам дали очень конкретные инструкции, и вы нарушили каждый из них! Если вы думаете, что так легко справляетесь с этим, вы совершенно неправы. Теперь, прежде чем я сам убью тебя, встань на место. Солдат будет здесь в любую минуту.” They all began to move around the area, spreading themselves out and you knew what was happening. If not anything else, you knew what солдат meant. Bucky was coming was surely going to be beyond pissed. The man who, you were guessing, was leading this mission of theirs, came to stand behind you. Pulling your chair up to stand on its legs properly, he gave you a swift smack on the cheek to startle you awake. “Best wake up, принцесса. We want you to pay attention to this next bit,” he murmured, a sickening vial grin on his lips and a small handgun pointing at your head. Opening your eyes completely to the sounds of yelling and guns firing. ‘James,’ you thought and let a small smile sit on your lips. There was so much happening that it was a bit difficult for you to pay attention to with your mind being so clouded. Your eyes shifted from person to person to find him among the mass of bodies and he clearly stood out from the rest. He didn’t have the look of fear on his face like some of Hydras men did as they faced him. He looked livid and out for blood. One after another, bodies dropped to the floor either dead or dying. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to you and they knew it. He finished them off soon enough, and now it was just the original four men and the one who helps you at gunpoint. He stared at you with wide eyes as he took in your appearance and all the damage done. Meeting your eyes finally, he took the small smile on your lips as a good sign and turned to glare back to the Hydra agents. “You made a mistake this time,” he growled lowly and stalked forward. Laughing, the man behind you cocked his head to the side, “стой. I’ll only say it once.” Bucky made no move to stop as he continued to trek forward. Before your mind could so much as comprehend the clicking sound, the loud crack the sounded by your ear, and the sudden red-hot pain shooting through your shoulder, Y/N screamed hoarsely and loud. “Y/N!” Bucky exclaimed, panic rising in his voice and terror was clear in his eyes. You felt hot tears run down your face and you hung your head down, desperately trying to catch your breath again. ‘Dammit, that hurts,” you thought. Gritting your teeth together, you took a deep breath and looked up again. “Are you safe?” Buckys voice was barely audible and shaking as he asked. “I-I don’t know.” And that was true. You couldn’t quite tell where the bullet went in, if you could even move your arm, or if it was a clean shot all the way through your shoulder. All you knew what that you were in pain. “I told you, солдат. I won’t repeat myself and next time I won’t be so kind as to where I put a bullet.” Bucky stopped moving forward after that, keeping his gaze locked onto you as he listened to the man's words, moreover, his orders. “Put all your weapons down, солдат.” You silently pleaded with Bucky not to, to fight and not think twice about it because you had no doubt he would win, but you could see it was a losing battle from the look in his eyes. The hidden terror that he tried to hide behind built walls and a fake calm facade. He didn’t take his eyes from yours as he placed his guns to the floor, carefully keeping watch over your wound knowing that the loss of blood was going to take its toll in no time, and the small crinkle in his eyebrows showed you plenty about how nervous he was about anything else happening to you. “Good,” the man behind you spoke. “That wasn’t too hard, now was it? But, that doesn’t change the fact that I still summoned you here for one purpose.” The venom in the man's voice was tangible as it dripped from his mouth, making Y/N shiver. You watched Bucky through hooded eyes, suddenly finding them harder and harder to hold open as their voices drifted into the distance. You were aware that words were being spoken, aware that Bucky’s eyes were in thin slits and raging hatred flamed in the blue of his pupils as he snarled something Y/N could only imagine wasn’t very pleasant, but nothing reached her ears and she was just so tired. “James-” she choked out but her throat seemed to close up before she could get the chance to finish, but in an instant, he was looking at her again. He nodded, understanding what needed to happened even though he was terrified of what may come of it. “It’s alright, Doll. I’ll get you out of here, just stay awake for me. You gotta stay awake, alright?” His voice was dull and it was as though she was listening to him from under water but she nodded nevertheless. ‘Alright, but just for a minute. Just let me sleep for a minute,’ she thought and let her eyes drift close.

Bucky watched carefully as her eyes shut and her head bobbed as sleep took over her, and he had never felt such fear. His heart raced frantically as he tried to see or even hear her shallow breaths. He was running out of time and standing here wasn’t helping him got to Y/N but he knew he couldn’t act without thought. One wrong move and a bullet would be in her head without so much as a second thought from Rumlow. He growled and forced himself to tear his gaze from Y/N again to the gun in the hands of the bastard behind her. There were only two other men in the room who weren’t knocked out or dead beside himself and Rumlow, and he knew that he could defeat them all easily on his own, and so did they obviously otherwise Y/N wouldn’t be tied to a chair right now. “Солдат, мы оба знаем, почему мы здесь, не так ли? Мы здесь, чтобы стать свидетелями казни ужасного человека, убийцы, мрази общества. Начнем?” Rumlow laughed and cocked the gun. Bucky was sure his face was nothing short of murderous as he watched, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He was going to end this today, all the years of pain, it was going to end here. Taking deep, steadying breaths, Bucky placed his hands on his thighs slowly as to not to bring attention to his actions as Rumlow gave orders to the other two agents behind him. He let out a single breath as his hands met the cold metal of the blades he hidden away and let his head clear of any other thought. Raising his had quickly and launching one of the blades forward, he turned as Rumlow yelled out and dropped the gun knowing his blade hit his hand perfectly at the sound to fight off the agents. Quickly making work of the first before fending off the second with a quick blow from his metal arm. “Сейчас, солдат. Не будь таким опрометчивым,“ Rumlow huffed. “У нас все еще есть твоя милая кукла, которая только что постучала в дверь смерти. Ты действительно думаешь, что сможешь убить меня и вовремя спасти ее? Лучше всего уйти, пока ты еще впереди.“ “I’ll have plenty of time yet, don’t worry,” Bucky growled as he leaned down to pick up the gun Rumlow had dropped. “You should have figured this was gonna be the end for you when you threatened her,” he said void of any emotion as he raised the gun and let off a single round into Rumlows skull.

“Do-” She could hear a faint voice, an annoying buzz as is rang in her ears. ‘Just a little longer,’ Y/N thought and tried to rest a bit more. “Doll!” It said again and this time she recognized the voice as a panicked Bucky. And suddenly she didn’t want to sleep anymore. Rather, she wanted to know why he sounded so worried, what happened? “Y/n, you gotta open the eyes. You gotta wake up for me, alright. You gotta wake up, please wake up.” ‘I’m trying,’ she thought but her eyelids refused to listen to her commands and open. They were too heavy and her mind was still a blurry fuzz. ‘I’m awake, Bucky, I’m awake,’ she wanted to tell him but just like how her eyes wouldn’t open the words didn’t leave her lips. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry doll. I’m getting you out of here, I promise.” His voice was horse and she could imagine the face that was paired along with it. A pained expression, the one he wore when he thinks about what he did when he was used by Hydra, what he was forced to do for them and all Y/N wanted was to tell him it was okay, it wasn’t his fault. None of it was ever his fault. “This is going to hurt. I’m so sorry.” She hadn’t quite realized what he was talking about until she felt his arms wrap around her cold body, she hadn’t noticed how absolutely frigid she was until she felt to warmth radiating off of him, and began lifting her body into the air. Sudden streaks of white hot pain shot through her and a blood-curdling scream left her mouth before she could stop it and her mind went silent again.

