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imaginesandbandfiction · 2 years

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Dating the OBX Crew

Headcanons based on Taylor Swift albums

Pairing: John B Routledge x reader, JJ Maybank x reader, Pope Heyward x reader, Rafe Cameron x reader, Topper Thornton x reader, Kiara Carrera x reader, Sarah Cameron x reader

Word Count: 3.7K

Warnings: Alludes to some mild gay panic

Summary: What dating the kids from Outer Banks would be like, as told through Taylor Swift albums.

A/N: I had SO MUCH FUN with this!!! I have a few JJ fics that I'm editing that will be coming out soon, but I'm down to write for anyone from this show. Please let me know if you want dedicated fics based on anything from this list because I will write them all if you want me to, haha.

Masterlist

John B Routledge – Debut

Childhood best friends to lovers arc!!!

Your relationship would be super wholesome since you’re two years younger than him and you grew up together and your parents are friends so he wouldn’t want to move too fast (at least not at first)

You’re also best friends first so you have the most fun together

10% angst, 90% fluff

Top 3 songs: Mary’s Song, Our Song, I’m Only Me When I’m With You

Mary’s Song: Do I even need to explain this one??? Mini golf dates, front porch kisses, taking long drives in the Twinkie when he finally gets his license just because you can, play-fighting, ugh I can’t!!!! You’d get married on the beach (obvi) and everyone in the Cut would watch as you sail away on the HMS Pogue to your honeymoon. Your daughter was conceived on that boat, and John B swears he has never loved you more than when you’re holding her. He’s an amazing dad and wants another, like, immediately, but you convince him to wait a couple of years. His patience pays off, though, when you give birth to twin boys two-and-a-half years after your daughter was born. You raise your kids in a little house just a few blocks from your own childhood homes, and they are the cutest beach babies in the OBX.

Our Song: He would 100% sneak in through your window at night when everyone else was asleep, at first when you’re just friends and he wants to hang out with you but then when things become more and he misses you. Your relationship is defined by all of the mundane things about life in the Cut; sneaking out through broken screen doors, running barefoot on the beach, late-night swims, laughing 24/7. One day, when you’re driving with the windows down in his car, you ask him what your song is, and he tells you ‘everything,’ and it makes you melt into your seat.

I’m Only Me When I’m With You: Laying on the beach and stargazing, comfortable silences, home is anywhere you’re with him, you know everything about each other so you’d be super open and honest about everything and work through any fights or problems as a team because, at the end of the day, that’s what you are and what you’ve always been.

JJ Maybank – Red

You grew up on the Cut with the Pogues but had your own group of girlfriends so you weren’t always with them

You spent enough days (and nights) with them to know that JJ Maybank was no good for you, but you fell for his bright blue eyes and charming smile anyways

He’s a hothead so you’d probably have some big fights but you would always make up and your relationship would be stronger for it

30% angst, 70% fluff

Honestly, this whole album is just perfect but I’ll narrow it down I guess

Top three songs: Treacherous, State of Grace, Stay Stay Stay

Treacherous: This song describes what it feels like to fall in love with JJ. You know you shouldn’t, and he’s probably just going to break your heart, but it feels right. It’s exciting and you get swept up in his wild adventures and somehow you become best friends within the span of just a few weeks. He’s always showing up at your house early in the mornings to take you surfing, or late at night to smoke and then go get ice cream from the gas station. You let him take the lead and every day is something new and exciting.

State of Grace: It’s on one of your late-night adventures that he finally shoots his shot. You snuck into some Kook’s pool, and it’s dark but the moon is bright and it makes everything glow, especially JJ. His blond hair looks shiny and golden, and his blue eyes sparkle when he looks at you. He challenged you to a shotgun contest earlier, so both of you are feeling a little tipsy. You float on your back and pretend like you’re floating amongst the stars, and you babble about whatever random things come to your mind. JJ swims up to you and slips his hand in yours which makes your heart race. He pulls you towards him and you kick your legs back down so you’re upright. Your tip-toes barely bounce on the bottom, but JJ can stand, and he grabs your other hand to keep you from floating away. He pulls you in, slowly, with a cheeky grin on his lips, until you’re pressed up against him. His hands wrap themselves around your waist and his eyes flicker up and down from your eyes to your lips. When you whisper ‘kiss me,’ he does.

Stay Stay Stay: I read a fic inspired by this and it’s perfect but I can't find it so if you know it or wrote it please send it to me so I can link it! Your fights are mostly about stupid stuff, and JJ would 100% wear a football helmet to apologize to you, sort of as a joke but also just in case. He definitely loves to rile you up because he thinks you’re hot when you’re mad. Sometimes you think you guys just pick fights because making up is so fun.

Bonus! Starlight: Because you and JJ would absolutely go thrifting for fancy clothes and sneak into a Kook party. You’d get drunk on champagne and eat little finger foods, stumble around on the dance floor, and talk about all of your crazy dreams together. You’d end up getting kicked out and would walk home on the beach and look at the stars and plan out your whole future together.

Pope Heyward – Speak Now

You’re JJ’s sister so you’re technically off-limits but, really, what did JJ expect when he dragged you along everywhere he went. If you didn’t fall for Pope, it probably would’ve been John B

You’re the quieter, more studious sibling, so you and Pope have always gotten along, especially when the rest of the group is dreaming up some crazy scheme. You would make eye contact and just roll your eyes at each other

Pope likes having you around because at least someone understands his literary references and wants to discuss more academic topics. As much as he enjoys JJ’s philosophical high thoughts, he likes talking to someone with educated opinions and a wider worldview

5% angst, 95% fluff

Top three songs: Long Live, Mine, Innocent

Long Live: Despite the fact that you’re both pretty content to just read on the beach, you still get pulled into the Pogues’ crazy adventures. You never feel more alive than you do searching for gold, or running from the cops, with your best friends. Even before you start dating, Pope would always make sure you were keeping up, and he was the first one to offer a helping hand or encouraging words when you needed them.

Mine: You start studying at Heywards Seafood just to get out of your house, and when it’s slow, Pope will quiz you with flashcards or help you with your homework. Even when it’s busy, he would still make sure to check on you frequently and keep your soda full. He’d bring you your favorite food without you ever actually ordering, and he wouldn’t let you pay for anything. You fall in love in his parent’s little restaurant, during quiet afternoons, and eventually, you start keeping him company while he cleans up at the end of the night. He takes things slow because he knows you’re afraid of falling in love because of your dad, but he’s patient and helps you through it because you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Innocent: You and JJ have gotten yourselves into lots of trouble just trying to survive with your father being who he is. You’ve done things you’re not proud of, and experienced the darker side of life that some lucky people never do, and yet, somehow, you’re still the most innocent person Pope knows. You’re so sweet and trusting, and instead of being paranoid and defensive (kind of like your brother can be, at times), you always give people the benefit of the doubt and are quick to forgive. Whenever things get just a little bit too dark, he’s always there to turn the light back on for you.

Rafe Cameron – Reputation

I mean, come on, it’s obvious

Your relationship is a hurricane. Intense, chaotic, and dangerous, but beautiful at the same time

Broken champagne glasses, screaming at each other in the middle of a party then having hot make up sex in the bathroom, being the hottest couple everywhere you go, glamorous dresses and designer suits crumpled on the floor

85% angst, 15% fluff

Top three songs: Ready For It?, So It Goes, New Year’s Day

Ready For It?: ‘Let the games begin’ is SO ACCURATE. Your family just moved to Figure 8 from NYC and you are the hot new it girl on the island. Rafe is obsessed immediately. You play hard to get for a bit, but then hook up one night in the bathroom at some fancy charity gala, and from then on it’s intense and messy. You’re both the jealous type, and you love making each other jealous. It’s like a game, you see how far the other person will let you get with someone else before they burst in and interrupt. Is it healthy? No. But it’s fun and the sex afterward is incredible.

So It Goes: This song describes the moment you realize you love Rafe. The two of you are at a club on the mainland and he’s playing your usual game, dancing with some hot 30-year-old. He makes eye contact with you over her shoulder and then whispers something into her ear. She kisses him, hard, and moves her lips across his jaw and down his neck. Instead of marching over to claim him, you slip into the hallway to the bathrooms and lean your head back against the wall, willing the tears not to fall. Eventually, he realizes something is wrong and he comes to find you. Her bright pink lipstick is smudged on his face and you lose it. Rafe catches you before you fall to the ground and holds you while you cry. When you calm down enough to be able to speak, you confess your feelings. He wipes your tears away and tells you he loves you too. You’re the only one he dances with for the rest of the night and your chemistry is so intense that no one in the club can take their eyes off you.

New Year’s Day: You’re the only one who ever gets to see his softer side. It doesn’t come out often, but you cherish the quiet, romantic moments when you get them. Cleaning up after his parties becomes one of your favorite things because he’s usually more subdued when he’s hungover. Clingy too. You laugh about the stupid things your friends did the night before while you pick up discarded bottles and sweep up glitter and confetti. It takes twice as long as it should to clean everything up because he’s always interrupting. He’ll take the broom from your hands and pull you in close, swaying to whatever music you’re listening to in the empty foyer. The juxtaposition of the remnants of last night’s debauchery and his pajama-clad body makes you giggle, and in these moments, you know you’ll stand by him through everything, whether he’s the king of Figure 8 or disowned from his family.

Topper Thornton – 1989

You’re a Pogue, he’s a Kook, can I make it any more obvious?

He’s not as unhinged as Rafe, so your relationship is less dramatic and more fun

Going golfing just to get drunk and race golf carts, dancing on tables at parties in Kook mansions, skinny dipping,

30% angst, 70% fluff

Top Three Songs: I Know Places, Style, Wildest Dreams

I Know Places: Your relationship is a secret, at first, and you take turns showing each other your favorite hidden spots in the OBX. You spend a lot of time on the mainland, too, and it’s there that some random Kook catches you shopping hand in hand a few months into dating. She posts it on her Insta story and by the time you make it home, everyone knows. A lot of people are very unhappy about it, and they are not shy about letting you know. When people yell things at you on the street, Topper turns toward you, shielding you from their view with his body. He’s always a little tense after that, ready to protect you at a moment’s notice. When things get to be too much, you grab his hand and run to one of your secret places where he can finally relax for a bit.

Style: Things die down eventually and people don’t care as much. Topper is lowkey a sugar daddy, not because he expects anything in return, but because he genuinely loves spoiling you. He loves taking you to Kook parties and coordinating your outfits and the two of you become the best-dressed couple in school (they even give you an award in the yearbook). You think it’s more about your attitude than the clothes, being in a Pogue/Kook couple and not hiding it, you need to have confidence and be above all of the petty high school drama. The whole vibe, cool clothes, and the way you are so openly happy and give no fucks about what anyone else thinks is just chef’s kiss.

Wildest Dreams: He gets into an Ivy League school and you’re going to UNC, and it throws you off. While your relationship was able to work in the OBX bubble, your insecurity and self-doubt get the better of you. There are going to be so many smarter, prettier, richer girls at his new school, and having a long-distance girlfriend is going to get old after a while, especially since you won’t be able to afford to visit him as often as he can visit you. He’ll grow to resent you (you just know it) so you decide that you need to end things before they get to that point, while you’re still in love with each other, so you can always remember your time together as happy and fun. After prom, he takes you to one of your favorite spots just to chill and you break up with him. You both cry, and he begs you not to do it, but you don’t budge. “I want you to remember me like this. In my prom dress, at sunset, with my makeup all done up and cheeks flushed with love.” You’d definitely get back together the summer after your freshman year, though, because both of you were lovesick all year.

Kiara Carrera – folklore

The gay cottagecore relationship of your dreams!!!!

She would be the most touch-feely girlfriend ever, always grabbing at you whenever you’re within arms reach

Braiding each others’ hair, secret kisses during sleepovers, looping your arm through hers whenever you’re walking anywhere, being iconic ‘best friends’

20% angst, 80% fluff

Top three songs: seven, betty, invisible string

Seven: The two of you used to be best friends in elementary school but you grew apart, mostly because her parents didn’t want her hanging around with Pogues anymore. You were so close that even at seven years old you knew something was different about Kie. You had other female friends, of course, but they never wanted to hold hands on the swings, cuddle at sleepovers, or say I love you whenever you had to leave each other. Nobody else knows, but Kie was your first kiss. It was sweet and innocent, it happened on the playground late at night, at the top of the jungle gym. The darkness hid your blush, and the two of you ran all the way home afterward, holding hands and niggling like maniacs. You think that her parents found out somehow because it’s shortly after that when her parents stop driving her over to the Cut for playdates.

Betty: You reconnect with Kie in high school, when you’re assigned to the same homeroom. Your heart skips a beat when she saunters into the classroom just seconds before the bell and slides into a seat in the very back row, laughing at something on her phone. When the teacher comes in, she shoves her phone in her pocket and looks to the front of the room where she meets your gaze and flashes you the biggest smile. She waits for you at the door of the classroom and throws an arm around your shoulders as you walk towards the science wing together, and just like that, your friendship is rekindled. It’s just as intense as it was when you were kids. She’s very touchy-feely, and every bit of your skin that she touches burns with electricity for hours afterward. It only takes a few months before she kisses you on the couch in her parents’ basement during a sleepover, and you feel like you’re going to pass out. That unlocks a whole new element of your relationship, and whenever you’re alone, you can’t keep your hands (or lips) off each other. You never label anything, though, so when you see her dancing with JJ Maybank just a little too close to be platonic, you feel like you don’t have the right to be upset. But you’re upset anyways. You avoid her for a few days, and then you hear from a girl in your Algebra class that Kie and JJ were making out at a kegger over the weekend. Weeks go by where you don’t talk to each other until she shows up at the party your brother throws when your parents are out of town and confesses her love for you in front of everybody. You don’t respond with words, just kiss her as if your life depends on it, and then she asks you to be her girlfriend. Again, you respond by kissing her.

Invisible String: Kie’s favorite thing to do is visit you at the ice cream shop just off the beach where you work. During the summers and school breaks, when the Tourons descend upon OBX like they own the place, it’s always busy, but in the in-between months, things are slow enough that she can spend your whole shift sitting on the counter. Over the free scoop she somehow always manages to charm you out of, she gives you the play-by-play of the ‘lost years’ (as she calls the years where you weren’t friends). She goes through every single time she saw you, and what she felt in those moments, what she dreamed about doing. You interrupt when you have your own stories to share, and the two of you decide that there’s some invisible force tying you together, that no matter what directions your lives could have gone in, you would always make your way back to each other.

Sarah Cameron – Fearless

The ‘I’m in love with my best friend’ cliche that pretty much every baby gay goes through

But you’re lucky enough that your best friend loves you back

Because you’re both Kooks, and there are expectations you need to live up to, it takes a while for you both to be comfortable with your feelings, but once you are, it’s like a fairytale come true

30% angst, 70% fluff

Top three songs: Fifteen, You All Over Me, Fearless

Fifteen: Sarah Cameron is your best friend in the whole world. You do everything together. When you finally get to high school, you’re both excited to wear makeup and flirt with the boys in your classes, and whenever things go south, you’re always there to comfort each other. You share every intimate detail of first kisses and sloppy hookups, but none of it fulfills you. One day, you connect the dots, and the shock nearly knocks you over, but you vow to keep it a secret forever, scared to lose your best friend.

You All Over Me: It’s Sarah who makes the first move, on one of your early-morning, sunset-chasing walks. It rained yesterday, so everything is damp and dewy, and the island smells fresh and rejuvenated. Everything is golden in the early-morning sun, and Sarah turns to you with her hair blowing in the breeze and her bright smile shining and she pulls you down to the sand and presses her lips to yours. It’s soft and slow and sweet, everything you’ve ever dreamed about and then some. When she pulls away and you open your eyes to see her eyes closed and a small smile on her lips, you forget to breathe. But then her smile fades and her eyes open, and she mumbles ‘I have to go,’ and runs off, back towards her house. You sit there, touching your lips, for what feels like hours, and you spend the next month trying not to think about Sarah as anything other than a friend (you fail).

Fearless: At Midsummer, you try and pretend like nothing is wrong so your parents don’t get suspicious, but you and Sarah are unusually quiet, standing on the edge of the party nursing your drinks instead of taking over the center of the dance floor like you usually would. Sarah’s parents try and push her and Topper together, and when they’re dancing to a John Legend song, tears prickle behind your eyes and you slip out the back doors of the country club. It’s storming out, which feels like a dark omen, so you huddle under the overhang above the door and try not to cry. You have no idea how long you stand there, shaking from both the cold rain and your sobs, but eventually, Sarah finds you. She runs out into the rain, which stains her perfect white dress with dark streaks, and confesses her feelings for you. When she finishes, she takes a deep breath and steps forward to hold out her hand to you. You take it, and she pulls you out into the rain with her where she spins you around wildly and then kisses you. You’re both smiling and giggling into the kiss, and you spend the rest of the night dancing in the rain with your new girlfriend.

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leiawritesstories · 1 year

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can you do a lyria is alive but shes a bit snobbish because she came back from the dead and its rowaelin forever?

yes indeed i can :)) *giggles wickedly* thanks for the prompt!!

Word count: 1,547

Warnings: language, Lyria

enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lyria Frelau hadn't experienced much in her few brief decades of life--until she met the famed Fae prince and warrior Rowan Whitethorn and, like the inexperienced teenager she was, fell head over heels in love. She was just over thirty years old, still a youth by Fae standards, and she hadn't been able to believe in the reality of Prince Rowan Whitethorn being...hers.

For all too short a time.

She remembered the nausea of early pregnancy, something completely unexpected but certainly not unwelcome, remembered the giddiness of planning to surprise Rowan when he returned from his latest battlefield assignment. She remembered how shocked she'd felt to realize that she was the mother-to-be of the next great Whitethorn warrior. That little fact gave her no small amount of pride, it did.

She hadn't been expecting the raid that razed her village to the ground, though. Damned bloodthirsty males!

From the hazy, amorphous realm in between life and afterlife, Lyria had watched Rowan Whitethorn, the male who ought to be hers, grieve for what she firmly believed was far too short a time before closing himself off. She watched him turn into a male as icy as his magic, and she felt greatly satisfied at that. After all, he was hers. Nobody else should be able to see his smile.

Then he met a half-Fae female who had wildfire powers, whose wildfire melted his ice, who told him she was his carranam and later, his mate.

Lyria wished to all the dead gods that she was alive, so she could scream at that unfairly beautiful blonde who'd stolen her Rowan until her ears bled.

She really hadn't been expecting to actually come back to life.

Disoriented, Lyria shook her head, shook her arms and legs, patted herself and pinched herself and hissed when the pinch felt very real indeed. So she was alive, then. Strange. Next order of business--sail over to Terra Sand or whatever the hell that blonde female's kingdom was called and get her Rowan back where he belonged.

Sneaking onto the ship was easy enough; all it took was a few winks and giggles and a scandalously low neckline before the idiot sailors were tripping all over themselves to let her onboard.

And if she...entertained a few of them at night during the voyage, well, what was a little bit of extra money between friends?

Lyria landed in Orynth a few weeks after she'd mysteriously been reincarnated and promptly marched down the streets towards the grand stone palace. She had a prince to take back, she did. Approaching the palace gates, she squared her shoulders and marched in through the tall, elegantly wrought bronze gates, ignoring the human guards who kept watch over the citizens and tourists entering the palace grounds. She kept her back ramrod straight and her eyes forward, grinning with increasing anticipation the closer she walked to the palace.

Gods, she couldn't wait to see the look on her Rowan's face when she reappeared.

She ignored the guard who shot her a quizzical look as she strode into the palace, her ancient boots creaking against the gleaming new marble floors.

"Ma'am?" Dammit, the guard was a persistent one.

"You needn't worry, guard," she assured him in lofty tones. "I merely come to reclaim my prince."

"Your prince?" The poor guard obviously had no idea who she was.

So she took pity on the poor boy. "I am Lyria Frelau, beloved of Prince Rowan Whitethorn. I have come to bring him back to our home."

The guard cleared his throat. "Ma'am, you do know that His Highness is married to the queen of Terrasen, no?"

"A situation which will swiftly be remedied," Lyria proclaimed, waving away the stupid guard's protests. "And if you must insist upon remaining at my side, do be a good man and present me in the throne room. I believe I shall make a proper entrance."

The guard mumbled something indistinct under his breath. "Very well, ma'am, I shall take you to the throne room." He tipped his head at a passing guardsman, who hurried off down the hall. "I've sent him to warn the queen and king of your presence."

"Warn?" Lyria giggled. "Such a silly word, good guard. I am only here to restore things to the proper order."

As if in mockery of her words, her traitorous boots chose that moment to split apart, the ancient leather giving way to the centuries it had spent buried underground. She huffed and strode onward, ignoring her now-bare feet. Wisely, the guard said nothing.

In moments, she reached a set of imposing oaken doors carved with intricate symbols and etchings, each door bearing the royal crest of Terrasen in gold and emerald.

How tacky.

Lyria cleared her throat imperiously, and the guard pushed open one of the great oak doors.

"A...erm, a Miss--"

Impatient, Lyria pushed past the useless man, striding into the huge, open, light-filled throne room. Her eyes immediately latched onto the dearly familiar male standing on the dais, his silver hair far shorter than it had been two hundred and fifty years ago, tattoos now marking his tan skin. "My dearest Rowan!" she squealed, giddy with delight at seeing his handsome face again.

Rowan, for his part, looked properly astounded. "Lyria?"

The female sitting--no, lounging--in the throne raised her golden blonde brows. "This is your Lyria, Ro?"

Ro. The nickname grated on Lyria's recently-resurrected nerves. "His name is Rowan," she scoffed, "and he does not enjoy being called anything else. Furthermore, who are you to address him in such a familiar manner?"

"His wife, mate, carranam, and queen," the female smirked. "Queen Aelin Whitethorn Galathynius."

Lyria scowled. "I regret to inform you that your mating and marriage is a ruse, because Rowan Whitethorn is my mate."

Aelin laughed. Burning hell, she actually laughed. "Ro, my love, would you like to respond? This should be amusing."

"Amusing for you, maybe," Rowan mumbled. He cleared his throat. "How in all hell are you here, Lyria?"

She beamed at him. "Though I confess I know not how, I have been reanimated!"

On her throne, Aelin snorted, her shoulders shaking with repressed laughter. She flicked a sly glance at Rowan, who shot her an equally mirthful look in return.

Lyria's blood boiled at the sight. "I am not a joke!" she screeched, stomping her bare foot.

"Of course not," Aelin drawled. "I suppose you're here to wheedle Ro back to your sweet side?"

"Precisely," Lyria huffed. "Darling Rowan, I am here again." She fluttered her eyelashes. "And we can return to our cottage by the riverside, just like we planned all those years ago."

"Lyria, I--" Rowan's sentence was interrupted by his wife's cackling.

"Cottage by the riverside?" Aelin wheezed, tears of joy pooling in the corners of her unfairly brilliant eyes. "Please, how is she real?"

"Fireheart," Rowan murmured, clamping his lips together, "I was young and stupid, all right?"

"Mmm, old and stupid is more like it."

He flashed her a playful frown. "By your standards, maybe."

"STOP THAT!" Lyria shrieked, stamping her other foot petulantly. "Come home with me, Rowan, I demand it!"

Calmly, Rowan walked down the dais steps, stood in front of her, and sighed. "I can't do that."

"Of course you can," Lyria snorted. "I am your mate, Rowan."

"No." He shook his head. "That was a sham, a farce Maeve invented to try and trick me away from my life. I do wish she hadn't brought you into her schemes, though; you were too young and innocent to be caught up in that mess."

"A farce?" Lyria gasped. "Nothing is more farcical than you pretending as though I am nothing to you, darling Rowan!" She grabbed his forearm.

