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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

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okay so this is kind of a WIP but also it's probably going to be the first chapter of a fic i've been working on for a while now and i realized it matches the soulmate prompt on the bingo board so here:

There were a lot of things Nya witnessed in her life that others her age would probably never even dream of seeing.

Her and Kai had grown up alone, more or less, always only using the other as a supporting crutch, like a treacherous balancing act where neither of them could afford to slip up for even a moment. It wasn’t like they had any choice though, Kai may have always acted like he was years beyond his age for Nya’s sake but he was still just a kid. A kid who had to raise his little sister and support them both without anyone else. And Kai may have tried his absolute hardest to keep Nya away from all the struggles they had gone through as kids, but she had still managed to wriggle her way into each one, going along with whatever Kai was doing and doing whatever she needed to do to help them both survive.

Survival and paying rent isn’t something kids should worry about, Nya knew later on.

When they were younger, they were probably too dependent on each other, though. Still, neither of them was too mad about it, it wasn’t like there was anything or anyone reliable enough to depend on anyways. It wasn’t like they were all each other had left.

Except it was.

So there it was, Kai and Nya against the world for the longest time.

Well, and their soulmates.

But, hey unless their soulmates were going to magically appear with enough money for the heat and water, Nya wasn’t really confident that she wanted to meet them. She didn’t even have the faintest idea of who they were.

Her subconscious probably did though, too bad it was too stubborn to even give her the barest hint of who they were. She wasn’t expecting it to, of course, everyone knew that not even FSM could give people the power to remember their soulmate dreams once they woke up. The only way you could remember your dreams with your soulmate(s) was if you all had some form of skin-on-skin contact.

It gave people something to look forward to, knowing that in the future, the slightest brush of fingers with their soulmates would give you back your lifetime of interactions with them. Then you could make memories in reality too, not just in your head.

Nya was never one to take too much interest in all those kid stories and fairy tales that sounded like the world’s worst liar was spitting them up - she preferred more logical and reasonable things, something she could work with that made sense - and soulmates may have been at least somewhat realistic, but it wasn’t something she could dwell on. One day, she knew she’d meet them, but for now, she had to focus on her and Kai’s well-being.

Oh yeah, and she knew that Kai was one of her soulmates, but his small hair ruffles every morning were never enough to bring back her dreams in entirety. At most, maybe a small glimpse of his face in the dreamscape, speaking words that never held any meaning, never anyone else’s voices even. Just her older brother’s boring old face.

It was admittedly infuriating to her that she could be having the time of her life in her dreams with her soulmates, but not even a sliver of that was ever present in real life. Knowing that there were memories in your head that you couldn’t reach only left your soulmates up to interpretation.

One morning, when she was 6, she’d opened her eyes to a dance studio, her eyes had immediately searched for one of her soulmates. It was easy to tell she was in a dream, she’d gotten better at distinguishing it from real life. A small bundle in the corner caught her eye, it was Cole. Skipping over, she leaned against the wall next to him and pursed her lips.

“Why’re you sleeping in a dance studio?” she wondered aloud.

“I told you about the tour at that arts school?” His voice is strangely resigned and so unlike Cole, “My dad took me to see it, I think I ran off and fell asleep.”

Nya crossed her arms and watched as Cole rose to his full height - a full 5 inches above her, “I thought you said you were going to tell him you didn’t want to dance.”

“I can’t”

“Why not?”

“He really wants me to go here, he wants me to dance like him. He told me when I was older, I could join his group. I can’t tell him I don’t want to.”

“Fine, but don’t complain to us when your toes are all stiff and sweaty when you don’t want them to be.”

Cole groans, “You’re as bad as your brother.”

Nya smirks, twisting her fingers, about to snap back with something that Kai would probably high-five her for, when Jay pops into the room, in a deep enough sleep physically that he was brought into their shared dream. His yelp of joy echoes across the shiny wood floor and he rushes over to them, “I haven’t seen you guys in forever!”

Cole grins, used to Jay’s dramatics, “It was only like a week-ish”

“Exactly!

Nya smiled and hugged Jay back when he bounded over to her. Pulling away Jay looked around the dreamscape and caught sight of the closet in the corner.

“What’s in there?” Jay questioned.

Nya looked at Cole who shrugged and Jay took that as a go ahead to run over there and open the door, looking through its contents.

Nya laughed as Jay fell over digging through the boxes before his head popped up with a toothy grin and he yelled, “They have dance ribbons!”

There was always the feeling of a soft, warm blanket coating her head in her dreams. It was so weird how different her dream life was than with Kai. She could actually laugh without having a million worries in the back of her mind or without feeling the guilt of being happy when there was always struggling around them.

Jay handed her a green ribbon and Cole stuck a CD into a music player.

An upbeat tune started playing and Nya’s cheeks hurt from her smile when Jay started spinning around the room.

That night, Nya had jumped out of bed, getting tangled in her blanket, but not caring enough that it ruined her absolutely giddy mood. She didn’t remember anything, except that it felt like someone had injected pure sunshine into her veins, and she needed to tell Kai. The sun may not have been even peeking out of the horizon yet, but Kai needed to know the feeling, like she’d just just jumped off a mountain but knowing she wouldn’t hit the ground, falling forever, it was positively exhilarating.

She’d all but slammed open the door to the room where Kai was sleeping, ready to exclaim to him why she felt more juvenated than she had ever before, even more than that one time they’d saved up enough money to go and get fancy dessert from the market as a treat, way, way more than that. But the second she’d opened her mouth, it immediately snapped shut again, her train of thought coming to a crashing stop.

Kai looked exhausted, he had bags under his eyes so dark it wouldn’t be too hard to mistake them for black eyes and his hants were fisted in the sheets. Her knees felt weak all of sudden and she sank against the door, watching her brother’s sleeping face, the joy drained out of her slowly - painfully - and something panged in her chest. She wanted to fix everything, she wanted her and Kai to not have to worry about things they shouldn’t. Hopeless dreams, only nice until you were hit with your harsh reality, that this is where they really were.

What would she have done anyways? Told him about how happy she was when she couldn’t even remember why?

Folding her arms over her knees and resting her cheek on them, she stared at Kai.

Something rolled in her stomach, she couldn’t worry about useless soulmates right now, she decided.

@ninjago-bingo

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

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jubilee line

Okay so i know i'm so behind but i WILL catch up and here's my space for bets :D @ninjago-bingo

Summary:

So Lloyd got stabbed, Cole's got broken ribs and a messed up ankle, there are still enemies coming, and evac's delayed.

Shit.

Ao3 link WC:2522

Commotions of noise echoed throughout the rolling hills of sand. Loud clashing and shouting that was much more prominent than the previous noises that usually accompanied fights. The angry yelling stood out the most. It made Kai’s heart stutter a bit.

He was fighting the criminals a good distance from the main source of the yelling, plus the blowing sand was beginning to make it hard to see and breathe.

Gritting his teeth, Kai used his sword to shove down two of the people fighting him and tried to make a break through the winds to look for the others because something had to have happened for that ruckus.

Someone jumped for him and he managed a strangled scream before he hit the sand face-first. He kicked up and spit out sand from his mouth before looking around for his attacker, a solid punch nearly knocked him down again but he ducked and aimed a kick at their legs, throwing them off balance.

The clanging and clashing in the distance seemed to get louder for a moment and Kai realized he didn’t have the time for this, leaving the other lying on the ground he started to trek again, almost tripping multiple times because of the sand that seemed to be shifting under his feet.

A ragged scream tore through the air as Kai neared the surge of all the struggling. He nearly did a double-take because FSM, there were so many more enemies than they’d anticipated. And he’d left the others to deal with them alone.

Fire seemed to burn through his veins for a harsh moment before he cried out and started to run. Tearing through anyone who even tried to slow him down because he needed to get to his family yesterday.

Another loud scream echoed and he felt a desperate cry rearing up in his throat.

He nearly choked with relief when he spotted Nya, she had a torn look on her face when he caught sight of her also fighting and upon further inspection, a thick line of blood was racing its way down her forehead.

“Nya!” he yelled before the gusts of air and sand blew his words away.

He ran to her so they were back-to-back, sword raised to block off any strikes coming his way and spoke again, “Nya, what’s going on?”

Nya glanced back at him for a split second, eyes flicking up and down as if checking to see if he’s still in one piece. Satisfied, she turns back and nails someone in the face with a hard punch. Kai would wince in sympathy if he wasn’t so strung up.

“Lloyd and Cole are down,” Nya grunts through angrily clenched teeth, “Zane called Pixal for evac but it- there’s some difficulties.” She looks him straight in the eyes for a moment, “I don’t know how long they’re going to last, Kai. And there’s still way too many of them to fight off with just us.”

Kai feels like he’s floating a little bit but he blankly nods, “They’ll last. And so will we.” he tried to reassure.

“Go and see how they’re hanging right now, I need to hold off these guys.” she grits, accentuating her words with an elbow to a stomach. Hating the idea of leaving his little sister alone he hesitates for a moment before she urges him to go with a terse nod.

“Stay safe,” he whispers, heading off in the other direction.

The rush of sand and blowing air everywhere was making it hard to see, sand coming into his eyes instead of the sight he actually wanted to see which was his friends all relatively okay. (With their lack of self-preservation though, who even knew what okay meant at this point.)

Kai found Jay first who had tears in his eyes and looked like he wanted to drop everything and run over to him when he saw him.

“Nice to know you’re okay.” he said, hiding his sniff by plowing his fingers through his sand-infested hair.

“You too.” Kai spoke shakily, coming closer.

“They’re really not looking that good, by the way, and Zane’s trying but he needs help. Nya and me and holding them off so you gotta get to them and do something.” Jay rushed, desperately, “and really I think I'm going to hurl if I see them like that again.”

“Yeah,” Kai mumbles, mouth dry, wondering how the seemingly infinite desert seemed so quiet all of a sudden.

This time, Zane finds him first, calling out to him and practically dragging him over behind the vehicle they’d all used to get here.

Jay wasn’t exaggerating when he said that the sight might make him hurl. Kai had a pretty strong stomach but knowing that the already darkening blood staining the sand red belonged to one of his friends, that definitely made his stomach churn.

But that was nothing compared to seeing Lloyd lying on the ground with a tattered gi covered in blood and Cole half-sitting up with hazily shut eyes. The grim image brought back memories of seeing injured people all lined up side by side in an infirmary back after the Devourer. So many hadn’t survived, the sight had taken up permanent residence in his nightmares for a long while.

Kai’s knees went weak and he fell forward next to Lloyd. Hazy, green eyes flew to him and nausea nearly made him keel over when Lloyd made a wounded noise and immediately tried to reach out for him. Kai gripped Lloyd’s hand as compensation.

Dried tears stained his face and his eyes were rimmed red, a risky glance at his abdomen showed dripping red. There was already a white bundle of cloth being pressed to the wound, hiding a sight that undoubtedly would have made Kai cry. He preferred it hidden.

“What uh, what happened?” he stuttered out to Zane who was rummaging around in the car for something.

“Lloyd got stabbed,” Zane says.

“Haha, Cole I got stabbed.” Lloyd interrupts, if it wasn’t so pained it would’ve sounded like a laugh.

Kai suddenly feels a lot more concerned for Lloyd than he did two seconds ago. Cole looks about the same from where he’s leaning back against a tire, eyebrows furrowed and look of distress in his eyes.

He tries to lean forward but groans and falls back, clutching his side.

“-and Cole has at least two broken ribs and a twisted ankle.” Zane finishes.

Kai swallows down a wave of nausea and presses harder on Lloyd’s abdomen, trying to stop the blood. Lloyd jerks for a second before crying out, “Kai, s-stop it hurts.”

The hand that Kai’s not holding onto tries to slap him away but Cole moves forward a little bit with a wince and grabs it so that now they’re both each holding one of Lloyd’s hands.

Lloyd thrashes again with a sob and tears blur Kai’s eyesight for a second before they rush down his face.

“I’m sorry, sorry” he whispers, voice cracking.

Zane hops out of the car with a first aid kit and a muttered, “Found it”

Zane kneels down and bites his lip, “We need to stop even more sand from getting in the wound. Pixal’s on her way and she already has the medbay prepared.”

Kai looks up at Cole while Zane attempts to clean Lloyd’s wound, “How are you doing?”

Cole blinks tiredly at him for a second and slumps even farther, “Fine”

Kai regards the way Cole’s eyes are pinched and his hand is holding his ribs, “Liar”

He smiles smugly in return and Kai playfully rolls his eyes and briefly wonders if it’d be possible to lock his family away in a room so they’d stop getting hurt so often.

As Cole’s breaths get progressively heavier, Kai’s eyebrows furrow and then his eyes blow wide as Cole coughs and blood splatters. With a yelp he interrupts Zane’s mumblings of, “I’d want to stitch it but there’s too much sand everywhere.”

“Shit.” the nindroid breathes quickly shoving another cloth to Kai and dropping next to Cole, “I think one of the ribs punctured his lungs”

Kai feels like he’s choking, “That’s really bad, Zane.”

“I can’t do anything here. We need the MedBay”, Zane grits, sounding so frustrated and scared.

Trying to gather himself, Zane slams his eyes shut and squeezes his hands together. His face is blank when he opens his eyes and he speaks steadily as he tells Cole to keep taking deep breaths.

Yelling starts up again in the distance and Kai almost flails in panic, Jay and Nya are still out there fighting.

Zane looks at him and unfortunately Kai knows what he’s going to say before he even says it, “Stay here and monitor them, I’m going to go help them.”

He doesn’t even get a chance to say anything before Zane’s gone.

He unconsciously squeezes Lloyd’s hand harder and attempts to ignore how fast this whole thing is going to absolute shit.

The most tempting thing to do right would be to go and unleash everything he has on the enemies because his family is suffering because of them.

But then, Lloyd’s face is far too pale and eyes too distant. Cole looks no better, trying to suck in deep breaths that look like they’re pulling at his core. And Kai needs to stay with them.

(He can’t leave them alone again.)

Kai tries to whisper reassurances to Lloyd even though he knows Lloyd probably isn’t even listening. There’s blood and sand that’s sticking to his fingers and under his nails and he knows that he’s going to have an awful time washing it all off in the shower later when they all manage to get out of this okay.

Which they will. They’ll all be fine later. They’re not allowed to be anything else.

Blowing out a stale breath he notices that both Cole’s and Lloyd’s eyes are slipping shut and he waves his hand in their faces, “Stay awake, no sleeping” he speaks, voice hard.

Cole blearily blinks his eyes open without too much difficulty but Lloyd takes a second and Kai feels bad but he presses just a tad harder than necessary causing a knee-jerk reaction. It got Lloyd to open his eyes so Kai counts it as a win.

“Don’t sleep okay, don’t sleep. It’s gonna be okay” he repeats.

Cole is sucking in deep breaths across from him and Kai tries to follow him to calm down his racing heart.

Praying inside that they’ll get out of here in time he shifts and pulls Lloyd’s head into his lap, holding him closer. Cole looks at him and gulps before saying something, “Kai, if- if we don’t get out of here in time-”

“Stop.” Kai interrupts immediately, “You’re not allowed to do that, you’re not going to start some dumb big speech about how we’ll carry on or any other bullshit.” his heart is beating too fast and heat rushes through his body, “You’re staying okay and we’re all going to get out of here. I don’t care, you’re not saying anything. It’s going to be fine.”

Maybe deep down Kai knows they might not make it out of this one but he shoves the thought deep, deep down. He knows his family members aren’t miracle workers but it doesn’t matter because Pixal’s going to arrive any time now and then it’ll all be fine.

(Right?)

If anything happened to anyone he knows he wouldn’t be able to live with that, he should’ve been with them. But he wasn’t and if he could have somehow taken the hits for them, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Cole realizes what Kai means and drops a hand on his leg, Kai focuses on it and uses it as an anchor, keeping him grounded.

Then he’s crying again and he buries his nose into Lloyd’s hair as sobs tear out of his throat.

Lloyd closes his eyes again. Kai shakes and whispers in his ear, “I bet you Zane’s new batch of brownies, you won’t be able to stay awake until evac gets here.”

It’s a very pleasant surprise when Lloyd actually manages to answer when he’s this deep into shock, “They’re not even yours to bet”

“If you stay awake, kiddo, then I think I can manage to convince Zane”

Lloyd hums quietly, “Zane’s brownies are good.”

“Exactly, stay awake.”

“Can I get brownies too?” Cole asks.

Kai huffs a shuddery laugh and smiles, “All the brownies you want, I’m sure the others won’t mind.”

It gets quieter after that, save for Cole’s hacking coughs, and the ringing in his ears gets louder to compensate.

Hot tears still streak down Kai’s face but they’ve slowed down some as Lloyd stares at him in his eyes. Kai can tell he’s exhausted and still in pain from the quiet groans and whimpers that somehow slip past his lips every minute but he’s trying and Kai has never felt more proud and scared at the same time.