Y/N woke slowly to an annoyingly loud beeping sound that assaulted her ears and a bright light that shown from seemingly everywhere around her. Groaning softly Y/N went to throw her arm over her eyes to shield them only to let out a soft cry of pain as heat prickled her shoulder. “Y/N, doll, are you awake?” Bucky’s tired and worried voice sounded off beside her and she could feel his presence beside her bed immediately. She wanted to say some witty and snarky comeback but her mouth seemed as dry as sand and she was left a coughing mess before words were even able to form. “Hold on darling, I’ll get you somethin’.” He said and quickly rushed off for him to return but a moment later, and she was sure that he ran to the sink and back so he wasn’t away from her for too long. He reached behind Y/N to help her sit up, his metal hand resting on the back of her neck and she shot up so fast that she felt like she had whiplash. Trying to shove his hands away from her, she shivered and laughed, “Gah! Why are you so cold? Get off of me you icicle!” Bucky laughed and refused to back away, but took his hand from her neck and placed it on her knee instead, whether it was meant to comfort her or him neither of them knew, but she allowed it because there was at least a blanket to protect her from the sudden chill, thought the grin never left her face. After taking the glass from him and drinking the first half on her own, she smiled and peaked open her eyes just a little bit against the white light, “Thanks James,” she whispered. Something inside of him must have snapped at the sound of his name coming from her because the ragged breath he drew in was enough for Y/N to turn to him completely to see what was wrong. The shock that ran through her body at seeing the stray tear that made its way down his cheek was more than words could explain, and she raised her hand to wipe it away softly. “I thought I was gonna lose you, doll. You weren’t waking up and there was so much blood loss already, I wasn’t sure if I made it in time. I wasn’t sure if I was ever gonna hear you say my name again, or if I’d ever been able to tell you how much I love you and that I am so, so sorry that all of this happened. I-” “James, this wasn’t your fault, so hush right now. We all know things like this happen, it’s part of the job description. Plus, on the bright side, they never went through with the execution thing and I’m alive! I consider this a win, personally.” He looked doubtful and only shook his head at Y/N’s words. “But this time it was my fault. They were after me, it wasn’t some mission gone bad. It was Hydra and they got into the tower to get to me know the best way to do that was to go through you. They know about you Y/N, what if they come again? They could do so much worse than this,” he ranted quickly, hardly drawing in a breath to only start again. “Buck-” she tried to interrupt, but he only continued on. “And what if next time I’m not there in time, huh? Or they get into the tower again, and we just can’t stop them. Y/N, if they know about you, if they know that you are the one thing I care about more than anything else, they are going to come after you again without question.” “James, I’ll be fine. I do this sort of thing for a living-” “But it’s not fine! They could kill you Y/N! They could kill you and it would be because of me that they did. Do you not understand that? This is why I was so hesitant to get close with anyone here, let alone a relationship, but now that I have it’s every single thing that I was terrified of and I don’t know if I will be able to stop them again! I got you into my mess because I’m being selfish and greedy because I love you but now that means I might lose you to the very people who stole everything from me! I can’t allow the-” “James!” She yelled loudly to cut him off and it finally seemed to have grabbed his attention as his eyes snapped to hers. She looked at him and made sure he was giving her his full attention, she needed him to be away from what she was saying and she knew he needed to hear it too. “Even after all of this, after everything that’ll come our way, nothing is going to stop me from being with you. I love you too much to suddenly leave because of something like this James. I knew what I was getting into when I first started talking to you. I saw you, all of you, and I knew I wanted to be a part of your life and you of mine. I have never doubted, not once, that you wouldn’t protect me with everything you have, so don’t you think that something as simple a bullet in the shoulder is enough for me to leave.” “Doll, I-” “No, it’s my turn to speak. James, I’m a trained assassin. I may not be as good as Natasha because Lord knows she is the best at her job, but I can take care of myself too. I screwed up and it was my fault, that is why they were able to get a hold of me. I didn’t realize that there were so many of them but they all shuffled in, and I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to get through them all alive. I was the one who let them take me because I knew you would come and that I could trust you to get me out of there. I trust you still, no matter what, I will always trust you, James. And I want you to be able to trust me too when I say that there isn’t anything in the entire world I would give for you. So no, I’m not going to go, I’m not going to get scared because your past comes knocking every once in a while, I’m not going to leave because I got a few bumps and bruises along the way.” She took a deep breath and offered him a warm smile, “Because I love you, James Buchanan Barnes. So unless you can look me in the eye right now and tell me that you don’t love me anymore, that you don’t want to be with me and that you aren’t happy with me. If you can’t look at me and say that honestly, I’m not going anywhere.” Y/N waited quietly as Bucky looked her in the eyes and grasped for words. His mouth opening and closing from time to time as he searched for the words to tell her that because in his eyes she could see his struggle for her to be safe but she could see the love too, and he knew he couldn’t tell her honestly. Hanging his head down low, he let out a breath of defeat, “No, no I can’t tell you that. I love you so damn much, I should be able to let you go for your own safety, I should be able to- But I can’t. I can’t do that, I’m sorry.” Y/N chuckled and ran her and through his hair gently, “Don’t be sorry James. I don’t want you to ever be able to tell me something like that. I don’t think I’d be able to survive without you anymore, you’re like my own personal knight in shining armour.” She grinned and lifted his chin so she could see his eyes again. “I love you, James Buchanan Barnes, Don’t you ever forget that,” she said seriously. “And I love you Y/N Y/L/N. More than you could ever possibly know.”

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legoddess · 5 years

Text

I wrote a short thing. Hope you like it.

The Executioner

Several years ago she escaped. The walls were as cold as the souls of the men who worked there. She had been taken and placed in a program when she was sixteen after her parents had been killed. With the news of her father being poisoned, her and her mother hit the road. At a gas station she went to use the bathroom and came back to blood smeared on the passenger window and her mother's body beside pump number four. Her father was a high class businessman and her mother had been a lawyer. That was a life she didn't know much of anymore and rarely looked back after being clocked in the head with what felt like a brick.

All she could do was survive and pretend that everyday she wasn't dying a little more on the inside until one day she was told to take the life of a child. She begged them to spare his life, that she would do whatever else was asked of her. Though she didn’t want to be touched in what they would say was their “Divine right” to her , or lest she be beaten. They were unflinching when they explained the way in which she was to kill him or be killed herself as the program wasn’t for the weak. Giving her the only choice she'd ever received while in their custody, the man with the scar over his brow reminded her how he would punish her in front of the child then make her watch as he handled the boy who couldn't be more than nine.

Never would she forgive herself. She was weak then because she hadn’t broken when they bloodied her lip and bruised her face, but broke when they turned their malice towards the little boy. Emotions made her weak and that was the core practice in most of her training lessons. “I am so sorry” she had said as she caressed the boys face and the look in his eyes of confusion said he didn’t understand her. Red faced from holding in the violent sobs that threatened to escape her, she killed the boy with frightened blue eyes but couldn’t torture him.There was a knife on the floor that one of the seven men in the room had tossed at her as she’d been instructed to peel his flesh starting from the top. The blade went cleanly into the child's abdomen as she pulled him into an embrace and cried silently on his narrow shoulder, humming the song her mother would hum to her. She remembered those nights that her head lay on her mother's bosom when she was scared to lose her parents, who often told her she would never lose them.

Spending years in torture was how she became The Company’s best assassin before she ran for her life after the superior's had been killed in cold blood. Lexa was only sixteen when her life fell apart. Remembering nights in the small cage that she had been shoved into when the blindfold had been removed to see men with no faces and the scars masks their cheekbones. She was handcuffed and taken into a dingy room that smelled of body odor and gin. When she wasn't constricted to her cramped quarters, she was to begin combat training. In reality her lessons was her getting mutilated every other day for three months until her training had sunk in which lead her to slam one of her superior's to the blue tarped floor. Sleeping was nearly impossible with the stench of urine, blood and savagery. After her first year was completed and they hadn’t manage to break her spirit the way they promised they would, they gave her a larger cage that she would call home for the next two years. This prison, though larger had more than one occupant, usually two girls. Some nights when the other girl would be awaken to stress tests, she’d roll over and and cover her ears so that she wouldn’t hear her screaming in the dark being dragged out. Lexa couldn't let them see her cry, they would think that they won and she wanted to get out of this hell. Alive.

Never looking back, assuming everyone was already dead, she left the abusive relationship that were her old forced employers but stayed in the same field of work which was how she met Aidan. They've been working together for little over two years. Neither of them wanted a partner and preferred to work solo but they made the strongest team with a collective list of a hundred or more jobs between the two of them. They met while on separate missions that had been arranged for them to meet. They’d almost killed each other as they weren’t in on the blind date that their individual and respected companies had seen to be a potentially beneficial union of skills.

Peering out through the rather large window in the Grand hotel suite, the rain fell as steadily as it had all day. It was past rainy season in New Orleans and when the sun finally breaks through the clouds, the bayou will be horribly humid and spread it way to the French Quarter. The room was on the twelfth floor and the view was spectacular of the city below. Odd little touristy shops for Mama Laveau’s Magic Shop on one corner and Rousseau's Kitchen, which had the best jambalaya in town as the locals claimed. This city was made stronger by Hurricane Katrina and the heart of the city still beats after much had been wiped out like other parishes outside of the main tourist attraction like Slidel and Chalmett.

Lexa couldn't find it in her to feel anything at all still as a side effect of shutting off her humanity when she was only old enough to have just received her first car from her parents. She should be happier to return to the city she grew up in with the food that warmed her soul so many years ago. From the moment she stepped foot off the jet she wouldn't allow herself to feel the anger, the shame, the vulnerability from who she had been to who she was now. To feel the consequences of her actions the last seven years would cripple her. The lonely nights where her fingers would bleed when she tried to dig her way out of her cage, or the mornings she would wake up in a cold sweat thinking she had never escaped. She knew she would never escape it entirely, it would always be a part of her and for that she felt repulsed as her vision focused away from the streetlights the same amber ass the color of her eyes. Scanning her reflection , the dark circles forming under her eyes made her look tired and her red tendrils lacked luster. Standing at the window that stretched from wall to wall, the people below were just as lively as they had been all day and she could practically hear the laughter that felt like it was ever presently mocking her. .

Rubbing her eyes, she stepped away from the window and turned her back on the city of magic to focus on her hotel room to disconnect from her thoughts that should be worked out with a licensed therapist. The decor was elegant and the man whom was her partner on assignments had gone to his room in the double suite to shower, giving her the time to remember why she had come to New Orleans in the first place, her mission. Aidan was the name of her comrade and occasional playtoy but they knew little of each other's past lives. Lexa had told him that she was a mercenary in a past life but never went into the specifics and had mastered the use of multiple weapons such as daggers, guns and bo staffs, arrows, katanas and what have you. Also being train with various fighting styles that range from western boxing and wrestling to, Ju-Jitsu and Kalaripayattu which her and Aidan have in common but bonded over her art of seduction in the name of getting the job done or pleasure. Her partner told her only that he was awfully good at what he does for a reason and listed his qualifications that included knowing ten languages fluently, his shared love of weaponry but preferring guns more than she did. His past life was a mystery, the way they both wanted.

