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farfromstrange · 2 years

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Foreigner's God: Chapter 2

Main Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OFC

Chapter Summary: If it weren’t for Father Lantom, good catholic boy Matt Murdock would’ve long given up his faith. The events of the day before left him with more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Eliza struggles with the fact that her world just exploded right before her eyes and there’s no one left for her to talk to. But they both have one thing in common, still – their desperate need to stop whatever it is that’s happening in New York City. Though with the two of them, disaster is (nearly) inevitable, and it appears that this is only the beginning of the end.

Warnings: Religious descriptions, language, canon typical violence, guns, blood, a tiny bit of angst, but it's actually a lot of angst, it’s just a very small amount compared to the upcoming chapters, panic attack, suicidal ideations, allusions to self-harm

Word Count: 18.7k

Read Chapter 2: Raise A Little Hell here on AO3!

Light broke through the colored glass, milky, fog-stained windows. The walls stood several feet tall, with faces and Latin letters set in stone. Statues rose from the stone, lifeless faces staring down from up above.

The sun stood high and mighty that day, shining a beautiful path through the open doors of the church. The light danced patterns on the glass and projected its diverse color palette onto the wooden benches below.

The air outside was hot and dry, with no clouds to be seen in the sky. The laughter of children filled the atmosphere with a sense of lightness. The early noon was peaceful. A beautiful day for both young and old. For the adventure seekers and the socially quiet ones. It was one of those days when almost everyone felt at least a small sliver of happiness.

Couples walked the streets, tourists admired the ancient outlay of the building and those traveling from and to their workplace had a much happier sway in their steps than usual - summer days like those brought out the best in people. Sunlight managed to brighten everyone’s day, even if it was just for a minute or so. The world finally seemed better. On days like these, humanity seemed to be healing.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said into the darkness of the chamber.

A newlywed couple crossed the street. They were talking about the family with children before them, talked about what they’d do if they had a baby. They just got married, it’s too soon. It was clear the woman yearned for a baby of her own while her husband seemed rather wary of the idea. Two people whose world views were entirely different and yet, they married each other simply because they loved each other.

On the other side of the street, there was an old woman. A teenager offered to help her cross, to which she only said, “I may be old, but I can walk myself just fine.” The teenager was left behind flabbergasted.

Crying filled one of the heated apartments on the fifth floor. Soft, quiet sobbing behind closed bathroom doors. Desperate pleas from a woman for the love of her life to just open the door. She didn’t. She sat on the closed toilet seat, tasting her tears.

After months of IVF treatment, they’d finally gotten pregnant. They were married, and happy. They’d only had one choice and the woman lost their baby. She was loved regardless – who would not? – but she blamed herself plenty to substitute for her wife’s kindness in the matter.

In an apartment below, a family arrived with their newborn. They already had three children, while the woman above struggling with the miscarriage had suffered through months of hormone therapy for nothing.

She was happy for them, of course. She wasn’t one of those pathetic people who took her pain out on others.

It took a toll on her, knowing her neighbors were happier than she’d ever been – they had what she wanted . Her wife could survive it, but her? She’d never wanted anything more than a baby.

Life isn’t fair. It’s vile and it doesn’t make exceptions for anyone, no matter how good-hearted they might be.

Matt Murdock sat in the crammed confession booth at church. Father Lantom always smelled of rosemary and roses, sometimes candle wax and laundry detergent from when he picked up his robes at the dry cleaners earlier that day.

“It’s been three days since my last confession,” Matt said. He stared at the red curtain that protected him from the outer world. “A lot happened in the past three days, Father. Some of which has been making me struggle with questions of morality.”

“Last week you told me you’ve been questioning your faith, now you’re telling me you’re struggling with morality,” Father Lantom voiced from the other side, muffled by the thin wall between them. “What changed?” he asked.

“I met someone.”

“A woman?”

Matt chuckled. “How’d you know?”

“Well, there’s not much that gets you so riled up.”

“I met her during my… other life, that I lead. Uh, I’ve been trying to find words to describe her, but I come up with nothing.”

“What about her have you questioning your morality, exactly?”

He took a deep breath. He remembered the way she smelled. Recalling it, his nostrils flared - he breathed her scent as if she was right there next to him. He could almost feel her close to him. The scent of vanilla and green plants, soft dirt after rainy days, tulips, books, coffee, and used leather. Her body was a mixture of rough edges and soft skin, her mind a labyrinth of mysteries.

“She’s… different,” Matt said. “Or she’s not, I’m not exactly sure. She can do things , father. She’s witty, can’t close her mouth for the life of her, and I know for a fact she’s way smarter than most people out there, but she’s also violent. She’s violent in a way I usually despise, Father, because I don’t understand. I can’t understand her. It’s driving me crazy.”

“But you don’t despise her?” Father Lantom said.

He leaned back. The sudden surge of energy still sat heavy in his chest cavity. A shock of electricity exploded on the outside, but instead of staying there, it wrapped around his soul and his perception of reality. He felt her in every bone of his body. She had this hold on him, he lay awake at night still feeling it rummaging around inside of him.

Matt let out a breath he’d been holding. “I don’t despise her,” he said. “I know I should, but I don’t. She got into trouble and while it wasn’t entirely on me, I felt like it was my fault. She jumps head-first into danger, that’s her problem, and she just won’t listen, but she saved my life and I owe her for that. I couldn’t just leave her, you know. And now I’ve put her in a position that she can’t get out of.”

“Let me guess, she knows both parts of you, but she doesn’t know they go together?”

“Yes.”

Father Lantom hummed in response.

“I feel this need to protect her, but she also scares me,” Matt told me. “She has this… darkness inside, Father. She thinks she’s made for evil, that she’s doomed. She doesn’t show it but I could tell.”

“Reminds me of someone I know,” the priest chirped from the other side.

He chuckled. “I’ve never met anyone with her abilities. I can’t help but find that… endearing. I believe that’s the word I’ve been looking for. Does that make me a bad person, father?”

“She doesn’t sound so bad to me, just troubled. But you’re troubled too, Matthew,” he said. “Perhaps you complete each other.” Then, he asked the dreaded question, “Would you like to get to know her?”

“I feel she’s the kind of person you can’t easily forget.”

“Then don’t.” A simple statement that weighed heavier than a pile of bricks.

Matt chuckled, but the chuckle was thick with unshed tears. He was tired, exhausted, and his heart ached. He didn’t know why. His brain was on fire since the previous night though he’d made it out without a scratch - she occupied his every thought, and it made him sick.

“I was afraid of this,” he sighed. “Of meeting someone that might turn my entire perception of life upside down.”

“Why?” Father Lantom asked again. “Because you’ve mapped out your life and it doesn’t fit with what you’ve planned? Or because you chose to be lonely a long time ago, trying to protect the people you love?”

Matt loosened his tie. The thin fabric seemed too tight all of a sudden. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid. Not because of her, although she scares me in a way that’s beyond anything I can explain. No, I’m afraid of the truth, Father. I’m afraid of the person I’m becoming.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all. Let me ask you this,” - he turned further to the small window - “This woman, would she understand?”

“Understand what?”

“This part of you. You know, the other one.”

“She’s been hiding behind an invisible mask all her life. She’s… she’s a hero, and I don’t mean that as a trait, I mean that literally. Do I believe she’d understand? The scary part isn’t that I do, the scary part is that she wouldn’t mind and that would put her in terrible danger. We’re alike, too alike, I think.”

“But you like that about her. I can hear it in your voice. She might scare you, but I think it’s more of a, uh, thrill than fear in itself.”

“So what, you’re saying I should act on these… thoughts I have?” Matt asked.

“Perhaps. But it’s your choice, Matthew,” Father Lantom told him. “You have to decide if you want to try and be happy or if you want to continue living in pretense and make this all harder on yourself.”

His head hung low as the church bells rang. Black shoes carried over white stone. The sun shone down on him, heat creeping up his body through his black suit.

He readied his cane to begin his walk over the sidewalk, towards his place of work. As he made his way forward, someone bumped into him from behind. He’d heard him coming, knowing the boy was barely paying attention and he apologized for that, too, but he couldn’t help but swallow a thick lump of anger. Lately, Matt was more on edge than usual.

He sighed. The previous night proved to him that he was right about Hell’s Kitchen - something was happening right under his nose. There was little else on his mind as he walked to the Nelson & Murdock office ground. His friends needed him, not Daredevil, but Daredevil seemed all that was on his mind. He couldn’t help it.

If meeting Eliza had changed anything, it was his perception. She made him look deeper. He was relentless, and always got his way, but so was she. She had that kind of gift that would’ve worked well in law enforcement. She could talk and connect dots, something she learned at SHIELD back then. But she also had a darkness that outmatched his by worlds, and that’s where their similarities stopped.

She wasn’t afraid to risk death to get what she wanted. She fought with ease. Her heartbeat always remained calm. The only time he heard it change was the second her name was mentioned. The knowledge that there was something hidden between the lines kept him awake; something was happening in Hell’s Kitchen and that young woman knew it too - she was the only connection.

Matt ran straight into something bigger than him, and perhaps he had to change his perception of what was right and wrong to get ahead of it.

✧

On the other side of the city, the mood was just as low, if not lower.

Eliza grew up as a child made for the sole purpose of a war she would’ve never fought in if she’d been in control over her powers. Her only purpose was to follow orders, and her only goal was to hurt people. Then, in the blink of an eye, she became a hero, an Avenger, and she accepted that being on the front lines of the world’s greatest heroes wasn’t such a bad way to go out. She relied on them to stick around, to give meaning to her miserable life, but even that was over now. She was nothing but a girl without qualifications, stuck with Pepper Potts at Stark Industries to make some money because no other corporation would hire someone without a high school or college degree. She loved Pepper, she really did, but knowing Tony’s money and name were her only options besides homelessness did some damage to her ego.

The day passed by agonizingly. At some point, Eliza attempted to use the coffee machine in the break room, but the only thing that came out was hot steam that burned her fingers to a painful degree. If her day hadn’t been cursed already, she sure as hell was convinced of it now. She was hexed.

She left the compound to buy some Starbucks, drinks too expensive to count. Too shy to ask Pepper for any more money, she paid the remaining amount out of her very empty pockets. On the way back, she ran into someone and almost dropped one of the cups. Sprinkles of coffee squirted on her already burned hand. Even worse, seconds after the accident, it started to rain. By the time she got back, the coffee was wet and the brims tasted salty. She chose to hand them out anyway, considering she paid half a fortune for the beverages.

Eliza counted the numbers on the bottom of her laptop. The sky darkened outside.

“Liz,” Happy said from the doorway.

Eliza looked up. “Hey.” She closed the tab.

“You ready to go home?”

She slipped the flash drive from her laptop. “Yeah,” she said. She closed the device and put it in her bag.

Stupid dreams, she thought. When would she ever learn?

✧

The drive to her apartment was quiet. Eliza watched the lights pass by. The closer they got to Hell’s Kitchen, the darker the streets grew. They drove through the all too familiar neighborhood. No cars or people around. Some drunkards stumbled out of a bar around the corner.

Happy pulled up to her apartment complex. “Hey, kid,” he said and turned around. “I’m sorry about last night.” He faced her. “Tony had no right to talk to you that way.”

“But he did,” she said. “You can’t change that. I know you want to and I appreciate it, but you can’t help me. Tony made up his mind.”

“I know.”

“Thanks for the ride, by the way.” She patted him on the shoulder.

Happy smiled. He let the window down as she walked around the limousine to get into the building. “Be safe!” he shouted after her.

She lifted two fingers in the air. “Promise.”

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

The clock showed 8:30 pm. If her calculations were correct, she was just in time.

The fire escape she sat on almost every night, just thinking about life and beyond, stopped directly at her window. She climbed through the open slot and into the night. It had gotten colder. The city milked the last rays of sunshine during the day, which made the nights significantly cooler, yet not uncomfortable. The temperature change was nice. She liked cool winds and summer rain, but only when it wasn’t drenching her coffee order in salt water.

Eliza climbed from the fire escape to the roof of the connecting building. She wasn’t going to stop, physically couldn’t do so.

That was one of the many reasons why she ended up a few feet from the science center in Manhattan. Police and security swarmed the place. They stood guard at the entrance, checked bags, and ran background checks on those who didn’t have one. She could make out at least a dozen officers all over the building.

A particular chilly breeze blew through her braided hair. It hit something warm behind her, blowing back in a rather heated blow.

She narrowed her eyes. The presence inched further out of the darkness into the light.

“You know, smart people stop making stupid decisions after they get arrested,” he said.

Eliza groaned. “Oh, my god!”

She turned around to face the shadow of a man. His red eyes poked out. He kept his distance, half of his face still lulled in darkness. The color stood out, moonlight reflecting off the leather. Though the rest of him stayed in the safety of the night, barely breathing where he stood.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you,” she said. “But oh well, here we are.”

“This is dangerous,” Daredevil told her. “What if you go to jail this time? You think that’s gonna help anyone?”

“I could’ve gone to jail the last time, but I didn’t. I know some pretty good lawyers, you know.”

“What if this time, there’s no one to save you? What then, huh?”

“Then I die.” Eliza shrugged. “I’m more than willing to suffer the consequences for my actions.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself in danger every chance you get. When something bad happens and there’s no one there to save you, what then? You’re not a human sacrifice. It’s reckless.”

“Lucky for me that I don’t need saving. Why are you here, anyway?” she asked then. “Are you stalking me? Because I’m pretty damn sure I never told you where I was gonna go.”

“Yeah, I followed you.” His words sent a shiver down her spine. “I wanted to make sure you don’t get yourself killed,” he said.

Eliza rolled her eyes. “How kind of you.”

He took a moment to step forward. He glistened in the moonlight.

“What are you planning to do?”

“You expect me to tell you?” she said. “I barely know you.”

“I think we both have a common goal.”

“And what’s that, Daredevil ?” she stretched his name teasingly.

“Hydra,” he stated.

Eliza held her breath. Several alarms went off in her head. One word should not hold so much power over one individual. She gave up a long time ago. She helped the Avengers take Hydra apart, still hoping for answers until she decided, one day, that burning herself to the ground was not worth it. She gave up until she didn’t until the name resurfaced years later and she had to face them once again, head on, but this time she was alone.

She only remembered what she did, and the people she killed. She remembered the feeling of submitting to the will of a single person. She remembered the tunnel vision, the need to obey. She remembered the loss of control and the surge of power. She remembered the helplessness, the training, the how-to-kill, and the children that kept disappearing until she graduated one day. She remembered the screams, the tears, and the mutilated stench of lost souls in the atmosphere.

She had every reason to be afraid of that one word.

She bawled her fists at the side. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she warned. “If you know what’s good for you, you stop right there. You don’t take another step.”

“I think I know now,” Daredevil said. She took a step back at his determination.

He couldn’t possibly believe that. She refused to let him believe it because he didn’t know. No one would ever truly know what it meant to deal with Hydra, not until they ended up in their clutches and suffered the consequences. Only then they would realize the true extent. She believed that to be true deep in her heart. Files didn’t even begin to cover the monstrosity that was the organization that bore the Winter Soldier, the Scarlet Witch, and the Red Demon. They bore monsters made to serve them, but neither of them stayed because the horrors weren’t worth it.

“You could’ve told me you were an Avenger the second we met, yet you decided not to. That says a lot about who you are. I may not be fluent in Russian, but I heard what that guy said yesterday. I’ve been breaking my head over it. If something like this is happening in my city, I have to do something about it.”

“You need to stop,” she said again. “Before it’s too late, you have to take off that mask and return to whatever life you have. You have to never look back because you’ve got no idea what you’ll face if you don’t.”

“Then tell me. Tell me about Hydra.”

“No!”

“Why? Because I’m Daredevil?”

“No, because you’re an idiot and I don’t like you. You come here, expecting it to be so easy to fix something you don’t even know. You don’t understand the magnitude of the situation. This is an ancient organization that somehow manages to come back at the most inconvenient times.” Eliza hated the way her voice rose, high-pitched and afraid, nothing like the strong woman she was taught to be.

“You’re just a man in a mask going out at night to fight crime on the streets,” she said, steadier. “You may have defeated Wilson Fisk, but this is bigger than him. This is bigger than muggers or- or human traffickers on the docks. This is bigger than anything you faced before, but you think you can handle it because defeating Fisk somehow gave you a boost. So just because it’s happening here in Hell’s Kitchen, it’s your responsibility? Well, fuck you! You’re not special and you don’t get to claim something you know so little about. If you want to get yourself killed, fine, but let me do my job.”

Daredevil licked his lips. “You’re right,” he sounded eerily calm. “I don’t know shit about Hydra. I don’t know who they are or what they do. Everything I’ve done, I did on my own. I defeated Fisk on my own. If that makes me a bit eager, I’m sorry, but take a look around!” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I? No one else is. Tony Stark doesn’t believe a word you say. No one else wants to help you. Your friends are international fugitives. No one gets it. I know, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to be alone.”

“Because you’re an annoying asshole and no one likes you,” she retorted.

“Okay,” he chuckled. “I’m trying to help here. Would you just let me do that?”

“Too bad. I don’t have any intention of stopping. If I want someone to mansplain my life to me, I’ll go to Stark.”

“You’re alone,” he said sharply, “and you will continue to be alone if you don’t open your eyes and see that I’m the only one willing to help. See it as a professional courtesy, but I think we work well. You might disagree, but I don’t care. I’m not trying to make friends.”

Tears stung her eyes. “I believe you,” Eliza admitted.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

“I still think you’re annoying.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“Ouch.”

He reached out a gloved hand. “Let’s try this again,” he said. “I’m Daredevil.”

Eliza eyed him. He seemed genuine - she must’ve badly misjudged him. She used to believe he was simply just a huge ego dressed as the devil, walking around with a stick in his ass. The man before her was more like a hero. To many, Daredevil was nothing but. He protected the people of Hell’s Kitchen the way the Avengers used to protect the world, the way Peter Park protected Brooklyn, and the way Eliza used to protect those she cared about.

Hesitantly, she wrapped her fingers around his. “They used to call me the Red Angel,” she said and shook his hand. “You can call me Angel though.”

“Nice to meet you, Angel,” he said.

“For the record,” - her hand still held onto his - “This is all the physical contact I’ll allow.”

“That’s fine with me,” and he retracted his hand.

She shivered.

“I’m not asking you to be my friend,” he told her. “All I’m asking is for you to trust me. I became Daredevil to protect this city. Who am I if I don't try? This city needs me, it needs the mask. I can’t let an ancient Nazi organization destroy what’s left. Look at me and tell me I’m lying,” he said. “I know you have powers. You can feel it.”

She couldn’t. People who lie don’t go to such lengths. Liars had different specs on their souls. Sometimes it was easier, something harder, but through the wall around his heart, she could tell he wasn’t the type of man to lie.

“That’s not quite how this works,” she said.

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. It’s a part of me. I can’t exactly ignore it. But I also can’t explain them. It’s complicated.”

“Are your powers a danger to society?”

Eliza wondered about his line of questioning. It implied that if her powers had been a danger to society, he would’ve considered her one as well. She figured being hurt over something as stupid as relying on the opinion of a total (totally handsome) stranger in a mask and a Halloween costume wasn’t worth it.

“I don’t think so,” she answered hesitantly. “They’ve never posed an issue before.”

Back then, she hadn’t been able to control their use. She was in charge of her destiny now – her powers only posed an issue if she wanted them to. Although the extent was unclear, she managed them quite well for someone who wasn’t even sure what she was controlling.

“Then it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re not hurting anyone. That’s all that matters to me.”

She ran a hand over her face. The words danced tango in her brain. “Fuck!” she exhaled.

“I’ve been questioning my take on morality ever since I met you. The meaning of ‘humanity’ has twisted a little. I’ve been in a constant state of confusion since last night. About you, about your powers and the men we took out.” The confession was almost vulnerable. “Your powers terrify me, yes, but you’re not the only one who can do things people don’t understand. I know it, I’ve been where you are.”

“No, you haven’t,” she said, straining hard not to cry. Her throat closed up. She swallowed nothing but dry air.

“I don’t know what these people did to you, but I know heartbeats better than most. I can hear yours loud and clear. I can hear that you’re angry. I can hear that you’re scared. I can hear a lot of things. Sight is… overrated.”

Eliza shook her head. She tried not to look at him, afraid he might see her cry and realize she wasn’t the invincible hero she made herself out to be.

“Why are you telling me all this?” she asked.

Daredevil struggled to find the right words. “Because,” he said, “I- I see myself in you. I may be the devil, but even the devil was an Angel once. And now that I’ve met you, I think I finally understand what it means to do something that matters not only to this city but the world.”

“So you’re chasing bigger fish for publicity?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Yeah,” she sighed in defeat. “I know.”

“So let’s end this, Angel. Let’s end this together. Protect this city. Get them out as fast as we can so we can move on.”

There was no denying it, the man knew his way around words. But god, did she want to scratch his eyes out.

Eliza pressed her palms into her sockets. The way her head was running laps drilled a nasty ache into her skull.

“Human experiments,” she gave in. “That’s what they do. They used to make super soldiers like Steve Rogers, Captain America, but they’ve upped their game,” she said. “People think it started shortly after the attack on New York, but it didn’t. It all dates back to about twenty years ago, give or take. If these men we took out were Hydra Agents, then they were looking for Laura Pfeiffer’s father for a reason.”

“He’s a scientist,” Daredevil stated.

“How do you-”

“I can hear him inside the building.”

“I don’t even want to know,” she said.

“As I said, you’re not the only one with secrets.”

Eliza scoffed. Her lip quivered slightly with the sharp sound. It eased up at the end, resembling a chuckle, almost. She dropped her shoulders. Of what use were her defenses if she knew damn well that putting them up again was bound to end in disaster.

“Maybe you’re right.” She was genuine this time. “I just hope your secrets aren’t as dark as mine.” She smirked at him. He didn’t return the gesture. His jaw only clenched.

“They’re secrets,” he said, voice distant. “Secrets you’ll never find out, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Hey,” - she raised her hands next to her head - “I’m the last person you have to worry about. My life is built on secrets.”

He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, licking it and leaving behind a wet trail that didn’t go unnoticed in the light that was cast over him.

“When this is over, we’re over,” she said. “This is simply what I like to call a situation-ship. We solve this, we part ways.”

To be honest, Eliza was more than willing to get this over with and pretend it never happened. She missed her friends, and her family; she missed the Avengers. Teaming up with Daredevil has been the last thing she’d seen herself doing before she caught wind of the kidnapping. He’d been the last person on her mind. By doing this though, she was no better than a vigilante. In fact, she was nothing. She was in the gray zone while Daredevil walked the tightrope between right and wrong.

The moment of contemplation lasted longer than expected. “Fine,” he finally said. “We do this, we’re done.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, great.” He crouched, feet dangerously close to the ledge. One push and he would’ve been done for. “Do you think these guys want to kill him?” he asked her. He didn’t even have the courtesy to look at her.

Eliza chose to kneel on the other side, face-to-face with the man in the mask. She eyed him, but his face was well turned to the side. She could only make out his sharp jawline and the beard that covered the lower part of his face. Whatever felt familiar about him wasn’t part of his face and she didn’t want to reach out and touch him like a crazy person just to see what her head was on about.

She decided to figure it out along the way. Not that it mattered who hid behind that mask, the thought of knowing the person just bothered her too much to ignore the urge to investigate.

She blew raspberries at his question. “Fuck me if I know,” she said.

“Maybe later,” he smirked. He always found the smallest incision site and stabbed his words right in.

“I hate you,” Eliza said without missing a beat. “This isn’t a joke.”

“It’s not.”

Her hands shook repeatedly in the long sleeves of her hoodie to concentrate on anything but the need to cry.

He hung his head low. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

“I just… you believe me,” she softened. The call of her name somehow eased her nerves. “You believe me and now you’re even nice to me. It would be so much easier if you were the same asshole I met yesterday.”

He laughed.

“My point is, you don’t know what you’re believing in. What are you gonna do if they start shooting, hm?”

“Protect you,” he stated simply.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s you they want, not me.”

“They want me alive,” Eliza argued. “You’re dead weight.”

Daredevil chuckled. “I’d like to see them try.”

“You’re insane.”

“I know.”

She glanced at him. He carried a smile, not a smirk anymore. The situation wore thin on her.

She laughed in disbelief. “This is so fucked up!” Someone had to say it.

He cocked his head. The question was silent, but she understood it.

“I found the name Pfeifer in the Hydra files released in 2014. He worked for them before. “

“So you have proof?” he asked. No, he stated it.

“I wanted to give up after Tony bailed me out, but I didn’t. Now I found this and somehow it’s still not enough.”

“Why? What else do you need?”

“Honestly?” He nodded. “No idea,” she said.

“You were right,” he told her.

“I was fucking right,” she agreed.

“And that’s not enough?”

“It’ll never be enough.”

He must’ve listened to her heartbeat change. She felt it up to her throat, suffocating her. She laughed, but it was a crazy laugh, high-pitched and whiny. The first tear slipped.

“The terrifying part is,” - she inhaled shakily - “Even if we do this together, we don’t stand a chance. The risk of dying is greater than that of winning. I’m willing to take it, but are you? Are you really?”

“I am,” he said. The answer came so promptly, that she doubted he considered his options. “I’d die for this city. I almost did countless times and I don’t regret a thing. So yeah, I’m ready.”

She shook her head. “Just, when things get hard, don’t turn around and stab me in the back, is all I’m asking. We may not be friends, but I take loyalty pretty seriously, even among strangers I happen to work with.”

“I won’t.”

“If you want to stab me, at least do it in the front.”

“I’m not gonna stab you, Angel. You’re not that annoying.”

Eliza laughed, unexpectedly, surprising even herself. It was a bad joke, terrible even. “Just saying,” she said. “I’ve worked with people before. A lot of them turned out to be backstabbers.”

“I’m not like other people, trust me,” he said.

“ Can I trust you, Daredevil?”

“I swear on my life,” he swore and suddenly he was so close she could feel his hot breath on her. “If I’m anything, it’s loyal.”

Eliza swallowed. She stared into his covered eyes. He was much taller than her and his hold was freakishly strong. Her eyes were blown wide as she listened to him speak. Even without touching him, she felt the intensity of his soul. One look, one touch and he had her in a chokehold. Her senses failed miserably to keep her focused. It seemed to be his gift, diverting the attention of others to anything but himself. He was so caged inside, even the slightest step forward would end you up burned.

“You’re an Avenger-”

“I’m not an Avenger anymore,” she interrupted him.

“Avenger or not, I choose to trust you. I need you to trust me, too.”

“I have trust issues.” She formed her lips into a thin line.

Daredevil cocked his head. “Oh, really ?”

“Yeah. I have to make sure you don’t want to kill me first,” she said.

“Do you ever just listen to what you’re told?”

She contemplated. “No.”

“Right, okay. You know,” he said, “It’s really hard not to smash your head into the next best wall just to shut you up for once in your life, but I won’t do it. I’m not that kind of person.”

“Like I said, trust issues.”

Daredevil gave a long, frustrated sigh. “Do you have a plan?”

“Oh, now you’re asking my opinion,” she scoffed.

“Yeah.”

“Back door.” She gritted her teeth. “For you. Me, I’m gonna go through the front.”

“You think you can just walk in there-” he prompted.

“Yeah. I’m not the one with the, uh, devil’s mask.”

“You think the offensive approach is gonna get you any way other than jail?” She imagined him raising his eyebrows like the cocky bastard he was. “How do you plan on getting through that?” and he pointed at the crowd of police officers on the ground.

Eliza overlooked the building. She memorized the plans she pulled from the server. Most of the entrances were covered by security, but there was always one that got overlooked in every company, every building.

“The back door is the safest bet for you to get inside. There’s no security there,” she stated. “I’ll go in through the front. This-” she waved the plastic card into his face, “Is gonna get me through that.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

She frowned. “It’s an ID.” Weird enough she had to explain it to him, considering the picture of her was pretty dominant on the front.

Daredevil’s head twitched. “For the building?”

“Yeah. I made it myself. Do you like it?”

“How did you even-”

“It’s best if you don’t know.”

“Ah, you planned this,” he chuckled. “Of course.”

“I’m not gonna answer that without my lawyer present,” Eliza decided.

Little did she know.

“I guess it’s not legal then,” he said.