Cole mentions playing I-spy when Lloyd starts to fade again but it falls short when he realizes the only thing they’re surrounded by is sand.

Kai’s very aware of the fact that they both need medical help right now if they want to make it. Cole looks hurt and tired and Lloyd barely hangs onto consciousness.

Copper still fills Kai’s nose, making him nauseous but the bleeding has slowed a little and Kai feels a sense of joy knowing it’s almost over and they’ll be out of here soon.

Then Lloyd goes slack.

FSM.

Kai yells and Cole immediately tenses.

Their eyes meet for a split second and Kai starts shaking Lloyd’s shoulders, repeating his name like a chant louder and louder. Scrabbling around his neck for a heartbeat is one of the worst moments in Kai’s life because for a few long seconds he can’t find it and he nearly goes crazy.

Then weak and fluttery but still there - he’s so grateful it’s still there - it pops up and Kai thinks he’ll need to dye his hair to hide the gray hairs he knows are going to come too young.

It takes over a minute to actually get Lloyd’s eyes open again but once they are, Kai sags back in relief.

“Don’t do that, you can’t do that” he whispers fervently into his brother’s ear.

Lloyd makes a small keening noise in retaliation that strikes Kai right through his heart.

“Please please, don’t close your eyes” Kai begs, wiping the tears off his face.

Holding up Lloyd’s hand to his forehead and blinking away the excess water in his eyes is Kai’s way of trying to hold himself together.

He can’t lose Lloyd, his baby brother. He promised he’d protect him, he can’t have failed.

And if Lloyd falls asleep then...

Cole hears it first, head perking up and turning to the sky as the sound of engines and thrusters fill the air.

It’s the Bounty.

Cole looks at Kai with a pained grin and whispers, “Looks like we win, you owe us brownies after all.”

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

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Alright so i’ve decided that i don’t like having a sideblog for only writing and i wanna move all of this to my main, @chewy-chips-ahoy, but sadly you can’t just smash two blogs together. Anyways, I’m going to keep this blog up for my previous works and to reblog any other writing from my main here to keep it sort of like an archive, but all other writing is going to be originally posted on my main.

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

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i see oceans in your eyes

So season 15 kinda broke me and I wrote this.

AO3 link WC: 1k

There were so many people here.

All of them were here for her.

For Nya.

Kai couldn’t really focus on anything past his own feet. The tingling numbing sensation that had been crawling it’s way through his limbs had long-past settled in his bones. It allowed cold - dreadful awful cold - to seep into his skin.

His eyes itched. They were dry. Too dry. He couldn’t bring himself to cry, a single tear would lead into a torrent of sorrow and he didn’t want to have to cry for his little sister.

Not when she wasn’t gone.

Gone, gone, one with the sea-

Not his baby sister.

Risking a glance at the crowd gathered through the courtyard hurt, it hurt because they were all mourning her too. When they shouldn’t have to, shouldn’t have to mourn for the amazing water ninja Kai was so, so proud to call his little sister-

The strings of people led down the stairs, out past the cherry blossom tree, dragging into the distance.

Some brought small gifts, other words and looks of sorrow and assurance for the ninja. He hadn’t really taken too much notice.

Kai didn’t understand how a crowd this large was so silent, solemn in a way that was unnatural. Even the youngest children didn’t dare look up from their toes. Like a terrible thing was in the air, maybe there was.

The bowl in hands shuddered, tremors coursed freely through his fingers, something in him rattled.

The water trickled it’s way to the bottom of the vase, echoing along the way.

Kai was.

He was.

What was he?

He knew he was still stuck in a state of shock, he knew deep-down he was terrified, scared, longing for Nya to just please come back.

There were so many things they hadn’t done together, so many adventures to still go on. Kai wasn’t ready for her to leave, the harsh reality of everything was weighing down his shoulders.

Something fierce flashed in him.

He was angry.

FSM, angry wasn’t enough, wasn’t the right word, the feeling inside him couldn’t be amounted to anything less than furious and enraged.

Countless times one of them had been thought dead, Zane and the overlord, Cole in the fall, Lloyd against the Oni.

Infinite situations where they’d all cried because one of them had been wounded, waiting outside the med room, waiting, waiting, for it to end. For it all to have been a fluke, a mistake, they all came out fine. They always came out fine.

That didn’t mean the grief wasn’t there, the nightmares afterward.

And they weren’t out of this one yet. That was the problem, it was a problem because Nya wasn’t here.

Not next to him, flicking his head with a grin for something stupid he’d said. Not rolling her eyes from across a room, not grinning as she managed to fix her invention.

There was a little voice in the back of his mind, telling him to look for her. Look because she’s there, I promise, she’s there over there and over there and you need to tell her something so say it, you idiot.

A breath caught in his breath and he choked.

His finger’s burned with heat, the cool static in him receding, making way for a fiery inferno. A storm to never go against, to sweep him away and off his feet.

Distract him, to take his thoughts off of her dimpled smile when she laughed.

Take the sounds of Jay’s cries, Lloyd’s sobs, Cole’s labored breaths, Zane and PIXAL’s sniffling away.

Take everything away. Take it all away.

On impulse, he turned on his heel and stormed out of there, the ceremony - not funeral, never a funeral - was over anyway.

His family stood a little ways off to the side, waiting for the remaining dregs of people to filter back down the steps.

Their eyes bore holes into his core, he didn’t turn around.

Lloyd followed him first, not even half an hour later.

His fingertips kept lighting on fire and he didn’t have to have patience right now to put them out, same for the smoke coming off of his skin.

It was raining outside by the time Lloyd sat next to him, a heavy downpour, it made him feel sick.

They’d all clung to each other on the roof, a desperate attempt to forget. Afterwards they’d all been too distressed to do anything else. It hadn’t been forgotten, it hadn’t been a nightmare, it was real.

Lloyd kneeled next to Kai and wrapped his arms around his neck, squishing his face against his shoulder. Kai pulled the younger boy tighter to his chest, a feeling of helplessness rising in him.

Their sobs were an added noise to the cacophony of crashing raindrops through the monastery.

Nya, Nya, Nya-

He’d promised to protect her, hadn’t he?

She was his to protect. He was her older brother, the one who was supposed to be there for her but couldn’t do anything but watch through blurry eyes as she walked through Jay.

Kai gripped Lloyd’s shoulders and cried.

There were rivers of tears and his nose was all snotty and his heart ached, he was fairly certain Lloyd wasn’t too different.

The others filtered in one-by-one, Skylor was there too. They were all obscured by the salty water filling his eyes and the agony that ripped through his head, a reminder of the day.

And there they all were there again, wrecked and barely held together as they cried into another’s gi. This had happened before, but it had been alright in the end.

Why couldn’t it be alright right now?

Why wasn’t Nya here?

No one spoke, letting raindrops and tears fill the deafening silence. The empty Nya-shaped hole in the room was fresh and searing, like an open wound that you couldn’t forget.

Strong and brave and smart and incredible was his little sister. But now she was no more than the great big ocean.

#ns15 #ninjago #ninjago season 15 #moira writes #my writing #nya smith #kai smith #jay walker #lloyd garmadon #im super iffy on the last line but whatever #my fics #im like really really awful at processing the last episode #cole brookestone #zane julien

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

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the sunny parts

Webpril, day 5: MIT

AO3 link WC: 1, 543

There are papers littering the floor of Peter’s room that have been there for the past month, he can’t bring himself to pick them up, just looking at them gives him a headache.

It’s a real pain though that every time he wants to cross the sea of chaos and forms that is his room, he has to take painstaking measures to make sure they don’t mix up or crinkle.

May’s voice echoes as she yells from somewhere across the apartment, calling him for dinner but he’s not hungry.

Instead of going out and finding May at the table with some take-out, he grabs a pillow from his bed and plants it right in the middle of the room, the eye of the hurricane.

Sitting criss-cross on the cushion he takes a long - exhausting - look around him. Picking up the packet of papers directly in front of him he glances at the corner, this one’s NYU. Shuffling through the pages are his applications, guides, and other papers he hasn’t decided are good enough to look at.

He’d already applied for colleges last year and it had been so fun, him and May had applied for a bunch of colleges so he had alternates and other options in case the other ones didn’t pan out well.

Most, if not all of them, had already replied back and he’d gotten into great ones so that wasn’t a problem.

Nope, the problem now was that with finals and studying, he hadn’t actually chosen which one he wanted to go too. There were so many options and they were all amazing, but each of them had different things and perks.

At first he’d been leaning towards Harvard, May and Ben’s university, that they’d talk so much about when Peter was younger. That’s where they had met and since they both used to speak so highly of it, it seemed like the best option. There was sentimental value as well as academic, and that made it special.

Then there was Stanford, MJ had gotten in yesterday and she’d told Ned and Peter over the phone. For the MJ-standard, she looked practically exhilarated, her eyes were practically glowing and she kept pausing her sentences before starting again. Ned had also gotten into Stanford but he was still undecided.

It was mostly narrowed down to 5 places and frustration boiled over as he looked over the list again. He could read it as many times as he wanted, at this point he had it memorized, the names running over and over in his brain, NYU, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

NYU, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

God, this was exhausting. When he’d submitted those applications oh-so long ago, it was thrilling and exciting. He would do anything for that feeling to come back now to replace all the dread and anxiety he currently felt.

MJ was always talking about how great Stanford was, May about Harvard, Tony about MIT, and Ned about all of the above.

Peter didn’t know which one to choose, and he knows he should just do it, but it’s pretty close to impossible.

He needs some air, he isn’t going to make a decision right now anyways, that’s for sure. Peter leaves a note on the door in case May comes looking for him, and uses the fire escape to leave, clambering down with muffled steps. He didn’t take his web shooters and just strolled down the streets, dodging people and dogs was second-nature to him.

It wasn’t till he actually focused that he realized where he was, he’d gone to a park. The same one where Ben would push him on the swings until Peter felt his stomach flip every time because he was so high. When he was much younger he called it “My Park”, mostly because it was hidden from the public eye with the trees that surrounded it. No one was ever there and he’d brought Ned once in 3rd grade, it was much easier to have fun when there weren’t random little kids taking up the slide and parents watching like hawks. It was practically his own.

Reminiscing, he ran his fingers over the chains for the swing and sat down, lightly kicking his legs just enough so that he was a few feet above the ground.

The sun was setting and Peter watched as orange light filtered through the trees, making half his face warm. The other half was still cold in the shadows as swift breezes brushed over him and he ran his fingers through the bright spots in front of his eyes.

He tried not to think about the decision waiting for him at home, but it was inevitable.

He knew he was picking college for himself, it was his future, but he really didn’t want to make the wrong decision.

Tony always told him stories about MIT with Rhodey and all the fun they’d had there. The time Rhodey had broken a wrist and Tony an ankle because of a stupid dare that they were foolish enough to try. The time they’d sent the sprinklers off and everyone had to evacuate. Sometimes they were said in the kitchen with everyone around laughing at the stories that you’d expect to be exaggerated, other times they were said in whispers as Peter fell asleep, probably in medbay after an injury during patrol.

Peter hunches in on himself as the sound of Iron Man flying, he already knew it would only be a matter of time before May sent the cavalry his way.

Peter doesn’t even glance at the suit as it lands on the faded playground mulch with a crunch. For his credit, Tony doesn’t urge him to, instead sitting on the swing next to him, hands placed carefully in his lap.

Peter hates when they all do this, when they all act worried and get cautious, treating him like a bomb about to explode with one misplaced movement.

The two swing in silence next to each other for a few minutes, letting the cool breezes as they whistle through the trees, speak for them.

There’s no movement from either one of them until Tony twists and faces Peter, throwing one leg over each side of the swing.

Peter does the same, watching Tony warily, pressing his nose in the chain.

“What if I choose wrong?”, Peter asks, shifting his eyes to the ground, avoiding Tony’s.

“Impossible, no chance” Tony immediately shakes his head, “First of all, trust yourself, you know yourself better than anyone. Second, you’ll be a force to reckon with for any college or university you go to. I don’t even want to try and imagine the crazy stories you’ll be telling me as I get grey hairs.”

“What about Spiderman?”

“Don’t refer to him as another person, Spiderman is Peter Parker and Peter Parker is Spiderman. You’ll always have Spiderman, even if you decide to take a break from it for a little but”

“No, no, I won’t do that. I’m going to be Spiderman” Peter insists.

“Your choice, Petey. You know, you could also take a gap year”

“I feel like that’d just make me more stressed”, Peter’s eyebrows crinkle, in thought.

“Then go for college, Peter. Be great, and get a degree, and make me and May cry at your graduation, just make sure you’re doing it for yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll probably be crying too.” Peter laughs, “Isn’t it weird though? To think that after everything that’s happened in the past few years, I’ll just go, go away from you all and,” Peter doesn’t air the last part of the sentence. All the fear that everything he’s had is going to be gone, all to waste and forgotten as he’s off somewhere else. The thought makes him queasy.

“You know, as the Tony Stark who actually used to go to MIT, I could apply for work there.” Tony smirks, “We can go to coffee shops and I can meet all your friends and embarrass you” THe last part is said as a joke as Tony smirks, Peter smiles and cringes inside.

“Maybe...no?”

Tony gets up and pulls Peter to his feet, “Let’s continue this lovely conversation at your place, we can talk over burnt asparagus, or some take-out”

Peter nods as he glances around, the wind’s stronger and it’s getting colder as the sky gets darker. Peter shivers and he melts into Tony as the man wraps an arm around him.

Tony holds onto Peter in the same park Ben did, building sandcastles that were really just piles of sand with him. The same park where May had chased him down the slide and wrapped her arms around him and she slid behind him. The same park where Ned and him had lost a bunch of lego pieces as the built model broke and the parts got lost in the sand.

It’s nice, he realized. As terrifying as it is to leave something behind, there’s a secure feeling you get when you know it’s always going to be there for you, forever a shield for you to hide behind when you need to.

Peter just wraps his arms back around Tony, face buried in his shoulder.

It’ll be okay.

#webpril 2021 day 5 #MIT #peter parker #webpril 2021 #webpril #moira writes #my writing #tony stark #irondad and spiderson #irondad and spiderson fics #marvel fics #mcu fics #marvel mcu #irondad fics #my fics

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Note

You said st*rker DNI, but one already did: irondadgroupie. She's gross and she's very stubborn and creepy about sneaking CPR requests into irondad blogs, so careful with her :/ I LOVE your writing, btw!

thanks for telling me, i’ll check it out.

Also thank you so much! It’s really nice to hear that you like it! :DD

#asks #anon

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

catch me to infinity

5 times Wanda catches Peter, and 1 time she doesn't know if she can. (Reblogs appreciated <3) (st*rk*r shippers, pls DNI) (also this is PLATONIC, not slash so yeah, pls don’t read this as slash)

AO3 link WC: 5,738

1. Accidentally, off a couch

“Wanda” Peter says, laying across his chair, feet dangling idly in the air.

“Wandaaa”, Peter whines again. His half-finished hot cocoa sits abandoned on the coffee table while Wanda sips hers quietly.

Wanda pauses the tv, raising an eyebrow and looking over to Peter with an unimpressed look.

The guy on the screen is leaning against a wall, mouth half-open, caught in the middle of a joke.

“We’ve watched this episode like a million times. I can probably tell you every single line and scene by heart at this point.”

Wanda sighs, “Which one should we watch then?”

A quick glance at the window says they’re still stuck inside, if the storming winds and downpour mean anything. They didn’t have a problem with some light rain, in fact, if Tony and Steve hadn’t expressly told them they couldn’t go outside, they would already be soaked and muddy. The last day they’d gone outside in the cold though, the next day was full of fevers and snotty napkins so it was decided they’d actually listen this time. That rainy day had still been awesome though and there were absolutely no regrets, even when Peter was delirious and giggling everywhere in a haze.

The sitcom playing in front of them was one of Wanda’s favorites - probably why Peter had put up with watching it for the millionth time - but at this point, she was barely making it through the episode without wanting to rip her hair out.

She was bored.

Peter came around her and sat on the back of the couch, his feet planted on the cushions. Flipping through the shows was a waste, they’d also gone through nearly every episode they could and starting a new show right now sounded exhausting.

Wanda slumped and Peter got up, standing on the sofa, “There are so many things we could do, we’re in the Avengers Compound, there can’t be nothing to do.”

“We could go swimming?” Peter asks.

Wanda groans, “Then you’ll be the one explaining why we got sick again”

“Wanda, it’s indoors”

“N-o” she spells out, “No swimming”

“Well what about-”, Wanda doesn’t figure out what Peter was going to say because his balancing act comes toppling down, maybe balancing on his heels and pacing on the headrest of the couch hadn’t been one of his best ideas.