Or at least, she tried to grab his forearm. Her suddenly immaterial hands passed right through his body, though.

"Impossible!" she squawked, grasping at Rowan's arms and hands and clothing, all to no avail. "I am real, Rowan, I swear!"

"Mhmm, so real that you're vanishing before our very eyes," Aelin deadpanned.

"No!" Lyria yelped. But indeed, her body was growing more and more weightless by the second, drawn back to whatever afterlife she'd come from.

"Thank you for your little visit," Aelin said sweetly. "It was such a pleasure to briefly meet you, little Lyria."

"I am not little!" Lyria screeched indignantly. "I am Prince Rowan Whitethorn's--" She dissolved into mist before she could finish screaming about who she was, leaving only a breath of cold air to indicate that she'd ever been there.

Aelin lasted all of three seconds before bursting into full-blown laughter, tears of merriment streaming down her cheeks as she guffawed. "Please tell me she was like that when alive, buzzard."

"Unfortunately, yes," Rowan mumbled, his whole face twitching with the effort of restraining his laughter. "She was...young and inexperienced, thinking she was in love. Thinking she had found a mate."

"It's all right to laugh, Ro."

He broke, leaning against her throne as he snorted with laughter. "My gods, she was ridiculous."

"No," Aelin teased, "just a couple centuries out of date." She grinned wickedly. "Expired, as it were."

Rowan gaped.

And then exploded with laughter. "Gods, I love you," he gasped.