“Nope, but it works,” she said. “Meet Doctor Olivia Shipp, Harvard graduate with a doctorate in biological engineering. She’s quite the firehouse.”

Daredevil lowered his head, sighing. “Great.”

“Yeah.”

Eliza was beaming. The thrill reanimated her with newfound life. She loved it, she’d missed it. The adrenalin made her feel alive. For a moment, reality didn’t exist. It was just her against the world.

She patted him on the back. “Let’s go be criminals.”

He wasn’t happy, but she was right - they didn’t have much of a choice.

She discarded her hoodie to reveal the basic white shirt she wore underneath. She tucked at it until her cleavage was full out. The remaining fabric slid into her jeans, giving her a slightly more professional look. “See you on the other side?” she said.

“Where exactly is that?” he asked.

“The stairway. Fifth floor. Pfeiffer’s in room 22, research lab. I’ll join you on the fourth and we’ll take the rest together. There are some things I need to do first.”

“Okay,” he nodded.

“Try not to get caught,” she said.

“You too.”

When she walked around the building, Daredevil was gone. He slipped into the dark alley unseen.

She saw the police officer coming even before she reached the entrance. He reached an arm out to stop her, still a few inches of space between them. Eliza stepped back, surrendering herself.

“I work here,” she told him.

One of his hands moved to the gun in his holster. “I need to see some ID,” he said.

“Right.” she reached into her jeans pocket. “I’m sorry, I went for a smoke and I forgot my coat. Long hours tend to make my head all mushy.”

She tossed her hair to the side. The officer watched her, eyes focused on her now revealed cleavage, and his hold around the card she handed him loosened. She smiled, giggled, and tried to charm him - it was a foolproof plan, one of the oldest tricks in history.

“What exactly is it that you do?” he asked.

“Uh, I’m Doctor Olivia Shipp. I work on the third floor, neuro-robotics.”

He eyed the ID. “Really? You don’t look like it.”

“Well, last time I checked your job description said to protect and serve, so if you were so kind as to remove your eyes from my breasts and check my credentials like you are supposed to, so I can get back to developing the algorithm for the research of cancer in children, that would be really appreciated.”

His mouth dropped open. Somewhere on his jacket, it said that his name was Louis, though it wasn’t important enough to remember. He was merely a hurdle on her way inside and she mastered it perfectly.

Louis blushed. He turned to the laptop, and ran the number on her card, swiping it through the sensor. The face ran through the building’s database. Her heart remained steady, though droplets of sweat began to form below the surface. Only when his hand around the gun eased and he offered her a kind smile, did she let out the breath she’d been holding?

“I’m sorry, doctor,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Eliza curtsied. “Thank you, officer,” she said.

The front desk was unoccupied. The secretary appeared to be in the back, manning the coffee machine that seemed to have broken.

She reached over the counter, aiming for the lab coat hung over one of the chairs. Of course, no one noticed. She pinned the ID on the front left pocket. The path of the least resistance was to fit in. She flowed into the crowd like a fish finding a strange herd, but since he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, he chooses to try and fit in with everyone, no matter what happens.

The glasses found a home on her nose. While her vision failed every possible test, she was already wearing contacts when she put them on. They seemed real to the outside, but the second she put them on, the front turned into a holographic screen.

“Alice?” she asked.

“Hello, Eliza,” the automatic voice spoke into her ear. “How can I be of service today?”

“I’m looking for the control room.”

The plans appeared before her eyes. She resisted the urge to say, ‘Oh that is so cool!’.

“It’s just down the hall,” Alice stated. “Right next to the stairway entrance.”

Eliza kept her head lowered as she walked the path that was revealed to her.

“What exactly is it that you need?”

She peaked around the corner and over both shoulders before she rattled the doorknob to find it unlocked, and slipped in through the smallest crack possible. The door closed without another sound. Her heart remained still.

The control room was filled with all kinds of electronic devices. Screens showed the footage of all security cameras. The power supply was right next to her.

“I, uh, need you to gain control over the cameras and security system and upload it to my device,” Eliza said to the voice in her glasses. “Can you do that?” She connected her phone to the server.

“Already on it,” Alice answered. “Pulling the data now.”

“Great, thanks.”

“What exactly are you planning, Eliza?”

“Don’t worry about that, Alice.” She took another careful look around. Her eyes brushed the security footage, catching a glimpse of room 22 on the fifth floor. The police presence was heavier around Robert Pfeiffer’s lab, just like she predicted. “I’ve got it all under control,” she said.

Eenie, mini, moe …

In a last-minute haze, she pressed the red button on the circuit board for the fourth floor. The security feed began to flicker as the lights seemingly blew out. Through the speakers, she could faintly make out the deafening beeping of the system, warning the occupants of the labs on the floor that there had been a breach and it was time to evacuate.

It was the biohazard alarm. Remote control allowed whoever was in charge of security at the time to hit the button in case the people on the floor weren’t able to do so themselves.

“Alice, would you mind telling these guys on the fourth floor that there’s been a minor explosion?”

Eliza watched as the scientists began to scramble in panic.

“Nothing to worry about,” she added. “Just enough to make them squirm. Maybe even open one of the electronic trays in an empty lab.”

“You got it, boss,” the automatic voice replied.

The security guards appeared less worried once the radio on their shoulders gave off a detailed explanation. They evacuated the area calmly, using the elevator as an escape. There was no reported fire, only some exposure to the chemicals that had been released into the air. Masks covered their faces - it was standard procedure, something that happened every other day. Even with the stakes so high around scientist Robert Pfeiffer, the alarm gave no apparent reason to cause panic. A simple mishap in one of the labs. Eliza realized the second she stepped into the room that protocol was going to be her ticket out. No one was as orderly as the people in a scientific lab.

She smirked at her handiwork. “Much better.”

At this point, she wouldn’t have been surprised if someone caught up to her. Though when she snuck her way out of the control room, the only souls in sight were those appearing in the lobby as the evacuation of the fourth floor came to an end. She had about five minutes until a team would come up to check on the supposed chemical leak.

Eliza used the emergency stairway to climb up to the fourth floor. Her heart almost dropped when a pair came strutting down the stairs. Somehow they didn’t see her. They were too caught up in their heated conversation to pay attention to the nerd in glasses who instantly turned her back to them.

She exhaled. You’re less likely to be sought out if you at least try to fit in, no matter how out of place you might look. Make an effort and no one will give a second thought to your presence. Human perception is weird like that.

With no one around, she could easily pass through the hallway of the fourth floor to the official stairway on the other end. Five minutes. That was all she needed. When she came through, her lungs opened to release the pent-up oxygen. The stairway was much colder than the general temperature in the building. She slid the glasses back into her pocket, freeing herself from the lab coat that wasn’t even hers. It choked her.

“Hey,” the hoarse voice sounded from somewhere above.

There he sat, like a bat, sitting on the railing.

“Hey,” she said. “What you doin’ there?”

“Waiting for you.”

Daredevil took the stairs down to her level. She appreciated that he didn’t jump to flaunt his perfect physique.

“Did everything work out?” he asked her then.

Eliza nodded. “Like a charm. We should hurry though before anyone catches wind of the fact that I just meddled with their security system.”

“I take it the alarm was your doing then?”

“What, did you think this had anything to do with luck?” she teased.

“Yeah, now that you said it sounds stupid.”

She opened her arms to the stairs leading up. “After you,” she said.

He scoffed. “Of course.”

Everything she did was based purely on strategy. Her choices were nothing but calculated decisions. There was something so perfectly trained about her. He’d been in the game for a long time before she came along; Eliza was younger, and less experienced, yet she somehow held the reins tighter than he ever could. She was in complete control. She could make the world spin around her just like that, with the snap of her fingers.

He hadn’t realized how smart she truly was. The reckless girl from the night before somehow proved she was more than that. A rebel with a cause. She found the plot holes and plastered them close. He had dangerously underestimated her.

Daredevil was fast on his feet. He took two stairs at a time, his boots barely made a sound. Eliza blinked once and already saw his figure disappear up the stairwell. Instead of picking up the speed though, she halted. Her eyes got caught up on the object (in hindsight, her wording had been slightly offensive) in front of her.

“Are you staring at my ass right now?” the low voice rumbled from above.

“What?” she said. “Of course not.”

“You’re lying,” he said.

“Well, in my defense, you have a nice ass.”

His mouth contorted. “ What ?”

Eliza smiled awkwardly. “What can I say, God blessed you,” she tried to talk herself out of it, but the horse she was on shamelessly rode deeper into the mess.

Daredevil stared blankly ahead at her and said, without wasting another facial expression, “You have issues.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she said.

They reached the fifth floor. His hand shot out to stop her, flat against her no longer concealed chest. Underneath his sensitive fingers, her heart jumped, louder and harder than he had ever felt a heart jump.

He tilted his head at just the right angle. The sound traveled through his eardrums into his brain where he began to decipher the meaning behind the conclusion of his senses.

“Six men,” he stated then. “Two cops are guarding the door to the lab. Three at the entrance points. Two scientists working down the hall but they’re wearing headphones.”

“Alright, let’s give them something to worry about.”

She pulled her phone out. The control panel to the system that the entire building ran on was right there on the screen. One press of the right button and she could make it all shut down.

“I’d focus if I were you,” she told him. “Things are gonna get pretty dark.”

“Oh, I can deal with dark.” The smirk on his face spoke a language she wasn’t fluent in.

Eliza flicked the switch. The neon lights crackled loudly at the sudden capitulation of the fuses that used to keep them burning. They blew out, one by one until the entire floor was covered in darkness.

Daredevil lifted his chin. Light bulbs, especially neon lighting, emitted a sizzling sound. The sound went unnoticed by normal ears. Except his ears weren’t normal, they weren’t even ordinary. His senses were as sensitive as the small layer of ice on a lake in early winter. Even the smallest disturbance could make it crack. The sudden halt of the annoying abundance of sound coming from the ceiling sent his mind straight into relief. One last thing to tune out, one last thing to cause him a headache. His ears no longer struggled to make out the difference between a light bulb and crickets.

The door next to them burst open. She pushed him against the wall. In the darkness, she could barely make out the figure, but the man seemed to pick up on their presence way faster. His lips parted, already prepared to let out the threaded sound of a warning.

Eliza balled her fist across his face. His body went down and with it, he choked on the words he wanted to say.

She glanced at her partner. “There’s more where that came from.”

“Then we better get to it,” he said.

Daredevil opened the door. Without night vision, even the guards were blind. Their reaction time was off, but they weren’t the only ones who needed time to get adjusted to the new circumstances.

“This is so much harder than I thought,” Eliza whispered.

“You were the one who said we needed to focus.” He landed the punch without once turning his head. “So, focus .”

One of the officers reached for his gun. He pulled the baton from his holster and hit him over the head. The gun fell into his hand. He unloaded it and slid it across the floor where he hoped it would stay until they were done. The cop didn’t appear to be getting up anytime soon.

Eliza used the moment of distraction to unlock room 21, the neighboring room to her target. The lights in the lab were still on. She quietly unlocked the door that connected both rooms, offering a perfect pathway.

Robert Pfeiffer stood at the laboratory table in all his glory. Differently colored vials lined up before him. He was absentmindedly typing away on his laptop, documenting his process. A collection of different drawings and lab reports piled over each other in a methodically sorted mess.

He realized her presence in the room before she got the chance to map out his workplace to the fullest extent. He turned around with a startled sound, reaching for a weapon. “Who are you?” he asked. The circles under his eyes suggested that he hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours.

She wondered if it was normal to keep working after one’s daughter got kidnapped the previous day. His life was threatened multiple times, some might say one would want to stay with their family after an event like that. Robert Pfeiffer though was something else. He chose the police to guard his room while he kept working. The risk of losing his life posed as less important than the research in his hands.

Eliza stepped further into the dim light of the desk lamp, revealing her face to the man. “I’m not here to hurt you,” she said.

He kept pointing the object at her. “Oh yeah?” he challenged. “So you just broke in for no reason?”

“That’s not what I said. Hey, can you put the test tube down? It’s kind of ridiculous.”

He shrugged. “I can stab you with it, so technically, it’s a good weapon.”

“Please, that thing’s not gonna hurt me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not here to discuss chemistry supplies,” she said.

Robert eyed her face. He searched for signs of familiarity, but the flabbergasted look on his face told her he couldn’t find any signs of origin. To him, she was simply a woman who broke into his workplace. She was a threat.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Seems like we have a friend in common.” Eliza took another step forward. “I’m talking about Hydra,” she shot the words over to him.

He flared his nostrils. His hand twitched around the test tube.

“Don’t,” she warned, but he had already grabbed his bag.

“Don’t.” Robert stopped in defeat as Daredevil appeared in the doorway. His gloved arm stretched across the frame.

He turned around, eyes wide and his face a sudden shade of white. He looked less like he’d seen a ghost and more like he was the ghost.

Eliza lifted her hands in surrender. She saw the look in his eyes, the determination to end his life before falling back into the clutches of Hydra. The sweat on his forehead was a byproduct of his prominent fear. She could not only see the green around his head, but she could smell it. She could sense the fear with every ounce of her being. His fear settled into all five senses she possessed. He wasn’t pretending; Robert Pfeiffer was serious in his fear and honest to God, he was willing to die for it.

“I’m not Hydra,” she chose a kinder tone of voice. She wanted the green to go away. She wanted to stop seeing the horror reflected in his eyes. “We saved your daughter yesterday,” she said.

Slowly, it dawned on him. “That was you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you want from me then? My gratitude? Because you have it. You have all of it.”

He just wanted to go home to his daughter. He had been so relieved to see her alive the night before, but he had also never been more scared for something to haunt him than that night. He feared for the life of his family, the life he built for them. He didn’t want to lose what he loved more than anything in the world. Only people with good in their hearts can love so deeply the way Robert loved his family.

“That’s the thing,” she said sadly, “I want your gratitude to mean something, I do, but it doesn’t. Your gratitude means nothing to me, Robert.”

“What else do you want?” his voice quivered from the tears that threatened to overfill the glass jar.

“I know you used to work for Hydra. I thought the story was long over, but it’s not. We’re far from it being over. Hydra tried to kill your daughter.”

He turned his head away. His whimper would haunt her forever. The pain was too much. His soul would not be able to take it. The torture he’d experienced weakened him. Years of suffering and yet it was worth nothing in the end.

“The only common denominator here is you,” she said. “You were one of Hydra’s best scientists. I found your name in the files released in 2014. I know what you did. I know you were in Sokovia, maybe not the year it fell but certainly a long time before that. I need you to tell me what happened.”

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question, Robert. I am telling you. I need to know or else this is gonna end ugly. Now, I’m not a murderer, but I won’t hesitate to hurt you. You’re already in pain, why make it worse?”

“I made mistakes,” he admitted. “But that’s not me anymore. Please, I don’t have anything to do with them. I told them, it’s over. I moved on.”

“I don’t believe you. People don’t just move on.”

Even seven years later, Eliza still hadn’t moved on. No one got to turn their back on Hydra without consequences. They kept their people close and if they even as much as dared to back out, they were more than willing to end them. It was a fight you were bound to lose.

Robert walked up to her with determined steps. Daredevil pushed himself off the doorframe and followed him, ready to twist his shoulder and send him into space. She made a small motion with her hand.

“You have to believe me,” he begged and he stopped because even he could tell there was no arguing with the masked vigilante when it came to personal space.

Eliza tilted her head. “Why?” she asked him. “Tell me, why should I believe anything you say? You’re Hydra. You were made to lie.”

“Please! I’m grateful for what you did, but you can’t be here. I can’t talk to you. It’s not safe.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“You don’t understand.” He looked between her and Daredevil, his eyes furrowed and his lips formed into the thinnest line any lips could form. “I can’t talk about them. This part of my life is over. I left it behind. There’s nothing for me to say. You need to trust me on this because there’s nothing more I can give you. Just go,” he said. “Please.”

She pulled the sleeves of her shirt up. The light barely fell on her, but the red ink on the inside of her arm couldn’t be missed. The closer he looked, the more he realized he wasn’t staring at a tattoo but a tiny brand mark just below her biceps.

“Project Chaos,” she stated.

The fabric of her shirt slid even further up, her torso now on full display. Scars littered the once smooth skin. He looked closer, drawn to it, unable to look away. She knew it was gruesome, she knew her skin looked more like a battlefield than an actual human body, but this was her. She couldn’t hide what was part of her. And her skin told stories she hardly ever told anyone.

It was a story Robert Pfeiffer knew how to read. A long time ago, he had only been fluent in the language of violence.

“Oh, God!” Robert dropped his bag. He tangled his hands in his graying hair. He barely caught himself on the back of his office chair.

Eliza pulled the shirt back down. “You wanna talk now?” she asked.

“How did you survive?” he breathed. “How’s that possible? Project Chaos… they told me it failed. Most of the children died in that room.”

“Eh, I’m pretty much alive.”

His hand remained tangled in his hair. He stared at her as if she was a zombie, someone risen from the dead, or maybe even a necromancer. She cheated death, as it seemed, and that freaked him out. Who wouldn’t be shocked or maybe even scared if someone believed to be dead was suddenly standing in front of them?

“This is-” he took a deep breath, and composed himself. Then, without warning, he laughed. He opened his mouth and the freakiest laugh left his vocal cords. It was the laugh of revelation. “This is incredible,” he said.

Eliza clenched her jaw. She bit into the soft tissue inside her cheeks, drawing blood. The pinch of pain kept her grounded. His laugh scratched something inside of her, but that scratch wasn’t comfortable or relieving. That scratch slid over an already open wound and made it burn terribly, and then it suddenly began to itch and she wanted to burn herself to make it stop. Something like that.

“Hydra wants you,” she said. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

“Pick up your jaw and answer me!”

At her harsh tone, he flinched back. She inhaled, then exhaled again. The anger pumped through her veins, a once so natural state. She tried to breathe it out as she taught herself, but the feeling remained stern in her bones.

Robert wildly searched around the table. Eliza imagined she exchanged a look with Daredevil, although it was hard to tell underneath the mask. She nodded for him to come closer. He tilted his head again. She waved her hand more strongly. This time, he locked the door, following her silent demand to inch closer to the table.

“Here,” Robert said shakily. He handed her a piece of paper.

“What is it?” Daredevil asked.

Eliza skimmed over the Russian letters. She tried to make sense of it. The last time she read in Russian was a long time ago. It didn’t take a genius though to decipher what was written.

“It’s a letter,” she told him. How could he have known? The language was as much of a stranger to him as the number of code words implemented.

“I got it after the Avengers destroyed Sokovia. No name, no address, it just magically landed on my doorstep.”

“I’m a bit rusty on Hydra code these days.” She traced her fingers over the text. “But this pretty much says that they’re asking for your help. With- I don’t know the last word.”

“After von Strucker created the, uh, Maximoff twins-”

Eliza stopped him. She turned to Daredevil. “Pietro Maximoff was this really fast guy,” she needed to explain. “And Wanda does telekinesis, mind control, all that stuff.”

He nodded, “Thank you.”

“Hydra realized they were onto something with those experiments,” Robert continued. “With Loki’s scepter, there was little they couldn’t do, but that’s gone now too. They had to find another way and they did, apparently, or else they wouldn’t have told me they were continuing their experiments.”

He pulled the box from his bag.

“I recreated the super soldier serum for them. With a few modifications,” - he opened the lid slowly, careful not to disturb the glass - “They said they wouldn’t bother me anymore if I told no one about it, but they came back and asked me to help make more of it and I just… I said I don’t want to do this shit anymore. I’m happy with this life. I saw what Project Chaos did, the sacrifices that were made…”

Something hot shot through her veins at the view of the see-through liquid inside the small vials that looked like drugs that could be found at the hospital. Eliza couldn’t control it, not this time. The heat went straight to her head, pushing into the middle of her forehead. Her veins seemed to boil.

Robert cried out. Her hand reached around his neck, tightly wrapped around it, and the fire began to form into a ball in the palm of her hand. She tossed him against the wall, feet dangling just above the ground. He stared into the glowing red of her irises.

“You knew and you didn’t do anything,” she said.

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to be associated with it. Oh, God.”

She tightened her fingers around his throat.

“And they just let you?” she scoffed. “Hydra doesn’t let you just leave.”

“I made the serum, okay? They haven’t contacted me for years so I decided to move on.” The first tear fell on her. “Please don’t kill me! Please .”

“Angel,” Daredevil tried behind her. He didn’t dare touch her, he merely stood behind her, having her back, and maybe that was why she listened to him even though the anger threatened to eat her conscience alive.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” she said eventually, loosening her hold and letting him find his footing back on the floor. “I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

“Oh, thank God!” He went weak in the knees.

The gloved hand slowly slid up her back. “Okay?” Daredevil asked.

She swallowed. The power ball in her hands subsided. “Okay,” she said, although hesitantly.

Just when Robert thought he was safe, he found his arm twisted. This time though, it wasn’t Eliza who had it out for him. Daredevil pushed the man down on the table. He cried out, but he only pushed harder.

“What does Hydra want?” he asked, followed by a guttural growl in his ear. “I can tell when you’re lying and you just lied to the woman who almost went to jail for saving your daughter. She risked her safety in coming here. You just lied to her and you lied to me after you told us that you were done. So help us or I swear to God, I’ll make sure your shoulder never pops back in.”

“What does the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen have to do with this?” Robert asked.

Eliza bowed down to meet his eyes. “He’s here with me,” she said.

“You’re a team?”

“Yes,” Daredevil answered instantly.

“It’s complicated,” she said. “But essentially, yeah we are.”

“What does Hydra want?” He was relentless. The man’s arm turned numb.

“I don’t know,” Robert said, panting. “I don’t know, please! Please, just stop hurting me!”

“He’s lying.”

Eliza cocked her head. “What are you not telling us?” she asked. “They sent you the letter, you declined, they took your daughter. The letter says nothing about why they want your help but somehow you know. Now, we can do this the easy or the hard way - you don’t want to know what the latter looks like.”

He struggled against the hold the vigilante had on him.

“May I remind you,” - her lips turned into a twisted smile - “I wasn’t just their prisoner, Hydra trained me. And you know what Hydra Agents do to people that piss them off, don't you?”

Robert squeezed his eyes shut. He contemplated, regret washing over him. The words lay hesitant on the tip of his tongue. The bone of his shoulder gave a loud crack. It popped out, giving more space to twist in. Daredevil pushed his glove into his mouth to muffle his screams.

“Alright!” he yelled, muffled through the leather. “Alright, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

Eliza nodded at her partner. He gave a displeased huff. With skilled fingers, he twisted the arm forward, circling the limb, and rolled the disk back in place.

“ Shit !”

“Talk,” she demanded.

Robert turned with his back to the table. “If I tell you, do you promise to keep my family safe?” he asked.

“I promised your daughter already. I won’t give up.”

“Alright.”

He took the black box back into his hands. “They asked me to replicate it,” he told them. “They came to my house at night, broke in, threatened me that they’d hurt my family if I didn’t comply.”

“So you did what they asked of you?” Daredevil questioned. He wasn’t aware of the blame in his tone.

“I told them I’d try, but I had no intention of actually giving it to them. That’s… that’s why I’m here instead of locking myself at home.”

Eliza counted six vials.

“They wanted it stronger,” Robert said. “Stronger than the Winter Soldier program. I don’t know what exactly their agenda is, but it’s possible they’re trying to build an army of super soldiers.” He eyed her. “ Enhanced super soldiers.”

She traced the glass with her fingers. “Is that all of it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I didn’t make more. That's all that’s left.”

“You’re the only one who knows the formula?”

“Yeah, to this one. The one Mueller made is outdated. They told me it’s only half as effective. He was present for Project Chaos. It’s his serum that made you.”

“I know that, I was there too.”

“I’m sorry for what we did,” for the first time that night, his words were genuine. A truthful apology, yet she couldn’t buy her childhood back with these words. It was just pity, nothing more, and pity just wasn’t an acceptable currency.

Eliza grabbed one of the vials and played with it. To Hydra, the serum was worth more than money. She understood why they wanted the formula. There were only a handful of people to recreate it. Mueller was in jail, Pfeiffer was barely hanging on and that was just about it. All of their actions suddenly made even more sense. They were scared of failing again. They took a pretty big hit.

“I’m the only one that can make it stronger,” Robert stated. “If I tell them I don’t have it, they’re gonna kill me. If I don’t tell them, they’re gonna kill me anyway. I’m trying to find a middle ground until I’ve found a way to get me and my family out of the country.”

“Enhanced,” Daredevil repeated the words. “What does that mean?”

He frowned. “You don’t know?”

“He’s new to this,” Eliza said.

“Enhanced like her,” Robert pointed. “Enhanced like Wanda Maximoff. Inhuman powers after human experimentation.”

A whole new world opened up to him. The concept was too far away to grasp. His senses were enhanced too, but they only turned out this way due to chemicals, not forced through experiments a normal human being couldn’t comprehend. It was something he’d never fathomed true. The world had always been black and white, good and evil, hero and villain – whatever he got himself into was a pile of shit, one he couldn’t claw his way out of.

The conversation was still unfolding. His thoughts had been a cork in his ears, getting popped by Robert’s distinctive accent.

“The children taken for Project Chaos were already… enhanced,” he explained.

“You mean, born with it?” Daredevil asked.

“I wouldn’t call it that. They were donated to the cause, some of them, others…” he turned his head to her, “were taken from their families, their parents killed on site.”

“That’s why I was the only one who survived,” Eliza said, her voice barely above a whisper then. “The other children were too weak, they died during the experiments.“

“Project Chaos was the worst idea Hydra ever had. They realized it was of no use and put a stop to it, or so I thought. Now that you’re standing in front of me, I doubt they ever stopped.”

“The files we found in Sokovia only contained death certificates. I searched through them in hopes of finding myself, but I didn’t. They labeled it as failed, but the training I received was extensive. It didn’t fail.”

Robert chuckled. “Von Strucker believed he created a miracle with the twins,” he said, “not knowing Hydra’s best-kept secret was the first ever miracle they achieved a decade ago. What I wonder is just, how did you survive?”

Eliza licked her lips. She thought back to the day she woke up in the sterile room at SHIELD, Natasha by her side, after interfering with one of her missions. One hit on the head and everything changed.

“Luck,” she said. “I just got lucky.”

Daredevil scratched the stubble on his cheek before he spoke again. “How do we find them?” he asked.

Robert chuckled again. “You don’t.”

“How do we get ahead of this?”

“You don’t.”

“Listen,” - he raised his hand to the color of his shirt - “I don’t have time for your bullshit. We need a place to start and you’re the only one who knows enough about Hydra to help us. Think about your daughter, Robert. You don’t want her blood on your hands.”

Robert lifted his hands in surrender. The mention of his daughter was enough to change the turmoil of his feelings. That was true parental love, even if their lives were twisted and cruel. He loved his daughter and he was willing to do anything to keep her safe. “They’re probably taking their subjects from human traffickers,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

Robert scouted his desk for a piece of paper. “There’s a name.”

“What name?” Eliza asked.

He scribbled with shaky hands, almost screwing up the letters. “The Viper,” he read aloud. “I heard it when I still worked for them. He’s been around a couple of years. No one’s ever met him. After the Avenger busted all facilities, the trail went cold, but he may be still alive and operating. Human trafficking would fall right into his area of expertise.”

“The Viper?” Eliza cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s an alias.”

“Thank you for telling me, I thought his parents just had an unhealthy obsession with snakes.”

Daredevil gave a disapproving grunt. The sarcasm.

“Sorry.”

Robert pursed his lips. He handed the slip to her, his hold strong. She tried to pull at it, but he held it sternly between his rough fingers.

“He’s dangerous,” he warned. “I‘ve never met him but word is, he’s cruel. He doesn’t feel . He’s the man next to the big boss, his handyman.”

She pried his fingers apart. “Thanks for the warning,” she said, “but this isn’t my first rodeo.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way. Think about what they’d do to you if they found you.“

“Only if I die.”

“That’s kinda what killing you means.”

“You don’t know me at all,” she said with a chuckle. “Get killed, walk it off. That’s how it goes.”

Robert rummaged through the piles of documents again. His hand aimed for an object in the middle of it, hidden beneath lab results and progress reports.

“Here,” he handed Eliza the small flash drive.

“What’s that?”

“What little info I have left on the serum. Get it far away from here. They can’t find it, ever. I was gonna burn it, but as long as they’re not on your tail already, you can get rid of it for me.”