Having not come back to the city in some time, she missed the music and the smell of the cuisine, that alone would add five pounds to her thighs from the butter, garlic and rosemary that fragranced the restaurants. Enjoying the jazz with memories of her mother and her sitting in a white Cadillac in their driveway encumbered the genre. They'd spend saturday mornings leaning the car that was appropriately named ‘Miss Money” as the car was high maintenance with it's white wall tires and the scent of polished leather.. The state of Louisiana was as warm as the whiskey that was severed in the bar they went to the night before. There had been live music and people dancing like there was no tomorrow. Women in red dresses as bright as autumn leaves in New Hampshire, and sweat collecting on the bodies of partners who couldn't resist the urge to feel alive with the pairing of Jambalaya and the band of horns and strings.The bar and restaurants central air had gone out and for it to be the start of August, repairs will be needed as soon as possible before patrons start to seek more comfortable eating or perhaps the ambience will persuade the locals and tourists to stay.

The ice cube in the bourbon Aidan ordered was quickly melting but I hadn't had the heart to steal his attention from the small stage over in the corner of the room. Looking so enthralled with the trill of the trumpeter and the saxophones echo, Lexa found herself wanting to be able to get lost in something so deeply as he was in this moment within the backbeat of the drum kit. Sitting back she admire his face for the first time in detail since the day they had met.He had dark hair and an angular jaw, with eyes the color of steel. Laughter came easy for him and he rarely seemed to think of anything outside of the here and now. Dressed in dark grey slacks that she had always found suited him the nicest, and a blue shirt that she gave to him for his birthday. Everything about him exuded a quiet confident and his leisure in a crowded room was no exempt.

“Can I help you with something?” he cleared his throat, taking his eyes away from the performers and swirling his drink.

A small grin swept across her face, “You wouldn’t happen to have a twin, would you? Someone that looks like you but isnt you?” She would rather not admit that even she fell prey to his good looks and lazy smiles but they both understood nothing more would come from their flirtations other than a tangle of sheets at best. It wasn't wise to let emotions ruin something some primally satisfying as a no strings attached.

With a look of amusement, he bit his lip as if he were restraining his tongue from getting him into trouble. “Dance with me.” There hadn't been a question in his tone before he swigged the bourbon, stood and offered his hand.

Last night had been one of those rare exceptions in which she allowed herself to mix business and pleasure. Growing bored with staring out at the world, she needed to shower. Stepping into the warm water, it glided down her torso and over her shoulders, easing aching muscles and alleviated some of the tension in her neck disparaging a headache. Humming while she finished her ablutions, wrapping herself in the robe provided she settled in the living room area assuming her partner went to bed for the night so now was a good of time as any to watch the footage she had found after some time of digging into her past life.

The video was black until she started it and at the worst angle with the angle of it being from a corner of the room, likely a security camera.. It was of herself and a man that had called himself her superior. Sitting in a small cement room, the grey floor was stained by a numerous of stains and the scent of sweat and mildew growing burned her nostrils. It was roughly four am in the video. Never a morning person and after these rude wake up calls, who could be? The girl in the video who she couldn’t fathom to be her as she looked back on that experience, wore a stained outfit and tangled auburn hair that mats to her forehead with blood and sweat. Partially deaf in one ear from a blow to the side of the face. The man stood in front of this girl, mocking her, degrading her by telling her she was no better than the last girl before him that he broke. Watching him take a step closer before lurching forward in vain as her back was thrown against the wall. All anger the girl charged again at his taunting words of what he could do with her at his side, or what he’d do if she didn't corporate. Bruised and with the whites of her eyes looking as if the two dots of her pupils were swimming in pools of blood. They fought more with both sustaining gruesome injuries before she took him to the ground. The man was seconds from dying at her own hands before two men came in through the only way in or out and pulled her off of him. Taking one down with a kick to the back of their legs, just behind the knee and was about to snap his neck before a needle was plunged into her neck.

Lexas eyes narrowed to slits as she watched her body, deprived of nutrients,sleep and sunlight, being dragged out of the room and the transmission ending. There were so many things she wanted to say to this girl from the video, this girl that she didn't recognize as herself. That this wasn't the end for you as she thought to how abrupt that darkness had felt and wondering if that was to be the last time her eyes were ever open again. Older now, she wished to scream at the frail looking monster to sit up straight and not have her head bowed in submission like the other's he was so proud to call his. Tears threatened to pierce through her facade and she had to bury her face in her hands as not to meet her own gaze in the screen that had gone black again. This trip was not only for business but also it was personal for her. The man with a port wine stain across half of his face was here. He was supposed to have died with the fall of The Company but it just gives her the anticipation of feeling his life eb from his body by her hands the way it should have all those nights again.

A cough meant to bring attention to oneself, brought her from her rage and shae that she had once felt so meek and fragile. Had the noise woke him or had he still been awake?

“Who was that?” She turned her head with the utterance to see him leaning against the wall in perfect view of the laptop that sat on the coffee table. Taking a shaky breath in to recover from feeling like the same hopeless girl she had been while shoved in cages and below the floorboards.

“Me.” Was all she could respond.

Walking over to the couch he sat with her in the silence that followed. She didn't cry nor did he attempt to break the deafening absence of words. Instead she lowered her head to his lap and closed her eyes.

Unsurprisingly she had warped nightmares about her past and the girls she’d tried not to befriend who shared the same cell as her and along the way as it was too hard on her attempt to let someone in when they would be allowed out of their boxed in living quarters, but would never return. Startled awake by her phone, no longer the helpless child that was stolen and turned into a killer against her will, she knew that the person on the other end of the receiver would tell her where The Executioner, as he called himself, would be. Raising from the couch and taking the phone to the window to look out once more she answered the phone, though the only sound was that of music and not a location. She knew the song well, it was a dirge that had always made her miss a life that she’s never gotten the chance to live. The song her mother would hum to her when thundered scared her as a infant, when she came home crying that she had fallen off her bike as a child and the song Lexa wished she could hear her mother hum to her now as a adult. Confused she watched Adian walk towards her with a curious expression but also something about his eyes were colder now. For the first time she saw them as the cold cement floor she had used as a mattress for years.

“I can't let you live Lex, blood is thicker than water.” Was the last thing she heard before a familiar darkness eroded her vision. Aidan had left out much of his past which never concerned her but he had specifically left out that he was the son of the man that beat her senseless and made her think she was less than human, Taking the phone that now dropped from his partner and lovers hand, he holds it to his ear for his father to hear him. He had been envious of the way his father bragged about his favorite pet that ultimately would be his partner and how she was the one who got away but not this time.

“We’re coming home.” The man with eyes as cold as the steel bars that kept her company at night hung up and waited further instructions. “Lexa, your life doesn't belong to you. Dad missed you.” the man says to her unconscious body.

#Executioner #original story #fiction writers #fiction #short story #new writer #writing things #writer #writing #writeblr

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theewrites-tf2 · 7 years

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(Hi, @seven-magic-sins, thanks for the ask! I might expand on this one once my AO3 account is set up, because I have a lot of good ideas for this Ask, however I couldn’t fit them into one post ^_^ Thanks again!!!)

(Gender-neutral Mercenary/Assassin and Scout. Hope you enjoy, I’ll post this on my AO3 account sometime soon ^_^)

… “If I miss my shot, I’m turning my gun in you.” Scout merely grinned in response, raising his chin atop their head as they steadied the sniper rifle along the windowsill. “Nah, it won’t be my fault if ya missed. Maybe ya just suck at ya jo- Oof.” He grunted in pain as his ‘acquaintance’ dug an elbow into his side, silencing his jeer for a moment. The Bostian pouted, rubbing his wounds, “Ya not fun,” he stated, and the waiting assassin merely grunted in response. “Seriously, I take the weekend off to come visit ya, ya don’t wanna know how pissed my ma was when I said I couldn’t come home this weekend, and-” He rambled on, but he was promptly ignored. The target was due to leave the bank in about ten to fifteen minutes; a drug lord from down south that pissed off someone from up north.

The trained merc didn’t really care about the details. They got handed a huge wad of cash, and that was it. As they went to adjust their position, they stiffened as they felt their boyfriend shift behind them, now in a more… distracting position.

“Scout.” The warning was sharp and clear, but the Merc behind them only smirked against their neck, pressing his lips against their collarbone. “Hey~” He said, a grin on his face and a challenge in his eyes. “Improv makeout session. You in?”

“…I have a gun in my hand. Very deadly.”

“I noticed, you in?”

“My target is due in ten minutes.”

“Mm, fascinating. I still wanna make out, smash faces, exchange spit romantically and all that jazz.”

“Scout, if I miss this shot, I swear to god-…”

“If ya are a good mercenary, ya won’t miss.” He said simply, leaning back in case their reaction was less than positive. “Now, we can either have a really hot makeout session or I can keep whining and complaining for the next few hours, and we both know from experience how terrible that would be. Those are ya options, babe.” He then crossed his arms, waiting for an answer.

