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waitimcomingtoo · 1 year

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The Great War

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: Peters double life causes serious strain on your relationship

Masterlist

Peters's knuckles were bruised like violets when walked into campus one chilly Monday morning. He flexed his aching hands a few times before hiding them in his pockets so no one could see them. He sat beside you in his morning lecture class and cupped your face to kiss you hello, momentarily forgetting about his bruised knuckles.

“Oh my God. What happened to you?” You gasped and took Peters hand.

“Huh? Oh that? I, uh, I fell.” Peter quickly lied and withdrew his hand.

“You fell? On your knuckles?” You laughed in confusion. Peter began to panic when he saw the skeptical look on your face.

“Yeah. It’s this technique I learned online. Instead of using your hands it break your fall, you use your knuckles. Its better for your wrists since they won’t feel the impact. It’s called the Donkey Kong.“ Peter exclaimed as his eyes darted to the side. You gave him a strange look before taking his hand to look at his knuckles again.

“I don’t know, Petey. These are really bruised. It looks like you punched someone. Like, a bunch of times. Just a rain of punches. Over and over. Like this.” You said as you punched the air back and forth as if you were fighting someone. Peter felt his face get hot as you described exactly how he had gotten those bruises.

“What? What situation would I be in that I would be doing something like that? That’s crazy? What a silly girl you are. A real silly Billy.” Peter laughed nervously as he tried to deflect you. It backfired as his odd behavior only made you more suspicious.

“You okay?”

“I’m great. I gotta go study for my gym test. Love you. Bye.” Peter quickly kissed you before running away. As much as he hated lying to you, he knew he had to do it to conceal his double life. But lately, it was getting harder and harder to keep you in the dark about his Spiderman duties. You were growing more and more suspicious of his behavior, all while Peter was feeling more and more guilty about lying to you.

You were in Peters bedroom a few days later with open textbooks and notes all around you. You were supposed to be studying for an upcoming exam together but Peter could barely focus on anything but the fuzzy little shorts you had on. He knew you were freezing but wanted to wear them anyway because you thought the snowflake pattern was cute, and that made it all the more adorable to him.

“Why is it so cold in here?” You asked and rubbed your hands together.

“Oh, thanks for asking. It’s because my landlord hates us.” Peter said with a cheery smile. You laughed at him before getting off his bed to go to his closet.

“Is it okay if I grab a sweatshirt?” You looked over your shoulder at him as you opened his closet doors. Peter saw his Spiderman suit hanging right in the middle of his closet and felt the color drain from his face.

“Don’t in there!” He exclaimed as he spun you around and shut the closet doors behind him. You gave him a strange look and Peter immediately regretted his reaction.

“Sorry. It’s just really messy in there and I don’t want you to see it.” Peter lied.

“Oh. Okay.” You nodded but didn’t sound like you believed him. Peter grabbed a hoodie off the back of his desk chair and weakly held it out to you.

“Here. And if you’re still cold, we could get under the covers.” Peter said with a cheeky smile.

“I like the sound of that.” You smiled in return before leaning in to kiss him. Peter slipped an arm around your waist and easily lifted you off the ground. He brought you over to his bed and laid you down on it without ever breaking the kiss. You made out on his bed for a little while until something out the window caught your eye.

“Oh no. it snowing?” You asked and sat up a little. Peter pulled his curtain back and saw the flurry of snowflakes being lit up my the streetlights.

“Oh yeah. It is.”

“Ugh. Now I have to walk home in the snow.” You groaned and flopped back down onto his pillow.

“No way. I can’t let you do that. I’ll steal Mays car keys and drive you home.” Peter offered and he laid down on top of you and rested his chin on your chest. You started to play with his curls until an idea came into your mind.

“Or I could just sleep over.” You timidly suggested. Peters heart began to beat in his chest as he picked his head up to see if you were serious.

“Really? You want to?” He asked hopefully.

“Yeah. I want to.” You nodded before pulling him back down into a kiss. You started to make out again, tugging off articles of each others clothes every now and then. Peter slipped his finger through yours and squeezed your hand as he deepened the kiss. He knew that you sleeping over for the first time meant it would be the first time for something else too and he couldn’t contain his excitement. He smiled against your lips but was suddenly disturbed by his police radio going off. Peter jumped off of you and threw a pillow at it before you could hear the crime it had picked up on.

“What was that?” You wondered.

“It’s my birth control alarm. I’ll be right back.” Peter quickly got off of you, grabbed his police radio, and bolted to the bathroom. Once he was inside, he sat on the toilet and turned the volume down so that he could hear what was going on.

“We need all units, I repeat we need all units on the corner of 22nd and 13th Ave. We have reports of an ongoing bank robbery. Possible hostages inside.” Peter heard over the radio. He hung his head in defeat before getting up to look in the mirror.

“Okay Parker. You could lose your virginity tonight or you could go save New York. Which is it?” He asked his reflection. He stared at himself for a long time but couldn’t decide.

“Why should I have to go? The police probably have it covered. Besides, I have a beautiful girl in my bed right now who is expecting mediocre sex right now that only I can deliver.” He reminded himself. As much as he wanted to believe that, he couldn’t help but feel guilty about not going to stop the robbery.

“I’m a good little boy. I get good grades. I’m nice to old people. I respect women. And I protect New York every single day. I can take one night off. I deserve to get laid tonight.” He decided. He slapped his cheeks a few times to psyche himself up and was about to leave the bathroom when he thought of the night Ben died. It had happened because of a robbery and tonight, Peter had the opportunity to stop anyone else from losing an uncle the way he did. He looked at himself in the mirror again and sighed.

“Not tonight, kid. The only way you’re getting laid is if you crawl up a chickens ass and wait.” He made his final decision before leaving the bathroom. You were sitting up on his bed in your bra and sweatpants with hair still messy from Peters hands. It took everything in Peters power not to jump right back into the bed with you and ignore the radio, but he knew he’d never be able to live with himself if he did.

“Is everything okay?” You asked when you noticed his face.

“I’m sorry, lover. I don’t think you should sleep over tonight.” He said as he looked at the ground in shame.

“Oh. You don’t want me to?” You asked and Peter could hear the disappointment in your voice. He watched you sheepishly reach for your discarded shirt and pull it over your head, making him feel even worse.

“Of course I do. Trust me, it’s not you. It’s me. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He said as his eyes flickered over to his closet. If he pulled his suit out and told you he had to go stop a bank robbery, you would understand why he was kicking you out.

“I…I’m…” He continued to look at his closet as he struggled to get the words out. He sighed in defeat after a minute and looked at the ground.

“I’m a bed wetter.” He lied, immediately squeezing his eyes shut in regret.

“Oh. Really?” You asked in concern as you got off his bed.

“Yeah. It’s chronic. I have to sleep on plastic sheets and everything. And I just don’t want to risk you getting peed on.” He continued to lie, feeling worse about it with every word he said.

“Have you seen a doctor about it? Is it an anxiety thing?”

“Yeah. It’s been happening the last couple of years.”

“You mean since Ben passed?” You said sympathetically and put your hands on Peters shoulders to comfort him. He could barely believe that you not only believed his lie, but were helping it sound more believable.

“Yeah. The doctor said that’s the most likely cause.” He nodded his head without looking at you.

“Oh, honey.” You said quietly as you pulled him into a hug. Peter felt horrible for accepting your comfort after lying to you. He expected you to laugh at him, but you were nothing but understanding and somehow that made lying feel so much worse.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” You said once you pulled out of the hug.

“You have no idea.” Peter mumbled and felt a knot in his stomach.

“I should probably get going before the snow gets worse.” You said with a sad smile. Peter sighed and wanted nothing more than to tell you to stay.

“Yeah. I could walk you?”

“That’s okay. I’ll be fine.” You gave him a tight smile as you put on your jacket. He could tell you were disappointed that you hadn’t gone all the way tonight and he felt just as upset about it. It was times like these that he resented the night he was bitten and wished he could just be a normal person.

“Okay, love. Get home safe.”

“I always do.” You said before kissing him goodbye.

Peter sighed and stressfully tugged at his hair once you were gone. He could feel the strain he was putting on your relationship and worried how much more of this you could take. Even though he was going through something and needed to think things through, he put on his Spiderman suit and swung out to the crime scene.

Peter was relived when you invited him over the next night to hang out at your apartment. You told him your mom was off at some company holiday party so you would have the apartment to yourselves for the evening. You put on a festive movie and watched the first 15 minutes before climbing into Peters lap to kiss him. You made out on your couch until your phone buzzed on the couch, interrupting the moment.

“Hang on. It’s my mom.” You said as you read the text.

“How’s her office party going?” Peter asked as he drummed his fingers on your waist.

“Good. But she said there’s no cabs so she’s gonna sleep over a friends house tonight. She won’t be back until dinner time tomorrow.”

“Really? So you have the place to yourself tonight?”

“No. We have the place to ourselves.” You smiled as you dropped your phone on the couch.

“Well. What should we do?” Peter played dumb as he slipped a hand behind your head to pull you closer.

“I have no idea.” You replied before closing the gap between you and kissing him again. Your make out session resumed and Peter was room gripping the seat of the couch as you trailed kisses down his neck.

“Stay the night.” You said between kisses. Peter found himself nodding before he realized what he was doing. He pulled away from the kiss and let out a deep sigh, knowing he had to disappoint you again.

“I can’t. I’m a bed wetter, remember?” He said and sat back on the couch.

“It’s okay. Just don’t drink anything else tonight and pee before you go to sleep.” You said as you climbed back into his lap and started to trail kisses down his neck. Peter clenched his fist as you made it harder and harder to leave you.

“I’ve tried that. I’ll still pee.”

“I’ll take the chance.” You said and pulled him into another kiss. Peter could feel himself getting sucked in and knew he had to stop before he ended up staying the night. He pulled away to tell you he had to go, but you spoke before he got a chance to.

“I just want to know what it’s like to fall asleep in your arms and wake up next to you. Don’t you want that?” You whispered against his lips.

“More than anything.”

“Good. Plus if you stay, we could…” You trailed off and leaned down to kiss him again. Peter kissed you back and temporarily forgot all about his responsibilities as Spiderman. He was somehow presented with another opportunity to go all the way with you and knew he couldn’t disappoint you like he did last time.

“Please stay.” You whispered against his mouth. Peter looked at you and was nearly about to give in, but knew he couldn’t live with himself if he stayed the night and something ended up happening that he wasn’t there to stop.

“I want to stay. You have no idea how much I want to stay. But I just can’t.” He told you. You nodded your head in disappointment and slid off his lap to sit beside him on the couch. There was an awkward silence between the two of you as neither knew what to do now. Finally, Peter turned his head so that he could look at you.

“I know I can’t stay the night, but we could still…” He trailed off and gave you a knowing look.

“I’m really tired actually. I think I’m gonna go to sleep.” You said and got off the couch. Peter sighed and hung his head in defeat, knowing he had once again blown it with you. He stood up and pulled you into a hug, trying to silently convey an apology.

“I would stay if I could.”

“Yeah, I know.” You replied, but he knew you weren’t convinced.

“Goodnight. I love you.” He said weakly as you trudged towards your bedroom.

“Love you too.” You replied and shut your door behind you. The absence of the “I” was not lost on Peter as he got up to leave. He gave your door one last look before going out into the cold.

When Peter saw you on campus the next day, he went up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist. He rested his head on your shoulder and pressed a kiss to your neck, feeling you relax in his arms.

“I’m sorry about last night.” He mumbled in your ear.

“No, Peter, I’m sorry. I was upset that you left but I wasn’t even thinking about how you felt. I’m sure it’s hard for you to sleep outside of your own bed with your condition and I definitely didn’t make it any easier. And I’m also sorry if you felt pressured to, you know…”You said with an embarrassed smile.

“I didn’t feel pressured. I really wanted to. I swear, I did.” He assured you.

“Really?” You asked for reassurance.

“Are you kidding me? It’s literally all I think about.” Peter told you, making you crack a smile. You wrapped your arms around him and rested your head on his heartbeat to thank him for the reassurance.

“I was starting to feel like you didn’t want me like that.” You admitted, making Peters stomach drop. He knew his lies were affecting your relationship but he hadn’t realized they effected your self esteem too.

“I do. I want you so badly every waking hour of the day. I’m just nervous, okay? You’re my first girlfriend and I don’t want to mess this up. It’s way too important to me.”

“I understand that. I don’t want to mess this up either. And maybe we could try again today. My mom is still at her friends house.”

“You want to try again?” He asked hopefully. “During the daytime?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard it’s possible.” You chuckled and pulled out of the hug.

“Okay. Yeah. That would be amazing. Let’s do that.” Peter nodded eagerly, in disbelief that he was getting so many chances with you.

“Perfect.” You smiled. “I know you’re done with class for the day so I’ll text you after my last one and then you can come over.”

“Can’t wait.” Peter grinned and leaned down to kiss you.

While Peter waited for you to get out of class, he invited Ned over to calm his nerves. He was looking in the mirror and perfecting his hair while Ned sat on his bed.

“So you guys are actually gonna do it? You’re gonna lose your virginity?” Ned asked as he fumbled with a rubix cube from Peters desk.

“Yeah. Todays the today.” Peter sighed happily. “It almost happened a few times but I kept having to leave to take care of a crime.”

“Wow. Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No. Not at all. But I think I should be able to figure it out pretty quickly.” Peter said, sounding unconvinced.

“Yeah. It shouldn’t be too hard. You just put the magic wand into the wizard sleeve and-“

“Oh my God.” Peter cut him off. “Please don’t refer to my girlfriend as a wizard sleeve.”

“Why not?” Ned genuinely wondered. Peter was not longer listening as he had pulled out his phone to text you that he’d be over soon. Before he got the chance, he got a news alert that threw a wrench in his plans.

“Fuck.” Peter groaned once he read the headline.

“What’s wrong?”

“There was a ten car pile up on 33rd street. It says multiple people are trapped in their cars.”

“Oh shit. Dude, you gotta get down there.”

“I know. But what am I gonna tell Y/n?” Peter sighed as his thumbs danced over the keyboard.

“Just tell her you’re sick.” Ned shrugged.

“I always give her that excuse. How many times is she gonna believe I randomly fell ill before a date?” Peter genuinely wondered.

“I know you want to see her. But this matters more. She’s understand if she knew what you were doing.” Ned reminded him.

“I know. But she doesn’t know what I’m doing. And it’s really straining our relationship. I don’t know how many more last minute cancellations she’s gonna put up with.” Peter nervously admitted as he typed out an excuse to you.

“I’m so sorry baby! can we please reschedule our plans? my stummy hurt😔” He texted you and anxiously waited for a response. He felt horrible lying but had no other choice at this point.

“oh no honey :( did you eat the whole box of wheat thins again??? I know you love them but eating the whole box only hurts us both” You texted back. Peter was initially relived that you weren’t mad but then felt his guilt worsen over the fact that you were so understanding when he was lying to you.

“I know I should’ve listened to you 💀 I have really bad wheat thin cramps right now 😵‍💫🤢🧥😩” He texted you again, burying himself further in the lie.

“poor baby :( I can come over and take care of you”

Peter read your text and groaned in frustration, knowing this meant he had to lie even more.

“It’s really bad 💀 you shouldn’t see me like this. you’ll never find me attractive again”

“ok baby <3 text me if you need anything. and feel better. I love you !!” You texted him back. Peter chewed his bottom lip as his guilt chewed him back. He reluctantly tossed his phone onto his bed and looked at Ned.

“Did you have plans tonight? I think I’m gonna need my guy in the chair.” Peter said as he pulled his Spiderman suit out of his closet. Ned’s eyes lit up as he proudly stood up from Peters bed.

“Let’s go eat some ass.” Ned said with determination.

“Wait what? Whose ass are we eating? And why?”

“Sorry. I wanted to say a cool one liner before we went. I meant to say let’s go kick some ass.” Ned corrected himself.

“Who’s ass are we kicking? We’re helping car crash victims. Why would we kick them?” Peter reminded him as he pressed the center of his suit to tighten it.

“Can we just go?” Ned sighed in defeat.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

The next day, you trudged into your morning class and plopped into the seat next to Ned.

“Good morning.” Ned greeted you.

“Is it?” You grumbled and dropped your bag on the ground.

“Damn. What’s got you in such a mood?”

“My mom didn’t want me driving after that huge pile up last night so she made me walk to campus. My legs feel like they’re gonna fall off.” You groaned and rested your head on your desk.

“She honestly did you a favor. You know it was caused by this huge patch of ice? The paramedics kept sliding on it when they tried to help people out of their cars.”

“How do you know that?” You asked as you picked your head up off the desk.

“Peter and I saw it.” Ned told you. “It was pretty bad.”

“You and Peter were there? Last night?” You asked as your stomach dropped.

“Yeah. Peter asked me to come with him to….” Ned trailed off when he saw the look on your face. Before Ned could ask what was wrong, Peter took a seat beside you. You had a sense you’d been betrayed as you slowly turned to look at Peter.

“Hey guys. What’s up?” Peter asked and leaned in to kiss you.

“You said your stummy hurt.” You said and pushed him away.

“What?” Peter laughed in confusion.

“Oh shit.” Ned covered his hand with his mouth when he realized what he had done.

“You lied to me?” You whispered in disbelief as you got out of your seat. You didn’t wait for Peter to respond and ran out of the classroom.

“Wait. I can explain.” Peter said as he ran after you. You ran down the hallway but Peter was faster than you.

“Lover, wait, please.” Peter pleaded as he caught up to you.

“Are you cheating on me?” You blurted as you wiped around to face Peter.

“What? Cheating on you?” Peter laughed in surprise.

“You’re laughing at me?” You asked as tears slid down your face.

“No, no, I’m not honey I swear. It’s just, do you really think it’s possible that I could get two girls to like me at the same time? Getting you to like me was a total miracle.” Peter chuckled as he rested his hands on your shoulders.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny.” You snapped and pushed his hands off of you.

“I don’t. I swear.” Peter dropped his smile. “I just don’t understand why you’d ever think I was cheating on you.”

“Maybe because you’re lying to me about where you are. You said you were sick last night but Ned said you were with him. And I know that’s not the first time you’ve lied about being sick to get out of a date. I know you do it all the time. You think I haven’t realized it but I do.”

“Oh.” Peter said quietly, unsure of what else to say.

“God Peter, why do I feel like I’m crazy lately? Why do I feel like I have to chase you down just to talk to you?” You asked and wiped the tears that kept falling.

“What are you talking about? I’m right here.” Peter assured you and tried to touch you again but you just stepped back.

“You’re here for now. But you are constantly running off to do God knows what and leaving me behind. I don’t want to have to beg to be a footnote in your life anymore, Peter. You either need to tell me what’s going on or we are over.”

“Nothings going on.” Peter said weakly, knowing you’d never believe it. He could feel himself losing you but felt helpless to stop it. You’d never threatened to break up before and he could only hope you were bluffing.

“Nothings going on? Nothings going on?” You raised your voice and grabbed his sleeve. Peter watched as you pushed it up to reveal a bruise in the shape of a hand print going around his wrist, the mark of where he had he grabbed a few nights ago.

“Then why do you come into school with bruises and injuries every single day? Where do you go? Who does this to you?“

“Nobody.” Peter lied and pushed his sleeve down.

“Nobody?” You folded your arms and gave him a look.

“Nobody.” He repeated but couldn’t look you in the eyes. You let out a disappointed sigh and nodded your head since you expected his answer to be another lie.

“Do you not want me around?” You asked him, making him do a double take.

“What? How could you even ask me that?” Peter wondered. He felt sick to his stomach knowing that he had made you feel like that.

“Because I feel you want to break up with me but don’t know how to do it. And that’s why you lie and make up excuses. So that you don’t have to me around me.”

“That’s not true. I love being around you. I would be with you every second of the day if I could. But I can’t. You have to believe me that I just can’t.” Peter pleaded with you as he began to cry as well.

“Why should I believe you when you have done nothing but lie to me?”

“I honestly don’t know. But please do it anyway.”

“I don’t want to break up with you, Peter. I really don’t. I just want answers. Please.” You said and dropped your defensive body language. As hurt as you were, you still loved him and wanted to believe that he really did have a reason as to why he did the things he did. You took a step towards him and let him reach out and touch you this time.

“Answers to what? Ask me. I’ll answer as many as I can.” He promised a she squeezed your hand.

“Okay. For starters, why are you always canceling plans on me last minute? Or leaving school, dates, or hangouts at a moments notice but never explaining why? And are you so secretive about your phone and the things in your closet?“

“I…don’t.. I can’t answer those.” Peter blinked in surprised when he realized he couldn’t answer a single question without revealing his secret.

“Of course you can’t. We’re done.” You held up your hands in defeat and started it walk away again.

“Wait! Baby, please.” Peter begged and pulled you back.

“Do you even wet the bed?” You asked him, stunning him to silence.

“No. I lied about that.” He admitted.

“Like how you lied about being sick last night?” You sniffled.

“Yes. I lied about that too.”

“What else have you lied about?”

“I…can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I want to - I really fucking want to -but I can’t.”

“Then we’re over.” You laughed sadly and stepped back from him.

“No. Please. We can’t be over.” Peter cried and tried to reach for you but you withdrew.

“How are we supposed to be together if you can’t be honest with me?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. This is the last time I’m asking you, Peter. Tell me the truth.”

“I…” Peter opened his mouth but quickly trailed off. Your eyes filled with hope for a split second as you thought he was actually going to be honest with you. But when his mouth shut, all your hope faded away. You shook your head in disappointment before walking away from him.

That night, you ignored the dozens of calls and texts from Peter and eventually blocked his number. When he saw that his texts were no longer being delivered, he left you alone and opened his camera roll instead. He scrolled through a few pictures of the two of you before finding one from your very first date. He stared at the picture until his eyesight was blurry with tears.

“Do I have to lose you too?” He whispered.

Peter saw you the next day on campus and ran to you before you could walk in the other direction.

“Can we talk?” He pleaded as he stepped in front of you.

“No. We can’t.” You said and kept walking.

“Please, lover, don’t do this to me. Are we really just gonna break up over nothing?”

“Over nothing?” You stopped in your tracks and raised an eyebrow.

“That was the wrong choice of words. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothing-“

“It was wasn’t nothing to me.” You cut him off. “I cried myself to sleep so many times these past few months because I knew you were lying to me about something. And even now, you can’t tell me the truth about what you’ve been doing. You made me feel like I was crazy. I thought that there had to be something wrong with me because what other reason could there be for my own boyfriend to lie and say he was a bed wetter just to get out of sleeping with me? But it’s not something wrong with me. Something is wrong with you, Peter, because you couldn’t have cared less about someone who loved you more. I would’ve loved you for a lifetime and now I have to leave that all behind. So I’m not mad about nothing. Personally I have a lot to be mad about.”

You walked away before Peter had a chance to respond or apologize again. You ended up skipping the classes you had with him that day so he never had another opportunity to talk to you. Knowing he had to do whatever it took to win you back, Peter showed up at your apartment door wearing his best apology.

“Oh my God.” You groaned when you opened your door and saw who it was.

“That’s on your for opening the door without looking through the peephole.” Peter mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Are you joking?”

“No, I’m sorry. I was trying to break the ice.”

“Go away, Peter. We broke up.” You whined and started to close the door.

“I know we broke up. But I really think you should reconsider.” Peter said as he held the door open with his hand. You tried to close it again but he was stronger.

“I’m not gonna reconsider this, Peter. You think this was easy for me? I didn’t want to break up with you but you pushed me to it. It’s hard enough so please, stop making it harder. Just let me go.”

“But-“

You cut him off by closing the door in his face. Peter sighed in defeat but was not going to let a door stop him from getting you back. He swiftly left the building and scaled the side of it in an attempt to find your window. He quickly realized that buildings don’t have the floor numbers on the outside and ended up looking in a lot of strangers windows before finding yours. He saw you inside so you opened your window and tumbled into your bedroom.

“Oh my God. What the fuck? How did you even get out there?” You gasped in surprise when you saw him falling through your window.

“I climbed.” He smiled sheepishly and brushed himself off.

“You climbed? 5 stories?” You folded your arms skeptically.

“Yes. I can do that sort of thing.” Peter answered honestly as he approached you.

“You are such a liar. I can’t believe I put up with this for so long. If you think climbing five stories up the fire escape is gonna make me fake you back then-“

Peter cut you off by shooting a web at your hip and pulling you closer to him. You stumbled into his arms as he caught you with ease and looked around in bewilderment over how he managed to do such a thing.

“What the hell?” You whispered and looked at the web on your hip, still not realizing what it was.

“I need you to stop being mad at me for two minutes and listen to me.” Peter said in an tone that made you give him your full attention. His heart raced knowing that this was the moment you’d finally know the truth but he wasn’t going to let anything stop him.

“Unbutton it.” He said and patted his flannel shirt.

“If you think we’re gonna make up with some hate sex then you are sadly mistaken.” You laughed and tried to get out of his arms.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” He whined. “I mean, if you wanna do that afterwards then I’m down, but that’s not what I’m doing now. Just unbutton my shirt. Please.”