“Thank you.”

The following moments passed by in slow-motion. Eliza reached for the flash drive. Next to her, Daredevil bowed his head as a foreign sound reached his ears. Through police sirens and loud voices, the steady clicking came from the opposite building. He listened to the steady heartbeat of the person. Their breath was soft, barely audible, hands calm.

His jaw slacked in the wake of realization. It clicked again, but this time a blow of wind sent the projectile toward them. He could hear the way it broke the sound barrier and headed straight for the glass that enveloped the laboratory of room 22. Even feet away, the blow was deafening.

With a short exhale on his part, he did the most conscious thing – he wrapped Eliza in his arms and sent them both flying to the linoleum floor. The glass shattered loudly. Shards exploded in every possible direction, weaponized by the explosion. One crack was enough to break the whole window apart. The night air blew inside, sirens and screams sounding over the ringing in their ears. Glass crunched under the body weight.

Eliza squealed. Her hands went over her head to shield herself from the weaponized glass. Her head was parked between his hand and his chest. Daredevil bore the full force of the sharp projectiles, some of them scratching at his face and drawing the smallest amount of blood.

Another shot rang out. She flinched. Voices outside the building and on the floor grew in size. Flesh parted in a disgusting squishing sound. Like squeezing ketchup out of a bottle, the blood painted the white walls red. One bullet after another came raining down.

Daredevil heard the person in the other building empty the full row of bullets from his rifle. He didn’t know what was louder, the squirting of blood, the cracking of bones, or the world breaking apart around them. The sirens busted his eardrums. Eliza’s heartbeat was so loud, that he felt it vibrating underneath him. Then there was the faint sound of choking, the smell of gunpowder and copper and hot metal in the air.

The heartbeat in the other building faded. Not once did the person’s breathing or pulse change.

His first instinct was to tilt his head down. Eliza kept her hands on her head, still pretty much in shock at the sudden change of plans. He softly placed a hand on her hair, the gloved hand rough against her sensitive skin.

“You alright?” he asked.

She nodded. She couldn’t speak, her mind was blank and her heart was too fast to hear or even control her voice. Blood rushed in her ears. The sound of her breathing came shallow.

Daredevil turned to the door. Steps came closer. The loud thudding of steel-enforced boots bounced off the floor. They were carrying heavy guns, fingers methodically fiddling with the trigger. The doors were locked, but not for long. They’d find a way to break through.

Eliza coughed. The oxygen was heavy in the depths of her lungs. Gunpowder tickled her nose.

“We need to go,” Daredevil whispered to her.

She nodded again. The blood in her ears subsided, but everything else around her suddenly grew too loud in volume, and she couldn’t focus on anything but the body lying a few feet from them. A big lake of blood was forming around Robert Pfeiffer’s body.

“Is he dead?” the question came like a rustling paperback.

Daredevil cocked his head. There it was, the sound of a faint heartbeat. Labored breathing filled the air. He drowned out the screams.

“No, but he’s dying.”

She tried to push him off of her.

“You can’t help him,” he stopped her. “We need to get out before we get caught.”

“I wasn’t done questioning him.”

Daredevil moved to sit back on his heels. Her hands became furious. He tried to stop her but a particularly hard push knocked all air out of him. He wheezed. Through all the overwhelming sounds and smells he hadn’t focused on himself. The sharp pain in his shoulder shot straight through his entire body.

Eliza furrowed her eyebrows. She looked down to where his hand squeezed the place between his shoulder disk and his elbow. He ground his teeth together, the hiss threatening to slip him.

She removed his hand. “Oh, my god!”

Someone hammered against the door. She stared at him, his injured frame and the pain expressed perfectly through his clenched jaw. The hammering grew louder. They were close to breaking down the door.

“That’s not supposed to happen, is it?”

“No,” he said. “It’s supposed to be bulletproof. Ah !” The pressure of her finger on the hole in his shoulder sent shockwaves of pain through him.

Eliza inspected the wound. The flesh moved underneath her touch. She couldn’t feel any metal - there was nothing that would suggest the bullet was still inside. She patted along his suit until she found the back. The fabric was still intact. For all she knew, the projectile only grazed him. Though when she inspected the wound further she realized it ran deeper than expected.

She ground her teeth. “Damn it! You’re losing too much blood,” she said. The blood coated her fingers from where it came oozing out. “I don’t know what was in that gun, but it certainly wasn’t a normal bullet.”

“It’s fine,” Daredevil assured her.

He was lying. The speed at which he was losing blood could easily be compared to the speed limit on highways, but instead of following the rules, you drive twice as fast. The blood didn’t seem to slow down either. Eliza placed his hand on the wound, pressing down until his muscles shifted. He winced.

“You really know how to take a hit,” she muttered. “Anyone else would’ve passed out by now.”

He chuckled breathlessly, though the movement shot straight to the core. “Runs in the family,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you might need to hold on a little longer.”

She looked over at Robert’s lifeless body. He was wearing jeans, jeans that were too big for him. He wore a tight leather belt around his waist.

Eliza hesitated. Robert Pfeiffer was as good as dead, but Daredevil was still alive. She had a choice. She could squeeze him for answers until he was dead or she could save her partner’s life. He posed the biggest support she’d experienced in almost a year. He didn’t know her and yet he was ready to pull her out of the line of fire to save her life - twice. She owed him. Maybe he owed her too, but she owed him more than that. He saved her life. She couldn’t take it lightly.

While the wound wasn’t life-threatening, she’d never seen such a deep graze before. Part of his arm was shredded. He’d already lost more blood than he should have.

She had a choice. She needed to make it.

Eliza huffed quietly. She pushed his hand further on the wound before removing her hand. “Keep pressure on it,” she told him.

Daredevil frowned. Her steps retreated fast. She kept her head down, afraid someone might take another shot through the destroyed window front. Her boots dug into the lake of blood around Robert’s body. Looking at him, she hesitated. He was still breathing, still lucid. Blood came out of his mouth, he was shaking, but he was alive. He was alive and he most certainly could still talk, even if he only had a few minutes left to breathe before his lungs collapsed.

He knew more than he let on. She could feel it in her heart that he held back. Fear got the better of him. Hell, part of him still wanted to protect Hydra. That’s just what they did - they manipulated their people to the point they would risk anything in their name. Even after captivity, their voices persisted. Part of Robert wanted to go back, another wanted to fight and then there was part of him that didn’t want to do anything. He was tired. She understood.

His eyes widened at the sight of her. “R-red,” he choked out.

“What?” she asked.

“Don’t let them take you, Red,” he said. It wasn’t the color he meant. He wasn’t naming a color on the wheel, he was calling her name. “Y-you need to-” he coughed, “End it. End it before they can take you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your life. They get you, we’re all lost.”

Her lashes fluttered. It dawned on her; he was asking her to kill herself. He was asking her to end her life before Hydra could get a shot at her. The words didn’t scare her. The truly terrifying part was that she agreed.

The choice between captivity and death was easy. She swore a long time ago that she would rather kill herself than let Hydra take her back. Robert was right. If it were to come down to it, Eliza would end her life in an instant, without question, without remorse.

Part of the journey is the end.

Eliza cracked her neck. He was getting to her. She reached around his waist, as she intended in the first place, and undid his belt.

“I’m just gonna borrow this real quick,” she said.

“Wait!”

She had a choice and she made it.

Daredevil searched for her support the moment she slid to her knees in front of him. His lips formed a thin line. The blood loss was starting to discolor his skin into white. He held onto her shoulder - any second and he would surely pass out. He felt like he was underwater. His senses caved in on him. He couldn’t breathe. The pain was the only sensation in the front of his mind.

The lock on the door squeaked. They had thirty seconds, tops, to get out. Eliza checked her pockets. Still there. She wouldn’t have been willing to leave without it.

“Okay,” she said and grabbed his arm. “I’m gonna momentarily stop your blood flow. It should save us some time to get out of here. The downside, it’s gonna hurt like hell.”

He grunted. “Do it!” he said. “I can take it.”

“I hope so. On three. One…”

If there was one thing he cherished about her it was that she was not squeamish. Her inability to waste time when it came to rash decisions might’ve just saved his life.

His lips parted in a cry that had her shaking. She felt every ounce of his pain. Her hand purposely stayed on him, trying to soothe what she could, but physical pain didn’t come from the soul. There was only so much she could do.

The belt sat tightly over the wound, stopping the bleeding almost entirely. His senses knocked him back into high gear. The fog in his brain subsided. He could finally focus again.

“You said on three ,” he choked out. “That wasn’t even one, Jesus!”

“I’m so sorry. I really am, but we have to go,” she said. “Can you stand?”

“I’m fine.” She didn’t believe him, but they didn’t have time to argue.

Together, they managed to scramble to their feet and make a run for the separating door to room 21. She closed the door behind him, clicking the lock in place.

“There are too many people, we can’t fight our way out,” he said.

She leaned him against the laboratory table. “I know. I’m trying to come up with a plan.”

“We have to make it to the roof.”

“I know. Stop telling me what to do.”

“Sorry, bad habit.” He threw his head back. “Just, I think I might pass out in the next five minutes.”

“No,” Eliza said sternly.

“No?”

“I refuse. You’re not gonna pass out.”

“Oh, okay,” he chuckled. “I’ll make sure my circulation gets the message.”

On the other side, the police finally broke through the door. Their orders were a blur. Daredevil reached for her hand. She knew what he was going to say.

“We need to run, now .”

Eliza wrapped an arm around his waist to stabilize him. “When I say go, you go.“

“What?”

“Trust me,” she said.

Her chest filled with fire. As her hands began to glow, he felt a strange tingle running through him. She flicked her wrist. The door unlocked.

The fog began to grow around him. She closed her eyes. The world before her eyes was one of pure crimson. A world in which they both made it out alive. The stress had taken a toll on her, and the anger had drained her to the last drop. She wasn’t used to constant outbursts - her powers were the youngest child in class who couldn’t possibly keep up with big ones at playtime.

She bit into her cheek. There was only so much left and she would make sure he used every last bit of it to get to the other side.

One last breath and then, “Go!”

Daredevil fell against the doorframe. “What about you?” he asked.

“Right behind you. Go!”

He flung the door open. Stepping into the hallway, he realized the attention passed right by him. The heartbeats of the people around him sounded faint.

Go, he remembered her words. The adrenalin was high, the pain even higher. He couldn’t believe it when he fell into the stairwell unnoticed. Once he broke through, he pressed his back to the cold wall. His arm throbbed.

Eliza twirled her wrists. It was exhausting, making them see what she wanted them to see. She felt dizzy from making everyone disappear. The power seemed to be fading. She wasn’t sure if the shield was going to hold or if she would end up walking straight into her demise. Her feet carried themselves. She wasn’t in control, swimming in a bubble over the quietest pool. Reality ate away at her, all flies trying to bite into her rotting flesh.

The door shut behind her, locked tight. Was it her or was it Daredevil? Her hands searched for the handrail. The world spun so fast, she could’ve sworn she’d gone blind. Her lungs rejected the oxygen she tried to give them. She was so incredibly weak in the knees, she just wanted to sit down on the cold stone floors and dig her face into the sweet relief.

Two arms found her. He dragged her back up. “You alright?” he asked.

Either answer would’ve been a lie. Instead, she shrugged.

“I think I might need a minute,” she admitted.

“We don’t have a minute.”

Her bubble burst.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Just…” She reached for his hand. “I think I might be the one about to pass out now.”

“No,” he said firmly.

“No?”

“You’re not gonna pass out.”

“Sure, I’ll let my circulation know you said that.”

He laughed. Unlike the sour laughs he’d given her before, he meant this one. It was genuine, amused even.

“I’ve got you.” Three simple words. That’s all it took.

Their fingers intertwined. He used all his strength to stabilize her. She tried to return the favor, but she was spent. The world crashed down on her and she couldn’t hold it. She couldn’t hold anything, not even her own.

They jumped the stairway two steps at once. The door to the roof was locked. He threw himself at it, breaking the lock. An alarm went off. The cold air hit them in the face.

Eliza stood on the gravel. The stones dug into her boots. She was suddenly so aware of everything. The loud voices, the sirens, the speed of the wind.

Robert Pfeiffer was brutally murdered in front of her. If it hadn’t been for her stubbornness, she would’ve never come to meet him, but she followed her gut and it ended up with one man dead and another injured. All because she couldn’t just drop it .

It was pathetic, really. Tony warned her. He warned her something like this might happen. He told her to stop before she even started. Anyone with half a brain would’ve listened. She was supposed to know better. She was supposed to be the golden child. She was supposed to be anyone but this . Mangled girl in way over her head, a walking danger to everyone around her. How could she possibly begin to explain this? She was a fool, she told herself. A stupid, greedy fool.

And now the blood on her hands was hot and sticky and it wouldn’t come off.

Daredevil reached for her arm. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

She gasped for breath. “ Everything’s wrong!” it was a hysterical scream she was not proud of.

“Angel-“

“That guy just got shot in front of us, D! What the fuck! Hydra… they knew we’d come. That’s the only explanation. Shit!”

“They got what they wanted.”

“Yeah and now someone’s dead ! I didn’t… I never wanted anyone to die.”

“I know you didn’t. Neither did I, but it’s not your fault. Listen,” he reached for her face with one of his gloved hands. “Something’s really wrong and it’s not just the fact that Pfeiffer died. This guy… I heard him, on the other side of the building. He’s an assassin, but he shot more than once. He- he didn’t just aim at him .“

“We’re witnesses,” she said. “Of course, he’d try to shoot us.”

“No, you. He wanted to shoot you .”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The angle was completely off. I-” he rolled his shoulder, “The only reason the bullet went for me is that I shielded you. I pulled you down. Pfeiffer wasn’t even in the line of fire. Not with my arm a few inches to the right and you- if I hadn’t been there, this bullet would’ve gone through you.”

“You expect a thank-you card?”

“Trust me,” he pleaded. “I can’t explain it to you because it wouldn’t make any sense, but you just gotta trust me. When you told me about Hydra, I underestimated them. That was my mistake. You’re in danger now. That changes things.”

“I was in danger from the beginning,” she retorted.

“Your life is in danger.”

“I know. Does it look like I care?”

He only scowled.

“No, didn’t think so. If I die, I die.”

His fingers dug deeper into her skin. The feeling of his hands slowed her heart rate. She swallowed, then gently wrapped her fingers around his wrists as well.

Daredevil felt her pulse. His index finger traced the skin just below her wrist, feeling the blood pump right underneath it and somehow, it made him feel better. For just a minute, he could breathe.

“You’re not gonna die,” he said.

“Says who?”

“I do.”

“Okay,” she caved. “I’m not gonna die,” she said. “But neither are you. No one else dies. There’s a big ‘do not enter’ sign on the afterlife.”

He chuckled to make light of the situation. “Okay.” The next sound that left his lips though resembled a breathy moan.

Eliza stared at the tourniquet. “I’m gonna need to take a look at your shoulder.”

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”

Eliza placed the hand holding onto her wrist over the wound, urging him to keep the pressure steady. He nodded slowly. The pain was clear in the little she could see on his face, but he refused to actively show it.

She wrapped an arm around the small of his back. “C’mon.”

They made their way off the roof in silence. The streets were dark, the sirens left behind. She guided them to her apartment, over the roof and the fire escape that eventually led to the window to her living room.

“Why don’t we take the front doo- ah !” She basically shoved him through the slot.

Daredevil hit the ground like a wet towel.

“Because I’m a bad girl and I can’t be left alone,” she said, sliding in after him.

He turned on his back, chest heaving. “That makes sense.”

“Don’t bleed out on my floor.”

“I won’t.”

“Then why the fuck are you still lying there? Get up.”

Eliza searched for the first aid kit in the kitchen. By the time she’d grabbed the alcohol and prepared a bowl of water to wet the towel in, he was still on the floor, groaning and panting. She placed all supplies on the dinner table, flicking on the small desk lamp she kept for emergencies. The big one in the ceiling followed. She adjusted the brightness. In his pained state, he didn’t need to be blinded as well, she figured.

“It would help if you took off that mask,” Eliza stated. She watched him struggle to get up some more, but it seemed like he was stuck. He was sore all over.

“Not gonna happen,” he retorted.

She placed her arms under his shoulders and dragged him up. He made all kinds of sounds that, in another context, could easily have been pornographic. She placed him down on one of the dining chairs, back to back.

He leaned his forehead on the cold wooden table. The silence was like comfort to him. The heat in his body welcomed the lowered thermostat, the wet towel she used to pat him down, and even the cold glass of water she offered him. It soothed the ache inside of him. Some things aren’t easily fixed with a needle and a thread.

Her hands began to work on his suit, but he barely felt it – he focused solely on her heartbeat and her distinctive smell. That night, there was a slight sense of sweat inside her natural odor, but the vanilla, books, and plants remained. She smelled like fall and summer, all at once like walking through a pumpkin patch and after that, the inside of a plant shop. He found comfort in the way she breathed so evenly, the way her scent danced around his nose like it was meant to be.

His senses were always so busy, always clouded, always overstimulated everywhere he went – and he never dared to show it because weakness was a disability. Stick had taught him that and life after hadn’t been so kind, either. Weakness brought on more bad than good, so he didn’t show it, not really, not if he could control it. The discomfort was part of his gift. Considering it anything less than that would’ve made him ungrateful, and then that would’ve made him weak. Twenty years later and he still had the old man mess with his head. He knew better, he’d learned a lot from being on his own, but everywhere he went, Stick followed him like a resilient bastard ghost.

Every once in a while, the world becomes a little too much. Every once in a while, he was tired of pretending it didn’t bother him, that the world wasn’t actively hurting him. Every once in a while, he simply wanted to lock himself in a soundproof, sterile room and cry. It was one of those days then. It had been for quite a while.

Eliza grounded him. She didn’t smell too much or breathe too loud, her heart wasn’t too fast in its natural state and she didn’t speak waterfalls into his ear. She was annoying, yes, but her voice was a sound he could get used to. Not too low, not too high, never shrill, just a sweet sing-song with a hint of anger issues. And if he listened close enough, he heard hints of a foreign accent, perfectly hidden beneath the facade she kept up for the people around her.

She was his solace, apparently. She was the isolated room he wanted to cry in. And she didn’t even know that the man she was so kindly sewing back together was lying to her.

You’ve got yourself into quite the predicament, Matthew.

Eliza somehow managed to peel him out of his suit. The cold air hit his bare torso, snapping him back into reality.

“What are you thinking about?” she said softly behind him. Her breath graced his heated skin.

His flesh squished as she assessed the situation, rubber gloves mapping him out. Instead of an answer, he hissed. She apologized.

Daredevil hummed at the numbing cream she smeared around the injury. “You’re calm,” he found himself saying.

Eliza was too stunned to answer. People used a lot of words to describe her, calm had never even once been a topic of question. She was loud, annoying, had no social skills, and sometimes, she treated people like disposable toys. Some even said she was simply a bitch. They claimed that even with her powers, empathy had passed by her. She was considered cold and sometimes, she was a bit overbearing. Sometimes she cared too much whereas, at a different time, she didn’t care at all. All of these words meant nothing to her. She didn’t mind being called names; she had gotten used to it – his words sent a shiver down her spine, something she would have only described as comfort .

“I’m gonna stitch you up now,” she told him.

“I thought you already did.” He chuckled.

“Shut up before I throw you out of my apartment.”

She stitched the flesh together without another word from either of them. He was still wearing his red mask. The horns stood at full attention. Her mind wandered off. Who was the man behind the mask? He seemed like a broken man, good at heart. With darkness inside of him, one he was scared of. He didn’t know much about the world. He always trod carefully and disappeared into his own little world.

“Angel?” he asked then. She hummed. “Why are you doing this?”

Eliza knew what he meant. This, working with him, patching him up, being nice to him.

“You’re not as bad as I thought,” she said, daring to smile.

He chuckled at the mocking sound of her voice. “That’s… nice to hear.”

“And, you know, you were there when no one else was. I need help, I was just too proud to admit that. I’ve realized how I missed this, working as a team. You didn’t ask, you just rolled with it. No second guessing.”

“I’ve never worked as a team before.”

She hummed again as she tied the knot on the thread. Metal clinked against the table. She pressed gauze against the freshly stitched wound.

“Press here.” He did as he was told. “For what it’s worth,” she said then, “We both needed someone. We protect each other. It works.”

He chuckled again, lower this time. “Yeah,” he said, “It works.”

“ We work.”

“So, what now?”

Not once did she ask about his scars. She didn’t cross that line, wouldn’t even dare.

“The Viper,” she said with disgust.

“Yeah.”

“We need to find him.”

He repeated his previous words. With a lot of grunts, he slipped back into the top of his suit. His shoulder ached, but he barely felt the stitches. “Tomorrow night,” he stated. “I know people that know people. You can get far by asking around in Hell’s Kitchen. Someone must’ve heard that name before.”

“So, ask questions, shoot later?” she chuckled. “You seem like that typa of guy.”

“I don’t shoot, I just ask.” He shot her a smile from the dark. The moonlight broke through the window and illuminated his face.

“I know.”

He touched his way forward until he found the windowpane. It was still open. “Can I count on you?” he asked. The night air broke into the apartment. Sounds of cars and people flooded the perfect bubble. Hell’s Kitchen was loud, deafening, and he wished he could just stay .

Eliza patted her thighs. “That reminds me,” she said.

He stopped in his tracks. He heard the hitch of her breath, her heartbeat.

“I took something.” Her fingers, still gloved, searched through her pockets.

“What?”

“One of the vials. I took it.”

Daredevil lowered his head. “ What ?” with his head, his voice fell too.

“Before he was shot and he showed me the box, I grabbed it. I thought- well, I don’t trust him. I don’t trust the flash drive. I realized that, so I took it. I- I don’t know what came over me.”

She didn’t expect him to react hostile though. “They’re willing to kill for that,” he said, finger pointing to the small glass between her fingers. “You’re already on their radar. If they found out one of them is missing-“

“I couldn’t help myself! It’s the only proof I have in case things go south. I needed something to hold onto.”

“God!” He tightened his fist around the handle. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” he said.

Eliza gnawed on her lip. “Yeah?”

He slipped back into his gloves. “Tomorrow night,” he pointed at her, “I’ll come to you.”

“What,” she said, “you’re gonna throw rocks at my window?”

He slipped through the crack. “If you don’t stop acting like an idiot, I’m gonna throw a brick.”

“Wow.”

“At your face.”

“ Wow !”

Even when she believed him to be gone, he proved her wrong once again. He peeked his head through the window, standing on the fire escape. To be fair, she didn’t see it coming and it was his fault she almost banged it down onto his neck.

“Thank you,” he said.

The air smelled of him long after he was gone. She watched his silhouette jump the roof, disappearing into the dark. With a sigh, she lowered the window, fastening the lock. The silence of her apartment was back, like a shield guarding her against the world.

It came in a sudden blow - that something that always turned her head.

The picture of Robert’s lifeless body in a pool of his own blood. She had blood on her hands. Not just his, everyone’s. The palms of her hands were oceans of red bodily fluid. She was drowning in it.

Eliza bit the inside of her cheek. Her lungs contracted, reaching for her, but all she could see and breathe was the light of dead bodies. Body over body on a pile of bleeding corpses. Thousands of needles danced on her skin. She was heavy, her hands were heavy. The blood dripped off her fingers.

She dug her nails deep into her palms but it wasn’t enough.

The tap opened, and water came flowing out. She put her hands underneath the water and just began to scrub. She scrubbed the soap so deep into her skin, that she felt it hit the bone. The water was piping hot. It burned sweetly in the cracked skin of her knuckles, but even when everything was red, she didn’t stop. The water was red. It was so red, the entire sink had been painted crimson, and she couldn’t see anything else.

The world began to draw circles around her head. She tried to breathe, but her lungs filled with water. Fire tore through her. She felt every bone at once. Something thick layered her skin. She needed it off, all off. She basically ripped the shirt off her body. Gasping, tears in her eyes – she felt utterly pathetic. The constant ringing in her ears mixed with the distant sound of voices in the back of her head. They were so loud, screaming and tearing at her. She needed to get out, get out of here. She didn’t know where exactly, the cage just seemed death-locked and the walls came caving in, too.

Eliza tried so hard to focus on five things. She just needed five things.

“Don’t cry, you were chosen for a reason. You are so very special. I’m gonna help you see that.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Stars danced in the darkness behind her lids.

Five things you can see. Go.

She dared to open her eyes again. The kitchen was spinning fast, like a carousel out of control. Black dots clouded her vision; no matter how hard she blinked, the darkness only extended.

The microwave stood on top of the kitchen counter. In the warped perception, it looked less like a microwave and more like a monster with its mouth wide open. The clock on the oven showed the early hours of the morning. She saw the oven, too. A pot of leftover mac and cheese she forgot to put in the fridge. Next to it stood the bottle of hot sauce. Empty beer bottles littered the liquor corner on the floor.

Air crept down her windpipe. Her lungs rejected the desperate attempt to inhale the life-sustaining oxygen. Though it was there and it had no intention of giving up.

Four things you can feel.

“ She’s not ready. She doesn’t know how to control it - whatever it is. Hell, we don’t even know what it is. Something’s inside of her for sure. ”

“ We need to keep going, see how far we can go. Isn’t that the whole point? ”

With her shirt off, the cold of the tiles in the kitchen became more prominent. She lowered herself down, chest heaving and her mouth gasping desperately for relief from the dark burning that every exhale brought to her weak lungs.

She was tired, and dizzy. The ringing in her ears was so loud. She wanted to scream, cry, or die. She just wanted to disappear, crawl beneath a rock and come out when it was all over.

Four things you can feel.

Eliza pressed her chest closer to the kitchen tiles. She could feel the cold. Her knuckles burned at the harsh contact with the ground. The thudding of her heart up to her throat, she surely felt that. It was painful. The lace of her bra as she traced her fingers down her chest, still searching for a miracle, she felt that too.

Three things you can hear.

“ You are capable of so many powerful things, my dear. The world will crumble at your feet. ”

The fridge buzzed, cooling the groceries inside down to an acceptable temperature. The slow drip, drip, drip of the faucet above her head managed to penetrate the fog clogging her hearing. Her neighbors celebrated someone’s birthday in the apartment below. The music was loud enough to shake the ground.

Two things you can smell.

“ Don’t forget who raised you. You’re doing this for us, not for yourself. No one else wanted you before we came along. We saved you, we made you. You owe us your life. Only with us, you can unfold your true potential. And you want to be the greatest, don’t you, little one ?”

The mac and cheese on the stove carried the scent of mold slowly growing on the top. Leaving food out in the middle of summer was a bad idea indeed.

Eliza closed her eyes to separate the distinctive scents in the air. Rain, leather, and sweat, the remains of gunpowder and blood - Daredevil. He left his scent behind, marking her apartment as his. He was like a cat, not only in stealth but in the way he never failed to remind Eliza that he existed. He followed her, protected her, and left parts of him in her apartment. She wanted to hate him, she really did, but he was right; he listened when no one else did.

One thing you can taste.

“ Good morning, soldat. Are you ready to comply? ”

She tasted salt on her tongue. Wet, fat drops of tears fell down her cheeks and past her lips. Open wide, she was gasping for breath. The salt burned on the small cracks she had from gnawing on her bottom lip too much.

The cotton popped from her ears suddenly. The lock holding both wings of her lungs hostage opened, the dam breaking entirely and allowing the air to flood her windpipe. She inhaled loudly. It burned at first, almost tearing her chest to pieces, but then the sweet relief settled in and all she could do was breathe so heavily, she could never forget the feeling again.

The sound of the world, sirens, cars, and people crashed in. The cold tiles left shivers on her skin. Black dots turned into nothing but light. She was back in her kitchen. The furniture no longer drew circles around her vision.

The world was real and she was real, too.

Eliza turned onto her back, exhausted and drained. She slept in the same position before. From time to time they happened - the panic attacks. They came suddenly, without warning, some worse than others. She was often too focused to recognize the triggers. Life happened too fast, it passed by in flashes, never stuck to the speed limit, and almost always missed the train station when she wanted it to stop. Life had its own schedule and breaks weren’t on the timeline. She often found herself pulling the emergency lever, causing the train to hit the brakes and just stop. By then, it was already too late. The train had missed its station and even with space to breathe, she wouldn’t be able to get off anytime soon.