The mercenary held their position against the window still for a few seconds, and Scout opened his mouth to start the whining session, when the assassin reached over and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him away from the window and moving to the rolling bag that had served as a stake-out bed for the last few days. “Let’s make it quick.” Was their last words, and Scouts was an overly smug, very enthusiastic, “Oh hell yeah,” before they quickly silenced each other of words, only muted noises and heavy breaths sounding from the two mercs. … A few moments later, large, greasy haired man exited the bank across the street, a smug look on his face and a suitcase in hand. He gave a sharp glare at his limo driver, yelling at the younger man in his native language, and the boy seemed to shrink under the insults. He ran around the long car, and started to open the bosses door, when a shot rang out and a loud thump sounded as his boss… well, ex-boss crumpled lifelessly to the ground. Poor Ricardo, the limo driver, just stared for a long moment, before sending out a long, thankful prayer before high tailing it to the nearest phone booth. … The assassin held their position, breathing heavily with sweat on their brow. “… Close, that was very close.” From the roll out bed in the corner, and equally breathless, Scout asked, “Ya got ‘im though, yeah?” A nod was the response he got, and he grinned, sitting up and moving over, hair a frantic mess and shirt half off his frame. His friend stood, closing the curtains, and nodding to him, “You don’t like Miami, right? Because I don’t think you should come back here for the next… year or so, just in case.” The merc said, straightening out their clothes and moving around the small stake-out room, grabbing their stuff. Scout paused to hand them a few things, a disappointed look in his eyes. “We aren’t gonna continue where we left off? No celebration?” He whined, and he received a smirk in response.

“You said improv makeout session, nothing else, sorry not sorry.” The Boston glared. “I thought the rest would just, I don’t know… Come in a package set!” The assassin merely laughed, now relaxed after a job well done. As police sirens started to sound from the streets of Miami, they pulled out a small ticket to Colorado, handing it to the other Mercenary in the room. “Here’s your train ticket, meet me there in nine-and-a-half hours. If you run into trouble, run and don’t get caught; I’ll assume the worse if your not there in ten, alright?”

Scout raised his brow at the destination, “Ya got a second job there or something?” “Nope, but I wouldn’t want you to waste the rest of your weekend with me…” They smirked, and Scout found himself grinning right back. “I’ll be there in nine.” He boasted, and he watched as they picked up the last of their stuff, turning to the window with the fire escape. “Go over the windowsill, make sure I didn’t leave any prints, ok?” They called, and he answered back, “Sure… By the way, should probably put on a turtleneck… left you a present on your neck.” He smirked, watching them then and raise an eyebrow at him, halfway out on the fire escape. They smirked back, reaching up and tapping their jaw line, “And you might wanna put on some concealer right there, babe.”

Scout blinked, reaching up to touch his own jawline, the dark trail of forming hickies going down to his collarbone. His eyes widen and the assassin laughed, going down the fire escape with the memory of his stunned face staying with them on their trip to Colorado.

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 ask #askblog #tf2 imagine #tf2 writing #oneshot #tf2 oneshot #tf2 request #tf2 scout #red scout #blue scout #mercenary #gender neutral #tf2 reader

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justforbooks · 7 years

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I’ve been trying to remember, was it The Sorrow And The Pity they were lining up for when, sick to death of the medium-is-the-message windbaggery of the pseudo-intellectual – now there’s a term to blast me back – in front of him, Alvy actually produces Marshall McLuhan from behind a lobby card? The association strikes me as a natural one, since I’m about to gather with the other acolytes in an art house cinema. Will anyone in the queue reference or be moved to imitate the McLuhan moment, I wonder?

And where were they? Was it at the Regency at 68th street? (Was it even called the Regency? It hardly matters, since it’s gone now, like the New Yorker at 88th, the movie house at 72nd and Broadway, the Thalia {{which does show up at the very end of the movie, when he runs into Annie after they’ve stopped dating and introduces her to a young, young Sigourney Weaver, fresh out of Yale}}, the Metro, the Bleecker and, of course, Theater 80. With all the rep houses having ceded their real estate to condos and their authority to Netflix, who is curating the tastes of the city’s undergraduates? How will they even know about The Sorrow And The Pity? Mondo Cane? How can the budding homosexual flower without the occasional force-feeding of a double feature of Now Voyager and All About Eve? To wit – and to extend this parenthetical yet further: in senior year, at the last meeting of our Japanese literature seminar before Spring break, the professor – ageing, erudite, one of the few, perhaps only, Western recipients of countless Japanese cultural laurels – asked us our plans for the coming week. I allowed as how I would be staying in town in order to write my thesis. ‘Well then, of course you’ll be going to the Bette Davis festival every day down at the Embassy.’ He said it as if stating an obvious prescription, like recommending medical attention for a sucking chest wound, or ‘You’ll want to call the fire department about those flames licking up the front of your house.’ Only a self-destructive lunatic would think he could survive the week by missing the Bette Davis festival. I took his advice and went every day. Did it help my thesis any? Hard to say. It was a long time ago.)

The time when a Woody Allen retrospective would have evoked that kind of fierce cinéaste devotion seems long gone, having been tempered out of us not just by the years (such performative loyalty is really the province of the youngsters who nightly go to Irving Plaza right near my apartment, passing the hours sitting on the pavement singing the songs of the artists they are about to see), but by Woody Allen himself. The tsunami of mediocrities like Hollywood Ending and Melinda And Melinda effectively obliterates why Manhattan mattered so much. I can’t help feeling like he’s dismantled the very admirable legacy of his earlier work by his later, overly prolific efforts. It’s a more benign version of Ralph Nader (with the key difference that I hate Ralph Nader, whereas Woody Allen simply makes me a little bit sad).

Then again, no one worth a damn doesn’t make the occasional bit of bad work: there are episodes of The Judy Garland Show that are absolute train wrecks of creaky squareness, made all the more ghoulish by the presence of an aphasic gin-soaked Peter Lawford, and I take a back seat to no one in my love for Judy Garland, the most talented individual who ever lived (ladies and gentlemen, my Kinsey placement); I read a lousy late Edith Wharton novel this summer, The Children, that was a tone-deaf, treacly muddle; I don’t care for Balanchine’s Scherzo à la Russe and I’ve said it before, even though it is considered a cinematically signal moment by the Cahiers du Cinema crowd (zzzzzzz), I’m no great fan of the movie Kiss Me Deadly.

Perhaps taken as a whole, the twenty-eight films will start to exert their own internal logic and I will see and delight in how Allen mines his themes over and over again. Or perhaps it will be like the Broadway show Fosse, where a surfeit of the choreographer’s vocabulary made all of it suffer and the entire thing looked like the kind of shitty entertainment that takes place on a raised, round, carpeted platform at a car show. I’ll see, I guess.

As one might expect for the 1:30 p.m. showing on the Friday before Christmas, there are only about a dozen of us waiting. Our ranks swell to about thirty people closer to show time, but at first it’s just me and more than a few men of a certain age (whose ranks I join with ever greater legitimacy each day), about whom it might be reasonably assumed that we spend an inordinate amount of time fixating on when next we might need to pee. Thoughts of age stay at the forefront in the first few minutes of the film, when Woody Allen himself (who, it must be said, in later scenes, stripped down to boxers, kind of had a rocking little body in his day) addresses the camera directly and tells us that he just turned forty. I’m older than that by two years.

How many times have I seen this, I wonder? Unquantifiable. The film is canonical and familiar and memorized, almost to the point of ritual. Perhaps this is the spiritual solace the faithful find in the formulaic rhythms of liturgy. It’s as comforting as stepping into a warm bath. Diane Keaton is enchanting, there is no other word for it. She comes on the screen and you can hear the slightest creaking in the audience as corners of mouths turn up. There is Christopher Walken, a peach-fuzzed stripling. And there, doe-eyed, with drum-tight skin: Carol Kane playing Alvy’s first wife, Allison Portchnik.

Allison Portchnik. Oy. I am generally known as an unfailingly appropriate fellow. I have very good manners. But when I fuck up, I fuck up big time. Suddenly I am reminded of how, three years ago, I was on a story for an adventure magazine, an environmental consciousness-raising whitewater-rafting expedition in Chilean Patagonia (about which the less said the better. It’s really scary. Others may call it exhilarating, and I suppose it is, the way having a bone marrow test finally over and done with is exhilarating. And Patagonia, Chilean Patagonia at least, while pretty, isn’t one tenth as breathtaking as British Columbia). On the trip with me were Bobby Kennedy, Jr., hotelier André Balazs and Glenn Close, among others. Everyone was very nice, I hasten to add.

After lunch one day, my friend Chris, the photographer on the story, came up to me and said, ‘I’d lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes if I were you.’

I laughed, but Chris reiterated, not joking this time. ‘No, I’d really lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes. The lunch line . . .’ he reminded me.