Peter yelps and his arms come over his head as he crashes to the floor.

...Except the crash never comes.

Instead when Peter opens his eyes, his nose is one inch from touching the floorboards and his limbs are covered in bright red ripples of light.

“Whoa”, he breathes, uncurling himself and spreading his arms out, as if he was floating.

Wanda scoffs and with a flick of her fingers, let’s go of her hold on the mist and helps him close the gap between himself and the floor, dropping him harmlessly on the floor.

He picks himself up and looks at her, mouth agape, “Wands, you have powers!” he shouts in glee.

She rolls her eyes and snorts, “Really, Peter? That is news to me.”

“No, no I mean imagine all the fun things we could do with this”, Peter’s hands flail wildly to emphasize his point, “we could prank the others, for one”

She smirks up at him, “That’s actually not a bad idea”

“When have I ever had a bad idea”

Wanda’s eyebrows pinch together in exasperation, “The swimming idea?”

“Okay, fine moment of weakness but anyways,” he grins, “We need supplies, I’m going to get supplies”

He snaps his fingers and is out the door before he can hear Wanda yell, “If Tony grounds you, it’s not my fault!”

2. Mysteriously, for the suspense and drama

Peter laughed into the comms as he kicked one of the bad guys down, “Was that a dad joke, Mr.Stark?”

“It was a pun, there’s a difference Spidey” Tony grunts, blasting up into the air and firing another guy down a stairwell.

Clint pops on the comm link, crackling into their ears, “I’m pretty sure that was a dad joke Tony”

Peter shoots a web onto the ceiling and swings around, webbing up the last few people in the room, “Mr.Stark, just make sure to give us a warning before you go full dad-mode and start playing golf and bringing us our lunches”

“I actually think I did bring your lunch to your school that one time”, Peter doesn’t have to see Mr.Stark’s face to know he’s smirking.

“Nope, nuh-uh, no I definitely don’t remember that”

“Oh yes you do,” Tony laughs, “Your face was red the entire time”

Peter grimaces,”No idea what you’re talking about”. Oh he definitely did, it had been embarrassing, god and Ned’s jaw was practically on the floor while MJ watched unimpressed as the entire class’s eyes bulged.

“I think I saw some dudes slip up to the roof, I’m going to go grab them” Peter says, changing the subject and looking for Tony for confirmation.

“Go ahead, Underoos. I’ll be right behind, just going to make sure law enforcement have a hold of these guys, first.”

Peter nods and slips out of the room, already running up the fire escape.

He bursts out onto the roof and immediately has a gun trained on him.

“Make one move, Spiderman, I dare you”

“Well, I do love a good dare”

Peter ducks behind a potted plant just as the guy fires a bullet. Spinning out from his hiding place he yells, “I’m going to call you Boots!”

The man was wearing heavy black combat boots with large wedges, a short person’s true love, Peter thinks.

He had thick wedges too on most of his sneakers, but he assured himself Tony he only wore them because they were fun to wear.

Speaking of, he was pretty sure Mr.Stark made his shoes with wedges in them too-

Peter yelps and ducks as the gun fires again, missing him by a foot this time.

Anyways, he was average height, thank you very much. Anyone who said otherwise could eat his webs and dirt.

Peter notices a slight hesitation in his opponent’s movement and immediately shoots a web out, yanking his gun arm down.

He flips behind him and punches him down right before the man flips back up, nailing Peter on his nose and forcing him back.

Peter yelps and realizes their fight is nearing the edge of the roof, which had a good 8-story drop behind it.

He tries to push his punches in another direction, trying to redirect them both before one of them goes over but the man stays strong pushing them closer and closer to the edge.

Wanda’s voice comes in through the comms, “Peter, where are you?”

“Roof” Peter barely gets out through his grunts.

“I’m under you” she says.

Ironman comes out through the roof access door and watches as Peter stumbles, barely inches from tipping over the side.

He raises a metal hand, ready to shoot but Peter stops him, “Just trust me”

He would’ve let Tony handle it, but the blast could knock him off too, not just the other guy, and if he was going to plummet off a building today, he wanted to do it on his own terms.

Balancing on the small wall, the only thing keeping him from falling off, Peter jumps sideways just as the man raises a leg to kick him down.

Peter smirks, using two fingers to salute, “Sayonara, sucker” he laughs as he pushes off and starts free-falling backwards, wind and gravity pushing on him.

That was so cool, he thinks. It was a perfect reenactment of those scenes in movies where a character will dramatically fall off a roof narrowly escaping their nemesis and then gets caught by like, a dragon or a flying pirate ship.

It’s called a fashionable exit, to all the uncultured misfortunes who think it’s stupid.

Mr.Stark was probably pretty confused about what just happened though.

He plunges through the air for a full three seconds before he’s caught by Wanda’s magic, floating mid-air.

He catches a glimpse of her pursed lips and smiles, “You’re so dramatic” she tells him, concealing her amused eyes.

Wanda takes them both up to the roof where Mr.Stark already has the man Peter was fighting, tied down.

Tony groans in exasperation when he sees them both, already having figured out their little magic act.

They just laugh.

3. To annoy, off the counter

It’s a Friday and the essay sitting on the table next to Wanda has already been long abandoned. He was not going to waste another minute trying to figure out what personal connection he could make the short story they’d been assigned to read during class.

He related to it because he’d been in a similar situation maybe?

But anyways, he wasn’t going to waste time trying to find a way to spread that over 8 detailed sentences and supporting textual evidence.

He’s sitting on the counter and watching Wanda and Vision read books next to each other on the chairs. Wanda’s legs are resting on Vision’s lap and as fun as it was watching them both, he was still exhausted and not in the mood to face the dangers of his other homework for tonight.

Didn’t Mr.Stark say not to risk his life unnecessarily? This should definitely count because just looking as the textbook took away two hours of his energy, at this rate he’d be on his death-bed by nightfall.

Munching on a protein bar, he looks up at the ceiling.

The only one in the building right now, besides Vision and Wanda, was Steve - well technically Mr.Stark too, but he was in a board meeting that Pepper begged him not to bail on so he was off-limits.

He glares at Wanda, trying to get her to notice him bored out of his mind, but she stubbornly stays focused on the page.

She’s actually reading Harry Potter, the result of Peter’s pestering, and she loved it. The plan to get Wanda to do something with him was interfering with the joy he would usually feel though.

Like yay, my pseudo big sister is finally catching up on all the books and movies she’s missed while working with evil people but also please please please notice me before i throw my stupid homework into the sink disposal-

His alarming train of thought still didn’t catch her attention so he slumps before getting up and deciding to walk all over the counters and ceiling. You know if that mark on the wall from when someone - ahem Clint ahem - had thrown a pen on the ceiling, acted like a mark he could pretend he was doing an obstacle course.

Yes, he could see it now, he’d do a cartwheel over the pen mark on the ceiling, then run on the wall, then he’d jump over the couch, and jump back onto the counter, the living room was plenty big enough.

Wow, this is a sorry excuse for fun.

He did the course three times and was skittering across the ceiling when Steve walked in and immediately shook his head at him.

Peter freezes in surprise and looks guiltily at Steve.

“I’m guessing the homework didn’t get done”, Steve says.

Peter sits criss-cross on the ceiling, if he gets down, he’s probably going to be guilt-tripped into doing his homework and no thank you.

Steve sighs and looks at him, “At least get down, you’re going to fall and get hurt.”

“No I won’t. I’m part-spider, this is like my natural territory”, Peter says.

“You have the traits of a spider”

Why did he always have to pull out the school detention PSA voice?

“But look! I can do a cartwheel on here, I’ve been doing them and I’m fine”

He’ll get down, as soon as he does just one, little cartwheel to annoy Steve.

Of course, that’s when his body decides to betray him and he slips, losing his grip on the ceiling.

He wasn’t worried about falling and smashing his nose at all, he knew Wanda would catch him every single time, in fact he’s already crossing his arms over his chest and scowling as he hovers on his back 3 feet above the ground.

Steve walks by him, still suspended in the air, and ruffles his hair, “Homework now”, then probably feeling bad for Peter, he adds, “Tony said you can use the lab later if you finish early”

Peter groans, “Fine”

Wanda puts him on the couch and he walks over to her and drops in the chair next to her on the table. She hasn’t looked up once this entire time, not even when she’d caught him in the air, only unlatching her fingers from Vision’s and stopping his fall with her powers.

Now she looks up and smiles at him, poking his forehead and pushing his computer towards him.

He groans again.

4. To spite and win, off the balcony

Peter licks his lips, running through the plan again.

There’s someone coming down this hall, he can hear their soft footsteps padding on the floor. Peter’s going to jump out and get the offending person out of the game, it’ll be easy as long as he times it right.

He jumps out from where he’s hiding behind the door frame and pulls up the gun aiming it at the unsuspecting form.

His paintball gun chooses right then to stall and dang it, that means that he has no defense or attack.

He looks up to find Clint grinning at him coyly, gun already trained on him and finger poised on the trigger.

He yelps and jumps out of the way just in time, the purple paintball splattering against the counter.

Peter runs back through the hallway, getting away from Clint and his treacherous smile (it was the smile of a deranged man who would do anything it takes to win paintball) and finds a cleaning closet to hide in while he fixes his gun.

Did the plastic pieces just have to jam right then? Talk about shitty luck.

He picks at the inside of the barrel with a toothpick and grins as a faint click ensures that the machine is functioning again. The paintball that had gotten stuck shoots out and Peter ducks out of the way as pink splatters against the dark wall.

He knows Clint’s prowling the halls for him right now and he prays the man didn’t just hear the shotgun go off.

Slowly creaking the door open and making sure there’s no one there, he tip-toes out and runs to the balcony, it’s the perfect place to hide out and wait for his next victim. The second anyone enters the living room, he has the perfect view on them and nobody looks at the balcony until it’s too late, which means more wins for him.

He underestimated Clint though.

The older man jumps out (umm where did he come from??) and kicks Peter’s gun away from him with a triumphant laugh. Peter backs up against the cool metal railing and looks at him imploringly, “Can we talk this out?” he offers weakly.

He really regretted voting for the no superpowers rule now.

“Any last words, Parker”

Peter turns his head around, looking for a way out. It was too high to jump from without his webs and it won’t be possible to run around Clint without getting hit by a paintball.

Right before he decides to accept his inevitable defeat he sees a flash of bright red hair hiding in the branches of one of the thick, green trees below them.

“You know what, you got me Clint” he smirks, letting Clint bask in his moment of victory for a second, “Just kidding” and he flips himself back off over the railing.

He really wishes he could’ve seen Clint’s face at that moment, sadly success came with a price.

Right on schedule, the sharp red crackles of electricity catch him a couple of feet from the ground and he plants his feet on the ground, turning around to face Wanda.

“Thanks Wands”

“Oh I didn’t do it for you”

It takes him a second too long to figure out what she means but by the time he does it’s already too late, a dark red paintball slams into his protective vest.

“You’re a traitor, Wanda” Peter sulked, wow and here he thought he could actually win - or at least come second to Nat.

“All is fair in love and paintball”

5. Unwillingly, off a stage

Wanda had decided to pick Peter up from his Decathlon practice, it was always Happy who did it but he was sick and plus, they could grab some ice cream and talk before they had to head back.

She tapped her fingers idly on the steering wheel, rapping out a misplaced tune and glances again at the school gates.

She fixes the rearview mirror and frowns, Peter should have come skipping out 15 minutes ago.

Wanda steps out of the car and smooths her wrinkled hoodie, running her fingers through hair once in the window before walking towards the school.

Her sneakers squeak, echoing loudly through the empty hallways and she has to wrinkle her nose at the spitballs stuck to the walls and lockers. Someone’s book report flits around in the air and suddenly, she’s incredibly grateful she never had to go to a real high school.

There’s a piece of paper with a handwritten “Academic Decathlon” scribbled on it taped loosely on heavy, wooden doors and she pushes them open, shivering at the rush of cold air that bursts out.

Peering in, Wanda sees Peter on the stage but he’s not alone. There’s another high-schooler gripping hard at his shoulders and sneering at him, speaking words Wanda’s not close enough to hear. It doesn’t take any amount of genius to know the two boys weren’t friends/

She doesn’t even have time to intervene because Peter’s pushed off the stage, it’s barely a 2 foot fall but Wanda doesn’t care, she’s angry.

Peter looks at her in surprise with dark red cheeks once she puts him, gently, on the floor. He practically curls in on himself and she honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her skin was a similar shade as his, just not for the same reason.

She stomps up to the other boy who’s looking at her in alarm and pokes a harsh finger at his chest, “You. bastard.” she accentuates each word by pushing her finger even harder against his t-shirt, “What’s wrong with you?!”

She may not have gone to high school but she definitely knows what a bully is. She’s had plenty of her own in the past, even if she hadn’t realized it at first.

It wasn’t fair Peter had to go through the same thing, school wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was where you were supposed to goof off with your friends and learn, not get pushed around by kids because they think they’re better than you.

A hand tugs at her wrist and she’s so wound up nearly forgets to soften her face when Peter tugs again, silently asking her to just drop it.

She looks back at the bully who’s gone pale and pushes him, sending him stumbling back a few feet.

“Don’t touch my little brother again, asshole” she snarls before whipping around and dragging Peter out the doors by his backpack.

By the time they get to the car, Peter still hasn’t said a word and instead opts to look out the window, not even sparing Wanda a small glance.

Her face is still aflame and her hands are still clenched around the wheel as she pulls to the side of the road and parks, looking over at Peter. His eyes are tinged red.

“I’m sorry” he whispers, the second they’re parked.

“Don’t say sorry, it wasn’t your fault, but why didn’t you fight back? Just one shove”. It doesn’t make sense, Peter is strong enough to take on super-soldiers, he practically is one himself with all his advancements, so why doesn’t he just push back? He doesn’t have to get hurt like this, he doesn’t deserve to.

“I’m just Peter Parker. I’m not Spiderman at school so it wouldn’t make sense, I can’t just do that”, his fingers dig into his thighs and he kicks lightly at his backpack.

“Then you could’ve said something to us,” she’s looking up at him, eyes almost crazed. It’s not okay, it’s not even close alright, it’s awful that this happens to him.

And she knows it’s not just a one-time thing.

Not when bullying at Midtown has been discussed far too many times for comfort, not when he’s come back with bruises and marks even when he hasn’t patrolled in days, and definitely not when Peter just tried to subtly wipe a tear from his cheek.

She feels tired all of a sudden, as her raging wave of anger reaches a crescendo and plummets to the ground, scattering, dropping her intentions to take care of anyone who even comes close to hurting Peter with some well-placed punches and kicks.

Wanda sighs and squeezes her eyes shut, blindly, she grabs Peter’s hand and asks, “Was that the Flash guy?”

“No, Flash never gets physical, he’s not too bad. This is someone else”

“So you’ve been getting bullied by multiple people?”, it’s not a question, she already knows. “Peter, you’re Spiderman, you know this isn’t right so please, please the next time this happens just” she exhales, “Just please, promise you’ll tell someone, anyone and they’ll take care of it”

“Promise” Peter breathes from next to her.

“Okay” she pulls back into the traffic, “I’m getting cookie dough ice cream, which one do you want?”

+1. This one was definitely not supposed to happen, shit, shitshit

It’s getting really hard to breathe.

Which should probably not be happening, but in Peter’s defense, he hadn’t even wanted to skip class. MJ had told him to, quote, “Get out of here before your dumbass throws up on someone’s shoes” and for once he’d actually listened, deciding going home and sleeping his fever off was better than being stuck in a stuffy old classroom, doing schoolwork.

The heater of the apartment sounded like heaven and sunshine right about then.

He was just going to take the subway when one of the tv’s turned on, flashing a news report about the Avengers fighting the group of people near the tower.

According to the news channel, they had a whole lot of advanced technology, from ray guns to shapeless contraptions you couldn’t tell heads or tails of.

And there were a lot of them.

So of course, Peter had immediately donned his warm hoodie and jeans and switched into his suit, already swinging towards to get there, it made his stomach queasy and his head spin, but it was fine, he was already almost there.

“Peter, you’re not doing this right now, stop it and go home”, Tony’s voice is playing through Karen the second he’s in range.

“Technically, I’m supposed to be in school right now, Mr.Stark”, Peter swings onto a roof and crashes against someone, knocking them down before looking at the metal cube object they had abandoned.

It was glowing a light purple, which should probably not be happening.

He walked cautiously around it and his eyes widened as the glow got brighter and spread more, covering the entire cube now.

“Shit!”

Peter manages to scramble back before it explodes, leaving a black scorch mark on the floor and the smell of smoke in the air.

“Peter!?”

Oops, he’d forgotten Mr.Stark was there.

“Yeah I’m fine, just where did these people get all this stuff?”