In moments of silence, once her mind was actively thinking again, the thread of sanity that kept her functioning during the day snapped. The thread snapped with full force and everything it had been holding up to this point came crashing down on her, burying and drowning her beneath the rubble.

She placed a hand on her heart, listening to the way it sounded almost normal again. With every breath, the beat slowed down. It found the natural rhythm again. She squeezed the tears away. She was okay. Not fine, not great, but she was okay. She was alive, she was breathing, and she was physically unharmed. She was okay.

Sighing tiredly, she turned on her side. Both hands were under her head as a pillow shielded her from the hard kitchen floor. She found comfort in the cold. The day had drained everything out of her, it even drained her sanity. She had no choice but to comply with the heavy drooping of her eyelids.

Thud, thud, thud. The sound of her heart pulled her into comfortable darkness where everything was kind of okay. A place of hope and dreams. A happy place.

Eliza chased sleep like a lost sheep, and for the first time in days, she finally caught it.

43 notes · View notes

capricornwriter5 · 2 years

Text

Always on time - Chapter 7

Pairing: Jooheon x female OC

Genre: childhood friends to enemies, enemies to friends, friends to lovers, smut (later chapters), fluff, angst, slow burn, idol AU!

Warning: mentions of mental health issues, mentions of workaholic disorder, curse words

Words: 5k

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Chapter 7

Jooheon and Minhyuk arrived at the dorm around 7:30 at night. They hadn’t said much on the way, especially since Jooheon couldn’t get Jules' image out of his head. She was... angry? Sad? Disappointed? All the above?

Pfff, why didn’t I say something? Jooheon reproached himself, how hard is it to ask if she’s okay? God, Jooheon, wake up. You can’t fall for the same thing as Changkyung.

Minhyuk noticed that his friend was not in the mood for a conversation and was still trying to figure out why he had volunteered to help him with the exhibition when Jooheon got bored only hearing the word "art". It obviously had something to do with the curator, Seo Julianne. Minhyuk remembered that was also the name that came in the invitation of the reunion of Jooheon’s high school class; he still remembered the way in which the rapper had jumped out of bed after hearing that name. However, there was also the detail that Jooheon was on a hiatus, he was not working, and had to go to therapy... Would it be a good idea for him to take on a project like this? True, it had nothing to do with music and it would keep him busy, it wouldn’t have to be counterproductive, right?

"Jooheon-ah" Minhyuk told him as they both entered the dorm. "Be honest, why did you volunteer to help me with the project?".

"I want to help you, hyung," Jooheon replied a little surprised by the sudden nature of the question. "This exhibition is something you’ve wanted to do for some time, not to mention the Monbebes have been waiting for it. I don’t want you to lose your motivation for lack of time and, well, I may not know how to paint, but I have plenty of time right now, you know? And I know you well enough not to do anything tasteless".

"And Julie-ssi?" Minhyuk asked. "She has nothing to do with it?"

Jooheon was quiet for a while.

"Hyung, Jules... I haven’t seen or heard from her in years, hyung," Jooheon began. "She was... very important in my life and, at a certain point, during the madness of this idol life, I forgot about her. Remember the pictures my mother sent at our last concert? Jules was in most of them," Jooheon recalled as a smile appeared on his face. "At that moment, all my memories of us cascaded back and I started thinking about her again. I even thought about calling my mother and asking her what happened to Jules, and you see, I just... I just found her".

Minhyuk had never seen his friend talk like that about anyone and, although Jooheon did not notice, his eyes screamed the words that the rapper did not dare to articulate. Well, Jooheon has never disappointed me, Minhyuk thought, it would be nice to give it a try.

"Okay, Jooheon-ah," Minhyuk said in a determined tone, "you are in charge of the exhibition. Tomorrow I’ll sign the papers and I’ll put your information so you can be my spokesman".

"Hyung, are you serious? Are you serious?" Jooheon asked excitedly.

"You better do a good job. Monbebe has waited long enough," Minhyuk said.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" shouted Jooheon of excitement as he raised Minhyuk in a bear hug.

Once he put his friend on the floor, Jooheon hurried to the door of the apartment and began to put on his shoes hastily.

"Wait, where are you going?" Minhyuk asked. "We just arrived, and you know I don’t like to dine alone".

"I’m sorry, hyung" apologized Jooheon opening the door. "I have a lot to do... to read. I have... I have to go. See you later!" And with that goodbye, he exited the dorm and slammed the door shut.

Jooheon ran down the stairs and before reaching the first floor collided head-on with Shownu and Kihyun, who were returning from their activities.

"Woah! You all right, Jooheon-ah?" Shownu asked as he held Jooheon before he fell to the floor. "What’s up?"

"And Changkyung? Where is he?" Jooheon asked, ignoring Shownu.

"Changkyungnie? Well... he went to his apartment, I think," Kihyun replied. "Is everything all right? Why the rush?"

"Yes, yes, yes, everything is fine, but I have to go," said Jooheon hastily.

The rapper ran down what was left of the stairs and disappeared through the front door of the building.

"That was..." Shownu began without finding what to say.

"At least it’s a change," Kihyun said with a shrug. "Come on, he’s not going to tell us anything while he’s in that state. Maybe I.M. will tell us later, it seems that Jooheon needs him for something".

*********

Thirty minutes later, Jooheon was in front of I.M.’s apartment. Without thinking twice, he inserted the code into the digital lock on the door and let himself in.

"Changkyung!" Jooheon shouted.

Indeed, the maknae was in his apartment... but he was not alone. Liv was with him, and Jooheon had trouble processing the image of both of them, together, on the couch watching a movie as a normal couple. However, he recovered quickly enough to annoy the youngest member of the group:

"Hyung? What is it? Is everything all right?" I.M. asked with concern as he got up from the sofa. The truth is that the slam-door, plus Jooheon’s scream, plus the crazy face he had was not a very reassuring image and I.M.’s mind could only imagine the worst scenarios.

"Ah? Me? Mmmm, and what about you?" Jooheon asked in a naughty voice. Now the rapper was suppressing the laughter and the urge to bother Liv and I.M. "Do I interrupt your night? Your night alone?"

"AISH, HYUNG!" shouted I.M. "Get serious. You can’t just walk into people’s homes. I have neighbors, you know?"

"Yaaaaah, our Changkyungnie is a family man, eh?" Jooheon continued, raising an eyebrow.

"Hyung, why are you here?"

"Kyun, calm down" intervened Liv before the two rappers began to argue. "Jooheon, is everything okay? You scared entering like that".

"Ah, yes, I’m sorry," Jooheon apologized. "Everything is fine. I didn’t know Changkyung had company, but... I need a favor and it’s urgent".

"A favor?" asked I.M. "Tell me, hyung, what do you need?"

"Tell me everything you know about art... and philosophy... and those deep things you always talk to Kihyun and Minhyuk".

"Sorry?" asked I.M. stunned. He didn’t understand what was going on with Jooheon.

"You heard me. Give me a couple of intensive classes on what I need to know... ah, and I have about... three or four days? Yes. So make it short, okay?"

Neither Liv nor I.M. knew what to say. This was a pretty radical change in Jooheon’s attitude of the last few months and, while Liv hadn’t seen him much, she knew from I.M. the hard time Jooheon was going through. The two hoped that he would soon be his old self again, but neither imagined that old Jooheon would resurface with such a... impossible request.

"Hyung, that’s impossible," sighed I.M. "I mean, what you’re asking me... I wouldn’t even know where to start and..."

"It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter" Jooheon cut it. "You just talk, and I take notes. Believe it or not, I can pay attention when I intend to".

"It’s not that... it’s that..." Changkyung didn’t know how to make Jooheon understand that what he was asking was simply impossible. Besides, Jooheon hadn’t told him why he wanted to sum up centuries of art and philosophy in a couple of days. "Anyway, why do you want to know? And what’s the rush?"

"I have a new project and I need to know art, philosophy... maybe a little history could help".

"What is the project about?" asked I.M.

"Pfff, well art, obviously. What else could it be about, Changkyungnnie?" replied Jooheon. "God, I thought you were not so slow anymore. Careful, Liv is here, you still have to make a good impression on her".

"YAH!" shouted I.M.

Liv just laughed and got off the couch.

"Well, I guess it’s going to be a long night for both of you," Liv said. "I’m going to go get something to eat. Do you want anything special?"

"But..." started I.M., but Jooheon cut it off.

"Anything’s fine, Liv. Thank you".

Once Liv had left the apartment, I.M. turned to Jooheon to claim his intrusion. However, he could not even say two words because Jooheon started talking before he could:

"Don’t you start whining at me," Jooheon said sharply. "First of all, I know it was you who changed the passcode on the digital lock of my, MY, studio, don’t think I’ve forgotten. Second, I’m partly responsible for the two of you getting back together back: it was me who put some sense into that hard head of yours and it was me who had the idea of leaving you alone after your presentation a few weeks ago. And we all know that’s when it got interesting, don’t we?"

Jooheon paused dramatically waiting for I.M.’s response, but the maknae blushed so much with that last comment that he forgot how to speak.

"That’s what I thought," Jooheon said with a mocking smile. "So, long story short, you owe me not one, but two. But the most important thing of all, which brings me to my third point, is that the project is not mine specifically, it is Minhyuk hyung’s".

"Minhyuk?" asked I.M. "Did he finally decide to do something with his works?"

"Yes, but he doesn’t have time to organize everything," Jooheon explained, "and right now, time is all I have left. Although if someone would give me back my studio..."

"Okay, hyung" I.M. jumped before Jooheon made a bigger drama about the passcode. Changkyung felt guilty enough about it and the last thing he wanted was to be constantly reminded of it. "I don’t know if I can help you much, though".

"Sure you do!" Jooheon assured him. "I still remember when you read Socrates before a concert. It was so strange to see... But anyway, we love you. So, I’m in your hands, tell me everything you know".

When Liv returned with food, she found Jooheon and I.M. in the living room with several books around them and, although Liv had arrived with food, neither rapper gestured to get up and eat. The only thing that told Liv that they both knew she was back, was a little greeting from I.M. Other than that, the two rappers were focused on their discussion/art class or philosophy or whatever I.M. was talking about.

Liv thought it was good for Jooheon to try to look for other hobbies and other activities with which to be distracted. Although I.M. hadn’t told her the whole story, Liv knew that Jooheon had been struggling with stress levels at work and hoped this would help him release some energy. Besides, it would give the two of them another subject to talk about...

"That’s ridiculous," Jooheon said. "What’s more, it’s so obvious it’s ridiculous".

...or not.

"Yes, well, hyung, try to put yourself in his shoes," I.M., explained, "at the time of Aristotle there was no one who had talked about the things he was explaining and the literature was not as developed as today. The definitions that today seem obvious, for them were new".

"Still," Jooheon continued. "It’s just that... look at that definition: 'the beginning is everything that is not preceded by anything but is followed by everything. I mean TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW. HERE I WAS, THINKING THAT THE BEGINNING WAS AT THE END".

"Hyung, look..."

It’s going to be a really, really long night, Liv thought laughing at herself as she prepared the dinner plates and watched the endless discussion of the two rappers.

_________________________________

On Monday the following week, Julie thought for the first time ever about calling in sick. On Friday, she was told that she would be starting with the development and organization of Lee Minhyuk’s project today and that Lee Jooheon would be the customer’s spokesperson.

I don’t want to, thought Jules turning off the alarm. I don’t want toooooooo.

However, after throwing the tantrum of the week on her head, Julianne kicked the sheets and got out of bed. An hour later she was ready to leave, convinced that today would be a day like any other.

"But look at you!" Rei said as soon as Julianne walked into the office. "I love that dress, is it new? And that lipstick! Someone got pretty dressed up today," concluded her friend winking. "Tell me, Julie-ah, excited to work with an idol?"

"Calm down, Rei," said Julie. "The dress is not new, and the lipstick was bought by my mother a few days ago, that’s all".

"Mmmm, right" Rei said not very convinced. "And the fact that today comes a famous idol has nothing to do with your choices".

Julianne didn’t bother to contradict her, she didn’t want to continue that conversation, so she just went to her office and started working. She still had a couple of hours before she had to meet Jooheon. The previous Friday, her boss and Minhyuk agreed to a meeting for that Monday at 10:30 in the morning at the studio where Minhyuk had kept most of his paintings. The idea was to make the first survey of all the works available for exhibition and from there establish the concept, history, or aesthetic line to follow.

At 8:30, Julianne had finished all the administrative tasks she had pending and did not know what else to do to kill time. She asked Rei if she needed help with anything, but she told her she had everything under control. It was still too early to receive visitors and the few people in the gallery at that time of the morning were being looked after and guided by junior curators.

Having nothing to do, Julie decided to do some research on Lee Minhyuk. Perhaps she could find some of the singer’s works and see more or less what his aesthetic line was, like that, she would not arrive completely empty-handed to review the paintings. She tried to filter the web results in order to look up information only about Minhyuk and not the whole group, but after several minutes she realized that that would be impossible, as the activities of all the members of Monsta X were really interrelated and even if they had different agendas, they did not miss the opportunity to mention each other.

Julie hadn’t really followed Jooheon’s career after the end of reality where he debuted, so she didn’t know what kind of music or performances Monsta X had. However, she only needed to listen to a couple of tracks to recognize Jooheon’s influence on the band’s discography.

"You’ll see, Jules," Jooheon said as he hung from the rail. "One day, I will be on a stage and people will sing my songs".

"Would you get off at once?" Julie said worriedly. "If you keep hanging, you’re going to fall because your greasy hands and you can’t be famous if you break your face".

"Pffff, have you ever seen anyone break their whole face?" Jooheon asked, mocking Jules. "Besides, I’m already nine, I’m stronger and this game is a joke to me. Want to see?"

"No, no.... Jooheon-ah, go slow. Jooheon-ah!"

"Ta-da!" Jooheon shouted as he landed safely on the floor after jumping down from the railings. "See, it’s nothing, Jules. Don’t worry... I know you can’t live without me but calm down and... AH!" shouted Jooheon when Jules hit him in the arm. "Why was that?!"

Jules didn’t answer. She just stared Jooheon in the face before turning to go home. She was also nine years old, but she didn’t do so many stupid things. Pfff, boys.

"Julie-ah," Jooheon said behind her back.

"Julie-ah"

"Julie-ah!" Rei’s call pulled Julianne out of her memory. God, what was that about?

"Ah? I’m sorry, Rei," Julie said. "Do you need anything?"

"Are you okay? You were like in another world".

"I’m fine, sorry," Julianne repeated. "Tell me, what’s going on?"

"Ah, right. You have visitors" Rei reported. "Lee Jooheon is here".

"What?!" Julie jumped out of her seat. "But... we were to meet in the studio in an hour".

"Mmmm, yeah, well, he’s here. He’s in the main hall, looking at some paintings from the exhibition," Rei said. "Should I tell him to come in?"

"No" answered Julianne almost immediately. "I’m going out. I’m with him in five minutes. Thank you, Rei".

Julie took a couple of deep breaths and shut down her computer’s search engine. He was glad that Rei had not seen the screen, it would have been difficult to explain why Julianne was watching music videos during working hours.

When Julie arrived at the main hall, she saw that Jooheon was indeed there. She took a deep breath once more and walked towards him.

"Jooheon-ssi" called him.

"Ah, Jules" Jooheon greeted her as he turned following her voice. "Wow, you look great. How are you?"

"I’m fine," replied Julianne with a professional smile. "I thought we’d meet at Minhyuk’s studio in an hour. Did anything happen?"

"Ah, no, no, not at all" Jooheon reassured her. "I just thought it would be a good idea to come and pick you up and go together. Minhyuk’s studio is hard to find and it’s easy to get lost in that area".

Confusing streets? Really? That’s what a GPS is for, Julianne thought annoyed for no apparent reason.

"I appreciate the gesture, Jooheon-ssi" Julie began, "but I think it would be better to go in separate cars. I have other commitments today and I don’t want to be a bother".

"No bother, Jules," Jooheon said. "I would have no problem being your personal driver for a day," explained the rapper, "but if you feel more comfortable like that, we can go in separate cars, just make sure you follow me. The streets are really tricky in that neighborhood, and you could end up driving in circles. Believe me, it happened to me once".

"Okay, Jooheon-ssi" replied Julie. "I don’t know how tricky a street can be, especially with a GPS, but I understand".

"Great," Jooheon said with a smile. "I’ll wait for you, then. If we leave now, we arrive just in time".

Julie saw the time on her watch and realized that Jooheon was right. It was 9:45 in the morning and the journey would take about 40 minutes, depending on traffic, so Julianne went quickly to her office to pick up her bag and went out with the rapper to the gallery parking lot.

The traffic was not very heavy, so they soon reached the residential area where the building where Minhyuk rented his studio was. All along the way, Julie stayed less than a car away from Jooheon’s vehicle, however, as she exited the main road and entered the adjacent streets, Julie got distracted at a stop sign and when she saw the road again she had about four cars between her and Jooheon.

Julianne then decided to turn on the GPS and follow the system’s instructions, but soon realized that Jooheon was right: the area was a maze. It was probably one of those neighborhoods that were "remodeled" through urban programs; the problem was that the maps had not been updated in navigation systems, so the names of streets and establishments in the system did not match at all with what Julie had in front of her. Se even ended up a couple of times on dead ends!

After about ten minutes of wandering around, Julie realized her cell phone was vibrating. The incoming number was unknown, so she decided to ignore it until the call was cut off, but immediately afterward, it rang again. This happened two more times until Julianne relented and took the call:

"Hello?"

"Jules! You finally answer," said Jooheon’s voice on the other side of the line. "Where are you? Are you lost?"

Julie hesitated whether to answer or not. Her pride was a little hurt and she didn’t want to accept that she was indeed lost.

"I’m almost there. Give me five minutes".

"Jules, tell me where you are" Jooheon said. "I told you these streets were complicated. Tell me what you see and I’ll go to you".

"You don’t have to do that, Jooheon-ssi. I’m almost there, I’m close, I’ll see you there" and with that Julianne cut the call. Part of her regretted it because she had no idea where she was. But her rational side made her calm down and park the car on the side of the street to check the map on her phone.

Julie confirmed what she already knew: the streets on the map did not correspond to the new layout of this area of the city. However, there were sections that were the same and Julie had a memory good enough to remember where she had already been.

She was about to decipher the route she had to follow when some knocks on her window made her jump on her seat out of fright. As she turned her head, she saw Jooheon smiling on the other side.

"What are you doing here?" Julie asked lowering the window.

"Well, since you didn’t want to tell me where you went, I called the owner of the restaurant on the corner and asked her to tell me if she saw a car like yours running around all over the place," Jooheon explained. "The guys and I order a lot from that restaurant when we’re in Minhyuk’s or Shownu’s studio. But anyway, she told me you were here".

Jooheon said it like it wasn’t a big deal, and it wasn’t, but Julianne was upset. She knew that what really bothered her was the fact that Jooheon was right, the fact that she got lost in the middle of the city, and the fact that Jooheon had to come looking for her like a little girl. Julianne was upset because she was embarrassed, although she knew she was being childish and that there was nothing to feel embarrassed for, but that only made her feel even more upset.

Within seconds, Julie’s head was about to explode, so she just took a deep breath waiting for Jooheon to get away from the car window. Bad idea. As she was getting air, Julie smelled the cologne that Jooheon was wearing. It’s the same as always, she thought, but before her head developed on that thought, she shook her head and set out to start the car’s engine.

"Well, anyway, now I know where the studio is," Julie told Jooheon as she held the steering wheel. "You don’t have to guide me anymore".

Although Julianne was trying to keep a neutral face, she was failing, and Jooheon was two seconds away from bursting with laughter. From a young age, Julie had the knack of wrinkling her nose whenever she felt embarrassed, and that was just what she was doing at the time. Jooheon endured the laughter but could not help the half-smile on his face as he recognized his friend’s gesture.

"Don’t worry, Jules, it wouldn’t be the first time. Don’t think I forgot the time of the maze" the rapper replied as his smile widened.

"Are you still not over it?" Julie said in a bit of a huff.

"How could I? Your nails left scratches and marks along my arm!" Jooheon jokingly told him. "I helped you out and you thanked me like that".

"Yah!" Julie cut him off. "Don’t be a liar, you scratched yourself when you fell trying to get on the bus with your eyes closed. I never took your arm".

"Yes, well, I’m sure my mother remembers a certain new shirt that on the first day had the collar completely stretched".

"In any case" interrupted Julie, "see you there".

"I’ll be right behind you," Jooheon said with a wink.

The rapper walked away from Julie’s car and headed to his. In the back of his mind, Jooheon hoped that Jules would get lost again just to see her frustrated face; however, in a matter of ten minutes, they were both parked on the street of Minhyuk’s studio.

Both entered the building and went up to the third floor, where was the place rented by the singer. Apparently, Minhyuk had been able to arrive after all, for when they arrived at the apartment, they found the door open, and inside was Minhyuk circling everywhere.

"Hyung" Jooheon greeted.

"Ah, hello, Jooheon-ah" Minhyuk greeted him. "Julie-ssi, you are just in time".

"Minhyuk-ssi, I see you were able to join us," Julianne said.

"Yes and no," Minhyuk replied with an apologetic expression. "I had a commitment on the area that ended earlier than expected and I decided to come here, but in... 10 minutes, more or less, my manager will pick me up. I just came to try to explain a little the disaster you see".

"Hyung, this is awesome," Jooheon told him. "I didn’t know you had done so many things".

"Yes, well, it’s therapeutic," continued Minhyuk. "Well, you see, I use this place more as storage than as an apartment. There are three bedrooms, plus the living room and kitchen, but only one of the rooms is furnished. Basically, the works are sorted by technique and in turn by color palettes that..."

Minhyuk continued to speak, but Jooheon stopped paying attention to what he was saying and set his sights on the amount of neatly ordered canvas in the room. Only there could be about 30 or 40 paintings of different sizes, colors, themes... it was impressive. The more works he saw the more excited Jooheon was for his friend. It was time for him to realize how great he was.

"Anyway, that would be it" concluded Minhyuk. "I hope it’s not too much information at once".

"No problem," answered Julianne. "This is my specialty, after all. In fact, it’s a very good organizational system and I think it can serve us well. I assure you that I will have the greatest care to leave everything as close as you have it now".

"Thank you" sighed Minhyuk more relaxed. "Well, I leave you, I have to run. In case you must ask me any questions personally, here’s my number" continued the singer handing a business card to Julianne, "but Jooheon knows me well enough to make decisions for me, so just tell him".

"Relax, hyung," Jooheon told him as he accompanied him (pushed him) to the exit. "See you later in the dorm".

Minhyuk took one last look at Jooheon and then went down to the first floor to go to his next meeting. Jooheon re-entered the apartment and saw that Jules was walking among the paintings trying to see what else was there.

"Well, where do we start?" Jooheon asked.

"Well... the first thing is to analyze each work separately. I see that some have a paper with what looks like a title, but that’s not true in every case. We have to decide on a generic naming system that allows us to identify the works by technique, color palette, or general theme. Later, we can use it to group the pieces according to different criteria and according to the concept of the exhibition" explained Julianne. "We also have to take photographs of each work to be able to assemble a digital catalog that would allow us to make decisions without having to be manipulating each piece without need. I’m going to go to the car to get the camera from the gallery. Meanwhile, go counting the paintings to get an idea of how many pieces are here in general".

Julianne left the apartment for her car before Jooheon could respond. Although it wasn’t like Jooheon had anything to say. The rapper had no idea what he was doing there. In his head, the logistics of this exhibition were not going to be complicated, but, again, Jooheon had no idea how many paintings Minhyuk had made over the years. If he had gone there alone, he would not have known what to do, but Jules knew in two seconds and that filled Jooheon with tranquility and admiration... And maybe a little pride. After all, Jooheon always knew that Jules was going to be excellent at whatever he set out to do.

Well, Jooheon-ah, let’s count, he thought to himself.

As Jooheon recounted the paintings, Julie got into her car and opened the back door to pull out the photographic equipment that would help her make the catalog. As she checked it, something vibrated in the front seat and Julie noticed that she had left her cell phone in the car. Luckily it was just a message from Rei telling her that the prints for the current exhibition brochures had arrived. Julie answered and when she was going to block her cell again, a notification caught her attention: 4 missed calls from an unknown number. Julie knew the number was Jooheon’s, but how did the rapper know what number to call if she had never given it to him?

Julie had not realized that, in fact, she never gave her personal number to either Jooheon or Minhyuk. They had the gallery contact, so how the fuck did he call her?

Julie went back up to the apartment with that question in her head, so when she walked in, that was the first thing she said to the rapper:

"Jooheon-ssi, how did you get my cellphone number?" inquired Julie.

"Ah?" asked Jooheon distracted with some paintings. "Ahhhhh, that. Well, since I didn’t see you anywhere, I called Director Kim and asked him".

Sure, it makes sense, Julie thought. They probably exchanged numbers when signing the contract.

"Yah, Jules, don’t tell me you realize that until now," Jooheon teased her. "Don’t tell me you still get distracted around me. I still blush easy, you know?"

"You never blushed easy," Julie said in a whisper as she rolled her eyes and put the camera on the kitchen table.

"With you I always did," Jooheon replied. That remark upset Julie a little, she thought she had spoken low enough so Jooheon wouldn’t hear her, but apparently, she was wrong.

Indeed, Jooheon had heard it, but he did not know where that answer had come from. Just... He just said it, as in automatic, and now Jooheon was worried about his comment having made Julianne uncomfortable. So, the rapper chose to act as if nothing had happened and go ahead with what they had to do today.

"Well, in the living room there are a total of 37 pieces, I’ll check the rooms and I’ll tell you the total," Jooheon reported.

"Okay, when you’re done, we start taking the pictures," Jules continued without looking at the rapper.

Yah, Jooheon-ah, are you an idiot or what?, the rapper reproached himself in his mind.

You had to have less than one functional neuron to not realize that Jules was... uncomfortable, cautious, around him. Jooheon didn’t take it personally, Jules had always been a little shy and it had been years since they last met and talked, so the curator could perfectly feel that she no longer knew him. Jooheon was willing to prove to her that their friendship still existed, or could exist, but comments like that were not going to gain him anything.

Jooheon-ah, focus, he thought. It’s easy. First, don’t say any more stupid things, second, focus on the paintings, hyung deserves it.

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#monsta x scenarios #monsta x fanfic #lee jooheon #monsta x jooheon fanfic #monsta x jooheon #monsta x #monbebe #i.m monsta x #i.m changkyun #changkyun #lee min hyuk #minhyuk monsta x

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baubeautyandthegeek · 3 months

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On Angel Wings - Mazikeen/Elle Greenaway, Charlotte Richards/Elizabeth Olivet.

A/N: Massive crossover AU incoming.

Mazikeen gathers Charlotte Richards days after her life is saved. Amenadiel had brought the woman to hospital just in time, calling Mazikeen to watch over her even as he chases down Pierce. It’s only later, after Amenadiel loses the man, that Mazikeen plans their escape. Charlotte is safer in New York, with her therapist love, Elizabeth Olivet. She knocks once, pushing into the woman’s home and depositing Charlotte into Elizabeth’s lap, almost pleading with the woman when she finally speaks. “She needs protecting… loving… help her… please.” She’s gone moments later, chasing Pierce, knowing the man will still be in LA, or trying anywhere else. DC perhaps. She’s not surprised when she finds the man at Charlotte’s house, limping, his leg a mess of blood and torn cartilage, her growl escapes even as she moves into the house, ripping his head back and slicing it clean, leaving the man to die even as she seeks the person who had broken him so thoroughly, her smirk soft at the sight of Elle, gun still trained on the door. “Easy… friendly fire won’t do you much good.” “He got away?” Mazikeen laughs at the clear growl in the woman’s voice, shaking her head. “No… he wasn’t that lucky. Nice work with the leg…” “What did you… do?” “Come and see…” Elle follows slowly, drawn by Mazikeen’s cocky confidence, finding herself almost laughing at the sight of the man choking on his own blood, her voice low and husky. “Serves him right…. Liz knew he’d go after Charlotte…” “We all did.” Mazikeen mutters, then glances up at Elle. “You know the Doc?” “Mmm, saw her for a while… therapy is easier when you trust someone.” “So I heard.” Mazikeen’s words are a murmur, her sigh soft. “We should go, Liz will bug out over you going MIA and Charlotte…” “She needs you.” Elle reads the silence easily, her smile slight when Mazikeen stares, her shrug slight. “Liz told me plenty about you.” The two fall back into silence even as they leave, Mazikeen texting as they go. It’s what feels like minutes later when they get back to New York, Mazikeen’s ability to bribe, steal and forge passports working for them as they make their way back. Mazikeen has long hidden her skills, needing to keep Amenadiel on side, but she knows both Amenadiel and Elle would be unhappy if they met. So they go the long way around. It's only when they reach Charlotte that Mazikeen relaxes, watching Elle’s quiet politeness with Charlotte, the woman’s smile soft even as she brushes hair from Charlotte’s eyes, promising she’s safe now, Elle and Mazikeen will keep Elizabeth and Charlotte safe. Later, when it’s time to sleep, Charlotte seems reluctant to go alone, following Elizabeth even as Mazikeen follows Elle to the other bedroom, both women finding clothing laid out even as Elizabeth focuses on helping Charlotte change and relax, the two curled close by the time the others come to them, Charlotte’s quiet reach for Elle bringing a smile to Mazikeen’s lips even as she nudges Elle closer, settling her before resting behind her, letting her eyes meet Elizabeth’s, a small shrug and smile her apology. None of them will be alone anymore, which is all they’ve ever really wanted.