And then I remembered. I had been dreading this trip (see above about how totally justified I was in my trepidation) for weeks beforehand, terrified by the off-the-grid distance of this Chilean river, a full three days of travel away; terrified of the rapids and their aqueous meatgrinder properties; terrified of just being out of New York. All of this terror I took and disguised as an affronted sense of moral outrage, that such trips were frivolous, given the terrible global situation. I explained it to Glenn Close thusly:

‘I was using the war in Iraq to try and avoid coming down here,’ suddenly, unthinkingly invoking the part of Annie Hall where Alvy breaks off from kissing Allison because he’s distracted by niggling doubts: if the motorcade was driving past the Texas Book Depository, how could Oswald, a poor marksman, have made his shot? Surely there was a conspiracy afoot. Then, with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. helping himself to three-bean salad on the lunch line not five feet away, I switched into my Carol Kane as Allison Portchnik voice and said, ‘You’re using the Kennedy Assassination as an excuse to avoid having sex with me.’ Then I followed that up with my Woody Allen imitation and finished out the scene. Nice. No one pointed out my gaffe or was anything other than gracious and delightful.

Despite how well I know the material, the film feels so fresh. All the observations and jokes feel like they’re being made for the first time, or are at least in their infancy. By later films they will feel hackneyed (in the movie Funny Girl, the process of calcification is even more accelerated. You get back from intermission and Barbra Streisand already feels like too big a star, a drag version of herself ), but here it’s all just terrifically entertaining. And current! Alvy tells his friend Max that he feels that the rest of the country turning its back on the city – It’s the mid-70s. Gerald Ford to New York: Drop Dead, and all that jazz – is anti-Semitic in nature. That we are seen as left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. And so we remain, at least in the eyes of Washington and elsewhere, a pervy bastion of surrender monkeys. There was an Onion headline that ran after a sufficient interval of time had passed post-9/11, that essentially read, ‘Rest of country’s temporary love affair with New York officially over.’

Rest of the country’s perhaps, but mine was just beginning when I saw the film at age eleven. By the time the voiceover gets to the coda about how we throw ourselves over and over again into love affairs despite their almost inevitable disappointments and heartbreak because, like the joke says, ‘we need the eggs,’ (if you need the set-up to the punchline, what on earth are you doing reading this?) I am weepy with love for the city. Although, truth be told, it doesn’t take much to get my New York waterworks going.

Walking out, my friend Rick, thirtyplus years resident said, ‘I had forgotten how Jewish a film it is.’ I really hadn’t noticed. But I’m the wrong guy to ask. It’s like saying to a fish, ‘Do things around here seem really wet to you?’ I wrote a book that got translated into German a few years back. There was a fascination among the Germans with what they perceived as my Jewish sensibility; a living example of the extirpated culture. I’ve said this before, but I felt like the walking illustration of that old joke about the suburbs being the place where they chop down all the trees and then name the streets after them. At least a dozen of the reviews referred to me as a ‘stadtneurotiker’, an urban neurotic, a designation that pleased me, I won’t lie. Especially when I found out the German title for Annie Hall.

Der Stadtneurotiker.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS

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aesthetic-riles · 7 years

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Vi Ackerman

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Gender: Male

Sexual Orientation: Heteromantic, Demisexual

Full Name: Vi Petra Ackerman (the Ackerman-Wakes received their middle names later on, and not at birth)

Loyalties: Ackerman family, Wake family, Scouting Regiment, Wall Sina, Wall Rose, Wall Maria, the Monarchy

Titles: Squad Leader, (previously) Crown Prince, King

Nicknames: Six, King Backstory, Veeni (by Glade during childhood), Sap (by Lani)

Hobbies: playing some of his many instruments, composing music, writing songs, making clothes, designing knives, sparring, spending time with his cat (Little Moon)

Significant Character Flaw(s): often lets his emotions take over and control his actions, willing to put his life on the line for those he loves too easily

Best Friend: Sasha Braus

Significant Other: N/A

Eyes: Dark Blue

Hair: Pitch Black

Tattoos: A leaf for Glade, a black bird for Eris, a rose for Atrius, two crowns with a dagger through them for his parents, a cogwheel for Styx, a small snake for Jazz, “le sang est plus épais que l'eau”, “Would you like what I’ve become?”, a music note, a tally mark on his right shoulder blade for everyone important to him that he has lost (so far there are 13)

Likes: music, his family, especially Eris, weapons, long walks, tree climbing, quiet spaces, tea

Dislikes: liars, loud rooms, bathroom floors, any drug references, the scent of alcohol, Lani, the Military Police

Significant Parts of His Backstory:

- Vi’s mother, Emma Wake, was the adopted daughter of the king. She met his father, Levi, when she decided to join the Survey Corps. Her father died and she became Queen shortly after Vi’s older sister Atrius was born.

- When Vi was twelve years old, he ran away from home after a fight with his parents and stumbled upon a house with a girl who was trying to escape. She seemed extremely mistreated and bruised, so he kidnapped her and brought her home, and they kept her there until they could find a better living situation for her. Later on, Vi would learn that she was a child prostitute.

- The girl (Glade) and Vi became very close friends. She was everything to him. After Vi joined the Scouts, she wanted to follow him to protect him. He begged her not to, but she joined anyway and died on her first mission out.

- After this, Vi became very depressed. He met a girl named Lani who was very kind to him and listened, and she eventually wanted to date him. She would frequently ask for things material-wise and Vi would purchase them for her. She eventually convinced him to sleep with her and then left because she decided she had gotten what she wanted.

- Vi was then driven back into a deep depression and ended up getting into things like extreme drug abuse and alcohol addiction. He would sometimes not come back to the house for weeks on end.

- One day, Vi came home to discover that Atrius and Levi had placed a piano in his room. Atrius explained to him that she knew he always liked the sound of the piano and that she thought learning it would help him get better. He was about to destroy the piano in a rage when Eris told him to stop and began to cry. Never having seen Eris cry before, Vi stopped immediately and promised he’d try it out. He became addicted to learning the instrument and once he was done he moved on to others.

- He pulled himself out of addiction by focusing on training and music, and now can play many instruments.

- His mother was assassinated two days before his 18th birthday and he now has the title of King, and his sister, Eris, offered to take the crown and now rules as Queen.

Relations:

Levi Ackerman - father

Emma Ackerman - mother

Terren Wake - uncle

Atrius Ackerman - sister

Styx Ackerman - brother

Jazz Ackerman - brother

Eris Ackerman - sister

Other Fun Things:

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Faction: Dauntless

Patronus: Raven

#vi-desc #vi-ackerman #oc #desc #viackerman

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netherwar-rpg-blog · 7 years

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Welcome to the Wardens, Bo! Your application for ROGUE OC has been accepted with an Emilia Clarke FC.

I think we can all honestly say that we are super excited to have a Rogue/Bard in the group! I love how Belladonna is this clever, creative but sly woman - a celebrity in some ways! - and she is as dangerous as she is talented in her cunning ways. There is definitely a playful side to her I think, especially in the RP sample, which will be so interesting to see with the other Wardens! I think her talents with knowing the noble circles and the political pressures in Highwing will be called upon frequently by the Wardens, so she will become an essential source of information at times. She’s wonderfuly described and written; I can’t wait to see how she evolves during the hardships and battles the Wardens will have to endure!

The application can be found under the cut. You have 48 hours to create a roleplay account (cannot be a sideblog) for your character and we will be updating our opening date soon!

O O C - I N F O

Name: Bo

Age: 21

Timezone: CST

Activity Level: On a scale of 1-10, I can be about a 6. With my RPH and my schoolwork, I’m fairly busy. Sometimes there will be times where I’ll have to be gone for a whole day for maybe a jazz band concert or when the play I’m putting on is going on.

Extra: Any flashing gifs? Not necessarily a trigger, but I would prefer them tagged!

C H A R A C T E R - I N F O

T H E - B A S I C S

Name: Belladonna Tabris

Gender: Female

Age: 30

Class: Rogue; Bard

Faceclaim: Emilia Clarke

C H A R A C T E R - D E T A I L S

Nationality: Northern Regions (Siften)

Appearance:

Belladonna is a very aristocratic looking woman. Despite her humble beginnings, she was blessed with clear skin. However, she did have a bit of back acne, so she’s got a few acne scars on her back. As far as scars go, she’s got a small scar on her eyebrow from a stray rock when she was 10, and she’s got a larger scar on her stomach from an assassination attempt later in life. Despite Emilia’s frame, Belladonna is a bit chunkier than Emilia though not by much. She’s not itty bitty, but she’s not as large as her mother.

Personality:

Positive: Clever, Freethinking, Imaginative, Virtuoso, Principled, Realistic (though sometimes pessimistic), Youthful, Undogmatic Negative: Conceited, Criminal, Demanding, Domineering, Haughty, Irritable, Power-hungry, Sly

C H A R A C T E R - B A C K G R O U N D

History:

From the beginning of her life, Belladonna loved to sing. She adored the act of singing, hearing, and learning music just like her own mother. Often, she would sit in taverns with her mother and listen to her sing to the patrons and occasionally steal the coin purses right off of their belts.

Bell’s mother was a bard, and often she would sell secrets to lords and ladies of courts and places where she played. Bell’s mother taught Bell these tricks in due time through her life starting from age 5 (where she would wait for her mother to seduce men so Bell could slip behind them and cut their purses) to age 18 when her mother finally passed away. She taught Bell to woo a man or woman to get information and how to properly eavesdrop in a room full of patrons in a tavern. Many of Bell’s talents are thanks to her lovely mother, someone she still thinks of fondly of today.