Aelin just beamed. "Love you more."

~~~

TAGS:

@live-the-fangirl-life

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@morganofthewildfire

@backtobl4ck

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@chronicchthonic14

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@darling-im-the-queen-of-hell

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

#my writing #answered prompt #aelin galathynius #rowan whitethorn #rowaelin #fluff #mostly fluff #with a side of lyria #i can't take her seriously though #so she's ridiculous

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pokemonbiologyirlthetabletop · 1 month

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Amaura & Aurorus

Amaura (#698)

Glaciesaurus brevihyemalis

General Information: Amaura the Tundra Pokémon. This is a fossil Pokémon that lived around 100 million years ago, and it can be revived from a Sail Fossil. Its sails can change color with its mood. The ice-crystals on its side do not melt.

It is speculated that Amauras likely averaged at 4’3 ft (1.3 M) tall and might have weighed about 55.6 pounds (25.2 kg).

Habitat: Amauras once lived in prehistoric taiga forests, in lands that had few large apex predators, and the largest creatures were all herbivores for hundreds of miles. When winter settles in the Northern hemisphere, Amaura travel with its pack to more Southern latitudes to enjoy the foliage there.

Life Cycles: Amauras are born as single-tons or pairs to an Aurorus couple. While Amauras can reproduce as early as level 15, there are social norms in place that only allow the Auroruses in the pod to reproduce. The Amaura will stick with its pod/herd/aurora until evolution, at which point the females will stick together and the males will roam independently until they find a bachelor herd to join. An Amaura will usually be at least 8 years old before it’s strong enough to become an Aurorus. During these eight years, is their greatest susceptibility to predators. Their propensity for colder climates protects them from many apex predators, however there are still creatures that would find an unprotected Amaura to be rather tasty.

Behavior: Amaura have strong social bonds with their siblings and herdmates, making them intensely social animals that require friends/others in its herd, to be happy. They are also intensely nocturnal, preferring the wee hours of the night and sleeping during the day. Their frills glow in auroraescence and their whinnies produce auroras proper, allowing them to make their own light in the night.

Diet: They eat a specialized diet of conifer trees, but could eat other types of leaves if available. Amauras in particular, because of the massive height difference between it and an Aurorus, eat the fallen needles, fruits, and cones on the ground, and even bushes and thorny plants.

Conservation: Extinct

Relationship with Humans: Sometimes humans find frozen specimens of this Pokémon or fossil remains. For a long time, it was uncertain if Amaura and Aurorus were part of the same family, for Pokémon Paleontology is a difficult field to research, but after an Aurorus and its baby were found fossilized together, the scientific community decided that was good enough evidence.

Classification: Its genus name “Glaciesaurus” follows the Sauropod naming convention of a description (“glacies” = Ice, in latin) and -saurus as the suffix. Its species epithet "brevihyemalis" means “little winter.”

Aurorus (#699)

General Information: Aurorus the Tundra Pokémon, and the evolved form of Amaura. This Pokémon and its pre-evolution can be revived from a Sail Fossil.

They are estimated to be around 8’10 ft (2.7 M) tall and weigh about 496 pounds (225 kg).

Habitat: Auroruses once lived in prehistoric taiga forests, in lands that had few large apex predators, and the largest creatures were all herbivores for hundreds of miles. When winter settles in the Northern hemisphere, Aurorus travel with its pack to more Southern latitudes to enjoy the foliage there.

Life Cycles: Once an Aurorus evolves from Amaura, its life span is near-guaranteed to last well into the lower 100-years, barring extraordinary circumstances and freak accidents.

Behavior: These Pokémon are normally calm, quiet, and kind Pokémon, but when forced to unleash their wrath, can dish out walls of ice that encase its enemies. Pretty much only other ice-types, as well as certain steel and fire-types, can survive this. This defense mechanism is a big reason that large apex predators simply did not survive the cold norths of the ancient past, allowing Aurorus to become a strongly K-selected species.

Normally, should an Aurorus find itself encased in another Aurorus’s ice wall (a rare event), it can subsist on its own energy and magic stores for quite some time until its herd (or other Pokémon) come by and break it out, if it doesn’t break itself out in due time. However, under the right circumstances, it is possible for an Aurorus or other ice-type to die of these ice walls, too.

Diet: Aurorus eat the needles and leaves from the upper reaches of trees, particularly conifers. Its rock and ice typing gives it a high tolerance to the prickliness of thorns and needles.

Conservation: Extinct

Relationship with Humans: An incredibly rare find, a fully-grown Aurorus trapped in a glacier, was found near Greenland a couple decades ago. Unfortunately, the poor creature was dead, and likely suffered a slow and painful death, but apparently not even an Aurorus can survive being in a glacier for a 100 million years. But! This find was immensely profound to the paleology community, and has proven to be one of the greatest preserved specimens of ancient Pokémon ever discovered. It is the reason that modern scientists know with great certainty what an Aurorus looked like.

Classification: Aurorus are part of the Sauropods, giving them a distant relation to other extant sauropods like Meganium and Tropius (who are both Tropiusaurs). Its species epithet “magnusaurorus” means “large aurora.”

Evolution: Aurorus evolves from Amaura at level 39 at night.

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Hey guess what, if you like my stuff, this is my website where you can find other Pokémon I've written on and more information about the game that I’m slowly making! Check it out! I write books sometimes too.

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atlararepairmonth · 1 year

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Innocent Blood

La/Yue for Monsters and Myths prompt, Week 3

Rated E - Rape/NonCon, Human Sacrifice, Non-Consensual Bondage, Aphrodisiacs, Oviposition, Forced Pregnancy, Forced Orgasm, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Monster Fucking, Porn With Plot, Angst and Porn

"Less than a moon ago, a ship left Agna Qel'a to hunt for whales. It followed the migration paths the pods follow, but found nothing. So it sailed further, into stranger waters, unwilling to return empty handed. And there they found something they never should have dared. A baby leviathan, separated from its mother by volcanic upwelling."

Yue stared at the spirit in horror, already fearing where this was going. Leviathans were sacred to La, his first children that dwelled in the deepest abyss alongside him, where the waters of the mortal world and spirit world mixed. "They speared it, dragging it onto the ship to butcher. It screamed for its mother as it died, it screamed for me."

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The rocks jutted out of the sea, the remnants of some great formation that had slowly been eroded over the centuries by the crashing of the waves. Her people knew this place as La's Teeth, a treacherous span of water that threatened even the most cautious of sailors. But it wasn't the ship-breaking reefs that normally urged their sails away from this place. No, it was the largest rock in the formation that made the crew turn their faces away, as if staring at the shackles staked into the rock would compel them to take Yue's place.

Huddled at the bow of the ship, wishing her furs were just a little thicker to ward off the bite of the wind and sea spray, Yue watched the chains rattle against the rocks and wondered how long it would take her to die out here. The tide was only starting to come in, it would take a good 6 hours for the water to swell over her head and drown her. To freeze would probably only take a fraction of the time, less than an hour at most. The stone and ice would leech the warmth from her flesh until she would finally fall asleep and never wake up.

The boat shuddered as it slowly ground to a halt besides the rock, the wood creaking below her boots as Yue turned to disembark. One of the sailors was waiting for her, offering her a hand to climb up onto the rock with a soft, "Princess." The stone was damp beneath the soles of her seal-skin boots, slippery with algae and threatening to pitch her into the sea with every step. The chains were even more daunting up close, heavy wrought iron shackles with little give. Swallowing, Yue turned carefully to press her back against the freezing rock, lifting her hands so the sailor could lock them into place.

The shackles closed with a quiet click that somehow still managed to echo over the waves. A sharp flick of the sailor's hand had a tendril of water swirling up from the sea to curl around the shackles before freezing, locking them shut until the sea itself rose to melt them and release her body to its sea burial. Having checked that the water had frozen the metal shut, the man finally shifted away with an uneasy look in his eyes. Unable to meet her eyes, he reached into his parka to remove a worn leather waterskin, uncorking the top to offer it to her. "The priests made this for you, Princess. So it wouldn't hurt."

It tasted sweet and slightly smoky, and burned the whole way down as Yue swallowed it. If it was alcohol, it was none she had ever tasted before. Yue supposed it didn't matter what it was, as long as it worked. Having stayed barely long enough to watch her drink it, the sailor was already scurrying down the rocks back to the ship. Yue wondered if it was meant to be a kindness that she didn't recognise the faces of any of the men who had carried her here.

Letting her head fall back against the rock, Yue's eyes drifted up from star to star, tracing her favourite constellations as she tried to block out the sounds of the ship pushing off and turning away. She didn't want to watch them leave, she couldn't. Otherwise, she would start screaming and never stop. Pleas for them to come back, curses that they were all cowards, questions if anybody in the city had even tried to fight for her, or if they had just accepted that she was to be plated up as a sacrifice for somebody else's mistakes.

The waves were quiet as they lapped at the base of the rock, a gentle lullaby that let Yue's mind drift as she tried to settle in place. The cold was beginning to seep in between her layers of fur, a chill that nipped at the exposed skin on her face. It would only get worse from here on, so the only thing Yue could do was hope that the alcohol would begin to kick in soon.

A flash of blue among the waves drew her eyes, peering into the water to try and figure out what it was that she saw. The same soft glow darted up and out further off to her left, this time tinged with drops of purple. In and out of the waves, hidden by the lack of moonlight and the water rushing over it, only able to be tracked by the quick bursts of colours as it broke the surface. Whatever it was, it took a few minutes for Yue to catch on that not only was it slowly circling the rock that she was chained to, but that it was also growing closer.

Yue did not agree to getting eaten by a sea monster.

Freezing in place, praying that if she held very still and didn't make any noise, whatever was in the water would eventually lose interest and swim away, Yue swallowed as the light kept creeping closer. And closer. And closer. Until finally it breached the surface and clawed its way onto the rocks to stand before her. It was like staring at a person through a thick sheet of ice. The more one looked at it, the more it seemed to warp before your eyes into nothing human.

Instead of hair, bioluminescent tendrils coiled over its shoulder and down its back, casting a blue and purple glow over its face. Its face was sharp, eyes a pitch black with no whites to be seen and teeth a row of razor sharp points. Its skin was a deep brown with grey undertones, stretched like a fine leather over bone and edged with silver scales. Its fingers ended in claws, with webbing between the digits. The most dramatic thing was its lack of legs, instead joining an eel-like tail below the waist. Bioluminescent fins edged along the tail, throwing the play of muscles into sharp relief.

The shiver that raced down her spine as it bared its teeth at her in what could almost be called a mockery of a smile was 2 parts fear, 1 part sheer cold. Her jaw was locked tight, biting back the deluge that threatened to spill out of her. Whatever expression that crossed its face only seemed to amuse it, coiling closer to close the distance between them. "Hello Princess." It's voice seemed to be dragged out of it in a rumble, like ice crunching underfoot and glaciers grinding against another. "You seem afraid. Did they not tell you why they bound you before my domain?"

The sea rose with each flex of its tail, reaching after it like they could not bear to be parted. What little dry land left to her was very quickly lost, until water lapped at the edges of her boots. For now, the waterproofing held but it would only be a matter of time if the water level continued to rise. Fighting off another shiver from the chill and the proximity of the spirit in front of her, Yue unclenched her jaw long enough to answer without clattering. "The fish stopped coming. No matter how far we sailed, our nets remained empty. No trace of fin or scale to be found. The priests said that we had shed innocent blood, and La demanded blood in turn. A life for a life."

When Father had first come to her about it, Yue had so many questions. What innocent blood, who has shed it? Why was it her life that was being demanded in repayment? Father hadn't had any of the answers she had sought, only broken words about this being what her people needed and that there was a ship waiting for her down in the harbour. Her response didn't seem to please the spirit, baring its teeth slightly as it drew back. A claw struck out to dig into its own palm, shedding black blood that dripped over its fingers. Ignoring how Yue tried to pull away from it, it pressed its palm forward to smear the blood across her forehead, only pulling back once it was satisfied. "So you do not freeze before we are finished."

The blood seemed to do what the spirit claimed, flooding her body with warmth and causing her face, fingers and toes to tingle. It was like climbing into a warm bath after being out in the snow for hours. Apparently satisfied that she wasn't going to turn to ice any time soon the spirit returned to studying her, a claw reaching out to toy with the buttons holding her fur daal closed tight against her body. "Less than a moon ago, a ship left Agna Qel'a to hunt for whales. It followed the migration paths the pods follow, but found nothing. So it sailed further, into stranger waters, unwilling to return empty handed. And there they found something they never should have dared. A baby leviathan, separated from its mother by volcanic upwelling."

Tears built in Yue's eyes as she realised the sheer weight of the crime before her. Her people had hunted, caught and killed one of La's sacred creatures, then butchered it for parts like it was a common buffalo yak. And La had caught them in the act. "A life for a life." No wonder he had demanded blood in repayment. Part of her was surprised he hadn't just drowned them all instead. Maybe he intended to butcher her, the child of the city's chief, though she was long since grown and now an adult in her people's eyes.

Tangled thoughts of blood fled her mind as the claw finally stopped playing with the buttons holding her daal shut, only to pluck it free and drag the cloth open, bearing her undershirt to the elements. "What are you doing?!" La ignored her cry of surprise as claws tore at her shirt, rending it to scraps before focusing on the breast band beneath, not stopping until she was clad in only her open daal and bare skin above the waist. “Stop!”

La's claws paused above the belt of her pants, teasing at the warm skin before reaching up to press his palm against the dark expanse of her abdomen. His thumb petted along the silky skin as he bent his head down until they were eye to eye, a cruel twist pulling at the edges of his smile. "You said it yourself, Princess. A life for a life. Your people stole a baby leviathan from me, so you are going to help birth a new one." Yue's breath caught as his meaning sank in, protests spilling from her lips as his other hand curled up to cup the generous weight of her breasts. A clawed finger plucked and pulled at her nipple as he continued to talk, switching from side to side as they tightened. "Can you feel it yet, the drink my priests brewed for you?"

The warmth that had been pooling in her veins, that she had brushed off as La's mark to keep the frost at bay, seemed to ignite as soon as he drew attention to it, embers catching wherever he touched. A bonfire in her bones, that burned down to the space between her legs, climbing and climbing with each beat of her heart. "What did they do to me?" Part of her didn't even need an answer. Yue could feel the wetness soaking into her underwear, a need to grind her core against anything until the friction relieved the pressure building inside her. They knew. They knew what was in store for her, and this is how they chose to answer it. A drink that drove her mad with lust, so it wouldn't hurt.

Yue choked on a sob as La nuzzled along her neck, claws leaving the skin above her womb to pull at her belt until he could drag down her pants and underwear in one smoothe tug, leaving the fabric to pool around her ankles. With a final kiss to her pulse point, he swept down her body like a wave, both hands dropping to curl around her thighs and lift until her legs were resting over his shoulders. His tongue felt like a weapon, leaving lashes everywhere it went. Thrusting into her hole to taste her, curling around her clit to play with, leaving her screaming and weeping as La drove her to the brink over and over, yet refused to let her fall. Her slick covered the lower half of his face by the time he finally pulled away, licking at his lips like he had finished the most lavish feast.

La lifted himself so Yue's legs were now locked behind his back by her pants, taking a moment to once again enjoy the spill of Yue's breasts. But not even the groping and squeezing at her chest could distract from the length slowly pushing out from the slit just below La's waist. Hundreds of tiny squirmy feelers surrounded what could only be an ovipositor, a narrow dark pink tip edged in a deep red as it grew larger towards the base. It was easily the size of her forearm, and there was no way it was capable of fitting inside her, not when the only things she had ever taken were her own fingers and La's tongue.

He hushed her as the tip pressed against her entrance, slowly rocking forward as he worked her open. It barely took a few thrusts before Yue broke around him, core pulsing as she tipped over the edge into orgasm. It was a flood of heat, everything she needed yet not nearly enough. The squirm of tendrils inside her and the unstopping press of flesh into her dragged it on and on, melting her mind until all she could do was pant and clench around him. Until finally, after an eternity, La was fully inside her.

And then he slowly began to drag himself back out.

In and out, as relentless as the tides itself. In and out, as Yue screamed herself raw from the waves of endless pleasure, every nerve twisted and wired to his touch as La fucked himself into her. One clawed finger pressed against her clit, teasing and toying with the nub as the other hand played with her nipples in tandem. It was like it was a game, to see how many times La could bring her to peak around him, then drag her over the edge. Until pleasure bled into pain, then back to pleasure. A swirl of sensations Yue couldn’t even hope to fight.

She lost herself and all track of time as he took what he wanted from her, bodies rocking together until La finally ground to a halt with a curse. His flesh rippled and bulged inside her, swelling even further around the base until they were locked together. Tears, sweat, and sea water dripped down Yue's face as she collapsed back against the rock, with only La's body and the chains to hold her up. Her body ached, every muscle wrung raw with the need for rest. Yet somehow, it wasn't over yet. She felt the weight inside her twitch, working her even further open to make space for the eggs.

And it was more than one egg. Yue lost count of each egg as it was fucked into her, drifting on the waves of pleasure that built up to what she could only pray was her last orgasm. She couldn't take anymore. It hurt, a sharp bite as she clenched and squirmed in a weak effort to get away. La just shushed her as she cried, pressing her back against the stone to rut lazily into her. "You won't have to birth all of these, princess. They'll eat their siblings until only the strongest remains. You'll just have the one baby, despite how fat you'll grow. Shhh, it's all right. One last egg, you can take it."

She couldn't. La's claws teased at the opening where they were joined, pinching and flicking the swollen flesh as she cried. Her breasts felt raw with bruises, every brush against them a burst of pain. The orgasm was a knot deep inside her, like a ball of broken glass that would cut her to pieces. The egg stretching her to join its fellows inside her packed womb was the largest, bullying open her walls and grinding against the sweet little spot inside her. Every breath felt shallow, like there was less and less space inside her, like La had carved her out just to pack her full of young. She could taste it at the back of her throat, sweet and slightly smokey and burning all the way down. It was a blessing when the egg finally settled deep inside her, and the waves of need finally broke against the shore and forced her down into unconsciousness.

Her last conscious thought came, fleeting, and bewildered as a wet heat started to gush inside of her, spilling in between the eggs and filling every last tiny crevice that remained. As if La hasn't claimed enough of her, he took every ounce he could get to breed his brood inside of her.

#submission #Atlararepair2023 #Yue #La #La/Yue #Monsters and Myths prompt

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lunashiba · 1 year

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December 8th, 2022 (Part 1)

I took a lot of photos over Thanksgiving break and drew in my sketchbook in the mountains. I also got a new camera, which I've been loving. I've been really busy with school, but the last day of lectures happened yesterday, so I'm taking a small break today to write this post before I study for my exams. I've also decided to post in three parts- one exclusively for my Thanksgiving trip and the photos I took during then, and another post for the drawings I've done and photos I've taken after returning (which is also split into its own two-part post, resulting in three total).

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I guess to start off, I recently started listening to this song- I fell in love with the instruments in it and the backing in it. During the drive, I had this song on often, which made me appreciate the beauty in everything we saw as we drove. I tried to capture the beauty in everything I saw with my phone camera below.

I took these photos while traveling through Blue Ridge Parkway, around 500 miles of road through the Blue Ridge Mountains, from Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We didn't travel the whole way through, since there was ice on the road. The mountains were beautiful, and I'd highly recommend anybody who's into just driving along beautiful roads a look at it.

The mountains stretched farther than you could see, growing blue and dark, fading into one another. It was a frozen ocean, rolling waves frozen in time and swathed in trees. There were hundreds and thousands of mountains visible at any one lookout, but it was humbling to think that to travel across just one could take over an hour by foot, if you could even climb its steep angles.

Often alongside the road, there were little places to drive off to the side and park, with an outlook you can rest at. They usually had the most gorgeous views, and I made sure to take pictures whenever I could whenever the landscape changed enough.

The roads themselves were beautiful, absorbing the sky into themselves. They wound all around the mountains, spiraling around some, and gliding along others. The speed limit is understandably low, but it felt less like driving and more like sailing oceans of green, blue, and brown. While we drove during Winter, when all the trees had given their leaves unto the Earth, it's hard to understate the beauty of how the sky contrasts with the trees as it beams through all of the empty branches - sunlight peering through the countless hands and fingers.

When it was cloudy, the trees and the sky began to blend further- or at least, the areas where the deciduous began to be replaced by forests of evergreens. The shade of blue from the sky merged and fused with the Earth's luscious leaves, and it was hard to tell them apart, if not for the low-hanging clouds casting shadows on the contours of the mountains. At these times, I adored the wind. I felt the caress of the very same breeze on my cheek push the sky along- the shadows of which danced so beautifully and quickly along the ups and downs of the green oceans of Earth. It was serene.

However, that wasn't to say that blue and green were the only stars of the show. At times of high sunlight, there's a different type of love to be discovered in the warm embrace of a red and brown landscape. There's a subtle contrast in their colors- The sky and mountains far near the horizon stayed their beautiful shade of faded blue, but the golden trees and hills shone with their own reddish-brown radiance. You can see near the horizon line, that as the blue fades into the mountains, the reds of the Earth bleed themselves into the sky. The white-hot bed of life slowly turns blue, seeping into the atmosphere. It's a bit of a reminder that the stars above and the Earth below aren't too separated at all, and through their blended union, we live where the ocean of the sky touches the shores of the grounds we walk on.

We saw ice throughout the day, at different stages of melting on each cliff at every hour. For this road, I couldn't help but take a picture to try to savor the feeling of driving along such a beautiful pathway. I wish I could accurately represent the feeling of going along these glassy ice cliff-sides in one direction and having an open atmosphere for miles in the other.

For one of the paths, we actually climbed up on one of the mountains. It was a really, really tiring path, but I managed to make my way up. At the very top, there was this one rock that lead to a drop to the very bottom of the mountain- it was over nearly 6000 feet in altitude if I remember correctly. I couldn't get a representative photo though, of how exactly cliff-like it was, but I did try to take more photos.

It was on this rock that I drew in my sketchbook, though I waited until I got down to actually document it.

Before I left the mountain though, I held my photo up into the air as far as I could to snag this shot below. You can kinda see where the parking was for this place.

I have a few more pictures from Gatlinburg, Tennessee as well.

Hello from the lift.

I thought this place was alright. I wasn't too big of a fan, since it was pretty pricy. The sky bridge up there was alright too. It's the longest suspension bridge in the world, maybe.

Here's a cropped photo of the bridge from under. It's actually a family photo, but I've cropped it for privacy reasons- I apologize for the resulting photo composition. There were glass panels at the center of the bridge, but it was just alright. I felt it was too blurry to be scared or anything. I've placed a photo of it below.

I also went to a barbeque place. I enjoyed the food a lot. I never tried baked cinnamon apples, but they were really, really good. I might try to make some at home for Christmas for my family. This dinner was the most I'd eaten in a sitting in a long time- We actually split it around all four of us in the family, so it was a bit easier to eat.

The trip continued on for a bit longer, and we drove back through Atlanta, Georgia. We ended up deciding to just go to the Georgia Aquarium.

This was a photo from the top of the parking lot's roof. I'd never seen such beautifully maroon trees before, but I'd love to see more again someday.

This was the only good photo of the fish I could take- it was really difficult to take photos since there were so many people. It was, ridiculously crowded.

I couldn't really take many photos from this area, but I decided to snoop around to find a place that would have fewer people.

I'm not sure why nobody came here, but it was nice and empty. I was thinking about hopping in for a swim, but the sharks were really scary and I decided not to. Maybe another day.

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And finally, I'll end off with a video of some fish.

That just about wraps up my trip. I'll be posting all of my doodles, sketches, and photos I've been taking around my university in a follow-up post as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading.

Luna

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stuckybingo · 2 years

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Stucky Bingo Round-Up #36 (May 16th - 21st)

Don’t forget to fill out the submission form to be a part of the round-ups and to get your bingo badges!

Crashing Waves by freedvmrouge Square filled: N2 - Beach Ao3 rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Parent Steve Rogers, Mermaid Bucky Barnes, Childhood Friends, Reunions Summary: Steve and his daughter Ellie move in with his parents while he gets his divorce settled. He's soon hit with nostalgia and memories he had somehow forgotten of a bright young kid he once called his best friend. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

Chapter 17: A Sweet Splurge by circaclementine Square filled: N5 - Image Prompt: picture of a bunch of halved plums. Ao3 rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Modern, Childhood friends to Lovers, Sunday Brunch, Fluff Summary: “How d’you feel about going for brunch?"" Bucky stills for a moment, and then slowly pulls his face from Steve’s chest to look up at his man. “Brunch?” He asks, sounding a little more alive, his eyes showing signs of a spark instead of the doe-like softness of sleep. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Frostbound by SucculentHyena Square filled: B1 - Snowed In Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: Major character death, Horror, Blood and Gore Major tags: The Thing AU, Murder Mystery, Sexual Content, Snowed In Summary: In an Antarctic research station are a group of scientists working away, when one day they are called to investigate an anomaly in the ice. Little do they know, this anomaly will follow them back. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Softest Touch [Chapter 22] by AllegedlyAnn Square filled: I3 - Kink: Daddy Kink Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Internalized Homophobia, Self Confidence Issues, Past Suicide Attempt, past self-harm, past sexual abuse of a minor (implied), Past Drug Addiction, Past Character Death Major tags: Age Difference, Daddy Kink, Slow Burn, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers Summary: Bucky is dating Steve. He isn't sure how dating works, or what the older man even wants with him, but he'll take what he can get. Maybe along the way, he will figure out how not to melt away whenever Steve smiles at him like that or touches him softly. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Miracles by the Seabed by dontcallmebree Square filled: G2 - Sailing Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Submarines, Humanoid Hybrid, Mermaid Bucky, Shrunkyclunks Summary: Steve couldn’t quite believe it at first. It was the future, sure, portable phones and the glorious interwebs and little cardboard boxes of Chinese food delivered to his doorstep at the press of a button. But this—this feels old. Older than him, even. (Long after super serums and tesseracts, the universe still holds enough mystery to strike Steve Rogers with wonder.) Format: Short oneshot (300 - 1000 words)