#criminal minds #law and order #law & order #lucifer #elizabeth olivet #charlotte richards #mazikeen #elle greenaway #elle/mazikeen #mazikeen/elle #elizabeth/charlotte #charlotte/elizabeth #on angel wings - series

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chasing-rabbits · 2 years

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Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have such a quiet mind. I can’t even really imagine or comprehend what that’s like or that people really live that way. I don’t think my minds ever been so quiet it’s always had thoughts bouncing around competing for my attention, like a hurricane more often than not. It’s just so weird to think that people can just sit there and be, in complete silence with not a thought in their head how what’s your secret because I want that. It sounds peaceful, relaxing. Sometimes my head is so loud and I push so much back before I get to breaking point but it feels pointless because it eventually wins and I do break most of the time so I spend weeks sometimes months fighting and fighting to eventually just lose anyways. And like fuck I can’t even get NHS therapy right now due to my new unit being under staffed and not really offering much at all. My old therapist who I’d done family therapy with before she left to go private has spaces available coming up for private one to one therapy sessions and its not completely unaffordable especially as my mum has said she’d help pay for it but even that’s just dajlkasjdj because my dad has absolutely no care or respect and can drop 60k on a car with loan repayments higher than my therapy would cost every month but is some how shitting his pants about the idea of paying for therapy after he agreed to do so originally all because I can’t tell him how long I’d be in therapy and he had some stupid idea in his head that therapy is something that’s like a set schedule of ‘x’ amount of sessions and bam I’m suddenly cured now. Idk last time we brought it up he was like fkljsalfj at the thought it could be longer than a year even though she stated most clients do usually go from weekly sessions in the beginning to fortnightly so it’d be twice a month and I could cover one session a month so when it gets to twice a month sessions I’d be able to cover 50% of the costs and its not like they cant afford it either it’s just his attitude about things and in his mind why would I possibly need more than ‘x’ amount of therapy or idk if he thinks its not a worthwhile endeavour to spend his money on therapy if it goes on any longer than a year which I can’t guarantee how long it’ll be. I just don’t get it because he goes from offering to get my private therapy to all of a sudden when he finds out oh it’s not like a couple months or something that oh okay and like he thinks it is a scam in the sense he’s always going on about oh but the therapist will keep you on as long as possible because they getting paid so they could keep this going forever but its not like that because she has us come up with goals of what we want to get out of therapy w/ her and what that would look like in terms of physical things we can use to measure progress not to mention she’s like got plenty of clients that she’s not even able to see me straight away and she’s kept her prices pretty low like her trauma therapy group I went to was a very cheap price for the entire sessions she is older and has been an NHS psych all her life she’s not in it for money and she left the old NHS unit I was under Im almost certain because of the way they were running things a lot of shitty behaviour and stigmatising behaviour from psychiatrists and her bosses. A fair few people left actually around the same time and she didn’t deny it when I sort of suggested as much to her one day after the trauma therapy course thing she was running. My mum has said she will talk to my dad and there’s no way I’m not getting therapy and the thing is my dad changes his mind all the time on these things mostly its about him having control and power over us whether it be financially or through things like this so I have all the motivation to get to a point where I can cover costs myself so he can’t hold this over me and use it to blackmail and control me.

#And sometimes I just really want to down all my fucking meds #Because it seems so damn pointless like I cant outrun the damage of my past #I’m so fucked up in so many ways and I wonder if I’ll ever get better idk if getting therapy is going to help #As much as I want it too or believe it will #And if it doesnt what else do I have left?#sometimes it seems like such a large mountain to climb that it’ll take the rest of my life to overcome it and idk if i want my life to #Just be me fighting myself & trying to undone the trauma I’ve been through/am still going through

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maloneybowles8 · 2 years

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Do you need a dog companion? Do you comprehend what you would be liable as soon as you acquire property of your dog? There are lots of duties which include puppy possession, and so they begin the very first time you provide a puppy residence. This information will show you the ropes and obtain you completely ready to your new closest friend.

If you are searching for a wonderful household pet, however they are with limited funds, think about rescuing an pet.You may get a single at a community protection for little fees as well as the puppy includes a clear monthly bill of health and all his shots. If you are looking at a specific breed of dog, talk to a rescue group devoted to only those pooches. In no way struck your pet. There are actually better ways to teach your dog and never have to resort to assault. The easiest way to teach your dog is always to fortify good actions with treats and interest. Bad conduct must be dealt with using a stern and disapproving sound instead of hitting your pet. Let your pet know who may be employer! Unless shown or else, your dog will think that he is the best choice in the package - once it has been founded it is actually very difficult to influence him otherwise! When disciplining your pet dog, be organization in sculpt, but quiet. Never discipline a dog in a physical manner, simply because this will cause long term distrust. Also, when he behaves, remember to praise him! Be suspicious of the flea treatment method you're gonna use in your pet. There are ingredients in many of them that could danger cancer in your youngsters. Question your veterinary clinic for tips. Be sure you continue to keep youngsters apart when you're implementing any flea therapy. Use hand signals when education your pet dog vs . depending only on verbal orders. When furnished with indicators with this type, dogs have a tendency to select issues up speedier. Give the two methods an attempt, and discover what the family pet likes. If you personal your dog, you generally know the basic expenses of acquisition, including foods, veterinarian visits, and grooming. A typically ignored expense is crisis conditions. Although it might not occur frequently, you have to have a certain amount of cash set-aside for just about any crisis which could arise. It's much better to be prepared for the urgent veterinary go to rather than speculate how you are likely to pay it off. Take aging in your dog and learn how to meet up with his altering needs. Your older puppy might require eating modifications, more relax and never be as lively since he once was. dog supplements doesn't suggest he needs to be kept to develop aged inside a spot. Conform to his requirements and then make his gold years pleasant! Make sure you keep the dog's nails clipped in order to prevent injury. This may occur equally through the pet damaging itself or also from having its fingernails get found in stuff like carpeting. Just to be confident you are decreasing the fingernails appropriately, be sure to check with the veterinary clinic or groomer. Try to give your puppy with plenty of opportunities to make friends. Get him on hikes for the recreation area or beach exactly where he will likely be around men and women as well as other dogs. Inspire his interactions with other people and praise him once and for all manners. He'll be considerably more comfortable in any setting and usually happier as well. If you want a dog that behaves nicely you have to take the time to appropriately workout it. Should you not accomplish this you then will virtually surely be working with behaviour difficulties for the size of the dog's daily life. Training is the only way that you can stop this from taking place. Your puppy should always have access to fresh water. It is recommended to have a dish loaded with drinking water in which your pet dog can entry it or get a modest enjoying fountain to your puppy. When you have to leave your pet on your own for very long hours, so not depart more water than your pet demands. If your dog is definitely enjoying out from the toilet, consider transforming the method that you provide him with normal water. Most favor it cold and new, hence the attraction to the washroom, so purchase a water fountain or thermally insulated recipe to help keep his h2o with a more appealing temp. Also, include an ice pack-cubes when it's hot out and he's panting If you prefer a satisfied and healthful pet, you need to become a liable dog owner. There are lots of things you have to do and that will not just assist your pet, but will be helpful to both you and your relationship with him, also. Take advantage of the recommendations right here to make certain your time and efforts with your pet is the greatest it could be.

#dog joints aid

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capseycartwright · 2 years

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we're building our own promised land

Eddie sighed, closing his eyes for a second. He hadn’t necessarily spoken these words aloud, just yet – not to Buck, or Hen, or anyone else – and he was afraid of the implications the words might make about him, and his newfound relationship status. But Eddie knew, know, that these things, if they went ignored, only festered, and became toxic and Eddie Diaz refused to ruin another relationship, refused to ruin the great love of his life, because he wasn’t able to say the words out loud.

“I,” Eddie paused, taking a steadying breath. “I don’t think I’m fully okay with the fact I like men, Frank. And I want to be. I just don’t know how to get from here, to there.”

- or, coming out, unlearning his shame, and processing his religious trauma takes a lot more time and support, and therapy, than eddie had imagined it would have.

complete with a queer eddie inspired playlist, here. this one felt a bit like ripping my heart out and putting it on the internet so, uh, enjoy.

read the full fic on ao3 here.

“I don’t want to be here,” Eddie huffed, shifting in his seat, the leather squeaking against the rough material of his jeans.

Frank had particularly comfortable chairs, and Eddie had always felt as though that was part of the trap – a ruse, to get you relaxed, and comfortable, and spill your guts. Eddie wasn’t falling for it.

Frank, to his credit, didn’t look offended, a hint of a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. “I know,” he reassured, because apparently Eddie was close enough with his therapist that Frank knew what to expect from him, during these sessions. That was something to have a crisis about later. “But – just to remind you, Eddie, you did book this session out of your own free will. It’s not department mandated, anymore.”

Eddie sighed. “I hate when you do that, you know – point out something really obvious in that quiet, therapist-y way you do.”

“I know,” Frank repeated, and Eddie could sense a lecture about deflection tactics brewing, Frank predictable, in some ways – and never predictable, in others. It was what made him such a frustrating man, Eddie had long since decided. “But that doesn’t change the fact you made the appointment yourself and that coming back to therapy was something you decided to do, of our own free will, Eddie.”

Eddie glanced out the window, a passing helicopter catching his eye for a second. It was for a news channel, maybe – or it could have been the police. It was loud, either way, the chop of the blades distracting Eddie from the topic at hand. “I’m – queer, I guess,” he began, the word still foreign, and unfamiliar as he voiced it aloud, tasting strange as he spoke it in reference to himself. “I haven’t figured out my word, yet. That’s part of why I’m here.”

“To figure out your word?” Frank prompted, after a few too many minutes of silence on Eddie’s part.

Eddie shook his head. “Yeah,” he tried, the answer not sounding quite right. “No,” he tried again, and the answer didn’t feel like the one he’d been searching for, for the entire drive over, for the weeks leading up to him making this appointment. Eddie wasn’t sure if the not having a word, of it all, was the part that was weighing on him – not when he’d had plenty of reassurances from Hen, and Karen, and Buck, that he didn’t need to have a word if none felt like the right fit.

“I’m not an expert on LGBT issues, by any means,” Frank said, and Eddie waited, to see if Frank would do the unthinkable, and share something about himself. He didn’t, of course, because he was a therapist, and a deeply professional man, but Eddie could hope. “But I want to help you in any way that I can. You need to try and articulate your feelings for me to be able to do that though, Eddie – you know that.”

Eddie knew that. He’d been through this, with Frank – after the shooting, and months later, when Eddie came back, finally ready to talk about the shooting, and the aftermath, and everything that had come before, the army, Death Valley, the first time he’d felt a bullet rip through his shoulder, and all the ways that had broken him. Shannon, and the end of their marriage, and those harrowing months between El Paso, and finally moving to LA. All the ways he’d let Christopher down, as a father. The PTSD. Eddie had spent months finding the words, and articulating the feelings, and he’d done the hard work, and life was supposed to be easy, now.

Except it wasn’t.

“I don’t want to be here,” Eddie repeated, his voice tiny, as he made the admission a second time.

“I know,” Frank’s reassurance was gentler, this time. “But you’re here now, Eddie, and I’m here to listen. Or we can sit here in silence if that’s what’s going to help you.”

“I,” Eddie paused, taking a steadying breath. “I don’t think I’m fully okay with the fact I like men, Frank. And I want to be. I just don’t know how to get from here, to there.”

#911 fox #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie #911fic #in which i ramble #in which lorna writes fic #soooooo i am off to vomit now #pls enjoy #and if you don't its okay but don't tell me i'm already traumatised ]

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darkmulti · 3 years

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hi, can you write yandere! bts reaction to you slapping them in an argument please?

⚠️: Yandere!BTS, slapping, implied smut, manipulation

-> sorry for any mistakes

»»———————————- ♔ -———————————««

Jin

Jin was once again, being narrow minded. “It was for work, Jin! I wasn’t working with him for fun, it’s our job. I can’t believe you punched him in the face. You embarrassed me in front of everyone!”

“Great! If you’re embarrassed, quit your job! So you never have to see them again!

“I’m not quitting! You can get that out of your head! I would leave you before quitting-” a hard slap cut you off. You instinctively covered your stinging cheek and took a step back. You were in a state of shock. Yes, you and Jin had petty arguments here and there but they never got physical. By the end of the day, you guys worked it out. However, after he laid his hand on you, you knew it was over. You looked up at him and slapped him right back. “Fuck you! We’re over.”

You turned around and ran upstairs to your shared bedroom. This house was under Jin’s name so it was you who has to go. You grabbed your suitcase and started packing all your clothes. Jin rushed into the shared room and pulled your suitcase away. He dumped all the clothes on the ground and threw the suitcase across the room.

“You’re not fucking leaving! Hang up all these clothes. Stop overreacting like a pathetic little bitch.”

You scoff and get off the floor. “I’m a ‘pathetic little bitch’?! Says my insecure husband.”

“You won’t be able to survive without me. No other man would be able to spoil you like I do. I’ve given you the high life, now obey me in return.”

“I’m not your slave, I don’t have to fucking listen to you.”

“Do you pay the bills in this house?! Do you buy the groceries?! Do you pay for insurance?! No? Then, shut up. You wouldn’t have anything if it weren’t for me. You’d probably be living on the streets if I didn’t take you in. I was the one who made sure you got that job because I knew it would make you happy. If it weren’t for me, those guys would’ve laughed in your face, Y/N. All you do is go to work, flirt with your co-workers and act all big shot around me. The least you could do is respect me and our relationship.” With that, he slammed the door shut, leaving you alone while you questioned your worth.

Yoongi

It started off as a calm and quiet evening but as soon as your phone vibrated, it quickly changed.

You began working for a new company and your new boss has been up your ass. He treats you like a personal assistant and it was pissing you off. You noticed that you were the only one who was being treated like this and it angered you. Once you’re clocked out, you don’t like to be disturbed unless it’s urgent. But your boss doesn’t seem to understand that and asks you to do work while your clocked out. You obviously refuse because why should you do work if you’re not getting paid?

Anyways, he’s always texting you about how to do different kinds of paper work, who’s working, who’s not working, how to hire people, ect — he should know how to do all of it because he’s the boss. When your off work, he’s texting you ever 10-15 minutes, asking for help. You’re tired of it, but can’t really do anything about it. You can’t quit just yet because you’re trying to prove to your boyfriend that you don’t need him to survive.

Yoongi has always underestimated you. Man literally thinks that you’re dumb. One night, you both got into a heated argument and he told you that you wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. The very next day, you went to a bunch of job interviews and got hired on that same day.

It’s been two weeks at your new job and ever since, your phone is always blowing up thanks to your boss. Even at 10pm, your boss is texting you about work. Yoongi became annoyed because you were always on your phone. You guys got into another argument about this so now, you hide your phone from him so he can’t see the notifications.

Ever since then, things have been a little better. Tonight was movie night and you foolishly had your phone in your hand. Throughout the movie, your phone was lighting up and vibrating multiple times and a Yoongi was tired of it.

“Who the hell are you texting now?!” He snatched your phone out of your hands and when he saw that it was your boss, he threw your phone against the wall. “I told you to block that man! Yet, you go against me and continue to text him! Are you sleeping with him? Are you cheating on me with him?!” He screamed, making your heart leap out of your chest.

You didn’t say anything. Instead you ran to the door. You didn’t want to deal with him anymore. You deserved better. You tried to leave but he slammed the door on your fingers and pulled you back inside. You slapped his face and tried leaving again but he grabbed your hair and pulled you down to the basement.

“You made me do this to you. I warned you plenty of times to stay off your phone but do you listen to me? No. I’ve given you too much freedom and now you don’t know how to behave. That stops now.”

Hoseok

“Get up. Boss wants to see you.” The guards said, pulling you up by your arms and dragging you out of the cell. “Boss my asshole. Who does he think he is? Kidnapping me for no good reason. I just wanted coffee and now I’m god knows where!” The guard chuckles at your bratty behaviour. “Just a little advice, don’t talk to boss like that. He’ll blow your brains out.”

“Shut up, muscle head. Don’t tell me what to do.” The guard stops and aims a gun at your head. “Do it muscle head. Your boss will be so proud of you.” You said sarcastically. “Shut your mouth and keep walking. I may not be allowed to kill you but I can still still hurt you — really badly.”

“Are you threatening me muscle head?” You turn around, ready to scrap with the guard. He may be a lot bigger than you, but you’re a lot smarter and clever.

“Hey, hey, do we have a problem here?” A familiar voice interrupted. You turn around and your heart drops when you see his face. “No, boss. She’s just refusing to-”

“Hoseok?” You cut the guard off and step back. “Oh, so you still remember me?” He smirks and walks towards you but you keep walking back. “What do you want from me?”

“Isn’t the answer obvious? I want you back.”

“No! I broke up with you because you’re crazy. Leave me alone now. I’m a different person. I’m not the same Y/N that you manipulated and controlled. I left her behind. Now let me go!”

Hoseok cornered you. There was no where to run. “Are you sure that you left her behind? You’re claiming that you changed but you’re still very naive, darling.”

His words made your blood boil. Hoseok mentally and emotionally abused you. With the help of therapy, you were able to pick up and put your broken self together. You thought that you’ve become a stronger person, but as soon as you saw his face, your confidence was washed away.

“I- I told you, I’m different now!” You tried to sound brave, but your facial expression sold you out. Hoseok wasn’t dumb; he knew you were scared shitless. “So, show me that your a different person. How will you escape me this time, darling?” He traps you in between his arms and leans in close to your face. In a panic, you slapped him across the face and made a run for it.

You somehow managed to get out of his large mansion, but Hoseok was running after you the whole time. You tried losing him at sharp turns and big crowds, but he was right on your ass. You saw a security guard and bolted towards him. “Sir, sir! There’s a- a man...” you said, to catch your breath, “a man chasing me. He kidnapped me. Please, I need your help.”

“That’s enough darling.” Hoseok caught up to you and without a second thought, you hid behind the security guard. “Sir, please! Arrest this man! He kidnapped me!”

The security guard was ready to take action until he saw the man’s face. “M-mr. Jung?! Sir, I had no idea that she was running from you! Sir, I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!” The guard grabbed your arm and pushed you to Hoseok.

The commotion had everyone watching. The security guard was on his knees with his hands interlocked together. “Please spare my family and I. Mr. Jung it was an honest mistake.”

“What the hell?” You quietly muttered. “You see that, darling. Everyone is afraid of me. So you can run all you want, but you can never ever hide from me.”

Namjoon

After a long week of work, your husband wanted to treat you to dinner. You’ve both been extremely busy due to your hectic schedule and it’s caused you both to drift apart. The only time you see Namjoon is in the morning and before going to bed.

It was Friday evening and you were getting ready for date night. You wore a gorgeous dress that was somewhat revealing but you were fine with it. You just wanted to look good for your husband.

You both agreed to meet at the restaurant and when Namjoon saw you, his jaw dropped. He possessively wrapped his arm around your waist and guided you to your private table. It was outside on a balcony. You guys had an ocean view, the weather was perfect and the stars were out. It was super romantic.

The date was perfect until the waiter started checking you out. Namjoon was visibly annoyed by the waiter but kept it to himself until he left. “Why did you have to wear that dress? Are you doing this on purpose? So other guys can check you out?” You were taken back by his questions. “No, I wore this dress for you, not for some random men.”

Namjoon scoffed and bit the inside of his cheek. “When will you stop lying?” He mumbled, but you were able to pick it up. “I’m not lying, Joon. And quite frankly, I’m hurt that you think I’m doing this for other men. You’re making me feel bad about myself.”

You got up and left but he followed behind. You walked out of the restaurant and got into your car. You drove back home without giving Namjoon a second glance. Once you arrived home, Namjoon pulled up next to your car. You both entered the house in silence.

Namjoon’s phone began ringing so, he went upstairs to answer it. After tidying the house, you went upstairs and overheard his conversation. “We could’ve had a wonderful night, but my wife doesn’t know how to dress.”

Now, he’s pissed you off. You slam open the room door, grab his phone and hang up. “Do you enjoy putting your own wife down?! Do you enjoy humiliating her?! I wore this dress for you! I wanted to look good for you! I wanted you to complement me and tell me I look pretty but instead you slut shame me!”

Out of anger, you slap him across the face. “I want a divorce. I’m not staying with someone who made me feel like complete shit. You can keep this house, I don’t want anything from you.”

Namjoon looked down and started to laugh. His laugh gradually got louder and it started to creep you out. You took a couple steps away from him but he noticed and grabbed your wrist. “You want a divorce? So you can go back to that restaurant and gets that waiters number? Over my dead body. You’re never leaving me. If I have to hurt you, I will.”

Jimin

“Jimin! Stop it! You’re overreacting!”

Jimin dragged you out of his friends house and pushed you into the car, creating a scene. Everyone was watching him degrade you for not wearing your wedding ring.

“You forgot?! What kind of wife do I have?! Are you dumb?! How could you forgot to wear your wedding ring?! That ring shows everyone that you’re mine!”

Jimin was full on screaming in your face and you couldn’t handle it. You broke down crying into your hands. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! It truly wasn’t my intention.” You were beyond terrified. You didn’t want to go home because you knew he would punish you. Even though he humiliated in front of everyone, you’d rather stay around people than go home and be alone with him.

You were about to go down on your knees until he slapped you and dragged you along. You tried getting out of his grip and in the process you accidentally slapped him. It wasn’t a hard slap or anything, you were just trying to get away. But of course, Jimin made it a big deal.

“First, you forgot your wedding ring; second, you flirted with all my friends and now, you slapped me?! Why don’t you want to leave, huh?! Who are you sleeping with?! Who are you trying to replace me with?!”

“No one! I didn’t mean to slap you! I’m sorry!” You were crying your eyes out. You’ve never seen Jimin this aggravated. You were afraid of what he might do to you so, you gave in because you didn’t want to worsen your punishment. He pushed you into the car and slammed the door shut. Throughout the car ride, his hand squeezed your thigh.

“You don’t even know what’s coming your way. Just wait till we get home” He muttered, causing your heart to drop into your stomach.

Taehyung

“Taehyung! Let me go! People are going to notice that I’m missing! You can’t keep me here forever!” You yelled, banging on the metal door.

It was your foolish mistake; trying to break up with him at his house. The moment you told him you want to part ways, he grabbed you and pushed you into the basement. Of course you fought back, but miserably lost against him. Now it was a game of waiting. Waiting for someone to notice your presence missing.

- 3 days later -

It been a couple days and you’re still locked in the basement. There was no clock or a window so you couldn’t keep track of time. Taehyung hadn’t come downstairs to check on you either. You were starving and living off the bathroom tap water. You were lying on the ground, looking lifeless when the heavy metal doors opened.

“Are you done playing your childish games?” Taehyung asked, crossing his arms. “You should be asking yourself that question, Taehyung. I’m not playing any games. I’m serious when I say I want out of this relationship.”

Taehyung closed the doors and walked towards you. He grabbed your shirt and pulled you close to his face. “All the years we spent together, you wanna throw it all away, angel?”

You turn your head away from him, avoiding his dark orbs. Taehyung noticed you avoiding his eyes so he pushed you against the wall and leaned in close to your face. “Look at me when I talk to you, angel. Or are you scared?” You were on the verge of tears but you didn’t want to appear weak in front of him. You looked him straight in the eyes and muttered, “get away from me.”

“You don’t tell me what to do, angel...” he grabbed your ear and tugged on it, “I’m your master. You listen to me.” His deep voice sent chills down your spine. You were close to dropping on your knees and submitting to him out of fear. But you didn’t. You couldn’t show him that you’re weak. “Taehyung, I’m serious! Get away from me!”

Taehyung frowned. You were really getting on his nerve. Was he not a good boyfriend? He spoiled you with gifts, spent all his time with you and he never cheated on you. What was he doing wrong? He thought to himself. “Why is my perfect, little, angel acting out? Look at me, angel. Tell me what I did wrong? Did you fall out of love? Did you find someone new?”

You look at him, dumbfounded. “Taehyung, you’re trying to control me! You’re making my decisions for me. I can’t go out alone, and if I do, you stalk me! Then you get possessive for no reason! You almost killed my bestfriend because he gave me a hug! You take things too far and you don’t trust me even after being together for years! You just want to control my life and feel like I’m suffocating when I’m with you.”

You could see fire in Taehyung’s eyes. He raised his hand, ready to slap you but before he could, you slapped him and ran for your life. You were light headed and weak, however if Taehyung finds you, you’ll face severe consequences.

Jungkook

Jungkook was going on and on about you going out with your male bestfriend.

You texted Jungkook last minute because you knew if you had told him earlier, he wouldn’t allow you to go. You simply messaged him, “I’m going out with Namjoon, I’ll be home by 6pm.”

Jungkook was livid. He called you multiple times but you were too scared to pick up. Finally, his 7th attempt was when you decided to pick up.

“Where the fuck are you?! I’m coming to pick you up right now.”

“Jungkook we just came to the restaurant, I’m not leaving.”

“Do you think it’s appropriate to go to a restaurant with another man?! What if people think you guys are dating, huh? You’re a fucking cheater. Tell me your location, now!”

“For the love of god, I’m not cheating on you! Namjoon and I have known each other since middle school. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you. We are nothing but friends.”

Jungkook was pissed. He hung up the phone and went home. He poured himself a glass of whiskey before sitting down on the couch. He was waiting for your arrival. It was 5:54pm when the front door opened. You were right on time.

“See, I told you I’d be back by 6pm. I don’t know why you have to make everything such a big deal.”

“While I’m working my ass off, you’re out with another man.” He said, putting the glass of whiskey down.

“I work too, Jungkook. And I’m a full time student. If you want to get even with me, go out with your female friends. I wouldn’t mind at all. As long as they remain friends.”

Jungkook stood up and starting walking towards you. “So, you can cheat, but I can’t?” A taunting smile took over his face.

“Again, Jungkook? I am not cheating on you! Namjoon is just my close friend. That’s all. Nothing more or less.” You said, crossing your arms and unconsciously stepping back.

“Stop lying. Just tell me now and maybe I’ll forgive you.” You scoff and roll your eyes. “I don’t have time to deal with you, Jungkook. I’m tired.”

“Yeah, because you were fucking around with Namjoon, right?”

You couldn’t take it anymore. You turned around to leave but Jungkook pulled you back, harshly. Instinctively, your hand landed a heavy slap on his face. Unexpectedly, Jungkook slapped you right back — but a lot harder.

You winced as you held your warm cheek. Hot tears gliding down your face. Without thinking twice, you made a run for the door but Jungkook tackled you to the floor.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”

You can make your own ending:)

#dark bts #bts yandere reaction #yandere bts #bts yandere #bts smut #bts reaction #yandere bts reaction

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ticketstomydaydreams · 3 years

Text

HOME

(All We Have: Part One)

Part Two

Colson x Female Reader

Summary: You and Colson are close friends and he invites you to move in to his house while you work on his record together

Word count: 1,580

Feels: Friendship Fluff for now

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, cursing, mentions of feeling depressed

Companion playlist:

Machine Gun Kelly - Home

Sia - Dressed in Black

The Beatles - With a Little Help from My Friends

A/N: Throughout the series there will be changes to the timing of real life events like the pandemic, the release of certain songs etc. There's certain things I want to incorporate into the series, like particular events in MGKs life and lyrics from songs, so some stuff will get moved around to fit in to the story ✌️

______

It had been a long evening working in Colson’s home studio, The Boulevard, with him and the gang on the upcoming Tickets to my Downfall album. To say your schedule was busy was an understatement, but Colson had insisted you get involved with the new material after the success of your work together on Hotel Diablo.