Throughout her teenage years, she grew closer to her mother in the small village they lived in. Bell rarely talked to people in her village, opting instead to speak to travelers in the taverns where they would stop to resupply. Most of them told stories of the capital—Sorvin of its beauty. But the place she truly desired to be was Highwing. More than anything in the world, Bell desired to go to Highwing and sing for the King and Queen of Eldris. Her mother would always frown at Bell’s mention of this and move on from whatever they were talking about. Her mother was very vocally against Bell ever doing anything in Highwing or anything away form their small village in Siften. Never meeting her father, Bell assumed it was because her father was from Highwing. Her mother’s wary looks when a traveler would speak to Bell was proof enough. Bell was sure her father had broken her mother’s heart. But, she never learned the truth of that.

One fateful day (on her 18th birthday in fact), her mother was caught stealing and murdered by the man she stole from. Later on that night, Belladonna killed her first man, taking revenge for her mother’s death. When the guard came for her, she left Siften. She ran as far away as she could, all the way to Highwing, dodging the guard to the Siften border and then stealing to eat and live after that. She only got caught a few times when she just starting out, but by the time she got to Highwing, she was getting so much better. She’d leeched talents with her learned observing nature. Her mother taught her from the beginning to watch and learn and then watch and learn again.

She started off singing in local taverns, begging at some, and eventually got discovered by a young noble’s son who was in one of the upper class taverns with his father. She almost didn’t score that gig that night, almost getting flat out rejected for her appearance before she sang for the owner. The young noble demanded his father buy Belladonna for his use and singing, and for the low low price of 7 gold marks. The price of a person can be so fickle sometimes. Desperately in need of money, Bella took the gig, and for 5 years, she sang and tangled with the handsome young noble.

She was free to do as she wished when she wasn’t singing, so she explored the city as much as she could. She had money now, more money than she could believe. She had a salary! She had money to buy real clothes! She experienced a taste of a good life, and she never wanted to let it go. When she had money to actually live, she never wanted to be poor again, and she never wanted to feel helpless again. So, she made connections. She made friends. She got connections between sets, and she became quite the underground hit with most of the nobles. Before she knew it, other nobles were asking to hire her for a few nights (hiring her obviously through her current employers). She was happy, and she was popular.

When her young lord got married, she refused to “sing” for him anymore and used the connections she made over time and began to sing for the Highwing opera house. She sang; she danced. She became quite the soprano. By the time she was 28, she was one of the most sought out singer in the capital. She sang for a whole slew of people, poor and rich. Her face was on every poster and the like. And for 2 years, she was living in the lap of luxury. Golden silks and jewelry dangling from every surface. She was loving it. Until reports of the undead began to surface.

Then, she got worried. Her way of life was threatened! And when the opera house started to decline due to the political climate and the lowered financial glory, Bella knew she had to do something. So, she took the training she’d honed over the years, her roguish ways with a lock and key and headed for a group she knew would be able to help stop the wave of terror that would inevitably reach the capital—The Wardens. So, she headed as fast as she could to where they were rumored to be—Miwor Town—to join up, and she refused to leave until she was accepted. She was, in fact, so insistent that Sally Derry nearly kicked her out for sheer impertinence. But, she was accepted with reluctant gusto.

Reason for joining the Wardens:

Ever the gray area, Belladonna thinks the Wardens can help. If they can fix the whole “undead” thing, then she’s in. She wants to feel safe again, and she wants her life back again where she can just sing and be happy and rich. She’d never been rich before, and she wants that back. With the opera house closing for the time being, she wants to feel safe again, and she knows she can’t without defeating the big evil she used to only sing about.

Desired Connections:

The Stalker: Belladonna met The Stalker on her trip to Highwing, and they rescued her from an attack of wolves. She vaguely remembers them, but by the time she woke up the next morning, they were gone. She regrets never being able to say thank you.

The Leader: Belladonna has seen the Leader at various noble events in the capital. They know of eachother and Belladonna was as surprised

R O L E P L A Y - S A M P L E

Screams and shouts rouse your character from an afternoon nap in the busy town. A rough looking thief is dashing through the crowds, huddling a bag of jewels to his chest, and the soldiers are too far to act. What does your character do?

…Sitting in her dressing room, Bell stared out of the window and out at the streets of Highwing. She yawned quietly and sipped quietly at her tea. It was cold by now, but she didn’t mind, waking from blissful sleep to hear the sounds of the city around her. She gazed out with vibrant and bright eyes towards the streets where she saw a man ducking and running through the streets with a thick sack of gold and such. A few gold crowns slipped from the bag as he bumped into a very large man walking down the marketplace. He muttered a quick apology and continued to run while guards, bringing up the rear, chased after him. Thoroughly interested, she left her room to move through the crowd after him. She followed behind enough to see him actually give the guards the slip. So, he turned towards home, or what he called a home. She watched him finally slip inside and lock the door behind him. Bell glanced around to notice where she was in Highwing and grinned to herself, turning around and marching back to her dressing room.

She pulled her hair up out of her face, tying it back with a leather tie. She pulled her hood up to disguise her unique white gold hair and adjusted the black leather bodice she wore. A black silk scarf hid her face as she slipped out into the night where the silent marketplace hung in suspense. Her feet were light as a feather, dancing against the cobblestone of the street all the way to the thief’s house.

Slipping past guards to avoid suspicion (all persons in all black were inevitably found suspicious), Bell made it back to the thief’s house. It was easy to slip inside. Bell made quick work of the lock and slipped inside, tiptoeing across the dirt floor towards the sleeping thief. He looked so peaceful. She grabbed parchment and scribbled out a brief note before searching through nook and cranny for that bag of jewels.

Beneath a pile of hay, she found the sack, filled with rubies and amethysts and emeralds (her favorite). She snatched the bag, leaving one gold crown on the note she’d written.

‘You make a poor thief.

xoxo, a better thief’

She crept over a guard, eyes half lidded from lack of sleep. Two bags in her hand, she dropped on at his feet before disappearing into the night. The other bag, she tied to her belt, carrying it back to her dressing room. She’d be damned if she gave up those emeralds to the law. And a few gold crowns… And maybe one or two rubies. The rest, well, she’d return that stolen property. But, she always had her finder’s fee. Besides, the emeralds would look better on her.

#accepted #admin notice

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blackkudos · 7 years

Text

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for

Tales of the Out and the Gone

Baraka's career spanned nearly 50 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. Some poems that are always associated with his name are "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both extreme praise and condemnation. Within the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published black writers of his generation. Others have said his work is an expression of violence, misogyny, homophobia and racism. Regardless of viewpoint, Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been defining texts for African-American culture.

Baraka's brief tenure as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (2002–03) involved controversy over a public reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?", accusations of anti-semitism, and some negative attention from critics, and politicians.

Biography

Early life (1934–65)

Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended Barringer High School. His father, Colt Leverette Jones, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. His mother, Anna Lois (née Russ), was a social worker.

He won a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1951, but a continuing sense of cultural dislocation prompted him to transfer in 1952 to Howard University, from which, in 1954, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. His classes in philosophy and religion helped lay a foundation for his later writings. Baraka subsequently studied at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research without obtaining a degree.

In 1954, he joined the US Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant. His commanding officer received an anonymous letter accusing Baraka of being a communist. This led to the discovery of Soviet writings in Baraka's possession, his reassignment to gardening duty and subsequently a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty. He later described his experience in the military as "racist, degrading, and intellectually paralyzing." While he was stationed in Puerto Rico, he worked at the base library which allowed him ample reading time and it was here that, inspired by Beat poets back in America, he began to write poetry.

The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began during this period. At the same time he came into contact with avant-garde Black Mountain poets and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen, with whom he had two daughters, Kellie Jones (b. 1959) and Lisa Jones (b.1961). He and Hettie founded Totem Press, which published such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. They also jointly founded a quarterly literary magazine Yugen, which ran for eight issues (1958–62).

Baraka also worked as editor and critic for the literary and arts journal Kulchur (1960–65). With Diane di Prima he edited the first twenty-five issues (1961–63) of their little magazine The Floating Bear. In the autumn of 1961 he co-founded the New York Poets Theatre with di Prima, choreographers Fred Herko and James Waring, and actor Alan S. Marlowe. He had an extramarital affair with Diane di Prima for several years; their daughter, Dominique di Prima, was born in June 1962.

Baraka visited Cuba in July 1960 with a Fair Play for Cuba Committee delegation and reported his impressions in his essay "Cuba Libre". There he encountered openly rebellious artists who declared him to be a "cowardly bourgeois individualist" more focused on building his reputation than trying to help those who were enduring oppression. This encounter caused a dramatic change in his writing and goals, causing him to become emphatic about supporting black nationalism.

In 1961 Baraka co-authored a Declaration of Conscience in support of Fidel Castro's regime. Baraka also was a member of the Umbra Poets Workshop of emerging Black Nationalist writers (Ishmael Reed, and Lorenzo Thomas among others) on the Lower East Side (1962–65).