You gave him a skeptical look but did as he asked. You could feel his heart pounded in his chest as you unbuttoned the first button, then the next two.

“Never trust an atom. They make up everything.” You read off his T shirt. “Why did I need to see this?”

“Oh fuck. I forgot to put it on.” Peter realized and looked down at where his Spiderman suit was supposed to be.

“Put what on?”

“My suit.”

“Why would you put a suit on underneath your clothes?”

“Not that kind of suit. My suit. My special suit.”

“Peter, I don’t know what you’re doing here but I don’t have time for this. Just go home.” You groaned and pulled out of his arms.

“I can’t go home. I can’t walk away knowing you’re not gonna look back at me. You and I not being together doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t how our story is supposed to go. If I know anything at all for certain it’s that you and me are supposed to end up together. So no, I’m not going home. Not until I get you to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Why I’ve been lying to you.”

“You’re gonna tell me the truth?” You stepped forward and dropped your defenses.

“Yes. I am. The truth is….” Peter trailed off and ripped open his shirt the rest of the way as he dramatically tilted his chin up. You stared at him for a long time as he stopped in that pose until you realized he wasn’t gonna move.

“Am I supposed to know what this means?” You deadpanned.

“Pretend I’m wearing Spider-Man’s suit under this shirt.” Peter whispered without changing his pose.

“Why would I pretend that?” You asked with genuine confusion. Peter slowly looked down at you and braced himself before saying his biggest secret out loud for the first time.

“Because I am Spiderman.” He said and waited for your reaction. You stared at him for a long time before letting out a laugh.

“You are so full of shit to the point where I am legitimately concerned.”

“What? I’m telling you the truth. That’s why I have to leave at a moments notice and can never stay the night. And why I’m always beaten up. Because for the past 4 years, I have been New Yorks very own vigilante, Spiderman.” Peter said proudly and did another hero-esque pose.

“Uh huh. And I’m Batman.” You replied sarcastically.

“Oh my God, are you actually?”

“No! And neither are you!” You exclaimed. “If you’re not gonna tell me the truth, then just get out of-“

Peter cut you off by shooting a web at your closet door and pulling it shut. This time, you could see the web clearly and recognized what it was.

“How did you…” You trailed off and touched the web in amazement.

“Web shooters. I used them on you before too. I made them myself, see?” Peter said and showed you the shooters on his wrist. You hesitantly reached out to touch them and ran a careful finger along the delicate technology.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you show me this instead of opening your shirt?” You looked up to ask him.

“I wanted to be theatric.” Peter mumbled in embarrassment. You cracked a smile and looked like you were about to forgive him when your face suddenly hardened.

“I need more proof. Anybody could make those. How do I know you’re the real Spiderman?”

“Because I can do this.” Peter said and casually jumped and stuck to the ceiling with his right hand.

“And this.” He added and brought the rest of his body to the ceiling so that he could crawl across your room. He crawled over your head and dropped down to the floor as you watched with a dropped jaw.

“And sometimes this if a stretch.” Peter prefaced before attempting a backflip. Instead, he landed right on his back with a hard thud.

“Peter?” You gasped and went to see if he was okay.

“I didn’t stretch.” He groaned and rubbed his aching body.

“Oh my God. You’re ridiculous.” You chuckled and helped him off the floor.

“But do you believe me now?” Peter smiled hopefully.

“I kinda have to believe you now.”

“I just hope you know I’d never cheat on you or intentionally keep things from you. This is just something that I had to navigate completely on my own and I had no rules to go by. I was making it up as I went and I thought it would be best if nobody knew. Ned only knows because he accidentally found out. Same with May. I would’ve told you sooner if I knew how much it was gonna affect our relationship. Just please believe that I never meant for it to hurt you.” Peter said as he put his hands on your shoulders.

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?” You asked as tears from being overwhelmed fell down your face.

“Because I have no idea what kind of people are gonna come after me because of this. But I do know the number one person they could use to hurt me is you. I didn’t want to risk something happening to you if my enemies knew you were my girlfriend. So I figured if you didn’t know you were dating Spiderman, no one would know Spiderman was dating you.”

“You have enemies?” Your eyes softened as thought about your sweet boyfriend having people actively targeting him.

“Not like arch nemeses who sit in their evil lairs and plot my downfall like Mojo Jojo or Doofenshmirtz or something. But I have had to fight some pretty bad guys. I even fought one in space.” Peter shyly admitted.

“You’ve been to space?!”

“Just the once. And then I died or whatever.” Peter tried to make it sound casual so you wouldn’t freak out. You ran your fingers through your hair and gave them a stressful tug as you processed everything you were hearing.

“How long did you say you’ve been like this?” You asked him.

“I was bitten by a radioactive spider when I was 16. So four years now.”

“I’ve known you for 6 years.”

“Yeah. Since freshman year.” He smiled at the memory of meeting you his first day of high school.

“You’ve been lying to me for over half of them.” You said quietly, making Peters smile drop.

“Wait, what? I thought you were forgiving me.” Peters heart stopped when he realized you were still upset.

“Forgive you? For keeping this huge part of your life from me for years and letting it effect our relationship?”

“But…but I told you the truth.” Peter said weakly.

“Yeah, after telling me a million lies. And I had to break up with you to get the truth out of you. Seriously Peter, how many times do you think you’ve had to lie to me over the years just to keep this secret?”

“A lot.” He admitted.

“Exactly. I mean, what did you expect Peter? That you could just walk in here and tell me this and I’d just forget about all the pain your lies have caused me?”

“But you said if I told you the truth then we would be okay.” Peter reminded you as he started to tear up.

“That was before I knew that all your lying was because of a much much bigger lie.”

“I was only lying to you to protect you. I was trying to prevent something bad happening to you because of this thing that happened to me. I didn’t ask to be this way. And you definitely didn’t sign up for it either. So I just wanted to keep you as far away from it as possible so that you could live the normal life that I no longer get to have.”

“All I can think about right now is all the special events that you missed or the cancelled dates that I spent time planning and how you weren’t there.”

“I wanted to be there.” Peter shouted.

“But you weren’t!” You shouted back. “And I’ve had no idea why until now! You’ve made me feel like I was an afterthought for years now. All my friends call you a flake. They told me to break up with you every time I called them crying because you were gonna miss another important event. So sorry if you thought that telling me your secret would make me forget all of that, but it doesn’t. I remember the pain all too well.”

“I did not miss that much.” Peter insisted.

“Oh really? You weren’t at my 17th or my 20th birthday. You missed me speaking at our high school graduation. You stood me up on prom night and for the homecoming dance-“

“Okay, okay. I get it.” He cut you off. “But I only missed those events because I was off saving the world.”

“Then you should focus on that. Don’t let me stop you.” You said with a sad shrug. You weren’t saying it to be mean, but to be realistic.

“Lover, please. It’s us. We can’t be over.” Peter quietly pleaded as he tried to take your hand.

“It’s for the best, Peter. I won’t be a distraction to you anymore. You can live your double life without ever having to worry about who it’s hurting again. And I won’t have to live as your second choice anymore. We both win.” You said as you pulled your hand out of his.

“Win?” He laughed sadly. “I see this as an absolute loss.”

“So do I.” You mumbled and kept you eyes on the floor.

Peter looked down at the web shooters on his wrists and thought back to when he believed telling you the truth would fix everything. He never would’ve guessed that the truth wasn’t enough. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to juggle being Spiderman and having a girlfriend and now he didn’t have to wonder.

“This isn’t what I wanted.” He said quietly, mostly to himself.

“Me either.” You admitted

“So why are we breaking up? Can’t we just agree to disagree and move on?” Peter begged as he wiped his tears from his face.

“You don’t think fights like this will come up all the time? You’re still gonna be leaving me every night and I’m still gonna resent it. This isn’t something we can just agree to disagree on. Think about it, it’ll only get worse if we’re older. We can ignore this now but if we decided to get married and start a family one day, how do you think our kids would feel about their dad never being a consistent presences in their life? As someone who is constantly getting ditched by you, I already know that I never want my kids to feel that way. I think that if we really love each other, we have to accept that we aren’t right for each other.”

“Can’t we just date for the rest of college and then go our separate ways after that? It’s not like we’re gonna be trying to have kids anytime soon.” Peter asked in an last attempt to get you to stay with him.

“I can’t keep dating you when I know one day it’s gonna end. I can’t have a deadline for our relationship hanging over my head. We need to end this now before we feel like can never walk away from each other.”

“I already feel that way.” Peter said and started to cry harder. You wanted to wrap your arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay, but you weren’t sure that it would. Instead, you held yourself in your arms and tried to hold back your tears.

“I’m sorry, Peter. I would’ve loved you for the rest of my life. And I still love you now. But I can’t keep letting you in just for you to go again. You need to stay gone this time. It’s over. I’m done.” You said as you sadly shook your head. Peter looked into your eyes and held your gaze for a long time until he came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to change your mind. He nodded his head and wiped his face before walking towards your door. He was about to open it and leave before turning to look at you.

“If I had never been bitten, would we still be together?” He asked you. You gave him a sympathetic smile and nodded your head.

“I can’t imagine anything else that could make me walk away from you.” You answered him honestly. Peter nodded again and left your room before you could see him fully break down. Once he was out in your hallway, he covered his mouth with his hand and ran out of your apartment as tears gushed out of his eyes.

Exactly a week later, a week that had no contact between you and Peter, Peter heard a knock at his window. He curiously went over to it and pulled up his blinds to see you sitting out on his fire escape. Peter immediately opened the window and let you in, heart pounding in his ears the whole time. You sheepishly pulled a bouquet of poppies, Peters favorite flower, out from behind your back and handed it to him.

“You’re here?” Peter asked in disbelief as he took the flowers.

“I climbed.”

“Really? All that way?”

“You live on the first floor.” You reminded him. “It was just that one flight of stairs up the fire escape.”

“What are you doing here?” Peter asked as he looked down at the flowers.

“I realized something.” You said with a soft smile.

“What did you realize?”

“I was thinking about you missing my graduation speech. I was not thinking about you missing your graduation.” You began. Peter opened his mouth to respond but shut it when he realized he hadn’t thought about that either. He felt so guilty about missing your speech that he never had time to be upset over missing his own high school graduation.

“I also wasn’t thinking about how you made me put on my cap and gown and sneak into the school with you that night so that I could give the speech again.”

“I wanted to hear it.” Peter smiled softly.

“I know you did. The same way you snuck into my room with a candle stuck in an Oreo so that you could sing to me after missing my 17th birthday party.” You smiled at the memory. Peter smiled in return and started to grow hopeful that you were forgiving him. His hopes got higher when you took both his hands in yours.

“If you were a different man, you would’ve continued to live your life the way you wanted. You would’ve embraced the cool new features and ignored that responsibilities that came with them. But that’s not you, Peter. You’ve never been the kind of guy who just stands to the side and let’s other people take care of a problem. If you have any opportunity to help, you take it. And if you don’t have an opportunity, you create one for yourself. That’s who you are. That’s who you’ve always been. And that’s one of the things I love most about you. It would be wrong of me to expect you to change that part of yourself for my sake. So yeah, I wish you made it to my birthday and yeah I wish you heard my graduation speech the first time. But maybe saving someone’s life is a little more important than me.” You said with a teasing smile.

“Maybe just a little.” He chuckled. You laughed in return before looking at him for a long time. You knew it was going to be hard, but you knew it was going to be worth it. After all, it was Peter. And you loved Peter.

Peter stayed perfectly still as you moved your hands and placed them on either side of his face. You brought your forehead to rest against his and stayed in comfortably silence for a moment until Peter broke down crying. He wrapped his arms around you and held you close as he thanked every entity he could think of for be able to keep you.

“I’m sorry I got so mad at you.” You mumbled against his chest.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t know how I would’ve reacted to this either. I gave you a lot to process.”

“You did. And now that I’ve had time to think about it, I know what I want and what I don’t want.” You said as you pulled away a little so that you could look at him.

“What do you not want?” Peter gulped and braced himself for the worse.

“Well I know you’ve had to sacrifice a lot because of this. And I don’t want to be another sacrifice you have to make.”

“But what about what you said about resenting me constantly leaving you? Or me never being there for our kids?”

“I won’t resent you if I know you’re out there saving people’s lives. I’ll be lonely, sure, but I’ll understand that you have more important places to be.”

“What about our kids?”

“We’ll figure that out when we get there. But I’m pretty sure they’d be okay if they knew their daddy was off saving the world.”

“And what about us? Are we okay?” Peter asked and held his breath until he heard the answer.

“It’s us. We’ll always be okay.” You shrugged before giving Peter a warm smile. Peter let out a huge sigh of relief and felt his heart become whole again. All of his sacrifices felt like they were paying off now that he knew he had you and you weren’t going anywhere. He made a silent vow that he would make more of an effort to make you feel like a priority now that your relationship had gone through and survived the great war. He would always make his hero duties his top priority, but he would never let you feel neglected again.

“It’s been a week without you, lover, and I’ve been miserable. Can I please kiss you?” He asked for permission first, just like the first time.

“Yeah, Spiderman.” You called him for the first time. “Get over here and kiss me.”

Tag List 🏷️

@awesomebooklover17 @thebookwormlife @imanativeofswlondondahling @serendipitous-amor @tom-hollands-wifey @20fandomfangirl

@lavender-writer @whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings @ultrunning @imyourliquor-youremypoison @andreasworlsboring101

@letsloveimagines @peterparkoure @a-villain-vying-for-attention @justcallmehitgirl

@jackiehollanderr @maryjanee23 @geeksareunique @emmamarshmellow @unbelievableholland

@flixndchill @sovereignparker @every-marveler-ever @undiadeestos @caelestii-e @eridanuswave @fiantomartell @solarxmoonchild

@canyouevencauseicant @illwritetomorrow @thehappygrungelife @saysomethingspiderman @smilexcaptainx @quaksonhehe @kelieah

@seasidecrowbar @lovelessdagger @electraheart-3174 @unbelievableholland

@yourtypicalhotmess @horanxholland @thesuitelifeofafangirl @marshxx @heyheycharlatte @nooneinvitedfascistbarbie @tomshufflepuff

@maybemona @alexxcorona113

#peter parker x reader #peter parker angst #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fluff #peter parker fanfic #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction

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ily-fictional-women · 2 years

Text

Ashes to Ashes || Chapter 1

Chapter 1: New Employer

Summary: Y/n lost her big sister and not wanting to be with anyone else she had to raise herself on her own– making her make some poor choices along the way.

Pairing: big sister!Yelena Belova x fem!reader

Warnings: Minor violence technically

Word count: 950 (this chapter is more of a prologue)

a/n: This is a continuation of “The Hope I Find In You” it’ll be best to read that first. Just a reminder in the story if there’s any text that <”Looks like this.”> it just means the character(s) are saying something in a different language, I’m just trying to have minimal google translated stuff. (Reblogs are welcome but please no translating and critiques/advice are heavily encouraged.)

Tura Typa Russia, September 6th, 2021

<”Name?”>

Y/n cracked a small smile <”Dimitri, how many times will we do this eh? I’ve been a regular for a year.”> The older man let out a small laugh under his breath <”Well, good luck tonight it’s a big one.”> Y/n rolled her eyes <”I don’t need luck, Dmitri. All I need is the winnings from tonight. My landlord raised my rent again.”> Dimitri unlocked the doors to the side of him with the push of a small button <”It is a gesture of kindness Y/n! Next time you could say thank you.”>

Y/n took off her shirt leaving for the loud crowd in the other room “I’ll say thank you when you pay me tonight if that makes it better.”

The announcer hollered from his microphone “ARE YOU ALL READY FOR TONIGHT?!!!” The crowd cheered and screamed in response. “WELL GOOD TO KNOW! We have some very special guests with us tonight. On our right corner of the cage tonight we have the man feared by many, built like a mountain and can throw a punch like a god, Aleksander Mikhailov aka The Nuke!!” At the moment the name was mentioned the crowd grew louder many cheers. Although the crowd did get quieter “Let's not get too excited everyone because on the left corner of the cage we have the woman you all know, you all hate her, she’s silent she’s deadly, Y/n L/n! But to others, she’s only known as the White Widow!” The crowd immediately boos and even throw trash at Y/n. “Okay okay everyone settles down, make sure your bets are in!”

Aleksander laughed looking at the announcer “I am supposed to fight her? She is punny girl! This is simply not a fair fight.” The announcer smiled softly “Whatever you say, buddy.” Before leaving the ring he put a hand on Y/n’s shoulder leaning down to her ear and whispering “If you knock him out I’ll give you my cut for the night.” Y/n laughed out loud “Deal.”

As the match began Aleksander immediately swung with a right hook putting his full force into it letting Y/n doge easily making him stumble. He huffed real loud “That’s it, punny girl! No more playing nice.” He rammed himself forward attempting to tackle Y/n with another swift doge he inevitably smashed into the metal fencing of the cage. As he turned back to Y/n his mouth was bloody and he spat out a tooth “Are you going to doge the whole time or are you going to fight me, little girl?” He swung again at Y/n this time landing a hit to the eye scratching her eyebrow. Taking this as an opportunity though before he moved his hand back Y/n took a hold of his wrist with both hands.

“Don’t be so cocky.” With that, she wrapped her legs around his arm flipping him on his stomach and fracturing his arm. Making sure to win the match she made a small hit to the side of his neck effectively knocking him unconscious. As some of the crowd booed at the quick victory others cheered knowing they won the bet. As Aleksander was dragged out Y/n walked off heading back to Dimitri.

Leaning on the desk with a wide grin Dimtri already knew what Y/n was going to ask about. <”Dimitri-”> before she could even start he put a finger to her lips <”Y/n, your eyebrow is bleeding, I patch you up then you get your money.”> Dimtri pulled up a stool near his desk sitting Y/n down before leaving to get a med kit. But then she heard a few metal bangs, figuring Dimtri dropped something in the other room she ignored it. But then it continued and as it got louder and louder she realized it was the entrance door. But before she could warn anyone they burst through the metal doors, the police. As more rushed in there were at least 15 men, each with guns pointed at her.

While Y/n is a good fighter she knew to pick her battles and a battle with 15 men with guns was not one she would win. Dimitri stood in the doorway <”Y/n, what is this?”> Y/n raised her hands slowly <”Depends on what they do in the next few minutes.”> But then a single man solely armed with a pistol. He raised the gun and shot Dimtri twice. “NOO!!” Y/n screamed out, one of the only people alive that cared about her in the slightest was gone. <”Arrest the girl and everyone in the place.”> Before being cuffed Y/n studied the man, looking at him carefully. By his uniform, he was a kernel. This wasn’t a normal police raid, someone found out about the cage fights and reported it. This wasn’t going to end well.

Spetsnaz Police Station

Y/n went into an emotional shutdown, the one person who cared about her still was gone, shot dead write in front of her. She lay there on the cold metal bench in the cell starting to drown in her own thoughts, or that is until one of the guards tapped onto the metal bars <”Y/n L/n?”> She sat up <”Yes?”>

<”Someone is here for you. Says she’s a friend.”>

As she left the cell she saw an older woman with dark hair that had a purple streak in it. When it came to how she dressed she definitely had money. The older woman put out her hand “Hi Y/n, Valentina Fontaine. We should talk.”

#yelena belova x female reader #yelena belova x reader #valkyrie x y/n #valkyrie x you #yelena mcu #yelena belova x platonic!reader #aroace yelena belova #giving a mentally unstable adult a child trope #found family

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justapalspal · 6 months

Text

Got tagged by @yuusaris today for a “share a few paragraphs of your WIP” tag game thing and decided why not! I have writing WIPs! Why not share a few from fics that are currently in development!

Going to tag @millenniumringg @ninjam117 and anyone else who wants to with this one!!

Going to throw four chunks of WIPs under the cut with some basic context (which may include some spoilers, of course, for fics that I’ve already published parts of, i.e. Yami Bakura’s Got A Crush and Woodcarving!)

From Yami Bakura’s Got A Crush

(For those who haven’t read this one on ao3, Yami B’s decided he wants to ask Diva out and it becomes Ryou’s problem! In this segment, Ra (aka Yamima) and Ryou have gotten ahold of him and are trying to do damage control. Subject to possible reworking later, of course.)

“Oh, no, yeah, he was—he was so irresistible, Spirit, just doing nothing and—”

“That’s a shit plan,” the Spirit snapped.

“It is not a shit plan,” Ryou said.

Ra cracked his knuckles together. “Yeah, it’s really not. You either do that or I glue your hands together again, Spirit.”

“Jokes on you!” The Spirit grinned wildly, spreading his arms out wide. “I know Landlord doesn’t want to spend another day at the hospital getting me unglued!”

Shit. That had been one of their best recurring threats. Ryou winced, looking back at Ra—

—but Ra just stared the Spirit down.

“Being with Landlord’s made you soft,” the Spirit said, still grinning, “or have you forgotten that?”

Ra stared.

“Or have you forgotten that?” the Spirit asked again.

From Woodcarving

(Pal’s long un-updated Spirit vs Ryou in-the-midsts-of-canon fic. Ahh, Pre-Pandemic writing. With the way this was originally written, this was meant to be part of part two—but with the way things are getting re-planned now, I’m not sure how soon this is going to pop up.)

Host, the Spirit said, and then stopped. Ryou—

Ryou yanked the Ring off his neck so hard he was sure the rope would snap. But no, of course not. His hands were too damn weak. He yanked it over his head and plucked hair along the way and chucked it at the other side of the room behind him.

He spent ages heaving through the rush, the throb, the racing in him. Of course, when he went to reach for it again, the Ring was already around his neck.

I’m here, was all the Spirit said.

“Can’t you give me some privacy?” Ryou muttered.

You’re the one who wanted me here.

He didn’t. He did. Ryou clenched his eyes shut, hissing some—choked noise, high out his throat. “Would you just go?” He hated when his voice got this high, this out of his control and vivid— “This is your fault. All of it’s your fault. You’re breaking me and everything’s your fault.”

From Tentatively Titled The Pros and Cons of Pros at Cons

(Part love letter to the Convention Experience, part love letter to My Brain Cell Buds. Ryou and Yuugi are both trying to fix each other at an Anime/Gaming Convention. The girl group featured here are big fans of Battle City and, as they dub it, the KC Tournaments Lore (which most of Domino calls “The WWE of Dueling.”))

“Big fans of your work,” the girl said, and her friends nodded out of sync behind her.

“Oh yeah.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Could you do the—” The third girl, if Yuugi remembered right, pointed at her own face with both hands. “—you know, the evil laugh?”

Bakura stared emptily at them. “The evil what?”

“The evil laugh?” she asked again.

“I could, uh, certainly try,” Bakura said, and then coughed and cleared his throat.

The girls leaned in. Bakura glared, and then smiled, and—

Yuugi almost found it spooky how well Bakura was able to mimic the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. His laughter hit home. The girls squealed and laughed and punched at the air and each other.

From a Currently Untitled Angstship Fic

(My second love letter to My Brain Cell Buds. This is meant to be a short snippet-of-life type where Malik accidentally almost runs Ryou over with his motorcycle and Ryou gets Deja Vu. This one’s still subject to reworking later on, as this is currently one of two or three snippets that actually exists, and Malik may or may not need some revision near the end.

At the moment, these two are on the motorcycle and Ryou’s having his Deja Vu.)

“Malik,” Ryou said. “You worked with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring.” But perhaps that was too blunt. Ryou backtracked, stumbling over his words. “Back during, ah, Battle—”

“Battle City, yes,” Malik said. “I did.”

Ryou held himself firm. “I want to know something.”

“What?”

“I feel weird when I’m on motorcycles with you.” Ryou lowered his arms, resting them on Malik’s waist. “And I know it’s not motorcycles. I’ve ridden with Honda before and felt fine. It’s just—”

“It’s just me,” Malik said.

Ryou winced. “Okay, maybe this sounds worse now that I’m saying it out loud.”

“I dragged you around injured and brainwashed on a motorcycle,” Malik said, as if what he was saying were nothing. “It’s probably just bad memories. You’ll get over it.”

Ryou stared at Malik’s earrings. “I’ll get over it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m also sorry,” Malik said, glancing back at him. He was waiting for something, and Ryou didn’t know—

Well, Ryou kind of knew what.

#ramble #behind the scenes #sprinkles confetti over my writing like yahoo wahoo it does exist gang!!#tag game

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cinnamon-notes · 1 month

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[cinnamon's diary, april 23rd]: forgive. not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace

tw: mention of suicide at some point

I'm way too kind to people. And I'm a generally overly-grateful human being. I'm too amazed and mesmerized by beauty and kindness. I read too much between the lines, and I stubbornly refuse to read evilness between them. I'm always convinced that in all human beings, as such, there must be something genuine and kind. Call it living in my own world. Call it being naive. I just love seeing the beauty in life, because I honestly am not that thrilled at the idea of living a whole life being constantly reminded of bad things. But sometimes I just should think that someone doesn't do kind things out of just kindness.