“No idea, but Pete, I swear to god get out of here, or else I’m calling your aunt”, there’s a strangled grunt and the comms go silent.

“Mr.Stark??”, there’s no answer, “Karen, take me to Mr.Stark”

He swings two buildings away and lands on the 9th floor balcony, entering and running towards the signal. When he enters the room, Tony’s being held up against the wall by someone who’s wearing heavy metal body armor, it could pass for an Iron Man cosplay if you squint really hard.

He jumps over, kicking them down and ducking a punch. Grabbing the wrist of the armor, Peter twists their arm and slams them on their back before immediately looking back at Tony and helping him up.

“You okay?”, Peter questions.

“Yup, something she used fried the comm link though, I can’t get to to anyone else”

Peter nods and they both run through the halls, racing to get to the top of the building.

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know, but right now I think they’re just trying to blow stuff up”

Bursting onto the roof, there’s only one person there with some weird silver spear, which honestly looks pretty harmless compared to everything else.

The man there, sees them and immediately backs off, dropping everything and stumbling away with a forced smile.

Tony still closes in on him and Peter webs his wrists and legs to the floor, just in case.

They’re both looking down onto the other rooftops for trouble when the headache Peter has been ignoring grows, and he stumbles back feeling his fever spike.

Tony approaches him and kneels down next to him where he’s sprawled on the floor waiting for the dizzy spell to pass.

“Kid, you have a fever”, Tony says after asking Karen for his vitals.

Peter swallows and fights the urge to keel over and vomit, “I’m fine”

“If I had a penny for every time I heard that” he jokes, voice unbearably soft, “Listen, you stay here and I’ll come and get you when this is over, ‘kay?”

Peter’s about to nod when someone flies onto the roof, they’re wearing goggles and using mechanical wings to help them fly.

Peter’s too dizzy to do anything so he watches as Tony raises a gauntlet and fires it up with a low whine that resonates in Peter’s keyed-up ears.

“Back off”, Tony says as a warning.

The girl smiles and takes off the goggles, slipping them up on her head with a puckish smirk, folding her wings in.

“Pleasure to meet you Iron Man, as well as you Spider”, she has a lilting accent that Peter can’t place.

The gauntlet doesn’t falter, even as Tony shifts so Peter is stuck in his shadow, “What do you want?”

“I want one of your inventions. I may not be in charge of all these idiots, but my best friend is our leader and if you get me what I want, this can all be called off.”

“Best I can do are scraps from the intern labs, sorry.” he says, before firing a repulsor as she ducks out of the way.

“I wasn’t going to this the hard way but I suppose I’ll have to”, her curly, brown hair whips in her face as she puts it up into a ponytail, still dodging Tony’s blasts.

Peter’s spidey sense flares just as her wings do and she’s coming at him at full speed, lifting him up and flying up, past the buildings. Oh he really has to hurl now.

Tony swears and tries to blast up, only to realize the girl had stuck a small square chip on him and his suit’s shutting down, his breathing clips and he looks up to where Peter’s being flown up.

He gets out of the suit and runs to the edge of the roof, “Wilson!” he calls, signaling Sam over from where he’s hauling debris out of the street for a car to get through.

Sam flies up to him and without a word, grabs him and flies him over to where Clint, Natasha, and Wanda are a few buildings away. The whole 30 seconds he hasn’t taken his eyes off the Peter-shaped speck in the sky that’s getting harder and harder to see.

He stumbles over to Clint who’s looking at Wanda in concern, arms braced behind her to catch her if she falls.

Tony briefly wonders what’s going on, before looking up at the collapsing building in front of them, the scarlet circling her wrists, and the sheen of sweat covering her forehead.

Clint looks over to him, swallowing, “Steve’s in there trying to get the rest of the people out, we can’t get in though, it’s too unstable. The second Wanda lets go, the entire place is coming crashing down”

Tony can’t hide his panic anymore and he points up the sky, “Clint, it’s Peter”

Clint follows his finger and he jerks, seeing the red and blue suit in the distance, “Oh god”

The comms finally crackle back online and Tony swears his heart skips a beat when he realizes the bird lady just dropped Peter, oh my god.

They’re well over 4,000 feet up and his heart is in his throat as Peter’s screaming floods through the comms.

Wanda hears it too and her hold on the building falters as she falls to her knees, eyes squeezed shut. Clint moves to hold her but hovers around her instead, glancing back up at Peter when Wanda has a semi-stable grip again.

Natasha kneels on the ground next to Wanda, “You’re going to have to catch him”

Wanda’s voice teeters on a cry, “I’m trying”

Tony holds back his own cry and desperately tries to speak into the comms, if Peter realizes Tony’s trying to get through to him he doesn’t acknowledge it.

The comms are filled with wheezing and rushing wind and Tony’s gripping his arm so tight because that’s his kid dammit, and he can’t do anything.

Wanda’s attempts at catching him are proving futile, she can’t handle anything else without dropping the building which she can’t do, not when Steve and a whole lot of people are depending on her not to let it go.

“Sam, can’t you take your wings up and get him?”. He doesn't care how panicked his voice sounds right now.

“One of the guys stuck a chip on it, the thing’s dead-weight now” Sam says, voice filled with sorrow.

Tony gulps in a breath and falls on his knees next to Wanda, “You have to catch him, Wanda” there’s a grim undertone in his voice hiding the waver and pure terror flooding through his veins.

Wanda grunts, tears are shining in her eyes, if it’s because of the strain or Peter, he has no idea.

“GUYS! Guys, guys, I’m falling!” Peter screams into their earpieces, voice cutting out, hot tears squeeze at his eyes.

Wanda looks up with a new sense of determination and her eyes flash, Tony suddenly knows that anyone going toe-to-toe with her would probably run first chance instead of fight.

“You can do it Wanda, come on” Tony pleads.

Peter’s form is getting bigger every second, little by little.

At around 500 feet, a faint glimmer of red runs over his body but it’s not enough, it slows Peter’s fall the tiniest bit before he’s hurtling through the air again.

‘Tony, Tony, Tony” Peter says his name like a prayer in the comms and Tony clenches his fist again, switching between looking at Wanda and Peter so fast, he wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with whiplash.

The strain on Wanda’s forehead grows and her eyes squeeze shut as she tears at her limits.

Tony stands beside where she’s kneeled on the ground, trying to see if he’d be able to catch Peter if this didn’t work. He really hoped it didn’t come to that though, he didn’t have his suit and with the speed Peter was falling at, he didn’t know what would happen.

Eyes focused on Peter, Tony realizes a thin, flickering layer of red is very slowly growing over his body. Relief bubbles in his throat and Wanda is able to slow Peter enough so that he and Sam can grab onto him, they all fall to the ground in a pile of limbs.

Tony grabs Peter under his shoulders and holds him upright as he gags and chokes on nothing, taking off his mask and brushing his curls off of his sweaty face.

Tony’s ears ring with the lingering screams of Wanda and Peter, his throat feels raw and he realizes that in his panic, he had been screaming too. And it wasn’t just his ears that were buzzing, it seemed like everything was still ringing, the air vibrating with panic.

Peter was held close to Tony’s chest as he shook with heaving gasps and suppressed sobs, dried tear tracks streak the sides of his face and Tony tries to comb his fingers through the knots in Peter’s hair.

Looking around, Tony took everything in, everyone’s faces were pale and Wanda was barely holding herself up on her elbows, her heavy pants were forced through clenched teeth.

She’d let go of her hold on the building as Steve had come running out, waiting till he was out of the damage zone before sending it all crashing down. All of that had happened just seconds after she had managed to gradually slow Peter down and get him to the ground in one piece.

A sigh of exhaustion huffs through Tony’s nose and the team sits in silence for a few minutes, trying to process all the chaos that had just happened.

Clint was helping Wanda, shakily, sit up and Peter crawled out of Tony’s arms to her before wrapping his trembling arms around her shoulders and whispering something to her.

Tony doesn’t know what was said but Peter was safe, everyone was safe. They were all alright and his breaths started to come easier.

Natasha sat next to him giving him a small, reassuring smile. He leaned back and shut his eyes, making a mental note to add a parachute to Peter’s suit, among many other things. Also to thank Wanda, because if she hadn’t been here...Tony didn’t want to think about it.

That was done now though. Tony’s chest feels much lighter when Peter smiles at him over Wanda’s shoulder, the type of smile that conveys a million emotions, with nothing else.

He gives a shaky grin back.

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

mocha is better than boba

There's a dance coming up and Sokka wants to go with his co-worker at the coffee shop, Zuko, but it's not him who ends up asking.

day 3 of @zukkaweek, tea or coffee shop.

(Also this is late i know i’m sorry, i’m hoping to get day 4 out soon though)

AO3 link WC:3,178

Sokka had only been working here for two weeks. By here, he means The Jasmine Dragon. It was a cafe near his college and the second they’d put up the hiring sign, Katara had texted him a picture. He’d been looking to get a job convenient with his school hours and the manager had been really nice and told him he could adjust his hours as much as he needed for what was convenient.

The first day he’d come in, there was another person working there who’d shown him how to work everything, he said he’d been working there for almost a year. His name was Zuko, apparently, his uncle owned the place and he worked mostly on weekends but sometimes on weekdays.

Sokka had faint memories of seeing him around campus a couple times, but they didn’t share any classes.

Working together in a warm cafe in the early mornings surrounded by cappuccinos must have been a pretty good way to become friends because it was something to look forward to now. Just thinking about Zuko and coffee somehow helped him make it through the hour-long lectures throughout the day.

Even that one time Sokka had managed to spill an entire frappuccino on Zuko because he turned the knob the wrong way, he’d looked forward to coming in. Sure, just thinking about it had turned his face an embarrassing shade of red but Zuko had laughed it off and repeatedly told him it’s alright in reply to his string of apologies and after a few weeks, it was something one of them would bring up spontaneously to get the other laughing.

The thing is, as amazing as Zuko was as a friend Sokka had realized his heart started jumping every time their hands brushed, passing each other cups and sugar packets.

And Sokka didn’t view himself as shy or timid, actually it was the opposite. He was the guy who was known in high school for asking a girl to prom with confetti and tulips, that was very brave of him. Especially since Suki had been one of the most popular girls in school who every person envied, and he hadn’t even known her that long so when he’d asked her, to say everyone was surprised when she said yes was an understatement. Yeah, everyone had been shell-shocked.

But that’s not the point. The point is that for whatever reason, Sokka couldn’t work up enough nerve to ask Zuko to the dance that was coming up in a month.

Maybe because everytime Zuko smiled and laughed with a customer, Sokka was forced to look away and calm his fiery cheeks.

or that they talked a lot before the place got busy and packed with kids doing their homework, but Sokka didn’t really know too much about Zuko’s school life.

Sokka looked into it - as stalker-ish as it was - and managed to get a copy of Zuko’s classes. They were all the way on the other side of the campus, at least a 15 minute walk away from where he normally was.

The topic of romantic partners had come up once but it had been steamrolled right over and Sokka still had no idea if he was with anybody, which would make things very awkward if - when - he asked.

Or Zuko doesn’t like him like that and then they’d be stepping on eggshells every second they’re around each other.

Neither of those sound good.

But Sokka’s been doing research (sort of) and Zuko’s eyes seem to light up whenever he clambers in through the back door and if the blush dusting his cheek that time they both tripped over spilled water and landed in top of each other said anything, Zuko might like him back.

Right now, Sokka was sitting at his counter in the dorm him and Katara shared, trying to think of a way to find out if Zuko was involved with someone and if not, how to ask him to the dance.

Originally, he wasn’t going to go but Katara had persuaded him to come, even without a date.

Katara was going to go with Aang, they’d been dating since 7th grade and they were so cheesy but once Sokka gave him the shovel talk(the poor boy had been terrified), he was pretty cool and they’d become friends. Toph had joined the group in 8th grade, along with Suki, but Suki had gotten a scholarship to study abroad. Sokka would call her occasionally and their friendship was never awkward after they broke up, they were still best friends, it was just a lot harder to communicate with her now.

Toph had said she might come, but with her strict parents, she’d probably have to sneak out.

Katara walked into the kitchen and reached for Sokka’s poptarts, he didn’t acknowledge it.

He was too busy thinking and, for once, was too distracted to let his sibling intuition kick in and snatch it back.

She looked at him, nose wrinkling lightly at his not-reaction, “I’m guessing you don’t want this”

Sokka looked up at her before standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, “Nope”

He probably should’ve grabbed it out of her hands, because then she got that look in her eyes. The look where she was analyzing every little detail about him and prying into his life with an iron grip, who knows, maybe she was even scoping through his memories. Sokka wouldn’t know, he used to tell Katara she was adopted and she was really an alien, but now it seemed more believable.

In a rush to get out the door Sokka tripped over his untied shoelaces and Katara managed to get in front of him and block the door.

“What’re you doing?”, her eyes narrowed.

Getting up and dusting himself off, he replied, “Getting to class”

“No, you’re not”

Damn Katara for being the smart one.

“You’re hiding something,” she declared with an air of finality.

“I’m not”

“You are, what is it?” she questioned, crossing her arms.

“I’m gonna be late, Katara”

“You’re always late”

“Am not, I haven’t been late in the past week-”

“Is it your job at the cafe?”

Sokka looked away too quickly and wild amusement grew in her eyes.

“What is it? Or who is it? Did you meet someone?”, her grin is too crazy to be sane.

“Nope, no one”, he pushes past her and runs out.

He walks into work after school to see Katara leaning against the front counter, talking to Zuko.

Uh oh.

Zuko smiles and waves him over when he sees him but all Sokka can focus on as he walks over is Katara’s mischievous smirk.

He hopes she never gets to savor the delicious taste of a strawberry poptart again.

“Hey Sokka”, Zuko greets as he walks up to the register.

Sokka smiles back and casts Katara a glare, “I see you two have met”

Katara smiles, sickly sweet, “Yup, Zuko’s really nice”

There’s a hidden meaning in Katara’s words directed at him and he has no idea how she figured it out. He wasn’t that obvious, right?

Cleary he was.

“You know, from what Sokka says about you, you sound evil, but I have a sister so honestly I’m not surprised. You’re not too bad though”, Zuko grins.

Katara responds with a small ‘hmph’ just as the bell on the front door chimes.

“Speaking of, there she is”, Zuko looks confused as a girl with short, dark-brown hair walks in, carrying boba from the other coffee shop from across the street. Sokka wrinkled his nose.

“This is Azula, my sister”, he says to the siblings then looking to his own, “What are you doing here?”

“I was around” she sighs, waving around the hand that held her sunglasses and looking bored, “I wanted to see the person at work you talk about all day, Zuzu”

Sokka bites his tongue to keep from smiling and watches as Zuko tries to push Azula out the door.

She sits on a table outside the window, sipping idly at her drink, and Zuko comes in, swallowing and giving a nervous laugh, “Sorry, she’s-”

“It’s cool, I get it,” he says with a tug at one of Katara’s hair loops.

Katara scoffs and picks up her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder and walking out, “Well, it’s almost rush-hour so I’ll leave now. Nice meeting you Zuko” she smiles and leaves.

“You too” Zuko calls after her.

“I heard there’s a tour group showing high schoolers the campus, so it’s going to be packed in here”

Zuko sighs, “I’ll get the iced coffees started”. Sokka laughs.

It’s only after the swell of sweaty teenagers ravaging the tables that Zuko realizes he should not have let Azula just walk out, Sokka realizes it too.

Azula and Katara are both sitting on a table outside, through the window, chatting, animatedly, to each other.

Oh no.

Zuko’s wide-eyes don’t go unnoticed to Sokka and his face goes pale.

“They’re plotting” Zuko hisses, drying a mug with a towel.

Sokka nods confirmation, Katara may be a goody-two shoes, but she was still the mom-friend, and that meant she was always planning.

He didn’t know what it was, but it couldn’t be good. Not for him, at least.

Two weeks later, Sokka still doesn’t know how or when to ask Zuko. The best place would probably just be the cafe since they don’t really run into each other otherwise and it would be creepy to stalk him out after one of his classes.

The trash can by his desk was filled with scraps of paper with words scratched out so hard, you probably couldn’t even tell it was a paper in the end.

The biggest thought that plagued Sokka though, was the idea that Zuko wouldn’t say yes. Even worse, he’d say no and him asking would ruin everything.

The idea that Sokka couldn’t relax after class and unwind with the smell of cinnamon and the whirring of the coffee machine listening to Zuko trash talk about his professor and then taking his turn and telling jokes to make him smile made him dizzy.

Those really late nights where they’d have to stay late wiping down tables because some annoying kids had decided to spitball the walls and they were both stuck picking them off.

The times they’d talk shit about the rude old lady who’d come in with a screaming child who was kicking at the tables and pushed over people’s waters.