In 1961 a first book of poems, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, was published. Baraka's article "The Myth of a 'Negro Literature'" (1962) stated that "a Negro literature, to be a legitimate product of the Negro experience in America, must get at that experience in exactly the terms America has proposed for it in its most ruthless identity." He also states in the same work that as an element of American culture, the Negro was entirely misunderstood by Americans. The reason for this misunderstanding and for the lack of black literature of merit was according to Jones:

As long as black writers were obsessed with being an accepted middle class, Baraka wrote, they would never be able to speak their mind, and that would always lead to failure. Baraka felt that America only made room for white obfuscators, not black ones.

In 1963 Baraka (under the name Jones) published Blues People: Negro Music in White America, his account of the development of black music from slavery to contemporary jazz. When the work was re-issued in 1999, Baraka wrote in the Introduction that he wished to show: "The music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life.... That the music was explaining the history as the history was explaining the music. And that both were expressions of and reflections of the people." Baraka argued that though the slaves had brought their musical traditions from Africa, the blues were an expression of what black people became in America: "The way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives."

Baraka (under the name Jones) authored an acclaimed, controversial play Dutchman, in which a white woman accosts a black man on the New York subway. The play premiered in 1964 and received the Obie Award for Best American Play in the same year. A film of the play, directed by Anthony Harvey, was released in 1967. The play has been revived several times, including a 2013 production staged in the Russian and Turkish Bathhouse in the East Village, Manhattan.

After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Baraka left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem. In Harlem, Baraka founded The Black Arts Repertory/Theater School since the Black Arts Movement created a new visual representation of art. However, Baraka moved back to Newark after allegations surfaced that he was using federal anti-poverty welfare to fund his theater.

Baraka became a leading advocate and theorist for the increase in black art during this time. Now a "black cultural nationalist," he broke away from the predominantly white Beats and became very critical of the pacifist and integrationist Civil Rights movement. His revolutionary poetry now became more controversial. A poem such as "Black Art" (1965), according to academic Werner Sollors from Harvard University, expressed his need to commit the violence required to "establish a Black World".

Baraka even uses onomatopoeia in “Black Art” to express that need for violence: “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuht . . .” More specifically, lines in “Black Art” such as “Let there be no love poems written / until love can exist freely and cleanly” juxtaposed with “We want a black poem. / And a Black World” demonstrate Baraka’s cry for political justice during a time when racial injustice was rampant – despite the Civil Rights Movement.

"Black Art" quickly became the major poetic manifesto of the Black Arts Literary Movement and in it, Jones declaimed "we want poems that kill," which coincided with the rise of armed self-defense and slogans such as "Arm yourself or harm yourself" that promoted confrontation with the white power structure. Rather than use poetry as an escapist mechanism, Baraka saw poetry as a weapon of action. His poetry demanded violence against those he felt were responsible for an unjust society.

Baraka also promoted theatre as a training for the "real revolution" yet to come, with the arts being a way to forecast the future as he saw it. In "The Revolutionary Theatre," Baraka wrote "We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved." In opposition to the peaceful protests that Martin Luther King Jr. inspired, Baraka believed that a physical uprising must follow the literary one.

1966–80

In 1966, Baraka married his second wife, Sylvia Robinson, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. The two would open a facility in Newark known as Spirit Hose, a combination playhouse and artists’ residence. In 1967, he lectured at San Francisco State University. The year after, he was arrested in Newark for having allegedly carried an illegal weapon and resisting arrest during the 1967 Newark riots, and was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison. His poem "Black People", published in the "Evergreen Review" of December 1967, was read by the judge in court, including the memorable phrase: "All the stores will open if you say the magic words. The magic words are: "Up against the wall motherfucker this is a stick up!" Shortly afterward an appeals court reversed the sentence based on his defense by attorney Raymond A. Brown. He later joked that he was charged with holding "two revolvers and two poems".

Not long after the 1967 riots, Baraka generated controversy when he went on the radio with a Newark police captain and Anthony Imperiale, a politician and private business owner, and the three of them blamed the riots on "white-led, so-called radical groups" and "Communists and the Trotskyite persons." That same year his second book of jazz criticism, Black Music, came out, a collection of previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. Around this time he also formed a record label called Jihad, which produced and issued only three LPs, all released in 1968: Sonny's Time Now with Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Louis Worrell, Henry Grimes, and Baraka; A Black Mass, featuring Sun Ra; and Black & Beautiful – Soul & Madness by the Spirit House Movers, on which Baraka reads his poetry.

In 1967, Baraka (still Leroi Jones) visited Maulana Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of his philosophy of Kawaida, a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy that produced the "Nguzo Saba," Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names. It was at this time that he adopted the name Imamu Amear Baraka. Imamu is a Swahili title for "spiritual leader", derived from the Arabic wordImam (إمام). According to Shaw, he dropped the honorific Imamu and eventually changed Amear (which means "Prince") to Amiri.Baraka means "blessing, in the sense of divine favor."

In 1970 he strongly supported Kenneth A. Gibson's candidacy for mayor of Newark; Gibson was elected the city's first Afro-American Mayor.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka courted controversy by penning some strongly anti-Jewish poems and articles, similar to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam. Historian Melani McAlister points to an example of this writing "In the case of Baraka, and in many of the pronouncements of the NOI [Nation of Islam], there is a profound difference, both qualitative and quantitative, in the ways that white ethnicities were targeted. For example, in one well-known poem, Black Arts [originally published in The Liberator January 1966], Baraka made offhand remarks about several groups, commenting in the violent rhetoric that was often typical of him, that ideal poems would 'knockoff ... dope selling wops' and suggesting that cops should be killed and have their 'tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.' But as Baraka himself later admitted [in his piece I was an AntiSemite published by The Village Voice on December 20, 1980 vol 1], he held a specific animosity for Jews, as was apparent in the different intensity and viciousness of his call in the same poem for 'dagger poems' to stab the 'slimy bellies of the ownerjews' and for poems that crack 'steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth.'"

Prior to this time, Baraka prided himself on being a forceful advocate of black cultural nationalism; however, by the mid-1970s, he began finding its racial individuality confining. Baraka's separation from the Black Arts Movement began because he saw certain black writers – capitulationists, as he called them – countering the Black Arts Movement that he created. He believed that the groundbreakers in the Black Arts Movement were doing something that was new, needed, useful, and black, and those who did not want to see a promotion of black expression were "appointed" to the scene to damage the movement.

Around 1974, Baraka distanced himself from Black nationalism and became a Marxist and a supporter of third-world liberation movements.

In 1979 he became a lecturer in the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Africana Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences due to the urging of faculty member Leslie Owens. Articles about Baraka appeared in the University's print media fromStony Brook Press, Blackworld, and other student campus publications. These articles included an expose about his positions on page one of the inaugural issue of Stony Brook Press on October 25, 1979 discussing his protests "against what he perceived as racism in the Africana Studies Department, as evidenced by a dearth of tenured professors." Baraka was later hired as an assistant professor at Stony Brook to assist "the struggling Africana Studies Department."

In June 1979 Baraka was arrested and jailed at Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Different accounts emerged around the arrest, all sides agree that Baraka and his wife, Amina, were in their car arguing over the cost of their children's shoes. The police version of events holds that they were called to the scene after a report of an assault in progress. They maintain that Baraka was striking his wife and when they moved to intervene he attacked them as well, whereupon they used the necessary force to subdue him. Amina's account contrasted with that of the police, she held a news conference the day after the arrest accusing the police of lying. A grand jury dismissed the assault charge but the resisting arrest charge moved forward. In November 1979 after a seven-day trail a Criminal Court jury found Baraka guilty of resisting arrest. A month later he was sentenced to 90 days at Riker's Island (the maximum he could have been sentenced to was one year). Amina declared that her husband was "a political prisoner". Baraka was released after a day in custody pending his appeal. At the time it was noted if he was kept in prison "he would be unable to attend a reception at the White House in honor of American poets." Baraka's appeal continued up to the State Supreme Court. During the process his lawyer William M. Kunstler told the press Baraka "feels it's the responsibility of the writers of America to support him across the board." Backing for his attempts to have the sentence cancelled or reduced came from "letters of support from elected officials, artists and teachers around the country." Amina Baraka continued to advocate for her husband and at one press conference stated "Fascism is coming and soon the secret police will shoot our children down in the streets." In December 1981 Judge Benrard Fried ruled against Baraka and ordered him to report to Rikers Island to serve his senetence on weekends occurring between January 9, 1982 through November 6, 1982. The judge noted that by having Baraka serve his 90 days on weekends this would allow him to continue his teaching obligations at Stony Brook. Rather than serve his sentence at the prison Baraka was allowed to serve his 48 consecutive weekends in a Harlem halfway house. While serving his sentence he wrote The Autobiography tracing his life from birth to his conversion to socialism.