deep relief by circaclementine Square filled: O4 - AU: BDSM Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Shrinkyclinks, AU: Modern Setting, BDSM, Top Steve Rogers, Dom/Sub Summary: Bucky finds himself kneeling in the center of a room wearing a thick, leather blindfold that blocks out even the barest rays of light. Matching black leather encircles both of his wrists, flesh and vibranium, with silver hardware linking them neatly behind his back. They’re not remotely reinforced but more-so symbolic of his choice to be there, to put himself in capable hands, to allow someone else to dictate what happens to him. Format: Short oneshot (300 - 1000 words)

Peak Friction by AllegedlyAnn Square filled: N3 - Free Square (Dom/Sub) Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Humiliation, Degrading Behavior Major tags: James "Bucky" Barnes/Loki/Steve Rogers/Thor, Dom/sub, Partner Exchange Summary: In which Steve has been playing with Thor and Loki for years, now has his own sub, Bucky, who has been around for more than a few months, and decided to do a partner exchange. After all, he liked to watch, despite being a tad possessive. And it was not like there were feelings involved. Bucky and he weren’t dating or something. It would just be an enjoyable, kinky evening. Nothing more. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

"I don't know if I'm worth all this" by circaclementine Square filled: G4 - G4 Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Shrinkyclinks, AU: Modern Setting, BDSM, Sub Bucky Barnes, Dom Steve Rogers Summary: “I don’t know if I’m worth all this.” Barely audible. A whisper, maybe. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Green Light by freedvmrouge Square filled: I1 - Childhood Friends Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Pining Bucky Barnes, Drunken Confessions Summary: It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Steve dyes his hair green, gets into a couple of disagreements that Bucky pulls him out of, and is a regular ol’ social butterfly. Bucky’s just trying to pine in peace from the sidelines. Time to get shitfaced and hope he survives the night. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

#stucky bingo #stucky bingo round 3 #round up 36 #weekly round up #don't forget to fill out the submission form

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siluc · 3 years

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Ideas because im bored, lets go!!

⋆ pairing : xiao x reader, hutao x reader, venti x reader, albedo x reader, klee x reader (platonic), ganyu x reader, zhongli x reader, childe x reader, diluc x reader, xingqiu x reader, chongyun x reader, kazuha x reader

⋆ plot : uhh, ideas yyes

⋆ genre : fluff ideas

⋆ notes : not proofread, apologies for any grammatical errors :(

under the cut :^)

what if you had a cuddle session with xiao where you run your hands through his scalp, just playing with his hair and he just MELTS into your touch because,, touch-starved xiao, right?

And,, what if you have prank wars with hutao? Where hutao pranks you and you prank her back and it turns out into an all-out prank wars,, but sometimes you both go as far as pranking zhongli and other wangsheng funeral parlor workers??? Or just anyone in general!!

Wind-gliding with venti would be fun too!! Imagine him just using his anemo powers to help you glide and have more fun!!

Alchemy with albedo would be calm but can turn out as chaos too if,, albedo somehow ends up mixing the wrong concoctions together and theres just BOOM, a big explosion.. hehe other times its just you playing around with bedo's hair and complimenting it because its SUPER FLUFFY

Babysitting klee is fun! But chaotic since you have to stop her from committing mass murder of fishes otherwise jean will put her in solitary confinement and her cheeky smile would just turn into a gloomy frown (this made me sad :()

Helping ganyu relax and telling her to stop overworking herself which ends up with you both going out to pick some flowers

Having a stroll through the harbour with zhongli while having your hands intertwined and you guys have a lovely chit-chat and go out to eat at wanmin restaurant... but,, he forgot about his wallet and you end up having to pay for the bill, but fear not!! He will always apologize which ends up into a cuddle session at home

Playing with diluc's hair!! Bring clips, hair ties or any accessories you deem fit to put on his hair!! Braid it, tie it, make a bun or just running your fingers through his hair will be enough to relax his tensed-up muscles :) but only behind closed doors, otherwise this man would be very shy

Family dinner with childe? :0 i can imagine him inviting you to dinner with his family.. maybe since you guys were childhood friends you eventually start to grow feelings for him and start to act more shy around him to which, childe quickly caught on with how you act differently than how you used to, but then he realizes he maybe likes you too and starts to tease, flirt & spend more time with you!! But due to his work as a fatui, he now has less time to spend with you and will mostly try to clear up his schedule just to spend some time with his childhood-bestfriend-now-s/o and invites you to have dinner with his family. And maybe after dinner, you both spend some time with his siblings, more-so, teucer because yeah. It's teucer, how can you decline spending some time with that cute little face he has aww,,

Buying chongyun a popsicle, how nice of you eh?? I'd imagine he'd kinda?? Wanna share the iced treat with you?? Probably not because he loves them more than you. Im sorry, but its the truth. (Jkjk im sorry KDKSMQ)

Reading books with xingqiu!! Whooo boy, you're in for a ride because THIS MAN can and WILL read a shit ton of story books for you if you request him to do so, but other times when you dont and he starts rambling on about how good this or those books are, he would frequently apologize but will smile & continue when you say "its alright, you can continue"

Now, kazuha (this is just how i imagine he would be like!!) When he returns from his sails, he'll make sure to always ask you if you've eaten/drank water, will always apologize for taking so long to return and will compliment you every👏single👏day👏 he's just a gentlemen, okay? And at times he'd often take you flower picking in which you then make a flower crown for him and you'd be able to see a faint blush on his cheeks when you put the crown on his head and compliment him!

"You look adorable with that flower crown on you, love."

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laequiem · 2 years

Text

bottled up - a Kanej oneshot

This was written for @wornpagelibrary's year end event! Happy holidays, Arianna (@arimo93)! I hope you enjoy this little Kanej fluff <3

Fandom: Six of Crows / Grishaverse

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x Inej Ghafa

Rating: general -> Post-canon, spoiler-free for the Nikolai duology

Word count: 1265

masterlist

read on ao3

While greed bows to Kaz Brekker, envy is a constant companion. It’s an old friend, one who has seen his cards and understands why Kaz keeps them close to his chest. It walks alongside him as he hobbles his way down the street, a few paces behind where Jesper and Inej skip along happily. He does not usually let himself be seen in public near them anymore, lest his reputation tarnish theirs; Jesper, the merchant’s husband, and Inej, the slave-freeing pirate. Both fairly reputable people, compared to the crime boss that he is. Fortunately, the citizens of Ketterdam turn a blind eye to him, as though they see the blood tainting the three-legged tracks he leaves in the snow and dare not acknowledge his presence.

Kaz wishes so deeply that he could be in Jesper’s place right now, a thought he has had very few times since meeting the sharpshooter. Window shopping is definitely not his thing, but seeing Inej light up at the bright displays would be worth the tediousness of it all. More than that, he wishes he could be the one walking arm-in-arm with Inej, huddling close to keep her warm amidst the snowfall.

Their relationship is in a better place than it has ever been, but distance makes healing slow. Thankfully, the heart is a muscle, and Kaz has trained his not to get in the way of his professional goals.

“We don’t celebrate Saints’ days,” Jesper says as they stop in front of a store, “but I want to get Wylan something.”

“To bribe him for putting up with you?” Inej replies.

Jesper laughs. “Pretty much.”

As the pair lingers in front of the illuminated window, Kaz catches up to them. It’s the shop of a local artisan, a metalworker by the look of things. Copper cogs and exposed clockwork machinery, necklaces and other accessories made of twisted metal. Kaz has no idea what Wylan could possibly want from here. Yet Jesper goes in, dragging Inej along with him.

Kaz loiters outside, watching the snow fall gently and settle into cracks in the road. For Kaz, winter is a hurdle he has to overcome every year. Soon enough, the snow will melt and freeze again into a thin sheet of ice, making it much harder for him to walk around with his cane. In Inej’s religion, winter brings about the Feast of Sankt Nikolai, a holiday where people feast on large amounts of food. For Inej, winter means anchoring her boat in Ketterdam to buy food to redistribute to those in need. She slows down on busting slave rings during the colder months. Instead, she stops in each nation and donates food to their homeless and poor populations, starting here in Ketterdam. Soon after, she raises anchor to sail west to Novyi Zem and the southern colonies before sailing east again to Shu Han, Fjerda and Ravka.

This leaves Kaz and Inej with very little time to spend together while she is in Ketterdam, but they make the best out of it. Inej slips into his quarters at night so they can catch up on each other’s lives and maybe, maybe, continue to work on healing.

Kaz turns to face the shop. Inside, Jesper is haggling with the vendor, wildly gesticulating. Even when browsing the wares of a shop, Inej melts into the shadows. It’s as if she can’t help it, like stealth is the very essence of her being. But Kaz sees her, he always has. He sees her fingering the long chain of a necklace, admiring the craftsmanship of the bobble hanging from it. She smiles to herself as she turns the necklace between her fingers and Kaz feels it seeping into his chest, warming him up from the inside.

Kaz’s eyes stay locked on Inej’s hands, waiting for her to use Jesper’s distraction to make the necklace disappear. Even when Jesper puts an arm around her, done with his purchase, Kaz is still staring. He watches as her nimble fingers let go of the necklace, the chain swinging on its hook.

Sneaking into slave owners’ homes to steal ownership papers, forge ledgers or, when all else fails, threaten them until they free their slaves–Inej has not left her life of crime behind, but stealing from an artisan trying to make a living violates her code.

And of course Inej doesn’t buy anything for herself, she saves her money for charitable endeavors.

Kaz sighs to himself, looking up towards the gray sky. Perhaps he, too, should pay this artisan a visit.

——

When she slips through the window atop the Crow Club on her last night in Ketterdam, Inej finds Kaz pacing his room. His limp is prominent, as it usually is at night after a long day of threatening merchants and gangsters alike. Before she even makes herself known, he stops in his tracks.

“Wraith,” Kaz says, acknowledging her presence.

Inej hops down from the windowsill, into a sliver of moonlight.

“We’ll be leaving in the morning,” Inej says. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Keeping his back to her, Kaz gives her a barely visible nod. She notices the way his fist clenches, but he remains silent. He does not invite her to stay. Despite herself, Inej sighs.

“Inej, wait.”

She freezes. Kaz turns to her then, avoiding her eyes but facing her nonetheless. His lips thin.

“I have something for you,” he says.

Inej stares in disbelief as Kaz staggers to his large desk. His keys jangle as he picks out the one that unlocks the largest drawer. He takes out a bundle the size of a newborn, wrapped in sturdy paper.

Their eyes meet as he thrusts the bundle towards her. In Kaz’s dark eyes, Inej reads something she rarely sees in him—doubt. Not quite fear, but close.

He’s afraid I won’t like it, she realizes.

She takes it from him. She unwraps the bundle gently—it’s heavier than she expected, and wrapped in quite a few layers of paper. The paper falls off to uncover a large glass bottle and—

“Kaz,” Inej gasps, “this is amazing,”

Inside the bottle is a replica of The Wraith, her ship. It’s assembled out of thin sheets of metal, every plank of the deck carved with precision. At its bow, a small figure with black hair gazes forward. Inej is too captivated by the gift to notice the slight upward tilt of Kaz’s lips, or the way his cheeks redden slightly as he watches her.

When she finally looks up and smiles at him, Kaz cannot help but smile back.

“Thank you,” she says.

Instinctively, her hand reaches out to him, but she stops herself. If it were Nina, or Jesper, or even Wylan, she would have gone for a hug. But it’s Kaz, and so she holds back. To her surprise, though, Kaz lifts his own hand, offering it to her.

His hand is bare of everything but calluses and a few small scars.

She reaches for it, brushing her fingers softly over his. Kaz shudders, but he does not pull away. He actually reaches for her, too, his thumb stroking over her fingers.

“Come back soon,” he murmurs.

“As soon as I am able,” she replies.

Kaz gives her hand a brief squeeze before letting go. Inej hops back on the windowsill, looking out towards the city beyond. She looks back to Kaz and their eyes meet. They give each other a small nod.

As she disappears into the night, Inej hears Kaz’s parting words, whispered to the empty room.

“See you soon, my Wraith.”

Tag list: @figonas @kingandfireheart @godgavemelou @lizziebxnnet @hazelsheartsworn @peachcollective @nnazyalensky

#grishaverse #kanej #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #six of crows #soc #crooked kingdom #kaz #inej #kaz x inej #the dregs #the crows

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helpistolethesecharacters · 3 years

Text

Love Conquers All

Part 2

Zuko x Male Reader

Word Count: 1643

-----------

The next morning Y/n followed Zuko back down to the kid's campsite. Y/n was half expecting them to have packed up and left, but he was happily proven wrong when they got down there.

The kids were sitting in a half circle, clearly waiting for the two of them to arrive. From the looks of things, they might actually be more open to talking to them today.

A look at the water tribe girl told Y/n that she still had a serious distrust for them that would be annoying to get past.

They approached the group. Y/n held back. He would be on guard for anything they might pull that could hurt Zuko.

"Um, so, you guys have something you want to say?"

Y/n guessed that if you couldn't count on the Avatar to break the ice then the world was doomed.

"Yes. I'm here because I know now that my destiny is to teach the Avatar firebending. I also wanted to say that I'm deeply sorry for all of my actions that have caused you pain or worry. I know that my apology doesn't fix everything, but I hope that it can help pave the way to better relations between us."

Y/n had missed this version of Zuko. He had been buried under so much pain and anguish, and had been desperately trying not to let anyone see it. It was good to have him acting more like himself again, but no amount of royal training was going to remove his awkward manner.

"Why should we believe anything you have to say? You've been chasing us around the world trying to capture Aang and kill us! We shouldn't even be sitting here listening to you!"

That girl was really sticking with her hard-done-by feelings. Y/n was going to have to keep a close eye on her around Zuko.

"Actually," the water tribe boy interjected, "I had a question about that."

He stared into the remains of their fire for a second before looking up at the still standing duo.

"Why didn't you just use your airbending to capture Aang? I mean, it looked like you were holding your own against Katara pretty well. When we first met you could have wiped the floor with us. So why?"

Y/n was surprised. The Water Tribe boy was more perceptive than he had given him credit for.

"It's a secret."

Bless Zuko for trying to take the question for him. Y/n sent a grateful smile his way.

"The Fire Lord has decreed that any airbenders are to be executed. If any are found, it's a death sentence."

Y/n looked around at the appalled faces of the kids. Finally it looked like they were starting to realise what they were involved in.

"How can you side with monsters like that?!"

Y/n turned furious eyes on the opinionated girl.

"I don't side with them! I side with Zuko."

"That isn't any better! So you're saying that if he decided to go back to the Fire Nation tomorrow you would just go with him?"

She was on her feet and flinging her words at him much the same way she had been with water the day before.

She turned back to her friends.

"This is why we can't trust them! I know you want to have someone else who's an airbender Aang, but he won't do the right thing if Zuko doesn't."

She spat Zuko's name like it was a bad word.

Aang turned big eyes on them.

"Would you really go back to them?"

"No."

"You just said----"

"I won't go back to them because Zuko won't. And I stand with him."

Y/n chanced a glance at Zuko only to find him already looking at him. He had that soft smile on his face that had been missing for years. Y/n was so glad that it was back. They reached for each other at the same time, fingers coming together and intertwining easily, familiarly.

There was a surprised intake of breath from the kids in front of them.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." Was Y/n's eloquent response.

"Well, that doesn't make it okay to do the wrong thing when you know it's wrong."

She was still lecturing them, but the wind had clearly gone out of her sails.

Y/n managed to pull his eyes away from Zuko and look back at the group.

"We really are on your side this time."

Y/n stilled. The air had shifted in the way that it did when it was trying to warn him of something, becoming electrified. He spun around, scanning their surroundings, trying to locate the problem. He spotted the man up on the cliff just in time to bring his sword up and deflect the wave of energy that he sent at them.

Y/n growled. His timing had been off, resulting in his returned wave being sent off in a different direction.

"You all need to get out of here! If he keeps this up, the whole temple is going to come down."

"Y/n, if you can keep him busy, we can try to find a way to get rid of him!"

The Water Tribe boy was apparently their leader, was Y/n's distracted thought as he stood waiting for the man's next barrage.

If they got out of this alive he was going to smack Zuko upside the head for ever hiring the assassin.

That was probably something that the group of kids didn't need to know about, Y/n thought absently.

He was almost too focused on the long distance fight between the two of them to notice Zuko attempting to distract the assassin from where he stood nearly beside him. When had he gotten over there?

Something whizzed by Y/n's ear and he was so distracted by the thought of Zuko doing something so monumentally stupid as to antagonise the most ruthless assassin in the Fire Nation from a matter of feet away, that he didn't even sense it until he felt the air move by him.

He watched as the boomerang flew true and struck the assassin in the center of his third eye. He felt the world slow down as he saw the man draw in a breath for another wave of energy, but instead of it being sent to where they were standing, it exploded in his face and in the air all around him.

Y/n's heart stopped when the whole side of the temple crumbled and fell. Zuko had still been up there.

His sword fell with a clatter that was muted in his ringing ears. He was over by the side of the temple before he even thought about it, scrambling to find Zuko. If he was gone then that was it.

Y/n felt a thought settle in the front of my mind. He felt a sickening sinking feeling in his stomach, but there was no denying it.

He turned empty eyes on the group who were all celebrating their lucky escape. It was their fault.

He stood at the edge of the temple, watching them, feeling the wind caress him. It was whispering something to him, but he still couldn't hear anything over the adrenaline still coursing through his body.

He took a step toward them, reaching for his sword but coming up empty. His gaze narrowed in on it, lying on the floor back where he had been standing.

He was shaking, he realised as he tried to take another step but found himself on his knees instead.

The wind was growing around him as he fell forward onto his hands. He could feel himself falling apart, but he couldn't seem to pull himself back together. He had always had Zuko for that, but the stupid self-sacrificing idiot had gone and gotten himself blown off the side of the temple.

There was a groan from the ledge Y/n was nearest to. The wind died suddenly.

Y/n turned his tear streaked face sharply in it's direction.

He recognised that voice.

Then he was scrambling once again for the ledge, and grabbing hold of Zuko's arm and pulling with everything he had until he had his idiot firmly in his arms and far enough away from the edge.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and held Zuko in his still shaking arms. Y/n hoped Zuko was comfortable because he was never letting him go again.

-----------

They had gathered around the fire that someone had restarted to sort out something for lunch.

Y/n had the feeling that his melt down hadn't gone unnoticed by at least one member of the group. When he had gone over to pick up his sword from where he had dropped it, the little blind girl had watched him with her unseeing eyes. He had just sheathed it and walked back over to Zuko's side, but she hadn't stopped watching him ever since.

Y/n was sitting by Zuko's side, too strung out from earlier to be properly on guard, but he was sure that since they had seen him in action they might be a little hesitant to attack so openly.

Once everyone had a bowl of food Sokka cleared his throat. He had an uncomfortable look on his face.

"So."

Y/n waited silently. This was Zuko's destiny, it was up to him to earn his place with the group.

"You know why we're here. Our reasons haven't changed. I think, it comes down to this. Can you trust us?"

"Look," Sokka started, "We don't fully trust you, but I think that's fair. I mean you chased us around the world, but we also saw what you did for us back there. You could have died trying to help. So we're willing to give you a chance. But just one."

Zuko's face lit up with his happiness. It was a sight that Y/n knew he would always enjoy.

"You won't regret this. I promise!"

#Zuko x Male Reader #Zuko #Male Reader

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ichorai · 2 years

Text

GALVANO ; the tesseract.

pairing ; winter soldier!taehyung x hero!avenger!reader (gender-neutral)

chapter summary ; waking up after seventy years of being frozen in ice proved to be every bit as awful as it sounded. you lost everything you once knew, thrown headfirst into a storm of villanous gods, aliens, and a shitload of trama.

words ; 16.7k

themes ; marvel au, superhero au, alien au, winter soldier au, scifi, action, romance, angst, fluff, slowburn, drama

warnings / includes ; war/violence/death, heavy angst, cursing, loki is a little shit, everyone is kinda an asshole in this chapter yikes, i’m sorry taehyung isn’t even in this part dies, bts cameos :D, jungkook is just tired and constantly concerned for you :(

a/n ; this chapter follows the movie the avengers! upcoming chapters will follow the general mcu timeline !!

series masterlist. series playlist. bucky barnes version.

Punching had never felt so good before. You jabbed at the sandbag in front of you with quick succession, raw pent-up tension poured into each hit, strike, and kick. All the stress you’ve felt from the past week melted out of you as you pummeled the poor red sack, muted grunts of exertion falling out of your lungs.

Jungkook had come to join you some minutes ago, doing just the same as you were. A thin grey t-shirt that clung to his chest and dark pants were all that he wore, along with a grim expression melded over his strained features.

You understood, almost completely sure you mirrored that same look. After all, the past seventy years haven’t been kind to either of you.

How did you survive the ice that long without aging? Jungkook, you understood wholly. He had that super serum swimming around his blood… but what kept you alive?

It took you several sleepless nights, but you came to the conclusion that it was that energy source that had fallen into the ocean just before you and Jungkook landed in the ice. You weren’t quite solid in the logistics, but somehow, its incomparable energy was enough to keep you frozen in time, alive where life shouldn’t dwell.

A tremble meandered up your spine, and you paused your hits, leaning against the punching bag with labored breath. Jungkook kept going, bandaged knuckles thudding dully onto the leather bag.

“Jungkook,” you whispered.

He kept going.

Chewing on the bottom of your lip, you repeated yourself, louder this time, “Jungkook.”

He didn’t stop. You watched with a slight frown as your friend punched one last time, sending the bag flying off of its hook, sailing across the room as sand fell from split seams. Only then did he stop, turning to you with freckles of sweat glistening on his forehead.

“What?”

Gone was the sweet Jungkook you once knew from the forties. This Jungkook was angry, confused, mourning. You stepped forward hesitantly, unwrapping the gauze around your fingers to hand to him.

“Your bandaging is too thin. Don’t want you hurting yourself,” you said quietly as you took his hand, re-wrapping his knuckles.

There was little Jungkook had to say to that, so he remained mute while you fussed. It unnerved you; silence with Jungkook always meant something was wrong.

These past few days, all you’ve known was silence.

Once you were done, Jungkook gazed into your eyes for a millisecond longer, noting the glassy sheen of anguish behind those irises of yours. Then, he turned to pick up another sandbag as if it were weightless and hooked it back up.

The last person you expected to show up was Min Yoongi.

“Trouble sleeping?” he surmised to the both of you, striding into the training room with his hands clasped behind his back. Black was his color, you thought absent-mindedly, observing the monotone attire consisting of an inky jacket, ebony trousers, and, of course, the infamous eye patch.

Jungkook paused before he could take a jab at the new bag. “I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I’ve had my fill.”

“Then you should be out celebrating! Seeing the world.”

You snorted at that. “When we went under, the world was at war. We wake up, they tell us we won. But I have yet to know what we lost.”

Yoongi narrowed his one good eye at you. “We’ve made some mistakes along the way. Some… very recently.”

This seemed to pique Jungkook’s interest. “You here with a mission, sir? Trying to get me out in the world again?” The last question was said with an undertone of bitterness, subtle, yet you still picked up on it.

“Trying to save it,” admitted Yoongi. A manila folder was in his grasp, extended towards the two of you. Gingerly, you took the file from him and flicked open to look upon its contents.

On the cover, in bold capital letters, read TESSERACT. You blinked upon seeing the picture attached; the blue cube that Hydra used to build weapons. The energy source that you presumed kept you alive in the ice. You could feel the flowering of a headache blossom at the base of your skull.

“Hydra’s secret weapon,” Jungkook mumbled, peering over your shoulder.

Director Min dipped his head in recognition. “Kim Namjoon fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you.” At the painfully familiar name, you could feel yourself tensing all over again. “He thought just the same as we did. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. And that’s something the world sorely needs.”

A sick feeling twisted at your stomach. The last time a man got his hands on power that strong, a war ensued. History had a tendency to repeat itself. You pieced two and two together and asked in a bleak tone, “Who took it from you?”

“He’s called Loki. He’s… not from around here.”

Both you and Jungkook glanced at each other in mild concern.

“There’s a lot to bring you guys up to speed on if you’re in. The world has gotten even stranger than you know.”

An almost-laugh fell past Jungkook. “At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me.”

“Ten bucks says you’re wrong,” said Yoongi with a derisive snort. “There’s a debriefing packet we left at your apartment. Anything you can tell us about the Tesseract we ought to know now?” The question was directed to you, well aware that you had studied the source with Namjoon all those years ago.

Nose twitching, you leveled Director Min with a dismal gaze.

“Should’ve left it in the ocean.”

You harbored a deep dislike for planes. It was quite a glaringly obvious reason why, but it seemed you really had no other choice. You forced yourself to swallow the bile in your throat and got comfortable (or, as comfortable as you really could) beside Jungkook.

A SHIELD agent you knew to be Phil Coulson (he was there when you woke up from your coma), hovered over the two of you like a mother bird would her sickly children.

“Anything I can get you? We have drinks somewhere in here… you want a Sprite or something?”

The both of you blinked at him in confusion. What in the world was a Sprite?

He winced at your befuddled expressions, but digressed. “Let me know if you guys need anything else. We’ll be here for another hour or so.”

Tentative, you raised your hand awkwardly, clearing your throat. You vaguely motioned to the briefing file you read over several times before getting on the plane. “So this Dr. Jung Hoseok was trying to replicate the serum they used on Jungkook? The amount of Gamma radiation he was exposed to should’ve killed him. But instead, he… turns into a monster when he gets angry?”

Phil seemed to consider your question, lifting his hand to do a wishy-washy motion. “It’s a bit more nuanced than that, but that’s about it, yeah.”

The uncomfortable feeling at the pit of your stomach increased ten-fold.

“Anybody else try to replicate the serum?” questioned Jungkook.

“A lot of people were,” Coulson admitted. “You were the world’s first superhero. Jung thought Gamma radiation would be the key to unlocking Erskine’s original formula.”

Glimpses of your past flashed behind your eyelids as you slowly slid them shut. You pictured the lab where they turned Jungkook into a superhuman… where Erskine was shot just moments after.

“When he’s not that thing, though, the guy’s like a Stephen Hawking.”

Great. Another reference you couldn’t understand.

“Er, he’s like a really smart guy.”

Jungkook bobbed his head in understanding. “I know my fair share of smart people,” he muttered whilst angling his face to look at you. Everything he once knew was gone, all he cared for, all he was familiar with, gone at the snap of a finger. All except you. You were the one constant he needed in life. A scoff rumbled within your chest, and you nudged at him with your elbow.

“I gotta say,” Phil started, suddenly appearing clammy and pale, “it’s an honor to meet you. Both of you. Officially. I watched you while you were sleeping.”

An amused chortle bubbled within your throat. Jungkook cast his eyes downward to hold in his own laugh.

“Er… I mean I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, really, it’s just a huge honor to have you guys on board for this.”

Jungkook pushed himself up, feeling antsy. He stared out of one of the plane windows, murmuring, “I hope I’m the right man for the job.”

“You are!” the SHIELD agent blurted out a little too enthusiastically. With slightly flushed skin, he regained his composure and said, “We made some modifications to the uniform. I had some design input.” The last bit was said with an air of pride. Awh, cute. Jungkook had a fanboy.

Taking in another moment to fully process Phil’s words, you bit down a guffaw. Oh, no. Not that sorry excuse of a wretched swimming suit!

Jungkook’s irises flickered back to the seats to meet your mirthful eyes. “Aren’t the stars and stripes a little… old-fashioned?”