My ex boss has been trying to convince me he has recommended me to my current boss ever since I got my new job, which he has not. He just happened to know that company, he happened to mention it to me once, it happened to catch my interest, I happened to do my own research, I happened to show up at their door and ask if they had any open positions. Never have I even mentioned my ex boss in my current workplace. Never have I wanted my current boss to think I'm good at my job just because I used to work for someone he knows. I've always hated this kind of thinking. I've always despised people who'd practice it, instead.

Thing is, my ex boss came to learn I'm extremely easy to punch with guilt, and I'm extremely easy to feel grateful and forever in debt with people. So he's been trying to manipulate me a lot into making me work for him for free while having a full-time job. And if, just a few months ago, I would've given in, I don't anymore. And I'm extremely proud of that. I'm proud I've walked away from that workplace. I was being mobbed. I was being bullied. Just because I was the youngest and the only non-man. I had to learn it the hard way, but I did, eventually. And I'm glad about that.

My personal growth has brought me to no longer making myself available as much as I would have and used to. It translates to, I no longer answer the phone right away. I no longer reply to them as soon as possible. I no longer make time for them, especially if it means sacrificing something I wanted and/or needed to do.

Yet, my ex boss soon started to come up with another trick. He'd tell me I was being ungrateful by not answering the phone right away because he was just showing interest and care, and he thought I was d3ad, and I'm a bad person if I don't answer someone who's calling me to make sure I hadn't k-worded myself.

Now, he does not know I actually have been suicidal in my life. But little does it matter now. What upsets me so much is that he uses such a serious topic to talk guilt into me. And I'm so glad I see it now. But I'm also extremely angry and mad.

Today I ran into him. He played his usual guilt-tricks, hiding them behind jokes. And at some point the least reasonable sentence came out of his mouth. He'd said, "Yeah but if you're gonna k!ll yourself, at least make sure to shut off your utilities, first. Your landlord won't walk himself in your apartment if he suspects something's wrong".

And I went all "Honey, if I ever were to k!ll myself, I'll make sure to pull a whole Sylvia Plath and burn my own brain in the oven and leave it on!" Then I walked away :)

HE MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY. IS HE EVEN A NORMAL PERSON? IS HE EVEN A PERSON AT ALL???

#cinnamon diary

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polarisbibliotheque · 2 months

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A bit about the comic I'm working on - Weisse Rose!

Hello my dearest cryptids! Today I'm here to spread the word of our lord and savior, mothman

Ok, ok, not starting a weird cryptid cult yet but I've been commenting sparsely about a comic I've been thinking about, designing and trying to get on paper for the last year but never REALLY talked about it...

Lo and behold, it's called Weisse Rose - and I made a tumblr just for it, @weisserose-comic !

I haven't posted anything yet, but I've been planning to get it ~out there~ around April. Of course, my health got the best of me and I would have to postpone my plans yet again, but I decided to work with what I got a vastly decaying body that I keep fighting against almost 24/7 this bitch

The main vibes I want with Weisse Rose is David Bowie's song, Heroes. On this post, I'll tell you a little about the characters and overall story I want to work on - because I love blabbering about character development and endless writing :')

And hey, you may also like this sort of story from me and decide to read it eventually!

So, Weisse Rose - the main idea I had was "a bunch of punks punching nazis and I've gotta find some plot to it". And well, found the plot, it's a lot more than punks punching nazis, but this soul is still there hahahaha

I decided to write it because my country is increasingly leaning to the far-right, nazi movements are getting stronger by the day, censorship is leaning over our heads like the ghost of a far-right leaning military dictatorship we had less than 40 years ago in my country, we were on the brink of a coup d'état for another far-right dictatorship by a madman and, honestly, it's scary. I'm scared.

I've had some pretty bad disappointments with politics and life over the last 5 years and what I'm currently watching is so harrowing - it gets even worse that everyone I live around seem to be ok with it. The classic "it doesn't affect me, I'm not gonna fight against it". And I needed to find a way to cope with ALL this maddening politics and extremist groups everywhere we're living with nowadays.

Enter Weisse Rose.

✨Overall Story✨

The story is about five 25 to 30 something year olds who are trying to find themselves in an increasingly hatred filled, fascist leaning world that seems to want to get rid of their very existence and only make their life miserable while claiming to uphold "morals, values, family, religion and the true beliefs in a world filled with filth".

The five characters - Martin, Diana, Santiago, Wasima and Wollfe - play together in a band (goth? punk? metal? industrial?) and will do everything in their power to go against the increasing censorship while trying to figure out how to pay the bills, have their own lives, deal with their traumas and flaws, navigate the world as alternative people, discover what they want for a living and try to make the most of it.

Also realizing that love is the only thing that can go against hate, how cliché

And it all starts with Marty being evicted because of noise complaints and an ass of a landlord, running to Diana to ask for help more like yell at her that he's homeless and desperate

I think I'll tell most of it through Marty's POV, kinda like he's the main character...? I don't know, I like everyone and EVERYONE'S THE MAIN CHARACTER, PERIOD. But well:

✨Meet the Characters✨

Marty (guitar/vocals/chaos) is a very loud and energetic guy, the nice one you'd give your life for, kinda chill but will get in a fight if you annoy him enough. Has a hard time setting boundaries and is constantly used because of his big kind heart bless his soul T-T. Has enough energy to power a whole city though, while...

Diana (drums/punching nazis) is the tsundere™ of the band, loves everyone but will never really say it, and has Marty glued to her like their life depend on it. She is the fire to his gasoline, so to speak, and is very easy to get in a fight - constantly seen in fistfights and needing backup and/or Marty to get her out of there alive and care for her wounds. Strong but caring personality, that's why she has a "platonic hate" relationship with...

Wollfe (guitar/vocals 2/manwhore) is the tall, dark and handsome™ of the group, but honestly the walking trash-boy you should never give a shot. Serial womanizer, will only have sex and doesn't do relationships 'cause trauma BUT extremely loyal and WILL go above and beyond for the people he truly loves. Diana and Wollfe have the platonic hate relationship but, still, he's the first one who's always backing her up in fights bless his 6'2 body and is always being a flirty bitch with every single walking thing alongside...

Wasima (DJ/synths/siren), or Mata Hari, the well known LGBTQ+ underground club DJ - a powerhouse of a woman, can get every single human on their knees, can and will use her beauty and looks to kill if she wants to. Happy fun-loving lesbian, is always playing at a different club and dragging Diana along so she can teach her how to have some fun... And to have a nice bodyguard too. She would be the daughter of Aphrodite and Diana would be the daughter of Ares, so they happily see each other as sisters - just like Wasima sees a brother in...

Santiago (bass/chill/band Jesus), otherwise known as Jesus because, well... He looks like Jesus. Is from Roma family descent and is the chill, free soul of the group - peace, love and please let's not get into fights. Behind that calm and Jesus-like personality, lies the man who, when they get to play, always power-stands by Diana's side on the drums and headbangs furiously with her, making the most vicious, heaviest music they've ever heard. Will hug everyone afterwards, though.

All of them have their own bunch of problems. Wasima is arabic and insecure about everyone around her, Santiago is of roma descent and still struggling with acceptance and what he wants, Diana is an immigrant in the country they live and has some serious health issues, Wolffe is a runaway with one hell of a difficult and abusive family and Marty is a neglected kid who left home trying to find himself.

They all have a reason to be persecuted in increasingly far-right leaning politics and countries - they all have reasons to be hated by fascists, nazis and whatever other extremist groups you can think of.

So yeah, things will start nice, but there are so many things lingering under the surface that, sooner or later, they will have to deal with.

And that's what I want to write about on Weisse Rose!

✨And why "Weisse Rose", you might ask?✨

It's the name of an anti-nazi resistance created during WWII in Germany - the White Rose, in English. We tend to remember the people who endorsed the extremist views and who committed horrible crimes, but we end up forgetting the ones who stood up for the right thing. The Weisse Rose did - I know the last thing they'd want is a story about a bunch of chaotic punks fighting far-right politics, but still... It's a little nod to the guts they had to fight back.

Because hell, now I get it. It must've been SO scary doing what they did. And they went out there and did anyway, they resisted. They called out crimes. They called out racism. They called out dehumanizing of so many people. And they must've been so scared. I know I am.

By no means I think my little comic will be this huge Resistance Act™, but it's my way of coping, resisting and not shutting up when I'm seeing so much happening and feel like I can't say anything.

Maybe I can't, but Weisse Rose can. And I'll be writing, drawing and all that - even if slowly because of my health. But I will do it!

If you think it might be for you, if you're curious and want to know more about it, support and read this other story I'll put out there, do follow @weisserose-comic ! I'll be posting more things about the characters, sketches, little illustrations and, hopefully, the first chapter quite soon!

Disclaimer: I feel like I should say this though; as you guys may have noticed, it'll be 18+. I'm not inclined to censor things on this comic nor avoid delicate/taboo subjects. I will ask a lot of media literacy and interpretation, though, because I won't be explaining/making things horribly obvious. It would kinda defeat the whole purpose of the comic if I did that: the characters are flawed, I'm not romanticizing anything, people are complex, and shit will hit the fan basically hahahaha if it's not your cup of tea, you can always not drink it ;)

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theink-stainedfolk · 2 months

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And They Were Roommates

A vampire hunter, forming a peace treaty with a vampire? That is something unheard of. You see this trope is a lot of fantasy tv shows. But it seems that this trope has come to life.

"Pass me your chips." Said Darin Maignes.

"No. They are mine." Said Lyren Chauveron.

Darin sighed and turned to look at Lyren, whose gaze was fixed on the TV. "You don't want me to kill my hunger with your blood now, or do you?"

Lyren turned to look at Darin. "You can't Maignes, we have signed a peace treaty. If you break it, you will have to pay the rent for the whole year." Darin's lips twitched into a smile that was threatening. But Lyren was right.

You see, Darin Maignes is a vampire. Like any other vampire, he sucks. Maignes family is large and successful with whatever club business they have. But Darin, he likes being independent so he moved to Wesving City in dreams of being a designer. Shearsley Apartments were the type of apartments that were costly, but not overly luxurious. Many celebrities lived there. Unfortunately for him, his family stopped sending him funds. (Though his mother usually secretly did send some money.) But that didn't stop him from renting the apartment. The only flat he got was already rented but the person was willing to share and divide the rent. This was the golden opportunity.

"I am a peace lover." Said Dimitry Bizeveron, the landlord's son. "I love ducks."

"You mean Doves?" Darin corrected him.

"No. I mean ducks." He said playing with his long locks. "Doves are overrated. Ducks are much better, they are emotionally supportive." A duck appeared out of nowhere and snuggled up to his leg just as he said that. "See?" He said picking up the duck. "He sensed that I craved his snuggles. Meet Downey. He is the best boi." He said tickling the duck. "So anyways. I don't like violence and if you have a problem with your roommate, i suggest you solve it out outside or maybe you can just get the fuck out. If i hear any complaints, i will personally kick you and your roommate out and i will also make sure you don't get to stay anywhere in this city or maybe just make you incapable of moving all together. "

He didn't sound like someone who loves peace right now. Darin hates people like him. Why does he have to be so intimidating?

So this takes us to the present. Darin Maignes, the vampire, was officially a roommate with a vampire hunter, Lyren Chauveron. Their first meeting wasn't good. They got a yellow card from Dimitry. Now they have to be extra careful.

"Chauveron, the treaty also included that whatever present in the house is as much equally yours as it is mine. Sharing is caring. You don't want to break the rules and meet that half-blooded beast do you?"

Lyren gulped and slowly passed the packet to Darin who smirked in victory.

Dimitry Bizeveron was a half-blood vampire. You might think being a half blood makes powers less. But that was not true. Oriana Bizeveron, Dimitry's mother was one of the most strongest vampire, included with the Maignes. She almost killed Darin's uncle in a fight. Incredible lady known for her punch so strong you can meet jesus. But she was also rebellious. She abolished the unsaid rule of vampires only marrying vampires. She fell in love with a vet, who was a human. There is no doubt that Dimitry is strong, the problem is that no one actually knows what he is capable of doing.

"Shut up and eat." Lyren said through his gritted teeth.

Lyren Chauveron is from a hunter family. His elder brother, Lyndon Chauveron is known for being the best hunter in the country. He grew up being expected to be as good as him when instead, the youngest sibling Lydia is stronger than him. Lydia once threw Lyren when he teased her about her crush. Lyren knew she was strong, Lyndon knew she was strong, she knew she was strong, but their parents refused to know she was strong. So she went and rebelled and became the youngest chief commander of hunters, aka, the one who trains and goes on missions with the amature hunters on their mission. She was now banned from home.(she said she was glad and built her own home.)

Lyren Chauveron didn't want to be a hunter and his brother's shadow. He didn't know that he was rooming in with a vampire. There is an opportunity right there in front of him, he hates he is binded by contract. He hates the fact that he has to prove his worth by taking someone's life. He hates everything.

"You aren't even watching this movie." Darin said. "Stop glaring holes into the screen."

"You can stuff your mouth with those chips instead of pointing out what I am doing." Lyren took a big bite of the burger he bought along with the chips out of anger.

"I'd rather watch Twilight." Darin mumbled.

"Why do you look for different ways to admire yourself?" Lyren cringed.

"I mean, it's a good comedy movie. And self love isn't a disease." Darin stated as if it was obvious. Lyren, for a moment, couldn't believe what he heard.

"....Yeah,sure… Go ahead."

"....Nevermind." What could change his stubborn mind? Thought Lyren.

"Why?" He asked.

"Just."

"Just what?"

"You won't laugh." He said.

"What? What has it got to do with me?" Lyren asked, confused.

"What is fun about watching a comedy movie when only I am the one laughing?" He pouted. Lyren noticed, he pouted.

"Okay." He said.

"What?"

"I have my favorite comedy movie, I'll laugh no matter how much time I watch it." He lied. "Let's watch that."

Lyren didn't expect to actually laugh. He didn't expect to laugh because of Darin. Darin's face when he laughed was funny and his laughter was contagious. So much so he had to pause to go to the bathroom. These were the times where both of them thought maybe rooming with each other wasn't that bad.

#writeblr #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writing #writblr #writers #my writing #writers of tumblr #writerscommunity #writerslife #writing community #writers and poets

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servin-up-surveys · 5 months

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survey #195

Do you know anyone who has divorced and remarried the same person? What do you/would you think of someone who does that? I don't think so? I wouldn't think anything of someone who did this; their relationships and the details of them are not my business.

Do you say goodnight to anybody before you go to bed? If so, does it feel weird if you go to bed without saying it to them? Not regularly. If Girt spends the night though I think I normally do when it's clear we're going to sleep. I sometimes say goodnight to my snake as I pass her terrarium.

Do you have a favourite role of Johnny Depp's? If you don't like him, what is your favourite role of an actor you like? I love his portrayal of Willy Wonka.

Why did you/your parents choose to live where you do now? Would you move right now if you were able to? Why/why not? If so, where would you like to go? We had no other choice. The lady who lived here before us, it was her dying wish for Tobey (mutual family friend) to have the house and let Mom and I live in it; Mom was deep into cancer treatment and our former house was a health hazard due to mold problems, and the water was funky. Of course we appreciate having a home at all, but Tobey is not the greatest landlord and by now, Mom can barely stand her, as can I. We want out so, so bad but can't afford anything. We WANT to go back to the middle of nowhere, preferably in the woods again.

If someone broke into your house and robbed you, what could they take that would piss you off or upset you the most? To what lengths would you go to get it back? Has something like this already happened to you before? My dog's ashes. I would do A LOT to get those back home to me. Thankfully this kind of situation hasn't happened to me.

Was there something you were afraid of as a child that just seems silly to you now? I was TERRIFIED of King Ramses from Courage the Cowardly Dog. Like, I had nightmares.

Do you like coffee? I hate the taste of it, but it's one of my favorite smells.

When did you last make up a baby’s bottle? Never.

Do you eat your dinner at a dining table, coffee table or just off your lap? Usually on the couch with a folding table.

Did you go to high school with your current best friend? I did, but only as a freshman, as that's the year he graduated.

Do you take part in paying the bills for your household? No, because I don't have any form of income. I absolutely will be helping whenever I DO get a job...

How many cars can fit in your driveway? Barely two.

Have you ever slapped someone in the face? No, I'd like to keep it that way.

Last person you took a nap with? Girt.

Does seeing your mother cry automatically make you feel sad as well? Absolutely yes, and I get equally mad at whatever's caused her to.

Have you ever given up on someone, but then went back to them later? I've done this multiple times with Sara and Colleen both. Never again am I wasting my time and energy like that.

Is your last ex currently in a relationship? I don't know or care.

Do you think the last person you kissed has feelings for you? I know he does.

Have you ever been punched in the face? No, and I'd even MORE like to not change that, haha.

Are you the type of person who seeks out revenge? Nah, not worth it.

Have you ever been asked out by someone you didn’t want to be with? Yes, there was this kid in 4th grade named Nick who asked me A LOT and I always said no. I was also harassed in pre-k by a pair of boys that were always trying to kiss me, but I don't actually remember if they ever asked me out. We were literally in pre-k, I don't think we even knew "asking out" was a thing.

Who is the last person to call you gorgeous? Idk.

Do you think a lot before you fall asleep? Absofuckinglutely, my brain does NOT know how to shut the hell off and I think it's the prime reason I have so much trouble falling asleep.

Would you rather have your parents catch you having sex or smoking weed? jesus christ smoking hella weed

Do you like it when people call you babe? I don't mind other girls calling me that, I actually think it's sweet and friendly, and Girt's allowed to, but it's not my favorite so I'm glad it's not a regular from him. I would absolutely not appreciate another man calling me this, especially one that seems creepy.

Would you ever get your nipples pierced? Unlikely.

Does it bother you to get shots in the mouth? Does it hurt? I hate it. My worst experience with a needle ever was getting numbing injections deep through the roof of my mouth during a dental procedure.

Ever ride in a limo? When did you last do so? I haven't, but always wanted to just for the experience.

Do you have a lot of self-discipline? Honestly, no, and this is something I very badly want to get better about. It's a topic I want to touch on in therapy.

Have you ever been to another country’s capital city? I've never been to another country, period.

What’s something that has upset you lately? Weight gain. Following some blood tests, it seems to be because my thyroid levels are extremely high, despite being on a daily med for it... We recently upped the dose of it so hopefully that helps.

What’s something you don’t think people take seriously enough? Environmental issues. A lot of things.

Have you ever dated someone who had a child from a previous relationship? No.

What’s your favorite kind of soup? I'm not really a soup person.

Have you ever been 4-wheeling? When I was younger with my neighbors, yeah.

Will you be attending any weddings in the near future? None planned right now, no.

Do you have any important anniversaries you celebrate? Mine and Girt's.

What will be the next concert you attend? I don't know, but I'm praying with every bone in my body that Rammstein adds an American leg of their 2024 tour and I can go to that.

Have you ever seen a horseshoe crab? They’re scary, right?! I've only seen pictures/videos. I don't think they're... scary, just strange-looking. Their underside makes me feel sorta squirmy and gross, it's just so odd.

When was the last time you had a hangover? Never.

Do you own many pairs of shorts? I own literally zero. I don't wear shorts, I'm too self-conscious of my legs.

Who was the last person you texted? My dad. He's ill so I didn't get to see him on Christmas.

When was the last time you felt like letting it all out and having a cry? Christmas Eve, Shelia (boyfriend's mom) got me this fucking adorable blanket with an extremely beautiful message from a mother-in-law to her daughter-in-law, and it just brought to mind how once upon a time, I never, ever, thought I would have this sort of bond with a partner's family ever again, after Jason. I was remembering the Christmas Eves I'd spent with him and his family, and now I have that again, when I once was so fucking certain I never would get another chance. I did actually cry some, but I didn't let myself like, bawl.

When was the last time someone made you feel like an idiot? Recently. My mom has this certain way she answers some of my questions like I'm an absolute moron, and it's extremely hurtful and I want to bring it up to her, but I'm not looking for an argument because she can't accept she never does hurtful things.

Would you allow your children to date prior to 16? If I ever have kids, yes.

What was the last restaurant you made a reservation at? The Cheesecake Factory, I think.

Would you rather read a book, or listen to the audiobook? Read, I have no interest in audiobooks, or virtual book formats at all. I'm very weird in that I want to physically hold the book and read it in my own head.

What is your favorite book? Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I need to re-read the latter, I read it in middle school and barely remember the plot, I just know I adored the book.

What is something you're insecure about? My weight, among five billion other things.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment? Healing from my breakup with Jason. It sounds like such a little thing when I type it, but when you really know where my head was throughout the aftermath and all the conscious effort it took to change my perspective and let my wounds close and fade, it was a titanic achievement and no one will take that shit from me.

Who knows you the best? My mom.

Will anyone be visiting your house any time soon? I mean I see Girt normally at least once a week, but we don't have a hangout day planned yet. Other people, I'm not sure.

Scroll through your camera roll quickly without looking, then stop it with your finger. What's the first picture your eye lands on? Me making a silly face at Roman, my cat.

Have you ever been chased by a dog? Not by a dog with the intent to bite/harm me, only in playful situations.

What's your favourite kind of soda? Mountain Dew Voltage, which is a blue raspberry flavor.

Do you have a drink with you right now? What is it? Yeah, water.

What was the last app you opened on your phone? It was DragonVale, I got a new phone for Christmas and it's superior to my old one in all ways imaginable and I've been enjoying the greater memory capabilities of it. No more One Single Game on my phone, lol.

Is your voice high, low, or somewhere in the middle? It's low for your average cisgender adult woman.

Are you wearing any rings right now? Yes, I keep one on my right middle finger; it wraps around twice in a spiral with an arrow pointed forward, "keep" being on one end of the spiral and "going" on the opposite end. On the interior of the ring, in the middle, "fucking" is carved so it's meant to read as "keep fucking going." Mom got it for me, and I got a kick outta it 'cuz she sure does know my tendency to use "fuck."

How many beds are in your home? Two.

What is the last thing you ate? I had Special K cereal for dinner.

Who is your favorite person to spend time with? Girt, of course.

Are you considered a "clingy girlfriend"? According to Girt, for him anyway, I'm the perfect balance of clingy but also respectful of his space. He knows I worry about being annoyingly clingy, so he reminds me a lot of this that how I act makes him feel loved but also respected when he wants "him" time. We work really well in that sense, we both need personal time regularly and can be entirely honest if we need it without the fear of hurting one another.

Are you good at multitasking? God no, I just straight-up can't. I HAVE to focus on a single thing at a time.

When's the last time you went to a nightclub? Literally never.

#survey #surveys #random questions #personal questions #questionnaire

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ulubionywuja · 9 months

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Can you talk more about your time as a film extra? It sounds very interesting

Sure!

It started in winter 2020, during my second year of uni. I studied graphic design and prinmaking, both are expensive af (Adobe programs for design + special papers and ink for prints, one sheet of said paper can cost up to $20/80PLN). I was born in the city that I went to uni in, so there was no need for me to pay landlords or even buy my own food, but still, the materials were bonkers costly, so I decided to earn some money for them. It's really easy to become an extra, all you have to do is find an extra studio (Wrocław has two, I'm signed to ABM to this day), record a scene straight from a shit pseudo-documentary (ukryta prawda, Polacy wiedzą), which isn't published, it's just for them to see if you're ok for speaking roles. Then you sign a paper and they send you emails with movies or shows they need people for. It doesn't pay well, but it's ok if you just need a tiny, tiny bit of money.

My first show was Pierwsza Miłość, it was an episode about some guy getting spiked during a party? I never watched this series before and had no idea what was going on :) But turns out the medical people in Polish TV are actual medical pros and the equipment (like defibrillators) is 100% real! On my first shooting day it was freezing cold, around -8 C, but we could eat and drink everything that was on the tables during the fake party we were filming. I went for that show a few times, since they were making an entire season.