Composing music was your main gig, you had an ear for melody and your passion for writing meant you always had lyrics swirling around your head. You had a penchant for dark and melancholy lyrics, finding music to be a source of therapy for you. It was something you and Colson had instantly bonded over. He'd bugged you to list some of the stuff you'd written that he'd know and you had gained his professional respect immediately.

He always kept a close eye on your work, ever the supportive friend and had laid claim to your piece ‘Glass House’ as soon as he'd heard it.

______

2019

You were sitting crossed legged on the sofa in your lounge, gently strumming your guitar and gazing off into space and mumbling to yourself, as you worked out some lyrics in your head. Colson was lying on the floor by your feet, scrolling through his phone with earphones in, a blunt in his hand that he occasionally passed up to you. This was a common set up, you found it easier to write in the peace and quiet and Colson has gradually started hanging out at your place more when he needed to focus on his own writing.

"All alone in the glass house, lie awake til the sun's out, pink sky when you come down…"

"Throw me in the damn flames, Bury me in gold chains, throw me in the damn flames…"

You'd started singing out loud, occasionally stopping to scribble down lyrics and make adjustments, not noticing that Colson had removed his earbuds to listen to you

" Dude, that's hard, like, beautiful… " His comment made you jump slightly, you hadn't seen him propping himself up on his elbows, watching you intently "Sing that last bit again"

You blushed slightly, his opinion was always important to you, and started singing. He muttered to himself as you did, then pointed at you "Again!"

Letting out a little laugh and rolling your eyes, you sang again

"Throw me in the damn flames, bury me in gold chains, throw me in the damn flames"

Colson's voice met yours at the end of the line, rapping softly "I'm waiting on the rain to come and wash it all away"

You locked eyes, smiling and he sat upright. "Dude, Im'a need that hook! That spoke to me right there, I've think got something for it that I've been stuck on"

He looked so excited, your heart did a little flip. You'd seen that writing this album had taken it out of him, he'd been digging deep and really going through it emotionally. You could tell it was going to be raw and special from what you'd heard already.

He sat forward and moved the guitar from your lap so he could lean his arms on your knees and looked up at you shooting you puppy dog eyes with those baby blues "Pretty please Y/N"

You laughed and ruffled his hair, "Anything for you Col" Honestly, it'd be an honour to be part of such a personal project, you thought

He wrapped his arms round you and squeezed,

"You're a legend, kid. Get a sample recorded and send it to me!" He grabbed your guitar off the sofa and whipped back around, strumming a few chords as he carried on talking with his back to you, leaning against the sofa "This is gonna be fire, you always just hit the nail on the head, I swear it's like you're in my head sometimes"

You smiled, seeing the wave of motivation that had struck your friend. You felt so lucky to have a friend who was not only so inspiring, but one who 'got it', who understood that music was a form of release. Someone who recognised that it was important to feel these things, rather than encourage you to push dark thoughts away with toxic positivity.

He’d pushed to use your original samples on his record, but as much as you loved writing and singing, you were a behind the scenes kind of gal which had always suited you just fine. Naomi, a mutual friend of you both, came onboard to record them with him. A decision that turned out to be golden… 'Death in my Pocket' would be born not long after, with Naomi doing your lyrics such beautiful justice yet again, perfectly pairing with Colson's emotional rapping.

______

From then on Colson had kept you close to his recording. You'd been helping here and there with composition and notation, but your production skills were what was taking centre stage during the most recent sessions. You had a long list of projects you were working through, leaving you chained to your equipment most days and nights anyway so throwing more music into your workload didn't seem like much of a big deal. In all honesty, the chaos of Colson’s studio and the revolving door of personalities that were in and out constantly, made it one of the most fun places to be. You loved what you did for a living and it never really felt like work Even though the guys were a real handful at times, you kind of enjoyed being the studio 'Mami' as they often affectionately referred to you

Everything had wrapped up for the evening and the guys had migrated back into the house. You could hear from the raucous that the drinks must have started flowing freely. You were saving your work and packing up your stuff when Colson bursts back into the studio and throws himself in a chair, spinning it around with his arms in the air.

"You staying for drinks Y/N?" he grins at you, clearly hyper and in party mode

You let out a big sigh "Urgh, I'd love to but I have an early start tomorrow. I finally managed to get an apartment viewing. I swear I've looked at a hundred places now, they get snapped up so quickly.. I've only got a few weeks left on my lease as well"

“Ah, that sucks kid” Colson empathises, spinning his chair again before an idea strikes him “Wait! Why don’t you move in here for a bit until you find a place? The guest room is pretty much your room anyway, the amount you crash here”

You laugh “This is true, that mattress is so much better than mine! Aw Col, that would honestly be so helpful, the stress of finding a place when I’m this busy is killing me. I don't know… You sure the guys won’t mind?”

Colson scoffs “Why would they mind? You practically live here anyway” he teases “I’m sure they’ll be just as stoked as I am at the thought of you joining the madhouse for a while”

Before you have a chance to respond, he stands up and throws his arms around you, squashing you into him tightly “That’s it decided Roomie. Another song in the bag and a new housemate, plenty to celebrate tonight!”

Wriggling out of his tight grasp, you laugh and in a deep voice shout “let’s goooooo” mocking his signature catchphrase. He flips you his middle finger and says “Kitchen, now”

Once you’re in the kitchen, Colson heads to get you a drink and grabs one himself. Appearing back at your side, he passes you your beer and then shouts out to the rest of the group,

“YO, meet our latest housemate, Y/N is moving in. LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO”

Everyone in the kitchen lets out a big cheer, clearly pleased as he said they would be. Colson bends down and picks you up, swinging you around in a circle, spilling your drinks all over the both of you as you shout his name in mock annoyance, between giggles.

“I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for” Rook laughs, clinking his drink against your now empty beer bottle once your feet are back on the floor

“It’ll be good to have another pair of hands around here, looking after you lot” Ashleigh chimes in, laughing and slapping Slim away as he pulls her hood up over her head, covering her eyes

It had been 5 years since you'd made the decision to move to LA, barely knowing a soul. You'd worked several jobs, jumped from place to place, worked your ass off to catch your break in the music business, sometimes feeling like the grind would never get you anywhere.

There had been times where you felt like you couldn't carry on, aching from trying to keep pace. The dream had felt like it was turning into a nightmare, as you tried to make ends meet, feeling so lonely in this enormous city.. but eventually you'd made these amazing friends who made you feel so safe and loved.

Now, there were times you had to pinch yourself just to make sure it was all real.

As you shake off some of the beer that's dripping from your hands, you look around the kitchen. Taking in the crazy, loveable bunch before you, your new housemates, you are filled with gratitude. You finally felt like you were exactly where you were supposed to be…

Home.

______

❌❌ Lace up!

#mgk fluff #colson baker x reader #mgk imagine #mgk x reader #machine gun kelly imagine #colson baker imagine #machine gun kelly x reader #colson x reader #mgk fic #machine gun kelly #fandom #fanfic #fanfiction #mgk fanfiction #colson baker

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stupid-sloot-headcanons · 3 years

Text

Asano/F!Darling: Unconventional Methods (II)

TW: Dub/noncon, boss/employee, virginity kink

____ blinked and swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat as her boss held her chin up. He was touching her so intimately when the most he'd done before this is MAYBE place a hand on her shoulder once or twice. And now he was telling her to kiss him? "I...Sir?"

"This is part of the lesson," Asano insisted. "Encouraging that natural obedience in a situation more stressful than you're used to. I warned you that this teaching method would give you some discomfort." She shifted awkwardly and he gently pressed his fingers against her skin. "Think of it as a kind of exposure therapy."

____ felt the push of his hand and tried to fight the urge to slap him away and run out of the room. This was just part of his teaching method. She's supposed to be uncomfortable, that was the whole point of this, wasn't it? "This won't get us in trouble, will it? I mean...Kunugigaoka's policy on displays of affection between faculty--"

"As the creator and enforcer of that policy, I'll make an exception for the purposes of your education," Asano replied coolly. "I appreciate your dedication to the school's rules, but I believe your development is more important. You and your potential are more important."

____'s face flushed at his compliment. He was going so far just to help her. And it was such a small request; once she did it, he'd see that she could fight through that discomfort and learn from him. She placed a hand on Asano's forearm and stood a bit higher to reach him as she gave him a quick and timid peck with her lips against his cheek. Immediately she tried to back away, starting to apologize even if he had been the one to suggest it; to her surprise he pulled her back in for a lingering kiss to her lips while she stared wide-eyed as he embraced her. When he finally pulled away, ____ immediately covered her face with her hands. "Ahhhh-this-is-so-inappropriate," she said, her words an anxious blur. "I'm so sorry sir, even with your permission I just...I can't stop apologizing." She let out a breathless laugh. "I'm sorry--Mmp!"

Asano took her wrists and kissed her again while moving one of her hands and placing it on his chest. He pulled away and couldn't keep his eyes off of the smeared lip gloss that blurred and smudged her mouth. "We'll need to keep pushing your boundaries until you realize you don't need to apologize for listening to me," he said, wiping the gloss off his own lips. "Ah, I know." He took her by the wrist and walked her to the edge of his desk. "Sit here."

"I might wrinkle your papers--"

"Sit."

____ felt her knees buckle from just how quickly she set herself down onto the mahogany table. Asano put his hands on either side of her shoulders against the table and looked down at her. "From now on, when I tell you to do something you're going to do it without making any excuses not to. If it's to train you, I couldn't care less about any policies or wrinkled papers. Understand?"

____ bit the inside of her lip as she nodded. She really wasn't trying to weasel out of this, but even if it was supposed to make her feel this way she was so uncomfortable. How couldn't she be? This entire lesson was centered around pushing her boundaries and they were both being so PHYSICAL with each other. "Yes," she replied quietly.

Asano placed his hand on top of her blouse and quickly unfastened the first few buttons before she could react. "Good," he said in a soothing voice. "This will be much more effective when you follow my orders directly." She shivered a bit at the cool air against her now-exposed skin and from how close Asano's fingers were to her breasts and collarbone. "Next, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Just like what we're doing now, you're going to be uncomfortable answering them. But you're going to push through it and answer truthfully."

____ nodded and felt one of his hands move to the hem of her skirt. "Are you a virgin?"

____ wished she could cover herself or find a hole to crawl into as Asano finished unbuttoning her blouse and looked down at her breasts and bare stomach. "I've been, um...touched before," she said, wishing her voice would stop wobbling and that she wasn't about to cry in front of her boss. "From o-oral sex and with hands."

"Never with a penis or strap-on?"

____ never thought she'd hear Asano use the word "strap-on" in her entire life. She shook her head. "I've sucked one before," she admitted, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead. "But...um..." She started to tear up and sniffled softly. "My ex-boyfriend said I wasn't really good at it." She let out a small pathetic cross between a laugh and a sob. "I couldn't keep it down as long as he wanted."

Asano narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips slightly. Part of him had hoped she'd be completely untouched and inexperienced, but he did like that she'd never been penetrated by anything other than some fumbling idiot's hands and tongue. Someone who would complain about her lack of ability without even trying to train her to be better. "I see," he mused. "If that's the case, I won't penetrate you any time soon. I'm a bit short on time for this lesson either way." He glanced at the clock hanging on the other side of the wall; his next meeting was in about an hour and so was ____'s next class assignment. But he'd have plenty of opportunities to train her further, and he was a patient man when he needed to be.

Asano moved his hands and flipped her skirt up to reveal her underwear. It was a nice pair, with lace trim and a silky fabric that felt pleasant to the touch. "Tell me where you're most sensitive." He brushed the knuckles of his index and middle fingers against the inside of her thigh and chuckled when she bucked her hips up at the sudden touch. "Where do you put your hands when you touch yourself?"

A few tears fell down ____'s cheeks as he laughed. This was mortifying. Couldn't there be another way to push her boundaries? Why did it have to be so physical and invasive like this? She was somewhat okay with being uncomfortable, but the way he was touching her and ordering her to talk about her virginity on his desk made her feel so dirty. "I...I, um..." She sniffled again and wiped the tears off of her cheeks. "Usually I have one hand on my breasts." She placed one hand on the pad of her bra. "But when I...I touch myself, I actually use a...a t-toy." She squeezed her thighs and tried to turn away from Asano out of shame; he immediately turned her back to face him and moved her thighs apart with one hand. She whimpered and looked up at him with reddened pleadjng eyes. "Sir, I know this is s-supposed to be uncomfortable but I...I d-don't think I can do this anymore. Not today, please? Could we stop for n-now--"

"No." Asano promptly cut her off and shoved one hand underneath her bra to harshly grope her. She cried out and started to sob, but he immediately clamped his other hand over her mouth. "I warned you beforehand that this was about pushing past your boundaries. You have no right to complain about something I already made VERY clear." He sighed through his nose and the look of disappointment and irritation on his face nearly broke ____'s heart. "If you're getting too hysterical to answer me, I'll just find your sensitive places on my own. Just do your best to stay quiet until you've calmed down a bit."

Asano moved one of her hands to where he'd been touching her breast. "Move your bra out of the way and play with your breasts," he ordered. "Maybe keeping your hands occupied will help you." She reluctantly complied and massaged her chest, rolling and thumbing over her already-peaked nipples.

Asano watched the goosebumps on her skin rise and gave her an approving nod while dragged one finger over the damp spot lining her panties as it clung to the outline of her cunt. ____ gasped softly and he saw her hole twitch and clench around the fabric covering it. Asano moved his fingers up and when he circled the pad of his thumb over her clit she moaned while her hips moved on their own accord again. Her body rocked gently in time with his movements, and Asano sighed pleasurably when he felt the tip of her tongue against his palm from how she gasped and tilted her head back. He could only imagine how nice it would feel when he'd trained her to use that velvet tongue on his cock and how to take all of him with a smile. By the time he was done she would be thanking him for teaching her to be an obedient little cocksleeve and abandon all desires to be anything else. That was all she needed to be.

Soon her hips were rocking faster and faster, making the legs of the mahogany desk squeak as he played with her. He slipped one finger inside of her tight cunt and then one more, and the way she'd clenched around him immediately while she moaned and sobbed quietly against his hand left him nice and hard as he kissed and nipped her neck and earlobes. "You're close?"

____ nodded shakily and whined a small "yeah" into his palm. Asano circled his fingers around her sensitive bundle of nerves faster and faster while ____ squealed and her thighs started to quake and spasm. "Since this is your first lesson, I'll let you cum this time," he said. His gaze darkened as he moved her to look into his eyes. "From now on, if you don't follow my instructions without coming up with an excuse or you try to quit halfway through, you'll need to be disciplined. Now...show me how much you appreciate my efforts."

Asano watched ____'s eyes roll back as she came, shuddering and sobbing. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth again and touched his palm while some of her arousal ran down his fingers onto his jacket sleeve. He looked at her quaking hips and saw that she'd even managed to drip onto his desk. Her chest rose and fell as her breathing went back to normal, and soon she was staring up at Asano with half-lidded eyes. He moved his hand from her mouth and wiped a bit of her saliva and tears from her cheek. "You've done very well," he said, smiling down at her. "There's just one thing left to do, and you can get back to work." He showed her his fingers, still glistening with her juices. "Clean this up for me."

____ sniffled and nodded, but when she tried to dry his hands with her blouse's sleeve he stopped her. "Your mouth," he corrected. She paused for just one moment before taking his slender fingers into her mouth. When her tongue swirled over his fingertips, Asano had to fight to keep himself from shoving them further into her mouth and hiking her legs in the air to fuck her right then and there. He moved his hand back and gently brushed a wild piece of hair behind her ear. "Excellent." He guided her up into a sitting position to fix her bra, button her blouse, and then helped her walk to the door out of his office. "I'll let you know when it's time for our next session," he said. "Some time next week, just so you have some time to recover a bit and reflect on what you've learned."

She gave a shaky nod and kept her eyes on the ground as she shuffled out into the hallway, tugging at the bottom of her skirt and smoothing it down. Asano shut the door and pulled a small handkerchief out of his coat's breast pocket to clean what was still left on his desk. Normally he would have made her lick that up as well, but he wanted to be a bit lenient with his "student" on her first day.

She deserved a bit of mercy and reprieve before he really started to break her in.

#.myshit #tw: manipulation #tw: noncon #tw: dubcon #.assassination classroom #yandere assassination classroom #yandere asano #.asano #fem darling #asano's Darling

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whump-a-la-mode · 3 years

Note

Would you continue the villain nausea whumpee? To show how he is after he is removed from the chair? Do they set him free since he won’t be violent anymore ?

I loved the idea of Villain being set free, and ran with it a bit! I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for the ask!!

This is a continuation from here, and, once again, the story below is below a read-more to prevent any accidental viewing of content that could trigger emetophobia very badly. I would hate for anyone to see it as they scroll past.

However, this time, the first scene is shown, as it contains no potentially triggering content.

CW//Emetophobia, graphic description of vomit, self-hatred, medical malpractice, low self esteem, hatred of former friends, Stockholm syndrome, whumpee liking whumper, minor eye whump mention, nausea

The auditorium crackled with the feedback of a thousand microphones, shoved towards the stage, frequencies battling and screeching against one another in chaotic choir. From a mass of bodies, of cameras and clattering boom mics, the wire spheres emerged in their dozens, all pointed centrally.

All pointed at the stage, and the podium that lived upon it, glistening in freshly-polished hardwood and media attention.

Behind the platform stood a figure, as equally basking in fame, and equally as glimmering. Upon their face, perfect white teeth glowed as freshly-fallen snow, pressed together in a wide grin.

In Hero’s eyes, it was pride that shone. The pride that came with accomplishment, with recognition, with glory, with perfect hair and thousand-dollar suits and the attention of the world, all upon their face. Their words.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here.” With a greeting alone, the world tucked back in hushed quiet. “Now, we will have plenty of time for questions later, but I wanted to start off with what has surely found itself on every headline this morning.”

A pause. The expected clamor erupted from the horde of media, incoherent shouting and stomping. A rioting crowd.

“Now, now.” It was a practiced ritual, between lion and tamer. “I will be taking all of your questions at the end, but let an old guy speak a little, first.”

Laughter queued.

“Well, then. I’m sure you’ve all seen the headlines-- you guys especially, you wrote them! But, for everyone at home, yes, the rumors are true. A villain is now loose in the city.”

A practiced gasp.

“And it’s a good thing! You see, for years, now, our in-house villainous psychology research has been working on a technique that they have dubbed Reaction-Based Morality Rehabilitation. Now, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

The hero leaned forward, hand cupping the microphone, playful smile clear upon their face.

“They gave me this paper, and it was like, 100 pages long. And I didn’t know half the words in it.” They backed up, smile remaining. “But, trust me when I say, those guys in R&D? They’re amazing. They know exactly what they’re doing, even if I don’t.

But, I won’t leave you hanging. I do understand the just of the procedure, even if I’m not so sure on the jargon.

It’s a very simple solution to a very complicated problem. I am a firm believer in the fact that people are not born as villains. We are all born as heroes. Some of us, through unfortunate means, however, turn rotten. Through this technique, however, me and Organization believe to have found a way to separate the villain from the person inside.

By using innovative methods of therapy, our psychologists are able to help villains reject their evil ways, all the way at the center of their neurology! We have heard many concerns about the possibility of relapses, of a villain turning sides upon their release. Yet, with this technique, changing sides is not a conscious choice. It is as much a thought process as it is a carefully embedded instinct.

Of course.” They straightened momentarily. “That does not mean we are simply allowing once of those who have harmed you return to our beautiful city unsupervised. We ensure you, multiple surveillance methods have been put in place. This is only a trial run.

We at Organization wish to think each and every one for your cooperation and participating in the beta test of this revolutionary new technique. If this run receives positive results, you can all think of villainy as a thing of the past!”

From the crowd emerged a cheer. A cheer for glory, for fame, for progress!

For the destruction of a foe.

For unquestioned success. A villain defeated!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Villain’s fingers brushed over the top of the kitchen’s oak-stained counter, kicking up enough dust to suffocate, even as their tightly pursed lips protected them from such.

This was a house.

Their fatigued, half-haunted gaze turned to move over the surrounding interior. The kitchen was fully-featured, oak accented with shimmering, mottled granite. Not that anyone had bothered to clean in the place. Beyond the room and its attached dining area, a step lower, a carpeted area was positioned, furnished in felt couches and a television.

But this was not a home.

With a scratching nail to their neck, the villain moved forward numbly, to the base of the stairs and up them. Beneath their skin, the tracking chip was an awful feeling. Buried just deep beneath that it could not be seen, yet shallow to the point that its presence was unyielding and unignorable. A constant itch, embedded between twitching folds of muscle.

Maybe they could take it out. Maybe with the right kitchen utensil-

Halfway up the stairs, they dropped, keeled over themself with sickly pea soup filling in the space behind their eyes. In an instant, their mind retreated desperately from the thought, or any semblance of it, even as their stomach heaved with the residual ghost of it.

The tracking chip was fine and they didn’t care about it and they wanted it to stay there forever because it wasn’t coming out.

Legs now taking on an appearance that ever so slightly more resembled gelatin, the villain leaned upon the railing, ascending with a considerable additional difficulty up the stairs. In the very brief tour they had been given, their bedroom had been identified as the dark spruce door at the hall’s end.

Moving to it was a struggle on its own, insides still twitching and squelching with the remnants of acute nausea. Yet, their agony was only internal. They made it, and, all the way, kept their mind empty. Thoughts clear.

Not thinking of anything that could make them fall.

The bedroom was a bedroom. A dust-coated vanity. A small attached restroom. A nightstand. A bed.

At the very least, the quilts had some color to them.

Struggling in an attempt not to clutch their own stomach-- an action that they had learned, time and time again, only made the organ flip-- Villain shuffled to the piece of furniture that had been designed for use when they slept. Dust coughed from beneath the covers as they lifted them, crawling under.

Laying down helped, at least in some slight way that may or may not have been a placebo. It meant they could close their eyes. Make unwise thoughts that much less likely to happen.

For a moment, Villain succeeded in blackness. A blank mind. A world unmarred by the horrible jolts within their brain, the firings of neurons, the innate jostling of their frontal cortex.

Yet, it only lasted a moment.

With a jerk, they curled to a fetal position, legs bent and tucked beneath arms. Their body struggled as though weeping, though they had long ago learned not to cry. It was terribly difficult to produce tears, after all, when the metal drew their eyes to unbroken wakefulness.

This was a nightmare. They were certain of it.

That had been their first thought, of course, when the news of their liberation had been shared with them-- after it had been shared with the wider public. Things did not reach their cell very quickly. They had believed it to be a dream, for there was no other possible explanation.

Villains did not deserve freedom. They knew that. Violent little scumbags.

When they had been driven to the house, that was when the orinique connotations in their mind had flipped-- when dream turned to nightmare.

It was their home. Such had been stated clearly, so many times. Upon a thousand channels of media syndication. They had been given the keys, had stared at them for an agonizing moment. Watched them dangle between their fingers.

Hero had practically had to shove them through the doors, and even so, their attempts at escape ceased only after the fourth time they had been reprimanded for them.

Somewhere, something mechanical twitched. Moved. Buzzed. One of the cameras. They knew they were here, obvious, blocky, black eyes. At the very least, they provided some semblance of comfort.

Of home.

Of safety.

Oh, how desperately Villain wanted to go home. Everything had made so much sense there! Was so fantastically, wonderfully simple! If they were placed in their cell, they stayed in their cell. If offered food, they ate. When seated in their chair, they watched.

It was so easy. So invariable. Strict and stringently controlled, as the life of any vile beast who called themself a villain should be. Not a chance they could make a mistake, that they could do anything wrong. Only the slightest opportunities for their mind to slip, their thoughts to wander, to go somewhere bad.

Somewhere that would send them to their hands and knees, heaving and retching.

Food came often, with how difficult it was to keep it down. They’d counted once. Certainly the chefs must have become tired after preparing thirteens meals in a single day. Yet, in the end, they had only managed to fully digest one.

Especially since that was only the day on which they had counted-- it certainly wasn’t notable.

Now, there were no chefs. No cells. No chairs. No screens to watch. Order was gone, and chaos reigned.

Terrible, bloody chaos.

The house was far too large. So many times, Villain had begged for a schedule. For orders. For what they were meant to do-- when to get up, when to go to sleep, what to do inbetween.

Yet, the answers always came the same: A shrug, and four terrible words. “Whatever you want to.”

That which they wanted was not that which should be carried out! They were a villain! A terrible, retched thing! A monster! A devil! Their thoughts deserved no attention, their wants deserved only the click of the IV.

The sickness.

Somehow, despite the inherent maleficence that it most certainly carried with it, an idea manged to work its way through the folds of their brain. A thought. A plan.

A good one. One that did not incite their stomach to heaving.

Certainly, if they laid here, in this bed, then their freedom could not lead to the harm of anyone else. The world would remain safe, regardless of their liberty. And, when the cameras at last noticed, the heroes would be forced to return. To bring them back to the cell and the chair. To return them to where they belonged.

It was perfect-- though that wasn’t to say that anything they created could possibly be good.

Thus, they put the plan into action. Beneath the chains that were covers, upon the chair that was a bed, Villain waited.

Their plan worked for perhaps an hour.

An hour. Then the door was kicked in. This time, that which seized their chest had nothing to do with nausea, nothing to do with conditioning. Everything to do with terror.

Even their wildest dreams, their most optimistic ambitions, did not expect that the heroes would have come so soon. If they had, they would have knocked.

They curled tighter into their fetal position, fingers gripping skin until both turned white. Desperation and willpower, even together, could not stop their mind from tracking the noises as they moved through the house. Through the kitchen. The living room. Up the stairs. To the hallway outside.

Certainly, they would have noticed the lack of dust on the bedroom’s doorknob.

Perhaps it was a member of the public, come to take their righteous revenge. Such would certainly be deserved. Or, perhaps, a wayward hero, disliking the arrangement that had been made. Having decided to take the matter to their own hands. They deserved that, as well.

But, when the voice came, Villain knew that their hopes were as far as could be from the truth.

“Villain?”

Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind don’t think.

Beneath the blanket, they twitched.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Footsteps dashed to the bedside. Hands upon them. There was such a wholehearted relief to the voice, an unimaginable burden relieved.

Yet, such was impossible, as villains did not have hearts.

“We were so worried, so, so worried. You have no idea! Come on, come on.”

A hand, to the top of the blanket.

“There’s about a thousand cameras in here, buddy, so we need to get going. Everyone at base has been so nervous, all day. Ever since we heard... My car’s just outside, we need to go, quick.”

Villain’s only solace was torn away.

“Buddy? What’s wrong?” The voice was practically a whisper. “It’s me. It’s-

Supervillain.”

A blank mind, filled with thoughts.

The initial strike of nausea was enough to make them wail, even as they had no ability to. They hardly remembered getting to their hands and knees, hardly remembered as they began to heave. No. They registered only the horrid, green-and-brown mess that exploded upon the pale white bedspread.

Again, again, a thousand exhausting times, the heaving struck them, until chunky vomit was spilling off the side of the bed, ruining the antique carpeting. It only ceased to spill when their insides were well and truly empty.

That was when they were picked up.

It was a caring, warm hold, tucking them close to the chest of a vile demon. Yet, they had not the slightest ounce of energy to resist. Any muscles not exhausted by fatigue went back to work, heaving and coughing, even as nothing more emerged.

“I’m sorry.” With a broken voice, Supervillain spoke. “I’m so, so sorry. Let’s go back to base, okay? Everything’s going to be okay, I promise, I promise, buddy.”

No.

With evil like this in the world, nothing was even going to be okay again.