“With everything that’s happening, and the things that are about to come to light… people might just need a little old-fashioned.”

The rest of their conversation blurred into background noise as the purring of the jet beneath you lulled you into a hazy sleep, slumped against your seat uncomfortably. At one point, you recalled Jungkook slipping back to his original spot beside you, maneuvering your drowsy form so your head found purchase on his shoulder.

Things were changing, but at least you had Jungkook with you.

The helicarrier was probably the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. If you had the time, you’d willingly explore the gigantic vessel for hours and hours on end. There was a heavy pang to your chest when you thought about just how fun it’d be to look around with Namjoon. An even heavier feeling sank your stomach when you thought about how Taehyung would also love to see the craft. Or, more accurately, he’d love to see you get excited over such advanced technology.

Much to your dismay, you were given little time to get reacquainted with the ground, an unfamiliar woman approaching the two of you as soon as you stepped off the plane. Your eyes widened at the sight of her. She was absolutely gorgeous; curls of dark flames framing her poised face perfectly, donning a leather jacket shrugged over a red tank top tucked into fitted trousers.

“Agent Kim Yeri,” Phil Coulson gave her a nod, gesturing to the two of you. “This is Captain Jeon and Y/N L/N.”

All business, the agent barely spared you a glance, addressing Phil first, “They need you on the bridge. They’re starting the face-trace.” Coulson paled and rushed off, muttering something under his breath about how they were always starting things without him.

“It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice.” Yeri’s voice made your eyes snap to hers, skin flushing with warmth. You opened your mouth to say something, but opted on nodding your head once you realized you hadn’t much to say on the matter. The three of you started walking together. You weren’t quite sure where you were going, but Yeri’s confident strides lessened your worries somewhat. “Thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his trading cards yet?” she asked, aiming a smirk at Jungkook.

“Trading cards?”

“They’re vintage. He’s very proud.”

You snickered under your breath, laugh dying on your tongue when the trio stumbled upon a confused man, excusing himself around a group of mechanics carrying parts to fix up a jet. A large piece of you yearned to join them; attempt to feel a semblance of what you did back in the forties again.

“Dr. Jung.” Jungkook’s eyes lit in recognition, and he stepped forward to shake the disorientated man’s hand. The frayed mousy-grey suit he wore perfectly matched his hair, which was a haphazard mess. His face bore both a painting of awkward uncomfort and weary exhaustion. You could almost relate to that on a personal level.

A hesitant smile graced his lips. “Ah, they told me the two of you were coming.”

“Word is you can find the cube?” you asked in a gentle tone. “I was hoping I could help with that. I know a thing or two about the energy source.”

Hoseok regarded you with a poorly-masked look of awe. “Yes, I’ve read about all your work with Kim Namjoon. Amazing, the two of you.” Hesitance flooded his body language. “So, uhm, is that the only word on me?”

One of your shoulders lifted in a shrug. “The only word I care about.”

A beam, a genuine one, fiddled with the corners of the scientist’s mouth. Then, he turned to Jungkook, gesturing around the busy helicarrier. “This must be strange for you, no?”

Your friend heaved a sigh, propping his hands up on his hips. “Well, this is kinda familiar,” he murmured, watching a group of agents jog around the perimeter, curving around another group that was practicing their shooting aim at mannequin targets. You couldn’t help but agree. The bustle of military life was one you weren’t unfamiliar with.

“Hey,” Yeri said out of the blue, making you flinch at her sudden presence beside you. Has she always been this close? “We might wanna step inside in a minute. It’s gonna get a little hard to breathe.”

“Is this a submarine?” The unabashed wonder in Jungkook’s question almost made you snort.

Hoseok scowled. “Really? They want me in a pressurized metal container?”

“It’s not a submarine,” you said, almost breathless as you stepped forward, closer to the edge of the helicarrier. A smile traced your lips as you turned back to look at Jungkook with excitement. This thing was taking you to the skies. “Much the opposite, really!” Water from the ocean sloshed about as the helicarrier groaned to life, revealing wind turbines larger than houses.

Wind billowed almost instantly upon the turning of the metal spokes, tousling your hair and mussing your clothes. Jungkook pulled you from the edge with knitted brows.

“No, this is much worse!” Hoseok remarked.

Yeri led all of you into the main compartment of the helicarrier. You couldn’t help but gawk at every little detail, marveling in the advanced technology splayed right before your very eyes. Even Jungkook was smiling beside you, lips parted in amazement.

Rows upon rows of sleek computers and screens with agents scampering about for work filled the room. They wore wireless headsets and modern suits with the SHIELD insignia etched into the protective fabric. In the center of all the organized chaos, stood Min Yoongi.

“Engage retro-reflection panels.”

Your breath caught in your throat. That was…

“I know what you’re thinking,” the director said as he drew nearer to you, “so let me answer before you ask. Yes, the reflective panels were your original idea. Kim Namjoon might’ve brought it to fruition, but the idea was yours. He made sure to give you credit wherever it was due. A shame you didn’t get to patent it, though. Would’ve made a fortune.”

Your heart ached at his words. Gentle was your tone as you choked out, “I’m glad my invention can be of service.”

From beside you, Jungkook fished a crumpled ten-dollar note out of his pocket, handing it to Yoongi with a sheepish smile. The man in infamous black only leered viciously before taking the money and stuffing it into his coat. You tugged at Jungkook’s arm, beckoning to the large windows. Though you quite disliked planes, the helicarrier was something different entirely. With an arm hooking around his lean waist, you leaned against him while staring out at the rapidly-shifting clouds, watching the ocean toil about hundreds of meters below you.

“That was the only money I had,” Jungkook whispered into your head.

“I’m not lending you any,” you replied just as quietly, earning a small chuckle from him. Then, you abruptly turned upon hearing Phil Coulson again.

“We’re sweeping all the wirelessly accessible cameras on the planet. Phones, laptops… practically anything with a satellite, we use as our eyes and ears.”

Yeri, who had taken to leaning over a computer monitor and swiping across the screen with narrowed eyes, piped up, “That’s still not going to find them in time.”

Hesitant, you stepped forward, raising a hand. “You need to narrow your field. Our potential region is way too large, and our energy source is big—bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before—so we have to work smarter, not harder. How many spectrometers do you have access to?”

“How many are there?” Min Yoongi asked, cocking his head whilst crossing his arms.

Hoseok picked up on your idea, nodding vehemently as he supplied you with an impressed smile. “Call every lab you know. Tell them to set up their spectrometers on the roof and calibrate for gamma rays.”

“You can rough out a tracking algorithm,” you hummed. “Basic cluster recognition. Won’t be able to exactly triangulate its coordinates, but you’ll be able to eliminate most of the candidates.”

“I can do that,” proposed Hoseok, rubbing his palms against his pants nervously. “You have somewhere for me to work?”

Bobbing his head in satisfaction, Yoongi gestured to Yeri. “Could you show Dr. Jung to the laboratory, please?”

The beautiful (and admittedly very intimidating) agent brushed past you to Jung, beckoning him to follow. “You’re gonna love it, doc. We got all the toys.”

Min Yoongi’s piercing stare was one you couldn’t easily ignore. And so, with an expectant expression plastered over your face, you looked at him once more.

“You don’t wanna go in there with him? I’m sure you could help out a lot.”

Nervousness coiled at your gut. As much as you’d like to, you didn’t think you’d be able to handle being in a lab jet yet, and leaving Jungkook here alone made you uneasy. Baby steps were the way to go, and hopping onto a massive helicarrier in search of a world-altering energy source was probably the exact opposite of baby steps.

“I’m sure Dr. Jung knows what he’s doing,” you replied wispily. Jungkook nudged your side, as if silently urging you to go. With a little more force, you spoke up once more, “I’ll stay here with Jungkook for now.”

“Suit yourself,” Yoongi quipped before whirling around to bark orders at another agent.

Releasing the sigh you didn’t know you had been holding in, you turned back to look at the clouds with Jungkook, wondering what lay in store for the two of you in the future.

Baby steps turned out to be an absolute lie.

The first thing that came into your field of view was a sea of cowering people in expensive garb, kneeling before a god. At least, that’s what he called himself. Loki wore gold as if it were only his to wear, a crown of aureate horns resting upon his slickened raven hair. A cape of emeralds billowed behind him as he stepped through the kneeling mass.

Jungkook intercepted first, blocking off a shot with that vibranium shield you’ve grown so fond of. Back in the helicarrier, SHIELD had given you all your old equipment and gadgets back, along with Jungkook’s ridiculous suit.

The parry of energy curved straight back to Loki, knocking him off his feet. Furious, the god clambered back to stand, jaw clenched.

“You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing,” Jungkook said as you floated down beside him, activating your flame thrusters and pointing at him. You eyed the scepter that Loki held, glowing a strange blue. A part of the tesseract’s power was in there… you could feel it. The beginnings of a migraine danced at the center of your skull.

A cruel grin tainted Loki’s expression as he crooned, “The soldier. A man out of time. Brought your little pet with you?”

A scowl crossed both of your faces. Jungkook shook his head, pointedly ignoring his last question. “I’m not the one out of time here.”

Behind you, a shooter jet lowered down, Yeri’s voice echoing on a PA system, “Loki, drop the weapon and stand down.”

Moving at the speed of lightning, Loki pointed the scepter at the jet and shot a pulsing wave of energy towards the craft. Thankfully, Yeri managed to evade it just in time. People were screaming, scrambling every which way like frantic ants. Jungkook arced the shield towards Loki, moving forward to jab him in the face. Loki parried with a malicious chuckle, using the staff to kick out Jungkook’s legs and push him back. Taking that as your cue, flames billowed out of your weapon and you lunged forward, feinting a punch before ducking his swipe and sliding a knife out of your sleeve to slash against his abdomen.

To no avail, Loki trapped your arm with ease, twisting you sideways and throwing you to the cobblestone ground. Jungkook threw the shield again, but Loki knocked it to the side as if it were a frisbee. Much to your horror, Loki stalked forward and placed the scepter at the base of his head, sneering out, “Kneel.”

Fury boiled in your blood as you surged forward, yanking at his cape and landing a kick to the back of his head. This managed to distract him just enough to allow Jungkook back on his feet, grabbing his shield and throwing a punch to the god’s face.

Then you heard… was that rock music? You might’ve been an old soul from the forties, but you tried catching up to the best of your ability while you had the time. The familiar electric riff of a bass echoed through the air. You, Jungkook and Loki froze, eyes shifting up to the sky.

A person of crimson-and-gold metal streaked past you in a blur, pummeling Loki to the ground with such a force that made the bricks crack beneath the impact. The man stood back, his suit revealing small compartments holding bullets and launchers, all aimed at him.

“Make your move, Reindeer Games,” the metal man said in an ‘I dare you’ tone. Both you and Jungkook came forward beside him, your knives held ready and Jungkook’s shield gripped tightly in his hand.

Slowly, Loki’s golden armor faded into thin air, and he held his hands up in tentative surrender.

“Good move,” Iron Man quipped. It took everything you had in you to not slide your eyes to his suit; it was impressive technology that you were very keen on learning more about.

Jungkook exhaled a deep breath. “Mr. Kim Namjoon.”

A part of you froze. What?

Your breath caught in your throat as you turned to the man with widened eyes.

“Captain,” he replied, nodding. Then, the suit’s bright slits for eyes fixated on you. “Y/N L/N, right? My dad’s said a lot about you.”

“He’s kinda handsome,” you muttered to Jungkook, wrinkling your nose while eyeing Loki tied up in the seat opposite you. “In a sleazy, corrupt kind of way.” Your friend turned to you with an appalled look on his features and you nudged his shoulder with a playful laugh.

After a tense silence, you mustered up the courage to ask him, just quiet enough so only he could hear, “Why didn’t you tell me that Kim Namjoon junior was going to be a part of this thing?”

Uncomfort splayed across his visage at your query. “I didn’t think he’d come. I just… I don’t know, I wanted to spare you the pain of remembering.” A part of you softened at his words. His intentions were good, but you couldn’t help but be wounded at him holding information like that from you.

“We can’t keep things from each other, Jungkook.”

“I know.”

The two of you lapsed into another silence, this time comfortable and less tense.

“I don’t like it,” admitted Jungkook after a moment. You arched an eyebrow in a silent way of telling him to continue.

Unceremoniously, Namjoon stalked over to the two of you, interrupting before he could go on, “What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily?”

You could tell just by the look on Jungkook’s face that he didn’t appreciate Namjoon’s uncouth behavior. This was a serious mission, after all. “I don’t remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop.”

“Still,” Namjoon hummed with amusement, “you are pretty spry for an older fellow.” A laugh lodged itself in your throat, but you masked it as a cough when Jungkook leveled you with a glare. “Must be weird, huh? You missed quite a lot of things. You know, while you were doing time as a Capsicle.”

One thing you learned about Namjoon that day was that he enjoyed provoking people purely for the fun of it. Just like his father did back then.

Before you could help yourself, you tilted your head and blurted out, “You look just like him.” For a second, Namjoon froze, an indiscernible expression painting his features blue. You gulped, suddenly realizing how inappropriate the statement was. “I’m so sorry, I—”

He raised a hand, and you immediately snapped your mouth shut. Despite your embarrassment, what you said was wholly true. They had the same tousled hair, dark playful eyes, hell, even their glasses were practically duplicates.

“I didn’t talk to my dad a lot.” His words were slightly despondent in tone, hinting at years of emotional distress. “But I do know that he never stopped looking for you.”

Bile rose in your throat, and you nodded once with downcast eyes.

“Really cool gadgets you got there,” Namjoon said, gesturing to your weapons in an effort to alleviate the rigid atmosphere. The second thing you learned about Namjoon was that he had trouble remaining serious in serious situations. “Mine are better, though. Not that this is a competition or anything.”

An airy scoff escaped you, and you shook your head with a slight smile fiddling at your lips. “Give me a week. We’ll see who’s got the better gear then.”

He opened his mouth to crack another joke, but was rudely cut off by the loud grumble of thunder, lightning streaking through the navy-grey clouds like a snake of electricity. The jet beneath you rumbled with turbulence. You got flashbacks to when you and Namjoon and Irene drove Jungkook out to the Hydra base to save Taehyung.

Your heart clenched painfully and you subconsciously stepped closer to Jungkook.

Even Loki looked spooked, eyes widened as he stared out the jet.

“What’s the matter?” goaded Namjoon. “Scared of a little lightning?”

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” the god responded.

Breath caught in your lungs, you swiveled to look out of the window, spotting a small figure hurtle through the storm. “We’re being tailed!” you yelled, which catapulted Jungkook and Namjoon into action.

Ever the reckless one, Namjoon threw his helmet on and stalked to the rear hatch, slamming it open.

“What are you doing?” Jungkook yelled over the sudden whooshing of wind.

It happened so quickly that you had trouble processing what was going on. A man with shoulder-length locks of spun sunlight landed on the deck, rattling the plane violently with him. Namjoon lifted his hand to blast the newcomer, but was promptly flung to the side of the jet with a heavy hammer to the chest. He strode forward and wrapped a burly arm around Loki’s neck, yanking him out of his bonds as if they were brittle thread. The two of them disappeared into the stormy fog with not another word. With a lump in your throat, you dropped to your knees beside Namjoon.

“Hey! You okay?” you asked, clasping the cold metal hand of his armor and yanking him upwards.

“Peachy keen,” Iron Man grumbled out, followed by a gruff thanks.

From the cockpit, Yeri asked over her shoulder, “Another Asgardian?”

“That guy’s a friendly?” Jungkook questioned, still in shock.

Namjoon made his way to the edge of the jet. You stepped forward, reaching out as if to stop him. Then you retracted your hand, a cold slap by reality reminding you that Namjoon wasn’t his father, no matter how similar they were. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract’s lost.”

“Namjoon, we need a plan of attack!” Jungkook stood beside you, brows furrowed, torn in indecision.

“I have a plan. Attack.” With that, he blasted off into the clouds, leaving behind a faint glowing trail of orange.

Frustratedly gnashing his teeth, Jungkook hurried to grab a parachute taped to the wall, shrugging on the straps and buckling in the safety.

“Jungkook, just stay here! Those guys are literal legends—”

“I can’t just sit back and let this happen, Y/N,” Jungkook mumbled, cupping your face in his hands before gently landing a kiss on your head. Blindly, you grappled behind you for his shield, handing it to him with nimble fingers. “Don’t follow me down there, okay?”

“But Jungkook—!”

A frown made home on your lips as he shot you a stern look, before whirling on his heels and jumping off the platform.

Now, usually you’d dive headfirst into the fight with Jungkook, no matter how many times he’d tell you to stay back. But you found yourself grappling against the jet walls, short of breath. The edges of your vision flickered black and blue, and suddenly your face found contact with the floor, and you were out cold as a light.

“Stop fussing,” you hissed with a glower as you batted at Jungkook’s gloved hands attempting to stick another band-aid onto your cheek, where there was a minuscule gash streaking down your cheekbone. “It was just an accident.”

“Yeah?” your friend queried with an unbelieving arch of his brow. “That’s not what Yeri said. She found you passed out. When was the last time you ate? Slept? Maybe we should get you in the infirmary. No point in waiting in a meeting room when the whole gang is missing.”

Huffing, you bit out, “Have some patience, will you? And it wasn’t that. I… I think it was the Tesseract.”

“What? Why?”

A sad smile, a hollow one that held no true happiness touched your lips. “Haven’t you ever wondered why I survived the ice? I shouldn’t have—it’s literally humanly impossible without the serum. The only reason why I’m here must be because of that damned energy source. Getting too close to it must’ve made my body remember what it was like being frozen.”

“Just tell me you’re okay,” Jungkook mumbled. “If you’re not, I’ll take you back home right now. You don’t have to do this.”

Your nose wrinkled at his words. “And what? Leave you here with Norse Gods and Namjoon Junior? No way.”

He deflated at your words in mild relief. “Thank goodness. Not sure what I would’ve done without you here, honestly.” When the rest of the crew filed into the meeting room, all stone-faced and scowling, you immediately sat up straight, folding your hands over the round table.

Thor, in all of his muscular glory, stared out the window blankly. “He has an army called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard or any known world. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, and in return, I suppose, they’ll get the Tesseract.”

“An army,” Jungkook deadpanned, “from outer space.”

“That means he’s building a portal,” you jolted upwards at the thought.

Hoseok crossed his arms over a purple button up. “That must be what he took Dr. Selvig for.”

“Loki has him under some sort of spell,” Yeri stated, leaning forward on the table, looking away as a stormy expression flickered over her usually stoic visage. “Along with another one of ours.”

That made your stomach drop. This situation was far worse than you had initially bargained for when you first flipped through that manila file.

“I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He’s not leading an army from here, is he?” asked Jungkook.

“I don’t think we should focus on Loki.” Hoseok grimaced, fidgeting with his glasses anxiously. “That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.”

The blank look in Thor’s eyes quickly shifted to one of defense. “Be careful with how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother.”

“He killed eighty people in two days.” Yeri narrowed her eyes, shifting back on the leather chair.

“... He’s adopted.”

“Iridium,” Hoseok mumbled as he inspected a monitor of brain-washed agents stealing the element. “What do they need iridium for?”

All of a sudden, Namjoon strode through the doors with a flourish, announcing his presence loud and clear for everybody in the room. You could’ve sworn you saw Jungkook roll his eyes to the side. The iron suit was nowhere to be seen. In its absence, Namjoon wore a dark, long-sleeve shirt with an obscure rock band you didn’t know of.

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” the man said with a cocky smirk. “So the portal won’t collapse in on itself like it did at SHIELD.”

Leaving Jungkook’s side, you pushed yourself from the chair and made your way beside Hoseok, pointing at the iridium displayed on the screen. “Namjoon’s right. A bridge with no support is bound to collapse. Throw in trusses, and you have yourself a sturdy transportation system. One that can stay up and running as long as Loki wants.”

A mock-gasp left Namjoon, leveling you with an amused look. “Don’t be a show off, that’s my job!” Snickering, he stood up to the main monitors and lifted his hands as if conducting an opera. “Raise the mizzenmast! Jib the topsails!”

Everybody stayed quiet, save for you and your muffled snort.

“The rest of the raw materials, agent Barton can get his hands on easily,” Namjoon uttered, coming to stand beside you. He practically radiated confidence, uncaring about being wrong because he knew for a fact that he was right. A part of you yearned to feel an ounce of what he exuded. What was it like to be so certain of everything all the time? “The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube.”

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” you asked, turning to look at him curiously. “Last I checked, you specialized in physics and electronic engineering.”

“Oh, so you’re checking up on me now?” Namjoon simpered with a suggestive lilt, to which you scowled and shifted your irises to the artificial lights of the helicarrier’s meeting room. “I read up last night. I’d expect someone like you to have read through Selvig’s notes. Extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did my homework here?”

You spent last night curled up in bed, crying yourself raw over thoughts of Taehyung, sobbing with his cold dog tags clutched tightly in your fists. But Namjoon didn’t need to know that.

“Didn’t get the opportunity,” you hummed, shrugging your shoulders.

“It’s alright, you get a pass.” He gestured to your bloodied face. “I fought a god, and you fell on the ground.”

On second thought, the resemblance between Senior and Junior was narrowing quickly.

“Hey! Lay off, will you?” barked Jungkook, muted anger emanating from his terse form. “Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?”

��He would have to heat the Cube to a hundred twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Hoseok mused, swiping across the monitor to draw out a simple model of the portal.

Tentative, you shook your head. “Unless Dr. Selvig figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.” Throwing Namjoon a playful glance, you childishly raised your brows. “I didn’t get to do my homework yesterday, but I read ahead on everything before the mission started. Not that it’s a competition or anything.” The last bit was a snarky reference to what Namjoon had said about your weapons when he first met you. You were only met with an impressed chortle.

“Well, if he could do that, he’d be able to achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet,” Dr. Jung narrowed his eyes in thought, finally stopping his fingers from fiddling with the hooks of his glasses, perching them on the bridge of his nose.

“Finally!” Namjoon exclaimed as he threw his hands up into the air dramatically. “Someone who speaks my language!”

“Is that what that was?” Jungkook looked as befuddled as a child who’s lost their parents at a store. You made your way back to him, gratefully sinking back into the seat and curling into his side.

As Namjoon spoke to Hoseok (or, more accurately, poked fun at Hoseok’s ability to… morph), you shut your eyes and leaned against Jungkook, drained from the fight and tired from the constant noise.

Min Yoongi came not longer after, swiftly telling Namjoon, “Dr. Jung is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him. Y/N too. The three of you are probably the most brilliant available minds we have in America right now.”

Jungkook patted at your head, voicing what you were already thinking. “What about that staff of his? Y/N said they could feel its powers from the Tesseract.”

Chewing at the inside of your cheek, you righted yourself and nodded along. “The scepter may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon. “

“I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the Cube. And I’d like to know how Loki used it to turn the two of my sharpest men into his personal flying monkeys.”

“Monkeys?” Thor asked with a concerned tone. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“I do.” Jungkook perked up, clapping his hands once. “I understood that. I… got that reference.”

Grimacing, you draped your elbow onto Jungkook’s shoulder, hushing him quietly. “Alright, calm down, big guy.”

Namjoon obnoxiously rolled his eyes while scoffing, before promptly addressing you. “Wanna play with Hoseok and I in the lab, Y/N?”

You could feel Min Yoongi’s one good eye piercing you alive. Hesitantly, you nodded an affirmative, pushing yourself up with an affectionate clap to Jungkook’s shoulder. You might’ve felt a little off yesterday, but you supposed that it was just first day jitters. Pain still hung over you like a dreary storm cloud, a constant damp shroud of despair hovering over your form.

You think you’re ready to open up an umbrella.

The scepter was an oddly shaped thing, hilt holding intricate designs engraved into the polished metal, the top end consisting of two elegantly-curved blades that held a fractal of the Tesseract’s power between them.

“Gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s reports of the Cube,” Hoseok observed as he scanned the scepter. “But it’s going to take weeks to process.”

“Bypass the mainframe,” both you and Namjoon said at the same time.

“Jinx, you owe me a soda.” He pointed to you without sparing you a glance, though there was a grin playing at his lips.

A frown creased your face. “I don’t get that reference, Namjoon. You gotta stop with those until I’m all caught up.”

“I’m not waiting around for you. Here, catch.” Namjoon threw you a USB, which you swiftly grasped and plugged into the computer. “Direct the route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops.”

You clicked your tongue at the side of your mouth. “I can’t believe I signed up for this mission. I barely packed anything.”

“You think you’ve got it bad?” Hoseok chuckled as he carded a hand through his tresses, tapping his pen against the table in thought. “I only packed a toothbrush.”

There was a crash that echoed across the lab as Namjoon threw another crumpled piece of paper to the overflowing trash can, making the bin fall over and all the scrapped ideas scattered over the floor.

“I’m not picking that up,” you said before returning to your work.

Namjoon faux-glared at you. “You know, the both of you should come over to Kim Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You’d love it, it’s candyland.” Once Hoseok timidly declined the invitation in accordance with the green fellow, Namjoon sidled up next to you. “We’d love to have you. What you’ve got up in that noggin of yours is valuable stuff. Say, you ever thought about getting a suit? A proper one?”

“I’d love to build myself one. Just need the right equipment. Haven’t had the time, really,” you responded around a mouthful of a sandwich you were forcing down for lunch. Namjoon reached for the other half of your sandwich, but you didn’t have the heart to stop him.

“I’d be more than willing to give you the equipment. Or a suit for that matter.”

All of a sudden, you stopped working, dropping your sandwich and dusted your hands off before propping them onto your hips. “Namjoon—can I call you that?” At his nod, you carried on, “Namjoon, we only met a couple hours ago. What’s going on? Why are you… I don’t understand what you’re trying to do. Size me up? Compete with me? Take advantage of me?”

“Uhm,” the billionaire held up a finger, “it’s called making friends, Y/N.”

“But…” you paused, cautiously hesitant with what you were going to say next. “Why would you want to be friends with me and not Jungkook? Is it because of your dad?”

Namjoon pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, you sounded like Wendy for a second there. And, no, I just think you’re cool. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” you deadpanned.

“Fair enough.” Namjoon shrugged. “Still making you that suit, though.”

Not bothering to spare him a response, you returned to work with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t long after that you heard a gentle zap of a low-voltage taser spark from the other side of the laboratory. Hoseok and Namjoon were children, you were sure of it.

“Ow!”

Namjoon leaned forward, observing Hoseok’s skin for any… noticeable changes. “Really? Nothing at all?”

The lights came into your field of view as you rolled your irises. “Quit it, Namjoon.”

As if on cue, Jungkook stormed in, a frown heavy-set on his features. “Are you nuts?”

Namjoon barely paid attention to your friend, continuing to pester Hoseok (who had smiled awkwardly and meandered around him to continue working). “What’s your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” Jungkook spat, frustration getting a little too out of hand. At this point, you hopped off your stool and walked to them, stopping beside Jungkook with a hand on his forearm. You said his name gently, which made him glance at you with a far softer look than what he supplied Namjoon.

“Funny things are,” replied Namjoon.

With pursed lips, you gently shook your head at Namjoon, telling him to keep his clam shut. Though, with what you knew of him, you surmised that that was highly unlikely.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny. No offense, Doc.”

“It’s alright,” Hoseok chuckled airily. “I wouldn’t have come onboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things. Or zappy things.”

Namjoon plucked the pen from the doctor’s fingers and flicked it at his forehead. Living embodiment of a child. “You’re tip-toeing, big man. You gotta strut that stuff.”

“You need to focus on the problem, Mr. Kim,” Jungkook reprimanded.

Chewing on your lip, you pondered on saying something, telling them to stop bickering, but you kept your mouth snapped shut.