The main event of this job happened last autumn, when TVP (we hate TVP here I hate the government I hate homophobia I hate sexism <3 I want them dead) was filming a (kinda crap) historical drama Kordian. The source material is a classic of Polish romanticism, but they took it let's say liberally. I went because I like the book and it's a historical costume film. A few days before shooting, me and the other extras had to go to the main TV and radio building to get our costumes fitted. I had no idea who was about to play the important speaking roles, and when I found out I was literally shocked? Some of my mutuals know that I'm into Sienkiewicz's trilogy (a book series from the 1880s), which got adapted into movies when Poland was a communist country. I love the films a lot, the most known one is The Deluge (which happen to be the movie with the most historically accurate saber fight in film history), starring some of the most well known Polish actors of that time. And they were about to be in the movie I was in IN THE SAME SCENES? We had mr. Olbrychski (Kmicic), mr. Teleszyński (Boguś) and mr. Nowicki (Ketling z Pana Wołodyjowskiego). And Pazura but I found out he's an awful dude, and he didn't have a role in Trilogy movies, he's just famous. I got my makeup done right next to Pazura and I wanted to punch him in the face because of all the sexist stulejarz stuff he was saying <3

99 % of extra work is waiting, so we did that for like 7 hours (legit) and then played a few scenes by the Wrocław cathedral. It was brutal since I was in a historical outfit and heels on a renaissance pavement :/ I talked to some fellow extras, tbh it was slightly intimidating to be next to mr. Teleszyński, dude is like 2m tall and very, very proud and stoic. Mr. Olbrychski on the other hand is such a walking meme. He's like a million years old, yet I wish to be as fit as he is. Bro literally run off into the churchy distance because he was done with the film crew, smoked a cig and came back only because he was excited to see a horse he was about to ride. (he likes horses a lot and I think rescues horses on his own or somethin??) When he met the horse and befriended him (just a disclaimer, I know nothing abt horses), he got on it and escaped the set yet again, to have a ride around the cathedral. The street wasn't closed off so it was pretty funny watching pedestrians be like "o kurwa was that Olbrychski on a horse rn?". He played his role, it took two takes, his voice is as loud as a whole ass Rammstein live show, pyro included. Also he uses a flip phone from the 2000s. I got a picture with him. I was sitting on the pavement, scrolling on discord, while he just materialised out of thin air right in front of me and talked to some coffee people I believe? So I got up as quickly as I could and screamed CAN I SNAP A PIC into his unimpressed face. He just murmured "yea", and we got a photo. I have a pic with all the actors, but I'm an average young (1970s-1980s) Olbrychski enjoyer and my pinterst board is impressive. Mr Teleszyński I met maybe after 30 minutes of being on the set, as I said he was very stoic but much less done with everything.

I must admit, I expected these actors to be just kinda normal, but they're such unforgetable personalities! Can't say much about mr. Nowicki, because I didn't notice him in the makeup camper :)))) I didn't move my head much since I didn't wanna piss off the makeup artist, it was a different extra that told me we even were in one place together.

That was my last time on a set, but I'm willing to go back once or twice, if they do some other historical movies.

#asks #movie extra #trylogia #chyba #na moim ig thebreslanvampire jest wyróżniona relacja z filmowania Kordiana i są tam wszystkie foty

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alyosiuscreightonward · 1 year

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Dear Diary.

Today has been an awful day. I am so sure that since I’ve been a “swinging Richard” I totally deserve a visit from Karma.

I’ve been such a turd in a punch bowl that I deserve to diminished, minimized and discounted. I had lashed out on another blog and I ridiculed another person for who I worship and adore. I know I’m a douche canoe and I said that, “Karma is going to visit” and I thought it was going to be him. Wrong. I was sadly mistaken and now I’m fucked.

First it was the Hobosexual. Then the infestation. Then the landlord. Next it was job. Add in the fact I’m looking for a therapist who may possibly suggest to me that I just might need medication. After nearly 30 years of being clean, I’m frightened. My other friend is having her issues and I can’t even help her because I can’t seem to get out of my own way. I’m frustrated with two dentists and now I’m the bad guy because I didn’t reach out to them and I know I did. They’re just trying to get through school and I feel like cellophane.

One of the dentists wrote the following: “The patient reported that it is progressively getting better, so we decided to monitor that, and his doctor doesn’t believe it is Bell’s Palsy. Had a conversation with the patient and we decided to monitor when the patient was here last. I informed the situation to my little to resolve the problem. We are trying to bring the patient this Friday but if not, will try to bring the patient as soon as possible to replace the temporary crown. The patient is referred to PG Endo to address the sensitivity and proceed with root canal treatment. This was discussed with the patient and the consultation is scheduled at PG Endo. The treatment plan was discussed with the patient. I will inform regarding the treatment plan again with the patient. In terms of paralysis, I discussed with the patient to monitor the problem and will communicate with the assigned practice coordinators to address the situation if the problem does not resolve/does not get any better after a few days/weeks.” (I digress)

So right now, I’m just so inside my head. I did talk to one of my dentists today while I was driving and it was really very tense because I was crying doing 70mph. I had said I felt diminished because I had to go to the patient advocate person. I did not know what else to do about this situation because in my mind I don’t feel like those guys are talking to each other anymore or about me. The one I spoke to, he was clearly upset with me for being a jerk and a Wannabe Karen. No. He didn’t say that. I did. When I get inside my head, I go to where the darkest shadows cower. Then the ideations begin. I have a difficult time with myself. I know that I am supposed to reach out to someone who could possibly help me but I apparently deflect and ignore the fact that I am clearly in the wrong about everything. I mean I was like eleven years old when I gave the gun to Arthur Bremer to shoot/assassinate George Wallace. That took place in Maryland and I was somewhere else. It’s shit like that that sends me down to the bottom of the ocean. Like Shelley Winters, I swam as best as I possibly could and like Leonardo, Kate will push me off. Sadly no Saline Dijon sanging.

This is why I hate my life sometimes. I don’t want you to think for yourself, I’ll do it for you and worry myself into anemia. It’s just what I do. I can give you my best impression of Miranda Priestly and you will absolutely believe it. Meanwhile, like any good recovering Catholic, the joy of self flagellation and guilt does encourage more fucked up thoughts. Before I got on my way I had to take a moment with the committee and verbally speak the words. Not just let them marinate but to listen explore acknowledge and respond to the words coming out of my mouth. In an attempt to make sense of what is going on around me. Not shamed by talking to myself when I’m alone. Sometimes hearing my thoughts, invariably it feels good to hear them coming out. But sometimes it doesn’t make me feel any better about myself either. This is why I keep trying to pound it through your thick skull NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM IN THE VACUUM OF SPACE!!!

I don’t have an off switch but it’s always on. When I smoke a blunt, it slows it down just enough for me to go to sleep and stay asleep. I rarely do it but meditation helps with the noise of anxiety and I will eventually fall asleep. I very rarely know if I dream or not because some people have clarity and will remember their dreams. Not those. 🤦‍♀️

I am not looking forward to hashing this out with either dentist today but I know that I am going to tell them both that, “You know what. You just may need to explain to me that the hypotenuse of an object such as an isosceles triangle is not the same as the actual sum of the square root of the two sides it to me like I’m a five year old. Yet how does one prepare for a fifteen minute lecture on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (I did it and it took me a week to get it done but I did it)

I know I am going to cry again and I just hate that about myself. No tears. No crying. Just start chewing around the ankle area and then you’ll be free of the trap. Shoulders back. Stomach in. Eyes forward. Stiff upper lip. MACH SCHNELL!!! Left Right Left. Just as I did that one time in the snow. I walked to the train station, just about a mile plus, from an Ex-Friend’s house. The snow was nearly blinding me, what had fallen previously was now up to my knees and I kept on chanting MARCH MARCH MARCH. Eventually I got on the train and went home. I’m a whiny little bitch. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!!

#dear diary #i wrote this for me #lgbtq #bipolar depression #inside my mind #my words #my writing #no your not the only one #pity party #ramblings

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godlessandwrecked · 2 years

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good bad luck | p. parker

the black cat — a master burglar who has come swinging into peter’s life like a fist, to snap him out of it with witty comments and breath-taking punches. even when he thinks he hates her, he absolutely adores her, and unfortunately for him, he’s failed to realize he’s falling until he’s inches off the ground…

PAIRING: peter parker (mcu) x blackcat! fem reader

WORD COUNT: 6k

CONTENTS: post nwh, peter’s pov, pining and blushy messy peter, some suggestive stuff but mostly sfw, a lot of cute banter and a heist? also, i mention the cat has white hair like once, but she’s completely self-insertable, just like the rest of my fics!

A/N: tried to be as loyal to the black cat as I could because I adore her in the comics, but I totally made her my own here for the sake of having a version that would make sense with a younger Peter :) first time writing for Tom’s Peter and I’m: scared. ok enjoy <3

Peter’s number one, most hated, vilest enemy he’s fighting nowadays is… biochemistry. And he’s losing, by a lot. Not because he doesn't possess the capabilities to defeat said enemy, but because New York City doesn’t give him a damn rest, and he’s exhausted.

In the few months he’s been in college, to no one’s surprise, he’s already managed to be late on a pile of assignments. He doesn’t have the time to work on them, and even when he does and sits down to get on with it, it’s like his brain won’t stop running.

It should be easy for him—he’s good at it and he’s passionate about it, after all—but he can’t focus on the task at hand. His brain keeps shifting back to the city, to the rooftops, to the people who need his help, to her, and suddenly his cheeks start heating up and he’s back to thinking of how good it would feel to swing around the city, with the sun behind him and the wind whizzing by, clearing his mind of everything.

Peter huffs, clicking the delete key on his run-down laptop until the two lines he’s managed to write in the last half an hour disappear from the document, leaving it blank once more. His suit stares back at him from the other side of the room, laying on a chair, the goggles on his mask ogling at him, as if begging him to please put it on and take it out for a stroll.

For a few seconds he thinks he’s actually going to give in, but then he shakes his head, reprimanding himself and murmuring a No. No, Peter. No. He can’t keep avoiding his responsibilities, he needs to get the assignment done. College is far too expensive for him to throw it all away just to swing around like a monkey. He’ll have plenty of time to do that later.

He accommodates back on his chair, cracks his knuckles, and is about to begin typing away when–

Tap tap tap.

His head shoots to his right, facing the window where the sound has come from, to be met with nothing but that—the window. Chastising himself for getting distracted once more, he returns to his work, thinking it must have been the wind, or a knocking next-door.

But as soon as he looks away, there it is again, tap tap tap on the glass.

He turns on his chair once more, expecting nothing again, but gives a little jump at what he sees, surprisingly startled.

A head hangs upside down from the top of his window, wide eyes staring at him through even bigger spectacles, hair the color of snow flowing in the breeze.

He furrows, “Again?”

She waves happily, still upside down, and points at the lock on the window, asking him to let her in. She could bust it open easily—she is the best cat burglar ever, after all—but she doesn’t want to get him in trouble with his landlord. Not again.

“What are you doing?” he asks, slightly annoyed as she jumps over the windowsill and into his one-room apartment.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” she asks with that playfulness that comes naturally to her, even in the worst of situations.

“I told you not to come around here, Cat. Someone could see you.”

“So what? No one’s gonna think you,” a sharp fingernail pokes at his chest, “Of all people, are Spider-Man.”

“Wow, thank you. A lot. That’s really kind.”

“I’m joking, Spider. Who’s gonna see me hanging out of your window on a 4th story, anyway?”

“My neighbors? I don’t know. Don’t do it again.”

“Relax, Spider-Boy. I won’t,” she rolls her eyes, and he knows reprimanding her is of no use. She’ll do it again whenever she pleases.

Peter’s eyes follow her as she moves around his apartment comfortably, opening up cabinets in search of food, running her fingers over the notes on biophysical chemistry on his kitchen counter, straightening up items here and there. He watches with narrow eyes as she finds a pack of cookies and pops one into her mouth, sitting down on his bed.

How has this become his life? Two months ago they were kicking each other’s asses out in the cold, and now she’s laying on his pillow. He’s not sure if he likes it or it unnerves him, how naturally it comes to her to invade his personal space.

“What are you up to? Wanna go out for a stroll?” she asks, still chewing.

“No. I’m doing school work.”

“Okay.”

They sit in silence while he waits for her to get the hint and leave, but she doesn’t, just stares at him. So he stares back, blinking awkwardly, arms crossed, and then cocks his head toward the window.

“Oh, you want me to leave?” she realizes.

“Well, yeah, I have things to do.”

“I’ll be really quiet,” she shakes her head, a grin on her face. “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

Sure.

He’s probably going to regret this, but how can he tell her no? She’s not going to leave either way, and the more he presses, the more she’ll do the exact opposite. He knows her well by now.

For a few minutes, as he stares at the blinking cursor on his screen, he actually believes he’s going to get some work done, but he can hear the tapping of her fingers on the leather of her suit, the steady up and down of her breathing, and if he concentrates hard enough, even the fluttering of her lashes. It’s driving him nuts.

His brain is foggy, and he’s itching for that freedom only the free-falling can provide him with. And he’s thinking of last week, when they played tag over Queens, swinging and chasing each other around narrow alleys and crowded streets. It’s just what he needs, exactly what the doctor ordered.

Peter gets up from his chair abruptly, closing his laptop and already reaching for his suit, “Okay, let’s go.”

And they’re stumbling back onto a rooftop, giggling and out of breath. This in particular is the one they favor, one that overlooks Central Park, and a little further away, the Empire State, peeking its pointy head over the less impressive skyscrapers.

They sit at the edge, legs dangling off the ledge, watching as the sun sets and hides behind the buildings in the distance, recalling the amazing stunt she’d pulled by swinging off his web and landing flawlessly on her feet.

It’s funny how things work. She found out about his identity completely by accident two months ago, catching him half naked in an alley, all bloody, with his suit torn and no mask on. “I knew you were cute, Spider,” was all she said as she offered him a hand to help him back home, and ever since then, they’d grown closer.

Now that she’s on his side–at least, most of the time–he finds himself enjoying his patrolling nights. Their nights together. Sometimes he even catches himself looking forward to the sun setting, running back home from class, dying to get into his suit just to do this. And he likes doing it with her. He’d spent so much time alone, he’d forgotten how good it felt to just be around somebody, no matter how bothersome they are.

It really does mess with his head, because technically, he’s not supposed to like her. She’s been trouble from the start, and she’s made things more complicated for him countless times, but he has so much fun with her. And sure, if he doesn’t think about the morality of her profession, she’s the best partner he could ask for.

“These are really good,” he points out, scrolling through the pictures she’d taken of him mid-air on his second-hand camera.

He’s been selling pictures of Spider-Man to The Bugle for a couple months now. It’s a job he’d rather not do—after all, they do literally hate his guts over there—but it’s one he has to do if he wants to keep a roof over his head. At least, now he doesn’t have to tape his camera to a wall to take his pictures. She does the job for him.

“I have many talents.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he says absentmindedly.

Her brow shoots up, “Can you, now?”

His slow brain doesn’t realize she’s messing with him until a few seconds later, when he sees through the teasing smirk on her face and her comment downs on him. “I mean, thank you.”

“You’re so easy,” she laughs in a bright smile that reminds Peter a little too much of pure sunshine, pointing out his reddening cheeks. “Anyway, wanna make out?”

“Wh- what?” he chokes out. Did he hear correctly?

“I said: do you wanna get takeout?”

“I don’t think that’s what you said.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

He’s sure his face is bright red at this point. Now he’s really wishing he hadn’t taken his mask off. She’s messing with him again, and he’s fallen for it, again. How embarrassing. “Why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“Do you have a thing for me blushing or…?”

“You are just so damn cute, Spider,” she bumps his shoulder, leaning into him slightly.

She blinks slowly, her lashes fluttering softly, and Peter starts shaking.

Maybe not literally, but on the inside, it feels like every cell on his body is vibrating, shaking away, like turbulence on an airplane, and he feels like he’s about to crash. It’s too late to worry about a bad landing, because he’s already trying to shove his wildly beating heart back into his ribcage before it spills out through his mouth.

Fortunately for him, just as he feels himself shifting forward the slightest bit, before he dares do something stupid, she stands up in a gush of energy and leaps onto the ledge of the roof.

She walks along the dangerously narrow path, putting one foot in front of the other with cat-like grace, her arms spread out. He knows her balance is quite literally perfect, knows she would never fall, and if she did, she would land on her feet, and yet, he can’t help it, it comes out of his mouth, easy as breathing, “Be careful.”

She turns around to face him, a smile on her face that is as sweet as is dangerous; a double edged sword. “Would you catch me? If I fell?”

“Always.”

And he means it, of course he does. She’s the closest thing he’s had to a friend the past few months, the only person who has been around, getting to know Spider-Man, and now Peter Parker alike.

After losing everything he’d ever had, he felt lost, angry and lonely. And that’s when she came around, swinging into his life like a fist, to slap him back into the world of the living and fill him with something other than grief.

Those first few months, when he chased her around the city, hoping to catch her with her hands on the smoking gun, he felt alive again. And then everything changed between them, and she went from foe to friend.

Now he can’t think about patrolling without thinking of her. He can’t picture the night without an image of her popping into his head, with her bratty attitude and wolfish grin, about to make a comment that will turn his ears pink. But he enjoys it, how she fills up the silence, how warm he feels next to her. Sometimes that warmth is anger and annoyance, sometimes it’s other things. Things he doesn’t dare admit, at least not yet.

She doesn’t say anything at his answer, even though he’s well aware that it sounds more like a confession than an offhand comment. If it has affected her in any way that isn’t prideful, she doesn’t let it show, just smiles triumphantly.

She’s got him wrapped around her finger, and she knows it. And maybe he’s in deeper than he thought he was. Maybe.

•••

A week of absolutely no distractions and assignment after assignment has given Peter a lot of time to think about various things. He’s come to a few realizations:

He should probably not take off his mask when he’s around the Cat, just so he won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him blush anymore.

College really is just not worth it.

He can’t live off of cheese strings and coffee.

College is not worth it again.

There’s a criminal organization in New York he needs to take down sooner than later.

Maybe he should’ve gone grocery shopping first, but he’s already barging into their shared rooftop, letting go of the web that swung him there to walk up to the Cat, already waiting for him and picking at her long nails.

“We’re gonna steal something!”

“Hello to you, too. Did you say “We”?” she grins, instantly intrigued. “That’s very immoral of you, Spidey.”

Normally, yes, he would find it immoral, but this is an exception. He’s been thinking about it for over a month now, and every time he runs it over in his head, it becomes more and more clear that he needs her expert hand if he wants it to be successful.

“It’s for the greater good.”

“Okay. What are we stealing?

“Just some records. Numbers. Proof.”

“Records,” her brow shoots up. “From whom?”

Peter kisses his cheek, dreading this moment, and whispers the answer through his teeth, almost inaudibly as he scratches at the nape of his neck. She gets a little closer to him, her inquisitive look piercing right through him, “Huh? You’re gonna have to speak a little louder. I don’t have your abilities, Spidey.”

“The Maggia.”

Her eyes widen. “The Maggia? Yeah, no, thank you,” she turns away from him and starts to walk in the opposite direction. “Already did that once and it was…not good.”

Maybe he doesn’t need need her help, but she is really good at what she does, and besides, he wants her by his side. Of course, he’s not about to tell her that, no need to feed her ego.

“Please,” he pouts under the mask, holding her back by her wrist so she doesn’t walk away from him. Begging doesn’t work with her, not at all, but he can try. “I can’t do it without you.”

Her stance softens at that, so she sighs, annoyed, “You know I’m all about being reckless, but not without a good reason. So what’s in it for me?”

“The satisfaction of knowing you’re going to help a lot of people by overthrowing organized crime?”

“Ugh,” her nose scrunches up in disgust.

“Why do you always need to get something out of it? We have a deal, don’t we? You help me sometimes, and I overlook your ‘visits’ to the Guggenheim,” he says, making air-quotes.

“Why do you care about that, anyway? I’m like Robin Hood.”

“You’re the British Museum at best.” She gasps, looking extremely offended for a few seconds, her hand over her heart, so he clarifies, “You don’t take from the rich to give to the poor.”

“Yes, I do. The rich being,” she makes a vague gesture with her hand, as if batting away some fly. “And the poor being me, of course.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“Whatever you say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he shakes his head, catching her before she tries to divert the conversation. “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Her eyes roll, “Well, if I must…”

Barely a few hours later, once the sun has set, the crescent moon providing them with enough coverage in the shadows, they’re already on the go, towards the outskirts of the city.

It only takes them a few minutes to get to their destination, and once they do, they wait, watching the entrance of the property from their hiding place in the heights, observing in silence and coming up with their plan of action.

“Rooftop, you think? The skylight?” asks Peter.

“Yeah, that’ll be the quickest and safest way. You web me down, I’ll get whatever I can find. Nobody will even notice we were here. Easy as that.”

“Are you sure? I should go in with you.”

“No. They probably have security systems you won’t be able to recognize or avoid. I’ll go in. You keep watch.”

“I really think I should go in with you. What if–”

“Spider,” she interrupts him, getting closer to him until they’re face to face, inches away. “Let me do my thing. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Peter is not particularly fond of this plan, but she’s the expert at this sort of thing, so he follows after her, silently swinging past the guards patrolling the perimeter and landing on the rooftop unnoticed. Once they reach the skylight at the center of it, she pulls a pin out of her suit and starts fumbling with the lock with expert hands.

Nearly two seconds later, it pops open, “Ta-da!”

“Wow. You are really good at that.”

“The best,” she announces happily. “Alright, pull me down.”

They manage to create some sort of make-shift harness out of his webs, wrapping them around her waist tightly so he’ll be able to hold her easily and bring her in and out of the facility with no problem. Once they’re done, she jumps down into the building with no hesitation, and he steadies himself, bending his knees and planting his feet firmly on the floor to hold her up.

And damn her, because even now, as he slowly lowers her down the skylight, she looks beautiful, with the moon shining down on her, her body contorting on the web to keep herself steady, her doe eyes looking up at him, instructing him to go a little slower now, more to the right then.

The Cat has many good qualities and abilities, but Peter found out very quickly that the weapon she wields the best is her beauty—a perfectly angled knife that slashes through him, punctures his lungs and leaves him gasping for air. It’s the one thing he hasn’t learnt how to dodge yet.

“Spider?” she asks suddenly. “Why’d you stop?”

“Sorry,” he clears his throat and resumes his job in aiding her to rappel down. “Got distracted.”

“Why? Do you like what you see? Is that what it is?” she purrs, obviously trying to make him tick. He’s not falling for it this time.

“Sure. Indiana Jones could never,” he jokes, and unfortunately it’s true. He might have the style, but he doesn’t have the elegance nor the effortlessness of the Black Cat. “What do you see?”

“Give me a second. It’s too dark.”

“You can’t be too far off the ground, can you?” It’s just a warehouse. “Can you?” he asks again, but there’s no answer, so he tries once more, “Cat?”

No answer still. Was this part of the plan? Wasn’t he supposed to get confirmation that she’d made it in? Sure, they didn’t talk about that, but isn’t it a normal thing to check on? Now he can’t recall what they’d discussed and his palms are starting to get sweatier and sweatier by the minute.

She told him to wait and keep watch, but he can’t just sit back. He has no business getting so worried, so quickly, but he’s not the most patient person, and he doesn’t like a single one of the hundred different scenarios that are rushing through his mind right now.

So he jumps into the building, with no thought in him but his partner getting hurt or taken or worse. And two seconds later as he lands on a dark hallway, just like she said he would, he triggers some sort of alarm, and the whole building goes on full blast, blaring a high pitched noise, bright red flashing lights and all.

“Shit,” he murmurs under his breath.

Peter doesn’t know what to do except run, instead of back through the skylight, right down the hallway, in search of The Cat. Just when he rounds out the corner, running frantically like a maniac, he slams hard against something, sending him almost straight to the floor.

“Peter?”

“Oh, thank God, you’re okay,” he places his arms on her shoulders to ground himself, relieved once he sees her, safe and sound.

“What did you do?” she asks, annoyed, over the deafening sound of the alarm.

“You weren’t answering! So I came in.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Red light illuminates her face, matching her annoyance. “I was doing my job. You clearly didn’t do yours very well.”

“Uh, excuse me, lady, for worrying about you.”

“Get us out of here, Spider. Out, out,” she taps his shoulders.

They run back down the hallway, to make their way out of the skylight once more, and he’s wrapping his arm around her waist to swing them both out and away when-

A bullet whizzes past them, making them jump.

“Holy fu-”

“You!” Two burly men in suits are sprinting down the corridor towards them, guns pointed, fingers on the trigger and ready to shoot again.

Peter tugs at her hand to get her out of there, but she steps in front of him instead, on the line of fire.

“Watch out! Faulty construction!” she yells out in a mocking tone, and somehow, the whole ceiling panel ahead of them breaks away and tumbles down onto the men, knocking them down and burying them under plaster. “Oops!”

Peter’s eyes widen, weirdly impressed. Those bad luck powers truly are something.

And as soon as he’s about to praise her and her little stunt, a whole group of mobsters round the corner, marching at them with all kinds of weapons ready to fire. They’re way too many to fight on their own, so like real heros do in times of trouble, they make a run for it.

“Hold on tight!” His arm wraps around her waist as her legs wrap around his, and Peter leaps out of the skylight, carrying them both out into the night.

A bullet whizzes by way too close to them, cutting through the air and making his hair stand on end as he shoots out a web to propel them towards the edge of the building. He jumps off the railing, the arm around her tightening its grip, and for a couple of seconds where time stands completely still, they’re free falling, and falling, and falling, until Peter shoots out another web, preventing them from slamming onto the pavement.

He swings them back to his apartment, his mood souring further the closer they get, guilt starting to creep in as the adrenaline washes away. Perching her gently on the window ledge, he allows her to crack it open and let them in easily, too defeated to even try to argue about it.

He rips his mask off as soon as he steps in, throwing it across the room carelessly. “Damn it,” he barks frustratedly, kicking the floor. “I messed it up, didn’t I? I almost got us killed.”