#villain whumpee #whump #whumpblr #medical whump #doctor whumper #hero whumper #hero x villain #hero villain whump #whump community

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platoniclokiimagines · 3 years

Note

Loki being a sucker for pet names? He says he's a monster but when you use a pet name for him he just s t o p s

WC: 1654

TW: mention of counseling and anger management

A/N: I couldn’t remember the pronouns of who sent this in, because it’s been like Two Years, hence the “Lady” used in this fic, but for future reference, when I re-open requests, if you could please let me know the pronouns you’d like in the fic, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

A/N 2: There were many, many ways I could have gone with this, but naturally I went a little whumpy. Sue me. And enjoy~

The first time you called Loki a pet name, you hadn’t meantanything by it.

It was your night to make dinner, and Loki, still new tobeing around the compound and therefore not as trusted by most everyone else,had been given the task of helping you with whatever you needed. You didn’tmind. Loki was quiet and didn’t ask a lot of questions, and that made them nicecompany. Certainly better that Stark and his not-so-subtle jokes and smartassquips, or Thor Thor with his twenty questions about everything Midgardianwhenever the two of you did something together.

It didn’t even make you nervous that Loki seemed to watchyour every move, like they were waiting for you to say or do something thatmight put them in danger. You just let them study you, hardly even looking upat them as you read over the recipe on your phone.

“Loki, be a doll and pass me the salt, please? It’s thatcontainer just by the stove.”

“I quite beg your pardon?”

Loki’s slightly offended tone gave you pause, and you lookedup at them, brow furrowed. “…salt? It’s a seasoning. That white,crystal-looking-”

“No, I know what salt is, Lady Y/N.”

“You don’t have to call me that. It’s just Y/N.” You smileda bit as you watched them. “…was it the term of endearment? I can stop, if itmakes you uncomfortable.”

“…endearment.” Loki seemed genuinely confused, and you filedthat away to remember it.

“…yes? Nicknames are much faster to say than Loki, God ofMischief, you know.”

“…right.” After a long moment, Loki turned to the stove andfetched the salt, as you had asked, and said nothing else as they handed it toyou.

You weren’t sure what else to say on the matter, either, soyou just smiled and murmured a quiet thank you before turning back to yourcooking.

You supposed it made sense, given everything Thor had toldyou and the rest of the Avengers about everything Loki had been through, thataffection and endearment was something Loki wasn’t accustomed to. You wouldn’tbe surprised if you found out Loki had never been called by anything other thantheir name or the snarky nicknames Tony had for them.

It seemed like a terrible way togrow up, with little affection between you and your family members. All themore reason to show it now, you decided, and it was with that thought in mindthat your mission to test out pet names for Loki came to fruition.

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

Days passed before you comfortably had the chance to slipanother affectionate nickname into conversation with Loki. Even with such ashort time period between the two points in time, Loki had seemed to warm up toyou even more, sometimes going so far as to choose to sit on the same couchwith you as they read, while you either watched tv or fiddled on your phone.

Not wanting to make them uncomfortable, you waited to makesure that you were the only two in the room before you glanced over at them,mostly so you could watch their reaction. “Loki, dear, can you hand me theremote? I’ll turn it down so it’s quieter for you to read.”

Just as before, Loki hesitated, like they weren’t entirelysure how to handle being calledsomething affectionate, and it took them a few moments before they seemed tosnap out of it. “…that’s really not necessary, L… Y/N. I’m used to reading in far louder environments. You think Thor’sloud now, you wouldn’t believe theamount of noise he made as a teenager.”

You laughed a bit. “Yes, I imagine Thor was one of thosekids that was easily excitable and loud in expression.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” Loki smiled a little, as well, andyou released a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

One way or another, you weregoing to get Loki used to being treated nicely. Even if it took months.

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

As part of the agreement that ensured Loki could stay on atthe compound, Loki had been placed in an array of different therapy sessions,ranging from anger management to sibling counseling with Thor to just regularone-on-one counseling.

Unfortunately, that meant that sometimes Loki came back fromthem in a storm of a bad mood, wanting nothing more than to separate themselffrom the rest of the group and sulk somewhere where they could beself-deprecating or angry or hurt in peace.

You hadn’t particularlymeant to stumble upon Loki in one of these moods; mostly, you just wanted tomake sure that they were okay, and to see if there was anything you could do orget for them.

Hesitantly, you knocked on the door, not wanting to startlethem and risk upsetting them even more.

“Loki…? It’s Y/N. Can I come in?”

Loki gave no response, but after a pregnant pause, you heardthe door unlock, and you took that as an okay to go ahead into their room.Making sure to lock the door behind you, out of politeness, you turned aroundto see Loki curled up in the smallest ball you imagined they could manage.Unsure if you should try to get closer, you stayed where you were, watchingthem in silence.

“…can I get you anything? Some water, or… tea? We have someof that chamomile that you like. I made sure to get plenty of boxes the lasttime we went to the store, and-”

“Why do you bother?”

You were a bit taken aback by Loki’s words, not because theyheld any bite, but because they seemed so earnest.Like they genuinely couldn’t understand why you wanted to help.

“…I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

“I mean why areyou going through all this trouble? Being nice, talking to me when no one elsedoes, checking up on me? Don’t you ever get bored with it?”

“…why would I get bored with it?”

Loki turned to look at you then, scowling, though you weren’tentirely sure it was directed at you. “Because no one likes being thesacrificial lamb, the… the balance between sides.”

“…I suppose I don’t see it like that.”

Loki didn’t scoff or roll their eyes, like you expected theymight, but instead, they just looked at you, almost more earnestly than you’dever seen them look before.

“And how do yousee it?”

“Well… We’re friends.” You smiled a bit. “We’re two newpeople, getting to know each other while also getting used to being around theothers, too.”

“We can’t be friends.” Loki said it almost robotically, likeit was a trained response. “For one thing, you’re a human, and I’m a god and…Y/N, I’ve done things that are terrible. Horrible, horrible things, with verylittle by means of making up for it. Ask any one of the people in the room outthere, and they’ll tell you. I’m nothing but a monster.”

“I think you’re an absolute angel.”

You said it without even thinking about it, and whateverLoki had been in the process of saying or thinking didn’t matter, because theyjust stopped. Didn’t move, didn’tspeak, didn’t even seem to breathe. They just looked at you.

The silence in the room was almost deafening, and part ofyou wanted to think that you might have said the wrong thing, but a greaterpart of you knew that what you’d said was not a lie. You thought the world ofLoki, and you told them as much, once they’d had some time to process.

“Loki, you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met inmy life. You’ve been through so much.I’ve heard the stories. And yes, you’ve made mistakes, and perhaps some ofthose mistakes have had a body count, but… you’re trying to be better. You’retrying to do better. I know you are. Thor knows you are. And the others will catch on eventually, too,in time. But for now, I’ll pick up the slack. I’ll remind you that you’re doingbetter. I’ll bring you tea and sweets when you’re having a bad day. And I’ll keepcalling you pet names until you’re so used to them that you don’t freeze up outof confusion anymore. Whatever it takes for you to believe that you’re becominga good person, that’s just as worthy as love and affection and happiness as every other person in thiscompound. Okay?”

You hadn’t meant to say so much, but once you’d started, you’dfound yourself unable to stop, andnow that you’d finished, you just watched Loki, waiting for their response and hoping you hadn’t overstepped any boundaries.

After a long moment, they nodded to themself, seeing to cometo terms with what you’d said. “…I suppose I never considered things in thatmanner.”

You nodded, as well, offering a small smile when they lookedat you. “…it’s gonna be okay, you know? I know it really sucks right now, andeverything is new and strange and different. And counseling really, reallysucks at the beginning when you have to hash out all the things you neverwanted to revisit, but… it does get better. And I’ll be here to help. As longas you’ll have me.”

Loki took a slow, deep breath, like they were deciding whatthey wanted to say, but instead, they seemed to settle for nodding, and so youjust nodded, as well.

“….so tea?”

“I would appreciate it immensely, Y/N.”

You smiled and nodded, heading back to the door. “Sure,thing.” As you turned to leave, you couldn’t resist poking your head back in. “Angel.”

Loki just looked at you, almost as though they were embarrassed,and you just smiled softly.

Yes, you thought you and Loki were going to get on quitenicely, from here on out.

#Loki imagine #platonic Loki imagine #Loki #Loki Laufeyson #Loki Odinson #marvel #Loki x reader #platonic!Loki x reader #anonymous #ask #answered #thank you for the prompt #i hope you enjoy some good old loki whump

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mutants-and-soldiers · 3 years

Text

The Proposition (Ch. 1)

summary || You've been thinking about Steve's proposal a lot. Part of you wants to decline but a bigger part of you wants what he's offering.

pairing || alpha!Steve x omega!Reader (Past alpha!Bucky x omega!Reader)

word count || 3,706

warnings || A/B/O, eventual smut, therapy talks, kink negotiation, lots of dialogue — 18+ ONLY//MINORS DNI

notes || I can't get this story out of my head, really! First chapter is all about setting up the smut so I apologize but I believe in talking things out. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first part of the series! I'm going to try and be better about answering comments from here on out! Keep the comments coming, I love hearing from you guys so much!

You can also read it on Ao3. Do not copy, translate, rewrite or repost any of my work, even if you credit me. I always welcome comments and reblogs!

Sequel to Helping Hands: One Two Three Four Five

Divider courtesy of the talented @firefly-graphics

After so many years of going to see Dr. Beta, you were used to the routine when you stepped through the doors. It was late in their work day so you were the only person in the office other than Valarie, the receptionist, who gave you a kind smile. “Good afternoon,” she said, typing something onto her computer. “Dr. Beta’s just about ready.”

“Thanks, Valarie,” you say, setting your bag down to take off your suit.

It had been weird the first time Dr. Beta had demanded you not wear the suit during your sessions. You protested but in the end, she won out. There were a lot of reasons for choosing a female-only office but this was the biggest one. They accommodate you so much just to make you feel welcome and safe in your own skin. It was one of the few places that you could take the suit off and feel comfortable.

The suit was just being zipped up into your bag when the door to the doctor’s office opened. Dr. Beta was a matronly middle aged woman with plenty of laugh lines and crow's feet from years of laughter and joy. She was a kind beta who had done wonders for your mental health and self esteem. Without her, you probably wouldn’t have gone through with the job proposal.

She called your name with a gentle smile, “You ready?”

“Yep,” you smiled, walking over to step into the room. The blinds were closed tight but there were several lamps around the space that allowed a soft light to keep it illuminated. The wooden diffuser was pumping out the soothing smell of lemon and sandalwood. Dr. Beta had always said the lemon helped cut the potency of your powers but you weren’t sure if that was true or if it was something she said to make you feel better.

The two of you settled into your usual spots before the doctor asks, “Anything new since we last saw each other?”

It had been a month since your last session. The milestone of going monthly instead of bi-monthly had been huge for you. There was a time that you saw her weekly, which was when you were at your lowest. You were glad to be where you were.

“Where do I even start?” you laugh, leaning casually back on the leather couch. The cold material felt nice on the bare skin that peeked out from your denim shorts and athletic tank top. “I’ve been meeting regularly with three guys to run with them every Tuesday and Thursday. We also go out for drinks and the game on Sunday.”

“Wow, that’s fantastic!” she gushed, genuinely excited for you. She even sat her clipboard and pen down to lean forward with her elbows on her knees. It was something she only did when you made some kind of...positive choice in your life. The way it made your chest swell with self pride was silly and kind of childish but the woman had always been extra motherly to you. “Clients?”

“One of them was,” you nod, trying to keep the flush of excitement from making you seem too eager. “They’re really nice guys and they invited me to start sparring with them next week after our runs.”

A gentle look crossed the doctor’s face that had you melting. It was a look that she gave when she was proud and the way your name came out of her mouth spoke volumes. “I’m so proud of you,” she said aloud even though you knew it by her body language. “It’s been a long time since you took time for yourself in your personal life. Are they on your level of martial arts?”

“Better!” you said, excited to have a good challenge.

“Better than you?” she laughed, sounding incredulous. “I’d have to see that to believe it!” You join her for the laugh. “Anything else?”

Your mind flutters to a certain blond and his proposition but decide to keep that to yourself for now. It wasn’t good for you to hide secrets from Dr. Beta and you usually didn’t, however, she would definitely encourage you to take him up on the offer. You didn’t think you were ready to come up with reasons (lies) for why you couldn’t do that yet.

“Not really.”

She nods, grabbing her clipboard to flip the paper. “Dr. Noland said you were going to get your heat early this time around. She said you mentioned you might know why?”

Damn it. You forgot how much the two doctors communicated between each other about your health. It was the program you were in and, while amazingly helpful, could be very annoying at times. Case in point, now you need to make a choice on whether to point blank lie to Dr. Beta or just tell the truth. Lying by omission was much more your style.

“Yeah,” you sigh, resigning yourself to the conversation. “The last client I helped had...intense pheromones. I think it may have kicked me into my heat cycle early.”

The doctor’s hazel eyes widened in shock, “Even with the suppressant you took?”

Nodding, you look away for a second. “The client was a super soldier,” you admit, running a hand through your hair in frustration.

Understanding blossomed on her face when she made a guess as to who you were talking about. “Well, that might do it, for sure,” she nodded, making a note. “Still, I’m going to have Dr. Noland change your suppressant just in case it’s not working.”

She stood up, going over to the cabinet behind her desk. She took out a large bottle, tossing it to you, that had heat vitamins in them. Another bottle was thrown your way full of pills specifically for healthy slick production. The last thing she came over with were a few vouchers for omega-centric energy drinks and heat-snacks.

“I know you hate this question but I am legally required to ask,” she chuckles. “Do you have someone you trust to help you through your heat?”

You hesitate. “No.”

Her head snaps up, hazel eyes pinning you to the spot. “You hesitated. You never hesitate,” she points out with far too much excitement. She sets the clipboard down, doing the lean again. “Do you have someone in mind?”

Well, the cat was out of the bag and now you couldn’t lie because she would never believe you now. “I was...propositioned,” you admit, feeling stupidly relieved that you had been honest with her. She had conditioned you so fucking well to feel better when you told the truth as opposed to lying. It had been a ‘bad coping mechanism’ you created during your childhood to gain some control of your otherwise uncontrollable life.

“By one of your new friends?” she asked, already getting the gist of the conversation. “Was it your client?”

“No, not my client but his...best friend,” you whisper, feeling a little embarrassed that you were having this conversation.

Dr. Beta is quiet for a moment, contemplating how to ask the question. “What’s the big deal then? Why not take him up on the offer?”

You cringe. “There are…a lot of reasons but I’m sure you’re going to make them seem like they’re not problems but things I’ve blown up in my mind.”

She laughs, shaking her head. “You know your feelings and worries are valid! I just help you see things in a more logical light. I think you should really talk this through with him but...would you like to practice with me?”

You bite your lower lip but give a heavy sigh when you realize there’s still nearly forty minutes left of your time with her. “Fine. It can’t hurt.”

You sat in the booth twitching with your napkin. You and the owner were good friends from back in your academy days so he allowed you to pay a certain amount for the whole rooftop terrace. It meant you could enjoy a meal with someone without having to wear your suit. You also got the same female server every time who knew your situation and didn’t care.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” you heard a familiar voice say to your left.

Not really sure why, you stood up when he approached. He was wearing a thin blue zip-up jacket over a blue and white plaid button up shirt that was unbuttoned enough for you to see the white t-shirt he had under it. His jeans were dark and fit far too well around his massive thighs. A plain blue ball cap sat on his head and some fake glasses to help hide his identity. The smile he gave you was enough to make your preheat brain purr.

It took you by surprise when his big arms wrapped you up in a hug that smothered you in his masculine scent. Your hands touched his back, hugging him hesitantly. The squeeze lasted a little longer than you expected, just enough for your head to be perfectly swimming in his pheromones.

You pulled away when he did, allowing him to sit at the far side of the table, facing towards the rest of the area. He had insisted that you come without your suit so it was the least you could do to keep the waitress from noticing his erection.

“It’s okay, I ordered some water for us,” you smile, genuinely happy to see him. It wasn’t often that you saw any of the three men individually. They usually hung out in a pack and you were happy to know that you fit into the group pretty well. “Get whatever you want, Steve. It’s my treat.”

He gave you a look. “I would prefer it if you let me pay.”

Your heart gave a hard thump in your chest. There was something about the way he said it that was just short of a command. You look into his blue eyes, trying to gauge his intent before setting down the menu. “Is this some old-fashioned pride I see leaking through?” you tease, giving him a mischievous grin.

“No, I just figure it was only right that I buy you lunch before helping you with your heat,” he said so casually it made your face heat.

“What makes you think I’m going to agree?!” you laugh loudly.

There is a knowing glint in his eyes that makes your stomach flip. “Isn’t that why we’re here? Alone?” he questioned easily, looking up just as Julia came to the table.

“Welcome back,” she greets you, setting two empty glasses and a pitcher of water down on the table. “My name’s Julia.”

“Nice to meet you Julia,” Steve responded with a neutral smile. It caught you a little off guard because it...definitely wasn’t the smile he gave you. Was it just part of his disguise?

You both ordered a beer and your entrees. It wasn’t until Julia walked away that you focused back on the alpha across from you. He was already looking at you with an intense expression. You feel like he’s basically prying into your soul.

“I...spoke with my therapist yesterday and…” you start, finding it very hard to talk about this kind of thing. It was so easy to soothe your clients but so hard to give yourself a break. “She...convinced me to talk with you about my...worries.”

His expression softens a bit. “I’m willing to work with you,” he soothes, reaching out to take your hand. His fingers curled around yours, warm and solid. “Tell me everything.”

You take a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of hurting you,” you blurt out. “You can take me even on your worst day. I’m...embarrassed to count myself among the small population of omegas that go...feral during their heat. I...fight my partner. Dr. Beta says it's because of the trauma I experienced. Trauma doesn't just disappear during heat...it gets worse. I’m just not the usual kind of docile omega that society seems to exemplify.”

He looks up to alert you that Julia was returning with your drinks. He didn’t speak until she was back inside the building. “Truthfully, I’m actually more intrigued than put off by the notion,” he finally said after taking a sip of his beer. “Do you fight the whole time or just in the beginning?”

It wasn’t a line of questioning that you expected so you gaped at him like a fish out of water for a few seconds before finding your words. “I don’t...know,” you admit sheepishly, sipping your hard cider. “I’ve only been with one alpha during my heat and he had to go to the hospital a few hours into it.”

Something dark and tempting flashed through the blond’s eyes. “How do you feel about restraints?”

Your core throbbed at the simple question. It probably showed on your face because his smile started to widen in understanding. “Yes, that’s fine,” you breathe, trying not to think too hard about the implications.

“Would you prefer to do this at your house or in my suite?” he asked as if you had already agreed to the whole thing.

Your mind screamed at you to say decline. It was dangerous and there were so many things that could go wrong. Your omega brain though had already bought into the whole thing. You wanted this big, powerful alpha to hold you down and take you in the most forceful of ways. You wanted him to restrain you to your nest and have his way with you until the heat fog cleared.

“Wait, wait,” you say, trying to finish your thoughts before deciding anything. “I’m serious when I say I’m insatiable. I don’t have any refractory period between one wave and the next.”

Julia opens the door, alerting you both that she was coming out with food. You both wait until everything is set and she walks away before continuing. The food smells delicious so you grab the burger and bite into it. You always craved red meat before your heat so when the flavors burst across your taste buds, you hum in appreciation.

Steve took a few bites of his own meal before responding. “The super soldier serum makes it so I don’t have any refractory period,” he shrugs casually with a smile. “I’ve never met someone who could keep up with me so...I’m interested to see if you can. Any other worries?”

Heat blossoms across your cheek and in your chest. “I don’t want our friendship to be jeopardized,” you finally admit after finishing half of your burger. You grab some of the fries and eat them while thinking.

“Did helping Bucky keep you from being friends with him?”

“No, of course not,” you sigh, running out of excuses. Dr. Beta had been right, talking with him had definitely made you a little more comfortable with the idea. “Fine, okay, I accept your offer.”

“My place or yours?” he asks with a genuine smile.

You mull over the question for a bit before shrugging. “I have all of my nesting supplies at my house so we can do it at mine,” you chuckle, feeling a little nervous but excited too.

He nods. “Do I need to bring any supplies? Snacks or drinks?”

The two of you continue talking about the logistics of your heat while you finish the food. It makes you feel a lot better knowing you wouldn’t have to go through with it alone. You had already taken the initiative to send a message to all of your clients to let them know you would be out for your heat. You even went ahead and took an extra week just for yourself.

After you pay and you have your layers back on, the two of you stand outside the doors to the restaurant. You don’t want to leave him, truthfully. He smelt so good and you were so close to your heat that it was hard to separate from him. “Thanks for talking with me,” you smile despite the bonnet covering everything but your eyes. “I’ll give you a text when I’m ready.”

“Of course, thanks for lunch,” he chuckles, leaning down to kiss your forehead through the layers. “Here, take this for your nest.”

He shucked his jacket and offered it. Your hand reaches out to take it slowly. “Thanks but this might just push me into it faster,” you laugh brightly, holding the large jacket close to your chest. You could smell the scent of him even through all of your layers. It made your head foggy.

“That’s the idea,” he smirked, turning towards the tower with a wave. “Just let me know when you want me to come over.”

You watch him walk away, eyes lingering on the way his biceps stretched the fabric of his shirt and down until you stared at his toned ass in those jeans. It was obvious how close you were to your heat when sweat started to form along your temples and slick started to dampen your panties.

Once you got back home, you arranged your snacks and vitamins on the counter so they were easy for Steve to find. He might need to feed you for the first few waves because you weren’t sure if you’d be coherent or not. Then you went into your extra bedroom that you used for your heats and started getting it ready.

You pulled out all of your slick-resistant pillows, cushions and blankets from the closet to make a nest on your king sized bed. It was a nice four post bed that had your mind in dark places. All you could think about was being restrained with cuffs around one of those posts while Steve fucked into you.

It didn’t take long before you needed a pad for all of the fucking slick that was making everything so annoying. The nest took a lot longer that you would like to admit because it just didn’t seem...right. You’d never had this kind of issue before but your omega brain wanted Steve to be comfortable and happy too.

Looking back at the closet, you debated on whether or not you wanted to pull out the box of toys. You weren’t sure if Steve would want them or need them or…

“Fuck it,” you mutter, grabbing your phone to send the alpha a quick text. Toys or no toys?

You were adding his jacket to your nest when your phone vibrated in your pocket. Instead of the one or two word answer that you expected, it was...something else.

Definitely toys. I’ll enjoy teasing you until you’re begging for my knot.

Fuckin’ hell! Was this the same blond with the surprisingly boyish face that you had met during lunch today? The same guy that Sam teased about being an old virgin?

You didn’t think the pad was going to hold up to all of the slick that gush from you at the text. How does one respond to a text like that? You grabbed out the delicate pink box out of the closet, wincing at the color because it was the only color that the shop had to store your toys. Omegas were feminine right?! They liked pink, right?!

Laughing at yourself, you set the box on the little table in the room. You opened the lid and set it to the side so you could look at your assortment of toys. It was a collection you started when your first heat hit you at sixteen. You had been a late bloomer because of your constant martial arts training, which stilted your omega hormones.

It had all the necessities and even some extras. You had your typical knot dildo, a vibrator, a clit vibe, a few different types of condoms for when you weren’t in your heat, a bottle of lube that encouraged slick production, a bottle of regular lube, and a few different sized anal plugs. The last few were just because you enjoyed the feeling of being full when having sex.

Quickly you took a picture of the box and sent it to Steve as a reply. It was the best you could come up with. You had never really been good at those kinds of things. Well, you’d never had someone try and sext you.

Happy that everything was prepared, you cuddled under your fuzzy blanket in your nest. Comfort flooded through you as you nuzzled into the man’s jacket, deeply taking in his scent. It was nice and musky and made you feel warm and safe.

The phone buzzed. You’re okay with anal during your heat?

Your pheromone idled brain made you giggle, “Consent is important,” before you could text him back. Yes, I like being stuffed full.

It didn’t even register how inappropriate the text sounded before you hit send. You were obviously a lot further along than you had previously thought. The subtle throb of your core was starting to get worse but you weren’t too far gone to see his last text.

Good to know. Get some rest. Need me to come out and check on you before dark?

You groaned as a cramp hit your pelvis, slick becoming an issue. It simultaneously hurt and felt good. You were so distracted that you couldn’t answer the text message. Everything was suddenly too hot so you threw off your clothing, slipping your hand down to brush against your clit. It was already so sensitive it hurt but you needed relief.

It wasn’t enough and you knew that it would be futile to try and get yourself off with just your fingers but your brain wasn’t working. You groaned helplessly as the lackluster orgasm washed over you. It wasn’t enough, so frustratingly not enough. Sweat dripped down your cheek from your hairline making you kick off the blanket so you could turn over.

You didn’t care how it looked with your ass up because the scent of Steve on the jacket helped clear your head a little. It made your core throb but it also helped you become coherent. Enough so that you grabbed the phone and typed in a one word response that only said:

Now.

Credits for the pictures in Moodboard:

Unsplash photographers:

1. Kelly Sikkema

2. Vulkan Olmez

3. Toa Heftiba

Like, comment and reblogs are always welcome! Thanks for reading!

#a/b/o verse #alpha!steve x omega!reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #eventual smut #kink negotiation #therapy #mutants #fanfiction

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utterlyhopeful-fics · 3 years

Text

Goodbye - Epilogue (Captain Syverson)

MASTERLIST P1 P2 P3 P4 P5

A/N: I happy cried writing this. I apologize for it’s delay but sincerely hope it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

If I keep tagging you and you’re not interested or want to be tagged; please let know!

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: SO MUCH FLUFF, language, a hint of smut, more fluffy domestic goodness, reference to PTSD

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

An arid summer’s eve laid upon them yet a welcoming, cool brisk dispersed through the night’s mellow sky. It was one of those magical July nights, a night that didn’t cause you to swelter miserably. At least not as fast as usual. Y/N gazed up at the array of luminescent stars glistening down on her sighing contently. She eyed the big dipper with ease thinking back to every astrological book she’d homed over the three decades.

Her hand grazed her bulging belly soaking in the last days before her son’s arrival. She leaned her head against the cool cushion contemplating the peaceful the evening. Soon her thoughts drifted to her husband, Sy putting their two miracles, Luna and Oliver to bed. Her eldest, Oliver was the definition of a blessing in disguise. Now her baby was five and the celebration of Luna’s third birthday long past. Where did the time go…every mother greatest fear.

Briefly, Y/N closed her eyes listening to the music laced in the wind. Soon they would be outnumbered, something both of them were slowly coming to terms with. Sy cherished the swell of her belly and the fullness of her breasts secretly wishing for as many kids as humanly possible.

Y/N, on the other hand figured three was plenty but Sy was a tricky one, a handsomely tricky man who worshipped the ground she walked on. A different man from their initially rocky start. Granted, looking back on the beginning of their relationship left a small twinge in her chest, he’d tried his damndest to make it up to her every day since leaving that hospital.

Sy had gone through hell and back clawing his way from death’s vicious grip. Rehabilitation had kicked his ass but he persevered gradually gaining strength after every tedious therapy session. Needless to say, the last couple years weren’t always roses and butterflies. Oh no, there were times when Sy admitted defeat, yelled in unbridled anger, and genuinely resented the cards he’d been dealt.

But it brought them here together, in this moment, forever thankful of their ever-growing family. And for that she would be infinitely indebted for the rest of her days. Thankfully after two intensive years of non-stop motivation and assistance, the only sign of his accident was a minor limp Y/N found absolutely loveable.

Cicadas pierced the silence as lightning bugs alit to life. Sy’s heavy steps protruded along the wood stripped floors making his way towards his magnificent wife. The swivel of the sliding door popped Y/N’s serene daze. A thunderous voice echoed; “Baby?”

Y/N hummed sensing him approach from behind. His meaty hands met the crook of her neck massaging her swollen shoulders. An uncontrollable exhale escaped her.

“Hey good lookin’.”

His lips brushed against her moisturized skin grazing her collarbone before roaming towards the corner of her lip. Taking his own cue, Sy continued his trail of hot kisses down her chest wavering towards her plump breasts. She moaned in pure bliss.

“If you keep that up, you’re going to send me into labor.”

Sy stopped, a chuckle reverberating from his chest; “Ain’t that a good thing?” His Texas twang was the equivalence of freshly churned butter, a noise so familiar her heart still soared to cloud nine.