“Do you think I’m not?” Namjoon shot back just as quickly. “Why did Yoongi call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn’t he telling us?”

Blinking in mild surprise, you reared around to look at him clearly. You had never pegged Namjoon as a conspiracist. “You think Min’s hiding something?”

“He’s a spy.” Hands splayed over the table as he slanted over the sleek glass to lean close to you. “Dubbed ‘the’ spy. Narcissists, am I right?” You snorted out a laugh, turning back to Jungkook, who sported an even gloomier frown than what he came in with.

“Come on, Jungkook,” you said, tilting your head to him, “Namjoon has a point. I don’t like to be kept in the dark, either.”

Even Hoseok nodded along with you. “‘A warm light for all of mankind’ is what Loki said to Yoongi. I think he was referencing you,” the doctor murmured, plucking a blueberry from a platter of fruits Namjoon held. Where in the hell did he get that? “Even if Clint didn’t tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news.”

“The Kim Tower?” you queried, hopping up on the table to try and pluck a pineapple off the plate. “That big, ugly building in the middle of New York, yeah?” Jungkook chuckled lowly at your words, but Namjoon stuck his tongue out at you and yanked the fruits away.

“It’s powered by an arc reactor. A self-sustaining energy source so that the building could run itself for around a year,” Hoseok explained to Jungkook, who had trouble keeping up.

“Prototype!” the billionaire exclaimed, setting the platter to the side so he could fiddle with the monitor. “I’m kind of the only name in clean energy right now.”

“Brag,” you muttered beneath your breath.

“I heard that.”

“Yeah, whatever.” With a gesture of your hands, you mimicked connecting the dots to Jungkook. “So, if Namjoon’s a big name in such a scarce industry, why hasn’t Director Min called him beforehand? You told me yourself, Jungkook, you didn’t know he was coming. Namjoon didn’t know until just a few days ago, either. They didn’t call him onto the Tesseract project before Loki came, see? What was SHIELD planning to do with the source in the first place?”

Namjoon pointed at you with a grin. “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”

“I don’t get the reference, Namjoon.”

Jungkook seemed to grow more agitated and confused by the second. If he was to be honest, the fact that you were siding with Namjoon and not him wounded him more than he’d care to admit.

“We can watch the movie together. It’ll be great.” He clapped his hands together. “Anyways, I should probably look into what they’re planning to do once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD’s secure files.”

Now, this was a surprise to you as well.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook stepped forward and held his hands up with tightly-drawn brows, “did you just say—?”

“Yup!” Namjoon turned the monitor to briefly flash his handiwork. “Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I’ll know every dirty little secret SHIELD’s got to hide. I feel like a parent finding their kid’s porn video folder.”

“That’s… amazing,” you breathed out just as Jungkook grumbled out ‘awful’. “Not the porn part. Obviously.”

The bridge of his nose wrinkled. “And yet you’re confused about why they didn’t want you around.”

Scoffing, Namjoon countered swiftly, “An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome.”

“I think Loki’s trying to wind us up.” Jungkook exhaled a shallow, frustrated breath. “This is a man who means to start a war. If we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them.”

“Hm.” Namjoon pretended to consider him for a second. “Following isn’t really my style.”

“Yeah, you’re all about style, aren’t you?”

A dark eyebrow arched, Namjoon’s irises running over Jungkook’s suit in an exaggerated manner. “Of the people in this room, which one is wearing A, a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?”

Alright, maybe you laughed at his jabs before, but that was uncalled for. “Namjoon, come on. Jungkook’s just trying to stop the bad guy.”

“And if we were working for the bad guys all this time?” Namjoon narrowed his gaze at you. “What then? I put on a party hat and tell you I told you so?”

Having heard enough, Jungkook firmly gripped your arm and pulled you so you were forced to rotate and look at him. “Y/N, you’re not really with these guys, are you? That information might be classified for a reason.”

A frown crossed your lips, and you carefully extracted your limb from his grasp. “Look, Jungkook, I’m just trying to look for the Tesseract. But… if it turns out I can’t trust SHIELD, then I have to know so I can stop it from getting into the wrong hands. You understand that, right?”

A piece of your already shattered heart crumbled apart even further when Jungkook shuffled backward, shaking his head in palpable disappointment. He left the laboratory after shooting Namjoon a dirty glare, muttering something about finding the Tesseract.

“That’s who my dad never used to shut up about, huh?” Namjoon rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder his pupils weren’t permanently stuck looking into the back of his skull. “I’m wondering if they should’ve kept him on the ice.”

Freezing at the mention of Namjoon Senior and the particularly harsh jab at Jungkook, you felt the inevitable rush of tears prick at the corner of your eyes angrily.

“Oh, really?” you asked, crossing your arms with a watery scowl. “Would I have to go back down in the ice with him, then? Everything I lost, it wouldn’t have mattered because I should be dead too, right? Let me tell you something, Kim. You are nothing like your father. Your father was an amazing man who helped millions. And there you stand, making fun of my only friend like he did something wrong. If this is your way of making ‘friends’, I don’t want to be part of it.”

Stunned silence flushed over the lab. You were breathing heavily, casting a deathly glower towards Namjoon, who had finally learned how to shut up for once in his life.

“I’m going back to work,” you murmured, anger fading away just as quickly as it came. You hadn’t the energy to remain mad.

At one point, Hoseok started speaking to Namjoon again, but you drowned out their hushed conversation, too busy trying to stave away the hot wave of choked up emotions, all with one hand clutched at the dog tags looped around your neck.

Yeri was ruthless. She drilled you with questions on your background, your knowledge, what you were good at, what you needed practice with, all while holding the same disinterested expression.

“Ever killed anyone?”

“Nazis,” you whispered after a moment’s hesitance.

She was quick to move on, not even batting an eye at your morbid response. “Family?”

Your eyes found home on the grooves of the room’s flooring. “None.”

The atmosphere lost a little bit of its stiff tension at that.

It seemed all the questions were worth it, because the agent wore a slight smile as she dropped her tablet. “You’re all good,” she said softly. “Come on. Director Min wants you up there with me.”

“What are we doing, exactly?”

“Loki must have a plan. He wouldn’t have given himself up that easily,” she explained as she led you through the maze of corridors. “Our job is to get a handle of what he tries to tell us.”

“Why… Why does Yoongi want me in there?”

Yeri sent you an amused side-glance. “He said you’re one of the world’s brightest minds, no? Not only that, but you’re the only one out of all of us that had some sort of experience with the Tesseract. Could be used to our advantage.”

How? By making me dizzy? You thought almost bitterly, biting at the inside of your cheek.

The glass chamber that Loki was kept in was an impressive one. You raised your eyebrows at the solid infrastructure, the glass surrounding the god glowing a faint tint of cerulean. There was a smile that twisted his handsome features in a way that screamed malice.

“There’s not many people that can sneak up on me.” His words, clearly directed to Yeri, were said in a glib fashion, the green fabric of his outfit seeming to ripple with every step he took closer to the secured barrier. Then, his eyes found yours, storm-like. Electrifying. “Not you, though. I heard you coming from decades away. An old soul, aren’t you?”

“You knew I’d come,” you whispered, narrowing your own lids in suspicion.

The god spread his arms out as if he were a winning gladiator in an arena. “I presumed after, actually. After whatever tortures the director would concoct for me, they’d send you. As a friend… a soothing balm. After all, it’s what you did back in the forties, was it not? Licked the wounds of your precious Captain and the brown-eyed soldier of—”

“Enough,” you hissed out, fury staining your intonation like inky blood would a river. There was no way you were letting Loki press into your past like that.

Stock-still, an ever present shadow of cautiously-masked indifference that went by the name Yeri Romanoff spoke out from beside you, words melded from cold steel, “I want to know what you’ve done to agent Barton.”

“I say I’ve expanded his mind,” sneered Loki.

“And then? After you’ve climbed the top of the mountain and sat on a throne of severed heads… what happens to his mind then? A man doesn’t bother apologizing to a flower they’ve trampled on.” It was hard to believe that you were speaking words of philosophy to a murderous god.

“Interesting,” Loki hummed.

There was a minuscule crack to Yeri’s expressionless features. “Will you hurt him?”

A laugh, one that fell like ghostly wind chimes, reverberated throughout his cage of glass. “Is that love I detect, agent Yeri?”

“Love is for children,” Yeri swiftly replied. That definitely stung a bit. “I owe him a debt.”

This man was a master manipulator, you surmised as he beckoned for Yeri to go on. He planned for her to pour out her soul, only to then plunge his taloned fingers in and rip it apart by the seams. While the assassin beside you prattled on about her past life of blood and death with Barton, you took to observing the god with something akin to curious disgust. He said something that made Yeri visibly freeze up, and you turned to her in concern. Then, Loki was suddenly in front of the glass, only inches away from you, slamming his fist against the barrier with a resounding thud that made both you and Yeri flinch harshly. He spoke more, empty taunts of a painful death. Out of character, the deadly assassin spun on her heel and hunched over slightly, sniffling as she held down wracking sobs. All fake, you deduced once you spotted her tapping her finger three times against her leather-clad thigh, just for you to see. You couldn’t help but marvel at her acting skills.

“And you,” Loki spat out of the blue, which made your gaze snap up to his. “You walk around this craft as if you’re free of sin. Your ledgers are gushing just as red as the murderer beside you. Worse, in fact. Kim Taehyung plummeted from a train to his icy death while you sat in a lab and fiddled with your thumbs. If you had gone with them on the mission, he wouldn’t be in brainwashed pain right now. No, instead, you holed up with Kim Namjoon and convinced yourself that you were making a difference. I’m afraid to be the one to inform you, but you did nothing. Is that what you pathetic mortals call love? Something to toss aside as if it were meaningless?

“This is my bargain, you mewling quim. I’ll make Barton kill the both of you slow and intimate, in every way he knows you fear. Then he’ll wake just long enough to see the mess of blood dripping from between his fingers, and when he screams, I’ll split his skull!”

Rage clouded your vision, roiling through your veins. Tumultuous were your thoughts as you grit your teeth and forced your burning gaze away. None of what he says should be listened to, you told yourself, according to all the legends, he is the god of trickery. So why was it so hard to look past his words? Why did it strike you true and hard? And what did he mean by Taehyung being in brainwashed pain? There was no point in dwelling on that; as Hoseok perfectly mentioned before, Loki’s head was but a bag of cats.

“You’re a monster,” Yeri choked out.

A heinous laugh rang from the crystal prison. “Oh, no. You brought the monster.”

Bingo. A smile suddenly broke through your mourning frontage. “So, Hoseok, huh? That’s your play?”

For the first time since you stepped foot into the holding quarters, Loki appeared genuinely surprised. “What?”

Yeri placed a warm hand on your shoulder before leading you away hurriedly, pressing the coms in her ear and spoke, “Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Hoseok in the lab, I’m on my way. Send Thor as well.” She paused in her swift strides abruptly, sending forth a sarcastic slant of her lips to the befuddled god. “Thank you for the cooperation.”

With that, she stalked out of the room.

God, she was so cool. You followed out with your own congratulatory grin splaying over your lips, but that heavy feeling of impending dread still clawed at your chest, begging to be let go. Let go, let go, let go, the faceless voice shrieked.

It seemed your umbrella had holes in it.

You walked straight into a heated argument between Namjoon, Jungkook, and Yoongi.

“Did you know about this?” Horseok immediately asked Yeri, who stepped into the lab after you, followed by Thor.

Know what? Your eyes landed on the contraption Jungkook had clutched in his arms, which he threw onto the table with a look of disgust. Oh. You were hoping not to be right, just this once. Namjoon caught sight of you, nodding his head once before rotating the monitor to show you the progress on tracking the Cube. You still hadn’t forgiven him for his earlier negligence, but you shot him a grateful look nonetheless.

You meandered around the bristling agents to get to Jungkook, placing a hand on his arm, a silent question hanging between the two of you. Jungkook might have also been mad at you before, but there were far more pressing matters to tend to at the moment. Not to mention that you were right to be suspicious, anyways. SHIELD was planning to make weapons out of the source.

“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” Yeri asked, cocking her head to the door.

“Heh, I was pretty well removed back in Calcutta until you came slithering in,” replied Hoseok as he recoiled away from her.

“Loki’s manipulating you.”

“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?”

Despite his obvious restraint, Yeri persisted. “You didn’t come here because I batted my eyelashes at you.”

“Yeah, and I’m not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy. Now, what I’d like to know is why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.” Hoseok slid his glasses off the bridge of his nose and hooked them onto his button up shirt.

Exasperated, Yoongi leveled a glare with everybody in the room. Even with everyone against him, he still managed to appear intimidating. You had to give him props for that.

“Because of him.” He pointed to Thor.

“Me?” echoed Thor, affronted.

Yoongi took to pacing around the lab as he explained. “Last year. We had another unearthly visitor. Leveled a small town completely from a grudge. SHIELD learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your kind!” Thor bellowed.

“But you’re not the only one out there,” you whispered, finally understanding what the director was getting at. The rest of the team’s gazes on you made your skin flush with heat. “That inevitably means there are more threats as well.”

Solemn, Yoongi bowed his head at your words. “The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched. That can’t be controlled.”

Jungkook, however, was still stiff with opposition. “Like you controlled the Cube?”

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki and his allies here,” Thor growled out. “It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

Suddenly, everybody started speaking over each other. Your heart thudded within your ribcage; noise… too much noise.

“A higher form of war?” Jungkook whispered.

“You forced our hand!” barked Yoongi.

Namjoon deadpanned, “Nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms things right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Namjoon?” The eyepatched director shot back.

Jungkook took a step forward. “I’m sure if he still made weapons, Namjoon would be neck-deep in—”

“Hold on, how is this now about me?” “Oh, I’m sorry, isn’t everything?”

“Jungkook!” you interjected, casting him a warning glare.

Even Thor managed to throw in his two cents. “I thought you humans were more evolved than this!”

“Excuse me, were we the ones to hop onto your planet and start blowing things up?” Yoongi was starting to sound exasperated.

Too many voices, too much noise. You could feel that familiar pounding of a headache taking root into your skull, tendrils of pain curling around your head.

“Are you guys really that stupid?” Yeri hissed. “SHIELD monitors potential threats.”

“Captain Jeon’s on threat watch?”

The arguing blended into indiscernible voices, replaced by a prominent ringing that sang its warbling song into your ear drums. Right behind all of you stood Loki’s scepter, the Tesseract’s power glowing its distinct electric blue. Was it just you or had it gotten brighter since you stepped into the room?

“What are we, a team? No, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re… we’re a time bomb.” Agitation colored Hoseok’s features a strange hue.

“You need to step away,” Yoongi warned.

Of course, Namjoon interposed loudly, “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Then he had the audacity to land his palm on Jungkook’s shoulder, just as you did so many times. But Jungkook merely scowled at this, quick to shove his arm away.

“You know damn well why! Back off!” Jungkook commanded in a stern tone.

“Oh, I’m startin’ to want you to make me,” he taunted.

Alright, you supposed that was your cue to step in. “Namjoon, stop. We don’t have to argue about this, it’s a waste of time—!”

“Big man in a suit of armor.” Jungkook was so caught up in his own emotions that he accidentally cut you off before you could finish. His nose wrinkled as he stared Namjoon down, pulling at you so that he stood between you and the offending man. Even subconsciously, Jungkook was trying to protect you. “Take that off, and what are you?”

“Genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist.”

You would have laughed if not for the incredibly terse situation at hand.

“I know guys with none of that are worth ten of you,” Jungkook snarled. Taehyung. You knew he was talking about Taehyung. Who else could it be? “I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself.”

“Hey, come on.” You sidestepped his bristling form, wedging yourself between the two men who had taken to glowering at each other, almost nose-to-nose in their dick slinging contest. It wasn’t like Jungkook to lose control like this; throwing insults wasn’t exactly what you’d call regular behavior for him. The stress was most definitely getting to him. “Will you guys quit it?

Despite your protest, Jungkook kept speaking directly over your shoulder. “You’re not the kind to make the sacrifice play. Never laid down on a wire so the other guy could crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire,” Namjoon quipped, picking at his nails disinterestedly.

A strained silence flourished over the group for a beat of a second.

“Jungkook,” you whispered-yelled, “come on, just stop.” The headache brewing in your temple was growing worse, pulsating and throbbing with a raw urgency.

It stung how he ignored you completely. “You might not be a threat, Namjoon, but you better stop pretending like you’re a hero.”

Alright, that was it. Glunching, you pushed at Jungkook’s chest, afraid that he was going to maul Namjoon right then and there.

“A hero?” the billionaire mocked. “Like you? You’re a lab experiment, Jeon. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

You whirled around, crossing your arms with a snarl. “Jungkook is a Captain with or without the serum, Namjoon.”

“Untrue,” he countered, “because if your pal there didn’t have the serum, he’d be dead.”

A bitter scoff fell past your lungs. “Oh, dead like I am right now? I’m as serum-less as it gets.”

“Put on the suit. Let’s go a few rounds,” Jungkook jabbed.

“No!” The pain in your head was starting to grow unbearable. “You guys are being children. We have a job to do.”

Thor started laughing from behind all of you. “You people are so petty,” he crooned, “... and tiny.”

A heavy sigh escaped Yoongi. “Yeri, please escort Dr. Jung to his—”

“Where?” the scientist asked with a resentful tone. “You rented my room!”

“The cell was just in case—”

“In case you needed to kill me!” Hoseok roared. “But you can’t. I know, I tried.”

The room fell so muted that you could hear the fluttering of your heart warble in your ears.

“I got low. I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth. The other guy spit it right back out. So I moved on… focused on helping other people. I was doing good until you dragged me back into this freakshow and put everyone here at risk.”

A gasp lodged itself in your throat, but nothing came out. Instead, you slid out your knives in one hand and slowly lifted a wrist-blaster you had quickly built during your lunch break. In your peripheral vision, you caught sight of Yeri and Yoongi both placing their hands on the holsters of their guns.

“Dr. Jung,” Jungkook said, stepping forward. “Put down the scepter.”

Horrified, the scientist loosened his grip on the staff, tossing it onto the table with widened eyes. You let out a loose sigh of relief and lowered your hands. A light ding emitting from the corner of the lab made you swivel around.

“Got it,” Hoseok grumbled as he stalked to the computer. “Sorry kids, you don’t get to see my party trick after all.”

“You located the Tesseract?”

“I could get there the fastest!” Namjoon proclaimed.

“You’re not going alone,” growled Jungkook, shoving the man back with an arm to the chest.

Namjoon shot him a dirty glare while shoving the offending arm away from him. “You gonna stop me?”

“Put on the suit, let’s find out!”

“I’m not afraid to hit an old man,” Namjoon snickered.

Jungkook gnashed his teeth together. “Put on the suit.”

At this point, you didn’t bother trying to stop their childish gimmicks. You were far more interested in the Tesseract.

“Hoseok?” you asked, turning from the arguing duo, noting the scientist’s confused guise. “What is it?”

Life always had a way of flipping itself upside down. Abruptly, the helicarrier jolted violently and an explosion rippled clean through the lab. The glass panes shattered into a million fractals of glittering shards, hailing down onto the floor. Amber, ochre, and ashen smoke filled your vision in the form of flames and sparks. You were blown to the side of the room, thankful for the repulsion technology you had clipped on for the mission, sliding down a wall with minimal impact.

“Jungkook!” you shrieked just before accidentally inhaling a lungful of smoke. Eyes burning, you shoved your nose into the crook of your elbow and shuffled forward, carefully stepping over the cracks of the floor and leaping to where you saw his familiar blue suit. He was sprawled out on the floor, in the midst of pushing himself up with a groan.

“Are you okay?” he asked upon seeing you. At the grimaced bob of your head, he turned to Namjoon, who sported a thin rivulet of scarlet blood running down the side of his face. “Put on your suit.”

The three of you sprinted down the halls to the main room of the helicarrier.

“Engine three down! I’ll meet you there!” Namjoon yelled, relaying the information Maria Hill had told him through the comms. Jungkook took off in the direction he pointed, and you were about to follow after him before Namjoon stuck his arm out, leading you to the armory room. “I built you a suit! It’s made out of spare parts, but it’ll do for now! Consider it an apology gift.”

Your jaw unhinged at his words. “What? A suit? Namjoon, when in the hell did you…? Nevermind, we have to hurry!” The two of you ushered into a separate room. With a click of a button, the walls slid open to reveal Namjoon’s infamously sleek suit, along with a second, more shoddier version of it.

“Thanks,” you muttered beneath your breath. “Could use some tweaking, though.”

“I had two hours, give me a break,” Namjoon rolled his eyes, but offered you a weak smile. It wasn’t properly said, but you could tell that he was genuinely sorry for his harsh words earlier today. He might’ve had a riff with Jungkook, but the man didn’t want to be at a stalemate with you.

The suit he made you consisted of glossy platelets of silver metal, glowing a faint blue once he activated it. “Calibration is automatic,” he said as he stepped into his own iron attire. “Just say the word and it’ll be at your beck and call.”

Grateful, you murmured another word of thanks before shuffling forward and allowing the suit to close in on you. It fit like a glove, adjusting to meld over your body perfectly. Floating blue programs fanned in front of your vision, and you blinked in awe at seeing the suit’s stats in the top right corner.

“Ready?” Namjoon called.

“As I’ll ever be.”

With that, the two of you took off. You were slightly wobbly with the jets coming out of your hands and feet at first, but quick to adjust. In a way, it wasn’t unsimilar to your anti-gravity models. Namjoon led the way, flying out of the helicarrier and rounding to where a large chunk of the craft was demolished, just beside one of the main engines. Jungkook stood in the middle of the wreckage, looking at you with widened eyes.

“You’re flying!” he exclaimed.

“Sorry I can’t take you up here with me,” you replied as you drew nearer. “No offense, but you’re a little heavy.”

A small smile quirked his lips, but it was short-lived, dying away when Namjoon spoke again. “I gotta get this superconducting coolant system back online. Before I can access the rotors, work on dislodging the debris. I need you to get that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in the overload position!” Jungkook nodded, springing into action by leaping across the ruins and yanking open the hidden panels.

“Stand back, Namjoon,” you said, allowing him enough time to jerk back before blowing apart the metal parts covering the engine.

“Could’ve done with more warning!” Namjoon shrieked, but you only half-shrugged.

“What does it look like in there?” you asked Jungkook.

“Uh…” the blonde scratched at his head, miffed. “Looks like it runs on electricity.”

A snort escaped you. “Thanks, Jungkook! Just what I needed to know.”

As Namjoon gave Jungkook orders (and Jungkook willingly complied, though reluctantly, much to your surprise), you flew around the engine, scanning all damages and calculating the most efficient way to keep the craft going with it momentarily down.

“Relays intact! What’s our next move?”

“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won’t re-engage without a jump. I’m going to have to get in there and push,” Namjoon said, his voice echoing through your suit’s comms. His words shot a chill down your spine.

Panicked, you quickly replied, “Namjoon, if that thing picks up speed, you’ll be shredded!”

“That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage the maglev, and that could—”

“I don’t speak science!” Jungkook asserted, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

The blasters on your feet blew saxe flames as you flew over to where Namjoon was. “The red lever beside you, Guk!” Namjoon pointed to the large slants of metal debris wedged between the engine blades. You nodded in understanding, using the lasers embedded in the bionic arm of your suit to break them apart. “It’ll slow the rotors down long enough for us to get out.”

“Us?” Both Namjoon and Jungkook protested.

Your nose twitched. “You’re going to need someone there to catch you should you fall, Namjoon. We need all the manpower we can get.”

“No! Y/N, you don’t—!”

Before Jungkook could finish the sentence, Namjoon interjected. “They’re right! Stand by the lever, wait for my call.”

Worry clouded your consciousness when you heard gunshots ricochet from the area Jungkook was in, followed by the clanging of that vibranium shield. You relaxed slightly, returning to the task at hand.

“You okay, Jungkook?”

“I can handle it!” His voice was strained over the comms.

With all the obstructions cleared, you flew up to Namjoon, lining beside him, preparing to push at the engine to get it going.

“We’re losing altitude!” Yoongi bellowed through the crackling transmission.

“Yup, noticed!” quipped Namjoon just before igniting the blasters. You mimicked his actions, steadily gaining velocity as the both of you shoved with your combined forces.

The surge of resistive wind was trying its hardest to push you back, but you thrusted yourself along, brows knitting in concentration. Every part of your body burned, and you quickly grew dizzy at the constant spinning. Adrenaline coursed through your veins, viscous and golden. You could feel the helicarrier plummeting down, down, down, your gut sinking along with it.

No. No, that can’t happen! People can’t die because you weren’t doing enough. Not again. Not ever again.

A worn yell ripped from your throat as you kept propelling ahead. There was so much blood rushing to your head that you hadn’t even heard Namjoon’s mirrored scream.

“Cap, hit the lever!” He gritted out. From a quick glance to your right, you could see that his grip was faltering. “NOW!”

“I need a minute here!” Jungkook’s voice echoed back.

Your lungs burned when you cracked your lips apart to wheeze out his name, desperate on your tongue. You weren’t quite sure how much longer you could last.

The engine started moving too quickly for you and Namjoon to keep up. For a millisecond of an inhale, you looked to Namjoon, and he looked to you.

“Oh, shit,” both of you whispered in horrified synchronization. Then, the both of you were sucked downwards, flopping beneath the spinning metal like washed-up fish on a beach. Pain blossomed over your muscles, and you were eternally grateful for the strong armor that encompassed your body. Now, you weren’t one to be afraid easily. But stuck here, iron grinding against steel wailing in your ears, sparks of heat dancing in your vision, you don’t recall ever being more panicked in your life.

Except… well, except driving a plane straight into the ice.

Utter relief flushed through your system only seconds later. The barrier you were clanking against slid open promptly, and you flailed in the air for a bit before gaining your footing once more, turning on the blasters to keep you upright. Thank god for Jungkook and his lever-pulling skills.

You heard more shots, phantom explosions echoing in your ears followed by Jungkook’s pained grunt. With your breath caught in your throat, you flew around and zeroed in on a man with a gun, pelting Jungkook with shots, which he narrowly parried away with his shield.

Tunnel vision made you snarl out a filthy obscenity before you jetted forward, punching the man square in the face. The both of you went sprawling to the ground, the impact knocking him clean unconscious.

Panting, you rolled over and wheezed out a broken laugh before slipping into cold darkness, Jungkook’s panicked yells echoing in the recesses of your mind, and Taehyung’s warm smile flickering behind your eyelids.

“Two broken fingers.”

“Jungkook—”

“Sprained ankle. Pulled thigh muscle. Fractured wrist.”

“Jungkook—!”

“You’ve got bruises everywhere!” The man in front of you clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have put yourself on the line like that.”

A frown tainted your split lip. “You’re not allowed to tell me that. It’s what you do every day, Guk. I might not have the serum, but I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Stop fussing so much, will you?” your voice was but a hushed whisper, soothing in tone. It made Jungkook stop bristling, but he wrapped a protective arm around you nonetheless. Jungkook had changed back into a navy long sleeve, clinging onto the muscles of his biceps. You would’ve laughed at the ridiculously tight fit if your lungs didn’t ache whenever you took a breath.

The meeting room grew eerily quiet. Even Namjoon was silent, brooding mutedly as he propped his chin on his knuckles. Min Yoongi was the only other one in the wrecked room, standing as still as a shadowed statue. The helicarrier was in absolute shambles. Everything was covered in splinters of glass, and the flooring was crumbled. The lights flickered on and off repeatedly, pathetically dousing the four of you in dim amber luminescence for momentary periods of time.

“These were in Phil Coulson’s jacket,” Yoongi muttered, flicking cards onto the table. Bloodied, they stained the surface a startling shade of cerise, sending a chill thrumming up your spine. “Guess he never did get you to sign them.”