“You did,” she nods her head, adjusting the fur on her collar. “But it was fun. A little run in with the mob is always good. Could’ve gone worse.”

“Fun? They were firing multiple guns at us. That wasn’t fun, that was insane!”

“Spider-”

“That was all my fault! I almost- How could I be so stupid?”

“I can assure you, you can get stupider. it wasn’t that big of a deal,” she tries to cut in again, but Peter keeps on frantically pacing, his breathing getting agitated, his face blotchy.

“I didn’t listen. I should’ve listened to you.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Oh my god! I put you in danger! I fucked up and I put you in danger and it was all for nothing-”

“Peter!”

Now, that shuts him right up.

“I swear to God, you better shut up right now.”

But he’s so caught off guard that he wouldn’t be able to speak even if he tried.

Peter.

She has never called him that. Never by his name. Always Spider, sometimes Spidey, other times any weird name that crosses her mind. Never Peter. And he doesn’t understand why he’s so shocked by it, but he guesses it’s because it’s been a while since he’s heard his name coming out of the mouth of a friend.

And the realization is soul-crushing.

He’s too preoccupied with that to process anything else she’s saying or to notice how she’s ruffling through her pockets in search of something.

“Hey!” she snaps her fingers to get his attention. “Who said it was for nothing, huh?” she purrs, a smirk on her face, and in her hand, between her index and thumb, a shiny, silver pendrive, glinting in the dim light, like the final quest reward in some videogame.

He takes it from her and studies it in his hand, fascinated with the little token and even more fascinated by her and her abilities and how she somehow keeps surprising him again and again. “Cat, I could kiss you right now.”

“All in its right time,” she laughs, sitting beside him on the end of his bed, her hand on his shoulder. “I told you I had your back if you had mine, didn’t I? When I found out,” she points at his face. “I meant it. Don’t beat yourself up. We did this together. I know you don’t like me most of the time, but-”

“Don’t say that. I do. Like you. All of the time.”

How could he not? Even back when he thought he hated her, he adored her. Cherished every second they spent together, throwing punches and kicking each other in the shins, throwing witty and snarky comments back and forth like daggers.

Bold and brass, she’d shaken him awake from a deep slumber. Not gently like the warmth of the early morning sun on your closed eyelids would, heating up your chilling bones; but more like the punching shock and the grimace that follows after sucking on a lemon. Or getting kicked in the mouth, those terrible seconds when you notice that rusty taste on your tongue and you check in fear if you’ve still got all of your teeth.

That's how she makes him feel, which is not a pretty picture, but somehow explains it perfectly.

“That’s very sweet of you, lover,” she says with a fond smile. “I like you too, even when you’re scolding me for being a master at my craft and looking good while doing it.”

“Ha-ha,” he fake-laughs despondently. His hand finds hers on her knee, and he interlocks their fingers, squeezing reassuringly. “Is that really what you think? That I don’t like you?”

“Not really. I’ve seen your cheeks turn bright red enough times to know it’s not exactly anger. But…”

“What is it?”

“I dunno. I feel like there is a side of me you can’t get behind, and that really bothers me,” she says honestly, in a tone he’s not used to hearing from her. “This is not a game to me. You know that, right? I know I say I’m having fun all the time, but really, I do have my reasons for doing this. I’d much rather be in college, like you are.”

The breaking and entering, the robberies, the fights, the getting acquainted with the wrong people. Of course he knows there’s a reason behind all of it. She’s young and on her own. He doesn’t know what brought her to this point, but he understood from the beginning that she’s just looking out for herself.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “If I ever made you feel bad about that. I know you’re just doing what you need to do. We all are.” They just have different ways to it. But he can’t judge her for that.

“It’s okay,” and her smile is back. Sunny and undefeated. “You couldn’t bring me down if you tried. I’ll beat your ass.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he laughs with her, and it flows easy and free, his chest feeling lighter, his hand still on hers.

But then the laughter dies down, and the silence settles in, and they stare at each other with nothing to say for once. They’re sitting way too close together. The faint fragrance of her perfume–something sweet and floral he hasn't had the chance to indulge in until now–fills up his nostrils, making his head spin.

Tentatively, he reaches up, his gloved hand meeting the side of her face, and he expects her to pull away, make some comment about him keeping his hands to himself. But surprisingly, she gets even closer, nuzzles into his touch, and he’s suddenly wishing he wasn’t wearing his suit, just to feel her warm cheek under his fingers.

“Can I?” he simply whispers.

Their eyes meet, and she nods coyly, giving him the green light to move forward. His fingers clasp around her goggles, perfectly fitted to her face, and he pulls them off, slowly.

She once said she wore them only for theatrics, not to actually hide who she was, because she was too pretty for that, and besides, no one would ever catch her. Peter wasn't too sure about that, but he agreed on the former.

He’s never seen her without them, and even if they don’t do much in covering her face, it feels weirdly intimate. Like some sort of metaphorical mask; a veil that’s being lifted to reveal truths, ones that he suspects have been ready to be uttered for a while now.

And it’s like he’s seeing her for the first time all over again.

He remembers the shock, the awe, the intrigue. It still feels fresh in his mind, imprinted there, the way it does when someone makes one hell of a first impression. He recalls every single move she’d made during that first fight, every punch she’d thrown, every kick he’d received.

And yet, all of it dissolves into nothing but feelings and sensations, faint memories, because the girl in front of him–the girl he’s seeing–is not The Black Cat, infamous master burglar. He’s seeing her, just the girl, more akin to him than he’ll ever know.

The girl, who fills his nights with giggles and joy, amidst the blood and the bruises and the darkness.

Sure, she enjoys teasing him, toying with him, pressing all the wrong and right buttons. Her presence is intoxicating in all senses of the word. Most of the time, he finds her extremely annoying, especially when she goes a little rogue, but he wouldn’t trade her company for anything. She fills up all the empty spaces in his life left by the people who are gone, and the ones that no longer know him. But she does–know him. He’s gotten the chance to start over, with her, a blank slate.

He’s afraid he’s given her too much of an in into his life, and having someone know about his identity again is terrifying, it strangely feels like he’s doing it all over again. He just hopes history doesn’t repeat itself, and although he’s learned to not take anything for certain, the one thing he knows is that he wants her here, by his side. He wants her.

He can pinpoint that feeling now, clear as day. It’s that very last second playing roulette, when you see it’s about to land on red after you’ve bet all of your money on it.

He might have just gotten lucky.

Before he knows it, he’s leaning in, and after a beat of a heart, his lips are on hers.

She doesn’t pull away, just leans into it, letting him take the reins of the kiss, his hand cupping her cheek, her hand wrapping around his wrist. She presses on a little closer, her other hand falling onto his thigh that’s brushing against hers on the bed, tainting the kiss with a fervor unfamiliar to him. He welcomes it gladly, allowing her to climb onto his lap, his hands coming to rest on her waist, pressing her body against his as she lays him on his bed.

Her kiss is tender, and strangely sweet considering she’s sitting on top of him, but not gentle–more so, demanding. He’s tempted to move his hands on her waist a little lower, explore every inch of that damned leather suit, but he doesn’t dare move them, just keeps kissing her. It’s only when her hands start snaking down his body and her lips move down his jaw and neck to plant open-mouthed kisses there that he snaps out of it

“Wait, wait,” he pulls away, holding her face in his hands. He can’t believe he’s saying no to a girl already in his bed–even if it’s the stuff of his wildest fantasies and a younger version of him would smack him on the back of his neck–but he wants to do this the right way. He owes her that. “I really like you.”

“I can tell,” she assures him with half a smirk, her eyes drifting down between their bodies.

But he doesn’t blush this time, not even under her scorching gaze. “And I really, really want to keep kissing you.”

“Okay,”

“But I really, really care about you, so let’s not jinx it?”

“You really just don’t like fun, huh?” she sighs.

He laughs, sitting up to rest his forehead against hers, his nose gently grazing hers, his hands flat on her back. “I wanna be with you, Cat,” he whispers.

She just studies him silently, pondering his words, her mind surely working through a hundred different scenarios and outcomes. “You’re too good for me, Peter.”

By the way she’s looking at him, he can almost hear her next words in the silence. I’m not a hero. I’m not some broken toy you can fix. I’m a thief, proudly so. And I’ll always be one. You can’t change that.

And that’s the thing: he doesn't want her to change. He’ll take the good with the bad, the shiny and the rusted. He likes her as she is. Even if she does not understand boundaries, even if she’ll go to the ends of the world just to see him blush at one of her dirty comments.

Most of the time, she represents everything he’s trying to fight, but it’s like every single time he thinks he can’t see past it, she surprises him with some small, little confession in the midst of some casual conversation that hits too close to home. He can’t help but feel like there is more to her. There is something hidden under the leather and the pout and the pretty face and the witty, flirty comebacks, and he’s more than willing to uncover it all, if she’ll let him.

“What if it doesn’t work?” she asks, their bodies still tangled together on his bed. “What if it ends up horribly and I’m just someone else you have to lose?”

Peter places the softest of kisses on her forehead.

She looks so sad, and he gets it; he really does after losing everybody. This lifestyle is not easy, and it’s hard to let people in. Fear eats away at you slowly, until you’re left with nothing, all jagged and sharp edges, with a “Danger. Do not touch.” sign printed on your chest.

But it’s been a year already, a very long year, and he’s already gotten a taste of what a second chance might look like. If he thinks back on everyone who has ever loved him, he knows he can’t let her go. He wants to try his luck.

After all, she came in right when he needed her the most, and if that’s not good luck, he doesn't know what is. It’s a lonely life, the one they’ve chosen, but it’s theirs, and they have each other now. She’s got his back, and he’s got hers.

“I’ll always be there to catch you, remember?”

Both her hands come up to his face, and a second later, she’s kissing him again, with the same passion from that first kiss, but still gently, confirming everything Peter needed to know. That she might be the one–the one who sticks around, who understands him.

She pulls away, with a smile threatening to break free on her face, and whispers against his lips, “You’ll have to let me go about my business, though. You know that.”

His whole face lights up wtih a silly, shit-eating grin. “Don’t I already do that?”

“Alright,” she hums in agreement, tilting her head like a kitten with glossy eyes. “Can we keep kissing now, or…?”

“Yes.”

1K notes · View notes

grippingbeskar · 2 years

Text

not a bad day

part 1 (read part 2 here)

boxing trainer!frank castle x fem!reader

word count: 6.6k

warnings: ADULT CONTENT MINORS DNI (oral f receiving, mxf sexual intercourse, pain kink, mentions of bruising/description of injury) fighting, swearing

a/n: i cannot get frank out of my head and the idea of him helping u at the gym just yeah this has very little plot and is just everyones horny okay! also might make a part two of this let me know if u want that k bye luv u stay safe.

p.s thank you for all the love on the last fic!! so glad ppl enjoyed it and it inspired me to write a couple more ideas for frank so stay tuned!

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

You hate today. Of all the very bad, no good shitty days you’ve had, today takes the cake. Which is why you are currently hitting the absolute crap out of the poor punching bag in the back corner of the gym, hoping to get rid of even a small part of that bubbling anger that is threatening to explode.

First, your car broke down. Fine, things happen, your cars a piece of shit anyways. So you take the bus, only its raining and you didn’t bring an umbrella, so you run down the street in the pouring rain, chasing the only bus that would get you to work on time, only for the driver to look straight at you in the rear view mirror, arms flailing like a mad woman, and drive off, making sure to rev the wheels in the puddle next to you, flicking dirt and loose concrete all over your pale yellow dress.

Then, when you finally trudge into your office building, half an hour late and soaking wet, you see your boss. Immediately he yaps your ear off about the story your writing, and how it needs to be finished by Friday, as if you haven't been working here for years and dont know the cut off date for weekly run. You placate him, determined not to let your day be ruined at nine in the morning, when you see a team of exterminators in your office, pulling years worth of sealed documents and important files out of boxes and throwing them in the bin. It was then your boss finally decided to get to his point, saying the room was found to have an entire clan of small mice living in its walls, and they needed to gas the floor.

So, you try to save all your important work and cart it three floors down, only to find every room taken, and you end up spending your day on the floor of a supply closet, fanning out the poison stained files from your first story at New York Bulletin and definitely inhaling dangerous chemicals. It was about halfway into your day, when attempting to seperate two documents that were stuck together by liquid, that you gave up on your optimism, when you were interrupted by a phone call from your landlord telling you your apartment has flooded, and while your things were mostly okay, you would have to rent a hotel room for the next two weeks, and he ‘wouldn't be able to swing’ the cost of it as the flooding ‘wasn't technically under his jurisdiction’. You didn’t even bother going home to check your place, getting off the bus two stops early and stomping straight into the gym, seemingly the only place you can find any peace these days.

That was mainly thanks to your trainer and new found boxing partner, Frank. He was new around town, you only met him a couple of weeks ago. You dont know much about him other than he has a mean swing and is an ex marine, but he’s been helping you perfect your form for free, so you dont ask a lot of questions. Your gym is big, big enough to have an entire upper floor just for boxing and MMA training, the lower levels full of weights and machines. Usually you do a bit of cardio or strength before coming up to practise with Frank, but today you just needed to hit something, slipping in your headphones and whacking the bag as hard as you can. Your musics blaring and you dont even hear him come up behind you, and you yelp slightly when a strong hand rests on your bent elbow, stopping it mid swing. With your other hand you yank the string on your headphones, the wires falling to the ground in front of you.

“You still gotta work on those chicken arms. Elbows in.” His body is just far back enough to not press against you, and you find yourself wanting to step into him, just to feel how warm his body would feel against yours. Yes, you had a crush on him, but it was just that. A crush. You can handle yourself. His hand slides up to your bicep and presses lightly, your arm coming down in the correct form. His fingers are rough and calloused, but somehow feel smooth against your skin, trailing a light line of heat where they touched. Okay, maybe you can’t handle yourself.

Frank, on the other hand, hasn’t been in control for weeks. Ever since that first day, him wandering in to the first gym he’d seen, his apartment being too small for him to get a proper workout in, he saw you beating the shit out of this very punching bag, and he doesn’t remember a time he saw anything sexier. You had pretty poor form, but the power was there, and it was practically calling his name. He didn’t even pick up a weight, shooting straight up the stairs and standing behind the bag you were hitting, absorbing your punch so the bag didn’t move. It came off as sweet, maybe even thoughtful, but all Frank was thinking was how fucking hot it would be for you to actually hit him, and every punch you threw at the bag made his pants a little tighter.

He was on to you then, striking up a conversation about how to get more power behind yourself, and eventually, after learning your schedule by coming to the gym every day around the same time, it became habit. If he didn’t seek you out, you started to come to him, seeing you strut up behind him in the mirror as he lifted weights or hold down on his ankles as he was doing pull ups. His training used to be business only, it was almost in his job description to be fit, but you made it fun, and he found himself looking forward to every session.

“Im not exactly in the mood for a tutoring session, Castle.” You bit back, taking a couple more swings, but taking his advice and keeping your elbows in.

“But you felt the difference in those ones, didn’t you?” He comes around to face you, leaning on the wall in the corner behind the bag. You huff and continue hitting, the wraps on your knuckles beginning to come loose. “Bad day?”

“You dont know the half of it.” He just nods and his head tilts slightly, watching the way your abs tense with every punch, the small gap of skin between your sports bra and high waisted tights like a pinch of heaven to him. Your body is thrown behind every swing, and he smiles a little, unable to help how proud of your improvement he is, knowing you take on what he teaches. He can see the difference in just a couple weeks, the bag no longer a suitable opponent for your skill level.

“Wanna take it out on me?” Frank says lowly from behind the bag, and you can’t see his face when he says it, the blurred black of the swinging bag blocking him. You stop and search for his gaze, finding it on you as you stop the bag in the air and set it straight.

“What?” He nods his head, motioning behind you.

“In the ring.” Holy shit. You need to calm down. Your mind went a thousand different places, but for some reason the giant roped off ring in the room behind you wasn’t one of them. You’ve only been in there a couple times, usually its closed off for the pros to train in, or someone has already claimed it, the locks only accessible from the inside once you enter. If its unlocked, however, anyone can claim it until the next hour, and looking up, the clock just ticked over to eight.

“Yeah. Okay.” Your anger has diminished only slightly at the sight of Franks sweaty abdomen, the image certainly softening you as he leads you into the room, flicking on the lights and locking the door behind you. “I dont even think Ive been in here before. Have you?”

“Couple a’ times. Gotta show the boys how its done, right?” You roll your eyes and he laughs, the sound echoing around the cement room.

“This isn't fair. You know I dont box.” You swing your body under the ropes and when you straighten, Frank is considerably closer than you thought he would be. He reaches out a hand and takes your own in his, tightening the wraps around them. Its always stronger when he does them for you.

“Dont worry, sweetheart. I’ll go easy on you.” That fucking name. He’s called you that a couple of times, when he’s teasing you, but every time your cheeks flush and you have to avoid his gaze. Even through your pent up anger from today, the name slips through and nestles straight in your stomach, waking dormant butterflies and sending them crazy. You just shake your head and step back, remembering the stance he taught you. Legs shoulder width apart, right foot back, heel off the ground slightly. You bend your knees a little and take a few steps in either direction, testing your stability and giving yourself time to collect your scattered brain, looking up at him.

“Good. Now seriously, Im not going to hit you.” You open your mouth to say something, but he raises one finger, and you huff before letting him continue. “Ill tap you if your hands drop, like this.” He puts his fists up, and with the left hand that hangs in front of his face, he opens it and pushes your head in the opposite direction. Its not hard, barely a percent of his strength. “That okay?”

“Its annoying. But fine.” It was annoying, and you make a point to keep your hands up as he explains so he doesn't do it again. “Should I do the same?” You dont want to hit him, although you would be surprised if you were even able to land a punch, let alone do any real damage, but you still dont want to try. He just smiles at you from behind his fists.

“You hit me as hard as you can.” Your eyes go wide and you begin to protest.

“Frank you-”

“Trust me. I can take it.”

“But I-”

“I can take it. Hit me.” He grits out, and he almost sounds gravelly. You shrug your shoulders and he nods, both of you moving to the right and you punch first, aiming a hit on his ribcage. He blocks it easily, and you go to adjust, but his hand reaches up and pushes your face in the opposite direction, making you stumble. You look up at him, deadpanning.

“Frank.”

“You hit like shit, and you move too slow. C’mon.” Shaking it off you fix yourself in front of him again, moving to the left this time. The anger you felt at your shitty day simmers low in your gut, at least thats what you think it is, and you take a step into him and land a punch in the middle of his chest. He doesn't move, doesn't flinch, your pretty sure he wasn’t breathing. “What was that?”

“A punch?” You screw your eyebrows together and stand up straight, dropping your hands.

“No it wasn’t. It was shit; again.” He hasn’t dropped his stance and you let out a sigh. Your not going to try and hit him like that, no matter how angry at the world you are, you would never take that out on him.

“Frank, even if your being all macho about this, Im not going to try and hit you. I’ll hurt you.” Your hand goes to your hip.

“You could never hurt me.” He says, his voice not faltering for a second. You dont know why you interpret it any other way than a teasing play on your ability to box, but it makes your heart stutter in your chest. He obviously wants this, and as nervous as it makes you, you kind of want to see if you can land an actual hit on this guy, at the very least to get your hands on his sculpted chest one way or the other. “Hit. Me.”

“Okay. You have to tell me if I hurt you though, okay?” You get back into position, looking down at your feet to make sure you have your width right.

“You suggestin’ we need a safe word, sweetheart?” Your jaw drops open slightly and a scoff comes out. He was going to send you into cardiac arrest.

“Lets fight then, big guy.” You both move to the right again, and Frank moves fast, getting around behind you, leaving you a little off guard as you turn. His hand comes up and pushes your face. You huff.

“Focus.” Blowing a hair out of your face, you are already sweating, your previous workout coming at you like a ton of bricks. He moves again and you see your chance, getting low and landing a strong punch into his abdomen, using your body to gain power this time. You dont go full out, but you land it with enough strength you hear a little wind come out of him. Satisfied, you come straight back up, keeping your hands in front of you. “Good. Again.”

You step into him and uppercut into his stomach, stepping back quickly. You look down for a split second to adjust your feet but his hand is already there, shoving you and you realise you dropped your hands. Its pissing you off faster than it should, and if you just kept your damn hands up you wouldn't have to worry, more angry at yourself than him.

“Stop that.” You growl at him and move to the left.

“Stop lettin’ me.” Asshole.

Frank watches in awe from behind his fists at that little spark that comes across your gaze, and he knows he’s got you. It was a little game at first, but now he’s had a taste of that anger, a taste of that sweet pain that comes with the force of you against him, and he knows he sick for craving more. You dont hesitate this time as you ram your fist into his ribs, the hardest you’ve hit him yet. It knocks some of the wind out of him, and he sucks in a breath. Damn, that was fucking hard. Almost as hard at the erection he’s currently sporting, thanking all the gods listening that he decided to wear track pants over his gym shorts, at least they cover up his dignity a little. He wants all of your anger, all that rage you buried into the bag outside the ring, so as soon as he sees your hands drop just a little, he shoves your face again, a little harder.

“Frank! My fucking hands were up.” You grumble at him, planning your next move. You were pissed off now, and if Frank wanted to fuck with you, you were going to fuck with him right back.

“If they were up I wouldn’t have got you. Again.” His voice sounds dry and low, and if you weren't so riled up you would think it was sexy. No, you do think its sexy, but you cant think about it right now. You step left and hit him again, in the same spot in his ribs. His hand comes up to the left of your face and you block, only to feel him push you on the right.

You say nothing, and instead physically wind up and let your right fist crash into the same spot for a third time. You put all your weight behind it, getting low and swivelling your body, feeling every muscle tense as you collied with his ribcage. He groans and his fists drop, leaning back into the ropes you now realise you backed him into.

Immediately you regret it. You knew you shouldn't have even gotten in the ring if your head wasn’t on straight, but Frank is so easy to listen to you, and he looked so damn good. Instantly you dont feel angry anymore, the relief replaced by guilt as you look at him, one hand holding his rib and the other leaning on the rope, head hung low.

You move to him, cupping his face in your hands and bringing his gaze to you. Your face is screwed up with worry and his eyes are almost glazed over.

“Frank! Jesus, are you okay? Im so sorry I dont even know-”

“That was fuckin’ perfect. Perfect.” He smiles up at you like some kind of sadist and the hand holding his rib comes to your hip, pulling you closer so that you can feel the sweat of his abdomen against the small part of skin between your bra and tights.

“Are you okay?” You whisper. You dont know why you do, but somehow the proximity you both share makes you feel the need to be quiet, any noise may set this moment alight, and you dont want to be anywhere but pressed against Franks bare chest, panting each others air.

“Never better.” He steps into you, forcing you to take a step back. Then two. You can only focus on the sound of his slightly strained breath in your ear and your hands leave his face, coming to rest on his chest as you reach the centre of the ring. “Again.” You step back and you dont miss the twang of disappointment when his hand comes off your hip.

“No. Im not hitting you again.”

“What makes you think you can, huh? Think I wasn’t going easy on ya?” You know he’s baiting you, and you cant figure out why. Maybe he just wants to piss you off, or maybe he thinks you fight better when your angry, but either way its working and you put your hands up. “Theres my girl.” His slight accent and the way his smile curls up the side of his face reminds you that now you dont feel angry, you start to feel... other things. You step back again, distancing yourself.

You swing a hook with your left hand and he moves just out of reach. You hear him laugh a little, so you swing again, at his head this time. You connect with the arm that comes up to block, and you can feel the strength of his arm under your knuckles.

“So close.” He says as you shuffle forward, and you have to grind your teeth to keep composure. You dont know what it is about him, but everything he does right now is making the ball of tension in your stomach coil tighter and tighter. He’s always been able to elicit some kind of reaction from you, but its always been in a public place, other eyes on you preventing you from thinking too much about the way he looks at you, his eyes analysing your every move as you practise a new block. Or how hard and perfect his body feels against you as he teaches you a new take down, warm skin burning you in his hold. You put all of your brain power into your next moves, trying to think of literally anything else as he easily evades you.

Frank doesn’t know why he does it, and it takes all of his self control to move out of the way of your hits, his mind telling him to just let you hit him every time so he could feel you that close again. Backed up against the ropes, your hands on his face, when he finally wrapped his hand around the hip that had been the object of his fucking imagination for weeks. He’s going insane, that must be the reason he can’t form a coherent thought as you step to him, matching every move he makes. Your good, he knows that because he taught you, and every time you miss he can tell you only get more aggressive, still in control but you come at him with more fire, and the anticipation of when you inevitably collied with him is almost better than the actual hit. Frank is distracted by you, all of you moving and flexing in front of him, attention devoted to him, that when you connect a right jab to his chest, it knocks him back.

This time you dont check on him, you just come again, landing a left hook to his side. He doesn’t have time to recover and you hit him again, another right jab. He’s backed into a corner and you punch again, but his right arm grabs your wrist, yanking you against him. You can feel his heartbeat in your own chest, and he’s breathing hard, nearly as wiped out as you.