It wasn’t something he’d realized before but it wasn’t just a happiness, it was a relief. A huge relief, because they could talk about anything and make it seem like it was important to the entire world. The superior flavor of ice cream for example, with evidence why. Sokka had actually done research that night to prove to Zuko that it was cookie dough

His eyes were a brilliant gold and he was smart and sarcastic when he wanted because he was a sassy little shit who loved to torment people.

It wasn’t just the awkwardness to come if Zuko said no, it was the fact that he’d lose the one place, the person, who made him feel like he was standing in the clouds in the middle of the lightning storm, but he was fine. He would be having the time of his life actually, the electricity would dance right over his fingertips, twirling and twisting.

Sokka didn’t know where all the sappy thoughts came from, this wasn’t some teen romance drama, but still.

Time flew by and then in the rush of tests and homework, Sokka realized there was only one more week till the dance.

He didn’t know what to do though. He really wanted to go with Zuko and he didn’t think he liked to give up easily, but at this point, the idea was almost scrapped completely. The only thing holding it together were the hopes for a miracle.

He really wanted to make it nice and special, not something he’d just thought of on the spot. He needed Zuko to love it but he just didn’t know how.

Maybe it was the overwhelming sense of ‘this has to be perfect’ that was holding him back.

They’d released the details for the dance, the email had been sent in the morning and it was all anyone could talk about. It made a sense of dread pool in Sokka’s stomach though, Zuko was probably already going with someone, it would be a miracle if he wasn’t.

The dance was a ‘mask-querade’ and you could wear anything you wanted, the school was going to provide simple masks at the dance but if you wanted your own you’d have to bring it yourself.

Sokka was still going to the dance, he’d promised Katara and Aang. He was still dreading it.

The day before the dance came around and Sokka had been sulking the entire time. He barely even registered Katara spinning in her silky lavender dress in front of him. She’d borrowed it from a friend and all the enthusiasm he’d normally feel was overshadowed by the fact that he wasn’t going to the dance with Zuko.

It hadn’t worked out, he hadn’t asked, and when he’d brought it up Zuko had talked about it like he had a date so it was already no use.

Katara dropped in front of him in a hoodie, he hadn’t realized she’d changed.

“You should’ve asked him”

Sokka’s eyes are hot, “I know”

She wrapped his arms around his shoulders as he cried.

It was stupid, all of it. Everything about this was stupid, he was dumb. It was a simple question but he’d blown it way out of proportion and it was way past too late.

Then it was time to get going, Aang had joined them and they’d all decided to walk to the dance hall.

Aang had held hands with Katara and they’d smiled sappily at each other the entire time, it just made him feel more sick.

“Stop being all gloomy, the party will cheer you up”, Katara nudges at his shoulder.

Sokka severely doubts that but he nods.

He gets split up from the couple not even an hour into the flashing lights and blaring music, he ends up sitting at some table in a corner.

Aang finds him and slides into one of the many empty chairs surrounding him, he can’t bring himself to look up.

“Katara asked me to call you to dance”

“Tell her I’m not in the mood”

“She said if you said that, to drag you there”

Sokka looks at Aang with an unconvinced look and caves, “Fine”

Getting up, Aang takes his elbow and pulls him along while Sokka tries in vain to pull away.

Dragging his feet along and holding his red mask to his nose, Sokka takes in the smell of punch and deodorant.

Seeing Katara with her arms crossed over her chest and that look on her face made his back straighten a little.

Okay so Zuko wasn’t with him here, it’s fine. He still had his sister and best friend, he could still enjoy himself if he tried.

Katara just takes one look at him and rolls her eyes pointing to the doorway, Sokka doesn’t get it for a second but then Azula from the cafe, is pushing in a Zuko who’s hand loosely holds his mask and who looks very much like he does not want to be there.

Wrenching out of Aang’s grip, he goes up to Katara, eyes widening, “He probably already has a date, Katara, you can’t force people to do-”

Azula comes to Katara’s side with an annoyed expression, “He’s like a cat, i had to drag him here off the couch”

“Boys” Katara shakes his head with a sigh and Sokka doesn’t have it in him to feel offended, Aang doesn’t seem bothered either, he has a bright smile on his face and is practically bouncing up and down.

If there was one thing Sokka could have changed in the past it would have been ever telling her about the coffee shop, because this was embarrassing. It felt like his mother had forced him and another kid together to be friends because apparently she vaguely knew his mom.

Zuko looked awkward scratching the back of his head and shuffling his feet so as the other walked away, Sokka tried to make the tension less awkward, “Did you hear the boba place across the street added a new flavor? They’re stealing all our customers”

Zuko snorts and adds, “I’ll admit I’m thinking of switching sides, I stole a sip of Azula’s drink and it was absolutely delicious”

Now it’s Sokka’s turn to laugh, “This is betrayal Zuko, you’re a traitor” he accuses.

“Not yet, I’m not. I said I was just thinking about it.”

Sokka wasn’t so sure why he had been so nervous, even if Zuko hadn’t come as his date, they were still friends. And great ones, at that. He could just enjoy this night as a friend.

Then one of Sokka’s favorite songs comes on and from the way Zuko’s eyes widen, he realizes it too. Music was one of the many things they’d spend afternoons, cleaning the windows, talking about.

“Um, I don’t know if you’d want to, but Azula was saying something like ‘stupid boys’ and ‘dumb feelings’ in the car on the way over here and her and Katara were talking a lot on the phone the other night, so I’m pretty sure they were talking about us and if you’d want, only if you do, otherwise-”

Sokka’s eyes lit up, never mind how Katara had made him wash the dishes last night, he loved her.

Sokka silences Zuko’s rant and takes his wrist leading him to the dance floor, “I just realized how stupid I am” he mutters.

“Pfft, oh please, I realized in the car when I looked through Azula’s messages. We’re both awful at communication, we should have expected this.”

Sokka snickers before asking, “We played this song in the cafe that one night, right?”

“Mmhmm, it’s The Night We Met, you told me about it”

“It’s a slow song,” Sokka says.

“Yeah”

“So just to confirm, you do like me like that?”

Zuko rolls his eyes, “I feel like I’m going to regret this in the near future, but yeah”

Sokka rests his head on Zuko’s shoulder, “We could’ve been doing this a month ago, if we weren’t so dumb”

“Sadly we are”

To say the night was a success was an understatement, it was incredible and a blast and there were at least 35 pictures on Aang’s phone to prove it.

God, next time he needed something maybe a good idea would be to just ask because as much as an angel Katara was, if something like this happened again and his sister had to rescue him again, he’d just disown her and go live on an abandoned island in the middle of the ocean.

#moira writes #my fics #zukka week 2021 #zukka week #zukka #zukka fanfiction #ao3 #day 3 #coffee shop au #modern au #sokka/zuko #sokka #zuko #atla #avatar #atla fanfiction #atla fanfic #avatar fanfiction

16 notes · View notes

time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

i protect you from myself

Zuko is Sokka's enemy, but he still knows he'd never hurt him. He'd never want to anyway.

(For @zukkaweek day 2, Soulmates)

AO3 link WC:1,532

Zuko wasn’t trying to actually hurt anyone. The kicks and punches of fire were all set to just graze them and surprise them enough to leave an opening for an attack. The water tribe girl had improved a lot in her waterbending since they had last seen each other, she was holding her own against 3 of his people pretty easily.

Zuko looked around and realized the avatar was gone. He groaned, this area was surrounded by woods and they could be anywhere by now.

Running into the thick exfoliation, he chops at the vines and leaves in his path.

The kid’s an airbender, he probably just flew over all of this. That also meant there would probably be no broken branches or misplaced plants to show where he went, how fun.

Zuko stumbles into a clearing and spins around, hearing a snap in the bushes. Pulling out a sword he glances at the rustling plants and stalks forward.

He’d underestimated the avatar before but he wouldn’t do it again. Kid or not, he was the chosen one and Zuko needed to take him in, then all the killing could stop and everything could become normal again.

He’d go home and would be welcomed into the palace gates with open arms and cheers from the crowd, he’d be respected. He’d gain his honor again as prince of the Fire Nation.

Zuko was surprised as a blue shadow jumped out of the bushes at him, wielding a thick tree branch and swinging it at his head.

Jumping back he sticks his sword up and the tree branch, however thick it was, is sliced clean through.

The shadow isn’t the avatar. It’s his other Water Tribe friend, the waterbender’s brother. But that didn’t matter, the only thing that mattered was that he could tell Zuko where the child is.

Zuko easily apprehends him and takes his wrists in a tight grip, holding them behind his back. Growling, he asks, “Where is the avatar?”

For some reason, his grip keeps slacking and Zuko’s struggling to get a proper hold of them. It felt like they were dipped in oil, but the boy’s wrists had cloth hand wraps on them.

The boy-Sokka, his brain prompts, pulling it up from overheard conversations- slips out of Zuko’s grip and manages to take his sword, using Zuko’s surprise to his advantage.

Sokka holds the blade to his chest and Zuko raises his hands.

“Why do you want to get Aang so bad?”

Zuko snarled and jumped, kicking at Sokka’s chest and sending the blade spinning. The weird thing was that the kick barely landed.

Pursing his lips, Zuko punched at his head this time. Same effect. The hits were landing but there was nothing else happening.

It clicked too late.

The look on Sokka’s face shows he already figured it out too.

It wasn’t that Zuko didn’t believe in soulmates, he’d just never thought about what he’d do if he had one. The topic seemed foreign to him, he’d never actually know anyone who found their soulmate and with the little he’d heard about it, a myth seemed like a good explanation for them.

Zuko knew they were real, soulmates had always been a topic he’d push to the back of his head though.

There were at least 3 ways you could physically know who your soulmate is, not being able to harm them was probably the most common one. You could never hurt them.

Zuko gulped but Sokka didn’t look appalled, just surprised. That was weird, they were on opposite sides.

With wide eyes the blue-eyed boy takes one of Zuko’s wrist between his fingers, holding it with a feathery and calloused touch.

Zuko’s too shocked at what’s going on to stop him.

The admittedly gentle hold could be interpreted as hostile if you wanted, the boy could easily bend his arm back and flip him.

...but at the same time, the touch was pleasant and cool. It was his soulmate that was touching him. His soulmate who was on the opposite side of the war. It was the water tribe boy the whole time.

Zuko’s first thought was something along the lines of, ‘Wow”, because he hadn’t realized it before but Sokka’s eyes, they captured his own and held them, staring with wonder and curiosity and other things Zuko for the life of him couldn’t place. The sharp blue was piercing into him and he had never felt so open to anyone before, like his life was on display for anyone who walked by to see.

Zuko realizes his head is spinning. The only thing he can see is Sokka right now.

Sokka shakes his wrist and Zuko realizes he asked him something.

“Why are you doing this?”, the other boy’s voice is soft now, much softer than before. Unbearably calm and smooth.

With a gulp, Zuko takes in the question and with a raspy voice asks, “Doing what?”

A small frown forms between Sokka’s eyebrows, “Everything, hurting people, trying to get Aang”, Zuko considers it, “He never did anything to you, what’ll you get from capturing him?”

If it was anyone else, Zuko would’ve already attacked them, but he’s frustrated. It’s his soulmate, it’s destiny, right?

“I can go back home if I do”, and it’s true, that’s why he wants the avatar; to go home, to not be constantly moving and searching for the avatar’s whereabouts, and to go back to the Fire Nation where everyone will be proud of him, “To get my honor back”

Zuko’s chest is floating and he feels like he’s in a dream.

“Why don’t you have honor?”, Sokka asks. The question makes him falter.

“I talked back, I was disrespectful”

“That’s stupid, I’ve mouthed off before too” the fingers around his wrist tighten, “I knew it was a mistake and I apologized”

Sokka spoke again, “That’s something you get extra chores for, not banishment”

No, that’s where he was wrong. He had to be. Zuko wanted to throw up as dots clicked together in his head, showing a bigger picture.

Zuko doesn’t know how to answer so Sokka asks another question, whispering in a hushed and soft voice this time, “Do you want to be doing this?”

Want.

Zuko doesn’t know.

“Whenever you decide, our group is open for you to join. You can’t let other people decide what you want, that’s all your choice”

“Ok”

“I promised them both I’d get back to them soon and it would be a huge help if you could stop attacking us” Sokka grimaces a smile.

“You’re going?”

Sokka looks conflicted, “Come with me, you can help us and we can help you”

As tempting as it is, Zuko doesn’t think he can.

“I won’t hurt you”, the words seem right, but Zuko doesn’t know where they came from, they weren’t relevant at all. It was true though, Zuko couldn’t hurt him, he wouldn’t and he knows that.

Sokka rests his other hand on his cheek and Zuko tenses at the touch. It was so gentle, he doesn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this.

“I know you won’t”

Zuko nods, “I’ll see you when I see you then” than as an afterthought, “Bye”

Sokka’s breath tickles his cheek as he pulls Zuko into a hug. His first instinct is to pull away but he melts into the touch after a second. Sokka’s shorter than him by an inch but his arms wrap around Zuko’s neck pulling him in, they cling to him and Sokka warmth presses against him like a wave of euphoria. His arms wrap around Sokka hesitantly and the hug gets even tighter.

Brilliant blue eyes are imprinted into his eyes long after they both part ways.

Pulling at the long sleeves of the red robe, Zuko looks at Sokka to find him snickering.

He’d insisted he could get the large wraps of cloth around him by himself and Sokka had watched him from the bed, laughing the entire time.

“They shouldn't make these so complicated” Zuko huffs.

“It’s your coronation, Zuzu” Sokka doesn’t hide his laughs, “They want you to remember it, and I’m sure this is definitely going to be very memorable”

Zuko rolls his eyes and Sokka gets up, ignoring another round of Zuko’s protests insisting he can do it himself, and grabs a length of the thick fabric, wrapping it around Zuko’s torso over his robe.

Zuko pokes him and Sokka falls to the floor in his dramatics, “You’ve wounded me” he moans, rolling.

Zuko drops next to him, getting even more tangled up in his coronation robe, “I thought I can’t hurt you,’ he laughs.

Sokka looks out from under his arms. “But you did” he whines.

Zuko responds with another laugh, “We should probably get going”

Sokka moves onto his side so that they’re both face to face and kisses him gently.

“You’re going to be a great Fire Lord”

“What if I mess up?”

“You will, but I’ll help you fix it, we all will. Even Toph, probably.”

Resting their foreheads together Zuko stares into Sokka’s eyes again. They’re clear and bright and blue, Zuko loves them.

Zuko loves him.

#zukka week 2021 #zukka #moira writes #my fics #sokka #zuko #atla #atla fanfic #avatar #avatar fanfiction #ao3 #soulmate au #soulmates #sokka/zuko #zukka week #zukka fanfiction

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

your city is built from scraps

Set in the Western Air Temple, Sokka wonders about Zuko and they spar together. This is for @zukkaweek Day 1, prompt swords, enjoy!

AO3 link WC:1,356

Sokka stared at the wall, arms and legs crossed as he thought. They'd decided to accept Zuko in their group, which was probably the best solution. Aang needed to learn firebending and they were running low on people to turn to who they could trust.

And it wasn’t that Sokka hated Zuko, no, no, definitely not that. It’s just that it was his job to make sure everyone was safe. It was the responsibility of being the oldest and he was fine with that, he just hoped he helped in a decision that could end up turning on them. It was his job to make sure everyone was safe, and even the thought of one of them being hurt made his stomach squeeze.

There were birds chirping somewhere in the distance which meant the sun was probably coming up right about now. Sokka leaned back, shutting his eyes, and swallowing down the bile arising in his throat.

Zuko was the son of the Firelord, the person Aang was supposed to defeat, and so far he’d been on the wrong side, but he’s not even an adult yet, he should still deserve a chance to redeem himself. He didn’t know if he was endangering his friends by doing so though.

And Zuko hadn’t been causing any trouble at all, actually, he’d been so withdrawn the entire time he’d been here. He’d barely said anything and was always worrying his lip, thinking hard before answering anyone’s questions, he was always the first one to retire to bed and actively avoided unnecessary encounters with them. In fact, Sokka was pretty sure if he listened close enough, he could hear swords clattering around outside.

Another thing Zuko had been doing as of late was getting up at the ass-crack of dawn to train before his turn with Aang.

Sokka didn’t think Zuko would hurt them now, he could’ve easily the past few days he’d been with them, but he hadn’t, plus he seemed genuine in wanting to help.

Getting up, Sokka opens the flap of the tent and looks around, already heading for the training area. He wanted to talk to Zuko before everyone else woke up.

The air was windy and so fresh it stung his nose. He stayed quiet as he walked up and saw Zuko training. He was sweating and he had bags under his eyes, Sokka wondered how he hadn’t noticed them before.