A sinking feeling graced your abdomen, and you sent Jungkook a worried glance, observing the way his eyebrows creased into a crestfallen expression. He gingerly reached over with his free hand to pick one up, frowning when he turned one over to see himself saluting, marred by the smudges of dried ichor. You could only shuffle closer to him, resting a pounding head against his shoulder.

“Where’s Hoseok?” you murmured, voice far more frail than you would’ve liked.

Yoongi grimaced. “Not here. Thor’s nowhere to be found as well.” You waited with bated breath for his next words. “We were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though. There was an idea—Namjoon knows this—one called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could be something more. To see if they could work together when the world needed them most. Fight the battles that we couldn’t even begin to hope for. Phil Coulson died still believing that idea. In heroes.”

At that, Namjoon huffed a resigned sigh, pushing his chair from the table. The screech of metal against glass made your head throb. Before you knew it, he was striding away, shoulders squared.

“Well,” Yoongi swept his gaze to the two of you, “it’s an old-fashioned notion.”

A gulp lodged in your throat, and you did nothing but clutch onto Jungkook all the tighter.

You found Namjoon outside. It’d been hours since Yoongi talked to you. You spent the free time fixing up the suit Namjoon had given you, installing new compartments and fixing up all the bugs. When you were finally satisfied with your handicraft, you packed the suit away and took off to find him. He was leaning on the helicarrier’s railway, features drawn into a pensive expression. The breeze blew gentle, tousling his already haphazard strands of hair. He hadn’t looked surprised to see you when you sidled up beside him, adjusting your arm sling so you wouldn’t accidentally elbow him in the abdomen.

“Hi,” you whispered. “Got sick of Guk. Kept bugging me about the suit, so I wanted to come out and check if you’re okay.”

“‘M fine,” Namjoon replied. There was a gentle smirk on his lips from your slight jab at Jungkook. “Not. It’s whatever.”

An off-hand hum rumbled from deep within you. It was obvious that Namjoon was upset about Coulson. There was a certain fear inside him that you understood all too well; tumultuous and clamoring for attention. Namjoon was worried.

“As a kid I looked up to you,” he said, which made you look at him with a pleasantly surprised raise of your eyebrows, “because my dad said you were the coolest person he’s ever met. Drove himself insane trying to find you and Capsicle.”

A puff of a sigh left your sore lungs. “I miss him.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “I do, too.”

The both of you lapsed into sweet silence. Silence was rare with Namjoon, but he figured he owed it to you to keep quiet for once in his life.

“I was in love with another man.”

“Sergeant Kim Taehyung?” Namjoon’s gaze flickered down to your cast once he fully turned to you, curious. “Famous name. You and Taehyung canoodling wasn’t in any history textbook I’ve read, though.”

Snorting, you knocked your uninjured elbow against Namjoon’s arm. “We were quiet together. It was nice. Taehyung was my whole world. He still is.” A reminiscent smile painted your lips at the memory. “Then… your dad surprised the hell out of me by asking me out for fondue in Switzerland. And I told him I was taken.”

“You’re telling me Pops had the hots for you?”

“We all get lonely, Namjoon.” You cleared your throat, shifting slightly. “Then… then Taehyung gave his life during one of their missions. It was hard. Real hard. But your dad was there to help me through it. And Jungkook. I wasn’t alone. I never was.”

Namjoon’s eyes seemed to soften. The weight of whatever he was feeling suddenly felt cleaved in half. “I’m sorry.”

“I want you to know, Namjoon. You’re not alone, either. Our team might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make things better.”

There was a strange look on his face when he mused out loud, “You’re something else, aren’t you?”

Kim Namjoon was a stranger to raw emotions. Maybe you’d share your holey umbrella with him.

“So… what do you think your superhero name is gonna be?”

“What?”

“You know,” Namjoon gestured to himself, “I’m Iron Man. Capsicle in there is Captain America. Romanoff is Black Widow. You?”

A superhero name. Strange to believe you were a hero now. A part of you always thought that that was Jungkook’s role; the face of justice and courage. It hadn’t even occurred to you that you were a part of it just as much as he was.

After a moment’s hesitance, you breathed out. “Galvano. I’ll be Galvano.”

“Sounds like a villain name.”

“Shut up, Namjoon.”

Eventually, you and Namjoon retreated back into the helicarrier’s lab, bumping into Jungkook on the way.

“I’m sorry about Coulson,” Jungkook offered, obviously trying his best to extend an olive branch. “He seemed like a good man.”

Namjoon shrugged. “He was an idiot.”

Crossing his arms, Jungkook asked, “Why? Because he believed in us?”

“For taking Loki on alone.”

“He was doing his job.”

Scoffing, Namjoon shook his head. “He was way out of his league. Should’ve waited.”

“Sometimes there isn’t a way out, Namjoon,” you murmured lowly.

Oh, you knew that look. One of grief, loss, pain, only thinly masked by a snarky attitude. Peel off the layers… and you get something ugly, deformed, terrifying. Sweeping it under a rug doesn’t change the fact that it hurts. It was as if every step forward you took with Namjoon, there was an invisible barrier that shoved you ten paces back.

“Is this the first time you’ve lost a soldier?” Jungkook queried, narrowing his striking grey eyes.

A ripple of tension rocked the atmosphere on its heels.

“We are not soldiers!” Namjoon bit out at a volume that made you flinch just slightly. When his eyes flickered to your concerned ones, the tension holding his shoulders captive alleviated minutely. “I’m not marching to the director’s trumpet of war.”

“Neither are we, Namjoon,” you countered with a firm tone, shuffling forward. “He’s got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. Right now, we gotta put that behind us and get this done. Loki still needs that power source. If we can put together a list of potential…”

Namjoon was looking at something. Trailing off, you traced his line of sight and noticed the faded crimson stain on the wall, meandering down the sleek surface and dripping into the shadowed gaps of the vent. You weren’t quite sure whose blood that was, but it spurred Namjoon on enough to snarl out, “He made this personal.”

“That’s not the point!” Jungkook asserted.

“Correction,” a pompous finger stuck up in the air, “that is the point. That’s Loki’s point. He hit us all where we’re most vulnerable. Why?”

What was Namjoon getting at?

“To tear us apart,” replied Jungkook, looking every bit as befuddled as you were.

“Yeah, yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That’s what he wants. He wants to beat us and be seen doing it. He wants an audience.”

Oh. Oh.

“Right!” Jungkook nodded along. “I caught his act in Germany.”

Namjoon snapped once. “Bingo! Those were just previews, this is opening night. And Loki, he’s a full-tilt diva, right? Flowers, parades, costumes, you name it!”

A celebratory grin graced your lips. “He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered over it. Sound familiar?”

It dawned over Jungkook and Namjoon at the exact same time.

“Son of a bitch,” uttered Namjoon. With a cackle of delight coming from you, the three of you sprinted out of the lab, ready to launch into fighting mode once again.

If you had gone back in time and told yourself that you’d be fighting an army of aliens from outer space, past-you would’ve raised a skeptical eyebrow and continued on with whatever you had been doing.

Even now, as you were blasting the grotesque creatures into bloody-green fragments, you still had a hard time processing that this was all real.

You flew around buildings, swerved around cars, and dove beneath the aliens’ hovering crafts, taking down each and every one in your path. You kept a steady watch on Jungkook and Yeri and Barton fighting below, practically ants at your height. The portal above all of you glowed ribbons of electric blue, just the same as the Tesseract, giving way to the endless nothingness of space.

Soon after, not only were you fighting the Chitauri, but their beasts of sentient metal plates floated their way in as well, bulldozing straight through buildings and monuments. They were larger than life itself, spanning as tall as skyscrapers. Your breath caught in your throat as two barreled in your direction, metal mouths groaning open to reveal rusty slates of sharpened teeth.

“Namjoon! Are you seeing this?” you yelled into the comms, narrowly dodging the creatures, pulling out an infinitely-expanding blade (an invention that you were practically dying to put into use) and landing onto one of the humongous brutes, driving the sleek steel between the plates of its spine. You then used the force of your thrusters to propel you through the air, dragging your cutlass clean through its tough hide. A shrill roar of fury echoed throughout the city as the beast went down, crashing into the cleared-out streets, a mess of road asphalt, concrete and car parts.

Namjoon’s voice crackled in the comms as he replied, “Seeing, sure! Still working on believing! You seen Hoseok yet?”

“Hoseok?” you echoed, incredulous. “We haven’t seen him since he turned into Green Bean, remember?”

“You were meant to call him Mean Green, Y/N, come on!” Namjoon chuckled as you lithely ducked one of the Chitauri’s arrows aimed straight at your skull. “Just keep me posted!”

Responding with a gruff affirmative, you jetted back down to ground level, sprinting over debris and dodging up-turned cars to reach Jungkook. Yeri and Barton were kneeling behind a taxi and you plopped down beside them, catching your breath. With a press of a button on the side of your head, your helmet folded away and you saluted the blonde with a meek grin.

“Nice to officially meet you! Really cool bow!” you called out over the explosions.

Before Clint could respond, Yeri sprang up, took two dead-aimed shots that cleaved straight through the skulls of Chitauri, and then dropped back down to her haunches. “Could we save the introductions until after we’re done fighting aliens? We got this down here! Go!”

“Yes ma’am!” You could’ve sworn you saw Yeri’s pretty lips curve into a minuscule grin. With a sheepish smile, you nodded once before jetting back up, helmet folding over your temple once again as you shot down more Chitauri coming their way. Higher up, you scanned the buildings, looking for anybody who hasn’t evacuated yet. Your brows creased upon seeing a whole floor of people cowering on one of the top floors, hiding beneath their desks.

Bracing yourself for impact against the glass, you dove through the windows and rolled back onto your feet, huffing out a relieved exhale.

You ran a quick scan of the stairs, blue wreckage filling your vision. Damn it all, the exits were obstructed by rubble far too heavy to lift. “Everyone, the stairs are blocked! There’s an escape ladder on the left, let’s go! Move it!” you ordered, guiding people from their catatonic states of shock towards the exit.

So this was what it was like being a hero. Throwing yourself over the grenade to keep everybody else safe.

A Chitauri bastard weasled through the window you had broken into, snarling in its filthy alien language. You pulled out your true-aim knives, arcing them towards the creature with a yell. It split him straight into half, dark blood staining the office carpets. Screams erupted pandemonium as people scampered to leave in panic. Good. At least now they’re moving their asses.

Satisfied once the whole building was clear, you flew out of the building, immediately met by Namjoon whizzing past you.

“Okay, I got its attention! What the hell was step two?” he shrieked. With widened eyes, you looked over your shoulder and flinched at the sight of another large Chitauri beast. Blue flames erupted from your blasters as you threw yourself ahead of Namjoon, flying around the buildings semi-smoothly.

“You’re an idiot!” you screamed, turning on auto-pilot so you could fly backwards. With a snarl, you shot explosive capsules into its widened mouth, jetting away with Namjoon hot on your tail just as the whole front of the beast detonated into a million fragments. Still, it wasn’t enough to kill. No, you were pretty sure you’ve only managed to make it mad.

“Wow, you should be a motivational speaker!”

Snorting, you replied, “Nah, that’s Jungkook’s thing.”

“I can hear you two, you know!” Jungkook barked as he swung his shield to take down two aliens at once.

“We can all hear you!” exerted Yeri while swinging up around a Chitauri’s neck and holding it in a chokehold.

Your eyes bugged as you spotted Hoseok zooming through the cluttered streets on a weathered motorcycle, coming to a grueling stop by Jungkook and Yeri and Clint.

“Namjoon! Hoseok is here!”

A smile crossed the billionaire’s face. “Great! Capricorn, tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”

The pair of you nodded at one another, flying across the city, steadily leading the goliath metal serpent around skyscrapers.

“I don’t see how that’s a party,” Yeri deadpanned. You laughed hoarsely at that.

Dazed, you watched in muted awe as the awkward doctor you grew quite fond of morphed into the Hulk; beige skin melting into a furious shade of green, muscles expanding ten-fold and ripping clean through the fabric of his button-down. This was a battle of beasts, you mused, repressing the urge to whoop excitedly when Hulk dug his fists into the snake of steel, effectively grinding the behemoth to a halting stop. Namjoon shot a grenade into its exposed flesh once the metal plates shifted apart, and it came crashing down with another deafening eruption.

You lowered down beside Jungkook once the smoke subsided, grazing the cold material of your suit’s hands over his own warm, gloved ones. A strange feeling danced at your chest upon seeing the rest of the team forming a defensive circle with you. United, determined, ready to give their everything. Even their lives.

This was the Avengers.

For the first time since all the way back in the forties, you felt whole again.

And there were more coming through the portal.

“Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment,” Jungkook said. “Clint, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Namjoon, Y/N, you got perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash.”

“Good luck, Jungkook,” you murmured, a stark contrast to all the yelling you’ve done previously. Said man shot you a sweet look that lasted only a millisecond.

“Give me a lift?” Barton asked.

Teasing, Namjoon quipped, “Better clench up, Legolas.”

“I was asking Galvano, actually—!” Namjoon gave Hawkeye no time to complain, yanking him up by the pits and soaring through the skies at neck-breaking speed.

“I didn’t get that reference,” you hummed in slight amusement when you matched pace with Namjoon.

The two of you swerved farther out of the center of the city. “The movies are an absolute snoozefest. You’d love it!”

“Are you calling me boring?” you gasped in faux-offense as you slashed through three Chitauri soldiers in one go.

Namjoon was never given the opportunity to slide in another joke because an alien struck him down, sending him flailing towards the streets. Angry, you shot rapid-fire at them, taking down any that were tailing you along the way. Quick to recover, Iron Man bounced back beside you. The two of you bobbed your heads at one another before jetting opposite directions.

A part of you was surprised at how long you’ve endured. The adrenaline fueled you like gasoline would fire; you felt it surging through your veins and invigorating every fiber of your being.

At one point, you bumped back into Yeri again, struggling to hold herself against three aliens at once. You quickly shot them down, sending her a fumbled wave before turning to blast at the creatures closing in. Jungkook joined you, even letting you use his vibranium shield as a reflector for your lasers. The two of you worked together in perfect harmony. It reminded you of that last battle you fought with him before going into the ice. Back when everything was so much simpler. Well, that was an understatement. At least there weren’t aliens in the forties.

A triumphant smile made its way onto your face when Thor came thundering down and shot rivulets of electricity through any aliens near his vicinity. You took that as your cue to leave; you were needed elsewhere.

Just before you could jet back off, however, Yeri’s voice crackled through your comms.

“I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can close it.”

“Do it!” Jungkook yelled.

“No!” said Namjoon. “I got a nuke coming in. And I know just where to put it.”

A gasp lodged itself in your lungs. “Namjoon! No, you don’t have to do that, we can—!”

“Save all the power for the trip, Jarvis. Don’t wait up on me to watch those movies, Galvano!”

Even on the brink of death, Namjoon was still cracking jokes.

No. No, you couldn’t lose Namjoon, too. You’ve lived through one too many losses already. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes as you bit down on your bottom lip, watching the streak of gold-and-crimson sail through the wind, holding a nuke twice his size.

Then… then he was gone.

You waited, praying for whatever God (but not the one of thunder heaving breaths right beside you) was listening. Come back. Come back, Namjoon.

“Close it,” Jungkook muttered, despondent.

No, no, no. You couldn’t let it happen. Not again.

Your helmet shrunk away when you pressed the button, gasping for air. “Jungkook, I have to go get him.”

“Are you insane? Y/N, no—!”

A part of you should’ve felt guilty for flying off so suddenly, leaving Jungkook coughing amidst your wake of dust. The portal was closing fast, and Namjoon was nowhere to be seen. Tears trickled down your cheeks, blown clean off your skin and into the whistling wind.

Kim Namjoon was a man of surprises. Damn him for nearly giving you a heart attack.

Suddenly, his limp body fell through the narrow remaining gap of the portal, swallowing itself closed just as Namjoon sank back to the Earth. Breath stuttering, you forced yourself forward, swiftly catching him through the air and jetting back down to the ground. The landing was sloppy; mostly due to the unexpected weight, but also the mess of tears obstructing your vision. Both of you were sent tumbling to the ground, rolling painfully over glass, metal, and rock.

You were pretty sure you broke several more bones (which Jungkook would probably hound you over), but none of that mattered. Because Namjoon was unconscious, still as stone.

The rest of the team was quick to surround you as you crawled over him, prying his mask off and shaking him vigorously.

“Namjoon? Namjoon, please.” You slammed your against the concrete beside you, the metal fist leaving dented cracks on the sidewalk. Immediately, you grappled at his suit, uncaring if you had to rip it apart piece by piece to get Namjoon to start breathing again.

Hoseok, no, the Hulk stomped up beside you, thumping at his chest and belting out an enraged roar, so loud that your head spun at the volume.

Lo and behold, Namjoon jolted awake, dark eyes darting every which way in panic. “Jesus fucking Christ! What the hell? What just happened?”

Tears were still streaming down your face, but you didn’t have the heart to stop yourself. Jungkook wrapped his arms around you, shushing you gently.

“It’s over,” he murmured into you, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead. “It’s over, you’re okay. We won.”

“Please tell me nobody kissed me,” Namjoon wheezed out, still laying star-fished on the road.

Laughing into Jungkook’s hideous suit, you kicked at Namjoon’s leg. “Nobody kissed you, Namjoon.”

“Woohoo,” he weakly cheered. “Hurray. Good job, guys. Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s take a day. You ever tried a shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint just two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it. I’m really hungry.”

Rolling your eyes to the clear skies, you shook your head while wrinkling your nose. “Okay, Namjoon. We can go get shawarmas.”

As you smiled down at him, turning back to Jungkook with a watery grin, you realized that it was perhaps time to put the umbrella away.

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prettynxsty · 3 years

Text

Just a Pinch

Sub!Jungkook x Domme!Reader

Warnings: Sweat, nipple clamps, gratuitous nipple play, jungkook has a pussy, biting, sweat, small top/big bottom, futa/girlcock, sadists will get a good kick out of this, squirting, crying from pleasure

Summary: Instead of the overplayed “sub wears vibrator out in public”, it’s the sub wears nipple clamps while working out.

AN: This is a nasty one as usual my friends, enjoy. It’s damn near pwp, honestly.

Your teeth ground into your bottom lip, flicking your thumb back and forth as quickly as possible even though your knuckle was beginning to cramp. You take in a deep breath and your chest puffs up before slowly deflating with a sharp sigh.

“Fuck, yes.” You growled slamming your fist against the bed at your side.

Jungkook’s eyes rolled back with a groan from deep in his gut. “Oh my god, please.”

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuckmefuckmefuckme!” His voice rose into a squeal as his head dips forward.

A deeper growl rumbles in your chest before cutting short with a whoop of excitement. You threw the controller down beside where you were sitting, jumping off of the bed and onto your feet. “Yes! Now you need to make good on your end of the bargain baby!”

He covers his face with his hands, sighing before falling into a small fit of nervous giggled. “You can’t be serious babe.”

“Of course I am, it won’t be for that long anyway, you’ll be okay.” You tittered lightly, practically skipping toward your closet. “Go ahead and get ready, the faster you do it, the faster it’ll be over.

”He scratches the back of his neck, planting his feet on the floor and slinking toward the dresser across the room.

He peels his shirt up and over his head before balling it up and tossing it toward the hamper in the corner. He glances at his reflection in the mirror, running a hand over his pecs and down the planes of his rippling stomach. His fingers slip over his adonis belt, wiggling just slightly under the waistband of his black sweatpants.

He takes in a quick sigh, clenching around nothing. A spike of heat bursts and spreads in his stomach, he wondered if he should have been turned on before anything happened. He steps back from the dresser, hooking his fingers under the garment and works it down the swell of his thighs until it falls and piles up around his ankles.

He wiggles a socked foot out of the first leg hole and steps on it to free the other. This too sails through the air and lands in the hamper with a soft thump. He takes another glance at himself in the mirror.

He was a lovely shade of coffee with a few splashes of milk. He kissed his tan lines goodbye since your regularly scheduled maintenance days with him. In your days of boredom, you took it upon yourself to buy a nice waxing pot and clean his cunt of hair in places he had to (literally) bend over backwards to reach.

He thought you were going to do it somewhere like the bedroom or bathroom, but you figured that you may as well get good use of the rooftop. His pussy is easily nestled in between his tanned thighs, brown outer lips just barely hiding his sweet inner pink.

He hated that you refused to touch him until the next day, he could feel everything when you were done. Now that same time of the month was his favorite time for grooming.

Jungkook blinks, shaking himself from the vivid thought and pulls open the drawer. His underwear was neatly rolled up beside yours. He decides on a simple gray high cut thong, stretching it, stepping into it and slipping it up to his hips.

Normally he preferred to wear nothing, but he needed an extra barrier of protection for today. He pushes the drawer closed and pulls open the ones on the right and left of it. Simply, he grabs a sleeveless tee and pair of shorts. He dresses himself quickly and parks himself on the edge of the bed.

You return from the closet with a giddy smile, swinging something shiny around your fingers. Nipple clamps.

“Don’t look so happy to torture me,” he pouts.

“That’s your favorite part of it though, Junggoo~.” You made your way around the end of the bed and sat on his knees.

You reach up and cradle his cheeks, kissing him. The tension melts from his shoulders with the first and hang comfortably over his frame with the second.

“Now let’s see what’s under the hood,” your joke sails straight over his head and out of the window. He shakes his head, placing his hands on your thighs. You lift the bottom of his shirt and twist it under the collar, placing your hands over his chest.

Your fingertips trace over the swell of his taut mounds, goosebumps raise over his skin as you near his nipples. You hovered the tips of your thumbs over his nipples, admiring the rich rosy brown of his little areolas.

A moan rises in his throat, swallowed away noisily. Heat rises and exchanges between your bodies, you shift in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on your dick. His fingers curl around your thighs pulling you even closer to him. Your dick fit snugly against his lower belly and it was starting to drive you crazy.

He leans forward, slipping his head over the juncture of your shoulder and neck. His slow breaths crawl up your skin in a way that tempts you to shiver. Jungkook was familiar with the shadow inside of you, he knew how to make it burn. His lips press over the swell of your shoulder, sending shocks zipping through your body. You should’ve known better than to wear that tank top today.

You graze your thumbs over the hardened tips of his nipples. He moans against your skin, you played with them so much that he felt like he could feel each ridge in your prints. He seals his lips around the base of your neck, gently suckling and grinding his tongue against your skin. You pinch his nipples in between the length of your index fingers and thumbs harshly, tugging.

He jerks slightly, his teeth sinking into your flesh. You hiss, arching your back before releasing his nipples and pushing against his chest. Jungkook pulls back with a whine, eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?”

You could hardly hide the fact that you were already breathless. “No, you aren’t going to weasel your way out of this one baby boy.”

The darker side of your mind was pleading for you to give in and make a mess of the bed sheets. But you knew that it’d make things filthier if you put him up to this.

You press a kiss to his pouting mouth, pulling back before he could deepen it. His brow knits together, he was already horny. He may as well make sure he didn’t get too far ahead of himself, it’d be harder to work out if he got wetter than he was now.

You slip the short chain from your knuckles, pinching open the first clamp. He seemed to be holding his breath as you pressed the chilly metal to his flesh before slowly releasing it. Jungkook throws his head back, gasping and biting down on his bottom lip. It was like a thick cloud rose and surrounded his brain, it was getting harder and harder to figure out what he was thinking.

You drag your tongue over your bottom lip with a dry swallow, you could already imagine the feeling of his pussy flexing around you. You lift the other end, the fire in your belly consumes you further when he twitches at the slightest shift of the first clip. You gently pinch the other clamp open and close it around his other nipple. He responds immediately with a drawn out breathy moan that makes your head spin.

You reach up slowly, unravelling his shirt from his collar and allow it to fall over his midsection. He looks down at you with these dark, cloudy eyes. “Can’t.. Can’t we..” He babbles as if the wind was knocked out of him.

“Come on, I’ll- I’ll go fill up your water bottle.” You tried to shake the slurring from your voice, planting your hand on the mattress and wiggling out of his grip.

The cold air of the hallway hits you like a freight train, bringing more cognizance to your mind. The heaviness between your legs was making you crazy, you hadn’t a clue how either of you would workout in this state.

You cross the way into your kitchen, it looked like the floor was blending into the walls. Grabbing your water bottles off of the drying rack, you fill them to the brim with ice and water.

Eventually Jungkook shuffles out of your bedroom with a dizzy, distant air in his eyes. He was red from his cheeks to his ears, and the sides of his neck. It was like he was wasted already, he seemed to be moving slowly to reduce the friction of the shirt over his nipples. The chain sat just right, as it didn’t really jingle as he walked.

He must’ve struggled to slip on the backpack, stopping beside you. You’d make it a little easier on him, choosing to carry your drinks instead of adding more weight to the bag on his back.

“Let’s go, we’ll be home the faster we go.”

He nods slowly, heading toward the door.

During your short walk around the corner to the gym, he spoke up suddenly. “I won’t have to do everything, will I?”

“Everything but squats, the bench, and deadlifts, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

He huffs, looking down at you like a kicked puppy. You didn’t miss how his eyes gained a glassy tinge.

“I’ll do everything you want me to when we get home, my pretty boy.” You muttered low enough for him to hear, pushing open the door with your shoulder.

“How are you doing, baby?” You coo into his ear, wrapping your arms around his waist. Not a soul wandered the locker room aside the dust and water droplets where they weren’t supposed to be.

“I’ll give you a treat,” you whispered. Your work your hand under his shorts, pushing your fingers past his thong easily. He makes a soft, pretty noise when you cup his pussy.

He leans his weight back against you, jerking with a grunt when your thumb grazes over the sticky hood of his clit and passes over his blood swollen love button.

“Just want you to fuck me,” he whines, trying to squirm away from your rough thumb. It was too much for him, he could cum right now.

“Too much?” You ask gently, receiving a nod in response. You knew better than to let up now, pinching his hood and jerking the little pink sleeve. He made a noise like he was punched in the gut, hands clutching your forearms. His hands were shaking, but he was too desperate to push them away.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cu- unh!” He pants, thrashing his head against your shoulder as you pinch it. You take a deep breath in, retracting your hand and licking your fingertips.

He slumps back against you with a disappointed groan, struggling to catch his breath.

“Let’s go, I need to reward you.” Your voice was dark, moving to take the backpack out of the locker. You helped him ease it onto his shoulders and dragged him out of the locker room. You were given a few funny looks, but you hardly noticed them through the haze settling around your mind.

He all but wobbled his way to the bedroom by himself, leaving a trail of things behind him. Jungkook absolutely needed out of everything on his body at that moment. You followed him into the bedroom, watching from the doorway as he clumsily peeled off his sopping wet panties and nearly fell during the process.

“Take them off,” his voice breaks with a shiver crawling up his waist and shaking his shoulders. He makes a pitiful noise, squeezing his thighs together as he clumsily sits on the end of the bed. The thin chain lightly sways with the motion of his poor attempts to control his breath.

You wondered if you should try this more often, he never broke this quickly. You move across the room to sit on his knees as you had before. It felt like Jungkook’s skin was on fire, the slightest sensation made his hair stand up even straighter. His nails clumsily scratch at your skin, shoving his hands over the waistband of your shorts.

He couldn’t be bothered to fumble with anything, whining with a sob as the mesh of your clothing brushes over his thighs. “Off, off please!” He fusses in a strained voice.

You rose as quickly as you began to lower yourself, he was enveloping you in the same haze as before. Your lower belly spasms with a particularly aggressive twitch of your cock.

”Shit,” you growl under your breath. You yank away your shorts and nearly deflate with relief when your dick springs to full attention. Your sanity dissolved into ash bit by bit from feeling your glans scrubbing against the waistband when you moved around.