Choosing to ignore his sass, Y/N found herself staring upwards at the stars and many constellations. Sy’s large frame settled into the chair beckoning her towards the setta lounge chair. Y/N nodded unwilling to deny her handsome husband a minute longer sliding into his lap. His heat immediately emitted to her core warming every bit of exposed skin.

“I see you made it out in one piece?”

Sy’s massive arms engulfed Y/N’s changing body perching his chin atop her shoulder.

“Hardly! If I have to read Uni the Unicorn one more damn time I might have to be committed.”

Y/N jokingly slapped his shoulder; “Oh c’mon. You love seeing Luna’s beaming smile or else you wouldn’t give in to her every night.”

“Sure, she’s cute now but wait til she’s datin.”

“Nope, nope. She’s still gonna be my sweetie.”

Sy considered his wife’s words coming to a conclusion that she was shamelessly right. His girls had him tightly wound around their fingers. He wasn’t your average fool, no he was now a family man fool. If someone told him this is where his life path would’ve led him, he’d have blatantly laughed in their face but now he saw no other future than the one right in front of him. The numerous doctors and therapists saved his life but Y/N truly revived him from the perverse melancholy of PTSD.

The woman who hung the moon, balanced his universe, the woman who miraculously gave life to two healthy children, and the woman he once stupidly shoved aside. That was in the past and for the first time in his life, Sy looked forward to the future, their future.

Together they sat tangled as one listening to nature’s melody. After leaving the city, they’d purchased ten acres ready to rear their children outside of hectic city living.

“Baby, have I told you I love you today? Because if not shame on me.”

“Only bout a million times but who’s counting.”

His arms draped around her waist tenderly rubbing her jutting stomach.

“God, you are so fucking sexy like this.”

“Like what? Bloated and gassy?”

Her sarcasm was undeniable.

“No, horny and swollen with my child.”

“Man, you really know how to get my hormones raging….”

“Seriously babe, I love seeing pregnant. It’s incredibly hot. Bigger boobs, higher sex drive, these curves, I mean who would complain?”

“Ha ha. Well, that makes one of us because I feel like a whale.”

Syverson didn’t miss a beat; “But a very sexy whale.”

“Kids go down easy?”

“If by easy you mean fifteen minutes of reading with light back rubbing, and a fight over that squirrel night light, then yes, they went down easy.”

“Thank you for the peace and quiet. Sincerely.”

“Anything for you, baby.”

“Any more thought on what to name bubba here?”

Y/N caressed her belly protectively searching for catchy names.

“What about… Henry?”

Sure enough, Y/N nodded liking the ring of it; “Henry Syverson. Sounds pretty awesome if I do say so myself.”

He held her jaw lightly guiding her to face him admiring the sparkle in her eyes.

“Well cowgirl, I can’t wait to meet him.”

“I can’t believe we’re about to be outnumbered.”

Her pulse accelerated at the terrifying notion alone but Sy remained calm, cool, and collected.

“Y/N, we’ve got this. You and me, together. We’ve mastered two already, what’s one more?”

Her newfound nerves evaporated. Y/N squirmed trying to stretch her sleepy bones. A sensational moan flowed from his lips. So, Y/N repeated her previous movement wiggling her hips for full effect.

“Darlin, that feels fucking fantastic.”

“Mmm, yeah?

Taking charge Y/N kissed him sliding her tongue along his lower lip. With every passing second the intensity skyrocketed; Y/N passionately kissed him. Syverson devoured her like a man starved deepening the connection. Breathy pants circulated around the air. Before Sy could enunciate another vowel, his zipper was down and Y/N palming his hardening dick. He was damn glad he married a minx. His head back launched against the cushion at the sensation coursing through his veins. Y/N made quick work unbuttoning his pant clasp tugging the offensive material below his knees.

Sy’s fingers danced over her hips clutching at the sheer nightie. Silently taking his cue, Y/N raised to her knees giving him full access. Sy didn’t hesitate ripping the material watching her round breasts shimmer underneath the moonlight.

“God baby. You are gorgeous.”

“And to think you almost passed all this up.”

His laugh was hesitant thinking back on his former idiotic actions. Y/N allowed him a couple seconds of consolation before snapping him out of his self-hatred inner monologue. Her hand gripped his chin forcing his gaze; “Don’t do that, honey. Our past is what saved us. You are the only man for me.”

He plunged two fingers into her soaked pussy jolting her system. Her hips moved as Y/N fucked herself atop him. Sy watched on in awe basking in marvel.

“Fuck, sweetheart. I gotta be inside you. Now.” Choking out the final word Sy knew he wouldn’t last long at this rate. He teased her clit rubbing his bulging tip teasingly along her most sensitive part. Y/N slid down his thick cock relishing in his fullness.

Every push and pull succumbed to a harder thrust. Sy held on for dear life losing himself in her sweet essence. Fireworks sparked beneath her lids as Sy pulsated within her velvety walls. Underneath the stars, two lovers made love uninterrupted for as long as the darkness lingered. Two mind- blowing orgasms later, two lovers remained intertwined and imperfectly in love.

--------------

“Mommy! Dada!”

Little feet pattered down the hallway nearing with every step. Y/N’s lids were sleep heavy enveloped by muscular arms.

“The rascals are awake and on the prowl.”

“Too awake. It’s Sunday! The day definition of rest.”

“Not when you have kids, hon.”

“Quick! Kiss me before the barge in.”

Sy leaned closer admiring his wife’s morning beauty sealing the deal. Milliseconds later their bedroom door burst open as two little people climbed the chest located at the foot of the bed. Grinning smiles in tow, Oliver and Luna snuggled towards their drowsy parents. Oliver landing atop Sy’s bare chest and Luna snuggled Y/N’s welcoming bosom.

“Mama! You pretty.”

Y/N grinned at her beautiful baby girl wondering just where the little baby she gave birth to went. Her heart ached wanting to memorize every last detail.

Sy’s booming bravado could awaken an entire hotel spinning her kids into endless giggles.

“Good morning my cubs!”

“Daddy, we’re not cubs!”

“To me you are.”

Y/N shot him a glare; Sy joined in breaking into a fit of laughter; “Who’s hungry?!”

“Me!”

“Me, me, daddy!”

Jumping up and down, they were ready to greet the day bushy-eyed and energetic. Momma was in serious need of a strong cup of peppermint tea.

“But first lemme kiss baby Hen.”

Too distracted by husband caressing her loving belly, Y/N sighed at the newly created nickname.

“Hen, huh?”

His magnetic eyes travelled to hers; “You like?”

“So much. But let’s address the real elephant in the room… What’s for breakfast?”

Oliver continued jumping as Luna squirmed in Sy’s strong arms.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Y/N feigned coyly suppressing her glee; “Hmm, I’m thinkin…...WAFFLES!!”

“My favvvvorite!!”

Shuffles of tiny feet waddled echoing down the hallway. Sy placed a loving kiss on her forehead; “Take your time sweetheart. I’ll watch the monsters.”

“You’re a godsend.”

“Only for my girl.”

Heavy footsteps followed suit. As much as Y/N treasured the last few months of pregnancy. With that being said she was more than ready to greet her bundle of joy. Out of nowhere a pain shot through her spine down to her pelvis knocking the wind from Y/N.

“Ouch...” She rubbed her stomach; “Hungry little man?”

Again, another kick radiated her body. Y/N ventured forward heading towards the loud noise coming from the kitchen.

Splash. Glancing down, Y/N noticed a puddle between her legs staring wide-eyed; “Shit, shit, shit!”

A dull ache riveted feeling overwhelming pressure on her uterus. Warm liquid dripped down her inner thighs. This could only mean one thing; show time.

“Sy!”

No response.

“Syverson! Get your cute butt up here! NOW.”

Sy magically appeared out of breath, concern written all over his face; “What? What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

With her contraction temporarily paused her brain was able to formulate words; “I uh, believe my water just broke.”

“Holy shit.”

“Language, damnit!”

Sy threw her a stern spirited look; “Hi, Pot. I’m Kettle.”

“Hush it and make yourself useful. Suitcase is in the hall closet by the front door. I’m gonna grab my slippers. Meet you in a jiffy.”

An arm reached for Y/N; “Ah, ah. Not so fast. I moved them two days ago. I had this weird feeling buggin me and well, ya.”

Taking a deep hearty breath, Y/N collected her impulsive thoughts; “Okay, let’s’ get the littles buckled and do this, baby.”

“One sec.”

Locked in his hug, Sy wanted to remember every detail of Y/N, just like this, in the home they built and the family they were blessed with. Words were no longer necessary. But just as quickly, another wave of contractions hit Y/N sending her hurling over.

“Okay, moment over. Let’s get the show on the road.”

And just like that the once too painful burdens Syverson lugged with him the past years vanished never questioning his luck and life again eternally grateful to the woman who simply said I do.

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

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#henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #captain syverson x reader #captain syverson #henry cavill fic #henry cavill x y/n #captain syverson x y/n #my writing #goodbye #henry cavill fluff #cpt sy #syverson #bernie sanders #netflix #captain sy #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill drabble

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dreamscapestars · 3 years

Text

The Ultimate Reylo Fanfic List

* = highly recommend (aka if you’re going to read anything off this list read this)

Canonverse AUs

***All Our Days - E - 221k - "I can listen no longer in silence."The hologram projection of his strangely handsome face is cobalt blue, flickering, and full of static. "I must speak to you, Rey. You… you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late.” He groans, runs his hands through his dark, silver-streaked hair, then refocuses his gaze on the holorecorder. “I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Do not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death."Here the recording of Ben takes a deep breath, and looks down at something outside the holorecorder’s field of view. Perhaps at his hands, Rey manages to think, through the veil of shock and timid, fluttering hope. She wishes she were there with him, so she could take them in her own, and offer him the confidence to carry on.But this is only a hologram, so she must wait. Eventually, when he looks up again, his features have settled. He looks… Fierce. Determined. Self-assured."I have loved none but you," he says. - canonverse jane austen au

trillions of molecules - T - 11k - Fake papers forged, contract signed and a navy blue jumpsuit with his name printed on the chest supplied to him, the man who called himself Solo was hired by the Felucian Transit Corporation as shuttle operator number B414. - tros fix it au

There Shall I Be - N/A - 50k -She remembers the first and only time she saw him smile like this before and how it didn’t touch his eyes at the time and how it broke her heart.Now it fills her heart and gives her life.She shoves him back onto their blanket and climbs on top of him. She pulls off her sweater and takes him inside her again and rides him into the night. - canonverse far from the madding crowd au

*landscape with a blur of conquerors - E - 362k - "While I share your contempt for this situation in which we find ourselves, do not mistake it as apathy," he hissed through gritted teeth, dark eyes burning. "I hardly expect your disposition to sweeten, but I will be damned if I allow my future Empress to behave in a manner that reflects poorly on me and on the First Order!""If you allow?" She wrenched her arm out of his viselike grasp, batting his hand away for good measure. "I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone.""That might have been the case back when you were a scavenger on that pitiful scrap heap of a planet, but now?" His sardonic gaze flickered over her silk robes and the jewels woven through her elaborate braids. "Now you are the Chume'da, and the Chume'da belongs to her people. Their fate is entirely in your hands. Should you cross the line, it is they who will suffer for it. Am I making myself clear?""I hate you," she said bitterly. He sneered at her. "See? Already you are acclimatizing so well to married life." - arranged marriage au

Modern AUs

*the man, the stallion, and the wind - E - 17k - Weary and alone, Rey barrels west on the Trans-Canada Hwy in her old pickup truck. Weary and in need of a lift, Ben Solo stands by the side of the road with his thumb out, in the hopes of hitching a ride.One hell of a winter storm’s about to roll in, leaving them stranded. What ever shall they do? - hitchhiker au

The Mechanic - E - 122k - It's a magical midsummer night, just made for following a persuasive, dangerous-looking lawyer to a hotel across the road from the party. But then reality catches up to Rey. - mafia baby au

*Soul Searching - E - 205k - Sixteen-year-old Rey finds out she’s soulmates with her English teacher -- in front of her entire class. Now the school gossips won’t leave her alone, prying for tidbits that Rey wouldn’t give them even if she had any. And she doesn’t. Because Mr. Solo is too horrified at being soulmates with an underage girl to even talk to her. - soulmate au

Mitan, Midi - E - 83k - After a French notary contacts Rey to inform her she's inherited a house in the Drôme (France), she decides from one day to the next to quit her job and move there. The house is pretty secluded, there's no service, no internet, no way to reach other people aside from the landline in the living-room.Ideal conditions, by her standards, as those theoretically should allow her to be perfectly alone. Theoretically. - french country side au

*A Treehouse Covered in Salt - E - 34k -High school senior Rey Johnson has lived next door to Ben Solo her whole life. The two could not be more different and at school, Rey wouldn't be caught dead in his presence. That doesn't stop her from sneaking out to their treehouse every night. Despite her unwillingness to be friends with Ben in the light of day, he has always been there with her in the darkness. - high school au

Initial - M - 45k - A Soulmate AU in which you are born with the initials of your soulmate marked on the nape of your neck. Easy enough, right? Except for two people who don't use their real names. - soulmate au

Killing Me Softly - M - 32k - Rey clings to the hope that her husband will regain his memories after he survived a car crash that left him with amnesia. During her monthly visits at a medical facility with Ben, who now calls himself Kylo, she struggles to cope as he tries to make her let go of the past, and in turn, him with it. - amnesia au

only child of the universe - E - 98k - The first time Rey meets Ben, they're carefree strangers getting high at the fair, alight and in love for a night. The second time is different. The second time is in therapy— where the asshole won't even acknowledge her. - high school au

a place to go - E - 52k - All Rey Johnson wanted was solitude. A place to go where she could escape from the daily stressors and mayhem of her job. A place where she could enjoy some peace and some quiet. Her mentor Luke Skywalker's small cabin up north seemed like the ideal place to do just that. A week of seclusion was just what she needed.And then Ben Solo arrived. - snowed in au

into the great laughter of mankind - E - 30k - There is something about watching Rey put her mind to task. Ben can't put a name to this something, exactly— all he knows is that it fascinates him like nothing else has in a long, long time."Dr. Solo?" She glances over at him. "What do you think?"I think I'm doomed, he wants to say but doesn't. I think the curse of the pharaohs has nothing on you. I think you are my Egypt. - archaeologist au

(now it’s) Time to Learn - M - 86k - “You’re a teacher?” Ben doesn’t look like a teacher. At least not like any teacher Rey has ever had. - teacher au

For Now - E - 8k - There are plenty of things he could say, but he doesn’t. Buying you muffins makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning. I wish I could go back in time and be the kind of person you could like. I don’t remember my life before you. ---------- When Kylo finds his soulmate, she doesn’t know, and he doesn’t tell her. - soulmate au

Cupcake Wars - E - 36k - Entirely by accident, Rey ends up fucking someone who works for Snoke's Cupcakery. She's just blowing off steam. It doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly won't come back to bite her in the ass. - bakery au

The Food of Love - E - 60k - Rey picked up her first violin at eleven, finding a mentor in conductor and former-violinist Luke Skywalker. With the First Chair up for grabs, Rey is thrust into the spotlight as the youngest violinist to take First Chair in the NY Pops. But Kylo Ren - former violinist, former NY Pops cellist, formerly Ben Solo child prodigy - may take issue with Rey Nobody sitting in his grandfather's chair. - orchestra au

Orion - E - 14k - Rey Niima finds herself in the Saharan desert trying to heal wounds from her life, and Ben Solo is there too, fixing himself along the way. - roadtrip au

Embers - E - 34k - All the myriad things he’d been—someone who made her laugh; the warmth on the other side of the bed; her best friend—those things, Rey had buried. Rey left Ben two years, three months, and sixteen days ago. But who's counting? - getting back together au

Gilded - M - 11k - Everyone had two marks, one for class and another to identify a soulmate. She only had one: green rings on her finger, proof she was part of the laboring class. It made matters lonely, but never unbearable.Until she met him. He had two sets of marks—had a soulmate—and she did not. - soulmate au

flutz - E - 27k - Rey was determined to have no distractions during her first season in Senior Ladies figure skating.She swore that Olympic medalist and figure skating legend Ben Solo was not going to change that, no matter how intent he seemed on proving her wrong. - ice skater au

oh autumn, oh teakettle, oh grace - E - 30k - "So let me get this straight," he says. "You're a dryad.""Quite so," she cheerfully replies."Like an actual—" His hand rises to make a feeble gesture at the towering elms that surround them— "tree-dwelling, speaks-with-animals, has-magical-powers, frolics-through-the-woods-in-orgiastic-pagan-frenzy dryad?"She wrinkles her delicately freckled nose. "Well, I don't know about orgiastic frenzy, that's really more of a maenad type of deal."He looks her up and down, taking in her pretty face and her slender figure in the skimpy white dress."Too bad," he mumbles. - dryad roadtrip au

A Proposal by Any Other Name - E - 188k - Rey and Finn have been A Thing for a long time now. Since she was eighteen, to be exact. When Finn leaves on a trip to Europe for six months for work, Rey finally chases after him to Dublin to do what he seems to be putting off: propose.She wants a family, after all.The universe has different ideas. Her flights are delayed, storms hit, she loses her tickets and everything seems to be going horribly. To top it off, she ends up stranded around a rather irritating man by the name of Kylo Ren. It goes about as well as you'd expect. - leap year au

endless summer afternoon - E - 63k - “My son's room is always made up,” Han had said, hitting a light switch as Rey clung to a dirty backpack in the dark hallway, “he never comes home. Warm bed might as well get some use.”Rey spared Han some of the dignity of his own longing assessment of the space that clearly hadn’t been looked at in a long time. An empty room in a quiet house. As gruff as he was, handing it off to some runaway nobody just because she was helping him rebuild a car was one of the kindest gestures she’d ever experienced, and had a hidden weight that she knew needed a respectful amount of privacy. Mysteries were often about unresolved sadness, and were usually only solved by the people who didn’t feel it.Rey is offered a place to stay: a spare bedroom once belonging to the mysterious Ben Solo. What does she do when she wakes up with him wanting his bed back? - roommates au

Dandelion - E - 45k - Rey's an ex con and orphan, just released from jail after killing Plutt. She follows advice from her former guardian, Maz, and finds a job at Luke's coffee shop. Ben's a lawyer who lost his job and moved back to his hometown. He falls for Rey, unaware of her dark past. - coffee shop au

A Few Small Repairs - E - 69k - Ben Solo is a ruthless property developer, and Rey Johnson is the lone holdout on the block. She does not intend to give up what's hers, not for anything. (Not even for a pair of pretty eyes.) - property developer au

Unbroken - E - 7k - He found her sleeping in the stables, curled up in the stall of his newest, unbroken colt...

Lockjaw - M - 106k - Kylo finds Rey unconscious and near death on the side of a road, surrounded by twitching, wretched things looking to her for their next meal. Ever the altruist, he picks them off and takes her with him, saving her life in the process. It's no wonder that when she wakes she feels she owes him, and agrees to become his travel companion as he crosses the United States in search of safety and a new home. - zombie apoclypse au

Everything to Prove - M - 13k - “The show,” he says. “It’s probably best if they don’t—if we don’t—”And Rey follows his line of thought at once. For all the program is one that doesn’t seem melodramatic—the height of drama in previous seasons came from someone’s cake falling over and that was about it—she does not doubt that the producers and cameramen would leap at the opportunity to make there be something out of nothing in their relationship—especially if there was something out of something.“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, probably. We can pick baking stations that are…” but she doesn’t want to complete the thought. She likes baking next to Ben.“Or we can just be careful?” he suggests, sounding quite as pained by the prospect as Rey feels.“Yeah, careful. I can do careful,” Rey says at once and her lips are on his again and he’s laughing now, and she’s laughing, and she didn’t think laughter would be part of all this. She didn’t think it could be. But here she is, laughing and kissing and holding a man who, at some point, she’s going to want to beat.She does her best not to think of that now.It’s a friendly competition, after all. It’s not life and death. It’s baking. - great british bake off au

*In Bloom - E - 13k - The flowers that bedeck her skin don’t lie—ballet dancer Rey is in love with her partner, Ben. But the years go by and his skin stays resolutely, devastatingly blank.He doesn’t love her. But when his hands are on her body, she can pretend. - ballet soulmates au

By Blood and Flame - E - 10k - Rey can’t go to her professors with this spell. She needs help, though, needs someone to do the spell with her, and she needs the best because it’s tricky. Dangerous.There’s a boy on campus. Powerful. Mysterious. He’s admired and envied, feared and loathed, depending on who’s talking, but for all everyone knows his story, no one seems to really know him. And Rey… Rey has been curious about him for… well, for longer than she wants to admit.She’s not sure if it’s good or bad luck that he’s the perfect person to help cast her spell. - magic college au

count the rings - E - 63k - “Because you’re sitting there all comfy, not looking at all bridal-” “I’ll just fetch the veil out of my backpack, shall I?” “-when you could be, you know, making a move on that fine-ass tree.” In which camping comes with unexpected consequences. - accidental marriage au

(won’t you let me) walk you home from school - E - 129k - Ben, a counselor in the upper school at the legendary Alliance Academy, keeps finding himself interacting with the lower school art teacher, Rey. He definitely doesn’t like it. - teacher au

follow in your form - E - 23k - Ben Solo wakes up paralyzed and angry about it.A story about dealing with change, holding onto hope, and finding love. - quadriplegic ben au

*screwdriver - M -101k - Rey is a bright-eyed intern on her first campaign trail, Ben is an irritated data analyst, and how difficult can it be to get a legacy senator elected president? Apparently fucking impossible. - political au

9 pints - E - 83k - She knew next to nothing, and Google was largely unhelpful. All of her searches (“vampire sex rules” and “vampire dos and don’ts” and one very self-indulgent “average vampire cock size big?”) linked her to dated top ten lists written by anyone other than an actual vampire.Twenty minutes of frustrated scrolling eventually led her to a supernatural dating forum. The website was horribly aged, but still active. Questions were tagged, which meant that it was easy to narrow down her search. Vampire, she clicked, and Sex.--In which Rey gets suckered into shooting porn with one of Poe's pickiest vampire actors. - magical porn stars au

fine young cannibals - E - 27k - Kylo raised his head to the sky as he inhaled, his broad chest expanding even wider. His eyes fluttered shut, savoring the scent like a sumptuous meal. He grinned.“Oh,” he murmured, so softly Rey wasn’t even sure it was meant for her ears. His eyes slid to meet hers, scarlet and violent and hungry. “You brought a snack.”And then all hell broke loose.About three things, Rey is absolutely positive:First, she is totally, completely, and madly in love with her vampire boyfriend, Poe.Second, there is another vampire—an older, evil, definitely-not-hot vampire—that thirsts for her blood and wants nothing more than to kill her.And third, she is maybe not absolutely positive about either of these things. - twilight au

Epithumia - E - 46k- ἐπιθυμία, ας, ἡ: epithumia : desire, passionate longing, lust *** “No extra credit.” He made a noise that might have been a laugh. “You ask that every time.” “Well, I have to try.” Rey said, weakly. “Can you make an exception?” A lone eyebrow ascended his lofty forehead into his hairline. “Try harder, Miss Kenobi.” - college teacher/student au

Historical AUs (ranging from medieval to the early 2000s)

light carries on endlessly - M - 6k - “Traitor,” he told Cerberus gruffly not too much later, using both hands to scratch behind the hound’s many ears. What appeared to be a rat tail lay nearby on a blood-stained bit of stone. “What did I tell you about women with pretty eyes?”One wet tongue lapped at his wrist, and he sighed. “Right. Nothing.” - Hades and Persephone au

The Witch in the Wood - E - 138k - As a knight errant of the kingdom of Alderaan, Kylo Ren has traveled the country, completing quest after perilous quest in search of redemption for the dark deeds of his past. When an evil witch captures the princess of a neighboring kingdom, Kylo reluctantly accepts the burden of rescue with the assumption that it will be a simple task.It is not. For the creature that lives in the woods is not a monster at all.Since her mentor died, Rey has lived in the witch’s tree and uses magic to maintain the balance of the forest. Her life is practical, repetitive, and simple—at least, until a wrathful knight thunders through her door and levels a sword at her throat. Yet something within the knight calls to her, a buzz beneath his skin that she recognizes.Without a doubt, he is not who he appears to be. - medieval witch au

Black Knight, White Queen - E - 53k - Luke Skywalker wrote his sister a letter on his deathbed, revealing that his ward is the orphaned heir of a family long thought extinct - and politically powerful. That letter fell into the wrong hands, and the secret of Rey's heritage is secret no more. The Emperor has managed to unite the Kingdoms, but he is old, and his son is weak. Seeking to ensure his son's claim to his throne, he sends his most trusted captain to bring the girl - willing or not - to be his son's bride. Rey is taken from her far-flung home, and plunged into a world of court intrigue, arranged marriage, political rivals, and would-be assassins - the black knight her constant companion and bodyguard. But even he, her dark shadow and protector, she cannot know whether to trust... - medieval bodyguard au

Days to Remember - E - 42k - A man heads home after years of estrangement. What do you need from me? A woman leaves her world behind, a bird in a gilded cage. When we get to New York, I need help running away. -- I'll bring you to Boston with me. - titanic au

*what if the storm ends - E - 61k - As a child, Rey is evacuated from London to the Yorkshire Dales during the Blitz. She spends the war in the care of the Solos on their farm, wandering the moors with their son looking for a legendary family artifact long lost. When the war is over, she returns to a city she no longer recognizes, and she writes a popular series of children's fantasy books based on her childhood in the Dales. After amassing fame and fortune with her stories, tragedy brings her back to the farm to see Ben Solo, once her greatest inspiration and now a widower. - post WWII au

Take Me - E - 39k - Every night, at 8:30 pm, Rey and Ben get on stage and pretend to be in love with each other. At 9:15, they walk off stage and the actual fireworks begin. - 60s country singers au

I could have been wild, I could have been free (but nature played a trick on me) - M - 61k - “Did you know that I did not even learn your name until yesterday, when I married you?”His face flushed a darker red than it had at breakfast, and he attempted to defend himself with incompetent stammering, “I—I regret that. The situation, of course, would have been,” he wrung his hands together and stared at her feet, “It would have been preferable if we had known one another more. On several occasions, I did attempt to make myself known to you, but you seemed to have other preoccupations.”Rey could feel her face contorting into a sneer to spit out her barbed words, “Perhaps that was your cue not to marry me!” - regency arranged marriage au

Patch - M - 20k - He is nineteen when he first sees her.She comes to the rink alone, laces her skates alone, strokes warm-up circles alone...He looks at her, really looks her in the eye, and he decides he likes what he sees.She may be young, but she is hungry and angry, and for now? That’s enough for him.It’s not like he has a lot of options. - 80 russian ice skaters au

*The Great Big No - E - 165k - Kylo Ren is third generation rock royalty, a reigning brat prince starting to feel the burn of the fame he reached for with both hands. Rey is an aspiring singer on the verge of a big break, provided her A&R guy still has a job by the time she reaches LA. Their paths have crossed briefly, disappointingly, before. What happens when they collide? - 90s rock au

***go I know not whither and fetch I know not what - E - 119k - The year is 1994. The Iron Curtain has come down, the oligarchs have begun their rise to power, and Kyril Ren, a powerful member of the infamous crime syndicate Solntsevskaya Bratva, has been given a job: hunt down an estranged uncle who has been snitching to the FBI.Irena, nicknamed Rey by her adoptive father Luke, is a Krav Maga instructor in New York who has finally been able to obtain her original birth certificate from Russia. Turns out she was born in a little village named Vershinino, but if she wants to know more than that… she’s going to have to go there herself. - 90s russian mafia au

we could plant a house, we could build a tree - E -124k - Ben takes a deep breath. “It’s—it’s a project. Conceptual art. You wouldn’t get it.”Rey presses her lips together to keep from laughing. She plans her next words quickly and carefully, determining what will get her the best reaction. “Really? Looks like you ruined a bedsheet to me.”His reaction does not disappoint. “Get out.” ** Seven-year-old Rey decides it's her duty to annoy the crap out of Ben Solo every single day she's alive. - 90s growing up together artist au

#reylo #reylo fic rec #reylo ao3 #reylo fanfic #fanfic #fic rec #adam driver #daisy ridley #rey #kylo ren #kylo redemption #ben solo #star wars #star wars fanfiction #the grocery list

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