His dao swords shone in the rising sun and Sokka watched on as they both curved through the air in sync, slicing, in time to calculated movements with the rest of Zuko’s body. There are hits and kicks towards the air and Zuko spins, ending with a flourish. The entire thing seemed borderline beautiful, like a dance.

Sokka hadn’t realized his mouth was parted in a small ‘o’ until he realized he was staring, and turned away snapping his mouth shut.

He lasted all of 30 seconds before Zuko turned and caught him, his eyes widened and his arm fell, dropping his swords to the ground with a clang.

Zuko stepped back and Sokka watched as he opened his mouth, words on his lips, before shutting it and swallowing.

The two stared at each other, and Sokka had come here to talk to him about something, right?

“Do you want to spar?”, it hadn’t been Sokka’s original idea but ideas were made to be improved, besides now he wouldn’t be interrupting, they could talk and fight at the same time.

Zuko nodded, a frown between his eyebrows, “Can you use a sword?”

Sokka crossed his arms, jutting his lip out, “Yes, I can use a sword”

Zuko nods again and throws him a sword, it wasn’t the type he was used to but that was fine, he wasn't exactly looking to win.

Getting into position, they both immediately go on defense, knees bent and arms raised. Sokka decides to attack first, sword whipping out in an arc. Zuko’s two blades are much smaller but less wieldy and they easily deflect the attack, pushing them down while Zuko leg kicks out from under him trying to bring Sokka down.

The two boys circle around each other and Sokka asks, “Why’d you decide to join us?”

Zuko freezes in surprise before fixing his stance and answering, “I knew what I was doing was wrong, I think a part of me just didn’t want to actually acknowledge it”, he darts forward, coming at Sokka and the swords all clash.

“I was desperate for attention, I wanted to prove myself to everyone” he strikes again, “I thought that was the only way for my father to like me. I knew it didn’t make sense but I’d always thought that one day he’d want me, one day he’d look at me and be proud of how powerful I was”

Three attacks from Zuko in a row now, Sokka dodges them all. Zuko seemed more relaxed around him, unlike with Katara and Aang when he watched every twitch of his muscles and it almost seemed like he was waiting for them to change their mind and kick him out. Sokka had even gotten a cracked smile out of him the night before which had, in turn, made Sokka grin stupidly the rest of the night, taking satisfaction in the fact.

A lump gets stuck in his throat, a kid shouldn’t have to work for love from their own family. Zuko’s eyes leapt out of sight every time he tries to look at his face, instead coming in for more jabs and attacks. Sokka desperately wants to see his eyes.

Zuko's movements were cautious, and it was obvious he wasn’t even using half his strength, Sokka didn’t call him out on it.

“I guess I finally realized he’d never really cared about me, all this effort I was putting in was for nothing. None of it would matter to him”

Sokka goes at him, wondering why Zuko was telling him all of this.

He’s good, Sokka decides.

“You promise you won’t go all fire-prince-berserk on us again?” Sokka asks right before lunging towards Zuko.

With a grunt Zuko pushes him out of the way and says, “If I do, I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself”

The answer is so clearly spoken and Sokka stops, it felt great to have the nagging feeling that Zuko was safe finally approved but it still seemed like Zuko was avoiding him.

He wouldn't blame him if he was but Sokka realized with the few sentences Zuko said, there was a bigger meaning underneath it all and he wanted Zuko to trust him, he wanted to get this stupid feelings-repressing idiot to open up to him.

He didn’t realize when Zuko was suddenly behind him and before he could react Zuko kicked Sokka’s knees, throwing him to the floor, and pinning him to the ground.

The 5-second count is over and Zuko won, that fact is shoved to the back of his brain though.

Laying back on the floor and having no intentions to get back up anytime soon, Sokka looks at Zuko as he sits next to him on his right side, carefully.

“I don’t think your dad’s opinion of you matters, he’s a jerk”

Zuko wraps his arms tighter around his knees, “Yeah”

“Your whole childhood must have been pretty sucky”, Sokka knew enough stories about the Fire Nation royals that would have scared him as a kid.

Zuko sucks in a breath through his mouth, “I don’t- I know, I messed up, a lot and it’s fine if you guys all hate me, I did a lot of awful things to you all, I hurt you and I know majority of the Fire Nation in general has too, but if it means something, I really am sorry”

“It does mean something, plenty actually”

Going on a limb, Sokka flops an arm out to the criss-crossed Zuko who stares at it for a long moment before gently dropping his hand on top, fingers barely intertwining.

The sky is an array of colors and Sokka focuses on the fingers resting lightly on his, closing his eyes with a sigh.

#moira writes #khrighri this was done in such a rush ahh #zukka #fanfiction #my fics #sokka #zuko #atla #avatar #atla fics #zukka week 2021 #zukka week #zukka fanfic #ao3 #swords

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

i didn’t finish my chem homework yet

Peter and MJ get kidnapped after school and Tony is a worried overprotective dad™ who just wants his kid back.

(This used to be a two-shot but since I’m re-uploading it, I thought i’d just smash both chapters together, here you go)

AO3 link WC:5,426

The first thing that Peter noticed through the harsh pounding in his skull was that he couldn’t see and there was a heavy metal weighing down his wrists. He figured those two out pretty quickly. He couldn’t see because he had a blindfold covering his eyes and his wrists were shackled to the ground, so he assumed he had been kidnapped.

Don’t get him wrong, he was freaking out, but the last few times he’d been kidnapped they weren’t that bad. Either Mr.Stark came and helped him get out- with a lot of fussing afterwards - or he got out himself. No one had figured out that he was Spiderman, which was good, it made it much easier for him to make like and get out of there without looking back on it.

His head was still dully throbbing but it was much less worse than it originally was, then the memories came crashing onto him, with another agonizing squeeze of his head.

Him and MJ were talking in the school parking lot, helping each other on the chem homework, ah shit we didn’t finish it, when those people in the cars came and...what happened after that? He racked his brain trying to remember, but no memories popped up.

Wait.. MJ, dammit

He bit his lip frowning and, achingly, reached a leg out trying to see if she was there or at least close to him. He would have called out her name but he didn’t want to alert the people that captured them, at least, not yet, he didn’t even know if anyone was even in the room with him.

His toe prodded something and he poked harder-

“Ow, Parker that’s my freaking thigh”

“Oh, heh, sorry MJ”, he said, voice cracking slightly

“Mm-hmm, so how are we going to get out of here?”

“Can you see?” he tried

“Nada”

Peter fumbled blankly for a moment, “Do you remember what happened?”

MJ didn’t respond for a couple of seconds, “You don’t?”

“Must’ve hit my head”

“Yeah, ok, so those guys came and..took us? Yeah, you weren’t waking up in the car so you probably hit your head in the parking lot, I’m pretty sure nobody saw anything so I don’t think anyone knows we’re gone”

“That's fine”, he could see- well, not really -MJ judging him

“You really need to rethink your sense of ‘fine’”

Peter would have said something but a bang shook the walls, effectively, cutting off his words.

MJ’s foot was, lightly, leaning against Peter’s knee, and his blindfold was harshly ripped off, eyelids immediately shutting back, unaccustomed to any sort of light.

Before he could even try again to see again, “Look, I want something”

“Well duh, I want to get out of high school, but at this rate it’ll never happen”, Peter snarked, thinking of all the treacherous finals they were preparing for.

He could see now and the lights were actually pretty dim, compared to the normal brightness lights usually were.

There was a man standing in the center of the room, he seemed pretty normal, if you passed him on the street, you probably wouldn’t have blinked twice. He was wearing a faded red t-shirt with a motorcycle on it and he had a light tan with brown hair, he seemed pretty young, no more than 25.

“Listen, I don’t want to hurt you, I swear on that, but I got friends in the other room who wouldn’t hesitate, so you’re going to unlock your phone and call up Tony Stark” his voice shook, and he sounded...scared.

Scared people do reckless things.

The man held up Peter’s phone in 2 fingers, and Peter turned his head to see MJ fully staring at the man(let's call him Jeff) down with a glare. Sadly, Jeff didn't even blink in her direction, because if he had he would be terrified. Peter knew that first-hand, he had been pinned with that look way too many times. MJ could be very scary when she wanted, like Natasha.

“Look, man, you know Tony Stark could track my phone before you could blink, right?” the man’s face was paused, “He’s Tony Stark” Peter emphasized.

“We have advanced hackers protecting this area, so at least for a little bit, we’ll be safe. Thanks for the concern though” his face hardened, “now call”

“Alright, fine”, he surrendered.

MJ cast him a side-glance and he gave her a nervous smile in return

“Can you uncuff me, so I can call him?”

“Sure, kid”

On cue, 3 beefy men stalked in, forming a half-circle around them. One more person walked in, a woman, muscular with her ginger hair in a ponytail.

He grimaced, he couldn’t take on everyone in such a small room, especially with MJ still chained to him, he didn’t know if he could defeat them even if they were out on a field with no one around. Those guys looked like an elephant couldn't make them budge, they were literally covering half the lights, filling his eyes.

Jeff came behind him and freed one of his wrists from the miserable cuffs, and handed him the phone.

The lady who had come in, pulled out a sea green dagger bejeweled with gems, it was beautiful but not helpful in this scenario. Don’t let it fool you, it may have looked lovely but one look at the blade would show it’s still efficient.

She knelt down next to him and gently held it against Peter’s chest, “try and cry a little, sweetheart, we want our money”

Ok, they want money.

MJ next to him tensed, “Be careful where you put that thing”

The lady, now called Cam because Peter’s brain said so, pulled another dagger out of her pocket, a purple one now equally pretty as the other- what did she collect them? -and directed this one at MJ.

“Listen, or else your girlfriend’ll get it”

“She’s not my girlfriend”, he muttered.

Peter chewed the inside of his cheek, these people were much harsher than Jeff, who was now standing towards the back of the room watching them silently with his arms folded over his chest, eyes avoiding his.

Peter couldn’t risk getting MJ hurt so he typed in the password and made a show of him raising it to his ear.

The dialed ring took 10 seconds before it clicked and Mr.Stark picked up.

“H-hey, Mr.Stark”, his throat was dry and he cleared it, trying to get the squeak out of his voice.

“Sup, kid” Mr.Stark said, “Is May home?”

“Yeah, uh Mr.Stark, I’m not really at home right now” a small whimper broke out as Cam pressed the knife’s blade into his chest, a dribble of blood ran under his shirt.

Geez, why was she pressing it so hard, he wasn’t going to teleport through the phone line and escape.

Tony paused, “Ok, I’m tracking you right now, unless you tell me what’s going on. Are you hurt? Where are you?”

MJ looped her ankle over his knee and she threw him another weak smile, probably to distract him from feeling a knife pressing into his chest. It wasn’t even cutting deep but knowing that Cam easily could, made him worry.

“No I’m good, just-”, the phone snatched out his hands before he could respond.

“Hi, Stark, hope we’re not bothering you, but we need something from you”, Cam said, setting the phone on speaker, with a bored expression

“Actually, I am quite busy, just got pulled out of a meeting for this, but I suppose I could hear you out, as long as you let the kid go”, he replied coldly, Tony already got the gist of what was happening, good.

Faintly, in the background noise coming out of the phone, Peter heard FRIDAY’s voice saying she hasn’t tracked the call yet, he only picked it up because of his advanced hearing.

He let out a low groan, leaning against the wall behind him, trying to ease his headache, and scooched a little closer to MJ.

“There’s two of them actually, we got his girlfriend holed up here too”, MJ glared at her, “You were just sent an email, Stark, follow the simple instructions and you’ll get ‘em back, and in one piece” she added with a sick grin.

“Do you know how many people have tried this trick before? Yeah you probably do, Daily Bugle usually gets to them, anyways, not one of them has worked before. How do you know yours will?”

Peter knew Tony was trying to stall so he could track the call, but Cam caught on, “Nice try, see you later, Iron Man, and try to remember who we’ve got over here, okay? For their sake”

She ended the call, cutting off Mr.Starks protests, knelt down next to Peter and squinted, “So kid, why are you so special to Tony Stark? What’re you his secret love child?”

“I’m just an intern”, Peter replied, his headache had decreased just enough to where he could ignore it, and now that the dagger wasn’t cutting into his skin anymore, he could finally breathe without worrying a blade was about to stab him.

“You’re lying”, she says with an air of finality, standing up, “but that's fine so long as we get our money” she shrugs

“Your daddy’s got 4 hours to do what we sent him or else your brain’s gonna go ka-plooey” she mimics getting shot in the head, twirling on her feet, as an extra, the big guys in the back each pulled out a gun which Peter and MJ shrink back at.

MJ had been quiet this whole time save for the occasional remarks and with a start he realized that she was scared.

It wasn’t too visible but her fingers were having a silent tap-dance on the floor next to her and she was biting down on her lip, and then there was the occasional shine of tears in her eyes that quickly diminished immediately after appearing.

Peter wanted to slap himself, she’s MJ, yes, but she’s never been kidnapped and threatened to be killed before, and to top it all off, her life is depending on a billionaire who has to pay up. Of course, she’s going to be scared.

One of the big guys came and reattached the cuff, blocking MJ from his view for a few seconds, before everyone, even Jeff, walked out.

She looked at the floor, and only after the door to the room slammed shut again, did she look back up at him.

“MJ, I’m so sorry I got you into this mess, but we can get out, we’ll find a way and maybe Tony got the location and is already on his way”, his eyesight got blurry, MJ shouldn’t be here, she could get hurt and that couldn’t happen. MJ knows the basics, throwing a punch, kicking someone in their stomach, but that wouldn’t help against a stupid gun.

She breathed in, “Yeah, I know we’ll be okay, it's still scary though, don’t look at me like that, dork. It’s not your fault, and I’ll be fine just give me a second”

She closes her eyes sucking in deep breaths and Peter is unconsciously doing the same, taking in air that wasn’t there before, forcing his tense muscles to relax. They both sigh melting against the wall.

“Mr.Stark is gonna get us out of this”

“You sure?” MJ asks, 2 hours later.

“Ok, well I’ve tried to break the chains, they’re not budging”, Peter answers

The past 2 hours, MJ and Peter had been joking around and laughing, almost as if they were back in the school cafeteria with Ned, snorting their eyes out over a stupid joke that was way too old to be funny at that point, and not in a dingy, dreary room, kidnapped, and out for ransom.

Still, it was easier to put on a front then, now they had around 2 hours left based on MJ’s mystical time-guessing. Now the deadline was much closer and with their kidnappers out of sight for so long- they hadn’t reappeared after they left with Peter’s phone - anxiety was building up and it was getting harder to joke and act like they were fine, you could their smiles being forced to show and a small sheen of sweat breaking out on either of their foreheads.

Now they sat in silence waiting, Peter tried a couple more times to break through the chains or get out of them but each time they just chafed his wrists a little bit more, and MJ forced him to stop before he hurt himself more.

MJ found her eyes starting to slip closed, and she shook her head a little bit to try and clear the mindless fuzz out of her head. Peter next to her didn’t look far from passing out too, it should have only been 5 in the afternoon about now, though they both seemed ready to zonk out of the world for the next 12 hours.

Peter was more unconscious than conscious when the door slammed open, Peter yelped at the harsh bang and jerked up. He felt exactly like he had just woken up from an afternoon nap and he had no idea where he was. MJ was also up and looking around like she couldn’t believe where she was.

“Ah shit, that wasn’t a dream”, she groaned

The only people who came in this time, though, were Jeff, Cam, and one of their meaty bodyguards.

Peter was still blinking ripples out of his eyes as he watched Cam come closer to them.

“Call Stark again”, she shoved, his phone into his face, and he took it nearly dropping it out of his fingers

He huffed but called, he was doing it mostly for himself though. He wanted to hear his mentor’s voice talking, it always seemed like Tony’s words calmed him down, and he wasn’t complaining, hearing Tony Stark talk about something dumb one of his rich ‘friends’ did at a banquet was always perfect after a nightmare. At this point, he would settle for anyone’s voice; Steve, Thor, Nat, May, Pepper, Bruce, Bucky, Sam, Rhodey, literally anyone.

If you had told a 13 year-old Peter, who had just lost his uncle and felt 100% guilty for it, that in a little over a year he’d have half the Avengers as his own little makeshift family and Tony Stark as an almost-dad, he’d have called the cops on you, but here Peter was now having a whole home in the Avengers.

He also called without protesting because as much as he wanted to listen to Tony's voice, he also wanted to know what in the world Tony was doing, because Peter wanted him and MJ out of there yesterday.

Tony picked up the first ring and Jeff stepped up this time to speak into the phone, “Where’s the money, Stark?” he hissed

“It’s only hour 2 and you gave me 4 hours, time’s not up yet”, despite his cool exterior, Peter could imagine Tony right now, sweating with anxiety, voice trembling when he fails to catch and correct it, getting frustrated because FRIDAY couldn’t get a location yet, and Peter really wants to get out of here geez.