Jungkook clutches handfuls of the sheets under him, he couldn’t touch himself if he wanted. He’d scream because it was too much. His bottom lip trembled. It looked like he was practically flushed from head to toe, a heavy tear escaping the barrier of his thick lower lashes. It splatters over his collarbone, it’d evaporate if his body was any warmer.

You yank your shirt over your head and kick it aside with your other clothes, rushing toward him. You began to lower yourself to your knees, stabilizing yourself with hands on his trembling thighs.

He made another high pitched noise to fuss at you, he was so far gone that he just couldn’t control himself. Jungkook leans forward, wrapping his hands around your hips before lifting you onto his lap. You make a noise of exclamation, placing your hands on his shoulders in a weak attempt to register what just happened.

He pushes his chest toward you, sniffling. Another tear slips from the corner of his eye, dancing over his cheekbone before slipping under his jaw.

“Baby,” you croon and stroke his hair. You gently curl a fingertip under the chain, lifting it slowly. This squeezes a few squeaks out of him, swelling into a squeal when you tug slightly.

You gently place your fingertips on the first clamp, squeezing it open and pulling it away from his stress. Jungkook’s forehead drops against your shoulder in relief, pressing weak kisses of gratitude over your breasts.

He grips your cock with both hands, slowly jerking your flesh up and down. You groan, resting one of your hands in the center of his pecs as you blindly feel around for the second clamp. Your fingertips cascade over his flushed bud, causing him to seize up. His grip tightens in a way that raises the gentle drip of your precum into a syrupy faucet.

You were likely already starting to drip over his fingers. His grip slowly relaxes, regaining his steady pattern. You press the tip of your thumb and index finger over the ends of the clamp, pinching it open and allowing the chain to drop between you.

You stroke your fingers over the back of his neck. “Let me see them,” you whisper with warmth and conviction. That tone of voice always sends his head into a spiral, he seemed to struggle to lift his head.

He shakily circles his thumb around your tip, spreading your precum all over his finger. You seize up, growling through clenched teeth. Jungkook quickly returns to stroking you firmly, he couldn’t stand the thought of you being unable to touch him.

You lean forward gingerly, dragging the tip of your nose through the cleft of his pecs. You tongue lolls out of your mouth, carefully resting on the edge of his areola before flicking upward.

He almost jerks away, sighing sharply. It was like you held the metal of a used lighter to his skin. It was enough to wipe what little thought remained in his head in a flash.

You tilt your head toward the other, slowly swirling the tip of your tongue toward the center of his nipple. He trembles below you, utilizing what strength remained to stay still.

“Want you to fuck me,” he croaks.

You glance up at him with a smile, nodding to oblige.

You plant a hand, carefully shifting yourself off of him and further onto the mattress. “Get on the middle of the bed, knees.

”He took his time to move, slowly twisting and crawling on. You reach to the left, yanking open the nightstand drawer with a flick of your wrist. You rip open the tube of lube, nearly breaking the loose plastic hinge of the cap. You squeeze a fat globule at the base of your cock, smearing the excess over the side of your lower belly before snapping it shut and shoving it back away.

You nearly forget to shut the drawer, pushing it closed with your ankle before crawling toward him. “Turn around.”

He plants his hands and crawls until he’s facing away from you, leaning back on his haunches.

Your dick prods the cleft of his ass as you seat yourself behind him, swiping your fingers through the thick, clear jelly. You do a messy job of lathering yourself up, leaning forward and slipping your dick under him.

You spread your index and middle fingers, smearing some of the lube over his pussy lips. He opened up like a pretty little flower, his cunt was already lush and puffy.

You drag the crook of your finger over his clit hood, coaxing a soft keen out of him. You press your fingers together, slipping them over his inner pink and press them into his hole. This time it was your turn to moan, his pussy swallowed your fingertips with ease.

He arches his back, molding against you with a whine. God, it felt so good but he wanted more. More than that. His inner velvet flutters around your fingers in a way that makes your toes curl already.

You work them in and out for a few strokes before you couldn’t stand it any longer. You wrap your hand around your cock, momentarily lowering yourself to press against his pussy. He slumps heavily against you with a coo when your cock begins to spread him open.

“Ooh,” you hiss, steadying yourself by moving your other hand to his stomach. Reaching the hilt, you shift your grip to clasp both of his forearms as leverage. The first thrust makes a filthy noise, excess lube squishing around your length.

To this, you lose yourself in him. You piston your hips forward, using him like the warm, wet hole he is. You fuck into him with reckless abandon. His voice is high, shaking with breathy and noisy squeals.

He does his best to refrain from squirming in your hold, thighs twitching with the urge to close. The room before him was a blur of shapeless splashes of color, it amazed him how you could get even deeper when he was on his back. Jungkook felt ridiculously full, his head dropping forward, babbling slurred expletives.

Your thighs burn, you knew he came by the way he started to flutter and squeeze around you. You could feel it barreling toward you, wrapping one of your arms over his hips to keep him steady.

You shift a hand, flicking your finger over his swollen nipple. His voice reaches a new pitch, thrashing his head around in a futile attempt to remain on this plane of existence.

“No! Gonna-” he tried to squeal, digging deep half moons into his thighs. You set your teeth tightly, your balls slap against his skin as you ground deeper. It felt like he was going to wring you dry.

You lean back for him to slump his weight against you fully and attack his other nipple with a harsh pinch. His shout catches in his throat, his head thumping against the thick of your shoulder.

Your control is carried away by the wind, the noise you make is ungodly when you cum. You couldn’t lose steam, his cum cakes up with yours as you plunge in. It felt like your sanity was melting out of your ears.

You roll the tips between your fingers, scrubbing them back and forth with your middle fingers. Something inside him broke, his jaw snapping shut as he began to shake uncontrollably.“Gnh, ah!” He grits out, his squirt splashing around your cock and splattering over the sheets.

Oh. Oh. You slow your thrusts with a breathless chuckle before allowing your softening cock to slip out of him with a wet plop. You’re met with a noisy sniffling, stroking your hands over his trembling stomach.

You shift your weight onto one knee and lay down behind him. “Shhh, shhh..” You continue to stroke your hand over his belly as the shocks become weaker and weaker.

The tension in his body takes a few minutes to melt away before he can fully sink into the mattress, timidly scooting back for you to fully spoon him.

“You okay?”

“Mhm.”

You hadn’t made a mess like that in a while, but you supposed he might have needed it as much as you. You’d soak in the bath later with him.

#sub junkook #sub bts #sub kpop #sub!jungkook #sub!bts #sub jungook x domme reader #sub!jungkook x domme!reader #dom reader #domme reader

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blahkugo · 4 years

Text

Manual

Terushima Yūji x Reader (Haikyuu!!)

Word Count: 4.5k

TW: dub/noncon (noncon filming & voyeurism), manipulation, drugs (weed and alcohol), implied virginity, degradation, exhibitionism, daddy kink

A night of danger and debauchery with the city’s infamous drug dealer.

It was a simple enough text that started it, but you’re not even sure how he got a hold of your number. A few days ago, a plain ‘hey’ had flashed across your screen and before you knew it, you were agreeing to go for a ride in his speedy car. ‘How fast is it?’ you had asked as an attempt to stall the conversation. But it was his reply that settled it for you: ‘As fast as you want it.’

It’s stupid how easily swayed you were, but the words left a knot in your stomach that you had never encountered before. Like a ship setting its anchor on the seafloor, though not one of anxiety nor tension caused by any of the usual stressors of your life—something entirely alien. The real issue wasn’t its unfamiliarity, but how much you took pleasure in it. And as ships do, the feeling set sail as quickly as it appeared, and you were left wistful and aching for its return.

Never had you been like your classmates at the private school, who used familial wealth to excuse week-long benders and avoid lengthy jail sentences, because never had you felt that depravity necessary. But as you make your way down the block, you envision daddy waking up to find his little girl simply vanished, and you can’t help the wicked smile that spreads across your face.

When you arrive at the grimy, red sports car— music blasting through the open windows despite the dead quiet of the block— that ball of thrill settles in your gut yet again. As long as you’re in the company of Terushima Yūji, you’re well aware that the feeling isn’t going to go away.

The car is low. So low, in fact, that you have to balance a hand on the roof and slide in legs first. How does he even drive around in this metal death trap without scraping the asphalt? Your leather skirt bunches and slips further up your thighs no matter how hard you tug it lower.

“Alright?” It’s the only form of greeting he calls out to you over the ear-splitting music. Terushima eyes your lustrous, bare legs resting in the passenger seat of his beat-up Camaro, but doesn’t bother turning down the tune. He’s not very polite, but you didn’t exactly accept his offer to be drowned in refinement, did you?

“I’m okay,” you shout, struggling to be heard over the booming voice rapping about ‘drugs and bitches.’ Typical. “How are you?” You’re not sure if it’ll break the ice, not even sure he wants to speak at all, but anything’s better than fidgeting awkwardly in your chair with nothing but the god awful music to drown out your anxiety.

He mumbles back a simple reply, fixing his gaze on your breasts straining against the tight, low cut tank. You fished the two-piece outfit out of the depths of your wardrobe, a revealing number borrowed from a friend that you never even bothered trying on before tonight. His stare has you itching to cross your arms over your chest, but you hold out. You can’t have him thinking you’re a prude, even if it is the truth.

His hand grips the stick shift lazily and before you know it, the engine is rumbling and you’re peeling away from the curb. Terushima’s driving is every bit as reckless as you assumed, stop signs appearing to be soft suggestions rather than mandatory decrees. The residential roads are practically deserted, but the lack of caution has your heart racing wildly all the same, fingers clutching at your seat. As the adrenaline rushes through your veins, your stomach sinks further into the frayed leather seat.

When the music is shut off abruptly, you believe he must finally want to speak to you, perhaps even exchange pleasantries— but the next words out of his mouth are a sly,

“Do me a favor, yeah?” You nod, before realizing his eyes are still fixed on the road ahead. It’s not like it matters anyways, because he continues on as if you had answered him. “Grab the bottle under your seat for me, princess.” Princess. It’s uttered so nonchalantly, but there’s a certain edge to his tone— the tiniest hint of a teasing lilt. You don’t like it, but logical as your brain may be, your stomach still swirls with butterflies.

Swiping at the floor, you search until your fingers make contact with glass. Low and behold, you pull out a bottle of–

“Smirnoff,” your eyes scan the label intently, attempting to place the emblem among the liquors you’ve seen at the country club. While you weren’t exactly expecting a water bottle— that’d be much too off brand for Terushima— you aren’t too keen on the idea of reckless and intoxicated driving. He glances towards you once, but doesn’t make a move towards the drink at all.

Only a few seconds later, he shoots you another look, single brow raised in quiet anticipation. The long-forgotten burdens of high school peer pressure washes over you again, fingers quivering as you unscrew the cap.

You’ve never had vodka straight out of the bottle, never had vodka in general except for when it’s mixed into your cocktails. But his expectation weighs heavy in the confined space. So, fuck it. What did you come out with him for if not to live a little?

Nail polish remover, children’s cough syrup, and liquid fire. That’s all you taste as the lukewarm fluid glides down your throat. The burn is unbearable, but a pool of warmth oozes through your chest and your hand relaxes a bit on the edge of your seat. You don’t even realize that you’re coughing.

“First time drinking?” He offers you a lazy smirk, tone edged in ridicule.

“What?” Holding your breath, you silently beg the itch in your throat to disappear. “No, I- I have wine with dinner.”

The laugh that rumbles through his throat is deep and hoarse, much too loud to be laughing at your comment— and thus, is only perceivable as taunting. Even so, you can’t deny the seduction threaded into his smoky vocals, or the wire deep within your core, pulled taut and ready to snap at any moment.

“Wine,” he snickers again. “You’re funny, you know that?” He swipes the booze out of your hands and chugs. If there’s ever a proper time to start worrying, it’d be now. But at least he stops for lights?

Besides, you can’t say you’re not enjoying the view. Terushima’s defined jaw ruts outward with every swill, his lips puckered towards the bottle as if his life depends on it. As cautious as you should be, he’s too pretty to keep your eyes focused anywhere else; your mouth surely knows it, practically salivating at his Adam's apple, bobbing as he gulps. If you reach your hand out just a few inches, you can run your fingertips against it and–

“Gross,” he pushes the bottle back towards you.

“Black cherry,” you counter, as if it’s an explanation for the disgusting taste.

“Is that the flavor I nicked? Damn, wasn’t paying enough attention,” he shrugs.

“Nicked?” Mouth agape, you stare intently at the side of his face and hope for a valid answer.

“Bottle looked lonely, so I swiped it,” he brushes a finger at the alcohol trickling down his lip; one of your own digits twitches in envy. “Is that too criminal for you, princess?”

So he is mocking you. The vodka must be melting your brain, because all your body comes up with in response is a wind chime of a soft laugh— an entirely foreign noise to your ears. It must be a mistake, or the music playing tricks on your hearing, because you don’t giggle.

Still, according to Terushima’s awful pet name, you have something to prove. Not sure how else to shut him up, you opt for the easiest way out.

“I’m not drunk enough for this.” The bottle meets your lips and liquid fire waltzes through you again. Seconds pass as you chug, the haziness of your last sip urging you to down just a teensy bit more. Just enough to get you tipsy, just enough to prove him wrong, just enough to drown out the voice in your head claiming this is a terrible idea.

This time, you don’t cough.

“‘Atta girl.”

Then, you’re drinking, and he’s drinking, and the two of you are having the grandest of times. Never mind the fact that he’s consumed far less alcohol than you have, or that lines are blurring and you’re no longer able to see straight. Gone is the anxiety you were plagued with upon meeting him and the worries that shadow you day and night in your regular life. And that’s all that really matters.

He blasts the music once again. Maybe it isn’t as terrible as you originally thought. A deep, pumping bass resonates through every bone in your body and Terushima seems to be pressing the pedals harder with every beat.

Up you go, higher, higher— higher?

Your eyes have been scouring the mischievous man next to you so intently that you never bothered to ask where you were going. But can you blame yourself? Even now, as you round up the side of a cliff, every thought passing through your murky brain pertains to him.

His lazy half smile that won’t drop, as if he’s keyed in on a secret that’s all his own, lidded eyes that make him look entirely apathetic and alluring all at once. Hell, even his fingers are beautiful. Slender and graceful, one hand is placed leisurely at the wheel and the other is shifting the gear stick with meticulous precision. Terushima Yūji has always struck you as raw and vulgar, but now you see there’s a sense of finesse to him as well— and of course, you’d need to be halfway into a drunken stupor to truly notice it.

You’re shaken from your thoughts once he cracks the windows, hair whipping around violently. If you only knew the lyrics to any of these songs, you’d be singing along. Instead, you settle for kicking your legs out the window and tapping your fingers to the beat. Who cares that your fingers are moving too slowly to match the rhythm?

Terushima says nothing at your erratic behavior, only smirks when your head leans against his shoulder and you stare idly up at him. Relief. It’s the only identifiable emotion you’re able to place in the midst of this haze. Yes, the world is foggy and black spots take over half your vision. But you hold onto that feeling— the breeze, the weightlessness. All the while, the anchor in your gut makes its home further into the sand.

“We’re here,” he chuckles, pointing at your windswept hair when you turn to him. It’s the first time his laugh sounds genuine, bubbling up naturally instead of forced and vicious. And he’s finally looking at you; not in stolen glances, with eyes glazed over in mockery or lust, but truly looking at you. You break out of the murkiness clouding your brain to catch what ‘here’ is, only to gasp at the sight in front of you.

He’s brought you to the very top of a cliff, overlooking the city. Cars and buildings seem nothing more than blips on a map, insects to your God-like view.

As beautiful as they are, the dazzling lights of the world below you pale in comparison to the deity seated inches away. It’s difficult to believe that you had never once taken notice of him, though your younger self filed him away as a troublemaker—an invaluable waste of space— based on gossiped knowledge and without a second glance.

“Y’know what I never noticed?” You’re well aware the words tumble out a whine, drawn out and a bit slurred, but proper diction is the last thing on your mind. “You’re really pretty.” As soon as you’ve said it, your face is set ablaze. Control yourself.

“Pretty? Haven’t heard that one before,” he throws his head back and you’re struck with that gruff, raspy laugh once again.

“But you are,” you’re unable to contain yourself at all now, all proper thoughts replaced by the cut of his cheekbones, the messy bleached hair tumbling over his sleek undercut— and best yet, the tiny piece of metal prodding through his tongue and now balanced between his teeth. “A pretty bad boy, with pretty teeth, and a pretty piercing, and you texted me why?” With the hurried words, another wave of heat spikes your body.

Perhaps his eyes brighten at your little confession, or perhaps his face gives away nothing. You can’t really tell much of anything.

“You really wanna know?” You nod hungrily at his whisper, his hushed tone teeming with temptation. Terushima creeps closer, so much so that you feel his breath fanning your face. Underneath the overwhelming scents of cigarettes and booze, he smells a bit like tea leaves. Strange, but pleasant. “Are you sure?” He’s smirking now, obviously finding your curiosity entertaining.

At the same time, one of his hands inches towards you— cautiously, deliberately, like a predator creeping towards its skittish prey. You tremble in your seat, unsure why the proximity has your heart beating out of its chest.

All at once, his hand shoots past you and towards the glove compartment. Terushima lets out a snicker, flashes you a brilliant set of teeth, and proudly offers you nothing: “Sorry, not tellin’ you.”

Your slurred gripes do nothing to sway the tease, who’s now engrossed by the itty bitty ziploc baggie he pulled from the glovebox. Though your head is spinning, you yourself can’t help but feel enthralled by his movements— staring shamelessly as he sprinkles the weed onto paper. His fingers prove precise yet again as he rolls the greens into pretty little cylinders.

Almond eyes meet yours only when he brings the wrap to his lips, gazing directly at you while his tongue slides across the paper. A chill prickles across your skin, but there’s only heat within the parked car.

Before you know it, he’s extending a large hand towards you, silently willing you to take the first hit. Somewhere far away, you hear your own voice mumbling, ‘I don’t know how to.’ As hard as you try to put up a front, to exude sex and confidence in front of this well-versed man, you’re not quite sure you can pretend your way through this one.

A wispy laugh, a sly comment and a wink later, two of his fingers have the joint pressed between your lips. ‘I’ll teach you,’ he promises, instructing you on precisely how to breathe. You barely register the palm fastened at your chest. Is he being a creep? Maybe he’s just trying to help. Either way, you don’t pay it much mind.

And then, smoke fills your lungs, fills your head, fills the already-depleting air of his tiny car. You’re coughing again, but he warned you of the burn this time, and ‘besides, it’ll get you higher.’

You were hoping to see chalky hues of pinks and blues, but the drug does nothing but provide you with lidded eyes and a tingle that runs from head to toe. A single stroke of your finger against the leathered seat sends waves of shivers throughout your arm. Your palm splayed against your own thigh feels unfamiliar and ticklish.

The buzz is only truly worth it when you finally turn to look at the wicked man next to you; Terushima has a slick smile dancing across his face, eyes heavy and probing you for any sort of reaction. The bleached blonde hair at the top of his head pales under the moonlight, suddenly seeming impossible to resist. When you reach out to grasp a strand, he moves quicker, gripping your fingers tightly between his.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His low drawl is lazy, more amused than genuinely angry. But your fingers twitch beneath his grasp all the same, completely embarrassed and still itching to touch his locks. “Princess doesn't know how to ask for things politely?” You don’t have to look into his eyes to feel the smugness radiating off of him.

“No, I-” There’s no saving face now, and he knows it as well as you do.

“Or are you just so used to getting what you want?” Even as he taunts you, his digits thread through yours, pulling you towards him so that your hands hover over his lips. “Is this what you wanted?”

You shake your head, but the thought of grazing his pillowy lips— of your trembling fingers exploring that tiny metal ball in his mouth— is now etched into your clouded brain.

“No? What about here?” He trails your digits down his crisp t-shirt, stopping only when you’ve reached his midriff. You should stop, should adhere to the yellow tape bound around this entire encounter; instead, you stare at the blonde with wide eyes, tongue poking out of your mouth as you debate your answer. He breathes an airy laugh, “use your words.”

But before you can, his lips are meshing into yours. And here are the hues of the pinks and blues you so desperately wished to see, hidden in his caress all this time. There’s heat, and heat, and more heat— and a quiet hum traveling from the very tip of your mouth to your toes, as you melt together.

When he releases your hands, they fly towards his hair, finally tugging at the soft pieces. A simple clasp of your waist and you’re moaning into his mouth, a warm welcome for his tongue to slide in. Embers spread through the tiny space, setting your lungs ablaze far quicker than any drug could. His cool, metal piercing tickles the roof of your mouth; if you were coherent enough, you may wonder what it would feel like skimming other stretches of skin.

But your thoughts are cotton candy melting at his touch and allowing one, singular thought: him, him, him.

Your sugar-spun mind loses track of the time he spends pressed into you. Seconds, minutes, hours later, he finally pulls away, the long string of saliva between you the only remnant of your lip-locked endeavors.

“It’s getting late,” his words are a whisper, a break in the heavy silence of heaving chests and spinning minds. You’d have thought the infamous heartbreaker would urge for more, and a part of you wishes that he would. But instead, he drives you back down the cliffside in silence, his hand on your thigh rooted in place, keeping you longing for another taste.

Only when you’re coming down from the high, still a bit tipsy, do you realize you’re almost home. Terushima’s fingers still play at the hem of your skirt, stroking at the fire deep in your gut. With all his teasing, you figure you may as well make your move now.

“You can pull over here,” you instruct, happy to have found your usual domineering voice. Perhaps it was buried under the weight of weed and wandering lips.

“Your house is another block away,” he refutes with a grumble, but heeds your demand anyways. When he turns to you, you’re caught in that bewitching gaze, finding yourself at a loss for words yet again. “Anything else you need?” The words are laced with possibility, a dangerous challenge. But any gall you felt coursing through your veins has vanished without a trace.

“No- I- I should get home,” your eyes drop, staring at a loose thread on his pants— and all at once, moving to leave the car. “Daddy’ll be mad if he catches me out.” The words are barely out of your mouth before he’s chuckling, repeating them.

“Daddy will be mad? You still call your father daddy?” And there’s the Yūji Terushima you thought you knew, mockery and taunts always at the tip of his tongue. You throw a weak punch against his chest, huffing in confusion.

“What’s so wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” He exclaims a bit too smugly, climbing out himself.

Next thing you know, you’re caught between his body and the hood of the car, sturdy arms trapping you in place. Chilled air nips at your bones; a single skim of his knee against your thigh and that cold is forgotten. You really should be at home.

“Terushima.” It’s funny how a single word— a person’s name— can contain a thousand different meanings. You’re not even sure how you say it, questioning the inflections of your cracked voice and wide eyes. He whispers your name right back, the gleam in his eyes magnifying tenfold.

You’re well aware he has you right where he wants you, a little bird caught in a cage, though you’re more than happy to be singing any song he asks.

But there’s only silence as you stare at each other beneath the flickering street light. So much so, you can hear your hearts pump blood, can hear the engine of a car rumbling by, can even hear your neighbor’s pesky dog barking a block away.

“Do you need something, or do you just like saying my na–”

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in.

It feels different now. Perhaps your nerves aren’t frenzied, and you don’t attain euphoria with every graze. But you feel him. You can taste the smoke on his tongue as it knocks against your teeth. Black cherry floods your brain, the same flavor that drifted you up that cliffside to begin with.

Terushima’s hands grab at your waist before you’re hoisted up and placed on the hood of the car. Gone are the lazy kisses of two heads in the clouds. His movements are quick and decisive, aggressive even. A hand roams your body, trailing under your tank and across your breasts. The other shoves aside your panties, nimble fingers circling your bud.

A low whimper leaves you when he runs a digit across your slit.

“Careful,” hot breath fans your lips as he chuckles, “too loud and he’ll hear us.”

But you can’t stop your wanton mewls. Not when he dips into you, curling his fingertips to hit a spot that has you seeing stars. Not when his teeth nip at your jaw, your neck, the shell of your ear— leaving soft marks behind. And most certainly not when you can feel his cock straining against your thigh.

“Fuck, Teru I–” Within minutes, your entire body trembles, hands clutching at soft hair as you chase your high.

“Tell daddy what you want,” his eyes pierce into yours, completely unashamed of his perversion of the pure term. You try to shake your head no, to refuse his order— but he simply flicks his wrist quicker, pumps into you faster. You’re so fucking close, too near the edge to care, so you simply allow the words to tumble out,

“Daddy p-please, I want to cum.”

A few circles on your clit, and you’re putty in his hands. The high hits you with a loud, leg-shaking cry— far more dizzying than any of the debaucheries of hours past.

You’re flipped over without a moment to breathe, breasts rammed into the frigid car hood. Terushima pulls your skirt up with one hand, the other nudging your cheek firmly against the metal.

Never would you have thought you’d be one for such public indecency, but the elation of your last orgasm still hasn't even completely resided. For the third time tonight, you find yourself drunk off the ambrosia of this wayward god.

“Beg for it,” he slides his cock up your slit, coating his thick member in your slick.

“Please Teru,” you whine helplessly. A loud slap echoes through the empty street as his hand meets the globe of your ass, the pain more shocking than painful.

It reminds you that anyone could walk out of their homes to see you being railed against a beat up car— and the thought of one of your neighbors waking up to that sight wracks your body with a twisted pleasure.

“What was that?” The bastard actually laughs, gruff and hearty, as you writhe against him.

“Daddy, I need you.” And then he’s thrusting into you, pushing into the tight ring of muscle. Though he prepped you, you claw at the car, searching for any sort of relief from the overwhelming pain.

A few snaps of his hips later, you relax as the stretch becomes bearable. He takes his time rutting into you, spreading your legs further, making sure you feel every inch of him deep inside you.

Only when you begin bouncing back to meet his drives does he quicken his pace, a single hand gripping your waist— five finger-shaped bruises you’re sure will be evidence for days to come. You barely recognize your own voice; high-pitched wails spill from your lips, curses and pleas and cries of ‘daddy’ like a broken record on replay.

“Look at the little slut, creaming all over me,” a particularly hard thrust sends you reeling, tears flowing freely down your face as you blabber mindlessly. “Who’d have thought the city’s very own ‘prude princess’ would be blacking out over some dick?”

You should be ridiculed, would be utterly offended by the insult, if not for the fact that his cock has you teetering the delicate line of consciousness. Those words are precisely what send you over the edge for the second time tonight.

“Fuck, stay right there,” a low, gravelly groan as Terushima continues pounding into you. Then, a few more prods and he’s following suit, pulling out to spill his seed all over your backside.

Vision still spotty, you finally turn to look at the beautiful man, hoping for rosy cheeks and that soft smile you believe is a secret saved just for you. Instead you’re met with a dull frown and a look of pure apathy.

He won’t even meet your eyes.

“Can you walk the block or should I drive you?” Though he poses the question, the lack of his typical liveliness tells you everything you need to know about his preference: he doesn’t have one.

Somewhere far away, you hear yourself tell him you’ll walk. Your head’s still caught on cloud nine, or perhaps it was only ever the ninth circle of hell—twisted and contorted by black cherry and rotten greens.

“Are you sure? You look a little shaken,” he laughs, that same hoarse tone you once thought charming now seeming gnarled and vicious. The taunts once endearing, now simply malicious.

From the corner of your eye you spot his phone, unlocked and teeming with messages. A flash of a familiar black leather skirt bunching, a flip of your hair, pieces of your purity plastered across his screen for the world to see.

You walk back home in silence.

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