“That all you got?” he purrs in your ear, and he swears he can see the final straw break. You are faster than he thought, and using the hold he has on your wrist you swing him over your shoulder. Using his own strength against him, just like he taught you, you flip him over and he lands on his back, hitting the matt with a hard whack.

Your on him simultaneously, both legs straddling either side of his ribcage, and your forearm comes down on his chest, using all your strength to hold him down. The only sounds that fill the empty room is the quiet ticking of the clock and Frank underneath you, wheezing a little under your body.

“You gonna tap out, Castle?” Hell yeah you are cocky, the giant mass of man underneath you making you feel a lot more accomplished than you thought. You don’t care that he was probably letting you throw him down, you still did it without any help, only ever completing the move before when Frank coached you through it. He just looks up at you and smiles. “What?”

“I taught you that.” He says, and you take your forearm off him and sit back on his abs, laughing. When you sit back both of his hands come up and rest on your thighs. You stop laughing and look down at him, your ponytail falling to the side of your face.

Frank thinks you look like some kind of angel. Your hair is all frayed and pulled out in places and it frames your face so perfect, and theres a light above your head that sits directly above you, shining down and lighting you up, every bead of sweat glistening on your body, and his eyes catch on one that slides down the valley of your chest, disappearing under the tight confines of your bra. He tightens the grip on your thighs and he feels you shift on top of him, and he nearly groans at the sensation.

“Why were you so angry today?” Frank breaks the silence under you, and yo dont know why you haven’t gotten up yet, but his hands wrap around your thighs, almost taking up the entire space of them.

“Just a really bad day. My boss is a dick and my office building has rats. Oh! My car broke down and I was late, too. And it was raining. ” You could feel the tension falling from your shoulders as you sat on top of Frank and told him about your day, somehow never feeling more natural. “Dont even get me started on my apartment. Probably have nothing left.”

“You got robbed?” Frank tenses under you and you shake your head and put a hand on his chest.

“No. Flooded, though. Cant stay there for two weeks. I came straight here.” You shake your head thinking about how ridiculous your situation is.

“No wonder you hit me so hard.” He laughs under you and you resist the urge to swat him.

“Shut up. You asked for it.”

“Yeah, I did.” His hand slides up your thigh just an inch and the muscles under them tense at his touch. You swallow hard. You cant read his expression, but he just stares at you as he moves his hands another inch higher. “You alright?” He asks, not knowing if he’s talking about your apartment or his wandering hands, but it doesn’t matter because the answer is a desperate yes that you somehow manage to squeak out. He smiles again, that half smirk thing he does when you finally figure out whatever he is teaching you, and your palms start to get sweaty.

“M’ fine.” The ticking of the clock reminds you that you still have 20 minutes of uninterrupted time alone with him, and it suddenly doesn’t feel long enough.

“You dont look fine.”

“I dont?” He shakes his head and his fingers splay across you, squeezing lightly. It feels good on your tight muscles and you drop the last of your weight on top on him, relaxing.

“You seem strung out. Need to relax.” He’s no longer looking at you, murmuring his words under his breath and his eyes roam your body, taking in every minuscule detail that rests on top of him.

“I thought thats why we were fighting?” Your voice is small, and his fingers tighten and relax on your thigh, massaging.

“We were fighting cause you were damn pissed. You still feelin’ angry?” You shake your head, unable to speak. “Good. Just need ya to relax for me now, okay?” Now you nod.

Frank is straining to control himself, your obedient nods and the way you rest against him, full body weight sinking into him has his cock tenting his pants. He’s damn happy you are facing him right now or you would see just how much you effect him, because he wants this to be about you. As much as he needs you, he can wait a little longer if it means he gets to see you come apart while he watches. Besides, this will be indulging him just as much as you.

He cant count how many times he’s dreamed of this, of you using him to get your anger out, get rid of all your frustrations. Every day in the gym, no matter if your high off a great day at work or dead tired, you use him as your outlet, and he will take anything and everything you give him, but here, with you on top of him, he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t imagined how you would use him like this. He wanted to drown in you, wanted you to take all that natural dominance you exude in training and suffocate him with it, letting you use him in an entirely new way. The thought of tasting you makes his mouth water, and his hands travel to your hips, squeezing gently.

You were out of breath and dizzy, and the way he held you made you feel things you haven’t felt in years. The past few weeks have been a silent torture, having his body so close but somehow not close enough. His fingers lightly brush the sliver of skin above your tights and slip just below the hem, and you sigh.

“These expensive?” He plays with the hem and you shake your head, the tights being one of the few spare pairs you keep in your locker here for when you can’t be bothered to go home and change first. “Good.” The rip of fabric makes you flinch slightly as he tears the tights off your body, cool air kissing your bare skin, the tattered remains falling to the sides. You are left sitting above him, only in your sports bra and white underwear, thankful you wore something sort of cute today. Your jaw hangs open at his raw strength and it only swirls that tight ball of need in your lower stomach tighter, and the breeze coming from one of the windows reminds you how wet you are and you shiver.

“Frank, w-what are... Jesus. What are you doing?” You cant focus and his hands slide along your skin, coming up and over your hips, fingertips stopping just under your bra and sliding back down, sparks flying everywhere.

“Gonna help you relax. That okay?”

“Y-yes. Yes.” You are nodding frantically and his hands stop on your hips, and pull you forward, your legs shuffling up his body. You pick up on what he’s doing as he stops you just under his chin, the only thing stopping him from touching you the weight you support in your legs.

“Good girl. Gonna reward you for being so good.” One hand hooks underneath your underwear, and he trails a light line over your centre, making you shudder his name. “You this fuckin’ wet for me already?” He trails is hand over your clit again, and takes the same finger and slides it inside you once, curling and hitting that exact right spot. You moan and he slips out of you, bringing the finger coated with your taste and wrapping his mouth over it, and his eyes flutter closed.

Frank nearly comes in his pants at the taste of you. You are sweet and perfect, more incredible than he could have ever imagined. Your face when he slid into you is etched into his brain forever, and there will never be a day that it doesn’t make him rock fucking hard. The way you react to him makes him think you’ve wanted this just as long as he has, and he doesn’t waste any more time indulging either of your fantasies. He rips your underwear off too, shoving the frayed fabric into the pocket of his track pants. He kisses you once, right where you need him to, both strong hands coming to your bare ass, forcing you down on him. You strain only slightly, not wanting to put your whole weight on him, and he growls under neath you.

“Thought you were gonna be good for me; let me help you.” He kisses your inner thigh and looks up at you.

“I am! But I-”

“Sit.” He’s still staring at you, peppering soft kisses up and down where ever he can reach on your thighs. You trust him, and given what you were just doing, you know he would tell you if there was something he couldn’t handle.

“Okay, just throw me off or something if you need to, please okay?” Your eyes aren’t focusing on anything but him, and you see him smirk and roll his eyes.

“Yeah. Sure. Now c’mere. Lemme give you what you need.” You shuffle a little more and let your legs relax, and he dives into you. One hand remains on your hip while the other slides inside you, two fingers gently caressing that growing need in your stomach. His tongue works you expertly, and your back arches as both your hands come down to grab his hair, pulling and twisting in pleasure.

“Oh fuck! Frankfrankfrankplease!” You dont know what your asking for, just that he is the only one that can give it to you, your hips grinding against his face, feeling his nose lightly brush your clit with each movement.

“That’s is baby. Fuckin’ take it.” He says the words into you and you can feel the heat of his breath on your core. You bite your lip and the hand not in his hair finds the one of his on your hips, grabbing it desperately. He lets go of you and your fingers intertwine, you leaning forward over him unable to hold up your bodyweight. His hand doesn't leave yours and you hold onto him tightly, your hips still moving against his face.

Frank is surrounded by you. Your thighs squeeze his head and keep him perfectly in place between you, and the way you lean over him slightly means he has the perfect view of your face as he fucks you with his tongue and fingers. You move against him without him having to tell you, your natural desires taking over the worry of hurting him. He loves to watch you lose control, and the sweet sounds mixed with his name that leave your mouth make him moan against you.

“God, you taste so fuckin’ sweet. You like usin’ me like this, huh sweetheart?” You nod, or you think you do, but the hand that was inside you comes around the back and grips your ass, tight. “Need to hear it.” He groans into you as his tongue replaces his fingers.

“You - Yes, Frank. Fuck, it feels so good.” You breath and your whole body feels like its on fire, pleasure building in every part of you. You aren’t going to last much longer, his mouth working furiously on you as his hand comes back to join it.

“Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl.” His praise is all you want, all you’ll ever need, and you move your hips, pull his hair, try to figure out whatever it is that he wants. “You think you can come for me?” Your eyes are squeezed shut and you nod, all he needs to do is ask you to do it and you will. He has you wrapped around his fingers, literally.

Frank never wants this to end, but somehow he retains the slightest bit of composure to remember the time limit on the gym room only gives him another couple of minutes in paradise. He could spend an eternity between your legs, and he would when he got you home, but right now he needed you to come just as bad as you did. He kept fucking you with his fingers, and when ever he spoke his thumb replaced his mouth, knowing it would ultimately be his words that pushed you over. He could tell you loved his mouth, both on you and speaking all your dirty thoughts back to you, and he loved that it was him and only him you responded to like that.

“Alright baby, I need you to come for me, okay?” You were a whimpering mess above him, hips moving frantically and legs shaking. Your muscles were like jelly and he could feel you tighten around him. You babble out a few words and he thinks he hears his name in between them, and he smiles up at you as your eyes slowly open.

“I know your s’close. Can feel it. Relax for me, okay?” You choke out a moan and pull his hair, tighter than you had before, and he muffles his moan by putting his mouth back on you, wanting to taste you when you finish.

“Fucking hell! Frank!” You scream his name and your body jerks on top of him as you finally find your orgasm, Franks fingers repeatedly and brutally fucking you through it. His mouth takes in everything you give it, slurping up any evidence of your pleasure, making the most vulgar sounds that only make you cum harder. Your entire head feels fuzzy and your lungs have no air, Franks hands leaving you only to slide into his own mouth, cleaning them off before rubbing soothing circles on your lower back.

Your hands are still intertwined on your other side and you sit back, your back leaning against his two strong legs that have bent up to create a rest. He sits up, chasing you and kisses your neck lightly.

“You feelin’ better, baby?” You can’t speak, mind still numb, but you nod and he presses a soft kiss to your lips, making your eyes shoot open.

“That was our first kiss.” You stutter, and he just kisses you again, deeper this time.

He whispers in your ear, and you giggle in his hold. “We gotta get out of here, though.” You rest your forehead against his.

“Huh?”

“Thirty seconds and the doors gonna open.” You whip your head around and see the clock reading eight fifty nine. Shit!

“Frank. My tights.” You didn’t even think of it, but you look down at how very naked you were from the waist down, and he picks you up, standing with you in his arms, only setting you down when he’s sure you have found your own footing. He slides down his track pants. You cant help but stare and watch, and you see the obvious outline of his very hard erection, him attempting to tuck it into the waist band on his now exposed gym shorts.

“Put these on. We can pick up your clothes on the way to mine.” In shock, you take the track pants and slide them on, having to use the hair tie that was holding your hair up to tie the side of them so they dont fall off your waist. Frank stuffs the remains of your tights into his gym bag and comes back to you, planting a kiss on your lips as the doors open, him pulling away just in time to be missed by the entering crowd.

“Hey Castle! You guys finished up in here? Need to get in some practise before next weekend.” You knew the voice talking, you recognised him as one of the faces on the poster out the front, advertising for the gyms next fight night.

“Yeah, we’re good. Just practising.” He looks back at you and smiles, swinging his body under the rope and you realise you haven’t moved, quickly following him.

“Ah, you’re leaving? Could really use a sparring partner.” The guy says, and your eyes widen. Frank trains with this guy? A whole new wave of desire flushes your cheeks and you look up at him, a slight fear that he would take him up on the offer.

“Yeah, gotta get my girl home.” He pulls you closer to him, swinging an arm around you as you head towards the door, uttering a quick goodbye to the waving fighter you leave behind. You hear the door click lock behind you and you descend the stairs, Frank leading you towards his car.

“Your girl?” You can’t help it, the way your heart nearly jumped out of your mouth when he said it. Did he think of you like that?

“Yeah. My girl. That okay?”

“Fine with me.” A giant grin betrays your attempt to stay casual and he opens the door for you, laughing. Anticipation begins to build as soon as he closes the door, unsure of what the next few hours will hold. He opens the drivers side door and starts the car, punching in your address and the car knows it already from the multiple times he’s driven you home.

“You think you’ll have enough clothes for two weeks or do we gotta get some?” Franks question confuses you for a moment, and then you nearly choke on your inhale in realisation.

“Oh, you so dont have to let me stay with you. Seriously, I’ll just get a hotel.”

“C’mon, cant have my girl staying in a hotel.” That same goofy grin returns to your face, and his hand comes to rest on your inner thigh. “Besides, we got a lot of work to do, and I dont wanna be disturbed this time.” You shiver, your imagination running wild.

Sitiing back in the seat with Franks hand running up and down your leg, you cant believe you thought anything negative about today, and sliding your hands in the pockets of Franks track pants, feeling the remains of your torn underwear, you think you’ll mark this as one of your best days yet.

#frank castle #frank castle x y/n #frank castle x you #frank castle x reader #frank x you #the punisher x y/n #the punisher x reader #the punisher x you #the punisher x oc #the punisher #punisher x you #punisher x reader #punisher x y/n #punisher fanfiction #marvel tv #marvel

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thetomorrowshow · 2 years

Text

tenacious trajectory

me: gonna take a break from trust au to focus on my play!

me a week later: so i started an empires superhero au-

anyways i saw a tiktok about the trope where the villain turns up on the hero’s doorstep injured saying “i had nowhere else to go” and collapses and. uh. let’s just get into it shall we

cw: being experimented on, needles, blood, use and description of medical instruments, restraints, kidnapping, violence

Jimmy isn’t exactly a hero.

He’s never been properly been a hero, never been like Major, or Gem, or any of the more localized heroes in Empire City. He’s not a villain, though—he’s nothing like Xornoth, Major’s nemesis. Jimmy’s more of . . . he’s more of an antihero, something in between.

And for some reason, that makes heroes and villains alike despise him. He’s not even the only antihero—FailWhip is right there, and people love him. But somehow, Jimmy’s picked up the reputation of a bad omen, and where before he had been neutrally acknowledged in the city, now he’s outright hated.

He’s gone through a few different rebrands over the years. For a while he was Solidarity, the comic book superhero, but being a superhero is difficult for someone who accidentally causes chaos. As soon as it was clear he wasn’t welcome among the hero ranks, he tried out being a villain as the Codfather, but after a little while the villains told him (rather politely, for villains) that he wasn’t quite fit for being a villain, that he was too softhearted and should maybe try being a hero. So he went back to Solidarity, but there’s something wrong with his old superhero costume in the way that it just didn’t fit who he’s trying to be now (He’s still wearing it, though, because he doesn’t really have the funds for a rebrand). He can’t be a hero, he can’t be a villain, so he has to take up the grey space in between.

Jimmy’s just not very good at it.

His power isn’t an envied one. Jimmy has the unfortunate ability to influence fate, but without any influence. Like, fate changes around him without his input. Usually for the worse. Sometimes he’s lucky—sometimes a building falls on Mythics so that Pearl has a chance to superstrength-punch him into the ground and knock him out. Most times, though, a tornado hits out of nowhere and disrupts a battle, a house catches on fire and Gem has to flee the fight to save the family within, or on one terrible occasion, a meteor rockets down from outer space and lands smack on top of Aeor.

And that’s probably why the heroes now despise him. One doesn’t just kill the oldest hero in the city, the one who has a parade in his honor, the one who somehow won a Tony last year, and get away with still being on good terms with heroes. Jimmy had tried to tell them it wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t control it, it just happened, but it didn’t matter. Major especially hates him, threatens to arrest him every time Jimmy dares show his face around any intense fight.

He would love to just be a normal citizen. He’s always wanted to go to college, go on a date, just eat in a restaurant for once. None of those are options. He’s barely able to live in the apartment complex he lives in—it’s on the shadier side of town, and his landlord doesn’t ask where he gets the money from and why the building is considerably less structurally sound than it was before Jimmy moved in. It’s not like he can move into one of those superhero insured houses like Major and Gem and the new flower-type hero.

And he can’t get a proper job, either—it would blow his cover instantly. Which is why he’s still working on the antihero thing—he feels gross doing it, but robbing banks isn’t too hard and the few times a hero has tried to stop him the bank has just collapsed, so they don’t even try anymore. He doesn’t do much to try and help them anymore either—for the most part the villains leave him alone (unless he interferes with their scheme, in which case they make it clear to him that he needs to stay out of it), and the vitriol (and sometimes ice spikes or flying cars) that the heroes send his way aren’t always worth getting involved.

The other antiheroes don’t like him, either. FailWhip ignores him at every turn (when he asked why, the man had said something about Gem and leapt to the side as a car came barreling down the sidewalk), and the others don’t want to push their luck. Jimmy’s a dangerous partner in every situation.

Jimmy’s also a dangerous enemy, though, so he’s generally just. Left alone. He can’t stay in one place for too long, so he spends his days stealing around the city then returns to his trashy apartment, where he knocks on the door three times to make sure it won’t fall on him, then turns the doorknob (the key broke off in the lock forever ago) and lets himself in. He kicks off his shoes, leaves the lights off (which he’s done since the bulb exploded three years ago and he spent all night picking glass out of his arm), and fixes himself a bowl of cereal. Usually the milk doesn’t go bad, but on the off chance it does, he sniffs every bite before putting it in his mouth. He reads while he eats most nights, sometimes he scrolls through the news on his phone to make sure there isn’t anything dreadful going on that he feels the need to intervene in. Then he washes his dishes, makes sure everything is in order, and goes to bed on his mattress on the floor. He keeps his phone near his ear in case he receives an emergency alert late at night.

In the morning, he usually showers and throws on some jeans and a t-shirt and shoves his phone in his back pocket. He skips breakfast and does whatever chores need to be accomplished as quickly as possible, before heading home for lunch and eating whatever food he’s bought that day. He spends the rest of the day patrolling in his old superhero costume, mostly staying out of the way of anyone (and they generally stay out of the way of him). Then he heads home and the cycle begins anew.

He’s usually not interrupted. The evening it happens, he’s put out.

Then he sees who’s interrupting him. Then he’s scared.

He’s almost gotten to his apartment when glass shatters nearby. Jimmy glances around, already rolling his eyes. His apartment windows shattered about a week into living there and have been blocked with cheap blankets ever since. He keeps moving, sticking to the shadiest parts of the street. Hopefully nobody will notice that he’s been here and he can just move on without any trouble.

But then he hears footsteps. Jimmy turns around, about to apologize for whatever it is he’s broken, but before he can he’s being wrestled to the ground.

He’s still not panicking, not as the person pins him to the ground, not as his costume tears a bit on the sleeve. He’s still more put-out than anything; he’ll have to stitch that up in the morning, just another messy addition to his outfit.

He does start panicking, though, when a gruff voice hisses, “Here’s the chloroform, get him quick. We can’t have a building fall on us.”

That’s when Jimmy realizes he has to get out of there. He writhes, heart leaping into his throat, he has to get away—

A cloth presses against his face and he automatically breathes, breathes in something sweet and chemical-y and feels his brain go all fuzzy. He barely registers his body going limp before he’s out like a light.

When Jimmy wakes, he wakes slowly, groggily. His head is pounding, his mouth fuzzy. He doesn’t know where he is, what he’s doing, what’s happening. Within a couple of moments, though, he realizes that he isn’t anywhere familiar, and he’s tied to a chair.

Great.

He swallows a few times, trying to get rid of the numbness. He’s almost a little excited—he hasn’t been involved in a kidnapping in years, not since he tried to rescue the mayor’s daughter that one time. He wonders what the villain’s evil scheme is, who the hero they’re trying to bait is.

He blinks, clearing his vision. He’s in a classic basement set-up, a goon by the door. There’s no video recorder, but there are other ways to ask for a ransom. His stomach growls. How long has he been here?

The door slams open, and in stalks—

Uh-oh. Oh no.

Xornoth, the most dangerous villain in the country, let alone the city, enters the room. Jimmy feels the blood drain from his face, and where before he had been lightly testing the ropes securing him to the chair, he’s now tugging at them a tad bit desperately. Whatever Xornoth has in store cannot be good.

Xornoth stands before him, stares for a long time. Jimmy looks everywhere but their eyes, examines their weird antler things that may or may not be part of their costume, stares into their wide grin of teeth just slightly too sharp.

That grin opens, and an echoing laugh comes out. Jimmy flinches, eyes falling to the floor then back up in time to see Xornoth raise a hand.

The doors on the side of the basement open again, this time ushering in a handful of scientist-types in white lab coats. Jimmy gulps when they approach him, eyeing the syringe in the hand of one of them. He jerks away as that man nears him, but not soon enough. The needle jabs into his neck, and with a feeling washing through his body similar to the chloroform, Jimmy is gone.

He’s not gone for long, though, because he wakes up as soon as he feels a burning on his chest. His eyes snap open but immediately close, a bright light above him. There’s a low mumbling of voices, the smell of rubbing alcohol in the air, and something tickling his nostrils.

Then his chest burns again, and he forces his eyes open and down to see—

There’s someone, someone unfamiliar, a surgical mask on their face leaning over him. In their hand is a tiny pair of scissors, which is inside of Jimmy’s chest. In a shallow dish set on Jimmy’s stomach, there are small bloody squares that seem to be his skin. Another scientist is using tweezers to pick up the squares and put them in biohazard containers.

Blood is steadily pooling from where the scientist has scissors in his chest, until suddenly a bit of it spurts up and the scientist curses, pressing a pad of gauze over the incision.

And Jimmy screams.

He jerks his arms only to find them restrained, he moves his legs only to find them restrained, he tries to sit up only to find his waist restrained. His superhero mask is stretching over some lump on his face, and that lump is pushing air into his nose, which must be an oxygen tube of some sort.

Both scientists over him step back, glancing around fearfully. A third from the background (which Jimmy just now registers, processes the others watching and washing hands and taking notes) steps forward, prepping another syringe.

No. No no no, he is not doing that again, he is not going to lose time again and turn up in some dark alley missing a kidney.

“No!” he gasps, trying to roll away. The container on his stomach shifts, threatens to tip over. “No, please, I’ll be quiet, I’ll stay still. Please don’t knock me out again.”

The woman freezes, and even behind her mask and glasses, Jimmy can see that she’s fixing him with a sympathetic look. “Mr. Solidarity, I don’t believe we can do that,” she says. “You’re a rather dangerous patient when not sedated.”

“Please?” he begs, going as still as possible. “Or at least—at least tell me what you’re going to do?”

The woman sighs, but shakes her head, approaching once again. Jimmy can’t help but whine, a keen escaping from between his teeth, as he feels a cold square of soaked gauze rub against his inner arm.

“We may need to put in an IV,” the woman says, all clinical now that she isn’t talking to him. “I’m not sure how he’s resisting this stuff, but it would be easier to just flush it through his system every time he starts to wake up.”

“Jordan, want to set that up once he’s out?”

“No problem, I’ll just go grab the—”

Everyone looks in the same direction. Jimmy cranes his neck, sees a door. Sees Xornoth.

Xornoth comes closer, closer and closer until they’re bending down beside Jimmy’s face, their noses almost touching. Jimmy barely dares breathe (only breathes because the oxygen tube is forcing him to), eyes wide as he stares into Xornoth’s black eyes.

“Nothing unusual?” the villain asks, their deep voice echoing around the room and Jimmy’s head. Various scientists mumble answers, which seems to satisfy Xornoth as they continue to gaze at Jimmy.

“Good. Keep him awake, then. I want him to feel it.”

Jimmy can’t help but shudder. A man with glasses raises a pencil questioningly.

“Sir, if he starts—”

“I’ll handle it,” Xornoth says, straightening. One of their gloved hands falls to Jimmy’s cheek, where it rests, heavy and terrifying. A scientist sighs (can Jimmy really call them scientists, or are they doctors?), then the woman who had just been prepping his arm places down the syringe and instead removes the oxygen tube from his nostrils. Xornoth’s fingers straighten out his mask, patting his cheek once it’s properly in place.

Then they’re back at it, and Jimmy’s biting back whimpers and cries as they cut into him with precision.

He’s been locked up in whatever facility Xornoth has for what feels like forever. Most of the time he’s not really conscious. Most of the time he’s lying on the concrete floor of his cell, the hard bed that he has out of reach for his non-existent energy. He drifts in and out of reality during those times, body burning where they last peeled back skin, head aching and eyelids drooping. There’s no ransom, he’s realized by now—he wonders why he ever thought there would be. There’s no one to pay it.