He wants to get out of here because MJ’s here too and she could get injured and because he still has a lot of homework that’s due tomorrow and it’s really hot in here, and he’s tired because his head is pounding-

“If you wanted these kids you would've transferred the money a long time ago” Jeff spoke

“Fine, I’ll transfer it now-” Cam smirks, hearing Tony agree, “only if you let me talk to them first, give me two minutes with them and you’ll have your money then I can get them both back”

Cam frowns, “no” she says bluntly, as if she’d let him gain the upper hand in this situation

“Then my money is staying my money”

“Jessie-”

So that’s her real name.

“-give him two minutes, and we’ll get our money” Jeff said, trying to persuade her.

They had a silent conversation, staring each other down with their eyes, and Peter noticed they looked really similar, their eyes were each an emerald green and they had the same high cheekbones sculpting their face.

They’re siblings, he realized.

Jeff didn’t look like he wanted to be there at all, in fact, he looked sick of all this, so Peter assumed his sister was forcing him to be there to get some cash.

“Jess! Please! Let’s just get this over with”, he pleaded again.

Her eyes flashed and Peter felt compelled to scooch farther away from her out of instinct.

“Fine! This isn’t working, get out of here!”, spittle flew from her mouth and Peter had seen a fair share of crazy, broken people during his time as a vigilante. She didn’t look so good at all, she actually looked pretty close to ripping her hair out and stomping the hell out of there.

He could tell MJ could sense that too, casting him a concerned look and gesturing her head towards the woman.

Jeff - Peter wanted to know his real name now that he knew the sister’s - looked lost and he raised his hands, weakly, in a plea, “Jess, this was never supposed to go this far” his face broke down, and he was full-on crying now.

Peter felt close to crying too, he absolutely despised when people were forced to do something against their will, and by his sister too. That must feel awful for him.

MJ tried to reach out, but her fingers barely brushed his shoulder until the chains stopped her.

“Peter, please breathe” she whispered

He gasped, face unbearably hot, and the image of Tony popped up in his head-

“You gotta breathe, kiddo, you know oxygen, yeah that, you need that unless you want to pass out”, Tony knelt down next to him on the lab floor, “Can you tell me 5 things you see?...”

His breathing slowed down gradually, Tony helped me calm down from a panic attack, he thought, hazily.

MJ bit her lip, “You okay?”, Peter couldn’t feel anything at the moment but he gave her a small ‘mm-hmm’ from the back of his throat, chest aching.

He realized MJ was still staring at him, and he tilted his head just enough to look at her, “What?”

“You’re pale, how’s your head?”, he shrugged in response

The two siblings were still fighting and he couldn’t hear what Tony was saying through all of their yelling, he strained his ears, and right before, Jess caught on and hung up, he heard Natasha yell through everything else, “держись, детка” (hold on, kiddo)

He managed a smile, and looked to MJ, “They’re coming”

The after-effect of all the fighting had the buff guy with them in the room leave - presumably to get out of there - and had Jess pointing a gun at both Peter and MJ’s heads.

“We’ll kill them and get out of here” she spoke, Jeff was frozen watching her, hands frozen in outreach as if to stop her.

She glared, teeth bared, and aimed one gun in each hand, Peter wanted so badly to grab MJ but he couldn’t, he steeled his face and tried to give a reassuring look to her, but the realization that they were actually about to die was looming over them.

Peter strained to hear the sound of familiar repulsors but they didn’t come.

His eyes pressed shut and he heard the safety of the gun click off-

“Wait!” he yelled, “Let MJ go, please!” Jessie, looked him up and down, “please”

MJ was ogling her eyes at him, “Peter, I swear-”

“Stop, just stop, both of you are dying”

Peter heard the gun go off, yes, but he also saw Jeff lunge at his sister knocking her and the gun down.

Coincidentally, it hit Peter’s chains against the wall, causing the socket it was in to pop out. He yanked off the other one with his now free hand so that he could move his arms freely with only the weight of the chains hindering his movements.

He lunged for the gun on the floor and kicked it to the corner of the room, getting it out arm’s reach from either of the siblings.

“Ryan! Get the fuck off of me!”, Jessie yelled

As Peter pried MJ’s hands out of the cuffs, his brain started auto-correcting Jeff to Ryan.

Got it.

Ryan was a twig, which wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, but it made it much easier for Jessie to throw him across the room.

Peter had heard first-hand stories of Ned and MJ fighting with their siblings but this seemed a little extreme.

He threw a punch at Jessie as she ran at him, pushing MJ to get her out of the way.

They went back and forth one kick to his shin, an elbow to her stomach, and Peter had her in a good spot, ready to flip her to the ground but he’d underestimated her. She jumped up, kicking Peter hard on his chest. He coughed and - how the hell did she get the gun? - slammed his head with the butt of the gun, causing him to scream from the pressure on his head.

“M-MJ” he managed, trying to get her attention from where she was preparing to knock Jessie’s head to the wall, “Tony” he whispered, as repulsors came firing into Peter’s ears, he had never appreciated the sound more.

Her face turned solemn and she ran back out of the room, nodding her head, Peter smiled, she got it.

Out of the side of his eye he could see Ryan struggling to lift himself off the floor, and Peter’s eyes fluttered as Jessie slammed him against the wall holding him up against the wall, stretching the small cut on his chest.

Throwing him over her shoulder and walking out the door, Peter agonizingly watched as the hallway they were walking through blurred through his vision.

Exiting the building, Peter saw the sun setting colorizing the sky with purple and orange.

She grabbed him and manhandled (or technically, womanhandled) him to his knees, pressing the barrel of the gun to his head.

“Stop!”, he heard Tony yell.

Oh, Tony, yay

Natasha was posed next to Tony keeping a sharp eye that she softened the slightest bit for him to see. Next to her was MJ, a little farther back, but still holding a knife pointing towards them.

“How about no, Stark”

Ryan ran out from behind Peter yelling for his sister to stop, Peter sluggishly blinked trying to focus the double-visioned image blurring into his eyelids.

“Kid! Focus on me”, Tony yelled

He could do that.

Tony’s voice was easy to pinpoint and he zeroed in on him, taking in the hot-rod red of the Iron Man suit.

“Mr.Stark, I didn’t finish my chem homework” he called, earning another harsh stab of the gun into his head.

“Yeah, buddy, we’ll get to it”, Mr.Stark probably thought he was delirious, who knows, maybe he was, he wouldn’t know.

Peter remembered reading stories about loved one’s dying, they’d plead and yell, and the descriptions would say time seemed to slow down but for Peter it sped up.

“Say bye-bye”, Jessie smirked

“NO!”

“Stop!”

“PETER!”

Peter also remembered watching a video where it said if you don’t hear the bang of the gun going off, it’s because it hit you and you’re either dying or dead.

But Peter heard it, Peter heard it as clear as he’d hear music blasting in his crummy old earbuds.

Tony wasn’t busy, he never really was anyways. Sure there were board meetings and the occasional meet-ups for SHIELD, but being the Tony Stark had its perks, meaning it was pretty easy to get out of things unless Pepper was after him for a signature or conference( he’d been able to slip out of some of those too though, so hah!).

The point is, Tony basically was able to do whatever he wanted all day which, when his mind was zooming through ideas faster than a car on a race track, was helpful and somewhat enjoyable with new theories pumping through his veins and having FRIDAY take notes of the gibberish he spewed out for later.

Some days though, the days when that zooming car kept stuttering and stopping, was pure agony, because there was so much he could be doing - there always was - but he couldn’t get them done because his head wouldn’t cooperate with him and it felt he was ripping up, inside and out.

Today was not one of the latter days, he was going at a steady pace in his lab, the oil smudged across his arms and the music moving him as he bopped his head to the beat. Grinning, he finished the last part of the specs and pulled out some small spare pieces for a prototype. This was just a random idea he’d had in a dream and it wouldn’t amount to anything too special but it was pretty fun and he had an abundance of ideas on how to advance it further.

Then Pepper came, which he knew was coming because he’s been skipping way too many meetings lately and he could only hold out for so long.

The meeting was boring, as expected, and it seemed to be dragging on forever. He wasn’t even paying attention at this point so when Peter called, he was glad he had an excuse as he quickly turned to Pepper and showed her the ringing phone before running out of there. Those fancy-schmancy business people could think anything they wanted about him, he’d never cared anyways.

The thing was, when he picked up he was ready to hear the kid’s ramblings of what happened at school or some weird fact Ned told him that would make Tony regret picking up.

What he wasn’t expecting was Peter’s words to be shaking and someone else speaking into the phone, cutting Peter off mid-sentence and thank god for FRIDAY who had alerted him, she was already trying to track the signal.

She didn’t get in time though and he almost yelled when the call ended with nothing solved.

He went up to the living room where Nat was upside down on the couch watching some cheesy sitcom (it was a spectacle when he found out the great Black Widow watches sitcoms but she’d threatened him to stay quiet about it. She had weird ways to love them.)

“Tasha?”

“Mm-hmm” , she asked, biting into a strawberry distractedly.

“I’m pretty sure Peter got himself kidnapped”

She’s up in less than a second already stalking towards him. Her face is passive but you can tell she’s worried.

“Of course he did, why wouldn’t he have?” Nat murmurs, “Do you have a location yet?”

“I didn’t get it in time but Friday’s still trying and I’m pretty MJ’s with them”

She nods, “Have you called Ned yet?”

“Yeah, he said that went out to the parking lot to go home and he hadn’t seen them after that.”

“What about May?” she prods.

“I tried her, she said she wasn’t worried since he usually stays out at school after hours and Ned checked the parking lot and said he found their backpacks there but that doesn’t really help with anything”

“What’s the plan then?”

“They sent me an email, it’s instructions to deposit money into an account”, he grimaces.

“You know if you hand in the money, you’re going to get in trouble”, she glances at the clock.

“I know, it’s just a last resort. He’s been in situations like this before, hopefully he won’t get into too much trouble.”

Nat raises an eyebrow, “Are we talking about the same Peter?”

Tony winces.

2 hours later, Friday still hasn’t got a location and they got a second call.

He just needed a few more minutes and they’d have a location, Friday was already so close to cracking it.

The call ended just as Nat yelled something in Russian to Peter and just as Friday, claimed she found the place.

Oh thank god

The last time Peter was kidnapped it had been max, 45 minutes and the first time had been around a little less than an hour. This time it had been over 2 hours and he knew that lady hadn’t been joking when she’d set a deadline. Right before they’d hung up, she seemed angry and Tony didn’t like to jump to conclusions but she didn’t seem too merciful or lenient.

“Let’s go,” he said, face hardening.

They were just a few minutes too late. Who knows, maybe even 30 seconds would have been enough.

Peter had still gotten shot though.

His blast had messed up her aim and thank heavens for that because otherwise it would have shot his head.

Instead, the bullet went sideways, stopping just hitting his collarbone.

There was still blood though, and plenty of it at that. It had run red underneath his nails, staining them and despite their protesting, MJ had been right next to him the entire way drenching the front of her shirt with red.

Peter had passed out along the way, which was a small mercy in itself. Helen had gotten the bullet out without too much difficulty. She’d huffed a small laugh afterwards, exasperatedly, saying if it was even a centimeter lower it would have hit his organs, a part of his collarbone was still shattered a little which they’d done a small surgery for before the shards could hit any of his blood vessels or arteries.

He’d also had a pretty bad concussion which Helen had said shouldn’t have done too much permanent damage, he’d just have to be monitored closely for the next day or two.

She’d practically begged him to stop bringing broken teenage spider-boys to her, and Tony would’ve loved it if he could promise her that, but considering his life and Peter, he didn’t think he could hold out on it for too long.

Peter slept for almost 7 hours before he woke up, throwing out his arm and letting out a small gasp when he felt the bone ache.

Luckily, Tony was still wide-awake at that point and gently grabbed his wrist, putting it back on his side before he could rip his stitches.

“T’ny?” Peter asked, struggling to lift his eyes.

“It’s me, kid” he says, placing a hand on Peter’s head.

Peter blinks his eyes open and glances around, before settling on him again, “,‘s MJ o-kay?”

“She’s fine, asleep”, Tony sighs, “You should probably get some more sleep too, bud. You lost a lot of blood.”

‘I will if you will”

“Oh you’re evil” Tony groans, “Fine then, scoot over”

Peter manages to move one leg a smidge over and Tony laughs, pushing him to the side as he settles in next to Peter, pulling him close to his side and pressing a kiss on his forehead.

“Did you get the guys who got us?” Peter asks.

“Yeah” Tony tightens his grip, “We got them all”

“You know the lanky guy who looks like he just came out of a noodle machine?”

“Weird way of describing him but yes” Tony looks at him.

“Just,” Peter sighs, “Can they cut him some slack, he didn’t mean to do anything. His sister was making him do it, he shouldn’t be held just as responsible as her.”

“He was still a part of it, Pete”, Tony tries.

“I know, I know, but it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t want to,” Peter insists.

“I’ll see what I can do for him, kid” he settles.

Peter hums in agreement already shutting his eyes.

“You know, you better not be doing this again anytime soon, you managed to scare Tasha”, Tony says.

“Don’t worry I wouldn’t want to anyway, it sucked. I rate it 0/10, definitely would not recommend”.

Tony chuckles just as Natasha walks in, “I heard you guys talking about me” she observes, smirking.

She sits, pulling up a chair next to the bed and putting her feet on top of theirs from her seat.

“But seriously, don’t do it again”, Nat warns.

Peter smiles, hiding his face in Tony’s shirt. He falls asleep to Tony’s fingers running soothingly through his hair and the comfortable weight of Tasha’s legs on top of his.

#moira writes #my fics #marvel #avengers #spiderman #ironman #peter parker #tony stark #natasha romanoff #MJ #michelle jones #fanfiction #ao3 #kidnapping #irondad #irondad fics #irondad and spiderson #jdbejbc

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Video

I AM DECEASED 😭😭

for the love of god UNMUTE this

#HJSGFHJFS #IM CRYINGG #marvel

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Photo

tony: *wants to do something*

rhodey, pepper, and bruce: NO!

tony: (◕‸ ◕✿)

rhodey, pepper, and bruce: *does the thing*

#djbfdf yea #marvel

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

i still hear your voice in the traffic (we’re laughing)

Tony promised Peter he'd teach him to drive, he's not here anymore though. (or Happy and Peter talk about Tony and Nat over a steering wheel)

AO3 link WC: 2, 466

tw: brief suicide mention, not of Peter or the Avengers though

Peter was now 16 years old.

It was about 8 months after Tony and Nat had both sacrificed themselves to bring back the lost half of the world and defeat Thanos. That 50% of the population that had turned to dust were all back and so many people were reunited with their loved ones, which would have been great.

Except it was overlooked that so many people hadn’t had that luxury.

There was one of Peter’s neighbors, he was in college the last time he’d seen him. Anyways, his moms lived together and Peter always saw him around visiting them and bringing them dinner and flowers. Apparently they had both been blipped which left him an orphan in college. They never got to see him graduate and he had killed himself not even 2 weeks after the ceremony.

The suicide rates had shot up a lot during those years, so many people had quite literally vanished and it was impossible to stay hopeful when there was absolutely nothing they could hold on to and a lot of people saw suicide as the only solution.

But when those dusted people came back, the people they seeked out in the crowds were gone, already long lost.

May told him when the parents had been brought back and everything had settled, they’d gone around looking for anyone who’d know where their son was, May was the one who had to tell them before they drove themselves crazy looking. May had to tell them that the kid who’d always bring home the pasta he knew they liked and the chocolate bars he knew were their favorites, was gone, and that was just one story.

Honestly from what Peter had heard, during those 5 years, it had been like watching an empire collapse all around you and you being stuck in the middle with no way to help, just constricted to seeing everything around fall into rubble on the ground and collect into towers of misery and ash.

There was a part of Peter that was overjoyed that he hadn’t been one to stick around because without MJ and Ned who were also dusted, he doesn’t know what he’d do, another huge part of Peter wished he had stuck around (not that he had had a choice), just so he could help everyone else, so he could have talked every single person who had to live through that and just fix all of their problems because that must have sucked beyond anything he could ever imagine.

And Peter knows he hasn’t lost as many people as most because others lost everything, their families, their friends.

But he lost Tony.

He lost another person who he thought he could protect and who he, naive as he is, thought he would have forever.

But he messed up.

And he messed up bad, because now Tony had an incredible daughter Morgan who didn’t have her dad anymore because Peter had to stand by uselessly and cry while he listened to Tony’s heart stutter to a hard stop.

Pepper didn’t have her husband, Rhodey and Happy didn’t have their best friend, and the world didn't have their Iron Man.