1980–2014

In 1980 Baraka published an essay in the Village Voice that was titled Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite. Baraka insisted that aVillage Voice editor entitled it and not himself. In the essay Baraka went over his life history including his marriage to Hettie Cohen who was of Jewish descent. He stated that after the assassination of Malcolm X he found himself thinking "As a Black man married to a white woman, I began to feel estranged from her … How could someone be married to the enemy?" So he divorced Hettie and left her with their two bi-racial daughters. In the essay Baraka went on to say "We also know that much of the vaunted Jewish support of Black civil rights organizations was in order to use them. Jews, finally, are white, and suffer from the same kind of white chauvinism that separates a great many whites from Black struggle. …these Jewish intellectuals have been able to pass over the into the Promised Land of American privilege." In the essay he also defended his position against Israel saying "Zionism is a form of racism." Near the end of the essay Baraka stated "Anti-Semitism is as ugly an idea and as deadly as white racism and Zionism …As for my personal trek through the wasteland of anti-Semitism, it was momentary and never completely real. ...I have written only one poem that has definite aspects of anti-Semitism…and I have repudiated it as thoroughly as I can." The poem Baraka referenced was For Tom Postell, Dead Black Poet which contained lines including “...Smile jew. Dance, jew. Tell me you love me, jew. I got something for you... I got the extermination blues, jewboys. I got the hitler syndrome figured...So come for the rent, jewboys...one day, jewboys, we all, even my wig wearing mother gonna put it on you all at once."

During the 1982–83 academic year, Baraka was a visiting professor at Columbia University, where he taught a course entitled "Black Women and Their Fictions." In 1984 he became a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure. In 1985, Baraka returned to Stony Brook, eventually becoming professor emeritus of African Studies. In 1987, together with Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, he was a speaker at the commemoration ceremony for James Baldwin.

In 1989 Baraka won an American Book Award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes Award. In 1990 he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 was a supporting actor in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth. In 1996, Baraka contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In July 2002, Baraka was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey by Governor Jim McGreevey. The position was to be for two years and came with a $10,000 stipend. Baraka held the post for a year mired in controversy and after substantial political pressure and public outrage demanding his resignation. During the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Stanhope, New Jersey, Baraka read his 2001 poem on the September 11th attacks "Somebody Blew Up America?", which was criticized for anti-Semitism and attacks on public figures. Because there was no mechanism in the law to remove Baraka from the post, the position of state poet laureate was officially abolished by the State Legislature and Governor McGreevey.

Baraka collaborated with hip-hop group The Roots on the song "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" on their 2002 albumPhrenology.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Amiri Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2003, Baraka's daughter Shani, aged 31, and her lesbian partner, Rayshon Homes, were murdered in the home of Shani's sister, Wanda Wilson Pasha, by Pasha's ex-husband, James Coleman. Prosecutors argued that Coleman shot Shani because she had helped her sister separate from her husband. A New Jersey jury found Coleman (also known as Ibn El-Amin Pasha) guilty of murdering Shani Baraka and Rayshon Holmes, and he was sentenced to 168 years in prison for the 2003 shooting.

His son, Ras J. Baraka (born 1970), is a politician and activist in Newark, who served as principal of Newark's Central High School, as an elected member of the Municipal Council of Newark (2002–06, 2010–present) representing the South Ward. Ras J. Baraka became Mayor of Newark, July 1, 2014. See 2014 Newark mayoral election.

Death

Amiri Baraka died on January 9, 2014, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after being hospitalized in the facility's intensive care unit for one month prior to his death. The cause of death was not reported initially, but it is mentioned that Baraka had a long struggle with diabetes. Later reports indicated that he died from complications after a recent surgery. Baraka's funeral was held at Newark Symphony Hall on January 18, 2014.

Controversies

Baraka's writings, and the covers of his early notebooks with large images of erect penises which were on open display in the Greenwich Village cafes where he sat, have generated controversy over the years, particularly his advocacy of rape and violence towards, at various times, women, gay people, white people, and Jews.

Author Jerry Gafio Watts contends that Baraka's homophobia and misogyny stem from his efforts to conceal his own history of same-sex encounters. Watts writes that Baraka "knew that popular knowledge of his homosexuality would have undermined the credibility of his militant voice. By becoming publicly known as a hater of homosexuals, Jones was attempting to defuse any claims that might surface linking him with a homosexual past." Critics of his work have alternately described such usage as ranging from being vernacular expressions of Black oppression to outright examples of the sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, and racism they perceive in his work.

In Rain Taxi, Richard Oyama criticized Baraka’s militant aesthetic, writing that Baraka’s "career came to represent a cautionary tale of the worst 'tendencies' of the 1960s—the alienating rejections, the fanatical self-righteousness, the impulse toward separatism and Stalinist repression versus multi-racial/class coalition-building...In the end, Baraka’s work suffered because he preferred ideology over art, forgetting the latter outlasts us all."

White people

The following is from a 1965 essay:

Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank.…The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped.

In 2009, he was again asked about the quote, and placed it in a personal and political perspective:

Those quotes are from the essays in Home, a book written almost fifty years ago. The anger was part of the mindset created by, first, the assassination of John Kennedy, followed by the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, followed by the assassination of Malcolm X amidst the lynching, and national oppression. A few years later, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. What changed my mind was that I became a Marxist, after recognizing classes within the Black community and the class struggle even after we had worked and struggled to elect the first Black Mayor of Newark, Kenneth Gibson.

September 11 attacks

In July 2002, ten months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Baraka wrote a poem entitled "Somebody Blew Up America?" that was controversial and met with harsh criticism. The poem is highly critical of racism in America, and includes angry depictions of public figures such as Trent Lott, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice. It also contains lines claiming Israel's involvement in the World Trade Center attacks:

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion [...] Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?

Baraka said that he believed Israelis and President George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks, citing what he described as information that had been reported in the American and Israeli press and on Jordanian television. He denied that the poem is antisemitic, and points to its accusation, which is directed against Israelis, rather than Jews as a people. The Anti-Defamation League though, denounced the poem as antisemitic, though Baraka and his defenders defined his position as anti-Zionism.

After the poem's publication, then-governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from the post of Poet Laureate of New Jersey, to which he had been appointed following Gerald Stern in July 2002. McGreevey learned that there was no legal way, according to the law authorizing and defining the position, to remove Baraka. On October 17, 2002, legislation was introduced in the State Senate to abolish the post which was subsequently signed by Governor McGreevey and became effective July 2, 2003.

Baraka ceased being poet laureate when the law became effective. In response to legal action filed by Baraka, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that state officials were immune from such suits, and in November 2007 the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal of the case.

Honors and awards

Baraka served as the second Poet Laureate of New Jersey from July 2002 until the position was abolished on July 2, 2003. In response to the attempts to remove Baraka as the state's Poet Laureate, a nine-member advisory board named him the poet laureate of the Newark Public Schools in December 2002.

Baraka received honors from a number of prestigious foundations, including: fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Before Columbus Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

A short excerpt from Amiri Baraka's poetry was selected to be used for a permanent installation by artist Larry Kirkland in New York City's Pennsylvania Station.

Carved in marble, this installation features excerpts from the works of several New Jersey poets (from Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, to contemporary poets Robert Pinsky and Renée Ashley) and was part of the renovation and reconstruction of the New Jersey Transit section of the station completed in 2002.

Works

Poetry

1961: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

1964: The Dead Lecturer: Poems

1969: Black Magic

1970: It's Nation Time

1970: Slave Ship

1975: Hard Facts

1980: New Music, New Poetry (India Navigation)

1995: Transbluesency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones

1995: Wise, Why’s Y’s

1996: Funk Lore: New Poems

2003: Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems

2005: The Book of Monk

Drama

1964: Dutchman

1964: The Slave

1967: The Baptism and The Toilet

1966: A Black Mass

1969: Four Black Revolutionary Plays

1970: Slave Ship

1978: The Motion of History and Other Plays

Fiction

1965: The System of Dante's Hell

1967: Tales

2006: Tales of the Out & the Gone

Non-fiction

1963: Blues People

1965: Home: Social Essays

1968: Black Music

1971: Raise Race Rays Raze: Essays Since 1965

1979: Poetry for the Advanced

1981: reggae or not!

1984: Daggers and Javelins: Essays 1974–1979

1984: The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka

1987: The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues

2003: The Essence of Reparations

Edited works

1968: Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (co-editor, with Larry Neal)

1969: Four Black Revolutionary Plays

1983: Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women (edited with Amina Baraka)

1999: The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

2000: The Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka

2008: Billy Harper: Blueprints of Jazz, Volume 2 (Audio CD)

Filmography

The New Ark (1968)

One P.M. (1972)

Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds (1978) .... Himself

Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978) .... Himself

Poetry in Motion (1982)

Furious Flower: A Video Anthology of African American Poetry 1960–95, Volume II: Warriors (1998) .... Himself

Through Many Dangers: The Story of Gospel Music (1996)

Bulworth (1998) .... Rastaman

Piñero (2001) .... Himself

Strange Fruit (2002) .... Himself

Ralph Ellison: An American Journey (2002) .... Himself

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004) .... Himself

Keeping Time: The Life, Music & Photography of Milt Hinton (2004) .... Himself

Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow (2005) .... Himself

500 Years Later (2005) (voice) .... Himself

The Ballad of Greenwich Village (2005) .... Himself

The Pact (2006) .... Himself

Retour à Gorée (2007) .... Himself

Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place (2007)

Revolution '67 (2007) .... Himself

Turn Me On (2007) (TV) .... Himself

Oscene (2007) .... Himself

Corso: The Last Beat (2008)

The Black Candle (2008)

Ferlinghetti: A City Light (2008) .... Himself

W.A.R. Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney (2009) .... Himself

Motherland (2010)

Wikipedia

#Amiri Baraka

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