He doesn’t even protest these days when they lift him onto a gurney and wheel him out of his cell, back into the sterile white room where everything goes bad and blurry. He’s not sure what they’re doing to him—sometimes he looks down at himself and sees tubes sticking out of every part of his body, some days they shock him and take notes on his reactions, sometimes they just take blood and skin and tissue and then wheel him back to his cell, where he’s dumped unceremoniously on the floor. The days blend together, the worst ones marked by Xornoth’s presence.

When Xornoth is there, fear bleeds through the room. They never say anything, though: just stand silently, a hand carding through Jimmy’s greasy hair. Jimmy keeps his eyes squinted shut whenever Xornoth is there, despite every instinct screaming at him to watch them.

Whatever they do to him, on whatever day, it’s always painful. The pain more than anything drains him, leaving him limp and aching. They give him food, stuff that seems like military rations, but most of the time he’s too tired and his hands are shaking too badly to unwrap them. He thinks they’ve been giving him supplements through an IV every once in a while, because otherwise he shouldn’t logically still be alive, but his head is hazy enough that he can’t think logically. None of this makes sense.

One day, as Xornoth massages his head and a scientist is peeling away a strip of skin from his calf, Jimmy whimpers, “Why are you doing this to me?”

It’s the first thing he’s said since . . . in a while, and he’s not sure why he’s saying it, just that the pain is so so much and Xornoth is touching him and he just can’t. He blinks back a tear, gasps when the skin from his calf pulls all the way off. The gauze that the man presses down on it stings.

“Oh, little bird,” Xornoth murmurs, and Jimmy flinches at the almost—affection in their voice. “You’re going to be very useful to me.”

That’s all they say, and Jimmy feels a drop of something cold sink into his stomach. He tried the villain life, it didn’t work out. He’s not sure what they’re doing, what they’re trying to achieve, but whatever it is won’t be good.

When he’s later thrown into his cell, he can’t fall asleep like he usually does. Every word that Xornoth said is repeating in his head, over and over until all he can hear is Xornoth’s voice.

The rations are on the floor next to him, and he can’t sleep anyhow, so Jimmy tears open the package with shaking hands and takes a bite of whatever the contents are. It’s tasteless, and dry, and takes far more chewing than he has the energy for.

He picks up the water bottle that always comes with the food, but he can’t manage to twist his wrist hard enough to break the seal.

He needs to get out.

He’s not sure why it’s this that gives him the realization—maybe being forced to accept the fact that he hasn’t got the strength to open a water bottle just breaks him. He has to get out of here before things get any worse. Not just for himself—Xornoth is the most powerful villain Jimmy’s ever heard of. If he achieves whatever it is he’s trying to do, it could spell the end for the city.

Jimmy’s lying on the operation table, slipping in and out of consciousness. He thinks it’s strange that bad luck hasn’t fallen upon him yet. Maybe he’s too tired for his powers to activate.

There’s a tube in his right side, under his arm, and he’s not quite sure what it’s doing. Every five minutes or so, a scientist adjusts it slightly and presses a button, watches as a bit of blood shoots up the tube, then presses the button again for it to stop. There’s an IV in his bruised left arm, which is pumping something beige into his body.

It’s a quiet day in the lab, broken only by Jimmy’s occasional dry sobs as the tube is readjusted and the once-every-five-minutes beeping of the IV stand.

He just wants to go home. He just wants to go back to his trashy apartment where the lights are never on (this room is far too bright, always too bright) and he can eat cereal and peanut butter sandwiches and instant mashed potatoes. He just wants some time alone without any pain and his lumpy mattress and his stained couch and his blankets that smell like cigarettes and no one touching him.

There’s a loud crash from elsewhere in the building. The scientist doesn’t seem to register it, frowning as he squints at his laptop. He shifts the tube, pointing it more downward, and presses the button. Jimmy bites the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise.

Another crash. This one jostles the tube set-up, the IV stand rattling. At this, the scientist looks up. After several moments of nothing, he returns to his work.

When the third crash hits, the man sets aside his laptop and strides out of the door to the lab. Jimmy’s grateful; he gets a moment’s reprieve, it seems.

He lies there, eyes unfocused. The IV beeps. Something rumbles distantly.

This is the perfect time to escape.

He’s not sure how or when he realizes that, but it gives him enough of a burst of energy to sit up (they don’t restrain him anymore unless necessary) and peel the tape off his arm. Carefully, his vision blurring, he eases the tube out of his arm and stares dumbly at it as a rivulet of blood weaves down his arm.

This is the perfect time to escape.

The tube in his side proves a little more difficult to remove, blood spilling everywhere as he grits his teeth and yanks it from his body. He isn't sure what to do with the blood, so he ignores it in favor of pulling the scientist's stereotypical white lab coat around himself, too foggy to discern the sleeves and wearing it more similar to a cloak.

Standing is the most difficult task yet, but he ignores the shooting pains in his body and the wobbly quality of his legs and manages to remain upright. He can do this.

This is the perfect time to escape.

He leaves without another thought, shouldering out the door and stumbling across that first room that he'd found himself in so long ago. There's a door on the other side that he knows leads to the room he's been kept in; but there's a door to his right that he's never been through yet many people have come from. He chooses this door, blinking back the heaviness of his eyelids.

Beyond this door is a hallway, and he begins to make his way down to the door at the end when he hears a crash just behind him. He freezes, pressed against the door.

"Give me good news, Doctor, or you may not return home tonight."

"We're making progress, sir, but it's slow. What we have to do to suppress his powers limits any—"

"I don't want excuses, I want him to be mine."

One voice is Xornoth, one is vaguely familiar, but Jimmy can't stand here listening for any longer. He has to get out.

At the end of the hallway is a door, a solid door with no windows and a red sign that he can't focus on, but he knows somehow that this is a way out.

He's not sure how he makes it down the hallway, not with his small amount of energy flagging with every passing moment. He keeps trying to send adrenaline through his body, imagining what might happen if they find him escaping, but he's feeling worse than he ever has. The lab coat is stained red from his still-bleeding side, draining his resolve with it.

Still, he makes it to the door, shoves against the bar and pushing the door open, into darkness and a gust of wind and—

An alarm blares, loud and shocking and Jimmy jumps practically a foot in the air, and there's the adrenaline he was missing—

There's an empty lot illuminated by one streetlight, and it feels so insanely good to be outside again but Jimmy doesn't have time to focus on that, he has to run. Closing the door behind him doesn't make the alarm stop, so he limps his way across the lot as quickly as he can before—

The door slams open, and Jimmy looks over his shoulder to see Xornoth, the air crackling around them as red tentacles sprout through the asphalt, whipping around as they grow.

"Come back, darling," Xornoth calls, anger tinging their otherwise calm words. "You'll be happy soon, I guarantee."

Jimmy flinches at the way his voice echoes and hurries on, tripping over the curb as he steps out of the lot and onto the road.

Xornoth growls behind him, and before Jimmy can even think to move, a tentacle tears from the ground and wraps around his torso. It lifts him off the ground and Jimmy flails, dry heaving as the ground quickly falls below him. He pulls at the tentacle with scrabbling fingers, desperately trying to find some way to get free. The limb tightens around him, cutting into his wounds—he hears something crack—he screams, vision flashing red then black then back to blurred—

The tentacle releases him and he falls to the road, skidding a little bit, searing pain hitting his entire body full-force. He tries to breathe through the agony, but the breath is stolen from him as the tentacle tightens around his ankle and lifts him back up until his hair is brushing the ground. He can’t help it—a sob breaks from his mouth. He’d been so close, he was about to escape. . . .

A driverless car speeds from nowhere and rams into Xornoth, driving him into the wall of the building. The tentacle drops Jimmy, who falls on his face and crumples to the ground as it withers and shrinks into the hole it created in the asphalt. The night goes still.

Jimmy struggles to his feet, head whirling with agony. His nose is stuffed up, something wet pouring from it, but he doesn’t bother with it. He has to get out, because surely Xornoth isn’t dead, surely he’ll be up in just a few seconds—

Jimmy’s not sure how he’s moving, but he is. More shockingly is that he knows where he is. He’s in a part of town he never goes to, afraid of being arrested or attacked or worse.

He’s in the high-end, public-funded superhero houses neighborhood. It’s across the city from his dingy apartment, he’ll never make it home . . . Xornoth will be coming for him at any moment. . . .

There’s one superhero Xornoth is afraid of, his mind blearily supplies.

He can’t go to Major. Major . . . Major despises him, has ever since the accident with Aeor. Aeor had been Major’s mentor, had taught him to hone and control his ice powers and helped him grow into his wings. Aeor had been everything to Major, and Jimmy had taken that away.

But there’s nowhere else for him to go, nowhere else where he’ll be safe, and what if Xornoth’s implanted some sort of tracker into him. . . .

Major is the primary protector of the city. His house is the grandest, in the center of the neighborhood, so it’s going to be a bit more walking, but Jimmy thinks he can manage it before he passes out.

He makes it, just barely. It’s a long walk, longer than he thinks it should’ve been, but he doesn’t have the focus to worry about it. He doesn’t have the focus to worry about anything but the pain.

It’s a beautiful house, one that Jimmy has been warned to stay away from countless times, but he stumbles through the garden of peonies and keeps his eyes down, as if under the impression that if he doesn’t look at the house, it won’t count as trespassing.

He leans heavily against Major’s intricately carved doorway, reaching up one hand to knock only to lose strength halfway through and just sort of pat his door. His arm falls to his side and he slumps, despair flooding him as he realizes it’s been too long, Xornoth will find him, there’s nothing to be done—

The door opens and Jimmy collapses, knees hitting the porch, head leaning against something soft. He looks up to see that he’s pressed against someone’s legs, then further up to see Major’s distinctive glittering white mask and angry blue eyes.

“Solidarity,” he says, tone bitter. “What are—” his voice changes as he properly takes in Jimmy— “Is that blood?”

Jimmy swallows, speaks, voice creaky from disuse. “I—I didn’t know where else to go. . . .”

He blinks, and suddenly he’s in a well-lit kitchen, white tiles bright against the dark wood of the cabinets. Major’s there, wetting cloths in the sink, and there’s a table beside him with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Jimmy blinks at it, then down at himself. He’s shirtless, only wearing the shorts that they’d given him once they’d torn his trousers to shreds. His various cuts and bruises and missing patches of skin are on display, some scabbed over, others weeping blood. His arm and side are still bleeding as well, though considerably faster than anywhere else. More confusing than anything, there’s blood utterly coating his chest.

When he looks back up, Major is staring at him. “You’ve broken your nose,” the hero says after a moment. “That’s where all that blood is from.”

Jimmy doesn’t say anything. Any words might split his aching head in half.

Major dips his damp cloth into the rubbing alcohol, then pauses, hand hovering over Jimmy’s body. He seems to assess the damage, then kneels down and reaches for Jimmy’s side, gently patting the spot where he’d yanked out the tube.

“These injuries,” Major says once he’s bandaged that point with some gauze and medical tape, moving to Jimmy’s left arm to clean the exit point of the IV. “They’re strange. Clean, almost. Precise. And your arms. . . .” He holds up Jimmy’s arm, tracing along the bruises with a soft finger. “Burst vessels. IV points. These aren’t from a fight, Solidarity.”

Jimmy swallows. Major doesn’t miss it, steps away for a moment and comes back with a glass of water. He presses it to Jimmy’s lips, waits until he’s drunk a few sips to put it down. He moves to his nose, mutters a warning—Jimmy barely has time to tense before Major grips his nose over the mask and yanks, shoves it back into position as Jimmy lets out a hoarse cry at the burn. More blood spills out, and Major pulls his hands away in disgust before scrunching up a rag and shoving it under Jimmy’s nostrils. He holds it there until the flow slows, then adds a few pieces of tape over the mask to keep Jimmy’s nose in place before turning to other injuries.

He moves quickly and efficiently, cleaning and bandaging with the skill of one who’s done this before. Jimmy tries not to move too much, but he can’t help but jerk his leg away when Major lightly swipes a cloth over a particularly wide skin graft there. Major mutters something, then holds his leg firmly in place. He lets go before Jimmy can start to hyperventilate.

“Mind telling me what happened?” Major asks conversationally. When Jimmy doesn’t speak, he adds, “I mean, I’ve every right to arrest you. I shouldn’t have even let you in, but I happen to be a nice person. So you might as well share, if you don’t feel like waking up in a cell.”

Jimmy’s had too much of waking up in a cell lately. He swallows again, hums to make sure his voice works. “I . . . they hurt me,” he says lamely. His head is so foggy. He clears his throat and tries again. “They—they took me. And cut me. And took stuff. I—” a thought strikes him— “what day is it?”

“Uhhhhh, late Monday,” Major says absently, sticking some tape to Jimmy’s side.

“Date?”

“The 30th.”

“Of?”

“May.”

May. That can’t be. He was—the last day he can remember is the 25th of April, and he knows it’s been longer than five days, but surely it hasn’t been an entire month.

“I was . . . I was ki—taken. Late April,” Jimmy says slowly, the words falling like molasses from his mouth. Major freezes, looks up at him.

“You were kidnapped?” he asks incredulously. “That’s impossible. And nobody got struck by lightning or mauled by a passing bear? How?”

Jimmy shrugs. There are too many words involved in the answer for him to formulate it. “Xornoth?” he offers eventually. Major’s mouth curves down. He returns to patching Jimmy up.

“What would they want with you?” Major murmurs, almost to himself. “What would anyone want with you?” Jimmy tries to hold back a shudder and fails, the feeling of Xornoth petting his hair all too present. Major notices, and his mask shifts as he apparently raises an eyebrow.

“He . . . he wouldn’t stop touching me,” he says, and out of nowhere his eyes are burning. A tear slips down past his mask, dripping off his chin. “While the. The doctors hurt me. I don’t—I don’t wanna go back. . . .”

Major’s hands still. When Jimmy looks at him, his eyes are wide, wide and almost scared. Jimmy doesn’t think he can quite comprehend why. He just wants to sleep. His limbs are immobile, weighing him down. Everything hurts down to his bones, an ache that he doesn’t think will go away.

“I’mma sleep, ‘kay?” he slurs, then his chin hits his chest and he’s out.

When Jimmy wakes up, he’s hungry. Hungry and thirsty and exhausted and hurting, but he’s also alive and doesn’t feel like he’s dead.

He’s in a bed for once, and this certainly isn’t his cell or anywhere else he can remember ever being. The room is plain, undecorated apart from a dresser with a TV atop it. The only light is the sun filtering in through the window, bathing the room in an almost grey-orange hue.

He’s under a blue duvet in a very nice bed, and his left arm that lies on top of it is wrapped in bandages. It’s tough to take a breath in, something constricting his chest. He tries to sit up, gasps and falls back when pain lances through his chest.

“Good to see you’re finally awake,” a dry voice says from his right. Jimmy glances over, sees an open doorway and Major standing in it. Right, he’d escaped.

He’s free.

Major leaves, comes back a few minutes later with a glass of water and a peanut butter sandwich. These he sets on Jimmy’s lap, then reaches under the bed and retrieves a few pillows which he props under Jimmy’s shoulders and neck, helping him to sit up.

The water nearly spills, but Major flicks his wrist at it and it solidifies into ice just as Jimmy’s knee bumps it. Once he’s completely sat up, ribs twinging, Major waves his hand over the glass and it returns to water.

Unfortunately, Jimmy’s hands are still shaking too badly to grasp the glass on his own, so Major rolls his eyes and steadies his hold, allowing Jimmy to tip the water into his mouth. It’s easier to hold the sandwich, so Jimmy takes the food into both hands and bites into it, eyes almost rolling back into his head at how heavenly peanut butter tastes after so long without proper food.

Major leaves again, returns carrying a chair that he sets down beside the bed and plants himself in. He props a hand under his chin, watches Jimmy with those icy blue eyes. Jimmy’s almost halfway done with the sandwich already, tearing it apart so quickly the sandwich might as well be a blur.

Major’s hand latches around his wrist and Jimmy flinches away, drawing his arms close to himself. He—he doesn’t want to be touched, it feels bad, it burns, it’s scary. Major draws away as well, hands in the air.

“Apologies,” he says after several moments of silence. “I meant only to stop you before you got sick. You—well, you don’t look as though you’ve eaten in a while.”

Jimmy manages a raspy chuckle. “They gave me food,” he says. “I just wasn’t strong enough to open it.”

Major looks away. “You said,” he says slowly, voice unreadable, “that they—that Xornoth touched you. May I ask details?”

Jimmy feels the blood drain from his face. He really doesn’t want to talk about it, and now that his head is somewhat clearer than it’s been in apparently weeks, he remembers it clearer than ever. He self-consciously straightens his mask, probably getting peanut butter on it. “I—um—”

“I just need to know if they’re presenting a different danger than before,” Major continues. “I understand if it’s difficult to talk about, but if Xornoth is now sexually harming others, immediate action must be taken.”

Jimmy blinks a few times, processing that. Was Major implying—? “No, not—not like that,” corrects Jimmy, setting the remaining half of the sandwich down on the plate. His hands are trembling, and he clasps them together in an attempt to stop it. “I don’t think so. They would just—I would be on the table, and the scientists . . . cutting into me, or—or taking blood, or something, and they would just . . . pet. My hair. Or cheek. I didn’t—I don’t like—” he cuts off with a shudder, stomach turning. The sandwich before him no longer looks so appetizing.

When he looks back up, Major is staring at him. Major’s not wearing his usual blue-and-white skin-tight costume, he notices, the one with the intricate M on the chest and the white knee-high boots. He’s wearing skinny jeans and a t-shirt and a blue jacket, like a normal person. And suddenly, despite the grand house and fame and power, Major just seems like anyone else Jimmy might meet on the street, and he wonders if the man has a layman identity like he does himself.

“Thank you for telling me that,” Major says, standing suddenly. “I don’t know when you’ll be well enough to walk—”

“Oh, right—” Jimmy fumbles with the plate, sets it on the mattress as he flips the covers back and swings his legs over the side of the bed, despite the pain that spikes through his body. “I really ought to—”

“What do you think you’re doing?” demands Major, gesturing for him to lie back down. “You’ve been tortured for a month, your stick legs barely look strong enough to not be blown over in the wind, you haven’t stopped shaking since I brought you in. Now lie back down and recover before I make you.”

Jimmy looks down at himself, at his bandages and hospital-style shorts. His entire torso is wrapped, but he can see how starkly his ribs stick out. He really has been slowly starving to death, hasn’t he?

Aside from that, he feels suddenly embarrassed. He’s practically naked in front of Major, who is the city’s foremost hero, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, already has a documentary and four biographies written about him, and is ostensibly attractive to men and women alike with his tall, muscular frame and his windswept blue hair.

He really needs to leave. He’s getting antsy, anyway—now that he can be outside, he desperately wants to be. Not to mention, he’s regaining strength—slowly, but surely. At any moment, disaster could strike.

“No, I really—I’d like to be home, if it’s all the same to you,” he stammers, flexing his feet and holding back a wince. “Not that I’m not—I’m very grateful, thank you so much—I just don’t want to impose any longer, and I—my rent is due—yeah.”

Major seems to be about to protest, but he pauses, and then shrugs. “Fine, I don’t care. Let me get you something to wear.”

Major exits, and Jimmy bites back a whimper as he stretches his trembling arms. His various bandages pull, his nose burns every time his face twitches, every limb aches to the bone. He has to get out of here, though—he’s likely recovered enough strength for his bad luck to strike. He has to leave before he does anything to make Major hate him even more.

Major returns with a pair of jeans and a plain grey shirt. “We’re about the same height, but they might hang loose,” he says distractedly. “I burned the thing you were wearing, sorry. It was gross.”

Jimmy doesn’t even remember what he was wearing. Probably not his superhero-turned-antihero outfit, that had been pretty much torn to shreds over the course of his captivity. Major tosses the clothes on the bed and turns around respectfully.

Jimmy doesn’t bother taking off the shorts, bloodstained as they are. He’s not got anything on underneath, and he’d prefer to not be totally exposed in the house of someone who hates him. Pulling the jeans on is rough, and he has to take frequent breaks as his vision repeatedly goes fuzzy. The shirt isn’t as bad, but he can’t quite get his arms up without a grunt of pain as it pulls on his injuries. His vision fuzzes again, but when he blinks the world back into focus his arms are in the sleeves and he can just pull the shirt down.

“I might have some shoes,” Major says thoughtfully when Jimmy gives him the go-ahead to turn around. “And of course you can have a pair of socks. I once didn’t wear socks to a fight and my boots came off and everyone saw, so I had a group that gathered sock donations for me. I gave most of them away, but I’ve still got a few pairs.”

Major does end up finding him shoes, an old pair of gardening shoes that have a hole in the left toe. Jimmy’s more than grateful for them anyhow.

“What part of the city do you live in? I’ve got a car parked about a block away, I can get you near to your house.”

“Um, yeah, that’d be—that’d be way more than I expected, thank you so much,” Jimmy says with a yawn. “I—you really don’t have to.”

Major fixes him with an unimpressed look. “Right. Because you’re going to walk all the way home when you take eight minutes and forty-two seconds to even get dressed by yourself. And you’re going to manage to do it without getting kidnapped again.”

Jimmy looks away, his face turning red. He doesn’t want to admit it, but Major’s right. One step outside of Major’s protection and he would be whisked away.

It’s a long walk to Major’s car, one that has Jimmy gasping for breath and limping heavily. His head spins, his eyes squint in the evening light, his arms end up clenched around his body as he shivers. Major, walking casually, hair pulled up under a beanie, rolls his eyes and shucks off his blue button-up jacket, tossing it to Jimmy. Jimmy shrugs it on, a noise of pain slipping out as it rubs against a cut.

He stumbles over a curb and nearly falls, Major catching him around the waist before his face hits the pavement. The man rights him, helps him over the curb, then moves on without saying a word.

Jimmy’s about to pass out by the time they make it to the car. It’s older, nondescript, windows tinted so darkly that it’s practically impossible to see into. Major unlocks it with a click of a remote, and Jimmy seats himself gingerly in the passenger seat.

When Major turns the key in the ignition, the clock flickers on.

6:28PM.

It’s late in the day, then. Jimmy had slept all through the night and most of the day. Not that he’s surprised, but this is a huge change from his seemingly randomized hours in the cell. He can get up and go to bed whenever he likes now. He won’t be woken by a door slamming open and his body being lifted.

Once Major has driven to the main part of the city, Jimmy breaks the stifling silence by pointing out directions. He considers for a moment directing Major to the wrong place entirely, but his energy is far too low for that. He can let Major drop him off in the neighborhood, just won’t let him know which complex he lives in.

The quality and upkeep of the buildings deteriorate around them, farther and farther until Jimmy feels at home. They’re about five blocks from his place now, so he lets Major drive a bit more then directs him down the neighboring street, stopping outside a random apartment complex that looks to be in about the same condition of his building. Major looks up at it for a second, taking in the bags of trash in the side alley, the dead grass in the front yard, the multitude of potholes in the road, the kids in too-big shirts running up and down the roads with a football in hand.

“Don’t villains usually live more . . . underground? Metaphorically and literally?” Major asks slowly.

“Oh, I gave up the whole villain thing a while ago,” Jimmy answers, rubbing his eyes through the holes in his mask. “I don’t make a great hero either, so I’m trying out sort of an in-between right now.”

Major snorts. “Yeah, I think hero’s a bit out of your range,” he mutters. Jimmy once again realizes just how surreal this is: he’s in a car with the top hero of the city who also happens to be the man who hates him more than anyone, both of them wearing masks, him wearing the hero’s clothes. He starts to pull off the jacket, but Major waves him off.

“Don’t bother, I was about to retire that one anyway.”

Jimmy nods uncertainly, unbuckles his seatbelt. “Um. I’ll be off, then. Thank you, for . . . everything, I suppose.”

Major nods, his eyes following Jimmy as he swings open the car door and gathers enough strength to stand. “Oh, and, Solidarity?” he throws out. Jimmy leans forward to hear him over the engine. “Next time I see you, I’m putting you behind bars. This never happened, all right?”

“Right. Yeah. Never happened.” Jimmy nods to himself a few times, looks up at Major before turning away, easing the car door shut behind him.

When Jimmy enters his apartment thirty minutes later (the lock’s never worked so he doesn’t have to worry about lost keys), he kicks off Major’s shoes, stumbles to his bedroom, and collapses onto the bed. He needs to change his bandages, he needs to throw out his milk and eggs and bread, he needs to purchase a new phone, he needs to email his landlord and pay his rent. But he’s exhausted, he’s so bone-tired, and he hurts so much, and he just wants to sleep. So sleep he does, drifting away almost as soon as he’s pulled his covers that smell faintly of cigarette smoke over his chin.

Across the city, Xornoth steeples their fingers as they watch over the shoulder of a woman in a lab coat. The woman is excited, explaining something, a breakthrough, but Xornoth isn’t listening. Their eyes are fixed on the information on the woman’s laptop.

Their little bird will soon be caged once again.

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nowandajenn · 3 years

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Can i ask for a fic wich chris and reader had a fight and broke up and chris really want to take her back but can't find her because she was mad and change her adress and number but he didn't give up and finally find her but also find out that she has their new born Triplet ?!