(And Peter didn’t have his Tony)

Happy was supposed to take him driving later and Peter has been stalling for months now. It's not because he doesn’t wanna know how to drive because he definitely does, that would be awesome, but Tony promised him he’d teach him to drive and he’d let him take one of his fancy cars for a spin and going without him felt wrong, like when you lose a tooth and there’s a weird new gap there that's not supposed to be there.

Tony had promised he’d teach him.

He was not going to be able to wriggle his way out of this one though, his excuses just kept getting flimsier and flimsier.

“Hey Peter want me to take you driving later” “Shoot, I wish, but I have a decathlon meet”

“Are you free later to go for a ride?” “Sorry, I have a test I need to study for”

“You still need to learn how to use the shifts, Pete” “I know, I know, but I wanted to get some extra patrolling in tonight”

Happy had actually brought the issue up in person once, “Kid, it’s fine if you don’t wanna learn but is there a reason? You used to always talk about learning to drive.”

He had mumbled a quick excuse and sprinted out of there.

His entire class already knew how to drive and everyone was always carpooling to each other's houses but Peter could care less. He only hung with Ned and Mj for the most part, so it never really affected him anyways.

Another thing was he felt like he was letting May down, because he knows she really wants him to get his license, but every time he tries to even think about it he feels nauseous, like he just dropped on a roller coaster.

Knock knock

The nausea was back.

Peter reluctantly shrugged on his jacket and opened the door to the apartment.

“Hey Happy,” he waved. He was pretty sure Happy could see something was wrong, but he hasn’t said anything yet.

“Hey kiddo, you ready to go?” he asked.

Peter nodded and stepped briskly out the door.

Happy was driving them to some empty parking lot to get him started off with and the ride was pretty much silent except for when Happy asked if May was home, Peter had said no, May had taken an extra shift and was still at work. Then Happy asked if he was feeling alright and pressed a cool hand to his forehead to check his temperature, Peter easily brushed him off and changed the subject as he tried not to fidget.

They pulled into the lot and switched seats once they’d parked, Happy gave him another quick run through of the gears and shifts even though he’d already heard this a dozen times and had him drive through the parking spaces setting up a path for him to go through.

“You know, if you really don’t want to do this, it’s fine Pete, right?”, Happy said from the passenger's seat.

He knows that, and he knows Happy would be fine if he told him the truth, if he told him that even the thought of driving made him go dizzy and he knows Happy would understand but it seemed like he was the only one still hooked on this. Everyone else seemed fine at family game nights and when they’d all get together for dinner, but every time Peter felt tears well up because Nat wasn’t there to absolutely demolish them in Jenga and Tony wasn't there to outsmart his way to the top of every monopoly round, the gaps were everywhere taking up no space and yet so much at the same time.

He’d see pictures taken recently of everyone and the first thing his mind would go to was who wasn’t in that picture? Who was missing from the picture because of stupid Thanos (or because Peter wasn’t good enough to have helped save them-)?

Peter tightened his grip on the steering wheel, “It’s fine, I can do this,”.

Happy still looked unsure but he let him go ahead, driving slowly through the spaces and twisting through the planters spaced throughout.

After a while Happy helped him drive onto the street and showed him what to do at the lights and gave him little tips about whenever he turned.

How to turn your blinker on.

Those were the windshield wipers.

Something about the rearview mirror…

And suddenly there were the sounds of horns honking and Happy was reaching over and jerking the steering wheel, pulling them out of the center of the road where- where Peter had almost slammed into another car.

Shit

Happy, still leaned over him, steered them both to the side as Peter stayed frozen clutching the edges of the seat with white knuckles.

The cold fist around his heart was suddenly squeezing the second they were parked on the side of the road, he was sobbing before Happy could even ask what the hell just happened.

He had almost hit another car.

That person could have died and it would’ve been his fault.

There could’ve been a family in that car.

His fault, again.

Where was Tony?

Words practically tumbled out of his mouth, the elaborately built wall holding everything in just broke and his mouth was moving against his will between each separate sob.

“I’m sorry, I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to” Peter gasped, it felt like a vacuum had come and sucked up every ounce of oxygen, because he could not breathe.

Happy was staring at him in confusion, really worried, probably because Peter had almost hurt another person.

“Jesus, kid, it’s alright, okay? It’s alright, see we’re both fine, nothing happened” Happy’s brows are tense as he watches Peter crumble.

His face fell as he watched Peter cry, “There was a reason you didn’t want to come out here, wasn’t there?”

Peter’s breathing is everywhere as he gives a harsh nod, refusing to lift his eyes up to meet Happy’s.

“Tony said- he promised he’d show me how to d-drive”

Tony’s voice in his head, laughing as Peter bonked his head on the lab table in his excitement before asking if he was alright.

“and N-Nat said once I got my license, s-she’d let me drive her to her favorite restaurant and you k-know she hates letting other people drive her” Peter choked, “She said we could get ice cream after”

Nat’s favorite restaurant was the Syrian place with the majestic Arabic letters painted inside on the walls, she loved the frozen yogurt place where it was self-serve and she could load it with as many boba bubbles and chocolate chips as she wanted.

The first time they’d trained together, she had let him win, after the match he’d told her to not underestimate him, she’d only lost 2 more times after that.

MJ was nervous to talk to Nat at first, and MJ was never nervous, after though, they’d talk all the time and it was immediately decided that they were probably one of the most terrifying and badass duos to ever walk the Earth.

Happy was still watching him in a frozen silence, “Tony told me h-he’d let me take his old red car for a drive, and we’d always l-laugh and talk about which car suited me b-est” a new set of tears was coming, “He kept saying he’d get me the best car there was and I always said you don’t have to because I wanted to earn it, myself” his breath hitched again and his next sentence was practically squeezed out of him, “He always said I’ve already earned it”

Tony and him laughing in the lab and dancing to the music FRIDAY had put on for them. Pepper coming down and just watching wearily with a smile as something caught on fire and they both ran around like idiots trying to put it out.

Somehow, he always ended up sleeping on Tony during movie night and the team had an abundance of pictures in the album with them.

Tony claiming he burned everything he cooked, but making pasta that could rival anyone’s anyways.

Peter calling him after a nightmare and just talking until he eventually fell asleep.

He and Ned had worshiped him growing up and even after meeting him a gazillion times, Ned still stared with wide eyes as he walked away, because he was Tony Stark, he was Iron Man for god’s sake. The shock of it never got old, Peter felt the same most of the time.

“Happy-”, another hitch, “Happy, they’re both gone” Peter finally looked up at him and did a double-take when he realized there were shining tears in his eyes, and the older man was looking at him with a conflicted look, but Peter needed to finish this first.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I couldn't help or do anything-” he takes in a shuddering breath and Happy looks mad, why was he mad?

“Peter, you’re going to listen to me when I say this” Peter nods confirmation and Happy’s voice is a lot softer, “It wasn’t your fault, none of it was, at all, I promise. Tony did everything he did for you, kid I-” Happy coughed, trying to subtly wipe the tear that fell, “Do you know how devastated he was every time your name would pop up on the missing or he saw a picture of you? The first months, we’d have to drag him out of his lab, kicking and screaming because he was still trying to find ways to bring you back.” Peter shut his eyes, trying not to imagine the horrific scene.

“When he had Morgan he was so worried he’d mess up and he’d always tell us about how happy you would be if you knew you had a sister. He didn’t want to lose Morgan because he’d already lost you, he thought with Morgan he had a second chance and I know he never ever stopped thinking about you.” Happy looked wistful, and his gaze may have been on Peter but it was obvious he wasn’t really seeing him.

Happy breathed in, closing his eyes, “And Nat, well that girl was one hard kick. You know the first time I met her she flipped be over, I had bruises that lasted weeks”

Peter huffs, trying a laugh, “That seems like Nat”

“She talked about you too, a lot, she was pretty fond of you, talking about how awesome you were. I remember in the first few years where you were gone, she’d always be down in the training room but I never once saw her actually training. You were one of her favorite people to spar with and she worked around the clock trying to bring everyone back. You were a part of her family, we all were.” Happy zeroes in on him again, “Tony and Nat were alike in a lot of ways, but one of the big ones was they both loved you, kid. Those two are peas in a pod and I have never seen them look as proud as they were when they looked at you, it’s not your fault they’re gone. They knew the risks and what it would take to bring you back”

Peter listened, numb, as Happy’s words echoed through his head dully, bouncing, back and forth, back and forth.

They both loved you, kid.

It’s not your fault.

Happy squeezed his shoulder, blinking his irritated eyes, “Let’s go get some food, kid. We can finish the driving lessons some other time.”

thanks for reading, i hope you liked it! (Reblogs appreciated!)

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time-to-cause-chaos · 3 years

Text

the weird ways we save the world

AO3 link WC: 1,580

He’s dreaming, he has to be. There is absolutely no way this is real-life because Peter fricking Parker, is standing right over Thanos holding a frying pan.

A goddamn frying pan.

or Peter doesn't know how he did it, but he kinda saved the universe with a cast-iron skillet

Carol is incredible.

She’d given them a pretty good boot-up and Tony was pretty sure the gauntlet was flying around in the battle somewhere. Somebody better hurry up and grab the thing before Thanos gets his hold on it, again.

Tony grunts as he pushes the debris off of him, getting up just in time to blast another enemy to the ground.

“FRIDAY, where’d the kid go?”, he asks, he’s not really expecting FRIDAY to respond, it was mostly just to remind himself that Peter wasn’t a hallucination and look, it’s not his fault he’s determined not to let the kid too far out of his sight. With Peter’s weird magnetic attachment to almost getting himself killed every 5 seconds, it’s a valid concern.

“I don’t have a current location but his vitals are mostly stable, boss”

He’s slammed on his back abruptly as the alien he was fighting dies and its dead body falls onto him. Tony shoves them off and is instantly up on his feet again, running to intercept Thanos as he tries to grab the gauntlet off the ground where it had fallen.

He manages to jump onto Thanos’s back before being flung forward, this time he sees stars when his head hits the ground, he groans. He has got to stop landing on his back, the bruises are gonna be terrible later.

Tony’s elbows dig into the ground as he pushes himself up, seeing Thor and Steve hit the ground. He’s too far away from them now and they need to get the stones away before he can use them again.

Grimacing, he runs and goes over the rushed-plan he’d just come up with, this was it. If he didn’t do this, all this effort, this second-chance would all go to waste and that couldn’t happen.

Everyone was on their last leg, there was only a little bit of time left or they were going to lose again.

He’s still a good distance away and Thanos is just about to snap, hand raising up and stones at his disposal, oh no, they were so close. This couldn’t be it, not when things were finally looking up.

Swallowing down the nausea he diverts all power to the thrusters, there’s a good chance he won’t make it in time, but hell if he doesn’t try.

Until Thanos falls forward and face-plants the floor, dust billowing up from where he fell, Tony comes to a stuttering stop.

Oh. my. god.

He’s dreaming, he has to be. There is absolutely no way this is real-life because Peter fricking Parker, is standing right over Thanos holding a frying pan.

A goddamn frying pan.

“Holy shit, I did not think that would work.”, Peter says, turning over the pan in his hand, “That explains why Rapunzel is such a badass.” He looks down at Thanos, “Oh shoot, I think I might have brained him”, he sounds panicked.

It takes a moment for Tony’s brain to catch onto what’s going on but Thanos looks dead and did a cast-iron skillet just take him out??

There are still more aliens but slowly, everyone’s coming to their senses about what just happened. Everyone in the near-vicinity is now focusing on Peter and the limp body lying in front of him, jaws resting heavily on the floor.

Tony blinks, frozen, as Steve looks over at him in shock.

“Is he dead??” Peter’s worried voice drifts through the astonished atmosphere and Tony makes a move towards him.

He grips Peter’s forearm and pulls him a couple feet back, twisting him into his side.

“You are crazy, kiddo” he whispers.

“I just found it over there”, Peter gestures vaguely towards a pile of wreckage before his arm falls limp against his side, “Wow, this was exhausting”

The noise of the yelling and clashing has pretty much died down at this point and Tony looks up and sees everyone smiling in a funny sort of way, probably trying to figure out what just happened but amused nonetheless.

Still pulling Peter by his arm, he grabs Pepper as she stumbles towards him and wraps her in a hug too, contented to take full advantage of this moment.

He breathes in the feeling of them both pressed against him and ignores the harsh scent of metal and copper around him.

He stands there for another long moment before turning to Thor who’s grinning at him, “The pan has become the most prominent weapon in this battle” he laughs.

Tony huffs out a harsh laugh too, feeling a little out of breath.

Then turning to Steve, “Is everyone alright?”

“We’re still getting a head count but it could be a lot worse and Strange already got Thanos taken care of, he’s gone, for good this time.”, Steve smiles warily at Peter, “Nice job, Queens”

Peter blushes and looks bashful as Tony pulls him into his side again and presses another kiss to his head.

“FRI, what’s the closest building we can get some medical supplies and food?”, Tony asks. There were still plenty of people injured and everyone needed to recuperate and get out of battle-mode before anything else.

Most of the rooms were already filled with people in recovery and the hallways of the building were filled with the tears and hugs of everyone finding their friends and celebrating.

Peter, using a phone to call May, nearly cries in relief when she picks up. He immediately starts telling her that Tony’s sending a jet over so she can meet him here.

Hanging up with a relieved sigh he looks at Tony where he’s leaning in the doorway, “Frying pans are now the only weapon I’ll accept” he laughs.

Tony snorts and hangs his head in disbelief, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Stark Industries starts rolling out the skillet ads for weaponry, the news’’ll have a fit. Just imagine the headlines, ‘angry wife beats the shit out of spouse with a frying pan’, it’ll be revolutionary, ushering in a new era of intelligence” Tony says, exaggeratedly.

Peter snicker is cut off with a grunt as someone barrels into him, “Parker, you crazy bastard”

“Harley, oh my gosh” Peter hugs him tighter and Harley speaks again, “Only you, only you could take our Earth’s mortal enemy with a kitchen accessory.” Harley grips his shirt, “You’re insane. If you hadn’t just saved the entire universe I’d be teasing you to an early grave right right about now”

Peter’s giddy as he pulls away, “I know” he laughs, “How are your mom and sister?”

“They’re good, I just got off the phone with them. Did you know Abby is older than me now? It’s really weird”. They’re both still holding each other at an arm’s length, taking everything in.

Tony comes up behind them and they all fall onto a couch, “You know I have a daughter now? Her name’s Morgan and I’m actually kind of scared to put her near you two because I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep soundly now that there are mischievous kids sneaking around everywhere. Anyway, you guys are going to love her” Tony grins, glad he’d got that all out in one breath.

Peter and Harley are looking at him in surprise now, “Oh wow, that is so awesome” Peter breathes.

Harley sniggered, “We are so going to corrupt her but if she’s anything like you, she’s probably already too far gone”.

Tony sighs, bringing them both closer on either side, “You know I wouldn’t have it any other way”, then he looks offended, “And I’ll have you know I’m a very good role model”

Harley groans, “You ruined our moment, Stark and I’m sorry, but have you met yourself?”

Tony doesn’t have time to reply because Clint barrels in, “Something’s happening” he says, eyebrows tight.

There's already a small gathering of people outside and Tony pushes through to meet with Bruce at the front, “What’s going on?” he asks, glancing worriedly at the bright blue swirling portal ahead of them.

“We don’t know, it just appeared a couple of minutes ago” Bruce replied, eyes fixed on the anomaly.

There’s the shadow of someone walking out the portal and everyone fixes their stance, arms up in defense.

“...Natasha?” Clint’s shaky voice breaks through the silence before he drops everything and is rushing at her, lifting her up into the air in his excitement.

Clint puts her down, hand on her bicep, “I- but how? You-” He stammers before just saying, “Never, ever, do that again”

Natasha barely nods at Clint before looking over, trying to catch every else’s eyes. Everyone stands shocked for a second before they’re broken out of their stupor and Steve, Thor, Bruce, and Tony are all rushing over to her to join Clint in squeezing the life out of her.

“But how did you do it?” Thor asks, voice muffled. She laughs, a sound that Tony hadn’t realized he’d missed, oh my god, what would they have done without her?

“I have my ways” she smirks, “I heard my little spider took Thanos out with a frypan”

She pins her gaze on Peter who’s still looking at her in fascination from the sidelines, he instantly runs over to her and clutches her shoulders tightly as she pulls him in an embrace, “Hi, Nat”, he whispers into her shoulders.

“It’s good to have you back, Tasha”

“Good to be back, Steve”

Based on this tumblr post i found and thank you so much @unoffical-marvel for beta-ing this! (Also definitely go check out their blog because her quotes are the best and they’re just a great person in general)

#moira writes #my fics #ao3 #fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #endgame #endgame fix it fic #fix it #peter parker #tony stark #natasha romanoff #irondad #avengers #marvel

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