So I’m finally just now getting around to writing this, and I apologize for it taking so long to get done! I did decide to make it twins instead of triplets, because triplets is a fucking lot lol. I hope you still enjoy it!

Not proofread. All mistakes are my own.

It had taken months to find you. After the break up, you had essentially become a ghost. You changed your phone number, you moved, and it seemed like nobody knew where you had gone, and the ones that did know sure as hell weren’t about to tell him how to find you. He had been a complete idiot; going to lunch with Jenny and spending time with her while he had a girl that he was slowly falling in love with waiting for him. They had such a strong history together though, and so many memories shared together, that he couldn’t seem to just walk away from it all.

Of course, they had been snapped out at a restaurant together, talking and laughing, and it wasn’t long until the pictures hit the internet and your friends and family had been blowing up your phone, asking what the hell was going on. Your relationship with Chris was still fairly new, as you’d only been seeing each other for about eight months or so, and you were trying to enjoy just being with Chris and being happy while also worrying that you were a rebound for him after he and his ex had broken up a second time.

Chris had come home later that evening with flowers for you, only to find you going around the house packing up all of the stuff that you had kept there. He had recently been bringing up you moving in with him since you spent most of your time there anyway, but you felt like it was too soon, and you didn’t know if he was quite as ready for that step as he said he was. Now you were really glad that you had held off.

The two of you had stood there and fought and argued, you telling him that you deserved more than to just be a rebound to try and help him get over the girl who he once claimed was “the love of his life” and you weren’t going to stick around if he was going to go behind your back and spend time with her and try and rekindle things for a third time. You told him that he was an idiot to think that the third time would be the charm when it hadn’t worked out the first two times they’d been together. He tried to explain that even though they had broken up, he still cared about her and just because they spent time together didn’t mean that they were getting back together. He told you that you absolutely were not a rebound, and he was falling in love with you, but you weren’t hearing it. You had picked up your duffel bag, and with a kiss to his cheek and hugging Dodger around the neck and stifling a small sob into his fur, you had walked out of his life.

It didn’t take long to see what a huge idiot he had been, and how wrong he had been to see Jenny and not tell you about it or have any sort of conversation about it. He hated that you had been blindsided, and he hated that he made you feel like he was using you as a distraction or something to fill the void left after Jenny left. He tried to text you and call you, but all the texts were left on “delivered” and you would reject his calls, until one day he tried calling you and a stranger answered and told Chris that he had the wrong number. He finally psyched himself up enough to try and swing by your apartment to see if you would at least see him and let him try and apologize, but when he showed up, your apartment was empty and the landlord said that you had moved out and hadn’t left a forwarding address. He was heartbroken. He had tried talking to your friends, but they were unfailingly loyal to you, and wouldn’t tell him anything.

It had taken just over seven months, and a lot of failed tries, but he finally had an address in his hand. It was in Chicago, where you had grown up, and he had booked the first flight that he could. He wasn’t sure if you would slam the door in his face or punch him or even open the door to him, but he had to try. If he didn’t, he knew he’d regret it.

Chris takes a deep breath and knocks on the door, nerves suddenly overtaking him and making his stomach turn itself into knots. After a few seconds, he knocks again and hears a male voice yell “Coming!” His heart drops, immediately assuming that you had moved on from him and he lost his shot.

The door swings open, and he’s surprised to see an older man, probably in his mid 50s, standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh.....sorry, I think I have the wrong address. I was looking for y/n y/l/n. I’m Chris.”

The man steps forward onto the porch, making Chris fall back a couple steps.

“Oh, I know exactly who you are. You’re the one my daughter wouldn’t shut up about for a few months, and then never wanted to speak about again.”

Chris swallows hard, his mouth dry as the desert and feeling a little scared, because your dad looks kind of mean and like he could lay him out if he wanted to. Your dad turns around and walks back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

He exhales hard and turns around to walk back to his rental car.

“That went about as well as I thought it would.” he mutters to himself.

He’s halfway back to the car when he hears your front door open. He looks up and his breath catches when he sees you standing there, your arms crossed over your chest. You’re wearing a pair of jean shorts that show off your legs and a baggy Tshirt, your hair thrown up in a messy bun. You look like you’ve gained a little bit of weight since the last time he saw you, but it looks good on you.

“Hey.” he breathes out.

Your jaw clenches. “How did you find me?”

“Well, you didn’t make it easy. I had Josh track you down. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I would have been here about seven months ago if I had known where you were, but nobody would tell me.”

You scoff. “Yet here you are. Because Chris Evans just doesn’t know when to give up.”

He winces slightly, knowing that you’re not just referring to his search for you, but the whole thing with Jenny that caused your breakup.

You both stand there in silence for a few minutes, unsure what to do next, when you breathe out a heavy sigh and wave your arm towards the house, gesturing for him to come in.

“Come on. We have a lot to talk about.” you tell him.

Your dad shoots him a glare as you lead him into the house, and he swallows hard and follows you into the kitchen, taking your offer of a bottle of water and sitting at the table with you. He’s so focused on you that he doesn’t really take in his surroundings. If he did, what comes out of your mouth wouldn’t have almost shocked him into a heart attack.

“I tried calling you a couple times over the past few months, but every time I did, I got your assistant, or a P.A. or someone else. I left a message with my number with someone, but I’m assuming that you never got it, or you just didn’t care.”

He shakes his head almost violently. “I never got it. I don’t know who you gave it to, but it never got back to me.”

You lean back in your chair and take a deep breath.

“About a month after we broke up, I found out I was pregnant.”

Chris is pretty sure his heart stops beating for a few seconds, and then he realizes that he’s holding his breath. He lets it out in a deep exhale and his heart starts hammering in his rib cage.

“You.....we.......what?” he gasps.

“The doctor said I was 7 or 8 weeks at the time. I......I was due to get another shot but I had been so busy that I forgot about it, and.....well. At first, I wasn’t sure I was even going to keep the baby, honestly. We had just broken up and I didn’t know if you even wanted kids right now, or with me, and it took me a while to come to terms with everything. I tried calling you once I decided that I was going to keep it. I knew you had a right to know, even though I was pissed at you and hurt.”

I look over and Chris is just staring at me, gaping like a fish.

“So....you had a.....we have a.....” he takes a deep breath. “We have a baby?”

“Uh, well......I guess you must have some really strong sperm because we kind of.....have two.”

Chris looks like he’s about to pass out, and I shove his bottle of water towards him and he drains the rest of it in one go.

“Look, I don’t need anything from you. We’ll be okay. We’ve been staying here with my dad and he’s been helping out, and I’m getting help from the state. We never talked about having kids, and I know that this is just being dropped on you out of nowhere. If you want a paternity test, we can go today if you want. I’m not trying to trap you into anything or trick you. You have your own life and you’re.....well, you’re you. And I’m nobody. Nobody outside of your family and close friends even knew we were together.”

I know I’m rambling, but I’m nervous and I know I should just stop and let things sink in. We sit there in silence for a while, and I can tell that Chris’ brain is working to try and digest all of the new information and the fact that he’s a father twice over now. I need to do something to keep myself busy, because I can’t keep just sitting there in silence, so I go over to the sink and start washing dishes.

Chris gets snapped out of his reverie when he hears a sharp cry ring out. He looks around wildly before realizing that it’s coming from a baby monitor on the kitchen counter. You drop the dish your holding in the soapy water and wipe your hands on a dish towel before turning and running upstairs.

Chris isn’t even really sure he realizes that his feet are even moving before he finds himself upstairs in the doorway of the nursery. He stands there, feeling like his head is disconnected from the rest of his body, watching as you lean over the crib and lift out an impossibly tiny baby who can’t be more than a month old.

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” you whisper, holding the baby against your chest. You turn around and see Chris standing there in the doorway, still looking shocked out of his skin.

“Come here.” you say softly, beckoning him over.

He walks over to the crib slowly, his eyes on the infant in your arms and then on the one still sleeping.

“This is Steven Lucas Evans” you say softly, kissing the baby you’re holding on the forehead, “and that is Christopher Michael Evans.”

Tears immediately fill his eyes and he inhales deeply, his breath stuttering.

“How old are they?”

“Three weeks and two days.” you tell him.

Chris can’t keep his eyes from drifting in between his two sons, and not wanting to be left out, his namesake wakes up and starts making soft little noises.

“Go ahead. Pick him up.” you tell him softly.

“Yeah?” he asks.

You nod.

Chris leans over the crib and gently lifts Christopher out, holding him gently against his chest. He’s soft and perfect and has that amazing baby smell that drives people nuts, and Chris feels like his heart is about to explode. He walks a few steps over to you and gazes down at his other son, taking note of both babies’ bright blue eyes.

“How can you love someone so much you’ve just met?” he breathes.

You give a small, watery laugh. “I ask myself that every day.”

Watching Chris with his baby sons is everything you didn’t know you needed. You told yourself that even if Chris didn’t want to be involved, you would get through it and you would be fine. But seeing him sitting in the cushy armchair in the nursery with a baby in each arm is more than you could have hoped for.

“Tell me about when they were born.” Chris pleads.

“I went into labor on the 23rd of last month, but they weren’t born until about 6pm the next night. I was in labor for about 20 hours. The doctor wanted to go in and get them, but I knew they’d come on their own time. Christopher was born first, and then 15 minutes later, Stevie showed up. He was screaming before he was even fully out.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I wish I could have seen it.”

“You still can.”

You pull up a few videos on your phone from different stages of your labor, and one of Christopher being born and then Steven coming along. Tears are running down Chris’ face as he watches, and he’s laughing and crying at the same time, completely overwhelmed with emotion. You flip through a ton of pictures on your phone of you through the pregnancy, and then of labor, and the first pictures of you and the babies.

“Can you sent these to me? Just....everything you have?” he asks.

“Yeah. Not a problem.”

After making bottles and feeding one while Chris feeds the other, a double diaper change, and laying them back down in the crib, you both sit back down.

“You didn’t get two cribs?” Chris asks.

“No. I couldn’t really afford two, and when we were in the hospital, they would cry if they weren’t near each other, so the nurses just put them both in the same bassinet and they would calm down. So it all worked out.” I tell him.

“Come back to Massachusetts with me.” he blurts out.

He says it so suddenly and with such conviction that I’m speechless for a minute.

“Chris.....”

“No, just please.....I love you. I love you and I was an idiot and you had every right to leave me. But being without you has been hell, and I don’t want to be without you. And I can’t go back and not have you or them there with me. I want to be there for everything. I want to see everything. I won’t let you do everything on your own. You don’t have to struggle and get state aid. You can move in with me, or I can get you an apartment close by........just......please come home with me.”

“Chris, slow down. Listen, you’re their father. You can have as much access to them as you want. I’m not going to take them away from you or keep you from seeing them. That’s the last thing I want. But moving back to Boston......I don’t even have a job right now. I’ve been doing freelance articles for the last few months to get by. And we have all this stuff....and there’s furniture and......”

“You can write from anywhere. You’re so talented; you’ll find a job in no time. I promise. Until then, I can take care of you guys. That’s my job now. As for all the stuff, I can get a UHaul trailer and we can drive back. Or I’ll get a moving company to move it and we can fly back. It doesn’t matter. We can make this work.”

I can see the desperation in his eyes and how badly he wants this, and it’s enough to break my heart, and I don’t have it in me to tell him no.

I sigh heavily. “We have a lot to work out and talk about.....but I don’t want you to miss out on anything with the boys. So.......I guess we’re taking a road trip.....with two infants........halfway across the country.”

Chris grabs me and hugs me to him tightly.

“It’ll be our first family vacation. I can’t wait for Mom to meet them. She’s going to lose her mind over them. And you.....she’s missed you so much. You have no idea the verbal ass kicking I got from her after you left.”

You smile. “Glad to know that a grown man is still afraid of his mommy.”

The Usual Suspects: @averyrogers83 @wordywarriorwrites @imanuglywombat @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @hlkwrites @reminiscingrogers @mom—nicole @jtargaryen18 @alexakeyloveloki @kelbabyblue @sarahp879 @moonlessnight14 @mojean13 @mrskokitztelford @artisticrogers1972 @southerngracela @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @mybesttobobcratchit @gracethegeek9902 @mdemontespan1667 @marvelfansworld @capslut2014 @dispatchvampire @jamielea81 @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @nerdy-bookworm-1998 @southerngracela @what-is-your-plan-today @letsdisneythings @theladybiers @lexeeehhh @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @autumnrose40 @donutloverxo @harrysthiccthighss @jessaywahh-blog@smediumsmeatbae @before-we-get-started @lizette50 @littlegasps @rageshots @what-is-your-backupplan-today @clairebubbles @patzammit @sweet--catrastophe @pandaxnienke @redhairedfeistynerd @hails270105 @syms-things-5 @chezdricks @denisemarieangelina @christ0pher-evans @supersquirrel1996

#chris evans #chris evans x reader #rpf #daddy chris #babies #twins #twin boys #fluff #need some fluffy stuff to balance out the angst #cute #family

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izzabeean · 3 years

Text

Chapter 11 : Apprehensive

SUMMARY

You never thought it would be this hard to open up.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 2,376

content : profanity

tags : alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : Hello! Apologies for this late post. Everything has been a bit hectic lately and I’m struggling to keep up with work and my free time. I have started to slack a bit on my writing. It’s a bit on the shorter side but here is the next chapter!

Because I’m new to this and have bit more off than I can chew, I’ve noticed some timeline errors when writing this chapter. I couldn’t just let it go and had to go back to correct them.

For those who do not wish to re-read chapter 8 (I understand, it’s a hefty one), please note that at the beginning of the chapter, Y/N and Iwaizumi have a heart-to-heart. Originally it jumps to the same day, but that is an error on my part. The rest of the chapter actually takes place later in the week. So Y/N has spent almost a week at Oikawa’s apartment.

I appreciate you all for tagging along for this ride. I definitely have been aching to write about Hanamaki or Matsukawa, but will once this series has been completed! Thanks so much xx

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Walking into the empty corridor, you blink at the torn-up flooring exposing the bones of the apartment while noticing dust in the air from the sunlight trickling in through the living room window. Living here for almost four years gave you the alone time you needed. But now it felt foreign. The familiar serene getaway from the pressure of your parents breathing down your neck was now emanating dark energy. A place once full of bright memories seems to turn into the last place you wish to be.

“What is?” Iwaizumi exclaims, following behind you.

“It’s just weird,” you murmur, smiling up at Iwaizumi. “I haven’t seen it this empty since I moved in.”

That day didn’t feel too long ago.

As cliche as it sounds, it almost did feel like yesterday. Getting settled into the new space, unsure what to do with yourself in the silence of the apartment. But it wasn't long before you made friends with Oikawa who would come over to study together. He'd always bring snacks from your favorite dessert place and sometimes, if you could convince him, he would stay over to watch your favorite series. Yes, he would complain that he hated it, that it was slow, uninteresting and he's seen better. Then he would shut up and watch knowing that you enjoyed his company in the lonely apartment.

Your gaze shifts to the bedroom doorway. The last night you spent there, it was with Oikawa, but before that, it was always Ushijima. Not every single night, but when he did, you felt safe pressed up against his broad frame under the covers. Thinking about it now, it makes you regret that you didn't indulge in it more back then.

When you started seeing Ushijima, he became the priority. He would come over for study dates and you'd never have to ask twice to persuade him to watch television series or movies with you. Truthfully, you miss those days. Everything was so simple and new. It felt like a breath of fresh air that you were aching to find.

Yet here you are now just remembering what you wish to forget.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just move in with me?” Oikawa sniggers, analyzing the janky water-damaged walls that look like they could disintegrate at any moment.

"What? You finally have the balls to say this place isn’t good enough for you?" you mock, raising an eyebrow at him waiting for his answer.

"No, it's just…” he pauses before continuing, half-heartedly afraid he will offend you. “Old."

You roll your eyes. Yeah it's older than any twenty-something-year-old would want to live in, but you didn't care because of the location to the university and honestly, in your eyes, the apartment is quaint and homey.

“You always have something to say. Don't you, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi fumes, eyes sending daggers in Oikawa’s direction.

You couldn't help but let out a snicker that catches Iwaizumi's attention, shooting you a little smile. The natural draw your body has towards Iwaizumi is intoxicating. Your entire mind turns to putty when he looks at you like all your worries will just disappear upon his gaze. Maybe that's why you unconsciously kiss him the other night.

You don't want him to leave. You want him to stay. But how can you say that when you haven't known him for very long. The Iwaizumi now is so much different from the Iwaizumi in elementary school. Yet you wanted to get to know this person standing in front of you so much more and the limited time made your heartache all over again.

"Are you excited to move back in?" Iwaizumi asks, his eyes still locked on you.

“Yeah,” you utter, the sound of your heartbeat feels louder than your words. “I can’t wait to settle back in. I miss--”

Ding!

The sound reverberates from Iwaizumi's pocket.

“Shit, one second,” he exclaims, voice emitting a hint of embarrassment as he takes out his phone to read the text message he just received. “Fuck, I totally forgot. I'm supposed to meet up with some friends.”

“Oh,” you stammer. The words are laced with disappointment, but you remember you don't have Iwaizumi all to yourself. No, he isn't yours, unfortunately. And with that, you quickly switch forcing a smile to hide the gutted feeling encompassing your body. "It's fine!"

“I’m so sorry, I’ll catch up later. Just text me if you guys end up going somewhere else,” he calls out before rushing out the door.

The sound of the door shutting cues a rush of anguish flooding your chest as you wonder where he’s gone off to in such a hurry. He did say friends, but friends could mean anything including a girl.

Oikawa continues to walk around the apartment and you feel your face pale as you wonder what he's thinking if he knows who Iwaizumi's friends are.

Stop. You couldn't let yourself spiral into those thoughts. It wasn't like you to think this way, but you can't help yourself when you fear the same disappointment that surges you on the day you saw Ushijima and Sara together.

Fuck. At least insurance is giving you a bit of a break with the repair costs.

“Landlord says another week until repairs are done," you finally say, breaking the silence. "Then I can start moving my stuff back in.”

“Maybe don’t celebrate just yet, knowing your luck.” Oikawa taunts.

“Oh, is it because you’re going to miss me?” you scoff, attempting to make him squirm, but he plays right into your hands without hesitation.

“Yeah right, thought you said you were sick of me," he japes, taking a swing at the words that practically stung before.

“I guess you could say that...” you breathe.

Your words taste bitter with a drop of guilt as they leave your tongue. Perhaps you felt you owed a lot to Oikawa for basically saving your ass.

With the apartment.

With Ushijima.

You look at the bandage on his face and your eyes trail down to his bruised knuckles. Perhaps you wanted to do more than just buying him his favorite drink. Yet, you didn't even know where to start or what he would want to make things even.

“I-- I’m just joking, just to clarify. Of course, I’m not sick of you,” you sigh, reverting eye contact as you muster up the courage to express your thoughts. “I’m very happy to have you.”

I don’t know what I’m saying, you think while peering at the confusion spread on Oikawa's face. You don't normally open up to him about this kind of stuff and you feel your body burning under his gaze.

“Sorry this is a bit weird,” you exclaim as the nerves take over and you bite your tongue before you say anything else.

“No, no, I’m interested now,” Oikawa purrs.

“Well, maybe now I don’t want to tell you!”

"Of course you do," he persuades slyly grinning.

Normally the gesture makes you recoil as you witness his flirtatious nature that you've never succumbed to because that's just how Oikawa Tōru was. But instead, it just pushes the words out.

"Th-- thank you,” you say unable to even look up at him. “For everything. You’ve really been there for me when no one else has.”

At first, you think he's going to laugh in your face. In fact, you expected it so, but when you trail your eyes back to meet his, he sends you a small smile.

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Oikawa comforts.

With a deep breath, you stare into his chocolate brown eyes, drinking in his gaze and he’s giving you that look. It’s the same look he gave you last night when you were patching up his wounds. And it makes your heartthrob.

“You’re really something Tōru. No wonder all the girls fall for you,” you tease, in an attempt to push away the flush of embarrassment from his words.

“I wouldn’t say all,” Oikawa chuckles.

His voice is low and sultry, and you wonder what he means by that as contentment warmed you from within.

The exchange lingers but you clear your throat and turn away to walk around the apartment. The gesture causes Oikawa to shift his weight from side to side looking at your figure in the small space.

“I think I’ve seen more than enough,” you exhale taking one last glance out the living room window. “Shall we head out?”

“Sure.”

Oikawa walks down the short hallway, while you take a moment longer to soak up your apartment.

“See you soon,” you whisper before turning your back to leave.

Just as you close the door behind you to lock up, you hit your back into Oikawa’s frame who is standing firmly behind you.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, then peak behind his body to see Ushijima standing at the end of the hallway.“Wa-Wakkun… What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” he demands.

Although you can't get a good look at him in detail, you can see his face is bandaged up from Oikawa’s punch.

“I don’t--”

“And you think I’m going to let that happen?” Oikawa rages, placing his body in between you and Ushijima.

“Tōru, it’s okay,” you reiterate, touching his shoulder lightly to reassure it's not worth his energy.

“Or did you not understand anything from last night?” Oikawa continues ignoring your words and shaking your hand off his shoulder.

“Maybe we should ask Y/N instead of you making decisions for her,” Ushijima booms, remaining calm.

“Tōru, come on,” you sneer, grabbing his arm to pull him along, but he wiggles your hand off once again.

“I know for a fact she doesn’t want to talk to you," he sputters, eyes narrowing on Ushijima.

But your patience hit its limit. This time your anger couldn't be pushed down as your blood starts to boil. And you unleashed it in front of Oikawa, stepping in front of him shooting him a furious glare.

“Are you going to fucking listen or not?”

Your voice snaps him to his senses seeing your eyes glossed over but filled with rage.

“You don’t speak for me,” you thundered. “Let’s go.”

You grab his hand and yank him forward, walking by Ushijima ignoring him.

“Y/N, please,” Ushijima pleads.

Yet you don't turn back. You can't. It isn't in your best interest to talk it out or hear his point of view. This isn't something that can be fixed with words. He hurt you and you could not surrender what is left of your dignity. You had to move on, in your own way just as he's doing.

“Don’t fucking do that again,” you bark as you continue to drag Oikawa behind holding his hand tightly.

“That guy is basically stalking you,” Oikawa argues trying to keep up with your frantic strides.

“So what? I can handle it myself.”

“I was just trying to help--”

“And look what happened last time!”

Your legs come to a stop and you swallow thickly. Your voice erupts as your heart sinks at the realization of how angry and guilty you feel, of how mad you are at yourself for letting Oikawa get in the middle of your issues with Ushijima. The familiar sense of dread returns and the look from Oikawa’s shocked wide eyes make you regret your outburst.

“You got hurt because of me,” you manage to breathe, slowly sliding your hand out of his.

But before you let go, he grabs it tight then pulls you in close, your face enveloped into his chest and his chin resting on the top of your head. The sensation offsets your frustration and anger, you hadn't known it, but once you received the warm and comforting embrace you realize it’s what you really needed all this time.

“If we left at the beginning of the night, you would’ve been fine,” you gasp, trying to get the words out, but your voice breaks a little. Your chest feels tight like your heart is going to burst any moment now as it continues to descend deeper and deeper into dread.

Oikawa doesn’t say a word, afraid that he’ll ruin the moment if he does. His worry grows as he takes a deep breath in expecting you to smell like nicotine or ting of smoke, from the secret you have been keeping from him. But you have this indescribable scent that draws him in closer heating up his entire body as he presses yours into his. Not wanting to let go.

“But because I had to prove a point, we stayed,” you continue, and feel tears beginning to form, blurring your vision. “I’m the one at fault here.”

"No Y/N," Oikawa says trying to soothe you. He thinks he can forget the throbbing pain in his chest as he looks at you undone before him. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry for involving myself."

"It's okay," you say taking a sharp breath. He smells so good and his hug is doing wonders for your mental health but you pull away worried that you've overstayed your welcome.

“Why do you hate him so much anyway?” you sniffle, wiping the tears with your sleeve.

“Mmm don’t know…” he murmurs.“I just don’t like him.”

You frown at his reply. Does he really not have an actual explanation?

“Well that’s stupid,” you breathe, unsure if you actually believe it. “Did he steal a girl from you or something?”

“No!” he responds, quicker than he wishes he did. He remembers when you first mentioned Ushijima’s name, there was a sparkle in your eyes he’s never seen before. At that moment, he promised himself to not get in the way and remain neutral, but Oikawa was much pettier than that.

“Who was it?” you snort, only half sure he’ll actually tell you.

“No one,” he chuckles. “We don’t have the same type anyway.”

“Why? I’m not your type?”

Your voice is soft and innocent as he pauses to analyze whether you are being serious or not.

“Kidding! Obviously,” you snarl.

By now, there’s this ease of tension between the two of you as you lapse into silence. Nothing more needed to be said.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #oikawa x reader #oikawa x y/n #ushijima x reader #ushijima x y/n #iwaizumi x reader

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